Piano Dreams

Chapter 7 of a Story Out West During the Civil War

          The Keynote, 1915, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) 



In their day Nell and Swane were not assaulted by sounds. No Harrier jets split sky atoms, no trillion tires ricocheted off pavement, no motors for the fucking fun of it. No false ambiance of progress. Wind they had, and horse hooves. Blacksmiths hammered shoes for horses, and black powder blew up mountains. There was music of a flute. 

Sounds Irish, said Nell. 
I wouldn’t know, said Swane.
I miss my piano, said Nell. 
We’ll get one. 
And where would we put a piano, silly man. 
We’ll get a wagon. We’re going to need a wagon anyway, with a child. 

I’m serious. You should leave me Jimmy Swane. I don’t know who the father is. 

Swane got down and helped Nell off Black, then pulled her up in front of him on Brown and circled her with his arms, holding the reins under her breasts. 

Geddup Brownie, and they rode that way, horse-spooned, through the afternoon. 


They were tired and looking for a place to camp when riders came up behind. There were five, harlequin soldiers heavily armed. Each individual had two rifles and two revolvers at least, and one led a horse carrying a Gatling gun. 

Ho there, and they pulled up. One had gold stripes on the sleeves of his jacket. Swane didn’t know. Sergeant maybe, or lieutenant. 

Ma’am, he lifted his hat to Nell. You folks seen any riders this way. We’re to escort the silver stage and warn off the Confederate outlaws. Bandanas covered their faces below the eyes. 

One rider rode close to Nell. 
Hey, ain’t I know you from Virginia City? You're that . . .
Shutup Kyle. 
Kyle wore a cowboy hat with a pheasant feather stuck in the band. The others wore military issue mixes of blue and gray.

Swane felt Nell’s body contract in his arms. 

Looks like a big battle, said Swane. He’d never seen a Gatling gun before, but he’d heard stories of it from the miners come from the east. There wasn’t anything else it could be.

Going to put that number right on the silver stage, and woe be any man tries to take it.  

The horses were restless, picked up on the nerves of their riders, Swane saw. They were a ragtag bunch when you looked. Ripped collars, missing buttons. One man’s boots didn’t match. Another’s jacket arm was stained with dried blood.

Well said the Captain, we ain’t keepin’ you folks. 
Not yet anyway, said Kyle, still close to Nell. Har har. 
Shut up Kyle, said the Captain, but the others chuckled.

I don’t like them, said Nell after they’d gone. 
Swane hugged her. 
Yeah, they’re gone now. Let’s go up this draw and find a place. 

They ate a cold supper of biscuits and beans, and huddled under the blankets. 
The nights were still warm enough, and stars saturated the sky before the moonrise. Swane dozed and woke often feeling Nell’s breathing on his hands. At some point he heard the Wells Fargo stage clattering on the road below. The silver stage, thought Swane, and suddenly the riders that afternoon made sense. He didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.  


Nell was back on Black in the morning. She was quiet, and refused Swane’s urging they ride abreast so they could talk. He was tempted to go for gold in California. Lots of streams were played out, but he’d heard a man might still find a living in the rocks. Working in the ground was a dead end, she said, and tried to talk him into education. But Nell and Black lagged behind. She was morose, and when Swane looked he thought she'd about fall off the horse. 

The road entered craggy land at the foot of the mountains. From wide open the grades narrowed down. This would be the place, thought Swane, when they rounded a bend to find the stage smashed against boulders twice its size, the four horses shot into a heap.  

Nell jerked awake. Oh my God, and she pulled out her Derringer and held it ready. 
Swane smiled in spite of the carnage. He was proud of her.
Stay here, he said, and dismounted with the rifle. 

The driver and guard were on the far side filled with bullets. Swane saw the work of the Gatling gun on the coach too. It looked like it had been hit with grapeshot. Inside a man and woman were dead. Then he heard a whimper. 

Nell come here. Someone’s alive. She got down and pulled a small bag out of the horse pack. 
Swane pulled the door open to a young girl holding her arm nearly severed at the elbow. 

They killed my mum and dad.
What is your name, child? Here, come out of there, and Nell picked her up. Let’s see to that arm. 
Lillian, she said, and fell unconscious.
She’s lost a lot of blood, Swane. And she tore an old shirt into strips to wrap it. 

Swane checked inside the stage, then the driver and guard. They never saw what hit’em he said, Attack at night like that. Four graves by my count. Maybe five. 

Don’t talk like that Jimmy Swane. 

Still, he said. Ground hard as flint itself. John Fair says Comstock silver goes to the North side of the war. Long way around I guess. And I guess that tells us who that gang was. 

What kind of man shoots a girl Swane? 

We’ll stay and take care of things. She still breathing? 

We need to take her to town. 


While Nell tended Lillian Swane tied a blanket to Brown and one at a time dragged the bodies back far enough there was room for graves. He had no shovel and anyway the ground was like granite. He’d have to bury them under rocks big enough the bears wouldn’t pull them out of the way. 

That meant a lot of rocks. They were scattered, and he had to search far for ones he could carry. He’d covered their faces with the blanket to protect them, but he also checked the men's pockets, and removed a diamond ring off the woman’s left hand. 

Nell approached with Lillian in her arms. She’s gone, she said, weeping. 
Put her down here, I’ll put her between her mother and father. 
At least that’s what we think. Nell put the girl down and fussed with her hair and the bow on her dress. 
It’s the best we can do. Why don’t you rest.
Nell straightened the girl's clothes and went to the stage and brought back red ribbons and a hand mirror and put them in Lillian's hands. 

Swane moved rocks and made space for Lillian. The work absorbed him. He forgot he was hungry. Like happened often when he was with the dead he forgot the living. Afternoon clouds moved across the sun. The dead horses attracted vultures that showed up out of nowhere, the way vultures do. A dozen circled, seventeen. He stopped counting. Even at the distance, he heard the flies.

Done, he sat on the mound of stone, swelled to three feet high in the middle. Longer than he was tall by an arm. Already a trail of red ants marched to the interior. A beetle etched a trail in the dust. 

He went and checked the place in the shade where Nell went to lie down. She wasn’t there. He called her, and walked around the rocks where she might have gone, all the while the thought, just like the vultures, came out of nowhere and sank into the pit of his stomach.  

Nell and her horse were gone.