Beneath a Wounded Sky

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

Advance Camp

  Spanish Expeditionary Forces

  Near the Red Paint River

  Alliance Territory

  The tent flap opened and Alejandro looked up from his work as D’Avignon came in, unannounced and unbidden.

  “Do you try to be rude?” Alejandro asked, annoyed. “Or is it just a gift you have?”

  D’Avignon waved a hand, dismissing the gibe. “They’re all gone, Excellency. All of them!”

  “Gone?” The man was speaking in riddles. “Who? Gone where? What are you—?”

  “From the Indian camp,” D’Avignon explained. “All our babysitters are gone. One Who Flies, Storm Arriving, even that spooky Speaks While Leaving. Gone!”

  Alejandro leaned elbows on his worktable and steepled his fingers. “Which means what? Exactly?”

  D’Avignon looked around theatrically. “It means,” he said, “that the hen house is unguarded.”

  Alejandro rolled his eyes skyward. “I swear to God above, I haven’t the vaguest idea what you’re talking about.”

  D’Avignon brandished his fist in exasperation. “We’re free to act!” he said. “We’re free to prospect where we will!”

  Alejandro shook his head, comprehension dawning. “Haven’t you been making progress with your panning in the lowlands?”

  “Mere ounces,” the rogue said with a wave. He was positively gleeful. He looked around once more, as if there might have been others in the tent beside the two of them. Then he stepped forward, showed the fist he had been flailing about, and slammed it down on the table.

  “I’m talking pounds,” he said, and lifted his hand to reveal two bean-sized nuggets. Even through the soil that caked them, they gleamed with a honeyed fire.

  Alejandro stared. His hand reached forward of its own volition, needing to touch the nuggets and prove that they were real.

  Despite the dirt that clung to their crevices, the metal was smooth and still warm from D’Avignon’s clutch. With a finger and thumb, Alejandro picked up one of them. It was the size of a broad-bean.

  So heavy! he thought, and realized that he was grinning.

  “You see?” D’Avignon said.

  “Where did you find them?”

  “Up there.” D’Avignon pointed in a generally northward direction.

  “Damn it,” Alejandro said, feeling the jubilant mood sour. “You know what happened last time.”

  D’Avignon crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels.

  “I picked those up off the ground.”

  Alejandro blinked. He looked at the nuggets, then back at D’Avignon.

  “This site is too rich to ignore,” D’Avignon said.

  Alejandro thought about it. The Cheyenne, with One Who Flies as their spokesman, had been perfectly clear: no mining in their holy hills. But D’Avignon was right. This was too rich an opportunity to ignore. And now, with their overseers gone and the tribes already starting to leave the main camp for their winter grounds, who would know? If Storm Arriving, One Who Flies, and most of the soldiers were busy with shoring up Pereira’s incompetence, who would be here to check on what they were doing? Who would be here to object?

  “What about men? Who would we get? I’m still dealing with the problems the last group created.”

  D’Avignon smiled. “I have that completely under control. A small group. Hand-picked from our panners. I had to promise a bit more, but with what I’ve seen already, that won’t be a problem. And that earlier trouble? It will only help keep this group in line.”

  Alejandro thought about it. Hard. It was risky, but the reward! He looked at the nugget again, felt its heavy warmth in his palm. He’d been playing it too safe with these savages.

  “Why not?” he said. “The Crown will get their lands; the priests will get their souls. Why shouldn’t I get their gold?” He laughed. “Bring your men here. Tonight, when the priests are at compline.”

  D’Avignon rubbed his hands together. “We’ll be here with bells on.”

  After D’Avignon left, Alejandro toyed with the two nuggets of gold. He pressed on one of them with the edge of his thumbnail, leaving a dent in the soft metal.

  He shook his head in disbelief, grinning.

  When the priests were occupied with their late night devotions, D’Avignon brought his squad to Alejandro’s tent. They were eight in number, rough men already used to the work D’Avignon had set for them at the lowland sluices. They smelled of sweat and soil, but had an easy manner around each other. Alejandro saw smiles and lots of eye contact.

