Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873 (7 page)

“Do those people have proof it was—”

“To hell with proof, Mr. Tatum!” Sherman snapped. “Mackenzie rode in here yesterday morning with enough proof for me—for any right-minded man, by God. That teamster roasted alive over a fire … every one of the bodies unspeakably butchered. Good God, man! You heard the colonel's report same time I did. And you still don't think it was your Kiowas?”

Tatum felt like a cornered rabbit. How he had prayed to make this a model of reservation life since the day he had arrived here from the east, 1 July 1869, relieving General William B. Hazen from what had been a temporary civilian post. In a flurry of activity and stoic Christian resolve, Lawrie Tatum had immediately let contracts to have several stone buildings erected for the agency, before hurrying east to Chicago where he purchased a steam engine, a shingling machine and other materials to construct a sawmill, along with huge millstones for grinding corn. With the power of his love and his faith in God alone, Tatum believed he could bring his wards away from the blanket and to a pastoral, farming life.

Whereas Hazen was a military man who had run his Indian affairs from his headquarters at Fort Sill, Lawrie had located his agency buildings on high ground overlooking Cache Creek. It was there he built the first schoolhouse for teachers Joseph and Lizzie Butler, after completing living quarters for agency employees. From the ground up, Lawrie Tatum had built a small community he prayed would forever remain rooted in love between red men and white.

There was no fear in the man. Some might look at Lawrie Tatum and say it was because he was Quaker. But those who really knew him realized the agent was a courageous soul in his own right. Time and again in his two years here, the Kiowa and Comanche chiefs and warriors had tried bullying and bluster, if not outright intimidation. None of it worked. Tatum, the man the Indians nicknamed “Bald Head,” would not be bullied. Instead, they had grudgingly come to respect him in their own way, knowing Bald Head did not lie, and never skirted around the truth.

He was exactly the sort of man the Society of Friends had cast their nets for when the newly inaugurated President Ulysses S. Grant accepted the Quakers' peace plan. Grant had begun by appointing as Commissioner of Indian Affairs a full-blooded Indian, Brevet Brigadier General Ely S. Parker, an attorney who had served on Grant's own staff during the Civil War. Parker's board of commissioners was established to advise Secretary of Interior Columbus Delano on appointment of agents for the western tribes. From their own headquarters at Lawrence, Kansas, the Society of Friends operated under the watchful eyes of Enoch Hoag, who firmly believed, like Tatum, that the red man would respond to love and respect if treated with sympathy and dignity.

Over time, Tatum believed, his Kiowa and Comanche wards would come to the light of God's path, living by Christian virtue. It was a policy and a belief that often put the Quakers at direct odds with Grant's War Department and the no-nonsense commander of the army itself: General William Tecumseh Sherman.

“Mr. Tatum?”

Turning, the agent found one of his civilian employees at the open doorway, pulling his hat respectfully from his head.

“Yes, Ross?”

“The chiefs are here, Mr. Tatum.”

“Chiefs?” Sherman asked, his interest suddenly pricked as he strode from the window.

Tatum nodded. “It's time to hand out the annuities, General.”

Sherman sputtered. “Annuities? To these murderers?”

How Tatum wanted to tell the unpolished general what he thought of his bluster and his tobacco-reeking mouth and the way the general openly drank his whiskey—like the rest of those soldiers he had met in the past two years he had spent out here.

“Surely you understand the women and children must live on something—”

“By damned, you're right, Tatum! They've got to have something to live on while their men are off raiding and stealing, killing and raping and kidnapping.”

Tatum suddenly leaned forward on both arms, elbows locked as he rocked forward across the small, wobbly desk. “Listen, General—if I believed as you did, no one would be trying to do what's right out here.”

“Tell me, Mr. Tatum—what's right?” Sherman scoffed.

“Your government's clearly failed in its job, General. As many soldiers as you want to send out here—you still can't get the job done. Now shut up and let me talk!” he growled sternly when Sherman opened his mouth. “I didn't come here to make my fortune, like most agents could do before the President turned over control to the Quakers. Corruption, bribery—it's all plainly here for the man who wants to make a quick fortune, General. But if I did not believe that virtue is its own reward, I would not be here trying to help these Indians, trying to work with your soldiers.”

