The Empire Page 19

  You’re going to be raped. You’re going to be raped. She repeated in her mind, acknowledging the reality, trying to prepare.

  Survive. You must survive. You must survive. She repeated the mantra in her head as the scout knelt between her legs.

  The two other men tightened their grip on Padma as she felt the scout’s weight on top of her. He tried to kiss her on her lips as she turned her head. His breath was foul. Padma forced back the retch of her vomit. The scout grabbed her breast and began to suck. Padma felt his coarse, dirty fingers fumbling between her legs.

  “He can’t find the hole!” taunted the blond soldier.

  “Shut up!” yelled the scout.

  “He can’t find the hole!” the blond soldier repeated, laughing.

  The scout ignored the taunting soldier. “You don’t know what I’m sayin’, but I’m gonna repay you in kind for what you savages did to us at the Little Bighorn!” the scout said.

  “I know precisely what you’re saying, you stupid, pathetic waste of skin!” shouted Padma. “This is going to be the most expensive fuck of your life, because my husband is going to kill you for it, and when he does, I’m going to enjoy watching you die, you ignorant pile of lilywhite dog shit!”

  Padma’s perfect English struck the men like an electric shock. The two men holding her jumped back. The scout sprang to his feet.

  At that instant, the two soldiers watched in stunned amazement as the scout suddenly spun on his feet like a twirling top. He then fell to the ground atop Padma’s legs. The scout howled like a braying donkey as he frantically reached for his right shoulder blade, where blood pumped from a fresh wound, staining his long johns crimson. The scout’s cries masked the soft report of a rifle shot, arriving seconds after the bullet hit its target.

  Precious seconds passed before the two soldiers realized they were under attack. They drew their Colt revolvers. They couldn’t see who had fired on them. They scanned the landscape. Padma got up on her elbows and pulled away from the scout on her legs.

  “You’re going to die now,” Padma said to the blond soldier with a vengeful smile on her face.

  “Shut up!” the soldier yelled, panicked.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “It’s very important that you listen to me, because these are going to be the last words you hear.”

  “Shut up, you fucking bitch!” the soldier shouted.

  “I want you to know that I’m enjoying this,” said Padma. “I’m loving every moment of watching you die.”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” the soldier screamed, pointing his revolver at Padma’s face.

  At that instant, the soldier’s head split open. His body landed on its side in the dirt next to Padma, then rolled slowly onto its back. As before, the soft report of a distant rifle shot landed seconds after the bullet passed through the soldier’s head. The time gap between the bullet’s impact and the latent sound of the rifle shot meant the assassin was over 1,000 yards away.

  The remaining soldier with the black hair made out the faint figure of a man far downstream on the riverbank. The man was calmly walking toward the soldier and Padma. He appeared to be reloading his rifle.

  The soldier fired all six shots of his revolver toward the figure. The assassin, well beyond the pistol’s effective range, did not bother to take cover. He continued walking deliberately upstream.

  “Your turn,” said Padma. “Time to die.”

  The soldier looked at Padma, terrified. He threw his spent pistol on the ground and began to run upstream. Padma watched as the distant figure knelt on the ground.

  • • •

  Kyle watched the solder through his riflescope. He raised the cross hairs above the soldier, estimating the bullet’s arc trajectory for the long-distance kill shot. The former Delta marksman exhaled softly as he pulled the trigger.

  The Marlin rifle bucked hard against Kyle’s shoulder. He watched the soldier through the scope as the bullet knocked him face down. The soldier slid to a halt in the sand and lay motionless on the riverbank.

  Kyle rose to his feet and began to run toward Padma. On the riverbank, he saw Padma’s dress washed ashore. He collected it and ran to her. When he arrived, he found her sitting on the ground, her arms around her legs, studying the wounded scout as he writhed and groaned in pain a few feet away.

