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Chapter One

Saturday, May 27, 1871
Kiowa—Comanche Agency

Issue day at the agency was trying, at best, for Agent Lawrie Tatum. He knew that the Indians came chiefly for the coffee and pepper. They thought it went together—peppered coffee. That was just the smallest part of the confusion existing between his red brothers and himself. They thought pork was elephant meat and would poison them. They burned it. They thought rice was dried maggots and threw it away. Flour they played with, tossing it on one another, painting their hands and faces, marking horses' rumps with floured hand prints. They liked sugar and did not waste it. He was not sure what happened to all the white man's clothing that was distributed. Sometimes he'd seen men's hats on the women. So much was wasted, lost, not just in material things, but in the understanding between the two peoples.

    There was never time to teach them enough. And teaching was itself another battle. He felt as if he were running to catch a train that was pulling out of the station and picking up speed. The harder he ran, the greater the distance became. Tatum's head pounded.

    Tatum — Old Bald Head, the Kiowas called him — walked to the window of his office. A year ago he had been a farmer in Ohio. He was then just a man, managing his farm and family, active in his faith. He had read in the paper of his appointment as United States Indian agent to the wild Kiowas and Comanches and other tribes of the Fort Sill area. He had no training. He had only a trust that his God would accompany him andguidehim as he sought to speak of that God to these wild men.

    Today that faith seemed to him to border on the reckless. Had this whole policy that the Quakers and other religious groups proposed to President Grant been thoughtfully considered? Had the ease of its acceptance taken the Quakers off guard? Had they rushed headlong into the unexpected opportunity of implementation without the detailed plan that would insure success? They had come, willing to work, believing that the Indians must be treated as humans, not as vermin to be eliminated in the westward push. But they had known so little, so very little of these red men and their culture. Tatum's Quaker beliefs were greatly conflicted by the reality of the Indians. Perhaps the religious men had nm where they should have walked. Now they were trying to build an agency with adequate facilities to feed, clothe, teach, and train the Indians. Tatum was trying to build buildings and a sawmill and hire farmers and carpenters. At the same time he was trying to understand these alien beings whom he loved so deeply in his faith.

    He realized that, by and large, he was an object of ridicule to these people. They mocked farming, wanted only to kill or wound for sport the cows he brought to them for their herds. Tatum believed the herds and farms would make them self-sufficient people, not the white man's wards or victims. But the Kiowas already believed they were self-sufficient people. They had the land and the buffalo and the horse and their skills.

    When he spoke of love and kindness, they laughed as warriors must laugh at weakness. There was no honor for them in the life Tatum proposed. Men did not farm. Men did not love their enemies; they killed them. There was only one way to overcome the white man for these Indian men. They had to drive him out, create such fear and misery in his life that he would abandon this encroachment on the land they claimed. They had done it before, Successfully driving out the Mexicans and the Apaches.

    Tatum could not tell them that the real defeat of this white enemy was self-sufficient. He could not tell them that the white man could not be killed off or pushed back because it was his very nature to push forward, to deny the validity of any tradition that was not verified by his own. He could not tell them that, just as they drove others before them, the white man would drive them before him because he, too, was a warrior. He could not tell them that the Indian was already beaten, and he must take the poor offering the white men had given him and turn it against them. That was how this new game was played. He had tried to show the Indians the way to survive, but their hearts were full of the old ways. Perhaps they were, like Tatum himself, victims of their idealistic beliefs, unprepared for sudden confrontation with an unco-operative reality.

    Tatum stood at the immaculately clean window and observed the Kiowa people camped in the broad flats east of Cache Creek in the two-mile space between the agency and Fort Sill. He could see the group at the warehouse commissary building. His clerk would turn them away and send them to the office, as Tatum had directed. Even as he watched with his hands clasped behind his back, the group of Kiowa leaders started away from the commissary.

    Today he would ask the chiefs a question he had asked before when they disappeared for extended periods, then returned with horses and grizzly trophies they had not bothered to hide. Before they had run over him and his kindness. It would not happen this day. The Quaker had made up his mind.

    On the 22nd of May, he had written to the Friends' Ex- ecutive Committee:

    I think the Indians do not intend to commit depredations here this summer, but from their actions and sayings they intend to continue their atrocities in Texas. Will the Committee sustain me in having the Indians arrested for murder, and turned over to the proper authorities of Texas for trial?

    On the 23rd, Sherman had arrived at Fort Sill and had come to his office. Tatum had admitted candidly to the general that he could not control the Kiowas and Comanches. He had not denied the raiding into Texas, as Sherman had expected. Tatum had said simply: "I've not been able to accomplish anything in civilizing them. They pay no attention to my injunctions. The only tangible power I have with them is the issue of rations. In a few days they will be out of sugar and coffee. They will come to me, and I will ask them about the wagon train."

    On the 25th, Tatum wrote again to Superintendent Hoag of the Quaker Committee.

    When I ascertain who commits depredations in Texas will the Department approve of having the guilty parties arrested if they belong to the Indians of this Agency, and transfer them to the Governor of Texas for trial? Please, give me an explicit answer as soon as practicable.

