The young commander had not guessed that an attack would come that morning, nor did he have any inkling of the Indian plan of battle. But his few engagements with the aboriginals had been enough to give him a feel for the enemy. Bradley understood, as did few of his peers, that to fight Indians effectively required leadership of an instinctive sort. In a land bare of all but the most natural elements it behooved any commander to make himself as much a part of the landscape as possible. He had realized after his initial debacle that the only individual he should rely upon was himself and to do that he had better “listen” to the enemy and to the country as much as possible. The captain had listened attentively in succeeding months, and though it could not be said he understood the language of nature, he was open to it and responding instinctively.
Captain Bradley had organized his defenses with little analytical thought and it was well that he did for in deviating from normal practice he successfully parried the surprisingly clever strategy of his native adversaries. The attack on the horse herd was no more than a ploy to divert attention from the real attack, which came a few moments after the sky had lightened, when a legion of warriors, estimated at more than two hundred, thundered out of the east' seeking to overrun the bivouac and kill everyone in it.
In a state of calm he could not have explained, Captain Bradley had his waiting troops hold fire until the charging wave of Indians was within a hundred yards. When he did give the command, the line of rifles exploded as one, lashing the first ranks of horsemen with a fiery galelike blast that shattered their momentum. As riflemen reloaded and the enemy tried to gather itself the Gatling gun sprayed a lethal curtain of bullets over the field. In less than a minute it malfunctioned, but by that time critical damage had been done to the enemy, who were withdrawing in disarray.
For more than an hour afterward, Indian snipers shot into the camp but the firing dwindled steadily until, at mid-morning, it was ascertained that the enemy had forsaken the field.
Aside from the three enlisted men and one officer who had been killed, the only material loss was a significant portion of stores and this was due entirely to bad luck. A stray enemy round had struck a keg of gunpowder packed on a mule and the crazed animal, exploding in flame, had careened into the tents, setting several on fire.
Included among the completely and partially destroyed tents were two belonging to the quartermaster which contained a large supply of rations, and Captain Bradley concluded his report to General Mackenzie by expressing doubt that his command could remain much longer in the field without being resupplied.
He was tempted to include the interesting anecdote of a white man riding with the savages who attacked the horse herd, but, deciding that it was not germane, omitted the strange sighting attested to by several of the horse-herd defenders. He did add that, while he was impelled to detach some manpower to escort the wounded back to For Richardson, he would stay in the field and continue his mission for as long as was feasible, or until he received contrary directives.
As his dispatch was carried east by two good horsemen, accompanied by a pair of Tonkawa scouts, Bradley turned his energies to sorting through the fight's aftermath and the Indian bodies collected for examination. There were four Comanche, two Kiowa, and one Cheyenne, which led to the quite logical conclusion that the hostiles had formed a working alliance.
The Tonkawas requested the bodies, and despite Captain Bradley's refusal, they eventually managed to purloin one. The remaining six were left where they lay and after burying his own dead and salvaging all useable goods, Captain Bradley marched his column back onto the prairie. Though he knew he would not go very far that day, he wanted to impress the enemy with his resiliency.
As they angled west, the latest in the never-ending series of storms lifted, a break in the weather that mirrored a rising of the young commander's spirits. Morale was high and he perceived a renewed snap in the attention to orders and their execution. The attack on the horse herd had resulted in the loss of only six animals, and despite the necessity of reducing rations by half, it was likely that the command could last another two weeks in the field without being seriously compromised.
Three days later as the command was meandering about in broken country adjacent to the great caprock barrier to the Staked plains, the captain's spirits received another boost with the return of his messengers.
With them was a reply from Fort Sill, signed by Mackenzie's adjutant but obviously dictated by the general. The new instructions acknowledged receipt of Captain Bradley's report and directed him to march north and east to a point where he would rendezvous with a supply train being sent our from Fort Belknap. Once refurbished, he was to continue his long sweep up from the south for an eventual rendezvous with a column from Fort Sill under the command of General Mackenzie, whose departure was imminent.
Best of all, there was a postscript floating below the adjutant's signature which read as follows:
"The general wishes to convey his complete satisfaction at results of the late engagement described in your report. Additionally, he wishes to express his affirmation of the initiatives you have taken subsequent to the skirmish with hostile forces."
Captain Bradley had his own adjutant read the postscript aloud at roll call the following morning. The rank and file greeted the reading with cheers and, as they marched off to the northeast after breakfast, all recent privation was forgotten. The campaign's foundation had been unerringly laid. Now it was going into full motion, and for Captain Bradley it was easy to believe that the final outcome would be total victory.
Chapter XLIX
Though he remained the most respected man of the delegation, Ten Bears' purposeful maintenance of a certain attitude set him apart from the others. From the old man's vantage point, even Kicking Bird operated far below him as the visitors from the plains proceeded through their exhausting Washington itinerary.
