Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873

by Terry C. Johnston

  “I will do as I am asked,” Quanah Parker vowed. “To drive the white man from our land. And those who will not turn about and flee—we will kill.”

  Chapter 24

  Early November 1873

  Seamus couldn’t remember ever before seeing that color in the sky. More so, he couldn’t remember ever seeing that color before at all.

  He figured nowhere else would a man possibly find that radiant lavender hue to the hulking winter clouds as the sun drained out of their gray bellies into the far west. And for a bittersweet moment he thought on Uncle Ian O’Roarke, Dimity and their five children, living beyond the Rockies and Sierras too.*

  In a matter of minutes he knew Jack Stillwell would be stopping the group for the coming night.

  Already the air was growing cold as the sun lost its short-lived power over this wide land of never-ending horizons. And Seamus figured he knew the spot Stillwell would choose for their camp—down there along that meandering creek, most likely among that stand of stunted trees on the far bank.

  Autumn had begun to chant its death song across these southern plains. Winter silence would seal its fate.

  The tall, red-gold grass brushed the stirrups as his horse pushed through it, wading belly-deep mile after mile through this dying, inland sea. Long ago stripped bare of leaves by the incessant wind on these plains, the trees and brush stood skeletal, austere, and ultimately lonely in the cold, fading light. Except for the quiet hoofbeats of the horses, the brushing of the grass beneath the riders’ stirrups and the rumble of the iron-tired wagon over the uneven ground, all sound was quickly swallowed by the coming darkness and the immense, aching wilderness. Every bit as quickly, the approaching night worked to draw the last vestige of warmth from the land.

  By the time all the riders were across the narrow creek, the commissary sergeant leaned into the brake and halted his wagon. The escort’s commander, Lieutenant Harry Stanton of the Fourth Cavalry, ordered two soldiers to help the sergeant unhitch the eight mules. Two black and brown sharp-eared animals were always rotated out of hitch each day, halter-tied to the back of the wagon to enjoy their stint at leisure. The other six mules were used to pull the high-walled freighter which contained the party’s rations: beans, salt-pork, hardtack and coffee, along with bedrolls and tents, extra weapons and two thousand rounds of ammunition for each of the twelve soldiers. In addition to having enough cartridges in the event the group was surrounded and put under siege, Lieutenant Stanton had requested that one of the young troopers assigned to come along on the escort would have blacksmithing skills. Crossing the hard, sunbaked prairie like this, there was no telling when one of the army mounts or wagon mules would throw a shoe. Out here, that could mean a slow, lingering death for a man as sure as anything else.

  Small fires were the order of the day, started at the bottom of holes they dug out of the hard, unforgiving soil so the flames would not be seen from any distance. Three of such fires was all Stillwell allowed, and those only long enough to boil coffee before dirt was kicked back in to snuff the red embers. Cold, almost tasteless salt-pork and the big, dry squares of hardtack served as supper for the weary men who took their canteens to the narrow, muddy creek and refilled them before settling back against their saddles and bedrolls as the sun disappeared for good and night-black descended upon over the land.

  “Look yonder,” said one of the troopers, pointing as he strode back from the nearby brush where he had relieved his trail-hammered kidneys.

  Most of the rest turned to look, rising from the ground where they had been squatting, filling pipes or rolling smokes. Seamus saw it too, over the tops of the rain-grayed canvas tents, over the backs of the horses they picketed close in to camp, wary of pony-hungry horse thieves.

  Across the whole of the western horizon the sky glowed brightly, giving an iridescent orange-pink to the gray underbellies of the winter clouds suspended overhead.

  “What you make of that, Jack?” Donegan asked as Stillwell came to a halt beside him.

  “Prairie fire.”

  “Makes a pretty sight, don’t it now?”

  Stillwell nodded, only slightly. “We’ll have to keep an eye on it, Irishman. That sonofabitch stew is coming our way.”

  “Sonofabitch stew?”

  “Fire drives everything in front of it—critters of all kind: four-leggeds, birds, every bug that flies. All them get churned up together hurrying to skeedaddle so’s they don’t get cooked. That’s what they call sonofabitch stew out here on the prairie.”

