Buffalo Soldier

I hadn’t paid much attention to them. Their quarters was a building along one side of the square parade ground. We was kept separate down in them tents. We didn’t have no reason to mix. It’s only when we’re all lined up there together that first time that I catch a glimpse of golden curls out the corner of my eye.

  And then my heart’s pounding; my throat’s dry; I can’t breathe. Feels like I’m having a seizure.

  I’m supposed to be eyes front, like the rest of them. But I can’t help myself. I got to take a look.

  I turn my head, and when I do I’m so relieved my knees give way just for a second. It ain’t him. Thank the Lord! It ain’t Jonas.

  “You all right, Charley?” Reuben’s right next to me.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know him?”

  “Who?”

  “That man you was looking at. Angel Face.”

  “Nope.”

  The relief’s so strong it’s turned my insides to water. I have to run for the latrines. Get there just in time. I was one second short of soiling myself.

  I caused one hell of a ruckus on the parade ground, doing what I done. I can hear the whiteys’ laughter rising up while I’m sitting there, my pants around my ankles. I figure I’ll be lucky if I don’t get thrown out of the army. Gonna get me a beating at the very least.

  But I don’t get whipped. I don’t get kicked. I don’t get yelled at. Don’t get no punishment from the Captain at all. He just tell me to get back in line. He give me a wink and advise me to visit the latrines before guard mount next time, not in the middle of it. I feel the shame of what happened, but he don’t seem to.

  We went to guard mount every morning after that. And every morning the cleanest and best-drilled soldier got chose to serve as orderly for the commanding officer. It was an honour. A reward for doing your soldierly best. Those was army rules and regulations.

  The name Reuben give that golden-haired trooper stuck. Them first few weeks you could lay money on the fact that if Angel Face was on duty, he’d get himself chose, him being something of a dandy and a kiss-ass who was forever sucking up to General Michaels. If Angel Face wasn’t around, one of them other whiteys would get lucky.

  But bit by bit we got better. Sharper, tighter, more soldierly. Captain Smith was proud of us, and we started to take pride in ourselves. Started to feel we was a unit; we was a team. Even Henry was just about getting by.

  I was planning on keeping my head down, and my mouth shut. On being a good soldier. Not too good. Just good enough. Passable. I was aiming on drifting along somewhere around the middle where I wouldn’t get noticed.

  Problem was, Cookie done train me too well. After Miss Louellen gone running off there was times I been put to helping Rose and Kissy with scrubbing and polishing the big house. Cleaning and shining come so natural to me I didn’t even think about it. And that’s what landed me in more trouble.

  This one particular guard mount Captain Smith is in charge so he goes up and down the line once we been drilled. He’s real careful with his inspection, and he lingers a long time, going over every inch of my horse. I’d got attached to that animal by then. He was funny-looking but he had a kind eye and a big heart. I’d named him Abe and I took pride in caring for him good.

  Captain Smith gives me a nod and then looks over Reuben’s horse. Elijah’s. Henry’s. He goes back along the white troopers. Eventually he reaches Angel Face. Takes a real close look then comes back to me again. And all of a sudden the air’s thick with unease. Everyone’s wondering what’s going through the Captain’s mind. Some of them officers is shifting like they got ants crawling up their butts and their wives is whispering behind their hands.

  Captain Smith points to Angel Face, pulls him out to the front. Well, there ain’t no surprises there. The officers’ wives breathe a big sigh of relief.

  But then he points to me and Abe. And we gotta step forward too.

  Well, if this was a beauty contest, there wouldn’t be no trouble deciding it. Angel Face and his prancing pony beat me and Abe hands down. But this ain’t about beauty. It’s about cleanliness. And it’s about drill.

  So he puts us through our paces and I’m squirming at being the object of all this attention and I’m wondering if I should make a mistake. Drop my rifle. Miss a move. But I can’t; I just can’t let Company W down.

  He has us off our horses, and we marches left and right and front and rear. We goes through the manual of arms from beginning to end and we was neck and neck in perfect time – you couldn’t have squeezed a dime between us.

