Shortgrass Song (37 page)

That night, at one of the many campfires, Ab noticed a gambler in a frazzled derby hat and a silk cravat dealing a lively game of three-card monte. He stood for several minutes beyond the light of the campfire and watched. Finally he broke in on the game.

“Sir, a word with you,” he said to the dealer.

After conversing privately for a minute or two with the host, the gambler returned to the game, straightening his cravat. “All's well, men,” he said. “Sergeant Holcomb insists on low stakes, however. ‘Recreational gambling,' he says. Wants no man going home broke.”

The tale of Holcomb's Charge rang from every campfire that night. Though Ab had fought in only the one brief skirmish of the New Mexico campaign and in none of the Indian fights the First later engaged in, his charge at Apache Canyon had earned him high fame among the soldiers. Every assault that followed for the duration of the hostilities, every attack and maneuver, every advance, had to suffer the comparison with Ab's great dash at the enemy line. It gave rise to the war cry of the Pikes Peakers: Remember Holcomb's Charge! None who had seen it could forget.

By the same token, none could forget that two spotted horses had carried the charge. Two fearless riders had jumped the fallen bridge over the arroyo. Two had leapt into immortality at Apache Canyon. But it was also widely known that Cheyenne Dutch had killed Ab's oldest son, and so the old scout's name, when spoken, was whispered, the speaker glancing about for sign of the host before breathing the epithet.

*   *   *

On the second day, the old cavalrymen staged a race to the Garden of the Gods and back. Several of the old troopers came in hours late, having detoured through the saloons of Old Town.

Buster straightened some old shoes his draft horses had worn out and gave them to the men to toss at iron stakes pounded into the ground with a single jack. The children organized their own sack races. Music played, beef roasted, a few good-natured fistfights broke out, guns fired randomly, and Allegheny's dewclaws settled ever nearer to solid ground.

A mock debate took place under a brush arbor, the question being whether the properly attired gentleman should wear a fob ribbon or a watch chain. A less formal discussion on a more significant subject occurred around one of the campfires that night. The question was whether the action at Sand Creek under the command of Colonel John Chivington in the year of 1864 had been a massacre as opposed to a battle.

Taking the affirmation was Horace Gribble. Horace had fought with the Third, the Hundred Dazers, not the First. But he had become acquainted with many of the Pikes Peakers during the Indian campaign and had come to attend the reunion by personal invitation of Pete Holcomb.

Taking the negative was a former corporal of the First who had climbed Rowe Mesa behind the Confederate lines with Chivington to destroy the Texans's train of supplies. And he had later followed Colonel Chivington into battle at Sand Creek. “If it were a massacre,” he asked, rubbing the stubble on his chin, “why weren't Colonel Chivington court-martialed?”

“If it wasn't, why was he investigated by Congress?” Horace countered.

“Congress!” The old corporal spit a stream of tobacco juice through a gap in his teeth. It blackened an orange ember with an exclamatory sizzle. “Politicians ain't soldiers.”

“Neither are men who kill unarmed women, or children carryin' white flags of surrender,” Horace said calmly. He was squatting near the fire with his knees in his armpits.

“And what do you call heathen Injuns that kill white women and capture chil'uns?” the corporal answered. “To say not a word of rape and torture! An eye for an eye, the Good Book says.”

“Don't preach to me about revenge,” Horace said. “The Cheyenne killed my two brothers. That's why I joined the Third. But the Indians at Sand Creek had surrendered at Fort Wise. They were under army protection. They were lookin' to make peace.”

“And what of the scalps of yaller-haired women found in their lodges?” The brown stream killed another coal.

“They were lost under the piles of scalps taken from dead squaws on the battleground that night by the likes of you.”

The old corporal sprang to his feet. “Goddamn you to talk to me that way! I must have my satisfaction!” Tobacco juice punctuated the challenge as he put up his fists in the style of a pugilist.

Horace sprang from his squat, and each man tried to beat his opinion into the other's head for a couple of minutes before the two were pulled apart and made to shake hands.