  Good, he said to himself. He knew that if they were already comfortable working as a team, there would be less friction. He stood and saw them all square up and give him their attention. Another good sign.

  He looked at D’Avignon and motioned toward the tent flap. The prospector took a quick look outside, drew the flaps closed, and nodded.

  Alejandro looked at the men, let them see him assaying each of them in turn. “You have been chosen for a very special project,” he began. “This job is risky, and it has dangers. To minimize these, there are strict rules to which you must adhere. It is also a project that is of the utmost secrecy.”

  He went to his desk and picked up his Bible. He held it out toward the men.

  “Hands on the Book.”

  The men gathered forward and all touched the book. Alejandro could feel their heat, sensed their readiness, like a pack of wolves ready for the hunt.

  “You will all take a solemn oath. Before God, you will swear to say nothing of this project, tell no one of our activities or our goals, and to follow all my specific rules to the letter.” One by one, he looked each man in the eye.

  “Before God, do you swear it?”

  “I do,” they all said.

  He smiled at them and saw his smile returned.

  “Now, to business.”

  Chapter 16

  Plum Moon, Waning

  Four Years after the Cloud Fell

  North of the Sudden River

  Alliance Territory

  George urged his walker up toward the crest of the low rise. From her position behind him on the wicker saddle, Mouse Road clambered up to stand on the walker’s haunches. She peered cautiously over the rise.

  “A blind man could find them,” she said. “But they are still ahead of us.”

  It was true. It had not been hard to track the Spanish army. They left a trail as plain as a herd of bison. As they crossed over the top of the rise, George could see the swath of dark, torn earth, the ruts through uprooted grass, the trampled brush, all wending and winding across the prairie like the path of a staggering drunkard. As they had been tracking the army, twice each day they discovered the refuse of a night’s encampment. The Spaniards did not travel fast, nor were they fastidious.

  “We should sight them soon,” he said. He pointed out a similar trail a half-mile distant. “That must be the bluecoats. A smaller force, but less than a day ahead. We will probably meet them at the Black Rocks.”

  At midday they stopped at a creek to let the walker drink her fill. Mouse Road was filling waterskins and George was rubbing the walker’s flanks with sagebrush when a faint boom echoed over the rim of a rolling hill. The three of them froze, heads high, listening. Another boom, then boom-boom-boom.

  “At the Black Rocks, just as you said,” George said. In a few moments, he and Mouse Road had stowed their belongings, mounted the walker, and were on their way.

  The walker loped over the folds in the rolling landscape, pushing up the gentle slopes, chuffing with each step, thudding downhill on the far side, until they came to the top of a low, flat rise and she slowed, sensing her rider’s desire.

  Steel-grey clouds were piled up above a hard line in the sky, their bellies dark with shadow, their towering heads blinding white with crisp sunlight. Beneath the clouds, dappled with acres of shadow and light, lay a broad plain studded with hummocks of amber grass and pools of bronze blanketflowers. George scanned the landscape and
assessed the situation.

  The Spaniards were nearest to them, attacking from the right as George looked out across the battlefield. Their artillery was on the slope of a rise, fire blazing from muzzles in flashes that lit the bellies of the clouds and spewed founts of smoke. The cannonshots were answered by bursts a mile distant, pockmarking the land where the bluecoat forces scurried in seemingly haphazard frenzy. Across the land between, beneath the arc of cannonfire, the Spanish infantry advanced in precise squares, moving in blocks, shifting by ranks and files, wheeling at shouted commands. The Spanish cavalry stood on the right flank, waiting for the artillery to finish before committing themselves to the fight.

  The bluecoats, by contrast, were all mounted, riding helter-skelter over the field beneath the huge dark mass of exposed rock that gave the place its name. George saw the flash of yellow lining as US Cavalry capes fluttered. The bluecoat riders flowed over the land, commanding nothing, but occupying every extent of their chosen territory. The Spanish artillery would just dial in the distance for a volley when, like a flock of starlings, the US riders would double-back, steer into, or veer away from the infantry. And at every turn, every halt, every pause, the American carbines would raise, level, fire, and drop a handful of infantry or even wound one of the Spanish horses. The bluecoats were outnumbered at least five to one, but they were like fish in a stream, the Spanish tactics too clumsy to touch, much less catch them.

