Michener, James A. (129 page)

'Nellie, I think we should pray,' and the two officer's wives, there at the remotest outpost of their civilization, knelt and prayed. When they rose Mrs. Reed took Nellie's hand and said: 'Who ever promised you that an army officer's life would be pleasant? Believe me, this storm which assails you now will pass.'

'I am torn apart, Mrs. Reed.'

'Have you ever sat in a lonely fort, with snow about the door, and watched your child die? That's being torn apart, and even that storm passes.'

1 shall try.'

'And I shall . . .' She wanted to say either 'I shall pray for you' or 'I shall watch you,' but she knew that each was inappropriate and inaccurate. So she did not finish her promise, because what she proposed doing was much more practical. She would ask her husband to keep his young Irish cavalryman absent from the fort as often as possible and on missions of maximum duration.

Among the men on the frontier who followed the establishment of Fort Garner with close attention was a small, scrawny fugitive with watery blue eyes and a somewhat withered left arm; he lurked in Santa Fe, waiting for any good chance that would enable him to slip back into his preferred Texas. His name was Amos Peavine, and his ancestors had prowled the Neutral Ground, that bandits' no man's land bordering old Louisiana.

As a young man with a bad arm he had had to be more clever than most and had soon built a reputation throughout East Texas as a holdup man and a ruthless killer. He was so devious, so quick to strike, that men started calling him Rattlesnake, and some, to their quick dismay, tried shooting at him, but he, well aware of his disability, had trained himself so assiduously in the use of guns that it was always he who drew first, fired first, and nodded ceremoniously as his would-be assailant fell.

Frontier gunmen, noticing his affected left arm, assumed that it played no part in his behavior, but they were wrong. Through long practice Rattlesnake Peavine could bring that bad arm up across his belt, providing a rocklike platform on which to rest the gun as it was being fired, and the action was so swift and smooth

that even close watchers could not detect exactly what had hap pened.

In those hectic days he began to carry two Colts, and since Ins left hand was practically useless, he slung them both on his right hip, the only gunman known to do so. He spent about a year, . perfecting holsters for his two guns, and then another, 1864, in shortening the barrels to make the guns easier to swing loose Tins made his draw a fraction of a second quicker than that of a challenger. He also invented a clever way of making the trigger more responsive to his right forefinger: he filed down each until even a whisper would release it.

Peavine did not notch his guns to keep track of their effectiveness; he was content to be known as 'that little bastard, about a hundred and thirty pounds, who can shoot faster than a rattlesnake strikes, and more deadly.' At nineteen he was an authentic Texas badman.

During the war he had ranged the northern border, siding now with the Union forces, more often with the Confederate, but proving so unreliable to each that in the end both armies were trying to hang him, and it was then that he felt it advisable to quit Texas: 'I got me a passel of enemies in this state. North or South, they don't realize a man is entitled to make a livin'. No future for me here.' What was more persuasive: 'Hell, come peace they hain't much goods movin', a man hain't got much chance to pick a few bundles off for hisself.'

He had drifted slowly toward Santa Fe on the principle 'A man cain't make it in Texas, he can always succeed in New Mexico,' and after trying vainly to profit from the exposed trade with Mexico, he discovered that the real money was to be made in a trade centuries old and infamously dishonorable. The Plains Indians wanted whiskey and rifles, and generations of disreputable traders had found profitable ways of supplying them. Spaniards had done so in the 1600s, Frenchmen in the 1700s, Mexicans in the first years of the 1800s, and now a wily crew of adventurers from Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas continued the tradition

Amos Peavine was the most daring of the bunch, for he traded with the most deadly of the tribes. He was a Comanchero, a lawless man who roamed the Comancheria, that vast expanse of wasteland which coincided with the buffalo range. Especially he worked the Texas plains, and when he learned that a new fort was to be established on Bear Creek, he rejoiced, because although it brought more soldiers into the area, which meant a greater chance-that he would ultimately be shot, it also brought two developments extremely favorable to him: the Indians under attack would have

to have more guns, and the slow military trains crossing the empty plains carrying guns and ammunition would be more open to attack. A really crafty Comanchero stole guns from the army, sold them to the Comanche, then served as tracker for the army when it went out to confront the well-armed Indians. A Comanchero prospered in troubled times, and was adept at devising strategies for keeping them troubled.

