ROUTE III.
One does not feel particularly festive starting out in the rain and the dim uncertain light of the hour before day. The best thing to be done under these circumstances is to go to sleep, if you can sleep staging. The “front boot” affords a very comfortable berth, of which the lieutenant took possession. I concluded to go inside, and endeavor to snatch the shaky sleep of a coach. I felt as though I could not keep awake if the road were picketed by hostile redskins. The ladies—bless their kind souls!—sat close to make room. I sank into a corner, and was soon jolted into a sleep.
I was aroused by a sudden stoppage. The day had dawned. I looked out of the stage, and saw a wagon overturned in the road. Seeing the conductor and the lieutenant alight, I alighted. The body of a man lay by the upturned wagon.
“It’s poor Tommy!” said the lieutenant.
“I thought the thievin’, cowardly devils would git him at last,” said the conductor. “Poor old Tommy! It will be an awful blow for his wife and her six poor orphans.”
Yes! there lay poor Tommy in the early sunlight—dead, stripped, and scalped. His clothes had been torn from his body, which was gashed in every limb. Every gash, the lieutenant told me, was the sign of a different tribe. The number on poor Tommy’s body showed that representatives of seven tribes assisted at his murder. His throat was cut across—the sign of the “Cut-throats.” His arms and his thighs were crossed by deep transverse gashes. His abdomen was scored by two long gashes meeting in a point. The lieutenant told me the names of the tribes whose devilish signs-manual were written in the blood and on the flesh of poor “Tommy John,” but I have memory only of one in the horrid sight then before me.
The oxen lay with their throats cut and large pieces hacked out of their still quivering flanks. The Indians had taken everything they could use. What they did not take, with savage malignity they had broken into atoms or torn into shreds. A baby’s crib and a child’s chair which the poor fond father was taking to his little ones on the “Sandy” were broken into very chips.
We remained for some time gazing on this horrid sight. No one spoke. At length the lieutenant and sergeant decently covered the mangled body with a blanket. As we were already behind time, the conductor said he could not take back to the station the body of the murdered man. We concluded to remain by it until the arrival of the stage from the West, which was already due at that point.
It was a sad vigil—fortunately not a prolonged one. The stage from the West arrived. It had no passengers. We wrapped poor Tommy in an additional blanket, and the coach drove off, taking him away for ever on this earth from his “old lady and his half-dozen babies over on the Sandy.”
After having examined the “signs” about the place of the murder, the lieutenant and the conductor estimated the number of Indians engaged in the bloody deed at about fifty. Matters became critical. I could not stay inside the stage any longer. I mounted the roof once more, feeling that if I were to be killed by Indians—a fate to which I did not in the least aspire—I wanted to see whence my death-bolt came, and have plenty of room to die in.
The party on top of the stage seemed quite cool, but by no means conversationally inclined. I could see their keen eyes continually making the circuit of the horizon, which traced around us a perfect circle unbroken by mound or shrub.
We reached the Lone Hollow Station, a “swing,” twenty-eight miles from Artesian Wells, without seeing any more signs of Indians. Here we found yesterday’s Western-bound stage. It had started at the usual time, but when within a mile or so of Cypress Spring, an abandoned intermediate or “swing” station, the driver saw the buildings in flames. With a glass he could discern Indians about the burning structures. He had wisely concluded to turn back to the station he had left, and there we found him. He had no passengers.
Lone Hollow Station was kept by a solitary stock-tender—an old fellow who received “$75 per month and found,” for offering himself as a perpetual candidate for immolation by his red brethren.
When we arrived at the Lone Hollow, I felt an unaccountable buoyancy and a rather humiliating craving for food—animal or vegetable. Fortunately, the old stock-trader had some biscuit and a large panful of dried apples. Tea was soon made, and I ate an immense meal. I was not alone in this, however; the lieutenant, the conductor, in short everybody, ate voraciously, except the women, who still clung to the coach, and could not be prevailed upon to change their position for a moment. The men were all in high spirits, and there seemed to be no more trace of Tommy John’s memory than if he had never been.
“How do you find it here now?” asked the lieutenant of the old stock-tender. “Pretty lonely?”
