Dying Thunder

by Terry C. Johnston

  In a momentous ceremony that last day of those deliberations, the aging Satanta not only gave up his role as leader in the tribe, handing his long, red medicine lance over to White Cowbird, but also renounced his membership in the Koitsenko, the highest Kiowa warrior society—in which members vow to stake themselves to the ground and die rather than retreat in battle. That time suffered in the white man’s prisons had mellowed the old warrior—Satanta simply stated to his old companions of the war path that it was now time for him to return to the reservation and the white man’s road.

  On the final evening of the sun-dance celebration, messengers from Mamanti circulated among the faithful, telling the young warriors to meet at the shaman’s lodge when darkness fell. There, on a separate hill overlooking the sundance arbor, more than four dozen gathered as the sun sat scarlet and gold in the west, seated before the shaman’s lodge door as the last shafts of light faded from the sky. When all was dark, and quiet had descended upon the gathering, they were greeted with a rustle of huge wings beating the air, and the faint hooting of an owl, both sounds coming from within the wizard’s lodge. Lone Wolf himself was eager to hear the words of the shaman after the all-seeing owl spirit had looked into the future.

  “Our raid will be successful,” Mamanti declared after he had emerged and walked to the center of the hushed gathering.

  The warriors hooted triumphantly themselves, their blood growing hotter. Older men thumped on rawhide drums while the women trilled in joyous anticipation.

  “We will take only one scalp—yet not one of us will fall,” continued the shaman. “But,” and Mamanti paused, stroking the feathers of his stuffed owl while the rest grew hushed, “we must not wait until morning to leave. We must ride tonight!”

  Without hesitation the warriors and their women spun into action, gathering weapons and dried meat for the trail, bringing into camp the pampered and adorned war ponies, packing extra moccasins and earth paint and medicine objects. Beneath a nibbled moon late that night, July tenth, Mamanti and his owl medicine led a bitter, unhappy Lone Wolf, along with Red Otter and better than fifty scalp-hungry warriors, away from the sun-dance camp on the North Fork of the Red River, their noses pointed south for the land of the Tehannos.

  The day following the conclusion of the Kiowa sun dance, Kicking Bird lost no time taking his reservation band, which easily accounted for three-fourths of the tribe, back to their Cache Creek camp. The peace chief had grown frightened for his people with all the renewed talk of raids and war.

  By the time the sun had reached mid-sky that first day, Lone Wolf’s raiders had reached the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River and discovered a small herd of buffalo. Here they butchered meat for the trail, then crossed into Tehas near the Panhandle meridian, establishing their base camp some ten miles south of the Red River on a hill populated by a prairie-dog town. Here they hobbled and picketed the trail horses while their war ponies were painted and prepared for the hunt. When the buffalo-hair cinches on their pad saddles were tightened, Mamanti led the fighting men south by east across the Pease and Wichita rivers, where some scouts discovered a few head of the white man’s spotted buffalo. Three of the cattle were butchered then barbecued whole atop a mesquite blaze before the war party pushed on until sundown overtook them, having marched another thirty miles into the land of the white settlers.

  “Tomorrow we will find the ones we will fight,” Mamanti promised them that night after he had consulted his feathered spirit helper. “One scalp—perhaps two. But I am sure of one. And the warriors who will count coup will be riding on gray horses.” Then, to the surprise of the rest, the shaman strode over to Tsentonkee, the youngest of them all, and coming on his first raid.

  “This youngster has the heart of an old warrior,” Mamanti declared. “He will count coup tomorrow and win a bay horse to show off when we return north. Put on your paint and sleep lightly. We will ride out before dawn.”

  As Lone Wolf moved among the young warriors decorating themselves according to family tradition or spiritual guidance, the revenge fever burned within him as never before. This he would do for the blood of his blood—avenge the deaths of his own family. His loose hair hung in clumps where Lone Wolf had chopped it off in mourning. And both he and Red Otter were forbidden by tribal tradition from wearing paint until the deaths of their sons had been avenged. Just before dawn Mamanti ordered the war party off once again.

