Come Sundown (49 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Come Sundown
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A moment of silence passed, then my brother, Kills Something, raised his rifle. “I will ride with the slayer of the white buffalo.”
“And I will!” shouted Fears-the-Ground, still mounted and holding Castchorn for me some distance away.
A dozen more warriors shouted their willingness to ride. Then a score, twoscore, and within seconds a hundred men were ready to brave the guns that shoot twice. By the time we reached the creek, two hundred had joined. I stopped outside of howitzer range and looked at the warriors around me. I was about to lead a charge on the soldiers of my own friend. But I had asked myself, as Kit had taught me, Is this
right
? And I knew it was. All the while, I knew he believed his own actions right, as well, and I wondered how two men, so alike in values and temperament, both true of heart, could end up pitted against each other in battle.
“If you stand still, you are a target for the thunder guns,” I reminded the riders.
“Then why do we not
ride
?” insisted old Chief Little Bluff.
I smiled at him. “It is time.” I loosed a war cry that had been building in me since Kit's soldiers killed All Horse and beat the hell out of me back in New Mexico. Buffalo Getter leapt sideways in excitement as the din of battle yells rose around me, then he led the charge across the creek. I held my mount back as we ran through the timber of Adobe Creek, then gave him his head as we reached the open prairie.
The view ahead of me was one of the finest sights I have ever seen. Painted and feathered Ute warriors on horses milled about in a line before the old fort. Three hundred soldiers in blue coats stood behind them ready to meet our charge, spaced several paces apart in a semicircle that embraced Adobe Walls and the artillery position on the knoll. The sun painted the old adobes a golden hue that complemented the tawny field of tall grass across which I galloped. To the right and a little beyond the fort, a cluster of bluecoats danced around the two howitzers perched on the rise.
I had forgotten how fast Castchorn could run. I felt amazed at the speed at which we flew over the prairie. Nothing but cold winter air stood between me and the enemy's guns. I thought about the gunners taking aim, and suddenly veered directly in toward the Utes, running for fifty yards before I dashed back away from the enemy's front, riding in irregular sawtooth jags to constantly vex the gunners. Angling back in toward the enemy, I dropped to the right of my mount, using his neck as my shield. I did not even draw a weapon, for it was my job to lead the charge at top speed, evading enemy gunfire. The warriors behind me would fling plenty of lead and arrow points.
The muzzle of a mountain howitzer sprouted a white cloud of smoke, the air whistled, and a second later the prairie soil behind me erupted. I glanced behind and saw two ponies down, but knew the men in the rear would pick up the riders, dead or alive. I dashed away from the enemy line, Castchorn finding new speed in escaping the gunfire. Bullets were cutting the grass all around me, and the shell from the second gun exploded to my left. Now I knew I had a few seconds while the gunners reloaded, and I veered toward the soldiers, screaming a war cry that tore at my throat like a storm wind.
“Shoot them!” I yelled to the closest warriors behind me, and the men began to rain their fire into the ranks of the enemy. The Utes were riding along with us, though they could not match our speed, and I saw one grab at a wounded arm, though he managed not to fall. A bluecoat rose from the grass and fired, only to catch an arrow in his leg, forcing a scream of pain
and horror from his mouth. The bugler signaled for the soldiers to fall back. Probably, I thought, to keep them away from the cannon fire to come.
Now my pony danced under me in a feint to my right, then left, then right again as I evaded the rifle balls and the artillery shells I knew were coming next. I flew past Adobe Walls and recognized Kit at the corner, calmly shouting orders to his officers and men. Recklessly, I swerved directly toward the guns on the knoll, my intention being to get inside of the range the gunners had sighted. I knew my maneuver had worked when one shell, then another, whistled harmlessly overhead. The infantrymen around the gunners raised a severe defensive fire, and a bullet cut hair from Buffalo Getter's mane. I pulled myself upright on my pony and shook my fist at the soldiers as I led the riders behind me out of range toward the timber of Adobe Creek.
Reaching the cover of the trees, I turned to see how the Comanche and Kiowa defenders had fared. I saw several horses being ridden double, and one slain body being dragged toward me between two men. As they came closer, I recognized the dead warrior as young Battle Axe—the man I had myself rescued from a fallen pony once already today—and I knew he would not now be singing my praises in council.
“Throw him over my pony,” I said. “I will take him back to the village.”
In spite of Battle Axe's death, and several other men having earned bullet wounds, the scores of warriors who streamed into the protective trees glared with pride in their attack, and their morale remained fevered.
Back at the walls, the bugler blew the advance, signaling the soldiers to retake the ground they had given up during our charge.
