Welcome To The Bullpen
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Samuel Engelman
The flesh tore easily from the dead longhorn steer. It was a slaking meal for the scavengers gathered around the carcass, and the coyotes ate gluttonously. They looked up only for a moment to see the stagecoach pass them by, only a few hundred yards away, carrying two passengers, a driver, and a man carrying a scatter-gun.
“Do you not find it even slightly prejudicial on our part that we insist on assimilating the Indian into a culture such as ours which they do not comprehend? Why can we not let them live as they have for generations?” Pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and augmenting his wide hazel eyes, Dr. Joseph Grant looked across to his only traveling partner in the loud dusty wagon. He was enjoying the intelligent conversation, though he had decided the man across from him was a brigand. Grant had also decided that this lout was curiously educated, however, and spoke English, Spanish, and Comanche all with an articulate tongue. Grant prided his own self on his mastery of French and Latin, and had found some bizarre intellectual attraction to this ruff westerner.
“Well…” Ezra Greene, as opposed to Grant, was not fully involved in the conversation. He was immersed more fully in a picture he was holding in his hands. It was of a very attractive woman; she was dark of hair, with piercing eyes and a wry smile. In her arms she held a child, not a newborn, but very young, that had shared her eyes and hair.
“Well Mr. Greene?” Ezra was snapped out of his day-dream, and he thoughtfully slipped the picture into its pocket inside his vest.
“Mr. Grant,” Ezra began to reply.
“Doctor,” Grant corrected.
“…Doctor. I have been in and around this area for quite a number of years. I have seen things…things that you can scarcely imagine.” Ezra brushed passed the picture and retrieved a briar pipe. He lit it and began to puff away slowly.
“Do you care to elaborate?” Grant pressed the conversation.
“It is far from polite conversation sir.” Ezra brushed some fresh ash from his well-worn pants. He leaned back easily and rested a booted foot upon his other leg. Dr. Grant looked Ezra up and down. He had never seen such a man as this. High-top boots, with the pants tucked inside, and a noticeable handle of a thin knife could be seen peeking out the inside of the boots. Ezra also wore a rugged looking shirt and a mismatched vest which had been hand-sewn back together a number of times. On his head was a black hat, like a drover would wear, with a wide brim to keep the bright Texas sun from his eyes. Ezra’s serious face looked as if it had not seen a razor for months, and his black hair was growing long. Grant’s attention then turned to the man’s guns. They were the most well-kempt thing about the man. A pearl-handled Colt rested on his left hip in a cross-draw holster and a long row of bullets curled around the belt. On Ezra’s chest was a bandolier full of shotgun shells, and to his right was his saddle which housed a Sharps .50 and the 12-gauge coach-gun. “Bandit.” “Tramp.” “Hired-Gun.” “Killer.” These were the words and descriptions which the Harvard-educated Doctor Grant would use to describe this ruffian when he returned to Cambridge and spoke of his sabbatical to his peers.
“Please Mr. Greene. We are both adults here. Tell me of your extensive study of the Plains Tribes.” Grant smiled smugly. Ezra sighed and tapped the ashes out of his pipe.
“Sir. I see you are not one to perceive my subtleties, so I will be precisely blunt.” Ezra tipped his hat back and gazed at Grant. “I have had one hell of a day, and an even worse year.” He pulled a bottle out of the saddlebag sitting next to him and tipped it back, drinking wantonly. “I would rather not exchange pleasantries with you any longer. There is nothing I can tell you, no story I can relay that a man such as yourself could comprehend.”
“I am vastly studied in every field of academia. My comprehension skills I assure you are coapasetic.” Grant sat up straight with a look of indignation.
“Yes I am certain you have read extensively about this region and the native peoples inhabiting it.” Ezra drank again, this time gulping two, three mouthfuls. He sat down the bottle, and out of aimless habit he rested his left palm on the handle of his revolver. “You know nothing my educated friend.” Ezra noted Grant’s shifting worried eyes and removed his own hand from his Colt with a calm motion. “Because you have seen nothing.” Ezra tipped his hat down and proceeded to ignore Grant’s looks of disgust. The remainder of the trip was exceedingly quiet but soon they reached an outpost. It was time to change horses and obtain some sustenance.
