Murder at Medicine Lodge (15 page)

To the generals, Lone Wolf said loudly and clearly. “A member of my council has just told me a very disturbing thing. He said that you do not believe this man killed anyone. That you are offering to hang him simply to shut me up. That his death will accomplish nothing. That you will still believe and say bad things about the Kiowa.

“Before coming to this place known as Medicine Lodge, I gave my word no violence would come from any of my own. Now I am given to understand that you do not trust my word. You believe I have no honor, that my chiefs have no honor. You say that one among us was nothing more than a greedy child. That he killed just to have a trinket and that I could do nothing to stop him. You say all of this and still you decide to hang a different man.

“Hear me now, hear the voice of Lone Wolf. I will not stand for your insults against the Kiowa, against the chief known to you as Satanta. Perhaps you have failed to realize that I am a just man, that only the punishment of the truly guilty will satisfy me. Perhaps you need more time to think on all of this.”

Lone Wolf pulled himself up to his full height. “Very well. I give you this time. And I will give you something else, and with this something, there is no bargaining, no compromise, for I give you one of the least of us, the man known as Tay-bodal. He will find the truth. I will accept your word that while he lives among you, he will be free to hunt this truth down. Only when this matter is resolved will the chiefs of the Blue Jackets and I speak of peace.”

Left completely without option, the generals were forced to agree. His pride only partially satisfied, Lone Wolf turned and called for me. I moved forward, my mind dazed. And then I was looking up into that stern face, hearing that reproving voice.

“You have two days. That is all the time I am able to give.”

Unable to breathe or swallow, I could only nod.

*   *   *

Abandoned—that's precisely how I felt as I stood watching the Kiowa ride away. They even took my horse, taking with them my only means for an easy escape. Craning to look back over my shoulder, I saw the Blue Jackets begin to move away, five guards roughly moving along the shackled Little Jonas, directing him toward the prison tent. The generals and the Washington representatives began smoking cigars as they answered questions hurled by the shouting Eastern newspapermen. Only Billy remained beside me, our presence utterly forgotten. Apparently, the generals might be willing to accept my continued company, but this in no way meant that they felt any inclination to be hospitable into the bargain. I quickly understood that food and lodging during my temporary stay was my concern, not theirs. This attitude might have been different had they viewed me as someone relatively important, but by Lone Wolf's own admission, I was insignificant. The Blue Jacket generals were very quick to take his word on this, at least. If I wasn't important to Lone Wolf, then I wasn't important to them, either. They were, after all, surrounded by hundreds of prominent chiefs to whom they were forced to kowtow. One shaky-legged, worry-riddled warrior hardly seemed worth their effort.

Solace came when Billy placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “I'll take you to Hawwy.”

*   *   *

Half-clothed, wearing only his trousers and a long-sleeved white undershirt, Haw-we-sun lay facedown on his bed. Dimly he heard the door flap open. Not bothering to raise his curly head he said in a tormented voice, “Is it done?”

Billy answered, for my benefit, in Kiowa. “No. It was not done.”

Hawwy bolted upright, blinked several times, trying to believe that I was standing inside his private tent. This was made clear when he put voice to the doubts of his own eyes. “Tay-bodal? Is that you?”

“Yes. I've come to share your lodge for two days.”

Hawwy's chin pulled in against his bulky neck. “Why?”

“I was left behind by Lone Wolf to find the real killer of Buug-lah. I find myself dependent on your hospitality and your cooperation.”

“You have both,” he said earnestly.

I felt both considerably relieved and terribly guilty. I moved quickly to dispel the latter. “I apologize,” I said, my voice as dry as sand.

“Apologize for what? I don't understand.”

I looked down at my feet. “For being too quick to judge you.” It was a struggle, but I forced myself to raise my head, meet his wide-eyed stare. “I believed you were responsible for Little Jonas. I accused you of this publicly. Billy told me, told everyone, that I was wrong, that you had no part in what was done to Little Jonas. I'm asking you to forgive me.”

Haw-we-sun, in that much-too-open way of his, rose from the bed and hurried to embrace me. In the grip of this unseemly hug, I rolled woeful eyes toward Billy. The only help he offered in this thoroughly embarrassing moment was a hearty laugh.

