I pointed this out to Tracy, but she didn’t seem nearly as intrigued about it as I was.
“I’ve thought of a jingle that I think would get that store packed!” I told her excitedly.
“I’m sure you have. Do I even want to hear it?”
“Okay, you know the one “every kiss begins with Kay?”
She nodded.
“Now use the same jingle only with these words, Every Jerk-off begins with J! That store would be fucking packed right now!”
Tracy nearly snorted on the cookie we had been sharing, but she quickly recovered. “What is the matter with you? It’s Christmas!” She was trying to sound disgusted, but I could tell she was inwardly laughing her ass off.
“I personally couldn’t think of a better gift,” I said lasciviously.
“Go find your bus buddy!” she laughed as she pushed me away.
One short year removed from that story, I find myself huddled in the cold with the remnants of humanity. How I wish I was back on that bus, not with Greasy Hands, mind you. I hope he was patient zero, but I’d even take Georgie Germ as long as he was on the far side of the bus. I could maybe do without Two Nose and the bus driver and maybe Georgie’s mother, but I think everyone else would be fine. This story has done what I’d hoped it would accomplish. It has brought a smile to an otherwise tired, scared man.
Blood Stone Part 2
Corporal Tenson could not believe his luck of late and he attributed it all to the blood red stone he had found two weeks previous at the destroyed Lakota village. He had been promoted to sergeant. His commanding officer, whom he could not stand, had swallowed a bullet and he was unimaginably wealthy if he could ever bring himself to sell the stone.
He had been so paranoid about possessing the stone, he had not even showed anyone, not even his best friend Aaron Gentry, a corporal in the same regiment he was in.
“What gives?” Aaron asked. He had been sleeping on his cot when he heard his friend rustling around.
“What are you talking about?” Scott Tenson asked back, stashing a small bag quickly into his front pocket.
“I’ve seen you pull out that bag at least a dozen times and you just stare at it.”
“You should just mind your own business,” Scott shot back a little testily.
“Sorry, just looking for something to talk about. It’s been so boring around here since the old man shot himself. I can’t believe he killed himself. I guess I would have too if I came home and my whole family was murdered. Some are saying that it was the shaman from the Lakota tribe we destroyed, seeking revenge.”
This had been a favorite topic of conversation within the unit since it had happened. The stories ranged from the mundane: the colonel had come home and discovered his wife was cheating and had murdered his family then killed himself; to the semi-paranormal and favorite among the men: that the medicine man’s spirit had done it as revenge; to the completely farfetched: a white witch had taken the colonel’s family hostage and forced him to attack the Indians. Not many believed that particular story, but speculation on it made the long nights go by quicker.
Maybe it was the hour of the night, maybe he was sick of hearing the same topic of conversation repeated over and over, but Corporal Tenson did something he never planned on doing.
“Want to see what I picked up at that camp?”
Gentry sat up. “Is that what’s in that pouch? Do you have a scalp or something? I thought they’d smell, but I haven’t smelled anything.”
“It’s not a scalp. Check this out,” Tenson said, turning the pouch over into his hand. The large red stone dropped into his palm.
Gentry inhaled sharply and then reached out to grab it, Tenson pulled his hand back.
“Sorry,” Tenson said, letting his friend grab the stone.
“What is it?” Gentry asked, holding it up to the lantern.
“My ticket out of the cavalry, and into a life of luxury.”
“Have you found out how much it’s worth?”
“No I haven’t told anyone I’ve got it. I’m too afraid they’ll make me turn it over to the captain.”
“Nobody knows you have it?”
“Just you, now,” Tenson said, smiling.
“I’ve got to show you something then,” Gentry said conspiratorially. He handed the stone back to Tenson.
Gentry reached under his cot and pulled something out that caught a glint of light a moment before he plunged it into Tenson’s stomach. The long bowie knife ripped through his stomach, spleen and kidney and brushed up against his spinal cord. The pain had been too intense to even formulate a scream. Gentry was not going to give him the opportunity anyway. He clamped his free hand over his friend’s mouth and twisted the knife back and forth as more and more pain and shock blazed though Tenson’s eyes. Gentry spoke.
“I’m sorry my friend, I really am. You saved my life once, and now I’m taking yours. It hardly seems fair. But I fucking hate it here and now I’ve got a way out and I had to take it, no matter what expense you had to pay for it.”
Gentry waited until he was completely sure his friend (although that didn’t seem like the right word anymore) was dead before extracting his knife from Tenson’s mid-section. He then wiped it off on Tenson’s blanket and covered him up with it. He quickly grabbed anything of any value in addition to the stone, which he clutched greedily, and slipped quietly into the night.
***
Eliza had watched the entire battle from her higher vantage point. She was mildly impressed with the Lakota’s savagery. Here were a people who had already lost everything dear to them, and still they fought viciously. She hoped the colonel would live, if only to be reunited with his bride, but either way, all that mattered was that the medicine man died.
She waited until the cavalry men departed as she walked amid the smoking ruins of the destroyed village. The Indians lay where they had been struck down. She checked each one of them, yet she could not find the shaman. A little known feeling rose in her breast; it was a sense of unease. She checked the only teepee that was not burning. It was the largest in the village and by its decoration, she figured it was a ceremonial gathering place.
The shaman was in there, but he was dead. He had been set in a place of honor in the center of the room, enshrouded in soft blankets made of deer and bison hide. Instead of her unease slipping away, it grew.
“This man died before the battle,” she said as she walked around him. She ripped the shroud off him, looking for a wound that could have caused his demise. She savagely ripped his clothes off, unsure as to the root of her anger. She kicked his body over onto his stomach when the front did not reveal any damage.