“Then help me round up the troublemakers—”

“I'm not finished, General. Just look around you. Look at these luxurious accommodations I live in. You think I'm here, like the others, to divert money from this agency into my own pockets?”

“I haven't accused you of—”

“By rights you'd better not! A man out here will never eat high on the hog, General.” He turned to his employee. “Mr. Ross, be sure everything is prepared in the warehouses for the distribution. Set up the tables, then return here for the rolls.”

Ross had disappeared before Sherman strode purposefully to the desk, his eyes narrowing beneath the bristling eyebrows. “You're still going to issue the goods to these people?”

“That's my job, General. Our government wants these people to live on these reservations, far from the buffalo they want and need to hunt for their subsistence, to turn themselves into farmers. I must do my part in seeing that I smooth the road to a farming life for them—”

“They don't stay on the reservations, can't you see?” Sherman asked, sweeping his hat from Tatum's desk. He appeared to pause for an answer, and when one was not forthcoming, the general strode to the open doorway. “I'll be at the post. Colonel Grierson's office—should you decide you have need of more frank talk, Mr. Tatum.”

“You're not staying to witness the issuance, General?”

A dark look crossed the soldier's face. “The only thing I want to give these Kiowa is an empty bowl and a hanging rope.”

What made Lawrie Tatum shudder as he watched Sherman stomp away to rejoin his escort and ride off to the fort was that the agent was afraid he understood. While he and the Indian Bureau might feed and clothe these Kiowa and Comanche, Lawrie Tatum and the rest were nonetheless powerless to make their wards behave.

He stood at the window, watching the white employees, good Friends all, shuffle supplies and tables into place. Stacks of blankets, piles of sugar and coffee, canvas britches and cotton shirts, bolts of cloth and fifty-weight of flour. In the agency corral stood some skinny cattle that would soon be nothing more than bone and gristle as the hungry Kiowa butchered their allotment.

The women and old ones and children were the first to appear from the trees this morning. It was some time before the warriors stepped from the leafy shadows. The chiefs came only when all were settled on the ground before the tables.

“Mr. Jones,” Tatum called out as he stepped onto the porch. Colonel Grierson's Kiowa interpreter, Horace Jones, came over. “Tell Satanta and his head men I want an audience with them in my office. Right away.”

Jones gestured vainly at the distribution tables. “Now?”

“Now.”

Tatum retreated into the shady, spring coolness of his tiny office and shuffled papers on his desk, his back to the door of purpose until he heard Horace Jones's boots on the floor behind him, a gentle cough announcing their arrival. Then he slowly turned.

“Satanta!” he said enthusiastically, trying to hide his anxiety at the prospect of having this Kiowa chief lie to his face. “It is good to see you!”

Tatum stepped to the stocky chief and shook hands. Down the line he went, shaking with Big Tree, Lone Wolf, Eagle Heart, Big Bow, Woman's Heart and Satank, the oldest of them all, who sported a scraggly mustache while every other Kiowa plucked facial hair, even eyebrows. He thought it such a savage custom.

“Please, sit,” he told them.

When Jones made the translation, the chiefs spread blankets and settled to the agent's floor.

“I do not want to smoke with you this morning,” Tatum started abruptly. “And what I have to say will not take long—but it is of great importance … to us both.” He drew himself up and sighed. This was already proving extremely hard on him.

“The soldiers have told me of a wagon train that was raided a few days ago. Down in Texas. Seven white men were killed—horribly tortured and mutilated.” He waited for the interpreter to catch up as he watched the Kiowas' eyes for any betrayal.

“I know you were off the reservation, Satanta. Perhaps the rest of your chiefs as well. The soldiers have asked me if you have been gone from this place—and I cannot lie to them. Tell me, from your own lips so that my heart will be at rest. Tell me you did not have anything to do with this raid on the white man's wagons.”

An immediate rustle of shock went through the chiefs, and suddenly Satanta arose before any of the rest could speak.

