Come Sundown (43 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Come Sundown
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I had to explain to the young warriors how the talking wire carried the white man's messages by magical means. They didn't want to believe me at first, but I convinced them finally and they agreed that the wire should be cut to aggravate the whites. To cut the wire, a couple of them would find a secluded spot along the line a good safe distance out of town. A warrior would stand on the back of a well-trained pony with a pair of nippers—supplied by me, of course—whereupon he would reach high and cut the wire.
In some places, however, the wire was too high to reach even standing on the back of a horse, so one warrior would throw his lariat over the wire, then feed the tail end of the rope through the honda to make a loop around the wire. By tying the end of his lariat to the tail of his horse, the warrior could pull the telegraph wire downward and sideways, low enough so that his partner could cut it. Simply cutting the wire would never suffice, however. A lengthy section had to be taken out of it and hidden to keep it from being too quickly repaired.
From stories I gathered later, these assaults on the telegraph wires were blamed on everyone from Union spies to cattle rustlers. No one ever dreamed that the Indians understood the significance of the early telegraph lines, so they were not even considered as the culprits. I had the Comanche boys use shod horses borrowed from nearby ranches to make the tracks along the telegraph lines look like those of white men. The boys would return the horses before dawn, so the ranchers would not come looking for stolen stock and discover our mobile supply camp. It wasn't easy for me to convince a young Comanche to return a fine horse he had stolen, but Loud Shouter and Fears-the-Ground helped me maintain discipline in this matter, and the element of danger in taking and returning the mounts began to appeal to the boys.
I also ordered my men to build their fires like a white man would. Indians put one end of a stick or log in a fire so that it burns off and can then be pushed in to burn more. White men typically lay the middle of a stick over the fire so that both
ends must then be pushed in, which is only half as efficient as the Indian method. Frontiersmen knew the difference and could tell by the remnants of a burned-out fire which method had been used, so I had my Indians use the white man's method in order to take the onus for our shenanigans off the Indians.
In spite of all my precautions, I ran into some serious trouble outside of Jacksboro. Since the beginning of the Civil War, the Comanches had raided Jacksboro so often that the population had plummeted from about 1,600 to fewer than 700 souls. Since most the able-bodied fighting men were away at war, the town had been left vulnerable. This only seemed to serve Jacksboro right. Before the war, a local newspaper called
The Whiteman
had devoted itself to printing the policies of Indian removal from the surrounding area, and regularly published rabid editorials attacking the Indians. Now the red men were the ones removing the whites. The surviving settlers there had become quite vigilant in the face of frequent raids.
Because of all this, I made a rather small purchase of ammunition, along with an Enfield rifle, some camp supplies, and a farrier's file. It was the latter that excited the local gossip after I left, for it was known that Indians often converted files to lance blades by firing them red-hot, beating their edges thin, and honing them to razor sharpness. After I left town, a half-dozen citizens, perhaps better described as vigilantes, tracked me down and overtook me. I could have quit my pack mule and fled on Tu Hud, one of the fine ponies that Kills Something had given me, but I risked talking my way out of the situation, so that I could save the supplies on the mule.
After the men from Jacksboro surrounded me, their leader said, “We'd like a word with you, sir.” He was older than the others, with gray beard stubble on his face. Like the rest, he seemed to come from rough stock. They all wore drab work clothes and rode well-worn saddles. I could not help noticing that a couple of them carried lariat ropes.
“What's this about?” I replied, affecting a Southern drawl.
“What is your name?”
“John Palmer.” Yet another alias.
“And your business?”
“I'm a hunter and a trapper.”
“What about that file you purchased in town?”
I shrugged. “I like to keep my pony's feet in good shape.” One of the men rode around my outfit, apparently looking for brands on my horse and mule.
“Where are you from, Mr. Palmer?”
“From South Carolina, originally, but I've been driftin' west since I was a kid.”
Another man spoke up: “Are you kin to Elijah Palmer over to Denton?”
I shook my head. “I ain't kin to nobody, sir. I'm the bastard son of a barmaid. That's why I come to the frontier.”
The leader of the band raised his chin at me. “A man favoring your description purchased some powder and lead and a steel hatchet and some other things in Fort Worth recently. We know this is true from a reputable source.”
