Centennial

by James A. Michener

  The militiaman ignored the command and said scornfully, “General, your days here are numbered.”

  “Colonel!”

  “I have friends in Leavenworth. And influential people in this territory have been sending them reports that you’re not the man to deal with the Indians.”

  “Skimmerhorn!” the slim general shouted.

  “So if you’re wise, Asher, you’ll pack for a trip to Leavenworth and let me run this Indian war.”

  “You’ll take no action unless I order it,” Asher said slowly, his voice trembling.

  “You’re the commanding general,” Skimmerhorn said insolently. “For the present.”

  General Asher was not accustomed to working with men who showed such disregard for military discipline, and he realized that with someone like Skimmerhorn his personal authority had no effect, so he decided to try ordinary reasoning. “We all know,” he said compassionately, “that in Minnesota you suffered at the hands of the Indians. But really, Skimmerhorn, you mustn’t allow the deaths of your parents ...”

  “Parents?” Skimmerhorn exploded, and it became obvious that he was prey to some kind of insanity. “Yes, I saw my father shot by the Sioux. I was running from the barn when they killed my mother with a tomahawk. But what of my wife? They shot her twenty times ... thirty ... they scalped her. And my daughter. Nine years old ... curly hair ... you ever see a child nine years old scalped?” He became a monolithic block of hatred, his face distorted and his hands rigid. “You leave the Lamanites to me,” he cried. “I’ll discharge God’s duty.”

  He stalked from the office, leaving Asher slumped in his chair. Pressing his one hand to his forehead, the general had to acknowledge that during this period of civil war he had no way to discipline the madman, and by the time the war ended, Skimmerhorn would be a hero and there would still be no possibility of discipline. His only hope was that Skimmerhorn’s friends at Fort Leavenworth might arrange quickly for his recall, because in Denver there was nothing he could do. He had been beaten by an adversary he could not comprehend.

  The Arapaho and Cheyenne were required by law to enter a restricted camping area north of Rattlesnake Buttes, and there the pitiful remnant gathered. They had no food, little clothing, no buffalo grazing nearby, few rifles. As a gesture of good intention they turned over to the military the three white women they had kidnapped from a farm.

  They were willing to place themselves under the protection of the army because of the persuasive arguments of Lost Eagle, who told them, “All men would like to stay out with Broken Thumb and wage prairie war as we have always done against our enemies, but I tell you that time is past. General Asher is our friend, Major Mercy is our friend, and he tells me that things will soon be better.”

  When the major rode north to inspect the improvised camp, he stopped first at the village of Zendt’s Farm, because he wanted to ascertain local reactions. Riding down the main street, he pulled up before the stockade and at the gateway shouted, “Levi! I need to talk with you.”

  From the log house Zendt and Lucinda appeared, and Mercy cried, “Where is this insanity leading us?” but before Levi could reply, he heard a sound of bugles and in a moment Colonel Skimmerhorn rode up, leading sixteen of his militia, who assumed a military stance at the gate.

  “This fort is under arrest,” he announced loudly. “Zendt, you’ve been consorting with the enemy and everyone is ordered to stay inside until I give a command to the contrary.” Spurring his prancing horse, he shouted, “Sergeant, shoot anyone who tries to escape. That’s an order.”

  Turning to Major Mercy, Skimmerhorn cried, “I knew I’d find you here. Sergeant, note that Major Mercy was consorting with traitors.”

  When Levi heard the extraordinary commands that Skimmerhorn had issued, he tried to argue with him, but from his horse Skimmerhorn replied with scorn, “I do not converse with fucking squaw men.”

  Zendt leaped at him, but Skimmerhorn pulled back and cut at him with his sword. When Major Mercy led the bleeding Dutchman away, the colonel cried, “Sergeant, take note that the squaw man Zendt attacked me with intent to kill and that I repulsed him with my saber.” Leaving a detachment to guard the stockade, he rode back to Denver, already developing the plans which would rid Colorado permanently of its Indians.

  When he was gone, Major Mercy made a fateful decision. Aware that what he was about to do might involve him in a court-martial, he told Levi, “I’m convinced that damn fool had no authority to order my house arrest, and I propose to ignore it.” Taking Lucinda by the hand, he said, “That maniac has some crazy idea of wiping out the whole Indian race. He’ll probably start with the camp. I’ve got to warn General Asher.”

  Zendt tried to calm him. “The Indians in the camp have no guns. There’d be no reason to attack them.”

  “Skimmerhorn might attack anything,” Mercy warned. “He’s convinced he’s doing God’s work.”

  “More likely he’s going to chase down the ones who didn’t turn themselves in—Broken Thumb and his young braves.”

  This reasoning did not satisfy Mercy, so he devised an escape which involved Zendt’s appearing at the gate while he slipped over the northeast wall. But as he started to head south to alert General Asher, he changed his mind. Instead, he goaded the horse to the northeast toward the Indian camp at the buttes.

  He reached the buttes at dusk, approaching from the south, and when he rode high ground between them he saw in the declivity to the north a confused mass of tipis thrown helter-skelter across the area where neat Indian camps had formerly stood. He thought how difficult it must be for the chiefs who had once led their people across limitless grasslands to be cooped up in such a depression, with chalk hills hemming them in.

