Where Buffalo Roamed
Between hell and heaven and wrong and right lies a vast scratch of wasteland called Texas. In the late spring of 1876, word came that Eulis Bowden’s older brother, Vernell, had died of a sudden dose of lead poisoning; in truth, he and another liquor-saturated blasphemer had had a chest thumper in the Dragoon Saloon down in Prattville, Texas. Vernell had taken the time to spin the cylinder to check his revolver’s load, a move that immediately prompted the other fellow to draw his Remington and shoot Vernell square in the chest. Vernell was only 19.
Eulis Bowden, almost 13, didn’t exactly dislike Benita. But he had to tolerate her eight year-old mouth the whole 62 miles from Hinchie to Prattville…and back. Ma made the two fetch Vernell: five days there, five days back…and in the old buckboard with the squeaky axle Eulis hadn’t greased. Jesh, their 15-year old gelding, was going through his aging troubles. Later, on the return trip, one of Eulis’s cherished cat’s-eye marbles went missing. Though Benita was the likely suspect, she denied it.
The trip to Prattville was largely uneventful until the second night, when a pack of yapping coyotes circled their cold camp. Benita awakened, screaming, “Git the rahfle, Eulis! Hurry, ’less we git ett!” Eulis shouted loudly at the intruders and waved his arms frantically. Even Ol’ Jesh scraped an angry hoof against the hard caliche. It being a moonlit night, they watched the five coyotes slink away. By then, Eulis had pulled the hammer back on the ancient Sharps and pinched a percussion cap onto its nipple. For the rest of the trip, they slept together in the buckboard for protection—even with Vernell’s scrapwood deadbox alongside.
They were treated kindly by the citizens of Prattville who gave them pickled eggs, jarred beans, biscuits, smoked ham, a cask of fresh water, and even hay for Jesh. For Vernell, they wrapped him in burlap then packed him in wood shavings, curing salt, and shaved ice like some holiday ham from a barnshaker.
On the second day headed back, it might have been the zizzing of cicadas that affected Eulis when they ran into a hogshead of pestilence. It came in phases and started with Eulis falling asleep from the heat. Benita was inside the buckboard, her bony back against a side of Vernell’s coffin. She sat lecturing her ragdoll Edna, clasping a pocket-size Bible that was open to scripture she could barely read. Eulis dropped the reins that slipped into the wagon’s well and slowly became entangled with the left trace line and wagon shaft. But Ol’ Jesh kept plodding along on. He neared the part of the trail that ramped down one side of an eight-foot deep arroyo, permitting travel across its dry wash, then up another dirt ramp on the opposite side. It was easy to speculate that if Eulis hadn’t fallen asleep, the sound that turned the travelers’ world upside down might not have resulted in calamity. Rattlesnake! A coiled diamondback at the bottom of the dirt ramp announced its clickety intentions.
Jesh bolted like he was three and yanked the wagon with him over the steep edge of the arroyo. The force pushed the wagon shafts violently against his flanks, causing him to collapse onto his right side where he stayed, snorting his eulogy. The wagon had come down off the ledge hard, damaging its front axle and a wheel. Most of its contents spilled onto the sandy bottom, including Vernell’s deadbox which skidded heavily over Benita’s shoulder. Eulis was propelled forward off the hard bench and bounced off Jesh’s hind quarters. He now lay unconscious in the sand. Vernell was unharmed.
Benita shimmied from under Vernell’s box then rose slowly, hurt. The deadbox had landed on the water cask, saving her from being crushed. Shaken, she located Eulis and shook him hard with one hand. “Eulis, wake up! Ahm busted up! Muh amm’s busted!” She darted back to the slop field, undid the filthy bandana cinched around Edna, and dipped it into water from the cask. She wiped the blood from Eulis’s forehead.
Eulis stirred and opened his hazel eyes. “Quit fussin’. Y’all right, ‘Nita?” he asked, confused.
