“The Chief”

This is a work of fiction, based on actual events.

The old gentleman opened the door to his cabin, he was feeling every bit of his 80 years. He’d spent most of that time riding the range.
He took a seat in an old chair on his porch, his daughter was coming by with her grandkids directly.
He saw her about once a week, when she came by to check on him.
She usually spent the first 10-15 minutes, haranguing him about moving to her place, she had electric and water put in in ‘36, he “was too old be going out to an outhouse in the dark”.
“I take a lantern.”
“That’s another thing, those kerosene lamps are dangerous, especially in this old tinderbox!”

Yes sir, she’s her mamas daughter…
Maybe she’ll be a little nicer this time he thought, because her grandkids will be with her.

He looked off to the east, he knew he would see the dust cloud and hear that infernal contraption of Mr. Ford. 20 ‘Horsepower’ it had.
Only a horse can provide horsepower! He’d owned enough horses in his day to know. Why wasn’t it ‘Mulepower’? Dang contraption reminded him of an old mule he used to own. All black, noisy, and stank to high heavens…

“Yep” he said to himself “there she comes.” As a cloud of dust rose in the distance.
Shortly, he could hear the ‘popping’ and wheezing of the dang thing.
She pulled up and came to a stop in front of his porch.
Everyone in the dang thing were coughing and retching from the cloud of dust that caught up and enveloped them.

As the dust was settling, Doris and two little boys, completely tan from the dust cloud, emerged from the thing. Only the area around their eyes were clean from rubbing.

“A real cowboy wears a bandanna to stop from collecting a nose full of dust.”
“Daddy, a horse doesn’t go fast enough to stir up dust! You know that.”
“I wasn’t talking about riding a nag, when you ride ‘drag’ behind a herd, ain’t nothin’ but dust.”

The two little boys, one appeared to be about 6, the other, his brother was about 8.
“Boys, this is your great Granpa William Benson.”

“Were you really a cowboy!”
The older of the two asked.
“Was! I still am!” He said with a broad grin.
“Could you tell us a story?”
“Daddy, don’t you tell them about the Comanche Chief you killed, they are too young for that one.”
The little boys eyes widened to the point you could almost swear that they actually ‘bugged out’.
“Now Doris, I was only 14 when that happened, not much older than these boys!”
“Promise me, you won’t tell that one.”
He looked at the boys, gave them a wink, held his right hand down to where only the boys could see it, and crossed his fingers.
“I promise.” He said.
Doris turned to go in and straighten the cabin a bit, make sure his plate, silverware and coffee cup got washed at least once a week.
She also usually helped him draw a bath in his old big tin bath tub. He bought it for her Mama one year for Christmas. He really needed a new pair of boots, but what was a winter with wet feet when he could see her smile and those blue eyes light up…

The boys looked defeated, they had really wanted to hear about the Comanche Chief.
“Do you have any other stories ‘gret Granpa?” The older of the two struggled with the new words.
“What do you call your father?”
“Daddy, the young one chimed in.”
“Why don’t you just call me ‘Pa’. I’ve got a story about a cowboy that was shot through the breast with an arrow, it just so happens that my Comanche Chief story, happened at the same time…
But I’m not telling you that one!”
He said with a smile…
“Well, maybe for just a little information to set the story up correctly. Why don’t you boys come up here on the porch and sit a spell?”
They both climbed up onto the dried wood of the porch, and took up positions, sitting in front of the old Cowboy, at his feet.

