by John Jakes
After a late-afternoon stop to rest the horses, they pushed on. Bent loped to reach the vicinity of Lantzman’s by sundown. Charles was already hot and saddle-weary, but he recognized that speed was necessary. So did most of the other men. This was not an exercise but a relief mission; there was little griping.
O’Dell rode alongside Charles for a while. At one point he said, “This is damn dull, isn’t it? If I’d brought my book, I could read awhile.”
“What are you reading?”
“That little work by Mr. Helper.”
The first lieutenant was good-naturedly trying to get a rise out of him. Charles had heard of The Impending Crisis of the South—How to Meet It, but had not yet seen a copy. He did know that Hinton Helper’s book was a jeremiad against the peculiar institution, which the author claimed had ruined the South by making it dependent on the North for all its manufactured goods. What was remarkable was that the author hailed from North Carolina.
“I swear, Charles, that man hates the black race damn near as much as he hates slavery. The book does raise some mighty interesting questions, though. Such as why you Southern boys refuse to give up your slaves.”
“These days the answer’s simple. The spinning mills in England and France are expanding like blazes. That means cotton planters can ship their crops to Europe and get rich overnight. Nobody’s going to kill a golden goose.”
“You think that’s the reason? I wonder.”
“What else could it be?”
“Oh, maybe keeping the niggers in their place. Slavery does that nice and comfortably. I’ll bet deep down you Southerners are scared of the nigger. He’s dark and different. People don’t like anything too different. I don’t. I’ll bet it isn’t only money that makes you hang onto the system but the sheer fact of black and white.”
“But if you had your way, you’d free all the slaves?”
“Yes indeed.”
“What would you do with them?”
“Why, just what a lot of those Republicans propose.”
“Black Republicans, they call ’em down home.”
“Whatever. I’d deport the niggers. Resettle them in Liberia or Central America. Lord knows they ought to be free, but we don’t want ’em here.”
Charles threw his head back and laughed. “You’re right, Lafe. It’s black and white, sure enough. With you, too.”
Lieutenant O’Dell didn’t exactly like hearing that. He scowled. Charles had grown accustomed to the unconscious hypocrisy of Yankees, which usually turned into anger when it was exposed.
O’Dell had touched a nerve, though. In the South as in other parts of the country no one really knew how to abolish slavery without creating an economic and social calamity. If he could judge by O’Dell’s comments, it was a problem haunting a great many people on both sides of—
“Column—halt!”
Ahead, across the mesquite flat, Charles saw ruined adobe chimneys jutting into the red evening light. He and O’Dell trotted forward. Bent summoned the round-faced Delaware tracker. A few moments later O’Dell and the scout cantered to the ruins of Phantom Hill and over the crest of a rise beyond.
The men dismounted, broke out canteens, talked quietly. Charles had nothing to say to Bent, who abruptly rode off about fifty yards and heaved himself down from his saddle. Charles swallowed warm water from his iron-hooped barrel canteen and watched the captain. The lonely commander, he thought. Yet mockery couldn’t banish his nagging fear of Bent—a dread made worse because its origin continued to escape understanding. Reasons that came to mind seemed too trivial or too unbelievable.
“There they come.”
A corporal’s exclamation turned Charles toward the hilltop. Doss and Lafe O’Dell slipped down from the crest, walking their horses so as not to raise dust. The scouts went straight to Bent. From their expressions Charles knew they were not bringing an encouraging report. Charles and the enlisted men drifted within earshot. All heard Doss say:
“Plenty more Panateka now. Sanaco’s braves. Some of Chief Buffalo Hump’s, too. Bad.”
Bent’s cheeks were sweat-speckled. “How many are there?”
O’Dell said, “I counted close to forty.”
“Forty!” The captain almost staggered. “Describe—” He swallowed. “Describe the situation.”
O’Dell plucked out his sheath knife, hunkered, and drew a large U in the dust. “That’s the bend in the creek. The hostiles are here.” The tip of his knife touched the ground outside the bowed bottom of the U. Within the U he traced a rectangle and an adjoining square. He touched the rectangle. “This is the Lantzman house.” He touched the square. “Their corral.”
