Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873 (32 page)

A sudden, frightening, snorting stampede that filled the valley.

Ponies swept in and out of the fringe of that throbbing herd as one after another of the animals went down, chins into the ground, tumbling rump over horns, never to rise while the hunters rode on, firing one arrow after another, hundreds upon hundreds of them fired into the thundering herd. Arrows whispered from the horn and Osage orange bows, arrows driven up to the feather fletching, some fired with such might they drove right on through the buffalo, shafts that were trampled under the hooves of those falling, stumbling, cascading buffalo.

A time or two Quanah watched as a rider spilled, urging his pony too close to bull or cow—perhaps getting a dull horn driven up and into the belly of the pony with a shower of red and a tumbling waterfall of intestine as the rider picked himself off the cold, hard prairie and ran for cover, ran to escape the on-rushing beasts mindlessly lurching ever southward. One rider did not make it in time, his own belly opened up by a slashing hoof.

Others, riders too young to hunt, rushed forward now to drag the wounded, bleeding warrior from the scene, where he could be tended to by one of the shamans who laid his skeletal, veiny hand over the great, gaping, crimson flap of skin that had exposed the internal organs, and began shaking his rattle in time with his prayer chant.

When the first of the hunters had turned about to claim their kill, there was a profusion of carcasses more than a mile long. The young men turned their ponies over to family members then went about the business of searching for particular markings on the arrows. When a beast was found to have a warrior's arrow in it, the hunter called out. The women and men too old to hunt came running, their butcher knives glinting in the cold, winter sun of the Staked Plain. Time for work had come.

The children reveled in the glory of it, hungry as they were. Slices of liver sprinkled with gall from the tiny, yellow bladder were passed out to be sucked juicily by the little ones. Long strips of gut were gobbled and gummed by the old, toothless ones. With blood up to their elbows, splashed on their knees, the women dove into the carcasses time and again, pulling meat and organs from the white, fleecy carcasses.

Like a rich offering made to a royal king, one of Quanah's wives brought him a long bone she had skinned out and cracked to expose the rich, yellowish marrow. As he watched the butchering and listened to the happy voices, Quanah scraped the marrow free with a finger and sucked the rich, greasy buffalo butter with delight.

By twilight beneath the cold winter sky, the celebration had rolled into full swing. Over every merry fire roasted hump-ribs or thick roasts speared on a sharpened stick. The men played drums and sang their songs of thanksgiving, the women trilled with happy voices. The children laughed and ran and cried out with the warmth of full bellies. Quanah could ask nothing more for his people than this—that they be allowed to roam the buffalo land, allowed to find enough buffalo to feed themselves for time beyond his grandchildren's grandchildren.

Food, clothing, shelter, weapons … what more could his people want? Quanah asked himself.

So it was the following morning before the sun found its way out of the east that the Kwahadi chief had awakened himself and left in the freezing predawn darkness, carrying a selected green hide in his lap as he rode to the crest of the highest hill for miles around, smelling the pungent air of winter's cleansing hand upon the land.

Reverently he laid the green, heavy hide on the browned, autumn-dried grass and unrolled it. Atop he laid a little tobacco stolen in raids among the settlements, a bit of powder and a lead ball from his pistol. In the end he slowly drew the edge of his knife along his left palm, opening up a tiny laceration that beaded with blood then began to ooze more freely. Quanah squeezed and squeezed his wrist, milking the hand until the blood would drop, bit by bit, until he had a crude circle made around the articles of thanksgiving on the green hide.

“These we offer to you, Grandfather Above!” he cried out into the pinking sky far to the east of him where the white man was said to number like the stars.

“May you accept all this, and the blood of a Kwahadi warrior in thanks for your gift of the buffalo to my people. We will always return the blessings you have given us with gifts of our own for your kindness to The People.”

The harsh wind came up, tussling his long braids and worrying the fringe of leggings and shirt.

Although the wind was clean, Quanah nonetheless suddenly smelled the killing field they had run across a week ago. It was as if the power of the wind spirits now commanded him to scour the land clean of the white man.

