Kiowa Vengeance (9 page)

Sergeant Nagy scowled. “Dere’s several
families hereabouts,” he said. “I hate to t’ink how many farms dem
savages might still come across.”

“They’re a good ways ahead of us still,”
Charley said, “so any places for the next several miles have most
likely already been attacked, and there’s nothing we can do for
‘em. But the Kiowas won’t attack anybody tonight, not without any
moon. They won’t be travelin’, neither. We’ll just have to hit
their trail hard come daylight.”

Nagy grumbled. “I know, you’re right,” he
said. “I just hate it, dat’s all.”

“We’ll use what little light we have left to
get started burying these civilians,” Dent said. “We’ll make a dry
camp. We couldn’t risk a fire, even if there was anything around
here to burn.”

“I bet dem Injuns has found t’ings to burn,”
Nagy said, then sighed. “Pittman! Cash!” he barked. “Grab your
spades. Dese men was partners, I don’t guess dey’ll mind sharin’ a
hole.”

****

Once the burying was done, they spread
bedrolls and sat for awhile in the darkness. Their eyes slowly
adjusted to the dim starlight.

“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like what we
seen today,” Trooper Pittman said softly. He was a stout young man
from Ohio, short but powerful looking.

“I wish I could say you get used to it,
lad,” Corporal Sligo said in his Irish lilt. “But ye never do.”

Nagy grunted. “I been fightin’ my whole
life, boys,” he said. “Mostly Italians and Poles, and damned
Austrians—when dey put down my people’s revolution in ’forty-eight,
I left Hungary and came here. Fought Comanches and Apaches in
Texas, took a few years off to fight Johnny Rebs, and been fightin’
Sioux and Cheyenne since. No, you don’t get used to it, but you
learn to move on and not dwell on it. Dwellin’ on it will get you
killed damn quick, and dat’s gospel troot’.”

“They cut their peckers off,” Trooper Stacy
said. His voice cracked. “You think—you think they was still
alive?” Stacy’s eyes were wide. He was no older than Pittman.

Sligo answered him. “I reckon that’s one of
them questions the sarge meant we ought not dwell on, boyo.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Maybe some of ‘em was alive,” Charley said.
“But probably not. The Kiowas are in enemy territory, trying to
kill as many people as they can. They can’t take time to really do
their worst to them they catch.”

Charley was stretching the truth, and the
veterans knew it. For one thing, it was hard for even a warrior
with the charisma and prestige of Stone Knife to keep complete
control over his men in the field—it wasn’t the Indian way to take
or give orders, just suggestions. And even when pressed for time, a
skilled and determined warrior could put a world of hurt on a dying
man in his last five or ten minutes of breathing.

But about half of the soldiers in this troop
were recent replacements, and had never been in the field. They
deserved to know the truth, but they didn’t necessarily need to
know all of it on a night when their life might depend on a decent
sleep.

“Damned savage animals,” Stacy said. His
voice was a mixture of grief, fury, and terror, and he seemed near
tears. Dent knew that the trooper was at least eighteen years old,
maybe nineteen, but he seemed younger than he had earlier in the
day. The captain felt a twinge of sympathy for his subordinate.

Charley Blackfeather did not feel any
particular sympathy. Neither of his own sons had lived to see
eighteen summers, but they had both been more seasoned than most of
these soldiers. Charley himself, by the age of eighteen, had been
at war for years.

“Damn savage animals!” Stacy repeated. He
pounded his fists into his legs. “Filthy Injuns. We ought to kill
them all. Every dirty one, everywhere we find them—men, women and
children. Wipe them out!”

“We ain’t hard to find,” Charley said,
although not unkindly.

Angry as he was, it took Stacy a moment to
comprehend Charley’s words.

“Oh,” he stammered, once the Black
Seminole’s meaning sunk in. “Oh! I didn’t mean you. You’re—well,
hell, Charley, you’re civilized.”

“You reckon so?”

Stacy heaved an exasperated sigh. “You know
what I mean. Civilized men don’t do things like we seen today. Just
them dirty savages.”

“That’s enough, Stacy,” the captain said.
“We all need to keep our heads.”

“If’n we want to keep our hair,” Amos
interjected.

Captain Dent flashed an annoyed glance at
Amos, then continued. “Too much anger, too much fear, can cloud
your mind. I’ve seen it more than once.”

