Buffalo Trail (35 page)

T
hings immediately went wrong. As Quanah led the war party around the trees and at the white hunters' camp, what he initially saw was a few of the white men walking out to where their horse herd was grazing. That meant two things: first, that Isatai of course had been wrong when he promised all of them would be asleep, and this was no surprise to Quanah. The second thing, the real problem, was that unless they killed these three quickly, they would raise an alarm and rouse the rest of the camp.

So Quanah turned his galloping pony directly at the three men, but the distance was too great. They saw the war party and began to shout and run, two of them anyway, and so there was nothing to do but sweep down on the camp and kill everyone outside the buildings that they could, then take the time necessary to finish off the others who got inside. As long as the war party remained in one group, it would be possible to storm those places and overwhelm their defenders with sheer numbers.

Then another bad thing happened. The Kiowa on the right side of the line began veering off in the direction of the horse herd, and some of the People in the center did the same. They did this out of habit,
Quanah realized, this was the traditional way when attacking big white camps, stealing the horses first so there would be booty afterward no matter what the outcome of the fight. He thought he had made the battle plan clear in advance, but in the actual moment there were those who reverted to the old ways; he should have expected that. Now there was nothing to be done, and a substantial portion of his fighting force was out of the immediate attack.

But most of the People were still in place, and all of the Cheyenne. Discipline enforced by Medicine Water and his dog soldiers on their tribesmen could be thanked for that. So Quanah led on, and in moments he and Mochi were close to a wagon on the north end of the camp, there were white men stirring in it and also one of the original three who'd been walking toward the horse herd. Quanah momentarily wondered why this one hadn't run. Perhaps he considered himself such a great warrior that he wanted to stand and fight. That might be a grand thing, to begin this battle in hand-to-hand combat with the finest fighter among the white hunters, he could beat him and enhance his own reputation. But then another white man, a tall one, jumped down from the wagon and he was closest, so Quanah instinctively lowered his lance and shoved it under the man's chin, that good soft place, and felt the point push through and up, what a glorious sensation, next he would pull it free and use it to skewer the brave one who wouldn't run. But the spear was caught on something in the first man's head, Quanah tugged and it wouldn't come loose even though the body of the dead white man jiggled up off the ground. Quanah let himself become too absorbed in getting his lance free, and a second smaller white man came off the wagon and pointed a gun at him, he was going to shoot and Quanah would die. Quanah began singing his death song but Mochi was there, she got her knife into the small man, and then for some reason took a while to kill him. At the same time there was motion directly to Quanah's left. He
looked and saw a dog, a big black one, savaging his Cheyenne friend Spotted Feather. So Quanah finally let go of his lance—the body of the white man stuck on the end of it crumpled to the ground—and in one swift motion pulled the white tool he used as a war club from his belt and smashed it into the back of the dog's head. The beast yelped. Spotted Feather managed to pull his mangled arm from its jaws. Then he pointed his small gun at the animal and shot it in the head.

Now Quanah could turn his attention to the remaining white man, the brave one, but Mochi already had him, she stood right in front of him with blood dripping from her blade, and Quanah waited for her to plunge it into her second victim, good for her, but Mochi did not. The white man raised his gun and Quanah lifted his Henry rifle, but Mochi didn't need help, her knife arm finally flashed, but instead of stabbing the white man she knocked his gun arm down and why did she do that? Very strange. Co-bay, a warrior of the People, was right there and he raised his rifle to finish off the white man. When Mochi took a step to the side, it was clear to Quanah that she deliberately got in Co-bay's way, and with that the white man finally turned and began running the rest of the way into camp, Mochi on his heels. By now the rest of the war party that held the line had swept down on the camp and were milling around the huts where the remaining whites had taken refuge, so this last fleeing man ran right into that. Anyone could have cut him down but Mochi was right there with him and he was clearly hers, so the other warriors chose different targets. Quanah thought that Mochi must be toying with the man, waiting until the last moment to kill him, but then the door to one of the huts briefly popped open, someone dragged the white man inside, and Mochi turned away, coming back toward the wagon and her horse.

“You let him get away!” Quanah shouted. “Why?”

Mochi unslung her shotgun. “He'll die with the rest of them,” she said.

“But you could have killed him right now.”

“Are we going to talk or fight white men?” Mochi asked. She leaped on her horse and charged at the biggest hut.

