Whiskey Kills

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Are they dead?” he had merely asked.

  “No,” Daniel had said, watching relief sweep across the agent’s brow.

  “Did you chase them off the federal reserve?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you want me to write a report?”

  “Not this time,” Ellenbogen had answered. “I think it is best to keep this matter between you and myself. I should never have encouraged you to pursue those men. They were white, right? Not Creek?”

  “Yes.”

  Ellenbogen had looked up, wetting his dried lips. “I don’t know what I was thinking, sending you off like that. Could lose my appointment if Washington found out. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking of the girl,” Daniel had reminded him, and Ellenbogen, relief replaced by anger, immediately had ordered him south to Huupi.

  * * * * *

  “You should take my sister for your wife,” Ben Buffalo Bone said, whacking Daniel’s back.

  “Oajuicauojué would not have me,” Daniel said.

  “Not her.” Ben chuckled. “The old one.”

  Daniel looked across the camp, glad to find Rain Shower’s attention on her younger sister, too far away, he hoped, even to hear Ben’s booming voice.

  “I do not have enough horses to pay your uncle,” Daniel said, thinking: And for what I am paid as a policeman, am unlikely ever to have enough.

  Ben muttered something under his breath, then wrapped his arm over Daniel’s shoulder, and pulled him close. “I am glad you are here. It is right that you are here. You are family. You are my brother. This is an important day.”

  The People were never much for ceremony. Daniel had heard the chaplain at Fort Sill say Comanches, compared to other tribes, were like atheists. Such sentiment might be a little harsh, Daniel thought, but he could see how a taibo, or even another Indian, might think that.

  Cuhtz Bávi, Ben’s uncle, led his great bay stallion, a giant at some seventeen hands, out of the house, and Oajuicauojué grabbed the tail. With a shout from the aging Kotsoteka, the stallion took off at a trot, pulling Oajuicauojué along, the girl singing as they ran across the prairie, praying that the big horse would pass on to her his strength, his power, his speed, beauty, and lissomeness.

  No, Daniel thought, moved as he watched the young girl follow the horse. We are not atheists.

  “Do you remember your celebration?” Ben Buffalo Bone asked.

  “Yes,” Daniel said with a smile. “I was young. Too young, really. We went on a buffalo hunt. And my father gave me his name, then took another. I remember. I remember that well. And you? Do you remember your passage?”

  Ben’s arm left Daniel’s shoulder, and dropped by his side.

  “The People were free during the time of your journey, but not in my time,” he said. “A buffalo hunt. That would have been a great ceremony. There was no buffalo for my feast. Still, my father let me kill the Tejano cow at ration day.” He nodded, and resurrected his grin. “It was good enough. To be with family, it is always good. Is that not so?”

  Ben’s uncle was waving them over. “Yes,” Daniel answered. “It is always good.”

  * * * * *

  After offering the pipe to the six directions, Cuhtz Bávi passed it to Ben Buffalo Bone, who smoked first, then handed the pipe to Daniel. Ben’s uncle spoke softly, smoked, and laughed, pointing at his niece. Daniel turned, but his eyes fell on Rain Shower first, and stayed there until Ben tugged his shoulder.

  “Come,” Ben said, “let us eat.”

  “Haa,” Cuhtz Bávi said, more grunt than word, and set the pipe aside, and rubbed his belly.

  They ate from copper pots stewed and boiled beef, rabbit, dried antelope, pecans, pemmican, and airtights of corn that Ben had collected on ration day. Cuhtz Bávi had invited many families to celebrate Oajuicauojué’s becoming a woman, and The People began arriving, bringing more food. Rain Shower stood under the brush arbor with her younger sister, sharing the blend of mesquite beans and bone marrow that tasted sweeter than taibo sugar.

  They gorged until Daniel thought he might explode. No wonder so many of The People were fat, he thought, but still accepted a piece of fry bread from Ben’s mother. He wanted to take a nap, wondered if he could sneak away now in the crowd, hide in the cabin with the horses. Failing to stifle a yawn, he stepped toward the cabin, but Ben Buffalo Bone stopped him.

