Michener, James A. (130 page)

So when Rattlesnake Peavine told Chief Matark that the guns for Fort Garner were being shipped by Cavm & Clark, the Indian knew that anyone who sought to intercept this shipment had plenty of time. There was even the possibility that gunfire from

ambush might not be necessary, because it was sometimes possible for a Comanchero to arrange an outright deal with the C&C driver: Til give two hundred dollars for the whole train.'

'Could you buy the guns?' Matark asked.

They know me too well. I killed two of their drivers.'

'Then we must capture them?'

'I think it's the only way.'

'Will the wagons have an escort?'

'Probably. A new fort. A new commander.'

'And eager young officers,' Matark said. 'Well, I'll send my eager young braves.'

'When I entered the canyon,' Peavine said, 'I saw your young fellows playing with a white girl. Could that be the Larkin girl?'

'Yes.'

'You know, I could earn you a lot of money if you'd let me trade her back to the Texans.'

'I have plans for her,' Matark said. 'And you're right. She'll bring us a lot of money.'

'Then I can't have her?' Before the chief could reply, the wily trader explained: 'Some day I'll have to make peace with the Texans. No more trading. Too old. If I appeared with the Larkin girl, I'd be a hero . . .'

Matark looked at him and thought: Yes, and then you'd turn against us. It would be you, the Rattlesnake, who would lead the blue-coats against us. You'd bring them right into this canyon. For one savage moment he considered calling for his braves and killing Peavine right then, but the canny little trader divined his thinking and quickly said. 'You know you need me. To keep getting guns, you need me.'

i do,' Matark conceded, and a deal was firmed whereby Peavine would get many Mexican pieces of gold if the guns were captured, but when he left Matark's tent he took great care to seek out Emma Larkin, for if she was ever released, he wanted her to testify to the fact that he had tried to be helpful.

He found her huddled in the shade of a tepee, ignored for the moment by her tormentors, and he was appalled by her appearance. She was thin almost to the point of death, her hair and nails filthy. Only knotted nubs remained to show where her ears had been, and her nose was in fearful condition. Looking at her as she trembled by the tepee, he wondered how the Comanche had fallen into the abominable practices they followed with their prisoners, and he recalled having chided Matark about this: 'Why do you burn the ranchers alive? Why cut them to pieces?' and the chief had replied: That's our custom.' Peavine then asked: 'Why not

just kill them?' and Matark had said To watch an enerm die is good.' Peavine said: 'But why torture them so?' and Matark had explained: if enemy dying is good, longtime dying is better ' Peavine had inquired further: 'Does it mean something? Do add strength to your braves 7 ' and Matark had said with solemn finality: it has always been our custom.'

That explained so much, not only regarding the Comanche but all fighting men, and Peavine, reflecting on the customs of his own profession, could hear his father admonishing him: 'Never shoot a man in the back. Never! It hain't tolerated ' It was also not tolerated to kill women unless in the heat of battle or when they were shooting back. Texans, he noticed, bore no grudge if a man shot another with a rifle, even if from ambush at a safe distance, but they deplored the Mexican who killed with a knife, even at close hand where he ran great risk. The gun was manly, the knife was not.

French, German, Russian armies, he had heard, all had their traditions, as iron-clad as the Comanche attitude toward prisoners; he had been told of the Prussian custom of leaving a disgraced officer alone with a loaded revolver, expecting him to blow his brains out— 'Not with me. They got to do the shootin'!' he growled.

But no rationalization could justify the Comanche treatment of their girl prisoners: 'Why do you let them do such horrible things to the little girls?' he had asked Matark, who had again replied: it is our custom.' Peavine had not liked being allied with Indians who behaved so barbarously, but with the plains depicted of other tribes, he had few options, and hiding his disgust, lie moved closer to the girl, whereupon a transformation took place

For when she looked up at him she was no longer a terrified object of torture; she was a fighting little tiger with the same determination to survive that animated him. This child was not going to die easily, regardless of what the Comanche did to her. and for a fleeting moment he wanted to embrace her and earn her with him on the raid against the supply tram Mis life had taught him to revere persistence, and this child was persisting against terrors which would have deranged even strong adults.

