Mexico to Sumter

by Bob Mayer

  His heart surged unexpectedly.

  Cord removed his finger from the trigger. He lifted the heavy barrel from the forked stick he was using as support and shifted on the buffalo robe separating him from the snow.

  “Bad air,” Cord whispered to Carson.

  The old scout immediately pulled back the hammer on his current rifle, a Hawken .50 caliber, and turned his head to and fro, searching for the cause. While they had a clear view toward the herd of buffalo in the grassland to the east, behind them, to the west, low trees and scrub covered the landscape as the terrain rose up to the tilted slabs of rocks the locals called the Flatirons. Beyond the Flatirons towered the peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

  Forty feet away, a half-dozen figures erupted from a clump of bushes and charged down-slope piercing the air with screams and war-cries. Arrows flashed by, one piercing Cord’s buckskin shirt, creasing his side and continuing through.

  Cord fired. He began reloading automatically, years of practice having trained his muscles to the task without conscious thought. Carson’s Hawken roared to Cord’s right and the mountain man was also reloading.

  Two of the attackers were down.

  Both men knew how close the ambushers were, how fast they were charging, and how long it would take recharge their weapons. To keep loading correctly and efficiently while four attackers raced toward them, shouting war cries and waving hatchets, required absolute discipline. Especially when two of the surviving four suddenly fired pistols.

  A bullet snapped past Cord’s head, missing by less than an inch, but he didn’t veer from his task. Tamping the lead ball in the barrel, he tossed aside the rod. He pulled back the hammer as he threw the Lancaster to his shoulder. His second shot hit the lead man when he was less than five feet away, the heavy lead slug throwing the figure backward in a tumble.

  Cord dropped the rifle and whipped out the Bowie knife he’d purchased in El Paso. Carson’s second shot rent the air and he too went for knife.

  A hatchet swung down and Cord blocked it with the heavy blade of the Bowie. He whirled, dropping the blade low, letting the attacker’s hatchet slice air over his head. Cord slammed the point of the Bowie into the man’s gut, then jerked with all this strength, razor sharp blade severing skin, intestine and then lung as it also sliced through two ribs and came to rest in the man’s heart.

  With a grunt, Cord pulled the knife out of the body and spun to face where Carson was dispatching the last attacker. Cord knelt, wiping off the blade on the dead man’s shirt. He slid the Bowie back into its leather scabbard and grabbed the Lancaster, cleaning off the snow. He quickly reloaded. Cord paused momentarily, as the unique stink of a degenerate drunk wafted over him, and he got a good look at the man’s face in the moonlight.

  “Kit.”

  “Yes?” Carson was also reloading his rifle, scanning the mountainside for more intruders.

  “What do you have there? Arapahoe?”

  Carson looked closer at the body staining the snow crimson at his feet. “Looks like. What you got?”

  “White man. Drunk.”

  “I suspect they’re all drunk,” Carson said. “You must have smelt ‘em even though they was down-wind of us. Aint you glad you quit the spirits a while back?”

  They quickly checked the other four and discovered the party consisted of another white and four Arapahoe. And the other white was alive, crawling on his belly upslope, leaving behind his pistol and hatchet and what remained of his life in a wide blood trail. Cord and Carson ignored him for the moment, checking the others.

  All the dead did reek of alcohol, which helped explain the missed arrows and pistol shots. The Arapahoe were to be expected here as the local tribe was resisting the incursions of the gold seekers. The whites were a story that needed to be explained. Carson went to the wounded man and kicked him over on his back.

  The man screamed in pain, hands clasped around his stomach, dark blood oozing through clenched fingers.

  “Where you from?” Carson asked.

  The man had a black beard and bloodshot eyes, which had more than a hint of desperation to them. He spit at Carson, but without any conviction.

  The mountain man sighed. “Son, you a dead man. You got a lead ball straight through your gut. Nothing any doctor can do for you. All you can do is make your peace and go as easy as you can.”

  “Damn you,” the man said.

  “No, son, you be damned,” Carson said. “You ambushed us. Why?”

  “Gold.”

