Buffalo Soldier

  So I didn’t like what drink unleashed in a man. Hated to think what it might unleash in me. All that fear of Jonas, all that grief over Cookie, all that rage: I was doing a fine job keeping a lid on it. Didn’t dare go prising it off. And I was doing a fine job passing as a soldier. But to keep on doing it I needed to keep me a clear head. I couldn’t take no risks.

  Of course, I didn’t want to stand out none either. I had to blend in with the rest of Company W. So I went along with Reuben’s plan. I figured maybe I could sup some whisky. I didn’t need to go swallowing it. I could spit it out or maybe pour it away when they wasn’t looking. I had me all kinds of thoughts running through my head.

  When it come to it, I didn’t need to do nothing.

  We walked into that town, keeping our eyes fixed ahead. We was soldiers now, didn’t none of us need to look down on the ground. A wagon train was being loaded up. There was a crowd of settlers ready to head on out to God-alone-knows-where, and the whole place was bustling with folks. Each and every one of them turned and stared when we come through.

  But Reuben don’t pay none of them no heed. He’s powering along towards the saloon with a big, easy smile on his face, like there ain’t nothing at all on his mind. Like there ain’t nothing simpler or more straightforward than us buying ourselves a drink. But Henry’s tugging at my arm.

  “We going to the store, Charley? I’ll get me some candy there, won’t I?” He’s pointing along the sidewalk but Reuben ain’t stopping and I don’t want me and Henry to get split from the rest of the bunch. There’s a feeling about this place I don’t like. Reminds me too much of the time me and Cookie and Amos walked into town. I feel safer if we all stick together. So I says to Henry, “We’ll get your candy later. Let Reuben have his drink first. He got a thirst on him after all that walking. Ain’t you thirsty too?”

  We tag along at the rear and there ain’t no ignoring the fact that the air’s gotten thick with something. Fear, maybe. Or hate. Even Henry’s noticed. His eyes are getting wider and wider and he’s tugging at me.

  “Later,” I snap. “We’ll get your candy later.”

  We step over one of them Indians who’s drunk himself senseless on the sidewalk and we go into that saloon and it’s empty save for three men sitting in the corner. One with hair the colour of old horse shit, one with ginger, one with black curls and blue eyes. Their milky-white skin been burned scarlet in the sun. Or maybe it was the whisky made them so red-faced. I took one look at them and knew they was long past the misty-sad stage. They was well on their way to being ugly, mean drunk.

  Now maybe that bartender would have served us, maybe he wouldn’t. We didn’t get a chance to find out.

  The redhead looks our way and says, “Well, lookee here. Is this Mardi Gras, or what?” He got a voice like the master’s. Guess he’s Confederate. When he gets up he ain’t walking especially straight but he come on over. Looking Henry right in the eyes, he takes hold of the front of his jacket. “What kinda costume do you call this?”

  Henry’s brow goes into a mess of lines. “I’m in the army,” he says, like he’s explaining something to a child. “I’m a soldier, see? This here’s my uniform.”

  Blue Eyes joins his friend. “You can put a monkey in a matching suit. Don’t make it a man.”

  They’re both looking at Henry and Henry don’t know precisely what’s happening but he’s scared. There’s fear in his eyes and he’s backing away, backing into me, which makes them fellas come on even harder. The man with horse shit hair pushes his chair back and stands up. He sticks one arm in the air and scratches his armpit. Then he starts on the monkey noises.

  Reuben don’t say nothing. But from the way he’s standing you can see he’s squaring up for a fight.

  The bartender says, “C’mon, fellas. I don’t want no trouble.” But them men don’t pay him no heed. And now they done messing with Henry. There ain’t no fun to be had from someone who’s too dumb to know what’s going on. They turn on Reuben instead.

  “Ain’t you a fine-looking specimen? What precisely are you? Baboon or gibbon?”

  Reuben bunches his hand into a fist but the redhead catches it before he can throw a punch. And suddenly that man seems stone-cold sober.

  “Go right ahead, boy. Start something.” His face is so close that flecks of his spit hit Reuben on the lips. “You wanna get kicked out on that chimpanzee ass of yours? Wouldn’t nothing I’d like better than to see that.”

