Winter Rain

by Terry C. Johnston

  It had always helped to have Antelope beside him as they rode with the others, caught up in the swirl of things before he had time to think, to feel, to fear. To doubt.

  He dared not allow himself any doubt—

  Crying out with his own war cry, Tall One dived into the rush and blur with the others as they hurried, most on foot, some on horseback, to the sound of the fight upstream. Sharp cracks of the Indian weapons punctuated the low booming of the soldier rifles in a two-note symphony reverberating down the twisting path of the Prairie Dog Town Fork. The simple act of crying out, letting his lungs roar against what residue of fear he might still hide in his heart, helped Tall One once more shed the last paralyzing hold that fear itself had on him. It had always been easier to hurl himself in with the others, let them sweep him along, let them do the leading so that he did not have to think. Only follow.

  As he joined them, Tall One was struck with a singular thought: that none of the men, young warriors or old, had painted themselves or taken any time to put on their hair ornaments. He fretted, creating an ever-tightening knot in his belly that this absence of ritual, this forfeiture of the tribe’s spiritual power, would spell disaster for them this day. Yet he calmed himself, reminded that all they had to do was what they had done so many, many times before: just cover the retreat of their families with their own lives until it came time they too could escape downstream.

  Just cover the retreat with their own lives.

  “Tall One!”

  Far ahead one of them stood against the rest, waving Tall One on as the others rushed by him. The warrior’s face flushed with excitement. Eyes lit with the flame of passion.

  “Antelope!”

  “Come, brother—we have tai-bos to kill! At long last—we have tai-bos to kill!”

  When together they reached a bend in the canyon where their progress slowed, then ground to a halt, they found Lone Wolf’s Kiowa stalled among the rocks, taking cover behind the trees on the outer perimeter of their village, firing back at not-so-distant targets. Here and there a white face swam through the gun smoke and wispy trails of abandoned fires. Still, most of the faces of those making this attack were dark. Many times they had been told to expect that the first wave they might encounter in an attack on their village would be the Seminole and Tonkawa trackers. This day these were dressed in the same dark-blue shirts as the yellow-legs themselves, their hair tied up provocatively for battle. It was disturbing to see that many of those dark faces had been mockingly painted … while the Kwahadi had no time for their medicine toilet.

  “Look!” Antelope shouted in his ear, nudging him sharply and pointing to their left.

  Against the far side of the canyon wall snaked a dark column of more soldiers, leading their horses, winding their way down the thousand-foot descent from the prairie above. As fast as they could inch along the narrow footpath, the yellow-legs were coming to augment the Indian scouts who pressed the point of the attack.

  Abruptly it seemed the Kiowa were up and moving, coming back toward the Kwahadi now. More noise crashed ahead of them in echoing reverberations as Lone Wolf’s warriors fell back first at a walk, then one by one broke into a run past the Comanche who had just arrived on the battle line.

  Then he saw them clearly—the Tonkawa trackers and soldiers draped in blue, down here in the cool, dark shadows, their horses snorting wispy streamers of gauze into the autumn air, horses’ legs like throbbing pistons hammering the streambanks as they charged among the rocks and trees the Kiowa were abandoning helter-skelter.

  “Come, Tall One!”

  Antelope hollered at him a second time, tugging on his elbow. Around them the rest of the Kwahadi and Kiowa were backtracking now like bits of ghostly flotsam adrift on the mist and canyon shadow—stopping hurriedly to turn and fire from behind a boulder, next time stopping behind a wide cottonwood, wheeling off again to reload quickly on the run before they would wheel and fire another shot at the pursuing soldiers and their Indian trackers.

  Tall One found the pistol in hand, his arm outstretched without thinking, yanking back the hammer with the other hand before he squeezed the trigger—pointing the muzzle at one of the Tonkawa riding down on him. The tracker’s horse skidded stiff-legged to a halt, twisting its head savagely to the side, heaving its rider off in a tumultuous shudder, pitching the tracker into the brush as it went down in a heap, legs flaying.

  Its unearthly cry sent shivers up from the base of Tall One’s spine.

