American Blood

by Jason Manning

  "Well," said Kearny, "unlike Generals Taylor and Scott, I have no interest in politics. I am a soldier, and as such I advise you gentlemen to be early to bed tonight. Tomorrow will be here sooner than you think."

  With that they broke up. Outside, Delgado pulled Hugh Falconer aside. "General Kearny has only a passing interest in what happens in Santa Fe or Taos," he told the frontiersman. "His eyes are fixed on California. When Armijo finds this out, he will be wise enough to wait until Kearny and most of the soldiers are gone before he stirs up trouble. He can no more be trusted than Santa Anna. Both men will smile and shake your hand and earnestly profess eternal friendship—before they stab you in the back."

  Falconer nodded. "I'm with you, Del. Which is why I told the general I was planning to stay behind when he marched on to California. Charley Bent once saved my life, long ago. I think I may get the chance to return the favor." Packing a clay pipe with honeydew tobacco, he shot Delgado a curious glance. "You've heard a lot of poor-talking about the Mexican people. Are you insulted?"

  Delgado smiled. "I can tolerate it. I've heard the same kind of talk at home—about Americans. Some of them believe you are barbarians who eat little children for breakfast. As they get better acquainted, each side will discover they have more in common than they have differences."

  "I only hope," said Falconer, "that the acquaintance is not made over the barrel of a gun."

  Chapter Six

  "We'll start with this traitor!"

  1

  It was the bright, warm morning of the last day in June when Delgado left Fort Leavenworth on the final leg of his long journey home. It was a journey that had begun halfway around the world, that had taken him from London to New York to New Orleans to St. Louis and finally to the eastern terminus of the fabled Santa Fe Trail, a journey that had delivered him from the cloistered halls of Oxford University, steeped in tradition, to the raw frontier among the ranks of stern-faced dragoons marching off to war for the glory and aggrandizement of the young republic called the United States of America. Along the way he found the woman of his dreams. He wondered what he would find at the conclusion of the journey.

  Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny, astride a sturdy bay horse, waved good-bye to his wife and children and led the way; tall, straight, and lean, he looked to Delgado the perfect soldier. Delgado was glad that the fate of Taos and Santa Fe rested in this man's hands, for he believed that Kearny was an honest, capable, and fair-minded man. Best of all, like most professional soldiers, Kearny was deeply committed to peace. Perhaps more so that the average citizen.

  With Kearny rode his staff officers, Emory and the topographical engineers, a battery of light artillery—mountain howitzers with their brass neatly polished—and the final detachment of the First Dragoons. The latter wore broad-brimmed black hats, blue flannel shirts and trousers, and every one was armed with carbine, two pistols, and a Bowie knife. Delgado and Sterling rode with Kearny's staff. Hugh Falconer had departed at first light to go ahead with a handful of his Delaware and Shawnee scouts.

  The first part of their journey was pleasant enough. Crossing the Kansas River, they camped on the west bank among friendly Shawnees. This tribe, which under the leadership of men of genius like Tecumseh and Blue Jacket had wrought havoc for more than a quarter of a century among settlers in Kentucky and the Old Northwest, was now one of prosperous farmers, whose corn fields were as fine as any Delgado had ever seen. The Shawnees supplied the troops with vegetables, milk, butter, and eggs. It would be the last time Kearny's Army of the West enjoyed such luxuries until they reached their destination.

  The country here was fertile, with fine rolling prairie and abundant stands of timber. But in the days to come the timber, water and graze grew ever more sparse. Midday temperatures soared to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and beyond. Men and livestock suffered immensely. In the evenings swarms of mosquitoes plagued them. The water, when it was available, was often rancid or alkaline, and the sick rolls increased at an alarming rate.

  One thing the expedition never lacked was fresh meat. Vast herds of buffalo were a frequent occurrence, and often the men could supplement their standard ration of bacon, biscuits, and coffee with a succulent slab of hump meat. When buffalo weren't readily available, there was always the herd of cattle that had been brought along. On the treeless plains the soldiers used buffalo chips in lieu of firewood. Every day men would venture out and skewer the dung patties on their ramrods until they had enough to build their fires.