“Muh amm’s toetly busted. Cain’t move it. It bite worse thin a whip; ahm crippled f’sho.” Eulis rose and gently calmed his sister, running a smoothing hand down the back of her head like Ma did. Her gold-streaked hair was stiff in the tight braid Ma had woven and powdered. “Ah gotta see iffin Jesh’s hurt.”
While Eulis tended to Jesh, Benita sounded an alarm. “Injuns, Eulis! Lookit!” She pointed up the arroyo.
Indeed, atop a painted pony sat a bronzed man with long black hair that ruffled occasionally with a breeze and was adorned with one long braid ahead of an ear. A single hawk’s feather hung from the braid. He wore a faded lavender shirt decorated with a brass medallion over each breast. His baggy pants were faded green with a rawhide breach cloth. The Indian just stared.
But it was the other rider dressed in a dusty blue uniform that gave Eulis both pause, and reassurance. That rider rose up in his stirrups, carefully surveying their surroundings. Eulis marveled at his knee-high black boots, stubby spurs, black pistol belt, and the single narrow yellow cavalry stripe that ran down each pant leg. The brim of his wide buckskin-colored hat was turned up, its crown decorated with a brass insignia of crossed sabers and a small “9” just above them. Matching buckskin-colored suspenders framed his broad chest.
“You a Yankee?” asked Eulis.
“Ain’t no such thing no mo’,” said the man astride the lathered horse. “Woe bin ovuh ten years now. Ahm in the U.S. Cavalry, stationed up Fote Davis way.”
Benita inched closer to her brother. “How come he awl burnt up Eulis?”
The black man astride the horse chuckled. “Missy, ahm Sergeant-Majuh Danby Whitlock, late of the Nahnth Colored Cavalry Regiment. This here’s mah Kiowa scout—and good friend— Samuel Tall-Elk.”
Squinting, Eulis asked, “What y’all doin’ here? Ain’t no Comanches down thissa way.” Danby dismounted. “Let’s say ah had a disagreement wit Lieutenant Mabry, at the fote— ’n Colonel Shafter sahded wit heyam.
“See, mah ’leven-year ’listment come-up seven days past, and Mabry somehow sahned me up fo’ three mo’ years. So ah wrote out a swone letter sayin’ ah was done, ’n that ah give one of mah prahvets enough trust-money—from mah own savins—fo’ the horse ‘n tack. The Ahmy lets us bah our sundries when we muster. Then me and Samuel bought these here pack mules and a passel of provisions—ayand skedaddled.”
“You a deserter,” announced Eulis.
“Have it yer own way, young suh,” said Danby, “but y’all in a fix and need uh help. What’s wrong with the little Miss?” he asked.
“Her arm’s busted from the fall,” offered Eulis.
Danby walked down the ramp and approached Benita. “Lemme see, Missy.” “Ahm ’Nita. You goana hurt me?”
Danby gently moved her little arm, all the time probing with a large spoke of fingers, seeing what hurt. Her face was red with fevered pain and she groaned to tears. “Shoulder’s dislocated. Gonna hafta snap it back eyan.
“Yo, Samuel, bring me down a dressing and some laudanum from mah doctorin’ bag.” Samuel brought the horses and mules down and tied them to the overturned wagon; he then pulled out the medical supplies.
“Don’t do nothin’ to me without Edna!” demanded Benita.
Eulis promptly fetched his sister’s ragdoll. Danby made her take a deep swallow of laudanum which made her limp. “Hold her, Samuel.” With two quick tugs of her arm and a push with an open hand, Danby relocated her shoulder with a dull snap. Then he immobilized the shoulder with a dressing. “Let’s lay her down and let her sleep whahl we lookit yer outfit.”
They sifted through the slop field while Samuel drew his big knife and went after the rattlesnake. It took him ten minutes to find it and lop its head off. Its skin was laid out to dry, its meat extracted for a stew using the children’s beans.