Quanah took a deep breath and assessed the battle so far. Warriors swarmed around three of the four huts. The one they ignored was the small wooden one; looking through the gaps between its wooden walls, the attackers could see that none of the whites were in there. The places where they had taken refuge were the substantial huts made of dirt and earth, frustrating the warriors because they would not burn and were impervious to arrows because of the thickness of their walls. They could be penetrated by bullets, though, and so all of the attackers were shooting, there was no helping it. Quanah wished they would fire less randomly, because until they won and had access to the stores of ammunition inside, their supply of bullets was limited—but of course they were frustrated. They'd been promised sleeping victims, playthings to torment in inventive, entertaining ways, and instead only two white men and a dog were dead for sure. Warriors in pitched battle wanted to kill. They had to. The attackers jammed their guns through window openings and fired inside, or else stood back a few paces and blasted away—it was impossible to tell to what effect. Everyone was shouting, Indians and whites alike, and there was constant gunfire. Bear Mountain never stopped blowing into his metal horn, but it was annoying rather than inspiring. Every once in a while Quanah thought he could hear a woman shrieking inside the hut farthest to the south, it had to be the scrawny old woman he'd seen while scouting the white camp. Perhaps she was wounded. Then Quanah saw that the defenders had begun to fire back effectively; the first members of the war party began to fall, not many,
but a few—he recognized Crippled Foot and Wolf Tongue as they both sprawled on the ground. Of course, any Indian too badly wounded to save himself, whether one of the People, a Kiowa, or a Cheyenne, was immediately pulled to safety by someone else. That meant the whites eliminated two Indians for every one they shot—a dilemma when part of a small group, but less of a disadvantage for such a large war band.

Still, the attackers were used to avoiding any unnecessary loss of life. Quanah decided it was time to lead an assault that would end the still-uneven fight. All they had to do was break inside the huts. How hard could that be when they were so many and the defenders so few? Quanah dug his heels into the ribs of his pony and galloped straight at one of the huts. Like the others, it had a wooden door, secured, he knew, from the inside. He wheeled the pony, yanked on its tether, and backed its legs into the door. Panicked, the pony lashed out with its hooves, which battered into the wood. Quanah was sure the wood would splinter, but it didn't. He howled in fury and kicked the pony's ribs again. It fought him, trying to move away from the hut, but he sawed on the hide tether, cutting the pony's mouth. It kicked at the door again and again but the door held. Unlike white men, the People had no obscenities in their vocabulary. Quanah howled again and gave up. He hopped off the pony and clambered onto the dirt roof of the hut. Then he pointed his Henry down and fired through the dirt down into the hut, certain he would hit someone inside. Other warriors followed his example. Within moments, the roofs of all three huts were occupied by Indians firing down, hoping to annihilate the whites inside.

Then a curious thing happened. There was a puff of dirt by Quanah's feet and a bullet clipped feathers from his headdress. It happened several more times before he realized that the whites inside were now shooting up through the roof: he was as vulnerable as they were. On the roof of an adjacent hut, a warrior screamed and fell, rolling off the side and
tumbling to the ground.
“Get down, get down from there!”
someone screamed, and Quanah and the others did, scrambling down and flattening themselves against the earthen walls, but that wasn't safe, either, because now the crafty white men poked the barrels of their guns through the walls, making little holes through which they could fire point-blank. They weren't just shooting back through the broken windows anymore. More warriors fell, too many, and though most were picked up and dragged to safety, a few were obviously dead and left in the dust.

How are they still alive in there?
Quanah wondered.
We've fired so many shots. How can this be
?

For just a moment, the attack flagged. The war party didn't retreat, but they hesitated. In that moment, sustained fire poured out of the three huts, through the windows and the walls. Serpent Scales, one of the Cheyenne dog soldiers, shouted something incoherent and ran straight into the gunfire, somehow surviving, not even hit once. He took his small gun in his hand and thrust his arm right through one of the window openings, firing until the hammer clicked on an empty cartridge, and that was when a white bullet obliterated his face. But his courage inspired everyone. The rest of the war party rushed the huts again, everyone screaming and shooting, but they could not break down the doors or get through the windows despite their great numbers. The fire from inside the huts was constant and too many warriors fell. There was great confusion. Quanah, caught in the middle of it, was startled when Gray Beard appeared at his side and shouted, “We need to get everyone back, too many are getting hurt!”

