Texas

by James A. Michener

  Amos Peavine, threading his way through these encroaching disasters, was a brave man, almost a heroic one, for the forces of evil require just as much strength of will as do the angels of goodness; it is only the force of character that is missing. Peavine had enormous will; he had no character at all, not even a consistently bad one, for, as in the old days of 1861-65, he stood willing to trade with anyone, to betray everyone. Now he had a promising scheme which might produce substantial profits if acted upon swiftly, but before action could take place, he had to find Matark.

  He had left New Mexico, haven for Comancheros like himself and other bandits who ravaged Texas, and had entered that refuge known throughout the West as the Palo Duro Canyon. It was a formidable depression, more than a hundred miles long, dug through solid rock by millions of years of active water, and so lonely and awesome that white men rarely tried to penetrate or conquer it. Those who did saw sights that were majestic. High walls of colored rock hemmed in valleys of surprising richness, where a man could herd a thousand cattle and be assured that they could feed themselves on the ever-green grasses but not escape from the natural corral which kept them penned.

  Cattlemen were not able to try this experiment because the Comanche had reached Palo Duro first and had for more than a hundred years utilized it as their one totally secure hiding place. Within the canyon, at about the center of its east-west reach, rose a pile of reddish rocks known as The Castle, and it was to this traditional meeting spot that Peavine was heading.

  He did not ride the well-marked path at the bottom of the canyon, for that would trap him in too dangerously; he kept instead to the less comfortable trail along the south rim, because from here he could look down into the rocky depths and also across to the other side, for the canyon was not extensive in its north-south dimension. And now as he led his complaining burro along the trail from which The Castle should soon be visible, he was satisfied that he had once more negotiated the canyon and brought himself into contact with the Indians he sought. There was, of course, still the possibility that he might encounter some idiot lieutenant from one of the forts, out seeking glory, who had boasted to his troop as he led his cavalry out: ‘I shall invade Palo Duro and bring back the scalp of Chief Matark.’ Often such a man would utter an extra vow: ‘And I’ll rescue Emma Larkin,’ for she was constantly on the conscience of these soldiers.

  Peavine laughed as he thought of the men within the forts: Better they stay home. Come up here, to these walls, they’re goin’ to get shot. Various expeditions had come to grief at Palo Duro and it seemed likely that more would follow. ‘These canyons will be Indian for a long time,’ Peavine muttered as he saw the familiar signs which indicated that The Castle was not far off. He was justified in using the plural canyons because each small stream that fed the main architecture of this deep cut had gouged out its own smaller canyon, so that at the center, where he now rode, the land became a jumble of lateral cuts, some so deep that they could not be traversed if Peavine kept to the upper plateau.

  So, crossing himself as if he were a believing Catholic, he edged his tired horse toward the rim, tugged at the rope guiding his burro, and started down the steep and rocky path to the lower level. He was now at the most dangerous point of his two-hundred-mile expedition, for he rode so close to the wall of the canyon that any rattlesnake, awakening from his winter sleep, could strike him full in the face if it darted forth; also, if either enemy Indians or roving troops were setting a trap, here is where they would spring it. But this time he made his descent peacefully, and when he gained the floor of the canyon he found himself once more in a congenial fairyland which he had known in the past.

  Land about The Castle leveled out and produced such a richness of grass, such protection from storms, and had such an equable climate—cool in summer, warm in winter—that it formed a kind of Indian Garden of Eden. Here, within this security, some squaws more adventurous than their sisters even tried growing vegetables from seeds captured on raids against ranches.

  Turning a familiar corner, Peavine waved to the scouts he knew would be watching, licked his lips in preparation for the Comanche words he would soon be speaking, and headed his horse toward the Indian encampment. It was an amazing collection of tepees, for in their travels south from their original Rocky Mountain homeland the Comanche had acquired a variety of housing, some with tall cedar poles lifting the buffalo-hide covering high into the air (these were the Cheyenne contribution) and others little more than rounded huts depending not upon long poles but bent branches for their form (a pattern used by the Ute). Most notable were the small, compact tepees built about a minimum of moderately long poles; these were some of the best (a device of the Pawnee). The Comanche, a wandering tribe that had developed only a limited culture of its own, had borrowed types of tepees from everyone. Their fierce courage and their appalling cruelty to any captive, they themselves invented.

