Ghost Warrior

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  “The Bible says it’s hard to kick against the pricks,” Caesar answered. “Acts, chapter nine, verse five. I reckon that means no sense the oxen complaining about the goad.”

  “This ain’t so bad, suh.” Private Ben Simpson carried the brand of his former master on the back of his hand. “Back befo’ the sesesh war, my massa, he got in a heap o’ trouble for killin’ a white man, an’ he drove all us slaves to Texas. I wuz just a sprat then. It wuz snowin’ sumpin’ powerful, but massa, he wouldn’t give us no shoes. Wouldn’t even ‘low us to wrap our feets wit’ sacks. My mammy’s feet, they gots all bloody, and her legs swoll up. Massa he shot her, an’ kicked her whilst she lay dyin.’ He said, ‘Damn a nigger what cain’t stand nothin.’” Simpson shook his head. “Naw, this ain’t so bad.”

  You can never know a man, Rafe thought, until you’ve been on a hard scout with him.

  This scout qualified as hard. For a month they had followed a trail of dead ranchers, dead travelers, dead mail carriers, dead sheepherders, and their equally dead flocks. They had found houses burned and corrals emptied of horses and cattle. The newfangled telegraph wires hummed. Troops converged to try to head Victorio off before he reached the Mexican border. Neither Rafe nor Caesar were optimistic about their success.

  “Shoulda known it would come to this pass,” said Caesar as he and Rafe rode along, their heads down to shield their faces from the ice needles of sleet. “Shoulda known I’d have to hunt my own kinfolk ’fore it was all over.”

  “Victorio has to be stopped.”

  “You reckon we’ll have to kill him?”

  “Doesn’t look like he’s coming in hat in hand this time.”

  Caesar fell silent. He was still haunted by the memory of the woman falling over the cliff almost two months earlier, and the wail of grief that followed her. Caesar and Rafe had been horrified to find the body of She Moves Like Water. With the lieutenant chivvying them to move along, they had lowered her into a cleft. They had taken off their hats, in spite of the pelting rain, while Caesar said a prayer for her.

  Rafe reined his chestnut close so he wouldn’t have to shout. “We had no way to know she was his woman, or any woman for that matter.”

  “I think my bullet might have killed her, Rafe.”

  “No. Dead Shot was the one who hit her.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I’m sure of it. I don’t think he knew who she was, either.”

  “I reckon when we see Victorio,” Caesar said, “we can tell him where she’s buried.”

  If we see Victorio, Rafe thought.

  So far they hadn’t caught a glimpse of him. Lozen was almost certainly with him, and maybe what He Makes Them Laugh said about her was true. He Makes Them Laugh said the spirits had given her the power to heal, to gentle horses, to steal ammunition, and to sense enemies.

  Rafe wondered if she now considered him an enemy. He wondered if she was as cold as he was. She certainly didn’t have the shelter of an adobe room to look forward to, with a clay fireplace in the corner, a stack of fragrant mesquite wood, and a cot with a heap of dry blankets.

  “There it is.” Caesar pointed to the low, dark bulk of buildings.

  “Thank God,” Rafe murmured into the wind.

  “I hope Cap’n Hooker is off on scout,” said Caesar.

  “That makes two of us.”

  Capt Ambrose Hooker, the commander of Company E at Warm Springs, was infuriating. He was dangerous. He was insane.

  Someone, Rafe thought, should shoot him. He had considered doing it himself.

  “Rafe, someone’s got to stop Captain Hooker. He’s trying to get his men kilt.”

  “I know he’s crazy, and he’s incompetent … .”

  “I didn’t say he’s going to get them kilt. I said he’s trying to get them kilt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He acts like Victorio ain’t chewing up the countryside and spittin’ out the bones. He grazes the livestock a couple miles from the fort, like he was inviting the Apaches to steal ’em. He only allows the sentries to carry unloaded pistols, and he won’t let them saddle their mounts.”

  Rafe knew Caesar didn’t lie, and he didn’t confuse his facts, either. Still, he had a hard time believing even Captain Hooker would send his men out on herd duty with no ammunition and no way to control their horses if they had to escape.

  “I’ll talk to the officers I play cards with. I’ll ask them to complain about Hooker. God knows, my letters to Hatch haven’t helped.”