“No,” Quanah protested. “We can't give up.”

“We're not giving up, we just need to think of another way. Now get everyone back,” Gray Beard insisted, and when Quanah didn't immediately agree, the Cheyenne chief signaled for the dog soldiers to organize the fallback. Medicine Water, some bright blood on his shoulder from a
slight wound, barked orders and gradually all of the attackers withdrew back across the meadow toward the creek, some still firing at the huts, some scattered shots coming back. Angry and frustrated as he felt, Quanah was pleased to see Mochi was apparently uninjured. In the sudden quiet he heard a new sound, a high-edged sort of keening, and he looked to see Isatai high atop the bluff. The fat man was still painted bright yellow. He had his arms spread wide and was chanting. What a fool.

A
fter the saloon door banged shut behind him and was secured, McLendon wanted to lie limp on the floor and catch his breath, but he had no opportunity.

“Get your Colt and start shooting, C.M., we got to drive these bastards off!” Bat cried, and when McLendon looked around he understood the immediate peril that they were in. Furious red faces were jammed up against the broken spaces where window glass had been. Bullets penetrated the sod walls in every direction and at every angle. Besides Bat and himself, perhaps nine or ten other men were also inside the saloon—Billy Dixon was among them—and everyone had his handgun out, shooting back through the windows and walls as fast as he could pull the trigger. To stop shooting meant death. Summoning desperation if not courage, McLendon drew his Colt and starting firing, too, not aiming at any Indian in particular, just shooting at all the movement outside the broken windows. Like the other defenders, he tried to pull overturned chairs in front of himself as partial cover. Then he saw a table on its side and huddled behind it. He was certain that any moment one of the bullets tearing into the saloon would hit him but somehow none did. When the hammer of his Colt clicked on a spent cartridge, he reloaded. He had
some shells in his pockets. His hand trembled as he tried to insert the fresh ammunition.

A shrill sound rose above the shouts and gunfire, and someone said wonderingly, “Ain't that a bugle? Is the Army here?” but the notes were weird and jangled. “Who's blowing a goddamn bugle?” the same man asked again, and McLendon thought,
It's an Indian painted black,
but didn't say it out loud because he was concentrating so hard on reloading.

McLendon was just ready to resume firing when the first bullets began slamming into the saloon from above. “They're on the goddamn roof!” someone shouted; McLendon looked and it was Bermuda Carlyle, with Carlyle and Billy and Bat at least some of the best fighters were in the saloon with him, thank God. Caught completely by surprise, for a few moments everyone crouched and flinched, and then Billy Dixon said, “Shee-yit,” drawing out the cussword, pointed his gun at the roof, and fired right up through it. “They can shoot down, we can shoot up,” Billy urged, and they did, all of them at first, but then that left the Indians on the ground unaccounted for and their shooting intensified. Some of the white men in the saloon shot through the walls again.

The saloon fogged with gunsmoke and stank of sweat and fear. The stench was so foul that McLendon wondered if he'd pissed himself. When he reloaded a second time he took a moment to check his pants and felt a brief twinge of pride because they were dry.

After what seemed like an eternity it occurred to McLendon that the Indian assault was slackening. There was no more shooting down through the roof; they'd apparently driven off those attackers with their own gunfire. Billy, Carlyle, Bat, and a few others—Jim McKinley and Frenchy, McLendon saw—began using rifle barrels to poke small portholes through the sod walls. This gave them wider angles of fire, and now they picked out individual targets. Watching them, McLendon felt unabashed admiration. He'd always known they were wise in the ways
of the frontier, but he had never realized how brave these hunters and their crewmen were. In this deadliest of situations, they kept their wits about them and found the most effective ways to fight back. McLendon couldn't credit himself with anything similar. He still wielded his Colt, he fired some shots, but he didn't move from his spot behind the table in the middle of the saloon floor. It just seemed safer there.

There came almost a complete lull, just some scattered shots popping on either side of the saloon.

“Wonder what condition the others are in,” Bat said. Though the Rath store was to the south of the saloon and the Myers and Leonard store and its corral to the north, because of the window placement it was impossible to look directly at either of the buildings.

“There are some still alive in each; you can tell by the way the Indians have been charging,” Jim Hanrahan said. McLendon hadn't previously noticed him, but of course he was in the saloon. So were several of his employees—Oscar Shepherd, Hiram Watson, Mike Welsh. Billy Ogg was there too. “Jesus, look at the damage to my property.”

