His guide responded to none of his questions during the four days of their journey, and by the time Geronimo’s encampment and his large cattle herd were in sight, Lemuel had stopped asking any more questions. For the Apache to be this far east, near the border between Texas and Louisiana, was unusual, but Geronimo’s people were growing more prosperous, had kept their peace with their former Comanche enemies, and often made forays beyond their southwestern homelands. Crossing the Rio Grande, stealing cattle from the Mexicans to herd across the border and then trading or selling the livestock to Texican ranchers had become quite a profitable enterprise for the Apache. From New Orleans up to St. Louis, the Mississippi was again peaceful and clogged with traffic, as Lemuel had seen during his journey, and the people of Louisiana were now more interested in preserving good relations with the Texas Republic than with mounting any resistance to the regime up in Washington.
Geronimo and his men were camped in wickiups outside a small adobe house. The bearded man left Lemuel with Rubalev, then went inside the house.
“He owns this ranch,” Rubalev said to Lemuel.
“He didn’t tell me that. He didn’t say much of anything, not even his name.”
Rubalev shrugged. “It is perhaps better if you do not know his name, or anything else about him.” The Alaskan was wearing a white Stetson with an eagle feather in the hatband and a well-tailored buckskin jacket that looked as expensive as young Theodore Roosevelt’s. Rubalev jerked his head toward the nearest wickiup. “He may talk to you today, or he may decide that he wants to reach a bargain for his stolen cattle first. I have been waiting here for nearly a week now, and Geronimo has refused to discuss anything with me until you arrived.”
Rubalev looked impatient and tired. Lemuel was about to speak when three men came out of the wickiup. One was a sturdily built, handsome man with long black hair; another was a thin old man with a leathery face wearing a sombrero, leather jacket, and breechcloth with leggings. But it was the third man, small and spare and with close-set piercing black eyes, who drew Lemuel’s attention. He wore a plain white tunic covered with dust and a pair of dark trousers; the uneven ends of his black hair reached to his shoulders. He stared at Lemuel in silence, pressing his thin lips together, then made a motion with his hand.
“Geronimo is inviting you to sit down,” Rubalev said.
Lemuel sat down on the dusty ground. Rubalev seated himself next to him. Another Apache came out of the wickiup, carrying a jug.
“Chato,” the man said, pointing at himself. “I will speak for you,” he added in English. “Yellow Hair tells me that you are a red man from the East called Poyeshao, and that you have the ear of the northern chief called Touch-the-Clouds.”
Lemuel nodded. “That is so.”
“This is Nana.” Chato gestured at the old man, then at the handsome one. “This is Vittorio, who has killed more Mexicans than any of us.” He pointed his chin at the man with the piercing black eyes. “And this is Goyathlay, chief of the Chiricahuas and of the other Apache bands, as Touch-the-Clouds is chief of the Lakota peoples. You know Goyathlay as Geronimo.’’
Lemuel bowed his head slightly and uttered a greeting, which was translated by Chato. Geronimo said something in his own tongue; Chato passed Lemuel the jug. He hoisted it to his lips, expecting to taste water, and suddenly found his mouth full of whiskey. He managed to swallow the liquor without choking.
Geronimo’s lips twitched, as if he were on the verge of laughing. Lemuel offered greetings from Touch-the-Clouds; Chato responded with Geronimo’s words of friendship for his brother the Lakota chief. The jug was passed again, and Lemuel forced himself to drink. It might be the middle of winter, but the sun was already growing hot against his back.
“Yellow Hair tells Geronimo that Touch-the-Clouds is in his winter camp,” Chato translated for the Apache chief.
“That is true,” Lemuel said.
“He says that our northern brothers may soon be at war with the chiefs in Washington.”
“That is also true.”
“Now you want us to fight with you.”
“Touch-the-Clouds has heard rumors that a few of your people went with the Comanche and the Kiowa to join some of the Gray Coats when they began to fight against the Blue Coats again.’’
