Murder at Medicine Lodge

by Mardi Oakley Medawar

  Haw-we-sun, in that much-too-open way of his, rose from the bed and hurried to embrace me. In the grip of this unseemly hug, I rolled woeful eyes toward Billy. The only help he offered in this thoroughly embarrassing moment was a hearty laugh.

  * * *

  Life in the soldier camp was extremely interesting. I’d lived among soldiers before—but as Hawwy’s patient, confined to his doctoring house. I had not lived as a soldier lives. I had been kept separate and my meals were brought to me. In this camp, I was expected to carry a metal plate and coffee cup and stand in a long line with the other soldiers. Right away, this simple task revealed the blinding differences between ordinary soldiers and officers. And the difference, really, between the soldiers and hired frontiersmen and one Kiowa guest.

  Hawwy had “dressed for dinner,” donning a fine uniform, then going off to a large tent where he sat down at a table, to be served his food by “mess soldiers.” As the flaps to that tent were fully open and the mess soldiers were coming and going, the dining officers were clearly visible to those of us of the lower class, shuffling along in the line. I noticed that, the more stripes on the sleeves of the soldiers, the farther ahead in the line they were. Those of us in the frontier class, without a uniform and certainly no stripes, were relegated to the very end of the line.

  When eventually it came my turn to receive food, I was glad to have Billy behind me as the men in charge of the enormous pots slopped runny beans and a slab of bread on my plate. The next man filled my cup with coffee then asked if I wanted milk. Billy answered that yes I did, and then that soldier, with a disagreeable grunt, poured the milk from a can into my cup of coffee. When Billy nudged me, I knew it was time to move on.

  We sat on the ground to eat our food. We were alone, no one volunteering to eat with us. Feeling this insult, I cried, “How can you stand this? Being shunned, made to eat like a camp dog while your friend goes off to eat in a place of honor?”

  Billy tilted his head to the side, lifted his shoulders in a vague shrug, stuffed bread in his mouth. Chewing, he replied, “This is the army. Friendship has nothing to do with order.”

  “And their order has to do with uniforms?”

  “Yes.”

  Billy knew a lot about the army, the white culture. He shared his knowledge as I ate the beans that were much too salty and the bread that was hard and stale.

  The Civil War had changed many things, Billy told me, and during its length, new wonders—meant to make the field soldier’s life more bearable, keep him fighting-fit—had come to be. Take cans for instance. Those were designed so that the soldier could cook for himself, independent of camp cooks. Canned meats, beans, bread, milk, and even coffee—known as “coffee essence” and made instantly when this powdery form of coffee was added to hot water—were carried in the soldier’s pack. Now, the can opener wasn’t thought up until ten years after the can, so prior to this handy gadget, the top of the cans were cut in an X, the four corners pulled back. Heating up the food wasn’t much of a problem as all soldiers carried candles. And believe it or not, the candles fit the bayonets much better than the bayonets fit the muzzles of rifles. Stabbing the bayonets into the ground, soldiers put the candles into the muzzle joint and then cans of food were heated up over the small flame. Isn’t that ingenious?

  Weaponry during the war made tremendous strides, rifles changing from lead ball–and–powder muskets, to single-shot cartridges. Then the weapon makers figured out how to store sixteen cartridges in a chamber, only needing to cock the lever to load a fresh round. Those guns are what we knew to be e-pe-tas (repeaters). Cannons became more mobile when the army realized that the wheels for the small cannon wagons should to be smaller. Smaller wheels moved faster and were able to go through dense brush whereas the larger wheels were awkward, moved slowly, and were habitually “stumped” by dead fall. Since those days, I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I’m stumped,” or “That stumps me.” I’ve often wondered if they realize that this is an old Civil War term that meant a cannon was stuck somewhere and the soldiers couldn’t shift it.

  When I asked about uniforms, Billy had a lot to say about those, too.

  Basically, each soldier was given two uniforms, and as the clothing was only one size, it was each soldier’s responsibility to take needle and thread to make his issued uniforms fit him properly. If the uniforms were lost or ruined, the soldier was heavily fined, the money coming out of his pay. To prevent this, soldiers made name marks in their clothing so that if stolen, ownership could be proven.

