“That morning as I looked down from the pilothouse at the forward squad of men on the hurricane deck, I could see the rat-faced soldier in the rank just behind the towheaded one who had been ordered to step forward. All of us within earshot of Major Rawley’s voice were listening to his words, spoken in those rotund oratorical tones they say won fame for his father, the senator.”

  Rawley cried out, so that all the assembled men on deck could hear him plainly, that Private Noah Burkett was under arrest “for violation of the Seventh and Twenty-first Articles of War.” Private Burkett was to be placed in irons until such time as a court-martial could be convened for his trial. Adams could plainly see from Burkett’s face that he had not the slightest notion what Major Rawley was accusing him of.

  “That face of his was almost childlike. Ringed with fine yellow hair, it was like the face of a child scolded for some reason so obscure it could not be fathomed. But the face of the runt directly behind Burkett was almost feral in its anger, the narrow curve of the teeth bared in a snarl directed at Rawley, or at Rawley’s back I should say, because he had turned away, leaving two of his young Officers to take custody of Burkett.”

  As Adams was quick to explain, none of the enlisted Galvanized Yankees was armed then, not even the noncommissioned officers—their weapons were all locked in that deck hold. The plan was to first test them by mixing them with loyal troops in the forts upriver before issuing arms to them. In any case, the two officers had no trouble with Burkett, big and muscular though he was. It was learned afterward that he had been a blacksmith in Kentucky, one of John Morgan’s raiders captured in Ohio.

  Adams was not surprised to have another visit from Rawley later that morning. He asked him to come down to the gentlemen’s cabin to witness the court-martial of Private Noah Burkett. Of course Adams wanted nothing to do with it, but Rawley pled so fervently—he wanted a responsible outsider, someone who could testify if necessary that the accused had been fairly tried, had been served with adequate defense counsel.

  “He went on and on—he assured me that he and his subordinates all had read the Articles of War thoroughly. Lieutenant Mayes, he said, was the only one of them who had any knowledge of civil law, and Mayes had been assigned to defend Burkett.”

  In the gentlemen’s cabin they had placed three chairs in a semicircle, facing out from the bar, with one of the round gambling tables in front of them. Two smaller tables were pushed to the sides for the defending and prosecuting officers. A young lieutenant wearing spectacles sat at a fourth table with a sheaf of ruled foolscap, several pens, and an inkwell for recording the proceedings. Adams had never witnessed an army court-martial before, and it was quite plain that none of the young participants there had ever witnessed one either. They had nothing to go by but a single well-worn copy of Army Regulations that they kept passing back and forth. Except for Major Rawley, who seated himself in the middle chair as president of the court, they were all ill at ease.

  When they brought the prisoner in, the major read the first charge, a violation of the Seventh Article of War, which stated that any soldier “who shall begin, excite, cause, or join in, any mutiny in any company in the service of the United States during wartime shall suffer death, or such punishment as by court-martial shall be inflicted.” The second charge was absenting himself from his company without leave.

  “From where I was seated Private Burkett’s face was in profile,” Captain Adams said, “but I could see that he was as puzzled by the charges as was I. Mutiny was a vague term to him, but when he heard the accusation that he had been absent without leave, his wide brow wrinkled and he started to speak, but Rawley banged on the table with a saber knot he was using for a gavel and ordered him to be seated.”

  The first witness was the sergeant of Burkett’s platoon, a lean, swarthy fellow, eyes dancing about from one officer’s face to another.

  “You know the kind, he’d tasted a wee bit of power and wanted more—the sort who would sell out his own brother for a step up in the world. He willingly allowed the prosecutor, a little pink-cheeked lieutenant named Hollister to lead him like a sheep with a ring in its nose. ‘Yes, sir, more’n once I heard Private Burkett say he was going to pull foot,’ the sergeant whined in that hill-country nasal tone he had.”

  Hollister pressed him to tell him just how Burkett had said it. The man replied: “He said he would be damned if he didn’t leave this boat first opportunity that he got.”