  They saw numerous Indians of various tribes, for this was the season of the buffalo hunt. Hugh Falconer proved his worth a hundred times over, because the Indians invariably knew him or knew about him, and as a consequence there was never any trouble, not so much as a horse turned up missing. Kearny thought this was remarkable, since the Plains Indians had made an art form of horse stealing.

  Kearny kept the column moving at a brisk pace. It was not uncommon for the Army of the West to make twenty-five miles in a day. The general seemed to be everywhere, in the saddle from before dawn until after dark, one day with the vanguard, the next day at the rear of the column. Tireless, he kept an eye on every detail. The sore-footed infantry often cursed Kearny for pushing them so hard, and President Polk for issuing a call to glory that had lured them into the rash folly of enlisting. But though they moaned and groaned, the men had complete confidence in their leader.

  One day Delgado rode out with Falconer and his scouts. In buffalo country it was Falconer's habit to leave camp about midnight, reaching the site of the vanguard's next camp by first light, so that by the time the weary soldiers dragged in, they would, if all went well, find plenty of fresh-killed game waiting on them. On that day Falconer took Delgado to the top of a rock outcropping to gaze out upon the largest herd of buffalo Delgado had ever seen. The beasts resembled a shaggy brown carpet reaching into infinity. The dust that rose from beneath their hooves turned the sky dun colored. Falconer estimated the herd to number three or four hundred thousand head. "Enough meat for all the armies in the world," said Delgado, awestruck. Falconer nodded. But Kearny had given strict orders against the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo. It had proven difficult to restrain the volunteers in this respect. They were inclined to shoot at anything that moved, just for sport. Falconer and his Indian scouts, though, were a highly efficient team of hunters. Delgado watched them kill the requisite number of shaggies, then swiftly butcher them out. The hides, bones, sinews, and sometimes choice cuts of meat were always given as gifts to the ubiquitous Plains Indians, who always seemed to be hovering nearby; Delgado became accustomed to seeing twenty or thirty of them a day.

  Despite the plentiful game, and the peace so meticulously kept with the Indians, the Army of the West suffered casualties. A few men perished by drowning when sudden thunderstorms transformed dry gulches into raging cataracts. Several more were lost to sudden illnesses. A couple were snakebit. One was trampled to death by his own horse. Burial with full honors always followed. Wrapped in a blanket, the deceased was promptly interred. After a brief passage from the Bible was read by an officer, three volleys were fired into the air by an honor guard. Then horses were ridden over the grave until it was indistinguishable from the rest of the prairie—this to thwart scavenging wolves, or Indians who would think nothing of desecrating the grave in search of valuables. Indian dead were buried with all their weapons and finery, and they assumed the white man did the same.

  Two weeks out of Fort Leavenworth they saw the white mountains which, according to Falconer, the Indians called Wah-to-yah, the "Breasts of the World." They rose from the plain in sharp contrast against a line of ominous black thunderheads. These were the first real mountains some of the Missouri volunteers had ever seen, and they raised a shout of elation at the sight. The twin peaks were visible proof that they had accomplished a truly remarkable feat—in three weeks' time they had marched nearly five hundred miles!

  A few days later, Falconer came riding in to find General Kea
rny. With him was another legendary mountain man—Tom Fitzpatrick. The buckskinner the Indians called Broken Hand had come from nearby Bent's Fort with news of events in Santa Fe. While the common people of New Mexico were inclined to accept the imminent American occupation without resistance, Manuel Armijo had summoned a council of the province's leading men and convinced them that they would face ruination or worse if they did not try to turn back the Americans. There was, reported Fitzpatrick, no reliable word regarding Urrea and the army of three thousand battle-hardened Mexican Regulars rumored to be on the march from the South.

  The following morning Falconer rode into Bent's Fort, only a few miles in advance of the Army of the West.

