Buffalo Trail (12 page)

“We'll have all the bullets that we need, Bull Bear. Buffalo Hump's spirit has granted me certain powers.”

No,
Quanah thought.
That's the wrong thing to say.
Isatai was going to ruin everything.

“Powers?” Bull Bear scoffed. “What, the power to eat more than normal men?”

Isatai pulled his shoulders back and stood very straight. Somehow it seemed to Quanah, who was standing next to him, that the fat man was suddenly several inches taller, and when he spoke his voice was deeper, more resonant.

“Hear me!” he commanded, and some in the crowd gasped. “I have the message from Buffalo Hump's spirit, and also as his gift to the People I have magic too. Whenever we go into this battle, I will make it so that the bullets of the white men's guns pass right through our bodies without doing us any harm. And when bullets are needed for our guns, I will supply them; I will vomit them up like
this
!”

Isatai plunged his hand into the pouch at his side and extracted some of the bullets that Quanah had given him earlier. He jammed them in his mouth, then spat them at the crowd. He reached into the pouch again, took more bullets, and tossed them up into the air so that they came down on the heads of his audience. The dramatic gesture had an astonishing effect. Though anyone could clearly see what Isatai had done and where he'd gotten the bullets, a woman still cried out, “It's true! He vomits them up!” and that was when Quanah understood for the first time how truly desperate the Quahadi were, if they took such things for miracles.
People see what
they want to,
he thought.
In better days they would have jeered, but right now they believe.
The Quahadi shouted
praise for Isatai and allegiance to the spirit of Buffalo Hump. Even Bull Bear was abashed.

“I have my answer,” he said, and stood quietly while Isatai blessed the villagers on behalf of the spirit of Buffalo Hump.

“Soon I'll go to visit the other camps of the People to take them the words of Buffalo Hump,” Isatai announced. “Quanah will come with me. Be strong and happy while we're gone. Soon the great times will return. If we heed his words, if we accept his guidance, this is what the spirit of Buffalo Hump has promised.”

Back inside his tent, Quanah said to Isatai, “They called what you did a miracle.”

“Just so,” said Isatai, admiring himself again in the mirror.

“That was a smart thing you did with the bullets. You were prepared if you were asked a question like Bull Bear's.”

Isatai smiled and patted Quanah on the shoulder. “And why was I prepared? Because the spirit of Buffalo Hump alerted me just before I left your tipi.”

•   •   •

F
OR THE REST OF THE WINTER
, Isatai and Quanah went to the other camps of the People, which were scattered about. They visited the main villages of the Penateka, or Honey Eaters; the Nokoni, or Wanderers; the Kotsoteka, or Buffalo Eaters; and the Yamparika, or Root Eaters, as well as some smaller camps. They even sneaked onto the land set aside by the whites as a Comanche reservation and talked to those living there. Not long before, Quanah had been rebuffed in every place, but now he was welcomed, although as Isatai's assistant. Everywhere they went, all their tribesmen had already heard about Isatai and the spirit of Buffalo Hump and the miracle of the vomited-up bullets. This didn't mean that there was universal acceptance of the plan to form a great war party and strike
at the whites with unprecedented force. Some of the People couldn't decide, and others still preferred the old ways of small raids. But many warriors pledged to participate in the coming fight—in all, counting fifty or so from among the Quahadi, Quanah thought that the People might muster almost two hundred men to take into battle, more if some of the undecideds eventually chose to participate. It was an impressive number, but not enough.

“We need twice that many, maybe more,” Quanah said as he and Isatai turned their horses back toward the Quahadi camp. “We'll have to go to the Kiowa and the Cheyenne next, and after that the Arapaho if we still need others. I hope we don't have to ask the Arapaho. They talk so much, the white men would hear all about it and be waiting for us.”

“We'll have all the warriors that are necessary, and whatever white men we attack will be surprised,” Isatai said confidently. “Buffalo Hump has promised it.”

“You've heard from him again?” Quanah asked. He wasn't certain how much Isatai believed.

“His spirit is always with me now,” Isatai said. “You worry too much, Quanah. Soon you'll have your great battle and all of the glory that you want so much.”

“I don't care about glory,” Quanah protested. “I just want to save our people, help us keep living in the way that we choose, and not bow down to the whites. Did you look inside the tipis of the ones living on agency land? Instead of lances and rifles, they have tools. The white man is making them into farmers.
Farmers!
It's shameful.”

