Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith

Author:Harold Keith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062419675
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

15

Fate of the Brandts

A week later Jeff was standing at dusk near the north gate of Fort Gibson when he heard wagon wheels rumbling and hundreds of slow hoofbeats.

His heart leaped hopefully. Maybe it was a food train. Forage and provisions were running low. With Watie raiding so widely, no corn had been raised in the Cherokee country. The fort was wholly dependent now upon the food freighted overland by mule train from far-off Kansas, and upon the small acquisitions of flour and meal ground at Hildebrand’s mill on Flint Creek from corn and wheat secured by stealthy dashes into nearby Arkansas. Weeks had passed since a supply train had come from Fort Scott. Everybody was tired of the weevily meat and the quarter rations of salt horse.

Besides, ten thousand rebels stationed along the south bank of the Arkansas River from Webbers Falls to the north of the Grand were poised for an attack. The fort’s plight had become desperate. Jeff kicked at a small rock embedded in the ground. Federal blunders and indifference had done it. Located hundreds of miles west of the main theater of war, the fort had been virtually abandoned by Union authorities at St. Louis.

A double column of dusty figures rode horseback through the fort’s great wooden gate. Their black campaign hats and their blue shoulders bobbed over the top of the fort’s sharply pointed, close-set log palisades. As they drew closer, Jeff saw they were cavalry. Their faces were raw and swollen from the stings of horseflies and the scratches of tree branches striking them as they traveled through the woods. They looked as though they had been choking in their own dust all the way from Kansas.

Disappointed, he walked out to meet them, hoping they were escorting at least part of a food train. But only their own baggage wagons followed, and when he saw how easily the tired mules pulled the wagons, he knew they were loaded only lightly. When he tried to question them about where they had come from and how the war was going in the east, they stared at him and never spoke. Unabashed, he walked with them as they rode past the new stone supply buildings covered with slate that Colonel Phillips had ordered constructed atop the bluff overlooking Grand River. Moving on to the lowlands, they halted near the site of the original fort, now two decaying blockhouses.

There they dismounted slowly and, once on the ground, staggered unsteadily and stomped their feet to restore the circulation. With their hands they beat clouds of dust off their pants and blouses. Some of them hawked deeply and noisily spat the dust from their throats. Others gave gruff commands to their horses and clomped about in their boots, their brass spurs jingling as they began to set up camp.

Despite their lack of hospitality, Jeff was impressed with the careful way they attended to their horses before they ate a bite of supper themselves. They removed the saddles, permitting the animals to roll on the ground.

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