Come Sundown (48 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Come Sundown
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Castchorn exhaled great blasts of air from his nostrils as the warrior slipped down to his feet.
“You are Plenty Man?” he said.
“Huh,”
I answered. I saw that he was younger than me, but had a battle scar above one eye.
“I will tell the story of how you came to help me in the council lodge when my turn comes to speak.”
“You mean if you survive the day,” I answered, smiling.
“Yes. I am going back to the herd for another pony. I
will
charge the bluecoats again.”
“What is your name?”
“Battle Axe.” He pulled a shined and sharpened hatchet from his breechclout belt. “The one I carry is the one that struck me here.” He pointed to his scar, then touched a scalp he wore on his belt. “The scalp I carry is from the Pawnee warrior who owned the axe before me.”
“May your spirit-protectors watch you closely the rest of the day, brother.”
“And yours,” he said, turning away to trot back toward the village and the herd.
I reined in Buffalo Getter upstream, letting him blow as we walked through the relative safety of the timber. To my left I could hear and catch glimpses of another desperate charge on the soldiers, but the answering gunfire doubled that of the last charge, and I knew the company of cavalry Kit had led to Adobe Walls had arrived and joined the action. I was anxious to make another charge, for the exhilaration of galloping through the enemy gunfire had electrified me with dangerously addictive thrills. But before I charged the soldiers again, I felt compelled to get a closer peek at the workings of Kit's command inside old Adobe Walls.
I
knew every bend in the creek and every rise in the prairie floor of this sheltered canyon. I knew it almost right down to every tree and rock and weed. I could drift like a wildcat along the fringes of the battle scene, undetected. Indeed, in my peculiar heightened state of alertness brought on by the odd combination of fatigue and excitement, I felt as if I had shifted my
very being into the form of a specter. All the things Burnt Belly had tried to teach me about the spirit world became lucid. Castchorn and I could blend our colors with those of the natural world around us. From the corner of your eye, you might catch a glimpse of us moving, but when you looked right at us, we would vanish, like a spotted trout in a clear stream. I had become invisible.
I rode up Adobe Creek to a point where a slight rise in the prairie concealed the dash that I made to the west, where I gained the base of the bluffs. Here, enough brush grew to hide my approach as long as I rode with my head pressed down against my buckskin's neck. Springs at the base of the bluffs fed grass and bushes that stood tall enough to obliterate my outline. The blades of grass and seed heads waved in the breeze, gathering my horse and me, passing us along unseen, blade by blade. We assumed the colors of dried bluestem, naked branches, and rocky dirt slopes. I felt that not even a wary deer would have noticed us.
I rode around the bend of the bluff to the timber and underbrush of Bent's Creek. Here, I dismounted and tied Buffalo Getter. I slipped silently down the stream on foot to the place where the timber came closest to Adobe Walls. I peeked just far enough through the trees to get a glimpse. All around the ruins of the old fort, soldiers swarmed as the dismounted cavalry continued to hold off charges by the Indians. The mounted assaults by Comanche riders had become larger and bolder, and had begun to claim casualties among the bluecoats. Soldiers were carrying or dragging a few wounded comrades to a makeshift hospital the surgeon had established in the southeast corner of the old fort, where the walls provided protection. The horses were crowded against the north wall where they, too, were shielded from Indian gunshots.
I eased to the edge of the timber to take a broader view of the prairie, and I spotted Kit and some of his officers on the small hill that rose like a buffalo hump in the prairie about a hundred yards north of the ruins. This hill was only about thirty feet higher than the rest of the prairie, but the elevation provided a fine view of the field. I had often stood or sat upon
that hill myself, in times of peace, looking over the beauty of the remote canyon. Now, I dropped to the ground and crawled through the grass, wanting a still closer look at what had become Kit's headquarters on the little knoll.
As I inched along, I heard the rattle of gun carriages and, within seconds, the artillery teams were galloping by me to join Kit on the knoll. The gun carriages passed so near that the ground shook under me; behind them came the panting gunners running along on foot. Still, I felt no fear of being seen, for I had become a spirit stalker. Crawling close enough to hear voices, I stopped to raise my head higher so I could peek through the tops of the stalks. I saw Lieutenant Pettis marching up the slope from his guns, where he had dismounted.
“Lieutenant Pettis reporting for duty, sir,” he said.
