Monahan's Massacre

by William W. Johnstone

  “All of our oxen are dead, or run off by the savages! All of our wagons have been burned. Only five of us remain—”

  That’s when the first barrage of gunfire began.

  “Down!” Dooley reached over and pulled Miss Sabrina closer to the ground, and he flattened his body over hers and tried to bury his face into the bloating, blood-soaked body of the dead horse. Most of the bullets struck well beyond Dooley and the Granbys, thudding into the ground, the dead oxen, the coals and ashes, and maybe even the bodies of those living, or dead, in the main party. Yet one or two skidded over the sage, and two arrows made that sickening noise as they sliced into the already decimated remains of the horse. Blue crawled over, whimpering now, and Dooley reached over and put his arm over the shepherd, too.

  The fusillade lasted less than a minute, although it felt like an eternity. After that, Dooley let out a breath but did not move away from Miss Sabrina or stop holding on to Blue.

  “Mr. Abercrombie isn’t talking,” Miss Sabrina whispered.

  “He shouldn’t,” Dooley told her. “It’ll give those warriors something to shoot at.” Yet he thought: If Abercrombie’s still alive . . .

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  He frowned, a hard frown, one that knew the future.

  “Wait for sunrise,” he said.

  “Couldn’t we sneak out at night?”

  “They’ll be expecting that,” he said. “And even if we did, we’d be caught afoot, in open country.” If only they had been closer to those forested hills. About four or five minutes later, a scream pierced the night. It sounded, at first, like the wail of a mountain lion, only after another wretched cry, Dooley knew what it was. Bile rose in his throat.

  One of the others—Abercrombie, the Widow, Hentig, or one of those men whose names Dooley never could remember—had done just what Miss Sabrina had suggested. Tried to sneak out, escape from what awaited them come morning. Only he had not made it.

  His screams, until the Indians tired of toying with him, would keep them awake all night. Not that Dooley could sleep anyway.

  * * *

  The drums began again in earnest when the skies began turning gray in the east. The screams had stopped about an hour earlier. Now Dooley moved away from Miss Sabrina, and he gathered his weapons, feeding the last shells from his belt into his Colt. When he snapped the loading gate shut, the wailing songs of the Cheyenne warriors, and maybe some women who had made this journey with them, began. Miss Sabrina slid over to her uncle, wiped the blood off his chin, removed a blood-soaked handkerchief wrapped around the arrow’s shaft, and ripped off part of her skirt to replace the makeshift bandage.

  “He’s still alive,” she said grimly.

  “We have four bullets left,” he told her.

  “Don’t save one for me, Dooley Monahan.” Her face hardened, and she moved back toward the stinking corpse of a horse and savagely jerked out two arrows, holding them in both hands. “Just take as many out as you can, and I’ll do the same.”

  The sun began to appear.

  “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Mis- . . . Dooley.”

  For the damnedest reason, Dooley Monahan smiled at her. “Likewise, Sabrina. Likewise.”

  He heard the pounding of the hooves, and stood to face the thundering horde.

  The first wave of riders came from the east, the sun behind them but too low on the horizon to spoil Dooley’s aim. He held his fire, though, knowing he couldn’t afford to miss any shot, and none of these Indians even held rifles, war clubs, lances, bows. They leaned low in their Indian saddles, and none even paid scant attention to Dooley, Miss Sabrina, or even Blue. Dooley extended the Colt, cocked, and followed the riders but never squeezed the trigger. They rode past, through the sage and dust and ashes, whooping and yelling, and headed to the west.

  “My goodness!” Miss Sabrina said.

  “Carrying off their dead,” Dooley explained. “Cheyennes—most Indians, for that matter—will do everything in their power to take away their dead.” He had heard that from various scouts and soldiers he had played cards with over the years, but never had he seen such a display of bravery—of humanity—until that moment. He wasn’t sure if he had ever known a white man who would have risked his hide to save a corpse. Dooley figured he never would have done such a thing, and that shamed him.

  The next time the Indians charged, however, Dooley knew they would have no dead to remove from the battlefield. They would be coming to finish the job.

