By late afternoon, the shooting by the Indians was not as intense as it had been, and the defenders were able to go outside and walk around without drawing fire from the Indians.
“We need to bury our dead,” Hanrahan said after finding the Shadler brothers bodies still in their wagon.
“Poor Buster,” Cade said as he picked up the faithful dog. “He was protecting Ike and Shorty till the end.”
Bat Masterson was first to take up a shovel and began to open a grave. Then another man would take the shovel, and then another, and in a short time they had a common grave for the three dead men and the two dead dogs, Buster and Old Man Keeler’s dog, Bo. Wrapping Ike and Shorty and Billy each in a blanket, they lowered them into the grave. The two dogs were each put in a flour sack.
“Anybody know any words that can be said?” Hanrahan asked. “If you do, say ‘em fast. I don’t really feel all that good ‘bout just standin’ out here in the wide open like this.”
“I was a preacher man once,” Old Sam Smith said.
“Fine. You go ahead ‘n say a few words then, but if you start in a’ preachin’ a sermon, you’ll be preachin’ to your ownself,” Hanrahan cautioned.
“Ever’ body bow your heads real respectful,” Smith said. “Lord, you know a lot more about what kind of lives these three men lived than any of the rest of us do. Could be, in their time, they were sinnin’ men. But in the time that I’ve know’d ‘em, I ain’t never heard nobody say nothin’ bad about ‘em. They treated ever’ one honest ‘n decent, ‘n now they lie here, kilt by Godless heathens. And so, we’re askin’ that you take ‘em into your bosom. Amen.”
“Well, that was real good, Preacher Smith. Now lets get ‘em covered up ‘n back inside before the injuns starts in a’ shootin’ again,” Welch said.
Everyone had come out for the impromptu funeral and they took a few minutes to compare notes. Then as the sun dropped below the western horizon, they all returned to their relative defensive positions.
Once back inside they prepared to spend the night. They were reasonably certain that the Indians would not attack at night, but they left a sentry in each building, the guards rotating so that all could get some rest.
Just on the other side of the open meadow, there could be hundreds of Indians waiting for dawn, so they could attack again. Cade wondered what was going to happen, and his concern wasn’t just about tomorrow.
There were no Indian attacks on the second day, nor the next, but the Indians were still there. The men could see them riding back and forth, never approaching the buildings and always staying just out of range of the big .50’s.
Because the Indians were no longer attacking, the defenders felt safe in leaving the buildings. Many picked up trinkets off the dead Indian bodies.
Around Black Bird’s neck, Cade saw a medallion similar to the one Gentle Horse had given him to give to Spotted Wolf. Cade reached for it, intending to return it to Spotted Wolf, but what would he say?
I am the man who killed your son.
But Black Bird was Stone’s uncle. Cade cut the rawhide cord that held the medallion. It had an etching of a wolf, just as had the one that had belonged to Gentle Horse, but this one did not have the turquoise stones. Cade slipped it into his pocket. Someday Stone would want to know about his people and Cade would give this to him.
Cade pulled Black Bird’s body down by the river. Several of the other hunters were desecrating some of the bodies of the Indians. They said this was in retaliation for what they had seen Indians do to white men, including the Shadler brothers, but Cade did not want that to happen to Black Bird. If the Indians across the river saw him, he hoped they would come to get the body and handle his remains in the Indian tradition. That was the least he could do for Stone Forehead.
When he walked back to the compound, Billy was standing there watching him.
“Why did you do that?”
“That one bothered me,” Cade said. “I knew him.”
“That’s not good. Come on, James has opened the few whiskey bottles that weren’t hit.”
“After this day, we all could use a stiff drink.”
“There’s something else we need to address besides food and water,” Bat Masterson said.
“Oh? And just what could be more important than food and water?” Fred Leonard asked.
“The stink,” Bat said. “It’s enough to gag us. There are dead animals everywhere you look, and they’re beginning to get ripe.”
“Don’t forget all the dead Indians they ain’t come to get yet,” James McKinley said, “and I don’t think they’s a gonna get ‘em.”
“I ain’t a diggin’ no grave for a stinkin’ Indian,” Bermuda Carlisle said.
“I don’t intend for us to bury them,” Bat said, “but we need to move them.”
“And how the hell are we gonna do that?” Mike Welch asked. “We ain’t got no horses, that’s for damned sure.”
“May I offer a possible remedy to that problem?” Armitage asked.
“If you have an idea let’s hear it,” Cade said.
“When I fought in India, I saw the Shudra moving deceased water buffalo using nothing but skins and ropes. We have the hides and the ropes readily available, and I’m certain we can provide enough muscle to get the job done.”
“Sometime you Brits come up with a good idea,” Langton said. “Let’s get started.”
Soon they had some of the largest hides selected; then they attached ropes to them. Working together, they rolled the animal carcasses onto the hides, then dragged them as far away from the buildings as they could. For those that had been killed in the stockade, several men dug a long trench and the animals were rolled into it and then covered with dirt.
When they were finished with the animals they drug 13 Indian bodies down by the river and deposited under a chinaberry tree.
