The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel Read Free Page A

parts.”
    “Yes, but most of them are worse than the Kiowa,” Goodnight said.
    “The Texas Rangers are trying to corral them, but they’re sly rascals,” Goodnight said. “There are lots of pistoleros we could get but they are a mixed blessing, Ben.”
    “Will Mrs. Goodnight be visiting us at the castle?” San Saba asked. “I’m anxious to meet her.”
    “She’ll show up, I can’t say when,” Goodnight said, remembering a sharp little exchange he had with his wife as he was leaving to gather the herd. He had suggested that they live in a tent for a while, until he could build them a house of their own.
    “You want me to live in a tent?” Mary said, with an unfriendly cast to her expression. “Your partner and his concubine live in a fine mansion while I live in a tent? How is that fair, Charlie?”
    “I doubt she’s his concubine,” he said. “And I’ll get us a house started as soon as I get the money from this cattle sale.”
    “I didn’t learn algebra just to live in a tent,” Mary said—a remark that puzzled him a good deal, since Mary had never so far burst into algebra. Where did she learn it, and why?
    The question was amenable to no immediate answer, since Mary Goodnight turned and walked away.
     

 
    - 6 -
    “There’s seven of them,” Satank said. “I don’t think they all have guns. We can catch them and burn them right now.”
    “They might have rifles in the wagons, where we can’t see them,” Satanta, the Red Bear, pointed out.
    They watched from a little copse of trees near the Wichita River as a small party of teamsters, in three wagons, struggled over the rocky ground. Earlier that day some soldiers came by, too many to challenge—though Satanta, who was reckless to the point of folly, wanted to challenge them anyway. But Satank and Little Wolf persuaded the warriors to wait for easier prey—maybe there would be some women they could rape and torment.
    When the seven teamsters came into view Satank was disappointed that no women were with them, but seven white men were better than nothing.
    The teamsters were using oxen, rather than mules, which made them easier to catch, but, even so, one white man got away into the chaparral. That left six, and two of them put up such a stiff fight that it was necessary to kill them directly, rather than with torture. Of course they castrated and scalped them anyway, although they weren’t alive to feel it.
    That left four teamsters and they each paid a heavy price for having blundered into the People’s country. The leader, a stout man who yelled the loudest, was chained facedown from a wagon tongue and slowly burned alive—his screams could be heard for a long time, along with those of a tall boy who had his genitals cooked over a small fire that Satank himself had carefully nursed along.
    The other two teamsters were disemboweled, their guts pulled out so some hot coals could be stuffed into their stomach cavity. Satank also cut off their noses and forced them to eat some of their own offal.
    Afterwards the members of the little war party felt fine. Torturing whites was a splendid way to spend the afternoon. Seeing to it that your enemies died as painfully as possible was the best revenge for what the whites had taken from them. It was a little disappointing that no women had been caught. Women’s breasts could be cut off or their privacies invaded with thorns or scorpions or hot coals; but sometimes they could only catch men.
    Satanta rubbed some of the red clay with which he covered his body on the corpses of the dead men. “I want everybody to know it was me that killed them,” he said.
    “Don’t be bragging, you fool,” Little Wolf said.
    “He always brags,” Satank reminded them. “We all killed them together, but he wants the whites to think it was only him.”
    “It was mostly me,” Satanta protested.
    The others decided to leave. Satanta, the Red Bear, was often difficult. It was best to leave him alone and savor