Panhandle (13 page)
Authors: Brett Cogburn
Long paused to adjust his grass stem and then continued, “He's one of those Southern boys who don't know nothing about nothing except for riding horses, playing cards, beating niggers, and sipping fancy liquor. He'd shoot you over nothing, while he read his paper and talked about the price of cotton, and he wouldn't miss. He was raised in white diapers, and his mama told him he was the best thing since grits. He came naturally to assume he was better than most folks, and he's on the lookout to take advantage of that. All the while he is smiling at you, he is figuring on just how smart you are and how much he could take you for.”
“You seem to know a lot about your fellow man,” I said sarcastically.
“I ought to. One of those just like him was my daddy.”
Long looked at me close and hard for a long minute. I met him eye to eye and waited until he smiled.
“Well, at least half of you is all right,” I said.
“Which half?”
“The half that can make good whiskey.”
Long jumped abruptly to his feet and motioned me up. He wanted to see Billy and Andy and take a look at our racehorse. I led the way toward our wagon.
Somebody rode by at a run screaming like the world was on fire. “Indians! Indians are coming!”
The crowd stampeded over me and like to have trampled me to death. In three shakes of a hound's tail everyone was gathered up tight around the tent saloon like freighters circling their wagons and throwing their oxen to the inside.
There were enough gun barrels sticking out of the crowd to have fought Gettysburg all over again. Some officer had formed up the black soldiers into a firing line with their Springfield rifles loaded and ready. Long and I rounded up a little girl we found crying and alone. We brought her along until we had joined the group, and set her down with her daddy. In the rush to protect the saloon I guess she had been forgotten.
All eyes were looking to the east, and sure enough a long line of Cheyennes was pouring over the top of a rise toward our camp. I guarantee you it was some sight to see. They were dragging their tepees and travois behind their ponies, and every one of them was decked out in their best outfits. Strung beads and feathers blew in the wind and the sunshine made the white buckskin a few of them wore all the brighter.
There must have been a hundred of them, squaws, children, warriors, and all. Their camp moved to some age-old migratory rhythm set to the time of their ponies' shuffling hooves and the creak of travois poles. The people laughed and the camp dogs yapped and ran in and out of their midst. The braves, half-naked and armed to the teeth, rode at the perimeter of the tribe for security. A good-sized herd of grass-slick horses was driven alongside the line of their march by a gang of rowdy boys.
And wouldn't you know it. Old Chief Blue Knife was riding at the head of the procession. He sat straight on the back of his horse, a long, wickedly sharp lance in his right hand, and a brace of pistols in his beaded belt. It wasn't feathers blowing around him, but instead it was several human scalps tied to the bridle reins of his horse.
When he neared, his face was a mask of stoicism, and his eyes were like to chunks of coal. If I was right, our location on the creek was south of the Cheyenne Reservation, but they might not draw the same boundaries. Nobody knew if Blue Knife came to burn us out or shake our hands. In his younger day he was known to be a temperamental sort just as apt to befriend you as he was to cut your heart out and feed it to his dogs.
I couldn't help feeling that he looked to be on the prod, and I was remembering a few things I would have liked to have forgotten just then. I swear I could feel every individual hair on my head tingling as I remembered three damned fools who had stolen some Cheyenne horses the spring before, and most of them belonging to a certain chief named Blue Knife.
Just when you think things can't get any worse is just when they are bound to. Long poked me in the ribs to get my attention. “There's one more thing I forgot to tell you. You remember old Harvey? He was the man you traded those Cheyenne horses to.”
“Yeah.”
“He and the colonel are brothers.”
I thought that it was a small, small world indeed when in the course of one day a man ran into so many folks apt to kill him.
“I saw him this morning,” Long added.
“Who?”
“Harvey.”
“He's here?” I couldn't help but look around.
“He is, and he was looking for Billy and some other boys with a paint racehorse. Seems he had a near miss with some Cheyenne who caught him with stolen horses.”