‘‘It is said that some of our men went on raids with them,’’ Chato said for Geronimo, “and that they were paid well in loot and cattle, but that is only a rumor. It is said that some of these men also fought with the dark-skinned buffalo people against the Gray Coats when they were not paid what they were promised by the white men, but that is also a rumor. We did not send any of our warriors there, we did not tell them to go, but sometimes men grow restless and do not listen to the counsel of their chiefs. They knew that they were breaking the promises we made to the white chief Gray Wolf Crook, so it is good that no one of those men was caught. If an Apache or a Kiowa had been caught fighting with the Gray Coat guerrillas or with the buffalo people, we would have said that he was not one of us and that the white man would have to punish him for breaking the promises our people made, and the Comanche would have done the same.”
“I understand,” Lemuel said.
“The Gray Coats to the east of us are tired of fighting,” Chato said. “More of the dark-skinned buffalo people are living in their own settlements and keeping away from trouble with the white man. The Texicans have Mexicans to fight against and take land from now. We and the Comanche near here are getting fat with our cattle herds and our horses and our trade with the Texicans. Our young men and our chiefs are content with that. I am content with that.”
“Things can change,” Lemuel said. “Men can grow restless again.”
“Where is the Gray Wolf now?” Chato asked.
“He has gone back to his headquarters in Omaha for the winter. The chiefs in Washington have sent him no orders. He says that he will not fight against the Lakota as long as they keep the treaty.”
“But Yellow Hair here tells us that Touch-the-Clouds will be at war soon.”
“The white man has broken the treaty. He will break it again, the Lakota are certain of that, and it is again time for their men to prove their courage in warfare. The white man will send his Blue Coat soldiers west, and Touch-the-Clouds does not want to wait until the Blue Coats are near his land. He wants to strike at them long before they get there.”
Geronimo studied Lemuel for a long time before speaking again. “It will be useful to our brother Touch-the-Clouds,” Chato said for him, “if the Blue Coats have to fight in both the South and against him, and sometimes our warriors grow restless. But if they do grow restless, they will need weapons. They will need other things.”
“They will get whatever they need,” Rubalev muttered. “I will see to that. I am also in touch with men who will be happy to fight with Apache comrades who will help them in their battle against the Washington chiefs. Your people can increase their wealth greatly by aiding those who once wore the Gray Coat in their actions against the Blue Coats.”
Geronimo looked from Rubalev to Lemuel with his sharp black eyes. Lemuel met the Apache’s gaze. Geronimo murmured a few words to Chato.
“Will the Gray Wolf fight against the Lakota,” Chato asked, “if the Lakota go to war against the Blue Coats to the east?”
Lemuel said, “I do not know.”
Geronimo leaned forward and said a word under his breath. “Then guess,” Chato said.
“He does not recognize the chiefs in Washington,” Lemuel said. “I do not think he will listen to them if they tell him to make war on the Lakota. He will not listen to the Washington chiefs as long as the Lakota remain at peace. If they go to war, and if the Gray Wolf sees them as a threat to the towns and settlements near them, he may have to fight them in order to protect the settlers. And that is all I can tell you.’’
What was needed now, Lemuel thought, was another outrage like the massacre at Elysium, one that would convince Three Star Crook and One Star Terry
and their officers that the men in Washington were now the enemies of even the white settlers in the west. Part of him thought: Let it come, let them strike. Part of him remembered how Katia’s body had looked in the back of the buckboard after the slaughter, no more than a lifeless torso and limbs with a shroud of long black hair.
Chato said, “We have fought against the Gray Wolf before. We do not want to fight him again. Some of the men may grow restless as long as the Gray Wolf stays behind his wooden walls and does not ride against our Lakota brothers. Otherwise, they may grow restless only for riding south to steal more cattle and horses from Mexicans.”
“I understand,” Lemuel said, knowing that this agreement was the best that he could hope for from the Apache.