  When they reached the Fort, Capt. Ambrose Hooker wasn’t on scout. He strode into the stable while Rafe was in a corner stall rubbing down the chestnut. A soldier was shoveling out the place, and Hooker lashed at him with his quirt.

  “I never saw a nigger could do anything right.” He aimed a kick at him, then several more.

  The man held the shovel up to ward off the blows, and that enraged Hooker further.

  “I will kick out every goddamned tooth in your black head.”

  “Hey,” Rafe threw down the sacking he was using to dry off his horse and left the stall. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m teaching this brute the difference between a soldier and a field nigger.”

  “Stop it.” Rafe grabbed the quirt.

  “Get out of my way, you contemptible puppy.”

  “Stop it, or I’ll flog you with your own crop.” Rafe motioned for the private to leave. He obliged.

  “A nigger has as much business to be a soldier as a cur to be a saint.” Hooker panted with rage. He had the same look in his eyes that Rafe had once seen in a bull that had eaten loco weed. “I’ll be glad when the Apaches kill every one of those damned coons.”

  Rafe left him to swear and rant, and walked to his quarters to write another letter to Colonel Hatch.

  Slander, discord, reprimands, suspensions in rank, assaults, and court-martials littered Captain Hooker’s career. Only recently a superior officer threw him into prison for beating a black sergeant after Hooker had tied him in a squatting position with a pole passed under his knees. Colonel Hatch, faced with Victorio’s outbreak and a shortage of officers, ordered Hooker freed from jail.

  Rafe had disliked more than a few men in his life, but not since Shadrach Rogers had he loathed one as much as Ambrose Hooker.

  RAIN PELTED THE WOMEN AS THE SOLDIERS HELPED THE children and the old ones out of the wagon. They watched in silence, their faces as unreadable as masks, as Caesar and the other men put their shoulders against the wagon’s tailgate and the mud-covered wheels. When the driver cracked his whip, the mules heaved against their harnesses, and Caesar pushed until he grew dizzy. The wheels churned a foot or two through the mire and stopped.

  The caravan consisted of four supply vehicles and twelve wagons for transporting the women, children, and old people left behind when Victorio and his warriors bolted from Warm Springs and went on their rampage. Each wagon would have to be hauled through this bog and then wrestled up the slope of the pass and down the other side. Even the oldest would have to walk much of the way. The trail was a morass of loose rocks and icy mud, and they had covered only a quarter of the four hundred mountainous miles to San Carlos. To make matters worse, Capt. Ambrose Hooker had been assigned to this detail.

  The sensible plan would have been to wait until spring to transfer the band, but the army and the Interior Department thought they could hold the families hostage at San Carlos. They thought they would be able to bargain with Victorio for them.

  Caesar was glad that his Apache family had left with Victorio. They would be on the run now, but at least they weren’t suffering this misery. He missed the tomfoolery of He Makes Them Laugh, though. He hadn’t seen his nephew, Sets Him Free, in a long time, either. The boy must be close to seventeen now.

  Caesar walked along the line and stopped at the fifth wagon back. Victorio’s grown daughter and second wife, Corn Stalk, her mother, and several small children rode in it. Their clothes hung in tatters on thei
r thin frames. The wind and rain had shredded the canvas covering, and they huddled together, trying to conserve the heat from their bodies and share it.

  Every day he had tried to talk to them, using Spanish and a little Apache, but they only stared past him. Now, though, Corn Stalk caught his eye. She and her mother sat with their arms around six-year-old Istee, Victorio’s youngest son. The boy shivered convulsively.

  “Hisdlii,” Corn Stalk said. “He is cold. Kaa sitii, he is sick.”

  His grandmother took the scrap of blanket from her shoulders and wrapped it around the child. “Nohwich’odiih, Shida’a,” she said. “You help us, Uncle.”

  Caesar untied the army-issue blanket from behind his saddle and handed it to them. He thought no more about it until that evening when he was sitting as close to the sputtering fire as he could get, and wishing he had the blanket. Captain Hooker roared into the bivouack area, his face as red as raw beef. Flecks of saliva collected in the corners of his mouth.

  “Who gave military property to the Indians?” He held Caesar’s blanket up and shook it.

