Despite the importance of the herd of cattle to the fulfillment of his plans, Charles Goodnight did not hesitate when Spat rode up with news of Loving’s predicament. Nor did the fact that he might have excellent means of effecting a rescue in any way influence his decision. Even without the presence of the United States Army contingent, he would have acted in the same way. Having half a troop of Cavalry and a battery of Mountain Artillery along—they had arrived an hour after Loving’s departure—gave Goodnight a greater chance of saving his partner and friend. Always assuming that the Yankee officers were willing to lend a hand, that is.
In some ways Goodnight resembled a Comanche, being thick-set for his five foot nine inches of height and exhibiting a similar effortless grace when on the back of a horse. However, from his low-crowned, wide-brimmed white Stetson to his spur-heeled, star-decorated boots, his appearance said Texas cattleman. Instead of the usual calfskin vest, he wore one made from the rosette-dotted hide of a jaguar which, having strayed north from Mexico, made the mistake of killing some of his cattle. Around his waist hung a gunbelt supporting matched rosewood-handled 1860 Army Colts in contoured holsters. From under his left leg showed the butt of a Henry rifle. His tanned face, with its grizzled brown beard, was set in grim lines as he rode his bayo-cebrunos ii gelding towards the two Army officers.
When they heard Goodnight’s news and intentions, the officers showed their willingness to help with the rescue. Like many of their kind, they had small love for Texans but Major Lane of the Artillery and 1st Lieutenant Leonard in charge of the Cavalry escort saw the possibilities of being involved. With promotion all but stagnant since the end of the War, they realized that even a moderately successful operation against a band of hostile Indians would bring them to the all-important notice of their superiors.
That especially applied to Lane. A career Artillery officer, he had been sent west with his battery to help fight the Apaches in New Mexico. Texas had Indian problems too, but the Territory of New Mexico supported the Union during the War Between the States and so received priority over the rebel Lone Star State. While the appointment had advantages, it also carried problems. Command in New Mexico rested in the hands of Cavalry officers, who naturally meant to see that their arm of the service received every benefit. Mountain artillery had been used during the War, but not in a major action or decisively enough for its capabilities to become generally known. Aware how hide-bound senior officers could be when presented with novel suggestions, especially from a rival branch of the Army, Lane saw the advantages of reaching Fort Sumner with a victory to his credit. He would find the commanding officer at the Fort more amenable if he brought news that his guns had already routed a band of marauding Indians.
‘I’ll have my men ready to march—’ Lane began.
‘We’re going to have to travel real fast, Major,’ Goodnight interrupted. ‘Was I you, I’d just take your three best guncrews and fastest mules. John!’
‘Yo!’ replied the rancher’s tall, lean and leathery-tough segundo, galloping up from where he had been talking with an exhausted Spat.
‘Send all but—eight with me,’ Goodnight ordered, pausing to decide how small a group he might safely leave to handle the cattle. ‘Reckon you can keep the herd moving with just eight?’
‘I’ll sure as hell try,’ John Poe answered. ‘Spat’s just told me about Oliver and Sid. He allows to ride back with you. I’ve got the wrangler fetching up a fresh horse for him.’
No less aware than Lane of the opportunities, Leonard put in, ‘My men’ll be ready to ride in fifteen minutes, Mr. Goodnight.’
‘I’ll take half of them while you command the rest here and escort the remainder of my battery,’ Lane corrected, not meaning to share any glory with a Cavalryman if he could help it. ‘Sergeant Major! One, Three and Five guns, four ammunition mules. I want two carrying solid shot, two with spherical case. Move it.’
‘Yo!’ answered the sergeant major and galloped off to obey.
‘Keep with the cattle until we rejoin you, Mr. Leonard,’ Lane commanded. ‘In fifteen minutes, Mr. Goodnight.’
‘We’ll be ready,’ the rancher promised.
Knowing the serious nature of the situation, everybody concerned with the rescue attempt worked fast. Fine cow-horse as it was, Goodnight would not be using the bayo-cebrunos for the work ahead. Instead he selected a powerful roan stallion, fast, with endurance to spare and steady in any kind of emergency. All the cowhands also picked from their mount—no Texan said ‘string’ for his team of workhorses—animals suited to long, hard riding.
Within fifteen minutes all was ready. Lane’s three howitzers were already carried by top-quality animals and it only remained to pick the four best of the remaining twenty-seven mules to carry the ammunition panniers. Having learned the need for mobility by fighting against the superb Confederate States cavalry, Lane’s men were all mounted, instead of working on foot as was usual among Mountain artillery batteries. From the way they handled their horses, Goodnight concluded Lane’s men had been well trained. They and the cavalry escort were veterans with combat experience.
Fifteen Texans, twenty-five cavalrymen and the crews for the three howitzers carried on six mules followed Goodnight and Lane away from the herd. The cavalrymen were armed with Army Colts and Springfield carbines, while the gunners wore revolvers only. Every Texan carried at least one revolver and a rifle or carbine of some description, although very few owned repeaters. For all that, they made a powerful addition to the rescue party.
