The Search Begins

 

Two days later, on the second of May, as the sun broke the horizon the two men rode west out of Fort Kearny.  Pony led the pack horses through Dobytown in silence.  When they passed the last structure, he turned in his saddle and said, You know, lieutenant, this ain’t a frolic.  I won’t have time to tuck you in. 

    I require neither your permission nor your supervision, Mister Rogers, said Baker.  I’ll take care of myself, I assure you.

That so.

Yes.  It is.

You scrapped with these Indians yet, lieutenant?

Not yet.

Yes.  Well, I seen your horses and I seen your troops.

Make it plain, Mister Rogers.

Alright.  Willing aint the same as able lieutenant.  Not out here. 

Those were the last words the two men exchanged for the next ten hours, until late in the afternoon, when they halted near a spring at the mouth of a shallow canyon.  Pony moved among the pack animals as they drank.  Baker dismounted and stretched, loosened his saddle, and shielded his brow with his hat in the yellow afternoon light, surveying the green-gray prairie that overlay the earth in every direction, confusing distance until his eye could discern no scale, nor depth or height of any presence that might break the view of buffalo grass, soapweed, prickly pear.  Empty.  A lonely place.  Perdition.  

He spoke:  It has a kind of desolate beauty.

Pony did not look up. He murmured softly to the horses as his hands ran gently up and down their legs, inspecting hooves.

Far up in the pale, cloudless sky a Swainson’s hawk wheeled slowly in the rise of a thermal draft, its light breast feathers flashing momentarily like a struck match.  Baker uncorked his canteen and took a long pull.  He walked over to Pony and held it out.

Rogers, he said, you think we’ll be able to find the girl?

Pony looked at the canteen and at Baker, but did not drink.

Sooner or later we’ll likely run into somebody’s heard somethin.

So… you think she’s still alive?

Pony lifted another hoof.

If they didn’t want to take her that way you’d have found her with her family.  Indians don’t generally hesitate when it comes to warfare.

Warfare?  Against innocent women and children?

Pony stopped, looked at Baker.

Well now, you need to ask old Squaw Killer Harney about that. Ask him about how he unlimbered his guns on a Sioux village up on the Blue Water.

He turned back to his work.

Teach em a lesson, he said.  Hell, lieutenant, I’d say they learned it.

He dropped the hoof and looked at Baker.

Baker corked his canteen.

Know the heathen character pretty well, do you?

Heathen character? Pony asked.  Lieutenant, I’ll tell you a secret:  Indians is plagued by the same appetites and weaknesses as whitemen. 

He plucked some grass and held it up. 

You want to know what the difference is?  It’s this here.  This makes all the difference.  This country don’t give a damn about a man’s inventions or who he prays to.  Pay attention to this, lieutenant.  If you live long enough it’ll teach you all you need to know about Indians - and yourself, for that matter.

He let the grass blow through his fingers.

Hell, we’re just another tribe out here.    

Baker drew a deep breath.

Think we’ll ever be able to reach a peaceful settlement with them?

Pony smiled.

Well, I’ll ask you…  Think there’ll come a time when all us whites up and leave this country?

Of course not.

Pony shook his head.  Hell, Indian’s born to war anyway.  Most of em don’t want to see old age.  It’s gruesome out here. 

Baker turned and walked to his horse, looped the canteen over the pommel.

Tell me, Rogers, how’d you get the name?

Pony loosened the cinch on his saddle.

My mother’s name was Rogers.

No.  No, I mean Pony.

Pony didn’t reply.  He pulled his saddle and blanket from the horse, carried it to the foot of the slope on the canyon wall.

What are you doing? said Baker.

Horses need rest.  Me too.

Rest?  We could make another ten, maybe fifteen miles before dark.

Pony looked at him.

Suit yourself, lieutenant.  Go on ahead.

But… why stop now? Baker asked.

Pony looked up at the sky.

Sun’ll be down in a few hours.  That’s when I’ll be travelin. 

He spoke as he moved toward the pack horses.  Get outta the heat.  Draw less attention.

Baker paused, thinking.  Well, he said, I’ll gather some fuel.

