Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] by Lonesome River

reached him. The sounds he’d heard were the cries of the scavengers: buzzards, crows, and other flesh-eating creatures. There was something else, too. A faint mewing wail. He made his way, running lightly, through the thick stand of oaks, cottonwoods and sycamores. The tallest were crowned by the foliage of huge grapevines, their trunks entwined with ropes the size of a man’s leg. A whippoorwill swooped overhead, trailing his melodious repeated cry, unmindful of the buckskin-clad figure leaping the deadfalls and slipping through the tangle of berry bushes.
    Five minutes after he left Liberty, he was peering through the bushes at a sight that, although he was hardened to sudden death on the frontier, made the bile rise in his throat and an almost uncontrollable rage shake his strong body. The squawking of the birds had ceased, the silence making the forest seem more ominous than the previous uproar. The eerie silence persisted and a vision of another time, another place, and another young woman sprawled in the dirt floated across Farr’s mind and seared into his consciousness like a burning ember.
    The camp had been attacked at night. The women who lay sprawled beside the wagons wore their nightdresses. The weak wailing sound he had heard came from a small child sitting on the ground beside his dead mother. He was looking at her face, twisted into a mask of agony, and pounding his small fist on her blood-encrusted breasts. Farr surveyed the area keenly, then strode quickly to the child and picked him up. The boy locked his arms around his neck, and rage like a red tide washed over Farr. He felt once again the almost overwhelming desire to hunt a man and kill him.
    Four women and one young girl not much older than Amy had been fiendishly raped before they were killed. The five men had died in their pallets beneath the wagons. White men had done this. White men who were supposedly civilized. They had murdered and raped for oxen, horses, and what little money the pilgrims had with them.
    Carrying the child in his arms, Farr went to each of the men and bent down to peer at their faces. He was not surprised to find that Hull Dexter was not among them. The wagons had been looted. Clothing and the personal belongings were strewn about. In one of the wagons Farr found the body of a young boy who lay where he had tried to crawl under the bed and hide. His throat had been cut. He made a silent vow to hunt down the men responsible and kill them.
    After Farr made the rounds of each wagon he turned to see Liberty coming up the trail. The sun shone on tendrils of her startling hair and for just an instant he saw Fawnella. He shook his head. No, it couldn’t be Fawnella. This woman was taller, her hair lighter. Liberty was well ahead of the wagon, but it was still coming.
    “What is it?” she called. “What’s happened?”
    Farr was breathing hard when he reached her. “I told you to stay back! What in the name of God is wrong with you? Get back there and turn that wagon around!”
    Liberty’s eyes swept over the destruction of the camp and the bodies sprawled on the ground. She gave a strangled cry, “Oh . . . oh, my God!”
    “Take this child and go back! You don’t want your sister to see this!” He jerked the rifle from her hands and thrust the boy into her arms.
    “I’m going to throw up—”
    “No, you’re not. You’re going to do what I tell you. Get back there and tell your pa to get up here. We’ve got to do something quick and get away from here.”
    “The savages! The damned heathens!”
    “White savages! Keep that in mind! If your man hadn’t come down sick you’d be here too. Get your pa.”
    Liberty hugged the small boy to her and pressed his face to her shoulder. “Pa’s drunk,” she managed to say.
    “Good. What we’ve got to do won’t be easy. We’ve got to put those bodies in a wagon and set fire to it.”
    “No, you can’t! We traveled with them. We’ve got to bury them.” In horrified