He added two smaller squares near the side of the house facing the corral. “A couple of boys are laid up behind hay bales here and here. They have muskets. The farmer’s sons, I would imagine. They’re protecting about a dozen horses.”
“What’s behind the house?” Charles wanted to know.
O’Dell scratched three parallel lines within the open end of the U. “A flat. Rows of corn so sun-scorched it won’t amount to anything this year. The corn is low enough and thin enough that a couple of guns can keep anyone from sneaking up on that side.”
Bent breathed noisily. “What are the Indians doing now?”
Eyes lit with points of red from the sunset, O’Dell stood up slowly. “Eating supper. Drinking. Letting their victims stew a little longer.”
“Forty,” the captain said again. He shook his head. “Too many. We may have to turn back.”
“Turn back?” Charles exploded. To show what he thought of the idea, O’Dell hawked and blew a big glob of spit between the toes of his dusty boots.
Hastily, Bent raised one hand. “Only until we can call up reinforcements.”
Frowns and grumbling from the troopers told the captain he had said the wrong thing. In quick looks passing between the men he read their judgment:
Coward.
He held the other officers responsible for that reaction. Their expressions had encouraged it. Main had encouraged it, goddamn him. And he didn’t let up:
“Summoning reinforcements would take another full day at least. By then the Lantzmans could be burned out and scalped.”
Bent’s chin jutted. “What would you propose, Lieutenant?”
“That we get the family out of there.”
“That means going in.”
“Yes, it does. Doss, is there a way?”
The breeze stirred the fringing of the Delaware’s hide shirt. He pointed. “Two miles. Maybe three. A cut through the hills. Can circle, come in through the corn. Take most of the night, but by then Comanche should be drunk asleep. Some will be watching the corn. Maybe they asleep too.”
Charles wiped damp palms on his dirty white pants. Distantly on the wind he heard chanting and the faint tub-tub of a hand drum.
Don’t push the captain too hard, he said to himself. Bent might balk, order a retreat, and doom the farmer and his family to die as soon as the whims of the Comanches prompted a charge.
Keeping his voice free of emotion, Charles said: “I’ll volunteer to lead some men to the farm, Captain. We should go tonight, in case the Comanches decide to attack at daylight.”
Bent struggled to sound as calm as his subordinate. “You’re right, of course. What I said was never meant to be my final word. I was merely examining the alternatives aloud.”
He watched the others from the corner of his eye. They weren’t convinced. But what could they do? Quavering inwardly, he finished, “We’ll send two men for reinforcements. The rest will start in as soon as it’s dark.”
“All of us?” Charles countered.
For an instant Bent’s eyes revealed his rage. I swear I’ll see him dead before the night’s over.
“All,” he said.
“Good,” said O’Dell, shoving his knife back into the sheath at last. The troopers looked tense but pleased. Doss, too. Over the sun-reddened hills drifted the wailing and yipping of
the Comanches.
46
THE STUNTED CORN RUSTLED from the passing of the horsemen. The corn was worthless for cover. The tallest stalks reached only haunch-high on Charles’s roan. He had suggested that they dismount to advance, thus taking advantage of what little protection the field did afford. Bent had vetoed that.
“Need I remind you that the new cavalry is supposed to fight from horseback, Lieutenant?”
Charles didn’t think consistency was worth the risk of casualties, but he kept his mouth shut. He reckoned it to be four or a little after. The moon had set. Directly above, the stars were visible, but around the horizon they were hidden by a haze. It lent an eerie quality to the cornfield and to the line of men riding through it at a walk.
The mounted men formed a big, slow-moving half-circle, each rider separated from the next by an interval of about four feet. Bent held the center, with his orderly bugler directly behind him. Charles was about halfway down the line on the right flank. O’Dell rode at the same position on the left.
Because they were walking their horses, each man was able to carry a revolver in one hand, a carbine or musketoon in the other. Only Bent varied the pattern. He held his Allen and Wheelock six-shot in his right hand, his saber in his left. The sword felt awkward there, but at least he was correctly equipped.
