Ambush At Mustang Canyon

by Mike Kearby

  Quanah grabbed the rifle and began to sing as he rode for Adobe Walls. “Let’s ride into the Adobe Walls and kill all the hunters! For that’s why the Great Father sent us to this place!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Adobe Walls, Texas, June 1874

  A smothering mixture of charcoal and sulphur lingered in the stale air of Hanrahan’s. The acrid cloud hovered head high and caused the men inside to retch in uncontrollable coughing spasms.

  The spent gunpowder left a metalic taste on Free’s tongue and burned his eyes. He wiped his face with a shirtsleeve and glanced back through the narrow gun slot. The departing war party dispersed in billowing clouds of dust and a majestic show of their horse skills. Some of the warriors sat backward on their ponies and continued to shoot arrows at Hanrahan’s door, while others made one more pass around the buildings riding below their steeds’ necks.

  “They’re gone,” Free remarked in awe.

  “For the time being anyhow.” Parks took a deep breath.

  Billy Dixon stared up at the ceiling and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve never seen Indians kill livestock that were easy pickings for stealing.”

  Parks looked about at his desperate companions. All sat with their backs to the wall displaying the blank stares of whipped men. “Quanah didn’t ride in here with a raiding party, Billy. They came with a fixed purpose to kill all of us and make sure every settler in Texas knows of it.”

  Billy Ogg looked up at Parks, confused by the words he heard. “They’re going to set example by us?”

  “They shot the horses and oxen to make sure we stay put until they’re finished,” Parks lamented.

  Billy Dixon took his feet and dusted his shirt. “That being so, I’m not obliged to their purpose. What do we need to do to remain above snakes, Parks?”

  Free heard the determination in Billy’s voice and spoke with his own bravado, “Let’s get our cartridges ready then. When Quanah and all of those braves show back up, it will be our turn to welcome them as they did us this morning.” The conviction of his words were a much needed inspiration.

  Bat Masterson jumped to his feet and added, “That’s right boys. This bunch should be easy pickings seeing how they’re thicker than flies on a buffalo’s back.”

  Parks smiled at the renewed confidence of the men. “You boys all heard what that Kiowa shouted at Free... they think the Great Spirit has granted them invincibility. Billy, Bat, Bermuda... you boys can hit a buffalo at half a mile. Let’s dust a few of those Indians off their ponies on the next charge and you can believe we’ll have them doubting their medicine.”

  Billy Dixon lifted his Sharps from against the wall. “I’ll need to make my way to Rath’s. I have a case of ammo sitting there and I aim to take part in this hunt. I won’t die indoors without cartridges.”

  Jim Hanrahan stood and walked to Billy’s side. “I’ll go with you and help bring another case for the rest of us. If Parks is right, we might sit here a ‘spell.”

  “All right, but the two of you best keep your eyes skinned,” Free said. “I reckon Quanah left a few scouts behind waiting to ambush any of us venturing outdoors.”

  Both men nodded at Free.

  Free held silent for a minute and then looked over at Parks, “OK. Good luck to the both of you.”

  Billy and Hanrahan nodded and moved to the saloon door.

  “We’re ready,” Billy said.

  Parks cracked the door, looked left, then right and both men exited the saloon. Outside, Billy crouched low and sprinted toward Rath’s with Jim Hanrahan close on his heels.

  Midway to Rath’s, a Comanche war cry broke the still of the day and a dozen bullets followed. Billy and Hanrahan stopped for a second, regained their nerve, and raced for Rath’s dodging lead as they went.

  Free rushed to the gun slot at the first shout and quickly looked toward Rath’s store.

  “Are they OK?” Parks called out.

  “Those boys are fine,” Free answered. He then turned his attention to a blur on the horizon. “But I figure we better make ready! Seems Quanah and his bunch are riding back to finish us!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Adobe Walls, Texas, June 1874

  Quanah kneed his pony to a stop five hundred yards from Adobe Walls and raised his right hand signaling for the herd of warriors behind him to halt. His face, a terrifying mask, freshly painted in black from forehead to chin, embodied death. Bright alternating stripes of red and yellow ran the length of his body and Ike Shadler’s scalp, now tied to his rifle barrel, fluttered in the June breeze.