I am not the nervous type, and have at times taken great pride in my feats of daring. However, right about then I must admit to being a bit overwhelmed, and more than a little disturbed by the fact that I was either about to be shot by a disgruntled horse trader and his gambler brother, or scalped by a tribe of Red Indians.
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he Cheyenne uprising was put down before it even began. Chief Blue Knife stopped his bunch about forty yards out from us. He sat his horse patiently, and didn't have long to wait. Cap Arrington stepped from the crowd and walked out to talk to him, or shoot him with his long-barreled forty-five should it become necessary. It seems that the good people of the newly formed Wheeler County had elected the Ranger as their first sheriff. I guessed that dealing single-handedly with a hundred bloodthirsty savages must have fallen within his official duties.
he Cheyenne uprising was put down before it even began. Chief Blue Knife stopped his bunch about forty yards out from us. He sat his horse patiently, and didn't have long to wait. Cap Arrington stepped from the crowd and walked out to talk to him, or shoot him with his long-barreled forty-five should it become necessary. It seems that the good people of the newly formed Wheeler County had elected the Ranger as their first sheriff. I guessed that dealing single-handedly with a hundred bloodthirsty savages must have fallen within his official duties.
The captain jawed a while with the old chief and then came back and had a conference with the military officers. When that was over he marched right back out to Blue Knife and they talked some more. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but it must have been agreeable to Cap because he didn't shoot anybody.
Blue Knife turned his pony around and rode back to powwow with some of his warriors. After a meeting of the aboriginal minds, the whole band of Indians started off again, angling for a point farther upstream. I was thinking that perhaps Cap Arrington's wicked mustache and long-barreled Colt pistol weren't enough to turn the Cheyenne back to their reservation, and he had to settle for detouring them around us as a matter of saving face.
Everyone continued to watch the Cheyenne almost hypnotically while they paraded by. A murmur went up from our crowd when the Indians stopped and started pitching camp on the north bank of the Sweetwater about a hundred and fifty yards upstream from the race grounds. Our group began to get a little loud and anxious, while the Army troops mingled around informing everyone that the Indians were here to take part in the festivities, and had promised not to steal any white women or scalp anybody out of hand.
That quieted the cool and calm types, but there was quite a little uproar from the scared-shitless-of-Indians faction within our midst. Cap Arrington waded among those still gathered, and informed them that our camp sat astraddle of the boundary between Greer County and the Cheyenne Reservation. Not only were we trespassing, but we were introducing whiskey and gambling on to Indian lands. After he had listed the hundred and one laws we were breaking, he then subtly suggested that we all just try to get along with our new friends.
A lot of folks formerly prejudiced to Indians were converted on the spot. Having to choose between playing well with others and leaving the party before things got started, most everyone became instant Indian lovers, humanitarian philanthropists, and activists for the red man's cause.
Like most of the Plains tribes, the Cheyenne loved gambling, especially horse racing, and they had their share of those who lusted for the bottle just like we did. Before long, Indians were mixing in and out of the camp, and everyone settled back down to the fun at hand. There is nothing like the commonality of shared depravity to break the ice between cultures. So much of the Indian Wars could have been avoided if somebody had recognized the social benefits and soothing nature of a little drunkenness and the casting of lots.
The Cheyenne had brought along a few swift horses themselves, and before long the number of scheduled horse races grew. At about eleven o'clock Cap Arrington climbed on top of a wagon and shouted to gain everyone's attention. He announced that there were to be two races before ours, and several afterwards. The first race was to be a mile long with five entries. The second race was to be a match race between one of the colonel's horses and a runner that some men from Weatherford had trailed up.
Long and I made our way back to the chuckwagon and found Billy and the rest of our gang already preparing for the race. Long and Billy had a quick, friendly hello, and Andy like to have shaken Long's hand plumb off at the shoulder.
“How are you, General?” Long asked.
“About to be rich and famous.”
