Come Sundown (40 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Come Sundown
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“Yes, you'd better listen to your friend and go easy, Mr. Powers.”
“That's
Prowers.
”
“I don't care what your name is.”
Before John could reply, William Bent rode within earshot and said, “Hello, Colonel. Is there any trouble?”
Chivington recognized William and seemed to cough up a great deal of the sand he had had in his craw. “There will be, if these squaw men don't send their Indian wives to the reservation. Governor Evans ordered it.”
William looked over the faces of the cavalry men with his calm gray eyes. “Well, now, Colonel, my wife is Cheyenne, too, you know.” He chuckled a little. “I guess you could say I'm an old Indian fighter—my wife's an old Indian.”
The Hundred-Dazers laughed.
“But she's no threat to anybody other than me. Same can be said of these boys' wives. I promise you we'll take their war axes away from them and give them washboards.”
Again, the volunteers chuckled.
Chivington mustered his gall. “Rules are rules. Next time we pass by your stockade, all the Indians had better have reported to the reservation given to them in the treaty of 1861. I'd escort them there now, but I've got worse hostiles to hunt.”
William did not flinch. “I'll take it up with Major Anthony at the fort when we deliver the cattle.”
Again, Chivington tapped his shoulder. “I outrank Major Anthony.”
“You've got fancier jewelry on your shoulder—I'll grant you that—but Major Anthony is regular army. I'm sure he'll grant exceptions to the rules.”
“I wouldn't chance it, but it's up to you. We can deal with it next time we meet. For now I'm ordering you to send all Indians on your property to the reservation. I don't care who they're married to or by what kind of heathen ceremony.”
William shrugged—a marvelously insolent gesture of complete unconcern.
“Now, since those are army beeves, I'll take one for my boys.”
“The hell you will,” John said. “It doesn't work that way. I supply the fort. The fort supplies you.”
“I'm cutting out the middle man.” He grinned and turned to the man at his right. “Sergeant, pick a fat one.”
The un-uniformed sergeant smiled and spurred his mount, but John cut him off. “You don't pick them, I do!” he said. “These cattle are private property. I pick the ones I choose to sell to the army and it damned sure won't be the fattest. I'm trying to build a herd here.”
“There's a war on,” Chivington said, his sanctimonious voice a condemnation. “Soldiers must eat.” He gestured to his sergeant again, but William joined John in blocking the way.
“Hold on, now!” William shouted. “We can work this out! Colonel, I know you need meat for your men, but Mr. Prowers needs compensation for his investment. He's gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to establish this herd here so that the army can feed its troops. Now, if you'll produce a voucher, I'm sure we can cut out one of the market steers for you. There's one that's been limping along behind and slowing us down anyway, John. I'll see to it that Colonel Chivington's voucher is honored at Fort Lyon if you and Mr. Greenwood will go cut that steer from the herd.”
John sighed, but offered no complaint.
Chivington frowned. “Sergeant, ride back and tell the lieutenant to write me out a voucher for one beef.”
William looked at me and John. “Well, go on,” he ordered, glancing toward the sun, “the day's wasting.”
By the time we got the steer away from the rest of the herd, William had the voucher in his hand and the conflict seemed to have been resolved. Then Chivington led his men in a cavalry charge on that lame steer and began shooting at it just as they passed by the left flank of our herd. The shorthorns bolted and broke past the flank riders on the right. They ran for almost four miles before we could overtake them and turn the miniature stampede. I have never in my life heard such cussing as when John Prowers expressed his opinion of the infuriating Colonel Chivington through the settling dust of the Colorado high plains.
T
he letter arrived at Boggsville on September 3, 1864. My heart plunged as if into a cavern when I touched it—even before I saw the handwriting on the sealed envelope. You must remember that Burnt Belly had taught me to hear the voices of living things, and the paper in my hand had once been part of a tree, with perhaps some wool or cotton fibers added to it—all materials from plants or animals that even through the transmogrification of the pulp mill could still communicate feeling to me. This missive portended ominous doings.
