"How's our guest this morning, sergeant?"
"Sleepin' like a baby, sir."
The sun had only just crested the eastern horizon, its rays pushing the sun high into the sky. The atmosphere was ablaze with a golden light that burned the wispy clouds in its wake. And as the sun rose, the silent land was blanketed with a creeping warmth that promised another hot, uncomfortable day to come.
The two men stood in the shadow of the supply wagon sipping on the morning's brew of freshly roasted coffee. Their clothes were stained with sweat and dust, and the sergeant had an itch that he just couldn't seem to rid himself of despite copious scratching. Curling up his top lip with effort he continued to work at the offending place, in the process spilling his coffee, much to his superior's disgust.
"Barclay!" he snapped "For goodness sake man! Kindly cease clawing at yourself and ready the teams. We move out in five."
Barclay reluctantly gave up his incessant probing and with an awkward gait as if clenching his thighs together moved off to see to the horses. The small troop of army men had been travelling for days across the desert, moving from one water hole to another. They had had little respite from energy sapping heat and dust which found its way into their eyes, hair, clothing and places one wouldn't have thought it possible for dust to reach. The white glare of the sun reflecting off the dry baked surface of the earth added to their discomfort.
The fortnightly desert patrol was one of the least favourite assignments for the troop. Their base at Fort Nash was little more than a series of log cabins enclosed by more log walls, set in a parched shallow valley half a day's ride from this barren dust bowl. And although the mattresses on the bunks were hard and the mess hall served a monotonous diet of teeth-shatteringly tough bread and fatty bacon, it was still more comfortable than this; and it was away from the arid landscape which seemed to suck the very moisture from their eyes. Even better, there were girls in the nearest town: pretty girls with soft, smooth skin and waist-hugging dresses who would tempt a man in the saloons for the price of a shot of whisky.
But duty called, and every two weeks a patrol comprising a handful of wagons and a half score of men left the relative comfort of their base and headed out into the inhospitable terrain of the desert. Their job? To round up strays. Not cattle or horses, but people. As increasing numbers of settlers came west with stars in their eyes and fed by dreams of golden lands, the little problem of the native peoples of those territories that were gradually being ceded into the growing United States, needed dealing with. Though many tribespeople had been relocated onto the reserves, there were still many individuals and bands that didn't seem to get the message that they should stay put on the reserves and not go wandering off in search of whatever it was that they were in search of. Much worse were the renegades, the bands of angry warriors who raided farms, burnt small settlements and attacked and brutally murdered ordinary folk just trying to make a better life for themselves. The army's job was to round up these troublemakers and get them back where they belonged and if some of them died in the process, then so be it.
In this neck of the woods, however, the patrol didn't need to be a big one as they generally only came across families or lone individuals, folks who didn't put up much of a fight. Not in this scorched environment. More often than not they came across nothing more than the odd lizard and rattler and they returned to their bunks with stiff muscles and fractious moods.
This patrol though had been different. Although it could be classed as a success, the man in charge was at a loss to determine exactly who or what they'd come across.
"Lieutenant?" called a voice from a nearby wagon, "he's off agin". Lieutenant Dean flicked the remainder of his coffee onto the cooking fire and, dropping his head in defeat, started to make his way to the source of his frustration. "Just one day… can we not have just one day without this aggravation," he muttered to himself.
The lieutenant was a young man in command of a motley collection of men. Normally fastidious in his appearance, Henry Dean had learned to live with the dust, the sweat and general discomfort of life on the patrol. He brushed down his jacket every morning; a pointless act as it attracted a new layer of dust almost instantly. And he shaved every day much to the men's amusement. For him cleanliness was indeed next to Godliness and it all helped to maintain his ideal of how a man in charge of other men should appear. He insisted on discipline and had earned a begrudging respect for his fairness, fortitude and quick decision making when required.
As Dean approached the covered wagon he could hear banging and at the same time an angry voice intoning words in a language that Dean could never hope, or even want, to understand. A man in civilian dress was waiting for him.
"What's the problem this time, Bill?"
"Well, he's just plain ornery if you ask me," came the reply. "He was all quiet an' peaceful and then he woke up. He's got a bee in 'is bonnet no matter how you look at it".