“Well,” answered John, “rather. Before they sent away the hosses and tuk to mules, things wuz more sociable-like. I got fond of them hosses, and them hosses got fond of me. But a mule ain’t got no feelin’ for nobody. You can’t trust ’em. They’re too tricky. I didn’t feel near so lonesome last year. I had a big yellow dog that was the best companion I ever had. But he got pisoned, by eatin’ wolf-bait most likely; and now I ain’t got nothin’ but two small pups, and they ain’t no society for a man.”
“I should think not,” said the lieutenant.
With an abominable want of savoir-faire, I must strike in at this point with the following:
“Being alone here, are you not afraid of Indians?”
The question was one which evidently disturbed the old fellow. I saw it was a sore subject with him, and regretted having touched upon it. It was plain he wished to keep it out of his thoughts.
“The Injuns won’t bother me,” he said nervously and impatiently, as if hastily thrusting the skeleton out of sight.
The “dug-out” has its skeleton-closet as well as the palace.
“What do you do to pass the time, John?” asked the conductor.
“Well,” replied John, “I cook—look after the mules—promenade up to the crest of the ridge. When all my work is done, and I want something to keep my mind occupied, I mend old clothes.”
Our colloquy was cut short, by the warning cry of “All aboard!”
Both coaches were ready to start. The conductors had concluded to unite their forces. This arrangement gave more room. We divided our party; the lieutenant and I mounted the empty coach, which now took the lead, followed at about fifty yards by the other.
The flash of good spirits which blazed momentarily at the station soon died out. Everybody seemed disposed to silence. We were all busy, straining our eyes, watching for Indians.
Ten miles passed thus without other conversation than monosyllabic remarks. From the top of a “divide,” we now looked upon the charred and smouldering relics of Cypress Station. We stopped and reconnoitred carefully before descending. There were no Indians to be seen. Having descended the Hollow in which the station had stood, we found the tracks very fresh. The lieutenant, the sergeant, and the conductor, attended by the writer (through curiosity rather than bravery), alighted and examined the ground. The Indians had destroyed everything they could lay hands on outside of the redoubts or “dug-outs.” These they had not dared to enter. The rough “bunks” of undressed timber used by the guards were untouched. In one was found a water-keg, and in the other a woollen blanket, left in the hurry of departure, but which no Indian could have seen and not appropriated to his own use and benefit.
“The Indians are afraid of those ‘dug-outs’ even when unoccupied,” said the lieutenant. “They do not like to go near them—much less enter them. They fear a trap of some kind. An Indian always strives to keep his lines of retreat open; he wants a good chance to run away. Indians have been known to watch about abandoned stations for days before daring to go within rifle-range of the ‘dug-outs.’”
Within four miles of Sandy Station, a spur sweeping semicircularly from a high bluff to the north nearly touches the road on that side, while the great bend of the Big Dryasdust cuts into it on the south. The lowland to the west of the spur is entirely concealed from the view of the traveller. This was a favorite place for Indian ambuscades, and we approached it with great caution. After crossing the bridge the driver said to the conductor:
“Ain’t that Mac’s pony out yonder?”
“Let’s see!” said the conductor, taking the field-glass and adjusting it. “Pull up a minute, Joe! I can’t see with this outfit while the coach is moving. Now, then! By the law, sir, that there’s Mac’s pony! He acts mighty strange, too. He is either lamed or hobbled. No! by gracious! he’s not hobbled. He’s saddled, too! He’s wounded, sir! You may bet your bottom dollar!”
“Drive over to him and see,” said the lieutenant.
The coaches were driven to where the pony was on the prairie, about a mile from the road. The lieutenant jumped out.
“Gentlemen!” said he, “this is more Indian work.”
And so it was. The pony had one bullet-hole through the near foreshoulder. A second ball had struck it on the lower jaw, and turned a portion of it with the teeth over on the tongue, which was held as in a vice. The poor animal seemed to suffer intensely. It was proposed to shoot it to end its suffering, but the proposition was not agreed to.
“Let’s try and prise back his teeth so that he can eat, and he’ll find his way back to the station.”
With a “king-bolt” for a lever, by the united efforts of four men the teeth with the portion of the lower jaw containing them were turned back, and resumed their natural position with a snap like that of a spring-lock. The poor animal, relieved, at once began grazing.