“Like I said, I wasn’t much older that y’all, the spring of ‘75, I was 14. My Daddy let me ‘rent’ his wagon and two mules. A friend my age Davey Schmidt and I started a ‘freight service’. We basically hauled goods to the ranchers from town, and between the ranches.
We were young, strong and full of gumption. We made pretty good money. In fact, that’s how I was able to buy my first ‘Remuda’ when I started droving.”
The boys looked at him,puzzled.
“Oh, a ‘Remuda’ is a string of ponies or horses a cowboy has. On a trail drive you need more than one horse, I had four.
Anyway, Davey and I let ourselves be talked into hauling a load of barbed wire way out on the Llano (staked plains). It was getting dark, and we ran into this cowhand that happened to going the same way. He suggested that we camp together for safety. We gladly accepted. The Llano was Comanche country, and the more guns the better. Davey had an old Colt Patterson revolver, and I had Daddy’s Spencer repeater.
We found a good spot down between two hills to break the wind a bit and began to set up camp.
The cowboy, whose name was Bobby Cundiff, as we would later discover, offered to unhitch the two mules, and hobble them for the night. Davey would collect Buffalo chips and whatever else he could find for a fire, I was going to rustle up some grub.
As Bobby unhitched the mules, he secured a rope on their necks to contain them as he squatted down to tie the hobbles. As he stood from securing the first mule, a loud war hoop rose, and like magic, he had an arrow sticking through his right breast. He collapsed from the shock… He could make out a band of Comanches on their ponies riding full gallop in his direction.
Bobby was able to crawl under the wagon.
Where it just so happened that Davey and I had just arrived ourselves. Luckily I was able to grab my Spencer repeater, you load it once and can shoot for a week, as they use to say.”
“Why?” The older boy asked
“Why what?” William responded
“Why can you shoot it all week?”
“Oh, well because, it holds seven cartridges, that’s why! Bobby was hurting, the Comanche were circling, Bobby couldn’t lay prone to shoot a rifle with an arrow sticking out of him, and Davey’s old Colt was ‘cap and ball’, at that time, he had never had to try and reload it under pressure. We were in trouble.”
“What did you do Pa?” The younger one asked with wide eyes.
“I died of course.”
That did not go over well.
“That’s a joke, if I died, I wouldn’t be sitting here to tell y’all a story would I?”
They both quickly shook their heads no.
“That’s right. What could I do? First thing I done was break the feathers off that Comanche arrow and pulled it through.”
The little boys were horrified.
“That’s all you can do, then I got some dirt and grass and stuffed it in the hole the arrow made to try and stop the bleeding. I was hoping he could shoot his trapdoor rifle at least. Well, he did, it was a single shot and being wounded, with blood slick hands hard to load. He was also right handed, and the kick from that .45-70 didn’t do his arrow wound no good, so he switched to his Colt Patterson. We kept them at bay for a while, I saved the last of my first seven shots to cover Bobby and Davey as they reloaded their pistols, which was a real process before cartridges. I guess that ol’ Chief had done this once or twice and he knew we were reloading. He did the damdest thing, he rode right up in front of us, Pony tails and feathers streaming behind him. Before his appaloosa even came to a stop, he swung his right leg up, over its withers and leapt to the ground.
He was holding a club in his right hand and a war shield in his left.
He raised both in the air, threw his head back, and gave a blood curdling cry!”
“What did you do Pa!’ The two youngsters said in unison.
“It was getting darker by the minute, and I could just see the white of his bone bead chest plate in the dark. I aimed at it, just below the raised shield, and shot him…
Dead…
It got real quiet…
All of the Comanche came thundering toward us! We knew this was it…”
The boys were leaning in closer.
“Well, for some reason, in their distress over the chief, they plum forgot about us temporarily. I took advantage of the darkness and confusion to grab the mules, Davey and I climbed on one, because we were both much smaller than Bobby, so we put him on a mule by himself. We then lit off for the last ranch, riding and strapping those mules for everything they was worth!
What we didn’t know was that Bobby’s mule had been wounded. It collapsed about two thirds of the way to the ranch.
“Just leave me be boys, it’s the will of the lord that I die here with this mule.”
We both were stricken. We didn’t even know his name yet. Facing death together can make friends of strangers. We didn’t want to abandon him, but the tired mule couldn’t carry all three of us.
So we went on…”
The boys had a horrified look on their faces.
The old gentleman held up a hand as if to say stop.
“Did I say the story was over?!?”
They both shook their heads furiously.
“Well then. Ahem!! I will finish it up then!
We rode up to the ranch house around midnight. The rancher got everyone up and on alert. At first light, they would take us to our wagon to see if anything could be salvaged, and we wanted to give Bobby a Christian burial.
By the next morning, several other ranchers had been notified and they showed up with some of their hands. We had about 25 men as we rode back to our camp.
Wasn’t long before we could see buzzards circling where we had left the Cowboy Bobby. All of a sudden a pistol shot was heard. Well let me tell you 25 men at a full gallop is impressive. Guess what we found!Ol’ Bobby was still hanging in there, he had shot at coyotes all night, and killed two buzzards. Couple of fellas stayed behind to look after Bobby and get him someplace to recover.
We rode on to our wagon. When we pulled up to our gear we saw, just beside the wagon, on the ground was the Comanche Chief’s pony…
It’s throat had been cut, and it had a braided leather lariat around its neck, and the other end was buried in the ground.
“What you think that’s all about?”
One fella said.
“No telling with Comanch.” Another said.
I jerked on it once or twice, nope, it’s not moving.
Curiosity got the better of us, so, we dug it up..
You know what we found?”
The boys furiously shook their heads no, without making a sound.
The old man lowered his voice to almost a whisper.
“We found the Chief I shot, tied to his right hand was the lariat, in his left was his shield. When I got a closer look at the shield, I saw that it had three scalps attached to it.
Black hair, yellow hair, and a red one just like yours.” He said looking at the six year old.
Just then Doris came back out of the cabin.
“No bath this week, I don’t have the time. I brought you coffee bacon and beans. Come boys, let’s go.”
As the boys arose, they leapt into the old man’s arms and gave him a fierce hug before getting into Mr Fords infernal contraption.
As they pulled of and waved, he realized, he didn’t even know their names…