If someone was to ask William Half-Foot where he was from, he would have answered everywhere and nowhere. He claimed to have a Paiute mother, an Irish father and somewhere down the generations a drop of Spanish, Norwegian and Bolivian. The latter was probably true only in Bill's wildest imagination, but his parentage was not to be disputed. He had the dark skin, wide cheekbones and small eyes of his mother and the bad temper of his Irish mining pa. Raised by his mother and her kin, he had found acceptance amongst a people for whom family life was a central tenet of their world. But when a horseback accident as a child left him with a crippled right foot and he was unable to join in the rowdy games of the other children, the first feelings of dissociation, and being different to everyone else, began to crowd his thoughts. Time spent with his hard drinking father had toughened up his hide so he had been able to let his pa's jibes and incriminations as to the very fact of his existence wash over him. He'd been jeered at, beaten and run out of towns on more occasions than he could count just because of his Indian blood. He was an outsider but Bill had lived with it for so many years that he now thrived on his difference. Somehow or other in his middle years he'd wound up at Fort Nash amongst a horde of other social misfits and ne'er-do-wells whose only recourse in life was to join the army. But he was right at home amongst these other oddballs, and his language skills were put to good use as he accompanied the patrols on their search for Indians.
The pounding and angry muttering continued from the inside of the wagon. Pulling the canopy up, Dean peered into the dim interior, softly illuminated by the light filtering through the canvas sides. At the back of the wagon behind a couple of storage crates a man was half sitting, half lying on a carpet of grain filled gunny sacks. His hands were tied behind him with a rope secured to a metal circle in the floor and his ankles were also bound together. He wasn't being idle though. His feet lashed out at the wooden slats on the side of the wagon, as if trying to smash a hole through which he could escape.
"We had ta tie 'is feet together last night when he kicked Brace in the goolies whilst he was bringin' 'im some grub." Bill shook his head. "He's a right ornery one alright".
The prisoner was tall, broad chested and with the bronzed skin of someone who spent his days from dawn to dusk being slowly cooked by the sun. His long black hair hung loose and bedraggled around his shoulders. He was dressed in tanned hide leggings and soft rawhide boots covered his feet. A collarless buckskin shirt hinted at a chest covered in tight dark curls. Smears of dried blood covered the side of his neck and shirt.
The indignant rantings of the prisoner had not ceased throughout the two men's conversation. At the appearance of the lieutenant the man had stopped kicking the wooden planking and leaned as far forwards as his restrained arms would let him. He continued to rant but with increased venom, his irises darkened in fury as he strained towards Dean.
"What's he saying?" Dean had to raise his voice to be heard above the prisoner.
"Just the usual, you can't keep me tied up, why am I a prisoner, I need to get back, you gotta let me go… you know, the usual." Bill paused to listen. "Ah, that's a new one on me, he hasn't said that before."
"What did he say?"
"He said you're a stinkin', boot-lickin, son of a whore-poxed…"
"FINE!" Dean interrupted. "I get the picture." Dean dropped the canvas and taking Bill's arm guided him away from the wagon and away from the ears of the man inside. The pounding started up again.
"Look, we've had this man with us for three days now and we're still none the wiser as to who or what he is." Dean paused and glanced towards the wagon when a particularly loud piece of vitriol sounded across the camp. "He talks like an Indian, he dresses like an Indian and yet… the man is clearly white!" The lieutenant gesticulated out into the desert. "And how come he ended up out there, on his own, tied up and with two nasty head wounds?"
Bill followed the officer's pointed hand and gazed out over the warming bleakness of the desert.
"Seems ta me like it don't need to be our problem for much longer. I says we dump him in the nearest jail and get hisself off our hands. He ain't been nuffin but trouble since we found him. Cussin' and hollerin' all the time."
Dean sighed. "That may be so, Bill, but I still feel we have a duty to find out who he is and where he comes from. He must have family out there someplace."
