Buffalo Trail

by Jeff Guinn

  All morning they rode through alternately rugged and undulating country, always moving east and a little south. McLendon did his best to ignore the chafing of his legs against the sides of his horse, and the occasional bruising of his tailbone when he bounced in the saddle. Someday soon, he might never have to ride a horse again. It was something to hope for.

  He and Bat brought up the rear, keeping alert for Indians, while Billy, Frenchy, and Charley scanned the horizon ahead for buffalo. No one saw anything, so their brief pause for lunch included tomatoes and cold bacon but little conversation. There seemed to be nothing to say. With every mile, Billy’s expression grew grimmer.

  They made almost thirty miles that day, and made camp for the night in a gully near a water hole. They refilled their canteens, ate Frenchy’s biscuits and more bacon, then curled up in their blankets by the campfire. Billy assigned Bat and Charley to night guard duty, Bat for the first four hours and then Charley until they broke camp at dawn.

  “Co-manch love nothing more than absconding with horses from white camps,” Billy said. “Be alert for any noise. But, Bat, that don’t mean go blasting off ever’ time you think you hear something.”

  “I’d rather shoot right away than delay to my eventual regret,” Bat said. “I know how to stand watch, Billy.”

  Accustomed to bedding down on the trail, Charley and Frenchy fell asleep right away. McLendon sat up for a while with Billy, who sipped coffee from a tin cup and stared into the campfire.

  “I’ve been wondering,” McLendon said to him. “You don’t know exactly where the big buffalo herd is, but you’re pretty sure it’s south and east of here?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well, why do we stick at the Adobe Walls camp, then? Why not just pack everything up and everybody keep moving in this direction, and we keep going until we find the buffalo? At some point we would, and then we can set up permanent camp and kill them to our hearts’ content.”

  Billy swished coffee in his mouth. “It ain’t that simple, C.M. You got to remember the distances involved. Now, tell me—if we keep on going in this direction, how far until we strike the nearest town with a railroad?”

  “Let me think. Well, I’m not sure that there is one.”

  “And that’s the problem. It’s not enough to kill bunches of buffs and take their hides. From there, we got to get the hides to the railroad for shipment east. The companies there, the manufacturers who turn the hides into machine belts and the like, they need to get fresh hides in a timely manner. If they can’t, they’ll use other materials. Adobe Walls is absolutely the farthest we can hunt from Dodge, which is the nearest railroad hub, and still get the hides shipped back there in time to get them east and satisfy the manufacturers.”

  “And if we keep riding this way and never see any buffalo at all?”

  “You already know. That’s why we got to pray that very soon the buffs make their tardy way along the Canadian near our camp there, or else we’ll all head home with empty pockets. Now, let’s get some shut-eye. Long day tomorrow.”

  • • •

  AS THEY RODE ALONG late the next morning, Frenchy let out a whoop. McLendon thought that maybe he’d spotted buffalo, but instead the crew cook pointed excitedly at what appeared to be clumps of wild grass.

  Billy smiled for the first time that day and said, “I believe we’ll have ourselves a scrumptious lunch.”

  “What?” McLendon asked. His ass ached and he was feeling cranky. For the last hour, he’d been imagining arriving in Mountain View only to find that Gabrielle had married Joe Saint the day before.

  “Those plants are called lamb’s-quarter, and they’re tasty boiled up in water and served with a little salt, of which I happen to have a small amount in a pouch in my pocket.”

  Frenchy built a fire, filled a metal pot with water from his canteen, and boiled the greens. Everybody took forks from a pack on Frenchy’s horse and ate the greens straight from the pot. Billy was right: they were delicious, and a welcome change from biscuits and bacon.

  After everyone ate their fill, Billy stood and stretched. “All right, boys,” he said. “I figure we ride the rest of today, maybe a few hours tomorrow. If we don’t sight buffs by then, perhaps we never will. Might be they’ve gone in some unexpected direction, and we’re just out of luck.”

  “That’s not a message I’d care to deliver back at camp,” Bat said. “We do, and most of the men will be on their way back to Dodge.”

