Kiowa Vengeance (10 page)

Dent’s voice quivered, and he paused to
regain control. The troopers sat at rapt attention. So much,
Charley thought to himself, for the greenhorns getting a peaceful
night’s rest.

“ ‘Civilized men don’t do such things,’ you
said earlier,” Dent told Stacy. “Civilized men do, and when they
do, it is worse. It is worse because civilization means structure,
and order, and control. But giving in to blind, unreasoning hatred
throws all that to the winds. That’s why I am telling you this
story, men.”

He circled slowly, so that he faced them all
in turn.

“Our job is to protect civilians. We will
carry out that task by reining in Stone Knife and his band, killing
them if they resist. But then we shall rein ourselves in,
gentlemen. We shall not give in to our passions, stoked though they
might be. We are here to bring civilization to this frontier. We
are not savages. We are cavalrymen in the United States Army.”

He did not speak again for several moments.
Instead he kept scanning the faces, and looking into the eyes, of
each man under his command. Some seemed ashamed—others seemed
proud. All seemed more in control of their fear than they had been
a short time before.

Tom Dent exhaled slowly. He seemed suddenly
very tired. “Now—get some sleep, men,” he said. “You’ll need it.
Sergeant, make sure everyone is aware of his assigned picket
duty.”

“Yes, sir,” Nagy said. The Hungarian
gathered the troopers around him a short distance away, giving
instructions. Dent stood immobile, staring into the distance.

Charley Blackfeather walked over and stood
beside him.

“So what happened then, Captain?” he
asked.

“Hm?”

“After the massacre. After you and the other
officer disobeyed.”

“Oh. Word got out about what Chivington had
done, and there were investigations. And a public hearing for
Chivington himself. Captain Soule and I were both called in to
testify. The sad thing is, many of the citizens of Denver supported
Chivington, even lionized him. Shortly after giving testimony,
Silas—Captain Soule—was murdered by persons unknown. No charges
were brought against anyone for the massacre, not even Chivington.
The Army brass were thoroughly disgusted by him, however, and his
political aspirations were finished. I was offered a commission in
the regular cavalry, and have served in that capacity since. And
there was plenty to do—Roman Nose gave us quite a fight, stirred up
as he and his followers were by what had happened to their fellow
Cheyennes at Sand Creek.”

Charley nodded. “That was a smart move on
the Army’s part,” he said. “Putting you to use instead of punishing
you. You’re a good man, Captain, and an honorable warrior.”

“As are you, Charley. And I’m sure you have
compelling tales of your own—I look forward to hearing them.”

“Oh, I’ve been in a scrap or two, here and
there,” the scout said.

“I have no doubt.”

“You’re right, though,” Charley added, “to
be worried about Old Mountain and his lieutenants comin’ in to
parley with Colonel Vine. We’re fixin’ to run across a sight more
dead folks tomorrow—farmers and small ranchers, mostly—and word’s
gonna spread like wildfire. No matter what happens between us and
Stone Knife, folks all around are gonna be stirred up and thirsty
for Kiowa blood.”

“Just like the young Kiowas are thirsty for
white blood,” Dent said. “It never ends.”

“Not as long as there are hotheads on both
sides, eggin’ it on,” Charley said. “And mark my words—there’ll be
a passel of white folks crowded around Fort Braxton within a couple
of days, if Old Mountain doesn’t get in and out of there fast.
They’ll be sayin’ that the old man’s peace talks was just a
distraction for his son to attack the settlements.”

“I think Old Mountain is sincere,” Dent
said.

“So do I,” Charley agreed. “He’s no coward,
and he’s nobody’s fool. He knows that to keep resisting will mean
the death of his people—not just the warriors, but the women and
children. Stone Knife hasn’t figured that part out yet—or he has,
and he just doesn’t care. He’s fighting for pride, like most young
men.”

Dent shook his head sadly. “I honestly don’t
know what I’d do, if I were in their place.”

“I’ve been in their place,” Charley said. He
chuckled softly. “I reckon you was most likely in short pants
around that time. My people fought the Army for years, back in the
Florida Everglades. My leader was a man named John Horse—hell of a
fighter. Even we eventually had to surrender, though, or see all
our children die. They sent us out West, to Indian Territory.