  By now there’s a murmuring from the officers and some of them ladies is looking a little faint, but Captain Smith ain’t even aware of the concern he’s giving them. He still can’t choose between us so he marches us both off to the guardhouse and there – in a side room – he tells us to pull off our boots.

  Well, by now I’m getting mighty anxious about how far this inspection is gonna go. If I got to take my coat off, if I got to remove my shirt … goddammit, there are two itty-bitty things he’s gonna notice! There’s a hand clutching at my guts at the notion of me getting exposed, but, truth be told, Angel Face is looking mighty anxious too – though I doubt his reasons are the same as mine.

  Our socks is clean as each other’s so then – Lord alive, save me! – we has to drop our britches! We standing there in our long woollen underwear.

  Well, mine was clean on that morning but it looked like Angel Face hadn’t changed his for more than a week. Some of them stains was ugly. And stinking.

  So I get to report to the commanding officer as his orderly and straight away he send me off to fetch Captain Smith. The General asks him if Angel Face was on duty and when Captain Smith nods he says, “Then why did you send this man?”

  “Because he was the cleanest and best-drilled soldier, sir,” says Captain Smith.

  Well, General Michaels don’t even look at me. Captain Smith is speaking truthful but it don’t make no difference. The General says I’m allowed to stay that day but in future he wants Angel Face.

  Captain Smith’s expression don’t show nothing. He says slowly – like he’s just trying to get things clear – “That’s your direct order, sir? Despite regulations?”

  The General says, “yep”, and leaves it at that. Captain Smith has made his point and I pass a long day running errands for a commanding officer who can’t stand the sight of me.

  But the General never did get to have Angel Face as his orderly again. That pretty boy was mocked so bad by them other whiteys, they made him feel so shamed to be beat by a nigger, he done desert during the night.

  When I get back to Company W that evening they’re so happy to see me they whooping and calling and patting me on the back. They raising me right up on their shoulders and carrying me all around in between the tents. I can’t keep my head down no more, nor keep my mouth shut. They won’t let me. I’m kinda mad at myself, but mostly I’m feeling good. Real good.

  “You beat that cuss!” says Reuben and he slap me so hard he almost knock the teeth clean out of my head. “Captain Smith gonna win that wager for sure.”

  But it seemed the General wasn’t handing his ten dollars over any time soon. Next day we hear him tell the Captain that all them drills don’t mean nothing. We got to prove ourselves in the field before he’ll believe any one of us will make the grade. And we gonna get a chance to do it real soon. Orders has come in.

  We being sent out to fight Indians.

  14.

  I knew about Indians.

  After Miss Louellen gone I been put to waiting at the master’s table, working the fan mealtimes – pulling that string, stirring up the air, keeping the flies from settling. One time old Grandma Rideau and a bunch of other folks come over to eat with him and they got to talking. I recall the master saying Indians been on Delaney land before they give it over to white folks. They just been squatting – they ain’t hardly done nothing with it. His grandpa been years getting the trees cut down, the stumps hauled out, t
he weeds and the vermin cleared off. It taken three generations of slaves to get the place properly civilized.

  Old Grandma Rideau been picking at her teeth, staring into space, not looking like she was listening at all. But when Mr Delaney stop to draw breath she start talking, soft and quiet, as if she all alone in the room. She saying how her whole family been murdered by Indians when she was no more than an itty-bitty girl. How she lain in the long grass and watched her ma and pa, her two sisters, her brother, getting their throats slit like hogs at killing time.

  It been enough to make my blood run cold back then. Give me bad dreams. But now? Well, I figured Grandma Rideau got to be ninety years old or more! It happened a long time ago. Them months I been walking all over the country I ain’t never come across no Indians. Not one. Wasn’t none left as far as I could see.

