Life and Adventures of 'Billy' Dixon

The details of the fight at Adobe Walls were telegraphed to Fort Leavenworth. Troops were not despatched at once to the scene of the uprising, the Government taking the view that it would be best not to move until an expedition large enough to whip the Indians to a standstill could be sent into the field, General Miles reached Dodge City about August, going south about ten days later.

My old friend Jack Callahan, of whom I have frequently spoken, had just been employed as wagonmaster to go with the expedition. Meeting me in the street, he offered to make me his assistant. I had made up my mind to accept the position, but further down the street I came across John Curley, whom I had known at Hays City in 1868, when he was corral-master. Curley said that he believed he could get me placed as scout and guide with General Miles, which exactly suited me. We went at once to General Miles headquarters, where Curley introduced and recommended me. After asking me a few questions, General Miles turned to his adjutant and told him to put my name down. I held this position from August 6, 1874, to February 10, 1883, a period of nine years.

The troops moved out of Dodge City to the Arkansas and camped. General Miles assembled his scouts and tested their marksmanship by having them shoot at a snag in the river, calling our names as he pointed out the objects each was to shoot at. I never missed a single time.

Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin, now a brigadier-general, was sent to Adobe Walls with two scouts, six Delaware trailers and a troop of cavalry to ascertain the situation of those who had remained at the Walls. We got there in five days. Baldwin had not recently seen much mounted service, and was very tired and saddle-worn by the time we reached Adobe Walls Creek.

About 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the day in to the Walls, seeing that night would come before we arrived, Baldwin ordered "Bat" Masterson and myself to ride ahead and tell the boys that the troops were coming. This precaution was taken lest the buffalo-hunters might mistake us for Indians and fire into us. I rode up within speaking distance and hollowed to the men and waved my hat, to let them know who I was. Recognizing me, they gave me a hearty reception.

There were a dozen or more men in the buildings, where they had been shut up for about two months. At no time had they ventured far away. They had kept their horses in the stockade, fearful of an attack by Indians; hay for the horses had been cut in the creek bottom. When Tom Nixon and his men came down from Dodge, Mrs. Olds and the greater part of the men went back with him. A number, however, preferred to remain at the Walls, however great the risk, and did so. The boys cooked me a hot supper and I was telling them stories of the outside world when the soldiers arrived about 9 o'clock.

The water in Adobe Walls Creek was now so low that there was not enough for the horses, so we pulled over on Bent's Creek, and camped on a mesquite flat, just north of the old Adobe Walls ruins.

Next morning Lieutenant Baldwin asked me to walk over the battleground with him. Practically all the men went with us, the distance being about a mile. The coming of the soldiers had given a feeling of security to the men at the Walls, who now turned out their horses to graze. Everybody was laughing and talking and telling jokes, without the slightest thought of danger. Some mischievous fellow had stuck an Indian's skull on each post of the corral gate.

Tobe Robinson and George Huffman, civilians, rode down the valley toward the Canadian River to hunt wild plums which at that time were ripe and plentiful. They had been gone only a short time when our attention was drawn to two horsemen riding at top speed from the direction of the river toward the Walls. Behind them came ten or fifteen Indians quirting their ponies at every jump. The two men were Robinson and Huffman. They had unexpectedly run into this band of Indians who were doing their best to circle and cut off the two white men. There we stood a mile from camp where our arms lay, unable to render these men any assistance in their desperate straits.

Robinson and Huffman were riding side by side and were able to maintain this position until they were rounding a little knoll just beyond the old ruins. Here an Indian managed to ride up near enough to run his lance through Huffman's body. Huffman fell dead from his horse.

The riderless horse continued running beside Robinson's, the Indian still pursuing, grabbing again and again at the rein of Huffman's horse. Finally, he seized the rein, checked the horse, and rode back at full speed toward his companions. All the Indians now galloped away and disappeared among the sand hills.

The tragedy had happened so quickly that we could hardly believe our eyes. The Indians made no effort to mutilate or carry off Huffman's body. Robinson reached us in safety, though shaking with excitement. From the Indian standpoint, the warrior who had killed Huffman and escaped with his horse had covered himself with glory. Sight of the tents in the mesquite flat doubtless caused the other Indians to give up the chase, or else both Huffman and Robinson would have been lanced to death.

Considerable time was lost in rounding up our horses, which were grazing in the valley, and getting into our saddles, to go in pursuit of the Indians. Before we could reach the Canadian the Indians had vanished in the sandhills of White Deer Creek. We found two fagged ponies which the Indians had abandoned.

We carried Huffman's body to the Walls and dug a grave close beside the others. This made five graves. Some day I hope a stone will be erected to mark the spot. These men gave all they had – their lives – to help make this a civilized country.