  A bullet’s snarl cut the air beside his ear angrily. He felt it pass so close, it smelled of brimstone and death. Suddenly the cold air hissed through the icy furrow along his neck where the bullet had creased him. Some of his long hair stung the open wound, matted in the first beading ooze of that raw tissue.

  As quickly as he saw the puff of smoke from the enemy’s weapon, Tall One whirled on his heel and sprinted off, his heart singing. He could not claim killing one of the enemy trackers—but there was little doubt he had spilled the rider and killed the Tonkawa’s horse.

  To put an enemy afoot was a great coup!

  But just as his heart began to soar with his brave feat, Tall One’s heart sank. Beneath his feet he felt the ground tremble. Around him the air reverberated with the thunder of hooves. Hundreds of hooves rising to a great, raucous crescendo as they charged ever on down the canyon, following the throaty call of those bugles.

  While he had unhorsed one—there remained more than he and the rest could ever knock from their saddles.

  Glancing over his shoulder as he ran, heedless of the brush he stumbled over, tripping only to pick himself back up and rush off again, Tall One sprinted along with the last of them, the warriors heading for the rocks against the side of the canyon where the women and children had gone to climb upward toward the prairie, toward the sun, to safety.

  Where the thundering of those yellow-leg horses would not find them.

  Where no man might know of Tall One’s doubts.

  38

  January 1875

  THE MONTH WAS growing old. In less than a week, someone had said, it would be February.

  February. Jonah laughed humorlessly. Why, he was still far from accepting the fact that another year had thrust itself upon him!

  Still, five days ago there had come a break in the weather that imprisoned these southern plains, and Captain Lockhart had given them three hours to make ready for the trail.

  They had left their station at the headwaters of the South Fork of the Pease River at sundown four of those days ago, riding the moon down that long winter’s night, marching west at a hand-lope, the hard breast of the wind fresh in their faces, so cold it brought tears to a man’s eyes without letup.

  West toward the great monolithic wall of the Staked Plain.

  Into the caprock of that barren buffalo ground they rode down the second and into their third day, stopping long enough to water the stock when they were lucky enough to run onto sinks and springs, unsaddling for a spare six hours each successive night—just long enough for the men to grab three solid hours of sleep, the captain having his men stand two watches at guard.

  “If we’re up and moving now that the weather’s gone and broke,” Niles Coffee explained, “it’s bound to reason the Comanch’ are up and roaming too.”

  From the look on Two Sleep’s face, it seemed the Shoshone wanted to ask the same question Jonah had posed of the Ranger.

  “You got any idea where we’re heading, Sergeant?”

  “There’s a place out there,” Coffee replied, pointing with the blade of his folding knife he used to curl a sliver of chew from a dark plug he shoved back into the pocket of his canvas mackinaw. “We get on up where the White River comes in—you can sit there and keep an eye on a whole bunch of country.”

  “That’s what the cap’n wants to do, you figure? Damned cold for a man to do nothing more than keep an eye on things.”

  Coffee grinned, his tongue noisily slipping the sliver of chaw to the side of his red-w
hiskered cheek. “It’s country the Comanch’ gotta go through if they’re on the move, Jonah. If they been wintering down south of us where Heck Peters’s Ranger company runs their territory, then the Comanche gotta come back north through that White River country. And if the red bastards been wintering up farther north in Cap’n Roberts’s country after Mackenzie’s Fourth give ’em the rout back at Palo Duro Canyon … then we’ll catch ’em traipsing south again. Either way, I see it through the same keyhole as Cap’n Lockhart does.”

  “You can’t mean you think there’s only one way in or out of this piece of country!” Jonah exclaimed.

  “I know you got scars and experience hunting Injuns up north, Jonah,” Deacon Johns said quietly in that way of his as he eased down beside Hook beneath the cold starshine. “But you gotta remember we been fighting these heathens most all our lives. Every gray hair on this ol’ head is a day I’ve suffered hunting Comanch’—days grave with fret and frazzle, trouble all.”

