The Daughter, C.B. Cooper [ink book reader TXT] 📗

was glad it was dark, he didn’t want Zeb to see the few tears that welled up in his eyes, it took a moment to answer
"Zeb, your one of the finest men I've ever known, and it was an honor to have you ride with me."
Zeb sniffed in the dark, "Your just saying that."
"Because its true,"
"Oh please— You guys are breaking my fucking heart."

Chapter

"Gracie?"
Outside the small barred window in the back, they heard her sigh, "Yeah, I guess that’s me." she grumbled, allowing the slip-up. "I just wanted to tell you two not to worry. You got friends coming, Sam Sharp. They'll be here by dawn, and they wont let either of you hang. And neither will I."
"Friends?" Sam asked, rising from the floor and making his way to the back of the cell, towards her voice. "What friends?"
"That’s for me to know, and you to find out."
Great, he thought. That’s all he needed, to put more of his friends in danger.
As if Gracie had read his mind, she said, "Their coming of their own accord, Sam. Just like Zeb. When are you going to let go, and know that everything is as it should be?" When he said nothing, she lowered her voice, "And when are you going to figure out, that your not responsible for anybody's actions except your own."
Sam frowned in the dark, "What are you talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Sam Sharp. All the guilt and burden and shame you've been carrying around all these years. They're not your own. Let them go. The woman's scream that still haunts your nightmares. The little boy you couldn’t save. The men and that baby— Let it go. You did everything you could."
Sam rocked his forehead against the wall in agony, "It wasn’t enough."
"It's never enough."
From across the cell, Zeb asked, worried by the anguish in Sam's voice, "What's she talkin' about, Son?"
Angel whispered, her voice as soft and gentle as an August breeze, "Tell him, Sam. Tell him and then let it go. Before it kills you."
And then she was gone.
Sam walked slowly back to his spot. He leaned heavily against the wall, then slid down till he was sitting. He could feel Zeb's eyes on him even in the dark, and he knew he was waiting to hear the story.
Sighing, he began.
"I was down in Mexico, fighting in the Mexican-American war, after I'd been made an offer I couldn’t refuse. I'd been in about two years when we received word over the wire that there was a renegade band of hostile Indians, attacking settlers up near The Big Thicket. I joined up with Lt. William Bradford and his men and we rode for Sour Lake Springs.
It was just north of there, that we first cut the Indians trail. The trail led us to an Indian village, just north-east of there. I went in by myself an spoke with people. Come to find out, the renegades had been through there, just a few hours ahead of us. Excited that we were so close to them, I went back and told the lieutenant. I wanted to jumped on their tail and follow them right away— but Bradford had another idea."
Sam's mind was transported back in time, as the images he had tried so hard to drown in whiskey for so many years, came back to him like a long lost enemy…
Sharp had watched in disgust as the cocky lieutenant rallied his troop and advanced down the hill towards the Indian village. The man’s stupidity dumbfounded him. Only an idiot would take his men into that stirred up bee’s nest down yonder. But there was nothing Sharp could do, except sit by and watch. He had been dismissed.
A hundred feet from the edge of the village, the troop stopped, halted by Bradfords raised hand. As one, the men all pulled their guns.
"What are those god-damned idiots up to?" he mumbled to himself. Tapping his horse's ribs, he rode a few feet down the hill to get a better look.
Bradford had turned, speaking to his men, but Sharp was still too far away to hear the the words. Then the lieutenant spun his horse back around, facing the village, and stabbed his rifle in the air.
As one, the men kicked their mounts into a lunging gallop, screaming and spreading out, they hit the unsuspecting village already firing their weapons at the stunned villagers.
On the hill, Sharp screamed, "No!" and drummed his heels hard, into his horse's flesh.
When Sharp reached the village, he kicked his feet out of the stirrups and hit the ground running.
All around him, panicked Indians were shouting, women were running and screaming, and the air was thick with smoke.
Bradford's men were slaughtering the people left and right and setting fire to tee-pees.
For a minute, he tried to get the men's attention, running and screaming, "Stop! Stop it!" But they all ignored him.
Standing in the middle of the chaos, one of the squaws caught his attention. She was clutching an infant to her chest and running around in circles, obviously in shock.
Sharp ran to her and grabbed her arm. "Come on," he hollered, "I'll help you!"
His intention had been to lead her away from the village and hide her in the woods, but she didn’t know that. All she seen when she looked at him, was the white of his skin.
Screaming, she tried to break free of his grasp.
"No, no, no! I want to help you!" he pleaded, pulling on her.
Without warning, she bent, and sunk her teeth into his arm.
"Arrgh!" he cried and let go, clutching his injured arm. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. The bite was deep.
