Winter Rain

by Terry C. Johnston

  “So you took the oath because you know the Rangers find what they go after,” Coffee said.

  Jonah gazed around the group sitting with their feet to the last glowing of the low flames. Most of the rest from the other fires had come over to join the circle. “I fought in the war. Fought Injuns in Dakota Territory too. I know good men when I see ’em. I took you fellas to be good men what didn’t give up.”

  “That’s why I decided to sign you on, Jonah Hook,” Lockhart replied. “From what I’ve come to know of you—you’re a good man who doesn’t give up.”

  “Besides,” crowed Deacon Johns, “you’re a good southern boy!”

  Lockhart nodded, waiting while some of the rest quietly hooted their approval. “There’s a lot to be said for all that Texas gave to the Confederacy during the war, Jonah. Why, when hostilities broke out back east, even General Con Terry, an old Ranger himself from the days of the revolution, organized his own damned regiment of former Rangers and frontiersmen.”

  “They was called Terry’s Texas Rangers,” Coffee said with admiration.

  “From Bull Run clear down to Appomattox—Rangers fought agin the Yankees,” Johns added, just as proud.

  “By Appomattox, Terry’s regiment had lost nigh onto eight of every ten who had mustered into the general’s bunch,” Wig Danville said.

  “God bless their souls,” Johns said, removing his hat to place it over his heart as he gazed up into the night sky.

  “God bless the Texas Rangers,” Niles Coffee repeated.

  Lockhart knelt by the dim glow of the embers and consulted his big turnip watch, its gold turned as red as a Spanish doubloon. Standing, he slipped it back into a vest pocket. “Time for second watch to relieve our pickets.”

  Hook watched a handful of men off into the darkness without a grumble, only the faint crunch of their boots fading on the flaky ground.

  “You always prefer last watch, Jonah?”

  He turned back to Lockhart. “Don’t mind rising early—not at all.”

  “How about when there’s snow on the ground?”

  Hook smiled. “Just gets me an early start on the day.”

  Lockhart nodded with a grin of his own. “That’s the sort of man we have in the Rangers.”

  “I’m waiting to find some sign, a trail—track down a village … anything: that’s what I’m waiting on,” Jonah replied.

  “You travel light and lean as this bunch does—you’re bound to come up with some Comanche sooner or later.”

  “Can’t be soon enough for me.”

  “Remember what they say about good things coming to all those who wait. Good night, Jonah.”

  He watched the company commander turn and move off into the dim light toward his bedroll. “G’night, cap’n.”

  The next morning after the men had wolfed down a cold breakfast and loaded the company’s two pack mules, Lockhart had Sergeant Coffee hold roll call as the Rangers stood by their mounts. June Callicott, a man as homely as blue sin and skinny as rack-bone crowbait, stood beside Jonah, waiting through inspection.

  “Full moon was two nights back, men,” the captain began, striding the front of his company. “Most of you know what that means. We can figure the savages were out in force.”

  “Comanche moon,” Callicott whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  Ever since last spring Jonah had heard the term mentioned enough: the full of the moon when the Kiowa and Comanche and Cheyenne, too, all timed their biggest raids to take advantage of the light while they plundered and pillaged at night, able to escape before many of their thefts were discovered, before any pursuers would take up their trail.

  “With that sobering thought in mind,” Lockhart went on, “we best be about covering our assigned territory—more closely now than we have for the past three weeks. I’m doubling the outriders, hoping we can cross some sign between the headwaters of McClellan Creek and the far end of the Palo Duro.”

  “With the captain’s permission?” John Corn inquired.

  “What is it, Corn?”

  “We gonna work down to the Palo Duro on the double, sir?”

  “I figured we would,” Lockhart replied.

  “Thank you, Captain. Pleased of that because we all know the red bastards cross and recross this country by the same trails they use whenever they been out raiding.”

  “But this time there’s something more afoot than just plain raiding, Private Corn,” Lockhart said, coming to a stop near Corn and Hook. “This time the stories say the Comanche have gone and held a sun dance. Their first ever.”