  “Well, they went over every word, repeating everything, time and time again. They called the captain of Burkett’s company, a slow talker he was, measured his words carefully. Although Lieutenant Hollister got him to say that Burkett was a poor soldier, a very hard man to get along with, he failed to trap the captain into supporting the sergeant’s testimony that Burkett had been overheard threatening desertion.”

  Captain Adams closed his eyes and sighed, an expression of distaste appearing upon his face at the memories he was recalling. “It was next day before they came to the second charge against Private Burkett—of absenting himself from his company without leave. The main witness for the prosecution was the lieutenant of Burkett’s platoon. Can’t recall his name at the moment, but he appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen. He had sandy hair—was trying to sprout a beard but it looked more like the down on a young gosling. Wispy. Off-duty he sang a lot, high tenor voice. During the evenings when they were drinking at the bar, Rawley was always asking him for a song. This lieutenant testified that on the night of the heavy rain one of his most trusted Galvanized Yankee corporals had come to him with the information that Private Burkett was going to leave to desert.

  “Lieutenant Mayes, the defense counsel, wanted to question this corporal, who turned out to be a Dutchman. You, Doc Lieber, might’ve made out what the corporal was trying to say, but his enunciation was a bit thick for my ears. Lieutenant Mayes repeated the phrases several times, and about all that the Dutch corporal’s testimony amounted to was that he had heard Burkett say if anybody wanted to desert he did not give a damn when they went and he had as lief they would go one time as another.

  “The prosecutor, Hollister, then took the wispy-bearded lieutenant in hand and led him along the path he wanted to take him about as easily as he had led the swarthy sergeant. He asked him if he had personally observed Private Burkett on the night in question. The man replied that he had, several times. After the corporal had informed him of Burkett’s threat to desert, he went to his deck quarters and found him lying down, apparently asleep. This was, according to his testimony, about eleven o’clock P.M.

  “The next time the lieutenant recalled seeing him was three o’clock A.M. He was making his rounds when he found Private Burkett down by the gun on the starboard side. He gave no reason for being there, according to the lieutenant, who then quickly added that from his own observation Burkett appeared to be awaiting an opportunity to leave the boat.”

  “And this wasn’t questioned by the defense counsel?” I asked.

  “Indeed it was. Mayes immediately leapt into the breach, forcing the lieutenant to admit that rain was falling heavily at three A.M. But when Mayes then suggested that Burkett might have left his deck quarters to find better shelter in the gun bay, the lieutenant stood by his original opinion. He also went on to say that having ordered Private Burkett back to his assigned quarters, he saw him again, after the rain ceased falling, in several different places on the boat—‘evidently with the intention of deserting.’ ”

  “And the defense counsel was content to leave the matter there?”

  “Not quite. He chose this time as an opportunity to bring in a Private Tharp, who had been in close company with Noah Burkett throughout the rainy night. Private Tharp as you may have guessed was that rat-faced little man—always in Burkett’s shadow. Tharp testified that he and Burkett had moved their blankets several times during the night, trying to keep dry. He declared that he had been with him all the time. Prosecutor Hollister was smart enough to bring out the relationship between Tharp and Burkett, hinting that one would be inclined to lie for the other, that it was like spouse testifying for spouse. Whether the members of the court believed Tharp’s statement, I don’t know. I didn’t think it mattered because to my mind there was no case against Private Burkett, and I was sure then that he would be set free of all charges.”

  Captain Adams reached for the brandy bottle. “Yes, that was pretty much the extent of testimony against Noah Burkett, the soldier Major Rawley had chosen to make an example of. To crush all thoughts of desertion among the others.”

  “But surely,” I protested, “they couldn’t convict a man on testimony that consisted almost entirely of hearsay and supposed intentions? I doubt if there was an enlisted man in the armies of the Union or Confederacy who did not at least once in his term of service cry out in anger or frustration that he would be damned if he did not leave the blasted ranks at first opportunity.”

  “True,” Allford the pilot agreed somberly. “But next morning I had to guide the Effie Deans through a thicket of snags to bring her in for a landing so Major Rawley could stage his death show.”