  But here’s Captain Smith saying that the next day we gonna be met by scouts who gonna lead the whole of Company W out across the hills, over the horizon, towards a different river to the one we come down on that paddle steamer. When we reach it we got to ride along the bank until we come to the crossing place. A man by the name of General Sullivan is gonna wait there for us to join him on the other side. Then we going off to a different fort. We got to be up, fed and ready to ride by four o’clock in the morning.

  The names of places and marks on maps didn’t mean nothing to me. If the Captain told us precisely where we was going it went in one ear and straight out the other. All that fixed in my head was that we was gonna be crossing through Indian territory.

  Indian territory? What in the heck was that?

  Guess we all must have looked kinda troubled because Captain Smith tells us not to be alarmed, and that the tribes living there are perfectly civilized. It’s the ones beyond we gonna be dealing with: them are the ones we got to subdue so the good citizens of America can settle on their land peaceable.

  I didn’t know what none of it meant. All I knew was that up until now the army been about drilling. Training. More drilling. Not much else besides. The prospect of doing something for real turned my insides the wrong way out. I could act like a man. Didn’t mean I could go fighting like one. If it come to combat, I plain didn’t know if I had what it took. Hell, I’d seen the bloody mess men was capable of making of each other!

  I wasn’t the only one who seen some sights during that old war. To tell the truth, we was all scared witless. But when you scared witless, you can’t let it show. You got to cover it up by talking big. Started as soon as we was dismissed.

  “Them Indians is cutting up rough,” says George. “They killing innocent folks. Running off cattle, violating women, murdering babies. We gonna end their thieving ways.”

  Reuben got his eyebrows raised. “How we gonna do that, George?”

  “We the United States Army, ain’t we? We’re Company W. We gonna strike fear into their hearts. We gonna show them we so damned powerful there ain’t no point them fighting. We gonna kick their butts so hard they be breathing through their assholes by the time we done finish with them.”

  “We gonna fight?” says Henry. He’s at my elbow, smiling like he about to get his Christmas gift from the master.

  “Yeah, we gonna fight,” I tell him. “We gonna fight real good. You feeling brave, Henry?”

  “Yeah, I’m brave. Ain’t I?”

  “Sure you is.”

  “You’ll look out for me, won’t you, Charley?”

  “You know I will. No harm ain’t gonna come your way. We all be watching your back.”

  That night I dreamed I was on the plantation. Standing there in the dining room of the big house, pulling that string while Grandma Rideau was telling how them Indians come creeping along on their bellies like snakes. Then the dream changed and I was lying in the grass. Someone was slithering towards me, moonlight glinting on the knife in his hand. Only it wasn’t no Indian, it was Jonas.

  It come as something of a relief when the call come for us to get ourselves moving. By four in the morning the hundred or so men of Company W was all saddled up and in line, the equipment we been issued by the Quartermaster loaded nice and neat in the wagons. The sky was only just beginning to turn from black to grey when them scouts arrive. We move on out after them and they was way ahead and it was still so dark I couldn’t see nothing – they was just shapes in the distance is all. It’s only when the sun come up and bring colour back to the world that I notice their skin.

  They’re dressed like white men. But they’re dark as me. Some of them darker. Yet their hair hang smooth and straight.

  “Who in the heck are they?”

  Captain Smith is coming down the column checking his men. The question slip out of my mouth as he draw level with me.

  “Indians,” he says.

  “Indians? Ain’t we supposed to be fighting them?”

  “Not this tribe, trooper. They’re the civilized kind.”

  “But they working for the army? Helping us go fight other Indians?”

  “That’s right. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Guess it is.” He crack open a smile and ride on down the line.

  Well, that has me puzzling real bad for a moment. I didn’t know there was different kinds, and Indians against Indians didn’t seem to make no sense. But hadn’t the Yankees and the Confederates both been white? Didn’t stop them tearing each other apart. Wasn’t no point trying to figure folks out. They was all mystifying.

  We follow them scouts for around three, four hours and we’re heading more or less westward all the time, so I’m happy. When we come to the river we turn north and ride along the bank until we reach the crossing. The ferryman’s supposed to be expecting us but his boat’s way over on the other side.

