Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873 (28 page)

“Or what?” demanded Lone Wolf, who stood suddenly from his place beside Satanta. “Or you will try to take back our chiefs?” He laughed loudly. “I think not, white man. We gave you our word that we would bring you five of the guilty Comanche … but that was when we were told our chiefs would be freed.”

“We freed your chiefs. But you did not bring us the five murderers.”

“You freed our chiefs this morning, white man. We are not so foolish as to think your demands began two days ago!”

“Lone Wolf is a fool if he thinks we will not put teeth into this demand,” Smith snapped, attempting a show of muscle. “You promised—and you will be a liar if you do not comply!”

McCusker had a hard time spitting out the word for fool, especially the word for
liar.
Those two expressions crashed harshly on the ears of those in the room and on the porch.

Lone Wolf waved down much of the angry, noisy protest as many blankets slid from the shoulders of both Kiowa and Comanche in the crowded room. Seamus glanced at the windows and doorways, realizing this would be a bad fix when it came to shooting in a matter of heartbeats. Not knowing what could save the bloodshed, he listened helplessly to McCusker's translation of Lone Wolf's next words.

“You gave us one day to bring you the five raiders. We will bring you five at this time tomorrow. No sooner. And, as true as I am to my word—no later than that. I will not play foolish with you … the way the Tehan chief played liar for us.”

“You sound like a crybaby, Lone Wolf!” sneered Smith. “Complaining that you don't have enough time.”

McCusker had trouble translating the white official's expression into Kiowa, but when it came out with the interpretation of a squalling, spoiled infant, exactly as Smith had intended it to, Lone Wolf appeared stung for the first time.

At the doorway, many of the young men who had overheard the explanation of the term clamored to get into the tight room. Some shouted to spill white blood in general.

Eagle Heart's voice rose above the others' as he cried out. “Lone Wolf—let me kill the old white fool who wants to kill our young men who go raiding into Tehas!”

“Blood's gonna spill—you don't shut your mouth, Commissioner!” growled Philip McCusker.

“How dare these savages question me!” Smith roared back above the commotion in the room heated with too many bodies and sudden anger. “I'm the one who can save their godless souls!”

“McCusker's right!” said Lieutenant Colonel Davidson. The officer raised one arm, yelling for silence, while with his other he started to nudge Smith to the rear. “Calm them down best you can, McCusker.”

“Take your hands off me!” Smith snapped, drawing back from the officer.

“Your kind always does this, don't you, Commissioner?”

“What are you—”

“Goes and gets trouble started because of your pigheaded attitudes … then leaves it for the army to come in and clean up your idiotic mistakes.”

As McCusker was hollering above the first rows of council delegates, Lone Wolf and Kicking Bird were shouting as well, all three attempting to calm the enraged warriors.

“You will each get a chance to talk when your time comes,” McCusker tried to explain to the youthful hotbloods. “When the chiefs have talked, then you will have your say.”

“I wish to speak to the white peace-talker with the heavy tongue.”

McCusker and the others, both white and Kiowa, turned to find a young Comanche chief getting to his feet amid the rest of his people seated on the plank floor.

“You are Cheevers?” asked the interpreter.

“I am,” the young warrior answered.

“Who is this?” inquired Superintendent Hoag.

“He is a powerful chief of one of the Comanche bands,” replied agent James Haworth. “I'm praying he can calm things. Phil, tell Cheevers he can talk.”

The young chief with expressive eyes and a rigid spine stepped from the crowd with a rustle of his blanket and stopped before the white peace delegates.

“Tell this Washington chief that I am a Comanche and that my people have been doing no wrong. We should not be asked to pay for any wrong done by the young men of other bands. I know there are bad men among all people—among white men as well as among red men. But among my people there are those who persist in doing these bad things contrary to the orders of the chiefs. These warriors are renegades whom we have cast out from our villages. They are the raiders who are bringing all this trouble onto our shoulders.”

“Do you know where they are, Cheevers?” asked McCusker.

