Buffalo Trail (27 page)

“You didn't dance,” Quanah said.

“No, because Comanche don't respect their women enough to let them do such things. While we're here, we must follow your foolish
rules. But if I had danced, I would have lasted longer than you. Meanwhile, my husband, Medicine Water, is still in there. I think he will be the final dancer.”

Mochi turned and walked back toward the lodge. Wickeah glared at her back and hissed,
“Witch.”

Medicine Water was one of the final four dancers, but in the end Iseeo of the Kiowa danced alone. He kept on into late afternoon, lasting almost three full days before he finally toppled over. When he did, he was carried out more tenderly than any of the others, and lay twitching for some time while everyone else looked on. Finally Iseeo sat up and croaked a request for water. After he drank, he got to his feet with some difficulty.

“The spirits came to me,” Iseeo said. “Because they want us to obey Isatai the Comanche Spirit Messenger, they granted me this vision. I was among so many warriors that I could not count them, and then there was a camp of white men with very long hair. We flowed over this camp like water over the banks of a stream, and after we passed, all the long-haired white men lay dead and not one of us attacking was even wounded. It was the finest of all victories.”

The crowd murmured approval. Then Otter Belt and White Wolf said that everyone should go back to their tipis. All the dancers should rest. When it was full dark, there would be one more feast. Just before the five-day sun dance ceremonies concluded it would be time to talk about the great attack to come.

•   •   •

I
N THEIR TIPI
, Wickeah fed Quanah strong broth and complained about the rude Cheyenne woman. “She should be beaten for her insulting words. If there had been a stick nearby, I would have done it myself.”

“It was good that you didn't try. Among the Cheyenne she is considered a great warrior.”

Wickeah sniffed. “Any woman of the People can beat two Cheyenne women at a time. She thinks she's a man, and in some ways she looks like one.”

Quanah almost said that, no, Mochi didn't look anything like a man, but thought better of it. After he finished his broth he felt well enough to go see Isatai in his tipi. The fat man was preparing for his special moment and Quanah wanted to be certain that he was ready.

“Yes, I'm going to say the thing about the camp of the white hunters. We've talked about this many times.”

“Remember not to say it until I speak about Bad Hand. That is your signal.”

Isatai raised his eyebrows. “It is unless the spirits say otherwise.”

“Just do as we discussed. Please. The others have to think that it is their idea, not mine.”

“Why must it be the white hunters?”

“The spirits give us commands and we must decide the best way to obey,” Quanah said. “The land rightfully ours is vast, but there is only one large settlement of whites in it, and that is where those hunters are camped. Bad Hand has most of his soldiers down near Mexico. It would mean nothing if we attacked a fort with very few white soldiers in it. If we kill all of the white hunters at their camp, maybe Bad Hand and the rest of his people will stay away from here. I don't care where else the whites want to be, as long as they leave us and our land alone.”

Isatai yawned. “Maybe you think too much. Now, why don't you look outside for me? It's just getting dark. Is the fire star still up there?”

Quanah looked and came back into the tipi. “It's there. Everyone is getting used to it, I think.”

“They'd better look now, because very soon it will be gone.”

•   •   •

T
HE MEN OF AL
L THREE TRIBES
gathered back in the medicine lodge. After the defections of the first night, and with some too weakened by the sun dance experience to leave their blankets, about six hundred remained. Quanah noticed that now Mochi was among the Cheyenne warriors. The entrance had been left open so that the air inside would clear, but there were lingering smells. The chiefs and leaders sat close to the fire and smoked pipes while the other men gathered behind them. After a while Isatai came in, again painted yellow and blue and wearing his bonnet of scalps.

“The spirits have spoken and we've listened,” he said. “We've had the sun dance and even a star on fire.”

“Which is still there,” Lone Wolf said pointedly.

“Only for a short while longer. Right now we must prove to the spirits that we're going to act. All three of our tribes will unite and make a great attack that drives away the white men. The People are ready for this. Are the Cheyenne and Kiowa agreed?”

Gray Beard, Stone Calf, Whirlwind, and Medicine Water all nodded.

“We are with you,” Medicine Water said.

“And the Kiowa?” Isatai asked.

“This was a good sun dance,” Lone Wolf said. “But we still aren't sure. The fire star concerns us. There has never been one like it in memory. We think we'll go back to our main camp, where our medicine man Mamanti chose to stay instead of coming here. We want to ask Mamanti what he thinks about the fire star.”