“Wasn't me,” I said. “I ain't been to Fort Worth.” The worry was sinking to the pit of my stomach, but I held on to my lying skills and refused to blink.
“Sounded like your description.”
“Well, I guess I ain't the only ugly bastard in Texas buying powder and lead. I got all I need here on this mule.”
“Why would a man need a whole muleload of powder and lead?”
“I aim to go out among the buffalo with a hunting party of Indians.”
Just the word “Indians” made eyebrows rise. “
Which
Indians?” the leader demanded.
“Some Kickapoos up in the territory. Got to have enough powder and lead to take some hides
and
defend ourselves from them goddamn scalpin' Comanches out there on the buffalo range.” The men now had me completely surrounded, and I was ready to draw a knife or a pistol and go down fighting rather than be lynched.
“How old are you, Mr. Palmer?” the vigilante leader asked. It may have been an absentminded gesture, but he fingered the coil of a lariat tied to his saddle as he said this.
“Thirty-eight, near as I can figure.”
“An able-bodied man like you ought to be serving in the war.”
“I served in Sibley's brigade. I fought at Valverde and was captured at Glorieta Pass.”
They asked me a lot of questions about the campaign, all of which I managed to answer convincingly, for I had seen much of it with my own eyes.
“What happened to you after you was captured?” one of the men demanded.
“The Yankees gave me amnesty so long as I swore not to rejoin my unit.”
“No shame in breaking a promise to a Yankee, now, is there?”
“I'm loyal to Texas,” I said.
“Sounds like you're loyal to yourself more than anything.”
I could feel the tension still building among these men, and I detected a murderous blaze burning ever brighter in their eyes. It was a look I had seen before in the eyes of cowardly bullies who had convinced themselves that they had the right to murder anyone who disagreed with their beliefs. I knew I had to break that gang mentality, so I addressed the leader of the bunch. “May I have a word with you privately, sir?”
This surprised the head man, but intrigued him, as well. He liked being singled out as the leader of the gang of thugs. After thinking a few seconds, he said, “Boys, wait for me in the shade yonder. Not too far off, now.” The other men groused, but did as they were told. When they had pulled away, their captain said, “Don't try anything funny.”
“Of course not. I simply need to confide in you. What I'm about to tell you cannot be repeated. Not even to your men.”
The man squinted. “All right.”
“I'm operating under direct orders from President Jefferson Davis himself. I was recruited because of my knowledge of the frontier and the Indians. I've worked as an Indian trader for twenty years.”
“What kind of orders do you have from Jeff Davis?” he said, rather incredulously.
“I'm to organize a battalion of civilized Indians—Kickapoos, Shawnees, Cherokees, and Choctaws—and harass the Union troops in New Mexico and Colorado.”
“Let me
see
those orders,” he said.
“They don't issue written orders for this kind of campaign, sir. But they did supply me with some of this.” I reached toward my saddlebag.
“Easy,” he said.
I moved slowly and produced a bundle of gold U.S. coins tied up in a rag. I handed it to the vigilante leader, keeping it low, so the others could not see it. “Untie that and have a look.”
He did so, revealing ten twenty-dollar gold pieces. “What's this?”
“A reward for your loyalty to the Confederacy. Drop the coins into your boot top and hand the rag back to me, down low so your boys can't see it. You can tell them you checked my orders and handed them back to me. Don't ride back to town too fast, or your boot may jingle.” I smiled.
He grinned back at me with one side of his mouth and began letting the coins fall into his boot top where he had tucked his trousers inside the leather. He handed the white rag back to me, as if to return my papers, and I replaced it in my saddlebag.
“In case you're wondering,” I said, “that's the last of my money. If I had more, I'd give it to you. I won't need money where I'm going now.”
“I'm satisfied,” he replied. “We should shake hands now and go our own ways.”
I nodded and offered my hand. As he shook my right hand, I sat ready to draw my knife from my left hip, but he didn't try anything. I waited for him to turn away first. When he did, I reined west at a walk, angling away so I could glance over my shoulder and watch the actions of the men. When I gained a line of timber, I passed out of sight of them and urged my mount and the pack mule in tow to a trot. When I knew I was out of earshot, I struck a gallop.
