Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873 (25 page)

From time to time Satanta peered down at the white men clustered beneath the hazy glow of the yellow streetlamps. They always hollered louder and shook their fists when he or Big Tree came to the window. Here, in the deepening twilight of this stinking place where the air did not blow free, he felt like nothing more than a shadow imprisoned behind these bars. Sadly he realized he was still of enough substance that he could not float free from the windowsill and fly off, taking wing for his faraway and much beloved prairie.

That night passed as so many before it, and the next morning the soldiers came for the two. After the chiefs were allowed to relieve themselves in a small wooden house outside, then fed and given steamy coffee while the sun rose full in the east, they were herded out the back door to the waiting ambulance. Sitting among the horse-mounted soldiers were three men—civilians. New faces to Satanta.

“You see them before?” Big Tree asked in a hushed whisper as the ambulance jerked into motion.

He nodded. “The older one—yes. I remember. He was with Yellow Hair five winters ago.”

“A scout for Custer and the soldier chief Sheridan when they captured you and Lone Wolf?”

“Yes,” Satanta answered. “The other two, I've never seen. Perhaps they work for the older one.”

“I cannot tell the difference really. All three look alike, Satanta.”

“White men are that way, don't you know, my friend?” Satanta laughed harshly. “After all this time, after knowing so many white men—I can say very few look different.”

“A young one—he learns how to scout from the old man?”

“Yes,” Satanta replied. “And the other, with the little beard on his chin and those gray eyes of his. He is a big, big man.”

“I have rarely seen someone so tall before,” Big Tree added.

“His scalp would look good on your medicine pole—no?”

Big Tree grinned. “If I have the chance, Satanta. Any white man's scalp would look good on my medicine pole.”

“No, Big Tree. When you have the chance, study the tall one with the gray eyes. His hair would be a great prize.”

“If you think so much of it, I will leave his scalp for you … when the time comes.”

Satanta grinned slightly, gazing out the ambulance window for a glimpse of the three civilians who rode along with the army escort. “When the time comes, this old warrior wants that white man's scalp for himself.”

After nearly a week of travel the two chiefs stared in amazement from the ambulance windows one mid-afternoon, recognizing not only some of the country, but some of the buildings as well as they drew closer to the Fort Sill military reservation. In a rush of emotion the two men silently embraced, eyes moistening as they realized they were once more among their people. Suspended above and among the trees in the distance, there across Cache Creek, Satanta could see the low-hanging smoke of many fires surrounding the agency.

This was the prison country of his people.

Their home and hearts lay far to the south and west.

Yet there were still small victories to celebrate. And this homecoming was one of the sweetest he could remember.

No less sweet than that terrible time five winters gone when the Yellow Hair Custer had held both he and Lone Wolf prisoner, threatening to hang them if the Kiowa bands did not come in to the Fort Cobb reservation as the soldiers demanded. Satanta would never forget that winter, nor that great humiliation heaped on his shoulders—forced to watch the white soldier chief's hanging ropes swinging in the winter wind from a tall oak tree.

When the ambulance rattled to a halt, one of the white men barked orders while others hurried forward and one soldier pulled open the door. A long gauntlet had been formed by the black-faced buffalo soldiers, a tunnel the prisoners would have to walk from the ambulance into the very same stone building where they had been captured and held more than two winters before.

White soldiers in clean blue uniforms awaited the chiefs on the porch, where they turned and showed the Kiowas into the interior of the buildings. Two more black-faced soldiers stood on either side of a narrow door filled with darkness. A third black soldier held a lamp in his hand, its flame wavering only slightly beneath the smudgy globe.

One of the white soldiers turned to say something to the civilian at his side. Satanta thought he remembered the clean-shaven civilian from the short-grass time he was captured at this place, but then he could not be certain.

“White Bear … you and Big Tree are ordered to go down the steps,” Philip McCusker, post and agency interpreter, explained as he pointed to the narrow doorway.

“That is the bad-smelling place where the soldiers kept me prisoner the first time I was put in chains!” Satanta snapped.

“Yes, it is.”

