All Guns Blazing

by Doug Thorne

  ‘Then what must I do?’ asked the Kwahadi chieftain.

  ‘You must listen to Isatai,’ was Lone Wolf’s answer. ‘The Prophet is strong and has much wisdom. He tells of a great victory to be had over the whites. That victory could be yours. But you cannot hesitate forever. You must act, my brother, and act now.’

  ‘This you know, in here,’ Satanta added persuasively, striking his chest with a fistful of scarred knuckles.

  ‘That is why you alone refused to sign their treaty those seven summers ago. You showed wisdom then, Quanah, while we showed only folly. My words to you now are to show that wisdom again.’

  Quanah nodded.

  He was the son of the Comanche war chief Peta Nocona, and grandson of the chieftain and medicine man Iron Jacket. The making of war was in his blood. But he was also the son of a white woman who had once been known as Cynthia Ann Parker, and because of that he was able to see clearly the differences between white man and red, and strive always to make allowances for the failings in both.

  Still, war was not without its appeal.

  His mother had been captured by the Comanches many years earlier, and eventually lived so long with the Nermernuh that she forgot her own tongue and spoke only Comanche.

  For almost a quarter-century she had lived the hard, nomadic, self-reliant life of her adopted people. For almost a quarter-century she had known happiness and contentment with her doting giant of a husband and their two sons and one daughter.

  But then she had been ‘rescued’ by those men the whites called Texas Rangers, and separated from her beloved husband and sons, who had been out hunting when the white men struck.

  Quanah’s expression hardened as he remembered that time.

  There was neither happiness nor contentment for his mother after that. Without her man, without her sons, without the hard but free life of the Nermernuh, she was broken, and when at last her daughter, Quanah’s sister Topsannah, died of fever, she had taken the only course left to her. She had starved herself to death and died the saddest of women, at the age of no more than thirty-eight summers.

  Ten years had passed since that day, but Quanah still saw her face and the neat centre-part of her dark, glistening hair, as if the passage of years had been more like the passage of seconds, and still he missed her. He missed her most of all at times like this, when the weight of responsibility was at its heaviest upon him. Were she here now, how would she advise him? What guidance would his father offer, were he not also dead?

  The urge to wage war on the whites was strong within him. He had more than enough reason. But he knew it was a war he stood very little chance of winning. The whites were as many as the grains of sand in this Llano Estacado. If he killed but one, ten more would come to replace him, and this was a sorry but undeniable truth.

  But his companions were right. He would have to make his decision.

  He thought again of Isatai. He had no great liking for the man, and even little trust. But just maybe it would be as Satanta and Lone Wolf said. Just maybe Isatai would know what to do.

  FOUR

  The throbbing of the drums grew steadily louder as the three chieftains stepped out into the night. Beneath the cool opalescence of the low-hanging moon, the camp was a close-packed gathering of conical tipis that stretched the length of a narrow, unnamed canyon. Here and there, small campfires threw gigantic shadows up across its scrub-studded amber walls, but did little to combat the chilly night air.

  Quanah, Satanta and Lone Wolf moved quietly through the camp, gauging the mood of their people as they went. Although this was a ceremony at which old enemies were supposed to forget their differences and celebrate a time of renewal, there was an undeniable feeling of disgruntlement in the air. Warriors and their elaborately-dressed women – not only Comanche and Kiowa, but some Cheyenne as well – seemed to drift from one place to another with neither purpose nor enthusiasm, and even the antics of the ‘mud heads’ – those masked clowns whose job it was to pass through the camp playing tricks and generally entertaining the crowds – appeared to have no great effect.

  Most noticeable of all, however – at least as far as Quanah was concerned – was the air itself. Perhaps as many as a thousand people had gathered for this Sun Dance. The air should have smelled of roasting buffalo and frying elk, of tender antelope and broiled deer, but instead it smelled mostly of wild onions and juniper berries, of roots, persimmons and mulberries, for aside from the odd slaughtered horse, there was little meat here that was truly worth the name.

