All went well, except for the reaction of the Olive Branchers — these Congressmen, bureaucrats, preachers, journalists who took the Indian side and blamed every Indian outrage on an earlier one by whites. From Boston pulpits and New York editorial rooms, they spoke powerfully and persuasively. They called the Pawnee Fork burning cowardly and provocative. They printed handbills, held rallies and torchlight parades, circulated memorials and more memorials to be sent to President Johnson. One of the strongest constituents of the Olive Branch faction was Willa's Indian Friendship Society — a fact Charles tried not to think about.
Before the incident at the homestead, he had taken his detachment into the field with a good feeling. Patrolling the Smoky Hill and hunting Indians beat living in one of the sorry, rat-infested mud huts that passed for housing at Fort Harker. He'd soon realized, however, that a small detachment lacked the firepower necessary to pursue and destroy large roving war parties. What's more, they didn't have the authority. They were not supposed to act, only react. The more this sank in, the worse Charles's attitude became, so that by midsummer he felt as murderous as he had when he discovered the bodies of Boy and Jackson.
Charles and his men had undertaken the sickening chore of burying the homesteaders and checking through their few belongings in hopes of identifying them. They found a Bible, but there was no inscription in it. All they had was one name. Eulus. Ironically, in the face of this kind of butchery, the Olive Branchers were temporarily taking control. Senator Henderson, of Missouri, a powerful member of the peace lobby, was introducing a bill to establish yet one more commission to negotiate permanent peace with the Plains Indians.
Like so many in uniform, Charles felt beleaguered, held back from winning a war steadily taking its toll of innocents like the man Eulus and his wife. Charles believed the peace faction would not prevail forever, nor succeed if they did prevail for a little while. Ultimately the Army would have to be turned loose, with permission to fight to win. Then he'd have his chance to fulfill his vow of vengeance made over the mutilated bodies of Wooden Foot and Boy.
As he headed back to Fort Harker with Big Arm's body, Charles told himself that he should be thankful. Although his black brunettes were despised by their white brethren, he could have been somewhere a lot worse. With the Seventh Cavalry, for instance.
The Seventh was a regiment already torn by factionalism and racked with trouble. Custer had taken part in Hancock's expedition and, later, had been sent up the Republican River to chase the Indians. A series of forced marches he ordered started wholesale desertions. One night thirty-five men left. In a fury, Custer sent his brother, Tom, an adjutant, and a Major Elliott in pursuit, with orders to shoot any man they caught.
The pursuers recovered five, wounding three. Custer denied them medical treatment for a while. One died at Fort Wallace, and Charles heard that Custer had boasted about his ability to make snowbirds think twice before flying. Not all of Custer's superiors cared for his disciplinary methods.
Just before departing on patrol Charles had heard something else about the Boy General. Apparently he'd left Fort Wallace without permission, dashing through Fort Hays and Fort Harker in order to find his wife, whose health and safety concerned him. There was, in addition to the Indian problem, the threat of a cholera epidemic on the Plains.
Captain Barnes cast his cocked eye at the stout Indian. "Lieutenant August, this here's your new tracker, Gray Owl."
Charles's heart sank. Compared to this hangdog specimen, Big Arm had been a sparkling personality. The Indian was about forty, bundled up in a buffalo robe despite the weather. He had broad, dark cheeks and a nose like a blunt axe blade. Painted buckskin strips bound his braids but beyond that, Charles saw no design or mark to identify his tribe. Certainly the tracker was neither Delaware nor Osage. Some branch of the Sioux, then? Very puzzling. The Sioux were at war.
Noticing Charles's stare, Barnes said, "He's Southern Cheyenne. He's been tracking for the army long as I've been out here." "I'll be damned. Don't tell me he ran off a buffalo herd too?" "No, but he doesn't like his people. He won't say why." Charles saw a swift flicker of pain in the tracker's eyes, or thought he did. He felt peculiar discussing the Indian as if he weren't there. "Well, come on, Gray Owl. I'll introduce you to my men."
"Yes, thank you," Gray Owl said. Charles nearly fell over. The Cheyenne's speech was clear and almost accent-free. He must have spent a lot of time among white people. He turned out to be better than Big Arm in one respect. He'd answer, and with more than a few words, when addressed. He had another problem, however. He wasn't sullen, but he absolutely refused to smile.
"Y'see, Magic," Charles said to his corporal, "I can't make him perform if I can't reach him. To reach him, I have to know something about him. What he wants, what he likes, who he really is. I've asked twice about the reason he turned against his tribe. He refuses to say. We're building a good detachment. I don't want him spoiling it, the way Big Arm did. We've got to break him down. The first step is to crack that stone face. I figure you're the man to do it."
"I want to tell you a little story," Magee said. "But first I have to check on something. The way I understand it, you've hung around the forts a while, is that right?"
Gray Owl nodded. He sat cross-legged, wrapped in his buffalo robe, showing as much emotion as a rock from the bottom of a creek.
The summer evening carried a hint of a break in the weather, a slight cooling in the breeze out of the northwest, where purple clouds helped bring on the night. The wind flared the campfire and strewed sparks above it. Charles and his men had agreed to pitch tents on the prairie, between the post and the river, to avoid sleeping in those dark, rank huts, on old mattresses filled with moldy straw, ants, lice, and God knew what else.
"Then maybe you know what this is?" Magee said, whipping out a worn deck of cards. "You've seen troopers playing with decks like this, right?"
Another nod.
"Are you sure you know what's in a deck, though?" He fanned the cards. "The spots, the picture cards? See, there's four different kinds of kings, four different —"
"I have looked at cards," Gray Owl interrupted, a flicker of his eyes suggesting annoyance.
"Well, good. Good! I just had to find out, so you'd appreciate the full meaning of this story I'm going to tell you. It's a good story, because it shows how far you can go in this man's army if you've got plenty of ambition. In fact that's the name of the story, the Ambitious Noncom."
Magee knelt in front of Gray Owl. "Now this noncom, he was a mighty quick young fellow named Jack." He turned over the top card, the jack of diamonds. Wallis and another trooper drifted up to watch. "Jack was ambitious as the devil. He wanted to be first sergeant and soon received the promotion."
Magee waved the card for the onlookers. Amused, Charles sat smoking and watching the performance.
"Trouble with Jack, though, he had a saucy tongue. He got smart with one of his officers, and they busted him." He held out the cards. "Lieutenant? Facedown. Anywhere you please."
Charles took the jack and slid it in the middle of the deck. Magee squared the deck on his palm. "But old Jack, he was still ambitious. He worked hard. Before long, he made sergeant again."
Magee turned over the top card. The jack of diamonds.
Gray Owl's eyes closed, a single slow, reptilian blink. It spurred Magee on.
"Poor Jack — spite of all that ambition, he had the common problems of us soldiers. He liked his drop of spirits, and, one night he had several drops too many, which got him busted the second time."