“So I’ve been in both their positions—Old
Mountain and Stone Knife. You have pride and honor, and you don’t
want to give up your home and your way of life. But in the end you
have to make sure there are still some of your people left alive.
You do what you have to do—you don’t like it, but you do it and try
to make the most of it. And that way there’ll be future
generations—to remember what and who we was, and what and who they
are. And that way we live on.”

There was silence for a moment, and then
Charley Blackfeather laughed. Not a wry chuckle, but a full,
booming laugh.

“I swear, Captain,” he said then. “I got to
quit listenin’ to your stories, you done got me all wound up, too.
I reckon that’s more talkin’ than I’ve done in weeks.”

“When you do talk,” Dent said, “it’s usually
something worth saying.”

“I don’t know about that, so much,” Charley
said. “But I’m done spoutin’ off, for tonight anyways. I’m gonna
grab some shut-eye my own self.”

Charley turned to go, then paused. “I almost
forgot,” he said, taking a small pouch from his belt. “This is for
you.” He handed the pouch to the captain.

“What is it?” Dent said.

Charley grinned. “Them piles is hell,
Cap’n.”

Dent was confused.

“Hemorrhoids,” Charley said. “I seen how you
been favorin’ your ass. This here is a poultice, ought to make
things a mite smoother for you in the saddle tomorrow.”

Dent nodded, embarrassed. “Thank you.”

Charley grinned again. “You got to put it on
your own self, though. Good night, Cap’n.”

Dent watched the Seminole walk away. Then he
raised his head and looked at the stars, and through them, for a
long time. He wondered if Molly were back at the fort, looking at
the same stars. If she were, he hoped she would never see the same
things in them, and under them, that he had.

And still would.

CHAPTER FIVE

“You don’t know where you’re going. You’re
getting us lost, aren’t you? My feet are tired. We should have
stayed with the coach. At least there we had a place to sit down
out of the sun. Now we’re out in the open. Those Indians could come
back and—”

“Be silent, you noxious git,” the man known
as De Courcey told the Kansas City drummer.

“What? Why, you can’t…um….” Weatherby’s
voice trailed off into silence when he looked at the expression
reflected in De Courcey’s cold eyes. They did not match his polite
smile.

John Hix gave De Courcey a very slight nod
to acknowledge the man’s help with the fool.

There was something about De Courcey that he
was not sure about. He really thought he had seen the man before.
Perhaps not by that name. During the war? He thought that more than
possible, although there had been so many in the various guerrilla
bands. The rosters shifted and changed so often back then.

Hix could not come right out and ask. As far
as anyone around Wolf Creek knew, he sat out the war in California
and knew nothing about guns and fighting.

They might have been surprised had they
known the truth about him.

“The Manning place is beyond that rise,” he
said. “We’ll be there before dark.” He smiled. “They’re nice folks.
I stopped there once. They took me inside and fed me. Mrs. Manning
is a splendid cook, I can tell you that. And once we get there we
will have that many more guns to help ward off the savages if they
come again.”

“You sound like you know about such things,”
De Courcey said, his smile widening wryly.

“Oh, no. Not at all,” Hix responded. “I
just—” He shrugged. “I’ve just heard things, that’s all.”

Did De Courcey recognize him, he wondered?
Hix felt sure that De Courcey, too, had once been a Confederate
raider under Quantrill or Bloody Bill Anderson. Hix himself had
served under both. He was fairly sure that was where he saw
Reginald De Courcey before this meeting, not in Wolf Creek.
Saw,
but did not really
know
.

Back then men came and went in those
guerrilla squadrons. Some genuinely cared about the South and The
Cause. Others cared only about blood and booty. Hix had considered
himself a patriot. He had fought. He had killed. And he had come to
revel in the killing as much as in The Cause.

Now there was no more Cause. But there still
was blood. There was still his thirst for revenge against those
Redleg sons of bitches who murdered his baby son and his
Confederate sympathizing parents and who put his beloved Marcie
into an insane asylum.

Thinking about that and about the razor that
resided so innocently in his pocket brought a tight smile to Hix’s
lean face.

