Shortgrass Song

by Mike Blakely

  Angus reined his horse in. “All right, I guess I might as well tell you,” he said.

  Shorty stopped his mustang and turned in the saddle to look at Angus. “Tell me what? For the love of Jesus Christ, what have you got planned now?”

  Angus clenched the cigar stub in his teeth and grinned with conceit. “Remember that Kickapoo I told you I met outside of Laredo? The one that spoke English?”

  “Yeah. What about him?”

  “He told me an old friend of ours was on his way back to the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation in the Territory.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Kicking Dog.”

  Shorty’s mouth dropped open under his wispy mustache. “Oh, no. I thought Kicking Dog was dead.”

  “Nope, he never was dead. He joined the Northern Cheyenne and ran with the Sioux for a while way up north, gutted some of Custer’s boys at the Little Bighorn. But the Indian Police got after him, so he left, headin’ for the Territory. At least that’s what that Kickapoo told me.”

  “How the hell would a Mexican Kickapoo know what Kicking Dog was up to?”

  “The Injun telegraph, Shorty. It ain’t got no wires or operators, but it gets the message home. Besides, it makes sense that Kicking Dog would head back to the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation. He started out a Southern Arapaho.”

  “He started out loco,” Shorty said, bug-eyed, “and got worse with every scalp he ever took. That Indian scares the tar out of me, Angus.”

  Mackland tapped his horse with his spurs and motioned for Shorty to continue north with him. “That’s what you always say, Shorty. You’re always scared till we get a posse on our rear ends. Then your face takes on the dangedest expression of happiness I ever saw.”

  “That’s ‘cause it feels so damn nice and warm in my britches all of a sudden.”

  Angus laughed. “I’ve seen you grin like a possum in a fight. You’re like a big ol’ boar coon, Shorty. You’re a coward till you’re cornered, then you turn grizzly and whip ass.”

  Angus chuckled as he rode on, and Shorty, honored, quit complaining. He only hoped they could get out of Texas without running into rangers. And, once into the Territory, he hoped they wouldn’t find Kicking Dog. He hoped the Indian telegraph had picked up a false rumor. Kicking Dog truly frightened him.

  They rode in silence, the dry north wind blowing cool in their faces. September rains had brought the green luster back to the rocky swells. Frost would kill it brown soon, but for now it was a time of rich beauty on the Southern Plains.

  As they topped the divide between the Brazos and the Wichita, they held the brims of their hats against the wind whipping over the ridge and scouted for any form of trouble that might lie in their path. All they saw were a few white pyramids rising from the greenery, far scattered across the valley.

  “What are them white things?” Shorty asked. He squinted, his eyesight poor. “Tents? Looks like they got flags on top.”

  “Those are buffalo bones. Some fool’s been gatherin’ ’em to sell. They put their name on a sign on top of the pile to stake their claim on it. I saw them doin’ it in ’74, when the marshals ran me into Colorado. If you didn’t have me to take care of you, Shorty, that’s the kind of work you’d have to do to make your livin’.”

  Shorty snorted. “That’s a lie. If I hadn’t throwed in with you, I could have been an honest interpreter in the Territory.”

  The big outlaw started down into the broad valley of the South Wichita. “That’s what you were tryin’ to do when I found you starvin’, remember? Come on, let’s go see if the name on that pile is whose I think it is.”

  “What? Whose name? What do you mean?”

  “Come on, you’ll see.”

  They angled a mile to the nearest stack of bones to read the sign. The front of it faced north, so they couldn’t see the letters until they got around it. Angus jerked his reins in and squinted. “T. Wiley,” he muttered.

  “Never heard of him,” Shorty said. “Come on, let’s get down in them trees along the river and make a camp out of this wind. It gives me an earache.”

  Angus was laughing; roaring with mirth. “By God, it’s her, all right!”

  “Who?”

  “Tess Wiley. What the hell would she be doin’ out here stackin’ bones?”

  “Who’s Tess Wiley? Some whore you knew?”

