Buffalo Soldier

by Tanya Landman

  See, I figure folks got to have someone to love. Someone to look up to. But they got to have someone to hate just as bad. Someone to look down on, to peck at, just like chickens in a yard.

  With the white folks, the big plantation owners pecked at the smaller farmers, and the smaller farmers pecked at the crackers, who was poor but respectable. The crackers pecked at the white trash, who lived on handouts, wallowing shameless in poverty like hogs in a swamp.

  Guess we had ourselves a pecking order too. Mammy and Ham at the top, then the house slaves. Amos and Cookie was in the middle. Field hands was down at the bottom.

  About a million miles lower than the lowest field hand was them Indians. Everyone pecked at them. I’d heard Mr Delaney say they was just animals in human form. They didn’t have no souls. They was nothing. Less than nothing.

  Yet there was this Indian talking to Captain Smith about his schooling. That man had book-learning? He done say it been arranged by the tribal government, whatever the hell that was.

  “You a Choctaw?” says Captain Smith.

  “No,” says the Indian. “Cherokee.”

  When I hear the word “Cherokee” I damn nearly fall off Abe. I’d heard of them. It was Cherokee land the Delaney place been built on.

  Hell, Cherokees got to be the biggest dumbass fools in the whole of creation! The plantation been good farming land. Yet they’d signed it over to the Delaneys and chose to come out to this scrubby patch of dirt? What the devil was wrong with them?

  I figured you can dress an Indian in white man’s clothes, get him to read even, but it don’t make him smart. You can teach a bird to talk, don’t mean it understands nothing. Cherokees? Why, they all got to be as soft in the head as Henry!

  15.

  We finally catch up with the General about an hour before sundown. He’d stopped where the ground was more or less level and there was patches of yellowing grass for the horses. I unsaddled Abe, give him a rub-down and, once I fed him the corn in his nosebag, I led him out on a rope so he could fill his belly some more. It was starting to get dark by the time the supply train come rolling in. Reuben and Elijah made a makeshift corral by stringing lariat ropes between them wagons so I tugged Abe away from the grass – was hard work; Abe never did like to stop eating – and put him in with the others.

  Them Indian ponies was kept separate. Their front legs was hobbled – tied together – so them animals couldn’t wander far but they could graze all night, which was more than Abe could do. Made me feel sorry for my horse.

  General Sullivan and his men was hunkered down in tents but it seemed Company W hadn’t been issued with them. I don’t know if the Quartermaster back at the fort had fouled up or if supplies just couldn’t be had. We was finding out that if ever equipment was running short it was Company W who had to go without.

  We slept beneath the stars, great coats rolled up, tucked under our heads. Might have been all right if the air hadn’t been filled with mosquitoes. Every time I dozed off I’d get one buzzing in my ear. Spent most of the time awake and whacking at them. We all did. You could hear it regular – a chorus of slip-slapping the whole night through. And in the morning we was covered with bumps. Looked like we’d been afflicted by plague like them Egyptians in the Bible.

  We spent the next day itching and scratching. It was punishing hot, and soon them mosquitoes was joined by a host of swarming flies. Couldn’t hardly see through them. If you opened your mouth to talk they’d fly right on in. They was in our ears, up our noses. Made us real twitchy. Made the horses even twitchier. Henry’s set to bucking and he never could sit through one of them equine explosions. He come off more than once. I would have helped him if Abe wasn’t doing much the same thing. Most all my attention was on staying in that saddle.

  But I noticed the herds of cows we was riding by. They was being tended by more Indians and I guess these was Cherokees too because the scouts seemed to know them. The flies was so bad they’d lit smoky fires to try driving them away. Wasn’t working. One of them scouts told Captain Smith that some days the cows was driven plumb wild and ran off into the swamps where they was drowned. Hearing that made me even more sure of my opinion: them Cherokees didn’t have the sense they was born with.