The Comanche chief regarded his own warriors before he answered. “You will find them west of the Antelope Hills. Have your buffalo soldiers round them up soon. Understand that you may keep them as long as you choose, but do not ask these good men of either tribe to sacrifice themselves for the evil done by others.”

“No!”

The room reverberated with the shout, every man turning his attention to Black Horse, a war-chief in Cheever's band.

“Yes—this must be, Black Horse!” argued the chief.

“Let the white man come to understand pain, Cheevers!” Black Horse repeatedly beat his chest with a fist, his other hand shaking his repeating rifle provocatively. Many of the other warriors from both tribes were stirred by this demonstration, muttering angrily, readying weapons for the showdown sure to come.

But just when all seemed ready to spill into a bloodbath, a half-dozen old Comanche warriors rose as one and pushed their way through the crowd of youthful belligerents to ring Black Horse. There, without a word, they seized the young provocateur and escorted him roughly from the council room. His angry protests gradually faded from the parade as an uneasy quiet settled over the entire assembly.

Into the unsettling quiet Kicking Bird rose and agreed with what the Comanche chief had declared to the white man. When he sat, a Kiowa sub-chief, Woman's Heart, spoke his mind, in sympathy with Cheevers' words.

Then the Comanche chief stood to speak again, looking this time not at Commissioner Smith, but at Lieutenant Colonel Davidson. “I make this offer to you, soldier chief. I—Cheevers—will lead your buffalo soldiers toward the Antelope Hills in search of the renegades who are responsible for all this trouble between our peoples and the Tehannas.”

“You aren't going to get anything better than that, Mr. Smith,” Davidson advised. “You'd better take this chief up on his offer, or prepare to have your Quaker peace policy go up in smoke down here on the southern plains.”

“I don't think the whole program—”

“I've said my piece, Smith. And, by God, I'm going to let Washington know what I think of your pigheaded priggishness. Now, tell Cheevers you're agreeing.”

It was clear to everyone in that room watching the commissioner that Smith had trouble swallowing down his pride. At last he spoke in subdued tones to the assembly.

“Cheevers will lead the colonel's soldiers in search of these raiders causing all the trouble. I will give the Comanche chief thirty days to bring in five of those renegades responsible. If, after the end of thirty days, there are no results—then I will withhold monthly rations and not issue annuities to all bands.”

“You would not feed our children?” Kicking Bird asked, staring incredulous at Smith.

The commissioner sneered, finding himself in possession of the upper hand once more. “Bring me the raiders—and your children will not go hungry.”

Chapter 21

October 1873

“You seriously think that Comanche chief will find any of the raiders?” Seamus Donegan asked the other two civilians at their smoky breakfast fire.

Jack Stillwell looked up, wagging his head. “Cheevers is a Yamparika. They might be looking for warriors from other bands—but I figure he and his bunch will lead Reuben Waller's brunettes on a merry chase, but never find nothing.”

“No matter where Cheevers leads Waller,” added Sharp Grover, nodding, “they'll never find a sign.”

“So he's pulling a fast shuffle on the government officials?”

Grover shook his head. “No. It's just because he's a Yamparika.”

“What's that?” Donegan asked.

“One of the Comanche bands,” Grover answered.

“And a Yamparika will never be able to track down and find the Antelope Eaters.”

“So who are these Antelope Eaters?” Seamus asked, rising, stretching and tossing out the last of his coffee gone cold.

“The worst of the lot,” Stillwell answered. “Called Kwahadi. Running under a chief named Quanah. Word has it his mother was white as you and me. Took from her people when she was a girl. Growed up with the band. But make no mistake, Seamus—from the stories I've heard, this Quanah can't have a single drop of white blood in him, from the way he's sworn to kill white men.”

“You figure it's time to go, Jack?” Grover suggested, rising as well. “This is your show, but I consider we should get moving south. You're the one needing to be back at Fort Richardson before the last week of the month.”

“That's when the easterners I'm guiding, Pierce and Graves, ordered me to be back,” Stillwell explained, kicking dirt over the firepit and smothering the flames. “Besides, that's when the new escort assigned us should be riding in from Fort Griffin to relieve that first bunch.”