I took the letter from the army private who had delivered it from Fort Lyon, and turned it over to see Kit's handwriting. I had to smile a little, even through my dread of what intelligence Kit's hand might impart. He had learned his letters with remarkable fluidity for one who had started so late in life to read and write. I leaned on the handle of the hoe I had been using to weed my vegetable garden against the almost-varmint-proof, rawhide-and-picket fence I had built around the garden patch, and took the envelope in both hands.
“There's lunch up at the trading post,” I said to the courier, pointing the way for him. He smiled and rode toward the towering cottonwoods of Boggsville.
I tore open the wax-sealed envelope and removed a single sheaf of parchment—Kit's personal stationery as opposed to government stock. The letter written upon it was also in Kit's own hand, lending the impression that this was a plea too personal to communicate through an adjutant.
Fort Sumner, N. Mex. Awgus 22, 1864
Honoré Greenwood, Esq.
Mr. Greenwood:
Things are not awl good here. The crops did not make on account of worms and bugs. Awl the fire wood has got burnt
and the Indians dig roots to cook weevily korn. They dont cook it good enuff and it makes them sik as dawgs. But thare are other matters for me to attin to now and ergently I ask yore help.
About Awgus 10, some Comanchies attackt lower Cimarron Springs, kilt five white men and run off oxin from a waggen train. Gen. Carleton has got awl het up about it and wants the Indians punisht. I fear a campane aginst the Comanchies is upon us. I will need yore advise and assistans. Will you come to Santa Fe upon gitting this letter?
I remane, your faithful frend and companyon,
Col. C. Carson, 1st N.M. Vols.
P S I am awful sorry for my bad spellin
A moment of panic overwhelmed me and I wondered why I had not faced up to this impending reality before now. The news of the Cimarron Springs killings had reached Boggsville nineteen days ago, giving me plenty of time to react. Yet I had failed to do anything about it. I should have prepared. I should not have been hoeing a goddamn fenced-in garden where a letter from Kit might find me. I should have been so deep inside the middle of Comancheria, or so far out on the plains among Westerly's people, that no written plea could ever have fallen under my gaze. The paper crumpled in my grasp and I flung my hoe violently into the ripening stalks of corn. I should have been … What? Hiding from the inevitable?
Now my knees buckled and I sat on the ground, leaning against the pitiful modicum of protection the tightly woven picket fence afforded a garden that was sure to be decimated by raccoons and black bears on one of those nights when the guard dogs fell into insensible sleep. That garden didn't belong here any more than I did. I cradled my head in my hands and fought back the urge to weep. I would not take up a campaign against my own adopted people. Yet I could not bear to think of deafening my ears to the pleas of one of the finest friends and bravest men I would ever know.
I heard an armload of firewood rattle on the pile and looked up through the open gap in the garden fence to see Westerly
near our lodge. She felt me watching, and her eyes swept her surroundings until she spotted me through the gap I had left open. Though I tried to pull myself to my feet in time, she knew something was wrong at a glance. I believe she even knew
what
was wrong. She stood there for a while, staring sadly at me. Then she smiled, and strolled toward me.
I met her at the gap and handed her the letter from Kit. Her brow furrowed a little, and she blinked and even smiled at the attempts at spelling. Westerly herself had become nearly flawless at spelling and grammar in Spanish and English, and daily harangued me to teach her more French. She finished the letter and looked up at me.
“He should spend more time learning to spell and less time listening to General Carleton,” she said. She giggled at this, trying to prevent my mood from plunging into depths of hopelessness as it was wont to do.
“What am I to tell him?” I asked, unable to join her in her amusement.
She took my arm and led me out of the garden. “You will know. Your heart is good and it will always guide you if you listen to it.” She stopped suddenly, and turned toward me. “Perhaps you should talk to Owl Man.”
A bright spot appeared in my vision of a future that had gone dark the moment I touched that letter. I nodded. Yes, William. William Bent. Owl Man, the wise one. Perhaps William would know what to do.
 
 
WILLIAM AND I sat at his desk at the cabin inside Bent's Stockade. He had lighted a lantern and now pulled on a pair of spectacles. He read the letter. He sat back and frowned as he pulled off the spectacles, his droll and weathered face revealing decades of struggle and toil. Then, out of nowhere, he laughed and shook his head. “I can't believe you've actually taught that old voyageur how to read and write at his age—
our
age.”