My young Comanche helpers were only a few miles away, and I reached them in less than an hour. “We must go,” I told them. “Now!”
They gathered the mules and packed them hastily while I rode to a high point and watched my backtrail. I never saw anyone following, but I decided to take no chances. When the boys finished packing the mules, they signaled, and I rode back
to the supply camp. “Now we must all take different paths,” I ordered. “We may be followed. Ride hard. Three sleeps upstream there is a camp where a creek runs into the river. There is a big prairie dog town there—the first one you will come to up the river. Do you all know the place?”
They all signed yes.
“That is where we will meet in three sleeps. Now, go, and ride fast.”
The boys scattered, and I went back to my high vantage point to watch for hours, but no one ever followed. Still, it was a good idea to have sent the young warriors ahead on different paths. I was not trailing any mules, so I knew I could make better time than the boys. The moon rose full that night, and I couldn't sleep anyway, so I just rode all night, Tu Hud having grazed and rested while I had watched the backtrail to Jacksboro for hours.
W
e rendezvoused at the prairie dog town camp and rode west with our ammunition and provender. Our path took us up the left bank of the river the white men called the South Wichita. Grass and game abounded, so men and beasts ate well as we traveled. The new moon came on, so Fears-the-Ground and Loud Shouter found a secure camp and posted sentinels for a couple of days, knowing my powers often went bad during the dark phase of the moon. But Burnt Belly had sent plenty of dogbane and moccasin flower root with me, so I did not fall into any strange trances or suffer night terrors. I did, however, sleep a day and a half straight through without waking.
Thus refreshed, I started us west again and we reached the head of the river eleven days after the last quarter of the moon. I mention the last quarter because we found a trail at the head of the South Wichita made by our people—Kills Something's village moving north, toward Adobe Walls—and on that trail we found an arrangement of small white stones in the shape of
the waning quarter-moon. This was a message from Kills Something, telling us when he had passed this place, so we knew that he had been here eleven days ago.
Only two days later, however, we rode into a camp Kills Something had established on the headwaters of the North Pease to wait for us and our supplies. The commotion we created riding into camp with eighteen mules laden with guns, powder, lead, iron, steel, and various provisions, can only be described as unbridled elation driven by uninhibited abandon. The most joyous singing and dancing began as we rode in among the lodges, and we were literally pulled from our mounts and paraded through the entire camp. The boys who had complained upon leaving the Concho that they were missing the martial exercises now felt quite proud of their enormously successful supply run to the Texas settlements.
A feast began to shape up and a dance area was cleared in the center of the village. All the warrior societies put on their fancy headdresses of bison horn, deer antler, and the heads of every imaginable creature from cranes to wolves to bears to jaguars to lions to foxes to antelope. Women who weren't cooking danced while the warriors got ready, then the sun set and feasting and dancing began in earnest.
My party of young warriors was seated in the middle of all this, and we were not allowed to get up for anything, except for relieving ourselves in the shadows. All night the people brought us food and drink, blankets to keep us warm, buffalo robe couches upon which to lounge, and tobacco for the boys' pipes. I even pretended to smoke a little of this tobacco myself, which caused great joy, for I was known as one who normally abstained from such. At daylight we were finally allowed to retire. I was shown to one of Burnt Belly's wives' tipis that she had vacated for me, and there I finally enjoyed some peace and quiet. I stayed there relaxing the better part of the day and even slept an hour or so.
That night I was summoned to a council in Kills Something's new eighteen-skin tipi, one of the biggest bison-hide lodges I ever saw. I was third in line behind the war chief, Kills Something, and the peace chief, Burnt Belly, as we entered.
This was a high honor to enter the lodge third and to sit in the middle of the circle as the rest of the warriors spiraled in around us.
After the usual preliminaries of lighting and passing the village's medicine pipe, Kills Something rose and said, “Everyone knows that my brother, Plenty Man, has returned from Tejas with so many good things that all the unmarried girls in the village want to be his second wife. We must all remember how he got these things. My brother has traded for many seasons and has taken our horses to sell for the paper and the metal that the white men hold more valuable than anything. This paper and this shiny metal belonged to Plenty Man, not to any of us. And my brother has taken all of this paper and all of this metal and he has traded it for guns, and bullets, and powder, and all the other things we need to defend our country. But these things do not belong to us. They belong to Plenty Man. He could have traded his paper and his shiny metal for anything—horses or whisky or land that the white men hold, or food or jewelry or wagons or even boats that the white men take on the water. But instead he brought all these good things here. And now, if you warriors want to have some of these things to fight with, I think you must trade with Plenty Man, for he has used all of his wealth to get them. We will hear what he has to say. He will tell us of his trip to the towns of the
tejanos,
then I think he will say what each of you must give in trade for the weapons you want. I have spoken.”