“Soon for the People there will be no shame, only glory,” Isatai said. He took out a corn cake and ate it as he rode. The grinding of Isatai's teeth on the food reminded Quanah of a horse chewing up particularly thick grass. If anything, the fat man had gained weight since assuming the mantle of Spirit Messenger. Even though food was scarce in all of the
camps that they'd just visited, everyone vied to bring treats to Isatai the Spirit Messenger, and he graciously ate all that he was offered. “You need to trust the spirits, Quanah. You need to trust
me
.”

Quanah was taken aback by Isatai's self-assurance, which was so different from his old, transparently boastful ways. Sometimes he felt like things were going according to Isatai's plan rather than his. “You're a changed man, Isatai,” Quanah admitted.

“Because the spirits have changed me.” Isatai gobbled the last bite of corn cake, licked the crumbs from his fingers, then half closed his eyes as he rode and began humming.

C
ash McLendon hoped that in the New Year the general mood in Dodge City might improve, but it didn't. Somehow the drunks seemed drunker, the fights more vicious, and the days so cold as to defy any eventual end to winter.

McLendon himself couldn't wait until spring, when at some point Billy Dixon's hunting party would depart for Indian Territory and his own days of scrounging a living with buffalo bones finally ended. The job Jim Hanrahan promised would be a good one, better suited for a man of McLendon's civilized nature than grubbing around the countryside, keeping one eye out for dead, rotting buffalo and the other for Indians. With steady income in his future, McLendon was able to plan a budget for the first time in the two years since he'd fled St. Louis. Eight or nine months more in Dodge, ten at most, and he'd have enough saved for travel to California and to tide him over for his first few months there besides. After so much time improvising his life on the run, McLendon took comfort in having a set plan. Nothing could disrupt it.

And then something did.

•   •   •

O
NE NIGHT IN EARLY
J
ANUARY
, Bat Masterson was in a rotten mood. Despite his typical sunny ways, he was occasionally prone to sulks. He'd curl up on his cot in the Olds boardinghouse, turn his back on McLendon, and write furiously in his notebook. When his friend and roommate got this way, McLendon had learned to leave Bat alone and go out for a while. The weather was nasty and there were several fights going on in the Dodge streets, so he wandered over to the Hanrahan and Water's saloon. Billy and some of the other hide men were off at a table in a corner. McLendon was on his way to join them when he heard someone calling his name from a table by the bar. He looked and saw a man waving. There was something very familiar about the fellow, who wore a bowler hat, checked suit and vest. He was still trying to place him when the man said, “McLendon? Cash McLendon? I'm William Clark LeMond—remember me?” And then McLendon did. Nearly two years earlier, he'd shared a decrepit stage with LeMond on a dusty trip from Florence to Glorious. As he now recalled, LeMond was a drummer who traveled Arizona Territory trying to place scented soaps in dry goods stores and other shops.

“Good to see you, Mr. LeMond,” he replied, and the salesman gestured for him to sit down.

“Let me buy you a beer or something stronger,” LeMond said. After McLendon requested beer, the drummer asked what he was doing in Dodge. Choosing his words carefully, McLendon explained that he'd left Glorious in late summer 1872 to seek his fortune elsewhere and, after one or two stops in Texas, found himself in Dodge for a while.

“Very soon, I'll be helping operate this saloon for a bit,” he said. “But I've had enough of the frontier life, and intend soon to make my way to
the Pacific coast. And what of you? I thought Arizona was your sales territory.”

“It was, but then I heard tell of these great Texas cattle drives coming all the way up to Kansas. That means much higher commissions are possible here.”

“And why is that?”

“You get your Texan cow herders up here in Kansas all ready for fun, the one thing they want before whiskey and whores is a good bath to get the trail dust off,” LeMond said, polishing off a Jim Beam bourbon neat and signaling for another. “Those drovers want a bit of luxury after their arduous trek, and lemon-scented soap is just the thing. Two months ago I came from Arizona Territory to Kansas. So far I've been mostly doing business in Wichita, but my sources inform me that presently the tick line will move west, and then the Texas herds will be coming to Dodge. So here I am, ready to place my products in local hotels and shops.”

“Start with the Dodge House,” McLendon suggested. “It has high-class pretensions and is considered the best of the town hotels.”

“Ah, these hotels out in the middle of nowhere,” LeMond mused. “Remember back in Glorious, Major Mulkins and his so-called Elite Hotel? He was so proud of its few glass windows. Decent fellow, the major. I always liked him.”