“Yes, sir,” Stacy said sullenly.

“But he’s right, sir,” Trooper Pittman said.
“We ought to kill all the savages, it would save all this from
happening.” He looked apologetically at Charley. “I mean, you know,
not the civilized ones,” he said.

“We’ll catch these renegades,” Dent said
firmly. “But we can’t punish every Indian we see after this, for
things they didn’t individually do. That’s what started the present
mess to begin with. Buffalo hunters firing on a Kiowa hunting party
that had a treaty right to be where they were.”

“Beggin’ the captain’s pardon, sir,” Sligo
said. “But it also didn’t help, that Wolf Creek posse—you was in
that, wasn’t you Charley?—killin’ several Kiowas what attacked them
first. And then that rancher, Ward Sparkman, killin’ several from
the same group—for stealin’ his cattle. I’m surprised they didn’t
ride for his Crown-W ranch, west of here, to get revenge on him for
that.”

“Sparkman has a small army of cow hands,”
Charley said. “These raiders was goin’ for easier targets.”

Dent spoke. “The cases you speak of, Sligo,
involve Kiowa combatants. I’m expressing my anxiety that—not only
you boys, but the other troops, when they find out what
happened—may misdirect your anger toward Old Mountain’s village, or
at him if he still comes in to the fort to meet with Colonel Vine
as he promised to do. That would have far-reaching consequences.”
He looked at Stacy and Pittman.

“Yes, sir,” Stacy repeated, just as sullenly
as the first time. Dent stared at them for a moment, then heaved a
deep sigh.

“You’re from Pennsylvania, aren’t you,
Stacy?”

“Perry County, sir. My folks have a farm
there.”

Dent smiled, though he doubted the lad could
see it in the faint starlight. “Not too many Indians back there,
are there, soldier?”

Stacy laughed despite himself. “If there
are, I never seen ‘em, Captain.”

“Oh, there’s not,” Dent said. “Not anymore,
not for a long time. I’m from Johnstown, myself.”

“I didn’t know that, sir.”

Dent nodded. “And I do mean from Johnstown.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. When I was about the age
you are now, I figured something out. Coal mining might suit my old
man, but it sure didn’t suit me. So when I was eighteen years old I
followed my older brother out to Colorado—it was still part of
Kansas Territory at that time, and there was a gold strike on.”

Dent chuckled softly, seemingly more to
himself than to his audience. “ ‘Pike’s Peak or Bust,’ that’s what
we all said. We were Fifty-Niners. My brother Clay and me, well, if
we were going to be miners we were going to be gold miners.”

“I’m assumin’, Captain,” Sligo said with a
grin, “that ye didn’t strike it rich.”

“No,” Dent said. “I didn’t, and that’s a
fact. But I didn’t bring this up to discuss my poor mining skills.
There were a lot of folks like Clay and me, you see, pouring in
from all over the country. All over the world, really.”

“Gold does that,” Nagy commented.

“Indeed it does. And the result was that the
whole region filled up with white people. The city of Denver sprang
up practically overnight. That area had been a hunting ground for
the Cheyenne and the Arapaho for as long as they could remember,
and the southern part of it served the same purpose for the
Comanche and Kiowa. And the Treaty of Fort Laramie all the northern
plains tribes signed in ’fifty-one, that gave the U.S. the right to
build forts and settlers the right to pass through on their way to
Oregon, guaranteed those hunting rights would be undisturbed. But
with that many miners showing up all at once, well, of course there
was tension with the local Indians from the outset. There were
skirmishes and raids, on both sides.”

Dent’s voice trailed off and he was silent
for several moments. Finally he cleared his throat and
continued.

“That’s when I first saw the sort of things
we’ve seen today. We came across some miners that had been stripped
and staked out. Not long after that, our camp was attacked by
Cheyennes. Fortunately, it wasn’t just Clay and me—we’d joined up
with six others for safety in numbers, and we fought them off. But
not before my brother had his brains smashed in by a war club.”
Dent’s eyes narrowed as he squeezed in the echoes of his grief.

“I don’t understand,” Pittman interjected.
“If they killed your own brother right in front of your eyes, how
can you be lecturin’ us now about treatin’ ‘em fair? With all due
respect to you, sir, I mean.”

