Without halting, Reed shouted his tactics: ‘Half left, half right. But the moment we spot where their command is, everyone straight at it. Ignore the wagons.’
When they reached a rise from which they could see the embattled wagons and the Indians assaulting them, Reed ordered his bugler to sound the charge. With Minor and the black cavalrymen at the gallop, they rushed to join the battle.
Reed’s men behaved with precision, his group following him in a circle to the north, with Johnny Minor’s horsemen riding swiftly to the south, where they picked off several stragglers. At the far end of the circle they joined, then wheeled about to face a main charge of nearly eighty Comanche. It was a mad struggle lasting nearly ten minutes, but in the end the blue-clads were driven back to the wagons, where steady fire from the circle supported them.
It now became a melee, not a battle. Many Indians were killed and five of Reed’s men. Minor was badly wounded, taking a bullet through his left hip, but the circle remained intact as the charge of the Indians wavered and then broke. The attack on the Cavin & Clark wagon train at Three Cairns had failed. Thirty-one Indians and nine defenders lay dead, but the fight was over.
When Reed learned that Toomey had died he went to where the body lay, drew aside the blanket, and saluted: ‘He died bravely, I’m sure.’
‘That he did,’ one of the carters said, ‘but I’m bringin’ charges against them damned niggers. They let us down.’
Reed did not listen, and a few moments later one of the shotgun men came to him: ‘That big sergeant, none braver. He held us together.’
‘I’d expect him to,’ Reed said.
Reed now faced a series of difficult decisions, which he proceeded to make in rapid-fire order, as if he had long contemplated them. First he had to know his exact strength: ‘Sergeant Jaxifer, your condition?’
‘Started out with Lieutenant Toomey and ten men. Toomey and three dead, three wounded. Five effectives, including myself, sir.’
Reed turned to Corporal Adams, who had ridden with him: ‘Started with you, Colonel Minor and thirty-eight men. Five dead. Minor and three men wounded. Thirty-one effectives, sir.’
Reed studied the situation for less than ten seconds: ‘Our immediate job, get this valuable train safely to Fort Garner. Our permanent job, catch Matark before he leaves Texas.’
To the horror of the C&C carters, he assigned the six wounded Buffalo Soldiers and Corporal Adams to escort the train on the remainder of its journey. This, of course, brought wild protestation from the carters, who wanted the entire force to lead them to safety.
Reed listened to their protests for about twenty seconds, then drew his revolver and summoned Adams: ‘Corporal, if this man gives you any trouble, shoot him.’ He rode to the eight drivers, looking each in the eye: ‘Men, you’ve brought your wagons this far. Finish the job.’ To the eight men riding shotgun he said: ‘My men couldn’t have held them off without your fire. Keep it up.’ With an icy smile he tapped one of the loaded wagons: ‘If you should need more ammunition …’ He turned on his heel and paid no further attention as the C&C men organized their wagons for the limping journey to Fort Garner.
His job was to pursue Matark, but with Corporal Adams gone, he had only thirty-four men, including himself, to do battle with the much larger Comanche force, but this disparity gave him no trouble, for if he had with him no fellow officer, he did have Sergeant Jaxifer, who was a small army in himself. With such men he could give the retreating Comanche a lot of trouble.
So twenty minutes after the battle at Three Cairns ended, Reed was in foolhardy pursuit of Chief Matark and his many Comanche, and not one of the black horsemen who followed him was apprehensive about overtaking the Indians or fearful of the outcome if they did: ‘They got the men, but we got the guns.’
The chase continued for a day and a half, but when it looked as if the cavalry, with its superior horses and firepower, were about to overtake the Comanche and punish them, another act in the great tragicomedy of the plains unfolded, for when Reed and his men threatened to overtake the Comanche, the latter simply turned north, reached the Red River, swam their horses across, and found sanctuary in Camp Hope, administered by the Pennsylvania Quaker Earnshaw Rusk.
Under the specific terms of General Grant’s Peace Policy, the army was free to discipline the Indians as long as they operated in Texas south of the Red River, but the moment they crossed north into Indian Territory the Quakers were in control; specifically, no soldier could touch a Comanche and certainly not fire a gun at him so long as he was north of the river and under the protection of Earnshaw Rusk.
