Renegades

For three days they rode wrapped in blankets, hunched against a cold driving rain, crossing both forks of the Arikaree and the south fork of the Republican, trailing along the Big Sandy as the clouds lifted.  The soaked ground bore yellow and rust-colored hues, rippled silver where standing pools whelmed the bleak sage in wallows and scattered sloughs.  It was the first week of September, Wah ka nun e ishi as the Cheyenne called it, the Plum Moon.

They had no fresh meat since Cottonwood Springs.  Bison were nowhere to be seen, yet the prairie bore abundant sign; its clumped surface was trail-scarred by herds all the way to the horizon. 

On the evening of the fourth day as they made camp they saw a herd of antelope in the distance, so before dawn Catcher set out after them on foot.  He carried a bow and quiver and the red flannel cloth he had at the Cottonwood Springs camp, and reluctantly he allowed Baker to come along, warning the lieutenant that he must do exactly as he was told.

They walked for an hour, until the horizon glowed.  A slight breeze gathered.  Catcher found a wide, deep buffalo wallow and gave Baker sign to lie at the bottom and not to move, nor make any sound.  On his belly, near the rim on the windward side, the Indian peered over the edge.  Another hour passed and the sun broke the horizon, throwing blue shadows across the prairie, bringing dew-heavy gnats up in swarms from the wet ground. Prairie dogs stretched and yawned atop burrow mounds.

Baker watched the Indian, who grasped the bow and three arrows in his left hand, the red cloth in his right.  Suddenly the right hand shot up in the air and pumped up and down four times, the red flannel flapping like the wings of a giant bird.  Catcher stopped and brought the cloth to his side.  A minute, two minutes passed, and the Indian made the same motion again – four pumps, then stopped.

This happened three more times, then ten minutes passed before Catcher waved the cloth again, this time only once.  Baker wanted to say something.  He began to suspect a joke was being played on him, that momentarily Pony’s face would appear at the edge of the wallow, smiling, laughing at his gullibility.  He started to sit up, opened his mouth to speak when Catcher sprang to his knees, simultaneously drawing the bow and releasing it.  Before Baker could speak Catcher had nocked another arrow, drawn the bow and released it again.  Baker rose.  He looked over the edge of the wallow to see dust raised by several antelope as they ran away, white rumps zig-zagging through the sage less than two rods distant.

The Indian drew his skinning knife from his belt and began to walk in the direction of the fleeing antelope.  Where was he going?  The antelope were almost out of sight. 

A motion in the sage caught Baker’s attention; he realized an animal was down.  The lieutenant could see the ends of the arrow shafts moving as the antelope tried to regain its feet.  From the wallow Baker watched the Indian and the motion of his arm as his knife was drawn across the animal’s throat.  No sound, except the sudden rattle of a late season grasshopper as it launched itself into the warming air.

Catcher quickly butchered the antelope, leaving most of the carcass and viscera glossy and steaming in the brush.  He and Baker carried the strap, the liver and heart slung in the bloody hide, each man holding one end, walking side by side.  Baker felt the animal’s stiff hair and its blood crusting on his hands as he walked.  The Indian said nothing.

 When they reached camp Pony had the horses watered and was gathering buffalo chips for the cooking fire.

So lieutenant, he said, you know how to catch antelope now?

Baker shrugged.  I’m not at all sure what I saw out there.

The Indian says they’re so curious, said Pony, all he has to do is wave that little red cloth and they come in from miles around.  It’s how he got his name.  Known for it among the Cheyenne. 

He readied a pot of coffee.

I’ve tried it a dozen times.  Antelope didn’t quit runnin til they got to Texas.    

Pony coaxed a smoky fire from the chips.  Baker wondered about such an obvious sign of their presence in hostile country.  Aw hell, Pony said, Indians could be anywheres out there.  Likely to see us first anyhow.  Might as well eat. They put the strap on a spit and cut the heart and liver in strips to fry.  Within minutes coyotes, perhaps ten, had surrounded the camp, slinking back and forth through the sage.  The hobbled horses whinnied for the proximity and kicked out viciously whenever one came too close. 

When they finished eating they rolled their blankets and gathered their possibles to make preparations for travel.  Baker was scouring their tin plates with sand when he looked up and saw Pony and Catcher staring east, rifles in hand.

