Dewey Harknell walked a civilized path toward justice. He and Charlie Ainsley went to the telegraph office in Tahlequah to send a message to the Federal Court in Wichita, Kansas. Then they made a detailed report to the Cherokee National Council to inform them of the trespassing onto their sovereign land. He now had it on public record that the Boomers started the gunfight in which two of his cowboys had been shot to death.
~*~
The frontiersman who rode into the garrison of Fort Gibson, Indian Territory was a tall, husky individual in his mid-forties. United States Deputy Marshal Nolan Sinclair worked out of Judge Harold Ross’ Federal Court in Wichita, Kansas.
Sinclair was a veteran lawman who had served in the Indian Nations for fifteen years. His main job had been hunting and apprehending white outlaws hiding in that wild country. This was brutal, dangerous work, and Sinclair was good at it. His approach to taking lawbreakers into custody was direct and simple: do the job without a single care of whether the wanted men were brought back dead or alive. Just bring the bastards back.
However, this complex man had another side that most people weren’t aware of. He was quick witted with a deep intelligence, and possessed an uncanny ability to judge people. He could recognize a brash kid out for adventure with the same facility he sensed the pure meanness of an outlaw who liked to kill others for no better reason than sadistic amusement or the victim’s possessions.
Now, on a balmy mid-morning Sinclair rode up to Fort Gibson’s post headquarters and dismounted. He paused to glance around the garrison. The administration buildings, quartermaster storehouses, stables, and barracks were arranged in neat geometrical patterns. Very precise and very military. There was no sign of loiterers or idlers among the garrison troops. Those visible were engaged in drill or fatigue duties. Over by the stables, a pair of morose prisoners from the guardhouse was shoveling manure out from the stalls. A bored guard with his Springfield carbine sloped across his right shoulder, watched over them.
The basic mission of Fort Gibson was to maintain the authority of the Federal government in the Indian Territory. But it was markedly different from most other army posts. The soldiers stationed there were black members of a United States Colored Cavalry regiment that was led by white officers.
When the marshal walked into headquarters, Sergeant Major George Watkins greeted him. The noncommissioned officer was broad and bulky, and had been slowly balding for the past several years as he matured and put on weight. He was born a slave, but escaped to the north as an adolescent where he was taken in by a Boston abolitionist group that aided fugitive blacks from the South. He received a rudimentary but effective education in which he learned to read, write, and do simple arithmetic.
During the Civil War, Watkins served the Union cause as a member of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Colored Infantry. He fought in the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, and was wounded twice before the war’s end. After leaving the service and struggling for a couple of years as a laborer in Boston he had begun to despair. Being a free man wasn’t turning out to be the jubilee the Yankees promised. Black men were offered only the most menial jobs and had to compete with the Irish for even that low-paying work. This led to open clashes at times when Celtic hooligans attacked the ex-slaves and ran them from work sites.
One morning when walking home from another futile attempt of searching for employment, Watkins saw a newspaper laying in the gutter. He picked it up and noted a front page story that reported the U.S. Government was expanding the army to handle both the occupation of the conquered South as well as the pacification of the Indians out west. This didn’t seem as if it was news pertaining to him, but the next paragraph caught his attention.
This expansion would include activating several new colored regiments of infantry and cavalry. He went directly to the back alley tenement he shared with three other veterans of the 54th. He showed them the article, and the four decided to return to the more equitable lives of soldiers. They headed for the nearest recruiting station to sign up.
While two of the others opted for the familiar life of the infantry, Watkins and another man enlisted for the cavalry. Now, after twenty years of service, he had married the sister of another soldier, and had earned his way up the ranks to be the regimental sergeant major. This was the highest rank an enlisted man could attain in the U.S. Army.
Watkins gave Sinclair a wide grin as the lawman approached his desk. “I been expecting you, Marshal.”
“Hell!” Sinclair said. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“Nobody surprises the sergeant major,” Watkins told him half-joking and half-serious. “Anyhow, the colonel says to send you right in when you arrived. There’s big doings out on the prairie.”
“Then I’ll go see the great man.”
Sinclair walked to the door marked commanding officer and knocked. He responded to a curt invitation to enter, and stepped inside to see the Colonel-in-Command sitting at his desk. Sinclair nodded as he took a chair. “How’re you doing, Colonel Byrd?”
“I’m managing to stay busy,” the officer replied. “You look fit, Marshal.”
“Never felt better,” Sinclair said. “The Marshal’s Office at Fort Smith contacted me in Wichita. They said there was another job to do with you soljer boys.”
“That’s correct,” the veteran officer said. He was a slim man sporting a moustache heavily streaked with gray. “But there are no payroll robbers to chase down this time.”
“Then it must be about the trouble with nesters out on the Medicine Bundle Grasslands.”
The colonel pulled two cigars from a humidor and shoved one across the desk to the lawman. “Right. We’ve received orders to send a detachment of troops up to the Grasslands to remove the squatters. I was surprised to hear you were coming along.”
“You ain’t been given all the information, Colonel,” Sinclair said. “They was a shooting between the squatters and the cowmen. Four fellers is dead.”