Quanah suppressed a groan. He knew Mamanti, who hated Isatai, would insist that the star was a sign for the Kiowa not to join the alliance. “That will take too long, and also insult the spirits,” he said.

Lone Wolf waved his hand dismissingly in Quanah's direction. “You're a warrior, not a Spirit Messenger, or medicine man.”

“So only the fire star prevents your agreement?” Isatai asked. When the Kiowa chief nodded, Isatai stood up and said, “Then let's go outside.” He led the way, and when they were all standing among the women and children, Isatai pointed up.

“There is the fire star,” he declared. “Look—do you see it?”

“Of course we do,” Lone Wolf snapped. “This is five nights that it's burned.”

“And what did I say of the fifth night?” Isatai asked.

“That it would be gone, but there it still is.”

“Yes. There it is.” Isatai threw back his head, spread out his arms, and began to hum. He hummed louder and louder and then his body began to shake and everyone stared at him in wonder, even Quanah. Every eye was on the fat man. Then, suddenly, Isatai raised his right arm, pointed dramatically toward the sky, and shouted, “Look!”

They did, and as they watched, the fire star vanished.

“As the spirits promised,” Isatai said solemnly. “Now, all warriors come back inside.”

Everyone was staggered, especially Quanah. He told himself that it was just incredible luck, that there were no such things as genuine signs from the spirits. But the disappearance of the fire star was such a perfectly timed coincidence that he couldn't help wondering. He'd heard about the white man's Christian religion. Its single god mostly told them what they were not allowed to do. Indian faith was better because it offered so many possibilities instead.

When the tribal leaders were around the fire again, their followers grouped behind them, Isatai asked Lone Wolf and Satanta with great courtesy, “Are you with us?”

“Yes,” Satanta said, and Lone Wolf added, “The spirits are indeed with you, with us.”

“They are,” Isatai agreed. “Now we must ask the spirits for more guidance. We will make a great attack. But where?”

That was Quanah's cue. “It must be a place all the whites know about. Not a little camp. I think maybe we should go see where Bad Hand is, which white man's fort he and his soldiers live in right now, and attack him there. A big victory over Bad Hand with many dead soldiers—that would scare away the whites. Let's surprise Bad Hand.”

For a moment everyone talked at once. There was significant support for choosing Bad Hand. All the warriors respected him—many feared him, though they would never say so—and it was true that if he and his soldiers were wiped out, the other whites would be very afraid.

Then Isatai spoke again. “The spirits are telling me that they don't agree with you, Quanah. Bad Hand may have his soldiers divided so that they are in several places, all of them far away. The spirits want something different. Think: Where, closer to our land, is there a large group of white men all together?”

“There is one not far from the place of the strange walls,” Otter Belt said.

“I saw them as they came,” Iseeo said. He was not a Kiowa chief, so he had to push his way into the circle by the fire. “There were a hundred of them, maybe more, the white hunters with the long hair. I think that's what my vision means. I saw us killing white men with long hair. We should attack their camp.”

“Wait,” Quanah said. “Lone Wolf, Bad Hand's soldiers killed your son. If we lead this war party down to where they are near Mexico, we can have revenge.”

The Kiowa chief thought for a moment. “I would like to see Bad
Hand dead and my son avenged, but I think he would have all his soldiers spread out in many places and it would be hard to catch them all together.”

“Yes, that would be hard, and the white camp is also much closer,” Quanah agreed. “Still, are these long-haired white hunters the right ones to attack? I'm not sure.”

“The spirits are sure, Quanah,” Iseeo insisted. “Think about it, these hunters coming here to kill all the remaining buffalo, which is an insult to us all, and now I've also had my vision.”

“Well,” Quanah said doubtfully, “I thought you said these hunters had many guns.”

Isatai said, “The spirits say not to worry about that, Quanah. They are giving me magic. Here are the things I will do. First, I will make it so that when we attack, all of the white hunters will be asleep and we'll take them by surprise. The spirits don't care about how many guns they have. If any are awake and shoot at us, I will bless all of your bodies with magic so their bullets cannot harm you. Finally, if we need to shoot a lot, I will belch up ammunition. Kiowa and Cheyenne friends, ask among the Quahadis here. They have seen me do this.”

Quanah thought,
They saw what they wanted to see.
All his skepticism about spirits and signs came flooding back. Still, he spoke in support of Isatai's contrived miracle. “It's true, Isatai vomited forth bullets.” He paused, then said, trying to sound grudging, “All right. I suppose I must submit to the wisdom of the spirits and to the judgment of everyone else here. We will kill all of the hunters and that will chase away the rest of the white men.”