"Ifn you was 'is kin, would you want a half wild injun back in your nice comfy homestead?" Bill turned and spat a wodge of saliva onto the ground. "He's been darned abusive, kicked one o' your men where the sun don't rightly shine, throws good honest grub back in our faces… and you wants ta help 'im? I say we's get shot of 'im, and just as soon as we can."
Bill paused as if wondering whether to carry on. He decided things needed to be said. "Plus the men ain't happy. Theys won't say it ta your face sir, but theys want shot of him too. He just ain't right; not one thing or 'nother and it's bothersome."
The lieutenant glanced at Bill. He seemed unaware that he'd just described his own circumstances. But no matter, Dean was in a quandary, caught between solving the mystery of who this man was and between placating his men who were clearly disgruntled at the idea of further days of ruckus, belligerence and possible damage to their tender parts.
He took one look towards the source of the shouting and banging, and then turned to glance at the men, some of whom were slowly climbing up into their wagons and gathering their team's reins in preparation for another day of mindless slog across the desert. He let out a heavy breath.
"Okay, this is what we're gonna do… Barclay!" The sergeant shuffled his way over to his commanding officer from where he'd been standing with a couple of other men in the lea of the wagon watching the deliberations over the prisoner.
"Sir?"
"We're making a detour. We're going to Darwin."
"Sir?"
"It's the nearest town with a jailhouse. Tell the men, we're moving out".
Barclay felt like hollering with glee. A town! They was going to a town with all the comforts that came with it: purdy girls, a long cool beer, maybe even a night not spent on the back-breakingly hard earth. With enthusiasm in his step and a grin on his face he turned to the other men. "Yes sir, lieutenant, sir… Let's get moving men, we're rolling out".
Bill turned to make his way to his horse but Lieutenant Dean stopped him. "Bill, we'll do as you suggest, but there's one thing I want you to do for me. I want you to talk to him."
"But lieutenant, he don't let no one near 'im…"
"Bill, he hasn't spoken in English since the day we found him. You're the only one who can understand what he's saying. We've got a day of travel before we reach Darwin. Stay in the wagon with him. Talk to him. Try and get him to talk to you. Find out anything that may help us." Dean reached out his hand to the older man and squeezed his shoulder. "You're the only one who can do this. I'm relying on you…"
The words remained unspoken between them, but Bill knew that Dean was alluding to Bill's own life, how he himself had one foot in both worlds. He'd not considered before that there was any similarity. But he guessed in a way they were alike. Bill knew first-hand how white folk treated 'Indian-lovers' but also how precarious existence could be for a white man living in an Indian community. It was life lived on a knife edge, where one false move could leave you cut and torn, alone and left for the coyotes. Bill's hard-nosed exterior faltered. He'd probably live to regret this.
Bill glanced up at the young man. "Gaaah, okay, you got me, I'll do it. But at the first sign of danger to my cojones I'm outta there".
Bill gingerly climbed up into the back of the wagon. His bad leg meant he had to use his arms to physically swing his foot onto the wooden boards which made up the wagon bed. His caution was not only down to his physical impairment however, it was also caused by apprehension at the welcome he was expecting to receive.
For the past two days and three nights the prisoner had been kept tied in the back of a wagon. When they'd found him, he'd been weak but conscious, severely dehydrated through lack of water and with two nasty head wounds. Several hours of sleep, some food and plenty of water had revived him. But he'd been insistent from the start that they let him go and when Lieutenant Dean refused to let him wander off into the desert by himself, and after a failed attempt to steal a horse, he had had to be restrained with ropes around his wrists, chaffing already red-sore skin. He'd become belligerent, his behaviour more rowdy and cantankerous with each passing hour. His aggression meant that the only contact he'd had with anyone was at mealtimes and when the bucket that was left for his comfort was being emptied. The lieutenant looked in on him whenever the patrol stopped but he never entered the enclosed space, choosing to peer over the tailgate instead. After the unfortunate incident with Private Brace his feet had also been tied. His hands were only freed when the wagons stopped for any reason and he had to make use of the bucket with the indignity of a rifle pointed at his head. All he had left as a weapon was his voice, and he chose to use this loudly, forcefully and pretty much constantly. The only rest for him and the men came when he had shouted himself into a state of exhaustion and succumbed to sleep.