  Padma looked up at Kyle, then turned to continue watching the dying scout, as though she were engrossed in a TV show. The scout had turned onto his back, staining the sand around him crimson with his blood. He groaned with excruciating pain from the bullet wound that had smashed his shoulder blade. His flaccid penis, encrusted with sand, hung from his long johns.

  After a few moments, Padma stood up and faced Kyle. She did not embrace him. To Kyle, her expression seemed flat—he saw no relief in her eyes. Peeking through the numbing shock of her attack was her realization that this event was simply another horrible episode in a dreadful place and time. Resignation washed over her. Grim survival was the very best one could hope for in this brutal frontier life.

  The scout groaned again. Padma and Kyle glanced at him, then locked eyes with each other.

  “I’m surprised you missed,” Padma said without emotion, noting the fact that one of Kyle’s three shots was not a kill shot.

  “I didn’t miss,” Kyle replied.

  Padma looked into his eyes, momentarily puzzled. She then realized that Kyle had intentionally saved her attacker for her. Without unlocking her eyes from his, she reached for his belt and pulled his combat knife from its sheath. She then turned toward the scout. Nearly spent from blood loss, only minutes of his life remained. Padma knelt beside him.

  “You fuckin’ cunt!” the scout said in a hoarse whisper.

  Padma reached into the scout’s underwear and took the man’s testicles and penis in her hand. She then looked into his face.

  “This is going to hurt,” she said, nodding in slow affirmation.

  Padma did not take her eyes off the scout’s face as she began to slice off his genitals. She was patient, taking her time as the dying scout screamed and writhed in unbearable pain.

  “Hold still,” she said. “You’re just making this worse.”

  Warm blood gushed over her hands. As she cut away the remaining flesh that tethered the scout’s manhood, the now genderless person watched, horrified, as Padma dropped the bloody organs on his chest with a splat. His eyes bulged, and his mouth opened wide in a silent, terrified scream. Moments later, he lost consciousness as his last ounce of lifeblood flowed onto the riverbank.

  Padma rose and walked to the body of the last soldier to die, the black-haired one who had stolen her ring. He lay face down in the sand, his arms stretched in front of him as though he was offering his surrender. She rolled him onto his back. The soldier’s eyes were open. His expression of terror was frozen on his dead face. Padma set the knife on the soldier’s chest as she fished in his shirt pocket for her ring. Upon retrieving it, she slid it back onto her ring finger, squishing blood. She held up her bloody ring hand, examining it as though she were shopping at Tiffany’s.

  Padma picked up the knife, rose, and turned to Kyle, her hands dripping with blood. Kyle pulled off his shirt for her. She ignored it and brushed past him in a daze, walking downstream along the riverbank.

  “Beloved,” he called after her.

  Padma said nothing. She dropped the knife in the sand and continued to walk downstream.

  Place: unknown

  Date: unknown

  Time: unknown

  Padma opened her eyes into darkness. Her head swirled, disoriented, heavy.

  Swaddled in blankets in bed, she slowly sat up.

  I need to use the bathroom, but I can’t see the way. The apartment is dark.

  She reached for the lamp on her end table. She couldn’t feel eit
her the lamp or the table. She felt around her bed. It didn’t feel like her bed.

  Where is the lamp?

  She heard sounds—voices singing, pounding boom box bass drums—sounds of celebration.

  Is there a party next door?

  Padma felt a pang of fear. She didn’t know where she was. Her chest blazed with pain. She touched her sternum. The shooting pain made reality surface through her haze.

  I’m not in my apartment.

  The realization that she had not awoken from her 1890 nightmare landed hard in her stomach. She raised her hands to her face and began to cry.

  Fragments of memory returned, swirling with groggy disorientation.

  She remembered Kyle’s arm around her shoulders, a hand on her arm guiding her back to the village after the attack. Hundreds of tribespeople had swarmed around them. Horrified expressions reflected the sight of Padma, clothed only in Kyle’s bloodstained shirt, her hands and face stained with blood. She remembered the roar of the mob. They’d crowded the couple, putting their hands on Padma. Kyle shouted at the mob to back off. When they didn’t, he pulled his MP7 and fired into the air, then aimed it at the crowd. Takoda pushed through the mob to join the couple. He stood in front of them, wearing his bowler hat and an anguished expression. Kyle smacked Takoda across the cheek with his gun.