Bent had sipped only a little water during the long ride around the Comanche flank. Even so, his bladder was painfully full. No doubt that was fear working on him. Fear of the hostiles. Fear of death. Fear that he’d again tarnish his record by bad judgment. He was sure that every other member of the detachment wanted him to fail, and that Main wanted it most of all.
Slowly, so as not to attract attention, Bent looked to the right. He located his second lieutenant in the misty half-light. An owl hooted. Bent gripped his revolver tightly and prayed that at the right moment his bullet would find its target.
Charles squinted. How far to the log farmhouse? About a quarter of a mile or a little more. No lights showed, but Lantzman and his family were surely on guard in the darkness.
Would they start firing indiscriminately the moment they saw horsemen in the corn? Bent ought to be alert to that possibility and order a bugle call to signal the presence of soldiers. Did he have enough sense?
The feeling of dread continued to plague Charles. He shoved his Colt into the saddle holster and, with his carbine resting in the angle of his left elbow, reached up with his right hand to try to squash a mosquito. He slapped his ear twice. Each time the whining faded, only to resume. With a curse he again drew his revolver.
A horse whickered on the far side of the farmhouse. The roofline blotted the dim campfire on the slope on the other side of the creek. Not a sound came from the Comanche camp. If they meant to launch a dawn attack, they had not yet begun to prepare.
Suddenly a black scarecrow figure rose in the corn ten yards out from the house. Charles had a blurred impression of long hair and a long-barreled weapon flung up to firing position. One of the troopers shouted a warning. The Indian’s musket squirted fire and roared.
Between Charles and the center, a trooper pitched from his saddle. Other Comanche sentinels, five or six of them, popped up suddenly and began firing. Charles braced his carbine against his hip and pulled the trigger. The angle was wrong, the shot too high. He scabbarded the carbine and laid his Colt across his left elbow, steadying the roan with his knees.
He aimed for the nearest Comanche as horses shied and yelling broke out along the line. He squeezed off his shot. The Comanche sank from sight.
Inside the farmhouse a man was bellowing an alarm. There were other outcries across the creek. Then more musket fire. A shot from a loophole in the house felled a soldier. Why in the name of God didn’t the captain sound a call before Lantzman’s family killed them all?
Bent was trying. For the third time he cried, “Orderly bugler—sound trot march!”
The orderly swayed in the saddle as if he had imbibed too heavily. Furious, Bent sheathed his sword, switched gun hands, and brought his prancing roan under control. He reached out to seize the bugler’s hickory shirt. His hand closed on sticky cloth.
Without thinking, he pushed the enlisted man, who fell off the far side of his horse with his head tilting back. In the faint light, Bent saw that a musket ball had pierced the bugler’s right eye.
Two or three Indians remained between the soldiers and the farmhouse. Bent heard balls whizzing and hissing to the right and left as he leaped to the ground. Confused and frightened, all he could think of was the necessity for a bugle call.
“Close up. Close up and advance!”
Whose voice was that? he wondered as he stumbled to the body of his orderly and seized the bugle. Main, that’s who it was. Afterward they’d say he was the one who showed initiative. Damn him. Damn him.
The bloody bugle in hand, he regained his saddle and saw Charles speeding by from right to left. Bent flung the bugle away, snatched his revolver from the holster, and quickly surveyed his surroundings.
No one was close; no one was watching. The line was falling apart, each trooper firing, defending himself as best he could. Bent aimed the revolver at Charles’s retreating back. Pressed his lips together. Slowly exerted pressure on the trigger—
An Indian ball nicked his roan on the left flank. The horse bellowed and bucked. Bent’s revolver boomed, barely heard in the gunfire. Charles rode on, untouched.
Infuriated, Bent was ready to try another shot, caution abandoned now. A thrashing in the corn caught his attention. He whipped his head around. Not eight feet away there was a horseman.
“O’Dell! I didn’t see you—” Terrified, Bent felt his bladder let go.