  Angus guffawed and tugged at the long black beard. “Watch what you say, Shorty. Tess Wiley was my wife. Don’t you remember the one I brought out of Arkansas?”

  “How’d you know she was pickin’ bones away out here?”

  “I make it my business to know shit like that.”

  In reality, Angus had come by the knowledge by pure luck. On the way north from Mexico, he and Shorty had found an old compatriot tending bar at a road ranch outside of Brady City. Hank Gibbitts, who had gone straight except when it came to fencing the occasional stolen horse, mentioned that he had made a trip horseback to Wichita Falls recently and had seen Tess Wiley in a bone camp with some fiddling drifter. Shorty had missed out on the intelligence only because he had been in a drunken stupor.

  Now Angus took the cigar butt from his teeth and flicked it at Tess Wiley’s carved sign. “Looks like the little bitch has gone and dishonored me by takin’ her maiden name back. Seems she needs remindin’ of her vows.”

  EIGHTY-TWO

  The wind kept shifting in the trees around the old buffalo camp. Tess couldn’t keep out of the smoke. She had beans and bacon cooking in a skillet, sourdough biscuits in a Dutch oven. She had stacked a lot of bones that day. The snakebite had swollen some and kept her off her feet a day or two, but hardly left a scar. Caleb was away, freighting a load of bones to Wichita Palls. It was almost dark. She planned to eat her supper and go straight to the tent to sleep. When the smoke came around on her again, she simply closed her eyes and held her breath. She was too tired to keep shuffling in a circle around the fire. When she opened her eyes again, she saw movement in the bushes near the old skull-marked graves. A runty little man materialized. She found a burst of energy and sprinted for the Studebaker wagon. Grabbing Caleb’s Winchester, she thumbed the hammer back and swung the barrel around on the intruder.

  “Whoa, lady,” Shorty said, raising his hands. “I don’t mean you no harm.”

  “What are you doin’ here?”

  “My horse throwed me about five miles south. I was wonderin’ if you’d seen him.”

  “No, I ain’t seen no horses.”

  “He’s a little bay mustang, wearin’ an old beat-up slick-fork saddle and a…”

  “I said I ain’t seen no horses. Now, git!” Tess shouldered the rifle and found the little man in the sights.

  She felt a weight strike her on the shoulders. The rifle pulled against her trigger finger and fired. The ground rushed at her, illuminated briefly by the muzzle blast. A hand pushed the side of her face into the dirt. She tried to scream, but another hand, foul smelling, covered her mouth.

  “Hold your tongue, woman, or I’ll break your neck.”

  She recognized his voice and felt sick.

  Shorty came running. “Damn it, Angus, you almost had her shoot me!”

  Angus ignored him. He eased his hand from her mouth. While sitting on her, he turned her onto her back and pinned her arms. “Happy anniversary,” he said. He wheezed with laughter and looked at Shorty. “I’ll be damned if it wasn’t October when her folks paid me to marry her. Eight years ago.” He turned his horrible face back on Tess. “What day was it, honey?”

  She choked with fear as she spoke. “You better get out of here. My husband is comin’ back.”

  “If you’ve got a husband, why are you markin’ your bones with your maiden name?” he wheezed with cruel joy.

  “We ain’t church married yet.”

  “Check it out, Shorty.” He tightened his thighs on her.

  “Some cowboys are comin’ back with him,” she said, gasping. “And some bone buyers. You better git.”

&nb
sp; “One bedroll in the tent,” Shorty shouted. “Eats for one on the fire.”

  “You ain’t got nobody comin’,” Angus said. He looked up at Shorty. “Keep a watch out just in case.” He looked toward the tent. “Get up,” he ordered, rising over her and pulling her up by her wrists.

  Tess made a sudden lunge and snapped at his knuckles, but he was too strong and kept his hand beyond her teeth. He slapped her and began dragging her to the tent. She kicked and screamed. He hit her again. Tess writhed. She wasn’t going to go willingly, but Mackland felt very little put out at dragging her.