  ‘I seek Great Chief Matark,’ Peavine cried loudly as he entered the haphazard arrangement of tepees, and he repeated the announcement until a group of young braves ran over to surround him, leaving behind the half-naked creature they had been tormenting.

  ‘Is that the Larkin girl?’ he asked as the young men came up, and they looked back as if bewildered that anyone should care who the child was. They had already burned off her ears, and her nose would disappear before the summer was out; she was thirteen now, a most pitiful thing, but miraculously she retained enough intelligence to know that the arrival of a white man, any white man, meant that her chance of rescue was by that small degree enhanced.

  She took a tentative step toward Peavine, praying that he would take notice of her, but he looked the other way, and two of the young men grabbed stones and threw them at her with great force, shouting as they did so: ‘Get back!’

  Matark and his four wives occupied a large tepee in the Cheyenne style, its cedar poles emitting a pleasing fragrance. It had a low entrance, requiring the visitor to stoop, but inside it was spacious and festively decorated with elkskin hangings on which had been depicted in various colors the history of this portion of the tribe. Matark himself, tall and brooding, was a striking figure whose command over his men was understandable. Obviously he had a superior intelligence, which he began to display immediately.

  ‘What new thing brings you here?’ he asked.

  ‘Word from St. Louis.’

  ‘What word?’

  ‘Cavin & Clark, they’ve been hired to carry guns, many guns and all ammunition, to the new fort at Bear Creek.’

  ‘Oh!’ Matark did not try to hide the weight and pleasure he accorded such news. To attack successfully one train of this probable magnitude would supply him with armament for three years. But he was suspicious where white men were involved, and he asked: ‘If you know this … the guns … aren’t they already there?’

  ‘The system, Chief. You know the system.’ And the plotters had to laugh at the incredible stupidity of the United States Army, which placed men like Captain Reed in remote outposts like Fort Garner, then gave them no authority over or responsibility for their supplies. Desk officers in Washington, inordinately jealous of their prerogatives and aware that their jobs were safe only if constantly enhanced, had prevailed upon Congress, at whose elbows they sat while men like Reed battled Indians, to initiate one of the stupidest plans in military history. Every item shipped to Fort Garner was requested not by the man on the scene but by some desk officer two thousand miles away. And when it was authorized, belatedly, another desk officer in another building in Washington decided when and by whom it would be railroaded from the depot in Massachusetts to the warehouse in St. Louis, and by what frontier carter it would be finally dispatched to the intended recipient.

  Because the desk officer in charge of transportation sought a carrier who charged the least or bribed the most, he usually employed some carter with the least reliable drivers and the least expensive horses, and none was more deficient than Cavin & Clark in St. Louis. Cargoes consigned
through them sometimes required half a year to cover half a thousand miles, and when they arrived, there would always be shortages due to the C&C drivers’ tricky habit of selling off portions to storekeepers en route.

  So when Rattlesnake Peavine told Chief Matark that the guns for Fort Garner were being shipped by Cavin & Clark, the Indian knew that anyone who sought to intercept this shipment had plenty of time. There was even the possibility that gunfire from ambush might not be necessary, because it was sometimes possible for a Comanchero to arrange an outright deal with the C&C driver: ‘I’ll give two hundred dollars for the whole train.’

  ‘Could you buy the guns?’ Matark asked.

  ‘They know me too well. I killed two of their drivers.’

  ‘Then we must capture them?’

  ‘I think it’s the only way.’

  ‘Will the wagons have an escort?’

  ‘Probably. A new fort. A new commander.’

  ‘And eager young officers,’ Matark said. ‘Well, I’ll send my eager young braves.’

