The Legend of Bass Reeves (5 page)

A slight noise alerted him and he turned to see three javelina come to the creek not twenty feet away. Two of the little pigs went down to drink and a bigger one stayed
up on the rise, looking at him. Bass had gone a long time without wild pig, and without thinking he raised the rifle, aimed and fired.

The morning stillness was absolutely shattered by the crack of the shot. He couldn’t believe how loud it sounded. Birds flew up, a deer that had been in the willows crashed away, and smoke seemed to billow out in a great cloud.

The pig was dead. Bass had hit it in the head, though slightly off center. He had an old short piece of butcher knife the mister had thrown away. It was so honed down it was only four inches long, but very sharp. He cut the pig open and scooped the guts out.

He hurried, pushed by the loudness of the shot and hunger to get fresh meat back to Mammy. In just moments he had wiped the carcass out with fresh grass, thrown it over his shoulder and stood to climb away from the creek, when he saw two things.

First, right in front of him in the soft grass next to the little creek there was a hoofprint heading north, up away from the creek. It was an unshod print, like all the rest, and would not have been notable except for one vital point: it was slowly filling with water. The hoof that had made the print had passed this way not five minutes earlier. And Bass had just fired the rifle. The hair went up on the back of his neck and he turned to move back into the brush as deeply as possible. Then he saw the second terrifying vision.

The same Comanche warrior he had first seen, drawn by the sound of the shot, had just come over the rise not forty yards away, his horse cantering easily.

Bass froze; he felt his bowels loosen and an almost uncontrollable urge to run.

But his legs didn’t move.

He stood staring as the warrior raced up to him and stopped his horse so fast, it slammed back on its haunches and then stood, trembling, nostrils flared.

The horse stared at Bass with the same fierce look as the Comanche.

The Indian sat studying Bass.

And Bass thought, I didn’t reload my rifle.

The Comanche raised his lance and shook it in the air.

Bass saw the two fresh scalps hanging from the steel point, bloody little circles of skin with the hair hanging down. Long hair, from women or girls. One was yellow and the other a reddish color.

When the Indian saw that Bass had seen the scalps, he heeled his horse so hard it grunted and lunged forward. He touched Bass with the end of the lance, slapped Bass’s neck with the flat side of the point. He screamed and whirled his horse and streaked off over the hill, making a kind of high-pitched yipping.

Bass almost fainted. He had been so sure the lance was going to go through him. He sank to the ground and stared after the vanishing Indian.

He had no thoughts at all, not even relief that he was still alive.

Then it all rushed in on him and he started shaking and didn’t stop until he had carried the pig carcass nearly half a mile. He walked in wonder, trying to figure why the Comanche hadn’t killed him. The Indian hadn’t had a rifle and people had said that Indians all carried rifles.

But to touch him that way, with the point of his lance, and then ride off screaming? It didn’t make any sense. When he got back to the ranch and told Mammy about it, she was furious.

“I told you not to go down there!”

“No you didn’t, Mammy. Besides, I had me a gun and he didn’t hurt me anyway. Like I said, he just—”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you. You know I don’t want you to go chasing after no Comanche. You know what I want and don’t want and you did it anyway. You’ll be lucky if I don’t take a skillet and slam the brains outta your head. Hummph! No problem there, ain’t got no brains.”

She went on like that while she skinned the wild pig but finally she hugged him and started cooking. He ate greasy meat until he was full and it was evening.

The mister called Mammy up to the main house to cook his supper. After he had eaten and Mammy had returned to the quarters, Mister came out and called for Bass. He took the gun away.

“Your mammy said you ran into a Comanche again.”

“Yes sir. I was down to the crossing and used the gun to take me a wild pig, and the Indian heard it go off and came running at me on a horse. Then he stopped, and didn’t stick me with that big sticker they carry, he only touched me with it, with the point end. There was two skins on the end.”

“Skins—you mean scalps?” Mister stood up straighter.

“Yes sir. There was a yellow one and a reddish one. Looked like they come from women.”

