Murder at Medicine Lodge

by Mardi Oakley Medawar

  Halfway between the two camps, a bright beam off to the right caught his eye. Curious, White Bear veered his horse in that direction and, when he was close enough to the source of the glow, drew to a stop. Recognizing the thing on the ground as the shiny object that Buug-lah had not allowed him to touch, White Bear jumped down from his horse and picked it up. Being a great believer in the old saying that whatever is found on the prairie is a lucky gift for the finder, White Bear hung the bugle from his breech-belt in the same fashion he’d seen the soldier wearing it. Yet his biggest mistake was believing that the soldiers would offer him many valuable gifts to secure the return of the bugle.

  This is the way Indians think. It is not the way Blue Jackets think. Not realizing this, White Bear took himself, and the bugle, to their camp.

  FOUR

  I do not know, before this occurrence, just how aggressively the Blue Jackets had been searching for their missing man. I only know that when White Bear appeared in their camp with that bugle, that they were thrown into a great sense of urgency, two officers demanding to know exactly where White Bear had supposedly found the object. Through the Comanche-speaking man, he told them.

  Five miles northwest.

  Now this made no sense to them at all, for immediately northwest lay Fort Larned. It defied logic that an absconding soldier would ride in the direction of another fort. Most especially a fort which is as actively patrolled, and in a twenty-five-mile radius, as Fort Larned. Only a supremely stupid deserter would strike off in that direction.

  Yet again I was with Hawwy in the Blue Jackets’ camp when White Bear came boldly in, behaving just as arrogantly as he knew how to do. Needless to say, the Blue Jackets’ reaction was not what he’d anticipated. Not one officer asked to have it back, nor were any gifts offered for its return. Instead White Bear was ordered out of their camp at riflepoint. As I would not stay where my chief was not welcome, I clambered onto my horse and rode out with him.

  Too many think of Lone Wolf as a peace chief, a man anxious to appease Washington. The truth is, Lone Wolf—a tall man with craggy features—was in the main a slow talker, a man who preferred to remain quiet while figuring out the benefits or the disadvantages of any treaty talks. But when pushed, he had a notable temper. When he learned how one of his band chiefs had been treated, he formed a delegation and went to the soldiers’ camp, where his temper exploded all over the generals. Undaunted, those same generals continued to insist that White Bear was nothing more than a common thief, and most probably a murderer.

  Lone Wolf said “Prove it,” and the generals said that was what they intended to do. Lone Wolf countered, “As you have been so far unable to find your own man, we Kiowa will find him for you.”

  The generals’ response was, “The search will be continued solely by the army.”

  Lone Wolf struck a compromise. Four men from our camp would accompany a new Blue Jacket search party. The generals said this was all right as long as one of our men wasn’t White Bear. They also stated that their junior officers should not have chased him out of the camp, but put him under arrest and, now that he was back in their camp, that this was what they intended to do. Lone Wolf said the first Blue Jacket to touch White Bear would be the first Blue Jacket to die.

  Alarmed, the generals had a conference. They still wanted White Bear to be under arrest, but agreed to allow Kiowa warriors to stand guard. Lone Wolf said that was all right with him, but that White Bear would not be under guard by anyone, not even Kiowas, inside the Blue Jacket camp—that the place for White Bear to be under arrest was in his own home. Realizing the principal chief of the Kiowas had been pushed as far as he would budge, the generals grudgingly shook Lone Wolf’s hand.

  With White Bear’s honor at stake, the voting among our warriors for the four likely men to accompany the new search team was loud and furious. Keeping my mouth shut, I stood well back behind the crowd. Not a warrior or a tracker, it never occurred to me that I would ever be chosen. As far as I was concerned, I was simply there to listen. Skywalker had shouted down the warriors and now he was doing all of the talking. He said that no one had listened to him about coming to Medicine Lodge, and now, White Bear obviously hadn’t been listening when he’d been told specifically not to touch anything he found on the ground. All of this trouble, he raged, could have been avoided if the people hadn’t been greedy for promised gifts the army still had yet to give, and if White Bear had shown the barest trace of good sense.

