“Hell, no, I ain’t,” Mulligan said sneering.
Tommy felt a flash of anger. “Well, keep watching us. You’ll see a hell of a lot more of it.”
“It’s the best part of human nature, that’s what it is,” Harold said.
Mulligan chuckled disdainfully. “What a load o’ bunkum!”
Tommy and Harold ignored the next few gibes and comments by Mulligan. Realizing they weren’t paying attention to him, the New Yorker went back to his silent, solitary walk among the other soldiers.
The day’s heat increased, adding to O’Brien’s discomfort. Even with his hat laid across his face and wet bandannas applied to his forehead, the young man tossed and turned as he slipped in and out of consciousness.
Tommy was alarmed. “I think he’s getting worser, Harold,” he said. “Look at his face. It’s red one minute, then real pale the next.”
“You’re right,” Harold said. “I’ll talk to O’Malley.” When the acting corporal was summoned, he made a cursory examination of the patient. Things look normal to me,” he said.
“How can you say that?” Harold demanded to know. “He’s getting worse by the minute.”
“We done ever’thing we could do,” O’Malley said. “You can’t expect a feller that got hit by a arrow to look fit as a fiddle. Anyhow, Callan even spit tobaccy juice in the hurt, didn’t he?”
“I don’t think that was a very good idea at all,” Harold said.
O’Malley became angry. “You listen here, Devlin. You maybe have a lot of book learning, but you don’t know ever’thing. Spitting tobacco in wounds is an old soldier’s trick that goes way, way back.”
“That doesn’t mean it does the job,” Harold protested. “You better tell Sergeant Robertson that O’Brien is sinking.”
“What for?” O’Malley remarked. “There ain’t nothing more the first sergeant can do. He ain’t got any medicine or nothing with him. Not even extry bandages. O’Brien has to wait ’til we’re back to Fort Keogh. The regimental surgeon can help him then.”
“He might die,” Tommy said.
“Yeah,” O’Malley agreed. “In the meantime all you can do is keep him comfortable.” He went back to his position in the column.
While Tommy and Harold worried about Tim O’Brien, Riker decided it was time to put out flankers. He chose two veteran soldiers—George Callan and Christopher Harrigan—giving them orders to get out far enough to be able to warn against any attacks or appearances by the Sioux, yet be close enough to the column for a quick return.
Taking no breaks and eating the last of the elk meat—much of which smelled bad and seemed rancid—L Company continued unmolested on their way north. By late afternoon O’Brien had begun mumbling incoherently to himself. A couple of times he flung the hat off his face, but Tommy or Harold retrieved it for him.
Tommy took the bandanna from O’Brien’s forehead and dampened it with water from his canteen. Walking along, he replaced it as gently as he could.
“What time is Mass, Ma?” O’Brien asked.
“What?” Tommy asked. He looked down at the wounded soldier’s face. It was red and flushed. “Hey, Harold! Tim is burning up with fever.”
Harold put his hand On O’Brien’s face. “God! Yes he is.”
“Are we gonna go see Uncle Paddy after Mass, Ma?” O’Brien asked.
“What’s he talking about?” Tommy wanted to know.
“Sweet Jesus,” Harold said softly. “He’s getting delirious.”
“What’s that mean?” Tommy asked.
“It means his condition is growing more serious,” Harold answered.
“Maybe we should stop, then,” Tommy suggested.
“It’s like O’Malley said,” Harold remarked sadly.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
“Indians!”
The call came in from the flanks as Callan and Harrigan ran back to the column. They quickly found Captain Riker. “Sir,” Callan said, “there’s a big group of bluddy Sioux. But they ain’t headin’ this way.”
“Right, sir,” Harrigan said. “They’re headed off to the northeast.”
“Let’s have a look,” Riker said. He gestured to Robertson. “Take over the company.”
Forcing themselves to trot, the captain and the two riflemen hurried out from the formation and headed straight for the horizon. They’d gone but fifty yards when they halted.
“For the love of God!” Riker exclaimed.