While Mrs. Reed was lecturing young Mrs. Minor on proper behavior at a frontier fort, Rattlesnake Peavine was some two hundred miles to the west, astride a winded old horse and leading a Rocky Mountain burro he had obtained from a Mexican family by the persuasive process of shooting the entire clan in one unbroken fusillade.

He was on a mission fraught with a medley of dangers, and any man who was afraid of nature, Indians or the retaliation of the United States Army would have blanched at what faced him as he probed the empty plains, seeking contact with Chief Matark of the Comanche. Scorpions and snakes awaited him if he was careless when he dismounted; death from dehydration got those who missed their water holes, so infrequent and so hot and alkali-ridden when found. Indian tribes at war with the Comanche would surely kill him if they caught him, and he faced equal danger from Comanche to whom he could not identify himself quickly. And there were always new forts with energetic new commanders eager to take up the chase against any despised Comanchero.

Amos Peavine, threading his way through these encroaching disasters, was a brave man, almost a heroic one, for the forces of evil require just as much strength of will as do the angels of goodness; it is only the force of character that is missing. Peavine had enormous will; he had no character at all, not even a consistently bad one, for, as in the old days of 1861-65, he stood willing to trade with anyone, to betray everyone. Now he had a promising scheme which might produce substantial profits if acted upon swiftly, but before action could take place, he had to find Matark.

He had left New Mexico, haven for Comancheros like himself and other bandits who ravaged Texas, and had entered that refuge known throughout the West as the Palo Duro Canyon. It was a formidable depression, more than a hundred miles long, dug through solid rock by millions of years of active water, and so lonely and awesome that white men rarely tried to penetrate or conquer it. Those who did saw sights that were majestic. High walls of colored rock hemmed in valleys of surprising richness, where a man could herd a thousand cattle and be assured that they could feed

themselves on the ever-green grasses but not escape from the natural corral which kept them penned

Cattlemen were not able to try this experiment because the Comanche had reached Palo Duro first and had for more than a hundred years utilized it as their one totally secure hiding place Within the canyon, at about the center of its east-west reach a pile of reddish rocks known as The Castle, and it was to this traditional meeting spot that Peavine was heading

He did not ride the well-marked path at the bottom of the canyon, for that would trap him in too dangerously; he kept instead to the less comfortable trail along the south rim, because from here he could look down into the rocky depths and also across to the other side, for the canyon was not extensive in its north-south dimension. And now as he led his complaining burro along the trail from which The Castle should soon be visible, he was satisfied that he had once more negotiated the canyon and brought himself into contact with the Indians he sought. There was, of course, still the possibility that he might encounter some idiot lieutenant from one of the forts, out seeking glory, who had boasted to his troop as he led his cavalry out: 'I shall invade Palo Duro and bring back the scalp of Chief Matark.' Often such a man would utter an extra vow: 'And I'll rescue Emma Larkin,' for she was constantly on the conscience of these soldiers.

Peavine laughed as he thought of the men within the forts: Better they stay home. Come up here, to these walls, they're goin' to get shot. Various expeditions had come to grief at Palo Duro and it seemed likely that more would follow. These canyons will be Indian for a long time,' Peavine muttered as he saw the familiar signs which indicated that The Castle was not far off. He was justified in using the plural canyons because each small stream that fed the main architecture of this deep cut had gouged out its own smaller canyon, so that at the center, where he now rode, the land became a jumble of lateral cuts, some so deep that they could not be traversed if Peavine kept to the upper plateau

So, crossing himself as if he were a believing Catholic, he edged his tired horse toward the rim, tugged at the rope guiding his burro, and started down the steep and rocky path to the lower level. He was now at the most dangerous point of his two-hundred-mile expedition, for he rode so close to the wall of the canyon that any rattlesnake, awakening from his winter sleep, could strike him full in the face if it darted forth; also, if either enemy Indians or roving troops were setting a trap, here is where they would spring it. But this time he made his descent peacefully, and when he

gained the floor of the canyon he found himself once more in a congenial fairyland which he had known in the past.