“Acting President McClellan, the Great Father in Washington—” a man’s voice was saying.
“Is he the Great Father?” the voice of another man interrupted. “He calls himself the Great Father, but there are many among you white men who say he is not. There are Blue Coat warriors who follow him and there are Blue Coat warriors who say he is not their chief.”
Jane Cannary, nursing a glass of sarsaparilla, listened intently as Titus Oglesby, standing at the bar, cranked the handle of the phonograph while one of Edison’s assistants looked on. The saloon’s owner had paid a lot to rent the machine and the cylinder that had recorded the voices, even though Edison Laboratories was turning the machines out as fast as possible and had taken the precaution of recording this interview on a few of their cylinders. Businessmen in St. Joseph, St. Paul, and even as far east as Chicago had already paid in gold to buy or rent the devices, but judging by how much Oglesby had taken in this afternoon and how crowded his saloon was with customers paying for both liquor and a chance to listen to the phonograph, his investment was well worth it.
“What I was saying is this.” The saloon was quiet as the people in the room strained to hear the other voice on the recording. “Acting President McClellan claims that he is only trying to restore the Union for which he fought, for which so many fought and died.” The speaker, Jane knew, was a reporter from the Rocky Mountain News named Robert Strahorn. “He says that once the United States are again restored to the unified state they enjoyed in 1869, he will give up his position and allow elections to be held.”
“The unified state. I do not know these words.”
“That means,” Strahorn’s voice explained, “many states becoming one nation, one body of people with the same chief.”
“The man in Washington who calls himself a Great Father allows the people in Texas and the people in California their own councils. There are white people and dark people in the lands south and east of here who want their own councils. There are people in these lands who want their own councils. I do not see how this can trouble the chief McClellan. Does he say that some can have them and some cannot? Elections means choosing—that much I do know. The people in the place called Bismarck choose a chief, a mayor. The people in your cities choose their chiefs. If my people do not want me as chief, they are free to find another.”
Touch-the-Clouds, Jane thought, sounded even better in this interview than he had on the first cylinder Titus had played, an interview with a Chicago newspaperman named John Finerty. The chief also had a point. Couldn’t they have their states and territories and republics and still all be Americans? Maybe if they went their own way for a while, they could all get together later. Touch-the-Clouds, with some prompting by Finerty, had said something like that in the first interview, although he had said it in different words.
“Acting President McClellan,” Strahorn said, “wants to restore the United States, a republic that reaches from the east all the way to California, that will include all the territory between the eastern and western coasts, and everything from the border with Canada south to the Rio Grande.”
“I have heard such words before,” the voice of Touch-the-Clouds replied. “To me they have other meaning. To me they mean taking my people’s hunting and grazing grounds from us. They mean breaking the treaties the white man made with us.”
It amazed Jane that Touch-the-Clouds, a man whom she had feared so much while she was in his camp, could sound so reasonable, even downright understanding, on one of Edison’s scratchy cylinders. It was one thing to read such an interview in a newspaper or to hear it read aloud, and quite another to hear the man’s actual voice. Now people in Chicago and St. Louis and Kansas City could listen to Touch-the-Clouds speak. From what she had heard, people in those cities, and others, were marvelling at the machines and thinking that maybe the Sioux chief wasn’t such a bloodthirsty savage after all.
“I have broken no treaty,” Touch-the-Clouds was saying. “The Lakota have broken no treaty. Ask the Cheyenne and the Cherokee and the Arikara and the other red men who are my brothers this question—have you broken a treaty? It is the white man who has broken the treaties.”
Rumor had it that Strahorn had also tried to get an interview with Sitting Bull, but the great Hunkpapa chief had refused to come to Bismarck and have his voice captured by the spirits in Edison’s machines. Given that Sitting Bull spoke only Lakota, maybe that was just as well, since the need for an interpreter might have made for a tedious conversation. Part of what made Touch-the-Clouds sound so amiable to white folks, Jane was convinced, was his command of the American tongue.