The following morning, after the horses were watered and fed, Danby spoke bluntly. “Y’all cain’t go nowhere in thait wagon. Axle’s busted and wheel’s too bent fo’ fixin’. Cain’t walk ta Hinchie o’ back to Prattville, neither.”
“Whaa not?” whined Eulis.
“Too fah. Most o’ yo’ water’s lost. ’N little Benita too sick to walk. She’d dah first day. Samuel checked yo’ horse; he ain’t but spooked…’n old. But you ’n Miss Benita can sit atop him. Samuel’ll pahl some blankets up fo’ sittin’.”
“What about Vernell?” said Eulis.
“God’s forgivin’. He doan mine if we put him ta rest raht here. He need ta go under…gittin’ rahp. We’ll mark it wit some rocks so’s you can fahnd him later.” “Where we goin’?”
“Down own the borduh, place the Mexes call Ayheedo la Oheenagga. Fifty mahls. Samuel’s village is there. His people come down from the Yanno Estacado. Ahm gonna nupch up with his sister, Nettie Redbird—you know—marry her. She been to the fote. We’ll swing over and leave you off at Dunbar’s Trading Post, bah Presidio. Some o’ yo’ kahnd kin bring you back up to Hinchie…in tahm.”
But when they approached Dunbar, they discovered nothing but charred ruins. They then proceeded to La Ojinaga, passing a herd of buffalo along the way. “You nubbins doan know this, but folks call us colored cavalry, Buffalo Soldiers.”
Days later, as they skirted the Rio Grande toward the foothills, calamity struck. Benita doubled over in pain. Danby eased a feverish Benita off Jesh who was only able to whisper something in Danby’s ear. Samuel fetched the doctorin’ satchel from which Danby extracted a bottle of castor oil and made her swallow several generous amounts. Later, when they made camp near the river, the little miss passed one intact cat’s-eye marble that Eulis was generous enough to let her keep.
The remote Kiowa village took in the visitors and 15 years drifted by. In that time, Presidio, located directly on the border with Old Mexico, was the only civilized place Eulis and Benita ventured to—twice.
One December day in 1891, four unshod painted ponies loped into town. Their weary riders carried no weapons. The two lead riders, faces sunbaked, each wore a matching bracelet made of rattlesnake skin. People in the street gawked, and the word “Injuns” could be heard. Still, the lead woman’s hair was noticeably blonde, worn untethered but decorated with two braids and a single hawk’s feather facing down. A dark-haired toddler with her exact features was seated in front of her, smiling at the townsfolk.
The young man, who bore hazel eyes and a lone feather tied to a braid, turned his horse toward a plank sidewalk. “We’re looking for our Ma’s scratch ranch on the road to Hinchie. Her name’s Dessa, Dessa Bowden.”
“Ahm the sheriff here, son. She long goan. Sold out ’n went up Fote Stockton way—nigh ten years ago. There ain’t no mo’ Hinchie; it paht of Marfa now…where you at. “Them two Indians yer friends?”
Eulis paid him no never mind. He realized they all must look like bears, even the baby, thanks to the buffalo wraps they wore. Besides, Eulis’s attention had been drawn to a suited man reading an Austin newspaper. The two headlines on its front page read: Queen Victoria’s Granddaughter Marries German Prince, and London Tower Bridge Opens. “We’re married to ’em,” Eulis eventually said to the sheriff.
“Don’t drop Edna, Vernella,” whispered Benita to her daughter who had lost interest in the townsfolk. She stroked the back of the girl’s head. “We got us a long rahd home.” She repeated what she’d said in Tanoan adding, “Listen to your grandfathers.” She again rubbed tiny Vernella down the back of her head, who just grinned and clutched her Edna.
About Will Brown
Will Brown is a lifelong reader of fiction. He earned a degree in English from Rutgers University. After graduating from Boston College Law School, he served as a JAG Corps captain for six years, then taught criminal law on the east coast for two years. Now, Will is retired and looks forward to his weekly New Yorker and other literary periodicals.