  Not long after sunrise they came to the Salt Prairie, where the shaman had led the Kiowa on a successful attack against the Warren wagon train. It was a spartan land, broken by outcroppings of rock and hills dotted with mesquite. Lone Wolf pointed out the sandstone hill atop which they had buried a casualty of the skirmish with the white men. As was their custom, the warriors rolled back the stones from the cairn and with prayers looked upon the bones of Ordlee, one of the few Comanches along on that raid three winters gone.

  Although it was nearing midday, an unexpected and sudden gust of cold wind snaked its way up the hill as the warriors prayed over the bones, asking their spirit helpers for success that day. As most wandered back toward their ponies, the warriors quietly muttered that they wished to be gone from this evil place.

  “Aiyeee!” yipped one of the guards left with the ponies. He pointed down the far, eastern slope of the hill.

  There, among the brush and trees at the base of the slope, rode four white horsemen, as yet unaware of the warriors on the hill above them.

  “It is a good day!” shouted Lone Wolf, sprinting to his pony with the others.

  With a whoop, the fifty galloped off the hill after their quarry. The four could not fail to hear the noisy charge and immediately put spurs to their horses, reining to the east for Cox Mountain. On the rugged slopes, the white men crossed a section of broken, rocky ground where it would prove harder for the warriors to track them.

  Moments after the Kiowas entered the area, their unshod ponies began to suffer. It wasn’t long before Mamanti was compelled to call off the chase, realizing hooves were being shredded on the rocky ground. Their fever still worked up, three warriors then shot calves they discovered in the area. With pieces of the green hides secured around the wounded hooves, the war party backtracked to the east, where they headed for a saddle between two low peaks, hoping there to spot some new prey.

  It was not long after they had climbed that high ground dividing the drainage of the Brazos from the West Fork of the Trinity that the advance scouts returned with good news.

  “How many?” Lone Wolf asked.

  “More than twenty,” answered Hunting Horse. “All wear white hats.”

  Not sure what that sign meant, Lone Wolf nonetheless smiled at Mamanti. “This is the fight you have seen with your medicine, Swan.”

  “Are they coming this way?” asked Mamanti.

  Hunting Horse nodded. “Their eyes are on the ground—they are following our trail, here.”

  Mamanti nodded. “Then we will give them a surprise.”

  The war chief and shaman gave the orders for the rest to split up and disperse their trail, doubling back quickly to wait in ambush for the white men. With the rest waiting anxiously in hiding, Mamanti and Loud Talker rode out and dismounted in plain view, acting as if their ponies were totally broken down, hoping to lure the white men into their trap.

  Waiting among those anxious to close the trap, Lone Wolf’s heart beat furiously within his chest. It had not pounded this loudly in many a summer. This was to be a glorious day of avenging the blood of his family.

  * * *

  A major by appointment from the governor of Texas, selected to command the Texas Frontier Battalion of Rangers, John B. Jones led twenty-five of his own men and ten more from Captain G. W. Stephens’s company into Lost Valley. Since first light they had been dogging a hot trail of a large war party on its way east.

  Jones hoped it was the Comanches he had been trying to corner for the past two days, following their attack on the nearby ranch of famous Texas cattleman,
Oliver Loving. The war party had killed a cowboy before escaping with a half-dozen horses. This was to be the major’s first action, and more than almost anything, he wanted to make a name for himself.

  Only two months before, Jones had received his commission. Immediately he had begun to tour the settlements of northwestern Texas, forming six companies of Texas Rangers. Many of the men who rode with the major were young, without experience in border warfare, men who grew clearly agitated as the trail warmed this second morning of the chase. Jones worried that they would not hold under fire.

  Just last night, after a quick supper of beans and hard bread, Major Jones had told the assembled group, “We Rangers, as well as the Indians we’ll be running across, will fight under the black flag. We ask no quarter, and will give none. When we fall into their hands, they will scalp us and frightfully mutilate our bodies, cutting and hacking us to pieces. We likely won’t do as bad as they will to us, but we’ll scalp them just the same. That says a lot to these redskinned raiders. Indian scalps in a Ranger camp is going to become as common a sight as pony tracks.”

