Rifles for Watie (14 page)

Herds of brown Indian cattle grazed on the Cherokee prairies, which stretched for miles. Only an occasional clump of blackjack or post oak interrupted the long grassy flatness. One morning the brassy sky became overcast, and Jeff looked expectantly for rain.

“Rain no come,” an Indian boy told him.

Impatient with the standard military attire, the Indian boy had thrown away his cap and coat, cut off his blue army pants below the knee and was marching barefoot with the Union Indian Home Guards. An ear of corn, half its yellow kernels chewed away, swung from a string at his waist. He was carrying a long-barreled Indian rifle. The furry hilt of a hunting knife showed at his belt.

Jeff asked, “How do you know?”

“Before rain come, lots of sign. Sky all red before sunrise, no early dew on ground. Flies thick and stay close to your hands, fish jump out of water to catch bugs in air, hickory leaves curl. You can smell the woods better, hear noises better. Campfire smoke stay close to ground. None of these signs here now.”

Jeff was impressed. “What's your name?” he asked.

“Joe Grayson. I Cherokee. Not many Cherokees in Indian Home Guards now. By and by many other Cherokees join up, I think. Most of Home Guards now Creeks, Seminoles.”

Jeff pointed back over his shoulder at the long line of Indian refugees, some walking, others riding in wagons. “What tribe are they?”

“Mostly Creek. Some Seminole, Cherokee, too. Ever' day, more Cherokees desert rebels, join us.”

Jeff motioned toward Joe's bare feet. “Don't you get tired marching all day barefoot?”

An expression of quiet pride came over Joe's smooth brown face. “When I get tired I think of time my mother told me how she walk barefoot all way behind their wagon from Georgia when Jackson's soldiers took our Georgia land away from us twenty—twenty-five years ago. If she could walk eight hundert mile, I walk this hundert'n fifty easy.”

Three days later they began to pass occasional log cabins and see rude brand marks on the flanks of grazing horses, cattle, and hogs.

“Full-bloods,” Joe grunted, scornfully. “They lazy. All they wanta do is live like old-time Indians. They raise little mess corn so family have corn meal and hominy to eat and swill for hogs. That all. They jest wanta hunt and eat.”

As they penetrated deeper and deeper into the Cherokee country, the farms became bigger, and the homes alongside the trail larger. Many of the houses were two-story with tall corner fireplaces and wide porches. The valleys were filled with waving corn. Orchards of peach, apple, plum, and quince grew behind the big homes, and the broad lawns were shaded by gigantic oaks enclosed by plank fences, neatly whitewashed. Jeff had never seen anything like this in Kansas.

“Mixed-bloods and intermarried whites,” explained Joe proudly. “They run things in the nation. They not like brush Indians. They know how to live.”

In midafternoon they passed the blackened ruins of a large home destroyed by fire. The desolation was complete. The fences had been wrecked, and the long cedar lane leading to the front door had been chopped down wantonly. Even the springhouse and barns had been burned to the ground. As he saw it, Joe's smooth brown face grew hard.

“That was Clem Vann's home. Watie men burned it down, I think. Vann was Union man. All his boys go north to fight. I used to play with his son John. They had a pet cub bear. We'd wrestle with it.” Joe fought to regain his composure.

Finally he turned to Jeff. “Rebel Cherokees and Union Cherokees hate each other. Handful of rebel Cherokees, mixed-blood families led by old Major Ridge, sign treaty back in Georgia giving up all our tribal land there. Watie sign it, too. They had no right do that. Chief John Ross and most of tribe protested, wanted stay in Georgia. But old Andy Jackson, United States President, got his Senate ratify the false treaty. United States government took our Georgia lands and homes away from us. Jackson's soldiers came and made us move to this country. Hunderts our people died on the long, hard trip. We call that trip ‘Trail of Tears' because they have stop ever' few miles and bury somebody. Ever since, Ross Cherokees hate Watie Cherokees. Lots of assassinations, killings.”

Jeff turned incredulously. “You mean the United States took your homes away from you?”