    Of course, any answer would take time.

    When the absent chiefs returned to the reservation, Tatum had to make up his own mind. He stood at the window, watching them, coming toward him. The agency clerk, George Conover, had turned the Indians away from conmissary and sent them for a counsel as the agent had ordered. Tatum's decision was made. If they committed crimes, they must be treated as white men who committed the same crimes. That was not kind or understanding it was simply fair. His inner voice questioned his hardness again. Perhaps they did not know they committed crimes. Perhaps they thought their actions were acts of war or games of honor. Tatum's narrow lips set. He could not be responsible for that. His teachings had failed. Now the Kiowas must feel the consequences of their acts. That, too, was a teacher, a hard teacher.

    "Friend Leeper," Tatum spoke softly to the interpreter Matthew Leeper, who waited in the room, "thou may ask the chiefs to come inside."

    Tatum observed the leaders as they came into the simple room. Guipago was head chief since Tohausen's death in 1866. The bronze skin on his face was drawn tightly over the angular features. Guipago's eyes watched everything closely. Swaggering Satanta was his contender, eloquent, brave, but somehow not chosen as chief by his people. Tatum lightly focused his attention on Satanta. He was larger than most of the Kiowas, almost six feet, heavily muscled, strong enough to club a man or woman to death. He had been gone from the reservation for a month. Today he was back again for all to see and basking in the glory of activities while away.

    Satank entered the room behind Satanta without fanfare. Satank was small, an old man with slivers of mustaches at the corners of his mouth. His eyes perpetually squinted against the prairie sun and the disguises of men's souls. For all Satanta's size and swagger, Satank was the giant among the Kiowa people. Tatum considered that. This fragile-looking old man who led his dead favorite son's sacred, bundled bones around on a horse was the most deadly and heroic of the Kiowa men.

    The others, even the young men, deferred to him, moved out of his way quietly. Satank was Koitsenko, ranking member of the ten great warriors who wore the sash. With the sash, staked to the earth by an arrow, they would not retreat in any battle, especially desperate battles. They stood on foot, naked of the horse, an easy target for their enemies and a symbol of courage and hope for their people. Satank had earned the name of Akia-ti-sumtau, Admired One, but not needing it, he had given the name away. Satank spoke little, yet he was often eloquent when he spoke in a very quiet voice. He was famous for his generosity to the Cheyennes in the great peace making. Past seventy, he was the father of young children. Years of the Kiowa calendar were named for his exploits. Tatum caught himself admiring the old warrior and his integrity. Then he realized, again, this honorable man remained a killer of men.

    The older Kiowa leaders took seats around the room. Benches had been built for just such meetings. Some of the younger men remained standing, as was fitting to honor the elders. Tatum could not restrain a small sigh. He drew himself to full height and waited for the men's silence. Slowly their attention turned to the bearded Quaker.

    "A great general has come to Fort Sill," Tatum began. "He has brought word of an attack upon a wagon train in Texas. I would like to know who led this attack because he is guilty of a crime that will no longer be permitted." Tatum studied the faces of the Kiowas as young Matthew Leeper translated his words for them.

    Satanta stood up and came closer to Tatum, standing almost in his face. "I led the raid in Texas. If anyone else said he did, he is a liar. I am the man who commanded." Satanta pounded his own chest with the fingers of his right hand, owning the act. He paused for the translation of his words by Leeper. "We know that you are stealing our annuity goods and giving them to the Texans."

    Leeper translated this statement to Tatum who shook his head in disgust at the lie, but said nothing, waiting for Satanta's next affront.

    "We have asked you many times for guns and ammunition, but you will not listen to us and give them to us. We have made many other requests that you have not given us. We must take for ourselves what you will not give." Satanta continued his attack, stopping at appropriate intervals for Leeper to make his words clear to the Quaker agent. As Leeper translated, Satanta sometimes watched the Quaker's face and sometimes checked the effect of his words on the other Kiowas.

    "If we kill Texans, it is your fault. You took us by the hair and pulled us close to the Texans where we have to fight them. We are not going to stay here to be watched and tempted. We are going out with the Cheyennes in the Antelope Hills.

    "Two and a half years ago, the dog, Custer, betrayed Guipago and I by arresting us under a white flag. He is no kind of man. He also killed our friend, Black Kettle, and his people on the Washita and betrayed his own men by abandoning them as he fled from the remaining warriors. Arresting Indians is played out now. That is what will not be permitted. You remember that.

    "These are but some of the grievances I hold against the white men. We know also that you white eyes are planning to build a railroad across our land. That is what will not be permitted. Do not even consider it. Because of these things, I took more than one hundred warriors to Texas to show them how to deal with white men. Satank, Adoltay, Eagle Heart, Big Bow, Fast Bear, and Mamanti were with me." Satanta turned to the other chiefs, naming them, pointing them out for their honor. "There, in Texas, we met a wagon train. We killed seven men and took forty-one head of mules. Three of our own men and our Comanche friends were killed. We consider this issue even now. Remember this, if any other Indian comes here and says he led the raid, he will be lying, because I, Satanta, led it." Satanta waited after Leeper's translation for Tatum's response.