“That’s my point, gentlemen,” Dent said.
“Believe me, I was a lot hotter after that than you are now, and I
was hungry for blood. So were a lot of people I knew, who’d also
lost folks. It was just sort of understood by us at the time that
Indians are no better than rabid animals. It was never even a
question.”

“What changed?” Stacy asked.

“Nothing, at first,” Dent said. “Except that
a war came—a war to preserve the Union. Colorado was organized into
a free territory right after Lincoln was elected, and a militia was
raised. I joined up. We ended up marching south, to New Mexico, to
stop the Rebs from grabbing up the West. We fought them at a place
called Glorieta Pass—it was a hard fight, but we destroyed their
supply train and pushed them back. I wound up promoted to
lieutenant. Us Colorado men won ourselves some glory that day, and
if it had ended there we would’ve kept our honor and added to it.
But it didn’t end there.”

Charley saw that most of the troopers were
listening intently to their captain’s tale. A few of the
veterans—including Nagy, Sligo, Amos, and Cash—did so with sad
demeanors, and Charley assumed they had heard the captain tell the
next part of his story before.

Charley Blackfeather had not heard Tom
Dent’s yarn, but he had figured out where it was headed. He had
heard all about the events in Colorado at that time, while serving
in an all-black Kansas Union regiment.

“The Cheyenne and Arapaho had signed a new
treaty right before the war started,” Dent said, “giving up most of
their hunting grounds. At least, some of them signed it. There were
a good number of Indians who claimed that the chiefs who signed
didn’t represent their bands, so the treaty didn’t apply to them.
So they kept hunting as usual.”

Charley grunted, but did not speak. It was a
familiar account, all right. Government men almost never bothered
to learn about Indian politics, so long as they could find
someone—anyone—that would put his mark on one of their damn
papers.

“After Glorieta Pass,” Dent continued, “our
regiment was used as a sort of home guard to protect folks from
hostile Indians. Our commander was a man named Chivington—a
preacher that hated Indians more than he hated sin.

“In no time Chivington had us attacking
Cheyenne hunting parties. We would attack, they’d fight back and
people would die. Always more on their side than on ours. And of
course, the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers stepped up their raids on
settlers.

“But not all the Indians wanted to fight.
There was an old Cheyenne chief named Black Kettle—his people and
some of their Arapaho allies came into Fort Lyon for peace
talks—same as Old Mountain is supposed to do tomorrow at Fort
Braxton. The Army told them they were safe, and had them camp at
Sand Creek. Black Kettle flew an American flag over his tipi, and a
white flag as well, so everyone would know they were peaceful. The
Indians settled in, and most of the young men left on a buffalo
hunt to get their families food.

“Chivington led us out to Black Kettle’s
camp. He trained artillery on it, and ordered us all to charge in
and attack. And take no prisoners. One of the company commanders,
Captain Silas Soule, pointed out that the Indians at Sand Creek
were peaceful and were supposed to be under our protection. And
that most of them were old men, women, and children.

“‘I don’t care,’ Chivington said. “Kill them
all, children included—nits make lice. God damn an Indian, and God
damn any white man who feels sorry for one.’”

Dent sighed deeply and cleared his throat
again before continuing.

“Anyhow. Captain Soule refused to give his
company the order to charge. I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I
hated Indians, you see. But
this
. Babies, old men, young
girls. And all thinking they were safe. I knew it was wrong. I knew
it would stain the honor of the whole regiment, and of every man in
it. I knew God was watching. And I remembered the words of my
father’s hero, Davy Crockett—‘first make sure you’re right, then go
ahead.’”

“What did you do?” Pittman asked.

“I disobeyed Colonel Chivington’s orders.
Captain Soule and I held our companies back, while the others
attacked.”

Dent grimaced. “It was terrible. They were
slaughtered—women with babies in their arms, old men trying to
surrender. And there was nothing we could do. All that anger and
hatred that our soldiers had, poured out on those innocents. And my
own hatred and anger flowed away, till all that was left was
sickness and shame.

“And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Our
soldiers hacked up those people’s bodies in ways that make the
Kiowa work we saw today look amateur. Unborn babies ripped from
their mothers’ bellies, used as saddle decorations. Fingers, ears,
noses taken for souvenirs. Private parts—men’s and women’s
alike—fashioned into hatbands and tobacco pouches.”