  Donegan stared back at the dimly lit, long red line faintly shimmering on the far horizon. “It’s coming our way?”

  He smelled the air. “Take a sniff. Smell it? We’re sure as hell downwind of it. No chance I’d bet against it—that fire’s coming right for us.”

  “How long do we have?” asked Philip Graves as he strode up to the others.

  “I don’t rightly know for now.”

  “Perhaps we should strike camp and move off—away from the flames, Mr. Stillwell,” suggested Simon Pierce.

  Donegan looked at the pair holding their valises, Pierce clutching that long map tube like it was life itself to the man.

  “We’ve got time. Besides, it could snuff itself out for all we know.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Graves prodded the young scout.

  “Then we’ll have to make a run for it. But for now—that stew’s still a long way off.”

  “Will it be here before morning?” Pierce asked.

  “No,” Stillwell answered. “Too far off. Plenty time for breakfast.”

  “Come along, Philip,” Graves said, turning and pulling his partner by the elbow. “I have something to discuss with you—in private.”

  Seamus watched the pair go, then found his eyes naturally returning to the fire. “How fast does it travel?”

  Jack stooped only slightly and tore off up a handful of the tall, seed-headed buffalo grass. He smelled it, then crumpled it between his gloved hands. Then smelled it again. “Mighty dry.”

  “That fire will eat right through this grass, won’t it, Jack?”

  He nodded. “Mighty dry, Seamus. Let’s go get Stanton’s men to understand they’ve got to keep an eye on that red horizon off yonder when they stand their turns at watch through the night.”

  With the soldiers understanding they were not only to watch and listen for possible horse raiders, but to monitor the progress of the prairie fire itself, Stillwell joined Donegan in their small tent. No more than any other night on this journey, the canvas rattled and snapped quietly beneath the hand of the wind as the camp settled down into slumber. Donegan tossed and turned in his blankets, still brooding on what brought Pierce and Graves out here to Comanche country.

  From time to time Seamus was aware of the camp guard walking about outside the frost-rimed canvas tent he shared with Stillwell. Sleeping as light as he did, the Irishman awoke with each changing of the guard. Throughout the long night, he dozed and listened to the two troopers stomping about in an attempt to stay warm while standing their watch.

  Realizing he had finally fallen asleep, Donegan slowly grew aware that the quality of light had changed in their small tent. But it was deliciously warm inside where he had burrowed his head down in the heavy wool blankets. There came a quiet rustle of voices outside, then one of the soldiers poked his head through the doorway, his announcement shattering Donegan’s peaceful reverie.

  “Mr. Stillwell? Lieutenant wants to see you.”

  Both of them sat up. Seamus saw the young trooper’s thick breath-smoke fogging up the tiny tent.

  “What is it, soldier?” Jack asked.

  “Says he wants to show you something.”

  “The fire?”

  The young soldier’s head bobbed. “He wants to know if it’s time for us to make a run for it.”

  “I’m coming,” Stillwell muttered, throwing off his blankets, pushing back the canvas bedroll.

  It was only when the soldier left that Doneg
an first became aware of the change in the wind—its power now something clearly definable, a presence announced with a sharp tang to the air. This was no longer the clean smell of the prairie. This wind had in it the stinging, acrid smell of blackened death.

  His breath-smoke fogged before his face in thick tissue as he jammed his feet and pants down into the tall, stovepipe boots and pulled on the heavy, blanket mackinaw and leather gloves. Seamus followed Jack from the flaps and stood, turning up the tall collar to keep the brutal cold from his ears which instantly began to ache with the bone-numbing temperature.

  “I don’t need to see more, Lieutenant,” Jack called out to the backs of the soldiers on the other side of their camp.

  The lieutenant turned. “You see what I see?”

  “Yes—let’s get this camp struck.” Jack turned to Donegan. “Roll Pierce and Graves out, Seamus.”