Land about The Castle leveled out and produced such a richness of grass, such protection from storms, and had such an equable climate—cool in summer, warm in winter—that it formed a kind of Indian Garden of Eden. Here, within this security, some squaws more adventurous than their sisters even tried growing vegetables from seeds captured on raids against ranches.

Turning a familiar corner, Peavine waved to the scouts he knew would be watching, licked his lips in preparation for the Comanche words he would soon be speaking, and headed his horse toward the Indian encampment. It was an amazing collection of tepees, for in their travels south from their original Rocky Mountain homeland the Comanche had acquired a variety of housing, some with tall cedar poles lifting the buffalo-hide covering high into the air (these were the Cheyenne contribution) and others little more than rounded huts depending not upon long poles but bent branches for their form (a pattern used by the Ute). Most notable were the small, compact tepees built about a minimum of moderately long poles; these were some of the best (a device of the Pawnee). The Comanche, a wandering tribe that had developed only a limited culture of its own, had borrowed types of tepees from everyone. Their fierce courage and their appalling cruelty to any captive, they themselves invented.

'I seek Great Chief Matark,' Peavine cried loudly as he entered the haphazard arrangement of tepees, and he repeated the announcement until a group of young braves ran over to surround him, leaving behind the half-naked creature they had been tormenting.

is that the Larkin girl?' he asked as the young men came up, and they looked back as if bewildered that anyone should care who the child was. They had already burned off her ears, and her nose would disappear before the summer was out; she was thirteen now, a most pitiful thing, but miraculously she retained enough intelligence to know that the arrival of a white man, any white man, meant that her chance of rescue was by that small degree enhanced.

She took a tentative step toward Peavine, praying that he would take notice of her, but he looked the other way, and two of the young men grabbed stones and threw them at her with great force, shouting as they did so: 'Get back!'

Matark and his four wives occupied a large tepee in the Cheyenne style, its cedar poles emitting a pleasing fragrance. It had a low entrance, requiring the visitor to stoop, but inside it was

spacious and festively decorated with elkskin hangings on which had been depicted in various colors the history of this port: the tribe. Matark himself, tall and brooding, was a striking figure whose command over his men was understandable Obviously he-had a superior intelligence, which he began to display immedi ately.

'What new thing brings you here?' he asked

'Word from St. Louis.'

'What word?'

'Cavin & Clark, they've been hired to carry guns, man. and all ammunition, to the new fort at Bear Creek.'

'Oh!' Matark did not try to hide the weight and pleasure he accorded such news. To attack successfully one tram of this probable magnitude would supply him with armament for three years. But he was suspicious where white men were involved, and he-asked: 'If you know this ... the guns. . . aren't they already there 7 '

The system, Chief. You know the system.' And the plotters had to laugh at the incredible stupidity of the United States Army. which placed men like Captain Reed in remote outposts like Fort Gamer, then gave them no authority over or responsibility for their supplies. Desk officers in Washington, inordinately jealous of their prerogatives and aware that their jobs were safe only if constantly enhanced, had prevailed upon Congress, at whose elbows they sat while men like Reed battled Indians, to initiate one of the stupidest plans in military history. Ever)' item shipped to Fort Garner was requested not by the man on the scene but by some desk officer two thousand miles away. And when it was authorized, belatedly, another desk officer in another building in Washington decided when and by whom it would be railroaded from the depot in Massachusetts to the warehouse in St. Louis, and by what frontier carter it would be finally dispatched to the intended recipient.

Because the desk officer in charge of transportation sought a carrier who charged the least or bribed the most, he usually employed some carter with the least reliable drivers and the least expensive horses, and none was more deficient than Cavin & Clark in St. Louis. Cargoes consigned through them sometimes required half a year to cover half a thousand miles, and when they arrived, there would always be shortages due to the C&C drivers' tricky habit of selling off portions to storekeepers en route.