“Pettis,” Kit said, pointing to the timber along Adobe Creek, where another Indian charge was taking shape. “Throw a few shell into that crowd over there.”
“Yes, sir!”
Pettis trotted back down the slope to his battery at the base of the knoll and began shouting orders: “Unhitch those guns! Action right!” He waited impatiently for the artillerymen to unhitch and turn the mountain howitzers. “Load with shell. Load!”
While this went on, I rose just a bit higher to see the Comanche front. At least a hundred warriors had gathered for a charge, but the arrival of the artillery seemed to have made them uneasy. They milled about along Adobe Creek, waiting for some warrior to lead the charge. Beyond the creek, in the direction of the Comanche village, I caught glimpses of a great number of horsemen gathering, and I could even hear the shouts of the chiefs haranguing the warriors for the coming battle. I knew there were at least twelve hundred fighting men mounted on fine war ponies, and I knew that Kit knew it, too, for he could see the village of almost four hundred lodges in view through the bare branches of the timber.
Kit's Ute scouts had now ridden up from the captured Kiowa camp and had gathered between Adobe Walls and the Comanche front and were taunting the Comanches. At this moment, the
skirmishers on both sides stopped firing for a few seconds, and Lieutenant Pettis's voice bellowed: “Number one! Fire!”
The blast lifted the muzzle of the howitzer and pitched it backward on its battered carriage wheels. Before the shot had landed, Pettis ordered, “Number two! Fire!”
The first shell exploded just short of the Indians along the creek, and the second ripped through the branches over their heads.
“Reload!”
Some of the war ponies bolted in fear of the blasts, and the rest of the Indians just sat their mounts in utter awe of the thunder guns. The shouting of the chiefs from the timber had hushed, and even the Ute scouts seemed shocked into silence.
“Number one, fire! Number two, fire!”
When the fourth shot cratered the prairie just two horse lengths in front of the Indians, the Comanche front crumbled and commenced a wild retreat through the timber, back toward Kills Something's village.
I heard Kit chuckle. “Well done, Pettis! They won't charge us for a spell now. Reposition your guns up here on this rise and stay ready.” He grabbed Major McCleave by the arm and started down the hill toward Adobe Walls. “Bill, post your skirmishers around those howitzers. We must protect them guns at all cost.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And have every fourth man unsaddle and water the horses, then stake them yonder to graze.” He pointed to the tall grass that hid me between the ruins and the creek.
“Yes, sir.”
“The boys can rest a while and eat breakfast. Directly, we'll have us a council of war in the old fort. Pettis,” he shouted over his shoulder, “you'll join us when your guns are in place.”
“Yes, sir!”
I shrank back into the grass and crawled carefully toward the ruins. By the time I got close enough to hear, the horses had been led out of the walls and taken past me to the creek. The surgeon and a few wounded men remained inside the walls, where they had been joined by Kit, Pettis, McCleave;
Captains Birney, Witham, Fritz and Deus; and Lieutenants Taylor, Heath, and Edmiston.
“We can take that village,” Captain Birney insisted, as I crawled within earshot of the council of war, listening to the talk come over a low spot in the crumbling adobe walls. “With Pettis's support, we can capture the entire valley.”
“I agree,” Lieutenant Edmiston said. “My boys didn't march all the way from California to turn back at the decisive moment.”
The other officers chimed in until everyone was talking at once, and Kit had to quiet them like a father taking control of his children. “Easy, boys. Let's think this out. I can see a camp of four hundred lodges from here, and it disappears around the bend. Who knows how big that camp is. But there are at least a thousand warriors waiting in that village, plus three hundred or so we drove out of the Kiowa camp. We're outnumbered at least four to one, and they're well mounted. I know you boys want that camp downstream, but maybe the best thing to do is to fall back to the Kiowa camp and burn it, then decide if we should fight our way on down the river. We'll know by then if our guns can hold back their charges. Pettis is good with his guns, but you boys have not even begun to see a real Comanche charge. And don't forget about our supply wagons. We must protect our rear, boys.”
“But we've demoralized them, sir,” Pettis complained. “Now is the time to strike.”
“You've stunned 'em, Pettis. Maybe mixed 'em up for a spell. But they ain't no more dee-moralized than a cornered grizzly. They'll rally.”
