Ghost Moon (7 page)

“I came here looking for work.”

“And found some, it seems. You're working for McSween?”

“Yes. I was hired by John Tunstall, the day before he was murdered.”

“Bad business that, and getting worse from what I understand.”

“It is,” I agree. “Sheriff Brady was shot and killed this very morning in the main street of Lincoln.”

“In the main street, you say. In broad daylight?”

“Just after dawn,” I say. “One of his deputies was killed with him.”

“It's a disgrace,” Fowler reflects. “There's no law. If it were up to me, I'd ride in there with my company and arrest the lot, Dolan, Evans and the Regulators. It's not as if we don't have enough trouble with the Apaches coming and going off the reservation as they please and causing havoc over in Texas.”

“Can't the army do anything?”

“It seems not. Colonel Dudley claims he has orders not to interfere in civilian matters. And that may be true, but he's awful ready to entertain Dolan to dinner in the mess, and I received quite the talking-to for ordering this one wagonload you've brought from McSween.

“But listen to me croak on like a bitter old man.” Fowler reaches into a drawer in his desk and pulls out a sheet of paper. “This is the bill of sale for the horses you're to bring back from La Luz. They're being held at the livery stable there.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking the paper and folding it.

“And you'll stay with us tonight and dine as my guest in the mess,” Fowler says. It's not a question. “A good night's sleep before a journey is a splendid start.”

I agree readily. I enjoy Fowler's company, and the Fort seems an island of sanity in the chaos of the past few weeks. I excuse myself and go to tend to the mules and organize my bedroll.

“Why are you up here? When I met you in December, you and your company were headed for Fort Bowie.” Lieutenant Fowler and I are standing on the veranda of the officers' mess. Dinner is over and Fowler has come out here to enjoy the cool evening air. He's smoking a long strong-smelling cheroot with obvious relish. A half moon is hanging silver and bright above the trees.

“That was just a stop on a long patrol,” he says. “Regimental headquarters for the Tenth Cavalry's at Fort Concho in Texas, but troops are spread all over the west, wherever there's a need, I reckon. B Troop's been here with units of the Ninth since last fall and will be for a time yet, I suspect. But it's not too bad. At least the fort's relatively civilized, much better than some sad collections of adobe and sticks that I've been quartered in.”

“Why are your men called Buffalo Soldiers?” I voice a question that I've wondered about for a while.

“Number of stories about that.” Fowler takes a long drag on his cheroot and watches the smoke drift into the evening air as he exhales. “Common one is that black soldiers' curly hair reminds the Apaches of the hair of a buffalo, but I heard one that makes more sense.

“Back in '67 when the Tenth was a new regiment, a Private Randall was assigned to look after a couple of greenhorn civilian hunters. They had the bad luck to run into a band of about seventy Cheyenne warriors. The hunters panicked and were picked off easily, and Randall's horse was shot from under him, but the trooper took cover in a washout under the railroad tracks they'd been following. He only had a pistol, but he held off the Cheyenne until help arrived.

“Story goes that there were more than a dozen dead warriors round the washout and that Randall had a gunshot wound in his shoulder and eleven lance wounds. The Cheyenne said that there was a new kind of warrior in the land, one that never gave up and fought like a cornered wild buffalo, and the name stuck.”

“That's a good story,” I say.

“And it might even be true,” Fowler says with a smile. “These boys of mine fight like demons when they've a mind to. If you ever get the chance, get talking to Sergeant Rawlins. He was there at the very beginning. He fought with Shaw and the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts at Fort Wagner in '63. He can tell some stories.”

“Were you in the Civil War?” I ask, hoping to encourage a story from Fowler.

“Naw, too young,” he replies. “It's my lot to ride forever back and forth over this empty land collecting dust and scalped bodies. Mind you, I was lucky once.”

“How so?” I ask when Fowler falls silent.

“I graduated from West Point in '76. I requested an assignment to the Seventh Cavalry. My brother, Miles, was serving in C Company. My request was approved, but fortunately I didn't reach them in time and was reassigned to the Tenth.”

Lieutenant Fowler falls silent again. I'm confused about how this makes him lucky.

“Why didn't you join your brother in the Seventh?”

My companion turns to face me and smiles sadly in the flickering light of the hanging lantern. “C Company was wiped out with Custer at the Little Big Horn River.”

“Your brother?”

Fowler nods and turns back to stare across the compound. Of all the stories I've collected over the past few months, Fowler's is the shortest, but it affects me deeply. I remember reading the newspaper accounts of Custer's men on that bare hillside in Montana Territory, knowing that they were going to die as overwhelming numbers of Sitting Bull's and Crazy Horse's warriors swarmed up from the valley to engulf them. Many a night I had lain awake wondering what I would do: fight to the last even though I knew it to be hopeless, beg for mercy, try to run in some futile attempt to escape? I had no way of knowing, but the horror of being one of those doomed men out on the bare prairie that afternoon as they watched their deaths approach sent shivers through me. And Lieutenant Fowler's brother had been one of them.

“Well,” Fowler says at length, dropping the stub of his cheroot and grinding it beneath his boot heel, “nothing to be done. But listen.” His voice perks up and he turns to me. “I would ask a favor of you.”

