Don't Poke the Bear!

Chapter 45

THE PRISONERS DON'T talk much, but one whispers I got conked on the head with a rifle butt.

"Why?" I whisper back. "I'm not a soldier."

"They claimed you're a horse thief. Said you were leadin' one of the Colonel's stolen horses."

"I'm the sheriff of Dodge," I whisper. "I had a badge in my pocket."

"Maybe you killed the sheriff and took his badge."

"Shut up you two!" one of the guards shouts at us.

When we get where we're goin', there are maybe twenty prisoners, and eight guards with rifles. There's a hand cart on a track, and an actual train car about fifty yards away. As I learn over the next few hours, every 160 feet of track that gets laid, the prisoners have to push and pull the rail car back and forth over the new section to see if it works. Accordin' to the other prisoners, it takes two days for sixteen prisoners to lay 160 feet of track and test the car. Of course, every day more prisoners and guards will be brought in, which will speed the work up considerably.

For me, the next few days are all about acclimatin'.

I'm on the sledge hammer crew.

The hand cart brings me and five other men a pile of rocks. We crush 'em, and a prisoner named Eddie scoops and hauls the rock chips away in a wheelbarrow. The rocks are placed on the ground to make a path, and wooden crossties are placed on our broken rocks. Then, two lengths of iron rails are laid on top of the crossties four feet apart, and a well-trained sledge hammer man drives iron spikes into the wood on each side of the rail. The spikes have a lip on one side that holds the rail in place. The rails are sixteen feet long, and weigh 120 pounds each.

I rise at dawn, work all day, get fed a meager amount twice a day, sleep in a tent at night that's guarded by soldiers. There's little talk among the prisoners, and less involvin' me, since I'm widely considered a horse thief. The guards are harsh, but not abusive. When one soldier breaks out into song, and is punished, I think about Rudy, and wonder how he's doin'.

Of course I think about Gentry.

I think about Rose, and Shrug, and The Lucky Spur, and the town of Dodge, and how wonderful our lives had been only recently. But mostly I think of Gentry. I think of her night and day. She's the first thought I have in the mornin', and the last thought I have at night.

I don't dream often.

I think that's because I'm in constant pain from the leg shackles and exhausted by the non-stop work. I laugh to myself, thinkin' how hard I thought it was to build a jail hole. That was hard work, but at least Wing and I switched jobs every other day. This sledge hammer work jars your bones with every hit, and wears your back out somethin' fierce, and I don't have any of Rose's liniment to put on it at night.

But when I do dream, it's always about Gentry. Makin' sweet love to her. Hearin' her voice askin' if we can lay under the blanket just a little longer. Hearin' the waterfall of laughter that spills outta her mouth when Rudy chases and knocks the crap outta me while playin' tag. Sometimes I dream about the trip we took from Rolla to Dodge last year. Think about the times we lay together under the stars. Think about the fireflies at Firefly Heaven in East Kansas. The great White River Nipple Contest, where somehow she got bested by skinny little Leah.

I smile, just thinkin' about the dreams. Wish I'd come up with a way to memorize those special moments while I was havin' 'em, so I could remember every part of 'em. Like how her hair smells comin' in from a rain. Or what sounds I was hearin' that day when Gentry went dashin' off and threw herself into a mud puddle full speed and slid nearly twenty feet. The whores travelin' with us joined in, and before long they were laughin' and rollin' around in the mud, and slappin' pads of it in each other's hair. Then Gentry said, "What about you, Emmett?" and before I knew it, the whores dragged me into the puddle, pushed and poked and rolled me around, and slapped my face with mud cakes, and laughed and giggled. But when it suddenly grew quiet, I noticed it was Gentry layin' on top of me, kissin' my cheeks and mouth.

At that moment, all the others backed away, silently, realizin' somethin' special was happenin'.

"I like you, Emmett," Gentry had said to me that day.