Wind River

by Charles G. West

  B-Troop had a scout assigned named Andy Coulter. Andy didn’t look like much but he was reputed to be one of the best scouts in the territory. He was a short man with a barrel chest and arms that looked too short for his body, making him appear froglike when he wasn’t seated on a horse. Andy took an almost immediate liking to Tom. Tom was green, that was obvious. But Andy saw a determination in the young lieutenant and he liked the way he used his eyes and ears on that first patrol, like he was memorizing everything he saw and heard that day. Andy offered his opinion to Bluefield even though it had not been solicited.

  “Reckon he’s a mite green but he shows backbone enough.” He punctuated his observation with a long stream of tobacco juice that raised a tiny cloud of dust at his feet. “Cain’t say fer shore but you might could do worse.”

  Bluefield glanced at his scout briefly. Without changing his blank expression, he replied, “Maybe.” He turned his attention back toward the young lieutenant, seated on a rock, eating his ration of salt pork. “Fact is, the old man is sending us to Laramie and I need an officer. I reckon young Allred there would’ve had to fall off his horse before I rejected him.”

  This caught Andy’s attention. “Laramie,” he repeated. “I reckon we’re really going then.” It was a statement but it was offered in a questioning tone. He had suspected that Colonel Thompson was going to have to dispatch at least one company to Fort Laramie. Ever since he had heard that the army was sending Colonel Henry Carrington’s Eighteenth Infantry out from Laramie to build three forts and protect the immigrants trying to get to the Montana goldfields, he’d known there was going to be big trouble. And he knew that sooner or later he would be in it with the rest of them.

  “Yeah,” Bluefield confirmed, his tone that of a regular army man who was accustomed to getting nasty details. “We’re going. That damn Oglala Sioux is hell-bent on stopping the road.” He didn’t have to say Red Cloud. Andy knew who he meant.

  Andy spat, then thought a minute before he spoke again. “Now, I’m gonna tell you, Cap’n, there’s gonna be some trouble on this one. I hear tell Red Cloud’s got so dang many of them red sons stirred up till it’s gonna take more than two or three cavalry troops to whip him. That ole son of a bitch ain’t no fool. He ain’t gon’ stand for the army to keep kicking him around. These damn fool immigrants have been stomping through his hunting ground like they don’t give spit about no treaties. Get shot up and scalped, don’t make no difference, they just keep on coming. Now that trail that Bozeman and Jacobs marked, it’s a shortcut all right. But it’s a shortcut right through the heart of the Injuns’ best hunting ground. I wouldn’t stand for it if I was him. Hell, we gon’ be a while on this one.”

  Andy’s gut feelings were to be proven accurate if not naively conservative. The Sioux chief Mahpiua Luta, known more commonly as Red Cloud, had gathered some sixteen thousand warriors to his cause. Most of these were Sioux but there were also many Cheyenne and Arapaho, all determined to stop the government from building a road through the heart of their most sacred hunting ground.

  Captain Bluefield made no reply to his scout’s comment, but in his own gut he experienced a gnawing suspicion that once again the higher brass back East had underestimated the fighting capabilities of the Indian. According to reports received by Colonel Thompson, Red Cloud captured the first contingent of army engineers dispatched to work on the road and held them for more than two weeks before releasing them. The mystery of it was why he let them go. Bluefield speculated that the chief was hoping to save a lot of bloodshed with a simple warning. Well, if it was a warning, it didn’t work. The army pushed right along with the Bozeman Trail, as it was now called, and Red Cloud was raiding work parties and any immigrant trains that were brave enough to take the new shortcut to Montana. Like Andy, Bluefield figured they would be a while on this one.

  * * *

  What was scheduled to be a twenty-one-day march turned into a month in the saddle, what with the pace slowed down considerably by the fifteen supply wagons the troop was ordered to escort to Fort Laramie. It was a long, hard trip even for seasoned veterans. It seemed endlessly monotonous to Lieutenant Tom Allred, who was unaccustomed to such vast tedium. As each day passed, the boundless prairie stretched out before them, the distant horizon never changing from day to day, until Tom began to think the whole world had turned into prairie. They encountered no hostiles along the entire route. The only Indian activity they saw was an occasional band of half a dozen or so passing far off on the horizon. Andy said these were Pawnee hunting parties. They were supposed to be on the reservation but Captain Bluefield was unconcerned with police action along the way. His orders were to get the troop to Fort Laramie.