Everyone was excited, and there were shouts of “When? When do we fight?”

“I'll ask the spirits,” Isatai said. He closed his eyes and hummed while
everyone else waited. After a moment he smiled broadly and said, “The last full moon is just past. We must prepare, and we will make this fight with the hunters on the next one.”

“Agreed, then,” said Gray Beard of the Cheyenne, and all of the men in the lodge cheered.

W
hen Billy and his scouting party announced the good news, the mood of the Adobe Walls camp instantly transformed from torpor to frenzy. The hide men summoned their crews, telling them to hurry and grab their gear so that they could stake out the best possible shooting sites along the line that the great herd was expected to follow as it made its slow, majestic way through the area. It seemed to McLendon that any sense of camaraderie had vanished, replaced by an atmosphere of cutthroat competition. Just as in Dodge, the philosophy of the buffalo hunters was every man for himself. Brick Bond even announced that he and his men were leaving camp for good—they'd ride a day or two east and commence shooting that much sooner. When they had a few wagonloads of hides, they'd freight those back to Adobe Walls and sell them to Myers and Leonard. The Bond teamsters would use some of that money to buy supplies and ammunition.

“I'm personally shut of this boring place,” Bond declared. “I'll send my crew in here to sell our hides, but when next you see me, Billy Dixon, it'll be back in a Dodge City saloon this winter with a plump whore on each side and a third on my lap.”

“Don't do that,” Billy pleaded. “You know our plan for the camp.
Everybody goes out to shoot during the day and comes back here at night. That provides security against Indian attack.”

“To hell with the Indians. There ain't been any savages seen of late, and if some do intrude on my hunt, I'll blow them away like buffalo. Now, stand aside.”

Bond wasn't the only separatist. Dutch Henry Borne took his crew east, too, as did Sam Smith and Jim McKinley. When they did, members of Billy's own crew began to fret.

“As we sit here twiddling thumbs and waiting on the appearance of the herd, them others is out shooting and skinning already,” Mike McCabe said. “Billy, we got to get out there too. We lose money every hour that we delay.”

Billy gave in. He told McCabe, Frenchy, Charley Armitage, Bat, and McLendon to pack their gear. After promising Jim Hanrahan and Fred Leonard that they'd return in a few days, he led his crew east for about ten miles, following the twists and turns of the Canadian. Billy, Charley, and Masterson were on horseback. McLendon and Frenchy took an empty wagon. When they found a promising spot, Billy said to set up camp. That took several hours. It was easy to pitch tents about a mile from the sloping hill that Billy intended to use as a shooting perch, but there was also a latrine to dig and space to be cleared for pegging and drying hides. Frenchy wanted a fire pit so he could slow-cook meat, and McLendon had to help dig that. By the time they were done, it was almost dark.

“Reckon the buffs will reach here tomorrow, Billy?” Bat asked as the six men reclined around the campfire drinking coffee.

“I expect so, probably before noon,” Billy said. “I think I heard some reports not that far east of here—probably Brick Bond or one of the others taking their first turns.”

“If they shoot the leaders of the herd, won't the rest of the buffalo turn in some other direction?” McLendon asked. After the others had a
good laugh, Billy explained that the momentum of the huge herd was such that, no matter what, they'd keep on going in the same general direction.

“That's the odd nature of buffs,” he said. “You can shoot them by the dozens, and all that may happen with the others right around them is that they run a little in the same way that they've been going. They never scatter, never turn abruptly unless you make them as the Indians sometimes do. The Co-manch, for instance, get on their horses and try to run buffs over cliffs. They have their women waiting underneath to do the skinning. We could do that, too, but such falls often tear the hides too much. There's greater profit in shooting them one by one and preserving almost all of the skins for sale.”

•   •   •

A
S
B
ILLY HAD PREDICTED
, the first surge of buffalo reached his shooting site by mid-morning. Billy and Charley were ready, their Sharps Big Fifties in hand and small mounds of cartridges heaped at their feet. They fired methodically, pausing between shots. McLendon, stationed at the bottom of the hill with Bat and Mike McCabe, watched as buffalo almost a hundred yards away fell to the ground. The other buffalo simply moved around them. There was no real sense of panic or stampede. Sometimes the fallen buffalo writhed in agony. Then there would be the sound of a second shot and the beast jerked, then lay still.