“You got any better idea who the hell this Pierce and Graves are?” Grover inquired as all three laid saddle blankets atop their mounts and began saddling up.

Stillwell shook his head. “They been real close-mouthed about everything but their names—and that they're the ones giving out the orders.”

“Jack loves a secret,” Grover said to Donegan with a wag of his head. “Damn, but them two make a man suspicious of what they're up to. Government fellas out here where they don't belong.”

“They surveyors you figure?” Seamus asked.

“No,” Grover replied. “For sure they got themselves a passel of maps, they do. But—they ain't like any other government fellas I ever knew in many a year of working for the army. Damn well keeping their secret squeezed tight in their grubby little hands, ain't they?”

“That's just what this is, Sharp—a secret,” Seamus replied, drawing up the cinch. “They're government, no doubt of that. And the lieutenant in charge of the last escort let it be known them two work for the bureau.”

“Indian Bureau?” Grover asked.

“The only bureau I know of,” Stillwell replied. “Those last few days there in Jacksboro before we rode over to Dallas to fetch Satanta and Big Tree—I can't remember them two doing anything else but camping out over at the telegraph office.”

Donegan nodded. “Day and night. Sending and receiving. Would make a man wonder, I'll say.”

“Who they wiring to?”

“Don't know, Sharp. They're playing everything so close to the vest.”

Stillwell nodded as he finished strapping his bedroll behind his saddle. “They don't let them canvas valises of theirs out of their sight at all. Right under their arms or plopped on the table beside them when they eat.”

“Bet those pilgrims sleep with the valises too!” Grover hooted.

“And their maps,” Donegan added.

“They got maps?” Grover sounded intrigued.

“I suppose that's what it is they keep rolled up in a long, leather tube,” Jack said. “Saw one of the maps once—walked in on 'em before they knew I was coming to tell 'em we were pulling out. They both rolled it up quicker'n quail spooks into flight.”

“What I can't put straight is what the government's looking for down south toward Mexico anyway?” Donegan inquired.

“That where they're gonna lead you two?” Grover asked.

“They informed me of that back in Kansas—that this trip of ours might take them as far south as the Rio Grande,” Jack answered. “Said that if they had to cross on over into Mexico—they'd see to it we got the required papers for the military escort to cross the river and push on into foreign country.”

Grover scratched at his jawbone, taking up the reins to his horse. “Mexico. Well, my friends. Sounds serious—and it looks like it could be a long trip for you both.”

“For Jack,” Donegan protested as he climbed to the saddle. “I came along to see you, Sharp. Not to go riding off to Mexico.”

“Shit, Irishman,” Stillwell said, smiling as he nudged his mount away from their camping spot on the south bank of the Red River, once more plodding south, deeper into north Texas. “If I was to tell you about the aquardiente them Mexicans make down there—you'd likely do more'n just lick your lips for a taste.”

“What's aquardiente?” Seamus asked. “Some type of Mexican food?”

Grover chuckled. “Hell no, Seamus. That's Mexican whiskey so powerful it comes on like a crack of lightning. Brewed from corn and strong enough to pop the top of your skull.”

“Sounds mighty good, fellas. Where's a man gonna find some aquardiente?”

“Plenty of it down south where we'll likely head,” Stillwell said. “But since you plan on busting up this partnership—looks like I'll just have to drink your share.”

“Bring some back with you, Jack,” Donegan suggested with a grin.

Grover chuckled, then said, “How 'bout one of them dark-skinned señoritas too, Seamus?”

“Mexican women any good once you get 'em skinned and down in the blankets with you, Jack?” asked Donegan.

Stillwell shrugged. “I wouldn't know, Irishman. Never had a Mexican gal before.”

“And besides, the Irishman won't be dealing with no Mexican whores,” Sharp protested, “Seamus Donegan is already called for.”

The other two looked quizzically at Grover. Jack was the first to speak. “What you mean—Seamus is called for?”

“Samantha Pike's got her mind set on making the Irishman a honest-to-goodness husband, appears to me.”