Brothers of the Buffalo Page 3

  This medicine paint and way of dressing

  was given to me by Matama, Old Woman.

  Where does Matama live? someone asked.

  Sweet Medicine looked toward the spring.

  She lives just there behind the water.

  Now, he said, I will return to her

  and bring something back.

  Then Sweet Medicine walked into

  the falling water and disappeared

  from the sight of the People.

  He came to the place,

  there inside the mountain,

  where an old, old woman

  sat before a fire.

  My grandson, the old woman said,

  why have you come back to me?

  I need something, Sweet Medicine said,

  to take back to the People.

  Grandson, sit down, Matama said.

  Sweet Medicine sat down on her left.

  Then Matama filled a bowl with food.

  Here, she said, this is buffalo meat.

  Then Sweet Medicine began to eat.

  As much as he ate, that bowl stayed full.

  Matama lifted the bowl of meat

  and handed it to Sweet Medicine.

  Take this as a gift for the People.

  Sweet Medicine walked back through

  the waterfall

  to where the People were waiting.

  Something good is coming,

  he said to the People.

  Watch, but do not do anything.

  Then, as all watched, a cow buffalo

  pushed her head through the waterfall,

  leaped out from the waterfall, and ran away.

  One by one, more buffalo came out.

  First another cow and then her calf

  and a big bull buffalo.

  Soon many buffalo were coming,

  until a great herd had passed through.

  When they were all done coming out,

  Sweet Medicine spoke again.

  Now you can hunt those sacred animals.

  But you must always feed the old people

  and the orphans first and waste nothing.

  And you must always share the meat

  with all the people in the camp.

  So Sweet Medicine brought the buffalo.

  And as long as the People respected

  and shared, they no longer went hungry.

  POLISHING BOOTS

  Petersburg, Virginia

  April 15, 1872

  My Dear Son Washington,

  I your mother writing to you. We have got two letters from you and those letters made me happy. They made your sister happy. We love you. We miss you. We know you do your best.

  We are well. Weather has been dry. We have been given help by Mr. Moses Mack. You remember him. He went away after his wife die and was gone 8 years. He just come back. He was good friend, good friend your daddy. He help in the field. We will have a good crop.

  This is Pegatha writing what Mama say. I am good in school. We love and miss you. We know you be a very fine soldier.

  Your loving mother,

  Mama

  “Private Washington Vance Jr.,” Wash asked himself, pausing to run his hand back through his short hair, “why you ever leave Virginia and join the 10th Cavalry?”

  Shut your mouth, Wash. Best to just concentrate on polishing—seeing as how opening your yap is what earned you this extra duty from Sergeant Samuel Brown during inspection.

  “Private, your boots is a disgrace,” Sergeant Brown had said in his slow Georgia drawl.

  Those scornful words had made Wash mad. Just an hour before parade, he had shined his boots till they gleamed like the bright morning sun. He’d planned to be praised for the way he looked, not made to feel like some ignorant field negro. He was wearing his proud new uniform—made of lighter blue and coarser cloth than the more expensive broadcloth worn by the officers, but handsome nonetheless, and made more so by the yellow trim showing he was cavalry, different from the white trappings of the infantrymen and the red of the artillery. Standing at the end of the line, which had been arranged by height, he’d imagined that though he might be lacking some in stature, he surely looked as fine for his first inspection as any man on the post, black, white, or red. Surely he would prove to the sergeant that he was a real man of the 10th and not some stumbling baby.

  Then the white captain had trotted his horse past, spattering mud all over Wash as he was lining up at attention. If he had just kept his mouth shut as he should, that might have been the end of it.

  “My boots was clean before that old white man’s horse near run me down,” he mumbled softly under his breath.

  But not softly enough. Sergeant Brown turned to him, his ears pricked up like a cat that just heard the squeak of a mouse.

  “What you say, Private?”

  “Nothing, Sergeant, sir.”

  “No-o-sir,” a big grin that was far from friendly spread over Sergeant Brown’s face. “You said more’n that, Private. Enough to make me wonder if you are anywheres near the right material for our 10th.”

  And that was how Wash had ended up polishing not just his own footwear, but the boots of every non-com and officer in the fort.

  Of course, such work as Wash was doing was not unusual for one of his station. In the short time he’d been at Camp Supply, he’d learned that black soldiers had to do more than double duty. They were expected to serve not just as fighting men, but as handymen and laborers, lugging and toting, hammering and nailing. Also, when picked to be strikers—personal servants for the white officers—they had the additional job of acting as house men and valets. True, if a man got picked to be a striker he did earn extra pay, just as the wives of the colored soldiers who were married made cash money for cooking and doing laundry.

  But being a dog-robber—the name the other black soldiers called a striker, seeing as how he got to eat the extra food from the officers’ tables that otherwise would have gone to the officers’ dogs—was not to his taste, even though those selected did get finer chow than was served to the enlisted men.

  I did not join up to take the place of any white man’s pet—even if I was to make extra money I could send back home to provide for Mama and Pegatha. Nossir. I mean to prove myself as good and proud as any man.

  Wash shook his head.