After perhaps an hour, the herd's path swung slightly north and Billy and Charley moved to another hill. As soon as they did, McCabe, Bat, and McLendon rushed in to skin the two dozen or so dead buffalo. It was a tedious task. Each man took an individual buffalo. First, a razor-sharp skinning knife was used to make long cuts along the belly and up the inside of each leg. Then, after another cut across the neck, fingers were inserted along the cuts and, with a hard yank, the hide was
loosened. A cut was made near the top of the hide and rope pushed through. The rope was pulled hard until the skin tore loose. By this point, the skinner's hands would already be covered with gore, but there was more messy work to do. The hide had to be scraped and set aside while the rest of the buffalo were skinned. After that, the hides were loaded in the wagon, brought back to camp, and pegged out to dry. As soon as that was done, it was time to go back out to skin the next batch of buffs shot by Billy and Charley.

There was no break for rest or lunch: each buffalo shot and skinned meant more money in everyone's pockets. By late afternoon, McLendon was filthy and exhausted. At twenty-five cents per skin, he calculated that he'd made about six dollars; Billy and Charley had probably shot a hundred buffs between them, and both McCabe and Masterson were much faster skinners than he was. The money had been hard-won, but at least for the first time since leaving Dodge he'd earned a few dollars. To his vast relief, Billy and Charley were packing away their rifles. That was when Masterson said, “Move smartly, C.M. Billy's done, and that means it's our turn to do some shooting.”

McLendon had forgotten Billy's promise that, at the end of each day's hunting, he and Bat had the right to each shoot five buffalo too. “I don't know, Bat. I'm pretty weary.”

“As you shoot your buffs, you'll perk right up. See, I put two Sharps forty-fives in the wagon bed, along with cartridges. Haul ass, we've got our own set of hides to procure.”

The shooting part was easy. Masterson and McLendon guided the wagon to a spot two or three hundred yards from where Billy and Charley had stopped shooting. They climbed out, got the rifles, aimed, and fired. A few minutes later, nine buffalo were either dead or kicking on the ground, and Bat snapped off a final shot and felled a tenth.

“
Yee
-hah!” Bat crowed. “We are looking at a fistful of dollars, C.M. Come on, let's peel those hides.”

When they did, McLendon saw that two of his five hides were likely unsellable. One buffalo he'd felled had some sort of disease that left thick scabs all along its hide. Another had long scars creasing its skin from previous wounds, and when McLendon attempted to yank the hide loose, it tore in too many places. But three hides, he knew, would fetch three dollars each from Myers and Leonard back at Adobe Walls. Added to the six dollars or so earned from skinning Billy's buffs meant that he was fifteen dollars closer to Gabrielle. Two or three more months with similar earnings would provide all the money he needed.

•   •   •

B
ILLY AND HIS CREW
hunted from the same camp for three more days. The herd kept drifting by and they kept shooting. There was no particular challenge to it. By the end of the last day, they broke camp not because of a lack of targets but because the wagon bed was overflowing with hides.

“We'll take these back to sell at Adobe Walls, re-kit ourselves, perhaps stay overnight, and then return promptly to the hunt,” Billy said. “I believe we'll set up next a bit farther west, just for variety's sake.”

It was a merry ride into camp. Charley Armitage sang some more songs, and normally grouchy Mike McCabe regaled the others with stories of whores in far-flung frontier towns. Along the way they met Sam Smith and his crew, who'd enjoyed similarly good hunting.

“I believe the size of this herd exceeds any that we set eyes on around Dodge,” Smith said. “We may run out of bullets before we even begin to thin this excess of buffs.”

“Probably not, but if our luck holds, this migrating herd may satisfy
our needs for several more seasons,” Billy said. “Perhaps the hide business has some future after all.”

The good moods lasted right up to the moment when they presented their hides to Fred Leonard for purchase and learned he'd pay two dollars apiece.

“Goddamn it to hell, Fred, in Dodge we were getting three dollars and sometimes three twenty-five!” Bat bellowed. “How can you in good conscience offer us just two?”

“Calm down and think it through,” Leonard said. “I got freight costs here that make my blood boil. The goddamn teamsters, once word spread about the arrival of the buffs, promptly upped their rates for hide transport back to Dodge. They know these hides are worthless unless they're brought up to the railroad in a timely fashion. They charge me more, I got to pay you less. Nothing personal, it's just business.”

Bat blustered some more before Billy told him, “I hate what Fred's telling us, but I understand why. Stand down, Masterson. We'll just have to kill that many more buffs to make up the difference. You and C.M. can increase your end-of-day shoots from five buffalo to eight, all right?”

