Kill the Indian

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “And what of your father’s name?” Pratt said.

  “His name?” Flint’s grin widened. “My father? He is called Isa-tai.”

  * * * * *

  Names. Isa-tai refused to call his son by the name he had been given by the Pale Eyes. To Isa-tai, his son was only Tetecae.

  They had moved from the Tarrant County Courthouse across Weatherford Street to the office of the Fort Worth Standard, where Pratt gave an interview to the newspaper editor, who then proceeded to discuss the grazing situation with Quanah, and finally turned his attention to Isa-tai, with Charles Flint again handling the translations. Daniel sat listening in silence, while Yellow Bear’s stomach growled, and the old puhakat shifted his feet impatiently. By the time the Standard editor had filled his notebook, the cattlemen had arrived—Dan Waggoner, Captain Lee Hall, and a gangling man with a weather-beaten face named Burk Burnett who wore a silver-plated Colt revolver holstered over his stomach, the numbers 6666 engraved on the .45’s ivory grip and tooled in the rich leather.

  The air inside the stifling newspaper office began to fill with thick smoke from cigars these cattlemen fired up. It stank of taibos, of lies the Tejanos told with laughter.

  “It’s about time, Red,” the one named Burnett told the former Texas Ranger.

  The Mansion House Hotel was only four blocks down Rusk Street, but Captain Hall had summoned several hacks to drive the cattlemen and Comanche guests to the hotel for supper. School Father Pratt, however, did not attend. “I will see you gentlemen for breakfast,” he announced, tipped his hat, and walked down Weatherford Street toward the courthouse, followed by the newspaper editor.

  Elegant. That’s the only word Daniel could think of to describe the Mansion House. He felt uncomfortable as soon as he entered the building, his moccasins gliding noiselessly across the rich velvet carpet.

  A tall man with a gray silk tie and well-groomed mustache that looked as if it had been drawn on with a pencil nodded courteously at Captain Hall. “The dining room is all yours, sir,” he said, and held open the door to let the men, red and white, pass.

  This was not like the Pickwick Hotel. Oh, Daniel could feel the stares of the waiters, bartender, clerks, and hotel guests, even from the maitre d’ after leading them to the table—the same as he had felt at the Pickwick. Yet soon he forgot those angry looks as cattlemen and Comanches found their seats around a long table, covered with white lace cloth, decorated by long, skinny candles in a spotless silver candelabra. He wondered why Quanah’s group was not staying at this hotel, but imagined the rates probably had something to do with that.

  When Daniel pulled out a chair next to Charles Flint, a firm hand gripped his arm, and Quanah said, “You sit by me.” As Quanah led him around the table, he whispered, “Make sure I understand what these men say.”

  Soup came first. Well, first, actually was wine for the Texians, water, coffee, or tea for the Comanches. Daniel dipped his spoon into the creamy soup, tasted it, then found a napkin to wipe his tongue. Some sort of fish, and The People rarely ate fish. Naturally the Tejanos did not notice that they were the only ones slurping their bowls. The waiters came quickly, picked up the empty bowls and the full ones, disappeared, only to return with thick steaks, mounds of biscuits, ears of corn, boiled potatoes, and slices of watermelon. These, both Texians and The People enjoyed.

  “Dessert, gentlemen?” the head waiter asked. “Brandy? Port? Coffee?”

  Faces of the cattlemen turned toward Quanah, who wiped his fingers on his trousers, and said, “Full.”

  “Just brandy for us,” Captain Hall said.

  “I’ll have a port, if you don’t mind,” Dan Waggoner interrupted.

  The waiter snapped his fingers, and looked at Quanah. “Anything for you gentlemen? We have a wonderful strawberry rhubarb pie.”

  No answer.

  “Very well,” the man said, and turned.

  “Ice cream.”

  Daniel looked across the table at Yellow Bear. “Ice cream,” he repeated, and when the cattlemen began to laugh, the waiter joined them.

  “Do you have ice cream, Stephen?” Captain Hall asked.

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Run on over to the Queen City and fetch a gallon,” Burk Burnett ordered, and the waiter nodded before scurrying back to the kitchen.

  “Well, Quanah,” Captain Hall said. “I guess we should get down to business.”

  * * * * *

  “We need all of The Big Pasture,” Captain Hall was saying. “All of it. Every blade of grass.”