Pony stopped.  No fires. Smoke’d be seen for miles out here.  It’s cold camps and night travel for now, lieutenant.  You want to be helpful, pull those loads.   I’ll rub the animals down.

They finished and spread their blankets and laid upon them, chewing pieces of jerked meat in silence, rifles beside them.  Both men stared into the distance as shadows of the hills lengthened in the hazy air.  The only sounds were the swish of the horses’ tails and the rip of the grass as it was grazed.  Pony spoke.

When I first come out here I worked for an old Frenchman who traded with the Indians.  Furs, ponies, all manner of things.  It was him give me the name.  Pony boy, he called me. I tended his stock.

What was his name? Baker asked.

Roubidoux.

He still around?

Pony shook his head.

In forty-nine a drunk pilgrim shot the old man dead over a game of cards at Laramie.

They hang him for it?

Weren’t necessary.  I run a skinnin knife through his windpipe.     

  ---

Meta Bauer was not dead.  In the months following her disappearance from the wagon she lived among her captors.  She walked in their caravans across trackless vaults of earth and sky; heard their laughter and their speech and gained understanding of it; saw them dance and weep and sing and pray and also die, young and old alike, bathed in fever sweat or awash in blood, their black eyes glassy with pain. 

She learned to eat their pungent broths, the roots and herbs and marrow bones, the dried berries and roasted meat and raw organs that sustained them, and she endured with them the lack of these when the trees were naked and the rivers frozen and the snow lay deep.  She knew the name they called themselves.  And in time though still a child she saw revealed in their hunts and their warfare and in the stories they told in the glow of their night fires the warrant of blood that bound each unto all, and to the horses and dogs that lived with them and to the merest of things.

Meta Bauer was not dead, except to the life she lived before they made her one of them.

Pony Gets Hired

The following morning as the stagecoach carried Stipple past the fort’s crude palisade revetments the major called a meeting with his staff and informed them of the orders regarding Meta Bauer.

He asked for suggestions.

There was coughing and shuffling of feet followed by silence except for irregular ticking of a large horsefly against the window panes that silhouetted the major, whose color rose at the absence of response, creeping above his collar, tingeing his earlobes as it invaded the hanging flesh of his cheeks, moving quickly to the crow’s feet that webbed the corners of his narrowed eyes.  Casual observers might well have expected steam to issue from his wide nostrils in the next instant had it not been for Sergeant Connolly, who spoke up softly, solemnly, as a man might in admitting to a great guilt.

Sir, there’s Pony Rogers.  Word has it he drifted into Dobytown two days ago.

The major’s crimson flush did not fade.  Rather, it seemed suddenly to drain from his face.  He pretended not to hear.  

That will be all, he said.

His officers stood for a long moment, uncertain.  Then the major turned his back on them and they knew the meeting was ended.  They filed out of the room, their boots scraping the floor’s cupped, uneven planking as they moved through the door.  All but Lt. Baker, who remained where he stood. 

The door closed and Wood turned from the window and saw him.

Yes, lieutenant?

I’m afraid I don’t understand major.

Don’t understand what?

Are we going to embark sir?  Are we going to hire this man, Pony?

Wood turned back to the window.  He crossed his hands behind his back.

This is your first posting on the frontier, isn’t it lieutenant?

Yes sir.

You’ve been here for what?  A year?

Thirteen months sir.

This man… Pony Rogers.  Do you know anything about him?

No sir.

Two years ago I had him in irons for attempting to persuade a 14-year-old Mormon girl to run away with him.

He looked at Baker.

He is notorious.  A thief and bounder.  The lowest form of humanity.
 

The major sat down at his desk.

For years now this country has been home to men like Rogers, he said.  Some of them have rendered valuable service, while others have turned… feral.  That’s the only term I can think of.  Their experience among the savages has erased any semblance of Christian rectitude from their behavior and they, like the Indians, cannot be trusted.

Yes sir, replied Baker.  I wasn’t aware. 

It’s true, the major continued, Rogers does speak Cheyenne.  The problem is he acts like one as well.  No moral conscience whatsoever.  If that little girl is still alive, lieutenant, I wouldn’t subject her - even for a minute - to the company of Pony Rogers.

