Page 40 of Head Room

Platte Bridge?On the way out or back?Check dates?

Caspar Collins?

I’d need to do research for context, especially about those questions.

It would make sense to get the background from Mrs.P before I advanced much further.

I returned to the pages on the screen.

Never was good at withstanding temptation.

****

(Note: They’ve rescued her and a boy another group held.Traded horses for them rather than fight.Stelmen Viess and a couple others unsatisfied with that decision.Don’t know they avoided a trap that would have ambushed them by bigger force...How?

(Tense talk...Stelmen Viess talking...

“Word I’m hearin’ is that this Brand you’re so all-fired ready for us to follow’s got a stripe of yellow down his back as wide as the poor excuse for a river out there.”

“I’ve seen no sign of yellow down Brand’s back.”Ransom said it with just enough emphasis to indicate to those who chose to hear that he might have detected a strong hint of that color down Stelmen’s back.

“We ain’t been fightin’ behind him yet, have we?He hasn’t had anything to run from.”

“You were the one belly-aching about not wanting to go near those Indians who had the captives.Kept saying we’d none of us get off with our scalps,” Peter said.

Stelmen Viess ignored the younger soldier and his point.

“What I hear is he was fighting in the War and then he broke up, started bawling like a baby and begged to be shipped out here.Heard it from a corporal whose cousin was in the unit stationed right next to Brand’s when it happened.”

...silence while they considered that...

A cackle cut across the silence and it took a moment to identify it as laughter.It took another moment of listening to that creaky sound to realize it came from Sergeant Zanger in the corner.

“Well, if you believe that about the Marble Major, then you’re a sight dumber Johnny Reb than the dumbest strawfoot I ever met to this day, Viess.And that’s includin’ the one who gave the name mush-head to all mush-heads.”

“I ain’t stupid, Sergeant.”

“No?Well, one who’d believe anybody came out here thinking it was a safe place to get away from the fearin’ and shootin’ and dyin’ would have to be a full-stupid man.And that ain’t something I’ve ever heard anyone sayin’ about Major Brand.Unlike some privates I know.”

Titter from the others.Stelmen Viess looked around at them, affronted.

“I heard what I heard,” he said defiantly.“And I ain’t seen nothing from Brand that’s changed my mind.”

“Gotta have a mind to change.”Not leaving Stelmen Viess time to fire up over that, the sergeant added, “Now, I’m not saying he’s a man I’d care to spend an evening with a jug ’round a fire.No, sirree.Why those eyes alone are enough to make you believe in hobgoblins.

“All the same, I tell you, Major Brand’s got more than air under his hat.And a man like that — one who’d been out here before the war started back in the States, he’d know what he was getting himself into comin’ back.And he’d know it was the kind of fighting that could make the bravest man want to turn tail and run.When you seed what I seed...

“I’m not saying there’s any good way of dying, but a man that’s gotten to by the Indians.”The sergeant shook his head.“That’s the worst way to die there is.”

Moving only his eyes, Ransom looked around and knew the wily sergeant’s words had an impact on the men.

Made them think, for sure.Maybe made them more willing to follow Brand’s orders.Maybe keep them alive.

(Note: Stelmen Viess says boy’s an Indian.Why’d we take him?)

“That boy’s white.”

“Nah.”