“Gimme four. Naw. We don’t know McDowell would have won anyhow. Amick kept the betting book. We’ll just give back what everybody bet. Keep what’s left over. I think them crosses was stolen.”
***
Chouteau kept them locked in a storeroom in the rear of his store. Once a day, a squaw brought them each a plate of food and a can of water; once a day they were led, separately, to the outhouse. Chouteau always covered them with that shotgun, and checked their bindings. He’d tied them, ankles and wrists in front, so they could eat and hobble to the outhouse.
Reid had found a loose board at the bottom of the wall. Unfortunately, there was dirt mounded against it outside and they couldn’t just kick it out, as Chouteau slept in the store. They’d push it with their legs and as dirt fell inside, they’d scoop that up and hide it behind some barrels. A few more inches, and the skinny Reid would be able to wiggle out. He’d then pull enough dirt away for Potter to follow.
“One more day and they’ll be back here. We got to finish this, get out of here ‘fore daybreak. Push, dammit.”
Potter pushed. Wretched, filthy, hungry, he’d hardly slept in days, but the fear of prison drove him. “I won’t do well there,” he moaned, for the tenth time.
“Prison? I doubt you need fear that,” Reid whispered as he shoveled dirt with his hands.
Noises at the door froze them.
“Damn! They’re early. It ain’t even light.” They pulled the board back into place and Potter pivoted to lay on his side in front of it. As the door started to swing outward, Reid saw the arm of a blue jacket in the light of a lantern.
He lunged against the door, hoping to knock down the soldier, break the lantern, start a fire, grab a gun, something. Anything. It should have worked.
***
Might have, too, with almost anyone else. Fooled badly by these particular men before, the soldier had opened the door left-handed, and stepped aside as Reid crashed into it, pushing against nothing.
Reid would have tripped anyhow, hobbled as he was, but the soldier instinctively stuck out his foot and clubbed him with his carbine as he went down. Potter struggled to get to his feet, only to hear and then feel his nose and several teeth give way as the carbine butt stroke caught him in the face. It was several seconds before the voices made any sense to him.
“Get up. Get outa here. Move, damn your cheating eyes. Both of you.”
“I ain’t going nowhere with you, McDowell.”
“No, you ain’t, for a fact. But you’re going. There’s two horses waiting outside. Half the damn troop already thinks I was in on that fight deal. I ain’t having you two stick around to testify to that lie. I come ahead to cut you loose.”
McDowell nodded to Chouteau, who knelt and cut their ankle ropes. McDowell motioned them to the open front door with his carbine.
As they shuffled out into the darkness, the prisoners saw two horses, saddled and ready. Hope, nearly throttled, surged again.
“Oh, thank you God,” Potter sobbed.
“Shut up, Potter,” Reid wheezed. His throat was constricted too. “Them our saddlebags, by chance?”
“Oh, you’re a bold one, Granny Alice, ain’t you?” A skinny figure appeared beside the horses, presenting a cocked Dragoon. It bucked and roared.
The round ball flattened as it broke Reid’s forehead. Not exiting, it transferred all of its energy to his head and snapped his neck.
“That won’t no reasonable expectation now, was it, Priscilla? You see that, Corporal Pudgy? I think it broke his neck, though it ain’t like it matters.How you like my gold cross?” He fingered it. “The one my momma gave me, ‘fore some asshole corporal stole it?”
The second shot took Potter on the bridge of his nose, if not by surprise. It finally imbedded in the wall behind him. He sat down, then flopped backwards, the back of his head gone.
“Jesus, Jones! Melton said they was supposed to be shot escaping.” McDowell punched them both in the groin with the barrel of his Sharps, looking for a flinch. “You just had to shoot ‘em in the face?”
“Tell Melton they was running backwards. Damn a bunch of old women, anyways.”
Chapter Nine
Deep in the fall of 1859, Dobey finally learned where his family was. The telegraph had allowed him to confirm Fort Motte’s closing months earlier, but the letter from his mother went to West Point, then Washington, and finally through Fort Smith to Dobey. All it said was that the army was leaving, and that they were going to stay and try trading with the Indians and hunters.