  “There is no need to circle the hide hunters!” he called out confidently. “Their copper bullets are useless against The People!”

  The front line of warriors raised their weapons in a great whoop.

  “We will charge straight away and knock down their doors and shoot through their small windows until they beg us for their lives.” Quanah pointed to Rath’s store. “Stone Calf, take your warriors there!”

  The Cheyenne chief nodded and motioned his warriors to follow him to the far left of the war column.

  Quanah watched the Cheyenne position their horses and then pointed to Myers and Leonard’s store, “Lone Wolf, let the Kiowa kill the hunters there!”

  Lone Wolf looked at the picketed store and shouted to his warriors.

  Quanah motioned the Winchester toward Hanrahan’s saloon, “The Comanche will kill all inside the whiskey house!”

  More whoops and yips followed.

  Quanah looked at both ends of his war line, kicked his pony’s flank, and raced headlong for Hanrahan’s while firing his Winchester repeatedly at the sod walls of the saloon. His high-pitched wail of, “Rah! Rah! Rah!” accompanied the bullets and urged the great surge of warriors forward. A fifteen-foot length of rein encircled his midsection, a precaution in the event he lost contact with his pony.

  Four hundred yards from the saloon, his prized mustang stumbled, dipped forward and collapsed on the dry crusted earth sending a cloud of dust high into the air. Crumpled, the mustang screamed out with a loud whinny as he tried desperately to regain his feet.

  Quanah jerked forward and somersaulted over the mustang’s neck in a series of rolls. He bounced several yards from the downed steed, chucked out in a whirl of earth and confusion.

  Regaining his bearings, he grabbed the rein still tied to his waist and made his way hand-over-hand down the braided leather rope. He figured a prairie dog burrow felled the horse. Such holes pockmarked the prairie near Adobe Walls.

  Tugging at the rein, he shouted for the pony to get up and struggled to lift the animal’s head. Feeling only dead weight, he dropped to his knees and looked into the horse’s lifeless glazed eyes. He searched the mustang’s chest and found a bullet hole running blood. In great confusion, he stood and looked at his warriors, wondering if one of them had shot his horse mistakenly.

  As he tried to make sense of the unfolding scene, small swirls of dust were kicked up by his feet. Quanah realized the hide hunters were shooting the long rifles at him and he scrambled for a rotting buffalo carcass nearby. As he dove behind the carcass, a burning sensation tore into his side and caused him to roll backward. Seconds later, he felt a stabbing pain that he knew could only be a bullet’s bite. Realizing his cover was useless, he crawled back to his dead horse and sought protection from the gunfire erupting around him.

  Quanah gazed over his dead pony and listened to the sporadic but deadly sound of the hide hunters’ long rifles. From both ends of the battle, warriors dropped one and then another from their ponies. During the great killing confusion, Quanah dropped his head and wondered the cause of such betrayal.

  “What have we done?” he screamed at the sky. “Why have you left us?”

  From the south, a pony raced for him, and the Comanche warrior, Toyarohco, held an outstretched arm.

  Quanah caught Toyarohco’s arm and pulled himself up on the Comanche pony. In seconds, he was spirited away to Skunk Ridge.

  Chapter
Thirteen

  Adobe Walls, Texas, June 1874

  I hit that red devil!” Bermuda Carlisle shouted. Free eyed the departing raiders and breathed out in relief. His lungs burned from the stifling cloud of gunpowder that blanketed the entire room.

  Unable to tolerate the suffocating dust any longer, he pulled the oak door open to the sweltering heat of the day.

  “Hey!” Bermuda cried out, “Whataya think you’re doing?”

  Parks held a hand up to the grizzled hide hunter and followed Free outside.

  “You OK?”

  Free stooped and placed both palms on his knees. “I’m fine. I just needed a fresh breath.”

  Parks surveyed the ghastly scene in front of them. Dead horses and oxen littered the land from one end of the Walls to the other.

  He had not seen such carnage on a battlefield since the Civil War.

  Ike and Jacob Shadler lay within twenty yards of the saloon curled in the rigid grip of death, their eyes opened and focused on the sun. “We’re going to need to bury those boys before the day gets longer,” he said stoically.