  At last the chieftains came within sight of their destination, a large, circular framework of cottonwood logs over which had been laid walls of close-packed brush, and a floor covered in pure white river sand. This was the Sun Dance Lodge, and it had taken two days to construct. It was here that men would fast throughout the eight-day ritual and then tell of their visions, or inflict pain upon themselves as a means of paying tribute to Mother Earth.

  They stopped just short of the Lodge and joined a three-deep crowd who were watching several warriors performing the Buffalo Dance, the purpose of which was to thank the buffalo for the previous year’s hunting and ask for good fortune in the hunts still to come. But as Quanah followed each distinctive movement, he found his sadness increasing, for if P’te were to vanish, as was beginning to seem ever more likely, then the Comanches might just as well sing their death-chant instead.

  About ten minutes later the drums and rattles fell silent, and the dancers backed into the crowd, sweating hard and breathing heavily. As all eyes turned towards the Lodge, into which the shaman, Isatai, had retired several hours earlier, a sudden, palpable sense of expectancy filled the air, for it was known that the medicine man had gone to commune with the gods, and the Nermernuh were eager to know what they had told him.

  Long, expectant seconds dripped into the past. Somewhere a hungry baby started crying and his mother whispered, ‘Shhh….’

  And then the flap hanging over the Lodge’s east-facing entrance was flung aside and Isatai himself stepped out into the bracing night air.

  In the past it had been said that he looked more like a dead man than most dead men, and this was certainly true. He was tall and emaciated, with thin arms, thin legs, prominent ribs and a flat, almost hollow, stomach. His black eyes were very much alive, though. They shone with life, with complete and unshakeable self-belief, and also, Quanah noticed, with a fierce and perhaps unquenchable ambition.

  He wore only a black breech clout into which was shoved an ancient percussion pistol, and every inch of his exposed skin had been painted bright yellow save for his face. One half of that was painted in the same intense hue, the other in a deep, all-concealing black.

  After a moment he came forward into the firelight, raised his right hand and, quick as thought, flung a fine white powder into the flickering flames. At once a cloud of ochre-coloured smoke burst skyward with a faint pop. Startled and not a little scared, the watching warriors shrank in on themselves, and an uneasy mutter ran through them.

  ‘The Sacred Powers have spoken,’ he declared at length. He seemed not to raise his voice, and yet it carried to every corner of the camp, clear and deep, a voice that demanded attention. ‘And the news is grave, my brothers,’ he continued, ‘for the day of the buffalo draws to a close. This I have been told. Daily his numbers grow less, and soon he will be no more. This he knows, and thus he weeps for the passing of his kind. The white-eyes will kill, kill and kill again until there are no buffalo left to kill. And this will come to pass even sooner than we think, unless we act to prevent it!

  ‘My brothers, this I tell you!’ he called, his voice now bouncing off the canyon’s seamed limestone walls. ‘The white man must pay for his actions, for he condemns not only the buffalo, but also the Indian! He slaughters one to kill the other!’

  Now the muttering rose to an excited babble, for each man there knew the truth of his words.

  ‘But how do we stop the white man, lsatai?’ asked a heavy-set Com
anche when the tumult died down. His name was Mow-way, and his flat face was home to high cheekbones and sad lips. ‘They are more than we, and better-armed.’

  Quanah narrowed his eyes and watched the shaman closely, curious to hear his reply.

  Isatai inclined his head slowly. ‘This is so,’ he allowed. ‘But you need not worry, for I shall ride with you into battle and catch every bullet the white man sends against you! I have already spoken of this to the gods, and they have granted my wish – that I protect you all!’

  He was expecting his claim to generate another excitable reaction, but when it didn’t he looked more critically at the fire-flushed faces surrounding him and asked with what sounded like genuine puzzlement, ‘Is it that you did not understand me, or that you did not believe me?’

  Continued silence was his only answer.

  He shook his head as if in disapproval. ‘Then I say again – we shall be invulnerable to the white-eyes’ thunder-sticks, and this I shall prove!’

  Without warning, he tore the old percussion pistol from his breech clout and once again raked his glittering eyes across his audience. He had them spellbound now, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, completely in his thrall.