  Again, he heard the whoops and cries, and now the Indians galloped back.

  “Get ready!” Dooley yelled, and aimed the gun at the dust.

  Yet the Indians veered away from Dooley and Miss Sabrina, just before Dooley started to press down on the Colt’s trigger. They fired, guns and arrows, and they yelled and screamed above the answering gunfire. They were hitting the rest of the wagon train. Then they would come for Dooley, the dog, the girl, and the dying preacher.

  And they did come, but again, not overrunning the makeshift fort commanded by a man, a young woman, and a dog. One arrow sliced over Dooley’s head, and he ducked, expecting more. The Indians rode off toward the northeast. Dooley wet his lips, trying to figure out what kind of ruse the Cheyenne were pulling. Suddenly, he heard a voice through the dust, toward the rest of the wagon train.

  “Monahan! They’ve got your horse!”

  Dooley stood, watching, and sure enough he saw a young brave on a skewbald mare, pulling General Grant behind him. He never would be able to explain it, what he was thinking—obviously, he had not been thinking—or why he did it, how he even managed to do it, yet Dooley sprang forward, running as fast as he could.

  He did hear Blue bark, and Miss Sabrina call out his name.

  “No!” Dooley shouted. “No, sir, no, you don’t!”

  The Cheyenne warrior, not out of his teens, turned and stared in amazement, and quickly brought up his shield as he let go of General Grant’s reins.

  Dooley had just finished saying “don’t” when he sprang up, felt himself as if he were flying like a cannonball. The Indian pony had been running at a pretty good lope, so Dooley had timed his leap, his angle, and the teenage warrior must have slowed down. Perhaps, seeing a crazy white man running at him made him panic. Oh, the horse had not stopped when Dooley jumped, but at least it had slowed down if only slightly.

  The mare wheeled as Dooley wrapped his arms—his right hand still gripping the Colt—around the Indian, who dropped the shield, and then both fell into the sage and dust. Sage ripped through Dooley’s sleeves, and sand clogged his nostrils, and half blinded him. He tasted blood, knew he had busted his lips, and the Colt had snapped back his trigger finger before it had flown somewhere across the Wyoming landscape. His left ankle hurt.

  Yet Dooley Monahan sprang to his feet. He caught a glimpse of the young Cheyenne, who rolled around in the dirt, gripping his left arm, wailing like a newborn calf about to be branded. Dooley paid little attention to the warrior, though, and looked through the dust, left, right, and finally saw General Grant trotting in a circle not ten yards from him.

  “Easy, boy,” Dooley managed to say, although he spit out those words, and sand, and blood, as he staggered toward the bay gelding. That finger on his right hand was broken. Dooley knew that sure enough, but he reached up with his left hand, and tried to breathe normally, tried to seem relaxed. His horse’s eyes were wild with fright, yet the General appeared to recognize Dooley. His left hand came closer, closer, and he wanted to leap at the last second, snatch those reins, get a good grip, and make sure the horse did not bolt his way back to Des Moines.

  He did not panic, did not leap or snatch, just wrapped his good hand—or as good as it could be with the scratches, dirt, grime, and dried blood (his own, the dead horse’s, Miss Sabrina’s, and the reverend’s)—around the left rein, and then moved over and took the right.

  A sigh escaped, and he almost smiled before he heard the sound of more hooves. An Indian—maybe the
whole damned tribe—came back to help the brave, a kid, Dooley had knocked off his horse.

  Accepting his death, Dooley turned around to see the Indian who was about to kill him.

  Just one Cheyenne, however, rode toward him. He was an older man, silver hair, and a battle-scarred face. He held a long lance in his left hand, but the black point pointed at the ground as he reined in his dapple mare. The ancient warrior turned to the boy, now on his knees, holding a broken arm, tears streaming down his face. The old Indian barked something in a guttural voice, before he kicked his pony into a walk, slowly covering the few yards until he reined up again in front of Dooley.