“We will not go!” Satanta peered at the soldiers, uneasy with their pistols drawn. He knew it would take a little foolish act on his part and one of them would shoot him.

“You must,” McCusker pleaded. “It will only be for a few sunrises. Then the leader of the white men in Texas will be here.”

“Why does he come?”

McCusker appeared to search for an answer. “He comes to talk with the soldiers about the terms of your release.”

Satanta was suspicious. He glanced at Big Tree's open, expectant face, then glowered at McCusker once more. “I do not believe we are here to be freed of our chains.” He held up the wrist shackles, rattling the chain connecting them. “This must be more of the white man's trickery.”

“No,” McCusker replied. “The leader of Texas is coming here in a few days to talk to you and your chiefs about freeing you. Go do what the soldiers want. Stay down those stairs and sleep and eat until you can once again see your wives and children.”

Satanta turned to Big Tree. “Will you go down the stairs into that hole with me … for a few sunrises—until the white man will take these irons from our bodies?”

“I will,” Big Tree replied. “I am home—at least among my people.”

“This is nothing more than a stinking hole in the ground,” Satanta said as he turned back to McCusker, both cuffed hands indicating the door to the basement.

“You will have food and water and blankets for the short time you are there. Go now,” McCusker said. “Before the soldiers get more nervous and there is trouble.”

Satanta turned without a word, leading Big Tree to the doorway. The black soldiers inched aside and allowed the Kiowas to descend the narrow stairwell behind the soldier holding the oil lamp.

The place smelled of dust and old water, just as he had remembered it. It was not the smell of the open prairie he hungered for so.

No, this place was like descending into the bowels of some rotting carrion left on the plains by the white hunters come only for the hides and the tongues, leaving the rest to make a great stench that filled the air.

Satanta walked slowly, carefully, dragging his heavy chains down one step at a time into the darkness, following the flickering yellow lamplight, certain he had been swallowed by this belly of some great, stinking monster the white man appeased by feeding Indians to it.

He nursed his bitter hatred, brooding on the gray-eyed one with the long, curly hair Satanta wanted to adorn his medicine shield.

*   *   *

“You know any of that bunch, Sharp?” Seamus Donegan asked as they both looked over the gathering of civilians clustered along the crude tables in the Fort Sill mess hall.

“That big one's supposed to be Davis himself.”

“Governor of Texas?”

Grover nodded. “I figure the one who's never far from his side is the governor's aide. Don't know who the rest of 'em are.”

“Texas ranchmen,” announced Jack Stillwell as he walked up to the two men.

“Where you find out?” Grover asked.

“Just need to ask the right people.”

“And that was?”

“Sergeant Waller,” Stillwell answered with a grin.

“Then it must be so,” Donegan replied. “What they come up here with Davis for?”

“Came with the governor and his secretary hoping to recover some of their stock lost to the Kiowas and Comanches on the reservation.”

“How they gonna do that?”

“I suppose they'll inspect the brands,” Sharp replied.

“Dangerous snooping, I'd say,” Seamus added. “Those Injin bucks won't let white men near their cattle, will they?”

“I doubt it. Could bring the kettle to a boil.”

Governor Edmund J. Davis had arrived at Fort Sill with his party of state officials and private citizens on Friday, October third. The next day, the agent to the Southern Cheyenne, John D. Miles, rode in, leading two officials of the Indian Bureau: Commissioner E. P. Smith, and Enoch Hoag, superintendent of the Central Superintendency that oversaw the southern plains.

On that Sunday, 5 October, Davis and the Indian Bureau officials held a brief and acrimonious preliminary hearing with the Kiowas and Comanches to find agreement on a time and place for “the grand council.” The white men wanted the conference held on the parade ground at Fort Sill, where there would be no question as to the security of the proceedings.

And for that same reason, the Indians protested that they would not attend such a council held inside the walls of the white man's fort where Indian blood had been spilled and some of their people had died when the soldiers arrested both Satanta and Big Tree.