  “Godless heathen fornicators!” grumbled Deacon Johns. “Praying to the sun! The wrath of God lies barely sleeping, boys—hid from the days of Abraham himself, and them red-baked sinners got the power to awake the wrath of the Almighty, they do. Hell ain’t half-full yet!”

  “I say let hell open up and swallow all them red bastards!” growled Harley Pettis.

  When they were done, Lockhart looked back at Private Corn. “This time the bands are gathering up. That tells me the hostiles in our assigned territory aren’t going to be content with raiding for a handful of horses here or a dozen cows there.”

  “What do you figure is on the wind, Captain?” Jonah asked.

  “I think what we have staring us in the eye is out-and-out war, Private Hook,” Lockhart answered. “Nothing less than a full-scale uprising.”

  35

  July 1874

  “RIDER COMING IN, Captain!”

  Up ahead of Jonah Hook one of the Rangers pointed into the distance. North and east, in the general direction Lamar Lockhart had been pushing them for the past three days. It was a land of steep-side arroyos sloping down in garlands of red and yellow rimrock, a country of hard-running creeks come spring’s runoff dance, bottomless canyons, scrub pine and cedar stands on every knobby sandstone outcrop, all scratched up like turkey tracks with shallow, shadowy gulches. Out here in all this immensity, Jonah figured the space inside a man seemed a lot less crowded.

  Into the brutal light of that summer afternoon more of them were pointing now, murmuring among themselves as Lockhart threw up an arm and ordered a halt.

  “Whoever he is, that man’s tacked his poor beast into a lather,” Deacon Johns said. He sat the saddle beside Jonah in their column of twos, the short gray whiskers that ran around the edges of his gaunt jaws bristled, reminding Hook of the raised hackles on an angry dog’s neck.

  The outriders on the point escorted in the civilian. He looked to be a dour, flavorless man, as though the high plains sun had gone and boiled all the good juices right out of him. His eyes ran over the Rangers quickly as he raked a hand across his mouth and pulled up the leather-wrapped canteen lashed to his saddle horn when he came to a stop in front of Lockhart.

  “You fellas scouting for the army?” the newcomer asked before he even brought the canteen to his dry lips.

  Jonah had the man figured for a buffalo hunter, what with his saddle rig, that big-bore Sharps rifle resting across the pommel, and the blood-crusted, sweat-stained clothes the rider wore. Especially from that pale-eyed, loafer-wolf look about him as he eyed the captain.

  “Texas Rangers,” Lockhart replied. “Company C. I’m Captain Lockhart. What’s your name?”

  He pulled the canteen away from his glistening lips, still as gray-gilled as alkali dust. “Schmalsle. William, Captain. Most call me Billy.”

  “Why the hurry?”

  “Big hurraw of red bastards hit Adobe Walls a few days back.”

  “A few days?”

  “Maybe a week at most.”

  “What Injuns?” Coffee asked.

  Schmalsle shrugged, a grin coming easily to his face, making it crinkle into a pleasant smile. “Well, now—I don’t think any of them hunters up there at that meadow stopped to ask questions.”

  “Comanche?” Lockhart inquired as Coffee started to grumble.

  “Didn’t mean no offense, mister,” Schmalsle apologized to Coffee, then turned
back to Lockhart. “Yep. Them and some Kiowa. Likely some Cheyenne too.”

  “You were there?”

  “No. Rode in from my hunting camp couple days after they attacked the meadow.”

  “How many were there?” Johns asked now, easing his horse up with the others, who had the newcomer nearly surrounded, starved for news the way they all were.

  “Some figure there was eight hundred. Others claim as many as a thousand or more.”

  Behind Jonah one of the Rangers whistled low in exclamation.

  “A goddamned thousand of the heathen niggers!” Johns said, clapping his dusty, trail-worn gloves together in a joyous, prayerful attitude, chin tilted heavenward. “Dear Lord, would I love to set the table for those sinners. Just look the other way if ever I get these hands of mine on that saint-forsaken hell chief Quanah Parker!”

  “You might get the chance, Deacon,” Lockhart said with that wry grin of his beneath the bushy mustache, then turned back to the civilian. “Where away are you bound?”