A lone figure appeared on the ridge of a hill perhaps a half mile away.  The man was afoot, approaching at a steady pace.  Halfway he stopped and raised a hand.  A white man.  He wore a caped army overcoat, woolen army trousers and carried a long staff.  He had an army blanket rolled and tied over his right shoulder, a warbag, a canteen at his hip.  As he got closer they saw his clothing was torn, a long beard covering his unwashed face.  He was hatless; a faded red silk scarf covered his head.  His brogans were wrapped with rags.

Howdy to ye, every man, he said.  Name’s Louderman.  Phineas.  With a P-H.  Late of Ohio.

Neither Pony nor Catcher replied.  Baker rose.

I was wonderin could ye spare a piece of tug?  It’s been two days since I et.  Small animal.  Gopher, I think.  All gristle.  Like to puke my guts dry from it.

He drew up his canteen, pulled the stopper, tilted back his head and swallowed twice.  His thin throat was caked with rings of dirt.  He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

We was just about to be on our way, said Pony. 

Baker interrupted.  Sit down, stranger.  We got time.  My name is Baker.  Artemus Baker, Lieutenant, United States Army.

Pony and Catcher exchanged glances as the lieutenant refilled the coffee pot and cut Louderman a long slice of the backstrap, which the gaunt man ate with noisy relish, seated cross-legged on the hard caliche.  The soles of his shoes separated from the cracked uppers, exposing his toes.

Mister Louderman, you got any idea as to your whereabouts? asked Baker.

The man licked his fingers, looked around.

Not to a certainty.  I reckon to cut the mountains fore too long though.  Am I right?

Appears you lack certain requirements for the journey, said Pony.  Where’s your horse?

Louderman took up the coffee cup, blew on it.

Horse?  Waugh, won’t have one.  Knotheads.  Kickin, bitin knotheads.  He tapped his shoe.  It’s shanks mare for me, he said.  I’m a walker.  Learnt to in the army.

He looked at his feet, smiled.  Don’t believe these here ankle boots will take much more, though.

You walked out here? asked Baker.

I mean to say so.  Ever damn mile of it.

Well now, said Pony.

Yessir.  On my way to Californey.

Catcher said something to Pony in Cheyenne.  Both men picked up their rifles and walked off toward the horses. Louderman watched them walk away.

Don’t appear either of your friends cares for my company, said Louderman.

Not my friends, replied Baker.  We’re… business associates, you might say.

Thought you said you was in the army.

We’re in search of a little girl, kidnapped by the Cheyenne.  Family was murdered.

Injuns?  Just you three is out here huntin’ Injuns?

The girl.  We’ll trade for her, if we can locate their camp.

I’ll be damned, said Louderman.

You said you were in the army at one time, Mister Louderman.

Louderman took a long sip of coffee, smacked his lips, wiped them on his sleeve.  He coughed.

As a matter of fact, lieutenant, I suppose I still am, he said. 

What do you mean?

I am an Ohio man.  Mustered in at Camp Dennison in sixty-one.  Me n my brother Albert.  Company C, Delaware Guards, fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 

He looked at Baker.

Have ye seen any mischief with the rebels, lieutenant?

No, not yet. 

Ah, yes, well.  Louderman stared into his coffee cup.

We was, uh, we was on the peninsula with McClellan, he said.  Me n Albert.  Yorktown, Gaine’s Mill.  Malvern Hill.  Sharpsburg, too. 

He pronounced the names slowly, rhythmically, like the chiming of a clock.  He looked at Baker, a faint smile on his lips.

We was a fightin’ outfit.  Yessir.

The smile faded.

We was at Fredericksburg, too. 

He shook his head.       

Oh boy, there was a fight.  Yessir.

He set his cup down, clasped his hands and began kneading them, as if they were cold.  He stared at the ground.

We was in the tenth assault.  The tenth.  Me n Albert.

He paused and seemed to shrink within the overcoat. 

I can still see the Johnnies up there, flags wavin.  There they are, the colonel said.  There they are.

His voice trailed off to a whisper:  The tenth assault.    

He cleared his throat. That was a fight, by God.

He looked up at Baker, eyes brimming.

A hunert and fourteen of our regiment went in.  Only twelve come out.  Twelve, lieutenant.

He shook his head.

All them boys.  Shot to pieces.  Albert…

He looked at his hands.