  Cord frowned. “We’re hunters, not gold miners.”

  “Everyone going after gold here,” the man said. “Give me something to drink. Please, mister. It hurts real bad.”

  “We aint here for gold,” Carson said. “You and your buddy aren’t from around here, are you?”

  “From Kansas. Please, mister?”

  Cord knelt next to the wounded man and pulled out his flask. He uncapped it and trickled a bit of liquid onto the man’s lips. His tongue shot out like a snake, lapping up the light flow. Then he cursed at the water. “Something real to drink!”

  “That’s all you get,” Cord said, capping his flask. He knew it wasn’t good for a gut shot man to drink anything, just sped up the bleeding, but it wasn’t going to make much difference. Carson had been digging through the man’s pocket and came out with a hand-printed recruiting poster.

  “You and your buddy are Border Ruffians from Kansas,” Carson announced, reading the poster and giving the man the label of the pro-slavery element from that state.

  “Long way from home,” Cord said, looking east, where the Colorado High Plains drifted off to Kansas. He looked back at the man. “What are you doing here besides trying to steal gold from the wrong fellas?”

  “Colonel says we’re to ambush gold miners, get as much as we can to finance our cause back in Kansas,” the man said. “Bribe the Arapahoe and other Injun tribes with whiskey and the like to cause trouble with the whites. Tie down Federal troops out here.”

  “’Colonel?’” Cord shook his head. “Secessionist militia?”

  “Please, something real to drink,” the man whispered.

  “Why’d you come after us?” Carson asked.

  “Wanted your muskets.” The man’s voice was almost inaudible. “Money. Whiskey.” His head slumped back into the snow and rolled to the side.

  Cord stood up.

  “Everyone always using the Indians,” Carson said. “The British, the French, we did, and now the slavers.”

  Cord stood. “It’s not going to end until they’re all dead.”

  “The slavers?”

  “The Indians.”

  Carson glumly nodded. “They aint got many more years. But the slavers aint either. Can’t keep people down like that forever. It’s dancing on a powder keg, while smoking a big old cigar.”

  Cord walked over and sat back down on his buffalo robe with a sigh. He gently lowered the hammer onto the percussion cap. He lay the weapon across his knees and looked to the east, toward Bloody Kansas where pro and anti slavery factions had been battling for years and hundreds of men had already died.

  Carson walked over, rifle in the crook of his arm. “What’s wrong, Elijah?”

  “I’ve got to go,” Cord said.

  Carson accepted the decision without argument. “You figger it’s all gonna blow up?”

  “I feel it,” Cord said. “John Brown hanged. Lincoln elected with only forty percent of the vote. These fellows here, coming for gold, guns, whiskey and trouble. Some think it can be worked out. It can’t. It isn’t just the slavery issue. I went to West Point with some southern gentlemen. They’re hardheaded, but worse, they got this crazy pride. It’s going to go to hell faster than most expect. I was told once to expect war by a southern officer and there was a war. But remembering my meeting with him, I know there’s gonna be another.”

  “You worried about Ben?”

  Cord nodded as he stood and rolled up the buffalo robe. “Rumble thinks he can keep
my son safe, getting him out of West Point and sending him off to that church school, but Rumble is still in the Army. Things are going to be bigger than him. And this time he won’t be able to ship Ben and his sister to Natchez. That would be like sending them into the storm itself. And Ben is of fighting age. This war is going to suck everyone in. I need to find out where things stand with him. Keep him safe as best I can.”

  Carson gathered his gear. “Guess I need to be getting back to the missus and New Mexico. I figger we won’t be safe from any war there either. Damn slavery fools will be stirring up the Navajo, trying to drag the territory into pro-slavery.”

  Cord shouldered the pack containing all his worldly possessions. Then threw the rolled up bear robe over one shoulder, shrugging, getting all the gear to settle in place, a comfortable burden. A routine he’d been following almost every morning for thirteen years.

  Cord stuck out his hand. Carson gripped it with his own rough hand. They held the handshake for several moments, then let go.