“Keep moving!” I ordered. “The big guns can reach this timber.”
The two warriors threw Battle Axe's body across my thighs, and we weaved our two hundred and more ponies through the brush and across the creek at a trot. A shell ripped into the branches at our rear and splintered a hackberry, killing the last
pony in line with shrapnel and bloodying its rider with a flying tree limb that split his scalp.
From the prairie, I heard another huge charge of screaming Indians leaving the timber, and knew Kit's soldiers would finally be absorbing the dread of a true battle in hostile country right about now. Theirs was no longer a surprise attack at dawn, through an ill-prepared camp of waking Kiowas. They were aiming into the ranks of the greatest horseback warriors ever known to the world, and the most fearless fighters—men who believed that surviving to a ripe old age was an embarrassment, no matter how many battle scars they gathered or scalps they took. Attack these thousands of warriors with a mere three hundred soldiers? On their own ground? Outnumbered almost ten to one? Spraying bullets and cannon shell into the villages where their children played yesterday? Unless Kit proved to be one of the greatest military leaders of the Indian wars, his troops would fall like the autumn leaves fluttering down even now, bloodred, from the flame-leaf sumac thickets on the rocky slopes.
I heard Kit's bugler sounding the retreat again as I left the body of Battle Axe with his pregnant wife and his mother, both of whom began to wail piteously. I turned away before they could begin slashing their own arms and breasts with knife blades in the throes of their anguish. Their keening only stirred my desire to ride again before the gun sights of invading soldiers.
As I walked Buffalo Getter back toward the enemy, allowing him to cool slowly and rest for another charge, I came across Chief Little Bluff of the Kiowas, checking the wound of a bullet that had grazed the top of his war pony's rump.
“Uncle!” I shouted, riding to him as he remounted. “I know how to take the Utes out of this fight. Send some of your warriors around the soldiers and back to your village. Tell them to carry away everything of value that they can take from their lodges. When the Utes see this, they will not want to fight anymore, for they will want to go back and protect the things they thought they captured at dawn.”
Little Bluff smiled. “You are wise, nephew. But slower than
this old man.” He tapped his chest, for the Indians believed that thoughts came from the heart rather than the head. “I sent the younger boys back to the village after the charge you led.”
I nodded at the wisdom of the old Kiowa leader. “Then it is time to make another charge on the soldiers.”
“Yes. This time, I will lead. Will you follow behind the great old warrior Dohasen?”
“It will be my honor to follow such a great leader.”
W
ithin the half hour, Little Bluff and I had recruited a hundred warriors for our charge, and we rode again under the fire of the rifles and thunder guns. On this charge, I noted that Kit's Ute scouts had fallen back behind the blue-coated skirmishers, and seemed more intent on watching their spoils evaporate from the Kiowa village than taking aim at the mounted Comanche and Kiowa defenders. I even saw the Ute scout Buckskin Charley conferring with Colonel Carson at Adobe Walls, no doubt begging Kit to fall back and secure the booty in the Kiowa camp.
Returning from this charge, my mount now covered with a lather of sweat, I noticed some of the young Kiowas lugging buffalo robes and other goods to the safety of Kills Something's camp. One of them, I noticed, had a bugle strapped across his shoulder.
“Boy!” I shouted. “Whose metal horn do you carry?”
“It is from the lodge of my grandfather, Dohasen.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, you are Plenty Man.”
“Your grandfather is an old friend. Will you give me his horn?”
“Yes, uncle.” He pulled the leather strap over his head and handed it to me as I rode near.
“Now, you must do one other thing for me. Walk my war pony until he is rested. He has one more charge left in him today.”
The boy grinned at the honor. “Yes, uncle.” He tossed buffalo robes and blankets off his lap and took the reins of my war bridle.
I raised the bugle and blew a short note that tickled my lips. Walking now toward the timber, I made horse noises with my lips to prepare my mouth for the tingle of the bugle. I slipped far enough through the trees that I could see the action on the field. A Comanche charge had just galloped past Kit's front, north to south this time. The gunfire had ended, and the bugler played the advance. The soldiers rose from the places where they had hunkered in the grass and moved cautiously forward. I put my lips to my bugle and played the signal for “about-face.” The soldiers stopped, confused by my bugle call. Some actually turned about and marched back a few steps. Gunfire ceased on both sides and several seconds passed as a grin formed on my face. Now Kit's bugler sounded “advance” again, and I answered with “retreat.” From the walls: “advance.” From the timber: “halt.”
I could hear the laughter of the soldiers as they realized an enemy bugler was mocking their own. I made the notes blend somehow with the orchestra still playing Vivaldi's
Four Seasons
in my head. I played it
allegro,
like the third movement of
Der Herbst.