  Dr. Lieber appeared to be even more appalled than I at what the captain and the pilot had told us. “Charles Rawley never made mention of this to me,” he said, his soft-spoken words heavy with his native accent. “Surely he did not actually permit execution of this man, this Burkett?”

  “They found him guilty on all charges and specifications,” Captain Adams said, “and ‘in the best interests of the Army and his battalion’ sentenced him to be shot to death by musketry in the presence of his battalion.”

  “Without waiting for a review from the major’s regimental commander?” I asked.

  “As Henry just said, we landed the next morning,” Captain Adams replied. “The sentence was carried out that afternoon.” He rolled the brandy in his glass and bent to inhale the aroma.

  “When Rawley came to my cabin and asked me to land the boat, I was quite surprised, and when he told me why, I was dumbfounded. I did not know the rules, the command channels for putting a court-martialed soldier to death, but I was certain that some higher endorsement was necessary for legality. I suggested as much to Rawley, but he waved his arms in a gesture of dismissal and said something about the irregularity of his situation—no regimental commander was in miles of the Effie Deans—weeks must pass before communications could be exchanged, and time was of the essence if he was to stop the incessant desertions. No, he would take the responsibility, and then he reminded me that he had my assurance that the trial had been fair toward Private Burkett. ‘The man was given a fair trial, yes,’ I yelled at him in anger, ‘but the sentence is abhorrent. Mutiny I never heard mentioned but once, yet you are convicting him of that high crime because someone heard him say he was going to desert at the first opportunity. And you convicted him of being absent without leave when he never left the boat.’

  “Rawley shook a finger at me. ‘I warned you, Captain Adams,’ he said, ‘that you would not understand the military action I have been forced to take—for the good of the battalion.’ He gave me a chilling look. ‘You will bring the boat in for a landing, sir.’ ”

  Dr. Lieber leaned forward, elbows on the table, resting his bearded chin in his hands. “Quite out of character, I must say, for the Major Rawley I came to know.”

  “You knew him afterward, as I’ve pointed out,” Captain Adams said caustically. “I will admit that his later actions may have been atonement enough. But that day, it was plain to see that what he was doing disturbed him not in the least. He was so certain it was the right thing to do. And we all know, don’t we, gentlemen, of the deadliness of righteous men?”

  “Well, Henry piloted us in to a landing place on the Iowa bank, somewhere above Council Bluffs. I should’ve refused to permit the stop, but Major Rawley and I had that spoken agreement over a handshake—the Effie Deans was my command, but I would cooperate in all military matters that did not endanger the boat. As soon as we touched bank and the plank was run out, Rawley sent a squad ashore to dig a grave. A few minutes later he marched the entire battalion off, and formed them into three sides of a hollow square, with the fresh grave in the open side. They had a drum corps of sorts—two drums—and with a slow beat and slow tread, the firing squad and Noah Burkett marched into position. Burkett, with his wrists manacled behind, stood facing the firing squad, his back to the open grave.

  “From where I was, I could hear only snatches of Major Rawley’s address to the silent battalion. It was a warm early summer’s day, but an erratic wind had come up to sweep away the haze and scatter voice sounds. The calls of distant meadowlarks were sometimes clearer to my ears than Rawley’s broken phrases. Burkett’s tall muscular form was lonely against the horizon. He wore no blindfold, no hat, and his yellow hair was brightened by sunlight and the contrasting backdrop of clean blue sky.

  “Suddenly a series of quick loud commands broke the silence. I saw the men of the firing squad raise their weapons, and the rattle of carbine fire was like the sound of tearing canvas. Tiny puffs of pearly smoke lifted and vanished in a sky filled with frightened birds, the whirr of their beating wings mingling and then fading with the echoes of gunfire. I realized that Burkett was no longer visible; his body had fallen into the open grave. I saw one of the officers move toward it with a gray blanket. The heavy wool billowed in the wind, and then he let it drop over the dead man. As he stepped back, the gravediggers came forward and began shoveling earth into the shallow pit. The battalion was already moving, formed into long files, returning to the Effie Deans.