  Stuffing the upper part of his body through an opening in the tent flaps lashed together against the wind, the Irishman announced, “Gentlemen, it’s time to rise and shine!”

  Pierce was the first to poke his head out to greet the predawn cold. “What’s the meaning of this intrusion, Donegan?”

  “Fire, gentlemen. We have company coming this morning—and it’ll be here before breakfast.” He watched Graves awaken groggily and pull the blankets back from his face. “If you plan on coming with us, start moving now.”

  “Fire? Did you say the fire was coming?” Graves asked.

  Seamus pulled his head from the tent flaps as the civilians argued between themselves, snappish. Those two had secrets enough to eat a man up. He turned, drawn magnetically to the west where the whole horizon had gone from a faint, thin line of red reflected off the belly of the clouds overhead to a wild orange glow painting the whole sky as far as he could see in three directions. A sliver of moon was preceding the sun—a bright, crimson ball rising out of the icy cold sky in the east.

  That fire was due to make things warm here shortly.

  At the perimeter of camp the horses and mules had begun to protest their hobbles and picket pins, growing more wild-eyed with every passing minute, snorting, their nostrils flaring as they filled with the heavy stench of blackened death carried on the growing wind. Then everything fell quiet for the space of two, maybe three heartbeats—only long enough for a man who paid attention to such things to hear.

  Seamus listened to the unmistakable sound rumbling in from the west. Almost like a distant freight train roaring along its tracks—drawing closer and closer still.

  Then that distant sound of the all-consuming prairie fire was swamped over by the rustle of wings beating thunderously overhead, the whirring of tiny insects and the pounding hooves of a large herd of antelope that came racing for their camp, veering at the last moment. The wings of another flock of jays reverberated just over the treetops, while wrens and swallows and magpies swooped across the ground only long enough to peck at a mouthful of the insects driven before the fire before they took wing for a few more yards, then swooped down again on this hearty feast of retreating creatures. Everything that could escape was trying to, driven east in a headlong rush of noise and panic, galloping along the west bank of the stream, most taking the easy route: pointing their noses to the southeast along the bank instead of crossing the stream directly.

  As he watched in utter amazement, the whole sky now seemed swallowed by some black monster—smoke clouds boiling overhead, their underbellies growing even brighter crimson as he watched in sheer wonder and fascination.

  “Donegan!”

  “Here!” Seamus answered Stillwell’s sharply edged call.

  “Get saddled! I need your help, dammit!”

  The Irishman burst into action, tearing his eyes from the huge globe rising off the eastern horizon, first orange, then yellow, and finally becoming a bright red disk as it climbed into the fire’s smoky remnants of the canopy overhead.

  As he threw the hard, frost-stiffened blanket over the horse’s back, more wild animals burst past the campsite. Deer bounded by, tongues lolling in exhaustion. More antelope, their doelike eyes filled with mortal fear, a few clearly scorched, blackened, oozy red wounds scorched on their legs where they had escaped only by bounding through the devastated grass itself. Rabbits hopped around the outskirts of the bustling camp. Skunks and badgers waddled past. Everything that could move was on its way.

  “Let’s just get this outfit across the stream!” hollered the lieutenant. “We’ll be safe there, Mr. Stillwell.”

  Jack grabbed the young soldier by his wool coat. “That goddamned stream is too narrow to protect us from a fire this size!”

  Stanton swallowed, his eyes narrowing first on the scout, then widening at the oncoming fire. “Then what the hell do you suggest we do?”

  Jack wagged his head. “All we can do is get out of here as fast as we can. Cross the stream and keep running till I can find us some place to put in till it passes over us.”

  “P-Passes over us?” stammered Simon Pierce as he rushed up.

  Stillwell whirled on them. “Are you two ready to ride?” he snapped.

  “No. I came to—”

  “Get your horse saddled or you aren’t going to make it out of here!” Stillwell interrupted.

  Seamus nearly tripped over the half-dozen cottontails that had sought some haven of safety between his legs as he stood working beside his nervous mount, setting the saddle atop the stiffened blanket. The hares bolted away, ears and noses twitching frantically, eyes roaming at both sides of their heads, sorting out a direction to take to safety.