*   *   *

The next morning, Pete organized Sunday services utilizing the talents of all the clergymen among the former soldiers. He gave the invocation himself and left it up to the others to read the scripture, lead the prayers, and deliver the sermons.

Caleb accompanied the hymns, but Pete's righteous streak was starting to vex him. His brother prayed just too damned much. He actually felt jealous of God.

Just at the close of the benediction, Captain Dubois and Amelia arrived from Colorado Springs in a three-spring surrey. The captain drove his team into the midst of the worshipers as they said amen, then stood in his buggy to make an announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain said, “General William Jackson Palmer sends his regards to this gathering of loyal Union fighting men. The general regrets he could not attend himself. However, on behalf of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, the Fountain Colony, the city of Colorado Springs, and General Palmer himself, my daughter, Amelia, and I are pleased to present to this reunion of patriotic souls a grand and lavish feast! Behold!” and the captain swept his hand toward the plains.

Down the road from Colorado Springs came a regular processional of supply wagons, prompting a gasp and a cheer to issue from the crowd. The wagons were met by former troopers who galloped out to escort them to the reunion grounds. They carried chefs who would serve raw oysters, mock turtle soup, Mackinaw trout in egg sauce, boiled leg of mutton in caper sauce, roast loin of beef with oyster dressing, glazed sweetbreads, baked chicken pie, boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, tomatoes, spinach, celery, and olives. One wagon hauled nothing but watermelons. Another, the box of which was lined with ice, carried pies, cakes, puddings, and custards of every description.

The rest of the day favored the speechmakers, as the gluttons rendered indolent by the feast fell to lounging about under the arbors. And every orator who stood before his old comrades sang the praises of Ab Holcomb, generous reunion host and hero of Apache Canyon.

Yet Ab was nowhere to be found. Having appeared ubiquitous during the past three days, his presence was keenly missed. He hadn't been seen since the end of Sunday services.

“Where's Holcomb?” the guests began to ask. Some of them were planning on leaving by train that night. “Where's Sergeant Holcomb?” They wanted to thank their host. They wanted to toast him, favor him with a few bars of “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow,” honor him with hip hip hoorays. “Where's Ab?” they wondered.

“Pete, where's your father?” one of the old soldiers inquired.

“I don't know,” Pete said. “I haven't seen him.”

“Find him. Bring him out. Drag him by that peg of his if you have to, but bring him round to the barn where the boys are playing the old battle songs. We won't leave until we hear him speak!”

On the way to the cabin, Pete passed a little gambler who jerked at the knot of his cravat and tipped his frazzled derby.

Pete found his father posturing in front of the mirror in his room. “Papa, they're asking for you out there. Some of them want to see you before they go home.”

Ab stepped away from the looking glass. His hair was combed back and oiled, the gray streaks streaming from his temples like trails of smoke. He wore his best suit. A string tie closed his stiff collar. A gold watch chain draped gracefully from his vest pocket. And the leg! Had he polished it? No, he had sanded and varnished it! It shone like the banisters in Captain Dubois's mansion.

And the awkward old leather straps that attached the peg to the belt had taken a fresh dose of blacking.

Ab breathed deep and nodded at his son. “I'm ready,” he said.

FORTY-TWO

Buster and Caleb were joining the band in a rendition of “Tenting on the Old Camp Grounds” when Ab appeared at the side of the barn. Applause overwhelmed the music, and singing voices jumped into “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow” before the musicians could agree upon a key to accompany it in.

The old soldiers patted Ab's back and passed him hand to hand like a gallon of water in a bucket brigade until they splashed him in glory on a little platform of oyster barrels and apple crates against the barn wall. There he cowered before applause and cheers until his guests would allow him to speak.

Pete pushed his way through the throng and took Amelia's arm, beaming with pride at his father's great success in his first role as host. He looked across the hat brims at Caleb, who was smirking beside Buster.