“Well I’ll be damned you are alive!” A large man greeted the two travelers as they exited the coach. “Ezra, I hear you are in need of a horse.” The man moved to one side in order to let Grant pass. “What happened to that fine U-bar gelding?”
“Dead. I could use a bath…and another bottle Conner. I do apologize I am not in a personable mood.” Ezra shook his friend’s hand and tried to manage a smile.
“Well get your fill tonight, I imagine you and I will be striking out in a day or two.” The two began walking towards the adobe building that served as an outpost.
“What is the story? The Governor’s note was short on details.” Placing his freshly loaded pipe in his mouth, Ezra struck a match on the adobe wall.
“Yella’ Wolf is kickin’ up trouble again…killed a sod-buster up near the Canadian. Took his wife and daughter captive. Word is that he’s in the vicinity, Brown and this new ranger named Casper lost his trail forty miles north aways…they found the women, dead of course, close to where they lost the trail.” Conner motioned the direction.
“Hmm…how many?” Ezra finished his bottle and tossed it down with a grimace.
“Right around ten…young bucks most of em’ we’re guessin’,” Conner replied.
“Alright O’Bryan.” Ezra smoothed his mustache with a thumb. “I need some .50’s for the Sharps if they have any here, and then I am ready to strike a trail in the morning.”
“You sure? We could lay over a day…or two?” Conner studied his old friend closely and opened his mouth to speak again.
“O’Bryan,” Ezra cut in. “It is Yellow Wolf.” Conner nodded and his mouth tightened when he noticed Ezra’s sharp look towards him.
Doctor Grant wiped his mouth. The pickled buffalo tongue was certainly not to his liking, but now he could say he had eaten one. His New England friends would certainly get a laugh out of the fact that he had eaten a buffalo tongue. He was now exiting the adobe building and returning to the coach. With a quick glace towards Ezra and Conner, he noticed something about his traveling companion he had missed at first glance. Inside the vest Ezra was wearing, tucked behind the closefitting garment, was a badge. The star of a Texas Ranger clung to Ezra’s shirt.
“This is what serves for a peace officer out here?” He said to himself as he passed. “God help us.” Ezra and Conner both heard him but ignored the remark, and simply watched Grant board the coach.
“Driver.” Conner motioned to the man sitting atop the wagon. “We’ve had some reports of Comanche trouble in the area…be watchful.” The driver nodded as another man and two women boarded the coach as well. They were dressed plainly, probably headed to a settlement, they looked like town-folk to Ezra.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Ezra began. “As my associate informed your driver, we have had reports of renegades in the area. You would do well to keep an eye out, and load your weapons should you have any.” The women looked frightened, as did the new man in the wagon, but Grant simply grinned at Ezra.
“Are you perhaps attempting to frighten me Mr. Greene?” Grant squinted at Ezra.
“No Doctor…just informing you. Travel safe. I would advise you to load your firearm, but I am rather convinced that you are unarmed.” Ezra did not wait for a response he simply turned and walked away as the wagon pulled slowly off.
Six hours later, Grant was shaken from a light sleep by a large bump on the wagon trail. A larger moon that he had ever seen was casting a pale shine on the prairie. Stars dotted the huge sky and Doctor Grant could not explain it, but everything seemed more grand and vast here in this sea of rolling grass. He was admiring the constellation of Orion when something caught his eye on the ground. Movement?
“A horse?” Grant squinted. It was a horse, galloping directly towards them. “Hey…hey!” The man and woman across from him stirred. “A mustang! A wild horse is approaching!” Grant had read of these wild mustangs that ran free on the range. The mare ran to the wagon team and started to whinny. Atop the coach, the man with the shotgun strained his eyes in the full moon’s light to get a better look. His face went pale when he finally made out a yellow figure painted on the horse’s neck. His mouth opened to yell a warning but before any sound escaped his throat the twang of a bowstring sung out over the silent night. The arrow planted deeply into the man’s throat and crimson liquid gushed forth, spilling rapidly into his lap. The driver lifted his hands upward to whip the team but a gunshot erupted to the left and the driver fell forward to the ground, his body pulling the frightened horses to an uneasy stop.
