Ghost moon, p.5
Ghost Moon, page 5
“So what brings you up here to this troubled part of the world?”
“I came here looking for work.”
“And found some, it seems. You’re working for McSween?”
“Yes. I was hired by John Tunstall, the day before he was murdered.”
“Bad business that, and getting worse from what I understand.”
“It is,” I agree. “Sheriff Brady was shot and killed this very morning in the main street of Lincoln.”
“In the main street, you say. In broad daylight?”
“Just after dawn,” I say. “One of his deputies was killed with him.”
“It’s a disgrace,” Fowler reflects. “There’s no law. If it were up to me, I’d ride in there with my company and arrest the lot, Dolan, Evans and the Regulators. It’s not as if we don’t have enough trouble with the Apaches coming and going off the reservation as they please and causing havoc over in Texas.”
“Can’t the army do anything?”
“It seems not. Colonel Dudley claims he has orders not to interfere in civilian matters. And that may be true, but he’s awful ready to entertain Dolan to dinner in the mess, and I received quite the talking-to for ordering this one wagonload you’ve brought from McSween.
“But listen to me croak on like a bitter old man.” Fowler reaches into a drawer in his desk and pulls out a sheet of paper. “This is the bill of sale for the horses you’re to bring back from La Luz. They’re being held at the livery stable there.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking the paper and folding it.
“And you’ll stay with us tonight and dine as my guest in the mess,” Fowler says. It’s not a question. “A good night’s sleep before a journey is a splendid start.”
I agree readily. I enjoy Fowler’s company, and the Fort seems an island of sanity in the chaos of the past few weeks. I excuse myself and go to tend to the mules and organize my bedroll.
“Why are you up here? When I met you in December, you and your company were headed for Fort Bowie.” Lieutenant Fowler and I are standing on the veranda of the officers’ mess. Dinner is over and Fowler has come out here to enjoy the cool evening air. He’s smoking a long strong-smelling cheroot with obvious relish. A half moon is hanging silver and bright above the trees.
“That was just a stop on a long patrol,” he says. “Regimental headquarters for the Tenth Cavalry’s at Fort Concho in Texas, but troops are spread all over the west, wherever there’s a need, I reckon. B Troop’s been here with units of the Ninth since last fall and will be for a time yet, I suspect. But it’s not too bad. At least the fort’s relatively civilized, much better than some sad collections of adobe and sticks that I’ve been quartered in.”
“Why are your men called Buffalo Soldiers?” I voice a question that I’ve wondered about for a while.
“Number of stories about that.” Fowler takes a long drag on his cheroot and watches the smoke drift into the evening air as he exhales. “Common one is that black soldiers’ curly hair reminds the Apaches of the hair of a buffalo, but I heard one that makes more sense.
“Back in ’67 when the Tenth was a new regiment, a Private Randall was assigned to look after a couple of greenhorn civilian hunters. They had the bad luck to run into a band of about seventy Cheyenne warriors. The hunters panicked and were picked off easily, and Randall’s horse was shot from under him, but the trooper took cover in a washout under the railroad tracks they’d been following. He only had a pistol, but he held off the Cheyenne until help arrived.
“Story goes that there were more than a dozen dead warriors round the washout and that Randall had a gunshot wound in his shoulder and eleven lance wounds. The Cheyenne said that there was a new kind of warrior in the land, one that never gave up and fought like a cornered wild buffalo, and the name stuck.”
“That’s a good story,” I say.
“And it might even be true,” Fowler says with a smile. “These boys of mine fight like demons when they’ve a mind to. If you ever get the chance, get talking to Sergeant Rawlins. He was there at the very beginning. He fought with Shaw and the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts at Fort Wagner in ’63. He can tell some stories.”
“Were you in the Civil War?” I ask, hoping to encourage a story from Fowler.
“Naw, too young,” he replies. “It’s my lot to ride forever back and forth over this empty land collecting dust and scalped bodies. Mind you, I was lucky once.”