“Come, gentlemen,” said the driver, “get aboard, and let’s make for the station. There’s been trouble, sure.”
When we reached the road again the conductor of our coach said he heard a shot in the direction of the station. The lieutenant said he thought he had heard it, but it might be imagination, our thoughts being occupied by such anticipations. All doubts were soon at an end, however, for we all heard the next shot, and then another and another.
You get within half a mile of Sandy Station before you see it. As soon as we reached the point from which it is visible, we could see that a pretty lively fight was going on between the men at the station and a mounted party on the opposite bank of the stream. The attacking party were about fifty in number, all mounted, some having remounts which they led. They rode at full speed in single file, at intervals of some paces, in a circle whose circumference at the point opposite to the station nearly reached the stream. Each horseman fired as he reached this point. The party at the station were well covered by the roof of a “dug-out” stable cut in the bank. The attacking party looked more like Mexicans than Indians. They wore wide-brimmed straw hats, and their body-covering was of a dark color.
The conductor, however, pronounced them Indians.
“They have,” said he, “the broad-brimmed straw hats, uniform coats, and six-shooters given them by the Peace Commissioners last spring.”
The drivers now dashed on with all the speed of their animals, “to have a little piece of the fight,” they said; but, no doubt, also to escape being cut off by a party who were evidently preparing to cross the creek for that purpose. Fortunately, though there was very little water in the stream, it was very wide, and full of soft, wet, treacherous sand. Half a dozen Indians galloped to the bank when they saw us, and rode up and down seeking for a crossing. One of them dashed in, and his pony soon went down to its flanks. Two snap-shots from our stage as we dashed by grazed him pretty closely. A third wounded him and caused him to abandon his pony. He was helped up the bank by the others, put on a spare pony, and, supported by an Indian on either side, was carried at full speed out of range. Luckily for the other Indians, they succeeded in doing this while we were getting out of the stage, which we did as quickly as possible after getting the ladies’ coach under the lee of the stable.
We were all anxious, of course, “to get a shot in the fight.” I was in a state of intense excitement. I received a pretty lively shock from the unexpected discharge of my gun while I was in the act of cocking it. Its position was fortunately, however, a vertical one. My friends, hearing the fire in the rear, swore, started, turned round, as if each and every one of them had received a bullet. Seeing the source of the firing, and finding nobody hurt, they laughed, but insisted I should henceforth move in advance, as they could not stand such firing as mine. After this little episode, I “got in” a couple of shots; I cannot say with what success, as for the life of me I could not tell where my bullets struck.
There were now on our side ten men and a non-commissioned officer of regular infantry, two or three station men, and our reinforcement of two drivers, two conductors, the lieutenant, the sergeant, and myself. One or two good volleys from our party soon put an end to the circus performances of the “friendly Indians.” They scattered and disappeared as if by magic. They sent us their P.P.C. compliments in some stray shots, the flash and smoke revealing whence they came, not an Indian being in sight.
“Now, gentlemen!” said Mr. Bunter, the station-keeper, “I think we can take a bite o’ dinner.”
The worthy landlady, Mrs. Bunter, furnished a notable instance of the susceptibility and indifference to externals of the lovers of the plains. She was known, I was informed, as the “widow,” though her husband, a tall, broad-chested, intelligent-looking man of about thirty-three or thirty-four, was “alive,” and probably capable of a good deal of vigorous “kicking.” The sobriquet had clung to the lady from her very general appearance in the character indicated by it. Her present husband was the fourth or fifth occupant of the position. Notwithstanding the number of her husbands, her terms of wedded bliss were very brief. Widowhood was the rule, connubial felicity the exception. Hence was it that, though married, she was still universally spoken of as “the widow,” and some not very intimate acquaintances already knew her as the Widow Bunter. The stalwart husband did not appear to see any unpleasant significance in the title given his fair spouse. He was jovial, and seemed contented.
