The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

you?”
    â€œUh, no. You never have.”
    â€œWell, I suppose that’s because it was not our finest hour, despite the public hailing us as heroes of the Republic. And it was not the Comanches’ finest hour, either. In August of 1840, Chief Buffalo Hump and his warriors were driving a herd of almost two thousand horses and pack mules back from a raid on the pioneer settlements. They had been pillaging and burning in a great swath along the coast. Now they were headed for the Comancheria, their buffalo-hunting lands in northwest Texas. The mules were heavily loaded with iron, much prized for forging arrowheads, and a huge supply of dry goods plundered from a depot near Victoria. But the horses were the real prize.”
    I thought of Lockhart, with its courthouse and many stores and library, and even electricity. Our seat of civilization. “But why were you there?” I said. “How did it happen?”
    â€œRanger Captain Ben McCulloch had been following them for some days and realized that they would have to cross Plum Creek. He sent out some of his men to round up all the farmers and settlers in the area that they could, every single able-bodied man with a horse and a firearm. My father and I were plowing that day when one of the militia rode up with an urgent summons to arms. I was only sixteen, but like all sixteen-year-olds on the frontier, I knew how to ride and shoot, and that was all that mattered.”
    â€œDid you … did you kill any Indians?”
    â€œI suppose I did.”
    This answer mystified me until he elaborated: “In the smoke and the dust and the chaos, it was difficult to be sure. We numbered perhaps two hundred, while the Indians must have had at least five hundred warriors, but Buffalo Hump at first did not wish to engage us in battle. Then it became clear they were trying to delay until the vast herd had passed safely by. They could not bring themselves to abandon the horses. And as for the other booty, they had taken yards of red cloth and decorated their warhorses with it, weaving long streamers of red ribbon into their tails. Some wore top hats; some carried open umbrellas. Oh, it was quite the spectacle. But then Captain Caldwell gave the order to charge, and we plowed into the great mass, firing our rifles. The herd panicked and stampeded. The overloaded pack mules got bogged down and were run over by two thousand frightened horses crashing into them. The Comanche were trapped by the very animals they prized so highly. Many were trampled and crushed by the horses; many were shot trying to escape. It was a terrible rout. And although Buffalo Hump lived to fight another day, their fatal weakness for horses spelled the beginning of the end of the Comanche in Texas.”
    â€œWere you hurt?”
    â€œI was not hurt, and neither was my father. We suffered surprisingly few casualties. President Lamar was well pleased.”
    â€œAnd then you came home, right?”
    â€œWe all returned to our farms and families a few days later, but not before dividing up the enormous plunder. Since there was no way to return it to the original owners, my father and I returned with a mule laden with a bolt of red calico and a keg of brandy. My mother was glad to see that cloth, and I remember that for many years she dressed us all in shirts and pants of that same fabric, and used it for quilts and such.”
    I suddenly realized there were several blocks of faded red fabric in my winter quilt.
    â€œWait,” I said, “is that the red material in my quilt?”
    â€œProbably so.”
    I resolved to take better care of the quilt, which I’d never before given a second thought to. Gosh, here I’d been sleeping all this time under Indian spoils of war and never known it!
    â€œAh, me,” he said, “the times I have seen. You might not realize, Calpurnia, that when I was born twenty miles from here, all this land was actually part of Mexico.