“How so?” I ask when Fowler falls silent.
“I graduated from West Point in ’76. I requested an assignment to the Seventh Cavalry. My brother, Miles, was serving in C Company. My request was approved, but fortunately I didn’t reach them in time and was reassigned to the Tenth.”
Lieutenant Fowler falls silent again. I’m confused about how this makes him lucky.
“Why didn’t you join your brother in the Seventh?”
My companion turns to face me and smiles sadly in the flickering light of the hanging lantern. “C Company was wiped out with Custer at the Little Big Horn River.”
“Your brother?”
Fowler nods and turns back to stare across the compound. Of all the stories I’ve collected over the past few months, Fowler’s is the shortest, but it affects me deeply. I remember reading the newspaper accounts of Custer’s men on that bare hillside in Montana Territory, knowing that they were going to die as overwhelming numbers of Sitting Bull’s and Crazy Horse’s warriors swarmed up from the valley to engulf them. Many a night I had lain awake wondering what I would do: fight to the last even though I knew it to be hopeless, beg for mercy, try to run in some futile attempt to escape? I had no way of knowing, but the horror of being one of those doomed men out on the bare prairie that afternoon as they watched their deaths approach sent shivers through me. And Lieutenant Fowler’s brother had been one of them.
“Well,” Fowler says at length, dropping the stub of his cheroot and grinding it beneath his boot heel, “nothing to be done. But listen.” His voice perks up and he turns to me. “I would ask a favor of you.”
“Ask away,” I say.
“On your way back from La Luz, could you travel by Tularosa Canyon and try to determine what the mood is like on the reservation? The Mescaleros have been less trouble of late than some of the bands up at San Carlos, but I’ve been hearing tales of some young warriors slipping away to join the fighters in the hills. Frederick Godfroy’s the agent there at Blazer’s Mill and he’ll give you a report to bring back. I also hear that Godfroy’s wife Clara will cook you a dinner you’ll remember for many months.”
“I’d be glad to,” I say. I sense that Fowler is about to bid me good night, but there’s something I need to ask him before that. “When I met you on the trail, you readily dismissed the Apaches as savages. Now you seem almost respectful.”
“Do I?” Fowler asks thoughtfully. “Perhaps I do. Certainly I have learned a lot since coming here. After Miles’s death at the Little Big Horn, I felt a lot of hate and just wanted to come out here and kill as many Indians as I could, but it’s not as simple as that, is it?”
I shake my head.
“Those two dead men I was bringing in when we met were road agents. Several folk at Fort Bowie recognized them as having caused considerable trouble recently on the surrounding trails. Worse than that, they were scalp hunters. I was told stories of days, not so long ago, when Indians—men, women and children—were hunted down and slaughtered like wild animals just for the value of their hair. Add to that this dirty little war that’s going on in Lincoln County, and all the good men it’s killing over a few sacks of flour, some sides of beef and a few dollars profit, and I got to wondering exactly who the savages are hereabouts.”
I decide it’s best not to mention my connection either to the scalp hunters or the Regulators. “I’ve met a couple of fine Apaches myself,” I say.
Fowler looks at me with interest. “I suspect you have an interesting tale to tell, Jim Doolen. Perhaps when you return I shall have a chance to sit and listen. But for now I am going to turn in. I wish you a good journey until we meet again.”
“Thank you.” Fowler strolls down along the veranda, and I descend the steps and head across to the livery stable where I’ll bed down for the night. I’m glad to have met Lieutenant Fowler once more. I hope he won’t turn out to be as unreliable as Bill Bonney or as short-lived as John Tunstall. Perhaps if Brewer and Fowler get to talking, there might even be a way to end this bloodshed. At least it’s a hope.
10
La Luz is a dirt-poor collection of adobe buildings scattered around the original Presidio Square. It nestles among the willows that line the banks of a dry riverbed and is overshadowed by the long shelves of rock that form the mountains I have just worked my way through. Most of the population are Mexican; Hispanics, they’re called hereabouts. They remind me of my time last year at Esqueda and Casas Grandes.