  There seemed to be none as the blackened ash began to sift down from the low-hanging smoke clouds. The air filled with debris and cinders, stinging the lungs, making him hunger for nothing more than a single clean breath.

  “Get those canteens filled!” Stillwell shouted at the soldiers who turned from saddling horses. “The rest of you, get those two water barrels topped off. We’re going to need all the water we can carry in a bad way—and real soon.”

  “Lieutenant!” Seamus called. “Help me get the wagon cover tied down.”

  “The hell with that—let’s get out of here!” Stanton growled, clearly filled with panic.

  Stillwell snagged the young lieutenant’s coat again. “Do as the Irishman says. Tie the goddamned cover down over everything. If we plan on saving the wagon and supplies, we’ll need that cover.”

  “C’mon, Irishman,” the lieutenant growled as he bolted toward the wagon. “I don’t know why we can’t just leave this wagon here and make a run for it with the mules.”

  “I figure Jack will try to save everything he can save before he gives up.”

  “So he wants to die becoming a hero?” asked Stanton as he lashed down the last loop on his side of the wagon.

  “Jack Stillwell was a honest-to-goodness hero five years ago—when he was a pup of nineteen.”

  “He kill some Indians?”

  “He saved the lives of over forty men, Lieutenant. Walking across a hundred miles of prairie wilderness just like this to take word that Major George A. Forsyth and the rest of us was pinned down by more than five hundred Cheyenne and Sioux on the Arickaree.”*

  The lieutenant’s face blanched. “Sounds like you both were there?”

  Donegan nodded. “But it was Stillwell who was the hero at the end of those nine bloody days. He carried word and Forsyth’s map that eventually brought in the Tenth Cavalry to raise the siege.”

  For a moment the lieutenant turned to look at the young scout who was then directing the filling of the two water barrels strapped to the sides of the high-walled wagon. “I suppose he doesn’t have to prove a damned thing to any man now,” Stanton said, with some genuine approval in his voice. “I see he already was a hero.”

  “And he will be again,” Donegan said as he yanked hard on the half-hitch he tied in the last loop over the wagon cover.

  “Soldier! You there!” Stillwell called out, patting one of the blanket-wrapped water ba
rrels. “Fill that coffeepot and bring it over to splash on these kegs.”

  “Water ’em down?”

  “Yeah,” answered Stillwell. “Soak the blankets real good. I’m afeared we’re going to need everything as wet as we can get it pretty soon.”

  Donegan turned to find the lieutenant staring at the flames just now breaking over the near horizon to the west. No longer did the underbellies of the low winter clouds and blackened, stifling smoke overhead appear painted with a crimson brush. Now the whole world had gone brighter as more ash and soot fell from the thickening air. Their whole world had become a bright orange-yellow as the hungry, consuming tongues of flame licked at the sky from horizon to horizon. Lapping at the dry, brittle grass that until now had been awaiting only the snows of winter.

  Without satiation this monster was greedily consuming the prairie and all the life it had held season after season. A roaring, snarling freight train of a sound that assaulted the Irishman’s ears.

  “Into the creek!” Stillwell shouted, still on foot, waving his arm.

  “You heard him!” Seamus hollered as the commissary sergeant clamored aboard his wagon and slapped leather down on the rumps of the six mules lurching into motion. “Cross the bleeming creek!”

  Donegan watched the two government men ride behind the wagon among the extra mules. Those valises and that map tube remained with them as always while they prodded their anxious mounts down to the bank and into the water.

  Now only Jack and Seamus remained on the west side of the creek. He saw Stillwell vault into the saddle, his young face already smudged with smoke and blackened cinders. More and more sparks drifted past them now, carried before the stiff wind that had grown much, much warmer in the past few moments.

  “Into the creek, Irishman!”

  Seamus closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross. “Hail Mary, full of grace—”

  Chapter 25

  Early November 1873

  “I can’t find it!” William Graves shrieked, arousing the attention of every one of the soldiers.