  ‘When I entered the canyon,’ Peavine said, ‘I saw your young fellows playing with a white girl. Could that be the Larkin girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know, I could earn you a lot of money if you’d let me trade her back to the Texans.’

  ‘I have plans for her,’ Matark said. ‘And you’re right. She’ll bring us a lot of money.’

  ‘Then I can’t have her?’ Before the chief could reply, the wily trader explained: ‘Some day I’ll have to make peace with the Texans. No more trading. Too old. If I appeared with the Larkin girl, I’d be a hero …’

  Matark looked at him and thought: Yes, and then you’d turn against us. It would be you, the Rattlesnake, who would lead the blue-coats against us. You’d bring them right into this canyon. For one savage moment he considered calling for his braves and killing Peavine right then, but the canny little trader divined his thinking and quickly said: ‘You know you need me. To keep getting guns, you need me.’

  ‘I do,’ Matark conceded, and a deal was firmed whereby Peavine would get many Mexican pieces of gold if the guns were captured, but when he left Matark’s tent he took great care to seek out Emma Larkin, for if she was ever released, he wanted her to testify to the fact that he had tried to be helpful.

  He found her huddled in the shade of a tepee, ignored for the moment by her tormentors, and he was appalled by her appearance. She was thin almost to the point of death, her hair and nails filthy. Only knotted nubs remained to show where her ears had been, and her nose was in fearful condition. Looking at her as she trembled by the tepee, he wondered how the Comanche had fallen into the abominable practices they followed with their prisoners, and he recalled having chided Matark about this: ‘Why do you burn the ranchers alive? Why cut them to pieces?’ and the chief had replied: ‘That’s our custom.’ Peavine then asked: ‘Why not just kill them?’ and Matark had said: ‘To watch an enemy die is good.’ Peavine said: ‘But why torture them so?’ and Matark had explained: ‘If enemy dying is good, long-time dying is better.’ Peavine had inquired further: ‘Does it mean something? Does it add strength to your braves?’ and Matark had said with solemn finality: ‘It has always been our custom.’

  That explained so much, not only regarding the Comanche but all fighting men, and Peavine, reflecting on the customs of his own profession, could hear his father admonishing him: ‘Never shoot a man in the back. Never! It hain’t tolerated.’ It was also not tolerated to kill women unless in the heat of battle or when they were shooting back. Texans, he noticed, bore no grudge if a man shot another with a rifle, even if from ambush at a safe distance, but they deplored the Mexican who killed with a knife, even at close hand where he ran great risk. The gun was manly, the knife was not.

  French, German, Russian armies, he had heard, all had their traditions, as iron-clad as the Comanche attitude toward prisoners; he had been told of the Prussian custom of leaving a disgraced officer alone with a loaded revolver, expecting him to blow his brains out—‘Not with me. They got to do the shootin’!’ he growled.

  But no rationalization could justify the Comanche treatment of their girl prisoners: ‘Why do you let them do such horrible things to the little girls?’ he had asked Matark, who had again replied: ‘It is our custom.’ Peavine had not liked being allied with Indians who behaved so barbarously, but with the plains depleted of other tribes, he had few options, and hiding his disgust, he moved closer to the girl, whereupon a transformation took place.

  For when she looked up at him she was no longer a terrified object of torture; she was a fighting little tiger with the same determination to survive that animated him. This child was not going to die easily, regardless of what the Comanche did to her, and for a fleeting moment he wanted to embrace her and carry her with him on the raid against the supply train. His life had taught him to revere persistence, and this child was persisting against terrors which would have deranged even strong adults.

  ‘My name is Amos Peavine,’ he said. ‘I wish I could help.’

  These were the first words in English she had heard since the massacre, and she was obviously pleased that she remembered what they meant: ‘I am Emma Larkin.’

  ‘I know. I will tell the others you are alive.’