  Maybe a little too proud. Stuck doing a striker’s job as punishment duty with no extra food or pay.

  He sighed and picked up another boot. Spit, rub the polish in, buff it with the cloth. Make it so shiny it reflects your face.

  Wash paused and studied his reflection. The face looking back at him from the side of that boot was dark and shadowy. But in the light of day he knew his skin to be nigh the same color as that of the Indian scouts at the fort.

  The old Powhatan blood shows in me just like in Mama. That is why I am so light. And I have got high cheekbones just like her. My hair’s like hers, too, more wavy than kinked up. But mine is kept cavalry short, not long like the full-blood Indians here at Camp Supply.

  Wash thought about those full-blood scouts. Osages, he had learned. The only red men he’d been able to see close up thus far. There were, he knew, a passel of other Indians not far away. Most of them were at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency. But none of them had come in to the fort in the week he’d been here.

  There was considerable tension at Camp Supply about that. Just what was the present intent of those Indians? Would they remain peaceful or go again on the warpath as they had so often done in the past? No one seemed to know. Even the Quaker agent, Brinton Darlington, no longer seemed sure of himself when he had stated to all and sundry that surely the way of peace and not the path of war was the road his savage charges were going to follow.

  What was it Sergeant Brown had said as they lined up on their arrival at Camp Supply?

  “You men best assume that the Indians is always watchin’ us. Even if you not layin’ eyes on them. You doubt my word, just walk out onto that peacef
ul-seeming prairie by youself. Once you get past that little hill there, you might could run into as many Indians as any man’d want. ’Course, you won’t live to tell about it. No-oo-osir.”

  Wash turned his gaze toward the open gate of the fort. For all anyone really knew, the hills out there might just be crawling with renegades. During the two times Wash had been sent out with a wood-cutting party, he’d kept expecting to feel an arrow in the back at any minute. On his way back there was such a tightness in his belly that he felt as if he had to climb down off his horse to relieve himself. But he didn’t dare do that. The thought of getting punctured by an arrow while unbuttoning his pants was a sight more distressing than just getting shot in the back.

  Wash sighed. All this thinking about being killed was not doing him any good. Best to concentrate on the task at hand rather than writing his own obituary.

  “Shining boots,” he said to himself. “That is what you need to be about right now, Private Vance. Cogitating on other concerns is just going to confuse you and get you into more trouble.”

  “Uh-huh. Amen to that,” an amused voice replied. A long-fingered hand reached over to pass Wash another boot.

  “Thank you,” Wash said.

  “You welcome, my man.”

  Private Josh Hopkins leaned back against the post with his hat over his eyes, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

  Having no duty assigned him till supper, Josh didn’t have to assist Wash with his task. True, his help consisted of little more than handing over each boot when it came time to polish it. When it came to being lazy, Josh Hopkins was the match of any man Wash had ever met. But, lazy as he was, Josh was also seasoned. Though still a private like Wash and Charley Smith, Josh had a good year on them in the 10th, having enlisted back when they were still using the hair-trigger Spencer.

  “And I do not miss those guns at all. They was as like to kill the one carrying ’em as anything a man might aim at.”

  Wash was glad of having the benefit of all of Josh’s experience, nearly as glad as he was for the companionship of Charley Smith, who had just about adopted him as kin.

  “You ’mind me of my own little brother,” Charley had told Wash. “He had that same Indian hair as you. Simon was his name. Simon.” Charley had paused then, swallowed hard, and looked out the window. “That boy and I never let a hair come between us till he was sold down the river by our old master.”

  True, Charley had used those dice to take the little bit of cash Wash had in his pocket during their train ride. But Wash chalked that up to experience and didn’t hold a grudge. Gambling looked to be in Charley’s blood. In the few days Wash had known him, it had become clear that whether it was luck or skill...or something else, Charley Smith always came out on top in any game of chance.

  What was it Mama said about gambling? Only way not to lose is to never play.

  So when Charley had proposed after reaching Camp Supply that they play a few hands of cards, Wash simply smiled and shook his head.

  “I’ll just watch, if you don’t mind.”

  From the way Charley had raised an eyebrow and then nodded back at him, Wash had known it was all right between them if he declined to gamble. There were plenty of other men eager to hand over their pay to Charley.

  Now Josh ran his hand back through his hair. “Know why they calls us Buffalo Soldiers?” he asked.

  Wash shook his head.

  “Indians give us that name.”

  “Indians.”

  “Uh-huh. Now there are some as say it is because most of us have this hair. Pretty much like those buffalo the Indians love so much.But that is only a part of it. It is also because those Indians saw right off that we black cavalrymen is a tougher and more stalwart breed—like those big animals. Buffalo will face into the storm and not let anything turn them around. Buffalo Soldiers. A name we have been proud to adopt ourselves.”

  Buffalo Soldiers, Wash thought. Sure has a better sound than “brunettes”—or any of the other names the soldiers in white companies call us. Despite the emancipation of our race and the fact that so many men of our color serve not only in the army but in state legislatures and the United States House of Representatives, there are still those who despise us—including some in uniform—even more that they hate the red men. ’Course, Indians aren’t actually red. Those I’ve seen range from a tawny hue to a deep brown. Not that the shade of their skin makes any difference. Just two colors here. White on the top and everything else underneath.