“Ask away,” I say.

“On your way back from La Luz, could you travel by Tularosa Canyon and try to determine what the mood is like on the reservation? The Mescaleros have been less trouble of late than some of the bands up at San Carlos, but I've been hearing tales of some young warriors slipping away to join the fighters in the hills. Frederick Godfroy's the agent there at Blazer's Mill and he'll give you a report to bring back. I also hear that Godfroy's wife Clara will cook you a dinner you'll remember for many months.”

“I'd be glad to,” I say. I sense that Fowler is about to bid me good night, but there's something I need to ask him before that. “When I met you on the trail, you readily dismissed the Apaches as savages. Now you seem almost respectful.”

“Do I?” Fowler asks thoughtfully. “Perhaps I do. Certainly I have learned a lot since coming here. After Miles's death at the Little Big Horn, I felt a lot of hate and just wanted to come out here and kill as many Indians as I could, but it's not as simple as that, is it?”

I shake my head.

“Those two dead men I was bringing in when we met were road agents. Several folk at Fort Bowie recognized them as having caused considerable trouble recently on the surrounding trails. Worse than that, they were scalp hunters. I was told stories of days, not so long ago, when Indians—men, women and children—were hunted down and slaughtered like wild animals just for the value of their hair. Add to that this dirty little war that's going on in Lincoln County, and all the good men it's killing over a few sacks of flour, some sides of beef and a few dollars profit, and I got to wondering exactly who the savages are hereabouts.”

I decide it's best not to mention my connection either to the scalp hunters or the Regulators. “I've met a couple of fine Apaches myself,” I say.

Fowler looks at me with interest. “I suspect you have an interesting tale to tell, Jim Doolen. Perhaps when you return I shall have a chance to sit and listen. But for now I am going to turn in. I wish you a good journey until we meet again.”

“Thank you.” Fowler strolls down along the veranda, and I descend the steps and head across to the livery stable where I'll bed down for the night. I'm
glad to have met Lieutenant Fowler once more. I hope
he won't turn out to be as unreliable as Bill Bonney or
as short-lived as John Tunstall. Perhaps if Brewer and
Fowler get to talking, there might even be a way to end
this bloodshed. At least it's a hope.

10

L
a Luz is a dirt-poor collection of adobe buildings scattered around the original Presidio Square. It nestles among the willows that line the banks of a dry riverbed and is overshadowed by the long shelves of rock that form the mountains I have just worked my way through. Most of the population are Mexican; Hispanics, they're called hereabouts. They remind me of my time last year at Esqueda and Casas Grandes.

When I arrive, there is some kind of fiesta going on, and the Presidio Square is decorated with colored paper and candles. A crude band is scratching and wheezing out a rough tune. A few of the locals, dressed in whatever colorful finery they possess, are either dancing or sitting at tables, drinking from unmarked bottles and eating steaming plates of dark stew and tortillas.

I decide to join them. It's been a long journey. The horses I've come to collect can wait until tomorrow. I need some company and jollity after my time alone thinking about all the death I've seen of late.

I park the wagon at the livery stable, settle and feed the mules and stroll over to the square. I sit down and order a plate of stew and a bottle of the mescal everyone seems to be drinking. There are no other choices.

The stew is rich and spicy, and I wolf it and the accompanying plate of beans and tortillas down. Even the fiery mescal doesn't taste as harsh as the drink I remember Santiago giving me in Esqueda, if I sip it slowly.

I'm halfway through my food when an old man wanders toward me. He's bent over with age and walks with a pronounced limp. His dark wrinkled skin is dramatically set off by a mane of snow-white hair and he asks if he can join me.

“
Me puedo sentar con usted, señor
?” I wave to a chair, gesture at the bottle and ask if he speaks English.

The man sits down and pours himself a generous measure of the mescal. He drinks it down in one go.

“
Sí
, I do speak your language. I learned in Texas, and here this is an Americano world and it is necessary to speak the language.”

“Texas is American too,” I point out.

The old man smiles, showing a mouthful of surprisingly white teeth.

“Not always so. When I was born there, it was Mexico. Before the Americanos stole it.”

“Stole it? The people who lived there had a revolution and became independent,” I say indignantly. I've read several dime novels about the Alamo. How Davy Crocket and two hundred brave men held off the army of the cruel General Santa Anna for thirteen days before they were overwhelmed and killed.

Davy Crockett was one of my childhood heroes, fighting to the last and finally falling beneath a forest of bayonets, surrounded by the dozens of enemy soldiers he had killed. I spent many hours hunting squirrels in the woods around Yale, pretending I was fighting beside Crockett and yelling, “Remember the Alamo” every time one of the small animals dropped off a tree branch. What right did this ignorant old man have to attack my heroes?

The old man shakes with laughter.

“You Americanos and your stories. You do not listen. You just believe the first thing you hear that fits with what you wish to believe.”

“I'm Canadian,” I say crossly. My companion shrugs as if my distinction makes no difference to him. Without asking, he pours himself another drink. “Davy Crockett was a brave man,” I add defensively.

“How do you know what happened to this
brave
man inside the walls of the mission at San Antonio de Bexar? Were you there?”