The Dragoons 3

by Patrick E. Andrews

  Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a Mexican soldier on horseback. He rode up to the general and quickly dismounted. “The Indians approach, Excellency,” he reported with a salute. “They are even now crossing Arena Creek.”

  “Your report is accepted,” De La Nobleza said. “Now join your comrades and wait for my command.”

  “Yes, Excellency!” The soldier handed the reins of his mount to Luis, then trotted down to one of the tents and slipped inside the front flap.

  “Follow Luis,” De La Nobleza ordered Weismann and Donaldson. “He will take you and your men to your positions. When the work is done, the fiesta will begin “

  The general went to a point in front of his tent which offered him a grand view of the desert panorama spread out to the front. He could see a cloud of dust as his guests approached, their images dancing in the shimmer of heat rising from the sandy ground of the desert. After a half hour they were easy to make out. The Apache men, all on horseback, rode to the front, with their women and children bringing up the rear on foot. A spot of green in the crowd would be his adjutant and escort of two soldiers who had gone to guide the Indians to the fiesta.

  When the group arrived at the site, the adjutant and soldiers took their charges into the area between the two tents. De La Nobleza could hear some instructions shouted and the mounted Indians swung off their horses’ backs. Then the group of Indians, with the exception of one, squatted down. All looked hungrily at the table where the liquor and food was so conspicuously displayed.

  The adjutant and soldiers marched up to De La Nobleza with a lone Indian. The adjutant, a young captain named Perez, halted and saluted. Then he announced in a loud voice, “I present Topalez, chief of the Disierto Apaches.” He turned to the Indian. “And I present—“

  “I know De La Nobleza,” the chief said coldly.

  The general said, “And I know you, Tópalez. Therefore, I say to you, greetings to you and your people in the name of the Republica Mexicana.”

  “My greetings to you, De La Nobleza,” the chief replied. “It is good what we do today.”

  “Yes,” De La Nobleza said. “We will feast and drink together, then talk about a lasting peace between the Mexicans and the Disierto Apaches.”

  “We have fought long and there is much hatred everywhere,” Topalez said in a pessimistic tone. “Although everyone wants peace, there will be bitter talk. Anger will flare from both sides.”

  “Yet the fighting must end somewhere, sometime, no?” De La Nobleza said. “Why not here and now?”

  Topalez shrugged. “Porque no? But we will all have to work hard to make any peace last.”

  “But if it is done, the lives of everyone will be better,” De La Nobleza pointed out. “Is there not an Apache saying which states that the animals that require the most hunting skill to catch always make the better food? The peace will be like a wily antelope trying to evade us. But if we are skillful, we will bring it to ground and feed from its carcass.”

  “I prefer Mexican cattle,” Topalez said in a boastful tone.

  “Thus, we shall discuss such arrangements, my friend,” De La Nobleza said cheerfully. “I know how much such meat pleases Apaches.”

  “You know much about us, De La Nobleza,” Topalez said. “Sometimes, I think too much.”

  “Let us drink and fill our bellies,” De La Nobleza said with a big smile. “Then we will turn serious and have our talk.”

  “So it will be,” Topalez said.

  “When my man Luis calls to you, all the Apaches may come up and take liquor and food,” De La Nobleza said.

  Tópalez’s tribe had experienced a hard winter. The smell of the cooked pork and goat, along with the sight of the bottles of liquor caused him to lick his lips. “We will do that.” He turned and walked back to join his people.

  De La Nobleza and Captain Perez stood by the tent looking at the gathered Apaches. Perez asked, “Are the men ready in the tents, Excellency?”

  “Of course, Capitan,” De La Nobleza said. “And I will prove it to you now.” The general removed his cocked hat and waved it back and forth as if to acknowledge the throng of Indians.

  The heavy, dark barrels of cannon slid out the flaps of the two tents flanking the scene. Slight hissing sounds of burning fuses could be heard that caused the alert Apaches to look around.

  Too late.