  Dread clenched Caesar’s heart. “They was cold, sir.”

  “I’ll have you brought up on charges, you uppity, damned dog. I’ll have you branded, bucked, and cashiered. See if I don’t.”

  THE YOUNG SOLDIER PULLED OPEN THE HEAVY OAK DOOR and let spring sunlight into the room dug into the side of the hill. The cell formed the basement for the adobe building that served as the post’s guardroom. The guards in the room above had a cast-iron sibley stove for heat, but little of that warmth seeped below. Rafe had brought Caesar blankets, underflannels, a couple of wool shirts, and a greatcoat. Caesar had slept in all of them on the bare ground.

  A narrow window near the ceiling had iron bars. The room’s only furniture was a pail in one corner to serve as a privy. Caesar and his three cellmates wore shackles around their ankles.

  The guard stood watch while Mattie and Rafe went in with the two children. Three-year-old Ellie Liberty ran to Caesar, who picked her up and hugged her. Then holding her with one arm, he knelt to encircle seven-year-old Linc with the other.

  “We gots the corn and squash and beans in the ground,” said Mattie. “Rafe done the plowin’, and Lib and I scattered the seed. Linc keeps the blackbirds away.” She ran her finger through Caesar’s wild curls. “You needs a barberin’.”

  “You can give me one soon.” He didn’t tell her that when the afternoon was over, he wouldn’t need a haircut.

  “Thas’ right. Rafe tells me you kin come home with us today.”

  “Yes, I can.” Caesar looked at Rafe. “I’ll be glad to be out of this army, brother. I don’t want to be shooting at my own family.”

  “If I can find Victorio, I’ll try to convince him to surrender.”

  “I reckon the gum‘ment pushed that man as far as they’s goin’ to. I don’t think he’s gonna lay down his rifle and bow his head.”

  They talked until they heard the bugler play “Assembly.”

  “Mattie,” Rafe held out a quarter dollar. “Here’s two bits for the children to spend at the sutler’s store.” He gave her a long look. “Why don’t you let them nose around there a while.”

  “Say, ‘Thank you kindly, Uncle Rafe,’” said Mattie.

  “And when you’re done, Mattie, take the wagon and meet us down the trail, at the creek.” Rafe chose that place because Mattie could drive there from the sutler’s store without passing the parade ground.

  Mattie put a hand on the back of each child’s head and pushed them gently toward the door. She turned to give Rafe an anxious look.

  “He’ll be all right, Mattie.”

  When they had gone, Caesar said, “Mattie says you brought them vittles and other necessaries. She says without you, they would’ve had a hard time of it this winter.”

  Rafe shrugged. “I only would have lost the money at Flossie’s poker table in Central City.”

  “You heard what happened to the men guarding the horses?”

  “Victorio and his men shot all five of them and the three herders. They took off with forty-six head.”

  The Apaches had stripped the bodies, but they hadn’t mutilated the men. It solidified Rafe’s conviction that Victorio would be an adversary the likes of which the army had not seen so far. And to tell the truth, Rafe couldn’t blame him for going on the warpath. Victorio was kicking against the pricks, all right.

  He thought of something he had read once, “Revenge is a kind of wild justice.” Victorio’s justice would be of the wildest sort.

  “I tole you Hooker would get those men killed.”

  “Yes, you did. Their deaths might be enough to convince Colonel Hatch to bring him up on charges. They’re starting an investigation.”

  They heard the tread of boots. Now that the time had come, panic flashed through Caesar’s eyes.

  “The child was sick, Rafe. I had to give him that blanket.”

  “Any decent man would have done the same.” Rafe didn’t tell him that Corn Stalk and her mother had died at San Carlos over that terrible, freezing winter. Caesar had enough sorrow and regret to deal with today. Rafe put his hands on his friend’s shoulders and looked into his hazel eyes.

  “Now, listen, shik’isn, my brother. What they do will be difficult, but it will be short. And no matter what they say, or what they do, when it’s over, you can go home to your family and your farm with a clear conscience. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know it.”

  “Mattie and the children will not see it, but I’ll be close by. Remember that most of the men will be on your side. And once a board of inquiry proves that Hooker’s incompetence killed those sentries, they’ll do the right thing. They will do to him what he’s doing to you. You can take consolation in that.”