  2

  Bent's Fort had been built in 1833 by Charles and William Bent and their business associate, the French-American, Ceran St. Vrain. The oldest of four brothers destined to leave their mark on the American frontier, Charles had been six years old when his parents moved to St. Louis. There he had grown up rubbing elbows with trappers and traders. Thrilled by their tales of life in the untamed wilderness, Charles joined the Missouri Fur Company at a tender age, and then became involved in the lucrative Santa Fe trade. In 1830 he organized the Bent & St. Vrain Company. His partner, though born in Missouri, lived in the Taos area. The partnership prospered, and soon Bent and St. Vrain ruled a commercial empire.

  Where Charles was the entrepreneur, his younger brother William was by nature the true frontiersman of the family. It was William, therefore, who saw to the day-to-day operations of the trading post and wilderness stronghold that came to be known as Bent's Fort. Married to a Cheyenne princess named Owl Woman, William had tremendous influence among the Indians, and not only did he cement strong trading relations with the various tribes, to the immense benefit of the Bent & St. Vrain Company, but he also proved instrumental in keeping the peace between the Indians and the pioneers.

  Charles Bent spent a lot of time in St. Louis and New Mexico. He was married to an affluent Mexican widow and had established a permanent residence in Taos, becoming one of that community's leading citizens. Bent's Fort was only two weeks' journey from Santa Fe.

  Bent's Fort was located on the northern bank of the Arkansas River, a hundred miles east of the Rockies. The walls, fifteen feet high and four feet thick, were built of adobe in the form of a hollow square, and the compound contained twenty-six rooms surrounding a courtyard. There were bastions at two corners, and parapets on all sides, and a small cannon on the wall above the gate, where the Stars and Stripes proudly flew. In the center of the courtyard were three large rooms. One was a storehouse and magazine, another a dining hall, and a third a council room. The fort could accommodate more than one hundred souls comfortably, and on any given day one could find Santa Fe traders, mountain men, Indians, emigrants, and soldiers there. One of the fort's most notable assets was Charlotte, a black woman who served as cook, and who was justly famous for her pancakes and pumpkin pies.

  Falconer and Charles Bent were old friends, having met in St. Louis as youths more than twenty-five years earlier. When he heard that the Army of the West was only a few miles away, Bent was overjoyed.

  "As you can see," said Bent, "trade with Santa Fe has come to a complete standstill. If something isn't done, and soon, many of our friends will be ruined, Hugh."

  Falconer had counted more than a hundred wagons, all filled with merchandise, in a sprawling encampment of idle and disgruntled traders on the other side of the Arkansas River.

  "General Kearny is authorized to offer you the position of provisional governor of New Mexico," Falconer informed his friend. "Will you take the job?"

  Bent nodded grimly. "It is a task I do not relish, but I will not decline. I have many friends in New Mexico, and I want only the best for them."

  "I know, and most of them know that, too. They're bound to prefer you over Manuel Armijo. With any luck we'll pull this off without a shot being fired."

  "You've become an optimist in your old age," said Bent, grinning.

  When Kearny and his troops arrived, they bivouacked across the river from the fort, near the trader's camp. Kearny dispatched Captain Moore and his company of dragoons on a reconnaissance in the direction of Raton Pass. Moore promptly returned with three Mexican prisoners, whom he declared were spies. These men were incarcerated at Bent's Fort and Kearny turned to Delgado for a favor.

  "Go and talk to the prisoners, Mr. McKinn. Find out what they were up to, and what the situation is on the other side of those mountains."

  In a few hours Delgado reported back to the general.

  "They admit to being spies, General. Armijo sent them. They expect to be lined up against a wall and executed by firing squad. What they have seen of your army has made them despair. They are especially impressed with your artillery. In fact, one of them wept. He asked me what would become of New Mexico. Armijo's got them believing your army has come to rape and pillage."

  "I have no intention of executing them," replied Kearny. "I want them to see everything there is to see, and then I will set them free, so that they can report back to Armijo. What do you think of that, Mr. McKinn?"

  Delgado smiled. "I think that's a very wise decision, General."