  “You swore to protect her,” he shouted in Takoda’s face. “You swore!”

  The hundreds of tribespeople huddled outside the tipi gasped, outraged that a white man had so brazenly disrespected one of their braves. Takoda raised a hand to silence them. He looked at the ground. “He is right,” Takoda said to the multitudes. “I failed the Messiah. I was entrusted to protect the one who is most important. I failed. The shame is mine.”

  Padma remembered images of horse-drawn wagons in the village, brimming with supplies and equipment. Tribespeople swarmed all the wagons but two. Those two wagons were parked on the outskirts of the village, far away from the tipis.

  She remembered Kyle removing her bloodied shirt and washing the blood off her hands and face with a damp cloth. She could still smell the scout’s blood.

  After bathing her, Kyle had tucked Padma into her buffalo bed. He stroked her hair as he looked into her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes were flat with shock, transitioning to depression. She remembered Kyle saying something about promising to check on her as he left.

  Padma turned on her side, staring at her right hand, the one that had wielded the knife, until she fell unconscious.

  • • •

  Padma felt as though she had slept for days.

  She still needed to pee. She wrapped herself in a blanket and felt the tipi walls for the exit flap.

  She pushed the flap open into a nighttime celebration. Fires burned, and people sang and danced to beating drums. She smelled something—it was steak.

  “Love?” said Kyle.

  Padma was startled. Kyle was seated at her feet to the side of the tipi flap, his Marlin rifle in his lap. Hoover lay beside him, looking up at Padma. Performing sentry duty for hours, Kyle had shooed away the Messiah’s multitudes. He stood to embrace her. He wrapped his arms around her blanket-wrapped body. Her attempt to return his embrace was perfunctory. She placed her hands on his waist.

  “How do you feel?” he asked

  “I need to pee,” she replied, dazed, deflecting the question.

  Padma walked several yards away from their tipi, lifted her blanket and squatted to urinate. She ignored the warm excess that ran down her leg as she stood up. When she returned, she began to re-enter the tipi. Kyle took her hand.

  “I need to show you something,” he said.

  “I don’t feel well,” she said. Padma badly wanted to return to her buffalo bed and go back to sleep. She wanted to sleep for the rest of her life.

  “I know, love,” Kyle said. “I think this will make you feel better.”

  Kyle guided her by her hand through the darkness. Padma followed, resigned, as though walking to her execution.

  Thirty yards away from their tipi stood two tents. The larger of the two, some 60 feet long by 30 feet wide, was illuminated from within by lamplight. Kyle opened the door flap for Padma.

  As she stepped into the tent, Padma held her hands to her face. In the large lamp-lit room, she stood on an enormous Persian rug. Directly in front of her stood a wooden table with four chairs. The table was set with Staffordshire China—white porcelain plates, bowls, and serving ware accented with blue toile designs. Blue and yellow wildflowers sprang from a glass vase.

  Behind the table was an iron wood-burning stove, its chimney pipe rising through the tent’s 15-foot ceiling. Pans, bowls, knives, and kitchen utensils sat on a utility table next to the stove. Two raw steaks sat on the table, along with greens.

  Padma turned to her right. In the far corner stood a brass bed with two pillows, fresh linens and a blue and white quilt with diamond patterns. A lamp burned on the nightstand next to the bed. Opposite the bed was a wooden vanity and chair with a large porcelain water bowl and mirror. The silver brushes and combs Kyle had bought in Mr. Richards’ store sat on the vanity. An armoire stood next to the vanity, with clothes for Padma.

  On the left side of the tent, steam rose from a clawfoot tub. Crimson rose petals simmered on the surface of the hot water.

