Chapter 159: One Dyin’ And A Buryin’

Editor: nnpdad 10 June 2021

One dyin’ and a buryin’,

One dyin’ and a buryin’, Some cryin’
,

Six carryin’ me,

I wanna be free.

-Roger Miller

It was a day to bury our dead and tend our wounded. We also had prisoners I had to deal with. The massive and imposing Sheriff stood guard over them right now with the assistance of Brin and that frightening double-barrel shotgun. They weren’t going anywhere and weren’t going to try. Weapons superiority was a wonderful thing.

We spent the first light patching up the wounded; that meant the wounded from both sides. I then had them send a runner to fetch travois for their non-walking wounded. Could I trust them not to bring back reinforcements?

Yes, I could.

Their tribe couldn’t take another hit like we just laid on them. They were all part of one large family and related. I couldn’t literally wipe out this sub-tribe if I decided to do it. Hell, Pete might come and do that anyway, once he heard the news. They lost almost twenty men and a few more would never fully recover from their wounds, that was at least half of their manpower. There would be a lot of wailing in their camp tonight. They had attacked us; it wasn’t our fault. It’s called ‘getting what you get for doing what you did.’

We buried our two dead. One poor soul, a tough guy, had simply frozen in battle and gotten run through by a lance. The other was simply a matter of wrong place at the wrong time; he took a musket ball directly through the brisket. We got off easy but putting people in the ground still sucked regardless of why.

We buried them near the banks of the Kansa River. We dug them each a hole. It wasn’t a perfect rectangle like you see in a Hollywood movie; it was just a couple of holes in the ground. We made them fairly deep and long enough for each of them. We lay their bodies down there with their private possessions, then tossed about a foot of dirt on them. We then laid down a layer of rocks to keep the animals away, and finished by filling the holes in with more dirt. Gruesome work, overall.

Rabbi said a few words from the old testament and we put large stones over their graves to serve as markers.

I’d seen to the wounded. We did have one guy who’d ride travois all the way back. I’d keep him drugged up a little bit, but he was just going to have to deal with the pain. It would have been different if I’d been a drug dealer on a run who got transported back, but no I was just a techie with an overwhelming desire to flee society and remake himself as a modern day mountain man.

Now it was time to deal with the Kansa. It was also time to eat. Breakfast hadn’t happened and lunch was upon us - my stomach was growling like an angry Brin.

I was damned glad to see our giant camp pot bubbling with beans and to see a large chunk of beef on the spit. We’d lost a heifer at the last stream crossing; she was proving useful one last time. We had wild veggies in with the beans; everything should be tasty and probably even kosher.