  Ever since first light this morning, Jones had been pushing the men hard. Twice they had come across places where the Indians had watered their ponies. At both places the Rangers had found chunks of charred meat left behind by the war party.

  Despite the freshening trail they had been following all morning from the Salt Prairie, the major was nonetheless struck by the solitary beauty of Lost Valley. From side to side his eyes scanned slowly, back and forth across the almost level floor ringed by rugged, timbered ridges. At the far northern end of the valley lay the Loving spread.

  Now the unshod tracks grew so fresh that the hot, persistent breeze hadn’t yet had a chance to stir the dust. Around him the young recruits grew more excited, working each other up for the coming fight. A few galloped on ahead despite stern warnings from both Jones and Captain Stephens. The major was clearly nettled. This was his chance to shine, and he wasn’t about to let these greenhorns snuff it for him. A small man in build, only some five feet eight inches tall and weighing only 140 pounds, but nonetheless a man of dynamic will, Jones had, after all, been handpicked by Richard Coke, the politically powerful governor of Texas.

  Two months back Coke had seized the political reins of Texas with the support of his newly-formed Ranger units, acting for the time being as the governor’s private militia in throwing out the carpetbaggers and their Republican cronies, to restore the Democratic party’s rule to the state. In decline for the past fifteen years, the revamped Rangers proved to be the military muscle in Coke’s coup d’état. The new governor vowed to protect the settlements and put an end to the Indian problem once and for all.

  “If the army isn’t able to protect Texans—then, by God, Texans will protect Texans!” he promised when sworn in.

  Back in April the Texas legislature had responded to Coke’s call to arms and once more gave the breath of life to the famed Texas Rangers. Two fighting units were installed. Major John B. Jones commanded the Frontier Battalion, whose job it was to patrol and protect life and property along the four-hundred-mile-long border between Texas settlers and the hostiles raiding off the Staked Plain. While it was said that the U.S. Army was to keep the Indians on the reservations and drive the hostiles back to the reservation, the six companies organized by Jones clearly had one purpose in mind: they were to serve as “Indian exterminators.”

  Instead of herding the bands back to the Territories, the Rangers were commissioned to engage the warriors when and where found. And kill them.

  “That’s why we’ll give no quarter, and can expect none,” Jones told his scouting party. “The only thing an Indian understands is force and fearlessness, and striking hard. We will strike them hard and kill as many as we can.”

  Once the Indian trail had freshened, Jones pressed ahead with two dozen of his best. The rest, some ten of the Rangers, were to follow along as they could, held in reserve. Almost single-handedly now, the major commanded some forty thousand square miles of Texas wilderness, with 450 Rangers answering his call to arms. Beneath his long, drooping, black mustache, Jones smiled. Although it might give most men pause before riding into action against proven warriors, the fact that he alone among his men had ever been under fire did not deter the major. He would make Governor Coke proud—perhaps this very day, the twelfth of July, as they entered Lost Valley, a few miles northwest of Jacksboro.

  “They’re breaking up, Major,” announced the young outrider, Ed Carnal, as he reined up in front of Jones and Stephens.

  “That’s just what I feared,” replied the major grittily. “We’ll break off here, Captain.”

  Then Jones did the unthinkable act of a man unaccustomed to fighting Indians: he divided his forces, hoping to follow all the tracks back to where they again gathered.

  23

  July 12, 1874

  Lone Wolf watched expectantly, his heart pounding in his ears as the twenty-five white men entered the mouth of the valley. One of them waved his arm and yelled something to the others.

  He figured this was the white man’s chief, the way he was giving orders to the other riders. Two men broke off from the main group and reined over to ride the flanks, each on a course that would take him toward the warriors waiting in ambush among the timbered hills rimming the valley.

