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a kid could always kill you, too.
I ll go. You cover me instead.
That probably wasn t a tale I d tell later on. The
night I stood by and let a woman do my job for me.
Yep, didn t have any idea who was in that cabin
but I let the gal go in. Why get my own ass shot up?
Just send the gal in there.
You don t hear talk like that in a dime novel. If you
did, the readership would go way, way down.
I can t let you do that.
Sure you can. You re better with a gun. But this is
a child and I m better at talking to her. Or him. A
woman s voice is a lot more soothing than a man s.
She was probably right.
So cover me, all right?
Yes, boss.
Don t worry, Noah. I won t ever tell anybody
about it. I know how it d look to that big strong male
club you belong to.
She hefted her carbine, tugged up her mittens, and
then set off for the cabin. The kid had made no other
sound.
I sighted my rifle.
Jen didn t do any of the gymnastics I d had in
mind. She just trudged up to the door, stood to the
side of it and knocked.
I want to help you, honey. Why don t you come
out? I have a friend who doesn t trust people very
much so maybe you should put your hands in the
air, too, so he can see that you aren t planning on
shooting anybody. He can t help it. It s just the way
Cavalry Man: Powder Keg 111
he thinks. Now come on out, honey. We want to
help you.
Two, three silent minutes passed. The door stayed
shut. Jen looked back at me a couple of times. I
couldn t read her expression from where I stood.
Honey, please make things easy for all of us. Just
please come out here and have your hands in the air.
Then we ll talk and my friend won t have to shoot
anymore.
This time, it wasn t just crying. The child was sob-
bing.
Honey, can you hear me? she asked.
Faint a different sound. A word I couldn t under-
stand.
Then: Y-yes, I can hear you.
I want to help you.
I m scared now.
These words I heard only because I had moved
closer.
Will you open the door and let me in?
What s your name?
Jen. That s short for Jenny. Do you know any-
body named Jenny?
Long pause. Back in Illinois I did.
Is that where you re from?
Yes.
We could talk better if you would open the door,
honey.
My mommy said I shouldn t open the door for
anybody.
Where s your mommy now?
On the floor.
Is she asleep?
112 Ed Gorman
The man hurt her. He made her get naked. She
told me not to watch. He made her get naked and
then he did things to her. And then he started hitting
her real hard.
Jen hung her head after the girl spoke. Not easy
hearing a little girl describe the apparent rape and
beating of her mother. But Jen recovered quickly. She
showed me a face of such murderous anger that I
knew my impression of her was right. This wasn t a
woman who let go easily. This was a woman who
would hunt you down.
Please open the door, honey. I m with a lawman
and we both want to help you.
Are you a lawman, too?
No, but I m with a lawman.
She s helping me, I said. So it s safe to let both
of us in.
The easiest way to get in was to kick the door in.
Didn t look like it would take all that much. But the
girl needed to trust us and kicking in the door wasn t
going to help things.
You won t hurt me?
No, Jen said. We want to help you. What s
your name?
Clarice.
That s a beautiful name. Now, Clarice, why don t
you open the door so we can help you and your
mommy?
You promise you won t hurt me?
We promise, Clarice, I said.
After a long silence from inside, the door latch was
raised and the door moved slowly inward.
A skinny blond girl, couldn t have been more than
Cavalry Man: Powder Keg 113
seven or eight years old, in pigtails and dungarees
and a heavy red sweater stood in the doorway. Her
hands were an even darker red blood red than her
sweater.
As soon as I reached the doorframe, I smelled it.
Butchered meat. Human, animal. The stench is similar.
Jen reached in and put her arms out to Clarice.
Clarice came to her. Jen lifted her up, hugged her,
carried her out into the night. Maybe some fresh air
will help. She looked at me when she said it. I didn t
need to ask what she was talking about.
The only interior light was spill from the moon. The
odor was so bad I had to hold my breath for a time.
I found a lantern. Took a stick match from my
pocket. Got it fired and got the lantern glowing.
I didn t go to the woman right away because I d
stumbled against something at my feet.
He d been wearing a heavy red sweater like his sis-
ter s, dungarees, heavy winter boots that laced up to
near his knees. His right hand clutched a bowie knife.
There was no blood on the blade. He was a towhead
like his sister, two years older or so. There was no
help for him. His wide-open eyes stared up at the
roof of the cabin. Clarice must have felt the loss of
her mother to the degree that she d forgotten her
brother entirely. Or maybe she couldn t own up to
what had happened to him.
I looked around the place. Table, two chairs, a sec-
ond table that had probably held the canned goods
strewn across the floor, a small potbellied stove just
about all of it was demolished, a couple of the cans
so dented that they d exploded. There had been some
frantic and furious activity in there.
114 Ed Gorman
Two whiskey bottles had been smashed. The con-
tents of a carpetbag had been dumped on the floor.
And then I saw the broom.
At first I wasn t sure what to make of it. A straw
broom with an unpainted pine handle. The end of the
handle was bloody. I moved closer to it and saw
small curly pieces of black hair and then splotches of
what seemed to be human tissue. And then I realized
what I was looking at.
I went over, took a deep breath, and finally took a
look at the woman. They say some Indians will do
things to a white woman that they wouldn t do to an
animal. That s what this looked like except there
hadn t been any Indians involved. Just a pair of white
men who had their badges to protect them.
Clarice had covered her with a heavy woolen blan-
ket the color of a summer-green leaf. Blood had
soaked much of it.
They had cut off her nose, pounded her right eye
into a bruised and enormous lump, and then gone to
work on her body. Bite marks alternated with knife
slashes. Her right nipple was gone, the crudeness of
the wound suggesting that it had been bitten off.
When I saw her genitals the picture of the broom
handle came to me. Both of them taking turns with
her and then killing her with the broom handle, the
little boy trying to free his mother by stabbing them
and getting himself killed in the process.
I couldn t explain how Clarice had survived. There
were no good places for hiding in this cabin. Maybe
she had escaped somehow and they d figured she
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