Next day the soldiers and the men we found at the Walls started south to join the main command on Cantonment Creek. We crossed the Canadian near the mouth of Tallahone, where J. A. King now has a cow ranch. On Chicken Creek we found two Indians who had stopped for noon, and had built a small fire. Their ponies were near at hand, tied to some sagebrush, and their blankets had been spread out on the ground to dry. We succeeded in killing one of them, but the other warrior certainly had a fine quality of stuff in his "medicine" bag, for he mounted his pony and got away, despite the bullets that split the air around him. He was too hard-pressed to get his blanket and a butcher knife which he left sticking in the ground.

The noise of our guns stampeded a big bunch of buffaloes further up the creek. They kicked up such a cloud of dust that we thought a war party of Indians, possibly the same that had attacked Adobe Walls, was coming for us, and that we had stirred up the worst kind of trouble. Happily, we were soon able to see the buffaloes, and the world looked brighter.

"Old nigger" Clark, our cook, driving a six-mule team, with bedding, provisions and cooking outfit, was a long way behind when the shooting began. He raised a welt every time he hit a mule, and by the time he drew near us he was making the fastest kind of time, his eyes sticking out like white china saucers. When almost upon us, his mules took fright and ran away, and could not be stopped until men rode to his assistance.

Ours was the last party of white men ever to leave Adobe Walls. When I passed that way the following fall with United States troops the Indians had been there and burned the place to the ground. The walls were still smoking.

General Miles was with us on this trip. We camped in sight of the battleground. He asked hundreds of questions about the fight appearing curious about every detail. The soldiers picked up everything they could find in their hunt for souvenirs, even bones, which I am sure were mostly horse bones. The Indians had gathered up all the bones of their dead and wrapped them in new blankets, depositing them at the foot of the hills on the east side of the valley of Adobe Walls Creek. The soldiers threw away the bones and carried off the blankets. This was in October. The Indians had not taken any of the provisions which had been left in the buildings. They were a suspicious people, and were fearful that the provisions might be poisoned.

While we were at Adobe Walls on this last trip, a dog that I had owned at the time of the fight came into camp. Her appearance affected me greatly, as I was fond of her and loved all dumb animals. She was a highly intelligent setter bitch, named Fannie. She had disappeared with the other dogs the day of the fight, and I was sure that she had been killed by the Indians or had wandered away and starved. Seven months had passed since I had seen her.

After we had petted her and fed her, Fannie disappeared. But her absence was brief. She came back with something in her mouth and stood wagging her tail, to attract attention. When we saw what she had brought to us every man grinned and was as tickled as if he were a boy. Fannie had brought a fat, bright-eyed little puppy in her mouth. Dropping the little fellow gently on a pile of bedding, she frisked about with delight as each of us tried to get hold of the pup and fondle it. Fannie bounded away while we were "fussing" among ourselves to see who should play with pup. She came with another pup in her mouth, laying it beside the other one. She made two more trips, until finally her family of four little ones were playing with each other on our bedding. The father of these pups was the big Newfoundland that belonged to the Shadler brothers, which the Indians killed while he was trying to defend his masters at the very beginning of the Adobe Walls fight. When we pulled out, Fannie and her babies were given a snug place in the mess wagon.

CHAPTER XI

The most perilous adventure of my life occurred September 12, 1874, in what was known as the Buffalo Wallow Fight. My escape from death was miraculous. The year 1874, as the reader doubtless may have observed, brought me full measure of things I had dreamed of doing when a boy. I came in contact with hostile Indians as frequently as the most devoted warrior might wish, and found that it was serious business.

On September 10, 1874, General Nelson A. Miles, in command of the troops campaigning against the Indians in the Southwest, was on McClellan Creek, in the Panhandle, when he ordered Amos Chapman and myself, scouts, and four enlisted men to carry dispatches to Fort Supply. The enlisted men were Sergeant Z. T. Woodhull, Troop I; Private Peter Rath, Troop A; Private John Harrington, Troop H; and Private George W. Smith, Troop M, Sixth Cavalry. When General Miles handed us the dispatches, he told us that we could have all the soldiers we thought necessary. His command was short of rations. We preferred the smallest possible number.

Leaving camp, we traveled mostly at night, resting in secluded places during the day. War parties were moving in every direction, and there was danger of attack at every turn. On the second day, just as the sun was rising, we were nearing a divide between the Washita River and Gageby Creek. Riding to the top of a little knoll, we found ourselves almost face to face with a large band of Kiowa and Comanche warriors. The Indians saw us at the same instant and, circling quickly, surrounded us. We were in a trap. We knew that the best thing to do was to make a stand and fight for our lives, as there would be great danger of our becoming separated in the excitement of a running fight, after which the Indians could the more easily kill us one by one. We also realized that we could do better work on foot, so we dismounted and placed our horses in the care of George Smith. In a moment or two poor Smith was shot down, and the horses stampeded.