“He was my friend too.”

“You know, I saw him again just before I departed Arizona Territory. He's in a town called Mountain View now, maybe twenty miles east of where Glorious used to be.”

McLendon had been contemplating the beer in his mug; now his head snapped up. “Used to be? What do you mean?”

“Ah, you left before the big fight and don't know what happened after.”

“Tell me,” McLendon urged. “Whatever you know—don't leave anything out.”

In late July or maybe August of 1872, LeMond said, there was an Apache raid on Glorious. “I learned after the fact that there'd been some warning that one was coming. Just the day before the attack, the Army came in and evacuated most of the residents. Some, though, refused to leave. According to Major Mulkins, it was him; Crazy George Mitchell and Mary Somebody, the couple who ran the Owaysis Saloon; and Joe Saint. You remember him? The skinny town sheriff. Also a dozen or so prospectors and that rich rancher, Collin MacPherson, plus his gunslinging vaqueros. The major said that Mr. MacPherson believed his gun hands could withstand the Apache attack, but he was mistaken. Many died. Be glad you weren't there.”

McLendon nodded. In fact, he had been there, and experienced a night of death and near-unimaginable horror. Determined to own all the businesses in Glorious and prosper in the wake of silver strikes, MacPherson, using his hired assassins, staged the raid to kill off competitors and take over the town. Thankfully, Gabrielle had reluctantly evacuated with the Army and wasn't present when MacPherson's vaqueros systematically cut down the prospectors and came close to killing McLendon, Major Mulkins, Crazy George, Mary Somebody and Joe Saint—only the unexpected appearance of Killer Boots prevented their murders, and Saint's quick thinking allowed McLendon to subsequently escape the clutches of the fearsome nemesis who'd tracked him to Glorious from St. Louis. McLendon still trembled at the memory.

“You make it sound as though Glorious is gone,” he said. “Vanished from the face of the earth.”

“That's just what happened. A few days after the Apache raid, most of the people came back, but there was no more silver found and the surviving prospectors drifted on. Then there was a solid strike on the
other side of the Pinal Mountains, the east side, then another and another in almost the same spot—just loads of silver. So a new town named Mountain View started up there, and unlike Glorious, it was solid from the beginning. Mines got set up and the place has just flourished since. It didn't help Mr. MacPherson. His property next to Glorious was suddenly worthless, and all the ranchland around Mountain View was bought up before he could get any. His reputation was somewhat stained as well. There were rumors that he'd maybe bribed the Apache to attack Glorious for some reason. Nothing of the sort was ever proven, of course. In any event, he's since pulled up stakes and gone elsewhere—the Dakotas, I think, or maybe Washington Territory. I don't know what became of ol' Crazy George and Mary Somebody. Major Mulkins is managing a hotel in Mountain View, though. A very nice hotel. It's called the White Horse and does lots of business. Someone else owns it, but the Major runs it. I had some drinks with the Major there in Mountain View just before I departed Arizona Territory for Kansas.”

What about Gabrielle?
McLendon desperately wanted to know. But he was afraid that if he asked directly, LeMond might give him news that he didn't want to hear. “Any idea of what happened to other Glorious refugees?”

“You might recall there were some Chinese, but after the evacuation they never returned. Don't know that anyone knows what became of them, where they went after that. And, of course, them being of that race, no white person would care.”

McLendon didn't respond, because he had great respect for the Chinese he'd met in Glorious, and hoped very much that they were prospering somewhere.

“Well, Joe Saint, the one who used to be the town sheriff?” LeMond continued. “He's living in Mountain View, too, though he doesn't serve anymore as a lawman. He teaches there. They've got a school of sorts,
one room and kids of all ages. Seems Joe was a schoolteacher back east before he came out to the territories.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

LeMond smiled. “I know who you really want to hear about. I recall you came to Glorious in the first place because you were looking to rekindle your romance with Miss Gabrielle Tirrito. But she had formed a relationship with Sheriff Saint. Well, she's in Mountain View too. Works at the same hotel, the White Horse, as Major Mulkins, where she runs the front desk and directs the custodial staff. She and her daddy had that dry goods shop in Glorious, of course, but he's gotten sicker and can't do much anymore. And here's the interesting part. Back in Glorious, especially after she spurned you, everybody figured she would soon marry Joe Saint. But here it's, what, a year and a half or more gone, they're both in Mountain View, and still no wedding.”

