the nature of valor

passengers shooting buffalo from a train for sport and abandoning the carcasses


The uninterrupted vainglory streams may be deceptive. Tom and I could joke about "sterling reputations" because we knew I viewed that "hero" stuff as loads of bull twaddle. He would sometimes pester me about it. "Waldo, how's it feel to be a hero?" He used to grate my nerves with it. "What's it like to be a hero?" My pat answer became, "Whenever I meet one, I'll ask."

Part of it was, I never set out to be heroic. Everything that was done made perfect sense at the time. Then afterwards, people ask you why you did it--like you planned it all out, or something. For a long time I couldn't explain it to anyone, and this grew to bother me-like looking at your own hands and unable to explain why you have fingers. But one day, Tom kept pestering me about it--finally an answer popped out .

"A hero doesn't stop to sort things out in order to figure what's right and wrong. A hero's mainly some poor fool thrown by fate into some god-awful quandary and before he drowns in what he's been thrown into, he somehow, does what's right before his better sense can stop him."

"Then, everybody pats him on the back, buys him drinks, tells and retells the story of his 'deeds' until even he doesn't recognize it anymore, and right, or wrong, his 'legend' is born. Once that legend's wildfire gets burning, there's nothing he can do to stop it. Not much he can do except maybe take off his moccasins and warm his feet."

"I've lent it lots of thought," Tom responded. "A hero inspires others--just by his presence--to heroic acts. If Dan Brady's about to throw lead with those crazy Spence boys, I like to think I'd ride to the midst of the fray, and help him out. But when I saw it was you against the Spences--alone--there was nothing to 'think'. I knew what needed doing and just, 'did'.

Sometimes Tom's reasoning couldn't be argued with. I hoped he wasn't catching my 'dreadful disease'.

I had some money due to me as pay from my days scouting for the army. The talk with Tom that night about us partnering on a horse ranch, gave that army money new importance. Months ago, I had put in a claim, but had heard nothing from them. It may have had something to do with those hearings I testified at.

Major Carleton, writing all those letters and giving all those interviews to the newspapers was the one who got the hearings called.

During the Cheyenne-Arapaho uprising, he was the officer I reported to. He named me his 'liaison' with the army's Indian scouts. Hell, I didn't even know what 'liaison' meant, but I acted as a go-between for the army and its Indian scouts. I lived with them and spent most of that campaign out in the field with them--usually deep in hostile territory. Those Indian scouts trusted me and kept their part of the bargain. Washington miserably failed in keeping its word to them after they had risked horrible death from the hostiles, by working for us..

Major Carleton was a decent man who shunned the luxuries of his position for the hardships of a field command. He ate what his men ate, lived as they lived, enduring every hardship and danger they faced. His men greatly respected him for this--they would have followed him anywhere. He battled both the enemies before him in the field and the ones above him--the incompetents issuing his orders. In my sight he was more hero than I ever was--or could be, but never got anywhere near the appreciation he deserved.

The Indians respected him too because he was a fair and decent man. Always kept his word. When the wars ended, the government didn't need his Indian scouts anymore. They fired us all. None of us ever got what was promised. We each got medals with fancy ribbons for dedicated service and bravery, but little else.

Washington promised our Indian scouts they could keep their homelands 'inperpetuity'
--the Major said that meant forever, but as soon as the wars ended--they were pushed off their lands--a 'new' treaty shoved down their throats by people who knew nothing about them and cared nothing for them.

The Major was as angry over this as I was. I had helped convince the Indians to work for us as scouts for the army during this war. Bloody Wolf, his sons, Touch the Stars, and Left Hand trusted me. Left Hand risked himself and saved my life when the Arapaho shot the horse out from under me. All they got for being our exemplary friends, was lied to.

The Major was riled enough that he left the army and applied for and got the job of Indian agent for the Kiowa. Of course he couldn't get their lands returned but as long as he was their agent they got every penny's worth of food and goods the treaty stipulated. All, quality merchandise, but still it was a pittance compared to the worth of the lands they were forced to give up.

Well, you probably know the rest. Somebody out here with friends back in Washington smelled money and couldn't live with the idea of Indians getting exactly what they had been promised. Washington recalled the Major as Indian agent due to 'conflict of interest' They didn't think he was impartial enough --too much of an advocate for the Kiowa over the interests and needs of his own government.

The feller they put in to replace the Major would kick the legs out from under his own Grandma to keep her from picking up a penny they both saw. First thing he did was cancel the old procurement contracts and switched to new contractors. Everybody out here knew the new contracts were issued to old cronies and pals of the new Indian agent. The flour and cornmeal being bought with government money for the Kiowa was soon full of weevils, the blankets and clothing--old moth-eaten rags, the livestock, diseased and the meats rotten. The Kiowa were dying like flies.

The Major wrote many more letters, talked to more newspaper reporters, got good people to sign petitions and finally stirred up enough fuss to get a congressman to come all the way out here and investigate.

The Major testified. He sent for me and others to tell what we knew--the public was appalled--things changed a little, but six months later--it was a forgotten issue. Times were getting harder--especially after the latest banking panic back east. The government was looking to save money. Congress cut the budget for Indian Affairs--reelection was coming up--they didn't want to seem too lavish spending taxpayers dollars on Indians with so many people back east outta work. Of course the railroads and mining companies seemed to get whatever federal monies and land concessions they asked for.

Some folks manage to always do well no matter how hard times get. They live well, they do well whether the rest of the world is flush or flat. The biggest problem for them is where to seek their daily entertainment. And they work hard to solve that problem. With the railroads making travel so quick, safe and reliable, we first heard and read about, and then actually saw, the "well-to-do" taking comfortable little entertainment excursions by train to see the west. As the railroads expanded, what the newspapers called "travel junkets" became the newest sign of progress.

But there was also a flood of new travelers that came west for a better life because of that particular banking collapse and panic--it was always like that. The west, the army, and the jails absorbed people there wasn't any work for back east. Treaty obligations with Indians got pushed to the wayside by other "more important matters". I wonder what'll happen in hard times, some day, when they are fresh out of west to expand into? No more 'new' lands out here to takeover and push into. What will they do then?

The Major warned me before he asked me to testify, that I'd likely be 'persona non grata'--unwelcome person as far as the army and the government were concerned. Was he right on the bull's eye with that! But I didn't care anymore about a job with the army as their scout. I just wanted the $1500 in back pay and war bonuses they owed me.

So then, next morning, after my business partnership with Tom Reed began--with thoughts of our horse ranch in my mind--I said 'so-long' to Tom and Dan Brady and left them to run their little 'errand' for Joss Seward. I headed over towards the direction of the Kansas border to see if the Major was still around and could help me with getting the government to pay me my money.

While I was in the vicinity, of course, it would be poor manners if I didn't stop in and pay my respects to my friend Bloody Wolf, and his sons. I figured they were the closest thing to family that I probably had remaining. I had been briefly married to Bloody Wolf's daughter. This still made him my father-in-law and Touch the Stars and Left Hand, my brothers in law. But my wife, Whispers Her Name, and our daughter, Peeka, were both deceased-- unfortunate victims of an inter-tribal raid by Arapaho warriors shortly before the Cheyenne-Arapaho wars with the US army began.