by John Jakes
Privately, the commandant called Bent’s judgment and courage into question.
“When I put you in charge of the emergency, Captain, I never imagined for a moment that you would send men out before the storm-showed signs of abating. I further note that you did not lead the detachment, choosing to remain here while permitting Lieutenant Main to absorb the brunt of the danger. I won’t make an issue of those lapses for one reason only. Thanks to Main, all turned out well and no lives were lost. The angels were on your side. This time.”
The criticism burned. Bent immediately ceased his harassment of Orry Main’s cousin, and in fact went out of his way to praise him—always when others were listening. But it was hard to do. As a result of the ride in the storm, the first sergeant was now Charles’s staunch partisan, as were most of the enlisted men. With O’Dell also supporting Charles, Bent was completely isolated. He held Charles responsible. No longer was Charles just a convenient representative of the Mains. Bent now hated him personally.
He had learned one lesson, however. Never again would he send his second lieutenant into jeopardy while remaining behind. He’d go along and find some way to dispatch Charles personally, perhaps in the thick of a skirmish. He had used that technique successfully in the past.
But the passing weeks denied him an opportunity. The Texas frontier remained quiet. Soon a new worry was gnawing at Bent. It began when he first noticed a subtle but unmistakable change in Charles’s behavior. Charles continued to be courteous to his company commander—courteous almost to a fault—but he had abandoned even the slightest pretense of cordiality.
Bent realized Charles had identified him as an enemy. The question was, had Charles done anything about it? Had he, for example, mentioned Bent’s name in a letter to Orry Main? And was it possible that Orry had already warned his cousin to be on guard? Delivery of mail to most of the Texas forts was slow, with service frequently interrupted for weeks or even months by bad weather in the Gulf, by the activities of hostile Indians, or simply by slipshod handling of mail sacks. Still, by now Orry could have informed Charles of the reason for Bent’s animosity.
Bent knew he dare not dismiss that potential danger. But as for abandoning his plans—never. Nothing but the saving of his own skin, his own reputation, came before revenge against the Mains and the Hazards. He need only wait and, at the appropriate moment, strike. Warnings from Orry Main would hardly help the young lieutenant survive an attack carried out at an unexpected moment.
As the days dragged on and a clear chance still failed to present itself, Bent’s frustration mounted. Occasional Indian raids were reported to Camp Cooper, but the Second fired no shots in anger because no detachment could ever catch the marauders. Closer at hand, Katumse was saying his people had been treated so dishonorably on the reservation that the tribe’s only possible response was war, unremitting and without mercy. But the chief never did more than threaten.
In the East the war of words over slavery raged on. Senator Douglas thundered that the Lecompton constitution violated squatter sovereignty. Senator Hammond of South Carolina retorted that the Little Giant’s opinion was of no consequence; Southerners no longer needed the approval of, or alliance with, the North. “Cotton is king!” Hammond declared.
In Illinois a lawyer and former congressman named Lincoln prepared to challenge Douglas for his Senate seat. Addressing the Republican state convention in Springfield, Lincoln attacked slavery, but not those who owned slaves, and sounded a warning with words from the twelfth chapter of Matthew: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
In a month-old paper, Bent read the quotation over and over. He took it not as a cautionary remark but as a statement of the inevitable. Secession first, then war. Often he closed his eyes and envisioned himself as a triumphant general on a corpse-littered battlefield. The mangled bodies were merely so much stage decoration; he was the actor everyone watched and admired.
From the first of May until mid-June, Camp Cooper received no general mail delivery, only official dispatches delivered by courier. Finally two bulging sacks arrived with some supply wagons. One sack, months old, had mistakenly been sent to Fort Leavenworth and only then forwarded to Texas. In each sack there was a letter from Orry. Charles eagerly tore them open, only to discover the first had been written in January, the second around the first of March, two weeks before Bent had sent the rescue expedition into the storm. Hence, neither had anything to say in response to the question about the commander of Company K.
Bent’s chance to strike at Charles came in August, in the midst of another drought. A frightened farmer rode into the post on a mule. The commandant summoned Bent, saying to him:
“It’s the Lantzman farm. Two miles beyond Phantom Hill.”
Phantom Hill was an abandoned fort whose smoke-scarred chimneys were landmarks. “I live close by the Lantzman place,” the white-haired fanner explained. “They seen Penateka Comanches in the neighborhood, so they holed up and sent me for help.”