  The six soldiers of the guard arrived. Caesar, his ankle chains clanking, walked out surrounded by them. Hooker had assembled every soldier who wasn’t in the field, about eighty in all. Rafe was relieved to see the blacksmith absent. Hatch had been as good as his word about forbidding Hooker to have Caesar branded. Hatch knew that branding a black man in front of soldiers who had been former slaves would almost certainly cause them to mutiny.

  When the escort reached the front of the formation, Captain Hooker motioned for the color sergeant to unlock the shackles. Caesar knelt, and the barber began shaving his head. Rafe could hear the scrape of the dry blade across his skull. The tight curls coiled over the barber’s hand and fell away.

  When he finished, Caesar stood up so Hooker could rip the yellow sergeant’s stripes from his sleeve and the brass buttons off the jacket. Mattie had sewn them on well. After yanking and tugging at them while Caesar stood stonefaced and unmoving, Hooker took out his knife. Snickers broke out in the ranks, and Hooker’s face grew red.

  From the rear a man called out, “Give the cap’n a bobtail and see how he likes it.”

  “Son of a bitch,” someone else muttered.

  Caesar turned his head and gave them a sergeant major’s look.

  The bugle, fife, and drum struck up “Rogue’s March.” The six soldiers of the guard marched Caesar up and down between the ranks until he reached the last one. Rafe was waiting for him with a saddled horse at the edge of the parade ground. Caesar mounted, and the two of them rode away.

  Chapter 55

  A MULE NAMED MALARIA

  Lozen, Victorio, and Broken Foot looked down at the five men in the canyon below. They had wrapped their braids with colored yarn and rabbit fur. They wore leather leggings and low moccasins, but the rest of their outfits was a mix of Mexican and Anglo shirts, vests, and jackets. One had on a black silk stovepipe hat, and another a bowler.

  They sat their gaunt ponies with haughty grace. While they waited for the signal that they had been spotted, they tore pages from a book and rolled tobacco in them. One of them dismounted to start a small blaze with his fire drill and dried moss. The others leaned down from their ponies and lit their cigarillos.
One opened a faded pink parasol and held it up to shade himself.

  “They aren’t Ndee,” said Broken Foot.

  “Comanche.” Victorio motioned for Wah-sin-ton and Sets Him Free to ride down and escort them to the camp.

  Broken Foot chuckled. “They must have taken a wrong turn at the Rio Bravo.”

  “Go to sleep with Lipans and you wake up with Comanches,” said Lozen.

  Broken Foot laughed out loud, and Victorio chuckled. Some of the Ndee who called themselves Lipans had come to Victorio and asked to join his band. The Lipans lived in the country adjoining Comanche territory to the east, and they were rarely friendly with the Red Paints. They weren’t on good terms with the Comanches, either, but maybe they realized that they had an enemy more dangerous than each other.

  Maybe the Lipans told the Comanches about Victorio’s war on the Pale Eyes. Maybe the Comanches heard about it from the soldiers at Fort Sill, where the army had resettled them. If these men were some of those who had refused to go to Oklahoma Territory, maybe the comancheros had told them of Victorio’s war. However they learned about him, they did what the army and its scouts couldn’t. They found him.

  So did a lot of others. All spring and summer men had arrived and offered to fight. They came on foot and on horseback. Some brought their families. Sometimes they led a pony loaded with belongings. Sometimes they carried only weapons and survival gear.

  The Mescaleros, the Tall Cliffs Chiricahuas, and Mangas’ Santa Rita Red Paints had always been Victorio’s allies, but the Warm Springs band now included White Mountain men, and warriors of the Cibicu, Aravaipa, Coyotero, Jicarilla, and Tonto bands. A few In Back At The Front People had joined him, and some of Long Neck’s Enemy People.

  All of them agreed that the Ndee had not seen a leader of Victorio’s abilities since the death of Cheis. Some said he was a better tactician that Cheis and wilier than old Red Sleeves. They whispered that the powerful far-sight of Victorio’s shadow, the warrior Lozen, made it impossible for enemies to sneak up on him. Many believed that his success was due in some part to his sister’s wise counsel, too.