  The Cheyenne Robber took umbrage, jumping in to White Bear’s defense. Skywalker was The Cheyenne Robber’s adopted brother, but White Bear was his maternal uncle, a blood relative. Brotherhood aside, The Cheyenne Robber’s first loyalty was to White Bear. Skywalker knew this, of course, but he was livid that The Cheyenne Robber was going against him. Their argument was rapidly becoming dangerous, as White Bear’s lieutenants were entering the brotherly fray on The Cheyenne Robber’s side, and the society of Owl Doctors were aligning themselves with Skywalker. The arguing was reaching a fevered pitch and guns were being drawn.

  The generals were looking quite worried, knowing that it wouldn’t take much for the Indians to stop yelling and begin shooting. The Blue Jacket chiefs were visably relieved when Lone Wolf and Hears The Wolf intervened. Their relief faded almost as rapidly as it had come, when Lone Wolf and Hears The Wolf began to argue.

  Frankly, at this point, knowing that real danger had been averted, I stopped listening. Turning my face away, I glanced around the soldiers’ camp. So many men, all of them dressed in identical fashion. I was wondering yet again just how they managed to tell one another apart, when Hears The Wolf’s words entered my consciousness.

  “But he’s a logical choice!”

  Looking pained, Lone Wolf replied tersely, “We’re talking about someone who can’t track, can’t defend himself, can barely stay on a horse.”

  Growling behind his teeth, Hears The Wolf stepped closer to Lone Wolf. “I know his faults, but even so, I vote for him.”

  Lone Wolf’s jawline clenched as his narrowing eyes bore into Hears The Wolf’s. In carefully chosen words he said, “On account of White Bear, I’ve been made to look weak. If this problem isn’t solved, I will have no voice at the peace talks.”

  “You have my assurance,” Hears The Wolf said, “that this one will work for your benefit. And of all of us, he is the better choice. He has spent time among the Blue Jackets. He knows them.”

  Now, that really should have been my clue, but it wasn’t. While it was true that I had been spending a great deal of time at the Blue Jackets’ camp, I had been spending every bit of that time with Hawwy—learning from him and trying just as hard as I knew how, to convince him to trade away some of his wonderful doctoring tools. You might well ask why I wasn’t alerted to the possibility that it was me Lone Wolf was referring to with his unflattering remarks. That too is easily explained.

  Lone Wolf was not at all like our former chief. Little Bluff had had a talent for bringing out the best in everyone. Recognizing that not all men were destined to be warriors, he encouraged men such as myself to do instead what they did best. Because of Little Bluff, at a very young age, I was recognized as a practical doctor and I brought this title with me into the new era. Had I been born later, still trying to find my way while Lone Wolf was principal chief, I would never have been recognized as anything more than a failure, because in his mind if you weren’t a valuable warrior you might as well just go ahead and die—a judgment he had been very quick to give.

  Almost immediately following his political victory, Lone Wolf had surrounded himself with only the best of the best. He then went on to publicly criticize any man unable to meet his stern standards. So on this day, when he was blowing off on the worthlessness of this latest unfortunate, it is wholly understandable that I had no idea he meant me. The real indicator that I had been the subject of his recent ridicule was when Raven’s Wing grabbed hold of my arm and marched me to the front, placing me in the direct path of Lo
ne Wolf’s jaundiced eye.

  The few words he spoke to me were bitten off and threatening. “Healer, once again you have come to my attention.”

  I looked to Skywalker for assistance and found not a whit. It felt to me that I had been desperately seeking support from a complete stranger. He maintained this attitude as the four of us—Skywalker, Hears The Wolf, The Cheyenne Robber, and me—joined forces with the newly chosen men from among the Blue Jackets.

  There were two officers and four enlisted men. Hawwy was the senior officer. The junior was Lieutenant Watts, simply called Danny by his superior officers. We called him Danny, too, and he seemed to like that. He was a slightly built young man; so slight that he didn’t appear to weigh much more than my wife. This was the same young man I had seen so often with Buug-lah, and he looked just as pinch-faced as ever. He had bright blond hair, red-rimmed blue eyes, and a perpetually runny nose. Danny did not have an illness. At least not one I was able to cure. He could not stand dust, and the dusty, dry thin air of the high prairie was making his life a misery. I tried to help him, offering him a piece of bitterroot, but Lieutenant Danny only smiled and sniffled a “no, thank you.”

