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Little Pills, an Army Story. R. H. McKay
feet in length and the stem in proportion. It had been made of dry cotton-wood logs and hewn out to probably eight or ten inches square and was a crude looking affair, but was probably not as heavy as it looked. The one bearing this cross took the lead and was naked to the waist and from there down wore only a single cotton garment, pants-like in shape, but very full, something like a skirt, and all those following were dressed in a similar way. All were bare-footed and there were probably twenty or more of them. Each carried thongs with which he struck the man in front of him on the bare back, all acting in something like uniformity as to time and repeating in unison and in a drone like voice something in Spanish that I could not understand. Before the procession ended the backs of most of the participants were notably bloody and some of them very much so. Paraja is located literally in a bed of sand and I wondered how they could stand it that hot August day in their bare feet and the bloody work of the thongs left the impression on my mind of being a most brutal performance. But they were sincere and no doubt believed they were atoning for sins committed. What kind of a God is it who would accept such an atonment or approve of its offering? The faces of the participants were mostly of a brutal type and they looked as though they were capable of committing almost any crime. This exhibition did not impress me as in any way religious but on the contrary as exceedingly barbarious and superstitious.
By act of Congress during the winter of 1868 and 1869 the army was ordered reduced, which to me was a serious matter as it rendered improbable any convening of a medical board for examination of medical officers for promotion, at least for some years to come. As I remember such line officers as wished to resign could do so with the privilege of a year's additional pay, and enough others would be dropped from the service to bring the number down to the required standard, also with a year's additional pay. The only difference being that of resigning or being dropped from the service. Quite a number of line officers preferred resigning. Among those who did so was Lieutenant Page of the twenty-fourth infantry at Fort Craig. He proposed selling me his cow and I proposed trading him my pistol for it. He thought the matter over and said that he proposed locating on a farm in Missouri and the pistol might come very handy, so we made the exchange. He came to visit me at Girard, Kansas, after I had quit the service and gave me a farther history of the pistol. He had missed a good deal of corn from his fields and watched for the thieves and shot one of them quite seriously. The matter got into the courts and being so soon after the War the factional feeling had not died out, and the long litigation that followed almost bankrupted Mr. Page, rather a disreputable record for a pistol to make, but I imagine that there have been comparatively few occasions where pistols were used in personal encounters, that it would not have been better if they had never been made.
I expected my wife in September. In the meantime Captain Lawson had returned from a leave of absence and joined my mess until his wife should come. Just before I expected my wife to start on her trip to join me, a command came up from Texas, an exchange of regiments had been ordered. The fifteenth infantry went to the Department of the Missouri, and the twenty-fourth infantry to the Department of Texas, and I was ordered to accompany a part of the fifteenth infantry from Fort Craig to Fort Wingate, New Mex. I at once wrote my wife to await developments. She had already started and got as far as Fort Wallace, Kans., near the terminus of the railroad when word reached her from Fort Wingate that I was to go with one company of the fifteenth infantry to Fort Dodge, Kans., and she could meet me at Fort Lyon, Colo., which would be on my way to Fort Dodge.
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