No sir.  I just thought…

She’s better off with the Cheyenne.

 

---

 

He had not intended to linger in Dobytown.  He was on his way to Laramie to reconnoiter a cavvy of Shoshone ponies he reckoned could be purchased for five dollars a head and driven to road ranches along the trail and sold to freighters and stock-poor emigrants for as much as twenty dollars apiece.  That was his plan.  Before the whiskey and the whores and faro emptied his pockets.  Then his horse and his saddle and rifle were gambled away, and even the heavy-bladed Mexican knife, the one he’d won in a bet with a Kioway scout at Fort Hayes, who claimed it had been used to saw the heads off a dozen Lipan Apaches. 

He was not yet sober when he awoke late in the afternoon.  His trouser pockets had been turned out; dried vomit crusted the front of his torn and faded red woolen shirt.  His canvas coat was gone. 

Fortunately for Pony Rogers his years on the plains had taught him how to live in the margins of penury.  He had survived life among the heathens for seasons at a time, sharing their dangerous, comfortless freedom, navigating the sharp edges of misfortune.  Ignore the gnawing belly.  The lice, the toothaches, the hatless cold.  

He sat up, cross-legged in the dirt beside the swayed sod wall of the Dobytown saloon.  He found a short-stemmed, broken clay pipe where he’d lain and he worked it around his lips, squinting down the wide, rutted road which led east to the fort.  Gnats swarmed in the warm humid air.  He heard a winner’s whoop at the faro table and felt a sudden, wafting breeze and smelled the evening’s first cookfires and the stink of the jakes behind the saloon.  He was on the shady side of the building so he leaned back and recrossed his legs at the ankles and smiled as he looked at the holes in the knees of his trousers and pondered the possibility of cribbing a pickled egg from the bar. Not likely. The owner, a red-faced Irishman who called himself Lucky Ted held tick on Pony for fifty dollars since February.

The setting sun burnished the rippled glass windows of the harness shop next door into glowing orange rectangles, surrounded by uneven lapboard siding which ran weathered and mouseholed, without straight course, from corner to corner.  The reflection held his blurred gaze. 

A distant clopping of hooves.  He closed his eyes and when he opened them again the dark silhouette of a horse and rider held the middle of the road. 

 

It had taken three days for the major to decide to send Lt. Baker for him.

---

 

The next morning he walked the two miles to the fort.  With the five dollar gold piece the lieutenant had given him he had purchased a bath, a new set of drawers, a shirt, a pair of patched woolen army trousers, and a fried egg breakfast with coffee.  Then a drink of whiskey.  And two or three more, and the money was gone before he thought of a haircut and a shave.  His memory of what the lieutenant told him was vague - only that the army held no paper on him and something about a thousand dollars.  He wondered who they would have him kill for that kind of money.  He didn’t object to killing; he’d killed six men since he made his way west.  Three were Indians who were trying to take his scalp.  Two were white men who deserved killing, and the third was a Mexican who fell on his own knife in a cantina fight down in Santa Fe.  But he forgave Pony before he died. 

No, he didn’t object to killing; he figured he’d probably be sent under himself one day.  Never done it for money, though.  And a thousand dollars was one hell of a lot of money.       

He arrived midmorning.  He saw the green, untested troops drilling bleary-eyed and stoop-shouldered on the parade ground and he watched their shuffling movements and saw their horses muddy and uncurried and a stack of weapons gritty with rust.  He knew the war in the east had not been going well. There was nothing about this army that betokened victory, here or anywhere else. 

He didn’t know what time it was; he didn’t care.  But he could tell when he entered the major’s office they had been waiting for him.  No handshake offered.  To hell with them.  He sat heavily in the chair in front of the major’s desk, the bright sunlight from the windows pooled around him.

It took the major five minutes to explain what the army needed.  Not once during that time did he lift his eyes from the desktop nor did he pause; he spoke quickly, precisely, as though reading an order.  Then he finished and raised his eyes to look at Pony.  His disgust was plain.

You understand? he said.

Pony rubbed his temples; he was headachy.