Each day was packed with meetings, receptions, and sightseeing, all carefully orchestrated by an army of white officialdom. Its purpose was to overwhelm the peace leadership with an endless array of devastating impressions which would keep them reeling. Washington had practiced the same bloodless warfare for decades with striking success. Few Indians left the city without recognizing they had already been defeated by a culture whose size, energy, technology, and appetite altogether eclipsed their own.
Supposedly predicated on substance, the meetings with various government agencies followed the theme of producing an unforgettable show of power. Invariably, the men of the prairie were conducted through an inconceivably grand public building before meeting their human hosts in a room furnished with excessive and ravish distractions.
There were spirited exchanges at the Interior Department where many pointed questions about the mechanics of reservation life were asked, and at the War Department, where Kicking Bird lectured General Sherman on the limited control any elder can expect to exercise over the young. And the meetings were, of course, bracketed with eating sessions and demonstrations of magical apparatuses which effectively overshadowed the substance of the official discussions.
Apart from showing him deference owing to his age, the whites paid little attention to Ten Bears. It was a neglect the old man welcomed, for he had little to say on the issues of war and peace, and he was often seen dozing during the weightiest conferences.
That was not to say that the Comanche headman was bored. His interest in white civilization was profound, and his apparent lack of engagement was merely a way to stay focused on his more elementary agenda.
On the third morning of the stay in Washington, following a tour of the city's waterworks, he stayed behind to question the director while the rest of the delegation hurried off to see a horse race. Standing next to a set of huge turbines which pumped water to those who could afford it, Ten Bears' interpreter filtered the Comanche words into English for the director of public works, a fat, florid, and genial man who rejoiced in his work. He stood with one hand cupped to an ear, intent
on all that the old man had to say.
"When refuse grows in our camp, we move," Ten Bears stated.
"Uh-huh. ."
"White men stay in one place."
"Uh-huh."
"Where does this refuse go?"
"Ah!" the director exclaimed. "Good question! Would Mr. Ten Bears like to see?"
Ten Bears nodded without hesitation and a few minutes later they were riding toward the outskirts of the city in an open carriage.
Long before they reached the dump, Ten Bears noticed a change in the sky's complexion that could not be linked to any natural element of weather. In the distance columns of dark smoke curled in the atmosphere, merging, then flattening out in a single, great blanket that dulled the sun.
All manner of conveyances piled high with garbage clogged the approach to the dumping ground, and when at last the carriage came to a stop within its confines, Ten Bears found himself surrounded by hillocks of smoldering waste, each the size of several lodges.
"Does the smoke stay here?” Ten Bears asked.
"No, no," the director replied eagerly, “it goes away. . it disappears. But I suppose you could say it's here all the time. The dump is always open."
"Too much smoke,” Ten Bears observed absently.
His every word was translated, and upon hearing his casual aside, the director was prompted to look skyward for a moment of inconclusive meditation.
"Well,” he began earnestly, “eventually there will be too much smoke. The population is expected to double in the next twenty-five or thirty years."
When this was translated, Ten Bears asked that it be repeated, and when he heard it again he was still unsure if he had heard right.
"Two times as many white people?. . In twenty-five snows?”
"Yes," the director assured him, "but we are working on alternatives. We don't possess the means yet, but it seems likely that in the future trash will be buried."
"In the earth?" Ten Bears questioned, his face frozen in shock.
"Why. . yes."
“The earth is alive.”
The director didn't fully grasp the concept.
"Well. . uh. . yes,” he stammered, “but it has to go somewhere.”
The men were silent for a time as their team jogged smoothly back in the direction of the city. Ten Bears had closed his eyes, but just his white hosts thought he might have drifted off, the old man's head jumped forward and his eyes flew open.
"I didn't see any feces or urine. Where do you put that?”
The director's stare was so incredulous and intense as to cause Ten Bears to wonder briefly if his question had not provoked a spell of insanity in his companion. But a moment later a grateful smile spread across the director's small mouth.
"Thank you, Mr. Ten Bears, thank you for asking,” he said.
The director's thankfulness was heartfelt. Not a day went by that he didn't long to hear the question Ten Bears had asked. His longing usually went unrequited, for the disposal of human waste was not a topic that excited public interest. But here was a man who wanted to know. It didn't matter to the director if he spoke a language of grunts or dressed in the skins of animals or attached eagle talons and eagle feathers to his head. The director was happy to share his excitement.
The sewer system, which had finally become operational only six months before, was the crown jewel of his career. He launched into an animated technical explanation of the system but had barely spoken a few sentences before the translator threw up his hands and explained to the director that most of what he was saying could not be turned into Comanche.
"Ask Mr. Ten Bears if he would allow me to show him the system."
The translator passed this on, listened to the response, and turned again to the director.
"He says he would like that very much."