  Shorty knelt by the fire and stirred the beans. The tent shook, and he heard Angus hit her again. He lifted the lid on the Dutch oven to check the biscuits. He used the brim of his hat to grab the hot skillet handle and pull it from the fire. He helped himself to Tess’s supper. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t have the stomach for it after Angus got through with her.

  When Angus came out of the tent, Shorty had another batch of beans cooking for him. He had water boiling for coffee.

  “I spared you a biscuit,” Shorty said.

  Mackland sat across from the fire so he could watch the tent. He brooded. He despised her for stacking bones. He had his own view of dignity, a twisted and pitiless way of gauging people. Tess ranked low. She would get what she deserved for getting in his way after eight years.

  Shorty handed Mackland a cup of coffee and glanced toward the tent. “Them beans are ready,” he said. He looked at the tent again, a little more lingeringly.

  Mackland took the coffee. “Go ahead,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. “Take your turn with her. I’m just gonna sell her to Kicking Dog anyway.”

  EIGHTY-THREE

  The empty Murphy wagons barely encumbered Caleb’s oxen. He had to walk at a brisk pace to keep up with the train. He had invested a lot of bone money in the six-yoke team and the three big freight wagons, but the investment would soon pay off. Now he could haul several tons of bones a week, instead of just half a ton. He could haul them faster than Tess could stack them. He was thinking of hiring someone to help her.

  The quick pace kept him warm in the crisp morning air. He figured four or five more trips to Wichita Falls would earn Tess plenty of money to start her farm. By then he would be needing to get into the Sacramento Mountains where he would tell Marisol and his children to enjoy their last winter in Peñascosa. He would be practically broke when he arrived, but he would feel good knowing he had turned Tess onto a better path.

  For the first time in his life he felt he was doing something Pete would have looked up to him for. He was helping someone worse off than himself. Sometimes he felt so bad off himself, adrift and homeless in the world, that he couldn’t imagine how low Tess felt on her worst day. At least he could play a few songs to lift his spirits. Tess had nothing.

  He was sure that what he was doing for Tess was right, but it was hard work. And it was causing him problems. She was dropping hints. Without saying it in so many words, he knew she wanted him to stay with her on her farm near Seymour.

  Caleb made it a point to mention Marisol every so often, but Tess tended to ignore her existence. As he jogged along beside the bull train, he suddenly figured out where he had gone wrong. He had received aid and kindness from many individuals in his life, and it now felt good to be returning it to someone. But his mistake was that he had chosen a woman to help. He would never be free of her. Women had a way of clinging.

  “Get over!” he shouted at the lead yoke. He trotted to the head of the team and tapped the leaders with a long stick. He looked beyond the oxen, to see where he was on the bone-market trail he had blazed weeks before and saw a rider coming.

  Seagrass Gibson came galloping up to the bone wagons, his horse covered with sweat.

  “It’s Tess,” he said. “She’s gone. So is your horse and a lot of food and stuff out of the wagon.”

  “Gone where?” Caleb asked.

  “I don’t know. I found some tracks leadin’ into the river. Three riders. But … Aw, I ain’t no kind of tracker. I never found where they came out.”

  Caleb stopped. The oxen lumbered past him.

  “I’m sorry,” Seagrass said. “I told you I’d look after her. I just … I couldn’t be with her all the time.”

  “It ain’t your fault. I’ll find her.”

  “I’ll help you,” Seagrass said. “I got some of the boys out lookin’ right now.”

  “Good. Help me set these bulls loose, and we’ll go get some fresh horses.”

  You did right, he thought. It would have been a sin to leave her in that whorehouse. A sin? What do you know about sins? You ain’t no preacher. You can’t quote the Bible. Maybe messing with other people’s lives is as big a sin as leaving them in a whorehouse. Where has it gotten her? Where is Tess now? Wherever she is, it’s your fault.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  The bandanna dropped from Long Fingers’s hand, and the hooves thundered away, churning up sod as they left the starting line. It was a fine time of the year to race.

  His long gray hair touched the ground as he stooped to pick up the bandanna. The course was three miles. The racers wouldn’t be back for a few minutes. The chief turned away from the horses to behold his people—the old ones clinging to the old ways, and their rotting deerskin clothes—the young ones wearing the dress of white people. They were all smiling.

