Bloody Trail

by Ford Fargo

  He could not help but start when he suddenly realized that someone was sitting on the rock beside him. The man was no more than a shadow at first, but then the firelight revealed him to be the Seminole scout.

  “Damn, Charley,” Derrick said in a hoarse whisper. “I never heard you come up, you scared the hell out of me. Where’d you come from?”

  “I been pokin’ around some,” Charley answered. “Tryin’ to find somethin’ to tie some blankets to and rig up a travois in case the doc needs one or two when he sets out in the mornin’. Torrance and that deputy was hurt pretty bad, might not can ride.”

  “Out there in the dark?”

  Charley shrugged. “Too dark to track, and too dark for most in this outfit to ride. But not too dark for a Seminole to look around a mite.”

  “I guess not. What did you find?”

  “This and that.”

  Derrick waited, thinking the scout would elaborate, but he did not. They sat for awhile in silence.

  Charley Blackfeather could tell that the white man was uncomfortable. He’d have been a lot more than uncomfortable, Charley mused, if I had been an enemy intent on slipping into the camp. He’d be choking on his own blood, trying to breathe through a windpipe that had been sliced open. Charley had done just that to many a sentry, starting when he was a boy in Florida.

  Derrick shifted his weight, nervous, almost like he could read Charley’s thoughts. Charley did not move, he only stared into the darkness. After a couple of minutes, Derrick broke the silence.

  “Gallagher handled himself well in that ambush. Surprised us all, didn’t he? And Torrance—I don’t reckon I ever even seen him with a gun before today.”

  “Yep,” Charley said. This time Derrick thought he would say no more, but then the scout turned to look directly at him and continued. “Seems like our hostler been carryin’ a secret.”

  “I reckon so.”

  Charley grunted. “I just been bringin’ my pelts in to Wolf Creek for a few months. But I already figured out, most ever’body in that town is carryin’ a secret of one kind or another.”

  Derrick nodded. “I guess that’s how it is, out here on the frontier. Especially with all the folks that have moved into town since the railroad came. Probably not so much with the ones that’ve been here since it was first settled, though.”

  “I heard some folks talkin’, back before the ambush,” Charley said. “Talkin’ low among their selves when we slowed down for a bit, probably didn’t know I could hear ‘em. Red Myers, it was, and them deputies.”

  “Talking about what?”

  “About Danby’s gang bein’ Johnny Rebs, same as some in this posse. How they wasn’t sure who to trust. Mostly they meant Spike Sweeney, seems like, but they mentioned you, too. Said you was brung up in their town, but when the war come, you rode off to join the Rebels.”

  Derrick sighed. “I’ve been back home for years. Seems like they’d let that go. I’m not some drifter that followed the railroad here. My folks helped found the town.”

  “But you was Secesh.”

  “My family was from the South—Tennessee, originally. My pa brought us here on account of ‘popular sovereignty.’ He used to go on about it all the time.”

  “Popular sovereignty,” Charley repeated. “You mean votin’ on slavery.”

  Derrick’s discomfort had been fading, since his companion had started conversing with him instead of sitting in stoic silence. Now, it returned tenfold.

  “Well, yeah,” Derrick said. “A lot of people who came to Kansas in those days came because they were on one side of that argument or the other.”

  “And your pa was for slavery.”

  “Yeah.”

  Charley chuckled, and a genuine smile lit his face. “I was agin it,” he said.

  Derrick could not help chuckling as well—the smile put him at ease a little. “I reckon that makes sense,” Derrick said.

  “Uh-huh,” Charley agreed. “My pa had strong feelin’s about slavery, too. On account of he was born one, back in Georgia. But he run off, and made it to the swamps. The Seminoles took him in, like they did a lot of others. He got adopted, took a Seminole wife. I was born in the Everglades. I been a free man my whole life.”

  Charley chuckled again, but this one was tinged with bitterness.

  “Well, almost my whole life,” he continued. “Until the end of the last Seminole war. I was in John Horse’s band, and we was slow to give up. We was lucky we didn’t get put in one of them filthy prisons, like Osceola died in. Instead they marched us out west to Indian Territory. We didn’t even have our own land there at first, we had to live in the Creek Nation. And a lot of us had broke off from the Creeks, way back yonder in the Red Stick War.”

