by Len Levinson
Traveling in the middle of the formation, Clarissa had no idea the commanding officer occasionally contemplated her naked form. She considered him a kindly old fellow with courtly manners, much more interesting than young officers, who tended to become rambunctious in her presence.
She sat on the bench of the wagon, nursing her child, as Rosita guided the old covered wagon along its path. They had food, a Sibley tent, bedrolls, spare clothes, and a few odds and ends of furniture, but most important of all, a letter of credit drawn against a prominent New York bank.
Clarissa wore a long black wool dress, her black leather coat, and a Colt .36 in a holster low on her waist. She had no idea what was waiting in Albuquerque, but was happy to leave gloomy and tragic Fort Craig. A cool wind blew over the sage as her baby sucked milk from her breast. The sun rose high in the sky, and the trail looked like a band of gold across the wilderness, snow-crowned mountaintops dotting the horizon.
“Indians!” shouted a soldier nearby.
Clarissa felt electrified by the dreaded word as she terminated her child's dinner, then covered herself, reached for her Colt, and looked in the direction the soldiers were pointing. Atop a distant crag six figures on horseback could be seen, bristling with bows and arrows, watching them like statues. Clarissa had never seen Indians in their natural habitat before and was partially curious, mostly terrified. Trotting hoofbeats could be heard, then George appeared beside the wagon, atop a spirited strawberry roan horse. He removed his hat and said, “Are you all right, ma'am?”
“They aren't going to attack, are they?”
“Not at the moment, but if there's trouble, Colonel Bonneville has assigned me to look to your safety.”
She touched the handle of her Colt, then gazed at the distant Indians illuminated by the afternoon sun, sitting defiantly upon their horses. “I wonder if one of them killed Nathanial.”
“They're Mimbreno Apaches,” replied George, “but after next spring, we won't have to worry about them anymore. They're getting two choices: surrender or die.”
Sixty-four-year old former Senator James Buchanan awaited election returns at Wheatfield, his estate a mile west of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The verdict would arrive any hour, and downstairs were friends, campaign workers, well-wishers, job hunters, and relatives, prepared to celebrate his victory, or disappear silently if one of his competitors had prevailed.
Six feet tall, heavyset, with a bald head and stern, square jaw, James Buchanan had entered politics in 1814 as a Federalist, and first appeared on the national scene in 1821 as a member of the U.S. Congress. Elected to the Senate in 1834, he then became chairman of the Judiciary Committee, ambassador to Russia, secretary of state in the Polk Administration, and ambassador to England during Franklin Pierce's administration. No one was more qualified to accede to the presidency than James Buchanan, or so many believed.
He had outlasted Henry Clay, James C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, the so-called “great triumvirate” of the Senate, in whose shadows he'd dwelled for most of his career. On numerous occasions the silver-tongued Henry Clay had tied the senator from Pennsylvania into verbal knots, and even visitors in the gallery had laughed at the slower-witted James Buchanan, but they didn't call him the Sage of Wheatfield because he was an ignoramus, and now he stood at the brink of the highest office in the land.
The South backed him solidly, because he had vowed to uphold the right to own slaves. In addition, a powerful Democratic political machine had been nurtured in the Northeast, particularly among immigrant Americans, and was expected to deliver substantial votes to his candidacy. His worst threat came from the strongly Republican West.
In the opinion of James Buchanan, the slavery issue was simple. Abolitionism was pushing America to civil war, and it would be his job, if elected, to stop the juggernaut of destruction that threatened the land.
James Buchanan personally opposed the “special institution,” but hoped that moderation on all sides, and the passage of time, would resolve the impending crisis. The Sage of Wheatfield was stubbornly determined to hold the Union together, figuring the best way was never under any circumstances to antagonize the solid South, his political base.
James Buchanan was unmarried, but in his youth had been engaged to Ann Coleman of Lancaster. However, she'd broken their engagement shortly before the wedding, because she'd suspected him unjustly of infidelity, and then she'd committed suicide. James Buchanan never courted another woman.