*   *   *

Life in the soldier camp was extremely interesting. I'd lived among soldiers before—but as Hawwy's patient, confined to his doctoring house. I had not lived as a soldier lives. I had been kept separate and my meals were brought to me. In this camp, I was expected to carry a metal plate and coffee cup and stand in a long line with the other soldiers. Right away, this simple task revealed the blinding differences between ordinary soldiers and officers. And the difference, really, between the soldiers and hired frontiersmen and one Kiowa guest.

Hawwy had “dressed for dinner,” donning a fine uniform, then going off to a large tent where he sat down at a table, to be served his food by “mess soldiers.” As the flaps to that tent were fully open and the mess soldiers were coming and going, the dining officers were clearly visible to those of us of the lower class, shuffling along in the line. I noticed that, the more stripes on the sleeves of the soldiers, the farther ahead in the line they were. Those of us in the frontier class, without a uniform and certainly no stripes, were relegated to the very end of the line.

When eventually it came my turn to receive food, I was glad to have Billy behind me as the men in charge of the enormous pots slopped runny beans and a slab of bread on my plate. The next man filled my cup with coffee then asked if I wanted milk. Billy answered that yes I did, and then that soldier, with a disagreeable grunt, poured the milk from a can into my cup of coffee. When Billy nudged me, I knew it was time to move on.

We sat on the ground to eat our food. We were alone, no one volunteering to eat with us. Feeling this insult, I cried, “How can you stand this? Being shunned, made to eat like a camp dog while your friend goes off to eat in a place of honor?”

Billy tilted his head to the side, lifted his shoulders in a vague shrug, stuffed bread in his mouth. Chewing, he replied, “This is the army. Friendship has nothing to do with order.”

“And their order has to do with uniforms?”

“Yes.”

Billy knew a lot about the army, the white culture. He shared his knowledge as I ate the beans that were much too salty and the bread that was hard and stale.

The Civil War had changed many things, Billy told me, and during its length, new wonders—meant to make the field soldier's life more bearable, keep him fighting-fit—had come to be. Take cans for instance. Those were designed so that the soldier could cook for himself, independent of camp cooks. Canned meats, beans, bread, milk, and even coffee—known as “coffee essence” and made instantly when this powdery form of coffee was added to hot water—were carried in the soldier's pack. Now, the can opener wasn't thought up until ten years after the can, so prior to this handy gadget, the top of the cans were cut in an X, the four corners pulled back. Heating up the food wasn't much of a problem as all soldiers carried candles. And believe it or not, the candles fit the bayonets much better than the bayonets fit the muzzles of rifles. Stabbing the bayonets into the ground, soldiers put the candles into the muzzle joint and then cans of food were heated up over the small flame. Isn't that ingenious?

Weaponry during the war made tremendous strides, rifles changing from lead ball–and–powder muskets, to single-shot cartridges. Then the weapon makers figured out how to store sixteen cartridges in a chamber, only needing to cock the lever to load a fresh round. Those guns are what we knew to be e-pe-tas (repeaters). Cannons became more mobile when the army realized that the wheels for the small cannon wagons should to be smaller. Smaller wheels moved faster and were able to go through dense brush whereas the larger wheels were awkward, moved slowly, and were habitually “stumped” by dead fall. Since those days, I've heard a lot of people say, “I'm stumped,” or “That stumps me.” I've often wondered if they realize that this is an old Civil War term that meant a cannon was stuck somewhere and the soldiers couldn't shift it.

When I asked about uniforms, Billy had a lot to say about those, too.

Basically, each soldier was given two uniforms, and as the clothing was only one size, it was each soldier's responsibility to take needle and thread to make his issued uniforms fit him properly. If the uniforms were lost or ruined, the soldier was heavily fined, the money coming out of his pay. To prevent this, soldiers made name marks in their clothing so that if stolen, ownership could be proven.