  Quanah spoke, and Daniel translated. “He asks if you know the size of The Big Pasture.”

  “Three hundred thousand acres,” the red-headed taibo said immediately. “I know exactly how big it is. And how much we need. Burk here has ten thousand head of Durhams and Herefords alone. I have half that, longhorns, and Dan here a little less than half. We’ve had some dry years. Your pasture can support our beef, and we’ll pay you handsomely for it.”

  Daniel translated. He felt uncomfortable, seeing the eyes of Isa-tai, Charles Flint, and Nagwee boring into him. Only Yellow Bear seemed to have no interest, working his spoon like a shovel in the gallon container of butter pecan ice cream.

  Quanah leaned toward Daniel, whispering, although Daniel felt certain that none of the ranchers could speak a smidgen of Comanche.

  “It is much land.”

  “Yes, Tsu Kuh Puah, it is.”

  “They have never requested so much land.”

  “They are Texians. It was only a matter of time.”

  Quanah smiled, started to straighten, then leaned back. “What is this Dur-ham and … ?” He could not form the word on his tongue.

  “Some kind of taibo cattle,” Daniel answered. “Not the ones with the long horns.”

  Quanah grunted. Now he sat straight, looked across the table at Captain Hall, and asked in English, “How much?”

  “The board of directors has authorized me to pay you and your tribe three cents an acre.”

  Burk Burnett put in: “At three hundred thousand acres, that’s …”

  Charles Flint cut him off, “Nine thousand dollars.”

  “Nine thou-sand dol-lars.” Quanah’s head bobbed. “Much money.”

  “Much money indeed,” Captain Hall said, and pulled out several papers from the inside pocket of his coat. “Now, if you’ll …”

  “But not enough,” Quanah said.

  Daniel grinned.

  Captain Hall’s face tightened. The papers were shoved back inside the pocket. “How much were you thinking?” Hall’s voice no longer sounded smooth.

  “Twelve cents.”

  “Christ!” Dan Waggoner’s glass hit the table so hard that the stem broke, and red wine stained the white lace cloth.

  Quanah spoke again, and Daniel translated. “Twelve cents for only half The Big Pasture. The People have many horses that need grass, too.”

  “Unacceptable.”

  Silence—except for Yellow Bear’s slurping of the now-melted ice cream.

  “Give them four cents, Red,” Burk Burnett said.

  “Daniel,” Charles Flint said, “that’s twelve thousand dollars. That’ll buy a lot of food and stores for our people.”

  Captain Hall’s eyes locked on Daniel’s, not Quanah’s. “You heard the man.”

  So had Quanah. He held up both hands, extending all fingers.

  Hall’s head shook. “Ten cents! I’m not a fool, nor am I as rich as the Grand Duke of Prussia. I’m a cow-poor Texian. Four and a half.”

  “We go now.” Quanah pushed out of his chair.

  Chapter Six

  “Wait!” His face ashen, Burk Burnett gripped the table, as if he needed support. While Quanah remained standing, his face unreadable, Burnett turned to Captain Hall. “I need that grass, Red. Hell’s fire, we all do.”

  Daniel hid his smile. These cattlemen weren’t the first taibos who had underestimated Quanah Parker.

  “Six cents. But we need a
ll of The Big Pasture.” A bead of sweat rolled down the captain’s forehead. Hall and Burnett looked nervous. Still holding his broken wine glass, Dan Waggoner appeared angry.

  “Seven.” Quanah remained standing.

  Burnett let out a heavy sigh. Waggoner released the wine glass, and clenched his fists. Captain Hall ran his fingers across his mustache, smoothing it, eyes studying Quanah.

  “I can’t go that high, Quanah.” Desperation accented the Ranger’s voice. “And that’s the God’s honest truth. It would bust Burk, bust me, bust the entire association.”

  “Then how you say … ?” Quanah looked again to Daniel for help.

  “Six and a half?” Daniel asked.

  The Texians glanced at each other. “No,” Dan Waggoner said, but Daniel read something else in the eyes of Captain Hall and Burk Burnett.

  Turning back to Quanah, Burnett asked hopefully, “For all of the pasture?”

  Daniel didn’t need to translate. “Big Pasture only.”

  Quanah’s head bobbed. “Other pastures need for Comanche ponies.”