He enjoyed the appellation “Sage of Wheatfield”, but in 1840 his enemies dubbed him Ten-Cent Jimmy because in a speech before the Senate he had outlined the harmful conditions that would prevail unless the money system was reformed, and warned that workers would be reduced to earning ten cents an hour. With characteristic dishonesty his enemies turned his words around, and claimed he advocated paying workers ten cents an hour, the opposite of what he'd intended.
His most profound influence had been his father, who'd told him, “The more you know of mankind, the more you distrust them.” The candidate wondered what that calloused old farmer would think of his son's achievements, and then he heard the distant clatter of hoofbeats, followed by a rousing cheer.
I've won, he realized, and he arose behind his desk. A terrible foreboding came over him as the weight of the office he'd sought so ardently came to rest upon his shoulders. He heard footsteps in the hall, a knock on the door, then his niece, the beauteous Miss Harriet Lane, stood smiling with a document in her hand. “Congratulations, Mister President!” she declared.
“Glory be!” he replied as he hugged her. Then he took the paper and read disturbing numbers. He'd won 1,836,072 votes, compared to 1,342,345 for Frémont, and 873,053 for Fillmore. In other words, although he'd captured the White House, a majority of Americans had voted against him. Oh-oh, he thought, but he smiled like the old campaigner he was as he shook hands with well-wishers, accepted a glass of champagne, and listened to toasts made in his name. It was the pinnacle of James Buchanan's life, but somehow the champagne didn't taste so delightful, because often he doubted himself, a man who had been rejected by love.
Four
Wickiups were scattered across a high plateau, wind tossed snow in long curls though the darkness, and stars twinkled atop jagged eminences. All was silent, still, the People sleeping peacefully, except for their guard, who, covered with a buffalo fur robe, strolled the new campsite, his mulberry bow slung across his back, his cougar-skin quiver of arrows at his waist.
It was Ghost Face among the people, the long frigid season when snowdrifts impeded warfare, hunting, and gathering, providing time to pray, or discuss great deeds. The People had moved to an enclave high in the Black Range, where they could perceive enemies approaching from long distances. They lived upon a variety of dried fruits and vegetables, plus plenty of fresh meat, due to the generosity of subchief Juh.
As the guard continued his rounds, warriors sat in the sweat lodge, listening to storytellers. Glistening with perspiration, passing the pipe, they laughed occasionally, or became serious, like children enjoying nursery rhymes.
Captain Nathanial Barrington, formerly of the First Dragoons, sat among them, trying to be part of the ceremony; he had acquired a working knowledge of their language, as he'd learned French at West Point. But he felt like an outsider, relegated to the edge of the gathering. Prominent warriors like Mangas Coloradas, Juh, Victorio, and Barbonsito sat near the fire, as Nana retold the story of the killing of the monsters.
According to Apache mythology, the earth had been populated with monsters many eons ago, but then Killer of Enemies, an Apache demigod, had systematically massacred them in a saga reminiscent of the labors of Hercules. Killer of Enemies had been son of White Painted Woman, mother of the universe, who apparently had been adapted from Christian teaching about the Virgin Mary, and she'd even given birth immaculately to another demigod son called Child of Water.
Nathanial learned that Apaches maintained their religion by word of mouth, not book
s, Bibles, and encyclopedias. They appeared to live their faith more fervently than the White Eyes, who talked one game and played another.
The pipe was handed to him, and he wondered what they'd put into it, because he felt oddly lightheaded, even exalted, as if Apache cherubs danced on the roof of the sweat lodge. In the corner a musician plucked a lute slightly above a whisper, next to a solitary drummer beating gently.
Nathanial filled his lungs with pungent smoke, noticing many warriors carried scars, and one had lost an eye, the side of his cheek caved in, perhaps by a U.S. army saber. The West Pointer admired the brotherly love the warriors had for each other. They lived close to plants and animals, with no artifice such as found among so-called civilized Christians, who could be as bloody and brutal as any savages. The Apache Lifeway made sense to Nathanial, for the People resided in a harsh demanding region where crops could not be grown.