Major Caskey knew the odds of Dobey making it to Colorado and back, alone and in winter, ranged from slim to none. His request for furlough was disapproved.
“I could resign, Major. You know that. It’s my mother.”
“Yes. And you’d be doing the wrong thing for the right reason. You’re good and tough, Walls, but you’d probably die. And for what?” Caskey rubbed his face and stared into space.
“I don’t …”
“Shut up. I ain’t through. They probably ain’t there, you know, where she said they was. I been there. Ain’t nothing there, ‘cept snakes, buzzards, buffalo, and Indians. If they are there, after a year, they’re dead. But come spring, and you’re still of a mind to go, I’ll send out a long patrol, to escort wagons or something. You can see for yourself. Fair?”
“I’ll think on it, sir.”
“Do. You’ll take my boy with you. Be good experience for him.”
“Who?”
“My youngest. Tom. I’m assigning him to “L” Troop. He’s a private. Just got here.”
***
The winter of 1859-1860 passed like cold molasses, as Dobey trained his troop, chafed, took short patrols, chafed, and sent fruitless telegraph messages from Fort Smith. Two prospective buffalo hunters promised to deliver several letters, if the Ballietts were still at Fort Motte.
***
The trip to Fort Motte in early April of ‘60 was relatively quiet, at least compared to Dobey’s first long patrol. The major let him take his troop and two wagons this time, one of them covered, with ten spare horses and two mules. Accompanying them was a man named Stineman with a full wagon and several horses. He was reported to be an old carpenter who agreed to open a way station halfway between First Fort and Fort Gibson. Black Bob Morrison picked the site on their last patrol, a hundred miles west and south of Fort Gibson.
Dobey was to protect him while he set up, then leave a half section with him and press on to Colorado, another two hundred miles west. On his way back, he was to swing by the great salt deposit, about halfway between the Santa Fe Trail and First Fort, and bring back as much as he could carry.
Caskey didn’t give him any guidance on how long he could visit in Fort Motte. How long does it take to study bones? Dobey’s throat tightened again.
Bent Roof was scouting for them again. When Melton asked why he seemed so happy, he replied that on the last trip, he’d been able to shoot several Mexicans and Texans, and he was always hopeful.
Dobey asked what they should call the way station. Bent Roof announced that the Seminole locally called it Vamoosa.
“Ain’t that what Mexicans say, ‘vamoose’? You know, like ‘move along’?”
“That’s what you Texans say they say. What they say is ‘vamonos’.”
Dobey, who was itching to move, said, “Let’s do just that. Vamonos.”
They struck north and west from Vamoosa. After four days, the land began to flatten out. There was little rain, but there were plenty of deer and prairie chickens, and enough water and forage for an army.
Twelve days after leaving the Canadian, they crossed the Santa Fe Trail. Four days later they approached Fort Motte, on the Purgatory River.
Dobey was grinning from ear to ear, and had picked up the pace. Melton rode up beside him.
“You feeling some better now, Lieutenant?”
“Oh, you can bet your ass on that, Jimmy. You know what I was just remembering? ‘Course not. We
ll, Tad, my brother, he bit me once. He was still a baby. Got me right in the small of my back, drew blood. I hit him and Ma whacked me, but when she saw what he’d done, she bit him. On the arm. Not enough to draw blood, mind you, but enough to leave tooth marks.” Dobey laughed at the memory. “You talk about one shocked baby. He screamed bloody murder. That was morning. Six or seven hours go by, and he was fine, laughing and playing, and my daddy came in from patrol. Minute he walked in, Tad started wailing again, pointing to his arm. ‘Ma bit me! She bit me!’ Then Ma started crying too. ‘I did Mac, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.’ Ma told me you never saw anybody more confused than my daddy right then.”
There were several adobe and wooden buildings, an outhouse, a barn, and two corrals. There were around twenty horses at a water tank near one corral. As they rode closer, the horses raced away to the north.
“Hell, they’re wild,” said Melton.
Dobey stopped and stared. There was no smoke, no other sign of life, no noise but for an open door creaking as it swung in the wind. He hadn’t seen his family in almost six years. Until this moment, he’d had slim hope that that they were alive. It faded.
