Date sent: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 14:29:51 -0500

From: "Row, Tracy" <A.Row@TCU.EDU>

Subject: Chapter from Killing Cynthia Ann

To: "'ges@tampress.tamu.edu'" <ges@tampress.tamu.edu>

Gabe:

I hope this comes through okay--if not let me know. It is chapter 2 from

"Killing Cynthia Ann" by Charles Brashear.

Thanks,

Tracy Row

TCU Press

2. Camp Cooper"I'll bet she's Cynthia Ann Parker," said Captain Nathan Evans, commandant

at Camp Cooper on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. "It all fits when you

get down to it. She's about the right age. Quahada Band. And last time we

heard anything, they said she was married to a chief. It fits. I'll bet

she's our long-lost captive." "She's our captive, that's for sure," said his interpreter, Horace Jones, in

his patient drawl. "You have to watch her ever single instant, or she'll try

to get away." Evans looked out the window of his headquarters building. The rest of the

camp, except for the two-story mess hall and supply room, consisted of two

short rows of wood and canvas barracks. The wooden floors and partial walls

of other rows had been abandoned and the canvas roofs removed a year ago

after Robert Neighbors, the Indian agent, escorted the Comanches to a

reservation at Cache Creek valley in Indian Territory. "Where's she now?" Evans asked, turning back to Horace. "Over by the corral," Jones replied, gesturing with a gloved hand. A

two-inch leather fringe dangled from the gauntlet of his glove and along the

yoke and sleeves of his buckskin hunting shirt. "Mr. Ross and Captain Palmer

are trying to get her to talk to Ben Kiggins." "Does Kiggins know enough Comanche to make anything of it?" "Well, he was a captive as a kid. He has a kid's understanding of the lingo.

And Martinez knows enough Comanche to understand, but he don't know enough

English to tell us what he knows." Captain Evans took his seat at his desk, his blue uniform slightly rumpled

from an early morning patrol. "Well, take the woman over to our quarters and

tell my wife to give her a bath. And see if she can't find some decent

clothes. We'll try to talk to her later." His tone of voice said make haste. Horace Jones turned to go out. "Oh. Horace, have you tried to talk with the woman yet?" "Not yet," admitted Jones. "I was out on patrol and just heard about her

when we got back." When Captain Innis Palmer returned to headquarters, he reported to Evans,

"She's awful emotional. We can't hardly get her to quit shaking and

blubbering. And all she can do is cry about her boys." Like many men of his

time, he wore bushy side-whiskers, but kept his chin and neck clean-shaven. "Any luck?" asked Evans. "Not much more than we already knew. She still says she's the wife of Peta

Nocona. She keeps asking about her two boys. We told her again and again

there weren't any boys among the killed, so they must have been out

somewhere else. That calmed her down a little. Mrs. Evans has her now." "Well, I guess we'll see soon enough," said Evans. "Take her to the mess

hall when she's ready." When Mrs. Evans brought the woman and her child to the mess hall, the

captive was quiet and subdued. Captain Evans sat at a table, twirling a

pencil. His company clerk took notes. Captain Innis and the other officers

stood impatiently around the tables. Sergeants and other non-commissioned

officers had crowded into the area not reserved for officers. Toh-Tsee-Ah wore a Little Bo Peep cotton print dress with puffy sleeves and

a billowy skirt. Náudah wore one of Mrs. Evans' cotton print shirtwaists,

but was bare-footed. "I swan, I thought we was never goin' to get all the grime off of her," said

Mrs. Evans. "But we finally did a pretty good job, don't you think? She

insisted on cutting her own hair. I have to say I was pretty glad. I didn't

cotton to the idea of washing all that greasy mess." "Cutting the hair is a Comanche sign of mourning," said Horace Jones. He

felt a deep sympathy for the woman, an understanding of the pain behind the

gesture. "And she won't let go of that grimy little purse she wears on a thong under

her dress. Nastiest thing I ever saw." "That's probably her medicine bag," said Horace. "Where she keeps little

tokens of her most sacred experiences." The woman was of medium height, blue-eyed and brown-haired, in her

mid-thirties. Her little girl was about two years old, though not yet

weaned. A pretty child with an upturned baby nose and dark eyes and hair,

she could toddle and talk quite well. The woman's body was thick without

being fat, which only showed that she had worked a lot and would be capable

of enduring more. Her skin was sun-darkened and leathery, but now they could

tell, even more than before, that she was a white woman. She kept her face

down, refusing to make eye contact with any of the whites. "Well, Mr. Jones," said Captain Evans. "Let's try your tongue at talking

with her." Jones offered a greeting in Comanche: "Meeku takwuh Ta-ahpuh makaaruhu." Let

us together nourish the Great Spirit. The woman looked at him, surprised, making eye contact briefly. She seemed

to notice his buckskin hunting shirt for the first time. Jones smiled at

her, but she remained impassive. "You got any little bit of food I can give her?" asked Jones, looking across

to Evans. "A Comanche never pow-wows until you've exchanged some rituals."