But the West Pointer had seen results of Apache depredations, including butchered white children, and had no illusions about the bronzed cougars of the desert among whom he sat. Had he not saved Jocita, the warriors would have lopped his head off, or staked him over an anthill, his face covered with honey. How odd to be sitting with my enemy, he mused. If only Jeffrey could see me now.
Jeffrey, his younger brother, was a plebe at West Point. Nathanial felt ashamed for never really spending much time with his little brother, and indeed barely knew him. Whenever Nathanial had gone home on leave, Jeffrey peppered him with questions about Indians, but Nathanial had been busy with his social whirl. Jeffrey would enjoy this, if he were here, reckoned Nathanial. I wonder what my little brother is doing right now?
At West Point a lone cadet marched along the dock, sword buckled at his waist, rifle perched on his shoulder. He was on guard duty at four o'clock in the morning.
Jeffrey peered down the glimmering Hudson River toward New York City and imagined his mother lying in bed, weeping over the demise of her beloved Nathanial. It appeared that she lost her will to live, so demoralized was she by the passing of her oldest son, Jeffrey's big brother.
Jeffrey—"Buck” among his fellow classmates—wore white trousers with a gray coatee. Atop his head sat a shako similar to those worn by Prussian hussars, with an eagle in front, sporting four black cock feathers. Back and forth he marched, searching for signs of danger, although nothing bad ever happened at West Point, except an occasional fight among cadets.
Buck Barrington didn't mind guard duty because it provided an opportunity to be alone. Like his mother, he still had not fully recovered from the death of his brother.
Nathanial had been the family hero, but now the frontier officer was dead, after passing most of his adult life fighting Apaches in New Mexico Territory. No one in Buck's social circle had ever done such a thing, and sometimes Buck wondered what strange passions had driven his brother, and indeed, what he was doing at West Point. He'd been enraged at Apaches after word arrived concerning the battle in the Mogollon Mountains, but now he wondered if there wasn't a better way than war.
Buck heard a footfall behind him, spun around, and raised his rifle to high port arms. “Halt—who goes there?”
“Major Delafield.”
A ray of moonlight fell across the graying chin whiskers of West Point's superintendent, who had graduated from the institution in 1818 at the head of his class, then appointed superintendent in 1838. “Pass on, sir.”
Major Delafield moved closer. “Cadet Barrington, how are you getting along?”
“Just fine, sir.”
The superintendent peered into the cadet's pale blue eyes. “I imagine it's not easy to lose a brother.”
“Sometimes I wonder what wars truly accomplish, sir.”
“Don't you think America is worth defending?”
“Defend against what, sir?”
“Every nation must protect its interests, which may be different from that of her neighbors. Nathanial understood that—I remember him well, a fine cadet he was, popular, athletic, who applied himself to his studies, and he might've become first captain, were it not for his many demerits, and certain other activities which perhaps I should not enumerate. But say what you will, Nathanial was a man of honor, and he believed in America. Don't you?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Cadet Barrington, once good men start equivocating, that's the end of civilization. So stay alert. You never know who might be passing the dock in the middle of the night, searching for a sleepy cadet.”
Wind whistled over the mountaintop, and an owl hooted in the distance, sending a chill up Ish-keh's spine, for Apaches believed owls were ghosts of criminals, even worse than bears or snakes. Carrying a robe made of wolf fur, she waited for the guard to pass, then continued on her way to a scraggly wickiup at the edge of the encampment. On her hands and knees at the entrance, she looked both ways, then crawled inside. Something twitched, Ish-keh saw the flash of a knife, and grabbed the wrist of Martita, a woman known as a sorceress.
Martita's body had been deformed since birth, her face misshapen, and she lived alone, emaciated, filthy, with no man to bring her meat, forced to accept charity. A pimple grew beneath her left eye, and a terrible odor emanated from her mouth. “What are you doing here, wife of Juh?” she asked.