“Our hearts will be cold and our thoughts will be poisoned by such an evil place as this fort of yours,” explained Kicking Bird to the sour-faced Tehanna chief.

Davis was grim indeed. He and the rest were hearing nothing of the Indians' complaints. “We will hold our talks on the open parade of Fort Sill,” the governor told interpreter Philip McCusker to explain to the chiefs, “or … I will ride back to Texas and we will hold no talks about the release at all.”

Grudgingly the angry chiefs agreed to meet with the Indian officials and the hated Tehannas on the following day, Monday, 6 October—on the parade at Fort Sill, I.T.

Chapter 19

October 6, 1873

“Will you look at them now?” said Reuben Waller in a hushed but approving whisper.

“They do make a sight, don't they?” replied Seamus Donegan.

Both men stood at the edge of Fort Sill's parade, witness to the strutting, preening pride of the warriors and chiefs who streamed through the post gates and strode regally past the central flagpole, making the great circuit for the large Sibley tent pitched at the south side of the parade.

Half the strength of H Company, for the moment under the command of Sergeant Waller—the second half under command of Captain Louis H. Carpenter himself—joined the other three companies of the Tenth U.S. Cavalry ringing the fort in readiness. Mounts stood saddled, a shell in the breech of every carbine, and sidearms loosened.

If there was to be fighting this day, as Lieutenant Colonel Davidson had predicted, the Tenth would be ready when trouble raised it hoary head.

The huge, conical Sibley tent had been pitched in front of Davidson's headquarters along the south wall of the stockade. It was here both the Texas and Indian Bureau officials would formally meet with the Kiowa and Comanche leaders who slowly came forward in small groups and seated themselves on the ground in the order of their importance.

Behind a series of tables, the white officials settled in ladder-back chairs, watching the unhurried, deliberate assembly of the head men from both tribes. Off to the side, in the middle of a crescent of buffalo soldiers, sat the stoic Satanta and Big Tree.

It was some time before the chiefs, head men and the young warriors had all seated themselves and appeared ready for the grand council to begin. Philip McCusker whispered in Davidson's ear, prompting the lieutenant colonel to rise and address the colorful, feather-adorned assembly. From his spot at the end of the tables, where he could position himself between the two groups, McCusker began to sign for the Comanche and translate in Kiowa.

“I am Lieutenant Colonel Davidson of the Tenth U.S. Cavalry,” the officer began. “We have called you here today to listen to the words of some important officials of our governments regarding the future of both your tribes: Kiowa and Comanche. Without further delay, I introduce to you Mr. E. P. Smith, the Great Father's commissioner of Indian affairs back in Washington City.”

As Smith rose from his chair, there came a smattering of applause from the other white men, while none of the buffalo soldiers clapped. The assembled Indians looked on without emotion as the government official began his proclamation.

“I come this morning with greetings from the Great White Father for his Kiowa and Comanche children,” Smith said, then halted a few moments to allow for McCusker's translation. “There are many important matters for us to discuss today between your tribes and our government officials. But perhaps the most important of these is the release of your two chiefs.”

Smith glanced at Davis, finding the governor watching him intently. The commissioner wiped some sweat from his upper lip and continued self-consciously, clearly ill-at-ease before the painted, feathered assembly of plains raiders. “The man I will now introduce comes from far away in the land of Texas.”

As Smith paused, McCusker translated and signed. That singular word was muttered and re-echoed among the proud red crowd.

“Tehas!”

“This one is chief of Tehannas?”

When McCusker nodded at him, the commissioner continued, “He is the leader of the people of that state, and as such comes to discuss the release of Satanta and Big Tree with you. I now have the honor of introducing Governor Edmund J. Davis, the esteemed governor of the sovereign state of Texas.”

Davis rose to the applause of his staff and most of the Texas stockmen who had come north in hopes of locating some of their stolen cattle. With a hand held in his vest as if to strike a commanding pose, the governor peered over the crowd for a few moments in a manner of assessing it for political advantage before he began to speak. When he started, it was with a nod given to Philip McCusker, as if he were granting the interpreter permission to begin his part of this highly charged drama.