  He whistled as a signal to the outlooks who must be hidden somewhere in the rocks, but none appeared, and he realized that this tatter-demalion group was without organization or guards.

  When he had descended almost to the camp, two Arapaho on foot came to inspect him, and he asked, “Where are your ponies?” and they replied, “All gone.”

  They recognized him as a friend of their tribe and took him to the lodge where the chiefs sat glumly discussing stratagems whereby they might get food for their starving people. That night Mercy stayed at the encampment, warning the Indians to give Colonel Skimmerhorn no excuse for attacking them.

  “We have no guns,” Lost Eagle said.

  “I didn’t mean guns,” Mercy explained. “Skimmerhorn’s a madman. He’ll use any pretext.”

  “We’ve done everything General Asher told us,” Lost Eagle said pathetically.

  “Steal no cows,” Mercy explained. “If a white man comes through your camp, let him go in peace, no matter what he does.”

  “Without arms,” Lost Eagle said, “we couldn’t make trouble if we wanted to.”

  Talk turned to more pressing matters. “When will we get food?’ Chief Black Knee of the Cheyenne asked.

  “It’s being discussed,” Mercy said lamely.

  “Discussed! We’re starving, Mercy. Our shame is as big as the earth.”

  Every promise made by General Asher had been frustrated by Colonel Skimmerhorn. Every assurance of supplies that he, Mercy, had given these patient men had been countermanded. Two tribes who had been as faithful to their treaties as any in America were being systematically starved, after first being deprived of their land, their buffalo and their guns. Now they were being bedeviled by a maniacal civilian playing at being a soldier, and no one in authority had the courage or the inclination to call a halt. It was the darkest hour in Mercy’s life, worse even than when he was left alone at Chapultepec, his companions seeing the blood and thinking him dead.

  For the first time he was not proud to be an American soldier. The trickery whereby the ample agreement of 1851 was replaced by the niggardly provisions of 1861 could be accepted. Maybe adjustments were necessary. He no longer accused Commissioner Boone of double dealing with the Indians; white men required land, and the
y wanted to own the streams along which gold was found, and that was that.

  But the present behavior of the American government was despicable, and he proposed saying so as soon as he got back to Denver. To coop up more than fourteen hundred Indians in a rock-rimmed meadow lacking water and to leave them there without food was insupportable, and he was convinced that if the real army in Leavenworth or Washington knew of it, they would demand instant reforms. He must bring the facts to their attention.

  He told Lost Eagle, “Trust me one more time. Hold off any action till I get back.”

  “We listen, Mercy,” the old chief said. The-lines down his cheeks were deeper now, the eyes more sunken, but the rock-like face was still one of surpassing dignity. In recent weeks he had absorbed much abuse thrown at him by young braves who refused to accept starvation any longer, but the only star he knew was to trust the white man. Men like Major Mercy and General Asher would produce food and some kind of control over Colonel Skimmerhorn.

  “Until the new year comes, we will trust you,” he said.

  “Where are Jake Pasquinel and Broken Thumb?” Mercy asked as he prepared to depart.

  “East, toward Julesburg,” Chief Black Knee said, and he gave Mercy two scouts to guide him to where the dissidents were holed up.

  It was snowing when Mercy left Rattlesnake Buttes, and at the rise he looked back upon this forlorn collection of tipis, this assemblage of men and women without hope, and swore that he would try to restore some dignity to them.

  How beautiful the Platte valley was that day, white with snow along the banks and shimmering black where the dark waters ran. Ice had not yet formed, and the wagon trail which led from Julesburg to Denver would still be passable. In some ways, Mercy thought, this was the Platte at its finest, for its innumerable islands achieved a certain beauty as their sandy faces lay covered with snow.

  We should be able to share a river like this with the Indians, he told himself as the guides led him farther eastward, but when he reached the rude encampment where Broken Thumb had assembled his braves and saw their pitiful condition, he realized that arguing intelligently with them would be difficult.

  Dismounting, he limped across the snow-crisp ground and asked a woman for Broken Thumb. Insolently she pointed at a gray-brown tipi which had lost its two poles for controlling smoke. No matter, there was no wood for a fire.

  Pushing aside the flap, be said, “Broken Thumb, I have come to beg you not to make war against the wagons.”

  “We’re starving,” the Cheyenne said. “The wagons have food.”

  “The next two months are desperate,” he pleaded.

  “We’re desperate now.”

  “Where’s Jake Pasquinel?”

  “Out trying to find food.”