“Indians!” The younger of the two women in the coach screamed. In an instant they were upon them pulling the four passengers from the coach.
“No! God no!” Was all the male passenger managed before a Comanche drove a long knife into his chest and screamed an animalistic wail into the dying man’s face. Doctor Grant was paralyzed, frozen with fear. He could not speak, yell, of fight. They had him, but they had not killed him. Maybe he was going to be okay. His mind was racing. Maybe they were not going to harm him. The barrel of a rifle smashed into his head and his world went black.
It was not long before Doctor Grant woke and already he wished for death. He was subdued. Staked to the ground by all limbs, something in his abdomen was burning. It was a pain like he had never felt, and he lifted his head to see the source of his agony. A Comanche kneeled over him, a knee pressing into his groin and a bloody knife held loosely in his hand. What was he doing with that knife? Then Grant saw it; the man before him was holding a bloody rope in his hands. No it was not a rope. It was something else, and when the Indian yelped excitedly and a jerked, Grant felt as if white-hot liquid was being poured into his belly. He screamed, jerked his head to the left, and vomited blood and half of a pickled buffalo tongue onto the ground. What he saw next made him vomit the other half of the buffalo tongue. Four men had the young girl from the coach pinned on the ground, she was screaming painfully. She could not have been more than fourteen years of age; Grant had decided this earlier during the coach ride. She was a pretty girl, blonde hair and a thin juvenile body, with a look of pleasantness about her. Not now, however. Her face was bloody, and, even in the dark, Grant could see what the four men were doing to the poor young girl. With wide eyes she looked at Grant and mouthed something.
“Help.” She managed to say to Grant. Again his head was smacked by the barrel of a gun. Grant’s head was swimming, and he knew he was close to unconsciousness. That, or something deeper than unconsciousness. The Indian on top of him jerked on the bloody rope again and Grant could feel warmth running down his left leg. Soon, however, the Comanche lost interest in Grant and went over to join the group around the young blonde girl.
Grant woke briefly when the sun touched his cheek. He attempted to look around but found it extremely painful, and he could not move anything. His face was pressed into soft short grass, and he was looking across to where, just hours ago, the young girl from the coach had lain. She was gone now, however, and only her blood remained. Grant was in extreme pain and could not make a coherent thought stick in his mind, but he was surprised that he was alive, if only for now. His eyes fluttered again and closed.
Ezra Greene lifted the stiff eyelid and looked into a familiar hazel eye. Doctor Grant’s body was only beginning to stiffen, rigor mortis had just recently set in Greene knew. He was close to the culprits of this ambush, only a few hours behind.
“Yellow Wolf,” Ezra said. He shook his head slowly. Pulling a folded letter out of the dead Doctor’s jacket pocket, Ezra saw it was unfinished but it was addressed to a Frederick Grant. He put the letter into the pocket, beside his picture of the woman and child. “Well Doctor, I did warn you did I not?” Ezra closed Doctor Joseph Grant’s eyes, folded his hands across his chest, and stood up. “Alright Rangers,” He said to the seven Texas Rangers at his back. “We will overcome them by dark. If we are lucky the women are still alive.” Ezra mounted a large bay horse and left in a hard gallop, followed closely by Conner O’Bryan and six others. Ezra had always been a calm man, but rage was beginning to well up within him the closer he moved towards Yellow Wolf and his gang. They would not stop tonight, nor tomorrow, not until Yellow Wolf was dead; Ezra had made this decision and would see it through.
“Hey, Conner.” The newest member of the Rangers, Conner’s nineteen-year-old cousin Patrick, rode close to his older cousin and spoke in a loud whisper. “These Comanches we’re chasin’…are they the ones who…”
“Yes.” Conner had expected the question and cut Patrick off. “Don’t speak of it in front of the Captain, he hasn’t made peace with it.”
“Captain sure is riding hard…we’re going to run our horses down if we ain’t careful.” Patrick looked forward to Ezra who was fifty yards ahead.
“Talk less Patrick,” Conner kicked his mount to catch up with Ezra, “ride harder.” They were now following the tracks southwest at a gallop making their way swiftly across the sloping hills.