“Yellow and red …” Mister thought, rubbing his face. He wasn’t so drunk after a big meal. “That might be the Garnetts. Betty Garnett had long blond hair and her daughter had reddish hair. Garnett was riding with those men that want to go to war with Mexico. Lord, Lord!”

Bass looked suddenly at him. He thought Mister had been too drunk to know what the men had said before.

“I bet he wishes he had stayed home now. Get up early tomorrow and saddle the bay. We’ll ride over there and see if anything needs tending.”

“You want me to ride too?”

“Take a mule with a packsaddle. You can ride in back of the saddle. Oh, and pack a shovel and pick and tell Mammy we’ll want some vittles to take with us.…” He turned and went back into the house. Bass went back to the quarters and told Mammy what to do.

“I should go too,” she said.“Might need a woman’s touch when it comes to tending … he won’t let me go, though. Listen, should there be a need for burying, you see that they look nice and you say a prayer over them. I don’t think the mister will do it so you’ll have to. Can you do that?”

“I don’t really know a burying prayer.”

“Just say our day prayer. The one I made you learn by memory? Make sure you do it and make the sign of the cross, or those poor souls will have to wander forever.”

“Wander where?”

“Between heaven and … never mind. Just do as you’re told so they’ll have peace in their souls.” She sighed. “It probably don’t matter. The mister, he’ll drink and forget you’re going.”

They went to bed with dark and Bass slept hard but dreamt again of the Comanche riding with eagle feathers flying, except this time the horse was streaking red flames down his sides and two little girls were running in front of the warrior.

He awakened with a start, thinking it was the middle of the night. But he could see a crack of light out the window, and Mammy was already stoking the stove to make food for them to take.

He thought sure she would be right and the mister would still be asleep or passed out. But he went to the corral, caught the bay and tied it, and then the mule, knowing the mister would be mad if he came out and they weren’t ready. He worked hard in the half-light and got both saddles on before he heard the house door open. The mister came out holding a cup of coffee. He had brewed his own, which was unusual because he liked Mammy’s coffee better.

He finished the cup, nodded toward Bass, then went back inside and came out with some old blankets and two rifles. He passed the small shooter to Bass. “It’s loaded.”

Mister tied the old blankets on the mule’s packsaddle. When Mammy came and handed him the tow sack of pork and corn bread, she said, “You see that the women are done right and don’t make the boy to do it.”

It was almost like an order and Bass was surprised to see Mister nod. He said softly, “Don’t worry none. I know what you mean.”

She handed each of them a piece of corn bread and then stood in the yard watching them ride away in the early light.

The mister rode without speaking, chewing the corn bread, and Bass followed him. It was a little uncomfortable in back of the packsaddle but much better than walking. He didn’t know how far they had to ride or where they were going, since he’d never been off the homestead, not even to go to town and help load whiskey or flour barrels. But if it was any distance at all, he would have been exhausted trying to keep up with the long-legged bay on foot. As it was, the mule was wheezing after a couple of
miles and now and then broke into a ragged trot to catch up. It was difficult to hang on and make sure none of the sacks or blankets were being loosened and balance the rifle in front of him, all at the same time.

He was surprised that the mister had not brought whiskey but stayed sober and kept the pace up.

In about four hours Bass saw smoke on the horizon, and as they got closer and came up on a rise he saw a homestead ranch a mile away, not unlike the mister’s; a scattering of sod or adobe mud huts, some rail corral fence and pens for stock.

But this homestead was on fire, smoke rising out of what remained of the buildings. As they came closer Bass saw that all the stock that hadn’t been driven off had been killed. Goats, milk cows, mules and even chickens lay dead with arrows sticking out of them.

The human bodies were hidden in back of the main house.

“Wait here,” the mister said. “I’ll say when to come.” He reached over to the packsaddle and took the blankets, then rode on ahead.

