Buffalo Soldier

by Tanya Landman

  But Jim takes me in his arms and holds me against him like it’s for the last time. I rest my head on his chest and press my face into his neck and shut my eyes because I don’t want to see the end come, and we’re standing like that when the troops ride on up.

  My uniform’s real threadbare by that time and my pants is more holes than anything else but I’m still wearing it so the shock comes off them in waves because they don’t know I’m a woman – not yet. It don’t occur to me how bad it looks to them to see two men holding each other the way we was – one of them a deserter and the other a hostile – and I guess we was lucky we wasn’t shot down right there and then, or worse, because the one thing the crazy, fool army hates more than deserters and hostiles is men who happen to love each other. The look on their faces!

  Some captain come riding up on his horse and he holler, “What in the name of God is going on here, trooper?”

  And I can’t find no words to explain so it’s Jim who does the talking and it’s back to them big things and little things. The little thing is that I’m a woman who fought for the US Army – and the lie that I been living all that time is so colossal it swamp just about everything else. That captain didn’t do no laughing. He wasn’t remotely amused. He look like he want to tie me to the back of his horse and drag me along until the life’s scraped out of me. But there ain’t no army protocol for this situation so he was real confused what to do. In the end we get taken along with them and Jim’s a prisoner and finally we fetch up back at some fort and it’s only then that someone thinks to ask about what happened to Jonas. And the shocking nature of me and my true self has so blown everybody’s minds away that when I tell them I been sent on ahead to scout and I encountered hostiles and got cut off from the rest of the force and I plain don’t know what happened to Captain Beecher and the rest of Company W because I got so lost and I been trying to find my way back ever since, they was all so shocked about my being a woman they go right on and believe me. So I get away with murder, which I guess is lucky, or not, depending on how you look at it. But I lose Jim and of all the losses I had to bear in my life it’s the most painful.

  Well, they can’t discharge me fast enough. I get given the pay due to me. One of the officers’ wives give me an old dress. Then I was told I was free to go. All I could think was, Free to go where?

  See, that same day me and Jim got brought back to civilization was the day the last of them Apaches finally give up. They couldn’t run no more and when I seen this little group come trailing in – wasn’t no more than forty of them – I knew it was the end of everything: for me, for Jim, for all them Indians.

  The white folks couldn’t stand to have them in the territory no more. Before I left that fort them Apaches was all rounded up and loaded onto a train and sent off east – even them ones who been keeping peaceable and starving to death on that goddamned reservation. They was prisoners of war, every single one of them down to the tiniest newborn baby. Even them Indian scouts. Working loyal for the US Army didn’t save none of them.

  And if they wasn’t gonna be let alone, what in the hell chance did a man like Jim have?

  They tell him to get on that train and all I can do is stand and watch. The government had told them Apaches they’d have two years’ imprisonment, that was all. After that they’d get their very own brand-new reservation and it would be someplace real fine and things was gonna be just dandy.

  Well, that parting was about as bad as anything could be. I was so choked up I couldn’t hardly speak. And I wasn’t the only one. None of them Indians was making a sound: some griefs go too deep for any kind of noise.

  “Two years’ time, I’ll come find you,” I says to Jim. “You gonna be free.”

  And them words seem as substantial as a piece of tumbleweed blowing across the prairie. We both of us know how good them fine gentlemen in Washington are at keeping their promises. But I look at him and I put my hands up to hold his face so he’s got to look back at me and I says it again, only louder, like by wishing for it hard enough I can make it true, “You gonna be free.”

  Jim rub the back of his hand across my cheek to wipe away the tears that won’t stop falling and then cups his hands behind my head and our foreheads is pressed together and I can feel he’s thinking the same as me.

  When?

  44.

  I walked behind that train until it was out of sight. Then I carried on, walking on the tracks, because there wasn’t nothing else I could think of to do.

  I wasn’t alone. Them Indians wasn’t allowed to take their dogs with them. They run along ahead of me, trying to catch up with that train, yapping and crying for their folks, and they run until they couldn’t run no more and all I seen as I headed east was a trail of broke-down mutts, starved and dying.

  The first thing I’d done with the pay due to me was buy ammunition for Mr Cody’s rifle. A whole heap of it. And two six shooters. A knife. Used most of the bullets putting them dogs out of their misery. And all of them was in my head like all them horses, and poor old Abe, and them dead children and babies, and Henry and Reuben and Cookie and all the others, and some nights I was scared to sleep for fear of what went running through my dreams.

  I walk east. I’m in a dress, and I know what men in this territory are capable of doing to a woman. I’d rather risk a rattler bite than come face to face with the likes of Bill Hickey. So I walk by night and I rest up by day. I’d learned to sit still as a rock by then. Like an Indian, I could make myself invisible to the naked eye.

  I walk and I walk and I walk. Until finally, one day, I fetch up in a town. A big town, with fine tall buildings and wide streets and horse-drawn carriages and more folks than I ever seen in my life. I’m thinking, Can I get work here? Would any of these smart dressed folks take me on? What as? What can I be now? A maid?