'My name is Amos Peavine,' he said i wish 1 could help '

These were the first words in English she had heard since the massacre, and she was obviously pleased that she remembered what they meant: 'I am Emma Larkin.'

'I know. I will tell the others you are alive

'You!' a surly brave shouted. 'Get back!' And with a well-directed stone he hit her sharply on the leg. Knowing that if she

did not obey instantly, the tortures would resume, she scurried away as if she were a frightened dog, but Peavine, catching a glimpse of her eyes, realized that she was not frightened; she was acting so to be rid of the stone-throwing, and he muttered to himself: 'Some night she'll cut that one's throat. Go it, lass!' With that, he turned to the organizing of the raiding party which would ambush the Cavin & Clark shipment.

When Captain Reed received official notice from the young officer in Washington that his supplies, including needed guns and ammunition, would be arriving sometime in May via Cavin & Clark, he-shuddered, because he knew that if C&C performed as always, the shipment might arrive in May as scheduled, but it also might arrive in September, or perhaps not at all.

'1 cannot understand,' he complained to Wetzel, 'how Washington can ignore our negative reports on Cavin & Clark and still use them.'

'Saving money,' the German suggested.

'But it loses money. We proved that in our last report.'

'Men at the desk never believe men in the field.'

Reed said no more to Wetzel, who, in the great Prussian tradition, respected whatever the higher command ordered, but he did seek out his adjutant, Lieutenant Sanders: i'm not easy about this Cavin & Clark shipment. What ought we do?'

'We need those supplies. I'd send a detachment of cavalry to Fort Richardson. Protect the wagons every inch of the way from Jacksborough.'

'We've not been ordered to do so.'

'I'd do it, anyway. Those are our goods, and we need them.'

'Who would you send?'

'Well, the Comanche will probably be reluctant to strike so far behind our lines.'

Reed grew impatient: 'You just said we had to protect the wagons.'

'I'm not afraid of the Comanche. I'm afraid of Cavin & Clark. If we don't watch them, they'll sell the whole consignment.'

The two officers shook their heads in disgust, and Reed spoke first: 'Hell of a situation. We have to fight the Indians. We have to fight Cavin & Clark. And we have to fight Washington. But who to send?'

'With Fort Richardson at the other end, the likelihood of a fight is not great. I'd send young Toomey.' He reflected not on Toomey's ability but on the terrain between the two forts. 'Yes,

I'd send Toomey, but I'd also send Sergeant Jaxifer. He knows the lay of the land.'

Sanders, although not a member of the 10th Cavalry, hdd had ample opportunity to assess the character of jaxifer, a forty-three-year-old veteran of mounted action. He was a big, very black man, with almost no neck and with forearms that could have wrestled bears. Surprisingly quick on his feet, he leaped into any action that confronted him, and on a horse, was practically unstoppable. He said little, told no one what his antecedents were, and if asked, said New York was his home, even though the roster listed his birthplace accurately as Georgia. He had joined the Union forces in December 1863, after escaping from the Confederacy by swimming the Rio Grande into Mexico, and had attained the impressive rank of first sergeant through a mixture of quick obedient obvious bravery. When Northern blacks who had never known slavery asked his opinion of the system, he said: i had some bad masters, more good. But I run away from both.' The fact that he was now surviving in an army which despised him was proof of his intelligence.

He was harsh with his men: This got to be the best unit in the army. You step out of line, I cut your neck off.' Even Wetzel, who had objected to having the black cavalry so close to his white infantry at morning parade and evening retreat, occasionally complimented Jaxifer on the snappy drill his men performed: 'In the Prussian army, a lot more precision, of course, but very good by American standards.' Once Wetzel even placed his hand on Jaxifer's arm as the two stood watching their men drill: 'We have a first-class fort here. We can be proud.'

John Jaxifer was the kind of man one sent to reinforce a junior officer on a scouting expedition, but the importance of the proposed exercise was somewhat diminished when a group of four horsemen arrived from Fort Richardson with headquarters' plans for the movement of Cavin & Clark wagons: 'General Grierson will send some of our troops to protect it halfway. At Three Cairns you'll take over and bring the train safely in.'