It unstrung me.  My hands got to tremblin so’s I couldnt even hold my rifle. So I… I took the big bounce, is what I done. 

Deserted? asked Baker.

I was no use to myself nor anyone else.

He looked up at Baker.

I s’pose you aim to arrest me now, eh, lieutenant?

Pony was not a Christian, nor an educated man.  His prejudices were informed entirely by experience.  He could barely read his own name, so he paid less attention to language than motive when in the company of other men, especially whites, most of whom were fearful and contemptuous of his relationship with Indians. 

As he walked away with Catcher he knew something was wrong. He had survived on the plains by reading the messages that men send with their eyes, the giveaways that betray intention.  The ragged man was after more than food. Catcher had spotted it too.  Leave this stranger behind before he steals our horses, he said to Pony.  So they rose and took their rifles with them.

Their suspicion proved authentic when they saw three men bellycrawl behind the low rise where the horses were picketed.  

As they walked Catcher checked his pistol and reloaded his Sharps and waited for Pony to move around behind the horses, where the guise of readying pack saddles allowed him to slide the barrel of his Spencer across the withers of his horse.  They were over 100 paces from where the lieutenant was talking to Louderman.  Pony suspected the ragged man would make a move as soon as the commotion started; he would shoot or stab Baker, whose inexperience would allow his attention to be drawn away from the man who intended to kill him.  Pony had no particular concerns about Baker – he believed every man’s life was ultimately his own lookout – but if they were to prove successful in retrieving the girl he thought the lieutenant could be useful in collecting the reward.  At least Baker provided an extra hand, even without experience.  So Pony drew a bead on Louderman’s chest.  He saw Baker turn away to lift the coffee pot, and the ragged man reached inside his coat to bring forth something that caught the light.  Pony’s finger touched the trigger lightly.

Baker heard the impact of the Spencer’s 350-grain bullet, then the boom.  The rifle tended to fire high; though aimed at Louderman’s chest, the round struck him in the throat, producing a hollow, slapping noise as it tore away a large portion of the man’s larynx, just above the junction of the sternum and collar bones. 

The sound of the shot carried to Louderman’s accomplices, who brought weapons up as Catcher appeared at the top of the rise, thirty yards in front of them.

The Indian fired his Sharps at the closest man, knocking him backward into the second man, who was kneeling.  The third man, seeing both companions hit, turned and began running back down the depression.  He was fleet; he made twenty yards before Pony reached Catcher’s position and fired, exploding dust from the ground on the man’s right side. 

Damn, Pony said, levering another round into the chamber. He drew a deep breath and fired again, this time hitting the runner squarely between the shoulders, the impact driving him face-first into the sage.

By this time the second man had disentangled himself.  He wore his partner’s blood splashed brightly on his face and in a dark swoop across the shoulder of his tattered frock coat.  He carried a pistol in his hand, and he pointed it back as he scuttled up the side of the gulley.  He snapped off a shot at Catcher, who was walking down the rise toward him, his own pistol in hand. 

The ball went wide, so the panicked man fired twice more, missing both times.  Catcher closed the distance between them to no more than twenty paces, stopped, and raised his own weapon.  He brought up his left forearm and laid his right arm across it to steady his aim, cocked the pistol, and shot the man in the chest.  The man went down, rose again unsteadily, and went down for good when the Indian shot him again.

The lieutenant came running, hurdling the sage, revolver in hand.  Where are they? he said, white-faced and breathless.  Catcher was reloading. Pony pointed toward the bodies on the other side of the rise.  Who are they? said Baker.  Pony shrugged.  How’s yer friend? he asked.  Finished his coffee yet?  You nearly took off his head, said Baker.  Pony smiled.  Still got yourn though, aint ye lieutenant?

Baker let out a deep breath.  We don’t have shovels, he said.  Pony began walking toward the horses, stopped, turned back to face him.

What?

We haven’t any shovels.  To bury them.

Pony turned again, resumed walking.

They can bury their own goddamn selves. 

Stop, said Baker.  We’ve got to bury them.

Pony stopped, turned again.

Is that so?  The same as they’da done for you?

That doesn’t matter.  We’re not like them.

No we aint by god. We’re still breathin.

That isn’t what I mean.

     I know your meaning, lieutenant, Pony said.