  “Me and a few other boys each riding a circuit to warn other hunters that the devils are up to no good.”

  “They’ve let out the wolf now and are bound to howl for a long time,” growled Niles Coffee.

  “How many white men killed?”

  “Only one hunter. Two teamsters got et up on the first attack, though. S’pose that makes three all count.”

  “So how many of the red bastards did you make good Injuns?” Johns demanded before spitting a brown stream into the dust.

  “Fifteen maybe. All the bodies what was left when the Injuns pulled out. Seems the rest couldn’t ride in any closer and fetch out them bodies ’cause of the big guns. So we don’t really know how many was killed and hauled off to be buried.”

  “Pagan ceremonies, no doubt!” Johns added. “Dear Lord, raise your hand and smite these the unholy.”

  Lockhart took his hat off and wiped his brow with a single finger, the scar of that hatband lying like a wide strip of new skin along his forehead. “You said there are more of you dispatched to spread the word, Mr. Schmalsle?”

  The man nodded. “Less’n you need me, I best be making my swing round toward the divide above the Washita. Head on into Camp Supply and let the army know about the attack.”

  “They’ll know already,” Jonah said quietly.

  “How’s that?” Deacon Johns asked, swabbing a dribble of juice squeezed into a deep cleft at the corner of his mouth with a thumb.

  Lockhart turned in the saddle too. The rest had all turned to hear what Hook had to say.

  “The Injuns up there at Camp Supply—they’ll know before this fella ever gets there,” Jonah explained. “Word always travels fast on the moccasin telegraph.”

  Lockhart nodded with approval, then turned back to Schmalsle. “How far out are you from Adobe Walls?”

  “The bunch of us rode out last night soon as it growed dark. I been pushing ever since, without a stop. Good God but did you boys give me the jump, till I could see you was riding in twos.”

  “Very well, Mr. Schmalsle. We appreciate your news.”

  He peered at the captain and then swiped his chin with the sweaty bandanna he had looped loosely around his neck. “You figuring to head in to Adobe Walls yourself with this bunch?”

  Lockhart shook his head. “No. We’ve got some territory to cover and cover fast. If there are truly a thousand warriors roaming this country, then we damned well ought to run across at least one fresh backtrail we can follow that will take us right to one of their villages. We find that village—Company C of the Frontier Battalion will do more damage to the Comanche than fifty buffalo hunters could do.”

  “Twenty-eight, Cap’n,” Schmalsle corrected.

  Lockhart tipped his head slightly, asking, “How’s that?”

  “There was only twenty-eight men there at Adobe Walls,” Schmalsle said a bit defensively. “Twenty-eight agin them thousand red sonsabitches.”

  “Twenty-eight against a thousand,” Lockhart repeated with respect, a light ignited behind his dark eyes. “Sounds like the sort of odds tailor-made for a company of Texas Rangers.”

  It had been the full of the Moon of Fat Horses when the Kwahadi struck the hide hunters’ earth-lodge settlement.

  On the way there from the great sun dance, Tall One had counted ten-times-ten on eight of his fingers when he gave up counting any more of the horsemen.

  And began thinking on little else but the coming fight. They ultimately came to that place where they would kill white men.

  He had asked to go along as one of the seven young scouts who accompanied the old Shahiyena chief White Wolf—those seven to find the exact location of the meadow where stood the white hunters’ earth lodges. The gray-eyed Kwahadi chief had agreed, but held back the young brother. Antelope had been angry enough to spit bees, but was told that soon enough he too would see the hide men’s settlement, and close up. Very soon they would all get to see the looks on the buffalo hunters’ faces as these warriors rode among them, smashing clubs into their faces, pummeling their heads to crimson jelly.

  With the graying of the sky at dawn, they would make that meadow reek with blood.

  The scouts located the four earth lodges. Some ponies and the white man’s slow and lumbering spotted buffalo used to pull his high-walled wagons.

  “How many tai-bos?” asked the gray-eyed war chief.

  The leader of the scouting party held up five fingers, then struck his other arm six times.