Officers were not issued uniforms. They went to tailors and paid to have their uniforms made for them. Officers needed at least three uniforms, one for parade, one for field, and one for mess. The only restrictions as to how these uniforms should look was that the color must be dark blue and the material wool. Which explained why so many officers looked different. Some were quite carried away by their own individuality, adorning their jackets with an abundance of brass designs. Other officers, like Hawwy, couldn't be bothered. For them, other than the required shiny brass buttons, their jackets were plain.

The broad hats, which were issued for frontier use, were originally quite stiff, the crown blocked and tall, the right side of the brim forced up and pinned in place by a brass ornament set off with small red-and-white feathers. The pinning-up of the right side of the brim was to accommodate the barrel of a right-shouldered rifle. But in the Territory, rifles were carried in saddle holsters and the soldier's face and neck needed protection from the burning sun. What Territory soldiers and officers began doing was to remove the brass ornament and pin it to the right shoulder of their jackets; then they soaked the hats in water until the hats were soft and floppy. From this was born the slouch hat, a hat which on its own has become a familiar symbol of the high plains calvary soldier. A hat which before the end of the Civil War had not existed.

While all of this was thoroughly fascinating, I could see defects in the common-soldier clothing system. As their uniforms were all made the same way and of one size, items could be easily swapped, even stolen. In that case, it would rest with the offended soldier to prove that someone else was wearing his clothing. Billy said it was true, that petty theft was the cause for each soldier sewing into his clothing an identifying mark. But, I countered, suppose one soldier wanted to incriminate another? What better way than to leave another's uniform near the scene of a crime? Billy and I lapsed into silence, my brain busily remembering that the uniform wasn't found near Buug-lah, but miles away and hidden inside bushes. Then I thought of the reason I'd been caught up in this mess. Crying Wind throwing away my gift to her. The shovel.

Each soldier had a folding shovel. Why those were necessary, I did not know, nor was I particularly interested. It was simply enough to know that each soldier and officer indeed had a shovel. Now, owning such a handy item, if a man truly wanted to do away with incriminating evidence, what better way than to bury it? During the space of time between the murder and our discovery of the body, the murderer had had more than enough time to bury a bison. Therefore I concluded that the finding of that uniform must have been intended.

But why hadn't Little Jonas missed his extra uniform? Why hadn't he complained that someone had stolen his clothing? For those answers, I needed to talk to the accused man himself. Urging Billy on just as forcibly as I knew how, after cleaning and storing our metal plates and cups in the first room of Hawwy's tent—the little room sectioned off from his sleeping room and used as his office—Billy and I went to the prison tent, a tent which, prior to his disappearance, had been Buug-lah's private lodge.

Mrs. Adams' tent had been moved several yards from its original spot, as the lady did not find it comfortable living cheek by jowl with army miscreants—Major Elliot and his cohorts; then, of late, a big black man accused of murder. The twilight sky was painted with slashes of gold and purple colors. Mrs. Adams, wearing a tight-looking bright green dress, the curves of her body pushed into extraordinary angles, sat in a chair under the awning of her tent, rapidly fanning herself as she spoke crisply with two dismal-expressioned white men. As they were wearing brown suits, I rightly supposed that these were treaty men from Washington. Seeing me, Mrs. Adams waved her fan broadly, demanding that I to come her.

As Billy and I neared, I was immediately taken by the fan's flattened blade. It appeared to be made of thin wood, the blade mounted on a handle. The blade was painted with the likeness of a young bearded man wearing a white shirt, a red robe draped over his shoulder. Beautiful liquidy-blue eyes looked up toward a darkened heaven, and an illuminating whiteness surrounded the crown of his head. I would later learn that this man was named Jesus.

“Do you speak Arapaho?” she snapped to me in English.

Transfixed by the fan lying on her lap I answered yes, that I spoke Arapaho reasonably well. She quickly switched to that language.

“I want you to tell your chiefs to behave themselves,” she said in commanding tone. “The Kiowa have caused nothing but trouble from the first day. You people are ruining everything, making the rest of us look bad.” She lifted the fan, employed it against me the way an angry auntie would shake her finger at a naughty child. “All of this is White Bear's fault. He's a no-good, and I know he killed that young man and somehow placed the blame on the Buffalo Soldier.”