Broken glass from windows and bottles covered the saloon floor. The chairs being used as extra cover were scored by bullets. McLendon looked at the table protecting him and saw several bullet holes. He thought that passing through the sod walls must have cost the bullets some velocity. Otherwise they would have smashed through the table and into his body.

“Anybody wounded?” Billy Dixon asked. “By that I mean disabling hurts, of course, not scratches.” Everyone had some cuts from flying glass and splinters, but nothing more. “All right, then,” Billy said. “Let's assess remaining ammunition.”

“Are the Indians gone?” McLendon asked hopefully.

“Far from it,” Jim McKinley said. “In fact, here they come again.” With shrieks of fury, the Indians attacked.

The second assault frightened McLendon more than the first, because this time he immediately understood what was happening. A howling hoard descended on the saloon, and once again the defenders fired through the window openings and walls and their makeshift portholes. McLendon was more aware of individual moments than an overall fight. An Indian face covered with bright blue paint appeared momentarily at a window, and McLendon simultaneously fired and wondered,
How do they make that color?
He must have missed his shot, because moments later the same blue visage appeared again. Then the trigger guard on McLendon's Peacemaker seemed loose, and he wondered if he had his screwdriver in his pocket but didn't have time to look, let alone pause and fix it. If the trigger guard fell off his gun, he hoped the weapon would still fire. For his next few shots he was concerned about that, but the guard stayed on and then he forgot about it. At one point Bat Masterson hollered, “Use your rifle, C.M.—more stopping power!” but when McLendon looked in the corner where he'd left his Winchester so many hours ago, he saw that the stock had been smashed and the weapon was useless.

Hiram Watson crouched near one window, shooting his Colt into the surging mass of copper-colored bodies outside, and just as he emptied the handgun a long Indian arm poked through the window opening, and at the end of that arm was a pistol, and the pistol began spraying shots wildly into the saloon. Frenchy was grazed by one of the shots; he moaned a little, and McLendon surprised himself by leaping forward and aiming his Peacemaker just above the invading shoulder where he knew the Indian's head had to be. He pulled the trigger and besides the bang of his shot he heard an odd sound like the pop of a child's balloon. Something wet flew onto his face and as he wiped at it with his sleeve he was yanked down by Bermuda Carlyle. When he looked at what he'd wiped off, he was puzzled.

“What's that mixed with the blood?” he asked, and Carlyle told him that some of the savage's brains had splashed on him.

Shortly after that, the shooting stopped again. Billy Dixon, taking a chance and peering out a window opening, said it looked like the Indians were backing off in the direction of the creek.

“They'll just be catching their breaths, is all,” Billy said. “There are too many for them to quit. They came to wipe us out, and this early setback won't change their minds.”

“We'd best prepare for more,” Hanrahan agreed. “I believe I see a canteen that went unpunctured, so let's each take a sip of water.” They passed the canteen around. McLendon thought the lukewarm water tasted better than the coldest beer he'd ever had.

They gradually became aware of a constant keening from the Rath store off to their right. “Mrs. Olds, I don't doubt,” Hanrahan said. “You know, I worry most about the ones over there. We're decent fighters here in the saloon, and some other good men must be defending over at Myers and Leonard. But the Rath bunch will mostly be shopkeepers with little if any fighting skill. Dixon, can you see anything of the Indians just now?”

Billy cautiously craned his neck by the biggest window opening, which faced east. The Indians had moved back to the northeast. “It's hard to tell, but I think they're gathered and palavering,” he said. “I've never seen so many savages together at one time. And a curious thing—there's Co-manch, a bunch of them, but also Cheyenne, and damned if I didn't think I saw some Kioway.”

“A united Indian army,” Carlyle said. “Any white man's worst nightmare come true, and why in hell did it have to be on us?”

“Keep a sharp eye out for them, Billy,” Hanrahan said, and he cracked open the door. “Hello, Rath and Myers!” he shouted. “Can you hear me? What's your condition?”

Almost immediately, there was response from the north. “Ten of us at Myers, all still fit to fight.”

“Mike McCabe,” Billy Dixon said. “He's a cool man in a fight. Nothing from Rath?”

“Nothing beyond that damn woman screeching, but I'll try again,” Hanrahan said. He called, “Rath store, can anyone hear me?”