  Free looked up and gazed at the carnage across the dirt road. “You think those braves are going to stay gone for awhile?”

  Parks chewed on his bottom lip. “I reckon they’re going to hold council and try to figure out what medicine we’re holding.”

  Free straightened and turned toward his friend. “I suppose that’s so. Still, I don’t like our situation. With the horses all dead or run-off we’re left riding shank’s mare.”

  “Horse should be within whistling range.” Parks gazed to the West.

  “I guess I should have refused those boys the favor yesterday,” Free said, ruefully. “Cause if I had, then we’d both be a day closer to home right now. I hate leaving Clara and William Parks for so long.”

  Parks produced a half smile, “Just fuss, Free. What would our lives be without it?”

  “Everybody make it out OK?” Billy Dixon’s voice shouted from Rath’s.

  Slowly men made their way from the protection of the individual buildings and into the street.

  “All right, here,” Bat Masterson said as he exited Hanrahan’s and strode up to Free and Parks.

  “We’re all OK,” Fred Leonard called walking trance-like from his store.

  Free looked at the emerging men and felt a smile at the corners of his mouth. “We did good,” he called out.

  Billy Dixon walked up the street slapping his hat against his thigh. A cloud of dust flew from his pants with each swat. “Thank the Lord for sod walls and sod roofs!” he shouted.

  “He’s right.” Parks turned to Free, “Otherwise, Quanah would have burned us out this morning.”

  “I know we’re all dragged out,” Free said as the hunters collected near him and Parks. “But we need to get these men a proper burial before our friends return.”

  “Hey!” Henry Lease cried out from the alley beside Myers and Leonard’s store. “Over here!

  It’s Billy Tyler! They’ve killed him!”

  “Is there anyone else we’re missing?” Free quickly surveyed the group.

  Billy Dixon took a quick head count. “That’s seems to be all, Free.”

  “Then let’s get to digging before Quanah decides he wants to fight some more.”

  By nightfall, Ike, Jacob, and Billy were laid to rest in a common grave north of The Walls. The distasteful job of removing the dead horses and oxen came next.

  Parks stood over a number of horses close to the saloon. “This is going to take some doing. How are we going to move these animals?”

  Free gazed over their dilemma. “I don’t know, but if we can’t figure something out it is going to get miserable inside that saloon.”

  “We’ll use an old buffalo hunter’s trick,” Bat Masterson offered. “Bermuda, bring me some of those skins from the hide yard.” The young skinner looked over at Free and Parks and winked to both men. “We’ll tie some ropes to each corner of the hides and toss the animals on them. If enough of us pitch in we’ll be able to skid them far enough away so the stench is tolerable,” he grinned.

  “Pull ’em or smell ’em,” Bermuda laughed.

  Later, after the streets were cleared, the exhausted men took their first rest of the day.

  “I hope our friends at Camp Supply might learn what is going on here,” Billy Dixon said as he stared into the approaching evening.

  “I’m sure they will, Billy,” Free offered. “It’s just going to take awhile.”

  “What about these Indians?” Bermuda Carlisle stood in the prairie grass and kicked at one of the Cheyenne warriors.

  Free ran a dried tongue over his parched lips. “If we don’t bury them, we’ll smell them for however long we stay trapped here.”

  “To blazes with burying these savages!” Bermuda replied and pulled a long bladed knife from his boot.

  “Wait!” Free shouted angrily, “Let his soul be! Leave his hair, Bermuda!”

  The hide hunter dropped to a knee and laughed. “I’m not taking his hair.” He placed the knife against the slain warrior’s throat. “I’ll be taking his whole head!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Adobe Walls, Texas, June 1874

  In the approaching darkness, Quanah leaned on a dead cottonwood log and stared into the grim faces of the older chiefs. He pressed a poultice of grass and alder bark against his wound to stem his blood loss. A gathering of Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne stood in silence around the council of chiefs still gathered at the fire pit. Esa-tai sat in the middle of the older chiefs, flanked by Lone Wolf, Stone Calf, He-Bear, Tabananaka, and Minimic.

  The white-haired chief held the sacred pipe to his lips and drew deeply on the wooden tube. He passed the pipe to his left and exhaled the smoke. “Who among you shot Quanah’s horse by accident?”