  Officers were not issued uniforms. They went to tailors and paid to have their uniforms made for them. Officers needed at least three uniforms, one for parade, one for field, and one for mess. The only restrictions as to how these uniforms should look was that the color must be dark blue and the material wool. Which explained why so many officers looked different. Some were quite carried away by their own individuality, adorning their jackets with an abundance of brass designs. Other officers, like Hawwy, couldn’t be bothered. For them, other than the required shiny brass buttons, their jackets were plain.

  The broad hats, which were issued for frontier use, were originally quite stiff, the crown blocked and tall, the right side of the brim forced up and pinned in place by a brass ornament set off with small red-and-white feathers. The pinning-up of the right side of the brim was to accommodate the barrel of a right-shouldered rifle. But in the Territory, rifles were carried in saddle holsters and the soldier’s face and neck needed protection from the burning sun. What Territory soldiers and officers began doing was to remove the brass ornament and pin it to the right shoulder of their jackets; then they soaked the hats in water until the hats were soft and floppy. From this was born the slouch hat, a hat which on its own has become a familiar symbol of the high plains calvary soldier. A hat which before the end of the Civil War had not existed.

  While all of this was thoroughly fascinating, I could see defects in the common-soldier clothing system. As their uniforms were all made the same way and of one size, items could be easily swapped, even stolen. In that case, it would rest with the offended soldier to prove that someone else was wearing his clothing. Billy said it was true, that petty theft was the cause for each soldier sewing into his clothing an identifying mark. But, I countered, suppose one soldier wanted to incriminate another? What better way than to leave another’s uniform near the scene of a crime? Billy and I lapsed into silence, my brain busily remembering that the uniform wasn’t found near Buug-lah, but miles away and hidden inside bushes. Then I thought of the reason I’d been caught up in this mess. Crying Wind throwing away my gift to her. The shovel.

  Each soldier had a folding shovel. Why those were necessary, I did not know, nor was I particularly interested. It was simply enough to know that each soldier and officer indeed had a shovel. Now, owning such a handy item, if a man truly wanted to do away with incriminating evidence, what better way than to bury it? During the space of time between the murder and our discovery of the body, the murderer had had more than enough time to bury a bison. Therefore I concluded that the finding of that uniform must have been intended.

  But why hadn’t Little Jonas missed his extra uniform? Why hadn’t he complained that someone had stolen his clothing? For those answers, I needed to talk to the accused man himself. Urging Billy on just as forcibly as I knew how, after cleaning and storing our metal plates and cups in the first room of Hawwy’s tent—the little room sectioned off from his sleeping room and used as his office—Billy and I went to the prison tent, a tent which, prior to his disappearance, had been Buug-lah’s private lodge.

  Mrs. Adams’ tent had been moved several yards from its original spot, as the lady did not find it comfortable living cheek by jowl with army miscreants—Major Elliot and his cohorts; then, of late, a big black man accused of murder. The twilight sky was painted with slashes of gold and purple colors. Mrs. Adams, wearing a tight-looking bright green dress, the curves of her body pushed into extraordinary an
gles, sat in a chair under the awning of her tent, rapidly fanning herself as she spoke crisply with two dismal-expressioned white men. As they were wearing brown suits, I rightly supposed that these were treaty men from Washington. Seeing me, Mrs. Adams waved her fan broadly, demanding that I to come her.

  As Billy and I neared, I was immediately taken by the fan’s flattened blade. It appeared to be made of thin wood, the blade mounted on a handle. The blade was painted with the likeness of a young bearded man wearing a white shirt, a red robe draped over his shoulder. Beautiful liquidy-blue eyes looked up toward a darkened heaven, and an illuminating whiteness surrounded the crown of his head. I would later learn that this man was named Jesus.

  “Do you speak Arapaho?” she snapped to me in English.

  Transfixed by the fan lying on her lap I answered yes, that I spoke Arapaho reasonably well. She quickly switched to that language.