As soon as Reed saw Matark and his men fording the river he knew he was in trouble, but ignoring it and his official directives, he followed them across and with all his men cantered in to Camp Hope, demanding to see the agent. The Indians, now dismounted and almost beatific in their innocence, smiled insolently as he rode past.
‘Agent Rusk? I’m Captain Reed from Fort Garner.’
‘I’ve heard the warmest reports of thee, Captain.’
‘I’ve come to arrest Chief Matark of the Comanche.’
‘That thee cannot do. Matark and his men are in my charge now, and as the terms—’
‘I know the terms, Mr. Rusk, but Chief Matark has just waylaid a supply train and killed ten American citizens, including eight soldiers under my command.’
‘I’m sure there’s been a mistake in thy reports,’ Rusk said.
‘And I’m sure there’s not, because I personally counted the bodies.’
‘It’s thy word against his, Captain Reed, and we all know what thy soldiers think about Indians.’
‘Will you surrender Chief Matark to me?’
‘I will not.’
‘Will you allow me to arrest him, then?’
‘I forbid thee to do so.’
‘What am I allowed to do?’
‘Nothing. Thee controls south of the Red. I control north, and it’s my duty to bring these Indians to peaceful ways.’
So the two Americans faced each other, the blue-clad soldier representing the old ways of handling Indians, the homespun Pennsylvanian farmer representing the new. Reed was a Baptist who believed that God was a man of battles, a just judge administering harsh punishments; Rusk, a Quaker who knew that Jesus was a man of compassion who intended all men to be brothers. Reed trusted only army policy: ‘Harry the Indians and confine them to reservations’; Rusk believed without qualification that he could persuade Indians to move willingly onto reservations, where the braves would learn agriculture, the women how to sew, and the children how to speak English. Reed interpreted his task as clearing the land for occupation by white ranchers and then protecting them and their cattle from Indian raiders; Rusk saw his as helping both the white newcomer to the land and the original Indian owners to find some reasonable way of sharing the plains. In fact, the only thing upon which the two administrators agreed was that the West should be organized in some sensible way that would permit the greatness of the American nation to manifest itself.
They even looked as dissimilar as two men of about the same age could: Reed was not tall, not heavy. He wore his dark hair closely clipped and affected no mustaches. He stood very erect and spoke sharply. His eyes were piercing and his chin jutting. By force of unusual character he had risen in the Union army from being a conscripted teacher from a small town in Vermont to a generalship in command of an entire brigade of troops. He loved the order of army life and expected to obey and to be obeyed, an attitude which manifested itself in all his actions. He looked always as if ready to step forward and volunteer for the most difficult and dangerous task. By the sheerest accident he had stumbled upon the one career for which he was best suited, and he proposed to follow it with honor as long as he lived.
Earnshaw Rusk was a gangling fellow whose unkempt hair matched his ill-fitting clothes. He had such weak eyes that he disliked looking directly at anyone, and his voice sometimes cracked at the most embarrassing mom
ents, as if he were beginning a song. His Quaker parents had trained him never to press an opinion of his own, for Quakers tended to reach decisions by unspoken consensus rather than through exhibitionist voting; but he had also been told that when he felt he was right, ‘to forge ahead without let or hindrance.’ He had never been sure what those words meant, but he did know from observation that it was fairly difficult to dislodge a believing Quaker from a position morally taken, and he saw no reason why he should be different.
‘Agent Rusk,’ Reed said as if launching a new problem, ‘you and I share a most difficult responsibility.’
‘We do.’
‘Now you are harboring in your camp—’
‘We harbor no one, Captain. We provide a home for Indians on their way to civilization.’
‘This time you’re harboring a fiendish killer, Chief Matark of the Comanche.’
‘I know Matark. I cannot believe—’
‘Have you ever heard of the Bear Creek massacre?’
‘I’ve heard the usual ugly rumors people spread.’
‘Have you ever heard of the little girl Emma Larkin?’