  The cannon belched fire and triple canisters, each containing dozens of iron balls an inch-and-a-half in diameter. The ammunition ripped into the crowd of Indians, the small, cruel spheres battering and rending flesh and bone of the unsuspecting victims.

  Topalez was able to stand up and bellow at his people to run for their lives. The few survivors not maimed or killed by the cannonade, leaped to their feet as the warriors formed a living shield around the women and children. Instinctively, they began a disorganized, frantic rush for the open desert. When they came abreast of the second tent, the cannon positioned there was fired by its hidden crew.

  The remainder of the Apaches were swept down as if a gigantic, invisible broom had slammed into their midst, knocking them helter-skelter among the skimpy desert vegetation.

  General De La Nobleza turned to the rear, shouting, “Don Roberto! Al ataque!”

  Roberto Weismann, with Penrod Donaldson close behind with his other men, came into view. Running as fast as possible with the excitement of scalping and earning money egging them on, the scalphunters swept past the tables of food and charged into the Apaches. All they found were the dead and moaning. Not one Indian had gone unscathed through the two quick barrages.

  Donaldson laughed as he pulled his scalping knife from its scabbard. “There ain’t nothing left to do but collect hair for loot, is there?”

  The eager scalphunters went to work with a vengeance. Now and then, when one of the victims’ skulls had been ruined too much for a good scalp, an angry curse would be heard. Some of the wounded died more quickly than they normally would have after the tops of their craniums were sliced and ripped off.

  De La Nobleza, grinning and thinking of silver pesos, stood sipping from a wine glass as the pile of grisly trophies was tossed at his feet.

  Captain Perez, not quite as enthusiastic, but still an Apache hater, did not drink from his glass. But Weismann beside the Mexican officers, pointed to the three groupings. “You see, we are being orderly about this. My men place the male trophies there.” He pointed to another spot. “The females there and the children over there.” Now and then he shouted angry encouragement at the mutilators as they brought the objects of their scalping knives in for the count.

  When the work was done and the bloody corpses of the Disierto Clan of Apaches lay sprawled and violated in the red light of the sinking sun, De La Nobleza announced the count.

  “Eighty men, one hundred and four women, and one hundred and sixteen children,” he said.

  The scalphunters cheered knowing that several of the larger children had been counted as women.

  “Now that your work is done, feed yourselves!” De La Nobleza shouted. “And drink. This is now a true fiesta!”

  More shouts of joy sounded as the men rushed to the tables of refreshments. Penrod Donaldson ignored the party and joined the general, Captain Perez, and Weismann.

  Donaldson didn’t seem particularly happy, but he conceded it had been a good count. “We’ll pull in some good coin on today’s work.”

  De La Nobleza looked at him. “Why are you so glum then, Señor Donaldson? Soon you will have silver pesos with which to purchase women’s favors and good drink and food.”

  “I’m just looking to the future, Gen’ral Donaldson said. “Yes, Excellency,” Weismann said. “I fear this depletes the population of Apaches in this part of Sonora.”

  “They speak the truth,” Captain Perez said. “In my duties, I have noticed a great shrinking of the Apache population in the district

  De La Nobleza smiled and shrugged. “Y que importa? I know where more Apaches ca
n be easily found “

  Weismann was interested. “That is good news, Excellency. But where?”

  “To the north, in El Vano of Arizona,” De La Nobleza said. “But, Excellency!” Perez protested. “That is now part of the United States.”

  “Yes,” Weismann interjected. “That could mean big trouble, Excellency.”

  “Believe me, Don Roberto, the authorities in Mexico City will have no way of knowing from which side of the border Apache scalps come,” De La Nobleza assured him.

  Donaldson nodded his agreement. “That’s true, Gen’ral. But while we’re doing our work, any surviving Apaches is gonna take out their hate on the folks living in Arizona.”

  “For the most part, that would be your fellow Americanos, would it not?” Perez asked.

  “I reckon,” Donaldson said.

  De La Nobleza displayed a cold smile. “Do you really care, Señor Donaldson?”