Two days later, light had just begun to creep over the red cliffs that surrounded an abandoned homestead when a young Comanche buck leaned out of the broken down front doorway and scanned right and left. He saw nothing but felt uneasy about being in one place so long. Still, he shrugged and stepped back into the rundown house. Conner’s keen eyes turned from the lenses of the binoculars and looked down to Ezra.
“Yes sir boss…” Conner whispered in a low voice. “There they are.”
“How many?” Ezra’s voice sounded eerily distant.
Conner was looking through the binoculars again. “I see…three, four, five…looks like eight mounts tied up around the house. I see two women tied down in front of the place, they are still alive. …Ezra, that one mare looks like she’s got Yella’ Wolf’s mark on her neck.”
“Alright then,” Ezra looked towards Conner, “get the rest of the boys ready.” Conner turned to the six rangers and they gathered around him. With a large bowie knife he started to draw plans into the dirt, showing each man what his responsibility was. It took only a couple minutes to relay the plan to the young rangers and Conner turned to Ezra.
“Do you think that will work Captain?” Conner looked right then left and back again. “Ezra?” Ezra was nowhere to be seen. He and his horse were gone and only a trial of dust remained hanging in the still dim morning air.
“Mount up Rangers!” Conner planted his hand on his saddlehorn and swung himself into the saddle with one smooth motion. All the Rangers rode hard now heading for the homestead following Ezra’s dust as they went. They were trailing by a good hundred yards and Ezra’s horse, although exhausted, was pulling away from the others, running with incredible speed.
Ezra quickly glanced over his shoulder spotting the Rangers behind him. He spurred the horse harder and harder, he had never ran so fast in his life. Fury burned like a wildfire in his dark eyes. The house came into view as he topped the hill leading down to the front door. Ezra grasped his double-barreled coach-gun with his right hand and spurred again, this time harder causing a small amount of blood to gather on his horses sides. His horse leaped over the fence and into the yard.
Conner’s fast grey gelding was at the head of the pack when the Rangers topped the hill. He looked down just in time to see Ezra’s horse jump the fence in front of the old house. All the Rangers were riding fast and silently hoping and praying that the Indians were asleep. That somehow Ezra would get the jump on them and be able to get all of them. However, they all knew they would not be there in time to do anything but pick up the pieces. For at least thirty seconds Ezra would be on his own, and it would be him against eight. Ezra was good, Conner knew this. But good enough to kill eight men all at once by himself? Conner looked back and saw Patrick and the others close behind him. They were all reaching for their weapons now, preparing for the fight ahead. They were almost to the bottom of the hill, almost there. Conner looked back ahead and saw Ezra jump from his horse which was still in a gallop.
Ezra hit the ground running and he cocked back both hammers of his shotgun. He ignored the two women tied up a few yards to his left and rushed at the door of the homestead. A dubious looking Comanche stepped out of the doorway and his eyes widened as they set on Ezra Greene. The young buck had no time to react, he merely stood there and took a load of buckshot from Ezra’s double-barrel in the waist, blowing through his lower stomach and leaving him slumped down in the doorway. Ezra came through the front door and scanned quickly, shotgun against his shoulder. He beaded down on another man scrambling for his rifle. Ezra squeezed the trigger and the man was dead before he fell, buckshot lodged in his face and neck. Ezra let go of his spent shotgun and reached for his revolver, the pearl-handled Colt was leveled before the scatter-gun hit the floor. Three unarmed Indians rushed for the door, but Ezra aimed his Colt at another who had retrieved a pistol from a table. The first bullet from Ezra’s gun caught the man in the left arm and his second and third bullets planted in the man’s chest. The young Indian stumbled backwards against the now bloodstained wall and fell to his knees. The bloodied Comanche raised his pistol and got a shot off, catching Ezra in the right shin before the Ranger expended a fourth shot into the Indian killing him. The pain in Ezra’s shin was dulled quickly by a fresh sharp pain in his neck. Ezra whirled around and brought his revolver to bear on another buck, who had just sent a bullet from his repeater deep into the Ranger’s lower neck. Ezra fired once and then again emptying his firearm into the man who immediately hit the floor, bleeding badly from the thigh and chest. One Comanche remained inside the house wielding a revolver pointed at Ezra. It was Yellow Wolf himself, standing and grinning wide noticing that Ezra was out of bullets.