Kills Something sat down and I looked at Burnt Belly, for he had the right to speak next. He said, “I want to say only that I am ready to hear Plenty Man speak. I have spoken.”
So I rose and began to tell the tale of my recent supply run up the frontier. There were some funny parts, like when young Blackbird swatted young Turtle's horse on the rump while Turtle was standing on the horse's back trying to cut a telegraph wire and Turtle fell into a thorn bush. I spoke at length and told about each town I entered and each ranch we passed, because this was all very interesting intelligence to any Comanche warrior who might be planning a raid.
I had practiced this speech for hours in my mind, straddling
my horse day after day on our return from Texas, and I took my own sweet time telling the saga. Finally I got around to answering Kills Something's question about how much a warrior might have to trade to get ahold of some fighting supplies. “Now you know that six young men went with me to the Texas towns. All these young warriors were brave. So each one of them will keep a new rifle and enough powder and lead for the winter, and enough iron to make twenty new arrows each, for they have earned it.
“But now there is the question of what to do with all the rest of the supplies. I have learned much from my Comanche brothers, uncles, and grandfathers. I know that the white men are fools to hold their paper and metal money so precious. So the loss of this money means nothing to me. I have also learned from my Comanche family that the greatest way to power and strong medicine is to give up all wealth in a giveaway dance so that a man can prove that he believes his medicine is strong and that he trusts that his spirit-protectors will help him get the things he needs again to be a warrior. Therefore I have decided that tonight I will have a great give-away dance. All the things my nephews and I brought back on the mules will be given away to any warrior who needs them to fight and hold our country. This will make me happy. It is good. I have spoken.”
That night, in that camp, I became a bigger hero than Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee rolled together. I played my violin for hours as drums beat and joyful people danced. Children played while puppies chased them around the lodges. My three youngest warrior-helpers—Blackbird, Turtle, and Tobacco Boy—slipped away, one by one, with young women, and I know that all three of them found their first brides that night. Elders sat and smiled and chanted, remembering all the good old days of the past. The first quarter of the moon sailed over the camp like a beacon of good fortune. The True Human Beings were ready to meet the invaders we all knew were coming.
 
 
ON OUR WAY north to Adobe Walls, we met Little Bluff's band of Kiowas, and they agreed to join us. We reached Adobe Walls on the tenth day of November, 1864. The summer had been generous with rainfall, and tall grass grew for miles up and down the Canadian River bottoms. Kills Something went into camp downstream of the old ruins of Fort Adobe while Little Bluff encamped a few miles upstream of us. I knew it was time for me to keep my promise to Kit to ride up the Canadian and have one more talk with him before this insanity began. I took Tu Hud and left Adobe Walls.
 
 
MY THIRD DAY on the trail, I found Colonel Kit Carson's column on the warpath, already about halfway between Fort Bascom and Adobe Walls. He was closer than I had expected he would be, and I chided myself for underestimating the great Kit Carson. Organizing an invasion force the likes of which he now led required an indomitable spirit, especially considering the endless string of military orders that had to be satisfied. Kit must have worked incredibly hard and slept very little getting ready for this campaign.
I spotted Kit's advance Ute scouts first, and decided I would retreat for the time being and cover my tracks rather than announce my presence to the Utes. They might have known who I was and might have caused me trouble, for I was a fast friend of their sworn enemies, the Comanches. I therefore withdrew back down the river until the advance Ute scouts went into camp that night.
After dark, I put on my white man's clothing and saddled All Horse to ride far around to the rear of the invading column. There, I dismounted, and had little trouble leading my horse past the sentinels, using some cedar brush for cover. Once inside Kit's camp, I boldly and rather arrogantly rode right up to the supply wagon and announced my presence to some soldiers gathered around a small fire there.