  Donaldson shrugged. “Not a damn bit, Gen’ral.”

  De La Nobleza raised his glass. “Then here is a toast to El Vano of Arizona—and the Chirinato Apaches who live there.” Weismann showed a rare grin. “I will drink to their scalps, Excellency.”

  “Then let us do just that!” De La Nobleza exclaimed leading them over to the table with the liquor.

  The general’s servant Luis looked out the front of the large leather tent. He could see the mutilated corpses in the last light of the day’s sun. He had heard the three speaking of going into El Vano of Arizona, and Luis knew well such an action was soon going to bring a veritable hell-on-earth to that area.

  The servant crossed himself, then withdrew to the interior of the tent away from the horror.

  Four

  The bugle’s clear, crisp notes sounded reveille. The traditional martial tune, calling the dragoons to a new duty day, echoed off the cliff wall and reverberated far out into the desert country of the Vano Basin.

  Captain Grant Drummond, already awake on his cot, listened to the trumpeter sound the call twice; each time to separate sides of the bivouac. Within moments, a bustle of activity could easily be discerned throughout the camp as shouting noncommissioned officers rousted the dragoons from their blankets and tents. Equipment rattled and the bantering between mess mates built up as the men formed up under the less-than-gentle supervision of their squad leaders. It was the usual, boisterous beginning of a new day of soldiering in the field.

  The early morning routine always reminded Captain Grant Drummond of West Point and his cadet days. Neither the passing of years nor distance from the academy dulled that memory of the ancient call to the day’s duties. At the academy the cadets were rudely taken away from their peaceful slumber by a battery of fifers and drummers, called the Hell Cats. This small, but loud organization of field music whistled and thundered its way back and forth across the quadrangle until the Corps of Cadets was awake, dressed, and standing tall in formation. This recollection was not the fondest in the captain's remembrance of his education to become an officer.

  Grant Drummond had graduated from West Point in the spring of 1835, fourteen years previously, as an enthusiastic young officer seeking military adventure. During those years of varied duties and responsibilities, Grant had experienced the complete spectrum of soldiering in the United States Army. His service varied from months of tedious boredom and inactivity to the heights of horror and rage in brief spasms of excitement brought on by war against Indians, Mexicans, bandits, and other enemies of the fresh American republic that had been stretching its muscles for a bit more than half a century.

  Grant's first half-year was dictated by certain family connections his wealthy father, a New England lawyer, had in Washington City. The well-meaning sire caused Grant’s initial entry into the army to be one of idle staff routine in the War Department. But that quickly came to an end in January of 1836 during the Second Seminole War. A band of the tribe's warriors ambushed and wiped out a company of troops in Florida. When units were ordered to the field, Grant immediately volunteered for campaign service and found a billet in an understaffed dragoon regiment.

  At that time, Grant had been engaged to be married to a local belle in the nation’s capital. She was a strong-willed young woman who insisted that he stay in Washington to avoid both a separation from her and the perils of war. But Grant was not going to pass up this opportunity for real soldiering. The young officer's enthusiastic desire to ride with his new regiment to whatever adventures and fate awaited him, led to the dissolution of his engagement to the beautiful socialite. This would not be the last time his desire for action would prove detrimental to his love life.

  When Grant's unit arrived in Florida they were immediately sent overland to Fort King. On the way to the post, they reached the spot where the bones of the dead soldiers whose ambush had caused the war, lay scattered among the tropical growth. After taking time to bury the remains, the column moved on to the Withlacoochee River to join a besieged garrison at a place called Camp Izard. Here young Second Lieutenant Grant Drummond received his baptism of fire during repeated attacks from hostile Seminoles. At one point, during the long weeks of being surrounded and cut off, rations ran so low that the beleaguered garrison was forced to eat their horses. But they held on, defending their position against a determined and skillful enemy.

