Buffalo Soldier: Family Feud

Chapter 1

"Private First Class Harris, front and center." Sergeant Major Levi Oglethorpe was not a big man, but his voice boomed out across the dusty parade ground, echoed off the adobe walls of the surrounding buildings, and set Isaac Harris's knees to quivering like willow branches in a breeze. The young soldier gulped and swallowed hard, causing his Adam's apple to bob up and down. Sweat collected on his dark brown brow despite the chill of November in the air.

"Don't worry, Isaac," First Sergeant Ben Carter whispered out of the side of his mouth. "His bark's a whole lot worse than his bite."

"What he want with me?" Harris asked in a quavering voice.

"Well, I reckon you better git yo tale up there'n find out," Sergeant George Toussaint said from two men down in the file from the quivering Harris.

Harris looked at the sergeant major, standing ramrod straight and looking impatient in front of the four troops standing in the early afternoon sun on Fort Union's dusty parade ground. Then he looked out of the corner of his eye at Toussaint to his right. A mountain of a man with skin the color of polished mahogany and muscular shoulders so wide that he sometimes had to turn slightly sideways to go through doors. Toussaint glared at him.

On shaking legs, he stepped out of the formation and walked toward Oglethorpe, trudging along with his eyes on the ground in front of him, looking like a man on his way to a long trip at the end of a short rope.

The wind, blowing in from the north and bringing the first hints of what looked like it would be a cold winter, whipped across the parade ground, kicking up dust devils and clouds of chalky sand, one of which enveloped the slightly-built Harris, making it look for a moment as if was being swallowed by the yellow dirt.

When finally he'd emerged from the dust cloud and made his way to stand in front of the wiry sergeant major, he straightened up, knocked the dust off his tunic, pulled his shoulders back and thrust his chest out.

"Private First Class Isaac Harris reporting as ordered, sergeant major."

Oglethorpe looked down his narrow nose. His thin lips twitched up in what was almost a smile. "You took your sweet time, private." He turned to the man who had been standing behind him and saluted. "Colonel, Private Harris is here," he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Wainwright, the only white man currently at Fort Union, a tall man with near shoulder length brown hair and a mustache that drooped down either side of his mouth, returned his sergeant major's salute. Oglethorpe stepped off to the side, and Wainwright stepped in front of Harris.

"Do you know why you're here, soldier?"

"N-naw, sir, I d-don't rightly. Have I d-done something wrong?"

Wainwright smiled. Even Oglethorpe, one of the glummest men Ben had ever known, was openly smiling. Dang it, Ben thought, they're just funning poor Isaac, and enjoying it as they do. Ben respected both the colonel and the sergeant major, but he thought this was a bit over the line. There was, however, nothing he could do about it. He was twenty feet away, standing in formation. The one thing you didn't ever do in the Ninth Cavalry was break formation, so he just stood there grinding his teeth and clinching his fists.

"No, Private Harris, you've done nothing wrong," Wainwright said softly. "Quite the contrary, in fact. You're standing here because you've been doing everything right." The young soldier looked confused, but he had the beginnings of a smile on his face. "Son," Wainwright continued. "We have you up here to recognize your outstanding comportment as a soldier in the cavalry, and to acknowledge that comportment by promoting you to the rank of corporal."

Harris stood there, too stunned to speak. Truth be told, Ben was in a bit of shock himself. No reason for the formation had been given. But then, in the army, when the sergeant major said fall into formation, he didn't need to give a reason, and you didn't ask. You just stood tall and waited to see what would happen. Ben had been a little surprised when Oglethorpe had called Harris out of line. The young private was the newest member of Ben's special detachment, and while he wasn't the brightest bulb in the onion patch, he'd not caused any trouble, so Ben couldn't figure out why he'd been singled out. Colonel Wainwright had never played such a prank before, and even though Oglethorpe had only been at Fort Union for a short time, Ben hadn't noticed anything remotely resembling a sense of humor in the man. In fact, the only time he'd ever seen him smile was right after Ben and his detachment had delivered the old piano from regimental headquarters in Santa Fe some months back. Before joining the army to fight in the War of Southern Rebellion, Oglethorpe had been a music teacher in a colored school back east. Colonel Wainwright had thought the piano, given to Fort Union when it was replaced by a new one bought by the regimental commander and delivered to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas by mistake. Ben and his men had been sent to retrieve it, a mission he'd tried since to forget, being as it has been the strangest thing he'd done since joining the army. But, the detachment's babysitting of the instrument had been repaid when it turned out that Oglethorpe was quite the musician, and had actually smiled when he played.

It had been the first, and before today, the last time Ben had seen a smile crack the rock-like features of the old sergeant major's face.

"What do you have to say to that, corporal?" Oglethorpe asked in a stern voice that was belied by the now-nearly wide smile on his face.

"Reckon I s-say thank you," Harris said.

Wainwright pulled a large buff-colored envelope from his tunic and from the envelope withdrew a sheet of foolscap. He handed the envelope to Oglethorpe, and held the paper up, looking over Harris' head at the assembled soldiers. In his deep voice, he read the promotion order. Then, Oglethorpe withdrew corporal's stripes from the envelope, and he and the colonel pinned them to the blue sleeves of his tunic. They shook his hand, and then stepped back two paces and faced him. They stood like this for a few heartbeats until Oglethorpe cleared his throat loudly and twitched his right hand. Catching on to the signal, Harris brought his right hand up, touching the tip of his second finger to his brow. Oglethorpe nodded. Wainwright returned the new corporal's salute.

"Congratulations, corporal," Wainwright said. "You may return to the formation." He turned to Oglethorpe. "Sergeant major, dismiss the troops, and then I'd like to speak to you and First Sergeant Carter in my office."

Oglethorpe acknowledged the order with a salute. Wainwright turned smartly on his heel and strode across the wind-whipped parade ground toward his office on the south side of the fort in Officer's Row.

"Battalion dismissed," Oglethorpe sang out in a deep voice that carried across the fort. "First Sergeant Carter, stand fast. You and me got a palaver with the colonel."

Ben shrugged off the curious and querulous looks from the men in his detachment as they rushed to get out of the wind which had started to pick up and get a bit icier. He knew, though, that whenever the commander asked to see Ben it meant they were being sent out on another mission, each, it seemed, a bit stranger or more dangerous than the last, and that they were wondering what it would be this time. He was wondering a bit himself, but didn't dwell on it. Just like the sun comes up every morning, things happen when they happen, he thought, and fretting on it won't make it come sooner or later, or be better or worse.

No, whatever Wainwright wanted him and his men to do, it'd get done, and he'd find out what that was when the colonel was good and ready to tell him.

Adjusting his tunic, he walked toward the sergeant major.