When I arrive, there is some kind of fiesta going on, and the Presidio Square is decorated with colored paper and candles. A crude band is scratching and wheezing out a rough tune. A few of the locals, dressed in whatever colorful finery they possess, are either dancing or sitting at tables, drinking from unmarked bottles and eating steaming plates of dark stew and tortillas.
I decide to join them. It’s been a long journey. The horses I’ve come to collect can wait until tomorrow. I need some company and jollity after my time alone thinking about all the death I’ve seen of late.
I park the wagon at the livery stable, settle and feed the mules and stroll over to the square. I sit down and order a plate of stew and a bottle of the mescal everyone seems to be drinking. There are no other choices.
The stew is rich and spicy, and I wolf it and the accompanying plate of beans and tortillas down. Even the fiery mescal doesn’t taste as harsh as the drink I remember Santiago giving me in Esqueda, if I sip it slowly.
I’m halfway through my food when an old man wanders toward me. He’s bent over with age and walks with a pronounced limp. His dark wrinkled skin is dramatically set off by a mane of snow-white hair and he asks if he can join me.
“Me puedo sentar con usted, señor?” I wave to a chair, gesture at the bottle and ask if he speaks English.
The man sits down and pours himself a generous measure of the mescal. He drinks it down in one go.
“Sí, I do speak your language. I learned in Texas, and here this is an Americano world and it is necessary to speak the language.”
“Texas is American too,” I point out.
The old man smiles, showing a mouthful of surprisingly white teeth.
“Not always so. When I was born there, it was Mexico. Before the Americanos stole it.”
“Stole it? The people who lived there had a revolution and became independent,” I say indignantly. I’ve read several dime novels about the Alamo. How Davy Crocket and two hundred brave men held off the army of the cruel General Santa Anna for thirteen days before they were overwhelmed and killed.
Davy Crockett was one of my childhood heroes, fighting to the last and finally falling beneath a forest of bayonets, surrounded by the dozens of enemy soldiers he had killed. I spent many hours hunting squirrels in the woods around Yale, pretending I was fighting beside Crockett and yelling, “Remember the Alamo” every time one of the small animals dropped off a tree branch. What right did this ignorant old man have to attack my heroes?
The old man shakes with laughter.
“You Americanos and your stories. You do not listen. You just believe the first thing you hear that fits with what you wish to believe.”
“I’m Canadian,” I say crossly. My companion shrugs as if my distinction makes no difference to him. Without asking, he pours himself another drink. “Davy Crockett was a brave man,” I add defensively.
“How do you know what happened to this brave man inside the walls of the mission at San Antonio de Bexar? Were you there?”
“No, I wasn’t there. I read about it.”
“And the man who wrote the book you read, was he there at the Alamo?”
“Of course not,” I reply angrily. “No one survived the Alamo.”
“No one?”
“I think the women and children were spared, but all the fighters were killed in the battle.” I’m becoming confused about why this old man keeps harping on about this.
“All the Americanos.”
“Yes, but…” I stutter to a stop as I realize what he means.
“Rather than reading books by men who sit in New York and make things up to sell for a dime each, would it not be better to ask one who was there?” The old man is grinning from ear to ear as he fills his glass once more.
“Of course,” I say hesitantly, embarrassed at being caught out in my one-sided assumptions. “But how would I do that?”
“Ask away.” The old man spreads his arms wide in invitation.
It takes me a minute to grasp what he means. “You!” He nods. “You were there?”
“That is how I acquired my limp,” he says and slaps his thigh. “I was a boy, no older than you are now. A drummer in General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s army. Our motto was, ‘Never one step backward.’”
Is the old man telling the truth? I have no reason to doubt him. If so, he has a story to tell. I look at him with new eyes. Maybe this man saw Davy Crockett or Jim Bowie.
“You say you want to know, and yet when you get the chance, you sit with your mouth open like a fish stranded on the riverbank.”