The two men lit their smokes, and the colonel leaned back in his chair to exhale. “I wasn’t aware of the killings. I suppose you’ll have to look into that matter while you’re there. I’ll tell my men to keep the trespassers contained until you finish your investigation.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Sinclair said. “What officer are you sending with me?”
“A lieutenant by the name of Hollings,” Byrd replied. “He just joined the regiment.”
“I’ll bet he ain’t a West Pointer,” Sinclair remarked.
“Of course not,” Byrd said. “He’s a former sergeant with almost ten years in the ranks.” He winked at Sinclair. “Your kind of man, Marshal.”
“Well, then,” Sinclair mused, “I cain’t wait to work with him.”
~*~
The black cavalrymen rode listlessly in a slow but steady pace across the open prairie. They were covered with the powdery dust kicked up by the heavy plodding of their horses’ hooves. The uniforms they wore were strictly for campaigning. Most were patched and faded, much too shabby for normal garrison activity, but still useful for less glamorous duties. The wide-brimmed hats the troopers wore were civilian models that did a better job of keeping the sun off faces and necks than the regular government-issue headgear.
U.S. Deputy Marshal Nolan Sinclair and Second Lieutenant Grant Hollings rode at the head of the double-column of horse soldiers. The two white men had hit it off well from the moment Colonel Byrd introduced them. Although a marked difference in age existed between them, they shared the same temperament and attitudes.
Hollings had black hair and green eyes combined with a square-jawed look that didn’t detract from the youthful appearance of his twenty-eight years. He had come up through the ranks after a successful try at the tough competitive examination to earn a commission as second lieutenant.
However, Hollings quickly discovered that actually becoming an officer depended on vacancies in active duty regiments. The rules of the game worked against candidates like Grant Hollings since reg
ulations dictated that graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point had first choice on all new assignments. After a year of frustration he was forced to swallow his pride and take one of the leftovers. This was a billet considered the dregs of a gentleman’s military career: service as a white officer in one of the colored outfits.
He arrived at Fort Gibson with orders assigning him to the colored cavalry regiment stationed there. He was bitter and angry, but after a few weeks he discovered that his brother officers would not accept any transfers to all-white regiments even if given the opportunity. The black soldiers, unlike their white counterparts, considered the army a step up in life. They were paid regularly, issued uniforms, fed three times daily, and slept in comfortable quarters. In turn, they gave the service their complete loyalty. They accepted military discipline willingly while performing their duties cheerfully and to the best of their abilities. Any misfits or malfeasants among them were either straightened out by the fists and boots of the noncommissioned officers, or given dishonorable discharges. The best of the best remained in the ranks.
Desertion was almost nonexistent, as was venereal disease. This latter blessing came about from the fact that the regiment was a family. Soldiers’ sons enlisted when they were of age, and married soldiers’ daughters. This gave them a normal family life with women available within their own group. They did not have to resort to crude frontier bordellos for sexual contact with females, as did the white troops.
Lieutenant Hollings, a veteran soldier, appreciated what he saw. His own initial regrets quickly faded away. He happily did most of his company’s paperwork since the majority of the enlisted men were illiterate. The sons and grandsons of slaves had to worry more about feeding themselves and their families than trying to obtain an education. It was hoped that the establishment of post schools would solve this problem.
Now on his first assignment in his new unit, Hollings moved onto the Medicine Bundle Grasslands with the detachment of black troopers under his command and Marshal Sinclair as a companion. The orders he had been given were precise. He was to lead his men into the area and force a group of illegal settlers to vacate the place and return to Kansas. The only other obligation was to allow the marshal time to investigate a shooting incident that had taken the lives of four men.
Marshal Sinclair had to determine who was at fault in the incident, then arrest the culprits for transportation to Wichita’s Federal Court to stand trial. He was very much aware that there existed a serious potential for the shootings to escalate into a full-scale war between homesteaders and cattlemen across both the Indian and Oklahoma Territories. Sinclair was grateful that the rancher Dewey Harknell had prudently decided to be patient and let the law handle the issue.
The marshal glanced around at the country they rode through. “I cain’t say I blame the clodhoppers for wanting to settle here.”
“This place has never seen a plow,” Grant Hollings observed. “It’s as virgin as it was a thousand years ago.”
“Nothing’s been on it but buffalo shit,” Sinclair remarked. “And cow shit too, now that the ranchers have been leasing land down here.” He shook his head. “I just wonder how long it’s gonna be before it’s all took away from the Injuns.”
“Not long,” Grant remarked. “The Five Civilized Tribes were supposed to be allowed to remain here in perpetuity, but that’ll change.”
“Y’know,” Sinclair said with a grin, “I been in this country most of my life and I ain’t sure I can say the names of all five tribes.”
“Choctaws, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees,” Grant recited.
Sinclair laughed. “I never would have been able to name ’em all anymore’n I could recite the forty-five states if I had to.”
“When I was studying for my commission, I made sure I picked up everything I could about the situation out here,” Grant said. “The tribes were driven from their homelands in the east in the 1830s.”
“Well, they may not get drove off here completely, but they’re going to have a hell of a lot of it took away from them in the bye and bye.”