  “Beware a blizzard on the Plains,” Carson said. “Aint quite like crossing the Sierras or the Rockies, but one of them storms in the open can be a bugger.”

  “You be careful down in New Mexico,” Cord said. “Give my greetings to that sweet wife of yours and all your children.”

  Carson smiled as he thought of her. “I will.” The smile disappeared. “I smell bad air, nasty bad air, from the east. Be careful, Elijah. There are worse things than blizzards awaiting you.”

  11 April 1861 Charleston Harbor

  It was almost mid-April, 1861 and Captain George King stood tall in the bow of a small cutter riding the Atlantic waves. He was dressed in a United States Marine Corps field uniform, his boarding axe in its accustomed place in the sheath over his shoulder. Fort Sumter was a dark hulk ahead and to the port, a few subdued lanterns twinkling here and there on the parapets. There were several fully exposed lanterns by the Fort’s dock, which supply ships used.

  “Ease to port,” King ordered. He could see a small boat tied up to the dock and a group of officers clustered there. “Steady,” King said as the cutter came within two hundred yards of the fort. With a flurry of salutes, three officers in gray got into the small boat and it cast away.

  King unbuttoned his double-breasted Marine frock coat and tossed it to the deck. He stepped on it as he pulled a new gray coat out of a bag and slipped it over his shoulders. The brightly shined insignia of the Confederate States Marine Corps, organized the previous month in Richmond, Virginia, glittered on the uniform collar.

  “Intercept,” King ordered as the small boat headed into Charleston Harbor.

  When the two vessels were close, King yelled out a greeting. “Colonel Chesnut!”

  “Who goes there?” A nervous Lieutenant was in the bow of the boat, pistol in hand.

  “Captain King,” King replied. “Might I speak with Colonel Chestnut?”

  An older officer stepped forward as the cutter and boat bumped together, four hundred yards from Fort Sumter. “What is this about, Captain?”

  “A Federal ship is closing on the harbor, sir,” King reported. “The Nashville.”

  “That’s a mail courier,” the Lieutenant said.

  “It’s supposed to be a mail courier,” King said. “Who knows what it’s carrying? I fear that the Yankees are preparing to make their push to relieve the fort this very night.”

  Colonel Chesnut shook his head. “Major Anderson gave me his assurances the truce will continue and he expects no movement this evening. We have his terms of surrender, and although they are entirely unacceptable, they are a point of negotiation. Resupply is not part of a negotiation.”

  “Colonel, Major Anderson is playing for time and he’s not in overall command. Whatever Yankee swine commands their flotilla is planning action.”

  Chesnut ran a hand through his white beard. “These are serious issues. Come with me, Captain, and relay your information to General Beauregard. He must know of this right away.”

  King climbed down into the boat. The cutter he’d commandeered disappeared into the darkness as the boat continued for the Battery at the tip of Charleston.

  Arriving, they found a party atmosphere. Civilians mixed with militia and cadets from the nearby Citadel. There were so many lanterns and streetlamps glowing, it was almost daylight, despite the late hour. Excitement and alcohol flowed in equal and multiplying abundance.

  King followed Colonel Chesnut ashore. The older officer carried a small wooden box as if there were treasure inside.

  “What is that, sir?” King asked.

  “Fine cigars,” Chesnut said. “General Beauregard sent them with his compliments to Major Anderson. The two knew each other at West Point. In fact, Anderson was the general’s artillery instructor, so let’s hope he taught well. A noble gesture, but like the un-gentlemanly Yankee he is, Major Anderson refused the gift.”

  The gentleman who had sent the gift to his enemy, the un-gentleman, was standing on a parapet, between two large guns, arms crossed, staring out at Fort Sumter as if he could will the fort to strike its colors and give in.

  King was taken aback by his first glimpse of the general whom President Jeff Davis had sent to take command of the South Carolina forces. Another West Pointer, ‘Little Napoleon’, as King had heard him called in whispers, was newly arrived. Previous to that, he’d been forced out of the position as Superintendent of West Point when Louisiana seceded. The rumor circulating the city was that Beauregard had had the audacity to file a mileage reimbursement to the United States government for travel from West Point back to his home in New Orleans, before being ordered by Davis to South Carolina.