When Smith was shot, he fell flat on his stomach, and his gun fell from his hand, far beyond his reach. But no Indian was ever able to capture that gun; if one ventured near Smith, we never failed to bring him down. We thought Smith was dead when he fell, but he survived until about 11 o'clock that night.

I realized at once that I was in closer quarters than I had ever been in my life, and I have always felt that I did some good work that day. I was fortunate enough not to become disabled at any stage of the fight, which left me free to do my best under the circumstances. I received one wound – a bullet in the calf of my leg. I was wearing a thin cashmere shirt, slightly bloused. This shirt was literally riddled with bullets. How a man could be shot at so many times at close range and not be hit I could never understand. The Indians seemed to feel absolutely sure of getting us, so sure, in fact, that they delayed riding us down and killing us at once, which they could easily have done, and prolonged the early stages of the fight merely to satisfy their desire to toy with an enemy at bay, as a cat would play with a mouse before taking its life.

We saw that there was no show for us to survive on this little hillside, and decided that our best fighting ground was a small mesquite flat several hundred yards distant. Before we undertook to shift our position a bullet struck Amos Chapman. I was looking at him when he was shot. Amos said, "Billy, I am hit at last," and eased himself down. The fight was so hot that I did not have time to ask him how badly he was hurt. Every man, save Rath and myself, had been wounded. Our situation was growing more desperate every minute. I knew that something had to be done, and quickly, or else all of us in a short while would be dead or in the hands of the Indians, who would torture us in the most inhuman manner before taking our lives.

I could see where the buffaloes had pawed and wallowed a depression, commonly called a buffalo "wallow," and I ran for it at top speed. It seemed as if a bullet whizzed past me at every jump, but I got through unharmed. The wallow was about ten feet in diameter. I found that its depth, though slight, afforded some protection. I shouted to my comrades to try to come to me, which all of them save Smith and Chapman, commenced trying to do. As each man reached the wallow, he drew his butcher knife and began digging desperately with knife and hands to throw up the dirt round the sides. The land happened to be sandy, and we made good headway, though constantly interrupted by the necessity of firing at the Indians as they dashed within range.

It was probably about noon before we reached the wallow. Many times that terrible day did I think that my last moment was at hand. Once, when the Indians were crowding us awfully hard, one of the boys raised up and yelled, "No use, boys, no use; we might as well give it up." We answered by shouting to him to lie down. At that moment a bullet struck in the soft bank near him and completely filled his mouth with dirt. I was so amused that I laughed, though in a rather sickly way, for none of us felt much like laughing.

By this time, however, I had recovered from the first excitement of battle, and was perfectly cool, as were the rest of the men. We were keenly aware that the only thing to do was to sell our lives as dearly as possible. We fired deliberately, taking good aim, and were picking off an Indian at almost every round. The wounded men conducted themselves admirably, and greatly assisted in concealing our crippled condition by sitting upright, as if unhurt, after they reached the wallow. This made it impossible for the Indians accurately to guess what plight we were in. Had they known so many of us were wounded undoubtedly they would have rode in and finished us.

After all had reached the wallow, with the exception of Chapman and Smith, all of us thinking that Smith was dead, somebody called to Chapman to come on in. We now learned for the first time that Chapman's leg was broken. He called back that he could not walk, as his left knee was shattered.

I made several efforts to reach him before I succeeded. Every time the Indians saw me start, they would fire such a volley that I was forced to retreat, until finally I made a run and got to Chapman. I told him to climb on my back, my plan being to carry him as I would a little child. Drawing both his legs in front of me, and laying the broken one over the sound one, to support it, I carried him to the wallow, though not without difficulty, as he was a larger man than myself, and his body a dead weight. It taxed my strength to carry him.

We were now all in the wallow, except Smith, and we felt that it would be foolish and useless to risk our lives in attempting to bring in his dead body. We had not seen him move since the moment he went down. We began digging like gophers with our hands and knives to make our little wall of earth higher, and shortly had heaped up quite a little wall of dirt around us. Its protection was quickly felt, even though our danger was hardly lessened.

When I look back and recall our situation, I always find myself thinking of how my wounded companions never complained nor faltered, but fought as bravely as if a bullet had not touched them. Sometimes the Indians would ride toward us at headlong speed with lances uplifted and poised, undoubtedly bent upon spearing us. Such moments made a man brace himself and grip his gun. Fortunately, we were able to keep our heads and to bring down or disable the leader. Such charges proved highly dangerous to the Indians, and gradually grew less frequent.

Thus, all that long, hot September day the Indians circled round us or dashed past, yelling and cutting all kinds of capers. All morning we had been without water, and the wounded were sorely in need of it. In the stress and excitement of such an encounter, even a man who has not been hurt grows painfully thirsty, and his tongue and lips are soon as dry as a whetstone. Ours was the courage of despair. We knew what would befall us if we should be captured alive – we had seen too many naked and mangled bodies of white men who had been spread-eagled and tortured with steel and fire to forget what our own fate would be. So we were determined to fight to the end, not unmindful of the fact that every once in a while there was another dead or wounded Indian.