“It’ll be a damned shame when the area is opened up for settlement,” Grant said. “But I guess there’s no stopping progress.”
“That’s the word for it, is it?”
“Yeah,” Grant said. “Another word might be robbery.” He was silent for moment. “I disagree with the policy, but I do what I’m told.”
“Me too, young man,” Sinclair said. He squinted his eyes as he peered into the distance. “Here comes your scout.”
A few hundred yards away a young black soldier rode rapidly toward them, waving his hands to catch their attention. Grant took a deep breath and hollered, “Column, halt!”
The soldiers came to a stop at almost the same instant. They craned their necks to look to the front, while maintaining their positions in the formation. The scout reached Grant and saluted after coming to a halt. He was an eager young corporal and one of the few members of the regiment who could read and write.
“Sir, Cawp’ral Rawlings reporting to the detachment commander.”
“Report, Corporal.”
Rawlings turned in his saddle and pointed. “The camp we’re looking for is about a mile and a half ahead. They got ever’thing in a circle like they was waiting for an Injun attack.”
“Actual,” Sinclair said, “they’re waiting for a cowboy attack.”
“Anyhow,” the corporal said. “It’s a bunch of civilian folks just sitting around.”
Grant asked, “How many people do you think there are?”
“I counted up to thirty wagons, sir. They might’ve been a couple of more’n that.”
“Thank you, Corporal,” Grant said. “Well done. You may return to your squad.” He looked over at Sinclair. “We might as well go ahead and get the job started.”
“Might as well.”
“I hope there’s no trouble,” Grant said.
“They generally ain’t with these sodbusters when the families is around,” Sinclair said. “But be careful just the same. Remember they was a gunfight out here.”
“I’m ready for the worst,” Grant assured him. He looked back at the soldiers. “Sergeant Whitcomb!”
The column’s senior noncommissioned officer came forward and reported with a crisp salute.
“We’ll soon be approaching our destination, Sergeant,” Grant said. “I want you to split the detachment into two squads and move them in two directions to surround the civilian camp. When they’re in position, they’re to stand fast and wait as Marshal Sinclair and I move into the bivouac.”
“Yes, sir!”
The disciplined cavalrymen cantered out under Sergeant Whitcomb’s command in an orderly manner. When they sighted the camp, they regarded it with unabashed curiosity. Their unit had never been in a position of authority over white people before.
Grant and Sinclair rode forward, keeping a wary watch on the terrain around them. The people behind the barricade of wagons were surprised when they saw the army officer and lawman ride up to the camp. Then they noted the soldiers on all sides.
The lieutenant and marshal stopped at the first wagon. Grant responded to the greeting he received from the owner by touching a finger to the brim of his hat. He said, “I would like to speak to the leader of this group.”
“That would be Luther McCracken,” the Boomer replied. “He’s on the north side. Tent and wagon. He’s got a big bay mule.”
Grant and Sinclair threaded their way carefully through the crowd gathering in the open center of the wagons. When they reached the far side of the camp, another request for directions took them directly to Luther McCracken’s area.
Luther had already heard of their arrival and was waiting. He nodded a greeting to the two men. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for the camp leader,” Grant said. He glanced over and saw Rebecca McCracken standing by a tent. She wore a yellow calico dress, looking pretty in a fresh-sc
rubbed way. It took a great deal of effort for the officer to turn his attention back to Luther.
“This ain’t a camp,” Luther said, remembering Ed Byron’s pronouncement. “It’s the town of Boomer City, Injun Territory.”
“Who are you, sir, and are you the leader?”
“I am Luther McCracken, sir, and I have the honor to have been chose as the mayor.”
Marshal Nolan Sinclair wasn’t one for a lot of conversation. The lieutenant had his business to conduct, and Sinclair had his. “I’m Deputy United States Marshal Nolan Sinclair from the Fed’ral Court in Wichita,” the lawman said, dismounting and pulling a sheaf of papers from his saddlebags. He carried the documents over to Luther and thrust them toward him. “Take ’em.”
“What are they?” Luther asked.
“I said take ’em!”
Luther’s first reaction was to refuse, but because of the other man’s aggression and authority, he relented. He took the documents and looked at them. “They’s a lot to read here.”
“What it says is that you’re to vacate this area immediately as practical and get off the range known as the Medicine Bundle Grasslands,” Sinclair said. “That there’s a bona fide court order and if it ain’t obeyed, them soljers out there is gonna come in here and make you move.”
“I understand.”
“And we also got the matter of four men killed in a gunfight,” Sinclair continued. “I’ll be questioning you about the incident and anybody else I think might have the answers I’m looking for.”
“You heard about that, huh?”
“Mr. Dewey Harknell sent word about the killings,” Sinclair said.
“What about Harknell?”
“Don’t you worry none about him, Mr. McCracken. Dealing with Harknell is my job too. That means it’s none of your business.”
Luther turned his attention to Grant Hollings. “I reckon you’re in charge of them soljers.”
“I am, sir,” Grant said. “Lieutenant Hollings at your service. I prefer this situation be kept as peaceable as possible.”
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