  It had not been paid.

  Beauregard did not look like Robert E. Lee, that was for certain. His skin was olive and smooth. His eyes had a droopy, sleepy appearance, as if he were either preparing to arise before dawn or retire after a late evening. His hair was an un-natural black, and if King had been better schooled in the ways of narcissism, he might have realized that Beauregard dyed his hair to match his goatee and thick mustache. Even here, on the eve of battle there were several ladies of Charleston in attendance on his every word and gesture.

  “General?” Chesnut called out.

  “Yes, Colonel?” Beauregard turned, uncrossing his arms and placing his left hand on the hilt of his sheathed saber as he slipped his right inside his dress coat, where a button was conveniently unfastened. King saw the circle of newspapermen writing down every movement the general made and every word he uttered as if it were coming down from the mountain.

  “Major Anderson gave me a list of conditions for surrender,” Chesnut said.

  “’Conditions’?” Beauregard shook his head. “The major is being unreasonable. He is in no position to give conditions.”

  King stepped forward. “Sir, Major Anderson is delaying. I believe the Yankee navy is preparing a sortie. This very night. My reconnaissance cutter spotted a Federal ship making way to the fort.”

  Beauregard frowned. “Captain . . .?”

  “King, sir. The Yankees are preparing to relieve the fort. They drew off when my cutter discovered them, but I fear they will come again in force this very night. We must act swiftly.”

  Beauregard twisted one end of his mustache. “There is much zeal and energy here, but little professional expertise and knowledge in the art of war. It is not such an easy matter to take a fortified position.”

  Memories of Captain McKenzie and the debacle on the Somers whispered like shadows in King’s brain. “General, we can take Sumter now, easily, or face a pitched battle once the United States Navy moves in. I taught at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. With all due respect, sir, while you are certainly a master of land warfare, I know battle on the sea.”

  Beauregard looked out at the southern belles, the reporters, the militia, and puffed out his chest to make an announcement. “Negotiations have failed. I must take action. I will give Major Anderson notification via the mouth of a cannon.”


  Exuberant, wild cheers rose from the crowd. Women threw their arms around the nearest man. Militia and cadets hurried to prepare their cannon.

  King didn’t note the few people who stood forlorn, some with tears in their eyes as the implications struck them differently, including his mother, in the shadow of the house overlooking the Battery that used to be her home. Without realizing it, King took up a vantage point underneath the tree from which his father had hung himself.

  4:30 am. Dawn was not far off.

  A single mortar shell from Fort Johnson arced overhead and exploded directly above Fort Sumter. There was an eerie pause, as if the ocean was waiting for what came next.

  Forty-three cannon and batteries of mortars from Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson, the Battery, and Cummings Point let loose in a barrage worthy of the start of a war.

  As the first shells smashed into the brick walls of Fort Sumter, the faint sound of cheering floated across the water from the surrounding land as an undertone to the sharper crack of cannon firing.

  King stood underneath the magnificent oak tree and watched the opening of the inevitable war.

  Chapter Eleven

  13 April 1861, West Point, New York

  “Cadets!” Master of the Horse Rumble snapped as he took the familiar spot on the floor of the riding hall. “Assemble, in-line, one rank.”

  The cadets of the class of 1862 scrambled out of the stands and fell in to the left and right of Rumble.

  When all were in place, Rumble issued his second order. “Cadet George Armstrong Custer, front and center.”

  With a self-confident grin, Custer stepped out of the ranks and double-timed to a spot just in front of Rumble. Custer was just shy of six feet, broad shouldered and athletic. He had blue eyes and golden hair that lay on his head in a tumble of curling locks. The word circulating in Benny Havens was that Custer was quite the lady’s man off-post. The word circulating in the Academy was that Custer was not quite the academic man, the Immortal in every section, overall ranking last in his class and lingering very close to being boarded out. In some ways, Custer reminded Rumble of Cord, but there was a dark edge to Custer that disturbed Rumble.