How the hell do you know it was Cheyenne done it?

The major looked at Lt. Baker, who handed Pony the arrow.

We pulled this from one of the bodies, he said.  Pony took the arrow, held it to the light.

So, he said, what if the girl ain’t alive?  I still get paid?

The major let out a deep sigh.  You bring proof, you get paid, he said.  No proof, no money.  The major glanced at Lt. Baker, who shifted in his chair.

Pony twirled the arrow, fingered the fletching.  I want it in specie, no greenbacks.

Agreed, said the major.

Well sir, it’s sure as hell Cheyenne, Pony said, handing the arrow back.  Don’t mean it was Cheyennes done it.  I seen ‘em trade arrows, bows, most anything with Arapahoes.  Could a been Sioux, too.  None of ‘em too fond of whites these days. 

Then he smiled.  Hell. Even you know that major.

The major’s face darkened. He stood.

Pony rose too.  His expression had not altered, but anyone who lived among men in that time and place would have recognized the moment's potential for violence.  Pony’s voice was very quiet.

She said she was seventeen.

Drunk, said the major.  You’re drunk.

Said her goddamn pap was diddlin’ her… she needed to get away.

Get out.

SHE LIED. AND YOU SON OF A BITCH, YOU LOCKED ME UP FOR SIX GODDAMN MONTHS.

Baker rose and stepped forward, his hand on the butt of his revolver.  Pony turned to face him.

You’re the wrong fuckin man, shavetail.

His hand held a skinning knife, its worn blade shining in the angled light.   Baker hesitated.  Before him stood a ragged man.  Willing.  Dangerous.  And for the first time in a long while the young lieutenant was afraid.

I will not wear your iron again, Pony said, still looking at him.

And I will not parley the fate of an innocent child with a sot, replied the major.

Pony wheeled and drove the knife blade into the desk top.  It quivered in the bright light, the reflection flashing on the walls like a butterfly.

Here is what I require, he said.  Eight goddamn horses.  Of my choosing.  No wagon-pulling remounts, no broke-down plow ponies.  A Spencer fifty and Colt’s revolver.  Cartridges. Powder and lead. I will need good wool blankets.  At least a dozen.  Iron pots.  Knives, ladles, tin cups, needles, combs, mirrors, beads.  Flour, coffee and sugar.  Plenty of sugar.  And three crocks of whiskey.

The major leaned forward over the desk, arms outstretched, knuckles planted on either side of the knife.

No.

You will not succeed otherwise, major.

I said no. 

Pony smiled.  He reached between the major’s hands and pulled the knife from the desk top.

Then I’ll take my leave.  He turned and walked over to the door, put his hand on the wooden pull and turned back to face the soldiers.

Who knows? he said. Could be the girl’ll just show up one of these days.  He opened the door and walked out.

The major’s head dropped.  Son of a bitch, he said.

Sir?  said Baker.

Son of a bitch, he repeated.  He moved to stand in the open doorway, watching Pony walk across the parade ground.  Baker came up beside the major.

Shall I arrest him?  he asked.  The major closed his eyes and repeated:  son of a bitch.  He stepped outside into the sunlight.

When can you be ready? he called.

Pony stopped and turned.

Me?

When? repeated the major.

Two days.

Make a list for the quartermaster.

I’ll do that major, Pony said, and waved.  He turned and continued walking.  Lieutenant Baker joined the major.

Pardon me, sir, he said, you said he’d be paid…

The major interrupted.  Look at him.  Scum.  Whatever we give him will be too much.  Circumstances force us…  Is that clear?

Yes sir, but… how do we know he won’t abscond?

The major looked at Baker.  Because you’ll go with him, he said, and walked back into the office.

 

 

More "Pony"

Orders From Washington


     It took three weeks for Baker’s report of the massacre to reach St. Louis and another month for the document to arrive at War Department headquarters in Washington, where it remained on the desk of an orderly for a week before it was processed and recorded.  Official notification was forwarded to the German consulate, which in turn sent word via diplomatic courier to Berlin.  From there the news was posted to Stuttgart in a formal government letter - signed by the Kaiser’s Minister of Foreign Affairs - which informed the Bauer family of the circumstances attending the discovery of the deaths of Lorenz, Lisbeth and Franz and the kidnapping of Meta at the hands of die Indianerin.  That was in late October.