  “Oh, God!” Mercy groaned. He could see Jake doing some foolish thing, bringing the whole wrath of Skimmerhorn down upon him. Jake would come back with beef from a cow he had killed, or beans he had stolen from a rancher who would even now be posting to Denver to complain. As Mercy tried to anticipate the foreboding possibilities, Broken Thumb called for a boy to fetch the piece of paper which the Indians had taken from a wagon heading eastward. One of the young braves had been able to read it, and a summary had passed among all the warriors at the hidden camp. It was a clipping from the Clarion:

  At last a military officer in this Territory makes sense. At last a true hero has stepped forward to tell us what we have been eager to hear. On a visit to our fair city Colonel Frank Skimmerhorn told a group of his admirers, “The hour is at hand when decency and fear of God shall again return to this Territory. The hour is almost upon us when every stinking, sneaking, crawling, sniveling, filthy Red Man in Colorado will be either killed or driven from our boundaries. At the long-awaited hour we shall expect every red-blooded man who loves his home to join us in exterminating once and forever the menace that has threatened us for so long.” Fine words, Colonel. We’re behind you. In forthcoming fights we hope our soldiers will not be encumbered with Indian prisoners. And we hope what you said was heard at various stockades around here where Indians are allowed to associate freely with white men and where dastardly plots against our freedom are hourly hatched.

  Chief Broken Thumb, now a man of forty-eight without illusions, drew his thin blanket about his shoulders and pointed to the clipping. “Why do you tell me ‘Don’t make war?’ Skimmerhorn makes war, every day.”

  “General Asher will take care of Skimmerhorn, I promise you.”

  At this the Cheyenne warrior, who knew a good deal about soldiers, burst into derisive laughter. Leaping to his feet and making believe he had but one arm, he minced about the tipi, throwing out contradictory orders and giving a strangely realistic impression of the befuddled general. “He will do nothing,” Broken Thumb said.

  “I will,” Mercy promised.

  Before Broken Thumb could respond, Jake Pasquinel broke into the tipi, and when he saw Mercy he moved swiftly toward him and embraced him, a most unusual gesture for this unyielding outlaw.

  “Mercy, for God’s sake bring some reason into this thing,” he said with anguish. “These people are starving.”

  “I know, Jake.”

  “They’re ...” The half-breed’s voice choked and for the first time in his life, Mercy saw one of the Pasquinel brothers unable to speak because of an anguish he did not try to hide. “Mercy, I promise you,” Jake said, “if this doesn’t stop,” and here he flicked the clipping with the back of his fingers, “this whole territory is going to explode.”

  “You used to want that,” Mercy said compassionately.

  “I’m older now,” his brother-in-law said. “It will be our women and children who will be slaughtered.”

  Mike Pasquinel entered the tipi, a nondescript sort of man. He listened for a while, then said, “Max, we’re all going to perish—you and Lucinda and Zendt—all of us, if this is not stopped.” And suddenly Mercy saw his brother-in-law as a man of perception, a kind of God’s fool who had watched and laughed all his life and in the end had seen visions of reality. His round, placid face betrayed none of the emotion that marked Jake’s, but he spoke with a sorrow that was more compelling than his brother’s rage.

  “Max,” he pleaded again, “you’re leaving us no escape but to die in battle, and we shall die, every man here.” With his pudgy right arm he swept the tipi; and one after the other of Broken Thumb’s men uttered the solemn declaration: “We shall die.”

  Deeply shaken, Mercy left the renegade camp for his long trip back to Denver, and for the first part of his journey he was accompanied by his brothers. They spoke of old days, of how happy Lucinda was at the stockade, of Clay Basket and her remarkable life, and of the irony they felt when gold was discovered at the place their father had prospected so fruitlessly.

  “Do you wish he’d found the gold ... for you?” Mercy asked.

  “No,” Jake said. “Indians don’t need gold. They need space ... and buffalo.”

  As Jake left he said, “It will be war,” and he turned on his horse and rode eastward.

  Mike lingered, trying to say many things, but they were too confused and terrible to be voiced, so in the end he reached across his horse and embraced Mercy, “You are my brother,” he said in Arapaho, and he was gone.

  When Mercy reported to General Asher at army headquarters, two grimy rooms at the rear of a hotel, he found himself in real trouble. The general seemed preoccupied as he gathered papers together, but he took time to say, “Mercy, Colonel Skimmerhorn has preferred serious charges against you.”

  “That house arrest,” Mercy said scornfully. “You know it was improper.”

  “Listen to the charges. ‘Consorting with the enemy in time of war, disobeying a direct order of a superior officer, fleeing to the enemy with national secrets.’ ”

  Mercy brushed aside the inflated accusations: “General Asher, a catastrophe hangs over our heads, yours and mine. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been with both branches of th
e Indians, the friendlies in camp where they ought to be and the hostiles out hiding.”

  “You shouldn’t have been there,” Asher said firmly. “Colonel Skimmerhorn ordered you specifically ...”

  “General!” Mercy shouted. “We are one day away from total insurrection. To hell with Skimmerhorn. How dare he tell you, a general in the United States ...”

  “Max,” the tired Vermonter said, “look.” He held out a dispatch from Fort Leavenworth:

  General Laban Asher

  Commanding Officer, Denver

  Proceed immediately and by swiftest transport to this headquarters prepared to report fully on steps taken to protect Platte River valley from marauding Indians

  S. J. Comly,

  Adjutant Fort Leavenworth

  29 October, 1864

  It was a shocking message. After having received scores of appeals from Asher for additional troops to control the Platte, Leavenworth was finally responding—not by sending the needed help but by withdrawing the only man who might bring order to the territory.