  To break the monotony, Tom accompanied Andy on scouts away from the column anytime he could. Bluefield approved, even encouraged the practice. He figured time spent with the scout was as good as sending the young lieutenant to school. Andy liked to talk and he was more than willing to share his knowledge and experience with anyone who was willing to listen. Tom proved a good audience and quietly absorbed all the stories of Andy’s campaigns against the red sons, as he called them, never blinking when some of the scout’s escapades bordered on the heroic. In the process, Andy developed a fondness for Tom and Tom picked up a great deal of information about Indians that would do him in good stead later on.

  By the time the column reached Fort Laramie, all the men were thoroughly trail-weary and starved for something to eat besides salt pork and boiled corn. On the march, Captain Bluefield had allowed Andy to hunt very little, not wishing to waste any more time than necessary. The march had already stretched into too many days and his men were looking pretty ragged and far from battle-ready. When at last Andy galloped back to the column and reported that he had sighted the lookout towers of the fort, Bluefield relaxed a bit in the saddle. He had hoped his luck would hold out and they would not run into any hostiles before he had a chance to rest his men. Fort Laramie was a welcome sight.

  “All right, men,” he ordered, “let’s look alive.” He turned to Tom. “Lieutenant Allred!”

  “Sir!” Tom reined up beside him.

  “Let’s see if this bunch of ragtags can shake some of the dust off and look like soldiers. I don’t intend to go dragging our behinds into the garrison.”

  “Yessir!” Tom wheeled his horse and galloped toward the rear.

  * * *

  Fort Laramie turned out to be a brief respite for the travel-weary troopers for there was hostile activity to the north, along the Powder River. Bluefield’s company was allowed two days to rest and get supplies before joining some other units that had been waiting for his arrival. Combined, they formed a full regiment under Colonel Henry Lockley, and set out at dawn of the third day for Fort Phil Kearney, a small outpost near the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. The march took them up the Platte River to Deer Creek Crossing, where a small train of twelve civilian freight wagons were waiting to combine with a larger train before being allowed to proceed into Indian territory. The freighters were mighty glad to see soldiers because they were getting weary from sitting there stranded at Deer Creek. They tagged along behind as Lockley headed north, along Sage Creek, toward the Powder. Patrols were sent out left and right of the column, as well as ahead. Lockley took no chances on being surprised by Red Cloud even though he felt it unlikely the hostiles would hazard an attack on a full regiment. It would be near impossible to hide the presence of a body of soldiers that size passing through Indian territory so there was no attempt at secrecy. To the contrary, part of the reason the soldiers were being sent was to impress the hostiles with the military might of the army. Lockley and the brass back East in Washington were to find that Red Cloud was not a man easily impressed.

  From the time they left the North Platte and turned northward, they saw plenty of hostiles, usually in small bands far in the distance. Andy said they were just keeping an eye on the soldiers. They would parallel the column for a while then disappear. Before long
another band would turn up on the horizon and follow their progress for several miles before disappearing like the band before them. And so it went. It seemed to Tom that they always had hostile observers with them. At first, there was excitement in the ranks when the first Indians were spotted. After several days, they were hardly noticed.

  Plodding along beside Andy Coulter, Tom wondered aloud, “If we’re supposed to be going out here to fight the Sioux, why don’t we send out a patrol after that bunch?”

  Andy glanced over his shoulder at the band of maybe a dozen or more hostiles who had been following the column since midday. “Lockley ain’t gonna start splitting off parts of his men to go chasing after a few Injuns. He figures they ain’t likely to tangle with a bunch this size. But let them get us split up in small bunches and then see how many of them red sons pop up. They’d make short work out of this regiment then.”