It seemed the whole of the Sioux Nation was on the move. Warriors, women, and children traveled together. Dogs scampered around the horses that pulled travois stacked with tepees, buffalo robes, and other belongings.
“They must not like it around here,” Callan commented. “I’d say them Injuns is moving to new campgrounds.”
“They most certainly are,” Riker said. He smiled. “After the attack on General Leighton’s column and the set-tos with us, they must be expecting a big show of troops. They want to get their families to a safer area.”
“That could be a blessin’ fer us, sir,” Harrigan said.
“It’ll give us some more time,” Riker said. “But not much. When the warriors are satisfied their women and children are secure, they’ll be back after us with a vengeance. At any rate, I intend to take advantage of every minute available. You men stay on, the flanks. I’m going back and kick up the speed a bit.”
“That could kill the men, sir,” Callan the ex-sergeant warned him. “They’re runnin’ ragged as hell now. It’s a good bet that some of ’em’ll drop from the exhaustion of it all.”
“They’ll pick up the speed come hell or high water,” Riker said coldly. “Or, by God, they’ll die by the Sioux anyhow.”
Chapter Eighteen – Private Mike Mulligan
Timothy O’Brien died the night following his wounding by the Sioux arrow.
His blanket roll was broken open and spread on the ground. Privates Tommy Saxon and Harold Devlin, who had grown close to him during his last hours, tenderly lifted the corpse from the travois and laid it on the coverings. His personal effects were removed from the body and turned over to Sergeant Robertson for safekeeping. The NCO had taken the haversack of the first man killed—George Hammer—to carry the dead soldier’s property. Now the canvas container was beginning to be packed with wallets, photographs, letters, and other property of the dozen men who had died since the company had left General Leighton’s bivouac only a short time ago.
After a final look at O’Brien’s now peaceful face, Tommy and Harold folded the canvas over their dead friend.
Under Robertson’s stern supervision, Mike Mulligan dug the grave. Mack Baker walked over to the corpse and squatted down where the dead soldier’s feet stuck out. He began unlacing O’Brien’s shoes.
“What’re you doing?” Tommy Saxon asked.
“Getting his shoes,” Mack said. “I’m on my last pair and they’ve just about give out.” He showed one in which the sole had a large hole.
“Hey!” Tommy protested. “I don’t think you ought to do that, Mack.”
“And why not?” Mack said, taking off the first one. “Me and Tim has the same size feet. We borried footgear between us lots o’ times. He sure as hell won’t use ’em no more.”
Harold Devlin frowned in disapproval. “That isn’t exactly a socially approved custom, Mack.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Mack angrily asked. “Sometimes I don’t care for your way o’ speaking, Harold.”
“I don’t mean to imply you’re doing something terribly wrong,” Harold said. “But in normal society, taking something from a corpse isn’t considered acceptable behavior.”
“Listen, smart boy,” Mack said. “Society’s opinions don’t get you shit in the army. Particular when we’re out here in this god-awful empty country. We’re away from all the fancy rules and laws most folks live by. Hell, I suppose that holds true in the barracks, too.” He took the other shoe from the dead soldier and began to discard his own. “T
his ain’t grave robbing, y’know. And it ain’t against army regulations, neither. These shoes is U.S. government property, boy. Don’t you forget that for a minute, neither. Tim’s gone and I need them shoes to keep going.” He slipped into the better footgear, tying them and standing up. “And I’ll tell you boys what. If I croak, you’re welcome to anything I own. I’ll report to Colonel Devil naked as a jaybird. If he ain’t got a quartermaster sergeant in hell, then I’ll spend eternity on short rations and a shorter clothing issue. I don’t care. All I ask is that you put something over my face to keep the dirt off it when you bury me.”
Harold Devlin was thoughtful for a few moments. All normal values and moral judgments faded away in the primitive world of campaigning in the wild West. “You’re right, of course, Mack.” It was just another ideal he was forced to ignore while serving in the army out on the frontier. Like beating another human being to death with his rifle butt.
Mack Baker nodded. “I meant what I said. All I own goes to my bunkies.”