  The captain’s facial muscles relaxed, and he found a handkerchief in his vest pocket, and wiped perspiration off his forehead. Once he had returned the white square of cotton, he lifted his brandy, took a sip, and started to say something, but what came out was, “Aw, hell.”

  His gaze went past Quanah and Daniel, and Dan Waggoner rose, mumbling, “What the hell is he doing here?”

  Hearing the footsteps, Daniel turned in his chair.

  A powerfully built Tejano strode toward the dining table, spurs chiming as his big feet clopped on the floor. Thick beard stubble and a giant, unkempt mustache hid much of his face, but Daniel could see the glare in the man’s dark eyes, the crooked nose, the missing tip of his left ear. His jaw worked like a piston on the thick wad of tobacco in one of his cheeks, and, when he stopped, he spit out a river of tobacco juice that landed between Captain Hall’s polished boots, ignoring the cuspidor next to the table.

  The former Ranger’s face flushed, but Burnett cautioned him, “Easy does it, Red.”

  Satisfaction replaced the anger in the newcomer’s eyes.

  “What are you doing here, Carmody?” Captain Hall asked, his voice unpleasant.

  “I got me an invitation.” The big man hooked his thumbs in the belt of his battered, dust-caked, cowhide leggings, between grimy leather work gloves he had shoved behind the leather. He wore a wide-brimmed, beaten-all-to-hell hat, maybe gray, maybe white, maybe darker and just caked with dirt, dust, and sweat stains. A frayed, green calico bandanna hung around his neck, and huge muscles strained against the thin blue cotton of his shirt. His chest resembled a rain barrel, his neck, the back blistered red, might have been larger than Daniel’s own head.

  “You are not a member of the Northern Texas Stock Growers’ Association,” Burk Burnett told him.

  That, Daniel could believe. He didn’t look much like a wealthy pale-eyes cattleman, but a working cowhand, though bigger than any thirty-a-month cowboy Daniel had ever seen.

  “Get the hell out of here, Sol,” Dan Waggoner said. “We’ve rented this dining room and are conducting business.”

  Sol Carmody shifted the tobacco into the other cheek. “Told y’all I got me an invite. And I got business here, too. Ain’t that right, Chief?”

  He was looking between Quanah, still standing, and Daniel. Daniel turned as Isa-tai rose from his chair, and began speaking in the language of The People. Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw Quanah’s fingers ball into fists.

  “This taibo,” Isa-tai said, tilting his jaw at Sol Carmody, “already feeds his pimoró on the grass of The People, on what you call The Big Pasture.”

  “That he cannot do!” Quanah barked. “Tell him to remove his longhorns.”

  That’s when the memory struck Daniel. Ben Buffalo Bone saying, around ration day, that Agent Biggers was sending him to The Big Pasture, that someone had seen longhorn cattle eating grass there. Merely strays, they had figured, and Daniel, busy with the work of cleaning up the pens after rations had been issued and cattle butchered, and his mind preoccupied with thoughts of his trip to Fort Worth, had not thought to ask Ben Buffalo Bone about the matter. Following the ways of The People, Ben Buffalo Bone had not volunteered any information.

  “No.” Isa-tai grinned.

  “He cannot feed his cattle on Nermernuh grass. Not without permission.”

  “He has my permission.” Isa-tai leaned forward. “You said the grass belongs to The People, Quanah. You are just angry that you will not get rich.”

  “I do not do this for my own profit. I do this for the good of The People.”

  “Bah.” Isa-tai waved his hand in dismissal. “Look at you and your shiny stickpin, your taibo clothes. You are the one who travels by the iron horse to Washington City. To Texas. You are the one these men …”—he spat on the table—“built that fancy taibo house for. I live in a teepee, not a pale-eyes contraption. You are the one the Pale Eyes have proclaimed the chief of The People, when you very well know that among Nermernuh, there is no one leader. You are greedy, Quanah. Greedy for power and the riches you think these taibo snakes will give you.”

  Quanah took a step, stopped himself, and Daniel knew why. He would not let any Tejanos see two leaders of The People fight each other.

  “These taibos cannot lease till Car-mo-dy is gone.” Isa-tai put his hands on his hips. “And he will not leave. This is my victory, Quanah Parker.”

  “Killstraight?”

  Daniel faced Captain Hall.

  “What’s this all about? What are they saying?”