  “I don’t believe Major Rawley left any sort of marker there; he certainly allowed no time for it. Since that day, I’ve passed the place beside the river five—no, six times, and I always have it in my mind to stop and go ashore to leave a marker, a name scratched on a stone at least. He must have had kin in Kentucky.”

  Some of the poker players at the table behind us broke into laughter. A chair scraped against the floor, and one of the men swore in disappointment.

  “Incredible,” Dr. Lieber’s voice was almost a whisper. “That so sensitive a man, as he showed himself to me, could be so insensitive.”

  At that moment our attention was drawn to movement outside the open door of the gentlemen’s cabin—a dozen yards or more across the waxed flooring of the lounge. Two women, one large and buxom, the other slender, had come out of the corridor that led from the family staterooms. The slender one was Indian, hardly more than a girl, her glossy black hair parted in the middle. She wore a red blanket shawl over a black woolen dress. The white woman I judged to be well past thirty; her hair was almost as dark as the Indian’s. After they sat upon one of the plush divans facing us, what struck me about the pair was the aura of pensiveness that cloaked them. Even at the distance that separated us, I could see sadness in the Indian girl’s eyes, and as for the white woman, her face bore the marks of some past anguish that reminded me of the faces of soldiers I had seen after bloody battles, survivors who forced themselves into a reckless affirmation of life rather than a passive acceptance of its scourges.

  “Who are they?” I asked Captain Adams, whose gaze also was upon them.

  “Oh? Why, of course, you would not know them. The white woman is Nettie Steever. Runs the hotel up there in Bell’s Landing. I believe the little redskin was also rescued from Canada by Major Rawley.”

  Miss Nettie and her both, the hollow-voiced man in the poncho had said to me earlier in the evening. They were sent for.

  Damn this Major Rawley, I thought, he’s mixed himself into the lives of all these people! Yet I know nothing of him really, except the differing opinions held by Dr. Lieber and Captain Adams.

  “The girl is Towanjila,” Lieber was saying. “Blue Sky Woman. She was the daughter of Spotted Horse, as bloodthirsty an old chief as ever roamed these Dakota lands. Charles Rawley brought both women back with him when he captured Spotted Horse.”

  “Hold on a moment,” I begged him. “Captain Adams just left me with Rawley aboard the Effie Deans, after the execution of an apparently innocent man—to halt desertions. Did the desertions stop?”

  “Oh, there were no more desertions,” Captain Adams assured me. “Whether it was from fear of Rawley or fear of Indians, I don’t know. I suspect the latter. The boat’s crew told them plenty about the hostile Sioux. By then we were well into Sioux country.”

  “Why,” I asked, “did Rawley take only ten men with him to cross the Malpais?”

  “All he had left after General La Prade sent one of his colonels to meet us at Dutchman’s Landing. When we stopped there to take on wood, the colonel was waiting with La Prade’s orders in his hand. La Prade was in command of this whole district, and was trying to put together an expedition to guard a large wagon train bound for the Montana gold fields. The scheme was a darling of the Washington politicians—they were running out of gold to pay for the war—anyway La Prade grabbed the whole battalion of Galvanized Yankees, leaving Major Rawley with only the ten men to reinforce Fort Standish. La Prade’s colonel gave Rawley his choice—I heard him tell the major to select ten of his meanest soldiers because they’d have mean work to do at Fort Standish.

  “Before turning his battalion over to La Prade, Rawley assembled the companies beside the landing there at the Dutchman’s. He gave a little farewell speech, telling them of the important duty they had been chosen to perform, and asserting his confidence in their bravery and perseverance. Then he walked along the ranks, halting from time to time to motion a man to fall out, until he had chosen his squad of ten. I was mightily surprised, I can tell you, when I saw him choose Tharp, Private Tharp, that rat-faced scrub with the crooked teeth, the late Private Burkett’s constant companion. Tharp, to be one of the chosen ten—I couldn’t figure it. Maybe Rawley did not know of Tharp’s hatred for him, maybe he did. I don’t know. Anyway during the few days between the execution of Burkett and our arrival at Dutchman’s Landing, I’d seen Tharp’s eyes watching Rawley more than once, usually staring at the major’s back—well, you know, if looks could kill—

 

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