Bloody Trail (12 page)

They finally arrived in Kansas in December,
and were sent to refugee camps near Fort Belmont. Most of the
Indians had only the clothes on their backs. The federal government
was not prepared to accommodate so many people in winter, and did
not have sufficient food or shelter. Many more of Opothleyahola’s
followers died of sickness and exposure. The old chief
Opothleyahola was among those who perished. So was Charley
Blackfeather’s wife, Hachi, and their daughter, May.

Many of the surviving warriors were eager for
revenge on the Confederates—the white and Indian ones alike. Union
Indian regiments were formed—mostly Seminole and Creek, but with a
good number of Cherokees and a handful from other tribes. Charley,
like many escaped slaves and free blacks from the Indian Nations,
joined a Kansas colored regiment. Most of its troops were ex-slaves
from Missouri and Arkansas, but about a third were from the
Nations, and most of that number were Seminoles.

Over the next three years, Charley saw action
in Indian Territory, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri. On more than
one occasion, his outfit fought against guerrilla bands—Charley
came to view those Southern irregulars as the lowest of
scum.

On September 27, 1864, that opinion was
solidified forever.

Charley’s company—what was left of it after a
lengthy period of campaigning with no replacements—was attached to
the 39th Missouri Mounted Infantry. The largest part of the Union
force in the region had moved east to defend St. Louis—the 39th was
charged with preventing guerrilla depredations along the
Kansas-Missouri border.

They received word of just such a
depredation—a bloody guerrilla raid in Centralia, Missouri. The
39th rushed to the town’s rescue. Late in the afternoon they
spotted a small band of Rebs, and the commanding major ordered a
full-on charge at them. Charley and many other seasoned veterans
were very uneasy about those tactics, but in the heat of the moment
there was no time to argue. Major Johnston ordered his men to fire
a volley into the fleeing guerrillas.

As soon as their weapons were discharged, the
trap was sprung. The hills around them came alive with whooping
Rebs, busting forth now from their hiding places. It was the oldest
trick in the book, and the Yankees had blundered right into
it.

Hundreds of Confederate raiders were upon
them, and there was no time to reload. Most of the Rebs carried
revolvers—in some cases, several of them. The firepower was
withering, and the Yankees were scattered—it quickly turned in to a
rout. The Missouri Union men and their black comrades rode
desperately, trying to find an escape avenue, but there was none.
Men and horses fell screaming all around Charley. Rebs rode down
unsaddled Yankees—trampling some, shooting others, and occasionally
slashing at them with sabers.

Charley saw his friend Sango Chedakis several
yards away; the younger Seminole had been thrown from his dying
horse and seemed dazed himself. He had lost his weapons in the
fall. Sango’s father, Cudjoe, had been one of Charley’s oldest
friends, since they had fought together as teens back in the
Everglades. Only a couple of years older than Charley, Cudjoe had
stepped in and taken him under his wing when Charley’s father died
in battle. Cudjoe and Charley had been taken prisoner and sent to
Indian Territory together, and their sons played together. Cudjoe
had been killed in the flight of Opothleyahola, the same as
Charley’s two boys; in the years since then Charley had taken his
dead friend’s son under his own wing, and in some ways, they had
become to one another the father and son each had lost at the hands
of the Rebels.

Charley had barely had time to register
Sango’s plight when one of the Confederates galloped past the
youth—a lanky, hatless man with a shock of red hair. A saber
flashed in the sun, and Sango’s head sailed away from his body in a
bloody arc. The Rebel never slowed down. His face was burned into
Charley’s memory, though—and he saw it again, on the day Danby’s
gang raided Wolf Creek. Rebel Red wasn’t among the bodies of the
outlaws left behind with Wes Hammond to ambush the posse—which
meant he was still out there, among the killers they were still
pursuing.

Before Charley could react to Sango’s death,
his own mount was shot from under him and he was sent hurtling to
the ground. He twisted and hit the grass in a roll, coming up with
his Bowie knife and tomahawk both drawn. He surveyed the scene—and
saw Union soldiers throwing down empty rifles and raising their
hands in surrender, only to be executed. Some begged tearfully for
their lives, to no avail. Raiders stooped over fallen Yankees and
scalped them or cut off pieces of them for souvenirs.

