Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873

by Terry C. Johnston

  “They’re headed up the canyon, Captain.”

  Heyl nodded. “Looks that way.”

  “We have one last outpost to check on,” Carter said, pointing. “On that hilltop—there, sir.”

  “But that’s in the opposite direction the savages took, Mr. Carter. That outpost was never in any danger. It would only be a waste of time.”

  “The colonel wanted to know if every outpost was still intact.”

  “Very well then. Let’s find out what we can see from up there,” Heyl replied, disgruntled, “even though that hill is in a different theater.”

  The rounded crest did indeed overlook Mackenzie’s bivouac, a scene now of activity throbbing below them as the rest of the regiment broke camp, others heading out to round up what remained of the frightened stock. The far slope of this hill faded into the gray light of early dawn where murky, smeared shadows still betrayed the landscape for as far as the eye was able to see.

  Heyl’s patrol had no sooner reached the lone picket atop the hill than a single pistol shot split the cold, gray darkness. A sound immediately answered by a yelp of pain.

  Hooves hammered out of the distance—another squad of mounted soldiers also on the prowl for the raiders. A sergeant hollered his order, halting his men. They rattled to a stop near Carter and Heyl.

  “You see anything down there, Sergeant?” Heyl demanded.

  “Injuns, Captain. I shot one,” he answered, breathless and clearly excited. “At least—one of ’em yelped real good after I fired.”

  “Where were they headed?” Carter asked, his breath making heavy hoarfrost like a wreath at his face.

  “Away from us—that’s for sure, sir,” another soldier answered. “Down there.”

  Every soldier on the crest of that hill could now make out the faintest of shadows smearing themselves across the gray of the prairie: a dozen or more not-too-distant horsemen, driving before them at least that many horses—the stock they had frightened from Mackenzie’s herd and were now rounding up from the nearby country.

  “There’s our quarry, Captain!” shouted Carter. “What say we get our horses back—and some scalps too!”

  Heyl led his fourteen men off the hill, streaming down the slope onto the flat plain after the Comanche raiders. As the race stretched farther across the prairie, the more rested army mounts were able to close much of the distance on the weary Indian ponies. From every nostril, white, red and animal alike, streamed long, gauzy strips of breath-smoke that quickly disappeared into the cold, winter darkness before the coming storm. Ahead of Carter the warriors shouted among themselves, then suddenly rode off at an angle, abandoning the army horses.

  The lieutenant looked behind him, finding the sergeant and his squad galloping on their tails, turning off to recapture the army mounts. Now it remained up to him and Heyl and their men to pursue the dozen raiders as they galloped with manes and tails flying down into a coulee and up the far side without breaking stride. It had become a test of horsemanship and wills—a wild race across the prairie which with almost every beat of Carter’s hammering heart grew brighter with the coming of day, revealing with each surge of blood pounding in his ears a butte looming ahead in the mid-distance. Its gentle slopes had to be the warriors’ destination.

  And between the horsemen and that butte—a deep, sharp-sided ravine.

  Down into it the warriors plunged, disappearing. Seconds later their ponies reappeared, clawing their way up the far slope, racing ever onward toward the butte.

  Without hesitation, Carter and Heyl led their dozen troopers down into the ravine and across its sandy bottom, where the lieutenant and his men found the Comanche horsemen out of sight for a few seconds before they pushed their heaving horses up the far side. If the warriors could ride hell-bent for election across this broken landscape, Carter believed his men could do it every bit as well.

  As the first to break the lip of the ravine on the far side, his mount growing more weary with every yard in the pursuit, Carter was the first to discover the grand surprise waiting for the fourteen soldiers.

  At the foot of that nearby butte milled a whirling mass of Comanche horsemen who burst into a gallop as soon as the soldiers clambered out of the ravine. There were more warriors racing on a collision course for the soldiers than the lieutenant had ever seen in his life.

  Hundreds—against Heyl’s fourteen.

  In confusion and fear, the soldiers reined up, shouting, their horses prancing and almost done in. Carter checked his mount with a tight rein, gazing at the oncoming warriors in astonishment.