I snap my mouth closed.
“What was it like?” I ask weakly.
“It was like war,” he says. “It was dirty and chaotic. We were frightened and we were brave all at once. There was dust and blood and noise and death, but do you not wish to know about your hero, Crockett?”
“Yes, and Bowie,” I add hastily.
“Bowie I did not see,” my companion says. My heart leaps because this implies that he did see Davy Crockett. “You understand everything happened very fast. It was all over in less than half an hour, although it seemed like a lifetime to us. I was in the third attack, the one that swarmed over the north wall. Those inside turned their cannon on us. The guns were filled with anything they could find—door hinges, rocks, pieces of horseshoes. They caused some hideous wounds and gave me my limp. I was hit in the leg by some Texian’s heavy belt buckle. It broke the bone, and I played no further part in the fight but sat against the wall and watched the killing.
“The cannons didn’t stop us. There was no time to reload, and our blood was up. My comrades killed all the Texians at the guns and anyone they found in the compound.
“I did not see Bowie, but I heard after he was found sick in a cot in a room by the wall, not far from where I sat. He shot the first man through the door, but the others bayoneted him as he lay there. He was a brave man. Sick as he was, he never tried to surrender. Not that it would have made any difference.”
The old man falls silent. As he has talked, his gaze has moved away from me and his eyes focus more and more on the far distance, as if, behind me, he can see the drama of the Alamo being re-enacted. He is massaging his leg absently. I reach over, lift the half-empty bottle and refill his glass.
“Gracias,” he says, his eyes coming back to life. “But you wish to know of Crockett. Him I saw. After we had taken the guns and the compound was secure, we had to fight through the rooms in the old mission. Four or five men would fire their muskets through the door and then rush in with bayonets and finish the job. It was hard, brutal work, and I am not sorry that my wound forced me to miss it.
“Everyone found in the mission was killed, except, as you say, for some women and children. We were not savages. We were ordered to kill them all. Santa Anna said the rebels were pirates, trying to steal land from Mexico, and that the only reward for piracy was death. One of our officers did not obey the order and took seven men prisoner. He brought them out into the compound in front of where I sat. They were a miserable collection of humanity—filthy, blood-covered and cowed. Several were wounded, one so badly he could not stand. Crockett was among those who surrendered. He stood out from the rest, being taller and the only one who looked about and met the eyes of his captors. He even spoke at one point, suggesting that he be released to travel to the rest of the Texian army and negotiate a truce.
“When Santa Anna discovered that these men had been spared, he was furious and ordered them executed. We stood them against a wall, but the soldiers refused to shoot. The fight was done, we wished no more killing, but Santa Anna ordered his guard to do the work with sabers. I turned away, but I saw the bodies later. They were much cut about the head and arms. Only the man too badly wounded to stand had been shot where he lay on the ground.”
“You’re lying,” I say, loudly enough for people nearby to stare. “Davy Crockett didn’t surrender. He died fighting. He would never have asked to be spared.”
The old man shrugs.
“That is your story. Believe it if you wish. I tell only what I saw with my own eyes. Remember, heroes and villains are what we make them. All are human.”
The Mexican falls silent and I think about what he has told me. I don’t want to believe him, but why not? I believed the stories that Wellington, Santiago and Ed told me, however unbelievable they seemed at the time. The difference was, then I was seeking answers and hungrily absorbed anything that might help me find those answers. The story I was hearing now conflicted with something I already believed.
“You have come down from Lincoln?” The man interrupts my reverie.
“Yes. I’m collecting some horses to take back to Fort Stanton.”
“You have your own war,” the old man says slyly, “and heroes as well.”
I think of Tunstall, taking on the corrupt Dolan syndicate. Maybe even Brewer, trying to continue the fight and hold the Regulators in check.
“I suppose we do.”
“I have heard that the corrupt Sheriff Brady is dead.”
“Yes, two days ago in Lincoln. He was shot in the main street from ambush.”
“By El Chivato?”