“I will do as I am asked,” Quanah Parker vowed. “To drive the white man from our land. And those who will not turn about and flee—we will kill.”

Chapter 24

Early November 1873

Seamus couldn't remember ever before seeing that color in the sky. More so, he couldn't remember ever seeing that color before at all.

He figured nowhere else would a man possibly find that radiant lavender hue to the hulking winter clouds as the sun drained out of their gray bellies into the far west. And for a bittersweet moment he thought on Uncle Ian O'Roarke, Dimity and their five children, living beyond the Rockies and Sierras too.
*

In a matter of minutes he knew Jack Stillwell would be stopping the group for the coming night.

Already the air was growing cold as the sun lost its short-lived power over this wide land of never-ending horizons. And Seamus figured he knew the spot Stillwell would choose for their camp—down there along that meandering creek, most likely among that stand of stunted trees on the far bank.

Autumn had begun to chant its death song across these southern plains. Winter silence would seal its fate.

The tall, red-gold grass brushed the stirrups as his horse pushed through it, wading belly-deep mile after mile through this dying, inland sea. Long ago stripped bare of leaves by the incessant wind on these plains, the trees and brush stood skeletal, austere, and ultimately lonely in the cold, fading light. Except for the quiet hoofbeats of the horses, the brushing of the grass beneath the riders' stirrups and the rumble of the iron-tired wagon over the uneven ground, all sound was quickly swallowed by the coming darkness and the immense, aching wilderness. Every bit as quickly, the approaching night worked to draw the last vestige of warmth from the land.

By the time all the riders were across the narrow creek, the commissary sergeant leaned into the brake and halted his wagon. The escort's commander, Lieutenant Harry Stanton of the Fourth Cavalry, ordered two soldiers to help the sergeant unhitch the eight mules. Two black and brown sharp-eared animals were always rotated out of hitch each day, halter-tied to the back of the wagon to enjoy their stint at leisure. The other six mules were used to pull the high-walled freighter which contained the party's rations: beans, salt-pork, hardtack and coffee, along with bedrolls and tents, extra weapons and two thousand rounds of ammunition for each of the twelve soldiers. In addition to having enough cartridges in the event the group was surrounded and put under siege, Lieutenant Stanton had requested that one of the young troopers assigned to come along on the escort would have blacksmithing skills. Crossing the hard, sunbaked prairie like this, there was no telling when one of the army mounts or wagon mules would throw a shoe. Out here, that could mean a slow, lingering death for a man as sure as anything else.

Small fires were the order of the day, started at the bottom of holes they dug out of the hard, unforgiving soil so the flames would not be seen from any distance. Three of such fires was all Stillwell allowed, and those only long enough to boil coffee before dirt was kicked back in to snuff the red embers. Cold, almost tasteless salt-pork and the big, dry squares of hardtack served as supper for the weary men who took their canteens to the narrow, muddy creek and refilled them before settling back against their saddles and bedrolls as the sun disappeared for good and night-black descended upon over the land.

“Look yonder,” said one of the troopers, pointing as he strode back from the nearby brush where he had relieved his trail-hammered kidneys.

Most of the rest turned to look, rising from the ground where they had been squatting, filling pipes or rolling smokes. Seamus saw it too, over the tops of the rain-grayed canvas tents, over the backs of the horses they picketed close in to camp, wary of pony-hungry horse thieves.

Across the whole of the western horizon the sky glowed brightly, giving an iridescent orange-pink to the gray underbellies of the winter clouds suspended overhead.

“What you make of that, Jack?” Donegan asked as Stillwell came to a halt beside him.

“Prairie fire.”

“Makes a pretty sight, don't it now?”

Stillwell nodded, only slightly. “We'll have to keep an eye on it, Irishman. That sonofabitch stew is coming our way.”

“Sonofabitch stew?”

“Fire drives everything in front of it—critters of all kind: four-leggeds, birds, every bug that flies. All them get churned up together hurrying to skeedaddle so's they don't get cooked. That's what they call sonofabitch stew out here on the prairie.”

Donegan stared back at the dimly lit, long red line faintly shimmering on the far horizon. “It's coming our way?”

