The Holy Road

Chapter XLIV

The defenders of the plains gave no thought to the personal life of General Mackenzie. His marital status, his fondness certain foods, the highs and lows of his young life — none of these was the sort of issue Indians pondered. They were concerned only with the practical question of how brave he might be, how shrewd and how determined he would prove to be in the field.

The answer, had they known it, would have been unsettling.

In the field, General Mackenzie was a living fusion of strength and perseverance. He faced the most heinous weather, the roughest terrain, the severest privation with equanimity, regarding them as mere annoying impediments to bringing the enemy to heel. Though his marches routinely strained human endurance, and despite his frequent, inexplicable explosions of rage, many men were eager to serve under him because Mackenzie's name was synonymous with success.

Yet for all that was known about the handsome officer who performed formed so brilliantly, his true identity was a mystery. Beneath the of his existence ran a dark, angry river of pain, unseen by all but the man whose life it ruled with unrelenting cruelty. Pain was Ranald Mackenzie's sole and constant companion. He ate and slept with it, laughed with it, defecated with it, and dreamt with it. It accompanied him through every waking moment and released him only for brief naps at night.

His face was untouched but beneath the uniform his body was covered with a latticework of wounds and attendant scarring, a secret world throbbing with torment. An angry tear that made the stumps on his hand trivial in comparison ran in a jagged line down the middle of his left pectoral and along the rib cage. The jumble of scar tissue twinged with every breath as did the tenuously grafted breaks in his ribs.

Several pieces of lead, embedded in his knee and hip, grated against bone at the slightest movement and provided him with advance, if painful, knowledge of changes in the weather. A twice broken shoulder often ached as if a knife blade were embedded in bone and gristle, cutting him repeatedly as he rocked back and forth in the saddle.

For years he had gotten no relief. Often the pain would radiate across his torso with such vengeance that he was forced to lie down on some pallet and match his own steely reserve to the demons bedeviling his flesh.

At first he had experimented with painkillers but only the most powerful had any effect, and these he could not take for they made his mind too fizzy to perform his duty. His only weapon against the grievous attacks that tormented his body was his clear, incisive mind, a mind which he trained to combat his suffering while he functioned. He fooled the doctors who administered his yearly physical, and while the men who worked closest to him knew of his infirmities, no living being guessed at the depth of the daily torture that was his life.

Defeating pain had become his reason to be. Every phase of his existence was based on the never-ending competition between mind and body for dominance, coloring every action he took. All that he did, whether it was conducting a field operation or merely getting out of bed, was a mortal challenge to the tenacity of his will, which he used in every instance with unflagging dexterity, elevating mind over matter.

He personally supervised the care of the elm trees that were planted on the perimeter of the parade ground, insisting, to the consternation of the soldiers who plodded back and forth to the creek, that they be watered regularly. Otherwise, it could not be said that the general had anything approaching a hobby. He drank lightly, slept alone, eschewed games of chance, did not smoke, and had no friends. Pursuit of pleasure was unknown to him.

His characteristic lack of passion was nowhere more evident than in his reaction to the various Indian leaders who were preparing to embark for Washington. Twice he met with them, smoking the pipe and sharing a meal of venison on one occasion. Mackenzie said little at either meeting. His most pronounced expression was a thin, noncommittal smile that followed several good jokes. He noticed a high degree of intellect in an old Comanche man and was impressed by the adequate command of English in another younger Comanche but that was the extent of his feeling.

The general saw no value in discourse with a group of primitive men on their way to meet the president. Such things were simply not part of his job, and Bad Hand was delighted when the delegation of twelve tribesmen departed for the eastern railroad. With all distractions cleared away, he could immerse himself in applying the finishing touches to the coming campaign.

His excitement in taking the field was high. General Sherman had cleared the way for the mountains of provisions and munitions that flowed into the fort. His staffing was only a few souls shy of one hundred percent, and the rank and file could count quite a few veterans among them.

Best of all, General Mackenzie knew that once he was at the head of a column seeking to engage the enemy, his pain would become more manageable. He had never pondered the connection, but when he was in the field the torture never failed to wane.

There was a sharp drop in his pain the same day the Indian delegation ventured east in a convoy of open wagons, and later that afternoon Bad Hand composed a thorough set of orders to be transmitted by wire to Fort Richardson, a post far in the south.

The orders were directed to a young captain by the name of Bradley the same man who, as a lieutenant some months before, had been humiliated by Wind In His Hair. His narrow aversion of disaster on that occasion had seasoned him, and Captain Bradley was proud to receive instructions directly from General Mackenzie.

Though the orders appeared to call for a routine reconnaissance scout into Indian country, they were, in reality, much more than that. The force under Captain Bradley would be large, more than a hundred men, and it would scour the country for a month, far longer than the usual week or ten days. Instead of traveling in a loop, the command was directed to weave to and fro, constantly angling north in a sweeping fashion.

The directive clearly stated that engagement of the Indians was to be strictly avoided, unless, of course, Bradley and his men were fired upon. Nor were Indians to be chased. In fact, the orders stated repeatedly that a primary feature of the captain's mission was to conduct the action as peacefully as possible.

But Captain Bradley understood that the true object of his mission was to gently herd the savages north, bringing them closer to General Fordike's column traveling down from the northwest and General Mackenzie's advancing from the east. Pressed from three directions at once, it was hoped the hostiles would be constricted into a shrinking, inescapable circle of resistance which could be efficiently annihilated.

No one wanted a long war.