Chapter Twelve—The Mysterious Escape Route

     Wigwam and I took four horses, a minimal amount of food, and rifles with 250 rounds of ammo each. I left Ol’ Paint at the fort so he could rest. The army horses were good enough. Wigwam and I set out at a steady, ground-eating pace. At this rate, we would easily be at the foothills of the mountains—the Santo Colorados—by late afternoon. Then what would be a 10 mile winding journey to the box canyon of the Indians. We might need to camp out that evening a few miles short of there and make the rest of the trip in the morning. That’s the way it ended up happening.
     Wigwam didn’t talk much, but I did learn that he was part-Santara, part-Mexican. “How did you get a job with a white man’s army?” I asked him.
     “They pay me,” he grunted. But then he also added, “They saved my life once. Indians like half-breeds less than whites do. The cavalry arrived just in time.” I didn’t ask for details and he didn’t volunteer any.
     It was late and dark by the time we stopped and made camp under a rocky overhang, about 5 miles short of our goal. We built a very small, smokeless fire, enough to heat some coffee and beans, and then put it out immediately. We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning, Sunday, and made the rest of the journey in about an hour and a half, never talking, except with our hands. When we got to the place where I had picketed Ol’ Paint the first time, we stopped and ground the horses at that location. This time I put my lips to Wigwam’s ear just to make sure there was no miscommunication.
     “The camp is just on the other side of this ridge. I killed an Indian at the top of it. I don’t know if they have sentinels or not.”
     He made a motion to me to wait, and up the hill he went, making nary a sound. 15 minutes later I saw him at the top, waving me up.
     “No guards,” he said.
     We wiggled across the mesa and peeked over the edge. Both of us sucked in our breath.
     Where there were 400 teepees two days before, there were 600 now. 1,000 warriors had easily become 1,500. The drummers weren’t drumming, but there was still plenty of activity. Lances being sharpened, arrows being fashioned, knife blades being hones, rifles being cleaned. I glanced over at Wigwam and his eyes were as hard as stone.
     “I thought you said only 1,000,” he whispered.
     “They’ve born some babies since I was last here.”
     He grunted.
     We stayed there a good 30 minutes. He counted. I counted. The teepees stretched into the distance far enough where they all sort of ran together, so I lost count at 300, but there were twice that many. It was hard to count the number of Indians because they were mixing and mingling, and many of them were over a mile away as well, but I think I got a pretty good estimate. Finally, he glanced over at me and raised his eyebrows in a question. I nodded and motioned with my head back the way we came. We crawled, then crouched, then ran down the hill. We were on out way back to Fort Tyler in less than a minute after we reached the horses.
     We waited at least fifteen minutes before either of us said anything. “How many do you figure?” I asked him.
     “1,500, at a minimum. You?”
     “Yeah. That would be my guess. How many bands?”
     He grunted. “All of them. I thought I saw some Moshawa and Shinta, too.”
     He was good. I hadn’t noticed any other tribes. “Who would lead that contingent? The ‘head chief,’ if you will?”
     He thought on that one for a minute. “That’s an interesting question. Ever heard the old saying, ‘Too many chiefs, not enough Indians’? That may apply here. It’s going to be hard for any of those band leaders to submit to another band chief.”
     “Can they coordinate like that?”
     “Yeah. There won’t be much strategy. The chiefs will get their heads together and agree to a mad rush on the town. They might compromise on letting, say, 50 warriors from each band lead the attack. If they draw more tribes than Shinta and Moshawa, it will be a free-for-all. They might try to hit the town from both west and east.” He paused, reflective. “From the looks of it, they aren’t ready to move yet. A couple more weeks maybe. And, if what you say is true about the number you saw two days ago, they may be waiting for more braves to join them. We need to keep an eye on that camp, definitely.”
     “This isn’t pretty, is it,” I commented, superfluously.
     “Ugly as sin. Worst I’ve ever seen.”
     We made it back to Fort Tyler late that afternoon, changing horses so they wouldn’t get too tired. Colonel Ratliff heard our report grimly. I let Wigwam do most of the talking.