  “Just look at those goddamned Indians!” Heyl muttered, his face gone as white as the breath-smoke issuing from his lips.

  Beneath him, Carter’s horse began to quiver, then sag as it blew in exhaustion. A new and deadly problem, this—chances were the animal would never be able to carry him back to his lines.

  “This is the supreme moment in a soldier’s life,” he said to the captain beside him in the commotion. He then turned to Heyl, finding the officer wide-eyed in fascination at the onrushing warriors. “Captain?” he asked. Then asked it again, much louder. “Captain!”

  Still no answer. Carter decided Heyl suffered the sort of shock he had seen others suffer during the war down south a decade before. Paralysis in the face of the enemy.

  Their lives might well rest in his own hands now, the lieutenant decided.

  Could they make it back to the ravine in a mad dash to safety? Could they hold off the warriors there at the ravine—or would it be suicide to be caught in the bottom? Where else could they go for cover on this flat tableland—with more than three hundred warriors between the soldiers and the high ground?

  All his training at the U.S. Military Academy—more so all his experience fighting an enemy dressed in butternut gray—his career and life itself suddenly all came down to this moment. Allowing no time for thought and deliberation. Requiring only the utmost in immediate decision … taking action to save the lives of his men until the rest of the regiment could hear the sounds of their gunfire and race to the rescue.

  Their only hope …

  “We have to meet their attack here, Captain!” he shouted, nudging his horse against Heyl’s with a jolt.

  The captain blinked, as if coming awake.

  “We can only hope to retreat in force!” Carter continued.

  “Yes!” Heyl said, shaking his head as from a dream. “We must try!”

  Carter reined about, shouting to the dozen troopers. “Deploy out on the run, men! Left and right, then dismount and use your horses for cover … try to give them the best of your carbines!”

  “We’ll fall back slowly,” Heyl added as the soldiers spread out in a small line of panic. “Slowly. Slowly!”

  Heyl went to the far end of the right flank, leaving Carter with the five remaining soldiers on the left as the troopers began laying their first rounds into the rush of Comanche horsemen closing the gap. For a moment the cracks of those Spencer carbines drowned out the nearby war cries of the attackers who spread out in a wide crescent, as if upon some order or direction.

  “They’ll flank us if we don’t get to the ravine before them, Captain!” shouted Carter as he turned in Heyl’s direction, where he found the captain leading his seven troopers farther and farther to the right, opening the distance between his squad and the lieutenant’s.

  “Aim low!” Carter yelled at his five. “Aim for their ponies, goddammit!”

  It was enough to break the charge he knew was intended to overrun their position before any reinforcements could arrive. The brown horsemen scattered, hollering in disappointment and rage as their solid phalanx broke ranks. Beyond the Kwahadi waited a single warrior, waving a blanket as if in signal.

  The Comanche suddenly reformed, this time bearing down on both groups of soldiers in a single maneuver—intent on ringing in the white men, dropping to the far side of their ponies and firing arrows and rifles and pistols from beneath the necks of their surging,
straining animals.

  “Retreat a yard at a time!” Carter hollered at his five. “Stay together—together!”

  On all sides of him now the Spencers rattled with consistency, if not accuracy. Beyond in the mid-distance, Carter could make out the crack of Heyl’s rifles. Farther still, racing around and around them both, Carter listened to the war-cries and the screeches and the hammering of the Comanche guns and the thundering of the unshod pony hooves on the sun-baked ground of the summer-tortured Staked Plain.

  Closer, and closer still, the red noose tightened as the soldiers retreated a yard at a time, each man sweating not from the rising sun, but from knowing the great distance left before they would reach the ravine and that hoped-for safety. That pitiful scar of prairie ground where they could make a stand of it.

  And as the circle closed in on Carter’s men, the young lieutenant could not help but marvel. He had been close to Kiowa warriors on the reservation far to the north—yet nothing had prepared him for this wild scene of warriors on horseback.