Ab held his hands high to quiet the crowd. “I don't make many speeches,” he began when the shushing trailed off. “I don't feel at ease with it. I don't have much to say to you, except that I am happy every one of you could attend this reunion, and it was a pleasure to see you one and all. My only regret is that we soon must go our separate ways.” He raked his hand back through his hair and wiped the oily tonic from his fingers onto his coat. “Well … in all honesty … there are other regrets, too.…”

He clasped his hands in front of him, tapped his wooden leg against the crate once or twice, and cleared his throat. “In talking with the men over the past three days it has come to my attention that many among us have fallen on hard times since the war. Not a few of you have told me you spent your last pennies in arriving here and have no idea where your next stake will come from.” Ab slapped his palms against his breast pockets. “If I were a wealthy man, I would stake every one of you. Yet I know you all too well to think you would accept my charity.”

A murmur passed through the crowd, and its members shook their heads solemnly over the hopeless, destitute conditions some of their comrades were experiencing.

“However,” the speaker said, with a more hopeful lilt to his voice, “I believe that we, as men who have fought and suffered together, owe it to one another to exploit every avenue we have at our disposal to come to one another's aid. There are men among us with experience in many fields, and by swapping our ideas and exchanging advice, I believe we may all benefit and improve our situations. Allow me to make the first suggestion.”

Ab scraped his polished leg thoughtfully against the platform and tucked his thumbs into his vest pockets.

“My specialty in the area of business, if I may claim one, is land speculation. Now not long ago I learned of a new law put into effect by the General Land Office that I think may benefit many of you here today. The law allows veterans to gain immediate title to homestead lands without the requirements of residing on or cultivating the land as is usual in homesteading.…”

A sudden vision came to Buster, and he finally grasped the scheme behind Ab's reunion. He saw the plat map in the county clerk's office. He saw his own little quarter section on Monument Creek with his name on it—Thompson—proclaiming the proprietorship in which he, as a former article of property himself, took so much pride. Then, above the Thompson Plat came the first of the squares labeled Holcomb—Ab's original homestead—then Javier's former quarter section, then those that had belonged to cowboys long proved up, bought out, and returned to Texas. The Holcomb squares flanked the creek for miles, halfway and more to its head, almost to the Pinery, where it poured from the mountain ranges onto the shortgrass plains.

Then Buster envisioned that blemish on the map, that one plat labeled other than Holcomb, that pockmark on an otherwise perfect slate: the Mayhall claim, just above the Holcomb quarter section once claimed by Matthew.

But above Mayhall's name were empty parcels, unclaimed lands, blank squares on the map, waiting for impoverished homesteaders to take them away from Ab Holcomb—twenty-odd squares lining the creek all the way into the Pinery, all the way to its source among the grotesque, red, sandstone monuments that had given name to the stream.

Now Buster saw the empty squares taking on the names of discharged soldiers—shiftless, penniless drifters aching to convert the quarter sections Uncle Sam gave them to gambling stakes or whores' wages. It all made such good, sudden sense. The land office that day in Colorado City, the telegrams sent to the newspapers, the sudden inclination toward hospitality. Old Mister Ab wasn't changing; he wasn't taking his blinders off; he was as single-minded as ever. He was thinking only of land!

In wanton disrespect to the speaker, Caleb was tuning his mandolin, rather noisily. He felt the elbow of Buster in his ribs.

“Listen, boy,” the black man whispered, leaning toward him. “Your papa's gittin' you a bigger ranch.”

“… so you see,” Ab continued, “any one of you who has done your duty in service to the Union may take one hundred and sixty acres at no cost other than the filing fee and establish yourselves as farmers. That is my advice, and I hope some of you may make good use of it.”

A murmur circulated among the listeners.

Ab went on. “Those of you interested in farming may come with me to the land office in the morning, if you want, to look at the possibility of getting land in this area. I know the best parcels for farming. I myself farmed between wars.”

“What's it take to file?” asked a rawboned ex-private in overalls.

“You must have discharge papers,” Ab explained. “But that is a mere formality. My word is good with the county clerk, and I will vouch for you in the morning if you want to get a farm. Are you a farmer?”