  The big Texian answered before Daniel could think of the right words. “Ol’ Isa-tai here’s been tellin’ Chief Parker the way things is.” Sol Carmody spit again, this time into the brass cuspidor, then wiped his lips and mustache with the sleeve of his stained shirt. “I got three thousand head eatin’ that fine green grass on the reservation, boys. All that grass, nigh a half-million acres, for my little ol’ herd. And you boys say I ain’t fit to belong to your cattle king’s association.”

  “We need that grass, Carmody!” Dan Waggoner shouted.

  “Well, so do I!” Sol Carmody’s voice thundered across the practically empty dining room. “And I got it.”

  “We’ll have the Army drive you off, you son-of-a—”

  “Watch it, Waggoner. I’m bigger than you, and ain’t one to abide no insults. You think you can drive me off, you try it. I’ll have forty cowhands and gun hands up on the pasture by the week’s end, and Isa-tai has agreed to send some of his Comanche boys out to help me protect my herd. It ain’t Quanah’s pasture, boys. It’s all of the Comanches, and Isa-tai, he’s Comanch’. I got me a deal with Isa-tai. Ain’t that the way y’all work, Kill … what the hell did he call you, boy?”

  “Killstraight,” Daniel answered without meaning to.

  Carmody sniggered at the name. “Well, I reckon my business here is complete.” He tipped his hat, and walked out of the dining room, whistling.

  Voices exploded from every direction. Daniel couldn’t catch what Nagwee was telling Quanah, who pointed a finger across the table at Isa-tai and spit out words, most of them unintelligible. Captain Hall was saying something about a judge named Starr, Burnett had bellowed the name of the commanding officer at Fort Still, and Waggoner sang curses at both the now-departed Sol Carmody and the grinning Isa-tai. Yellow Bear told Quanah and Isa-tai to settle down. Only Daniel and Charles Flint remained silent.

  “Killstraight!”

  Again Daniel faced Captain Hall.

  “We need that grass. All of it. You get Carmody’s tick-infested cows off our range.”

  Not your range, Daniel thought, but held his temper.

  Suddenly, Charles Flint spoke. “Isn’t it possible that you could share the pasture with that man, Carmody? He has three thousand head, but we have much grass.”

  Isa-tai glared at his son, although Daniel was certain the puhakat did not understand
much English.

  “We won’t share one blade of grass with the likes of Sol Carmody,” Burnett said.

  Which was the answer Daniel expected from a Texian. They were all crazy, and all greedy.

  Waggoner roared, “My beefs’ll starve if we don’t get that pasture, boy!”

  “Shut up, Dan!” Hall was sweating again. He started to say something, but Daniel raised his hand.

  “Let us talk among ourselves,” he quietly requested.

  * * * * *

  Once the ranchers had retired into the hotel’s saloon next door to the dining room, Daniel found his place in a circle on the floor. No teepee, not even a council fire, but Nagwee had brought his pipe, tamped down the tobacco, and Yellow Bear lighted it with a candle. Behind him, Daniel heard the whispers, could feel the stares of the restaurant’s wait staff and cooks.

  When the pipe came to Daniel, he offered it to the directions, lifted it to his mouth, and drew in the acrid smoke. The pipe, he saw, was old, fashioned from a bone from an antelope shank, then wrapped with the ligament from the back of a buffalo bull’s neck, its bowl made from soapstone. No feathers. No ornamentation. It smoked quite well. As Daniel passed the pipe to Charles Flint, he remembered the story his father had told him and his mother. On the way to Adobe Walls, Isa-tai had carried his sacred pipe with him, letting each society dance every night as the warriors made their way across the Staked Plains. That pipe had been a war axe, an engraved steel bowl on top, and an ugly, killing weapon on the bottom.

  Another difference struck Daniel. The pipe he had just smoked was simple yet elegant. Nagwee had likely killed the antelope himself, punched out the marrow, smoothed and pared the end. He would have gathered the white soapstone, fashioned it, dying it red with pokeberry and grease. The pipe Daniel’s father had told him about, the one that had belonged to Isa-tai, had not been traditional. Oh, Isa-tai had probably carved out the wood, but the pipe-axe end had undoubtedly been bought from a Comanchero, or stolen from a trader.

  As the pipe passed from Comanche to Comanche, Nagwee prayed until the pipe returned to him.