  Feathers streaming and fluttering on the cold wind of dawn. Paint of a dozen hues smeared on faces and bodies, paint adorning the flanks or necks of their war ponies. Necklaces of claws and fur and beads, shiny round conchos of all sizes reflecting the new light of day—treasures traded or stolen in the land called Mexico, far away to south. Strips of red or yellow, blue or green cloth, bound up the tails of every pony, woven into many of the manes flapping on the wind. Dust raised from every slashing hoof, made golden by the newborn, slanting light of a cold, winter sun.

  Beyond the red noose of horsemen stood a half-dozen warriors calmly waiting on horseback. From the waving of the blanket they took their commands, then passed those orders on to the horsemen by flashing their small, handheld mirrors. Some distance behind the blanket-waver milled women and children, shouting their encouragement to the young warriors.

  “Lieutenant! They’re bolting!”

  Carter wheeled at the shout from one of his men, finding two more of his troopers pointing at Heyl’s squad.

  Anger boiled in the lieutenant. “Damn him!”

  A hundred yards away the captain had remounted his seven soldiers, reined about and was leading them away from the fight in a wild retreat toward the ravine.

  Carter joined his five in shouting, pleading, cursing at the retreating cowards. Their futile voices were as quickly drowned out by the renewed war-cries of the warriors who exulted in triumph, seeing that they now had only six soldiers to rub out.

  “We don’t have far to go now, men!” Carter yelled above the deafening noise.

  The ravine lay a little less than a hundred yards off. But with the warriors closing in so quickly—it might well have been a mile for all it mattered now.

  Yet, if the soldiers did not make a race of it now—in these next few seconds—the renewed strength of the warriors would easily overrun Carter’s squad with an avalanche of sheer numbers.

  “MOUNT!”

  Carter did not have to repeat the order a second time. In a swirl of dust the troopers jammed boots into the hooded stirrups and rose to their saddles atop the frightened, snorting animals.

  “Spread yourselves out!” he commanded them. “Lay along the necks of your mounts—and keep firing the best you can. Keep the bastards back from us as we make a run for it! Don’t panic! KEEP FIRING!”

  When he brought his jaded mount around, closing the file just as he had learned a good officer should always do to cover his men, a volley of arrows whispered among the soldiers. Carter’s own horse took one in its lathered rear flank. His mount staggered at the shock, then reared. Another horse clawed at the sky, screaming out, humanlike in pain. But neither spilled their riders as renewed riflefire fell among the troopers.

  A soldier cried out, a quick, stifled yelp—grabbing his left hand, blood streaming from the gaping flesh wound. He gritted his teeth and returned the Comanche gunfire as best he could while they strained to reach the ravine, yard by yard. The man’s wound had begun to freeze already with the falling temperature brought by the coming storm.

  The air had a metallic taste of winter to it, so real Carter could sense it on his tongue—a taste every bit like that flavor he had known as a boy in Maine when a downeaster was brewing and set to come inland from out there on the North Atlantic.

  Carter realized his men were getting spread apart. The time had come to make a last dash for the edge of the ravine.

  “Bunch your shots, men! Pump it into them good—and make a run for your lives!” ordered the lieutenant.

  The five responded with courage, flinging a volley, then a second at the closing noose of horsemen. Stung by the sudden fury of soldier bullets, the Comanche fell back momentarily.

  “Lieutenant!”

  Carter found one of his five had fallen behind, off to the right and separated from the rest.

  “My horse is done in!”

  The animal was clearly giving out, legs splayed akimbo, shuddering with exhaustion. Half-frozen, slickened mucus seeped from its nostrils. Nearby the red horsemen recognized this opportunity and were closing in for the kill.

  “All about!” Carter shouted, halting the ride of the other four troopers. “We must help him before he’s overrun!”

  The quartet reined about and joined Carter to attempt the suicidal rescue.

  “Fire into them—make it heavy! Keep your shots low! And give it to ’em hard!” the lieutenant screamed at his men while the red horsemen surged closer than ever.

  Even though two volleys from the soldiers unhorsed five Comanches, something in the pit of Carter’s gut convinced him these were his last few moments on earth. Serenely he thought of Mary, of the children they had talked of raising—saw her now in that small log and canvas hut of theirs back at Fort Richardson—each morning she would sweep out another collection of scorpions and tarantulas as bravely as any Boston girl could face this unforgiving, equalizing wilderness.