After watching Goodnight depart, John Poe swung to the waiting cowhands. He saw that the herd had been deserted and its members stood grazing. Which was not what his boss wanted to happen.
‘Get them cattle moving!’ Poe bawled.
‘Just us?’ yelped a cowhand, for only eight of the actual trail crew remained. The cook and his louse were needed to drive the chuck- and bed-wagons, while the two wranglers left by Goodnight would be fully occupied with handling the remuda of reserve horses.
‘Naw!’ Poe spat back. ‘There’s half of the blasted Texas Light Cavalry coming up to lend a hand. Move it. Head ’em up and keep ’em going!’
Whirling their horses, the cowhands dashed to the herd. Watching them, Poe wondered if such a small body of men could deal with the fifteen hundred head of longhorn steers.
Much the same thoughts ran through Goodnight’s head and he wondered if he had done the right thing by telling his segundo to keep the herd moving. If anything happened to the cattle, he and Loving would be in bad shape financially. That did not worry Goodnight for himself, but Loving had a wife and children dependent on the success of the trail drive. Of course, the loss of the herd would mean that Goodnight would have to try some other method to make his dream come true.
Riding through potentially hostile country to a friend’s rescue was neither the time nor place to think of schemes for the future, important as they might be. So Goodnight put them from his mind and concentrated on the work in hand. At his suggestion, a pair of men skilled in such matters rode ahead as scouts. When they had found they could not hope to catch up with Spat, the braves who took after him stopped trying. Probably they had returned to their companions, looking for easier prey than the fast-riding cowhand, but there was no point in taking unnecessary chances.
All too well Goodnight knew the Comanche Nation. While a loyal Texan, he had declined to fight for the South during the War. Instead he had given his services for the benefit of the State by being a member of Captain Jack Cureton’s company of Texas Rangers. Acting as Cureton’s chief scout—the title ‘Colonel’ being honorary, granted in respect for his fighting ability and integrity—Goodnight had learned much about the Nemenuh iii So he realized the danger and knew that, unless Loving and Sid had been killed before reaching the shelter of the cave, other Kweharehnuh warriors would gather fast to share in the sport and spoils. By the time the rescue party arrived, there might be a large number of the hard-fighting Comanche braves present. If so, Goodnight did not want them to be warned of his coming.
To give them their due, the soldiers could handle their horses and mules real well. Veterans of the War, they knew how to travel fast for long periods and did not delay the Texans as the latter feared they might with the howitzers along. Ordinary horse-artillery, drawing their guns and limbers along on wheels, could not have kept pace with the mounted men across the range country. The mules, specially selected for their work, carried their disassembled lightweight howitzers at a speed equal to that of the horses.
On they rode, not even night’s arrival causing them to slow their pace. The scouts saw no sign of the braves who had pursued Spat, so Goodnight concluded they had returned to the main attack force. Nor did the Kweharehnuh appear to have taken the trouble to send out scouts. Probably they had assumed that the three white men did not belong to a larger body and that Spat had fled to save his life at the expense of his companions.
Reaching the rim above the Pecos, the rescuers stayed on top until the first hints of dawn began to appear in the eastern sky. Then Spat announced that they were within two miles of where he had left Loving and Sid.
‘I can’t hear any shooting,’ Lane said as the cowhand finished speaking. ‘Surely we should by now.’
‘It’s not likely,’ Goodnight replied. ‘Unless there’s no way of avoiding it, Comanches don’t fight at night.’
‘Maybe they’re not around anymore,’ Lane suggested, just a hint of disappointment in his voice.
‘If they’re not, Major,’ Goodnight answered coldly, ‘I’ve lost a real good friend. This’s Kweharehnuh country and they’re like bulldogs in a fight. Once they take hold, they stick until they’re killed or it’s over.’
‘What do you suggest?’ Lane asked in a low tone. While willing to accept advice from a man he had heard Army officers in Texas mention as an authority on Indian-fighting, he did not want his men to know that he requested it.
‘Was it me, I’d have the trail hands and at least half the horse-soldiers down there on the other side of the river and you up here with your guns where you can see what you’re shooting at. Soon’s we see the Comanches, we’ll let you toss a couple of cannon balls at ’em, then go in like the devil after a yearling.’
‘We’ll toss more than just a couple, and there’ll be case shot among them, seventy-eight musket balls a-piece.’
‘That’s your side of it, Major,’ Goodnight said. ‘Let’s get moving and find a place for my bunch to go down.’
Nodding agreement, Lane hid his surprise at discovering the rancher’s appreciation of how to handle the affair. Of course, many Texans had served in the Confederate Army and he recalled having heard the cowhands address Goodnight as ‘Colonel’. That could account for the other’s knowledge of tactics.
After riding on a short way, they found a place down which Goodnight’s part of the force could reach the river. Although the cavalry sergeant frowned when told by Lane to act as Goodnight ordered, he made no comment. Many anxious glances were directed by the Texans towards the eastern horizon, for they knew what dawn would mean if Loving and Sid should still be alive. Descending, they crossed the river and followed Goodnight along the west bank of the Pecos.