Ezra’s eyes looked down with malice upon Yellow Wolf who was smiling wickedly. To his immediate right Ezra spotted a tomahawk stuck into a chair. The two enemies stood for a moment staring at one another. Ezra could hear his heart pumping faster and faster in his head, and with every pump he knew a massive amount of blood was flowing out of him. His face was already pale and his hands were shaking furiously. After the moment of silence that passed between the two, Ezra seized the tomahawk and lunged himself at Yellow Wolf. The Comanche’s wicked grin morphed into a worried expression as he began to fire his revolver into the charging Ranger. One bullet to Ezra’s hip, another to the left forearm, another to upper left chest, and then THUMP. Ezra drove the tomahawk deep into Yellow Wolf’s skull, splitting his head almost in two. Yellow Wolf fell backward onto the dirt floor, the bloody tomahawk protruding noticeably from the top of his head. Ezra stumbled sideways sinking slowly down to the floor and sat down against the blood-spattered wall. His breathing was short and difficult and he was beginning to feel cold. He reached slowly into his vest pocket and retrieved the picture, and Doctor Grant’s letter. Dropping the letter to the floor, Ezra looked intently to the picture which had become coated instantly in his own blood. Ezra ran a bloody finger near the face of the woman and down to the child. He smiled.
Conner and Patrick were the first ones to the abandoned homestead. Three Comanche had burst from the front door and were running for their horses tied to the remnants of the wooden fence in front of the house. The two Rangers swung their legs over their horses’ necks and dropped down off of the trotting mounts, guns drawn. Conner leveled duel Schofield revolvers and pumped seven rounds into two of the Indians. They twisted and jerked as they hit the dirt a few steps from their horses. Patrick pointed his own revolver at the third man who had just put his foot in the stirrup of a stolen saddle, desperately attempting to save his own life. Taking careful aim, Patrick put one well-placed slug into the young buck’s head, killing a man for the first time in his life. The Comanche fell backwards and his painted horse, spooked by the action around, bolted away dragging the man whose foot had lodged in the stirrup. Conner and Patrick, followed by the other Rangers rushed into the house, guns pointed in every direction.
“God in heaven.” Conner said as he looked around the brutal scene inside the shack. Seeing his friend lay dead against the wall brought a very rare tear to the large Ranger’s eye, and Conner kneeled down in front of Ezra’s body and motioned a cross into the dusty air. “’Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.’” It was a verse Conner had often talked with Ezra about, and so he thought it appropriate for this final occasion between them. Conner reached down to Ezra’s hand and carefully removed the bloody picture from Ezra’s grasp. With moist eyes Conner looked past the picture to the letter on the ground.
Three weeks later, Frederick Grant opened a letter from his brother, Doctor Joseph Grant. Inside he found two letters- one unfinished letter from his brother, and another from a Texas Ranger. With a raised eyebrow Fredrick pulled out both out the letter and began to read- “Mr. Grant, It is my regretful duty to inform you that your elder brother, Doctor Joseph Grant, has passed on. His stagecoach was come upon by Comanche bandits and he was killed along with three other men while traveling near the Canadian River in Texas. I understand there is little solace to be had in a tragedy such as this, for I myself have suffered the personal loss of friends close to me this very year, and I do unequivocally understand the grief that accompanies loss. However, you can take some consolation in the knowledge that the men responsible for your brother’s murder have been brought to absolute justice by the courage and talent of a Texas Ranger who gave his life to defend the innocent. Sending my sincere condolences, Capt. Conner M. O’Bryan, Texas Rangers.” Underneath the letter, Frederick found a bloodstained picture of a dark-haired woman and a child. Running his fingers over the dried blood on the edges of the picture, he noticed a crease on the side beside the woman. Bending the fold back, Frederick revealed a third person in the picture. It was a young man, tall with black hair, dark eyes, and a clean shaven face. The young man’s hand was rested lovingly on his young wife’s shoulder.
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