  That thought brought another image to Wash’s mind, one that had been troubling him ever since the train ride that brought him west. It was the thin, mean-looking face of that bearded white man, the one who had stared with murderous eyes at him through the train window. Though he had little doubt that the man had gotten off the train at the same depot where Wash and the other new recruits had disembarked, he hadn’t seen the man either then or since. But that man’s face kept coming back to him. Wash had a feeling deep in his gut that he knew the man. That was why he had gawked at him like a schoolboy seeing an elephant for the first time. Or maybe more like a rabbit staring at a snake. But from when or where he knew that dangerous man, Wash could not quite say. And what was it about that gold watch chain that had drawn his attention? Wash shook his head. The answer was just staying out of reach, like a box on a shelf so high there was no way to get it without a ladder.

  Maybe it was the beard. Maybe that is what’s throwing me off. Now how would that man look if he was clean-shaven? Who would he look like then, maybe...?

  “Wash.”

  Wash opened his eyes. Another pair of boots was being dangled in front of him.

  “Take special care with these here. They are the footwear of none other than our commanding officer, Mister Lieutenant Colonel John W. Davidson hisself. You get any scuff marks on these, you be carrying the log all night for sure.”

  Wash took hold of those boots carefully. He’d seen how strict their commanding officer could be. And how unpredictable. One day he’d be ignoring everyone, and the next he’d have a man with one little loose button sentenced to carry the forty-pound punishment log for two hours.

  Wash rubbed his shoulder. It still ached from when he’d lugged that rough piece of pine himself three days earlier. All for accidentally stepping on the little patch of grass Colonel Davidson was trying to nurture on the parade ground.

  “Yessir,” Josh said. “You have got to watch yourself ever’ minute with them white officers. You know, every one of them is still smarting over the way they was demoted once the Civil War was over. Colonel Davidson hisself was a major general. Head of the cavalry for the whole Department of the West. But when the army was cut back from two million to just twenty-five thousand men, he was dropped in rank like a rock in a pond. Only about seven or eight generals left in the entire army. And our old colonel is about as far from being one of them again as the earth is from the moon in the sky. You know what that means?”

  “Walk on eggs whenever Colonel Davidson is around?”

  “Better than to walk on his grass,” Josh chuckled

  Wolf looked across the fire at the sleeping faces of his mother and sister. Their faces, like his, had grown thin from the lack of food. It had been days since a real meal. Once again, the promised rations had not been given. If other families had food they would have shared it with them. That was the way the Real People lived. But now every lodge in the village was suffering the same.

  Come in to the agency. Give up fighting. You will be safe here. You will be fed. That is what was promised. That is what they wrote on the papers they signed.

  But we cannot eat promises or paper.

  The Animal People, he thought, are like us Real People. When they sense the presence of ve’hoe soldiers, they flee. As soon as the ve’hoes built their fort, the buffalo moved away. Then the deer and antelope left. Even the rabbits and prairie chickens disappeared.

  So it was that their only source of food had become the governm
ent rations, solemnly pledged to them in exchange for their land, in exchange for peace. But though their Quaker agent, Friend Miles, tried his best to keep the government’s promises, he was not the one who had the final say as to when that food would arrive, how much there would be, and what condition it would be in. If it was late, or scant, or mostly rotten meat and stale hardtack, there was nothing he could do. And if it did not come at all, all he could do was write more words on paper to complain.

  It had not taken long for the Real People to see that the agency was not a good place. They had been told to farm. But they saw what had happened to their cousins, the Cloud People, who had arrived at the Darlington Agency for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes ahead of them. The Cloud People had tried hard. But they had little luck in growing anything. It was too hot and dry. Even when some rains did come, the earth was too poor. It was nothing like the rich river bottom soil in which their old people used to grow corn.

  Despite the broken promises of plenty of food for everyone, despite their empty bellies, the Real People were still forbidden by the army to leave and go look for game. Anyone seen outside the agency boundaries was to be shot on sight.

  But now, Wolf thought, to hunt—or raid—is our only choice.

  He shook his head as he hefted his rifle. I will not raid. I do not want to hurt any innocent people—even ve’hoes. But I must keep my mother and my sister from starving, I have to find food.

  Now was the time. It was a dark night with no moon, a good time to leave without being seen.

  He put down the rifle. The noise of a gunshot could be heard from far away out on the plains. He took down his quiver of arrows from the place where they hung high in the lodge poles. He took down the war bow that Pawnee Killer had helped him shape during his twelfth winter. On the day Wolf was born, his first father had cut a strong Osage orange sapling and hung it in the rafters. There it had cured in the smoke of one winter’s fire after another. Each time the lodge was moved, the sapling was wrapped and taken along. Each time the lodge poles were set back up, it was put back in its place. His father did that again and again until he died. Then his second father did the same until it was ready. That bow was strong, strong enough to send an arrow deep into the side of a running buffalo and reach its heart.