Captain Evans nodded to his orderly, who went out to the kitchen for food. Horace Jones tried to get the woman to sit at the officers' dining table,

but she refused. She shook her head, glancing furtively at the shoes and

legs of the men in blue uniforms who had moved closer. She retreated toward

Mrs. Evans. Jones could see her touching her medicine bag through the cotton

dress. She was probably repeating some silent charm for protection. Finally,

Jones pushed aside the table and sat on the floor, inviting the woman to sit

also. Slowly, cautiously, the woman began to sit cross-legged on the floor. Mrs.

Evans reached for the baby, saying, "Here, dear, let me hold the child while

you're a-talking." The woman jumped up and back, glared at her, shook her

head violently, and pulled the child closer. "Es mi hija," said the woman,

"no se mate." Wild eyed, she looked around at the circle of men surrounding

her and began to cry. "No me mate, por favór, no me mate." And she continued with a breathless rush of Comanche. "Are these Texans?

Please don't let them kill me, don't kill my baby. They are Texans, aren't

they? They've killed my relatives, and I don't know what has happened to my

sons. They are Texans, aren't they? I won't tell them anything. Maybe they

won't kill me. Please don't let them kill me." "What's she saying?" asked Captain Evans, gesturing with his pencil. "She thinks we're going to kill her and the baby," said Jones, flatly and

matter-of-factly, his head down so that he would not have to look at any of

them. "She thinks we're going to get all the information out of her that we

can, then kill her. She's heard that's the way Texans do things." "Well, tell her we aren't Texans." Evans fidgeted around on his chair a bit,

came to attention sitting down, and straightened the lapels of his uniform.

"We're officers and men of the United States Army. We don't do things like

that. Tell her we just want to help her find her family." Jones repeated Evans' justification in Comanche, as he shifted his position

on the floor. He could sense her fear and desperation; his questioning could

only make it worse. That was the nasty part of being an official

interpreter; sometimes you were forced to do things against your conscience. The orderly came in with some corn bread on a saucer. Jones offered the

woman a wedge of bread, inviting her again to sit and talk. Slowly,

reluctantly, the woman settled, then took the bread, but would not eat. She

held it in her trembling hand and watched secretly the circle of bluecoats

around her. "She's afraid of so many around her," said Jones. "Could you move over to

one side? Maybe sit at the other table? A man sitting at a table can't get

at his weapons as quick; looks less threatening." At once, everyone in the room moved to another table. When the room was quiet, Jones offered a part of his corn bread to the Great

Spirit and then took a bite. The woman looked from him to the bread in her

hand, and back again, then at the soldiers. Jones touched her arm, urging

her to eat. Slowly, she brought the wedge of corn bread to her sweat-covered

lips and took a bite. She did not chew, but just gazed at the officers, the

wad of corn bread still visible in her quivering mouth, the tears glistening

in her blue eyes. Jones shuffled forward on the floor, took a pinch of her bread, and ate it

to show that it was not poisoned. She watched as he swallowed. Then she

looked again at the bread, at Jones, at the officers. At last, she started

chewing. She looked at Mrs. Evans, who was smiling and nodding. Then she ate

rapidly. Jones spoke in Comanche for a couple of minutes, but the woman refused to

respond. "What's going on, Jones?" asked Captain Evans. "She's still scared we're going to kill her. She'll come around in a

minute." As he spoke, the baby began tugging at the bosom of her mother's

dress. The woman unbuttoned her bodice, took out her breast, and allowed her

baby to suckle. "Oh, ain't that nice?" said Mrs. Evans, smiling and cooing. "Such a pretty

little girl. Ask her what the baby's name is." To Jones's inquiry, the woman responded so softly he could hardly hear:

"Toh-Tsee-Ah-ne." "Toh-Tsee-Ah," Jones repeated. "It's a kind of prairie flower. The baby is

called 'Prairie Flower Person.' Toh-Tsee-Ah-ne." The woman nodded. "Prairie Flower," said Mrs. Evans. "Topsannah! What a beautiful name!" "And what's her name for herself?" asked Captain Palmer. Jones knew it was impolite to ask such a personal question.