  “I want you to tell your chiefs to behave themselves,” she said in commanding tone. “The Kiowa have caused nothing but trouble from the first day. You people are ruining everything, making the rest of us look bad.” She lifted the fan, employed it against me the way an angry auntie would shake her finger at a naughty child. “All of this is White Bear’s fault. He’s a no-good, and I know he killed that young man and somehow placed the blame on the Buffalo Soldier.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said calmly.

  “Yes, it is!” she yelped. “The chiefs of the other Nations are all saying this is true. They also say that Lone Wolf is only mad because it is clear to everyone that he can’t control White Bear.”

  Canting my head, I asked evenly, “And how do you know this?”

  “My uncle told me.” Her expression self-satisfied, she sat back, the small chair hidden under her impossible clothing creaking with protest. Then she began to glare at me while rapidly fanning her face, and went on the attack again. “If you intend to prove otherwise, you’d better prove it quick. The other chiefs are also saying that it would be better if the Kiowas weren’t allowed to attend the peace talks.” She sent me a meaningful look. “And you know what that means.”

  Indeed I did. The end of Little Bluff’s Confederacy of Nations. The end of the existing peace between Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahos. With that gone, the bloody intertribal wars of long ago would resume. Even worse, without the alliance, there would be no united voice to call a stop to the intruders determined to have the prairies.

  If the Confederacy of Nations ended at Medicine Lodge, White Bear would be blamed. It wouldn’t matter that he had been declared innocent by the army. What mattered was the judgment of chiefs. I reasoned in those passing seconds, that Lone Wolf knew better than Mrs. Adams just what those chiefs were saying. Being a secretive man, he was keeping this vital information close to his chest.

  Unknowingly, Mrs. Adams had just explained so very much—explained why Lone Wolf had gone into the Blue Jackets’ camp pushing hard for a public acknowledgment of White Bear’s innocence. It was also clear why he’d been too livid to move when his own men had fallen into a public wrangle. One more time, his own subchiefs had made him look bad. If everyone had kept their mouths shut, allowed the army to just go ahead and hang Little Jonas, Lone Wolf’s troubles might have been halved. There would still be talk against White Bear, but Lone Wolf would have been able to ask, “If this is what the army believed, why did they hang one of their own men?” A considerable amount of pride could have been saved by this one question but, thanks to his own subchiefs and Skywalker in particular, Little Jonas had not been hanged and Lone Wolf’s most difficult problems were still there. But for no longer than two days more. He’d been very clear that that was as far as he was willing to go.

  I certainly couldn’t blame him. Time was even less on his side than on mine. In two days, Lone Wolf might easily find himself being pitched out of the Confederacy. Lone Wolf was a man with the unenviable challenge of being Little Bluff’s successor. He knew, despite his best efforts to prove himself, that he would never come out from behind Little Bluff’s too-large shadow. The most he could hope for, now more than ever, was to escape becoming known as the weakest principal chief in the history of the Kiowa Nation.

  Realizing I had in fact not one man to save, but three, blood rushed to my head and pounded in my ears. And suddenly I felt so hot I thought I was coming down with a fever. As there was not even a hint of a relieving breeze, I looked at Mrs. Adams and asked in a gravelly voice, “May I please borrow your excellent fan?”

  Thrusting the fan into my lifeless hand, she barked, “Keep it. This man”—she said, meaning the painted likeness—“has power. You look to me like a man greatly in need of that power. You also look as if you would do well to have a bit more height and certainly more weight. I can’t imagine what Lone Wolf hopes to accomplish by sending the army a skinny little nothing like you. As far as I’m concerned, you are just one more proof that that man doesn’t think right.”

  What a disagreeable woman.

  But she gave me a good fan. A few days later I gave it to Big Tree. He liked the picture.