  A woman who’d been in the army? Who knows how to kill but who’s forgotten how to cook? Who’s got a baby coming, but no husband? A baby who been fathered by a hostile? A renegade? A prisoner of war? I don’t even know how to begin trying.

  But I do. I take my courage in both hands and I start knocking on doors. Each and every one of them gets slammed in my face.

  I’m starting out again the next day, figuring maybe I’ll have me more luck someplace else. There got to be other towns; there got to be someone who’ll take me on. It’s just a matter of finding them, is all.

  Somewhere down along the road I can hear there’s a band playing and before I know it I’m caught up in a crowd of folks pushing and shoving, a whole tide of them flowing in the same direction. I’m so tired I get carried right along.

  When the crowd stop moving I find I’m pressed up against a fence and before me is a square about the size of a parade ground.

  And, hey! Well, would you look at that? There are two bright-painted, covered wagons making their way, slow and steady, across it, like two little ships afloat on the ocean. The oxen pulling them have got ribbons tied to their horns; there are bells around their necks and they all brushed and curled, their hooves oiled. The settlers driving them are being followed along by their very own band. And listen up – what’s that? Why them plucky folks are singing! Over the creaking of the turning wheels an uplifting hymn rises heavenwards. As they come closer to where I’m standing I see their faces are clean-scrubbed, their clothes fresh starched and new pressed. Crisp white shirts; pretty gingham skirts. The women are dazzling blonde, hair in ringlets, the men square-jawed and clean-shaved, the children cute as cherry pie.

  I start to smile because I know no settler never looked so clean nor smelled so sweet. Never knew no settler to sing in tune neither. This ain’t for real. This is some kinda joke, ain’t it? They play acting, is all. This a pageant, or what? What in the heck is going on?

  A voice is proclaiming aloud to the crowd that these fine-looking folks are setting out to carve a place for themselves in this brand-new world. They’re making a little piece of heaven right here on earth: it’s their manifest de
stiny. They ain’t got nothing but courage by the barrel-load and an unshakeable belief in the goodness of the Almighty who done give them this big, empty land of America just as surely as he give Paradise to Adam and Eve.

  The crowd give a cheer. They’re clapping and clapping.

  But about a minute later they start gasping in alarm. Folks all around me is clutching each other’s arms because – oh my! Lordy! – what’s that godawful noise? What are them whooping screams that freeze your blood and set the marrow in your bones a-jingling? God save us all, it’s war cries! Dozens of them. These settlers are gonna be butchered right in front of our eyes! Because – God above! – look over there!

  From around the corner – riding in perfect time to the music – they come galloping into the square, half naked, riding bareback on spotted ponies, feathers in their hair, tomahawks in their hands, scalping knives at the ready.

  To my eye they’re tame as they come, but to the crowd – oh my! A troop of lions wouldn’t seem half so wild, nor tigers half so savage. A pack of bears would be less frightening than that host of painted men: animals in human form, devils made flesh. They circle the wagon and them square-jawed men is fighting valiantly back but there’s too few of them and too many Indians. One of them plucky pioneers takes an arrow in the chest. Well, kinda. There ain’t no blood and I figure he’s holding it in place. But don’t no one in the crowd mind that.

  His golden-headed wife runs to his side. He dies, his head cradled in her gingham-skirted lap. And now one of them savages has his eyes on her. He’s off his horse and he’s getting closer and he’s licking his lips and it don’t take much imagining to figure out what’s on his mind. A thrill of horror runs around them people watching this thing unfold.

  The wild whooping goes on and on, and them plucky pioneers can’t fight them savages off. Before too long the men are lying still in the dirt.

  The women are trying to shield the children, who are hiding behind their mamas’ skirts, weeping prettily – ain’t none of that red-faced wailing from these cherry-lipped cuties.

  The bare-chested redskins are coming for them real slow. They enjoying this, that’s for sure. Everyone’s on their tiptoes, straining to see, because they know what’s gonna happen. The men’s gonna be scalped. The women violated. Them kids are gonna be taken captive. Living with the Indians? Well, hell, everyone knows that’s a fate worse than death.

  One of them savages jumps off his horse. He about to take his scalping knife to the head of one of them square-jawed pioneers. Another got his arms around the waist of a woman. Her son runs to her but the little lad is pushed away. He fall, sobbing, to the floor. “Mama! Mama!” His cries are pitiful. And now that Indian’s dark hands are on her pale skin and the sight’s enough to make the crowd want to spew their guts out. Smelling salts are being pulled from purses. Some of the watching ladies look like they about to swoon. But before that devil can raise so much as the hem of her petticoat there’s the sound of a bugle.

  A bugle? A bugle! I swear I can see relief coming off that crowd like the haze off the desert.

  Praise the Lord! Here come the cavalry! Riding in on snowy-white horses, uniforms clean and blue, neckerchiefs of deep scarlet, buttons polished, boots shining, sabres gleaming, and there’s redheads and blonds and brunettes but not a single black face amongst them.