  ‘You!’ a surly brave shouted. ‘Get back!’ And with a well-directed stone he hit her sharply on the leg. Knowing that if she did not obey instantly, the tortures would resume, she scurried away as if she were a frightened dog, but Peavine, catching a glimpse of her eyes, realized that she was not frightened; she was acting so to be rid of the stone-throwing, and he muttered to himself: ‘Some night she’ll cut that one’s throat. Go it, lass!’ With that, he turned to the organizing of the raiding party which would ambush the Cavin & Clark shipment.

  When Captain Reed received official notice from the young officer in Washington that his supplies, including needed guns and ammunition, would be arriving sometime in May via Cavin & Clark, he shuddered, because he knew that if C&C performed as always, the shipment might arrive in May as scheduled, but it also might arrive in September, or perhaps not at all.

  ‘I cannot understand,’ he complained to Wetzel, ‘how Washington can ignore our negative reports on Cavin & Clark and still use them.’

  ‘Saving money,’ the German suggested.

  ‘But it loses money. We proved that in our last report.’

  ‘Men at the desk never believe men in the field.’

  Reed said no more to Wetzel, who, in the great Prussian tradition, respected whatever the higher command ordered, but he did seek out his adjutant, Lieutenant Sanders: ‘I’m not easy about this Cavin & Clark shipment. What ought we do?’

  ‘We need those supplies. I’d send a detachment of cavalry to Fort Richardson. Protect the wagons every inch of the way from Jacksborough.’

  ‘We’ve not been ordered to do so.’

  ‘I’d do it, anyway. Those are our goods, and we need them.’

  ‘Who would you send?’

  ‘Well, the Comanche will probably be reluctant to strike so far behind our lines.’

  Reed grew impatient: ‘You just said we had to protect the wagons.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of the Comanche. I’m afraid of Cavin & Clark. If we don’t watch them, they’ll sell the whole consignment.’

  The two officers shook their heads in disgust, and Reed spoke first: ‘Hell of a situation. We have to fight the Indians. We have to fight Cavin & Clark. And we have to fight Washington. But who to send?’

  ‘With Fort Richardson at the other end, the likelihood of a fight is not great. I’d send young Toomey.’ He reflected not on Toomey’s ability but on the terrain between the two forts. ‘Yes, I’d send Toomey, but I’d also send Sergeant Jaxifer. He knows the lay of the land.’

  Sanders, although not a member of the 10th Cavalry, had had ample opportunity to assess the character of Jaxifer, a forty-three-year-old veteran of mounted action. He was a big, very black man, with almos
t no neck and with forearms that could have wrestled bears. Surprisingly quick on his feet, he leaped into any action that confronted him, and on a horse, was practically unstoppable. He said little, told no one what his antecedents were, and if asked, said New York was his home, even though the roster listed his birthplace accurately as Georgia. He had joined the Union forces in December 1863, after escaping from the Confederacy by swimming the Rio Grande into Mexico, and had attained the impressive rank of first sergeant through a mixture of quick obedience and obvious bravery. When Northern blacks who had never known slavery asked his opinion of the system, he said: ‘I had some bad masters, more good. But I run away from both.’ The fact that he was now surviving in an army which despised him was proof of his intelligence.

  He was harsh with his men: ‘This got to be the best unit in the army. You step out of line, I cut your neck off.’ Even Wetzel, who had objected to having the black cavalry so close to his white infantry at morning parade and evening retreat, occasionally complimented Jaxifer on the snappy drill his men performed: ‘In the Prussian army, a lot more precision, of course, but very good by American standards.’ Once Wetzel even placed his hand on Jaxifer’s arm as the two stood watching their men drill: ‘We have a first-class fort here. We can be proud.’

  John Jaxifer was the kind of man one sent to reinforce a junior officer on a scouting expedition, but the importance of the proposed exercise was somewhat diminished when a group of four horsemen arrived from Fort Richardson with headquarters’ plans for the movement of Cavin & Clark wagons: ‘General Grierson will send some of our troops to protect it halfway. At Three Cairns you’ll take over and bring the train safely in.’