  By noon of the following day, the column reached Fort Reno. The fort consisted of little more than a log stockade around some warehouses and stables. The soldiers’ quarters and the powder magazine were out in the open plain, high above the river. The men of the garrison were mighty glad to see the long column of blue coats and greeted them with loud shouts, discharging their pistols in the air. Tom learned that the engineers had been constantly harassed by Sioux and Cheyenne raiding parties, so much so that there had been little time to work on the road they were there to build. It was all they could do to stay alive. This was to be his station for some time for, after the main body had paused to rest for a day, they moved on north, leaving Captain Bluefield’s men there to reinforce the garrison. And so began Tom’s indoctrination into Indian fighting.

  CHAPTER 12

  Little Wolf shifted his position to ease the strain on his knees. His friend Black Feather glanced at him and smiled. Black Feather could squat on his haunches for hours at a time, never moving a muscle. So could most of the other young men in this band of Cheyenne warriors. Little Wolf’s long legs were not built to withstand the strain on his kneecaps, and if he didn’t change his position every ten minutes or so, he would soon be in pain.

  “Soon now,” Black Feather whispered and pointed to the last few soldiers mounting up, preparing to escort the work party out of the crude log fort.

  Little Wolf nodded. Without consciously thinking about it, he checked his bow, feeling the sinew bowstring for worn places. They would wait until the column of soldiers and workers had cleared out of the fort and disappeared over the rise before leaving their positions in the deep draw that ran tangent to the easternmost corner of the stockade. He had scouted the fort for a few days before this and knew there would be no more than a dozen or so left to guard it. It was his guess that of those left behind, no more than half that number would actually be carrying weapons, the rest being cooks and grooms.

  Sleeps Standing rose and made his way quickly and silently along the dry gulley to kneel at Little Wolf’s side. “The soldiers are gone. They are no longer in sight.”

  “I know.” Little Wolf smiled patiently. “Do not be so anxious to die.” There were only twenty young men in his war party and they all looked toward Little Wolf to give the signal to attack. In the year since finding Black Feather in the mountains, Little Wolf had emerged as the leader of this small band of Cheyenne and Arapaho braves. Though they fought with their Lakota brothers in what the white man called Red Cloud’s War, they maintained their autonomy and operated independently as a small band of raiders. Little Wolf was considered a bit young to be called a war chief but Red Cloud graciously treated him with the respect shown any tribal leader, especially one who undertook such daring raids upon the enemy while maintaining a reputation for bringing his warriors back safely.

  Sleeps Standing began to fidget, causing Little Wolf to lay a steadying hand on his friend’s shoulder. He gestured toward the low hills behind them. “In a little while the sun will come up over those hills. When it is high enough, we will move directly to the stockade wall. It will be harder for the sentry to see us if we have the sun at our backs.”

  Sleeps Standing nodded. He had come to trust Little Wolf completely. They had raided all summer up and down the Powder, keeping the army workers too busy to build their road. This day their mission was to raid the nearly empty fort to get rifles and ammunition. Little Wolf’s little band of Cheyenne warriors had only a half dozen outdated muzzle loaders, extremely cumbersome and unreliable. He found his bow to be much more efficient in their style of hit-and-run tactics, where swiftness and surprise were the main elements of combat. As the summer wore on, however, there were more and more soldiers being sent to deal with “the Indian problem.” Little Wolf was smart enough to realize the freedom he now enjoyed, to fight when and where and how he wanted, would not last. He and his braves had decided to operate independently. It was, they acknowledged, Red Cloud’s war and they joined him in his fight with the army, but on their own terms. They were proud of their Cheyenne and Arapaho heritage, and while they did not deny the fierce fighting spirit of their brothers, the Dakota, they preferred to remain a separate force.

