Page 13 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

Ransom wasn’t much surprised to see the major sending cavalry riders, who’d been alongside the supply wagons, swinging out wide to either side of the line of march. It’s what he’d have done.

When they resumed marching west, with the cavalry as flankers, the major rode past his previous spot near Ransom, to the head of the column.

That’s something else Ransom would have done.

Captain Reigert, another Yankee like all the officers, had command of the company. Major Brand — brevet rank of Colonel in the war, Ransom’d heard — had stayed out of the way since they’d left Fort Leavenworth, but now he asserted his rank.

The activity started some marchers to looking around for the cause, and they spotted it soon enough.

A sort of hum of comments went through the line, followed by a silence broken only by the occasional, awkward attempt at joking by those most afraid and most afraid of showing it.

One of the cavalry troops galloped back toward them, still a quarter mile from what could now be seen as the remnants of a building. Log walls fallen in on themselves smoked, but could be seen to have once formed a building. A log corral had been smashed.

The horse-mounted soldier exchanged some words with Major Brand, then rode back to his cavalry brethren. Without hearing the words, Ransom knew the major had ordered the cavalry troops to fan out away from the ranch to see if danger still lurked beyond it.

Brand had a few words with Reigert and their company pulled out of the line of march, some watching the other companies move on, most looking at the smoking ruins they moved toward.

No order was called, but as the line of men reached a short, rutted path that led from the road to the building, they slowed to a stop. Silently regarding the scene.

“We . . . we should look for survivors, shouldn’t we, Major?” asked Captain Reigert.

“There won’t be any. But your men should look. If we can find the dead, we’ll bury them. These men might as well know what they’re up against.”

Reigert didn’t bother to translate that into an order. Every man of them had listened. At his nod, the men fell out, slowly moving across the ground of what looked to have once been a way station.

“My God, what sort of fiends would do this?” a bluebelly sergeant said.

“Fiends who had it done to them.”

Ransom looked up to Major Brand, the sun behind him and his hat’s brim shadowing his face.

“Back in November, Colorado cavalry overran a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek. Heard from some who were there. Most killed were women and children. Mutilated.”

The way Brand said it, he could’ve been he heard from cavalry or from Indians.

A sound pulled Ransom’s attention around.

Luther, who’d been there at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, was puking his hardtack by the smoking skeleton of a shed. Ransom looked from him to Peter, pale and shaky.

“Find what you can dig with. Get these people buried,” he said to the ones right around him.

Peter responded immediately and several joined him.

Ransom didn’t regret giving them a task, but when he turned to find the major watching him with more attention than he would have liked, he could have wished it went unnoticed.

“A number of these men call you sir,” Brand said, looking down from his saddle.

“Old Carolina habit — respect for an elder.”

“Can’t see as you’re much older than most of ’em.”

“In Carolina, the courtesy’s spread right liberally,” he said, deliberately lengthening his drawl.

The major looked him over for a disconcertingly long time, then shifted his unyielding gray gaze to the scene before them, the cold, displaced men moving among smoldering ruins of lives cut short. “You’re not in Carolina anymore, and I’d suggest you remind your men of that.”

Your men. Ransom didn’t like that. Cut too close to the bone of truth.

But Brand wasn’t dwelling on that aspect as he went on.

“You’re a damned long way from Carolina. You’re a damned long way from the life you’ve known. And from the war you’ve known.”

Ransom was saved from answering by Captain Reigert, who rushed up to Brand with a pair of civilians on horseback.

“Major Brand, sir! These gentlemen say they know the people who lived here.”

The younger of two rough looking men took off his soft, wide-brimmed hat, but the gray-bearded one gave no sign of respect to Brand or anyone else.

“What’re your names?”

“Gallen. My son and me run the next road ranch west,” the older man said.

“Did you have any trouble?”

“No. We had an Army patrol stopping at our place the night this must’ve started. Next morning, after they headed west, my wife was up the hill and saw the smoke. She came runnin’ back, and we’ve stayed set, with our guns at the ready, until we seen your riders along the ridge couple hours back.”

“You knew these people.”

“Yeah. Dick Gregson was his name. Wasn’t real popular with the Injuns.” The older Gallen spit. “Wasn’t real popular with whites, neither. He was a nasty drunk and he was most always drunk.”

“Did you . . . Did you find anyone else?” the son asked.

“Two little girls.”

“Yes— Mary and Sally. They were Gregson’s daughters.”

“We’ll see they’re buried. Put the names on the boards,” Reigert said.

“And . . .” The young man swallowed and tried again. “Maggie?”

Brand’s attention sharpened. “Maggie?”

The father frowned at his son. “Gregson’s wife.”

“Only because she was forced by the old—”

“Shut up, Matt.”

The son wouldn’t be quieted, and Ransom saw a flare of hope come into his eyes. “You didn’t find Maggie? No more than nineteen. Pretty. Red hair, blue eyes. She’s not here? She’s not—?”

“She’s not here,” Brand answered abruptly.

After seeing their other victims, Ransom couldn’t imagine why the marauders would have spared one.

Brand might have been searching for possible answers to that as well when he demanded, “Tell me about this Maggie Gregson. She couldn’t have been those girls’ mother if she was nineteen.”

The father spoke up. “She’s not. Their mother died a couple years back. Maggie and her family were headed to California in ’55. Got this far, coming from Ireland, then her ma and pa up and died of the cholera within a couple days of each other. No one on the train would take her on.

“Anna Gregson was poorly after having Mary, and swore to Gregson that Maggie would earn her keep by helping ’round the place. Anna Gregson was always breeding. Most of ’em died and she kept getting weaker and weaker, so they needed somebody.”

“They worked her like a slave,” muttered Matt Gallen. He glanced around at the soldiers with a defiant look that revealed he knew their southern origins. “And when Mrs. Gregson died, he made Maggie marry him. No one would stop him.” He glared at his father.

“What do we do now?” Riegert asked Brand.

“You take these men and catch up with the column.”

“Shouldn’t we go after—. If she’s alive, a white woman—”

“You heard Gallen. They’ve got a four-day start. And they move a hell of a lot faster. Not to mention they’d hear us coming for miles.”

“But if this white woman’s still alive—”

“If she’s alive now she’s likely to stay that way a little longer.”

Brand settled into his saddle.

“When you get to Fort Laramie, tell the commander I’ll report.”

“What? But— aren’t you going on with us?”

“No. I’m going to find out about Maggie Gregson.”