“Penatekas, you say.” Bent frowned. “Reservation Indians?”
“It’s more likely they belong to Sanaco’s band,” said the commandant. Sanaco was another chief, Katumse’s rival. He had refused to settle on the reserve and had scorned Katumse for doing so.
“Have the Indians harmed anyone?” Bent asked.
The farmer shook his head. “Lantzman reckoned they wanted to sport awhile—maybe a day or two—’fore they drove off his horses.”
“I fail to understand why the whole family didn’t get out.”
“Lantzman’s oldest son, he’s crippled. Sickly. Can’t ride too good. Lantzman’s a stubborn coot, too. Figures he and his boys can hold off a half-dozen hostiles till help arrives. ’Sides, he knows that if the family lights out, the Injuns are liable to burn the place just for meanness.”
The commandant put the matter in Bent’s hands. After the stagecoach fiasco, Bent wanted to appear competent as well as prudent. He feigned deep thought for ten seconds, only then saying:
“Half a dozen. You’re sure Lantzman saw no more than that?”
“I’m sure, Cap’n.”
Bent had no reason to doubt the statement. Marauding bands of Comanches were seldom large; this one sounded typical. He pondered again, then said, “I’ll take twenty men, including both lieutenants and our tracker, Doss.”
The commandant looked dubious. “Are you positive you don’t want the entire troop?”
Panic clogged Bent’s throat momentarily. His judgment was once more suspect. He brazened ahead.
“Twenty-four against six should be a safe margin, sir. Especially when they’re men like mine.”
The touch of braggadocio pleased his superior. Bent left quickly, excited and not a little fearful at the thought of taking the field against hostiles. He was not eager to do it. But leading a detachment against a band of Comanches, albeit a small one, would look good on his record. It might even offset the blemish left by the coach incident.
He sent his orderly to find O’Dell and Main. He described the situation at Lantzman’s and ordered them to have twenty men ready with field gear and two days’ rations in one hour. A provision wagon would follow at a slower pace.
Both lieutenants saluted and hurried toward the door. Just as Charles left, he gave the captain a quick glance. God, how Bent loathed his swaggering manner, the beard that made him resemble a hairy animal, his relationship with the men—everything about him. But if he were lucky, Main would soon go to his grave. In his room Bent opened his footlocker and took out his spanking new Allen and Wheelock Army Model .44. He laid the blued octagonal barrel in his palm and caressed it as he thought of his second lieutenant’s face. Unless the Comanches had melted away by the time the detachment reached Lantzman’s, there would surely be a chance for a well-placed but seemingly stray shot.
Bent shivered with expectation.
The double column sped southwest along the wagon road. The countryside was parched. No rain had fallen for three weeks
. Charles realized an electrical storm could ignite a dangerous fire and, if they were unlucky, force them to detour for miles.
Such pessimistic thoughts were unusual for him, but he had a bad feeling about this expedition. The weather contributed. So did the absence of First Sergeant Breedlove, who had left on furlough a week ago. Charles’s new roan was unfamiliar and somewhat skittish. But the chief cause of his uneasiness rode at the head of the column.
Captain Bent was the only member of the detachment correctly uniformed in yellow-trimmed fatigue jacket, regulation light blue trousers, and flat kepi-style forage cap. The others wore clothing better suited to the climate and terrain. Charles’s shirt of blue flannel was the lightest one he owned. His pants were white and, for the moment, still fairly clean. At his belt hung his Colt and his bowie. A saddle scabbard carried his two-year-old Harpers Ferry rifled musket. A slouch hat protected his eyes from the sun.
Charles doubted Bent had the ability to lead this kind of expedition. Indian fighting was new to the Army. During Professor Mahan’s entire course he had devoted only one hour to a discussion of it. But it was more than Bent’s inexperience that generated the feeling of distrust. Charles felt Bent had within him a streak of evil, perhaps madness, and for God knew what inexplicable reason, it was directed against him.
The terrain was monotonous. Low, seared hills. Ravines. Creeks dried to a trickle by the drought. Haze dulled the sun and turned it to a defined disk in the sky. A sultry wind blew.
Doss located Indian signs several times. Small parties, he said. The tracks were a day or two old. It made Charles uneasy to think that the emptiness of the countryside might be deceptive.
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 t
he 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.