“Oh?”

“I have this from Major Mulkins, who, as you remember, didn't mind passing along a bit of gossip. Joe Saint still pays court to Miss Gabrielle, he truly wants to marry her, and she keeps putting him off. The Major couldn't say why.”

“Really?” McLendon had trouble choking out the single word.

“So it seems. You know, you might still be in with a chance if she weren't in Mountain View and you all the way out here in Dodge City, Kansas. The Major suspects that Mr. Saint will wear her down eventually. But it hasn't happened yet. Now, what do you think of that, McLendon? Wait—where are you going?”

•   •   •

A
S HE HURRIED BACK
to his room at the Olds boardinghouse, McLendon considered his options. He loved Gabrielle as much as ever, and simply letting matters play out between her and Joe Saint was no longer
acceptable. If she hadn't married Joe Saint yet, maybe it was because she'd finally realized that she loved McLendon more. He had to make another try for Gabrielle. But how?

McLendon's first impulse was to leave for Mountain View immediately, his obligation to Jim Hanrahan be damned. Despite his impatience, it wouldn't be a quick trip. There were two choices. He could spend long weeks riding horses and, later, mules that could handle the rough ascent to the Arizona Territory high desert, or else take the train to Kansas City, then transfer to another train heading west to Denver. From there he'd have to go by stage, Denver to Tucson, Tucson to Florence, Florence to Mountain View. He didn't know Mountain View's exact location, but LeMond said it was on the other side of the Pinal Mountains from where Glorious used to be, and there had been daily stage service between Glorious and Florence. Factoring in train and stage transfers and inevitable delays for mechanical failures and weather, the trip would take at least ten days, maybe two weeks or more. But money was an issue.

McLendon had about $110 saved, possibly enough for train and stage fare. But he'd arrive in Mountain View flat broke, and when he got there he wanted to focus his complete attention on Gabrielle and not waste valuable time doing odd jobs for room and board. But if he waited any longer, working in Dodge City until he had enough to cover living expenses as well as travel to Mountain View, in the interim Joe Saint might very well talk Gabrielle into marriage. Saint, McLendon ruefully recalled, was a man whose innocuous appearance belied a sharp, calculating intellect. Gabrielle, not without cause, considered him a better person than McLendon. But he'd changed; surely if he saw her again, he could convince her of that. Yet even then, if she agreed to come away with him this time, he'd still need a lot more money for train fare to California for two, or for three if her father came with them. And then
living expenses for three while he looked for a job. . . . Of course, he could find work in Mountain View for a while. But he certainly wouldn't find a job there that paid the same thirty-five dollars a week that Jim Hanrahan had promised him in Dodge. Still, he had to go, and right away. It was Gabrielle. He'd take the train and figure out the rest of the money issues when he had to.

McLendon charged into his room at the boardinghouse. Bat was gone; he'd probably shaken off his sulk and headed to Tom Sherman's place for beer and dances with whores. So he couldn't tell Bat good-bye—well, too bad.

He began jamming clothes in his valise, then stopped with a shirt halfway packed. Once before he'd tried shocking Gabrielle by turning up unexpectedly, but when he surprised her in Glorious she tried sending him on his way. Maybe this time it would be better to give her some warning. A letter, maybe. He would send her a letter at the White Horse Hotel in Mountain View, where she worked, telling her that he was going to come, and why. Meanwhile, he'd work as planned for Hanrahan and Waters, saving the money he—
they
, hopefully—would need in California.

Bat might be out, but he'd left his notebook on his cot. McLendon tore a blank page loose. Then he took a pencil and, resting the paper on the rickety dresser, began writing. It wasn't easy. When he and Gabrielle met back in St. Louis, McLendon, who'd been orphaned early and never attended a single day of school, was completely illiterate. Gabrielle taught him to read, which he grew to love, and to write, which he didn't care for at all. He had trouble expressing his thoughts in print. His communication skill remained exclusively oral; McLendon had a talent for talking people into things with spoken rather than written words. In particular, his spelling was spotty. Sighing, squinting in the limited light
provided by the kerosene lantern, he tried to make his best case to the woman he loved.

January 1874

Dearest Gabrielle:

I am in Dodge City, Kansas, and have word of you from William Clark Leemond, the salesman of soap. He tells me you live in a place called Mountain View now, still in Arizona Territory but on the other side of the mountains from where Glorious was. He also says your father is sick and I am sorry for that, I hope he is better soon.