Bill settled himself at the back of the wagon, as far away from the man as he could physically get. He shifted his bad leg out in front of him and eyed the prisoner who sat staring at him with those cold dark eyes of his. He was silent for once. As the horses started to move, the wagon shifted forward with a jolt. Before long the wagon's motion had established into a regular rhythm, gently swaying the men from side to side.
The stranger said nothing, just continued to stare at Bill with defiance through his heavy lidded eyes.
"There ain't no use you eyeballing me, boy. I ain't gonna fall for any mind tricks."
The eyes continued to stare. They seemed to bury into Bill's very mind, as if they could read every low down dirty thought he had in his head. But he wasn't about to give in. No siree.
"You can gawk all you want, but it ain't gettin' you off this wagon."
The eyes wouldn't let up for a minute. Bill wasn't sure he'd even seen a blink from him the whole time they'd been playing goggle eyes at each other. He just sat there, staring, not moving an inch except as a result of the movement of the wagon. He looked relaxed. In fact the eyes seemed to have lightened in tone from the darkest brown to a hazel green. Bill sensed that if he could have, the man would have launched at Bill like an alley cat going after a rat.
"Now boy…"
Bill was interrupted by a stream of words spoken in a language that no white man in that patrol understood. The words when spoken calmly were supple and musical, seeming to form somewhere behind his teeth with a soft sibilance before each word was intoned distinctly and with great care. But Bill wasn't just a white man. He was what they disparagingly called a half-breed. Although the stranger's words were not those of the Paiute, they were similar, and he understood what the man was saying.
"Now that ain't no way ta be talkin' is it, boy?"
The prisoner finally tore his eyes away from Bill's and slumped a shoulder against the side of the wagon.
"I ain't leaving this wagon until you tell me who you is and what you be doin' out in the desert all on your ownsome."
The heavy lidded eyes turned to face Bill. Another stream of words left his mouth.
"Speak American, boy, I knowse you know how."
More soft, musical words greeted Bill.
"Dadburnit, boy, if you ain't jest one stubborn, mule-headed son of an ornery toad, I don't know what is."
The man's head shot up, his brow creased with a look of confusion. It was though he had been reminded of something or someone. He sighed and dropped his head, all the black eyed pugnaciousness dying in an instant. His eyes seemed to glaze over with a film of moisture and he quickly turned his head away from Bill. He pulled his legs up to his chest and stared over his right shoulder, gazing out through the forward-facing gap in the canopy as if he could see through the backs of the men driving the wagon and beyond to the far horizon. If his arms weren't tied behind his back, Bill just knew he would have wrapped his arms around his knees.
Somehow Bill had touched a nerve. He knew he had to be careful now. He may be bad-tempered and cranky but he knew from his own experience when someone was hurtin', and keeping that hurt so far deep down inside that the only way it could come up was when it couldn't be shackled no longer and was just like to explode. He was starting to see too much of himself in this young man. It was a trait that Bill was only too familiar with. What he said next could either break through the thick skin of this fella here, or he'd be hobbling around for the next few days holding a towel wrapped with ice over his family jewels.
"Son, I don't rightly know what your story is, or where ya been, but it seems ta me all this bluster and verbal gassin' is just a way to…" Bill paused trying to find the right words. "Well, it seems ta me ya hurtin' over somethin'." The stranger continued to stare away from Bill, but Bill knew he was listening.
"Look, I'm jest an ordinary Joe, I ain't no mind doctor or nuffin, I don't rightly know what's goin' on in your head, but right now you ain't got no one else to talk to. Ya might as well talk to me." Bill shifted position on the hard floor of the wagon. He could sure do with one of those sacks to stop his bottom from going numb.
"Jest talk to me, boy. Why don't we start with your name?"
The stranger didn't move. He kept his face and those expressive eyes facing away from Bill. But then all the tension seemed to seep out of his muscles as if the fight had gone from him. His shoulders and arms loosened and he turned his head so that he was looking forward towards the other side of the wagon. Even though he was at an angle to Bill, Bill could once more see those eyes which seemed to change colour with his moods. They were green again. And there was something else there. Was it sadness? Maybe even fear. Dropping his glance to his knees, the man spoke. The voice was deep, lower in pitch than the angry intonations of earlier.