The news circulated widely, reaching the pages of newspapers in Munich, Nürnburg, and Würzburg in November.  By March the fate of Meta and her family began to generate considerable public disquisition regarding the overseas protection of German citizens, eventually penetrating the Imperial government’s highest ministerial levels.  Ultimately the fate of the Bauer family impelled the journey to Fort Kearny of William Stipple, second assistant secretary to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War of the United States.

Stipple arrived by stage at the fort in the late afternoon of the eighteenth of April, having completed his fortnight of travel from the capitol in discomfort, due to a disquieted colon, which was the result of contaminated meat he had consumed before boarding a ferry at Hannibal, Missouri.  Following an interval at the fort’s sinks he was escorted into the commandant’s office by Lt. Baker. 

The lapels and shoulders of Stipple’s black swallowtail coat were frosted with dust, which he brushed with a white handkerchief as he seated himself opposite the post commander, Major John S. Wood.  Small-bodied and peevish, Stipple squirmed in his chair, nervously adjusting his pince-nez spectacles as he shifted his weight repeatedly, seeking a position which he hoped would relieve the excruciating burn of his latest, hurried evacuation, and forestall the advent of the next. 

Adding to his discomfort was the fact that the frontier terrified Stipple.  He hated its trackless emptiness: The meld of ungridded earth and empty sky was anathema to civilization and the rule of law.  Nature was anarchy, and the death of his trade.  Nor did his prejudice spare its inhabitants, for it was also his opinion that any man, red-skinned or white, who could be satisfied - even for a moment – living under such wild conditions was disqualified as a gentleman, and deserving of no more consideration than a June bug under a heel. 

Such was the Secretary’s temperament on that April afternoon:  Offers of refreshment were curtly refused; obviously Stipple would spend not one minute longer than necessary transacting the business to which he had been assigned.  Following formal introductions to Major Wood and Lt. Baker he removed a pair of gray kid gloves and opened a small leather folio, withdrew a sheaf of official documents and laid them on the Major’s desk.

The major picked up the top document and scanned it while  Stipple spoke.

This is the record of our situation, major.  You are looking at formal diplomatic correspondence between his majesty the Kaiser’s ministers and our own department of state.

Yes, said the major.  He tilted the vellum to catch the light from one of the two windows cut into the rough cottonwood-log wall behind him.  Above the windows sod bricks continued for another three feet, meeting bare cottonwood timbers at the apex.  Motes of dust floated in the bright shafts of light.  A stray insect buzzed lazily above their heads.   Behind the major an American flag stretched out between framed engravings of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Both engravings were heavily stained. 

We have a problem, as you can see, Stipple continued. 

The major put down the sheet he was reading.  He tilted his head slightly and looked directly at Stipple.

What I see, Mister Stipple, he said, is a voice of concern for the Bauer family, and for the welfare of all emigrants who choose to embark on the overland trail.  Understandable, don’t you think?

He folded his hands together and set them upon the desktop.  He did not blink nor did he take his eyes from Stipple, who leaned forward slightly, adjusting his spectacles.

Let me assist you, major.  Last year at this time the British government was on the verge of official recognition for the Confederate government.  If not for our victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, that might well have happened. 

His knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the folio.

Unfortunately the war is far from decided. 

He paused and leaned forward even more, looking around the room as if searching for spies.   

And you might be interested to know that General Grant is preparing a major campaign against Lee in Virginia and Sherman is getting ready to move south from Chattanooga.  The outcome of these movements will be critical.  The whole world is paying attention, his excellency the Kaiser included. 

Stipple leaned back a little but did not take his eyes from Wood.

He is an unpredictable man, Stipple continued.  The Kaiser.  We’re told he is considering a proposal to establish some sort of diplomatic relationship with the rebels.  This stir about the Bauer family has raised questions in his government about the willingness – the capability – of our union to protect itself and its citizens from murder and thuggery.  Indians, of all things, major.