Such sights no doubt instilled ever more fear
into the Yankees who still fought on, but had little effect on
Charley Blackfeather. In his world it had always been standard
battlefield behavior. He had not only seen it before, he had dealt
it out—and he had no illusions that any amount of begging would
prevent him from suffering such treatment from an enemy, nor would
it ever have occurred to him to try even if he thought it
might.

A laughing Reb on a black horse charged
straight at him. Charley jumped aside and hurled his tomahawk in a
fluid motion. It thunked into the front of the man’s skull,
splitting his face like a melon. Charley leaped into the saddle
even as the dying Reb slid to the ground. Charley took the reins
and sped toward the opening of the draw.

Three men from his unit, still mounted,
wheeled away from the slaughter and joined him in his flight. For
one mad moment, Charley thought they might actually make
it.

But then a group of Confederate horsemen cut
them off and blocked their way. Within moments, more Rebs came from
behind. They were surrounded.

“
Hold up, boys,” one of the Rebs
called out to the others. He was a thin, hawk-faced man. His eyes
were wild with bloodlust, and his mouth was twisted into a hateful
sneer.

“
Hold your fire!” the man
commanded.

“
But Captain Danby!” one of the
men answered. “We got ‘em!”

“
Oh, we got ‘em,” Danby said. “We
got ever’ one of the sumbitches. But there ain’t no need to be in a
hurry now, we got this thing won.”

Charley’s gaze was drawn to a hatless young
Reb who was reined in beside Danby. He was in his early twenties,
with a shock of dark hair and dusky skin. He was an Indian,
probably Cherokee.

“
Ain’t no need to rush,” Danby was
saying. “I mean, look at what we got here. We got us some live
niggers in Yankee blue—been shootin’ at white folks! A quick death
is too good for ‘em. We need to do somethin’ special, make a good
example.”

“
Like what, Jim?” one of the men
said. He was tall and rangy, with long stringy hair.

Danby’s sneer grew wider. “Well, Wes, I say we
skin ‘em alive.” He gestured at the dark youth beside him. “You’re
pretty handy with that lasso, kid, and I seen you back at the train
standin’ around like you was lookin’ for somethin’ to do. Rope me
that big buck yonder with the feathers, looks like he’s most likely
to give us trouble.” He laughed. “Maybe we can braid you a new rope
out of his hide!”

The youth hesitated. Danby stared at him, the
sneer fading.

“
I give you an order, boy,” Danby
said.

The lanky redhead who had killed Sango
snickered. “The kid ain’t got the guts for man’s work,” he
said.

“
Shut up, Davis,” Danby said.
“McCain’ll do what I tell him, won’t you, boy?”

“
It’s one thing to shoot ‘em
down,” Derrick said. “Hell, they shoot ours when they catch ‘em.
But I don’t want any part of torturing people like we was wild
Injuns.”

Danby leaned over in the saddle and
back-handed the youth. “You little shit!” he said. “You’ll do what
I say! You’ll skin them monkeys your own damn self, or by God, I’ll
skin you!”

“
Like hell!” the young man said,
and reached for his pistol.

There could be no better opportunity for
Charley and his comrades. He charged directly into the distracted
Rebs and burst through their line, the other three black soldiers
behind him.

The Rebs gathered their wits quickly. A
fusillade rained on the fleeing soldiers. Charley felt the bullets
plow into him. One in his right shoulder, another breaking a rib in
his back, a third in his left hip. He leaned close to the horse’s
neck and held on, as if he could outrace the bullets. He never
looked back.

But he survived. He escaped. The other three
did not. Charley spent the last months of the war healing. His
dreams were haunted for some time by Danby and the young man with
the Cherokee face.