he do? The woman would not respond to Jones's question. "Well, ask her about those boys," offered the sergeant. That kind of question was more permissible. After some talk, Jones reported:

"The boys are named Quanah and Pecos. Quanah means 'Fragrance' or 'Sweet

Smell,' you know, like an odor. I never heard the name Pecos before. She

says they're the sons of Peta Nocona." Slowly, Jones got the woman to talk. She had told Nobah Joe repeatedly that

they ought to have lookouts posted, but he was settled in warm nest and

didn't want to sit up on a windy ridge. He could have worked as well up

there in the sun; then they wouldn't have been surprised. At the time of the attack, most of their sub-clan had been at a trading

meeting with Comancheros, Mexican traders from Santa Fe. The Comanches

needed coffee, sugar, matches, needles and other supplies they could not

make for themselves. They wanted to lay in a store before winter. It would

be getting very cold soon, when no one could travel much. "Ask her what her name is," said Captain Evans, irritated by all the useless

information the woman was relating. Jones asked the woman not about herself, but about her husband: "What does

your husband call you?" "Náudah." Jones repeated the name and translated. "It means something like 'She Walks

With Dignity and Grace.' She is the wife of Peta Nocona. She only wants to

return to the high plains and be with her husband and sons." "Náh u-dah," said Evans, shaking his head. "Well, I'll be! Wife of Peta

Nocona. So she's kind of like a queen, or a princess?" "Something like that," said Jones, closing his eyes momentarily. "She's head

woman of her Nuhrmuhr, her extended family, possibly fifty or sixty people." Captain Evans was impatient. "Well, it looks like we're not going to make

much headway. Mr. Jones, would you and your wife take this woman to your

house and care for her till we've identified her family and relatives?" "She says she's the wife of Peta Nocona!" exclaimed Jones, astonished. "I mean her real relatives. I'll get in touch with the Parkers over by Fort

Worth. In the meantime, will you take charge of her?" "I'd rather not, Captain." "But you can speak the language," went on Captain Evans. "She'd be most

comfortable with you." "I still don't want me and my wife to take responsibility for her. She's the

same as a wild Indian. She'd be constantly trying to escape, which she'd

probably succeed at, because my horses are always tied in the shed room." Besides, he thought, I'd probably help her. These Americans and Texans could

not conceive of the idea that a person might be happy in Indian society. "You're going to have to lock her up." "But she's a white woman!"**** The story of the Pease River "victory," as told in the Dallas Weekly

Herald of 2 Jan 1861, quoted Sul Ross at length. "We thrashed them out,"

Ross proclaimed to all of Texas. "All my men acquitted themselves with great

honor--proving worthy representatives of true Texas valor. Not more than

twenty of my men were able to get in the fight, owing to the starved and

jaded condition of their horses having had no grass after leaving the

vicinity of Belknap." Captain Cureton's ninety volunteers from Bosque County were bitter. They

felt Ross had deliberately cut them out of the battle so he could take the

honor himself. "Well, I was at the Pease River fight," admitted H. B. Rogers, much later,

"but I'm not very proud of it. That was not a battle at all, but just a

killing of squaws. One or two bucks and sixteen squaws were killed. That's

all. Nothing to be puffed up about at all."**** Late in January 1861, Isaac Parker arrived at Camp Cooper. His white

hair cropped close, his face astringent, Parker had been prominent enough in

his prime to have Parker County, just west of Fort Worth, named in his

honor. Though elderly, he was still the religious and political leader of

the family. Through Horace Jones, he tried to talk with the captured woman. She said she could not remember her original name. She said she could not remember ever understanding any English. She could not remember where she came from. Isaac Parker studied

to remind him of the cute, blonde nine-year-old niece who had been stolen by

Comanches in May, 1836. This woman was coarse in her movements, not dainty;

her hair was dark, not blonde; her hands were gnarled, her body thick. And

yet, all the other details fit. "Tell her," said Parker at last. "Tell her that I think I am her uncle, her

father's brother, and that I only want what's best for her and her child. I

want to reunite her with relatives who love her." After that, the woman sat immobile lost in profound meditation, oblivious to

everything around her. She stared at the floor, biting her lip gently and

squeezing the medicine bag under her dress. The baby squirmed in her arms

and said a few words in Comanche, but she did not respond. Then, sensing a

problem, the baby sat quietly. Images older than her conscious memory began shaping themselves in her inner