Oh, he did like to chat with his damnyankee
customers in his barber chair. And he liked to listen.
What did
you do in the war, neighbor?
And some of them told him, the
fools. The Yankee sons of bitches. All of them were sons of
bitches. That was a given. What he was looking for were the
Redlegs.

And he found one. Found him in Wolf Creek.
Followed him to Wichita. Left the former Redleg murderer there
lying in a spreading pool of his own blood, his throat cut so
cleanly by the razor of an unknown assailant.

Unknown to anyone but himself, John Hix
thought with great pleasure.

The damnyankee had not suspected a thing.
Had turned his back on the man who so innocently asked for
directions.

Hix wondered what the murderer had felt in
those final moments. Did he know he was a dead man? Did he suspect
why he was dying? Did he regret his sins?

Now….

“There,” Hix said. “I can see the roof of
Manning’s barn.” He frowned. “We should be able to see the house
too, but—I don’t see the house at all. That is odd.”

Hix began to walk faster, a knot of worry
growing in his belly.

***

“Dead? All of them?” Lester Weatherby
whined. “Then what about us? What will happen to us now?”

“The same thing that happened to them,” De
Courcey said, disgust heavy in his voice. “Now shut up.” De Courcey
was leading the horse, their only remaining animal, while Miss
Sloane rode upon it. The schoolteacher rode precariously in a
sidesaddle position although the saddle was a regular, man’s saddle
and was intended to be ridden astride. She slipped and slid on the
hard leather seat but—unlike the drummer—she made no complaint.

The lady had said little since they left the
disabled stagecoach and began walking toward what they hoped would
be sanctuary at the Manning ranch. Now she demurely turned her face
away from the carnage the Indians had left behind.

The Mannings were dead. All of them. Dead
and mutilated by the savages. The two grown men and one boy
slaughtered, plus one woman and the two little girls. All of the
females had been raped before they were granted the mercy of death.
They lay now, pale and naked and bloating, their bodies positioned
indecently.

“Jesus,” the drummer blurted just before he
threw up.

De Courcey helped the new schoolteacher down
from the horse, then led the animal into the barn. It and a
scattering of outbuildings were the only structures remaining. The
house and, for some reason, the outhouse had been burned down by
the Kiowa raiding party.

“I found a shovel in there, but just one,”
he announced as he returned to the group. “Miss Sloane, why don’t
you go into the barn. Sit down. Rest a little. We menfolk shall dig
a grave for the Mannings. I’ll let you know when we’ve buried them.
If you might like to read over them, madam? It would be a blessing
to us all if you were to do that.”

“All right. Yes.”

Dave Benteen, the gunsmith, reached for the
shovel. “I’ll start digging, and one of you can spell me in awhile.
Anybody have an opinion about where this grave should be? No? Then
I’ll just pick a spot close to where the bodies are.” Benteen
walked away.

“I don’t have a gun. Does anybody have one
to spare?” Hix asked. He had given the Smith & Wesson back to
the gunsmith, who had stuck it in his belt. The barber made a show
of being uncomfortable carrying the weapon while they walked—he
feared that his proficient use of the weapon, when they charged the
Indians back at the coach, might have belied his claim to be
unfamiliar with firearms, and he hoped none of the others gave much
thought to it. But now that Benteen had wandered off to dig a
grave, Hix regretted returning the pistol to him. The two Indians
that got away could lead the main group back to their trail at any
time.

Sampson Quick reached into his belt and drew
out the revolver he had taken off Chester Keene’s dead body. He
tossed it to the barber.

“What do you need a gun for?” the drummer
asked, his voice trembling.

“In case the Indians come back,” Hix said,
in a tone that indicated he considered the question—and the
questioner—incredibly stupid.

“Oh, God. They wouldn’t, would they? I
mean—they’ve already been here. They’ve killed everybody here and
either killed or run off all the livestock.”

“Come to think of it,” Hix said, “we could
butcher that dead calf over there. It hasn’t been dead very long.
It would provide us with food to last awhile.”

“We won’t—we’ll be leaving in the morning,
won’t we?” Weatherby persisted. “Surely we’ll be safe if we can get
to Wolf Creek. I mean—when we get to Wolf Creek.” The man looked as
if he might burst into tears. “We will reach Wolf Creek, won’t we?
Well, won’t we?”