by H. H. Knibbs
“If you want him, you’ll have to come and take him,” Gardner said.
Meanwhile Gardner had ordered his men to line up five cannon and load them. The soldiers lined up awaiting the command to fire. Ben was at one of the guns.
The patrol captain deployed his men and then gave an order to charge. They were about halfway between the two groups when the broadside from five cannons met them. Their horses slid to a stop, and in a confusion of turning and whirling, rearing and leaping, the patrol scattered. Nobody was hurt, as far as Ben could tell, but the pursuit was definitely over.
Ben went along with Captain Gardner and his artillerymen until the middle of the next day. Then he took the north road through the brush country, and headed straight for Austin, a hundred and fifty miles away.
CHAPTER 15
As Ben Thompson and his black mule jogged along the brush country trails on the way to Austin more than half of the garrison at Laredo was marching downriver to Ringgold Barracks, still held by a Federal outpost. On June 16, 1864, Colonel Rip Ford’s men occupied Ringgold, and got ready to move on to Brownsville. In San Antonio, General J. E. Slaughter was organizing an expedition of five regiments to provide Ford the reinforcements for which he had been clamoring.
Traveling by night to escape the broiling South Texas sun, Ben was in the saddle from sundown to sunup, or as soon thereafter as he could find a spot of shade and a drop of almost nonexistent water for him and the mule. The sounds of this wild, wonderful country accompanied him: the howling of the lobo wolf and the coyote; the soft rustle of armadillo and possum on the leafy trails; the scurry of jackrabbits and lizards and roadrunners in the underbrush; the extensive repertory of the mockingbird in mellow love calls, in mimicking barks and wails, in shrill warning cries that sent quail whirring upward in clouds of vibrating wings; and the recurring rattling hiss of the diamondback snakes coiled threateningly.
Everywhere Ben was aware of unfenced cattle wilding through the mesquite, munching the feathery leaves, impatient for the ripening of the succulent bean pods that would give food and drink. Especially drink, for most of the waterholes had long ago dried up and were choked with the dust of months of drought. And now and then his tired eyes filled with the stunning spectacle of a herd of mustangs, manes and tails flying in the breeze of their own making, as they clattered up a gentle rise, outlined against the sky for a moment before disappearing over the hump. And then the contrast: the disheartening sight of lean and hungry calves nudging their fleshless mothers, all bone and hide, nuzzling in the folds of the cows’ wrinkled teats, seeking milk from empty udders.
As Ben crossed the Nueces River, the parched prairie of the South Texas plains receded. Soon he moved upward, into the first slopes of the hill country. He was leaving the cactus and mesquite and thorn-bush thickets. He headed to the deep green of the live oak clumps, and the rise and spread of bigger trees. Ben had by now changed to traveling in the daylight hours, through the vast carpets of high grass and wildflowers, the flame of the redwood bushes, the gold of the buttercups, the cool azure patches of buffalo clover. Ceniza bushes in sage gray were sprinkled with purple blossoms, and the primroses had closed their pale pink petals, both sure signs of approaching rain.
One bright moonlight night, Ben was awakened by a feeling of weight on his chest. He opened his eyes warily, and made out the long, thick form of a big rattlesnake inching across his middle, diagonally from his legs, the big flat head now so close to his face he could almost nudge it with his chin. Ben froze stiffly, knowing the slightest motion would bring the dart of venomed fangs. As the head moved across his right shoulder, toward the tree where the mule was tied, Ben slowly turned his eyes in that direction. The mule was not alone. A shadowy figure in buckskin was slashing at the rawhide hobbles.
For a long, tense moment, as the tapering rattles of the snake scraped across his neck and slid to the ground, Ben’s right hand was pressed firmly against his leg. Then his fingers opened slowly, and he touched his pistol butt, and the fingers closed on it. He turned over slowly and now was on his belly, watching the man and the snake. He crawled back and sideways; found the shelter of a tree. The crackle of twigs startled the thief, who paused and turned. From the darkness beyond him, two quick shots rang out, and the ground around Ben billowed in small clouds of dust and leaves. As the man at the mule leaped away, there was a pounding of retreating hoofs on hard earth.