He watched helplessly as she turned and ran. Bullets whizzed through the air like a swarm of angry bees, and a second later, she stopped short. Staring down at the bundle in her arms, she cried out. Then throwing her back, she screamed.
It was scream to shatter glass. Even there, in the midst of all the commotion, it was so loud and long at it seemed humanly impossible.
Running to her side again, he spun her around.
The blanket in her arms was soaked in blood, and the infant wasn’t moving. It was dead.
Trying to ignore the blood curdling screams coming out of her mouth, Sam scooped her up in his arms and started running for the safety of the trees. He was half way there, when she stopped screaming and sunk her teeth into his shoulder.
He screamed again, and dropped her onto her feet.
He grabbed his shoulder and yelled, "God-damn it!" as he spun away from her. Through the pain in his shoulder and arm, he felt a tug at his waistband.
Spinning back around he seen his gun in her hand, and it was like everything stood still. In that moment, the fighting ceased to exist around them and everything was deathly quiet.
He watched her slowly pull the hammer back, the muzzel pointed at his chest. Then he looked at her face. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared past him. To late, he realized what she was doing.
As she turned the gun towards herself, he screamed, "No!" as she bite down on the black cold steel. He lunged for the gun just as she pulled the trigger, blowing the back of her head off.
She fell in slow motion, her long black hair billowing around her face, her eyes wide and unseeing, her body bouncing a little as she hit the ground.
In shock, Sam stared down at her lifeless body. The infant had tumbled from her arm when she fell and it lay a few feet from her outstretched fingers. Slowly, he bent and picked up the small still bundle and placed the baby back in her arms.
He couldn’t believe that any of this was happening. All around him was the sound of screaming and gun fire. What little resistance the Indians had mustered had been cut down in a bloody hail of soldiers bullets. All around him, people were dying, and it was all his fault.
He stood by, watching helplessly, when his eye caught that of a little chubby boy. He was sitting behind one of tee-pee's, his knees pulled up to his chest, scared tears leaving muddy tracks down his little cheeks.
His heart leaping, Sharp took off in a sprint, running towards him. He couldn’t save the woman and her baby, but this time he wouldn’t fail, he would save that little boy.
He was half to the tee-pee when Bradford came riding out of nowhere, heading straight for him. Sharp glanced over just in time to see the man swinging his rifle like a club. Then his his world went black.
When he came to sometime later the camp was much quieter. Just a few random shouts and shots, here and there. Dragging his eyes open, he could see the squaw and her baby a little ways across the field. Bradford and one of his men stood there also.
He heard Bradford ask, "Is it dead?"
The man on his right brought his leg up and stomped on the infants head, crushing it beneath his boot. "It is now," the man laughed.
Then Sharp's vision swam and he was out again.
The next time he woke up, Bradford and his men were gone.
Ignoring the pain in his head and fighting the urge to vomit, he sat up and looked around at what was left of the Indian village.
The tee-pee's were all burned to the ground, black smoke still curling into the air from the ashes. Bodies lay scattered everywhere. Men and women, old and young alike, babies, toddlers, the little boy he had tried so desperately to save— all dead. He hadn't been able to save one single person. He had failed.
Hanging his head, he sobbed openly. He had caused all of this death and destruction. He alone he lead those killers to this peacefully camp. And now they were all dead because of him.

In the dark, Zeb sighed, "Son, its no wonder the Indians hate us, but that’s a whole lot of guilt your carrying around for something that wasn’t yer fault."
"Weren't you listening to the story? Of course it was my fault! I lead those animals right to that camp, and as a result, all those people were slaughtered."
Zeb was quiet for a moment in the dark, then asked, "Do you think that if they had taken a different scout along, that those people would have been spared? That someone else, besides yerself, would have been able to stop those men from doing what they did?"
His questions were met with silence.
"God-damn it, Boy, answer me! Do you think a different man would have been able to stop it?"
"No! No I don’t. But it wasn’t somebody else, it was me! I was the one, and I should have been able to stop it."
"The only way you could have stopped it, would have been to kill all of those soldiers, and that would have just added to yer guilty concience."
Silence ticked by the seconds, then Sam whispered, "I did."
"Huh? You did what?"
Sharp was quiet for a moment as he screwed up the courage to say it. He had never told a single living soul, what he was about to tell Zeb. Taking a deep breath, he let it out, "I killed all of those men. I killed Leuitenant Bradford and every last one of his soldiers, but the damage had already been done. I couldn’t save