Vivaldi's “Autumn” was almost over. Winter was coming.
The soldiers were still laughing and taunting me, when I saw the howitzer fire. The flying shell whistled, and I dove between the limbs in the fork of a fallen hackberry. That Pettis was quite an artillery officer, for he had sighted in on me by sound alone and his shell erupted not forty yards to my right and sent shrapnel ripping through the timber all around me. The second shell landed even closer to my left. I peeked over my makeshift battlements. The prairie stood motionless and silent, except for the ringing in my ears.
I put the bugle to my lips and began to play an especially mournful rendition of taps. Laughter rose all along the ranks of bluecoats. Then, in the middle of the call, I sprang to my feet and began to blow reveille, as if resurrected from the dead. The laughter of the enemy roared and some cheered and applauded my interlude.
But now the warriors charged again, at least four hundred strong, the riders streaming from the wooded creek far to my right. The bluecoats quit laughing and took up their arms. The timing was good for the Comanches, for the cannon had just sighted on me and fired and would take precious seconds to reload and turn and aim. Kit's bugler sounded a retreat in the face of the onslaught, and I answered—out of pure orneriness—with the “charge.” The bluecoats backed away, firing into the Indians, succeeding in dropping several ponies and unhorsing a few riders. The Indian casualties were increasing with the boldness of the assaults, and bloody men—dead and wounded—being dragged back to cover became a commonplace sight.
Pettis had reloaded before the last of the charge swept past him. His first shot exploded among the horsemen and knocked down three Indian mounts, but all three riders rose and ran toward rescuers who came to pick them up. The second howitzer round actually hit a horse in the shoulder, right in front of the rider's knee. The shell exploded inside the hapless steed, tearing the poor beast asunder and launching the warrior in an arch twenty feet above the prairie grasses. Two passing warriors reached low and grabbed the unconscious warrior, each by an arm, and dragged him to safety amid a hail of army bullets. I was shocked that the man had not been torn limb from limb, but it seemed the mass of the horse's musculature had protected him.
I ran to the place where the man was dragged into the timber, and found that the rider was my friend Fears-the-Ground. He was moaning in pain, but still unconscious. I followed to the safe area beyond howitzer range. There I checked Fears-the-Ground all over and found him bleeding from several flesh wounds. Miraculously, he had survived any mortal injuries. The sheer percussion of the shell had knocked his senses from him, however, and would leave him almost deaf the rest of his life.
“Take him back to his lodge on a pony drag,” I told one of the rescuers. “His medicine forbids him to touch the ground, except in camp.”
The man nodded his understanding and left with Fears-the-Ground.
“Nephew!” I shouted to the Kiowa boy who had been walking Castchorn. “My horse!”
The boy brought my war pony, and I formed up with the next big charge preparing to storm the army position at the walls. I happened to fall in beside young Quanah. Years later, Quanah would become a great Comanche leader, but I never heard any mention of his participation in this battle, though I know he was there. Quanah himself would never speak of it, simply because, I believe, he failed to accomplish anything worth bragging about in the fight. He was yet a young raider, only fifteen, still learning the violent ways of war.
Our charge was led by Kills Something himself, who had waited until now to lead what he intended to be the decisive assault on the invaders' position. With only three hundred soldiers in the field, most wielding single-shot rifles, and well over five hundred Indian riders streaming by with hawklike speed, firing multiple arrows, using our ponies as our shields, the odds of getting shot were lowered, and we pushed the soldiers back all the way to Adobe Walls, where they began to cluster for protection.
Some of the Indians grew so bold as to ride
between
the walls and the artillery position on the knoll, creating a cross fire that endangered the soldiers as much as the Indians. I was one who was so bold, and I remember feeling bullets tug both ways at the hair that streamed behind my head on this ride. Buffalo Getter had to leap the body of a dead soldier that appeared suddenly in the tall, brown grass as I broke through Kit's front. Those of us who had breached the bluecoat line rode a circle around the thunder guns on the knoll as the infantrymen protecting the artillery shrank back under a swarm of arrows. Lieutenant Pettis drew his revolver and railed at his scrambling men to reload the howitzers and stand their ground.
After galloping the symbolic conquering ring around the knoll, I peeled away from the rest of the riders behind Kit's lines. In all the confusion, I was able to ride unnoticed into the
timber of Bent's Creek, where I had hidden before to spy on the enemy position. My pony was about done now anyway, so I walked him around in the woods a while to cool him down, then tied him to a tree. I was feeling reckless and bold after breaking through the lines and circling the big guns on the last charge. The spirit players echoed the
allegro non molto
in F minor, their music seeming to come up from the very earth. I was so exhausted, and my stomach so empty, and my nerves so wrought by excitement that I was nigh to having visions and hearing voices. I felt my powers of invisibility come over me again, and I began to walk through the woods toward the ruins of old Fort Adobe.