     “They’re there, Colonel. Probably 1,500 now, and they look like they are waiting for more.”
     “Bands?”
     “I saw all the ones that Constance said were there. And it looked like a few Moshawa and Shinta had joined them.” Ratliff threw me a glance. I nodded.
     “Any indication when they might move?”
     Wigwam shook his head. “They aren’t ready yet. But they aren’t going to wait till Christmas, either.”
     Ratliff leaned back in his chair and sighed. Whereas he might have been no older than 50, he looked 70 right now. “I’ve got to get a wire to Washington immediately. Wigwam, will you write up a brief report quickly for me so that I can relay as accurate of information as possible? We’ll work on strategy once we see what Washington is going to do.”
     The half-breed nodded. “We obviously need to keep that camp under close observation.” His eyes shifted to me, then back to Ratliff, whose eyes shifted to me, then back to Wigwam. A slight nod of Ratliff’s head.
     The colonel looked at me. “Mr. Constance, would you like to have a job for a few weeks? You said you had sold your ranch recently, and that you know those mountains. We need your help now. Wigwam tells me you’re good. Very good.” I didn’t hear him say that…
     This was dicey. I was wanted for murder, sitting in the office of the ranking officer of a U.S. Army fort, under an assumed name. If my true identity was uncovered…well, the obvious is obvious. I was about to tell him no, when one word went through my mind…
     Robin…
     Whatever she thought about me, I certainly hadn’t forgotten about her. And while I recognized that there could never be anything between us, I couldn’t sit back and let her be run over and killed by a bunch of marauding savages. Or the people of Whitewater, for that matter. How in the world could I say, “No, thanks, I’m headed north. Good luck in the coming Indian massacre”?
     So I said, “What would you want me to do? And you aren’t going to pay me.”
     He lifted his eyebrows at my last statement. “I want you to camp near the Indian encampment and keep an eye on it every day. I’ll run a relay of men each day—one will get there each evening, accept your report, spend the night, and head back here with your report at the same time somebody else is headed your way.” He nodded at Wigwam. “I’ll have him scouting some other areas, trying to discover where all these Indians are coming from.”
     Oh, joy, just what I wanted—to camp out in the mountains some more. But, of course, I replied, “Ok. Sounds good.”
     “Why won’t you accept pay?”
     I hesitated. “Let’s just say I’d like to do a good deed for my country.” I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t intend to be bound by his orders. If he doesn’t pay me, he can’t tell me what to do. Unless I agree to it…
     He looked skeptical. “Big of you. $50 a month will be requisitioned for you anyway, plus room and board, till this is finished.”
     “Give it to my favorite charity, ‘The Society for the Prevention of Indian Massacres.’ I will take the chow and bed, though. Hopefully, it won’t take a month.” And sounds like my “bed” is going to be the earth…
     “Let’s hope not. Take a day off and rest up,” he told me, “then head out day after tomorrow.”
     We discussed a few other things not worthy of mention here, and then he dismissed us.

     After leaving Colonel Ratliff’s office, I wanted a good meal, a shave, and a bath, so in reverse order, that’s what I did. Can’t stand to eat when I’m dirty. Once through with the bath and shave, I headed to the mess hall. There were only a few people in there, and so I picked up a plate, filled it with whatever gruel was available—I couldn’t really tell, it looked like some kind of meat and some kinds of beans, buzzard and mesquite probably—and took a table by myself. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody and didn’t know anybody to talk to anyway.
     When I was about halfway through eating, I heard a soft voice behind me. “Was your wife’s name really Julie?”
     I turned and looked up at the colonel’s daughter. Then back to my plate. “Yes, it really was.”
     “You loved her very much, didn’t you.”
     “She was my life.”
     She came around and stood behind the chair next to me. I asked her to sit down, if she wished. She did.
     She was a lovely lady, probably in her early 20s. Her eyes and eyebrows seemed to have a permanent question on them, as if she wasn’t sure how she was being received. But that was probably just part of her facial make-up; she didn’t seem lacking in confidence.