Jim Langston, his voice reedy with fear, called back, “Just five men and Mrs. Olds. Someone come help us—we can't hold them off again.”

“Sounds like they're done for,” Frenchy sorrowfully. “Bad for them and for us too. They get overrun, the Indians will turn more of their attention to this saloon.”

“I think we should reinforce them,” Billy Dixon said. “I'll try to get over there; maybe one more could come with me?”

McLendon couldn't imagine continuing the fight without Billy. “I'll go.”

“All right, then, get your gun and we'll— Hellfire, here they come back at us.”

This time the Indians altered their assault. Instead of an all-out charge, they came up cautiously, using the corral and stalls of Myers and Leonard's and the towering hide ricks behind the Rath store as cover. Though less immediately terrifying, it caused the white defenders considerable frustration. Hampered by the limited sight angles of the windows and self-made shooting portholes, it was impossible for them to see much until the attackers were almost on them. All they could do was wait nervously until a target presented itself and then try to shoot fast and accurately before the Indian could conceal himself again. McLendon mostly kept himself ducked below a window opening. When he tried cautiously peeping out, he found himself flinching involuntarily, waiting for a bullet to smash between his eyes. This weakness shamed him—none of the others seemed to flinch. Once Bat Masterson glanced
over, saw his reluctance to stand steady, and said, “C.M., if a bullet's going to find you, it will. Ain't nothing you can do about that. Get to sending back some shots of your own, make them the ones to feel shaky.” McLendon tried. When he saw any Indian movement he fired at it, though he was certain he didn't hit anything besides the ground or corral posts. The shift in Indian tactics brought a different kind of tension to the fight. Because there were stretches of near inactivity with no targets to shoot at, the men in the saloon had more time to think about the dire situation in which they found themselves. Rough, tough Bermuda Carlyle, who'd openly mocked church attenders back in Dodge, blurted, “Lord Jesus, preserve us from the heathens.” Several of the others muttered, “Amen.”

The discordant bugle blats continued. At one point Mike Welsh said, “Shit, I see the damn bugler, and it's a black man, a big fat one.”

“What's a black bugler doing with the Indians?” Billy Ogg asked.

“It must be one of those so-called buffalo soldiers, an Army deserter,” Hanrahan said. “I've heard of such. They get sick of the discipline, so they run off and throw in with the Indians. Goddamn traitor is what the man is. Whatever else we do, let's kill that one. At least it'll end that hateful noise he's making.”

McLendon thought again about telling them that it wasn't a Negro, just an Indian painted black, but his throat was dry and it didn't seem worth the effort. Thinking of that Indian with his bugle, he next remembered how Isaac and Shorty had died. He felt badly about Isaac.

A few minutes later Frenchy, peering out a front window, said, “I see the black man again; he and some others are at the Scheidler wagon.” Billy Dixon moved over to take a look, and so did McLendon. The Indians had turned the wagon on its side so that they could take shelter behind its raised bed. Several of the savages, including the stout one painted black, could be periodically glimpsed behind it, gorging
themselves on the food supplies that had spilled down—bacon and bread and dried fruit.

“I do hate to see them in such delight,” Frenchy muttered. “But it's, what, a hundred yards or more and they're mostly under cover. Billy, what do you think?”

Billy looked toward the other side of the saloon, where Oscar Shepherd, Hanrahan's bartender, was posted at another window. “Oscar, is that a big Sharps you've got there?” When Shepherd said it was, Billy asked, “Would you swap it for a lighter weapon? I believe my .44 caliber would do you fine, and if I had that Big Fifty, I might make use of the increased range and power.”

“You're the best shot among us, Billy,” Shepherd agreed, and they exchanged rifles.

“Ahh, a Big Fifty,” Billy cooed, stroking the barrel of the heavy rifle before lifting it to his shoulder. “Frenchy, C.M., step back a pace. I got to lean out and get the angle right.” Some shots drove Billy back; bits of displaced sod sprayed through the air. “Damn,” Billy said. “Lay down some cover fire, boys,” and Frenchy and McLendon did. As soon as they paused, Billy popped his head and shoulders out the window, swung the Big Fifty into shooting position, aimed, and fired. He jerked back inside and grinned. “There's one less bugler now.”

“You got him?” McLendon asked.

“I drove the shot right through that wagon bed. Big Fifties have some wallop. I doubt we'll hear that bugle again.” They didn't.