  ‘Whoever doubts the word of the Sacred Powers,’ he said, ‘whoever doubts the word of Isatai, is free to take this fire-stick and try to shoot me down! Then he and all of you will see that my skin is made of iron, that the white-eyes’ bullets will be useless against us!’ He paused, then asked, ‘Is there one among you who will challenge the word of the gods?’

  There was an uncomfortable shifting and shuffling as warriors glanced self-consciously at each other, Kiowa at Cheyenne, Cheyenne at Comanche, then looked away again. No one moved to take up the challenge.

  A brief smile touched Isatai’s narrow lips, for he had expected as much. When his eyes finally found those of Eagle Hand, however, he felt a particular sense of triumph. Eagle Hand was the most devoted of his followers, a warrior who idolized him and made no secret of it. Who better, then, to help him prove his claim?

  Pointing to the young brave, Isatai extended the pistol, butt-first. It was an ancient Colt Paterson, a handgun that looked more like a cannon, with a long barrel and a folding trigger. ‘Come,’ he said.

  Eagle Hand looked dumbstruck. He climbed to his feet and shook his head. ‘This I cannot do,’ he replied. ‘If anything were to go wrong—’

  ‘It will not.’

  ‘But if it did, if I were to kill you’ – and here his dark, deep-set eyes lowered – ‘I would be killing the last hope of our people,’ he finished quietly.

  The comment was not lost upon Quanah.

  ‘Nothing will happen to me,’ Isatai assured the young brave, his tone gentle now, and almost paternal. ‘Here, take the fire-stick. Aim well and pull the trigger. The bullet will fall to the ground long before it can harm me. This I say!’

  Reluctantly, Eagle Hand came forward and took the gun, judged its weight in his two hands, then backed off a few yards. He looked to left and right, saw face upon face studying him intently, felt his heart pounding against his buffalo-bone breastplate with a force that was almost sickening.

  ‘I am ready, Eagle Hand!’ shouted Isatai, planting his feet wide and opening his scrawny arms.

  Mouth dry, Eagle Hand raised the gun, holding it in his right hand, cradling the butt in his left, and took aim. The sound he made thumbing back the hammer was harsh and ratchety in the tense near-silence. He looked along the barrel until his eyes met those of the shaman. Isatai nodded almost imperceptibly and smiled at him.

  Holding his breath, Eagle Hand took up the first pressure …

  … and fired.

  The heavy weapon unloaded with a thunderous roar, bucking in his grip like a desperate, living thing as it discharged acrid smoke towards the sky. Eagle Hand’s eyes closed instinctively as he fired, but he opened them again almost immediately, waiting with still-held breath until the last of the smoke finally drifted aside.

  He could not believe what he saw.

  Isatai stood before him, completely unharmed.

  Around them, their audience began chattering in low, awestruck tones, at once amazed and terrfied, and no doubt feeling that, if indeed they were to be protected by the gods, they had nothing to lose by finally striking back at the hated whites.

  Isatai bent and ran his questing fingers through the loose dirt midway between himself and Eagle Hand until he found what he was looking for – the still-warm .36-calibre bullet Eagle Hand had fired at him.

  Lifting it high for all to see, he called, ‘Now is the time to rise up and fight the whites until they are no more, my brothers! This is the will of the Sacred Powers – that we fight then, kill them, and then watch as Mother Earth opens her soil to swallow them whole! For only by destroying those who would destroy us will we ever truly know peace – a peace in which P’te will return in greater numbers than ever! This I say!’

  The silence that followed his words lasted for little more than a second. Then Eagle Hand let go a piercing war cry, and this in turn became a signal to the rest of them. Warriors leapt to their feet, clenched their fists and yelled themselves hoarse, each man ready for war and anxious to kill as many whites as he could.

  Caught up in the excitement of the moment, Quanah yelled louder than any of them.

  Hennessy woke early the following morning, feeling stiff, achy and keen to move on. It had been a poor night at best, and he was glad when dawn finally threw its grey streamers across the eastern sky and he was able to get up, wash and leave the heady man-stink of the crowded barracks behind him.