Ish-keh turned her loose, then unrolled the wolf cape. “For you.”
Beneath the flap lay a horse's loin, causing Martita's eyes to widen. “You have never given me anything before, Ish-keh. What do you want?”
“A spell.”
Martita narrowed an eye. “What kind of spell?”
“A death spell.”
“That is a very serious matter.”
“You shall have anything you want.”
“Jocita?”
Ish-keh lowered her eyes. “Yes.”
“When?”
“The sooner the better.”
“Jocita is under the protection of Nana, who has powerful medicine. I shall require time.”
“If you kill Jocita, I will give you all the meat you desire for the rest of your miserable, scrawny life.”
Martita smiled, showing rotted stumps of teeth. “It shall be as you say.”
A map of New Mexico Territory was nailed to the door of Colonel Bonneville's office at the post in Albuquerque. He waddled back and forth in front of it, exchanging ideas with his officers.
“Our main obstacle,” he explained, “is the very vastness of the land. We simply don't know where the Apaches are.”
A hand was raised among the officers, and it belonged to Captain Richard Stoddert Ewell, a Virginian, “Old Bald Head” among the officers, who had campaigned successfully against the Mescalero Apaches in January of ‘55. “Sir, by spring the Apaches will have consumed their stored food and will need to forage for more. They travel with wives and children, and large bodies of slow-moving Apaches leave tracks, as do we. If we put enough soldiers into those mountains, with good scouts and a lot of determination, I'm confident we can locate them, particularly if we split our forces so as to cover more area.”
“It is an axiom of war,” replied Colonel Bonneville, “that we don't split forces in enemy territory.”
“The axioms of war don't apply with Apaches,” replied Old Bald Head, conqueror of the Mescaleros.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” said Colonel Bonneville.
It was Sergeant Major Frank Randall. “Dr. Steck would like to speak with you, sir.”
The officers frowned, grumbled, and otherwise showed displeasure at the sound of this name. Dr. Michael Steck was Commissioner of Indian Affairs in New Mexico Territory, and a constant thorn in the side of the army.
“Tell him I'm busy,” said Colonel Bonneville, “but I might be free next week.”
A voice came from the corridor. “I can't wait that long.” The sergeant major was nudged out of the doorway by a slightly built round-shouldered man dressed like a hunter or cowboy. Dr. Steck, a duly graduated doctor of medicine from Pennsylvania, took one look
at the assembled officers, but that didn't stop him from entering the office and walking directly toward Colonel Bonneville: “I understand you're planning a campaign against the Apaches.”
The appearance of a government functionary disconcerted Colonel Bonneville momentarily, because a promising military career could be derailed by such a man, but Old Bonney Clabber recovered quickly. “Military affairs are no concern of yours, Dr. Steck,” he replied. “You're interrupting a meeting, and I must ask you to leave, otherwise I shall be obliged to have you forcibly expelled.” Colonel Bonneville spoke in an offhand manner, as if Dr. Steck were a mosquito passing through the room, who could be squashed if not careful.
Sarcasm was not lost on Dr. Steck, who dared not push the army too far, otherwise he could be shot by accident and found in similar condition to Henry Linn Dodge. “On the contrary, Colonel Bonneville, military activities have a direct bearing on my work with the Apaches, since the army so often undermines my efforts to civilize them.”
Colonel Bonneville narrowed a cynical eye. “Unfortunately, your efforts thus far have produced negligible results. That's why the army is here—to protect citizens. And we protect you too, Dr. Steck. If it weren't for us, the Apaches would've killed you long ago.”
“You can murder all the Apaches,” replied Dr. Steck icily, “but that is not the Christian way.”
“But it's fine for them to murder us,” replied Bonneville, “because the poor noble savages simply can't help themselves, and they're only fighting to save their beloved homeland, isn't that correct? Dr. Steck, the reason I don't talk with you is I know what you're going to say before you open your mouth. Captain Covington, will you please show Dr. Steck the door?”