eye. She saw A woman in a field, a pale woman, with four children. None of them

had faces. The mother had a baby in her arms, a small boy about four, a boy

about six, and a girl about nine. A man on horseback, a young warrior, came

up and demanded the older children be given to him. The mother refused; the

horseman lifted his war axe to hit her. She backed off. She gave up her

children. She gave away her children. That's what Náudah had remembered

before she married Peta Nocona. The mother didn't love her children. She had

given them away.Náudah sobbed involuntarily, then quickly closed her eyes tightly to stop

the tears and the trembling. She would not look up. She would not respond to

questions, though Jones and Parker kept trying. She stared at the floor

between her feet, as if lost in some far distant world. And now Náudah was just like that pale distant woman with no face.

The men with six-shooters had taken her away from her two sons. But she

loved Quanah and Pecos. She loved them like her own life. There had to be a

difference. She loved her sons.Now and then, the woman would shake with some emotion, which she struggled

to suppress. When at last, she released the medicine bag under her dress and

looked at Parker, she shuddered and squinted to hold back her tears. Through Jones, Parker asked her, "Do you remember where you lived when you

were a child?" The woman shook her head and stared at the floor again. Her shoulders

quivered, and she put her hand up to steady her cheek. A big clearing, outside a big palisade. Several warriors were

counting coup on a white man who held meat in his hands. Their clubs broke

open the white man's skull. Through Jones, Parker asked again, "Do you remember the house where

you lived as a child?" The dazed woman mumbled something so quietly in Comanche that Jones had to

ask her to repeat. She sat still for a long moment, not looking at any of

the men around her. Gently, Jones asked her again. And this time, she

whispered loud enough for Jones to interpret. "It was a big house. The logs

ran up and down. A clearing surrounded the house, but there was a big woods

just a short walk away." "My God!" exclaimed Parker. "That fits the description of Parker's Fort. She

must be my niece. Ask her if she remembers anything about her parents." The woman shook her head. "Ask her if she remembers a war at that house? At the time she was

kidna--when she first went with the Indians?" Again Jones talked with the woman for some minutes. "Yes," reported Jones,

"she remembers when Peta Nocona came and took her." She straddled the horse behind Peta Nocona and hung on to his waist.

They rode away from the woman that did not love her children. "He was nice to her. It was in the early summer, twenty-four years

ago." "That's only a few months off! Ask her if she remembers her brother, John?" Through Jones, she said that she remembered the name John, but she didn't

know if he was a brother. She didn't know what had happened to him. She

thought he died of red spots in one of the white man's epidemics that struck

the Comanche people now and then. "And she doesn't remember anything about her mother and father?" Jones hesitated. Isaac Parker had no idea how cruel he was being. But it was

Jones' job to translate, regardless of what he felt. "She says she once had

pale-faced parents, but she cannot now remember even what they looked like." Isaac Parker turned to the woman directly and spoke in English. "I'm your

uncle Isaac, your father's brother. Don't you remember Silas and Lucy? They

were the best, the most loving, mother and daddy a child could ever have." But the woman remained silent, glancing at Jones, waiting for him to

interpret. She hugged her own shoulders, as if cold and tired. When Jones had translated, she still remembered nothing about her parents. "Does she remember her uncle Benjamin at the time of the attack? He went out

to take meat to the Indians and talk under a flag of truce. They surrounded

him and beat him to death with their tomahawks." She did not remember. "Does she remember Elizabeth Kellogg, who was taken prisoner at the same

time? Or does she remember Rachel Plummer and her little boy, James? They

were taken at the same time." Isaac asked several more questions. To all of them, the woman responded that

she did not remember. She had never heard of these people. Parker and Jones

had exhausted her memories. "It must have been a terribly painful experience," said Jones. "Maybe she's

forgotten it all on purpose. Maybe that's her heart's way of defending

itself." Isaac was exasperated. "Well, damn me! We're not getting anywhere," he said,

turning to Jones, as if getting ready to leave. "If this is my niece, her

name is Cynthia Ann." Before Jones could translate, the woman sprang up, struck herself on the

chest with the flat of her hand, and cried out, "Me! Cynthia Ann! Me Cynthia

Ann." "By God! She is! She's my niece, Cynthia Ann Parker!" Náudah sank to the bench again and hugged Toh-Tsee-Ah, looking away. Her

heart was suddenly beating too fast, the muscles in her throat were

quivering, and her forearms tingled. Too late, she feared her hasty impulse

had just made the worst mistake of her life.