Crouching, the man near the mule threw his knife and it quivered and vibrated over Ben’s head, the point of the long blade embedded in the tree trunk. Ben squeezed his pistol trigger, and the weapon flashed and thundered in the still of the night. The man in front of him rose from the ground, his feet clear and arms outstretched. As the shots echoed, he plunged forward, then rolled in dusty death against a small bush.
A vigorous hissing now arose back of Ben’s blanket on the ground. He turned toward the coiled rattler and fired. The bullet blew the serpent’s head off, and the rest of the snake uncoiled like a whip and crashed through the fallen twigs, lashing against trees and bushes in a wild, waving, thrashing convulsion.
Several days later, in Austin, Ben told of this encounter with the snake, and with the Indians, apparently renegades from a group of friendly braves. He also informed friends that he had been commissioned by Colonel Rip Ford to form a company that would join another regiment to fight the Comanches, Kiowas, Chickasaws, and Choctaws depredating in the high plains country to the northwest.
CHAPTER 16
The end of the Civil War was in sight when Ben Thompson and John Rapp began recruiting a company in Austin to fight the Indians to the north and west.
Those who could read the handwriting on the wall prepared for a breakdown of war-raised barriers. Much of the Confederacy had little but deserted fields for beginning again, but the Texas brush-land teemed with millions of head of cattle. At five or six dollars a head they had hardly been worth killing for beef. Thousands upon thousands were slaughtered for hide and tallow. Still the longhorn population could be counted in the millions.
During the war there was no market for Texas cattle. They were blockaded from the Confederacy by the Mississippi gunboats, and spurned by northern buyers elsewhere. But the end of the war had to come. It was clear that the only hope for Texas was to sell her cattle: break through to the market, or bust.
The Indian-fighting regiments were being formed partly in anticipation of the desperate drive to market. Meanwhile, they might also serve to intercept rich Federal wagon trains.
As the war waned, Texas hedged against total submission. Colonel Ford had by now moved back along the border outposts and recaptured them all from the Yankees. He was in full possession of Fort Brown with a garrison of several thousand men. Texas fully expected to be back in business, regardless of the war’s outcome. Markets might be found out toward the rapidly growing West. Several herds had been driven through to California. But between the source of supply and the markets stretched the great extension of the High Plains and the perilous miles of Indian Territory.
It was well and good for Ben Thompson to announce that he had been commissioned to form an Indian-fighting company, but that did not stop suspicions from rising, nor tongues from wagging. For every move toward any kind of combination of power was a threat to the free-wheeling individual in a man-to-man culture.
Why, people were asking, was Ben Thompson not taking the responsibility of being captain of the new company?
Why was he so willing to let John Rapp take the captain’s post while Ben would go along as lieutenant? Then some difficulties developed with the Home Guards, headed by Captain L. D. Carrington. The Indian-fighter recruitment was cutting into his personnel, urgently needed at home.
The call by Rapp and Thompson was for men keen with pistols and guns, daring, reckless, bold, and adventurous. They asked for no pedigrees, no references from previous employers, no record of previous associations. There wa
s fighting to be done, hard fighting, long, wearisome trail riding. The prospective reward was not retirement to a comfortable old age, but more likely than not an unmarked grave on the lone prairie. Still there was a gambling chance that a man might come through with some kind of grubstake. In the meantime there would be chuck, and a bunk, and maybe a spell of fun.
But there were other groups of men forming in those days, without the official stamp of the army: gangs of wandering gun-toters, some who had been in the war. Others had made a profession of banditry. Still others had run loose after trouble somewhere at home, a killing perhaps, or a spree that had put the mark of the outlaw upon them. So the talk started, inevitably, that what Ben Thompson was up to had nothing to do with fighting Indians. They said he was setting up a little private army of his own to prey on the land.
John Coombs, who owned a farm near Austin, somehow became the spearhead for those who were asking the most insistent questions about what might be going on. Coombs was a member of the Home Guard. It was said that Coombs bore a grudge against Carrington, and that he had tried, several times, to provoke difficulties between him and Rapp.
