The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

doing something like that with her husband Zenas. He would no doubt accuse her of not doing him justice, though she felt a little dewy between the legs just at the thought. Zenas had been gone a long time and she missed him.
    She got back to the assembly just in time to hear Charlie Goodnight make his toast: an activity he clearly did not enjoy.
    “I believe I’ve found a fine partner,” he said, “and I thank him for backing me. Now me and the boys need to go be gathering cattle. Amen.”
    Bose was waiting with a saddled horse, Nellie Courtright popped out of the crowd and kissed him soundly.
    “Did you like that? I thought it might be my last chance,” she asked.
    “I’m a human being of the male sex—of course I liked it; but the fact is I’m in a hurry and you’re married.”
    “Cowboys waiting in the livery stable,” Bose said.
     

 
    - 12 -
    General Sherman stood looking at the scarred and charred bodies of the teamsters; he looked in silence for a long time. General Mackenzie stood beside them.
    The soldiers with them tried not to look at the burnt, slashed bodies, but now and then, they did.
    “I was in the Big War, as Mr. Lincoln called it,” he said. “I’ve seen brutality—I’ve even been dispensed some. But nothin’ like this. Tie a man to a wagon tongue and burn his face off, not to mention his other parts.”
    “They burned the young one’s face off, too.” He himself felt a little queasy, though he rarely flinched in such situations.
    Sherman looked up—to the south was a rocky ridge.
    “Unless I am mistaken I came along that ridge to the south yesterday morning.”
    “We did come along it, sir,” Mackenzie said.
    “But we caught no whiff of Indians, and we were just an hour or two from Indians. Where were the scouts?” Sherman asked.
    “We’re so close to Fort Richardson that no one bothered to send them out,” Mackenzie said. “They were Kiowa—I guess they don’t bother too much about forts.”
    “I assume they went north—I intend to pursue,” Sherman said.
    “They went north but slowly,” Mackenzie said. “They’re proud of their work here. It’s my understanding that we’ve already caught most of them.”
    “Where?”
    “Near the Red River.”
    “I want them brought to Richardson,” Sherman said. “I want them put on trial, and if my schedule permits I want to see them hang.”
    “I expect we’d all like to see that, sir,” Mackenzie said.
    “Do you think they could have whipped us, if they’d tried, General Mackenzie?” Sherman asked.
    “I have no way of knowing, sir—I didn’t see their force,” Mackenzie said. In fact he found General Sherman a bit of a pain.
     

 
    - 13 -
    For once Satank was glad that Satanta was boasting so loudly about the massacre. He bragged so loudly that many of the soldiers listened to him. They had no way of knowing what Satanta said, but they probably knew he was bragging about the tortures he’d inflicted.
    Satank sat in a wagon, in the shadows. When no one was looking he chewed at his wrists. The handcuffs were loose—in time he might chew his way free.
    Sure enough, just before darkness, he slid the handcuffs off his dirty wrists. The young soldier guarding him was nodding—as soon as he was free Satank grabbed the soldier’s knife and stabbed him in the chest. He grabbed a carbine from another soldier and pointed it at him but the carbine didn’t fire. Satank threw away the gun and charged the startled soldier with the knife.
    “Shoot the old fiend!” a soldier said. Three soldiers fired at once, throwing Satank backward and killing him dead.
    “He chewed his own wrists!” one soldier exclaimed.
    Several soldiers pointed their rifles at Satanta, who sat very still. He didn’t want the soldiers to kill him too, and he knew several wanted to.
    The soldiers didn’t fire.
    Shortly, so as not to scare the soldiers Satanta began to sing a death song.
     

 
    - 14 -
    Nellie finally found Wyatt at the