In the old sutler’s store, he found a note nailed to a beam. Thomas, he read, it’s no good here. We’ve gone to Texas. I’ll keep sending you letters. Your faithful mother, A.W.B.- P.S. Don’t nobody take this down.
Dobey walked outside. “Get watered up. We’re heading back.”
***
That had been April and May. Summer ripened into fall, and in late October Major Caskey stopped Dobey as he was leaving his office following an officer’s call.
“Walls, you know war is coming. I’m surprised we ain’t been sent into Kansas already. Have you thought which way you’ll go?”
“A lot, sir. I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, I don’t see how I can go against Texas. Guess I’ll have to resign.”
“I’s afraid of that. I feel the same way about Ohio, though I’ve spent all my grown days in the South and West. But you ain’t had slaves.”
“My grand-daddy did, on mama’s side. I never saw ‘em, but that doesn’t seem to matter. It ain’t about that, to me. It’s about being told what to do, by people who’ve never been here.”
“Yeah. Well, over half my men and officers are from the South. Things are gonna get strange.”
“Yessir. You said, a couple of things?”
“Yeah. Melton’s time is up next month. With the war coming, do you think he’ll ship over, or go to Texas?”
“Damned if I know, sir. I didn’t even know his time was coming up. I’ll talk with him.”
“Do that. Take him, one of your sections and two wagons, head out for Vamoosa Monday. Talk to him, and you do some thinking. Buy us thirty head of horses if you can, and all the buffalo hides you can get in a week. We need ‘em for coats and blankets. Take Tom, too.”
***
They made good time for four days, with nearly empty wagons. The snowstorm hit them Friday morning. At two p.m. the snow stopped. It was six inches deep, and they were ten miles from Vamoosa. Without the snow they would have never seen the buffalo.
It was a small herd, fewer than fifty. They were sheltering from the wind below a bluff less than a mile away.
“A gift horse,” said Dobey.
“No sir, them’s buffalo,” answered Corporal Jones. McDowell was sick, and Jones was leading the section.
“Thank you,” smiled Dobey. “That’s even better. I want you to take your section and the wagon with provisions, and kill as many of them as we can skin in three days. Melton and I will take young Caskey and the other wagon on to Vamoosa and see what we can line up for horses and hides there. You better give me two men to help with the horses. We’ll be back in a couple of days. Don’t spook ‘em now.”
“Yessir. Just kill ‘em. Don’t spook ‘em.” As he wheeled away, Jones muttered, “Look out, girls.”
Chapter Ten
Vamoosa Station was a log and mud cabin, fair-sized, with a sleeping room off the right rear. As one walked in, on the right there was a crude bar, boards nailed over empty casks, and a Franklin stove back toward the sleeping room. On the left was a wax-papered window, now shuttered, and a large fireplace with a few buffalo hide blankets on the hearth for overnight guests. In the center were two rough tables with wooden crates for chairs.
Around the walls, stacked and on shelves, were trade goods: shovels, picks, saws, harnesses, horseshoes, rope. Behind the bar were tins of food, coffee, sugar, salt, lead, powder, bullet molds, catalogues, newspapers, a couple of Hall carbines, two squirrel guns, three old shotguns, fishing hooks, and the liquor.
Standing behind the bar was the new proprietor: a former carpenter from Savannah, Georgia, forty-two years old, and about to break even on his investment.
He’d just bought twenty horses, saddle-broke, from the three men drinking in front of him. Twelve dollars apiece, and he’d sell them to Fort Smith or Fort Gibson for twenty each. A hundred and sixty profit there; add those seven ponies he’d bought from Seminole boys for five dollars each, he was almost ashamed to think, and he’d have back two hundred sixty-five dollars on his two hundred invested, in less than six months.
Not to mention that these men were now buying liquor with the money he’d paid them. This was definitely better than carpentry.
“What kind of name is that? Stineman?” The big one, the leader, was almost drunk and beginning to get a little surly. He pointed to the new sign behind the bar: “Bill Stineman—Proprietor.”
“German. Man of stone, I’m told.”