'We had stood ready to pick it up at Jacksborough,' Reed said, but the other men assured him that Grierson was more than happy to extend the courtesy: 'We have some young fellows who need the experience.'

'Likewise,' Reed said, and it was arranged that six days after the Fort Richardson men started west, Second Lieutenant Elmer Toomey, supported by First Sergeant John Jaxifer, would ride toward Three Cairns, those informal piles of rock which had been

stacked on the treeless plains to mark the way to Fort Garner, to pick up the wagon train and bring it safely home.

Chief Matark and Amos Peavine had been kept informed of both the arrival of the C&C train at Jacksborough and the movement of a four-man escort west from Fort Richardson. 'If they join up with the men from Fort Garner coming east to meet them,' Matark warned, 'they might be too strong for us.' But Peavine reassured him: 'The Fort Richardson men will come only halfway, then ride back to Jacksborough. We'll have to fight only the small escort sent out by Fort Garner.'

'If that, where do we attack 7 '

'During the last half. Then the stronger force at Fort Richardson would have more difficulty sending help.'

Carefully the two plotters analyzed the situation, with Peavine supplying the relevant details concerning army strength: 'Eight wagons, driver and shotgun each, that's sixteen guns right there, but those C&C drivers don't like to fight. Real cowards. The Buffalo Soldiers, they like to fight and think three of them can lick twenty of us.' Any crusty Comanchero like the Rattlesnake liked to use the pronouns we and us when talking with his Indians. 'Grierson, he'd send four men at most. Reed, this is his first fort as commander. He'll send maybe a dozen. But whereas Grierson would never send an untried man, not on any mission at all, Reed might.'

'More men in the second half?' Matark asked. 'But weaker?'

Before Peavine could respond, a scout rode up, quivering with excitement but also laughing: 'Come see! You must see!' And he led the two men nearly a mile south to where two other scouts were lying on the ground at the edge of a slight rise, below which nestled a small protected tank near which a soldier whose blue jacket lay beside him was twisting on the ground with a young woman who looked as if she might be very pretty indeed. They were making love, and for a long moment the five watchers looked approvingly.

'Shall we kill them?" one of the scouts asked, and each of the other four men thought how astonished those lovers would be if they were interrupted in their raptures by four Comanche and a white man with a withered left arm.

The three braves were ready to make the charge down the slopes of the little vale when Peavine halted them: 'It would alert the fort.'

'But theyre so far away.

They would be missed. Their bodies would be found.' He spoke harshly: 'It's the wagons we want,' but as they rode away he had

to chuckle: 'Wouldn't they have been surprised?' And he reined in his horse to look again at the lovers sprawled upon the ground in their secluded swale beside the tank.

At the end of May 1870 the eight creaking and complaining wagons left Jacksborough, throwing clouds of dust so high that Comanche scouts well to the north were assured that the convoy was under way. It was attended, the Indians quietly noted, by only seven cavalrymen: four blacks in front, two at the rear, and one white officer riding slowly back and forth to maintain communication. It was not an orderly procession, nor a compact one, because each driver, his own boss and in no way obedient to the army of which he was not a part, chose the track that he thought best, which meant that the line straggled ridiculously.

i'd keep that line firmed up,' one of the troopers advised the carters, but they snapped: 'You mind your horse, we'll mind our mules.'

'You'll want us soon enough if the Comanche strike.'

That's what we always hear. If, if . . .'

'Well, damnit, when they do strike, and we've heard rumors out of Santa Fe, I want these wagons in a quick line.'

'They been in line since we left St. Louis.'

Grierson's men brought the wagons safely to Three Cairns, and when the watching Indians saw that an orderly transfer of responsibility was being made, they faced a problem: if we attack too soon, the Fort Richardson men may gallop back to help. If we attack too late, men from Fort Garner will hear and come out with support.' They were additionally perplexed when the eastern group, pleased with their work on the plains and loath to ride back to dull garrison duty at Jacksborough, stayed with the Fort Garner men till morning of the second day.

'When will they leave?' Matark grumbled, and Peavine had to reply: 'Who knows? Soldiers, who ever knows about those idiots?'