  We didn’t stop riding until it was real late. We was tuckered out by the time we made camp. We been in the saddle from before sunup to nigh on sundown, just a few stops along the way to water the horses, let them graze some. When I got down off Abe my legs near give out – didn’t seem to be no bones left in them. All I wanted to do was get my head down and sleep. The scouts hobbled their horses and tucked right into some food. But the rest of us wasn’t allowed to because General Sullivan start giving out new orders.

  If Captain Smith was a listener, General Sullivan was the opposite. Them horses been fine last night in Elijah’s makeshift corral. But now General Sullivan looks at Elijah. Then he says to Captain Smith, “Ever seen a stampede?”

  “No, sir,” he replies. “I can’t say I have.”

  “A stampede’s a dangerous thing, Captain. I’ve seen a herd of horses tearing through tents, destroying everything in their path. Do you know, one occasion I witnessed a whole company of cavalry crushed to death? Men, pulped beneath their horses’ hooves. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

  The General knew we was all listening. Could tell he wouldn’t have minded seeing Company W going the same way. He didn’t let up, neither. He go on and on, till he got us all staring sideways at our horses like they planning to trample us to death soon as we fall asleep.

  The General says the horses ought to be tied to picket pins – nice and far apart so their lines don’t get tangled. He give the order. Only it turns out we wasn’t issued pins neither – Elijah can’t find none on the wagons, which is why he’d made the corral the way he did the night before. But the General’s got his mind made up. He wants them horses tied to picket pins and so that’s what has to be done. Any second he’s gonna stamp his foot and sulk like Miss Louellen done when she wanted to get her own way.

  Well, we didn’t have no picket pins so we got to make them. Instead of eating our beans and salt pork and settling down to sleep we got to spend the next hour or so splitting wood. Isaiah done most of it on account of him being a carpenter back in the old days. Once them pins was made they had to be driven into the ground, which wasn’t no easy task. All the time we was at it the General was passing remarks about the goddamned foolishness of letting the likes of us join the army.

  We heard it all before. Didn’t none of us pay much attention, not even Henry.

  It was dark when them horses was tied up according to the General’s satisfaction. I was so darn tired by then I didn’t bother eating, I just lay me down and shut my eyes.

  I was sound asleep when the ground under me started shaking. There’s something so deep down wrong about the feel of solid earth trembling that it jerks you right awake.

  Now what startled them I never did find out. Could have been anything. There was plenty of snakes about. Horse sees one and it darn nearly jumps clean out of its skin. Or it might have been them flies biting in a tender place. The General said later it was us caused that stampede: someone had to be blamed and couldn’t none of Company W go answering back. Seemed more likely to be one of them whitey troopers’ idea of a joke. Whatever the cause, truth is, it only takes one horse to spook, and panic spread through a herd like wildfire.

  Every single one of our horses had ripped out his picket pin. They was charging about the camp, dragging them pins along the ground, screaming and setting each other off until they was all worked up into a lather. Now just one horse seems like a mighty big creature when it’s running straight at you. Just one would have been enough to scare the pants off of me. A hundred of them heading in my direction plain froze me where I stood.

  I guess the good Lord was protecting me again. I been sleeping with my back to a tree. When I stood up I was right there next to it. I felt them tails swishing, felt the thudding of
their hooves, felt the air rushing as they galloped past, but not a hair of my head was harmed. I was lucky. Reuben got a kick to the leg, Henry done got his head near split open. Elijah got a foot stamped on. No one died, though, which I guess must have disappointed General Sullivan some.

  The bugler started blasting away. Army horses is trained, see? Every time they get fed, the bugler sounds a call. Was kinda like whistling for a dog – they hear that sound and they know they’re in for something good. And Abe was plain greedy. When the herd come running back he was in the lead, looking for his corn.

  Captain Smith arranged a guard on the horses after that, changed every two hours through the night so as we could keep an eye on them picket pins.

  The next day was much the same as the one before. So was the one after that, and the one after that. We rode on and we rode on and we rode on.