Coming out of the timber, I sneaked through the grass toward the walls. The dead grass was so luxuriant and tall here that a man as small as me could conceal himself in a crouch and approach the soldiers unseen. The soldiers had drawn closer together around the fort and around the artillery on the knoll. They all faced east, none thinking to look for an approach from the woods and bluffs at their rear. All the cavalry horses had been crowded back inside the fort ruins for protection, and it was toward this herd that I sneaked. I went quickly and fearlessly until I was close enough to hear the voices of the soldiers shouting to one another. Some of the voices rang with fear, but they were all about the business of surviving. Wounded men cried out in pain and others yelled for ammunition, water, bandages. Peeking over the tops of the blades of grass, I saw officers trotting toward the walls, and reasoned that another council of war was about to take place.
I ducked and walked in a crouch, coming as close to the fort as I could. Here, the grass had become trampled by men and beasts, giving the appearance of a dry moat around an ancient, embattled castle. Peering through the last upright stalks of grass, I looked at the backs of the soldiers and summoned my nerve. I decided to simply stand, and walk up to the west side of the wall. Should I crawl or crouch, I thought, my suspicious demeanor might attract attention from the corner of some soldier's eye. So I stood and relaxed, and strolled not so quickly up to the adobe walls. I remember being spotted by a soldier turning to spit with
the wind. Apparently, he mistook me for one of his own Ute scouts, for he only glanced, and never raised an alarm.
I walked right up to the west wall and stepped through the gap in the crumbling adobes that had left the wall only three feet high here. Here, a hundred horses concealed me, and I moved through them calmly so as not to spook them. I could hear the officers conferring at the southeast corner of the walls, and I slipped among the horses to better understand their words. I moved slowly, reassuring each mount I came to with a gentle stroke and a grunt of Comanche horse talk. The cavalry ponies among which I passed were so crowded into the protection of the walls that it was a wonder one of them didn't step on my foot. When I could make out the conversation, I knelt among the shod hooves of the cavalry mounts and observed the blue-trousered legs of the officers as they reported to Kit.
“ … none killed; two wounded, sir,” the shaky, boyish voice of some young officer was reporting.
“Pettis?” Kit said.
“One killed, six wounded, Colonel.”
“Every man's accounted for, then?”
A general “Yes, sir” was the answer.
I saw Kit's squatty legs shift, his heel digging in the dirt. Beyond him, the surgeon knelt over a wounded man who was moaning, half-conscious. Grim-faced, the bloody medic turned and glanced at the officers, and would have seen me had he really looked. But, shadowed among the legs of the ponies, I was invisible, like a spotted ocelot peering out among cattails.
“What's your opinion, Bill?” Kit said to Major McCleave.
“We came here to punish the devils, and I recommend we follow our orders.” The words said one thing, but the tone of McCleave's voice was nowhere near as sure as it had rung earlier in the day.
The rest of the men grunted in support. It was funny to watch the men's boots twist and shift. You can read a lot about a man's mind and heart by watching the way he stands. Though all the officers voiced agreement with McCleave, a couple of knees almost buckled.
“You mean attack the next village?” Kit asked.
“Exactly,” McCleave said.
“Captain Witham?”
“Attack the devils,” said a young voice, without hesitation.
“Fritz?”
There was a pause. “Attack. Of course, attack.”
“Pettis?”
“Get my guns past Adobe Creek, Colonel, and I'll shell the daylights out of that camp. We've let them pin us down here long enough.”
“Did we come here to shell women and children?” Kit growled.
“What would Captain Pfeiffer say if he was here?” Pettis asked. “He watched his wife, a servant girl, and two soldiers killed by Indians at the Hot Springs.”
“Those were Mescaleros,” Kit said, dismissing the argument. “Are we to punish these Comanche women and children for something some Mescaleros did hundreds of miles away? I don't think our orders say that.”
At this moment, I saw a pair of moccasins and deerskin leggings step over the lowest part of the south adobe wall, and I cringed, for I knew those trappings belonged to Buckskin Charley, Kit's chief Ute scout. Worse yet, he squatted, Indian style, some distance away from the soldiers. I looked away from him, knowing he would feel my gaze should I stare at him.
“Colonel, if I may,” said Major McCleave. I watched him take a step toward Kit. “These boys have come a long way. They will fight. A victory here would make history.”

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