And now fate had brought them back together.
Some people would regard that as an incredible coincidence. Others
would realize that it was not so incredible—that Kansas and
Missouri comprised a world much smaller than one might expect, and
that the war in those border states was a web whose strands
connected everyone in one way or another. Truth to tell, there were
probably several former Union Jayhawkers and Confederate border
ruffians living in Wolf Creek, interacting every day, and that was
only to be expected. This meeting, such people would say, was no
different.

But Charley Blackfeather knew better. He knew
that there was a symmetry to the spirit world, that led inevitably
to balance. When he saw Danby and McCain on the streets of Wolf
Creek, Charley knew that it was the drawstrings of nature pulling
them all together. He had privately concluded that Wolf Creek was a
mystical place, imbued with powerful medicine—a thin place between
worlds, that drew lost souls to it with the suction of a whirlpool
acting on driftwood.

Of course, he would never be able to explain
his beliefs on the subject to white folks. He didn’t have the
words, and they didn’t have the ears to hear.

But here he sat, beside a ghost from his past,
and he knew it was so.

CHAPTER SIX

Derrick McCain lifted his head and sighed
deeply.

“
I used to worry every day that
someone was gonna come into town and recognize me from those days.
I guess, as the years went by, I just put it farther and farther
back in my mind. And now, here you are.” Derrick’s eyes narrowed.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier, in front of
everybody?”

Charley studied him a moment.

“
On account of you got me
puzzled,” the scout finally said. “At first I thought maybe you was
workin’ with the outlaws—you did before—but now I ain’t so sure. It
was plain to me that Danby recognized you, same as I did, but seems
like it come as a shock to him. And you wasn’t play-actin’ this
evenin’ at that ambush.”

Derrick nodded sadly. “But I reckon it’s just
too much of a stretch. I don’t guess you expected to find somebody
who rode with Quantrill bustin’ sod in Taylor County.”

“
Wasn’t expectin’ it, no,” Charley
said. “But wasn’t surprised. Fact is, I think I’ve spotted one or
two others. Not from the same band as you and Danby, but I know
I’ve seen ‘em before. I’ve got an eye for faces. I would’ve placed
you, if’n I’d seen your face good before today.”

“
How come you ain’t said nothing
about them?”

Charley shrugged. “I ain’t got no personal
stake with them. I ain’t tryin’ to re-fight the whole war—around
here, that would have no end.”

Charley put the knife back in its
sheath.

“
You ain’t gonna stab me?” Derrick
said.

“
Not sure. Not right at this
moment, I don’t reckon. Just didn’t want you to panic. I remember
that you saved my life that day, whether you meant to or
not.”

“
It was a bloody day,” Derrick
said. “One of the bloodiest. And I was tired.”

He looked away from the Seminole, into the
darkness.

“
I had never really planned on
taking such a course,” Derrick said. “I really did ride east to
Tennessee, after my brothers, to join up. We were all there in the
Army of the Mississippi, under General Albert Sidney Johnston.
General Johnston died at Shiloh—and so did my brothers. A whole
hell of a lot of people died at Shiloh, it was a mess.”

Derrick closed his eyes for a moment, lost in
a bad memory. “And it wasn’t long after that when I got the news
from Wolf Creek. Some Jayhawkers had rode out to my folks’ farm one
night and hung my pa from a barn rafter. Like I said, Pa was strong
on popular sovereignty back in the ’fifties, and on the South. And
on slavery—he always said slavery was an excuse Yankees tried to
use to cripple the South in Congress. Anyways, he didn’t make many
friends in these parts. I always sort of guessed that he was doing
more than talking back then—they called this Bleeding Kansas for a
reason, after all. Pa had friends that was hacked up by John Brown
and his sons.”

Derrick spat. Charley noticed that his fists
were now clenched at his sides.

“
I was supposed to be here,”
Derrick said. “Helping him and Ma. Instead I was hundreds of miles
away. Pretty soon, it got to the point that I didn’t see any sense
in lining up with thousands of other Southerners, face thousands of
Yankees in a field, and then blowing the hell out of each other day
after day. Not when the sons of bitches that murdered my pa was
running scot free along the Kansas-Missouri border.