  “Honesty compels,” Billy said. “I’m just baffled. Even with the late spring, that herd should have come this way long since.”

  They mounted up, and shortly afterward Charley Armitage began to sing. He had a pleasant voice, and sailed through “Buffalo Gals” and “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” His performance soothed the troubled men who rode with him. Charley said, “Here’s a new tune I learned just before we left Dodge. Its subject is appropriate, you’ll agree.” He sang,

  “Oh, give me a home

  Where the buffalo roam . . .”

  “Hush, Charley,” Billy commanded. “I think I hear something.” He stood up in his stirrups and cupped a hand to his ear.

  “What?” McLendon asked.

  “Quiet,” Billy said. “Listen. Yes—there it is!”

  Moments later Frenchy said, “I hear it. Praise Jesus!” Charley and Bat said that they heard it too.

  “Hear what?” McLendon demanded. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Listen a moment longer,” Bat urged. “It’s long and low, easy to miss at first.”

  Then McLendon heard it: a subdued sort of noise that rolled at them from just beyond a range of hills, punctuated by slight ground tremors that caused their horses to twitch nervously.

  “What is it?” he asked. “It’s almost like a train, but I know that it’s not.”

  “Up the hill,” Billy said. “We’re about to see a most welcome sight.” He urged his horse up the sloping grade, with Bat, Charley, and Frenchy hard on his heels. They reached the crest well ahead of McLendon, who had trouble getting his horse pointed in the proper direction. He saw the other four dismount, look ahead, and begin capering like schoolboys. When McLendon finally reached them, he dismounted and looked off in the same direction. There, dark against the gold and green grass, was a vast brown cloud moving slowly but steadily west. It took a moment for McLendon to see that the heaving mass was composed of individual animals, all packed tightly together. The rumbling sound was a cacophony of mingled bleats, grunts, and bellows. There was seemingly no end to it—the great moving wave extended as far back toward the east as McLendon could see, over a dozen hills or more and still pouring over the horizon. McLendon had come to Dodge near the end of the previous year’s hunting season, and seen only stragglers. He’d assumed, when the hide men and their crews described unimaginably huge herds, that they were indulging in the frontier tradition of gross exaggeration. Now McLendon understood what Bat had been telling him—that even a terrible marksman could blast away and feel certain of hitting something with every shot.

  “There’s millions of them,” he said. “I never thought there could ever be this many.”

  “And all moving west, right toward our camp,” Billy said. “Jump back up in the saddles, boys. We got to ride hard and deliver the glad tidings. The buffalo have returned, and in greater numbers than ever we could have guessed. Five days from now, six at most, and the shooting can commence.”

  • • •

  THEY RODE ALMOST straight through, stopping that night only for a few hours to rest the horses. The other four couldn’t stop talking; even Billy babbled with joy. McLendon was quiet. He tried to convince himself that the herd arriving was a good thing. It would delay his reunion with Gabrielle for months, but at least he could come to her with full pockets as well as a full heart, and not have to depend on the charity of Major Mulkins. That meant
that as soon as he won her from Joe Saint, there would be money for immediate departure to California, giving Gabrielle no time to change her mind.

  As they paused for a while just after midnight, a comet burned in the night sky, a curious comet that took its time passing across the darkness above them.

  “It’s a sign that this will be the greatest summer hunt ever,” Charley Armitage said. “There’s celebration even in the heavens. All of our troubles are over, and there’s nothing but fine times ahead. That flaming star guarantees it.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Quanah was worried that some of the Indians at the sun dance might attempt to thwart his plans, but he never expected interference from the sky.

  Things began so well. On the night of their arrival, the visiting Cheyenne and Kiowa were treated to a lavish feast, with so much meat and so many other assorted treats (plum pudding, marrow bones) that everyone could and did cram their stomachs full to bursting. When the last bite was consumed and all were replete, White Wolf, Otter Belt, and some of the other most veteran Comanche warriors officially welcomed their guests to the sun dance. Quanah chose, at this point, to remain in the background, the better to convince remaining skeptics that the People were united in this celebration. Isatai wanted to offer the formal greeting, but at Quanah’s insistence he stayed out of sight in a tipi during the opening moments of the ceremony.