"They call me Liwanu."
In his mind Bill was punching the air and doing a celebratory victory dance. At last he was getting somewhere.
"Liwanu. Doesn't that mean 'growl of a bear'?" Bill chuckled. "How'd ya git that name?"
The man briefly flicked his eyes at Bill but then continued to stare at his knees.
"What about ya given name, the name ya was given when you was born?"
"I have no other name. Not anymore."
"Now, boy, you is not Injun, you could almost be taken for one with ya hair an' all and well, ya got the skin of an Injun, but, boy, you ain't Injun." Bill's earlier moment of triumph was forgotten as his exasperation rose to the surface. "You gotta have some kin out there just wonderin' where you is…"
The eyes turned black again as the man who called himself Liwanu strained forward with a speed that shocked Bill, his arms pulled taut behind him by the restraints. He glared at Bill and spat out his next words.
"I have no… kin!" he hissed. "My family were butchered, they are all dead!"
Exhausted by his outburst, he flopped back on to the sacks, shifting uncomfortably to ease the ache in his shoulders and arms where he had wrenched his muscles.
Bill had flattened himself against the back of the wagon during the outburst, but on seeing the man collapse back to his corner, he eased himself away from the boards. His irascible old hide was now intrigued by this man's story. But getting the facts out of him was like getting blood from a stone.
"I'm sorry, son." Bill said quietly.
Perhaps it was the gentle tone of Bill's voice, or the genuine sympathy that the stranger heard in his words. Or perhaps it went deeper, drawing out the memory of another man, an older man, from a different time and place. The dark eyes flickered over to Bill and something he saw there made him feel what he'd not felt in a long time: the whispers of trust in a man of his own race.
"You speak the Ute language?"
Bill looked up in surprise. "Ah, well, my ma was Paiute, I lived with her an' her kin for years. My pa now he was Irish, but he's stoking the fires of hell now." Bill had got distracted. "But youse is speaking Ute. Is that who ya been livin' with?"
The stranger looked away as if contemplating his next words.
"The Ute saved me, made me one of their own, after…"
"After you lost ya kin?"
The stranger nodded.
"How longs you been livin' with them?"
The stranger hesitated for several moments.
"Two years, give or take."
Bill whistled softly. "Two years, that shure is a long time ta be away from your own kind."
Bill shouldn't have been surprised at the reaction. Once again, the stranger pulled himself forward with fire in his eyes.
"My own kind killed my family!" The words were spoken angrily, dark eyes glittering. "My own kind beat me to a pulp and left me to die. My own kind slaughtered women and children just for the sake of a quick buck. I turned my back on my own kind." He stopped, took a breath and gently shook his head as if to rid his thoughts of memories and feelings he had tried his best to subdue. "The Ute found me, treated my wounds, gave me a new place in the world."
It was the most he'd said since the journey had started. The wagon trundled on with its unrelenting motion. For a few minutes the men sat in silence, rocking gently in the wagon's gait. Bill felt an understanding of this man. In his life, he had experienced the white man's treatment of each other and of other cultures. He saw the greed inherent in a society where wealth and status was a primary goal. He felt at ease with the spirituality of the Indian. It was an existence which set its clock by the seasons, where a different sort of wealth came from the land and the sky. But just as the white man could be brutal, so could the Indian. Bill had witnessed, though not taken part in, the scalping of enemies. He'd seen skirmishes between tribes where both sides would hack at each other with knives and tomahawks. No, neither side was perfect. Though knowing his mother's people as he did, he could understand how an injured soul, someone who had lost so much in the world of the white man, would choose to stay with the Indians.
"Ya say ya name is Liwanu? That's the name the Ute gave ya. What's your real name, son?"
The stranger looked at Bill. His dark eyes once more bored their way into Bill's soul. Bill met his stare with his own. For several moments neither one of them blinked. Finally the stranger pulled his eyes away from Bill's and looked to the floor.
"Adam," he said quietly, and sighed. "My name is Adam."