“The widow” did the service of the table, and very well served and supplied it was. A good antelope stew, with cabbage and potatoes (luxuries in the then uncultivated world of the plains), good bread and butter, pies, and an excellent cup of tea, made us all feel, as our driver expressed it, “mighty good.” Mrs. Bunter evidently made pretensions to personal attractiveness. She was a woman of thirty—perhaps past that proverbially captivating age—very tall, lank, concave-chested, with great projecting teeth and bony, clawlike fingers. Her long, thin visage was thickly coated with rice powder (or flour), which stood out in bold ridges on her high cheek-bones, while pools of rouge shone in the cavities of her hollow cheeks. She had a clear, cold, steady eye, however, which showed that, if she was devoid of heart, as was commonly supposed, she was not without a will of her own. In her time, she had created quite a flutter among the gentlemen of the stage-driving and stock-tending professions. The dread of relicts which embittered the maturer years of the elder Weller had no place in the bold bosoms of the “whips” of the desert. More than one man (not including her four dear departed) had died “for her sake.” The shooting of one suitor only had the effect which hanging a British admiral formerly was supposed to have—that of “encouraging the others.”
Swift and ample justice was done to the “squarest meal,” as the driver termed it, we had upon the road. A very few minutes sufficed us to make a hearty dinner, and we were seated in the porch, pipes were being filled and lighted, preparatory to a discussion of the various incidents of the fight, when the wounded pony we had seen upon the road limped into the station. His master had not been dead more than a few hours, but he was completely forgotten until the arrival of his wounded horse brought him to mind again. So ordinary an event was the killing of a man by Indians, at that time, on the Misty Mountain.
“Where’s Mac?” asked the driver.
“In yonder,” answered our host, nodding toward the granary.
“Hurt?”
“Killed.”
“How?”
“The fust we knew there wuz Injuns around wuz when Mac was attacked. He rode down to the Butte to bring in a horse from the herd. We heard shootin’ down that way. Jim and I and the blacksmith took our arms and rode toward the firin’. When we got near the Butte, we seen three our four Injuns circlin’ round Mac, whose pony was wounded, firin’ at him from all directions. I think he wuz already dead when we first seen him. We made all the haste we could, and druv them from the body, but we wuz too late to stop ‘em from playin’ some o’ their usual tricks. We got the body on to one of the horses, and started back for the station at an easy pace, drivin’ in the loose stock afore us. When we’d come within about three-quarters of a mile of the station, we seen the soldiers runnin’ towards us with their muskets in their hands and makin’ signs to us. I looked back and seen the durned Injuns with twenty or thirty more comin’ for us. I hollered to Jim and the smith to light out for the station. We separated, to give the soldiers a chance to git in their fire on ’em, which they did. This staggered ’em somewhat and saved us. They got two of our animals, though!”
Some one proposed going to the granary to look at poor Mac’s remains. The body lay among corn-sacks and miscellaneous stores. Mac was a tall, well-shaped young fellow of twenty-three or twenty-four. He had evidently made the best fight he could. When he left the station, his revolver had but two loads. He fired them both at his savage foes. Bunter said, had it not been for the wounding of his pony, “the Indians would not have got him.”
The Indians had raised Mac’s entire scalp, slitting it through the centre and turning it down over his face. This sight was not beheld unmoved by even the most hardened frontierman in the party. Had one of those worthy and humane gentlemen, the Peace Commissioners, unfortunately dropped in at that moment, I fear he might have been the recipient of much personal indignity, if not of serious bodily harm. The presence of a regular officer with the station-guard would have saved him from falling a martyr to his humanitarian convictions. Without the soldiers he might even attain the crown of martyrdom.
“As we’re here, boys,” said the driver, with a view to economy of time, “let’s fix him out like a Christian.”
Rough in speech, yet tender in action, they set to work to make ready poor Mac’s remains for the grave. His scalp was returned to its proper place and sewed together, his hair combed, and his blood-stained face cleansed of its gory marks. He was shrouded in a pair of soldier’s drawers and an under-shirt. Several empty chests in the room were measured, but proved too short for a coffin. A large arms-chest was furnished by the soldiers, which, with a slight addition to its length, supplied the improvised bier on which we laid “poor Mac.” Scarcely had these sad offices been performed when the sentinel without shouted:
“Indians in sight!”