  We didn’t none of us have no choice. We left. Was all we could do. We walked out of that saloon and back down that street with the jeers of them men ringing in our ears.

  Reuben had his chin up and his jaw clenched. He was more running than walking and the rest of us was hurrying to keep up. But Henry was crying. There was big old tears coming down his face as I dragged him back past the store.

  “Candy!” he hollered. But I wouldn’t let him stop. I knew too well what might happen if we fell behind. I couldn’t explain nothing to him. My throat was too tight. Like someone had fixed a rope around it and was starting to pull.

  17.

  We headed back to the fort because there wasn’t no place else to go. Tears was running down Henry’s face and Reuben was so mad his hands was still bunched into fists. He was dying to hit someone. Every time Henry sniffed, the sinews in Reuben’s neck stood up tighter. Maybe he’d have turned on him. But when we get within a mile of the fort we see a man stumbling over the grass towards it.

  He’s a long way off but it’s plain from the way he’s moving that he’s hurt bad. Bent almost double, dragging a leg. While we’re watching he falls down. He don’t get back up.

  Well, there ain’t nothing we can do but go see what’s ailing him.

  He’s a small man, bleeding bad. He’s damned near torn in half across the middle. His eyes are shut and he ain’t moving so we figure he’s dead. Don’t none of us know what to do next so we just stand there, looking at him.

  He’s the strangest fella I ever seen. His head is shiny bald all over excepting a long thin rope of hair right in the middle. His face is round and kinda flat, like it been pressed down by an iron.

  George says, “That’s a Chinaman. What’s he doing all the way out here?”

  “What do we do with him?” says Reuben.

  “Take him back to the fort, I guess.”

  We got a hand on a limb each and we’re about to heft him up when his eyes snap open. Scares the hell out of us. Henry give a shriek. Then that Chinaman start screaming. “Indians! Attack camp!”

  We ain’t waiting to hear more. We pick him up and run like our feet have grown wings. He don’t say nothing. Don’t cry out. Don’t make no more sound at all. By the time we deliver him to the doctor we don’t know if he’s in a dead faint or just plain dead. Ain’t no time to find out.

  Seems there’s a whole bunch of Chinamen building a railroad out across the prairie so the place can be civilized. They’re under attack and we gonna rescue them. The Captain’s orders is to take fifty of Company W’s finest to go teach them Indians a lesson.

  After what happened in town we’re itching to prove we’re fit to wear them uniforms. Guess the Captain saw we was busting for a fight because he pick the whole bunch of us. We ain’t off duty no more. We’re needed. Feels good. And we know it’s gonna be easy as eating cherry pie. We’d lick them Indians good. Hell, we wouldn’t even break a sweat!

  We was saddled up and mounted in about five seconds flat. Soon as the bugle sound for us to move on out we’re off. My blood was pumping and to begin with I was thinking, This is it. Hell, I can do this! We gonna show them. We gonna show them all.

  That thought stays with me. It carries me along for maybe the first two, three miles of that ride. Then I start to feel the sun beating down on my back, and how darned thick my uniform is. Dirt is being kicked up in my face from the horse in front and it’s getting in my nose and sticking in my throat. The sweat is pouring off of me, running in my eyes so I can’t see. After a wh
ile there ain’t much left in my head but the knowledge that I’m mighty hot and mighty uncomfortable.

  There was something real impressive about the sight of that railroad. Tracks, snaking on out over that open prairie, taming it, breaking it, making it useful – like putting a saddle on a wild horse. I thought it was astounding what folks could build when they had a mind to. But I guess them Indians wasn’t of the same opinion. They’d come riding over the horizon screaming and cussing in their heathen tongue and hit those Chinamen hard and fast.

  By the time we got there them warriors was long gone. What they left behind them wasn’t a pleasing sight. Wasn’t a pleasing smell neither. There was blood and shit and guts spilled over the grass and the sun been baking it till it stank to high heaven. There was sixteen dead but it seemed like more. Bodies and bits of bodies was strewn every which way. Their fingers been cut off. Some been stuck in them fellas’ mouths. And they all been scalped.

  I couldn’t get over the savagery of that. I mean, killing an enemy’s one thing. But cutting off a piece of him? Keeping it as a trophy? The master been right: they was animals. Worse than animals.