    Tatum looked past Satanta at the seated chiefs. Satank, Adoltay, called Big Tree by the whites, and Eagle Heart were in the room. "Is this true, what Satanta said, that you and the others named joined him in leading the mid?"

    After Leeper's words, the men nodded.

    Satanta pushed again with an old and favored complaint of the Kiowas. "Why do you deny us guns and ammunition? You make us weak against white men and other Indians who have all the guns and ammunition they want. Why do you do this?"

    Tatum wiped his forehead upward into the air above his head. Today he did not feel any words about the harmfulness of guns would have any point. "Perhaps you should take that up with General Sherman who is visiting up at the fort. Like you Kiowa chiefs, he is a man of war and knows such things well that I do not understand. We have talked enough. Your rations will be issued."

    Some of the Kiowas started to rise and depart. "Wait," Satanta said. "The clerk said there was no sugar for us. You go to the fort and get Grierson to give us some of the soldiers' sugar. Don't take too long because many of us want to go home soon."

    Tatum looked straight into Satanta's face. A momentary spark darted across his own blue eyes. So this was what the policy, the effort of trying to build a better life for this man came to, such complete contempt for the idea and the men who strove for it that he felt he could order them about, play with their leader in front of the others. Tatum glanced down and turned away from Satanta. "You are right. I should go to the fort immediately."

    The Indians filed out toward the commissary building. Tatum watched them go, then went to his desk and wrote a note:

Fort Sill, Ind. Terr.,
Office Kiowa Agency.
5th Mo. 27, 1871

Colonel Grierson,
Post Commander,

    Satanta, in the presence of Satanta, Eagle Heart, Big Tree, and Woman's Heart, has, in a defiant manner, informed me that he led a party of about one hundred Indians into Texas and killed seven men and captured a train of mules. He further states that the chiefs, Satank, Eagle Heart, and Big Bow, were associated with him in the raid. Please arrest all of them.

Lawrie Tatum
Ind. Agent

    He handed the message to Matthew Leeper and sent him to the fort. Tatum remained at his desk after the young interpreter had left. He spread his hands over the smooth boards and studied the sturdy fingers that had just ordered the arrest of his charges. He thought of Pontius Pilate who had washed his guilty hands, but could not rid himself of the guilt of turning over his responsibility to someone else, of betrayal of what was good and right. Tatum had betrayed his principles, had failed to make the Indians understand. They had gone on killing and killing and killing. He had not been able to stop them. He had not been able in his faith to stop the killing. His head pounded. "Dear God, dear God," he whispered. "Have I done the right thing."

    Tatum looked up at the squeak of the screen door. Guipago — called Lone Wolf by the white men — was standing in the doorway. "There is still no sugar. You said you would get sugar from Grierson."

    "You do not claim any part in this great massacre?" Tatum said to the man.

    "No," said the principal chief of the Kiowas. "This time I was with Kicking Bird and Stumbling Bear. But you were right about one of our young men. He is a great leader. You have often remarked on Adoltay. He proved himself in the fighting. He, not Satanta, led the young men. He cut off the wagons. He counted first coup. You thought he would be a good leader, and you were right." Guipago smiled and almost chuckled at this jab at the Quaker who had thought he could teach the boy peaceful ways. "We will leave soon and need the sugar before we go." Guipago turned and left, letting the screen door bang behind him.

    Tatum rubbed his burning eyes. Adoltay ... Big Tree. He had forgotten to include the boy's name with those to be arrested. Was it carelessness, or had he denied to himself that the young man was as capable of murder as his elders? Once more he must choose. Tatum reached for a sheet of paper. Dipping the pen into the ink, he wrote starkly black letters on the white paper:

    Big Tree was also in the raid with Satanta, I am informed by Lone Wolf. Please arrest him also. But release him if found innocent.

    Tatum folded the note and held it in his hand. There was no one to carry it up to the fort. He put the slip of paper into his vest pocket, patting it into place. It was better, anyway, if could not hide here. He would have to see for himself. Calling out that he was going to the fort to his wife, Mary Ann, he walked to the door and took down his straw hat from the peg.

    Guipago still leaned against the front gate, talking with another man. "I'm going to the fort now," the agent said, drawing his stirrup to him. "Please tell the other chiefs that the great Army chief at the fort will want to talk with them before they leave." He mounted his horse and rode off toward the fort.

    From the commissary, Satanta watched Tatum trot toward the fort as he waited for the issue. The longer he waited, the greater his suspicions grew. Old Bald Head had never agreed with him before or done his bidding. Tatum moved the horse into a slow canter.

    "Satanta," shouted out one of the warriors, "you have scared that old bald-headed man pretty good. See he is running away fast to get us sugar."

    "Maybe so," the chief said. "Maybe I better go see that big general and talk to him, too."

    The warriors laughed. Satanta's first wife nudged him. "Get me extra sugar," she said.

    "Get my horse," he said.