  The troops finally broke out and, joining up with later arrivals, began fighting a war of hit-and-run that carried both sides through the wild Florida wilderness. It was during these bloody encounters that Grant Drummond developed an appreciation of and much skill in irregular warfare of patrols, ambushes, raids, sneak attacks, and melting away into the wilderness when the advantage was the enemy’s.

  The battling finally came to an end in March of 1837 with a treaty that brought about the cessation of hostilities. Grant returned to Washington City with his regiment, bloodied, wiser, and an eligible bachelor once again on the social scene. Being a handsome and dashing officer, it wasn’t long until he was once again involved with a young lady. This one was the beautiful daughter of the French ambassador. Plenty of young swains’ hearts were broken when her engagement to First Lieutenant Grant Drummond was announced in the local newspapers.

  Unfortunately for both the country and the young couple’s future, the Seminole fighting was in full swing again by the summer of 1840. Once more, faced with the choice offered by an angry young woman, Grant’s engagement to be married went to hell as he spurned romance for war.

  But breaking up with the girl that time proved physically dangerous. Her brother, a hot-blooded chevalier, decided his family’s honor had been insulted by this refusal to give in to his sister’s demand to continue the engagement on her terms. That led to a challenge to a duel that took place on a particularly dreary and gray dawn beside the Potomac River.

  The fight was done with pistols as carefully selected friends acted as seconds for both parties. All the traditional rituals were religiously followed as Grant fretted about the possibility of being late for his regiment’s departure. It never dawned on the self-confident officer that it might be he who received a pistol ball in his carcass rather than his impetuous and temperamental opponent. Inwardly irritated, Grant went through the exchange of words, the carefully orchestrated pacing to the correct position, and, finally, the order to turn and fire.

  The challenger’s pistol ball went high and wide, but the combat-veteran officer found his mark by hitting his opponent in the upper arm. Surprisingly, the Frenchman seemed happy about the whole thing. His family’s honor had been defended, he had nobly shed his blood, and would be able to walk around Washington society with his arm in a sling attracting welcome attention from impressed young ladies. He even wished Grant good luck as the officer galloped away to join his regiment.

  This time Grant’s sojourn into war was to be two years of difficult, almost impossible campaigning under the aggressive leadership of Colonel William Jenkins Worth. Worth took his troops hell-for-leather after the Indians in a relentless manner in spite of h
igh casualties, sickness, and an unforgiving steamy climate. The end result was another army victory in which the Seminole chief and his followers finally gave in to the soldiers, allowing themselves to be removed to Arkansas Territory. That left less than three hundred Seminoles in the whole of Florida. Thus, with no more threat to the local population, the war was declared over and done with in August 1842.

  This time, Grant did not return to peaceful garrison duty and the opportunities for more spoiled romances. He went with his regiment to Louisiana to guard the Texas frontier against encroaching squatters, Indians, and other people bent on hell-raising in the beleaguered area. The U.S. Army fought warriors, American desperados, Mexican bandidos, and other less identifiable foes during that turbulent time. By the time outright war with Mexico broke out, Grant was a captain leading his own company of dragoons.

  Grant spent two years of active fighting, leading his men in near-suicidal cavalry charges against artillery barrages and infantry volleys. He scouted and raided in the enemy’s rear areas, destroying lines of communications and supply depots as the American forces pressed onward toward Mexico City and ultimate victory. When the shooting ended, the United States ended up with hundreds of thousands of square miles that had belonged to Mexico, including California, New Mexico, and Arizona.

  When Captain Grant Drummond received the chance to lead a detachment of dragoons into Arizona to open up a line of communication between Texas and the Pacific Coast, he jumped at the chance with the same enthusiasm he had demonstrated as a subaltern. Grant happily chose to accept the responsibility that offered danger and hardship rather than make a belated return to the soft garrison duty available in the East.

  It was that choice that led him to the Vano Basin where he now made ready to begin a most important day. As the sound of troops outside showed a marked increase in the camp activity, Grant quickly pulled on his trousers. After picking up his toiletries bag, he went outside the tent to tend to his shaving.