  Looking at them hacked-up bodies made me finally figure out there was two sorts of Indians – tame ones and wild ones. Them whiteys hadn’t been telling tales to scare the wits out of us; they’d been speaking God’s honest truth. Up until now we only seen the tame sort. But now – flaming hellfire! – we was going after the wild kind.

  We trailed that war party until sundown. I’d gotten good at stopping myself thinking by then. I’d had plenty of practice, shutting out thoughts that was unwelcome. Guess I’d have been driven crazy otherwise. But I couldn’t shake the fear that was building up inside of me.

  When it started to get dark Captain Smith said we couldn’t do no more that day. We made camp and tried our level best to get some shut-eye. Soon as it was sunup we followed on after them Indians.

  We’d been going along for a few miles when the trail ran out. It seemed to stop dead on the banks of a river. Looked like they’d ridden right into the water but there wasn’t no sign of where they’d ridden out. Captain Smith was off his horse taking a look when about a hundred Indians come bursting from the scrub around us. We done ride into an ambush. And these ain’t blanket Indians who can’t walk straight. These ain’t tame Cherokees. These are wild as coyotes, painted warriors in the prime of life. There’s something crazy mad gleaming in their eyes. It enough to make me shit my pants.

  I want to yell, “I shouldn’t be here! Hey, I ain’t no soldier!” But won’t none of them give a damn that I ain’t what I seem. There’s no way out now.

  We been taught strategy. Battle tactics. Attack. We knew how to charge the enemy lines, how to bring our sabres down, slash our way through. We been taught defence too. How to corrall the horses in the middle, make a square around them, two lines of men, the first kneeling, firing his seven shots then stepping back, letting the second man take his place while he reloads. We’d had all that drilled into us, day after day.

  But doing something in training and doing it for real are two different things. And these warriors ain’t behaving the way they supposed to. They ain’t giving us no time to get ourselves organized.

  Me, Reuben, Henry and Elijah been riding in our group of four like we done a hundred times before. When we was attacked I grabbed their horses’ reins like I been trained while they jumped down, formed a line, started shooting. But holding four sets of reins when you’re panicking bad and the horses is panicking worse ain’t easy. Abe was throwing his head up, squealing and tugging so hard he has me half out of the saddle. And forming an orderly line of rifles when every bush is hatching out savages is nigh on impossible.

  Reuben and Isaiah are shooting at them Indians like crazy. But Henry’s slow. He ain’t just one beat behind, he’s missing the whole damned song. He fire off his seven shots and I don’t think he hits a single thing. Elijah take his place and Henry got to reload. But his hands is shaking. He can’t do it nothing like fast enough. Indians was pouring down on us like raindrops in a thunderstorm. Elijah done his firing and step back but Henry’s dropped his bullets. He bends down. Starts picking them up. One’s rolled along the ground and he goes crawling after it.

  And now there’s a gap in the line. Them Indians come hurtling through. The air’s full of tomahawks chopping and sabres slashing and so much gun smoke I can’t hardly see nothing. Them savages ain’t just going for the men, they going at the horses too. While I’m holding them a big, painted warrior runs up whooping and hollering. He slashes at me but Abe leaps sideways, throwing me off his back, and the Indian opens the belly of Reuben’s horse instead. Its guts come spilling out as I hit the ground. The other horses run off and I ain’t sorry. Don’t want to hear Abe squeal like Reuben’s horse is doing. Don’t want to see him down, eyes rolling, legs thrashing. Don’t want to see him laying still.

  I’m on my feet and I got my carbine. I fire off one shot, missing that Indian by about a mile. And then the lever jam and I can’t fire it no more. Well, I know from training that my pistol’s about as reliable as my rifle. Besides, it’s buttoned down in my holster and I ain’t got time to fetch it out. So I draw my sabre. Got it in both hands. Cut it through the air, slice that warrior across the arm so he drop his tomahawk. But he’s got a knife in the other hand and he’s jabbing it at me. A knife’s a whole lot shorter than a sabre so he can’t quite reach but he ain’t giving up. He’s quicker than me, darting from one side to the other, making me twist and turn and I’m getting dizzy. I lunge at him. A sabre’s meant for slashing, not stabbing. But I stick that weapon in him just the same.