  “Our sun dance will go on for five nights,” White Wolf explained. “Tonight we celebrate the arrival of our Kiowa and Cheyenne brothers. Tomorrow we demonstrate to Buffalo Hump and the other spirits that we have heard and understood the command to unite and drive the white men away forever. On the final three nights we will dance and ask the spirits to send us visions.”

  “And we watch while the Comanche dance?” Satanta asked. “As usual, you take the lead and we are to follow like stupid children?”

  Quanah shot a sharp glance at Otter Belt, who he’d prepared to answer this predictable question.

  “All who wish to may dance,” Otter Belt said. To Quanah’s great satisfaction, the old man sounded as though he’d thought of this response himself. “In fact, should our friends wish, they may even impale their own flesh and hang from hide lines as they do. While Comanche men will not, we respect your customs, too, and will gladly allow you to follow them.”

  “Such courtesy is appreciated,” Gray Beard said. “Since we are your guests, we will honor the sun dance rules of the Comanche.” He paused, then added pointedly, “At least the Cheyenne will. I cannot, of course, speak for the Kiowa.”

  Satanta and Lone Wolf bent their heads together and whispered. Finally Lone Wolf said, “We will dance like the Comanche too.”

  Quanah spoke for the first time. “Excellent! Now let us gather together. Isatai the Spirit Messenger is ready to speak.”

  The gathering took some time. Not all of the People had come to the sun dance, and it was the same with the Kiowa and Cheyenne. Among each of the tribes, there were skeptics about the spirit of Buffalo Hump or else those who doubted the wisdom of attempting a mass attack on the whites. But more than a thousand of the People were in this camp, and an equal number of Kiowa. There were even more Cheyenne, perhaps a thousand and a half again that many. Counted among the entire group were some eight hundred warriors able to fight if they chose—plenty, Quanah thought, to sweep the white people back to wherever they came from. They were well fed now to the point of being almost logy, and it was time for Isatai to seal the bargain.

  “Come out, Spirit Messenger,” Quanah called, and everyone gasped in surprise as Isatai emerged from the tipi. He wore a headdress of woven white scalps, mostly the long yellow hair of women, and the tresses streamed behind him as he walked to the campfire. The only clothing on Isatai was a beaded breechclout; his exposed flesh, all the mountains and jiggling rolls of it, was covered with splotches of yellow and blue paint, the favorite decorative colors of the Kiowa and Cheyenne. In his left hand, he carried a lance with a six-foot shaft, and he held his right palm flat in front of him in a gesture of blessing.

  “I speak for the spirits,” Isatai announced, and everyone fell silent, impressed by his commanding manner as well as his memorable appearance. “They have come to me and, through me, to you. And they welcome you to this celebration.”

  The fat man paused; everyone leaned in, eager to hear what he would say next. Quanah worried that Isatai would pause too long and lose his audience. But just as it seemed that the delay would become unbearable, Isatai spoke again.

  “The spirits are pleased tonight. They summoned us and we came. Tonight and the next four nights they will be with us. If we honor them enough, they will speak some more, and if we listen, we will once again know victory. The People and the Kiowa and the Cheyenne once were happy in this land. When there were other tribes less worthy—the Apache and the Tonkawa—we drove them away. And then we lived here and there was plenty of game, and when we wanted to fight, we did. The Mexicans and the lesser tribes feared us, as they should. Then the white men came. They believed that any land they wanted was theirs, and they wanted what we had and told us we had to go. We fought, and fought very well, of course, but the whites were like the blades of grass and soon there were too many to count. They said that if we stopped fighting, there could be an honorable peace, and the People and the Kiowa and Cheyenne could stay on their old land and hunt as usual, unless we wanted to go to live under white rules, and if we did they would give us plenty of food and everything else we would need.