  Puffs of smoke from the left caught George’s eye, and off to that flank he spied soldiers from the People. Their whistlers were bedded down, camouflage skins matching the amber of the dried grass. Behind these living ramparts, soldiers leveled rifles and took long shots at the bluecoat riders. The distance was so great that few of the shots found any mark at all. George estimated their number at a hundred, only half of the still-unused Spanish cavalry that stood on the right flank, but a force that, used correctly, could easily turn this battle around.

  He shook his head. “Schoolboy tactics,” he muttered.

  Mouse Road tapped him on the shoulder and signed a question against the din of cannon-roar and gun-fire.

  George gestured to the Spanish forces. “The Iron Shirt war chief is not very experienced,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Good, she signed, and George laughed at her succinct appraisal.

  He nudged the walker into motion and guided her toward the whistler riders. They were spotted quickly, but a rider on a walker had to be a friend, so they approached without challenge. George led his walker to the rear, a bit away from the main group, and they dismounted. When they turned, Storm Arriving was there, fists on hips, his expression as dark as the clouds overhead.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  George hadn’t thought of how to broach the subject, so he sidestepped. “It can wait,” he said as he walked around Storm Arriving and his glower to view the battlefield. “Why aren’t you out there? What is that idiot waiting for?”

  Storm Arriving barked a laugh and George knew he’d struck the right note. “His name is Pereira, and he is as green as springtime. We could not understand a word he said until two days ago, when Little Fox arrived to interpret the Iron Shirt’s tongue.” He came up beside George to view the field. “Now I wish his words were still unknown to us.”

  Mouse Road came up between them, and George felt her hand slip into his. “You do not like what he says?” she asked.

  Storm Arriving grunted in disgust. “He tells us to wait, like his own riders wait, until the field is prepared and ready for us. But the field is never ready.”

  “What do you mean?” Mouse Road asked.

  “Watch,” Storm Arriving said. “It will happen any moment.”

  George knew what was meant; he could see it on the field, as clear as if it were a diagram on a chalkboard. The artillery was to pound the enemy position while the infantry moved into the mid-range and set up in defensible squares. Then the infantry would advance at the quick-step, moving directly against the softened enemy fortifications, while the cavalry units would range wide, taking the enemy from the flank or rear.

  Down on the field, the cannonade had been useless—there were no fortifications to soften—but the infantry had dutifully performed its slow, ponderous dance. A bugle call went up from the artillery lines.

  “There it is,” Storm Arriving said. Shouts drifted through the sudden quiet. Infantrymen readied bayonets. Spanish horses whinnied as riders prepared. The whistler riders, George noted, did not bother to ready themselves.

  As if taking orders from the Spanish bugle, the bluecoat cavalry turned as one and simply, almost casually, departed the field, disappearing around the bulk of the Black Rocks.

  “And there they go,” Storm Arriving said.

  The Spanish cavalrymen were ready to spur their mounts in pursuit, but another bugle call was given, and the entire army halted. Infantry turned and headed back to friendly lines. Artillery squads began to sort their equipment and stow it for travel. The cavalry remained unused on the flank, brides at an empty altar.

  “Every time,” Storm Arriving said.

  “What do your patrols report?” George asked.

  Storm Arriving shrugged. “The Iron Shirt general instructed us not to send out patrols. He did not want us to get shot by his pickets.”

  “Still,” George said. “What do they tell you?”

  Storm Arriving glanced across at him. “Do you think you know me so well?”

  George kept his gaze on the battleground. “Do you think I know you so little?”