“Kit,” Major McCleave said. “Let us at least hold this ground and this fort for now. We can observe the enemy tactics a while and then decide whether to attack or fall back to the Kiowa village. But to fall back right now would dishearten the men.”
Kit considered the idea for a moment. “All right, Bill,” he finally said. “We'll hold what we've got for a spell. But come sundown, I aim to have all the boys safe in camp.”
Kit sent his subordinates to see after their own units then
stepped outside of the walls to watch the cavalry horses graze, and to think. I could have hit him with a rock. I watched him for a while, reading the expression in his eyes. I could almost hear his thoughts intermingling with Vivaldi's third concerto.
Adagio molto.
He was actually considering taking the Comanche camp. He was thinking of his legacy. Kit was fifty-five years old and almost used up. A last great victory? He rubbed his left shoulder and winced. His breath came in short rasps.
Something came over me, and I felt my voice leave my body to cast itself against the adobes behind my old friend. “Kit.”
He turned as if he would find me standing behind him. “Who's there?”
“It's me.”
“Kid? Where the hell are you?” He wheeled about and looked for me.
“I am invisible.”
Kit marched to the corner of the fort and looked around it, expecting to find me standing there. I was throwing my voice against the walls, as Burnt Belly had tried so many times to show me. Now, I was just doing it.
“Don't play games, Kid. Where the hell are you?”
“Go home, Kit. Save your boys. Don't go down the river.”
“Where the hell
are
you?” He looked more afraid than I had ever seen him. Nothing much spooked Kit, unless it was something from the spirit world that he didn't understand. He had spent enough time with the Indians to know about dreams and visions and spirit voices.
“Come sundown, Kit. You'd best be gone come sundown.”
“Kid, show yourself!”
“Come sundown.”
The surgeon looked up from a badly wounded man. “You talking to me, Colonel?”
Kit wheeled and glanced all about the fort and prairie, expecting to find me. But I was transparent. “No, George. Just talkin' to myself.”
 
 
THOUGH RATTLED BY my visit, Kit went back to his business of war, and I crawled back to the creek and walked to my
horse. Returning the way I had come, I found Kills Something, One-Eyed Bear, Little Bluff, and some other chiefs in a heated council, surrounded by their most experienced warriors and by the elders and shamans. I left Buffalo Getter with Fears-the-Ground, who was listening from some distance away, still mounted. On foot, I pushed through the circle of warriors and forced my way to the center. Kills Something was trying to gain control of the excited men, but talk of the thunder guns had everyone alarmed.
“My brother!” I said to Kills Something.
The Indians fell silent at my arrival.
“Plenty Man. Speak.”
“I have ridden to the enemy like a spirit stalker. They could not see me. I could hear their words and walk among them, and they did not know I passed there. I know what is in the hearts of our enemies.”
Burnt Belly moaned in approval, and smiled, for he had schooled me in the ways of the spirit world and he admired this kind of talk, though he surely knew I was exaggerating my accomplishments.
Kills Something spoke: “Tell us what you have learned, my brother, so that we will know what to do.”
“Little Chief is courageous. There is no fear in his heart. But he is careful. He is old and wise. He knows we number more than his bluecoats, but he does not know how many more. He thinks four to one. But he cannot see how far this village goes down the river. You know, my brothers, that we number ten warriors for every bluecoat.
“Now, the younger men under Little Chief want to fight. They want to attack this village with the thunder guns. If we do not make a great show of power now, they will convince Little Chief to do it. We must gather three thousand warriors and more. Mount your men on the best horses and make charge after charge.”
“But the thunder guns!” said a warrior who had been fired on with the howitzer. “They shoot twice.”
“Those guns are big, but they are heavy and slow. If we ride along the front line of the enemies, from north to south and from south to north at great speed on our ponies, the thunder
guns cannot take aim on us. No one swats bees with a lodge pole.”
Chief Little Bluff of the Kiowas laughed at the image.
“We must not surround them,” I continued, for I still hoped to leave Kit a way out. “The ground behind them is no good. We must hold to the open ground between them and the village where we can ride with antelope speed. Those thunder guns must not roll one step closer to this village. If the bluecoats get those guns any closer, they will rip our lodges apart like a hailstorm tears the leaves from a tree. We must hold the ground before us and drive them back up the valley the way they have come. I will lead the first charge. Who will ride with me?”

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