“Now if anybody comes to get ‘em, we’ll just plug ‘em where they stand, and we won’t have to drag the dead bodies away,” Carlisle said.
“You know them bastards have been watchin’ ever move we made,” Billy Ogg said. “I’m so tired, I don’t care if they kill us or not.”
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you,” Cade said. “How many buffalo hunters do we know?”
“A lot,” Ogg said.
“And with the storekeepers included, there were only 28 of us here. Now, what do you think has happened to all those others who didn’t come in to the Walls?”
“Probably dead.” Ogg lowered his head.
“Well maybe not,” Tom O’Keefe said. “Lookie what’s coming across the river.”
Everybody looked toward the river and they saw two wagons coming toward them. A loud cheer went up.
“It’s people!” Fred Leonard yelled as he threw his hat into the air.
“Yes, but more importantly, its horses,” Bat Masterson said.
The wagons belonged to a big German named George Bellfield, who barely spoke English. But he could see the results of the battle. With much gesturing, and using the few words he knew, he was able to tell them he had come up from the south and that he had not run into any Indians.
Very soon after Bellfield’s arrival, Jim and Bob Cator, two brothers from England, came in from their camp that was north of Adobe Walls. They, too, reported that they had not seen any Indians.
With these two reports, the hunters were encouraged that perhaps others were still in their camps. A skinner for the Cator brothers, decided to ride to as many camps as he could find and spread the word as to what had happened at the Walls.
The mood of the settlement was immediately uplifted, especially when throughout the afternoon, more and more wagons rolled in. Even though the Indians were still within sight, with the additional men in camp, and with their horses, there was a euphoric release of tension.
There were about 20 Indians congregated on the bluff, but none had attempted to come forward again, not even to claim their dead.
“Cade, how far away would you s
ay those Indians are?” Billy Dixon asked.
“I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s close to a mile,” Cade said.
“Do you think we could hit one of ‘em?”
Cade laughed. “If one of us did, it would sure scare the hell out of ‘em.”
“And if we only came close, it would still ruffle their feathers,” Billy said.
“All right. Why not?”
Quanah, Mean To His Horses, Wild Horse, Red Moon, He Bear, and another dozen Indians sat on their horses observing what was going on at the settlement.
“More and more white hunters are coming,” He Bear said. “Soon there will be as many whites as we have warriors.”
“And they have more bullets than there are stars in the sky,” Wild Horse said.
“If Woman’s Heart had not taken the Kiowa away, we would be putting the white man’s food in our bellies and putting their bullets in our guns,” Mean To His Horses said.
“We should attack again,” Wild Horse said.
Quanah shook his head. “It is not to be. Look around, now we are few, and we have no bullets.”
“Perhaps it is you who should have stayed with the women and children,” Mean To His Horses suggested with a sneer. “I am a man of great courage. If it had been I who led this attack, every white hunter would be dead, and the buffalo would roam the plains again.”
“Your words are not from courage, but from foolishness,” Quanah said.
“I say we should take up the knife,” Mean To His Horses said. “Then we will see who has the courage.”
Quanah was not watching Mean To His Horses as he spoke. Instead, Quanah’s eyes were fixed upon the building in the middle; the building which he knew had the largest number of defenders. And as he watched, he saw two puffs of smoke, as two guns were fired.
“We will fight, and the winner shall be the new . . . uh. . .” Mean To His Horses grunted.
Quanah heard the two low, heavy thumps that had come from the big guns.
Quanah looked over quickly and saw that both Mean To His Horses, and Wild Horse were on the ground. Both had huge, bleeding holes in their bodies; Mean To His Horses had been hit in the stomach and Wild Horse had been hit in the chest. The rest of the group scurried to take cover on the other side of the butte.
“The white man’s guns can bounce off the rocks and hit Quanah in the back and now they kill Mean To His Horses and Wild Horse from a place our eyes cannot see. If they can kill from that far, we cannot defeat them,” Red Moon said. “The war is over, and we are going back to our women and children.”
Quanah did not try to stop Red Moon, as he rode down to join the Cheyenne who were awaiting his instructions. Quanah watched as the band turned and headed for the Washita.
“What will we do now?” He Bear asked. “The Cheyenne and the Kiowa have deserted us.”
“The People have lost many warriors, and my heart is heavy. Let us wrap Mean To His Horses and Wild Horse in their blankets and put them with the others who have joined the Great Spirits. When that is done, we will gather our wounded and go home.”
“Isatai misled us,” Silver Knife said, bitterly.
“No, I was the leader, not White Eagle,” Quanah said, refusing to use the derisive name the others had given the medicine man. “It is I who misled you, and it is I who will lead The People to slaughter the white man. We may have lost this battle, but the war has just begun.”
By the fifth day after the attack, the white hunters were no longer concerned that they would be overrun, but they weren’t yet aware that the Indians had withdrawn. As a precaution, they had cut port holes in the walls and cutting a hole in the roof, they had erected sod lookout enclosures that could be accessed from the two stores. They kept a sentry posted on the roof at all times to keep watch.
