Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04 by Quanah Parker

Author:Quanah Parker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Westerns, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780061004490
Publisher: HarperTorch
Published: 2000-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Summer 1858

TEXAS WAS VAST, SO vast that the Comanche had been relatively secure in the Llano Estacado. They had been free to wage their kind of war, lightning-fast raids on small settlements, isolated homesteads, the occasional wagon train on the way down the Santa Fe trail. But their own haunts had been relatively free from intrusion except for an occasional raid by a small band of Texans. Although treaties had been signed, and the U.S. Army had received permission in those treaties to establish military posts, the army presence had been all but nonexistent.

But 1858 would be the year that would see all that change. Fed up with the incessant raids, frustrated by the Comanches’ ability to strike where and when they pleased and to escape unpunished into the huge, barren void of the Llano, Texans set up a clamor that finally caught the ear of newly elected Governor Hardin Runnels. Anxious to please his constituents, he appointed John R. Ford, known to one and all as “Rip,” the supreme commander of the Texas Rangers, with the rank of senior captain. Ford was given the authority to raise a company of a hundred tested men, orders to wage the war his way, and instructions to punish the Comanche and drive them out of Texas if possible.

Not one to take so daunting a challenge lightly, Rip Ford set to work immediately, exchanging frequent letters with the governor to make sure that his orders were explicit and unequivocal, and to ensure that support would be unwavering. Too often in the past, as Ford well knew, outrage sputtered out like an untended fire, and men hastily dispatched to the field found themselves suddenly cut adrift, wage commitments revoked, supplies short or unavailable and support withered and blown away even before the enemy had been sighted. Rip was determined that wouldn’t happen again, not this time, and sure as hell not to him.

Particular to the point of fussiness in his choice of Rangers, and intent on doing things right if at all, he made his selections quickly, but not hastily. By midspring he was ready to go. But Ford knew that his chances of finding the Comanche would be considerably enhanced if he had the benefit of Indian assistance, particularly with tracking, and he arranged for a contingent of Tonkawa, numbering more than a hundred, under the leadership of their chief, Placido, to join the expedition. The Indian Agent, Ranger Capt. Lawrence Sullivan Ross, better known as “Sul,” had used his good offices with the Tonkawa, and his son, Shapley, also a Ranger captain, was given command of the Indian forces.

The Tonkawa were mortal enemies of the Comanche, having been driven out of their lands by the latter as they drifted south and east from their original hunting grounds in Colorado. The Comanche also believed the Tonkawa were cannibals, with some reason, and despised them as they did no other Indian enemies, even the hated Osage and Apache.

The expedition started up the Brazos

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