Characters — The Beauty Of The Days Gone By

Charles Goodnight

“All in all, my years on the trail were the happiest I ever lived. There were many hardships and dangers, of course, that called on all a man had of endurance and bravery. But when all went well, there was no other life so pleasant. Most of the time we were solitary adventurers in a great land as fresh and new as a spring morning. And we were free, and full of the zest of darers.”

— Charles Goodnight

The Boy Captives

Charlie looked out over the hills and his mind wandered. Sam, are you scared of indians?

Sam said nothing. He was deep in thought.

Sam! I asked you, are you scared of indians?

Charlie, stop it! There’s no indians out here. He took a long sweep of the surrounding country with his eyes. The light dying, sky fading to orange. The animals of the night now appearing in the dusk, silent and wary and watching.

The Searcher

.....Now the sun was behind them beaming from the hills and they were still two hundred yards from the house when a group of raiders appeared in silhouette upon the ridge. RL watched them loping down the slope and into the pasture toward them and he tried to hurry them along. Come on honey, he said, you’re gonna be alright. She had stopped moving her feet and RL was lifting and dragging her along in irregular, desperate heaves. Suddenly the horse took an arrow and it reared and squealed and he could hear other arrows whistling overhead.

He knew he wasnt going to make it and he knelt her down gently and rose up and grabbed the reins of the bewildered beast and with his knife punched three short jabs into the horse’s neck. Blood spewed. The horse screamed and reared and RL dropped his knife and took hold of the reins now with both hands and reared back and yanked the mare to the ground before them. He pulled his wife and he nudged them up against the horse, still kicking and squirming as it bled out. He reached out for a large round rock of perhaps ten pounds and whispered into the horse’s ear and then crushed its skull in a flurry of violent blows. As the horse shuddered and fell limp he leaned his chin into its pulsing flesh and drew a bead with his revolver. He squinched his eye and honed in on the nearest galloping horseman. He reckoned high.

The raiders were riding hard a few hundred yards out, six, seven of them, and they were yapping sharply like a pack of coyotes. He squeezed the trigger but did not feel or hear the blast ring out and as the smoke of the forty-five began to dissipate he saw the lead rider buckle over dangling from his mount. As he took aim again he could hear the drum of their hooves pounding into the earth and then the riders reined up. Silence filled the valley. They were attempting to take the wounded rider from his pony when in the periphery to his right he caught sight of a lone rider dashing out from the far side of the field....... It was Charles Goodnight and he had been riding from ranch to ranch warning the neighbors. Goodnight drew his pistol. Get to the house! he yelled. Get her in the house!

Quanah Parker

Two hours later they happened upon a band of Comanches under the direction of the young war chief known as Quanah. They were raiders like themselves stealing horses and captives from the Texans and while there were only a dozen of them their remuda may have doubled the size of the Kiowas. They sat shirtless atop their painted ponies and gazed upon the Kiowas with their haggard and bloodshot eyes, proud and cocksure and yet they looked as though they had not slept in a week.

Cheif Mow-way

Now RL was able to get a better look at them. The western sun had dropped below the clouds and shimmered the canyon in a golden yellow light. He knew which man was in charge from the way he carried himself and this man they called Mow-way that they had been looking for was admiring the sky and listening to the sounds of the waterfalls up in the rimrocks. He smiled to himself. He was heavyset and shirtless with a round chest and large, soft, middle-aged arms and he wore a tattered breechclout that was dressed up around the waist by a thick belt adorned in elk teeth that he’d procured from a Blackteeth ceremonial in his travels as a young man.

Ranald Mackenzie

They set out pickets and herded the packmules inside a squadron of guards and they slept that night without fires. Mackenzie stayed awake studying into the early hours of the morning. He looked at maps, he scribbled in his journal, he read a biography of Napoleon. He consulted a tattered book of poetry that he carried with him.

J. Evetts Haley

This was the phase in his life he would look upon forever as the one he felt most alive. A second-hand Model T Ford and fifty dollars a month. Touring the High Plains back roads gathering the folklore of the fast-fading pioneers. He felt like a teenager again cowboying out in Winkler and Loving counties, constantly free and on the move, sleeping under the stars with no cares in all the world.

Lowndes Jones

It was late in the afternoon when he was made acquainted with Lowndes Jones, indian trader, guide, a man of many interests and dialects. He was a sincere, ascetic looking man known in some circles as El Indio and he had a bald head with a ring of long white hair framed by a rugged face and he sized up the boy with soulful, gray eyes that had seen many things.

Slaughter of the Buffalo

A younger bull had squared off to face him and they’d nudged heads, the elder now stepping back to draw his momentum. RL through the sights was holding on a mark where his neck joined his shoulder. Hulking muscles on his hips and thighs throbbing like welts. He shook his head, snot flinging from his nose, panting. Long strings of froth dripping from his mouth. He snorted and rolled his eyes and then like a bolt of lightning made a great lunge at the challenger, knocking him back to his knees wobbling. The old bull drew back heaving and snorting. RL touched the trigger lightly. My god, you are one helluva goddamned bull, he said, and then he held his breath and squeezed off, jerking back at the explosion that he did not feel and with the slap of the bullet a puff of dust exploded from the shaggy coat and the bull bucked and stumbled forward. He gave out a deep guttural sound and took two steps, wobbling in the trace. An edgy panic broke out in those nearest him. Now the big boom of guns began to resonate out all over the valley. He handed the rifle to Jesús and he picked up the .45-90 and set it against his shoulder. The bull swayed and dipped his head back and forth, up and down. Eyes bulging and rolling in anger. He pawed at the earth and tossed chunks of dirt and dust up with his horns. Then he stopped and crumpled down onto his front knees and fell over and died. With the smell of the blood in the grass the challenger plunged back in with his head down, circling and hooking his horns into his cold dead brother to tempt him to rise.