“How long you been up there, Bill?” Tom O’Keefe called up to William Olds who was currently on guard.
“Oh, I don’t know; a couple of hours I guess.”
“Why don’t you come on back down and I’ll take a turn,” O’Keefe said. “No sense getting’ yourself all tired out and fallin’ asleep up there. It don’t seem all that likely to me that they’s goin’ to be any more of ‘em comin’ at us. Seems to me like them bastards pretty much learned their lesson.”
“I reckon they have at that.” Olds chuckled. “And Sybil done her part in sendin’ some o’ them heathens to hell.”
Olds started down the ladder.
“That she did,” Sam Smith said. “A woman who can shoot like that, you for sure don’t want to make her mad.”
The others laughed at Smith’s comment, but their laughter was interrupted by the loud roar of a big .50.
Olds fell the rest of the way, landing face up on the floor beneath the ladder. The top of his head had been blown off, and the rifle that landed beside him, was still smoking.
“Bill!” Sybil shouted, rushing to her husband. She fell to her knees beside him, crying piteously.
Cade and the others stood by, watching helplessly as the widow grieved.
They buried Olds next to the other three men who had fallen, about sixty feet from where he had died.
Over the next few days, more and more hunters came in as the word was spread about the attack. By now there were more than 100 men gathered at the Walls.
“I don’t understand why Charlie Myers hasn’t come to see if we’re still here,” Fred Leonard said. “You’d think he’d want to check on his investment, even if he didn’t care about us.”
“Don’t be so hard on Charlie,” Billy Dixon said. “We don’t even know if they got through or not.”
“Since we have transportation now, I think several of us should load up and go back to Dodge ourselves,” Cade said.
“I’m for that,” Billy said. “About 25 men should go just in case the Indians attack us on the way, and of course Sybil should go.”
“No,” Sybil Olds said. “I’m not goin’. My husband lost his life here, tryin’ to save this place, and I don’t think he’d want me to just up and leave all that we worked for. I’ve got his big .50 and I can take care of myself.”
“I’m not trying to meddle in your business,” Bat Masterson said, “but I think you should go.”
“Well, I’m not.” Sybil walked out of the store and went out to Bill’s grave. She sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees, and there she sat in the sun while the departing wagons were loaded.
As a precaution the three wagons, moved west away from the freight road. The thinking was that if the Indians were watching, they would more than likely think they would take the main route.
On the second day out, they made it to San Francisco Creek, where they knew a hunter called Dublin had a camp. When they got there, they found three dead bodies, all of whom had been scalped and mutilated. They buried them where they lay.
“A way of life is over,” Billy Dixon said.
“You won’t try to go back out?” Cade asked.
“No. I think I’ve killed my last buffalo.”
Dodge City
One of the outlying buffalo hunters had ridden back to Dodge to spread the news about Adobe Walls, and when the wagons rolled in, there were many people in the streets cheering for them. Once they returned, they learned that about 50 townspeople had taken wagons to rescue them, but since they had stayed off the main route they had missed seeing them.
“You should have come back with me,” Jacob Harrison said, as he took a seat at the Red House Salon.
“And miss all the excitement? No way,” Cade said. “But I will say I sure am glad you got that big .50 for me.”
“Is it true what they’re saying? Did you and Billy really hit Indians a mile away?” Jeter Willis asked.
“I don’t think it was a mile, but it was a long way.” Cade said. “But I will say this. We didn’t have one skirmish after those two shots were fired.”
“You showed them that nobody can mess with a big .50,” Jacob said. “Have you given
any more thought to what you’re going to do now that you’re out of the freighting business?”
“I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t come to any conclusion,” Cade said.
“You can always come back to work at the Red House,” Jeter said.
Cade shook his head. “I didn’t work here when I owned half the place, so I don’t see myself working here now. I may go to Tennessee.”
“What? Why would you go there?” Jeter asked.
Cade contemplated the question. It had been nine years since last he had seen his brother. Initially he had stayed away because of Melinda, the girl he had planned to marry. He had been captured by the Yankees after the Battle of Franklin, and it had been reported that he was dead. When he returned home, he even found his marker in the family cemetery. And he found that Melinda had married his brother, Adam.
At first, Cade wanted nothing more than to be gone, to put that all behind him, but much had happened in the last nine years, and he realized that any residual pain or resentment was gone.
“I want to see my brother,” Cade said, answering the question Jeter had asked several seconds earlier.
“Well, that’s reason enough,” Jeter said.
“What about you, Jacob? You’re out of the freighting business, too, now that the Mooar brothers bought our wagons, and hired our people,” Cade said.
“You’re both going to be surprised when you find out what I want to do,” Jacob said as a big smile crossed his face.
“All right, you have our attention. What is it?” Jeter asked.
“I’m going to Texas.”
“Texas?” both Jeter and Cade asked together.
“Didn’t Cade just get out of there with barely the skin on his back? And now you want to go again?” Jeter asked.
Jacob laughed. “I didn’t say I wanted to go back to Adobe Walls. Texas is a big state.”
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 79