Savage Frontier

by Len Levinson

  Maria Dolores remembered her former husband's first sergeant and wondered how much he wanted to borrow. “Send him in.”

  A red-bearded soldier appeared in her doorway, Jeff Davis hat in hand. “Howdy,” he said.

  “Come in, Sergeant Duffy,” she replied warmly. “It's so good to see you again, but you look sad. Is anything wrong?”

  “There's somethin’ you should know, ma'am,” he replied haltedly. “The lieutenant has been . . . killed by the Apaches.”

  The pen fell from Maria Dolores's hand. “How'd it happen?”

  “The way I heered it, the lieutenant got into the middle of a fight with Apaches and they shot him.” Sergeant Duffy shook his head as a tear rolled down his cheek. “That's the way the lieutenant was—God help anybody who got in his way.”

  Maria Dolores didn't know what to say as she stared at the Irishman. “Thank you,” she replied at last. “Please have as many drinks as you want at the bar.”

  “A few men from the old company are with me . . .

  “Free drinks for them too,” she told him.

  The door closed, then Maria Dolores burst into tears. She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and mopped her eyes, wondering why she felt so terribly sad. She and Nathanial had been apart over two years, but once they'd been happy together. I knew this would happen someday, she told herself. He had the body of man but the mind of a child. What shall I tell Zachary and Carmen? Maria Dolores pondered it for a few moments, then decided to tell them nothing. I'll wait until they're older, she decided. They haven't seen him for so long—what does it matter?

  In August of 1856, the plebe class stood at attention on West Point's parade ground. Their first official formation, they wore new blue-and-gray uniforms, with white shako hats in the style of Prussian hussars.

  The superintendent of West Point, Major Richard Delafield, class of 1818, addressed them from the podium. “You have been selected to attend the finest military academy in the world!” he declared, then proceeded to enumerate their duties and obligations, the glories of the U. S. Army, the great victories won against her enemies, and deeds of valor performed by men who'd once stood upon that very grassy plain. “You are the future of America! The fate of the nation rests in your hands!”

  In the fifth rank of B Company stood eighteen-year-old Jeffrey Barrington, whom his classmates had nicknamed Buck. He wasn't certain of the position of attention, but it was only his third day at the Point.

  The commandant droned onward about honor, duty, and country as Buck recalled his departed brother Nathanial standing on that very field long ago, listening to a similar speech. Nathanial had given his life to the Army, and now was assumed dead, his body never identified. Apparently the Apaches had mutilated him beyond recognition. Buck's mother had virtually locked herself in her bedroom since the death notice had arrived.

  The stars and stripes snapped in the breeze blowing up the Hudson, and in the distance Buck Barrington could see the brick barracks where he'd spend the next four years. Stern discipline lay ahead,’ but there was no alternative for the eldest living Barrington son.

  Nathanial had been the hero of Buck's life, although Buck only saw his brother on rare occasions during the past sixteen years. Nathanial was everything that Buck had wanted to become.

  The band began to play as guidons shot into the air. “For-ward march!” shouted the cadet captain.

  The cadets stepped out smartly and began their journey to the reviewing stand. No parents were there, no distinguished visitors, only the officers and teachers who'd mold Buck's mind in years to come. He felt their sharp eyes upon him as his company strutted down the runway in front of the stand.

  “Present arms!”

  Buck raised his arm in salute along with other hopeful cadets. He saw Old Glory fluttering in the breeze, and pudgy Major Delafield at the podium. The music swelled while the Hudson highlands were covered with green leaves.

  I'll get through this damned West Point somehow, Buck swore as he marched. And when it's over, I'll put in for New Mexico Territory. Those damned Apache bastards had better watch out for me when I arrive in their so-called homeland. The blood of my brother shall be avenged, so help me God!

  * * *

  Nathanial opened his eyes, and his first thought was: I've gone to hell. His surroundings appeared murky and indistinct, he lay in wrenching pain, while his hands and feet were numb. He felt on the verge of fainting, when golden effulgence appeared in the vicinity of his feet.

  He breathed shallowly as throbbing torture threatened to overwhelm him. He lay in a crude shelter of branches, leaves, scraps of leather, and other primitive materials. There was an inverted V opening in front, and a small boy stood there, examining him thoughtfully.

  The boy was aureoled by sunlight, a cross shone brightly upon his chest, and he had strange light hair. Nathanial became aware of voices speaking in Apache language, hoofbeats of a horse passing nearby, sounds of a campsite. Golden cords seemed to draw him closer to the boy, who looked like an Apache angel. Nathanial tried to extend his hand, but agony drowned him, his eyes closed and he sank backward into a coma.