“You're only fifty-five,” I said. “Born the same year as Kit, right?”
“Sure, but we started grousin' about gettin' old twenty years ago. I never dreamed Kit would learn his letters back then. Not
that he's learned it all, judging by this letter, but no more than I put pen to paper these days, I doubt I could beat him in a spelling bee.”
“He could have dictated it to his adjutant,” I remarked.
William grew pensive and folded the letter. “No, he could not have, Mr. Greenwood. Not
this
letter. He's convinced himself that he needs you bad, and that puts quite a burden on your shoulders, doesn't it?”
I nodded.
He handed the letter back to me. “We might have seen this coming.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“You might have gone into hiding, but that would not have suited you long.” He put an elbow on his writing desk and lowered his brow into his hand. He rubbed his temples, then slowly lifted his face, letting that roughened palm stroke his deeply etched visage until his chin came to rest on his knuckles. “He left you some room to maneuver.”
“Sir?”
William pointed at the letter. “Kit's always been a man to think and choose his words carefully. The letter says he
fears
a campaign against the Comanches may be coming. That means it's not what he wants. And he asks only for your advice and assistance. He's not ordering you to take to the trail as his scout, and I don't think he ever would, though he might ask you to, if it came to that.”
“I couldn't do that.”
“I know you couldn't. Kit suspects it, too, and he wouldn't fault you for refusing, but you'd better be prepared for him to ask you.”
I shuffled my feet and shifted in my chair. “So you think I should go to Santa Fe and meet with him?”
He glared at me. “What else? You have no choice. You're in the middle of this.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “How the hell did I let that happen?”
William looked at me, bewildered. He scoffed. “You found a home out there on the Canadian. I don't even know why you're here now. Avoiding your responsibility to your home place,
maybe—I don't know. You're so clearly suited to that place, and it to you … You don't
see
that, Mr. Greenwood? After all these years?”
I felt quite ashamed, sitting there under the glare of a better man—a man I should have been trying to emulate all along, instead of getting embroiled in wars between white men or planting my garden in the wrong place. This was William's range, and he had served it as steward and sage for well onto forty years, keeping what peace he could in troubled times, fighting with his wits—and with his weapons when diplomacy failed. I might have been trying to accomplish the same on the Crossing of the Canadian where the adobe walls built by my own hand slowly crumbled into ruin. I was
already
in hiding—avoiding my responsibility to my Comanche brothers and sisters. I should have been hoofing the trails from Adobe Walls to Santa Fe for months, desperately seeking a solution to the conflict that now seemed too near to stop.
I mustered some gall and looked up at William. “What could I possibly accomplish in Santa Fe now?”
“You could try to stop the campaign.”
“I've met with General Carleton before. He doesn't believe in smoking the pipe with Indians.”
“I said you could
try.
You've got to do something. You've been sent here.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure what he meant. “Sir?”
“I never quite understood why you came to the frontier from wherever you came from, Mr. Greenwood, but it's never been my place to ask. You could have accomplished anything you wanted back in some civilized country. You're a man of intelligence and learning. You're honest and you want to do what's right. You could have gone anywhere and done anything, but you ended up here. I bet you don't even know why. Something, somewhere, lured you to this place—or more exactly to that place you love out there on the wild Canadian. You may never know why, but you're supposed to be here. You've got the brains and the heart and the will to serve your home place and your people, so
use
them.”
I sighed deeply and felt a great power engulf me, as if I had been sucked up into a thundercloud to absorb all the energies
of its winds and lightning bolts. For too many years, I had merely played at solving the problems of Comancheria. I had occasionally voiced my opinion in the council lodge. I had casually met with military and government officials on behalf of the Comanches, but only at my convenience. Never had I committed to apply all my energies and talents to the cause of avoiding a Comanche war and securing a permanently recognized nation for my adopted people. I had failed miserably, and had perhaps waited too long to accomplish anything now, but I knew I must try anyway. The power of the mystic Thunderbird beat heavily in my chest.

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