“My heart is strong,” said the Kiowa leader. “So I too do not lie. I will not lie to you, Bald Head.” He tapped his broad chest. “I led that raid. Again and again I ask for weapons and powder and lead—but you do not give it to us. We ask for other things that are promised to us by the white treaty-talkers. But the white man keeps his hands closed to the Kiowa. You keep your ears closed to our pleas.”

“You do not need the guns if you will only grow crops and raise the cattle.”

Satanta sneered. “We do not want your skinny spotted buffalo! We will hunt buffalo the way we always have. But now the white man is laying the tracks for another smoking horse to cross our buffalo land to the south. We will stop these men who lay the iron tracks. I—White Bear of the Kiowas—I took these other chiefs,” and he swept a thick, muscular arm toward the open door, “and those young warriors out there … I took them all to Texas to show them how to fight the white man!”

Tatum felt his heart seize in his chest. “You led the raid on the wagon train?”

“I did. And I watched my young warriors count many coup.”

“The rest—these went with you?”

Satanta appeared to strut standing there before the agent, proud to anoint himself the leader of the whole thing. “Yes. They went with me: Satank, Big Bow, Fast Bear and Big Tree. We killed seven of theirs,” as he held up the fingers. “But they killed three of our warriors and wounded two more. We call it even now.”

Then Satanta walked over to Tatum and clamped a dark hand on the agent's shoulder. “But do not worry, Bald Head—we will not be raiding around here this summer. We will only raid into Texas. To stop the white man and his smoking horse.”

Tatum, unable to speak, glanced over the other chiefs seated on the floor.

“Do not look at them, Bald Head,” Satanta said with a menacing growl. “They did not lead the raid. I did. They came to learn from me how to fight the white man and his many-shoot guns. If any other man claims he led that raid—he is a liar!”

From the looks on the faces of the rest, Tatum could see that Satanta must be telling the truth. None of them would dare claim leadership of the raid on the Warren wagon train—none but Satanta himself. Yet the agent realized the rest were every bit as guilty of bloody crimes.

“I … I believe you, Satanta,” Tatum muttered, his eyes going to Horace Jones. “Tell the chiefs they are free to go now. It's time for them to receive their annuities with the rest of their people.”

When the interpreter had translated, Satanta returned to Tatum's side. “Bald Head does not want to know anything more about my raid on the wagon train?”

“No.” Tatum blanched, shaking his head as he turned away to his small desk. He could not look at the chiefs any longer without betraying what revulsion he felt inside for them and their heinous crimes. Most of all, the agent was fearful that the pit of him contained more than revulsion—afraid that he might actually hate these chiefs for what they had done.

And hate was a luxury a Quaker could not afford.

Without turning around as the Kiowas rose from their blankets and shuffled out the door, Tatum said, “Horace, when the chiefs are settled outside, come back. I have something you'll need to take to the post for me.”

When Jones stepped back into the agency office, Tatum was seething with anger—an emotion so foreign to him that it scared the man down to the soles of his feet as he penned the final words of his note to the commander of nearby Fort Sill.

Col. Grierson

Post Comd.

Satanta, in the presence of Satank, Eagle Heart, Big Tree and Woman's Heart, in a defiant manner, has informed me that he led a party of about 100 Indians into Texas, and killed 7 men and captured a train of mules. He further states that the chiefs Satank, Eagle Heart, Big Tree, and Big Bow were associated with him in the raid. Please arrest all of them.

Lawrie Tatum

Ind. Agent.

Chapter 4

May 27, 1871

William Tecumseh Sherman had to admit this was turning out to be a damned lucky week for him.

First off, he and his escort had themselves narrowly missed getting chewed up and possibly losing their scalps down on the Jacksboro-Belknap Road where the Kiowa had hit Henry Warren's wagon train. And now the butchers who had murdered the wagonmaster and his six teamsters had openly admitted to their crimes before that Quaker Lawrie Tatum just moments ago.

Sherman handed the agent's note back to Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, commander of the Tenth U. S. Negro Cavalry, Fort Sill, I.T. Indian Territory.

“By Jupiter, Colonel—your brunettes will have this play,” Sherman said.