  “Three-times-ten. And they will all be asleep. With their bullets useless and their guns like limp manhood unable to answer our challenge!” the chief had roared. Then he laughed loud, the hundreds laughing with him.

  It was not the first time Tall One and Antelope had made their toilet together, helping one another paint themselves for battle, stringing an owl or turkey feather in their hair, hopeful that the coming battle would earn Antelope his first eagle coup. Every man—Comanche, Kiowa, and Shahiyena—prepared himself for this great victory, smearing on his bullet-proof medicine before a fragment of a mirror stolen from a settler’s soddy. Black braids were loosened, then retied with trade cloth or animal skins. Gleaming conchos traded off the comancheros were again polished and woven into scalp locks, lashed to clothing. A nervous tension ran through that camp waiting for the order to move downstream toward the meadow. War ponies were given attention: a sprinkling of puffball dust was rubbed on an animal’s muzzle, or red mud from the creekbank was smeared around a pony’s nostrils to give it extra wind for the coming fight, bear grease streaked up and down each of the four long legs to give the pony speed for what would be required of it in the coming hours.

  It was then that the war chief instructed them all to put their saddles and extra baggage in the trees. The branches hung heavy with all that they would not carry into battle. Up there, it was explained to Tall One, badgers and skunks and other scavengers could not drag off their belongings before the warriors returned, victorious in battle.

  For but a moment Tall One and Antelope caught a glimpse of Isatai, always escorted by those who wished to be seen in the company of the powerful young shaman as he strutted through camp on foot, leading his pony. He did so completely naked except for a special pair of yellow-painted moccasins, his skin carefully covered with yellow earth-paint. His pony had been smeared a dull yellow as well. In his hair the medicine man stuffed sprigs of gray sage.

  “I need nothing—no clothing to stop the white man’s bullets!” he harangued them. “My medicine will turn the bullets to water!”

  When darkness came to court the short summer night, the gray-eyed war chief gave the order for the warriors to move out without mounting their ponies. They walked for a long time until reaching the edge of the valley where stood the white man’s earth lodges. Here they were told to sleep with the reins in their hands until it was time to attack.

  Tall One did not sleep. How could he—come this greatest of all his days as a Kwahadi warrior! How could any m
an sleep?

  When the command came to mount the attack, the tall war chief rode his gray horse before the hundreds, reminding these hot-blooded young men they must remain in a solid, unbroken line until he gave his order to charge.

  “We walk slow at first,” he told them. “When the earth lodges come into view—then I will order the charge.”

  In the murky, graying light of dawn-coming, Tall One barely made out the dark shadows of the four buildings where the tai-bos were sleeping. It was then the war chief had ordered the warriors spread for the coming charge. Quietly the hundreds shuffled to the right and left, forming an immense but compact phalanx. Hundreds of ponies grew restless. Warriors murmured their war songs. The air hummed with death-coming. Like the swinging of a club so heavy, it could not be slowed nor stopped.

  His heart had pounded in his throat, threatening to choke Tall One as he waited those last moments until the war chief had finally screeched his call for the charge.

  From the hundreds of throats erupted war cries that rumbled across the river valley, causing a thousand birds to take wing from the nearby trees. In that instant thousands of hooves hammered the dry, flaky earth as the entire line burst into ragged motion. The noise of the charge fell deafening on Tall One’s ears. Never before had he heard anything like this: the hammering of the hooves like a hailstorm on a buffalo-hide lodge; the keening voices like the crying of a deadly wind.

  Around him several of the horsemen went down as their ponies stumbled across a prairie-dog town. Horses cried out with the pain of broken legs, riders screeching as the rest careened over them in the new light shredded with streamers of gray dust.

  Still the hundreds rode down on the earth lodges, gathering speed as they brought terror and death for the tai-bos.

  But they had failed. Isatai’s prophecies had simply not come true: the white men were not asleep in their beds; the bullets from their big buffalo-killing guns did not turn to water; the shaman’s medicine did not protect warriors from dying at the hands of the tai-bos who hid inside their earth lodges through that long morning as the sun rose across the meadow where the blood of brave horsemen and war ponies stained the thirsty ground.