  And that’s when I discover what training don’t prepare you for: how it feels to push a blade into living flesh. Through skin and muscle and soft insides. How it looks: watching the light go from someone’s eyes and knowing you’re the cause. Something in me cracked when I seen that.

  But I couldn’t go thinking on it. There was at least ninety-nine other warriors intent on killing us. The next come at me. And then I discover yet another thing we hadn’t been told in training: if you go sticking your sabre right into someone, you can’t go pulling it back out. It had gone into the belly, curved on up under the ribs: it was clamped tight. So I just grab the knife from the dead Indian’s hand. Pick his tomahawk off the ground. And I carry right on fighting, and I find that there ain’t nothing that makes you feel quite so alive as when you’re staring Death right in the face and every second might be your last. You savour every breath, every heartbeat. And I find that a rifle ain’t half so useful as a tomahawk and a knife when the fighting’s this close and this thick and this fast.

  Wasn’t no time for any of us to shoot, reload. Half them Indians had guns but they wasn’t using them neither. Only Henry’s still trying to. I got that Indian’s knife. I’m screaming at him, “Take this. Use this!”

  He turn to see what I’m saying.

  And oh hell. Damn! Damn! Damn! While he’s looking at me, his puppy-dog eyes full of fear, he takes a tomahawk in the back of the head.

  He falls at my feet. His brains spill on my boots. And a scarlet veil come down over my eyes. I’m madder than I ever been. Madder than I ever dreamed possible. I’m taking out Indians as fast as they come at me, and hell, I’m loving it. Ain’t nothing I want more than to spill every drop of their heathen blood.

  We was holding our ground when Reuben gives a yell. I think he’s hurt and I swing round to help. I ain’t watching his head split too. But Reuben’s pointing at the hill. The air’s cleared some and I see a herd of horses stampeding towards us. Figured this time we was going to be pulped under them hooves for sure but it was a whole lot worse even than that. There was men riding them. Warriors. Same tribe? Different tribe? Who in the heck knew? Who in the heck cared? There was a whole lot more than the ones we been fighting for the last hour. Maybe three hundred, coming real fast. Wasn’t no way we could fight that many. Captain Smith yell an order. The retreat gets sou
nded. I sure was glad to hear that call! But then I look around for our horses and my heart sinks down into my boots.

  Reuben’s animal been killed. Abe done run off along with Elijah’s and Henry’s. I knew we was gonna be wiped out for sure. Couldn’t escape on foot.

  I was about to fall on my knees and start praying for that sweet chariot when I see Abe’s tail sticking out from a bush. See, he figured if he couldn’t see no trouble, it couldn’t see him neither. It had worked too, because there wasn’t a mark on him. I whistled and he come, nosing for a treat like he always done. His reins was tangled up with Elijah’s horse, so Abe brung him along too.

  We was up, me and Elijah, quick as we could, but we sure wasn’t leaving Reuben to die. Now Elijah was a big man for a horse to carry. Didn’t take a whole heap of thinking to work out what to do. I hold out my hand. Reuben grabs my arm above the elbow and he’s up behind me, then Abe, true to form, is running after the Captain without a click of the tongue or a kick from me because he don’t like being left behind.

  But them Indians had us surrounded. Only way to get out was by galloping hard at them, slicing our way through the line, only I didn’t have no sabre. Was Abe’s instinct for self-preservation saved us. He took off like someone set fire to his tail. Squeezed through the tiny gap between the Captain’s horse and Elijah’s. Nearly rubbed me and Reuben off his back, but got through them Indians and started heading along the valley floor back towards the fort.

  Two people on one horse over a long distance when you’re being pursued by more than three hundred hostile Indians ain’t no easy ride. Abe had a big heart – the biggest I ever known in any animal – but he was struggling. Them Indians’ breath was hot on our necks when we come within sight of the fort. But the prairie is a big old place and though you can see a thing on the horizon that don’t mean you’re anywhere near it. Abe’s puffing like a train and Reuben’s clutching onto me but his grip’s getting weaker because riding on the rear end of a horse behind the saddle ain’t no pleasure at all and by now he’s so tired he’s near to giving up the fight. Me, I just seem to have stopped breathing altogether.