“German. Not a Jew?”
“No sir. I am not a Jew. A simple carpenter, like Jesus, but German. Not a Jew.” Stineman smiled at his own little joke.
The big black-haired Irishman smiled too, but it wasn’t a sweet smile.
“Well, you robbed us like a damned Jew. You’ll probably get sixteen, maybe eighteen dollar a head for them ponies from the army.”
The old vaquero nodded and sipped, but the third horse trader, a young tramp, was an instigator. “Tell him, Nigger Jim. Bastard Jew thief.”
Stineman began to worry. He had a six-shot pepperbox under his coat, but the little .32 balls might not stop these three. He made a soothing gesture. “Give my money back, and take them to the forts yourselves, then. I’m just offering a convenience. Not trying to cheat you. You want them back?”
The vaquero smiled and said, “We can do that.” He looked at his big companion. “Amigo?”
“No, Goddamit, we can’t. Me and Toothless here is deserters. We can’t go near them forts.” He slammed his cup on the bar and shouted, “And this damn Jew knows that, and that’s why he’s robbing us.” He glared, his madness building up to action.
***
John James Kerrey was a thoroughly oppressed man, and no one knew that better than he, himself. With his thick black hair he could have been called King Kerrey, or at least Prince. But no. The bastards had called him Black Jack as a boy, and now, at thirty-four, he was known as Nigger Jim.
The door opened behind him. The cold blast of air interrupted his thoughts, which really pissed him off. He turned, enraged, to face a sight certain to tip him over the edge: an officer.
***
There may have been an element of snow blindness that slowed his reaction. Dobey sensed something wrong as he walked in. The hair on his neck stood up, but it just happened too fast.
“Evening, station master, gentlemen.” He pulled off his gloves as he spoke, and started to slap snow from his cape and pants, only then noticing that two of the “gentlemen” were wearing army pants. Deserters?
The black-haired man exploded. “Bleeding officer,” he shouted, and in one motion, drew a short Colt from a shoulder holster, and hit Dobey in the face, backhanded. Nose broken, blood in his eyes, Dobey dropped like a rock. The two deserters began to kick him.
Tom Caskey pushed in at that point, shuddering from the cold and still laughing and
looking back at Melton. When he saw Dobey on the floor, he yelled, “Hold it right there.” The bigger civilian raised a pistol and shot him in the chest, knocking him back into Melton. Dobey thought, Oh, Jesus, not Tom.
Melton shoved young Caskey aside, brought up his Sharps and fired. The big civilian dropped the Colt, and went backwards over a box. The skinny tramp broke left for the window while the man behind the counter stood stupefied. Melton stepped in and butt-stroked the Mexican in the forehead, dropping him cold.
The gunfire, shocking in the enclosed space, startled Dobey back from semi-consciousness. A pistol fell on his head, and he dimly saw one of his attackers step on a box and try to open the window shutters. Dobey picked up the pistol and shot him in the butt. Dust flew from his filthy pants, he screamed, and fell off the box. He began kicking and twisting on the floor, holding himself.
Dobey cocked the Colt again, but almost blacked out before he could fire. Melton drew his Dragoon, stepped over Dobey and shot the tramp twice more. He then swung and pointed it at the counterman. “Friends of yours?”
***
The voice came to Stineman as in a long tunnel. He was deafened, and stunned by the sudden violence. He nodded stupidly, then shook his head, finally finding his voice.
“No. No. Just came in. Horse traders. I just bought horses from them, but I think they meant to rob me. Kept calling me a Jew.”
The corporal stared at him, boring into his eyes, then said, “All right,” and shot the unconscious Mexican instead. Stineman flinched, but showed no sympathy. The corporal appeared to believe him. “Throw some water on my lieutenant,” he ordered, then swung to cover the door as two troopers ran in, carbines ready.
They stared at the carnage, speechless. The big corporal decocked his pistol and said, “Took you long enough, girls. I think Caskey’s had it. Check him, and put him in the wagon. The major ain’t gonna be happy ‘bout this. I’ll get Lieutenant Walls on his feet, and see does he want to start back tonight.”
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