Shortly after arriving back at the administrator's office they were off again, traveling for only a few minutes before turning up a broad residential avenue flanked by enormous houses that Ten Bears was astonished to learn held but one family each.
Halfway up the street they pulled behind an empty wagon apparently belonging to a pair of burly, taciturn workmen who had taken up a position in the center of the street. Ten Bears noticed that one of the men was shouldering a length of stout metal and, when they reached the middle of the street, he discovered that the men were standing over a large metal disc fitted perfectly into the roadway.
"Have you defecated in a water closet, Mr. Ten Bears?" asked the director.
“Yes."
"And have you pulled the chain and seen your feces disappear?"
"Yes, I did that. It went down a hole and didn't come back."
"Good. Now. ." Here the director paused to pick out the first mansion he chanced to see. "If you were in that house and defecated in its water closer and pulled the chain, your feces would disappear into a tube. The tube would carry your feces out here."
Ten Bears understood the various parts of the director's explanation but could not put them together, and, thinking he might have missed something, glanced regularly at the interpreter.
“If you please, gentlemen, lift off the manhole,” the director commanded, as if he were about to reveal a fabulous jewel.
The man with the steel bar inserted it into the disc's edge and, in a show of prodigious strength, levered the heavy plate high enough to be grasped by his companion. Together they rolled the huge wheel of metal to one side, leaving a hole in the street.
Ten Bears peered into the hole and caught the unmistakable odor of excrement. At the same time, he picked up the sound of moving water.
Ten Bears glanced at the director. The white man smiled knowingly, as if in concert with Ten Bears, and began to gesture expansively at the houses of the rich.
"Every house has such a tube and all the tubes flow into this big one."
"A river," Ten Bears offered.
"Exactly," the delighted director replied. “We have made a river to carry away the waste from our bodies.”
Ten Bears gazed deeper into the hole.
"But where does it flow?” he asked.
"Ah-ha!" the director exclaimed, raising an emphatic finger in front of his face. "I will show you."
They clambered back into the carriage and in a few blocks turned east on a road parallel to the brooding river that hugged the city, following it to the desolate outskirts of town.
The carriage pulled up to a fenced portion of the adjacent waterway's banks and Ten Bears was escorted to a spot where a door had been made in the fence. The director pushed a key into the door and a few steps later Ten Bears was gazing down at four enormous tubes, all of them spewing effluent into the river.
Though the air was heavy with stink, Ten Bears stood mesmerized. At last he looked at the director and lifted an arm over the Potomac River.
"Is this a river of feces, too?”
"No, this river only carries the sewage away.”
"Where does it go?"
"To the ocean."
"The great water that goes forever?"
“Yes,"
Ten Bears looked downriver. He regarded the gushing tubes once more and sank into thought.
"What will happen when the great waters fill with feces?”
“Oh, no,” the director chuckled. “The ocean cannot be filled."
Chapter L
Ten Bears was still awake when Kicking Bird came back and they talked about the events of the day over a pipe.
Kicking Bird had been, impressed with the races. Just like Comanches, the white people got very excited when the horses ran, though some were demonstrably sad or angry when wagers were lost. Both men agreed that it was one more sign among many that the whites lacked pride.
"What did you do, Grandfather?”
"I was shown a river,” Ten Bears answered.
"That big river we saw?”
"No, this one runs under the earth. It was made by the hair-mouths. I think one of its streams runs below this place w
here we are sitting.” Kicking Bird was too stunned to speak.
"Do you know what it carries?” Ten Bears asked.
Kicking Bird moved his head numbly back and forth.
"It carries the white man's excrement.” Kicking Bird's mouth fell open and the blood drained from his face.
Chapter LI
Two days before their scheduled departure, the meeting with the generals at the War Department took place. As the delegation filed out, Ten Bears paused at a balcony while the others down a long line of steps to a convoy of carriages which were to them to an afternoon portrait session at one of the city's leading photographic studios.
His position behind the balcony's stone railing afforded a comprehensive view of the sprawling city, and as Ten Bears filled his eyes with the evidence of white proliferation, he was struck with a question that had been haunting his thoughts.
A high-ranking, crisply groomed colonel had escorted the delegation to the exit, and, seeing Ten Bears standing alone, he sidled over and commented on the grandeur of the view.
Ten Bears responded with an uncomprehending nod, then thought to himself, Maybe this soldier knows.
The old man caught the attention of one of the interpreters, calling him over with a few flicks of a hand. Out of courtesy Ten Bears asked for a translation of the colonel's remark.
“Yes,” the old man replied. “I have never seen a village of this size.”
He glanced at the colonel, then at the interpreter.
"There is something I do not understand,” he announced.
"Perhaps I can help you," the colonel offered.
"I have seen the white people feasting in the rooms where they pay money. I see them eat lots of meat. I see this in the pay money rooms. Do the families eat meat in their lodges as well?”
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