It was too soon for the scent of rot to overtake the heady musk of blood, but with the heat and the swarming flies, the boy knew it wouldn't take long. The slaughter of Wounded Knee had taken place the day before and still the burial detail had yet to gather all the corpses. Both the army and the native dead littered the ground, though one side's losses heavily outweighed the other. Under Captain Cornelius Slate, the 7th Calvary filled dried riverbeds with blood. Not a soul escaped their wrath, not the fighting man, not the young, nor the old, and especially not the women.

The luckiest of the women were gone before the 7th arrived. The less fortunate died before the battle was over, those who didn't, well, the rape couldn't have been unexpected.

Booker Dewitt held no regard to the men who reverted to this state of carnal deviance. Too decent even with his rough and rowdy ways to force a woman. Not enough of an animal to even contemplate a sexual pillaging like the pirates of old. Not yet at least, not at this time when he still preferred a more permanent kind of reward. The kind that came from looting the dead.

At fourteen Booker killed his first man, a drunkard who burst into his parent's house demanding all their money at knifepoint. Like as not the drunk read that day's report of a robbery or some crime serial and thought 'hmm what a damned good idea, shall have to try that out myself', and proceeded to hold up the poorest house on a street of poor houses. The robbery was over before it began, the man's own knife sunk deep into this collarbone, and Bookers sleeve splattered red, his mother crying tears of relief in the kitchen doorway.

The police showed up shortly after, one of their patrol men hearing ruckus. They took a statement and the body and left. Left the bloodstain on the Dewitt's rotting floor and the broken door. His mother went into hysterics sometime between the police arriving and the body being drug off. The corset keeping her ribs tucked in undoubtedly half the problem. Booker settled her into her room, before attacking the mess the robber made. The white rag turned red, it only took a few swipes. The water went pink and opaque to cherry and dense. It went and went until his wiping revealed a silver surface. His fingers dug under the congealing blood and pulled away a two dollar coin, his first gift from the deceased.

Not that the coin did any to help pay the damages. There are some things money can't fix, and a fire that steals the whole city, let alone ones parents is one of them.

Booker was at the lowest point of his young life when he joined the 7th Calvary shortly after turning 15. It disgusted him that everything, from the clothes on his back to the horse between his knees belonged to someone else. Even his paychecks vanished to some faraway bank to pay off the debt of his parents, which now with their death had become his. It was no surprise that when he killed his second man, and took his first scalp, he found himself wanting more.

By sixteen the men in the regiment took to calling him The White Injun. His collection of scalps rivaled even the fiercest of their enemies. His bloodlust became his pride, his kills something of legend. The other men began to take bets.

2:1 'Could he get 23 scalps before the month was due?'

At the battle of Wounded Knee Dewitt made it an even 30.

One could never say that stillness fell at the end of a battle, for if they did, they'd be lying. There was no sudden stop to the clash of swords which had once rang so true, the noise did not diminish to the chatter of birds, the guns and the cannon did not simply become the roll of the clouds. Just as what had once been battle cries did not turn to silence, but turned instead to the mortal wail of the wounded.

It was the same everywhere. A universal constant, just as Dewitt would always ride with the 7th, or that a fish lived in water. It was the undeniable, unyielding truth.

-/-

"Well Dewitt, has your sword tasted enough injun blood yet, or do you need another go?"

The brown haired boy turned away from the captive. "What do you mean sir?"

Cornelius Slate stared down at him and the native that sat tied before them. "Is he going to talk or do we need to bloody him up a bit?"

"He's got nothing but insults."

"Glad to hear this one is original." Slate gestured the captive be taken away and jerked his head away from the stocks, a silent order Dewitt to follow. "There was a time when I thought it pertinent to learn their language. Now I can only see I was right to never do so. Even speaking their own tongue betrays no answer."

The walked past a makeshift stable, where the horses stood in rows tied to ropes hung between trees. The beast's breath sent plumes into the air like miniature smokestacks.

"In spite of our enemy's setbacks, you do good work Dewitt. "

"I just do my job." Booker responded, his voice deep, though his body had yet to catch up. All gangly limbs and tight muscles stretched over bones that still inched upward. He was a boy playing at being a man and succeeding.

Slate coughed a laugh. "Of course you do," He took a slug from his canteen. "But take the compliment all the same Corporal; you're a real soldier, not one of the tin men that Washington's been putting out. No siree you're the real deal."

-/-

The following morning the bodies began to stink. It was a slow process that every soldier knew and dreaded, those on burial detail dug shallower graves to try and cover the problem before the smell attached to their clothing, skin and hair. It was a useless procedure; the smell had permeated on their souls long before they smelled it.

An idle army is a dangerous army. And while many men found ways to distract themselves from the aftermath of war, not all were successful.

Booker was not often plagued by Battle Sickness; the killing of men who deserved to be killed made no scar on his soul. He was neither disturbed nor pleasured by the feel of his sword ending a life, unlike some of the degenerate soldiers who fought with anything and everything to get their cock half-mast.

At Wounded Knee however, the Sickness stuck at his soul. At Wounded Knee they had not fought a group of warriors as they expected. Instead they stumbled upon women, old women with hair like his grandmothers, young ones with skin the shade of his mothers. For the first time, Booker drank his rum ration and found himself wanting more.

It was a cold Sunday when the Preacher rose into their camp on a dull as dishwater steed. Bedecked in black habit and a sweat stained white collar, he stank as only a holy man could, bathed in the power and glory of his God, he offered salvation.

The Preacher led them to a nearby pond like John the Baptist led Jesus to the river. He spoke lofty words of mercy and forgiveness, of sins wiped away, of men becoming whole, new, and clean. He was surrounded by avid believers, who nodded sagely at his words, and those who came to gain a clean slate but would make no move to keep it that way. And men like Booker, who had once so strongly believed, but now teetered on the edge between the path of righteousness and the valley of religious death.

Booker Dewitt sat and watched as scores of fellow soldiers stepped into the water and became new. He couldn't help but half question their sanity as they stepped into the icy water of a January frozen pond. Most emerged washed of sin, others came out with what was sure to be a case of hypothermia, and even fewer renamed, becoming new people in the eyes of God.

"Who else desires forgiveness? Who else wants to be cleansed of sin?"

"I do."

Booker desired forgiveness. He wanted it in the way an orphan desires parents, or a scientists covets answers. He wanted it wholly and totally. Wipe away the debt that sixteen years of life incurred. Be forgiven the despair his transgressions caused his mother, for the lives he took, the blood he spilled.

To be forgiven the most recent of deaths. A native women caught between his sword or rape by fifty men, the horror of which demanded he choose for her. Death, death, death.

The Preacher called for him and Booker rose, stepping past the grass that was still stained from spilt blood and into the water that had a pink cast, not from the setting sun but the stains of man. Booker reached out, his knees hitting frigid water.

"Come, wash away your sins." The father grasped his hand, firm, unrelenting.

Wipe away the blood on your hands; wash the scalps from your belt, the tokens in your bag. The history you have made for yourself.

God will wipe it all away.

"No!" The boy pulled back, yanking away from the pastor's grip. "No, I don't want it." He stepped away, avoiding the hands that reached for him. His feet churned the water, sending it crashing against the bank.

He heard the man calling for him to reconsider even as he ascended the slope.

He would not reconsider. It was not god's forgiveness that he needed.