"I'm givin' you all this preamble to give you a clear idee of the situation that led up to the killing of Peacock. There was a slight split among the Kiowas durin' this war, for ol' To hausen—Little Mountain—their head chief, with a few of the cool-headed older warriors of the tribe, had refused to join Satank an' the hostiles in makin' war on the whites, an' To hausen, with his little band, had kept out o' the way for fear of bein' mistaken by us for the hostiles. But the biggest part of the tribe, under the leadership of Satank an' Satanta an' Big Tree, was a-doin' their level best to wipe out every white man, woman, an' child on the plains.
"Satank was the recognized leader of the hostiles an' was always very bitter in his hatred of the whites.
"As our two commands, Sturgis's an' Sedgwick's, had kep' him on the jump purty lively durin' the summer, an' he'd got the worst of it all 'round, 'long in the last of August or fore part of September, I think it was, Satank seemed to conclude—as the time was soon coming when the Injun agent at Bent's Fort would be a-giving out the annuities that Uncle Sam sends out every fall to the peaceable Injuns—that he'd better make a treaty with Major Sedgwick for the winter, anyway, so's him an' his band could come in for their share of the presents. So he applied to Peacock for a letter of recommendation to Major Sedgwick, thinkin' that a letter from such a prominent trader would help him to make easy terms with Sedgwick.
"'Well, sir, right there's where Peacock made the blunder of his life, an' it cost him his life, too. Peacock was a pretty smart man an' was acquainted with nearly every Kiowa in the tribe, an' it's hard to understand how he could be so foolish as to do the way he did. But Satank an' his band had made him a heap o' trouble durin' this last outbreak, an' now Peacock thought he saw a chance to even up with his old enemy. So, instead of writin' a letter to Sedgwick askin' mild treatment an' makin' excuses for Satank an' his scalpers, he wrote one reading something like this:
Major Sedgwick,
Commanding Kiowa Expedition:
The bearer of this is Satank, the leader of the hostile Kiowas and the instigator of all, and the actual perpetrator of many of the atrocious murders and outrages that have been committed on innocent men, women, and children on the plains during this last outbreak. He is, by long odds, the worst Indian on the plains, and you can't do the country a greater service than to kill him on sight.(Signed) Peacock.
"Here was the unaccountable part of Peacock's folly. He certainly knew that that low-down renegade Englishman that they called 'English Jim' was living among the Kiowas at this time; but Jim was a brute an' appeared to be so ignorant Peacock must have supposed either that the fellow would be unable to read writing or else that Satank would never doubt the genuineness of his recommendation and would, therefore, take no steps to test it. But there's where the trader fooled himself.
"The Kiowas were camped across the Arkansas, a few miles south from the ranch. Charley Rath an' his pardner, George Long, had just begun to build them a ranch-house here at the Bend, close to where we are now camped, an' could see the Kiowas passing back an' forth across the river.
"When Satank received the paper from Peacock he and a few men who was with him went straight back to their camp, give the document to 'English Jim,' an' axed him to read it an' interpret it into Kiowa, which he did.
"As soon as Satank heard the purport of the paper an' understood the trick Peacock was trying to play him, he an' the same gang mounted their horses an' rode right back to Peacock's to settle the account. On reaching the ranch, as an excuse for their sudden return an' to keep Peacock from suspecting what he was up to, Satank an' his men never dismounted, but sat on their horses outside the gate an' called to Peacock in Mexican—the Kiowas an' Comanches can nearly all talk a little Mexican—says he to Peacock, says he, 'Bring your spy-glass out an' look down the road an' see ef this is a lot of soldiers a-coming',—when there was no soldiers in sight nor anything that looked like 'em.
"Never suspecting the trap that Satank had laid for him, Peacock come out with his long telescope an', resting it on the end of a log sticking out at the corner of the house, begun looking through it in the direction Satank pointed.