  The crowd of warriors stayed quiet.

  “We must know,” the older chief continued, “for if it was not us, maybe these white men have the gift of a new gun that is strong medicine.”

  “No!” Esa-tai shouted and took to his feet. He pointed at the assembled Cheyenne. “The Cheyenne have broken the puha of the medicine paint by killing a skunk on the way to battle!”

  A great murmur arose among all of those present and a Cheyenne warrior stepped forward.

  “Esa-tai’s medicine is weak!” he spoke rapidly to the group. “The white hunters were not asleep as he said.”

  “Haaiiee!” Esa-tai screamed at his detractor. “The hide hunters were asleep! We have two scalps to prove it so!”

  The Cheyenne brave did not back down from the Comanche medicine man, “It is as Maman-ti foretold; the Great Spirit did not show pity on us for this fight!”

  The collected warriors nodded their heads in agreement and soon the soft murmur of whispers filled the air.

  “Are the Cheyenne now afraid of the few hunters at Adobe Walls?” Esa-tai stared hard at the Cheyenne and folded his arms across his chest. “Talk to your own and ask who killed the skunk forbidden by the Great Spirit!”

  The Cheyenne brave thumped his chest with his right hand. “The Cheyenne have fought many fights and killed many white men. We are not afraid to fight men, but we cannot fight strong magic. The hide hunters have shot Quanah and killed his pony! What say you about that, Wolf Prophet?”

  Esa-tai pointed his right index finger at the massed warriors. “These white men do not have medicine. The Great Spirit only wanted to show the People that he does not side with us if we show disrespect. A skunk was killed by the Cheyenne! And the Cheyenne must make prayers to the Great Spirit asking for forgiveness!”

  From the back of the congregation, a stocky Cheyenne brave named Hippy pushed his way through the gathered throng and approached the council. He lightly swatted his shoulder with a leather quirt at each step. “How does the Wolf Prophet answer for the fifteen warriors left dead on the battlefield?” Hippy asked and whipped the quirt harder. “And now our scouts say more hide hunters make their way to the Ad
obe Walls!” The rough leather left red welts with each swat. “While our brothers lie there, Wolf Prophet!” He jumped at Esa-tai with the quirt raised to strike. “Why don’t you ride down in your magic paint and retrieve their bodies before the whites defile them?” He whipped the leather strap at Esa-tai’s face. “What say you, Wolf Prophet?” he shouted sarcastically.

  “Wait!” The old chief looked at the Cheyenne and spoke in a whisper. “We show weakness by fighting among ourselves.”

  Quanah pushed himself upright and dropped the poultice. “Listen to the old chief’s wisdom. We still hold our medicine! To night we ride down to gather our dead. Tomorrow we ride down to kill all the intruders on our lands!”

  As the June sun raced to join the morning sky, several bands of Kiowa, twenty-five abreast, marched their ponies back to the battleground. Lone Wolf circled his warriors from the southwest and hoped to surprise the hunters from the back of the stockaded hide yard.

  Seven hundred yards from the buildings, a gruesome sight greeted his advancing war party. Fifteen wooden poles reflected conspicuously in the morning sun. The pickets were spaced an arm’s length apart and planted straightaway from the hunter’s wagons.

  Lone Wolf stopped his band of warriors and reached for the long glass. “Pééy!” He shouted in anger as he focused the glass on each pole. “Pééy!”

  Little Boy leaned over his mustang’s head and squinted at the poles, trying to detect the cause of Lone Wolf’s anguish.

  Lone Wolf glanced back at his group and poked the long glass into Little Boy’s chest. “They have disfigured our dead,” he whispered.

  Little Boy settled the glass tube on the stakes and saw the heads of fifteen warriors atop the sharpened pickets. The same warriors whose bodies had laid too close to the hunters’ buildings to retrieve last night. “Aaaiiihhheee!” he screamed.

  Lone Wolf looked skyward and began a mournful chant in a coyote like tone. Soon the band of Kiowa behind him understood what the stakes represented and the warriors all followed in high-pitched wails. Lone Wolf howled for several minutes and when his grief was satiated, he turned his pony back east and walked the horse through the band of warriors.