He smelled the air. “Take a sniff. Smell it? We're sure as hell downwind of it. No chance I'd bet against it—that fire's coming right for us.”

“How long do we have?” asked Philip Graves as he strode up to the others.

“I don't rightly know for now.”

“Perhaps we should strike camp and move off—away from the flames, Mr. Stillwell,” suggested Simon Pierce.

Donegan looked at the pair holding their valises, Pierce clutching that long map tube like it was life itself to the man.

“We've got time. Besides, it could snuff itself out for all we know.”

“And if it doesn't?” Graves prodded the young scout.

“Then we'll have to make a run for it. But for now—that stew's still a long way off.”

“Will it be here before morning?” Pierce asked.

“No,” Stillwell answered. “Too far off. Plenty time for breakfast.”

“Come along, Philip,” Graves said, turning and pulling his partner by the elbow. “I have something to discuss with you—in private.”

Seamus watched the pair go, then found his eyes naturally returning to the fire. “How fast does it travel?”

Jack stooped only slightly and tore off up a handful of the tall, seed-headed buffalo grass. He smelled it, then crumpled it between his gloved hands. Then smelled it again. “Mighty dry.”

“That fire will eat right through this grass, won't it, Jack?”

He nodded. “Mighty dry, Seamus. Let's go get Stanton's men to understand they've got to keep an eye on that red horizon off yonder when they stand their turns at watch through the night.”

With the soldiers understanding they were not only to watch and listen for possible horse raiders, but to monitor the progress of the prairie fire itself, Stillwell joined Donegan in their small tent. No more than any other night on this journey, the canvas rattled and snapped quietly beneath the hand of the wind as the camp settled down into slumber. Donegan tossed and turned in his blankets, still brooding on what brought Pierce and Graves out here to Comanche country.

From time to time Seamus was aware of the camp guard walking about outside the frost-rimed canvas tent he shared with Stillwell. Sleeping as light as he did, the Irishman awoke with each changing of the guard. Throughout the long night, he dozed and listened to the two troopers stomping about in an attempt to stay warm while standing their watch.

Realizing he had finally fallen asleep, Donegan slowly grew aware that the quality of light had changed in their small tent. But it was deliciously warm inside where he had burrowed his head down in the heavy wool blankets. There came a quiet rustle of voices outside, then one of the soldiers poked his head through the doorway, his announcement shattering Donegan's peaceful reverie.

“Mr. Stillwell? Lieutenant wants to see you.”

Both of them sat up. Seamus saw the young trooper's thick breath-smoke fogging up the tiny tent.

“What is it, soldier?” Jack asked.

“Says he wants to show you something.”

“The fire?”

The young soldier's head bobbed. “He wants to know if it's time for us to make a run for it.”

“I'm coming,” Stillwell muttered, throwing off his blankets, pushing back the canvas bedroll.

It was only when the soldier left that Donegan first became aware of the change in the wind—its power now something clearly definable, a presence announced with a sharp tang to the air. This was no longer the clean smell of the prairie. This wind had in it the stinging, acrid smell of blackened death.

His breath-smoke fogged before his face in thick tissue as he jammed his feet and pants down into the tall, stovepipe boots and pulled on the heavy, blanket mackinaw and leather gloves. Seamus followed Jack from the flaps and stood, turning up the tall collar to keep the brutal cold from his ears which instantly began to ache with the bone-numbing temperature.

“I don't need to see more, Lieutenant,” Jack called out to the backs of the soldiers on the other side of their camp.

The lieutenant turned. “You see what I see?”

“Yes—let's get this camp struck.” Jack turned to Donegan. “Roll Pierce and Graves out, Seamus.”

Stuffing the upper part of his body through an opening in the tent flaps lashed together against the wind, the Irishman announced, “Gentlemen, it's time to rise and shine!”

Pierce was the first to poke his head out to greet the predawn cold. “What's the meaning of this intrusion, Donegan?”

“Fire, gentlemen. We have company coming this morning—and it'll be here before breakfast.” He watched Graves awaken groggily and pull the blankets back from his face. “If you plan on coming with us, start moving now.”