  He thanked God for the time they had shared together—less than a year and a half. He thanked God with moist eyes … as an unearthly cry clawed at his attention.

  Astride a coal-black pony rode the war-chief who had been signaling the others with his blanket. The Comanche worked his animal closer than the others dared, hammering his heels against the pony’s flanks and firing his pistol when it seemed he had a good shot. His facepaint furred with yellow dust stived up from the pony’s hooves to give the warrior a savage, satanic appearance beneath a headdress of eagle feathers that streamed down his back and off the side of the black, prancing war pony. Two braids fell beneath the headband adorned with porcupine quillwork, that gleaming black hair interwoven with red strips of trade cloth and wrapped with a glossy strip of fur. Huge brass rings hung from his pierced ears, glinting with the new day’s sunlight. He wore no shirt, despite the rapidly dropping temperature … only leggings, tiny bells sewn along the fringed seam, along with a breechclout and moccasins. More of the sun glinted off the warrior’s bridle, decorated with a dazzling array of round and shiny Mexican conchos.

  In stunned fascination Carter watched the muscular warrior guide his pony toward the private who struggled with his balky mount. The war-chief closed the gap with a lunge and pointed his pistol down at the soldier’s face, point-blank. Then pulled the trigger.

  A rosy splatter smeared the bright corona of sunrise an instant before the soldier tumbled from the saddle and his horse bolted away from the quivering body. In the next moment the war-chief was on the ground, pulling free his scalping knife as other horsemen surged past him toward the rest of Carter’s soldiers.

  “Mary—sweet, Mary…”

  Then as suddenly as the warriors were charging headlong toward them, the Comanches wheeled about as if on some signal, beating a hasty retreat.

  His heart still sour in his throat, choking all chance of making even the slightest sound, Lieutenant Robert G. Carter whirled at the realization of distant, pounding hooves. Iron-shod cavalry horses. A half-dozen Tonkawa sco
uts spearheaded the charge of more than a company of troopers.

  “It’s Lieutenant Boehm!” hollered one of Carter’s five as the other three started to whoop and celebrate their deliverance at the edge of the ravine.

  “We’re saved! By God, we’re saved!” shouted another.

  At the rear of Boehm’s charge rode Captain Heyl and his seven troopers, each one looking sheepish as could be and unable to meet Carter’s thorny gaze as they reined up. Despite Heyl’s higher rank, the captain was clearly riding second in command to Lieutenant Peter M. Boehm.

  “Sweet Mary,” Carter whispered to himself, his voice raw and more of a croak as he struggled to loosen the taut muscles in his left hand that had imprisoned the reins in a death grip. “I’ll … I’ll be coming home after all.”

  Chapter 8

  October 1871

  “Suvate!” Quanah Parker hollered when he learned from his outlying flankers that more soldiers were on their way to rescue the five yellowleg soldiers. “It is finished! We go!”

  He had the one poor scalp—tattered, in shreds after the point-blank pistol shot to the soldier’s head. Too, Quanah knew he had the tall gray stallion that had been a favorite riding animal of no less than Three Finger Kinzie himself. It had not been a bad day, considering.

  Yet the Kwahadi had suffered many wounded, and half a dozen were dead. The rosy glow of victory dimmed quickly for Quanah.

  Worst still was the reality that the soldiers were now stalking the Kwahadi.

  For so many seasons he had fearlessly led his warriors off the endless wilderness of the Staked Plain to raid the settlements of the Tehannas. Like a cold ball of sour bile, the fear rested in his belly—a fear only for the women and children, for the old ones unable to fight for themselves.

  No longer were the white Tehannas content to swat at the troublesome Comanche wasps. Now the white man was sending his soldiers out to hunt down, smoke out, and smite the wasps so they would sting no more.

  “Suvate,” he told his warriors as they disappeared behind Mount Blanco into the white mouth of the coming storm. The sun had been blotted out in its rising, and to the north the horizon had gone black with the vengeance of Winter Man. “It is finished—for today.”