  The closest rider, all alone now, reined his horse toward the timber where Lone Wolf, Red Otter and four others sat in a loose knot back in the shadows of the timber. With his eyes constantly moving, the white man scanned the hillside, then for a few moments studied the ground for some trail sign, then went back to searching over the timber above him.

  Behind Lone Wolf the chief heard the quiet approach of more ponies. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Lone Young Man leading a dozen other warriors down the slope through the mesquite trees. They came to a halt behind Lone Wolf and the others, waiting. Together they watched the solitary white man headed their way, slowly, slowly.

  The Kiowa made no move, becoming part of the landscape, their ponies still in the midday heat, heads hung in respite from the rigors of the trail. As well, the warriors themselves sat motionless, their lances, rifles and bows ready. Only the air hummed with activity as deerflies buzzed and bees droned, busy in the heat.

  Of a sudden, the white rider savagely reined his horse up at a hundred yards. Its neck wrenched back, the animal almost went down with the white man. For a few heartbeats the horseman sat like a stone, able to do nothing but stare at Lone Wolf and the rest—as they sat glaring back at the white man.

  What made the lone horseman do what he did next, Lone Wolf would never be able to say. But at a distance of a hundred yards, the white man pulled out his pistol and began popping off shots at the eighteen warriors. With the first puff of smoke, Lone Wolf knew the man was an utter fool. There followed the distant sound of that shot a heartbeat later. Another puff and its distant pop.

  As the rest of the warriors poured off the hillside toward the lone horseman, Lone Wolf remembered thinking how stupid the white man was to think he could hit anything at that distance.

  Of a sudden the horseman reined about, ramming heels into the ribs of his big horse, and lit out for the rest of his group as it progressed slowly up the valley, dogging the war party’s tracks.

  To a man, the white horsemen were turning about on the trail, having heard the shots, perhaps even now hearing the warning shouts coming from the solitary tracker. And in that next instant, Lone Wolf watched Mamanti’s plan brought to play. Down from both hillsides rushed the rest of the warriors, more than thirty in all. As the white men whirled, ready to retreat out of the valley, the warriors who had come down the slope with Lone Young Man closed the trap.

  Lone Wolf yelped as he pushed his pony into action. It was good!

  There would be blood on the ground this day.

  * * *

  John B. Jones cursed as he watched the warriors pouring down on his men. The oldest trick in the book—thos
e two decoys up ahead—and he had fallen for it.

  Ed Carnal was riding in, hell-bent for election from the right flank, his mouth like a huge O as he hollered something.

  Jones looked off to the left flank and found Lee Corn riding in. Except Corn wasn’t hollering, nor was he shooting. He was holding his right arm, swaying in the saddle.

  “Form up! Form up, goddammit!” Jones bellowed, rising in his stirrups. “Meet ’em head on!”

  He was throwing his arms this way then that—adding emphasis to his orders as he spread out his raw recruits in a broad line. At this exact moment he had a little less than twenty to meet the charge. The other four were still up ahead, racing back to the main body.

  Damn them, Jones thought. “Green as grass,” he muttered under his breath. They were so damned anxious at the bit to follow that trail—look what it’s got ’em now. Look what it’s got us all.

  “Fellas, we’ll fire in volley upon my order!” he directed. “Maybe we can turn ’em, at best. Keep ’em at bay, at the worst. Now, fire!”

  All along that line of young horsemen the guns erupted. Jones swore it was like the valley itself had exploded, smoke billowing in gray shards above them in the stifling, hot breeze coming down Cameron Creek. The last four rode in, as did Lee Corn, clearly wounded.

  “Stephens, get Corn some help!” Jones hollered at his captain.

  “I’m all right, Major,” Corn growled back, clutching his arm. “I’ll live—don’t waste time on me for now.”

  Jones turned and ordered, “Fire!”

  The valley exploded again just as the warriors regrouped and were about to begin another charge.

  “We’ll hold ’em at bay, by God!” Jones yelled as a bullet whistled by his ear. It was a sound once heard, always remembered. Those years back in Tennessee and Virginia, fighting the Yankees. Jones doubted he would ever forget the sound of a bullet whining past his ear.