The smell almost gagged Bass; burned hair, feathers, flesh. He took short breaths and tried to hold his head down out of the wind that blew toward him—but still he vomited off to the side of the mule. While he was leaning over, the animal felt the reins loosen and moved forward to catch up to the horse and brought Bass around the corner of the building where he could see …

Everything.

The mister had already wrapped one body in a blanket and blood was soaking through it. He was wrapping the
body of a young girl. She was naked and there were marks on her that Bass’s eyes found against his will before the mister got the blanket around her.

An old man was tied up to the fence rail, held up by the arms. He was naked as well. The old man had been cut many times. There were more than a dozen arrows in him, and there was a fire under him. Bass prayed that the man had been dead by the time the fire had started.

“Start digging graves,” the mister said.“Up there, where that cottonwood is, a little south of the tree. The roots will be thicker and hard to dig in on the north side. We need holes as deep as your shoulders. Go. Now. Leave the mule. I’ll bring the bodies.”

Bass took the pick and shovel and walked up to the tree. He could not stop saying his prayer, and he started crying.

The soil was sandy under the clay and he had a good start on one grave when the mister showed up with the mule. He had made a skid with a couple of fence rails tied up to the packsaddle and a door roped across it. The bodies were laid on the door. He had another shovel he had found near the barn. He started digging as well.

Bass could think of nothing but his prayer and the bodies on the skid. The mister dug intently without speaking or looking up. In two hours they had dug all the graves.

They lowered the bodies into the holes with ropes and then stood for a minute. The mister said nothing, but Bass recited his prayer aloud and then they started filling the graves.

The mister had wrapped them so no part of any body showed as they threw dirt on top of them, but Bass could still not bring himself to drop dirt on their faces. He filled
the end where their feet lay and let the mister put dirt on the other end.

The work went faster than the digging, but even so it was getting dark by the time they finished.

“We’ll sleep here for the night,” the mister said. “We try moving in the dark, and the horses will get snake-bit or step in a hole and break their legs. There’s no blankets.” He took the horse up near the cottonwood and pulled the saddle and sat down on it in the dirt and leaned against the tree. “Get some of those vittles your ma sent and we’ll take a bite.”

“You want to sleep here?” Bass asked, handing him the tow sack, knowing he wouldn’t sleep a wink this close to the dead bodies. “By the graves?”

For a time the mister said nothing; then he sighed. “Comanches ain’t coming back here—there’s nothing left for them to bother.” He found a piece of corn bread and bit in. “This is the first time they ever come this far east on a raid. I’m hoping it was just the one time and they won’t be back.” Another bite. He chewed some more. “Garnett is going to hate himself for the rest of his life.”

“How come they’re like that, wanting to cut and chop people that way?”

The mister shrugged. “They do the same to each other when they fight. I was a Ranger for a time over in the west.…” He stopped, remembering. “Where they raided a lot. Time was it wasn’t safe to go out to your garden for greens ’cause of the Comanches.”

Bass almost shook his head. The mister had been a Ranger? He’d never seen him be anything but fat and lazy and drunk. “But the one that come at me didn’t cut me or stick me.…”

“He touched you, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And you had the gun?”

“Yes. But it wasn’t loaded.”

“He didn’t know that. He was showing his courage. To run up and just touch you like that, and he probably yelled an insult at you or told you he wasn’t afraid of you, even though you had a gun.”

“I was afraid of him.”

The mister nodded in the darkness. “I’ll bet you were. Now stop talking or we’ll be at it all night.” He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes, and soon his breathing became even.

Bass sat in silence for a time, looking at the graves, and thought, Too bad about Garnett and his women and the old man. He meant it to be silent, but somehow it came out loud, and he was startled to hear the mister.

“Any man that brings women into this country should be whipped.” Gradually his breathing settled again and he slept.

Bass sat awake for a long time. Had his prayers been enough? Or would the bodies be out wandering tonight because they couldn’t get into heaven?

That frightened him almost more than the Comanches, and every time the mule or the horse moved or stamped, Bass would jerk around, looking.

It was a long, long night.

FALL 1836
Paris, Texas