  “Sounds like your people have seen a lot of wars,” Derrick said.

  Charley nodded. “They kinda blend together, after awhile. Life is war, I reckon, for a lot of us, anyways.”

  “I wish that when a war ended it would stay ended,” Derrick said.

  Charley stared at him again. “So you rode Secesh on account of your pa.”

  “More than anything, I reckon,” Derrick said. “And my brothers. They both rode east and joined the Confederate Army. They told me to stay home and help out on the farm, that I was too young to fight—but I followed after them anyway, and I joined up too.”

  “But you came back,” Charley said.

  “Yeah, when the war was over I came back. My brothers died in Tennessee.”

  “Not when the war was over,” Charley said, his voice suddenly cold. “When the war was still goin’ on. You came back to this neck of the woods—or at least this side of the Mississippi.”

  Derrick stiffened, and his grip on the rifle tightened.

  “For somebody that’s been so quiet all day,” Derrick said, “you sure have a lot to say all of a sudden.”

  “You think I been talkin’ to pass the time?” Charley said. “I come over here to let you know.”

  “Know what?”

  Charley produced his Bowie knife—seemingly from thin air—and waved it before Derrick’s face.

  “Loosen your holt on that rifle, son,” Charley said. “Don’t make no sudden motions.”

  Derrick reluctantly did as he was told, and Charley took the weapon away from him.

  “Now, you just set there,” Charley said. “I got some more talkin’ to do.”

  “Let me know about what,” Derrick repeated.

  “Who I am, and who you are.”

  Charley set the rifle down and took the knife away from Derrick’s face.

  “I know you didn’t spend the whole war back East,” Charley said. “You was in Centralia, Missouri, in September of 1864 with Bloody Bill Anderson and a bunch of others that rode with Quantrill. Danby was there, too. And me. I was there.”

  Derrick shook his head slowly, closing his eyes briefly and sighing. Charley kept talking.

  “I’ve seen you around town a time or two, comin’ and goin’, but I never got a good look at you. Not till today, when Danby’s bunch hit town. I seen him takin’ shots at you and Torrance—I reckon it was seein’ you and Danby together that done it. But I remembered. I won’t never forget that day.”

  Charley pushed his face close to Derrick’s. “Look close, boy. You remember me now?”

  Derrick’s eyes widened. “Damn,” he said softly.

  “I reckon we all look alike to you Rebs,” Charley said. “But you stuck in my mind right off that day, on account of at first I thought you was a Cherokee. You favor one. I was wearin’ this same hat, if that helps—though we was all wearin’ blue on my side.”

  “No—I remember. I remember you now.”

  Derrick McCain put his head in his hands.

  ****

  Charley Blackfeather had been reliving his memories all day. He had kept a close eye on Derrick McCain the whole time the posse was on the outlaws’ trail, and hung on the snatches of conversation coming from Red, the tanner’s helper, about M
cCain’s past.

  Charley figured he had more reason to distrust ex-Confederates than anyone else on the posse—and not just because of his black skin. In his youth, his people had fought the U.S. Army—not only to resist forcible removal from their homeland to an unknown country west of the Mississippi, but to resist demands that they turn over their black members to be sent into slavery. Osceola himself had a black wife—he and many other Seminoles were willing to risk their lives to keep their black brothers and sisters free.

  The Black Seminoles had their own fighting bands, with leaders like John Horse and John Caesar. Charley accompanied his father to war when he was only twelve years old—and continued in that struggle when he was a man, long after his father had fallen. John Horse surrendered to the Army only after they had promised his band freedom if they agreed to accompany the other captured Seminoles to Indian Territory. Then came the long walk—countless Seminoles perished along the way.

  Once in Indian Territory, the Seminoles were forced for many years to live in the Creek Nation. The Seminoles had broken away from the Creeks many years before—and after the Red Stick War ended in 1814, Seminole numbers had been swelled by traditionalist Creeks fleeing Alabama.