  Red Cloud was winning his war. It was being waged on his terms. As long as he could choose when and where he struck and then escape on his fast Indian ponies, he exacted a heavy toll on the army. Because of their successes, Red Cloud’s warriors were becoming more and more convinced of their invincibility, taking comfort in their greater numbers. It was true that the Sioux did indeed outnumber the soldiers in this battle along the Powder. But Little Wolf knew there was no limit to the number of soldiers the army could continue to send against them, and the next battle might have far different results. This was another reason to keep his small band independent, to move quickly if need be, to run if necessary in order to fight another day with better odds. Unlike the main body of Red Cloud’s camp, they were not encumbered by women and children and the other trappings a whole village entailed. To give his braves further advantage, Little Wolf wanted weapons equal to the soldiers’ breech-loading rifles. And those weapons were just on the other side of the rough log wall that was just now catching the first rays of the morning sun. His concern now was to scale that wall with enough of his braves to overwhelm the sentries.

  “It is time.” With that brief statement, Little Wolf motioned Bloody Claw and Black Feather close to him. Looking directly at Black Feather, he asked softly, “Are you ready, my brother?”

  Black Feather smiled and nodded. On a signal, he and three others were to make their way across the open prairie grass that stretched between the draw and the fort, carrying a log that was to be used as a ladder to scale the wall.

  Little Wolf turned to Bloody Claw. “You and Sleeps Standing take the two sentries at the front gate. I will silence the other one on the back guard post. There must be no sound before we get inside the fort. Once inside, we must kill the soldiers quickly before they can think to defend themselves.”

  He turned to Black Feather again. “When you are over the wall, you must open the gates quickly or you may have to kill all the soldiers by yourself.”

  Black Feather’s smile broadened. “Maybe I should leave all of you outside so you don’t get in my way.”

  “What if there are more soldiers than we thought?” This from Walks With A Limp, one of the Arapahos who came to the mountains with Bloody Claw.

  “There won’t be,” Little Wolf stated. “Kill the guards first. Then watch for the soldiers coming out of the tent under the flag. They will have their weapons ready. Then the ones who cook and do the women’s work will have no fight in them. They will surrender.”

  There were no further questions. Little Wolf had never been wrong before and he had led them on a dozen or more raids. Each man knew his responsibility and felt complete trust in Little Wolf’s words. Silently, the small band of warriors slipped over the edge of the draw and dispersed.

  * * *

  It had been a long four hours for Private Will Johnson. He didn’t have much love for guard duty but it was better
than going out on escort detail again and getting shot at by hostiles. His guard tour was about up and he would be off for eight hours. The worst part about catching the last tour of the night was fighting off the overpowering attack of sleepiness just before sunup. He blinked hard a couple of times in an attempt to remain alert. A faint breeze drifted past the mess tent carrying the distinct aroma of bacon frying. This in itself was enough to make his mouth water. It had been more than two months since he had last eaten pork, having had nothing but wild game until the supply wagons from Laramie finally arrived. Now that the escort detail was up and out, the cooks were preparing a real breakfast for the few remaining men.

  Daylight was coming fast now. The distant hills that were black moments before were now fading to gray and beginning to take on detail. He heard the call of a night bird off to the western edge of the grassy draw, answered moments later by another at the far eastern perimeter of the stockade. He often heard night birds calling on other nights. Still it was unusual to hear them this late in the morning. A golden half circle of light on the guard tower behind him told him that the sun had cleared the hills and he turned to view the daily ritual. Looking into the rising sun, he was forced to squint, it was so bright. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a moving shadow near the wall below him. A deer, he thought, and edged closer to the parapet to get a better look. At first he saw nothing but the bright image of the sun still dancing in his eyes. After a few moments, his vision cleared but his mind was confused, failing to comprehend the image before him. It was an Indian, taking careful aim with his bow. At almost the same instant, he felt the heavy blow beneath his rib cage, causing him to reel backward, almost knocking him off the guard walk. At first there was a numbness and he had no idea what had hit him with such force. As he stuggled to regain his balance, he looked down in disbelief to discover the shaft of the arrow protruding from his tunic. In horror, he reached down and clutched the arrow and attempted to pull it out. When he did, he felt the searing pain and saw the rapidly spreading bloodstain. He tried to turn and call for the sergeant of the guard but the pain doubled him over and the fort began to swirl around inside his head and everything went dark. His last conscious thought was that he had to keep from falling. He was unconscious before he tumbled off the guard walk onto the ground below.