Chapter 20

No sooner had they passed through the impressively high front gates of the fort than Sam saw the change in the trooper’s attitudes. They were back in their environment and they did their best to avoid contact with the civilians or the Indians in front of the other resident military personnel.

It was almost as if they felt direct contact was demeaning in some way and was entirely unprofessional unless they were ordered to by higher authority or were in civilian clothing themselves and either headed out the gate for a short stretch of “Liberty” or even a longer period of “Leave” that gave them some respite from the constant routine of following orders for every little facet of living in a fully organized society.

Sam was tolerably pleased that Nettie decided to stick with him instead of joining the other survivors in the “rescued” tent for all the former captives of the renegade Indian runaways. Of course, the Indian culture placed no value on restricting movements in any direction at any time that the mind or body decided it was time to tend to some chore that required their travel into unfamiliar territory. In fact, the Apaches were a sort of nomadic bunch and they were similar to the gypsies of foreign lands living by hook or by crook on the hard work of both other Indian tribes and the white settlers that were expanding like a swarm of locusts on the flat prairie lands.

Sam turned in all the records of the venture and the identification papers of the troopers, the men that had joined the posse and not survived the journey and the captives that had been rescued along with their debriefing reports of how they had been treated and what they had observed whilst on top of the mesa. A lot of it was repetitive and not in the least bit interesting but it was a requirement and he didn’t mind following the military procedures because he knew the folks back east set a lot of store in almost any type of a report.

He and Nettie set out for town and a return to the local law enforcement problems not related to Indian affairs. It was a great deal less exciting but he was happy with the slack time and used it to great advantage to catch up on his sleep and getting acquainted with Nettie’s needs for nocturnal delights. He was discovering that for an early aged girl of barely twenty, she was a real passionate female with her own ideas of the lack of limitations on feminine lifestyles and freedom to make up her own mind on her agenda as a free woman and beholden to no man except a degree of loyalty to Sam because he had facilitated her rehabilitation from the period of slavery under renegade Indian control.

He made a point of staying out of the saloon or the joy-girl palace unless it was work-related and that seemed to mollify Nettie about his attitude of monogamous living just like the religious minded settlers who were regular church-goers each and every Sunday.

The preacher man was not destined to return to their fold because he was on one of those ferry flatboats that was caught up in the swollen river rushing muddy waters with their anchoring rope all ripped up in the raging torrent.

The thing was loaded with men and horses and even a small wagon with a settler wife and some small children of unknown ages and close enough features to be the seed of the same parents.

Fortunately, the three children survived but not the mother and the preacher went down for the third time and was never seen again.

The man that ran the ferry was still alive puking up the muddy water and swearing it was not his fault because the rope was store bought and touted as top of the line at the time of purchase.

The Indian womenfolk thought it was a funny situation despite the loss of life and they refused to do anything to help the deserted children suddenly thrust on the good will of the town people with too many other matters to take up their time with a higher priority than tending to little brats with not a lick of sense between all three of them.

One way or another, they all finished up being fed and bathed by Nettie in the jail bathing tubs like little budding humans biding their time until they were all full grown and on their own in the wild frontier environment.

It was a time when children without parents were basically shit out of luck unless some kindly folks took to them and took them under their wing to prosper and survive in the harsh elements of the western lifestyle.

The oldest one was a female of about sixteen with the plainest face imaginable with a passably attractive feminine body a bit too young for rutting games and definitely too old for playing with the children if the truth be told.

Her name was Birdie and she was constantly imitating the various types of bird life that flew in all directions like they knew where they were going and didn’t want anything to do with the pesky humans that just got in their way. She had all their jabber and songs down good and proper and it was purely an education just to hear her give voice to one of them that were regular visitors to the area according to the flow of the seasons and the time of day.

The other two children were both boys and there was only about a year separating them from each other. The biggest one was called Andy and he was actually the youngest although the children had no idea of age or such matters finding it too much of a chore to keep track of such boring details and unable to understand why folks would be interested in such tomfoolery.