  Many of their Creek neighbors in Indian Territory had slaves—as did many Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws. Black Seminoles, many of whom had lived their whole lives as free warriors, became the frequent targets of slave-catchers who were as likely to be Indian as white. The unwary black Indian could find himself kidnapped and sold into slavery—sometimes even by the red Seminoles who had been their battle comrades. John Horse led a large group of Black Seminoles to Mexico, where there was no slavery, and offered their services to the Mexican army.

  Charley Blackfeather had not gone with them. There were communities of free black Indians in the Creek Nation, and a large number of full blood Creeks and Seminoles who held onto the old ways and opposed slavery. Charley had cast his lot among them. Eventually, like his father before him, he took a full blood Seminole woman as his wife. Her name was Hachi, and she bore him three children, two sons and a daughter.

  But life, it seemed to Charley, meant war—and peace was only the brief interlude between battles. War came once more to the Seminoles, and once more, slavery was a factor.

  The United States was divided by a great Civil War. Both sides sought the Indian Nations as allies. The leaders of all five of the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes”—Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles—allied with the Confederacy. Many of those leaders had established plantations along the Red and Arkansas Rivers, and owned slaves. But some citizens of those tribes—especially Seminoles and Creeks—opposed both slavery and the Confederacy.

  Indian Territory, too, was divided by Civil War.

  Feeling threatened by their pro-Confederate governments, thousands of pro-Union Indians flocked to the camp of the old Creek warrior Opothloyahola. With their women and children, they marched north toward Kansas, where the Union Army had promised to give them sanctuary. Charley and his family were among them.

  It was not to be a peaceful exodus. Confederate forces—including Cherokee and Choctaw troops, as well as some Texas Rangers—attacked the emigrants. The journey to Kansas became a running battle. Of nine thousand Opothleyahola followers, two thousand died. Charley’s sons, aged sixteen and fourteen, fought valiantly. The youngest, named Billy for his grandfather, fell at Round Mountain. The eldest, Jack, was killed at Chustenahlah.

  They finally arrived in Kansas in December, and were sent to refugee camps near Fort Belmont. Most of the Indians had only the clothes on their backs. The federal government was not prepared to accommodate so many people in winter, and did not have sufficient food or shelter. Many more of Opothleyahola’s followers died of sickness and exposure. The old chief Opothleyahola was among those who perished. So was Charley Blackfeather’s wife, Hachi, and their daughter, May.

  Many of the surviving warriors were eager for revenge on the Confederates—the white and Indian ones alike. Union Indian regiments were formed—mostly Seminole and Creek, but with a good number of Cherokees and a handful from other tribes. Charley, like many escaped slaves and free blacks from the Indian Nations, joined a Kansas colored regiment. Most of its troops were ex-slaves from Missouri and Arkansas, but about a third were from the Nations, and most of that number were Seminoles.

  Over the next three years, Charley saw action in Indian Territory, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri. On more than one occasion, his outfit fought against guerrilla bands—Charley came to view those Southern irregulars as the lowest of scum.

  On September 27, 1864, that opinion was solidified forever.

  Charley’s company—what was left of it after a lengthy period of campaigning with no replacements—was attached to the 39th Missouri Mounted Infantry. The largest part of the Union force in the region had moved east to defend St. Louis—the 39th was charged with preventing guerrilla depredations along the Kansas-Missouri border.

  They received word of just such a depredation—a bloody guerrilla raid in Centralia, Missouri. The 39th rushed to the town’s rescue. Late in the afternoon they spotted a small band of Rebs, and the commanding major ordered a full-on charge at them. Charley and many other seasoned veterans were very uneasy about those tactics, but in the heat of the moment there was no time to argue. Major Johnston ordered his men to fire a volley into the fleeing guerrillas.

  As soon as their weapons were discharged, the trap was sprung. The hills around them came alive with whooping Rebs, busting forth now from their hiding places. It was the oldest trick in the book, and the Yankees had blundered right into it.

  Hundreds of Confederate raiders were upon them, and there was no time to reload. Most of the Rebs carried revolvers—in some cases, several of them. The firepower was withering, and the Yankees were scattered—it quickly turned in to a rout. The Missouri Union men and their black comrades rode desperately, trying to find an escape avenue, but there was none. Men and horses fell screaming all around Charley. Rebs rode down unsaddled Yankees—trampling some, shooting others, and occasionally slashing at them with sabers.