  “And these words were lies. Those who went to live on what the whites call ‘reservations’ did not get the food that was promised. Instead they were given seeds and told to grow plants to eat. This was not and can never be our way. For the rest of us, we tried to stay on our land and hunt, but many white hunters came where they had promised not to and began killing all the game for themselves, the buffalo especially. Also, we were told not to fight the Mexicans anymore, though we had no peace agreement with them. White soldiers, especially the ones led by Bad Hand, make cruel attacks on us. We are never safe, we are often hungry, and though things are bad now they will only get worse so long as we try to live in the presence of the white men. They will never be satisfied until they have everything and we have nothing, they will not rest until they are everywhere and we are gone. You know this is true.”

  There were shouts of assent.

  “In this bad time when we are desperate, the spirits have chosen to share their wisdom. For too long, the People and the Cheyenne and the Kiowa have fought the white men separately. Now, the spirits say, we must put aside any differences and fight together. The whites are many and strong, but we can also be many and even stronger. So tomorrow it begins. You saw when you came that we have built a thing that looks like a white man’s fort. We will attack it, destroy it to show the spirits that, yes, we hear their words and will obey. Then for three more nights we will dance, and at the end of the last night the spirits will come to us and tell us where we should make our great fight, and when.”

  Isatai drew himself up and raised his arms to the sky.

  “And now we thank the spirits, who—” And then it happened.

  The night sky was dark and studded with bright stars. Isatai’s gesture caused everyone to instinctively look up, and when they did, one of the stars suddenly burst into flames and began to move. It seemed to the Indians that it was about to fall directly on the camp. They had seen stars unexpectedly move and appear to fall before, but never one as bright, as frightening, as this one. Some of the women and children began to shriek, and the volume of the screaming increased as the burning star continued to cut through the blackness.

  “The sky is falling because the spirit speaking through you is evil!” some warrior shouted, and Quanah’s heart sank. He tried to yell something more encouraging, but there were too many other voices being raised in panic. What was this flaming star? Why had it appeared now?

&
nbsp; “Be calm.” Even though Isatai had not raised his voice, somehow it cut through the screaming and confusion. Everyone grew quiet, though they continued to stare at the star on fire above them.

  “This star is not a bad thing. There are no evil spirits here, only good ones.” Isatai’s tone was soothing. “A burning star is a decoration of the spirits, the way our friends the Cheyenne and Kiowa decorate our tents with pictures to celebrate great victories. This star is a sign that the spirits are pleased with us. It will remain in the sky for a while, we will see it every night until our dance is completed, and then it will disappear. I know this. The spirits have told me. So don’t be afraid. Sleep well.” After making his blessing gesture again, Isatai walked to his tipi. Gradually, everyone else drifted off, some still looking fearfully up at the star, which trailed its flames above them. A few hundred people were so frightened that they left camp immediately, frantically riding through the dark toward their home villages. But most stayed.

  Quanah hurried to Isatai’s tipi. The fat man reclined on thick robes made from the finest pelts of winter buffalo. His eyes were closed and he was humming.

  “That was very good,” Quanah said. “You were clever.”

  Isatai paused in mid-hum and opened one eye. “I said what the spirits told me.”

  “About the star?”

  “Especially about the star. Now let me rest. I have to be ready to hear the spirits again tomorrow.”

  • • •

  ON THE SECOND DAY, all the men of fighting age made a mock attack on the model of the white men’s fort. The women and children and old men watched and cried out their approval as the combined force of the People, Cheyenne, and Kiowa charged the wooden structure, loosing arrows from horseback—bullets were too valuable to waste outside of actual battle, even for such an important exercise—and dismounting to clamber over the walls and pretend to annihilate all the defenders. The warriors were gifted mimics. They grimaced and contorted their bodies as though they were in actual combat. In every instance they eventually raised their arms in triumph over dead enemies. Not one attacker fell to the invisible foe. It was late afternoon by the time all of the imagined corpses were mutilated and scalped. Then the warriors trooped back to the main camp, where they enjoyed a rapturous greeting from their families. There was another feast, and after dark the fort was set ablaze. The fire star seared the night sky again and it made almost everyone nervous. Isatai reminded them that it was a sign of favor from the spirits, one that would last through the entire sun dance. Then he retired to his tipi, saying he would speak to them again on the fifth and final night of the gathering.