Centennial (69 page)

“You didn’t cotton to the Mormons.”

“Yes. Like I was sayin’, I could certainly not be called their defender, but they did have one idea that made a lot of sense, a lot of good common sense.” He paused here to let that sink in, and Skimmerhorn asked obligingly, “What was it?”

“They had done a lot of serious study about the Indians. Sounded a good deal like you, when they talked. Confused as to who the Indians were and why they behaved in the unchristian way they did. And then it came to them in a prophecy kind of. God sent them a message sayin’ that the Indians were really Lamanites, the Lost Tribes of Israel. Yessir, way back in the year 722 B.C. when the Assyrian King Sargon took ’em into bondage ... ten tribes ... they never got back to Israel ... just wandered about the world.”

“That’s very interesting,” Skimmerhorn said.

“You know it’s true,” his informant continued enthusiastically. “The Indian medicine lodge, for example, with all that mysterious going-on. What is it really? The tabernacle of the Lost Tribes. And you talk about sackcloth and ashes in the Bible. Don’t the Indians mourn by cutting their hair and slashing their arms? Seems clear to me they’re Jews.”

“That would explain why they’re so hellish,” Skimmerhorn said, grasping his informant by the arm. “You said they were Lamanites? Now, just what does that mean?”

“I’m not a Mormon, you understand, but I’ve had my brushes with the Indians, so I listened, and as near as I could make out, the Lamanites were God’s name for the Lost Tribes, and because they had known God and turned their backs on Him, he put a powerful curse on them, and darkened their faces, and turned all men against them. Skimmerhorn, if they knew God and rejected Him, it’s our duty to hunt them down and slay them. It’s our bounden duty.”

For some days Frank Skimmerhorn pondered this matter of the Lamanites, and he asked throughout Nauvoo for other recollections the villagers might have as to what exactly the Mormons had said during their unhappy stay there on their way to Salt Lake City, and he came up with a profound body of confirmation. The Indians really were the Ten Lost Tribes. They had been led to America by the Prophet Lehi and their faces had been darkened because of their sin in rejecting the Lord. To exterminate them was both a duty and an exaltation. They were an abomination to honest men, and the sooner they were wiped from the face of the earth, the better.

In a dream, brought. on perhaps by too much listening and too much brooding on this problem, Frank Skimmerhorn saw that he was destined to go to Colorado, where the Indians were causing trouble among the gold-seekers, and put an end to that trouble. It was more than an invitation; it was a command. In the
Clarion
he wrote:

Patient men across this great United States have racked their brains trying to work out some solution for the Indian problem, and at last the answer stands forth so clear that any man even with one eye can see it. The Indian must be exterminated. He has no right to usurp the land that God intended us to make fruitful. He has no right to chase buffalo over fields that we wish to plough, and the only logical answer to his depredation is total extermination. He and his ugly squaws and his criminal children must be exterminated, and the sooner this Territory gets about the job, the better. Today everyone cries,
“
Make Colorado a state!
”
Only when we have rid ourselves of the red devils will we earn the right to join the other states with honor. Extermination must be our battle cry.

This letter was widely reprinted throughout the gold fields of Colorado, and men of all political persuasions began telling one another, “That feller from Minnesota, Skimmerhorn, he makes a lot of sense,” and when Skimmerhorn followed with letters detailing how a determined militia could kill off the Arapaho and Cheyenne, others throughout the territory supported his policy of total extermination.