Joe nodded gloomily. An expression of long-seated resentment came into his dark face. “My family's home was two-story brick, prettiest in whole Georgia country. It had hand-carved mantelpiece, circular staircase, big pine trees growin' all around. My mother loved every brick in it. It had belong in her family hundert years. She live in it since she little girl. She got married in it. One day Jackson's soldiers come to take the home and drive Mother and family away. Mother stand in yard look at them. She asked them give her half hour. She take broom, sweep whole house lovingly, burn broom for good luck. Without looking back, she walk out of house and start long walk to this country. She never see her house again.”

Sobered by Joe's simple telling of the dramatic event, Jeff marched in silence. He wondered at Joe Grayson's loyalty to the Union after such infamous treatment. How could the United States have done such a terrible thing?

That night they camped near Cabin Creek. Noah, a shuck cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth, stooped over the creek bank to scour his knife and fork. He plunged them into the gray soil and wiped them clean on his pants leg. Bill Earle, sprawled indolently on the grass, was rolling himself a cigarette out of a tiny square of newspaper.

“Noah, why we goin' to this Godforsaken Indian country?” Bill asked.

A bird whistled from a nearby button bush. Noah listened, trying to identify it. “To return the Indian refugees follerin' us to their homes. An' to impress the Cherokees aroun' Tahlequah and Fort Gibson with our strength, now that we're mobilized. Lots of Cherokees aroun' Tahlequah had to join the rebels against their will. When we show up, some of 'em might wanta change their minds and come back to our side.” He saw that Bill's cigarette was unlit. “Gotta match?”

Bill growled, “Naw! All I got's the habit.” Noah took a quick pull from the burning cigarette in his own mouth. With a long arm, he thrust the hot end of it toward Bill so Bill could ignite his.

Bill blew twin puffs of gray smoke out of his nostrils. “While we're trying to impress 'em, what's to stop another rebel army from comin' up from Texas with twice as many men as us and givin' us a good scobbin'?”

“Our commanders probably know there ain't no large rebel force in the Indian country now.”

“How do they know?” Jeff asked. He was folding his blanket carefully. The visiting inspector today was Colonel Salomon of the Ninth Wisconsin Infantry. He knew how to run an inspection.

“Our scouts and spies probably told 'em,” explained Noah. “Each side has got plenty of spies in the other's army.”

Jeff was aghast. Maybe he'd been marching alongside rebel spies in his own outfit that very afternoon.

He stammered, “Corn, Noah. Don't spies ever get caught?”

Noah nodded, placing his knife and fork carefully in his knapsack.

“What happens to 'em?”

Noah ran his long finger expressively across his throat and went on packing.

“Corn!” Jeff said again and decided it must take an awfully brave man to be a spy.

A slow rumble of wagon wheels was heard. A wagon hauled by a yoke of oxen and driven by an old Arkansas farmer lumbered into view. Halting his wagon in the midst of the soldiers, the farmer moved to the rear, untied one of the sacks, and began selling big green Henry Clay apples to the soldiers.

Jeff hadn't tasted an apple for months. Holding aloft his “shin plaster” currency as all the others were doing, he eagerly joined the mob clamoring to be waited upon. The whole transaction moved so slowly that Bill Earle climbed jocularly into the front end of the wagon, cut a sack string, and began helping the boys right and left. The farmer hurriedly pushed Bill out.

But while he was retying that sack, Noah and John Chadwick lifted out the open sack in the rear and began handing out apples to everybody. At the same time, somebody belted the oxen across the rump with a brush and they began running, the soldiers hopping alongside, yelling like Indians. Several clambered into the wagon and, despite the farmer's efforts to prevent them, threw all the sacks of apples overboard. Nearly every man in camp got at least one apple, and everybody was laughing.

As Jeff bit juicily into his and found it delicious, he could hear the farmer still shouting helplessly, “Captain! Captain!” But no captain came, and finally the old man drove off with an empty wagon.

Gradually Jeff was beginning to learn the army's careless regard for the private property of civilians, especially food. Petty stealing in camp was dealt with harshly. At Rolla, Jeff had seen the punishment of a Missourian who had stolen $12.50 from a comrade. He was made to stand on a stump with placards marked THIEF hanging from him, front and back. His head had been shaved and he had to forfeit all his pay. Moreover, all the other soldiers seemed to think the punishment was deserved. Yet here was the whole company participating cheerfully in the pilfering of a farmer's harvest of apples and regarding it as a great lark.