  “Bávi,” he said, his tone serious.

  “Yes?”

  Face hardened, eyes becoming slits, Ben tilted his jaw toward the brush arbor. “My brother, there is why I wish you would bring my uncle ponies. There are many reasons I would like for you to take my sister for your wife. But he is another reason.” Ben spit, and hurled a beef rib across the yard, sending a horde of dogs chasing it.

  The man’s name was Nácutsi. Pale Eyes called him Gunpowder, and he was just as explosive. Like Daniel, he was Kwahadi, although he was a good deal older than Daniel, and had been one of The People who had been imprisoned at Fort Marion when Daniel was just a boy. He was angry, bitter, and Daniel had arrested him at least twice—no, three times—since he had become a policeman. Ben Buffalo Bone had arrested him another time. Maybe more.

  “Nácutsi?” Daniel said incredulously. His stomach soured when Nácutsi forced Rain Shower’s hand in his big right paw. “Nácutsi courts your sister?”

  Ben didn’t answer. The dogs began fighting over the rib bone. Nácutsi turned toward the animals, dropping Rain Shower’s hand, and laughed. He reached into the back pocket of his Long Knives britches.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Daniel swore in English. Both hands tightened into fists, and he bulled his way toward the brush arbor as Nácutsi raised a ceramic stoneware bottle, stamped GINGER BEER in big blue letters, and drank.

  Chapter Five

  “Who stitched up your head?”

  “Rain Shower,” Daniel answered, “and her mother.”

  Outside, the wind must have been blowing toward Medicine Bluff Creek, because, even inside the post hospital, with the windows closed tightly against the cold, Daniel could smell the Fort Sill stables. It reminded him of home. He sat on a narrow cot, near a window, the morning sun providing plenty of light for the post surgeon’s examination.

  Major Chad Becker’s smooth fingertips traced the outline of the deep cut that stretched about an inch above Daniel’s left eye. Daniel kept cringing, expecting him to press the tender spot with taibo spite, but the surgeon had the soft touch of a woman. His hand dropped by his side, and Major Becker stepped back, nodding.

  “They did a nice job, Sergeant Killstraight. What did they use, horse hair?”

  His head bobbed slightly. “Cuhtz Bávi’s giant bay. His pride and joy. A great honor for me.”

  “During the late rebellion, probably before you were born, I once used a fiddle string to sew up a saber cut.” The doctor produced a small bottle. “I’m going to put a little carbolic acid on it, just to protect against infection. After the stellar operation performed by your two women friends, it would be a shame to have gangrene set in and force me to cut off your head in order to save your life.” With a wink, the doctor splashed liquid onto a white cloth.

  “It might burn a little,” Major Becker warned.

  It did.

  The hospital was crowded, typical for Fort Sill. Bluecoat soldiers always thought of some malady to keep them away from work, although from the looks of some of them, they really were sick or injured. A few snored, some coughed, four sat on a cot playing cards, but most kept quiet. The ones closest stared at Dr. Becker’s treatment. One grunted about the stink of Indian, prompting a chuckle from another spectator, but the major shut them up.

  “I can easily treat your croup, Corporal Thomas, with skunk grease, and send you back to the guardhouse, O’Malley, broken fingers and all.”

  The sick bluecoats fell silent.

  “Listen, Sergeant,” Major Becker said, “I’m sorry I could not make it to see th
at little girl. Agent Ellenbogen told me what happened. But Lieutenant Nesbitt’s appendix burst. It required immediate surgery . . .”

  “There was nothing you could have done,” Daniel said.

  A door opened and closed quickly, and Daniel heard Leviticus Ellenbogen’s shoes pound across the wooden floor. The agent sounded like a Pale Eyes mule walking no matter where he was.

  “Mein Gott,” Ellenbogen spoke in a hoarse whisper, removing his tall silk hat, shaking his head, then clucking his tongue. He wore the same suit of ill-fitting black broadcloth.

  “Bloody savages,” the Irish trooper with the busted right hand said. “What do you expect from Comanch’?”