  Padma’s hands rose to her face. She was overwhelmed. Her mind challenged the reality of what her eyes beheld. Just when she thought her rabbit hole could not possibly go any deeper, she had emerged into yet another impossible scene. This one was different from the others—it was beautiful, with lost comforts that beckoned to her like temptress sirens.

  She didn’t dare to trust them.

  The monsters that attacked her had succeeded in breaking her spirit. She was reconciled to her miserable reality. Daring to hope for better was not only futile—it was dangerous. After being shot and violently assaulted, her vessel was fragile. Yielding to the powerful illusion of comfort risked wrecking what little remained of Padma on the sirens’ rocky shores.

  Padma turned to leave. Kyle gently stopped her, holding her shoulders. He hugged her. Padma did not return the embrace. She sensed danger.

  The woman Kyle held felt unfamiliar to him. The former Empress of America, the strongest person he knew, felt delicate in his arms, as though the slightest pressure would crumble her to dust.

  Kyle felt the sickening pit of guilt. His worst fear had come to pass. He had left Padma unprotected, and she had been attacked. He had brought his wife back to life with the Time Tunnel, only to subject her to a life of misery in this nineteenth-century hell.

  “Love, it’s OK,” Kyle said.

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  “Would you like a hot bath?” Kyle asked.

  Padma was silent.

  Kyle guided her to the bath. He picked up a steaming kettle from the potbelly stove and topped off the bathwater, testing the temperature with his hand. Padma watched the rose petals glide on the surface of the steaming water.

  Kyle took Padma’s blankets and helped her into the tub. She sank into the hot, sweet rosewater. The sirens were powerful, flowing into her body, seducing her. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.

  Padma sat motionless in the tub. After a while, Kyle spoke.

  “You should eat something,” he said. “I’ll make you some dinner.”

  Padma shook her head. “I want to go to bed.”

  Kyle nodded and helped her out of the tub, handing her a fresh towel. Padma held the white terrycloth towel in her hands as she dripped on the Persian rug.

  “Let me help you, love,” Kyle said, gently taking the towel from her.

  Her dried her with the towel, then took another towel to dry her hair. He went to the armoire to retrieve the gold silk robe he had bought for her in
Deadwood. He gently helped her into the robe and tied the sash around her waist. Kyle then guided her to her vanity.

  “I’m going to brush your hair, then tuck you in, OK?”

  Padma was mute.

  She looked at the reflection in the vanity mirror as Kyle brushed out her long hair. It was the first time she had seen her face’s full reflection since their arrival weeks before. It was even worse than she’d expected. Dark patches had formed under her eyes. Her cheeks had hollowed. Fine wrinkles had widened into fissures. To Padma, it was as though she had aged ten years in only two weeks.

  She suddenly reached toward the mirror and slapped it, flipping it over. Its wooden back faced her. She did not want to see the other Padma’s face ever again.

  “You’re still gorgeous, love,” Kyle said.

  “No, I’m not,” replied Padma, resigned to her destruction.

  Kyle pulled back the bedcovers. He untied her robe sash. She clutched the robe shut.

  “I want this on,” she said.

  Kyle helped his wife into bed and tucked the covers around her. She conceded that the fresh cotton sheets and goose down pillows felt wonderful. The sirens were irresistible.

  Kyle reached for the oil lamp on the nightstand to extinguish the flame.

  “Don’t,” Padma said.

  “I’m going to make a quick check outside, then I’ll be back,” Kyle said, picking up his MP7.

  Before he exited the tent, he turned to Padma. “Nothing’s getting in here tonight,” Kyle promised. “Nothing’s ever going to hurt you again.”

  Padma nodded. “I know…”

  …but you’re too late… she thought.

  …I’m already broken.

  Padma felt that something about her was now irreparably damaged, like the fouled inner workings of a child’s wind-up toy. The gears and wound springs were mangled, unable to perform properly. She still appeared to be Padma, but she no longer functioned as Padma.