‘I don’t know that name.’
‘At Bear Creek, Matark massacred fifteen men, women, and children, and he massacred them most horribly. Would you care to hear the details?’
‘I am not interested in soldiers’ campfire tales.’
Reed did not hesitate: ‘When you and I find the little girl, and we will—believe me, Agent Rusk, we will—we’ll see that her ears and her nose have been burned off. We’ll find that she’s been raped incessantly. She’ll probably be pregnant, but we’ll find her.’
Rusk blanched: ‘I find such stories repulsive.’
‘They are,’ Reed said, ‘but in this case they’re real. I found the bodies, hacked apart. I reassembled them as best I could. I buried them.’
‘That’s a terrible charge for thee to make, on a guess.’ And there the struggle intensified, for Rusk’s continued use of the Biblical thee seemed to be parading his virtue, as if to say: ‘I am more Christlike than thee. I am of a higher moral order.’ This infuriated army men, for they interpreted his pacifism as the behavior of a simple-minded man who could scarcely differentiate dawn from dusk.
Reed, having sworn not to lose his temper with this difficult Quaker, smiled icily: ‘I am not guessing, Agent Rusk. I know.’
‘Thee is being terribly unfair to Chief Matark.’ Impulsively, for he was a good man striving to protect other good men, he sent for Matark, and within a few minutes the three protagonists who would compete for Texas rights so desperately faced one another. Matark appeared as if he had come from a pleasant hunt, his features in repose, his body at ease. It seemed doubtful that he had ever committed an act of warfare, let alone massacre, but Reed noticed that he did stay close to Rusk, as if he realized that this man was now his appointed protector.
‘This is my friend Chief Matark,’ Rusk began, and he expected the two men to shake hands, but Reed refused to touch the Indian. ‘Chief, Captain Reed tells me that thee attacked supply trains.’
‘Lies, lies.’
‘He has men out there to prove that thee attacked the train, black soldiers whose reports we can trust.’
‘Must have been Kiowa. No Comanche. None.’
When the interpreter translated these words, Rusk smiled thinly and held up his hands: ‘Thee sees, I was sure it must have been other Indians. We have great trouble with the Kiowa, chiefs like Satanta, Satank.’
‘Matark’s Comanche were nowhere near Three Cairns?’
‘No. Never so far south. We hunting Indians, not fighting. We stay on reservation.’
Reed did not respond to this. Suddenly he asked: ‘What have you done with Emma Larkin?’
Matark stiffened, a fact which Rusk noticed, then said: ‘Kiowa killed her people. We rescued her. She safe with us.’
Reed bowed his head, visualizing what safe meant in such situations. Rusk noticed this too, and asked: ‘It is true that thee holds a white child?’ and Matark replied: ‘For safety. To keep her from the Kiowa.’
Even Rusk could see the cynicism of this response: any white child held captive by Indians should be returned to white protectors, and if the child was a girl, the obligation was doubled. For the first time since he came west, this peace-seeking Quaker experienced a grain of doubt about the goodness of his Comanche, but he raised no questions because he honestly believed that Matark was an innocent man vilified by the rough soldiers at Fort Garner. Rusk still did not comprehend the terrible problems faced by white settlers in Texas, and he refused to admit that his Indians ever raided down in Texas and then found sanctuary a few miles to the north in the Indian Territory.
Reed and Matark understood each other: with them it was a duel to the death, and if Matark had had just a little more time the other day, he would have captured one of Reed’s wagon trains and killed every soldier guarding it; on the other hand, if Reed had been able to keep the Indians south of the Red River for one more day, he would have tried to annihilate them. It was brutal, incessant warfare, and each man wondered at the naïveté of Agent Rusk, who did not comprehend this.
Captain Reed accomplished nothing at Camp Hope except his own humiliation, which he accepted silently, but on his return to Fort Garner he felt he must as a responsible commanding officer broach a subject which threatened to undermine the effectiveness of his troops. He summoned Logan and began cautiously: ‘Were you able to speak with Colonel Minor when they brought him in? Very bad knock in the left hip.’
‘Two minutes, three minutes. As you would expect, he was smiling.’