  “That may be so, Deacon. But one thing I’ve learned about the Injuns I’ve tracked and fought,” Jonah said, “is that when you figure you’ve got an Injun figured out—he’s already one jump ahead and bound to outsmart you.”

  “Maybeso these Comanch’ ain’t really any different from other Injuns,” Coffee said.

  Johns nodded. “Could be. But what we do know of these godforsaken fornicators—the Comanch’ are creatures of habit. For generations they been moving up and down their buffalo ground, following the trails the buffalo use. Don’t matter if they’re moving their village, gone hunting for hides and meat, or taking out on the warpath. The Comanch’ follow the old trails they know, trails going into and out of a piece of country.”

  “If they come onto the ground this company of Rangers is sworn to protect,” Coffee said, his voice low, laden with resolve, “by God they’ll have to come through a narrow door in the caprock less’n three mile wide.”

  Jonah followed where the Ranger pointed, Coffee’s arm extended toward the last rose tint to the twilit sky. Against the pale pink of that aging sunset stood the rising bulk of the caprock that surrounded the immensity of the Staked Plain, swathed boldly in black as all light drained from day. Back to the east a few first stars blinked on. But here, looking toward the west and all that wild, open country ruled by the red lords of these southern plains—it was the raw, ragged edge of the earth itself thrown against the far sky.

  Where they were heading, the ground itself seemed to swallow the heavens in huge, hungry, ripping gulps.

  As long as he had been out here in this country, riding with these men—never before had Jonah ever experienced such a feeling staring at all that jagged, savage immensity. A land every bit as big as the sky itself. And someplace in that primitive, ragged country, these men seemed cocksure of waiting out the Comanche, of being there in the right place when the Kwahadi up and decided to move out with the break in the winter weather.

  Lockhart had them up and scrubbing leather before sunrise, after coffee and a breakfast of what leavings they could find among the skillets from last night’s feast. Niles Coffee said they’d make the White River portal by nightfall if they humped it and got high behind. And with the way the captain let his big gelding have his head, Company C had their tails high behind and covering ground.

  “This is real country for a real man, Jonah Hook,” Johns said to him that morning not long after sunrise. “A land for a man who loves nature and all God’s finest handiworks. Bet you’ve seen some tall mountains out where you been.”

  “I have, that.”

  “They must be something, Jonah,” he replied in imagined awe. “But nothing could possible compare with the savage beauty of what God Himself has took up and made for the critters out here,” Deacon Johns said, admiration closing on reverence in his voice as he gazed side to side. “Hill and valley and canyon teeming with deer and buffalo and turkey and antelope. Streams so full of fish, we don’t have to use a line—only that seine the captain carries along. Bear caves and bee trees—Lord, what bee country this is! Why, in the spring a man can ride for near three hundred miles on a solid bed of flowers the color of the rainbow.”

  Jonah replied, “And for generations it belonged to these here Comanche.”

  Johns squared his eyes at Hook, his face souring a bit as he answered. “Yep. It did belong to them. But God Almighty Himself set the way of nature when He created this world in six days, Jonah Hook. God Himself made it the first law of nature that in the wilds the strong shall always hold sway over the weak.”

  “So these Comanche are about to find out which of us is stronger?”

  The deacon nodded. “It’s the way of nature. The way of all things under God’s own heaven. They submit and move aside of the progress of white Christian civilization—or we’ll crush ’em underfoot on our way past.”

  “Praise God, eh?”

  Johns drew himself up and replied, “Praise God for making things right in His world, Jonah. His world. Not man’s. This is God’s world, and it’s herein He reigns.”

  That evening when Lockhart brought them to a halt in the first cold caress of winter’s darkness after the sun had fallen, he explained that this was likely to be their last night together as a company for some time to come. They had permission to build fires for boiling coffee, but only if those fires were set at the bottom of pits scooped out of the hard, flinty ground. The captain did not have to waste his breath explaining that the light from any fire was likely to travel a great distance in country such as this.