“You know what some will say,” Strahorn said. “You can’t stop progress. Can’t let Indians stand in the way of progress.”
“What is progress?” Touch-the-Clouds responded. “You are a man from Colorado. The Wasichu there do not want the red man living in their land, and drove him away, but now they leave us what we have outside their land. There is Utah—the Wasichu who live there had to run there when others of their own people killed their first chief and medicine man and tried to kill them. The Wasichu have taken land from many red men, but that is past. Leave us what we still have, and we will be no trouble.”
“Edison must have a mine’s worth of gold for his talking machines by now,” Jane whispered to Virgil Warrick.
“He wants to be back to work on that incandescent light of his,” Virgil whispered back, while keeping his eyes on the phonograph. He had gone to Edison in September, asking for work sweeping up in the laboratories. Now, only eight months later, he was assisting one of the machinists, and getting paid more than she got driving a stagecoach from Bismarck and Fort Lincoln to Deadwood and back. “He’s got himself another idea, too, something he calls a kineto- scope, but—”
“What’s that gadget going to be?” Jane asked.
“See that photograph?” Virgil gestured toward the bar, where Titus had hung a large poster of a sepia-tinted photograph of Touch-the-Clouds in his ceremonial feathered bonnet and hair-fringed shirt. “What if’n you could see the chief there moving and riding his horse and all, a moving picture? Mr. Edison says that’s what a kinetoscope would do, show pictures moving.”
“Well, if that don’t beat all.” Jane stared into her sarsaparilla, wanting a whiskey and trying to ignore that craving. What with a telegraph message that morning about another massacre near Wichita, Kansas, and the voice of Touch-the-Clouds being shipped all over the place, she was beginning to wonder just how noisy the world could get, and now Edison was dreaming of making pictures that moved. Things could get mighty distracting with all those inventions. It was enough to make her think of saddling up and heading back to Virgil’s cabin in Montana.
Finerty found George Crook pacing outside the row of cottages that housed the officers and their wives. None of the wives had come here to Fort Kearney; Crook had ordered them left behind this time. Finerty had followed Crook up the North Platte to Fort Kearney after the news came of the attack on a settlement outside Wichita. Reuben Davenport and Robert Strahorn had probably reached St. Joseph by now; he expected to see the other two newspaper correspondents, and perhaps more reporters, show up here at the fort almost at any moment.
He knew what Crook had to b
e brooding about now, and it would not just be the massacre near Wichita. Finerty had cultivated a couple of the telegraph operators under Crook’s command, and had heard the news only a few minutes after Captain Anson Mills had gone to give Crook the telegraphic dispatch.
Three days ago, saboteurs had set off explosives at a meeting hall in St. Louis, where over a thousand people had gathered to hear a lecture by Lemuel Rowland, blood brother of Touch-the-Clouds, and to listen to the aural recording of Finerty’s own interview with the chief. The resulting conflagration had killed three hundred people and destroyed nearly fifty buildings. What probably disturbed Crook the most was that one of the saboteurs had been caught by the St. Louis police, and had admitted to being one of the same men who had ravaged Elysium, Kansas. All of them, he had claimed, were volunteers recruited by the United States Army to carry out operations against those who were considered seditionists and traitors by the Council in Washington.
Those guilty of sedition and treason, Finerty had reflected, apparently included anyone who was willing to listen to Indians talking of peace and independent territories in the West. It had occurred to him then that the members of the Council would consider him, and any other reporter who had interviewed Touch-the-Clouds with some sympathy and forbearance, a traitor. Had there been a chance to interview the army saboteur, he would have been trying to get to St. Louis by now, but a crowd had stormed the jail not long after the man’s confession and had lynched him.
Crook wore a long heavy coat against the cold and a fur hat over his closely clipped hair. Finerty rubbed his gloved hands together as an icy spring wind blew toward them from the bare parade ground.
Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past Page 40