  TEN

  The two armed guards outside the prison tent were less than delighted that Billy and I had turned up asking to visit with Little Jonas. Billy spoke to them at length. I really can’t say about anyone else, but I am very uncomfortable when people speak in a language I can’t understand. Feeling excluded, I tend to vacillate between being angry and nervous. I was both of those things, but closing in rapidly on being alarmed when the exchange became heated, Billy shouting at the top of his voice. His anger did him no good. We were being forcibly turned away when Hawwy, still wearing his finest uniform, came sloping along, black doctoring bag in hand.

  He did look fine in that fancy uniform and he must have felt equally splendid, for his manner when addressing those guards was haughty. Suitably impressed, the guards stepped aside. As the three of us entered the tent, I glanced at Hawwy, realizing how very like The Cheyenne Robber he could be. That’s when I came to believe devoutly that handsome people were born with a little something extra—that something being more than just good looks. I don’t know what that something is, I only know I don’t have it. No one ever gave way to me simply because I raised my voice or looked down my nose.

  Little Jonas was still in chains and he sat on a sagging cot looking forlorn and with blood weeping from a cut just above his left eye. Hawwy immediately set to work, speaking to Little Jonas in a comforting way as he carefully swabbed the cut. While Hawwy concentrated on the physical, I spoke to Little Jonas through Billy.

  “Skywalker said to me that he feels you are a man with a big secret. I want you to tell me what it is.”

  Little Jonas did not want to answer.

  Impatiently I cried, “I am here to help but if you will not talk to me, in two days there will be nothing I can do to stop them from hanging you.”

  Hesitantly Little Jonas spoke. “They’re going to hang me anyway, once you tell them what I did.”

  “What? What did you do?”

  Little Jonas looked thoroughly contrite. In a muttering voice he said, “Stole a mule.”

  I couldn’t help it, I blurted out a laugh. This was his secret. The big, big secret that Skywalker had sensed. Watching me, Little Jonas’s mouth began to twitch, then a grudging chuckle came out of him.

  “It’s not funny, Tay,” he drawled. That’s what he’d heard Billy call me—Tay (Meat). Billy liked to use only the abbreviation of my name. Little Jonas doing that reminded me again of how personal he considered his relationship with the few Kiowa he knew. I appreciated this as he continued. “A black man stealing a mule is serious. If the army found out, they’d hang me for that about as quick as they would for killing that white man.”

  “Then why did you steal the mule?”

  “Had to. Wanted to join up with the army and Texas was a long way to walk from Louisiana. My father was a freeman, farming land his old master, Mr. Marriott, gave him. After the war, Mr. Marriott was dead and
his widow wife sold her farm rights to a Mr. Babcock, but she told him that my daddy’s little farm was separate. Mr. Babcock acted like that was just fine with him, but after he moved into the big house and got himself all settled, Mr. Babcock took over my daddy’s farm, too. Next thing we knew, all the land and the two mules that my daddy knew were his, belonged to Babcock. My daddy made the mistake of complaining to the county sheriff and then the next thing that happened was my daddy got hung.

  “My mamma, she said that the paddy-rollers would be coming for me too, that I’d better get out of Louisiana and I better be quick. Couldn’t be quick on just two feet, so I sneaked over to Babcock’s place and I stole back one of my daddy’s mules. Then I went into Texas and joined the army. My mamma sent me a letter to tell me that she was doing all right, that she was going over to live in Georgia, going there as a maid with a fine family. She said I should not ever come back to Louisiana, as Mr. Babcock was having a fit about that mule and she wouldn’t be there anyway.”

  Hawwy stepped back from Little Jonas. He stood there holding the medicated swabbing cloth, turning it in his hands as he studied the Buffalo Soldier, a perplexed expression on his face.

  My attention was drawn back to Little Jonas. He sat there looking up at me, black eyes sunk deep inside swollen sockets, pleading. “I sold that mule in Dallas. I got twenty dollars for it. I was going to save that money and whatever else the army paid me to buy my own place someday. I wrote to my mamma and told her how much I got for the mule, that I would save all my money and that when I got my own farm free and clear, I would send for her. She wouldn’t have to be nobody’s maid anymore. Everything was going fine for me until I got sent here to the Territory. Next thing I knew, along came Graham Wakefield, the man you Kiowas call Buug-lah.”