There was a rush for the outside. Every man picked up his gun. With the glass the Indians could be seen crossing the stream near where they had murdered MacSorley. The party was increased to a hundred and fifty or two hundred. They moved to the top of the bluff, and remained there for some time, apparently holding a council as to their future movements. The lieutenant, after instructing the commander of the station-guard to wake him as soon as the Indians showed a disposition to move, spread out his blankets, lay down, and fell asleep over a novel. The driver and conductor followed his example; and the latter was soon in the arms of Morpheus. But I could not sleep. I was too much excited by the unusual events I had witnessed during the past twenty-four hours. So I fraternized with the soldiers of the guard, and listened to their opinions on Indian matters, and their tales of Indian adventure.
About sunset the Indians began to move. Unanimity of action was not the result of their council; they separated into two parties, one of which went due east, the other to the northwest, passing in rear of the station, but at the respectful distance of three or four miles from it.
Night fell at last. Sentinels having been properly posted, all who were not on guard, except the lieutenant and the writer, went to bed, or, rather, to a blanket on the floor. I sat up to write some letters by a dirty, sputtering candle on a lame, old table, the only furniture in the room, except a greasy, rickety chair. The lieutenant read his novel by the better light of a civilized candle which, knowing the customs of the region, he had had the good sense to bring with him.
The savage stillness of night on the plains fell upon the place. No sound was heard save the occasional wailing of the hungry wolves, that thronged around the barn where the dead man lay.
“Confound that horrible noise!” said the lieutenant, at last jumping up and shutting his novel with a bang. “It sets my teeth on edge, and rasps every nerve in my body. Let us go out and smoke in the open air before turning in!”
We lighted our pipes and went forth, turning our steps toward the barn. Half a dozen wolves sat around the building, looking like professional mourners, and moaning their hunger-melancholy moans. We were close to them before they would move. One of them was so hunger-bold that he stood at bay for a moment, and the lieutenant thought it necessary to draw his pistol and cock it. The click was enough for the wolf, who dashed off at once, growling with head still turned towards us, and teeth shining in a parting snarl. After smoking we proceeded upstairs, to a cold, cheerless, unfurnished room, and betook us to our blankets. The wind howled dismally through the unglazed sashes. We sought positions the least exposed to cross-draughts. Spreading our blankets on the floor, unswept except by the wind, we lay down to such rest as excitement, fatigue, and youth can bring.
We did not rise so early next morning as might be supposed from a calm consideration of our sleeping accommodations. We were up in time for breakfast, however. It was a good one, and we enjoyed it. After its conclusion arrangements were made for the burial of MacSorley. It was decided that he should be buried on the top of a high mound within about a thousand yards of the station.
The funeral cortége was neither large nor imposing. It consisted of Mr. Bunter, two or three stage drivers and stock-tenders, the lieutenant, the sergeant, and the writer. The guards, excepting those necessary to protect the station, were out, posted around on commanding eminences to prevent a surprise.
The grave was already dug. The rough substitute for a coffin, drawn to the place of interment on a hayrack, was covered with its earthy bed as tenderly as possible.
Bunter had asked the lieutenant to read prayers at the grave; and the latter had consented. But there was no prayer-book to be found at the station. Bunter requested the lieutenant to improvise a prayer for the dead, when one of the men began shovelling the earth into the grave.
“Hold on, Jack!” said Bunter, “the lieutenant’s goin’ to say a prayer.”
Jack “held on,” looking rather astonished at this unusual delay.
The lieutenant threw earth upon the coffin, repeating, with a voice full of emotion, such devotional passages, appropriate to the occasion, as occurred to him, ending with the simple but all-including words of the church: “May God have mercy on his soul!”
Jack, supposing it unnecessary to “hold on” any longer, commenced pitching in the clay with the rather out-of-place energy usually displayed in the performance of that last duty.
“Hold on, Jack!” cried Mr. Bunter a second time, “the lieutenant ain’t through yet.” And Jack unwillingly ceased his labors for awhile.
“I have finished,” said the lieutenant. “I am but a poor hand at public praying; but if I spoke for an hour it would amount to no more than what I have said.”
“We don’t know whose turn it may be next,” said a young driver, feeling it proper to indulge in the hackneyed morality of such occasions—words given forth, perhaps, as mere conversational small change; but their truth was made terribly manifest shortly after. It was the young driver’s turn next. A month had not elapsed before he was killed and scalped within a mile of the station. When I passed there at a later period, they recalled what he had said, and showed me his grave by the side of MacSorley’s.