  The cavalry slash at them savages until every one of them has fallen on the floor. They give a rousing cheer and the folks watching start clapping and screaming and jumping up and down because, glory, alleluia, them white women’s modesty is saved and civilization’s preserved!

  And I just throw my head back and laugh. I laugh and laugh until tears come rolling down my face. I’m thinking what crazy fool has took all that godawful mess of blood and burning I lived through and turned it into a … a concert party for folks to scream and cheer at? What crazy fool is making money out of this?

  The answer come riding right into the square in front of me. No one notices them dead Indians quietly getting up off the ground and slipping out to get ready for the next show because a man on a beautiful white horse has come prancing in. He got the whole crowd near wetting their pants with excitement. He’s wearing a gleaming white buckskin jacket with a fringe about a mile long. His hair is brushed and curled under a white hat. His moustache is waxed and his beard is combed. He look a whole lot cleaner than he did the last time I saw him, when he come riding in off the prairie ahead of a storm and turned the whole fort just about upside down. He look a whole lot heavier too. Why that man’s belly is almost as round as mine!

  Aside from Captain Smith he was the only white man I ever met who spoke to me civil and straight. I can’t hardly believe my eyes. Would you look at that? It’s Mr William Cody. He’s turned himself into a whole new man. Now he’s Buffalo Bill. And this here’s his Wild West show.

  Me laughing like that causes something of a stir in the crowd. Folks are looking at the “crazy nigger woman” but I can’t stop myself. I’m still doing it when Mr Cody come riding over. He look me up and down, his head on one side.

  And then he asks, real polite, “Don’t I know you, ma’am?”

  I look him in the eye. “You surely do. I won you a bet way back. Out west. A shooting competition. Only I looked a little different then.” I hold up my Springfield. “You give me this.”

  “O’Hara?” His eyes are just about ready to pop out of his head. For a moment he look at me like I’m some kinda freak of nature. A trooper in a dress? He can’t get his head around that at all. Then he notice the size of my belly. His mouth drop wide open. I can see his thoughts making their way slow and steady through his head. When he finally figures out I been a woman all along he darned nearly shits himself laughing.

  “What in the world has been happening to you, O’Hara?” he says, shaking his head.

  “Long story.”

  “You’d better come and tell it me after the show.”

  So I do.

  And after I done telling it to Mr William Cody he hires me. For which I am truly, deeply thankful.

  He don’t give me no job as no performer. It don’t matter none that I’m a good rider or a fine shot. White folks don’t want to see the likes of me out there and this ain’t history he’s giving them. Heck! We was being written out of the pages of that all the while we was making it! Nope. This ain’t no history lesson: it’s show business. He take me on as a stablehand. I’m stuck out back in the dark and the shit. But in my condition, hell, that’s plenty good enough for me.

  Well, Mr Cody’s show gets real famous. We tour all over America and then them fancy Europeans start clamouring to see it. Dukes, princes, even the queen of England: seems everyone’s hankering after a piece of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. So over the water we go.

  I had my baby right there on the boat. Named her Liberty Belle. She took her first breath in the middle of the ocean, halfway between America and Europe, when all that water was heaving so much that most everybody was real sick. Them cowboys in the show was spewing their guts out and hollering and screaming to the good Lord to give them some relief and them Indians was singing their death songs.

  So that’s it. Ain’t nothing else to say. I’m sticking with Buffalo Bill until I get word about Jim. Meantime I’m holding my baby tight, keeping her safe, loving her enough for the two of us. Some day soon, we all gonna be together. It less than two years’ time now. Then we can go live up in them mountains. The fighting’s over. There won’t be no one chasing us. We gonna be a family. And we gonna be free.

  The folks in Washington didn’t keep their word. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Hell, they broke every promise they ever made to every bunch of Indians in the country – why in the world did I think it would be any different with them Apaches? I had too much riding on it, I guess: I wanted to believe them so bad it hurt. But it wasn’t two years before Jim was freed. It was twenty-seven.

  Twenty-seven years. I’d had me another whole lifetime of wanderings. By the tim
e I get to see Jim again we’re both grey and grizzled and our baby girl is all grown-up and married, with children of her own.

  But that don’t mean me and Jim ain’t mighty pleased to see each other. And, oh sweet Jesus, that powerful feeling is burning as strong between us as it ever was (which is something of an embarrassment to Liberty Belle, but we ain’t apologizing: we got too much catching up to do).

  We’re all living in America, Land of the Free. Guess I’m still struggling with that word. If it means choice – choosing which path you go down, which road you follow, which door you push open – well, for me and Liberty Belle, for her husband, her children – there are still way too many paths blocked, too many roads closed, too many doors getting slammed in our faces.

  As for Jim, he ain’t a citizen of the country he was born in. He ain’t a prisoner of war no more; he’s a ward of the government. Don’t know how we’re supposed to tell the difference. We can’t go back to them mountains because he ain’t allowed. The white folks are still too scared and too mean and too sore to let a single Apache set foot on the land that rightfully belongs to them.