  He crossed to the mess hall, moving slowly because his battered muscles had seized up on him after all. This early the place was still empty, but Bill Olds and his wife were already busy preparing for the day ahead. As he ordered breakfast, Olds gave him a searching glance.

  ‘They say you mixed it up with Hank Ketchum las’ night,’ he remarked. ‘Lookin’ at you this mornin’, I can believe it.’

  Hennessy shrugged. ‘That was Ketchum’s choice, not mine.’

  ‘I can believe that, too. But if the talk’s anythin’ to go by, it’s not over yet, Mr Hennessy. Leastways, not as far as Hank’s concerned. You figure to stay around here for any length o’ time, you better learn to sleep with one eye open.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, but I’m not figuring to stay.’

  ‘Then that’s a lucky thing,’ Olds allowed with feeling, ‘for one of you.’

  Hennessy ate in silence after that, chewing carefully in order to favour the cuts and swellings around his mouth and jaw. Twenty minutes later he bade the Oldses farewell and was closing the mess hall door behind him when he spotted a bearded man with greying hair whose name was Jim Mclnnery. He asked if Mclnnery had seen Billy Dixon anywhere.

  ‘He lit out a little afore sunrise with them two fellers he’s taken under his wing,’ came the reply. Hennessy assumed he was referring to Bat Masterson and Oscar Sheppard. ‘They was headed south, hopin’ to pick up sign of anoth—’

  Mclnnery stopped suddenly, having spotted Milt Hagerman leading his untidy chestnut horse from the communal corral. ‘That hombre makes my skin crawl,’ he confided in an undertone. ‘Don’t know the meanin’ o’ fear, jus’ lives to kill.’ Beneath his heavy moustache his lips formed into a sour line. ‘You mark my words, Hennessy. Next time you see him, that bag he carries’ll be full o’ scalps again.’

  ‘Someone should stop him,’ Hennessy murmured.

  ‘Before he kills some o’ them new red friends o’ yourn, you mean?’ Mclnnery asked mockingly.

  Refusing to be drawn, Hennessy pointed out, ‘The Comanches won’t stand by and watch him slaughter their people forever. When they decide they’ve had enough, they’ll make sure you all pay the price.’

  ‘We’ll be ready for ’em,’ Mclnnery said confidently, and Hennessy had to smile mirthlessly when he heard that.

  ‘Believe me, Jim,’ he replied, ‘mighty few men are ever ready whe
n the Comanches come a-calling.’

  As Mclnnery went on his way, Hennessy turned his attention back to Hagerman, who had just finished checking his rig one last time and was now dragging himself into the saddle, his sabre knocking gently against his long left leg. Cradling his Henry repeater across his lap and muttering all the while, he gave Hennessy a sharp nod and a phlegmy cackle as he walked the animal past.

  Hennessy shook his head. It seemed that even Hagerman had made up his mind about him. But what the hell – let them think what they liked, be it Indian-lover or coward. He knew better, and that was the main thing. In any case, he figured he’d seen enough of Adobe Walls and its dollar-hungry residents for one visit, and that being the case, the only thing left for him to do was ride out after Billy and his two companions, say his goodbyes and then head for pastures new.

  Billy, Bat Masterson and Oscar Sheppard drew rein at the foot of a rare, gentle rise, brought to a halt by a barely-audible rumble that seemed to rise and then fade on the early-morning breeze. Billy, watching as Masterson nudged his hat back and glanced skyward in search of thunderheads, gave a low chuckle.

  ‘Ain’t no storm comin’, boy,’ he advised, putting his horse to the slope until he reached its brushy rim. ‘Jus’ get on up here, you two, an’ point your eyes south a-ways.’

  Billy dismounted, left his mount ground-hitched and sank to his haunches. When Masterson and Sheppard topped out behind him, he gestured that they should follow suit. ‘That sound you can hear,’ he said, ‘that’s buffalo comin’, boys!’

  Masterson quickly ran his pale blue eyes over the flats below. Beside him, Sheppard did likewise. Nothing moved on the vast, seemingly empty plain. Then Masterson saw something and opened his mouth to speak but quickly fell silent again. No, it was just a funnel of dust, stirred up by the warm breeze – what they called a willy-way in these parts.