For weeks the tension heightened. Friends of Coombs and of Thompson brought stories to each: what they had heard, what the one had said, and what the other had said. How much of it was fabrication, how much of it actual fact, was anybody’s guess. The situation was putting obstacles in the way of getting on with the formation of the Indian fighter company. The possibility developed that Ben might lose his commission.
Late one afternoon, Coombs, somewhat intoxicated, walked into John Wahrenberger’s beer hall. He noticed Rapp, and at once began a tirade against Carrington. Rapp ignored the insults, until Coombs addressed him directly:
“Well, Mr. Commander of the robbers, do you agree?”
“Let’s talk some other time,” Rapp said, “I’m going home now.”
Coombs then drew one of his two six-shooters and cocked it. Rapp seized the gun, his hand encircling the weapon as Coombs snapped the trigger. Coombs wrenched the pistol hard, tearing away a big chunk of skin and flesh between Rapp’s thumb and forefinger, where his hand had been caught under the falling hammer. Coombs pulled out a knife and slashed at Rapp, who raised his right hand to ward off the blow. The blade slashed his right hand, again between thumb and forefinger.
After being treated by Dr. J. M. Litton, Rapp went to Ben Thompson’s home and told him what had happened. He also asked him to go along to the Brown building to pick up a change of clothing. At the same time he said that Coombs was assembling some of the Home Guard with the intention of arresting Rapp and Ben. The two men went first to the shop of George Todd, the gunsmith, to get Ben’s pistol loaded. Todd was out of bullets, but made some balls from a bar of lead, and loaded the weapon.
By then, night had fallen. As Rapp and Ben approached the Brown building, they met Giles H. Burdett, and stopped to chat with him. As they talked, Bink Miller, a Negro, approached and said:
“Mr. Ben, that man Mr. Coombs and about twenty men in the alley back of the livery stable. They hitch their horses there. Say they kill you and Captain Rapp.”
At the same moment, Ben testified later, he heard voices—Coombs’ and those of other men emerging from the alley.
“Where are the sons of bitches?” Coombs said. “Let them show themselves.”
“You hear those men,” Ben said, “come on.”
A staccato of shots echoed in the dark. Ben headed for a man who had taken a stand behind a post, firing at Thompson. Ben’s gun blazed. As the man leaned out to shoot, a bullet struck him in the mouth, and he dropped. Another man approached on horseback. Ben shot him in the arm, and he turned his horse violently. This was a signal for the others to retreat. Only the fading echoes of horses’ hoofs now broke the silence.
Ben walked over to the Red Brick House hotel, spun the cylinder of his pistol, and then returned to the street. His voice crackled in the silent night:
“Come out and fight like men!”
There was no response. Ben went home. There Bink Miller waited to tell him that a mob was forming, that they planned to hang Ben. He also informed Ben that John Coombs had been killed, and another man wounded.
Ben’s wife and his mother pleaded with him to leave town. He wanted to stay on and face trial, but finally agreed to hide out at a friend’s house for the night. In the morning, he gave his wife his pistol and she took it to Todd and brought it back reloaded.
Later that morning he went to the office of the Provost Marshal. Afterward, he started for the office of City Marshal W. H. Sharp. He met Sharp on the street, and the marshal said he had a warrant for Ben’s arrest. Ben said he would not be disarmed, nor go to jail, but that he would appear for examining trial. The marshal did not argue the matter further, but went on and served a warrant on Rapp and jailed him.
At his examining trial, Rapp was released under bond of two thousand dollars. The attorney, Charles L. Robards, asked that the same bond be fixed for Ben. This was done, and both men were released.
Ben and Rapp continued recruiting for the Indian-fighting regiment. Soon it moved on to Waco to join Beard’s regiment in camp there. Behind him Ben left a boost in his reputation as a gunfighter, and also a murder charge to which he would have to answer when and if he ever returned to Austin.
The war by now was definitely and rapidly coming to an end. The area commanders for the Confederacy decided that the Indian expedition would be fruitless for the cause. The regiment was disbanded eventually.