Riker and Robertson joined the group. The first sergeant was impatient. “Let’s get this over with, boys. The Sioux ain’t gonna tarry none.”
Private Tim O’Brien was put into his final resting place, quickly covered, and given a brief good-bye by the men of L Company. Haversacks and blanket rolls were deposited back on the travois that he had occupied.
“Fall in!” Riker commanded. “Sling arms! For’d, march! Route step, march! The point, if you please, Sergeant Robertson.”
“Yes, sir!”
The column trudged on, some of the men close to reeling with fatigue in spite of the rest while tending to O’Brien’s burial. Stronger bunkies, grabbing their arms and saying encouraging words, continued to hold off any desires to sink down and give it all up.
Mike Mulligan, as usual, walked by himself in the group of men. Even if others were within spitting distance of him, Mulligan was still alone. The only difference now was that he was beginning to feel lonely for the first time in his life.
Mulligan had always been a solitary sort of fellow. Even as a youngster in the Bowery, he’d had a tendency to distance himself from other people. A lot of the times, he had to admit, it was because others didn’t care for his company. But he was the sort who was more comfortable thinking as an individual.
The best thing about keeping to yourself, Mulligan always thought, was that people couldn’t really get to you. They couldn’t hurt your feelings, in particular, if they didn’t know enough about you to really know how to wound you. That attitude was the result of the way in which Mulligan had been raised in various slum dwellings along the crowded, noisy, and dangerous streets of shanty-Irish neighborhoods.
His father was a brute named James Mulligan. A drunken lout who had married a dimwitted immigrant girl from Connaught, he was loud and bullying. A monumental failure, even as a minor criminal, he always entered the family’s humble abodes by kicking the door open and roaring out, “What the hell’s goin’ on here, then?”
That was the prelude to drunken rages in which Mike Mulligan, his mother, and his older brother could either stick around and take some painful punches and kicks, or get the hell out of the place until the intoxicated sire passed out. In the summer it wasn’t so bad to flee out to the streets. But huddling on the stoop on a cold winter’s evening, with a frigid wind blowing, was unpleasant. The neighbors, knowing the likelihood of James Mulligan breaking in on them if his family sought refuge in their own apartments, offered no hospitality.
This repeated violence continued until, after the father’s long absence, the family concluded that he would not be coming back. He’d either gone away or somebody had slit his throat in one of the many altercations James Mulligan was forever involved in.
But that wasn’t the end of Mike Mulligan’s problems.
With the father gone, his older brother Joseph took over as bully. Although Joe never raised his hand to the mother, he beat the hell out of Mike on more than one occasion. Mrs. Mulligan, glad that any threat to her own physical well-being had been eliminated by her husband’s disappearance, didn’t care one way or the other how her younger son fared.
That was when Mike Mulligan decided to look after himself and damn the rest of humanity.
Like all boys of the Bowery, his life centered on the street and the activities there. Among the handcarts, coal wagons, and milling, cursing, pushing people, Mike sought a place for himself in the hectic scheme of things. When he was thirteen years old, he fell in with another couple of fellows his own age. One, David McCarthy, was, like him, a drifting hunk of flotsam in the Bowery sea. The other, Brian O’Keefe, although from the same background, was a clever organizer with plenty of ideas for improving his lot in life—none of them legal, legitimate, or moral.
It was Brian who figured out the scheme of breaking into the neighborhood pawn shop that was as much a fencing outfit for burglars as it was a loan establishment. The plan was to avoid the obviously expensive watches and jewelry brought in by the local thieves. They would be hard to fence and would surely attract attention if three youngsters tried to pass them off. But the boys could turn some quick cash by grabbing clothing from the racks in the rear of the place. Brian even had picked a good hiding spot in the alley just behind the shop, where the stuff could be stashed until the theft had cooled down for a couple of weeks. Then the loot could be gathered up and quietly carted away to a different fence in a different neighborhood.