About 3 o'clock a black cloud came up in the west, and in a short time the sky shook and blazed with thunder and lightning. Rain fell in blinding sheets, drenching us to the skin. Water gathered quickly in the buffalo wallow, and our wounded men eagerly bent forward and drank from the muddy pool. It was more than muddy – that water was red with their own blood that had flowed from their wounds and lay clotting and dry in the hot September sun.

The storm and the rain proved our salvation. The wind had shifted to the north and was now drearily chilling us to the bone. An Indian dislikes rain, especially a cold rain, and these Kiowas and Comanches were no exception to the rule. We could see them in groups out of rifle range sitting on their horses with their blankets drawn tightly around them. The Plains country beats the world for quick changes in weather, and in less than an hour after the rain had fallen, the wind was bitterly cold. Not a man in our crowd had a coat, and our thin shirts were scant protection. Our coats were tied behind our saddles when our horses stampeded, and were lost beyond recovery. I was heart-sick over the loss of my coat, for in the inside pocket was my dearest treasure, my mother's picture, which my father had given me shortly before his death. I was never able to recover it.

The water was gathering rapidly in the wallow and soon had reached a depth of two inches. Not a man murmured. Not one thought of surrender. The wounded were shivering as if they had ague.

We now found that our ammunition was running low. This fact rather appalled us, as bullets, and plenty of them, were our only protection. At the fight at the Walls, not only was there plenty of ammunition, but the buildings themselves gave confidence. Necessity compelled us to save every cartridge as long as possible, and not to fire at an Indian unless we could see that he meant business and was coming right into us.

Late in the afternoon somebody suggested that we go out and get Smith's belt and six-shooter, as he had been shot early in the fight and his belt undoubtedly was loaded with cartridges.

Rath offered to go, and soon returned and said that Smith was still alive, which astonished us greatly, as well as causing us to regret that we had not known it earlier in the day. Rath and I at once got ready to bring Smith to the buffalo wallow. By supporting the poor wounded fellow between us, he managed to walk. We could see that there was no chance for him. He was shot through the left lung and when he breathed the wind sobbed out of his back under the shoulder blade. Near the wallow an Indian had dropped a stout willow switch with which he had been whipping his pony. With this switch a silk handkerchief was stuffed into the gaping bullet hole in Smith's back.

Night was approaching, and it looked blacker to me than any night I had ever seen. Ours was a forlorn and disheartening situation. The Indians were still all around us. The nearest relief was seventy-five miles away. Of the six men in the wallow, four were badly wounded, and without anything to relieve their suffering. We were cold and hungry, with nothing to eat, and without a blanket, coat or hat to protect us from the rain and the biting wind. It was impossible to rest or sleep in the two inches of water in wallow.

I remember that I threw my hat, a wide-brimmed sombrero, as far from me as I could when our horses stampeded – the hat was in my way and too good a target for the Indians to shoot at.

We were unable to get grass for bedding, as the whole country had been burnt off by the Indians. It was absolutely necessary, however, that the men should have some kind of bed to keep them off the cold, damp ground. Rath and I solved the problem by gathering tumble-weeds which in that country the wind would drive for miles and miles, until the weeds lodged and became fast. Many of them were bigger than a bushel basket, and their twigs so tough that the weeds had the "spring" of a wire mattress. We crushed the weeds, and lay down on them for the night, though not a man dared close his eyes in sleep.

By the time heavy darkness had fallen every Indian had disappeared. Happily, they did not return to molest us during the night. There was a new moon, but so small and slender that in the clouded sky there was little light. While there was still light, I took the willow switch and sat down on the edge of the bank and carefully cleaned every gun.

While I was cleaning the guns, we held a consultation to decide what would be best for us to do. We agreed that somebody should go for help. No journey could have been beset with greater danger. Rath and I both offered to go. The task was squarely up to us, as all the other men were injured. I insisted that I should go, as I knew the country, and felt confident that I could find the trail that led to Camp Supply. I was sure that we were not far from this trail.

My insistence at once caused protest from the wounded. They were willing that Rath should go, but would not listen to my leaving them. Once I put my hand on my gun with the intention of going anyway, then yielded to their wishes against my better judgment, and decided to remain through the night. The wounded men relied greatly upon my skill as a marksman.

Bidding us goodbye, Rath disappeared in the darkness. After he had been gone about two hours he came back, saying that he could not find the trail.

By this time Smith had grown much worse and was begging us in piteous tones to shoot him and put an end to his terrible sufferings. We found it necessary to watch him closely to prevent his committing suicide.