  "Tell them we have not come to make war upon the people. I enjoin the citizens of New Mexico to remain quietly in their homes, and not to take up arms against us, as we mean them no harm. If they will do this, I guarantee that their rights, both civil and religious, will be scrupulously respected, and they will not be interfered with in their daily pursuits."

  "I'll tell them, sir, and gladly."

  Kearny remained at Bent's Fort for a week, making arrangements for the final push across Raton Pass to Santa Fe, and for leaving the sick behind at the frontier outpost. This gave Delgado plenty of time to visit with Charles Bent, whom he knew well; he had been a guest at the wedding of Bent and Maria Ignacia Jaramillo, and the Bents had accepted invitations to the McKinn house on numerous occasions.

  "You know, Del," said Bent as he and Delgado and Falconer visited over drinks in Bent's quarters one evening, "in all this talk about the possibility of a clash between the Americans and the Mexicans in Santa Fe, we have overlooked one very important and volatile ingredient. The Pueblo Indians."

  "What do you think they will do?" asked Delgado.

  Bent shook his head, and Falconer said, "With the Pueblos, there is no way of knowing."

  "Well," said Bent, "they were here long before anyone else. They are, after all, direct descendents of the Anasazi, the Ancient Ones. And, though they've been at peace for a long time, they know how to fight. Long before the first conquistador arrived, the Pueblos were defending their homes against the Comanches and the Apaches. Remember, when Coronado came searching for the golden cities of Cibola, the Pueblos resisted and nearly killed Coronado himself."

  "Then the missionaries came," said Falconer, "and tried to make good Christians of them, which they didn't appreciate, either."

  "Yes," said Delgado, "the Pueblos revolted, led by a chief named Pope. Several of my mother's ancestors lost their lives in that revolt. They drove the Spanish away, and it took my mother's people twelve years to regain control of the province."

  Bent sighed. "If Armijo is smart, and he is that, he will try to stir up the Pueblos, too. And if that happens . . . "

  He didn't finish. Didn't need to. Both Falconer and Delgado knew what would transpire if the Pueblos Indians revolted. It was not a pleasant thought.

  3

  The following day, Falconer and a handful of his Shawnees and Delawares, joined by a few of the mountain men who were idling away their time at Bent's Fort, reconnoitered the mountain passes to the south. They returned to Kearny with word that the passes were clear. On August 1st Kearny put Doniphan's Missouri Volunteers on the trail. The day after, Kearny and his staff accompanied the dragoons and Laclede's Rangers as they embarked on the final leg of their journey.

  By the fourth day of August they were deep in the Raton M
ountains. The snowy peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range seemed to float in the far distance, disembodied above the desert plain. The climb to the divide was an arduous one, and Kearny let his troops recuperate for a day while Falconer and the scouts ventured on ahead into enemy territory. The men enjoyed the scenery, and the cool, wildflower-scented air at seventy-five hundred feet above sea level was refreshing after the stifling heat of the plains below. The pine forests provided them with shade from the summer sun.

  Again Falconer came back with news that no sign of a hostile enemy force could be found, and the Army of the West began to descend from the Ratons onto the desert plains, red earth cut through by purple arroyos beneath a dazzling blue Mexican sky.

  Delgado felt a stir of excitement. Taos was only a couple of days ride. This was his homeland. He had been away for three long years, and he realized just how much he had missed this country now that he was back.

  A man from Taos, a trader, came to sell a quantity of flour to the army, which Kearny was quick to purchase. Delgado knew the man and asked about his mother and father. The trader assured him that, as far as he knew, they were both well. But all was not well in Taos. In these turbulent times the situation could change in a heartbeat. . .

  "Governor Armijo has issued a proclamation placing the entire province under martial law," said the trader. "He has called upon all able-bodied citizens to take up arms. He is using the priests to tell the people of the many horrors that the Americans will visit upon them. Many of the people believe these lies, and there are at least two thousand who have answered the governor's call. That includes many Pueblo Indians."

  "You take a grave risk, then," said Delgado, "by coming here to trade with the army."