  One of the four black soldiers was someone I already knew—William. His leg wasn’t bothering him, I was pleased to note, for he walked quite easily toward his horse. I felt very proud of my skills. William was a nice-looking young man and something of a bashful person. Recognizing me, he sent an awkward half-smile. Then he glanced back to the young lieutenant, an anxious expression creasing his face.

  The second black soldier was named Little Jonas. This name was supposedly a joke, because Little Jonas was as big and brooding as a thunderhead. He looked at all of us from narrowed, hooded eyes. His glare was so hard that it left all of us with the distinct impression that he would happily rip our hearts out without the slightest hesitation. Worriedly I began to wonder just how effectively a gentle man like Hawwy, or a lightweight like Snotty Nose (Lieutenant Danny), could control their hostile giant.

  The remaining two enlisted men were white, both of them wearing many stripes on their sleeves: Sergeant Hicks having six stripes, Sergeant Cullen having four. Sergeant Hicks was a stocky man with rough, weathered skin and, when he removed his broad black hat to wipe sweat from his brow, I was shocked to see that he had very little hair, the top of his bare skull quite shiny. He walked beside Hawwy as the latter tried to address a sullen Skywalker. During this less-than-productive exchange, I glanced from Sergeant Hicks to the other Striped Sleeve, Sergeant Cullen.

  Now, there was a sight. The man was literally swollen with hostility, a to-the-bone meanness that manifested itself as he stood next to his horse, holding the reins too tightly, purposely hurting the animal that was trying to throw its head back, fighting the brutal hold. When the horse did a dancing step to the side, Sergeant Cullen kicked the horse in the ribs. The sound of that horse’s scream caught everyone’s attention, Hawwy and Sergeant Hicks quickly turning away from us. Sergeant Hicks yelled something, then Cullen, his upper lip curling back in a snarl, mounted up.

  Thoroughly embarrassed—first by getting nowhere in the attempt at being civil with Skywalker, then by the brutal display of the soldier—Hawwy was practically babbling. Skywalker rounded off Hawwy’s humiliation with a dismissive wave, turned his horse’s head, and led the four of us away from the odd assortment of Blue Jackets.

  * * *

  We were two miles out and traveling northwest when Billy came riding out of a clump of scrub trees. As Hawwy had been the only means of communication between our two groups, and his abilities were somewhat sketchy, he was very glad to see the young frontiersman. With Billy now by his side, I could see an almost visible, burdensome weight lifting from Hawwy’s shoulders. In all ruthless honesty, Hawwy was about as much a soldier as I was a warrior. He had been chosen for this expedition for precisely the same reasons I had—because the generals, on account of his impending marriage to Cherish and his friendship with me, believed he knew more about the Kiowa than he actually did. But unlike Hawwy, I had no rank whatsoever, so I was not afflicted with the responsibility of leadership. With the arrival of Billy, Hawwy eagerly shifted this responsibility, and with the shift came a lessening of tensions, for Skywalker quite readily spoke to Billy whereas he pointedly had had nothing to say to Hawwy.

  The Cheyenne Robber and Hears The Wolf were two of the finest trackers in the Nation but they had a hard task. You must understand that there were thousands and thousands of horses in that valley. The ground was a mess, all churned up and, because of the arid heat, terribly dusty. The Cheyenne Robber and Hears The Wolf rode at the front. Skywalker—who for reasons I didn’t understand, did not want to talk to me any more than he wanted to talk to Hawwy—chose to ride beside Billy. Hawwy, Lieutenant Danny, and I rode behind them. Behind us were the two sergeants, and behind them rode the two black men.

  Gradually the ground smoothed out and tracks were found. For a long time it wasn’t clear if we were following one horse or two, but when the ground became devoid of other traffic, it became apparent that we were following two horses wearing metal shoes.

  Right away The Cheyenne Robber said that a soldier was chasing another soldier, but Lieutenant Danny said no. He said that he had counted a large number of mules belonging to the Indians. Mules with army markings. Well, that put The Cheyenne Robber’s hair up. He fired back that any mules belonging to the Nations had been given in trade and that no Indian would accept a mule needing to wear iron shoes. Besides, he knew a mule print from a horse print whereas Snotty Nose didn’t look as if he knew anything except how to blow his nose so he should just shut up. Lieutenant Danny finished blowing his nose and then shut right up.