  It had been a pretty good year. Things would continue well unless the whites succeeded in getting the reservation. He had heard talk of some white people called boomers who wanted to get the Cheyenne and Arapaho land. Thinking of it, he smiled. Boomers was a funny-sounding name for a tribe. There were many tribes among the whites. It was wrong to think of them as one people.

  The quality of his stock was improving. His people were getting good prices for their best horses. He was glad the white agents let them keep horses. Some of the youngest braves, who had never known battle, considered breaking horses the best way to prove themselves.

  Long Fingers was no young brave, but he needed ways to prove himself, too. The young men didn’t remember his glory on the battlefields. They had their own ideas about which directions the tribe should be taking. Some of them wanted to break ties with the whites and guard the borders of the reservation to keep them out. The chief spoke against it, but with no more battles to fight or hunts to lead, he sometimes found himself wondering how he would maintain their respect in his old age.

  He was still quick and strong, but there were others who were quicker and stronger. They would have to take over someday soon, but they were not quite ready.

  Red Hawk was almost ready. In the year of the Red River war, he had gotten into trouble with some Comanche and Cheyenne and had been sent away to prison in a place called Florida. There, and later at the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania, he had learned to speak the English as if he were a white man—even to read and write it. Now he was a captain of the Indian Police and an interpreter at the fort. He knew white men, he had learned patience, and he possessed leadership qualities beyond his years.

  But if Red Hawk was going to lead the people down the path Long Fingers was marking for them, they would have to remember Long Fingers as a great chief. What would leave them with such a memory? He was constantly looking for ways.

  His eyesight was not what it had once been, but it was strong enough to see the pretty, smiling faces of the Arapaho women—the most beautiful women on earth—and clear enough to catch the movement behind them. He saw two men loping toward the racetrack from his village. He recognized one of the riders. He had been expecting him all day.

  Caleb Holcomb and Seagrass Gibson arrived about the same time the racehorses completed the circle. The winner was a glossy chestnut stallion whose jockey crossed the line whooping a victory cry, both hands in the air, shirtsleeves flapping. The gamblers settled their wagers as Caleb jumped down from his tired horse and shook the chief’s hand.

  “I know why you come here,” Long Fingers said
. “You would not sell that horse you call Powder River.”

  His eyes brightened. “What do you know about my horse?”

  “Who is that man?” The old chief pointed at Seagrass.

  “This is Cole Gibson. He’s a good man.”

  Seagrass tipped his hat and took in the old leader’s getup: headband, shirt, pants, suspenders, and moccasins.

  “Do you know who has your horse?”

  “No,” Caleb said. “I was hopin’ you would. I’m lookin’ for a woman too. Her name’s Tess Wiley.”

  A few of the young warriors had come near to listen. They knew Caleb, liked his music. But he had no instruments with him today.

  Long Fingers raised his gray eyebrows. “I did not know the woman was yours.”

  “She ain’t mine, exactly. I’m just lookin’ after her. Where is she? Is she all right?”

  “She is alive.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you remember the Comanchero called Black Beard? The whites called him Angus. He has your horse and the woman.”

  The visions of Mackland’s violent work came back to Caleb. He remembered the horrible Christmas Eve on the Cimarron, the slain Hutchinson family, the blizzard, the wolves, and the bitter cold. He remembered the Denison poker game. Tess was in the most unspeakable kind of trouble, and he couldn’t figure out whether or not it was his fault. Doing good things came natural to some people, like Buster, or Pete, but Caleb’s good deeds always seemed to turn sour.

  “Angus Mackland?” Cole said. “I thought he went to Mexico years ago.”

  “He has come back from the south. The little ugly one is with him, Man-of-Many-Tongues. And Kicking Dog is with them.”

  “Kicking Dog?”

  “Yes.” The chief pointed north. “He comes back here from the Sioux lands. I would not let him stay in our village. He wanted to buy a horse, so I sold him that one you gave to me in the spring.” He smiled. “The one that sits down when it hears guns shooting.”