  “You’re one to talk, O’Malley,” the major said. “The sergeant here was doing his duty, arresting a drunk. You know all about drunks, don’t you, O’Malley? Want to tell Sergeant Killstraight and Mister Ellenbogen how you busted that hand of yours?”

  Brooding but silent, the soldier rose from his bunk, and crossed the hospital to join the poker game.

  “How is he, Doctor?” Ellenbogen asked.

  “He’s fine, sir. The Comanche women did a grand job patching him up. I give all due credit to those women, but more to the thick head of your policeman. No fractured skull, although he might have a headache for a day or two. When he first arrived, I gave him a tincture of laudanum to help ease the pain. Bring him back in a week, and I’ll remove that horse hair.”

  “Horse hair?” Ellenbogen waited as if expecting to be informed that the post surgeon was only joking.

  Instead, Major Becker grinned at Daniel. “Or you can let one of your women take it out.”

  “You’re gentler than they were,” Daniel said, and the doctor laughed.

  “Then,” the agent said, uncomfortable and unsure, “the sergeant is fit for duty, Herr Doctor?”

  “Fit and able, Mister Ellenbogen.” Major Becker was already crossing the room, shouting: “Let me examine that hand of yours, O’Malley!”

  Daniel grabbed his hat and blouse, and gently put them on as he led the new agent toward the front door. Masking his satisfaction upon hearing Trooper O’Malley’s scream and explosion of profanity proved impossible.

  * * * * *

  Daniel rode and Ellenbogen walked from the Fort Sill hospital to the headquarters for the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache reservation, a small cabin spitting distance from Cache Creek. Leviticus Ellenbogen had made several changes in the cabin from the previous agent, although his desk remained covered with papers and ledgers, a cigar case, can of pipe tobacco, a porcelain inkwell that appeared to have been hand-painted, and a Bible, although Ellenbogen’s Testament looked larger than the previous agent’s, the leather and paper worn and stained, as if he had actually read the book numerous times. He saw no tintypes of Ellenbogen’s family—Daniel didn’t know if the agent even had a family—but several items now hung from the wall to give the agency a touch of civilization: a couple of lithographs that appeared very old, a colorful sampler, a newspaper clipping, but what caught Daniel’s eye was a portrait of President Cleveland.

  Noticing Daniel’s attention on the portrait, Leviticus Ellenbogen said: “I campaigned for Grover when he ran for the mayor’s office in Buffalo. A man of strong principle. A man of strong character. Believe me, Sergeant, it took a lot for me, an Israelite and a staunch Republican, to laud and even cast a ballot for a Presbyterian Democrat.”

  Thought Daniel: And now you have been rewarded for it.

  He took off his hat, and wiped his brow. The cabin was stifling. It always was, no matter the season. Outside was probably forty degrees, dark and overcast, but the agency door remained open to let in relief. Dark, cramped, hot, with the air always filled with dust. Daniel preferred his own cabin, even with the horses. A mouse scurried across the floor, unnoticed by the agent, and out the door. Well, Daniel thought, maybe this isn’t such a reward.

  Ellenbogen was talking about the reforms the President had accomplished as mayor and governor, and reforms he was pushing for in Washington. Seeing that he had lost Daniel’s interest, he pointed at a chair, and told Daniel to sit down.

  “The Comanche brave called Gunpowder is in the stockade at Fort Sill,” Ellenbogen said. “He should have been sent to Major Becker for an examination, also, but refused. You beat him soundly, Sergeant.”

  The grin made Daniel flinch. The Pale Eyes doctor was right. His head had begun to throb. He wished he had some more of that tincture Major Becker had given him when he first arrived at the hospital. He didn’t care any for the taste of laudanum, but it sure killed his headache in a hurry.

  “Not me.” Daniel pointed to his head wound. “Nácutsi laid me out with the bottle. Ben Buffalo Bone, his uncle, and Teepee That Stands Alone beat him soundly.”

  From what Daniel had heard, most of the thrashing should be credited to Teepee That Stands Alone, who had arrived for the feast moments after Daniel had started the fight with Nácutsi.

  “Ben Buffalo Bone says Na— . . .” Ellenbogen’s tongue tripped over the name, so he gave up. “He says Gunpowder was in a state of inebriation.”