We all laughed at Andy's immodesty, but secretly we were all riding a wave of optimism and high spirits. Billy had put up two hundred of his bet with the colonel, and the rest of us chipped in to make the other half. Most of our crowd had already made their own personal bets, and from the talk I heard, many of them had bet everything they had on Little Paint. The gamblers, once they had most of the money in the camp on the line, were offering to allow bets of just about any personal property, providing an appraisal of its value could be agreed upon.
H.B. warned us right then and there not to bet our saddles, but I could tell by the squeamish look on several of the boys' faces that they had done just that. If you had asked what time it was you would have been out of luck, because there wasn't a pocket watch left among them. They were all piled on a table in front of Colonel Andrews's tent along with a miscellaneous pile of firearms, jewelry, and other assorted valuables. A man stood guard over the table with a double-barreled shotgun cradled in his arms. Two more artillery-toting tough sorts stood guard at the door to the colonel's tent, where all cash bets made with the coalition of Mobeetie gamblers were being held.
The rumor was flying around that there was ten thousand cash in the tent. That sounded pretty steep, but I guarantee you a pile was bet that day, and not just with the Mobeetie bookies. Many citizens made their own bets with each other, and nobody knew just how deep the Cheyenne were bailing in.
There wasn't much time for socializing, because Billy and Andy were furiously working on a saddle they had acquired. The colonel had a special, lightweight racing saddle; since we lacked one ourselves, Billy had purchased an old cavalry McClellan to avoid the weight disadvantage one of our heavy stock saddles would have caused.
I managed to gather Billy off to the side, and hurriedly informed him about Harvey and the colonel. He didn't seem to give that much thought. I could tell by the look on his face that he had already decided that Harvey and the colonel could go jump in the creek. I realized it was useless to ask him what he thought about racing Blue Knife's paint right in front of him, because he apparently had decided that right then he had more important things to worry about than who was likely to kill us.
Then again, Billy wasn't given to worry anyway. Tough men like Billy and Cap Arrington probably went to bed with clearer minds than most. It stands to reason that they figured they could get up in the morning after a good night's rest and just shoot anyone who might make trouble.
Somebody was calling for the first race to start. We left Andy and Carlito to take care of our horse and made our way down to the start line. Stakes with red painted tops had been driven into the ground to mark the race course. They ran in a line dead away from the creek across the flat for a long, long ways, turned in a big loop, and arced their way back to finish where they had begun.
There were three Cheyenne horses entered and their jockeys rode up to the scratch mark bareback and half-naked. Their horses were painted up with all kinds of circus marks, their tails tied up, and bells and feathers braided into their manes.
Bill Thompson had a black horse entered and he joined the Cheyenne buffalo runners at the line. He snorted and bowed his neck at the wildly decked-out Cheyenne horses, and his rider fought to keep him from turning tail and running off with him.
The crowd parted to admit the last entry. It was one of the colonel's horses that we hadn't seen before, and he stuck out like a sore thumb. He was another thoroughbred for sure, although he wasn't the looker that the big gelding we had seen a few nights before had been. The colonel's Mexican boy was riding a funny little saddle set way forward on the horse's withers.
The horse was trimmed in a loud coordination of matching colors, from the saddle blanket to the jockey's silk shirt and cap. The boy wore a pair of goggles and carried a long, stiff quirt. The horse's head was covered in what appeared to be a modification of a set of workhorse blinders.
Cap Arrington was to start the race, and he stood atop a wagon at the start/finish line. He stood grim faced with his pistol pointing at the sky like he was threatening God Almighty himself. The horses jostled around as the jockeys tried to get positioned at the mark. It was Arrington's duty to fire the shot to start the race only when all horses were fairly and properly at the scratch line in the dirt.
The strategy and complications of getting five fractious horses all standing reasonably well at the line simultaneously seemed to go on forever, and then Cap's forty-five cracked and they were off and racing in a cloud of dust.
The crowd roared and the Cheyenne jockeys whooped like they were on the warpath and whipped their mounts with long, limber quirts. The horses were bunched for a while, but soon lined out head to tail in a tight line, with one of the Cheyenne horses leading. The colonel's thoroughbred was last, but his rider looked to be holding him in check.