  In this spirit of mounting hostility, we continued following the tracks. Ten miles more, when buzzards were seen lazily circling the sky, we pushed our horses into a gallop.

  The sight of the man known as Buug-lah and his equally dead horse was horrific. Swarms of flies fed on both bodies. The black soldier, William, walked off to the side and commenced to wretch loudly. Lieutenant Danny panicked, pulled his sidearm, turning the pistol on Hears The Wolf. The Cheyenne Robber, coming up behind him, used his locked-together hands like a battle-ax, knocking the young man on the side of his head and to the ground. Hawwy and Billy froze. Amazingly, so did Little Jonas and the two sergeants. Hears The Wolf quickly disarmed Billy and the Blue Jackets, then was forced to wait as, throughout all of this excitement, William kept right on vomiting. Finally able to take away this last soldier’s sidearm, Hears The Wolf ordered the Blue Jackets to stand together.

  As they moved to comply, Hears The Wolf tried to think what to do next. But the man was floundering. As White Bear was known to be in possession of the dead man’s property, he would be blamed for his murder. To save his friend, Hears The Wolf could not allow the soldiers to ride back to their camp to report what we’d found. On the other hand, he was bound by his word to Lone Wolf that he would make certain that while he kept the soldiers honest, he would also keep them safe. Having sworn this so faithfully and in public, Hears The Wolf didn’t feel completely free to kill them, but then neither could he just let them go.

  Loath though as I am to admit this, in those crucial moments, I wasn’t of much help. Life had taken on a dreamlike quality, a dream where the colors are too vibrant, the edges too hard. So there I was, trapped in this dreamstreaky state, standing next to Hawwy with my hands in the air too. I came crashing back into the actual moment when, with a cry issuing from his throat, Skywalker laid a hand on my vest jacket and yanked me away from Hawwy, physically reminding me just which side in this dilemma I was supposed to be on. With hard words and another rough shove, he propelled me toward the corpse.

  Buug-lah lay on the ground, as dead as a doorknocker. From the look of him, someone had done him in with a sharp, heavy instrument, most probably a metal ax, splitting his once smug face in half. The body was in the advanced stages of decomposition. Even at twenty yards t
he stench was quite robust. I didn’t want to get any nearer than that, but Skywalker was still physically insistent. As he forced me forward, I shoved bits of sage up my nose and tied a protective leather cloth across my face. Skywalker needed no such protection, for he did not have the ability to smell things. Not even really bad things, like a rotting corpse.

  More than a year prior to Medicine Lodge, Skywalker had had an accident—a head-first fall from a running horse. The result of the fall left him with terrible headaches and the loss of his senses of smell and taste. The headaches, as terrible as they were, were treatable, but restoring these two vital senses went far beyond my capabilities. He liked to pretend that the loss didn’t bother him, but as his doctor, as his friend, I knew the truth.

  Before the accident he hadn’t paid any attention to the fact that he could smell and taste. He can hardly be criticized for this, as all human beings walk around taking for granted the things they should actually be marveling, failing to appreciate even for a second just how wondrously we are made. The ability to smell, the ability to taste, are two things we simply expect to do. Privately, Skywalker’s loss devastated him. Nothing he ate gave him enjoyment and he was frustrated that he could no longer enjoy simple things like the sweet perfume of pine trees after a spring rain or the aroma of a hearty stew on a cold winter’s day. Yet there was a dangerous side to his loss.

  The senses of smell and taste are primary warning devices. A bad taste instinctively tells a person to spit out whatever they happen to be chewing, that the bad taste means something is poisonous to the body. The sense of smell detects the acrid odor of smoke, a sense vital to those living in a country of grass where fires are known to flash start. Nothing can stop a prairie fire once it flares to life. Man and animals can only get out of its way, and they must do this long before the fire is seen, Skywalker’s inability to smell such danger left him subtly dependent on others. Skywalker abhorred being dependent. Even subtly.