Ben Thompson rode out the rest of the Civil War footloose on the burgeoning cattle trails. He took campfire pot-luck with hide-hunters and learned to use their long-barreled Sharps buffalo guns. He roamed to the edge of the Comanche country, where both North and South were fighting an unrelenting war with the Indians.
He rode, too, through the brush country, where the lust for cattle and land was planting the seed of future patterns of life, and of bitter strife. He saw great cattle kingdoms in the process of formation. He got firsthand reports of men with big holdings who were shoring up properties against the end of the war. They were paying anybody and everybody fifty cents a head for running their brands on unidentified or not previously claimed stock. It was easy to understand that two or more groups of men out hunting the same cattle for marking with a red-hot iron might wind up shooting at one another. The victors would yearn for law and order to protect their properties. The losers might take their chances at a rustler’s fate: the dance in the air at the end of a rope.
Under a tall, spreading sycamore tree on the Nueces River, Ben met up with a bedraggled band of a dozen or more Confederate soldiers. They were roasting beef ribs over the glowing coals of a fragrant pecan wood fire. A freshly butchered steer lay nearby. The fire of the waning sunlight glowed in the hidebound hollow carcass, flared open like a great crimson flower.
The men had straggled up from the Rio Grande. They had been mustered out a few weeks after Lee’s surrender. Others were still fighting along the Rio Grande over possession of bales of cotton and other supplies. These men told Ben they were going to Austin to claim their back pay.
Ben said he would go along, and he was at the head of the ragged column on horseback, carrying their Lone Star flag high overhead, when the rumbling hoofs pounded the chalky clay up the Congress Avenue hill.
CHAPTER 17
In the summer of 1865 Ben Thompson found the people of Austin, weary, dreary, destitute, and desperate. The joy of seeing men back from the war was blurred by the heartbreaking scene of tired soldiers dragging their defeat home with them:
The old government was gone in all but name. The new government of the Reconstruction had not yet arrived. Hunger was the law for hundreds of Confederates traipsing into town by day and by night. At the capitol their demands for pay in gold or land went unheeded.
The soldiers set about “paying themselves.” From o
ver the countryside other men with arms wandered in to reap the harvest of chaos. Holdups and robberies were in progress almost constantly, and daylight was no deterrent. Plunder and pillage were followed by fires set in anger or disappointment. Gunfire and raucous shouting of uninterrupted brawling accompanied the reign of disorder. Men, women, and children wandered about, afraid to go home, fearful of being out after dark.
By the light of a big summer moon on the night of June 11, 1865, a band of forty men seized the treasury building, across from the capitol. Colonel John C. Walker called for volunteers to fight the robbers, and ordered the Baptist church bells to be rung as an alarm. Nineteen men rode with him, some of them on horses or mules looted from the government stables. They swarmed onto the land office grounds and moved in on the treasury. They stopped the robbery but not the robbers, who had gathered about seventeen thousand dollars in gold pieces, and then shot their way out of the building and fled.
Through all this, Ben Thompson moved in armed ambivalence. The ashes of defeat were as bitter for him as for the other residents of Austin. His pistol was in steady-nerved readiness, to take of the things he had been denied, or to prevent others from their taking. His wife’s folks had property around Austin, and he felt a responsibility on the side of the law. And his useful six-shooter was welcomed by those who were trying to restore order.
All of this was taken from their hands during the summer, with the arrival of the Federal troops, the vanguard of the Reconstruction government. They raised the Union flag, and set up tents for the men, stables for the horses. The soldiers and their mounts looked well-fed and well-groomed, in contrast to the returned Confederates.
By late summer, the Federal troops numbered in the thousands, and the military law had brought a partial halt to the terror. But it was the peace of the grave. Stores, hotels, residences were abandoned and shut tight. The city was almost deserted, and its only life was that of a military garrison.
The firm policy of making examples of offenders, in order to establish the power of law, caught up with Ben Thompson. It blocked any projects he may have had for setting up a game for soldiers’ paydays. He was called to account on the Coombs murder charge, from which he had been freed on bond. Now he was in jail awaiting trial. The slow grinding of the mills of justice was, in the eyes of the law-enforcers, the best object lesson against the traditional procedure of each man taking the law into his own hands.