‘Very good man, Minor. He performed well at the Cairns.’
‘You’d expect him to.’
‘He’ll be a long time mending. Perhaps we should send him home.’
‘He wouldn’t like that. He asked me to assure you …’
Reed had to wonder whether Minor had actually said that, or whether Logan was merely endeavoring to keep Nellie Minor close at hand, and he judged that now was the time to be frank: ‘Major, Johnny Minor’s going to have a rough time with that hip. He’ll need all the support he can muster. From his wife especially.’
‘That is sure.’
‘I’d take it kindly, Major, and so would Mrs. Reed, if you saw less of Minor’s wife.’
‘Yes, sir.’
No more was said, and Reed told his wife: ‘I think the matter of Nellie Minor has been settled,’ and Mrs. Reed said: ‘Thank God. These things can get so out of hand in a lonely fort.’
This one was far from settled, however, for even if her lover was willing to cease the affair, Nellie Minor was not, and one morning, after dressing her husband’s suppurating wound, she mounted a horse and rode far out to the tank, where she had insisted that Jim Logan meet her. They allowed their horses to wander into that glade where the Indians had observed them before the attack on the wagon train, and there they renewed their passionate love. When they lay looking up at the endless blue sky, Logan said: ‘The last time. I can’t make love to the wife of a wounded comrade.’
‘You damned men! You know he cares nothing for me.’
‘He did. And now he needs you.’
‘Need! Need! That’s all I hear. I need things too.’
Mrs. Reed, who learned quickly of Nellie’s brazen escapade, was not disposed to have this headstrong young woman wreck her husband’s command by some act that would be reported to Washington. Fort Garner had already been marked unfavorably because of the loss of men in the attack upon the wagons and because Reed had allowed Matark to reach sanctuary across the river, and one more unfavorable notice might be decisive. She therefore summoned both Nellie and her lover to her rooms in the commander’s building, the second on the base to be converted to stone—the hospital invariably being first—and there she presented them with surprising information.
‘I have consulted with the surgeon from Fort Richardson, and he at first warned me that Colonel Minor was
too weak to be moved. So I had to bide my time and let you two run wild.’
‘We have not—’ Nellie tried to break into the speech, but Mrs. Reed ignored her.
‘But now your husband is mending, Mrs. Minor, and I am asking that he be taken from here in an ambulance … tomorrow. And my husband is recommending that when he is recovered he be assigned to desk duty with Lieutenant General Sheridan in Chicago. You will accompany him when he leaves this fort.’
Logan felt that he must protest: ‘There is no cause for such dismissal.’
‘Mrs. Minor is not being dismissed. She is merely accompanying her husband, as a good wife should.’
‘But—’
‘Especially when he has been wounded in a gallant charge against the Comanche.’ She was implacable in her opposition to this adulterous pair and had taken the precaution of informing others, before the meeting took place, that the Minors were being shipped out, and had arranged that the ambulance which would carry them away be brought to the rear of the hospital, where its wheels and fittings were being checked.
So when Johnny Minor’s lady and her Irish lover left the commander’s quarters, everyone on the base, even the black cavalry privates, knew that they were in disgrace, and since her reputation could degenerate no further, Nellie went boldly to the stables, where she asked one of the cavalrymen to saddle her horse, and upon it she rode toward the tank. Moments later Logan, in disregard of the punishment that must surely be visited upon him, rode after her, and the fort buzzed at his arrogant defiance. Even a laundress who worked sometimes in the hospital as a kind of nurse felt obligated to inform wounded Johnny Minor of his wife’s intemperate behavior; he ignored the gossip, taking refuge in the fact that very shortly he would be rid of Fort Garner and its complexities, but finding no assurance that when his headstrong wife reached Chicago she would behave any differently.
Before Nellie had reached the tank, Logan had overtaken her, and when he saw the extreme agitation which possessed her, he realized for the first time that their love-making had become considerably more than a mere escapade. It was now something so important in her life that she could not face surrendering it, no matter what cold New England women like Mrs. Reed said or what Reed himself might do to protect the integrity of his command.
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