Of the public figures, only three dared speak out against this inhuman proposal. An Episcopal minister in Denver called it murder and got into trouble with his congregation, who had seen the four scalped bodies of the Barley family. General Asher pointed out that it was not the habit of the United States Army to sanction mass murder, and he was excoriated as a coward who refused to face up to facts. And Major Mercy cautioned against so brutal an action as the planned extermination of a body of people, only a few of whom had committed any crime and all of whom had had crimes committed against them. Skimmerhorn of course did not agree and launched a series of savage letters against him:

Who is this so-called Major Mercy? A limping coward who shot himself in the hip at Chapultepec so he wouldn
’t
have to fight in our present war against the rebels. Who are his friends? All the Indian-lovers in the west, all the lily-livered cowards who are afraid to do God
’s
work in protecting this land against savages. And most important, who are his relatives? The Pasquinel brothers, of shameful report, are his brothers. He is married to their sister and he is more of an Arapaho than they are. I say,
“
Colorado should be rid of this cowardly traitor,
”
and I give him warning that if he continues to spout his defense of the Indian, honest patriots are going to shoot him down in the streets of Denver.

Appalled as Mercy was by such invective, he nevertheless pleaded with his wife to avoid any public comment that might evoke further debate, but she was too much like her mother to allow such rantings to go unchallenged. Trailing Skimmerhorn from one Denver boarding house to the next, she finally found him in a hotel on Larimer Street and castigated him publicly.

Her agitation delighted Skimmerhorn, for it provided him with an additional target. He loosed a blast of his pen at her, and this, too, was carried in the papers, allowing him to recapitulate his basic theory that every Indian in the territory must be slain.

Such inflammatory statements brought the citizens to fever pitch, and they demanded military action. Unfortunately, no federal troops were available in the west, so a local militia had to be conscripted, with Colonel Frank Skimmerhorn as officer in charge. Promptly he declared martial law, promulgating these harsh directives:

All Indians who wish to remain friendly are to report within twenty days to one of the undersigned locations and lay down their guns.

After twenty days, any Indian encountered anywhere may be shot on sight.

Any material possessions found on a dead Indian belong to the man who brought him to his rightful end.

Frank Skimmerhorn

Colonel, Special Militia

The day after this order was broadcast, old Chief Lean Bear, whom Major Mercy had rescued from self-starvation, assembled a group of seven Arapaho, old women and old men who knew the folly of trying to fight any further. Under a white flag they marched to a surrender point in Denver, where Lieutenant Tanner shot the old man through the heart and sent the others scattering.

When General Asher heard of this outrage he summoned Colonel Skimmerhorn, intending to give him military hell, but as he spoke he noticed that the colonel was not standing at attention and was indeed smirking. “Skimmerhorn!” he cried as loudly as his breeding would permit. “Attention!”

The militiaman ignored the command and said scornfully, “General, your days here are numbered.”

“Colonel!”

“I have friends in Leavenworth. And influential people in this territory have been sending them reports that you’re not the man to deal with the Indians.”

“Skimmerhorn!” the slim general shouted.

“So if you’re wise, Asher, you’ll pack for a trip to Leavenworth and let me run this Indian war.”

“You’ll take no action unless I order it,” Asher said slowly, his voice trembling.

“You’re the commanding general,” Skimmerhorn said insolently. “For the present.”

General Asher was not accustomed to working with men who showed such disregard for military discipline, and he realized that with someone like Skimmerhorn his personal authority had no effect, so he decided to try ordinary reasoning. “We all know,” he said compassionately, “that in Minnesota you suffered at the hands of the Indians. But really, Skimmerhorn, you mustn’t allow the deaths of your parents ...”

“Parents?” Skimmerhorn exploded, and it became obvious that he was prey to some kind of insanity. “Yes, I saw my father shot by the Sioux. I was running from the barn when they killed my mother with a tomahawk. But what of my wife? They shot her twenty times ... thirty ... they scalped her. And my daughter. Nine years old ... curly hair ... you ever see a child nine years old scalped?” He became a monolithic block of hatred, his face distorted and his hands rigid. “You leave the Lamanites to me,” he cried. “I’ll discharge God’s duty.”

He stalked from the office, leaving Asher slumped in his chair. Pressing his one hand to his forehead, the general had to acknowledge that during this period of civil war he had no way to discipline the madman, and by the time the war ended, Skimmerhorn would be a hero and there would still be no possibility of discipline. His only hope was that Skimmerhorn’s friends at Fort Leavenworth might arrange quickly for his recall, because in Denver there was nothing he could do. He had been beaten by an adversary he could not comprehend.