  In autumn of 1856, the Pierce Administration was coming to an end, the President having been denied a second term by the Democratic Party Convention. At the War Department, Jefferson Davis was finishing his duties. They consisted mostly of administrative odds and ends, and he could leave the work for the next Secretary of War, but the West Pointer took his obligations seriously.

  He sat at the desk and worked his way down a pile of documents, secure in the knowledge that soon he'd be back in Mississippi, running for the U.S. Senate. The Democrats had overwhelmingly endorsed his candidacy and he was considered a sure winner against the more moderate Jacob Thompson.

  He looked forward to his old senatorial platform, with the eyes of the nation upon him. He keenly believed that America was facing the greatest crisis in its history, as the Kansas-Nebraska crisis continued to worsen. In May, a proslavery army from Missouri had attacked the antislavery town of Lawrence, ransacking the offices of the Herald of Freedom antislavery newspaper, destroying the printing presses, then burning down Governor Charles Robinson's house and barn.

  Also in May, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts had been assaulted physically by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina on the floor of the U.S. Senate. With a gutta-percha cane, Brooks had beaten Sumner senseless, and Sumner had not yet recovered, while the Congress refused to censure Brooks for his bloody deed.

  In Jefferson Davis's opinion, the nation was a tinderbox ready to explode. James Buchanan, former senator from Pennsylvania and current ambassador to England, had been awarded the Democratic nomination for President, defeating Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois after seventeen contentious ballots in Cincinnati.

  Jefferson Davis saw in Buchanan another party hack who lacked the will to truly lead the nation. It's time we had another soldier like Zachary Taylor in the White House, figured the former commander of the Mississippi Rifles. Where can we find a president who can make unpopular decisions and stick to them?

  The newly formed Republican Party had nominated a military man, the former Colonel John C. Fremont, known popularly as the Great Pathfinder, but Jeff Davis doubted there were enough Republicans to defeat the unified Democratic South together with the antiabolitionist middle-of-the-road North. Jeff Davis believed the next four years would decide the future of America, and if the North tried to force its military will on the South, the hero of Buena Vista would not hesitate to take the field once more.

  His final batch of documents concerned a controversy that had arisen in New Mexico Territory. It appeared that Colonel Chandler of Fort Craig had attacked an Apache camp in the Mimbres Mountains, but a protest had been lodged by the local Indian Commissioner, Dr. Michael Steck. According to Steck, it was a wanton attack on a peaceful camp, but Colonel Chandler had insisted that stolen livestock were in possession of the Apaches.

  Former Colonel Jeffe
rson Davis believed in backing his men to the hilt. He wrote at the bottom of Chandler's report: “I concur with the decisions of the commanding officer.”

  Jefferson Davis lay down his pen and raised his eyes. No newspaper reporters or historians saw him gaze at the American flag hanging on the wall. He'd followed those stars and stripes into the hell of Buena Vista, Monterry, and the heights of La Teneria, but he feared terrible times ahead for the nation. He tossed Dr. Steck's protest into the wastebasket, then put on his hat and departed the office.

  Officers and clerks were waiting in the corridor to bid farewell to the great man. He shook every hand, even engaging in light banter with his underlings, a rare occasion for the aristocratic officer of the old school. His left eye was clouded by thin yellow mucous, but his right lens showed strange refracted images of the same officers in torn uniforms, covered with blood, limping in defeat from incredible battlefields.

  A carriage was waiting in front of the War Department, where an honor guard saluted the famous American hero. Jeff Davis climbed into his coach, then matched black horses pulled him across Lafayette Square. He passed the White House, where his friend Frank Pierce was ending his failed administration. A man's got to be crazy to take that job, thought Jefferson Davis as he rode up Pennsylvania Avenue. He closed his eyes and again caught a vision of massed cannon firing, with verdant meadows carpeted with corpses.

  Another face hovered above Nathanial. It was Nana the medicine man, whom the officer had met at the Santa Rita Copper Mines during the summer of 1851.

  “I am going to roll you over,” said Nana in Spanish. “It will hurt.”

  Nathanial thought he was being ripped in two, he lost consciousness intermittently, and when his mind cleared he lay on his stomach, Nana peeling something wet off his back. “You have been in the other world for a long time, Sunny Hair,” Nana told him. “That was a very brave act you committed, but perhaps you are loco as I have always believed. Did you know that you have saved the life of Chief Juh's wife? You are going to be with us for many moons, I am sorry to say, but we will take good care of you. You will learn what it is to be an Apache and perhaps never return home again.”

  “Extremely doubtful,” Nathanial wanted to reply, but the exertion was too great, tenebrous shrouds fell over him, and once more he was swallowed by the endless Apache night.