“I'm not entirely mollified,” Bat said. “Perhaps my temper will cool further with the aid of some beer in Hanrahan's saloon. Are you buying?”

Billy sighed. “I expect that I am. But there seems to be a considerable bustle about the place, so you may have to wait in line a bit before wetting your whistle.”

Almost all of the hunting crews out in the field had chosen the same afternoon to come in and sell their first loads of hides. As they drank beer and bitters and, in a few cases, Jim Beam bourbon, the men bitched about Fred Leonard's miserly purchase prices and enthused about the number of buffalo in the oncoming herd. McLendon was both pleased and worried by widespread speculation that the hunting season might
extend into early fall, September or maybe even the first week of October. He'd figured on the season ending sometime in August. He didn't want to wait any longer to go to Gabrielle. Every day he delayed meant that much more opportunity for Joe Saint, his rival. He had, of course, promised Billy Dixon to stay for the entire season. He wondered how Billy might react to an early resignation. Well, time to think about that later.

Everyone was three or four drinks into it when J. W. Mooar came in. He ordered a round for the house, boasting that he'd just concluded the best five days of hunting in his entire career.

“I told Freddy Leonard that I'd have two twenty-five per hide or else his head would feel the force of my fist,” Mooar said.

“And did you get the two twenty-five?” Jim McKinley wanted to know.

“Well, Freddy's head is intact and I'm standing drinks for this mob. What do you think? Of course, I got my two twenty-five.”

“Shit,” Bat said. “Fred told us that two was as high as he'd go.”

“Well, next time act the man, Masterson,” Mooar said. “Try using your backbone as much as your mouth for a change.”

Later, McLendon passed Leonard on his way back from the outhouse. He asked, “Fred, why did you pay J. W. Mooar a higher rate than the rest of us?”

“What do you mean? He got two dollars a hide, just like you.” By then Mooar and his crew had already ridden out of camp, and McLendon decided that telling Bat would just cause trouble. He kept the information to himself.

•   •   •

T
HE NEXT TIME
that the Dixon bunch came in to sell hides around the end of the first week in June, they found Adobe Walls swarming with
newly arrived crews. Word had reached Dodge about the monster herd to the south, and most of the hide men remaining in western Kansas left at once. McLendon knew some of the newcomers. Antelope Jack Jones, Anderson Moore, and Blue Billy Muhler were mainstays among the Dodge City hide men. They'd worked together for years and had no ambition beyond killing as many buffalo as possible.

“It's a man's trade, C.M.,” Jones said. “These last months up in Dodge, waiting and praying for the buffalo to come, and then every day, nothing—why, you can't imagine it.”

“Actually, I can,” McLendon said. “We had the same experience here.”

“Maybe for a while, but now you got a different result. I'm gonna kill me a hundred buffs a day, and shoot 'til the barrel of my rifle melts.”

McLendon was astonished to see Mirkle Jones packing his wagon to join another hunting party. Hide men Joe Plummer, Dave Dudley, and Tommy Wallace had coaxed the portly Creole into joining their crew.

“You're a teamster, Mirkle, and you can make steadier money freighting hides back to Dodge than hauling them back here to Adobe Walls,” McLendon said. “Have you really thought this through?”

“Ah bin gettin' tard a tha ushewl,” Jones said. “Ah wahn me sum advenchoor.” He brandished his fiddle. “Doan worry. Ah'll play fah ya plenny in da daze ahid.”

•   •   •

I
N ALMOST EVERY
WAY
, at Adobe Walls there was cause for optimism. Though the price of individual hides wasn't what had been expected, there were still so many to sell that profits were guaranteed for everyone involved. Tom O'Keefe couldn't keep up with blacksmith tasks—every crew had wagon wheels that needed refitting and horses that threw shoes. The merchants did a brisk daily business. Besides necessities—bacon, beans, coffee, and canned foods for the trail, lead and gunpowder
for bullet making, shirts and denim jeans to replace torn clothing—the hide men and their crews had plenty of money for luxuries and the urge to spend it when they came into camp. Candy, brand-name liquor, and top-quality tobacco were in constant demand. Old Man Keeler at Myers and Leonard and Hannah Olds at Rath and Company couldn't cook enough meals to satisfy crews that arrived ravenous after days out on the hunt. There was some grumbling about a lack of whores. Bat Masterson and Shorty Scheidler were the most constant complainers. Andy Johnson, who ran the Rath store, told McLendon that he was thinking of adding a few whores' cribs behind his shop, then importing a half-dozen girls from Dodge.