It was a good plan and would have worked if it hadn’t been for Mike Mulligan. He went back early, by himself, and grabbed the clothing. Mulligan sold the stuff for his own benefit and kept the money. It didn’t take long for Brian O’Keefe and David McCarthy to figure out what had happened. They beat Mulligan senseless for his disloyalty and treachery. Mulligan took his lumps without a care: he still had the money.
After a couple more dirty tricks played on other fellows, Mulligan was branded an outcast in his own neighborhood. Forced into a solitary criminal career, he paid a price for his lack of friendship and support, with several arrests. After more beatings from the police and many trips to jail, he learned to work another angle while in custody of the authorities. By being an informer, he could get extra food and a better cell. As time went by, he continued the habit on the outside, working with detectives by passing on tips from the underworld where he lived.
Finally, however, after the tenth trip before the same judge, things turned bad. The magistrate was tired of seeing him. He would have given him a good long stretch of five to ten years in Sing-Sing, but Mulligan’s career as a snitch paid off. Instead of jail, he was given the option of enlisting in the army and getting the hell out of New York City. When he agreed to the deal, the bailiff marched him straight down to the nearest recruiting station and watched as the happy sergeant signed up the petty crook for a five-year hitch.
Mulligan carried on his thieving ways in the barracks. At David’s Island, while waiting for orders assigning him to a regiment, he not only stole from his own barracks mates, but managed to sneak into other companies to go through locker boxes. He was pretty lucky at the game until Mack Baker finally caught him in the bivouac by the Powder River. The beating he received from Baker and Schreiner was nothing, as far as Mulligan was concerned. He’d already gotten away with plenty. That was only a minor setback.
But, during the previous three days, Mike Mulligan’s attitude had begun to change a bit.
Spasms of loneliness overtook him for brief periods of time. He began to wish that some of the fellows liked him a little or cared at least something about his well-being. The company was in one hell of a dangerous situation. The Sioux they faced had no jails or deals to make. They offered only two sorts of punishment—a slow death or a quick one.
Mulligan wondered what would happen if he got killed. The men in the column probably wouldn’t even bother to bury him. They’d strip him for whatever he had that they wanted, and leave his body to be hacked up by the Indians.
Or m
aybe, if he was hurt bad and couldn’t help himself, they’d just walk away and leave him to be tortured by the hostiles.
At that moment, walking dog-tired in the column of infantry, Mike Mulligan made an enormous and deeply meaningful vow. He wouldn’t steal anymore—at least not from anybody in L Company.
“Halt!”
Robertson held up his hand and signaled to Captain Riker to come forward. When the company commander joined him, Robertson pointed ahead. “Sioux, sir. See ’em?”
By then Callan and Harrigan had trotted in. “The heathen devils are off by the trees there,” Callan said.
“Right,” Harrigan said. “That’s how you seen ’em afore we did from the flank.”
“There’re only two of them,” Riker said, studying the Sioux through his field glasses. “They’re just sitting there on their horses.”
“There wasn’t no more out on the flank,” Callan said. “What do ye suppose they’re up to, then?”
“We don’t face much of a threat here,” Riker admitted. “But I want to be careful.” He nodded to Robertson. “Sergeant, take two men and move forward on scout. I’ll have Callan and Harrigan go back on the flank and keep watch there.”
“Yes, sir!” Robertson waved at O’Malley. “Send me two men, quick!”
Tommy Saxon and Harold Devlin trotted forward. Ragged and worn to the nubs, they didn’t make much of a fierce martial picture.
“We’re gonna walk toward a coupla Indians out there. They’re sitting nice and cozy on horseback, and we can’t figger out what they’re up to,” Robertson said. “I want one o’ you on each side o’ me. Don’t try nothing unless they fire on us.”
The trio moved forward as Callan and Harrigan went back on the flank. All three soldiers held their Springfields ready, their eyes darting about as they scanned the woods ahead and the open country to the right.
“Walk slow!” Robertson cautioned the two young soldiers.
“There ain’t but two of ’em,” Tommy said.
“Might be more,” Robertson said. “We’ll see.”
Gunsmoke at Powder River (The Long-Knives #4) Page 19