“I'm Honoré Greenwood,” I declared, “and I'm here to see Kit Carson.” My eyes were adjusting to the flicker of the campfire when a reply came:
“You've gotten careless, Greenwood.”
I recognized the voice as that of Luther Sheffield. My eyes must have widened with some alarm.
“Relax,” Luther said, standing, his palms open to view. “I'm not even carrying a gun.”
I remained motionless in the saddle. Sheffield had changed so much since the last time I saw him at Valverde that I hadn't even recognized him when I rode up. He had gained weight and appeared hale and sober. His face, once sunken and sickly, had fleshed out again. Though it had been many years since Blue Wiggins and I had conspired to cheat Sheffield out of the winnings that the gambler had dishonestly taken from Blue, I saw a hint of that old parlor owner's dash finally lighting his eyes up again.
“Who the hell is this guy?” one of the soldiers said.
“He's a Comanchero and a card cheat, but other than that he ain't so bad.”
I noticed the stripes on Luther's uniform. “I didn't recognize you, Sergeant Sheffield.”
“No matter. Why don't you tie that pony and I'll walk you over to Kit's tent.”
I dismounted and dropped the reins. All Horse didn't need to be tied. “I'd be obliged.”
Sheffield turned and led the way. I caught up to him and walked by his side as we passed among the soldiers, lounging and talking low near their fires.
“A lot has changed since Valverde,” the old gambler said. “I got rid of that whore Rosa. She was as bad for me as I was bad for her. Last I heard, she was running a laundry in Santa Fe, making an honest livelihood.”
“That's good to know,” I said.
“I gave up the bottle after I got busted down to corporal. It was either that or drink myself to death, so I kicked it. I stopped taking the laudanum and all the other shit I was killing myself with, too.”
“You look a hell of a lot healthier for it.”
“The army's been good for me. The discipline, and the camaraderie of the men. I've found out I can lead these boys, Greenwood. I earned these stripes in the Navaho campaign.”
I didn't know how to reply, so I just walked along with him until I saw the tent we were approaching. Sheffield stopped short of the place and turned to me. “I owe you,” he said. “You could have killed me at Valverde, the day I tried to murder you. Or you could have caused me a lot of trouble over the affair. I could have been shot by a firing squad if you'd have pushed the matter.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Anyway, I'd like to let bygones be bygones.”
I thought about that for a second, then simply held my open palm out between us. Luther Sheffield—the man who once wanted nothing more than to see me dead—shook my hand like a gentleman.
“I'll tell Kit you're here.” He turned away and walked to the tent. He spoke with someone at the tent flap for a moment, then returned to me. “Kit's asleep. His adjutant wouldn't let me wake him. He said to report at dawn.”
I nodded. “Very well.”
Sheffield smiled. “Your old friend Blue Wiggins is in camp. Do you want to go hunt him up?”
“Do you get along with Blue all right?” I asked, with some skepticism.
Luther chuckled. “Like I said, a lot has changed.”
“Yes, I'd like to see Blue. Haven't seen him since I left Fort Canby.”
We found Blue Wiggins camped with his mess mates and had a boisterous reunion. Also in Blue's “mess”—as the smallest grouping of soldiers was termed by the ever-so-eloquent U.S. Army, I found Toribio Treviño. When he saw me, he came forward and gave me a tremendous
abrazo.
“
Hola,
Mucho,” he said.
I was well pleased with how tall and strong Toribio had grown. We sat and talked and gnawed hardtack for quite some time. I asked Toribio if he had had any luck contacting any of his surviving relatives down near Monterrey, Mexico, where he had been captured as a boy by Comanches.
“No, Mucho,” he said. “I have written letters, but I get no answers. I don't remember enough to know where to send the letters. The names of my relatives were lost to my memory
while I was a captive. There are a lot of Treviños in Mexico. But I am planning to go down there. I didn't want to for a long time. That's the place where the Indians caught me. I saw my father killed and scalped there. I didn't want to go back. But now I am thinking I must go down there after this campaign, when I am mustered out of the volunteers. I still have some revenge to take on the Comanches for the way they took me from my family and the cruel way they treated me. After I get my satisfaction in battle, I can go home and see if I have any family left down there.”

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