by J. T. Edson
‘It is no pity,’ stated Plenty Kills. ‘If Magic Hands had plenty squaws, they would give him many sons like himself and the white-eyes could then drive us from our lands with ease.’
The compliments continued, each chief trying to excel the others in their praise for a brave fighting man who might one day be a potential enemy. Standing before the chiefs, Dusty tried to stay impassive and hide his pleasure at the praise. He felt grateful that none of his kin or brother officers heard some of the things said in his praise.
Finally each chief gave his word that none of his people would impede Dusty’s party during their return to Arkansas.
‘Ask them for a relay of horses, Cap’n,’ Ysabel suggested. ‘Then I can go on ahead of you to tell General Hardin how things’ve turned out.’
While Dusty had thought of the possibility of sending a man ahead with his report, he hesitated to ask Ysabel to take the task. It meant an even more hard and gruelling ride than the trip out and Dusty wanted a volunteer to make the journey. Having his volunteer, he made the request. Eagerly the chiefs offered the pick of their horse herds and Ysabel selected three fine, powerful horses which, along with his roan, ought to be able to cover fifty miles a day given anything like reasonable conditions.
The next morning Dusty and his small band turned east, following the wake of the faster-travelling Ysabel and leaving the Indian council to disband. Although Dusty did not hear of it until many years later, a picked escort of Comanche Dog Soldiers trailed his party from a distance ready to lend a hand should any other tribe break its word.
With each day of the journey to the east, the Texans grew more relaxed and cheerful at the thought of returning to their friends. Liz gradually threw off the shock of seeing the Indian-massacred family and tried to raise Marsden’s spirits, without much success. Each day Marsden grew more quiet and disturbed, for the return to Arkansas meant that he must face his own kind and stand his trial as a traitor. In love with Jill, wanting to make her his wife and devote his life to making her happy, he knew that he stood but little chance of being allowed to do so.
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* Tejas: Texas tribe noted for friendship with the white men.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARSDEN’S FATE
Lieutenant Jackson Hardin Marsden never stood trial for either desertion or treason. On his return to Arkansas, he was taken under a flag of truce to the Ouachita River and passed into the care of a colonel from the U.C. Adjutant-General’s Department. After a thorough interrogation of Marsden, reading a bulky letter sent by General Hardin, and interviews with Liz Chamberlain and Jill Dodd, the colonel took Marsden to Little Rock, from where the lieutenant found himself detailed to join a west-bound supply train and transferred to a cavalry regiment serving in the Montana Territory. With Marsden when he went, travelled Mrs. Marsden; until recently Jill Dodd, Confederate sympathiser, ex-bushwhacker band member and hater of everything to do with the Union. Far from the civil conflict, she managed to make her husband happy; and even forgot her old hatreds.
What brought about the Union’s remarkable leniency towards Marsden?
A number of things.
First, Ole Devil Hardin’s report of the affair reached General Handiman at the Adjutant-General’s Department and from him went to Sherman, Grant and finally into President Lincoln’s hands. The latter, great man that he was, saw the full implications and cost in innocent lives of Castle’s scheme. He also visualised the effect word that such a scheme had been tried might have upon world opinion. At that time the United States strove to improve its public image—although the term had not then come into use—in the eyes of the European countries. The United States’ prestige had dwindled in Europe after a U.S. Navy ship stopped a British merchantman on the high seas and forcibly removed several accredited Confederate ambassadors and other officials. Feelings ran high in Britain at the breach of diplomatic immunity and insult to her flag, and the United States feared that what was then the greatest power in the world might swing its weight fully behind the Confederacy. Even now the situation hung in a delicate balance. Should word of the attempted arming of Indians and endangering of innocent civilians leak out, the Confederate propagandists in Europe would have fuel to burn against the Union. Ole Devil hinted in his letter to Handiman that any attempt to court martial Marsden would see the full facts placed in the hands of various European military observers who visited the combat zones.
After some deliberation, a decision came down that Marsden had acted for the best. Colonel Stedloe of the Zouaves received a letter which left him in no doubt of how the top brass regarded his permitting the scheme. In the same package came orders transferring Marsden to the Eighth Cavalry who kept the peace with—or against—the Indians in Montana Territory. The order was dated the day before Marsden deserted, turned traitor—and helped save thousands of men, women and children from death at the hands of Indians inspired by the evil medicine of the Devil Gun.
THE END
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