It was Lane’s party who saw the Comanche first. They were approaching a point where the valley made a bend that hid the Indians from the men at the lower level. Bringing his horse to a halt, Lane stared to where the braves had gathered at the head of the opposite slope. Trained eyes studied the scene and made various rapid calculations.
‘Action front!’ Lane barked to his waiting men. ‘Eight hundred and eighty yards. Load and commence firing.’
Even while the words were being spoken, the trained crews started to move. Leaping from their horses and tossing the reins to the waiting cavalrymen, they ran to the mules. Swiftly the wheels and carriages were unshipped from the mules that carried them and assembled. Even as nuts were being tightened to secure the pieces, the tube was brought from its carrier and fitted into position. Other men unloaded and opened the ammunition panniers, two from each mule, lifting the lids to expose the eight rounds each held.
‘Three-and-three-quarter-second fuse!’ ordered the sergeant in charge of the ammunition supply, estimating the time it would take for a spherical case shell to reach its destination half a mile away.
Obediently the men from One and Three guns cut into the circular pewter disc of a case shell’s Borman fuse at the appropriate place. Then they carried their charges to the guns. Having no need for such refinements as fuses, the Five gun was first into action. Taking the fixed round from the man who brought it, the loader tore the paper covering from the serge powder bag and slid the charge down the 32.9 inch long tube. Another man used the vent-pick to pierce the powder bag, leaving a clear way for the flame from the friction primer iv to reach the waiting explosive charge. Pushing the primer into place, he connected it to the lanyard and backed clear of the howitzer.
‘Trail left!’ ordered the gunner, having set the tube for the desired angle to hurl the solid shot among the Indians. ‘Right a shade! A touch more! Steady! Fire!’
Within one minute of Lane’s command, the Number Five howitzer boomed out its first shot. Five seconds later, the One and Three guns spoke and their loads rose skywards following the solid shot’s curving arc towards where the Indians had already begun their attack down the slope.
Plunging out of the heavens, the solid shot hurled up a cloud of sand from the west bank of the river. Ignited by the detonating main powder charge, a spurt of flame crept along the Borman fuse of each spherical case shell. At best using case shell, even with the well-designed Borman fuses, was a chancy business, with premature bursts, or no detonation at all occurring regularly. The case from the One howitzer exploded some thirty feet in the air over the Comanches, raining .69 caliber musket balls down on them. While set for the same time, the other case landed ahead of the attacking braves before the flame crawling along the fuse reached and ignited the 4.5 ounce burster charge. However, the crew of the Three gun had no cause for complaint at the result of their shot.
Caught in the blast from the two exploding cases, consternation and pandemonium reigned among the Kweharehnuh. Horses squealed, reared and a couple went down as musket balls struck them. The charge was halted and changed into a milling, plunging mass of men and horses.
Urged on by the gunners, the three howitzer crews made fast time in reloading and altering their aim. Before the amazed Indians could regain control of their startled horses, the next solid shot plunged down among them. Struck by the cannon ball, one of the tehnap’s head’s dissolved into bloody pulp and the man next to him also went down. Then the two spherical case shells arrived. For once both fuses burned perfectly and the cases ruptured to spew forth their musket-ball loads. More men and horses went down under the hail of flying lead.
Brave warriors as the Kweharehnuh might be under normal circumstances, they had never faced cannon-fire and could not understand the nature of the devilish devices which rained down on them. Before the braves could recover, the well-served howitzers belched their third loads into the air. Taken with the sight of Goodnight leading his men at a charge along the river’s bank, the arrival of the ball and two spherical cases proved to be the final straw. Only one of the cases exploded, but a ball from it caught the war-bonnet chief between the eyes and tumbled him from his horse.
Seeing their leader go down was all the rest of the demoralized band needed. Frightened of the unknown they might be, but they still scooped up all their wounded and most of the dead in the mad melee caused by turning to escape.
In the lead of his party, Goodnight saw that the decision to bring the howitzers along had been fully justified. Around three hundred Kweharehnuh had gathered, a force against which the cowhands and cavalrymen would have stood no chance in an open fight. Goodnight had hoped that the guns would produce panic, but knowing the nature of the enemy could not rely on it happening. The gamble had come off and the way was clear to effect Loving’s rescue.
At the sight of their companions disrupted and broken by the artillery bombardment, without being aware of what caused it, the warriors at the mouth of the cave turned and ran. Not all of them escaped, for the cowhands and soldiers cut loose with their revolvers on coming into shooting range. The rout, however, was as complete as it could be. Watching the fleeing Kweharehnuh, Goodnight doubted if they would stop for miles and they certainly had no intention of returning to resume the fight.
Charging his roan through the water, Goodnight galloped it to the mouth of the cave. He left the saddle with the horse still running, hurdled the bodies before the entrance and plunged inside with a Colt in his right hand. Cold anxiety bit into the rancher at what he saw. Loving sprawled against the rear wall, blood oozing from the bullet-hole in his chest and welling up around the arrow that protruded from his body.
The rescue had come just too late to prevent the trail-blazing cattleman from being seriously wounded.