  Daniel nodded.

  “At a religious ceremony to honor one of Ben’s sisters?”

  Another nod, even though Daniel wouldn’t have called it religious.

  “Where is Ben Buffalo Bone?” Daniel asked.

  “From what Frank Striker tells me, you sent Ben Buffalo Bone to Gunpowder’s camp at Big Wichita Valley while those women . . .” Ellenbogen shuddered as his eyes fixed on the stitched cut on Daniel’s head.

  Frank Striker was the agency interpreter, a giant Texian who had married a Kiowa woman. Daniel stared at his moccasins.

  Ellenbogen asked: “Do you not remember giving such orders to Ben Buffalo Bone?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Nácutsi hit me pretty hard.”

  “You are sure you are well enough for duty, Sergeant?”

  “Yes,” Daniel said.

  “Why did you order Ben to Gunpowder’s camp?”

  “I’m . . . well . . .” He shrugged.

  With a heavy sigh, Ellenbogen absently reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a pipe. As he filled the bowl with tobacco, he shook his head, saying: “I had hoped we had put an end to the whiskey runners on the reservation. I had hoped the federal marshals and increased patrols by the Army, and with you Indian policemen, of course, would stop this nefarious activity. Perhaps we should hire more Comanche policemen.” He struck a match on the desk top, and held the flame to the carved ivory bowl.

  “It is hard to find men among The People who wish to become a Metal Shirt,” Daniel said. “Not for eight dollars a month, and no rations.”

  Ellenbogen ignored the bitterness.

  “Whiskey is a pestilence on this reservation,” Ellenbogen said. “Are you still convinced these runners are not Creek Indians?”

  “Not the ones I found. The Creeks usually bring in whiskey from the north, maybe the northeast. The ones I followed from Toyarocho’s camp traveled into the disputed country. Creeks would never travel that far south or west. These new whiskey traders are crossing the Red River from Texas.”

  “White men,” Ellenbogen said with disgust, setting his pipe on top of his Bible. “The Creeks I perhaps could understand, but these white men . . .” He shook his head.

  “Not white men,” Daniel said. “Tejanos. Texians. I don’t think they will return, though.”

  Ellenbogen grinned slightly, uneasily, and tugged his beard. “Just in case, I will ask the colonel at Fort Sill to increase patrols along the Red River. I will also write the United States marshal in Fort Smith, and the Texas Rangers in Wichita Falls to please assist us in putting an end to this malady.” He removed his hand from his beard, staring hard at Daniel. “Is there anything else I should do?”

  Daniel stared back, wondering. The previous agent never would have asked Daniel for advice. What did this Ellenbogen really want? He wet his lips, tried to see behind those black eyes, but found nothing.


  “There are two other people I would ask you to write,” Daniel said. “One is Hugh Gunter. He is a United States Indian Policeman.”

  “I am not altogether familiar with that organization.”

  “Union Agency in Muskogee,” Daniel continued. “Jurisdiction over all Five Civilized Tribes.”

  “Yes, but you said these new runners are not Creeks. Why would we need help from this branch?”

  “I wouldn’t want the Creeks to start up their whiskey trade again in full force.”

  After a few puffs of his pipe, Ellenbogen nodded.

  “Also,” Daniel said, “write Deputy Marshal Harvey P. Noble. He works at Judge Parker’s court.”

  “I have already said I would write the marshal in Fort Smith.”

  “Write Deputy Noble, too.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Because I know him,” Daniel said. “I trust him.”

  Ellenbogen considered that, and agreed. “Very well. Let us understand each other, Sergeant. This agency is not where I desire to end my days. This is my chance, though, to prove to President Cleveland and Secretary Lamar that my ability matches my loyalty. My career faces a mighty mountain because of my tribe, just as you, being Comanche, face your own obstacles because of your tribe. We have much in common, you know. So we must work together. You are my ears and eyes, Sergeant. You are educated, unlike most of your fellow policemen. I have trouble communicating with many of your people. You and I can work together. We must work together.”

  Daniel did not answer. He wasn’t sure what to say. So, he waited.