“What in hell are you doing, sir? Why did you shoot at one of your own men?”
The quiet accusation had an unexpected effect. It restored Bent’s calm, made him realize the extent of the danger into which his hate had pushed him. No words could save him at this point. He answered O’Dell by raising the Allen and Wheelock to firing position.
O’Dell’s mouth opened, but he had no time to cry out. Bent’s shot destroyed most of O’Dell’s face and flung him sideways. His left boot tore free of the stirrup, but not his right. The roan cantered away with O’Dell hanging head down. His skull was quickly beaten to pieces by the hard ground.
Fighting panic, Bent looked around hurriedly. No one had seen the shooting. It was still too dark, with powder smoke and mist further hampering visibility. Bent holstered his gun and again drew his saber. With the blade at tierce point, he screamed the order for his men to advance at a trot.
Charles had already taken care of issuing that order. Three troopers closed on the last Indian sentinel and dropped him with well-placed shots. One man sabered the Comanche’s throat for good measure.
Charles rode to within twenty feet of the farmhouse, risking himself so that the Lantzmans would be sure to hear his shout:
“This is the Second Cavalry. Hold your fire.”
Silence settled. Smoke drifted away in the mist. Bent trotted forward. “Dismount. Dismount!”
Gradually the troopers obeyed. Panting, Bent dropped to the ground in the midst of milling horses. He hoped the dark would help hide his damp trousers.
“Good work, men. We carried the day.”
“We lost three men,” Charles said, still in the saddle. Bent wished he could raise the revolver and blow Charles’s head off. But reckless action had nearly undone him once; it must not happen again.
“No, wait,” Charles exclaimed. “Where’s O’Dell?”
He called the officer’s name twice, loudly. Then Bent spoke. “No use, Lieutenant. One of the savages got him. I saw him fall. His horse dragged him off.”
Bent’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. If anyone was to challenge his lie, it would happen now—now—
“God,” Charles said softly, climbing down. No one else uttered a word.
Bent exhaled. He was safe. He squared his shoulders. “I regret
the loss as much as you, but we must consolidate our gains and plan our next move. We’ll want pickets along this side of the house, Lieutenant. Take care of it while I see to those inside.”
He pivoted, one hand resting on his saber hilt. He felt exactly like a conquering general as he strode toward the log house, calling, “Lantzman?”
Charles detailed four troopers to bring in the dead; it hadn’t occurred to Bent, apparently.
He watched one member of the detail spread tarpaulins close to the farmhouse wall. Dawn light filled the eastern sky now. The mist was dissipating. Inside, Bent could be heard making pronouncements to people who spoke much more softly than the captain; Charles detected at least one feminine voice. Bent’s tone of authority angered him. The man might do passably well as a staff officer, but as a line commander he was an incompetent. He had botched the advance to the farm. In anticipation of sentinels, they should have approached in double file, to present a narrower target. Or, better still, on foot, as Charles had suggested.
The captain’s refusal had cost them four dead. A fifth trooper was out of action with a ball in his foot. Add to that the two men dispatched to Camp Cooper, and their effective strength was reduced to seventeen. Against thirty or more Comanches still left.
Two of the detail appeared, dragging something in an indigo saddle blanket. “We found everyone but Lieutenant O’Dell, sir. There’s no sign of him.”
Charles nodded in an absent way. He looked to the hills beyond the pitiful fields. The man who had befriended him was lost out there with no one to mourn him. Charles’s eyes filled with tears. Then shock settled in. His legs shook. He had to lean against the log wall to keep from falling. The men in the detail looked elsewhere until the worst of it passed.
Suddenly, there was an outburst of yelling from the creek side of the house. Charles hurried to the corner and peered around. Over in the Comanche camp, the braves were milling their horses, brandishing lances, whooping. Most of them were young men, their glossy hair parted in the center and braided in long queues. Some had accentuated the part by streaking it with white or yellow clay. Faces were painted red, with white or yellow eyelids. One warrior had drawn huge black fangs all around his mouth.