     “What happened…to her? Can you tell me?”
     I looked at her, aching at the memory. “I’d prefer not to talk about it, if you don’t mind.” I looked away, my face went hard again. “Very, very bad memories.”
     “I’m sorry.” Her voice was lovely, a slight Southern accent.
     “Why do you want to know?” I asked her.
     She hesitated. “I’m…not sure. I just do.”
     I couldn’t look at her any more. “I had a ranch…in a valley east of here. Not large, but I had filed, paid for it, and it was mine—and Julie’s. There was a big rancher. He wanted the whole valley. So he threatened, bullied, and stole the land of most of the small ranchers. And he wanted mine, too. I wouldn’t sell and I wouldn’t budge. I came home from town one day to find my ranch house and outbuildings burned, all my stock killed. I found Julie’s ashes in the house, with a bullet hole in her forehead and her legs spread.” I stopped, wondering how I ever got through that. “Oh. And she was expecting our first child. That’s about it.”
     Julie was just staring at me, wide-eyed, during my narrative. Then she dropped her eyes. “Oh, that’s horrible,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
     “The fellow who did it didn’t live long to brag about it,” I responded. “But that doesn’t bring my Julie or baby back.” I had to change the subject. I tried to smile and it almost worked. “Not to coin a cliché, but what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
     She tried to smile back. “My father. I’m all he has left. Well, he has some brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, all back in South Carolina. But immediate family—I’m it. Mother died of fever several years ago. I’m an only child. I do like it out here, it’s quiet and peaceful and beautiful.” She tried another smile. “The social life could be better, but there are a few officers’ wives here, and I don’t lack for male attention.” She even tried a laugh. “I’ve been proposed to three times and I haven’t been here a year yet. I do think a couple of them were made after the soldier had, uh, chemically rearranged his outlook on life, if you know what I mean.”
     I chuckled at her colorful description of drunkenness. I looked at her. “Well, they may have been drunk, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are stupid. Except, perhaps, to think you’d accept.”
     She blushed slightly, and said “Thank you.”
     “How long are you going to be here?” I asked her.
     “I don’t know. Father wants this to be his last assignment, and he’s only 50.”
     I nodded. A fort in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a bunch of bored, half-witted, horny soldiers whose main form of entertainment came out of a bottle was no place for a beautiful woman. It sounded to me like Colonel Benjamin Ratliff was being more than a tad selfish. But it was none of my concern.
     Then she said, “Your name isn’t Constance, is it.”
     I glanced at her sharply. “What makes you think that?”
     She smiled softly. “The story you told me a few moments ago. Believe me, your exploits are legendary.” She laughed softly. “But we also heard that you were dead.”
     “Well, I’m not obviously, but Julie, I would appreciate it very much if you would bury Rob Conners. I’m Robert Constance now, and I’m going to stay that way. Please don’t tell anyone.”
     “I won’t, I promise. Not even Father, and I keep no secrets from him.” She looked at me queerly. “You just don’t seem to be a…killer. Not…that kind…” She let that hang.
     “Julie, I don’t know what all you’ve heard, but I’ve never murdered anybody in my life, unless you consider killing sidewinders murder. The law apparently does, which is why I’m heading north under the name of Robert Constance when I’m through with this assignment your father has asked me to do.”
     Again, she gave me a peculiar look, but then said, “What does he want you to do?”
     I told her.
     She nodded. “He told me he doesn’t want me to leave the fort at all until this problem is settled.” She smiled. “I like to ride, and he usually insists I have an escort, but sometimes I can slip away.” She laughed, a pretty laugh. “He really gets angry when I do that, but I don’t care. I’ve got to have a little time to myself.”
     I nodded. “Perfectly understandable.” I had finished eating, and said, “I’d like to walk this meal off. Would you like to join me?”
     “Yes,” she replied. “I would. Thank you.”
     “Any place we can stroll within these four walls where 100 pairs of eyes aren’t watching us?”
     She laughed softly, and then smiled mischievously. “No, not really. But I know a place where we can slip out of the fort. There’s a lovely stream not far away.”