The Arapaho and Cheyenne were required by law to enter a restricted camping area north of Rattlesnake Buttes, and there the pitiful remnant gathered. They had no food, little clothing, no buffalo grazing nearby, few rifles. As a gesture of good intention they turned over to the military the three white women they had kidnapped from a farm.

They were willing to place themselves under the protection of the army because of the persuasive arguments of Lost Eagle, who told them, “All men would like to stay out with Broken Thumb and wage prairie war as we have always done against our enemies, but I tell you that time is past. General Asher is our friend, Major Mercy is our friend, and he tells me that things will soon be better.”

When the major rode north to inspect the improvised camp, he stopped first at the village of Zendt’s Farm, because he wanted to ascertain local reactions. Riding down the main street, he pulled up before the stockade and at the gateway shouted, “Levi! I need to talk with you.”

From the log house Zendt and Lucinda appeared, and Mercy cried, “Where is this insanity leading us?” but before Levi could reply, he heard a sound of bugles and in a moment Colonel Skimmerhorn rode up, leading sixteen of his militia, who assumed a military stance at the gate.

“This fort is under arrest,” he announced loudly. “Zendt, you’ve been consorting with the enemy and everyone is ordered to stay inside until I give a command to the contrary.” Spurring his prancing horse, he shouted, “Sergeant, shoot anyone who tries to escape. That’s an order.”

Turning to Major Mercy, Skimmerhorn cried, “I knew I’d find you here. Sergeant, note that Major Mercy was consorting with traitors.”

When Levi heard the extraordinary commands that Skimmerhorn had issued, he tried to argue with him, but from his horse Skimmerhorn replied with scorn, “I do not converse with fucking squaw men.”

Zendt leaped at him, but Skimmerhorn pulled back and cut at him with his sword. When Major Mercy led the bleeding Dutchman away, the colonel cried, “Sergeant, take note that the squaw man Zendt attacked me with intent to kill and that I repulsed him with my saber.” Leaving a detachment to guard the stockade, he rode back to Denver, already developing the plans which would rid Colorado permanently of its Indians.

When he was gone, Major Mercy made a fateful decision. Aware that what he was about to do might involve him in a court-martial, he told Levi, “I’m convinced that damn fool had no authority to order my house arrest, and I propose to ignore it.” Taking Lucinda by the hand, he said, “That maniac has some crazy idea of wiping out the whole Indian race. He’ll probably start with the camp. I’ve got to warn General Asher.”

Zendt tried to calm him. “The Indians in the camp have no guns. There’d be no reason to attack them.”

“Skimmerhorn might attack anything,” Mercy warned. “He’s convinced he’s doing God’s work.”

“More likely he’s going to chase down the ones who didn’t turn themselves in—Broken Thumb and his young braves.”

This reasoning did not satisfy Mercy, so he devised an escape which involved Zendt’s appearing at the gate while he slipped over the northeast wall. But as he started to head south to alert General Asher, he changed his mind. Instead, he goaded the horse to the northeast toward the Indian camp at the buttes.

He reached the buttes at dusk, approaching from the south, and when he rode high ground between them he saw in the declivity to the north a confused mass of tipis thrown helter-skelter across the area where neat Indian camps had formerly stood. He thought how difficult it must be for the chiefs who had once led their people across limitless grasslands to be cooped up in such a depression, with chalk hills hemming them in.

He whistled as a signal to the outlooks who must be hidden somewhere in the rocks, but none appeared, and he realized that this tatter-demalion group was without organization or guards.

When he had descended almost to the camp, two Arapaho on foot came to inspect him, and he asked, “Where are your ponies?” and they replied, “All gone.”

They recognized him as a friend of their tribe and took him to the lodge where the chiefs sat glumly discussing stratagems whereby they might get food for their starving people. That night Mercy stayed at the encampment, warning the Indians to give Colonel Skimmerhorn no excuse for attacking them.