  I thought that the heat and the flies been near enough to kill a person, then come a night things got even worse. I was woke again by more crashing, only this time it wasn’t stampeding horses that was causing the noise, it was thunder. I never seen the sky as big as it was there. Seemed to weigh you down, crush you, smother you like a big, black blanket. Seeing it tore apart with lightning was like seeing God Almighty summoning up folks on the Day of Judgement.

  The officers had big tents to shelter under. The white troopers had smaller ones. We didn’t have nothing but rubber ponchos, which we soon found out wasn’t much protection against rain when it coming down like it being poured from the sky in pails.

  Well, the way that night was going I figured I could do one of two things: I could lay down and cry or I could start laughing. In a flash of lightning I seen Henry’s face: running with water, his eyes near popping out of his head with fright. He looked so darned scared and so darned funny I couldn’t help myself. I started to chuckle. Reuben see where I’m looking and he start on too. He slap Henry hard on the back and says, “Ain’t you glad you joined the army?!” Then he turn to Elijah. “Ain’t you?”

  “Too right, brother,” says Elijah. Then Isaiah chips in, “Rich folks would pay a lot of dollars to experience something as pleasurable as this.”

  Reuben says, “Why do they go off to foreign lands when they can experience all this right here in America?”

  It was damned fool stuff, but we got to laughing so hard we was crying. Elijah joined in, his deep low rumble of a chuckle, slow in coming as distant thunder and as loud when it finally arrive. Henry was clutching his bandaged head and smiling right on through the pain. Isaiah and George was either side of him and we was all sitting there chortling in the mud and rain, as wet as if we’d been dropped straight into the river. Might sound kinda crazy, but it was the first time in my life I’d ever felt close to being truly happy.

  16.

  It took us one hell of a long time to get to the place we was being posted. Along the way them eggs Captain Smith got stowed in his pocket hatched. Before we know it he got a pair of tame turkey chicks following along after him like he their mother. I kept hoping they’d head off into the scrub by themselves. I even tried shooing them away one time when no one was looking. But they come right on back. Guess they never heard of Thanksgiving.

  After about eight, nine, maybe ten days them Cherokee scouts give us over to some other ones and head on home. The new ones was white men although their skin was burned so dark in the sun and covered in so much dirt it was hard to tell. Captain Smith said they was frontiersmen who knew the territory like the back of their hands. They was hard, rough-looking. Like they’d seen everything there was to see under the sun and didn’t nothing surprise nor scare them. Didn’t none of them say much, so neither did we. We set off, always heading towards the sunset. And the trees get fewer and the land gets flatter and emptier and the sky gets bigger and heavier until it seems there ain’t nothing but a great mass of blue pressing down on this thin line of dusty yellow grass drawn under it.

  Once in a while we come to a town. I say “town”. Most of them places wasn’t no more than a few buildings scratched together out of nothing, sagging in the heat. The few white folks living there all stood and stared as Company W ride on through like we’re something out of a freak show.

  The fort was right on the edge of the wilderness. Felt like it was right on the edge of the world. At the back of it there was a shallow river and a few trees lining the banks. Out ahead was nothing but empty prairie. Was like looking out on an ocean made of grass. It scared me half to death, all that empty space. If that was what them settlers was after – if that was where they wanted to go live – if that was the land they was planning to civilize, why then I figured the whole damned lot of them must be totally plumb crazy! Guess that made me plumb crazy too, for signing up and being sent out here to protect them.

  Not that they was gonna need much protecting. When Company W finally come riding into the fort we come past a few shabby-looking tepees grouped near the post store. The Indians sitting outside them was busy drinking themselves senseless. Wasn’t none of them gonna be giving us no trouble.

  General Sullivan and his men get given the new-built quarters on one side of the parade ground; we get the tumbling-down ones on the other. But we ain’t complaining. God above, there are beds in there! One each. With woven wire springs and a mattress and a pillow. And oh my Lord! Not just one blanket. There are two, three, four of the things! I’d slept on the hard floor every night of my life. That bed was so soft, I thought it was gonna swallow me up. Took some getting used to.