The weather stayed hot, the trail dusty, the rations short. Some said they were going to Fort Gibson, others said to Fort Smith. Many times it seemed to Jeff that they were marching for no other reason than just to keep up the motion. Everybody was complaining about the wretched army food.

One night when they were still camped on Cabin Creek awaiting the arrival of the supply train from Fort Scott, a bareheaded soldier walked up to their campfire after they had finished eating. He was a moody-looking fellow. His curly, uncombed hair was red as strawberry jam. His piercing blue eyes glinted fretfully, as if he were nursing a grievance against somebody.

He glanced hungrily at the pittance of bacon gravy left in the bottom of their camp skillet. Suddenly he reached one hand back toward his coat pocket, as though to draw a pistol. Jeff ducked behind Noah's broad back. Food was now so scarce that some messes waited until dark, then forcibly took food away from other messes. But instead of a pistol, the stranger's hand came away holding a great piece of cold corn bread. He looked shyly at them.

“I would like to wallop my dodger in that there gravy, if you hain't no objection.” With a dirty forefinger he pointed to the skillet.

They had no objection. After he had “walloped,” he wasn't long letting them know why he wore that peeved look. He told them he was Stuart Mitchell of Council Grove, Kansas, and that he knew all about the Watie outfit, having been their prisoner several months.

Mitchell talked with the loquacious annoyance of a man who wants to get something unpleasant off his mind. The war had caught him visiting friends in Texas. Trying to escape to the north, he had been captured by Watie's men near Boggy Depot. They compelled him to be their body servant. They made him walk seven miles a day to cut wood for their fires. All he got to eat was a pint of mush and a small piece of beef daily. At night he slept in a tent. If he stuck his head out, they shot at him.

At first he had got along well with them and thought they were a pretty good lot. They told him about the battles they had won. But when he tried to tell them about the battles the Union had won, they wouldn't let him talk.

One of Watie's rebel corporals threatened to cut off Mitchell's red curls and send them to his rebel sweetheart near Webbers Falls “so she'd think he was flirtin' with a little redheaded gal in Dixie.” They threatened to make him sit on a cake of ice to cool his hot northern blood.

As Mitchell talked, his blue eyes flashed angrily. Hating the Watie men passionately, he had finally escaped. “And iffen I ever meet up with them Cherokee devils agin, I'll never show 'em any mercy or take a single prisoner,” he swore in conclusion. Fascinated with his firsthand account of the enemy, they invited him to join their mess. It was a gesture of social significance only.

The food became so intolerable that a week later they formed a protest committee and called on Millholland. It was dusk. The army had pitched camp where it had stopped along the deeply rutted road. The men were sitting or lying in the gray smoke of the small fires that flickered everywhere, cursing the flies and gnats and wondering how things were going back home.

Noah saluted and explained the situation.

Bill Earle added, “Sir, we been cookin' carrots with a squirrel's head, but yesterday we loaned the squirrel's head to Joe Danning's mess an they cooked it with cabbage an' ruined it.”

“Sir, we're so hungry we could eat old Watie off his horse and snap at the stirrups,” said Jeff.

Mitchell held up one of the thick army crackers he had been issued. “Sergeant, if you hain't no objection, sir, these here crackers is so hard I can't break one off in my hands without gettin' a pry on somethin'.”

Millholland squinted thoughtfully at the cracker Mitchell was holding. He knew as well as anybody that the food stank.

“Well,” he said, with honest practicality, “regulations forbid it, but we can't starve. If you wanta to do some foragin' o' nights, go ahead. But try to take it from families that's got plenty. We'll try it awhile an' see what happens.” Grasping his belt between his forefinger and thumb, he pulled it six inches away from his stomach, staring mournfully at the gap caused by his lost weight.

Bill Earle grinned gratefully. “Thankee, Sergeant. We'll be careful.”

At first the pickings were good. In the daytime they marched; at night they raided smokehouses and hen roosts, carrying off chickens, ducks, geese, eggs, milk, and cheese. Once they found a bee tree. It was a tall ash. Noah chopped it down with an ax. They camped on the spot, building a fire and scooping up the golden honey in dishes and camp kettles.