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Adam's Tale: The Honour of Cochise

by faust

All this happened, more or less.

I acted a complete idiot; that surely happened. Sneaked away from the camp to get water for a starving stranger—an Army officer who'd been hunted by Apaches for days on end. He was exhausted and spent, and it seemed perfectly appropriate to take a little risk for a man so much in distress. You might call it a Cartwright principle to help out those in need, but as far as I'm concerned it is a human necessity.

Nevertheless, going without telling anyone, going without having someone cover me was an idiot thing.

And I paid for being an idiot; that very much happened. I never drew any water—was felled by a shot before I even made it down to the waterhole. Hurt like nobody's business, that happened.

Then someone got me. I have a vague memory of Joe lifting me up...but that can't be possible, can it? I outweigh him by more then a few ounces. How the boy should be able to carry me back to the camp is beyond me, and yet, this somehow, more or less must have happened.

I do remember waking up hurting. Not really alert, not really coherent, but I heard voices around me, urgent, accusing voices; one whiny. Shouting, shooting. Someone told a horrid story about poisoning innocent women and children. I mean to have heard "They weren't people, they were just Indians;" but that cannot have happened. Should not. It might have anyway.

Pa was there, and then he was gone. Hoss, Joe...desperate hands on my face, probing fingers at my belly—hurts—too little, too stale water trickling on my lips.

Blessed oblivion.

Then there was an eruption of pain—that most certainly happened. A choir of "easy here" and "it's gonna be all right." Funny how you can make out unknown voices among the familiar. Soldiers, by their diction, maybe an Army doctor. Did that happen? It must.

Then nothing.

I woke up in my bed this morning, sore, hurting, but conscious. So they must have brought me home somehow. In a wagon? Most probably.

All this happened, more or less. I'll have to ask for more details, even though I suspect I might not like them—but this "more or less" is even worse.

***fin***

Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong. ~ Thomas Jefferson