He placed a hand on the documents.

Don’t we have enough to worry about?  Must we be also concerned with what the Kaiser thinks?

The major straightened in his chair.  The expression in his eyes hardened as he spoke: 

My dispatch regarding the Bauer incident was clear on this point.  I told Mister Bauer not to leave.  I made it clear to him the army could not guarantee his safety beyond the immediate vicinity of the fort.  He chose to go.  His family left in the night.  Quite without my knowledge or approval.

Stipple bore in.  What’s done is done, major.  We cannot be concerned with excuses.

Lt. Baker stood abruptly.

Sir, he said loudly, perhaps you’d care to saddle up and accompany us.  You would see…

Sit down lieutenant, said the major.  The lieutenant did not sit, but moved to the back of his chair and leaned against it, his fingers pressing hard into the back.

The major laid his hands flat on the desk. 

Mister Stipple.  I am responsible for the military administration of over four thousand square miles of this wilderness.  I have only 75 troops under my command.  More than three thousand wagons have passed through this section of the overland trail in the last twelve months.  What, exactly, would the Secretary have me do?

Without hesitation Stipple reached into the folio and produced another folded document bearing the wax seal of the War Department.  He placed it on the desk, far enough from the major to require him to leave his seat to pick it up.

These are your orders, major.

With great deliberation Wood raised himself and leaned across the desk for the paper. 

A slight smile crossed Stipple’s pursed lips, and he brought his hands together at the fingertips as he looked at Baker and then back at the major.  His posture was not that of a man who felt threatened.

 

March 28, 1864

 

To:  Major John S. Wood, commanding

First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry

Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory

 

You are hereby ordered to organize and execute a thorough search for Meta Bauer, the daughter of Lorenz and Lisbeth Bauer, both deceased, killed by Indians on or about June 11^th of the previous year in proximity of your site.

If the girl is found alive, you will use whatever means are at your disposal to retrieve her from the possession of the Indians.

You will assign such resources to the accomplishment of the mission as you feel are prudent and necessary to its completion and immediate result.  You will report that result to Department Headquarters and will forward periodic reports as to your progress, beginning immediately.

 

                           Respectfully,

                           U. S. Grant,

                           Lieutenant Genrl,

                           commanding

 

                           Edwin M. Stanton,

                           Secretary of War,

                           United States

of America

Wood looked at the signatures, handed the document to Lt. Baker.

Stipple pretended to brush the dust from his lapels.

You have the world’s attention major, he said, and it appears the world wants to know what happened to that little girl.

He rose, closed his folio, and began putting on his gloves.

By the way, major, he said, there is a reward offered.  The family will pay one thousand dollars for her return.  That should be a sum sufficient to inspire someone to locate and return her, don’t you think?

He looked at Woods.

I think so.  And so does General Grant.  And the Secretary.

We don’t know whether she’s still alive, said Baker.

In the event the child is not alive, lieutenant, the reward will not be paid.  It’s that simple.

Stipple pulled a watch from his vest pocket.

Gentlemen, how you accomplish this task is up to you.  But you must find out what happened to the girl.

He opened the watch and checked the time.

I’m leaving in the morning for Washington.

He picked up the folio and moved to the door, turning back to address the major as he opened it. 

I expect to be hearing from you soon, major.

The lieutenant and major stood at the open door and watched Stipple cross the parade ground, his coattails flapping like bird wings as he quick-stepped to the sinks.  In the distance a meadowlark perched on a corner of the post infirmary’s sod roof and threw its song into the gathering dusk.

Baker turned to the major.

I will assemble another patrol in the morning, sir.  We’ll prepare for a week’s march.

And where will you go, lieutenant?

Southwest, sir.  We’ll move in the direction they took.  Perhaps we can strike a fresh trail…

A waste of horseflesh, lieutenant.  No, I believe the only course now is negotiation.  If she’s still alive, which I doubt, perhaps we can contact the Cheyenne and persuade them to give her up, or trade her.

Yes sir.  How do we make contact, major?

Wood moved away from the door to sit behind his desk.

Yes, well, that’s the question, isn’t it?