     I grimaced. “You’re going to get me fired before I even start this job. If your father hears about it—“
     “I’ll tell him to mind his own business.” I laughed.
     “Ok. Direct me to this mysterious escape route of yours.”

     There was a small little escape hatch in the wall behind the officers’ quarters. She motioned for me to be quiet, but put her lips to my ear and said, “We’ll have to keep it propped partly open because it can only be opened from the inside and we’ll have to go through the main gate if it closes.”
     I just nodded my head.
     We had to get down on hands and knees to get through the thing. She found a rock—or perhaps had it there permanently for situations just like this—and placed it where it prevented the door from fully shutting. When we got far enough away from the wall for conversation, I said, “Seems like you might have used that method of exit before.”
     She was all innocence. “Me? Perish the thought. One of the officers’ wives told me about it.”
     “Uh huh,” I replied and she smiled.
     “It’s designed as a last resort for officers, but especially their wives, to escape in case the fort gets overrun. But it has other uses as well.” And again, the smile.
     “I see. I think I know one of them.”
     “I’ve used it many times just by myself. It’s another way I can be alone, and I love coming down to the stream.”
     It was about a half mile away, and it was lovely, especially as the moon reflected off of it. I thought of the last time I was in the moonlight with a woman, and there was a yearning in my breast to see her again…Robin…beautiful Robin…could she replace my Julie?…
     We walked, and we talked. And we stopped and watched the stream and looked at the stars. I don’t even remember what we talked about. But her name alone generated a sorrow in my breast that kept me away from her. And she isn’t Robin, either…
     We stayed out about an hour, then sneaked back into the fort. I walked her to her quarters and we stopped outside her door for a moment. She looked at me and said, “Thank you. I enjoyed that.”
     I smiled. “And I, too.”
     She smiled back. “You’re quite a gentleman, Rob..ert Constance.”
     “And you’re all lady, Julie Ratliff.”
     She got up on her tiptoes and pecked my cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
     I smiled. “And thank you for a lovely evening. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
     One last look, and she entered her quarters and closed the door.
     I stood there a minute, thinking. Aching. Robin…my Julie… I sighed, and headed towards the barracks where I would sleep.
     I stopped halfway there when a bombshell exploded in my mind.
    Why had I thought of Robin before I thought of Julie?

     I was at the fort the next day, getting the supplies that I would need prepared and loaded for an extended stay in the mountains. And since Uncle Sam was paying for it, I didn’t scrimp on what I took. I figured that, as a taxpayer, I’d probably paid for this stuff several times over anyway, so why not grab as much as I could?
     Julie and I stole out of the fort again that night and walked along the stream. It was another lovely evening, although a rumble in the west indicated that a storm might be brewing. But it wasn’t imminent. All her signals as we walked and talked indicated that she might not want me to be as gentlemanly this time, and so at one point, I stopped, turned to her, and took her upper arms in my hands, looking down at her.
     I was in a little bit of a playful mood, so I smiled mischievously and asked her, “If I kissed you, would I get slapped?”
     To which she had a ready answer, with a pixy smile on her face, “If I slapped you, would you keep trying to kiss me?”
     I laughed softly. “Well, I think the reward is worth the risk…”
     She didn’t slap me, but I certainly kissed her. Long, deep, and passionately, to which she responded with equal fervor. I eventually laid her down on the soft grass because I was tired of standing up and leaning over. She made no protest, but no part of me got below her neck, where my lips did find soft, smooth, delightful skin.
     We broke Aunt Martha’s curfew. But she was hungry to be with a man, and given the type of humanity I had seen at that fort, it was understandable why. I was just in luck that she considered me a man worthy of being hungry for.
     Walking back to the barracks, my thoughts…Robin…she’s not Robin…no, No, NO!, Robert…Julie, my Julie…not Robin…but I’ll never have either of them again…
     Agony and anguish of soul slept with me that night, though thoughts of the soft lips of the colonel’s daughter provided some salve.
     But not enough.