  Storm Arriving humphed and let a moment of silence linger between them. “My scouts tell me that the bluecoats are not retreating from our advance, but leading us onward. They report that the bluecoat foot soldiers and cannon-men approach from the north.” He gestured to the right, where the main support force of the Spanish army spread across the plain like a disturbed anthill. “And they report that the Iron Shirt pickets are more interested in the schedule of supply wagons from the west than they are in bluecoat scouting parties to the east.”

  “The bluecoats shorten their supply lines, while the Iron Shirts lengthen theirs,” George said. “Where are the rest of your riders?”

  “Why do you think—” He was cut short by a sisterly thump to the arm from Mouse Road.

  “Stop it,” she said. “I see only Kit Fox. Where are Red Shields? The Little Bowstrings? The war chiefs sent you many others.”

  Storm Arriving glared at her from the corner of his eye. Then a smile crept across his lips, the first one George had seen on his face in a very long time.

  “They range far ahead of us,” he said, and George could hear the pride in his voice. “While the Iron Shirts worry about provisions, we worry about the enemy.” His smile broadened into a grin. “The bluecoat supply wagons keep us well fed. Tragically, some also catch fire and burn.”

  For the first time, George wished that Storm Arriving was less adept as a military leader. His expertise and experience were not helping to bring Speaks While Leaving’s vision into reality.

  “And now I would ask again why you are here,” Storm Arriving said, “but we will only be interrupted.” He nodded toward an approaching squad of riders. “Your arrival has been noted.”

  Five Spanish riders on horseback pushed up the rise toward them. George saw at once that two were officers—a captain and his aide—while the other three were for appearance of strength and, possibly, judging from the wary look in their eyes, for protection. The two factions were not on the best of terms, it seemed. That was good.

  Storm Arriving motioned to his men, calling over his interpreter, but before he could finish the command the captain arrived and spoke.

  “Do I address the son of American President Custer?” he said, speaking in thickly-accented English.

  Judging by the captain’s tone, he wasn’t sure if he was about to be welcomed or arrested. Nevertheless, he answered, “Yes. I am the son of President Custer. Among the Cheyenne, I am known
as One Who Flies. Who, may I ask, are—”

  “I bring you greetings from our commander, General Francisco Antonio Perez Almeida Pereira, and an invitation to dine with him and his officers, this evening.”

  Storm Arriving looked over at George, wanting to be included in the conversation.

  “He invites me to dinner with the Iron Shirts,” George explained.

  Storm Arriving rolled his eyes.

  “Do you accept?” the captain asked impatiently.

  George wasn’t sure what he’d stepped into. “Captain, I am not here in any official capacity,” he began.

  “Do you accept?” the captain repeated.

  George considered his options. A refusal, no matter how diplomatically stated, would lose all grace in the delivery and translation from this messenger. Acceptance was the wisest course, despite the annoyance it would cause Storm Arriving.

  “Graciously,” George replied with a bow of the head, doubting that either his words or his sarcasm would be accurately conveyed to the general.

  “You will be called for,” the captain said, then turned and departed.

  Storm Arriving laughed bitterly. “We have ridden with these...soldiers...for half a moon. We have saved their skins in battle, and yet they keep us separate and will only speak to us in their own tongue or with gestures from a child’s game. You arrive and before the sun moves not only do they have someone who speaks your Horse Nations tongue, but they invite you to eat at their fire.” He walked a slow circle and lifted his hands to the heavens. “These are the allies we are given?”

  George looked to Mouse Road. She nodded.

  “Let me tell you why we are here,” he said.

  Storm Arriving looked at them both, having noted their silent exchange. “The Council did not send you.”

  “No,” George admitted.

  “I am not going to like this, am I?”

  George squinted one eye into a half-grimace. “I do not think so.”

  Storm Arriving grunted. “We will return to the camp. The Iron Shirts never march on a battle day.”

  George and Mouse Road went back to the walker and fell in parallel to the other riders, keeping a prudent distance between his mount and the whistlers. Behind them, the Iron Shirts trudged back to their own encampment, urged onward by drumbeat and shouted command. George looked to the east, to the Black Rocks beyond which the bluecoats had ridden. It was easy to see that the Spanish were not the allies they had hoped, but... He shook his head.