  Sergeant Coffee mustered out his three watches, then sent out the first after the men had picketed and sidelined mounts. Then the camp fell quiet as the rest lay down two by two to share body warmth and their scant issue of blankets. Above them lacy silver clouds scudded across the growing moon. Jonah figured it would reach full plug in something less than two weeks. And then they could count on the Comanche moving.

  If they weren’t already.

  Their breath came frosty, the hairs of his mustache and beard matted icy film that next morning as the captain stood them to inspection and broke them into squads in that predawn darkness. Four, each with one of those who had long served with Lockhart, to act as squad leader.

  “We’ll rotate duty at this base camp,” the captain explained. “Two different squads will move out every morning. The first to make a wide sweep to the west, nosing around to the north, then east before coming back in here just after nightfall. And the other will begin their sweep heading east, moving around to the south, then up into the west before reporting in by sundown.”

  “And the next day the other two squads will make the same patrols?” asked Coffee.

  Lockhart nodded. “Those of us remaining in camp will keep the country both north and south glassed throughout the day, laying low and resting the stock. I want this unit to be in fighting trim when it will be required of us. Not if—when.”

  “Them bloody fornicators will show up, Captain,” Johns cheered.

  “I’m counting on it, Deacon,” Lockhart replied, easing over toward Jonah. “I’m sure Mr. Hook is counting on it as well.”

  “I am, Cap’n.”

  Lockhart turned away, his hands laced behind him as he paced before those two squads chosen for the first day’s scout. Continuing, he told them, “We may not see anything for a few days, perhaps a week or better. But you will cut sign. Keep your eyes moving when you’re out. This is naked, open country. Each squad will stand out like a four-bit whore in church—excuse me, Deacon … but so will a Comanche war party.”

  “We’ll keep our eyes on the horizon, Captain,” Coffee promised.

  “Very well, Sergeant,” he said, eyeing the east. “Let’s get squads one and three out before the sun comes up.”

  No one had to awaken Jonah that second morning.

  The rest of the men of Company C lay about him as dawn came up slow as winter’s own pull, Rangers cocooned in blankets around their fire pits like obsidian chips at the floor of
a dark stream in the cold moonlight. He had hardly slept that night before their first patrol, his back against the wide bulk of the Shoshone who rarely left Hook’s shadow. The two ate, slept, and now would again ride together with Second Sergeant Clyde Yoakam’s squad. After gulping down the scalding coffee that would serve as his breakfast, Jonah saddled the horse, then returned to the fire pits dug deep to smother the flames’ tattling glow, where he stood and waited, rocking boot to boot anxiously.

  After standing his squad to inspection, Yoakam settled down between the high wishbone pommel and rounded cantle upon the open-slot seat of his McClellan saddle and moved them out. Most of those riders turned to look back at least once before their camp disappeared from view in that broken land of bare, buzzard-bone ridges streaked red, yellow, and white, waving at those friends and compatriots they were leaving in camp, those who would recoup and rest: repairing saddles, bridles, even reshoeing if necessary. All the while Lockhart would debrief yesterday’s squad leaders and those men most familiar with this ground. No man wanted to know more about this country and where the Comanche might turn up than Lamar Lockhart.

  No man, besides Jonah Hook.

  Especially after that first long day in the saddle, riding back at nightfall empty-handed and with nothing of import to tell Lockhart. No trails crossed. No smoke seen. Even the small, normally unobserved things: they had spotted ample game throughout the day; the water holes and springs remained untrammeled. Only the crusty snow atop the flaky ground betrayed the passing of yesterday’s scout.

  The Rangers moved in and out and around that country for the better part of the next ten days, on into the first week of February. Camp became a familiar haven with its odors of gun oil and soaped leather, the pungent aroma of men and animals about this business of waiting for war. What few decks of cards they had packed along grew dogeared as those decks were passed from squad to squad to squad, the men funning themselves playing seven-up or rowdy games of monte. A few precious sets of checkers also served to break up some of the camp monotony, played on limber game boards of gingham-checked cloth a man could roll up around the scuffed black and red checker pieces, then stuff the whole of it away into a saddlebag.