  Well, there we were in the wilderness, black and white troopers facing each other across that square of ground. They stare at us and we stare at them and the feeling inside the fort is kinda hostile.

  Wouldn’t none of them soldiers never speak to us direct, man to man. But they’d talk to each other plenty loud enough for us to hear. We ain’t been there more than a few days when the whole place starts running wild with rumours of Indians on the rampage. The way General Sullivan’s men talked would have you believe there was dangerous warriors hiding behind every blade of grass on the prairie just waiting to leap out and cut your throat. And worse. They said how them savages would take a knife to your head, cut off your hair, wear it on their belts as a trophy. They was laying bets on how long it would be before the whole of Company W was rubbed out by savages.

  They got Henry all shook up. He couldn’t sleep night-times. Couldn’t keep still in the day. I kept telling him it was talk, was all. He shouldn’t believe none of them rumours. I mean, we’d seen Indians with our own eyes now. Them Cherokees was tame as Captain Smith’s turkey chicks. They was farmers, not fighters, wasn’t they? And out here, well – look at all them Indians hanging around outside the fort, blankets around their shoulders, bellies full of whisky. Captain Smith said they was Comanches or Cheyennes or some such thing but they was harmless as them Cherokees. Most of them couldn’t stand up straight let alone hold a weapon. If they cut up rough we’d beat the likes of them easy, wouldn’t we? Them whiteys was just trying to scare us, make us feel bad. I told Henry he shouldn’t go listening to them. We was gonna be just fine.

  Pay day come.

  We’d had one of them before but we all been too dog-tired to do anything except rest and soothe our aching butts.

  Them dollars sure felt good in my hand. I was happy just to hold onto them. To feel their weight. To know I’d earned them.

  It was Reuben decided it was high time we got to spending some. And he was the persuading kind. There was no shifting Elijah: he had himself a wife and a baby boy back east and he was bent on sending every cent home. But before too long Reuben had a whole bunch of us agreeing to go along to the Captain and see if we couldn’t get ourselves a pass.

  A few days later me, Reuben, Henry and maybe half a dozen more found ourselves out alone walking to the nearest town. It wasn’t no more than a couple of hours strolling along on the bank of the river, the trees giving us some protection from the sun. The day was fine and bright and there was a gentle
breeze blowing. We was all feeling real good. We done our training and now here we was: fine, upstanding soldiers of the US Army. Didn’t occur to none of us we might encounter hostile Indians. That we’d be easy pickings if we did. We was fresh out from the east. We didn’t know what we was getting ourselves into. But it seemed the Good Lord was looking down, keeping us safe. The only living things we encountered on that walk was bugs and lizards.

  Henry was skipping along like a puppy dog. He was looking to spend his money on candy.

  “All of it?” I says. “You ain’t gonna buy nothing else?”

  And he stops. His forehead creases up and he looks real worried. “What else is there?”

  I laugh and says, “Nothing. If that’s what you want, you go right ahead and get it. Maybe you can buy enough to last you until next pay day. You gonna be able to carry it all?”

  “You’ll help me, won’t you, Charley?”

  “Sure I will. Reuben will too, won’t you?”

  Reuben didn’t answer. He wasn’t fixing on buying no candy. Neither was George. Nor Isaiah. They was bent on getting as much whisky down their necks as their stomachs would hold.

  Now I sure didn’t want to go drinking no whisky. I seen the effect it had on the master and I didn’t like it. When he was in a drinking mood he was harmless enough to begin with. His eyes would mist over and he’d get real sad. Soon he’d be singing the songs his daddy taught him about the old country. When he got to “Danny Boy” Ham would try and get the bottle away from him. If he didn’t manage it, and Mr Delaney went on drinking, then pretty soon all that misty-eyed feeling would turn ugly. He’d get mad and it didn’t matter much who crossed him or why. There didn’t even have to be a reason. When he was like that he’d lash out at the first person he come across. One time he whipped a stable hand so bad the boy never walked right again. When the master’s temper was spent, Ham would have to call for Amos to lend a hand getting him to bed.