  Captain Smith asks one of them Indians, “Where is he?”

  The Indian points. “He lives in that house.”

  “Call him up, would you? Find out why he isn’t here.”

  That ferryman ain’t in no hurry to help nobody. The Indian just about hollers his head off but it’s a long time before the door open and the ferryman come out yawning and scratching his ass and whining that he ain’t had no breakfast. He says he ain’t doing nothing till he’s eaten his fill because working on an empty stomach is inclined to give a fella indigestion and he’s damned if he’s gonna give himself bellyache on account of the army.

  Time’s marching on but we surely ain’t. Captain Smith turns to that Indian.

  “Can your men steer the boat?” he says.

  The Indian nods his head. So there’s a heap more shouting and the ferryman agrees to bring that boat over just so long as them Indians take him straight back so he can fill his fat belly with whatever manner of breakfast he desires while they fetch the whole company from one side to the other.

  That trashy white man pushes that ferry over with a long pole. Looks mighty unstable to me and I guess Abe’s thinking the same because he starts snorting and running backwards like he don’t want to set a foot on them planks. Soon as it bangs into the bank them Indians start work loading it up. Can’t take more than a few horses at a time so getting us across is gonna take a while. Especially as me and Abe is still going backwards and by now we’re almost at the rear of the column and there ain’t nothing I can do about it.

  Before the ferryboat’s even got the first load across General Sullivan and his men show up on the far bank – about a hundred white faces staring across at us, none of them looking remotely friendly.

  General Sullivan is mad that we ain’t ready and waiting like we’re supposed to be and he gives me and Abe a particular hard look because by now Abe’s going in circles.

  I’m cussing under my breath and praying that Abe would just stand still but he don’t. He’s jumping now. Little rabbit hops. Going up then coming down four-square. Damned nearly breaking my neck each time he does it.

  There’s another load of shouting, yelling back and forth across the river, while Captain Smith explains the reason for the delay to the General, but he ain’t prepared
to wait. Soon as the ferry hit the far bank General Sullivan takes one of them Indians as a guide and then sets off, leaving us to follow as soon as we’re able.

  That ferry boat come and go and come and go and finally most all of Company W is across; but me and Abe still ain’t going nowhere. I’m just about in despair because I can’t do nothing to control my horse and I’m feeling mighty foolish when one of them Indians comes and takes Abe’s reins and whispers something in his ear. All of a sudden my horse stops the running backwards and turning circles and jumping like a jackrabbit. He stands still, ears pricked forward, and then he lets that man lead him straight onto that ferry and all the time I’m sitting there on his back like a big baby and I feel so mad that I want to spit in that Indian’s face.

  The sun’s high in the sky by the time all the wagons and the horses has got from one side to the other. That good-for-nothing ferryman is just sitting down to another meal when we’re finally ready to follow the General’s trail.

  We’re assembled on that bank and ready to move but Captain Smith gives a yell. For a moment I think one of them Indians has stuck a knife in him. But no, he’s leaping off his horse, throwing the reins at me and running into the bushes. Thinking his bowels must have given up sudden I turn my head away.

  But two seconds later a turkey flies up, startled. Captain Smith shoots the thing stone dead and then he’s back, bird in one hand and a pair of eggs in the other. He slings the turkey in the cart but he wraps them eggs up real careful and tucks them inside his coat to keep them warm. We’re all kinda surprised but don’t nobody say nothing and off we move again.

  The further we go, the flatter and the scrubbier the land gets. It has a godforsaken feel to it but the Captain don’t seem to notice. He keeps asking them Indians questions. Questions about the plants and the animals we’re passing by. Questions about them and their folks.

  As a general rule men – black or white – is mighty fond of the sound of their own voices. They don’t truly hear nothing from nobody else unless it happens to coincide with their own opinion. Captain Smith was the first man I knew that really listened to what a person was telling him. He paid close attention when them Indians talked and I did too and the more they talked the more puzzled I become.