They raced away into the distance, and then were rounding the far turn. The same Cheyenne horse held the lead, but the colonel's horse had moved to second by the time they came out of the turn and started the long straight stretch back to the finish line.
Three hundred yards away and it was a two-horse race. The Cheyenne horse and the thoroughbred ran neck to neck, and so close you couldn't have walked between them. They were two hundred yards out when the brave leaned out and cracked the Mexican boy with his quirt. The Mexican returned the favor with his stiff bat, and even from that distance you could see the dust fly off of the Cheyenne's chest.
When they came across the line it was the colonel's horse a winner by two lengths, and the Cheyenne with the big red welt across his chest a faltering second. The people at the finish line cheered wildly, and their raucous noise was matched by the agony coming from the Cheyenne gathered on the other side of the track. I watched as one of the squaws fell to her knees wailing, and then jerked out a knife and hacked off one of her braids.
The jockeys had gotten their horses pulled up and were coming back to the line. The Mexican boy made his way toward their camp, and he was followed by the Cheyenne who had come in second. I was returning to our campsite, and so got to see the Cheyenne dismount in front of where the colonel stood at his tent. Solemnly, the brave handed the reins of his lathered horse to the colonel and walked away. The colonel looked over his prize with several of his friends while the dejected Cheyenne trudged back to his people.
You can't keep a good man down, and seeing Little Paint being shined up and readied for his race drove all doubts from my mind. When I walked up, Andy was putting on a new, bright red shirt with a large C embroidered on the back of it in white. Kate and a couple of the other girls, wanting to be part of the action, and just through friendship and good nature, had made the shirt for the occasion. They stood around waiting for him to model their handiwork.
Andy tucked the shirt into his checkered pants, and strutted around for all to see. He turned red as his shirt when one of the girls pinched his ass and kissed him on the cheek.
The girls hadn't forgotten Little Paint either, they had braided up his mane with red ribbons. Together, Andy and that horse were going to look as gaudy as those Cheyenne buffalo runners. Although, I was just as proud as Andy was, and from Billy's smile I could tell that he was too.
The second race was starting, but we were too busy running into each other while we frantically went about searching for something to do to get ready to race. The only calm one in the bunch was Billy. He was wearing a new white shirt, and a green neckerchief with white polka dots. He leaned against a tree with the sole of one boot propped back against the trunk and calmly smoked a cigarette down to the butt in ten seconds. The way he was puffing on that thing made him look like a locomotive with the coal bin heaped full and the throttle laid wide open.
Being of a cautious nature, and overly wise for my age, I hadn't bet a single dime on the race other than the twenty dollars required for my part of the two hundred Billy hadn't had to bet. I had only parted with that money out of loyalty to a friend short of funds, rather than giving in to the gambling urge like the rest of those boys. Most grown men realize that money earned is easily lost and hard to come by. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush, and so on. Realizing that I had very little time before our race was to start, I ran like the fool I was to the gamblers' tent. I had forty-two dollars in my pocket, and I bet every red cent of it. I even threw my pocket watch and pistol in for another twenty-five at even odds.
As I was walking back to our wagon I heard Arrington's pistol pop again, and I knew the second race had started. On my way back I met two young Cheyenne girls walking toward me. They were both pretty, and I couldn't help but smile at them and tip my hat. Both of them ducked their heads shyly as we passed. There was a Cheyenne Dog Soldier following them, and the look he gave me was a heap full of bad medicine. He hurried the girls away from my vicinity, while keeping an eye on me over his shoulder. The Cheyenne were awfully protective of their women.
Not that I was anything to worry about. Barby Allen was the girl for me, and I wondered what she was doing for the holiday.
A representative from the colonel's camp came over and asked if all was ready with us. We agreed that it was, and he went back to where he came from. Billy untied Little Paint and led him out into the open. Andy started to mount, but H.B. stopped him.
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