  Charley saw his friend Sango Chedakis several yards away; the younger Seminole had been thrown from his dying horse and seemed dazed himself. He had lost his weapons in the fall. Sango’s father, Cudjoe, had been one of Charley’s oldest friends, since they had fought together as teens back in the Everglades. Only a couple of years older than Charley, Cudjoe had stepped in and taken him under his wing when Charley’s father died in battle. Cudjoe and Charley had been taken prisoner and sent to Indian Territory together, and their sons played together. Cudjoe had been killed in the flight of Opothleyahola, the same as Charley’s two boys; in the years since then Charley had taken his dead friend’s son under his own wing, and in some ways, they had become to one another the father and son each had lost at the hands of the Rebels.

  Charley had barely had time to register Sango’s plight when one of the Confederates galloped past the youth—a lanky, hatless man with a shock of red hair. A saber flashed in the sun, and Sango’s head sailed away from his body in a bloody arc. The Rebel never slowed down. His face was burned into Charley’s memory, though—and he saw it again, on the day Danby’s gang raided Wolf Creek. Rebel Red wasn’t among the bodies of the outlaws left behind with Wes Hammond to ambush the posse—which meant he was still out there, among the killers they were still pursuing.

  Before Charley could react to Sango’s death, his own mount was shot from under him and he was sent hurtling to the ground. He twisted and hit the grass in a roll, coming up with his Bowie knife and tomahawk both drawn. He surveyed the scene—and saw Union soldiers throwing down empty rifles and raising their hands in surrender, only to be executed. Some begged tearfully for their lives, to no avail. Raiders stooped over fallen Yankees and scalped them or cut off pieces of them for souvenirs.

  Such sights no doubt instilled ever more fear into the Yankees who still fought on, but had
little effect on Charley Blackfeather. In his world it had always been standard battlefield behavior. He had not only seen it before, he had dealt it out—and he had no illusions that any amount of begging would prevent him from suffering such treatment from an enemy, nor would it ever have occurred to him to try even if he thought it might.

  A laughing Reb on a black horse charged straight at him. Charley jumped aside and hurled his tomahawk in a fluid motion. It thunked into the front of the man’s skull, splitting his face like a melon. Charley leaped into the saddle even as the dying Reb slid to the ground. Charley took the reins and sped toward the opening of the draw.

  Three men from his unit, still mounted, wheeled away from the slaughter and joined him in his flight. For one mad moment, Charley thought they might actually make it.

  But then a group of Confederate horsemen cut them off and blocked their way. Within moments, more Rebs came from behind. They were surrounded.

  “Hold up, boys,” one of the Rebs called out to the others. He was a thin, hawk-faced man. His eyes were wild with bloodlust, and his mouth was twisted into a hateful sneer.

  “Hold your fire!” the man commanded.

  “But Captain Danby!” one of the men answered. “We got ‘em!”

  “Oh, we got ‘em,” Danby said. “We got ever’ one of the sumbitches. But there ain’t no need to be in a hurry now, we got this thing won.”

  Charley’s gaze was drawn to a hatless young Reb who was reined in beside Danby. He was in his early twenties, with a shock of dark hair and dusky skin. He was an Indian, probably Cherokee.

  “Ain’t no need to rush,” Danby was saying. “I mean, look at what we got here. We got us some live niggers in Yankee blue—been shootin’ at white folks! A quick death is too good for ‘em. We need to do somethin’ special, make a good example.”

  “Like what, Jim?” one of the men said. He was tall and rangy, with long stringy hair.

  Danby’s sneer grew wider. “Well, Wes, I say we skin ‘em alive.” He gestured at the dark youth beside him. “You’re pretty handy with that lasso, kid, and I seen you back at the train standin’ around like you was lookin’ for somethin’ to do. Rope me that big buck yonder with the feathers, looks like he’s most likely to give us trouble.” He laughed. “Maybe we can braid you a new rope out of his hide!”