  Dooley tried to swallow but couldn’t. He wanted to run away, but knew better. Running was not how a man died. The old man said something, words Dooley could not understand, and he lifted his spear. Dooley held his breath, wondering what it would feel like to be skewered like a pig on the Fourth of July for a barbecue.

  Instead, the warrior tapped Dooley on the left shoulder with the blunt edge of the spear, wheeled his horse around, and ran it over to the injured teen, who now stood. The old man shouted something, leaned over, and helped pull the young Cheyenne onto the dapple behind him. Then the horse thundered across the land, joined with the other Indians, and off they rode, away from the remnants of the wagon train, away from Dooley and Miss Sabrina and General Grant and Blue. They just rode away.

  Not that Dooley Monahan saw any of that. The last thing he remembered was the Indian’s spear touching his shoulder—counting coup, they called it, though Miss Sabrina would later say, “It was just like you were being knighted by King Arthur”—and seeing the grizzled old warrior wheel his horse around and trot away.

  After that, Dooley Monahan just fainted.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Josiah Hentig, Al Abercrombie, Homer McCreery, and the Widow Kingsbury stood over the Reverend Robert James Granby, while Miss Sabrina pressed down on more torn skirts as Dooley cut through the shaft of the arrow. The minister gasped, but did not open his eyes, did not regain consciousness.

  Dooley bit his bottom lip, pulled in as much oxygen as his lungs could hold, and slowly exhaled. He was already sweating.

  “Did you search his pockets?”

  That stopped Dooley. He must have misheard, but when he looked up at the Cincinnati wayfarers he saw nothing but dead seriousness, a hardness Dooley had not seen since he had escaped from the Dobbs-Handley Gang. Even Miss Sabrina turned around to face her former neighbors.

  “Excuse me, Mr. McCreery?” she said.

  “I said, ‘search his pockets,’” the penguin replied. “For the rest of the damned map.”

  “Homer,” the Widow said, yet Dooley saw that only the woman appeared to show sympathy or empathy and not this crazed lust for gold. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Dooley looked at the ashes. The dust had settled, and morning had turned calm now that the Cheyenne war party had left. Oh, buzzards had begun circling overhead, and a few wolves were camped about a hundred yards or so to the west. Waiting. Waiting to feast on the dead oxen.

  “You really should be burying the rest of your people,” Dooley said.

  “With what?” Mr. Hentig barked.

  “I buried Little Dix Mixson with my own hands,” Dooley said, “after he got struck by lightning on the Buffalo River in Arkansas back in ’63.”

  Mr. Hentig opened his mouth, but decided against saying anything else . . . for the time being.

  Dooley turned back to the arrow. He knew that the preacher had little chance at surviving, but he most certainly would die if this arrow was not removed. Dooley had waited as long as possible, thinking that the piece of wood would at least stop some of the bleeding. Actually, he had been waiting for the poor man to die, maybe in his sleep, peacefully, mercifully.

  A sudden gasp from Miss Sabrina caught Dooley’s attention, and when he saw the preacher’s face, he realized why Mr. Hentig had stopped from saying whatever words he had been thinking. The preacher’s eyes had opened, and he smiled feebly at his niece and turned to Dooley.

  “Monahan,” he said, his voice somehow carrying above the death rattle that followed. “Save . . .”

  “Preacher!” Hentig shouted. “Give us the map!”

  The dying man turned away from Monahan and smiled as he brought up his right hand. For a moment, Dooley thought the good man was going to do just that, reach into that pocket in his big black coat and pull out the rest of the map. And then hand it over to a rotten cur like Josiah Hentig.

  Instead, the hand landed on his stomach, and a finger pointed at the broken arrow.

  “Afraid . . . this arrow . . . took care of . . . that . . .” Dooley tensed as he watched the life leave the eyes of the Reverend Robert James Granby, who had left the Queen City of the West to die in the lawless West.

  Miss Sabrina reached over and closed her uncle’s eyes, and then Dooley found himself pushed away as Hentig, McCreery, and even Abercrombie dropped onto their knees and began pulling at the dead preacher’s clothes.

  The Widow said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

  Dooley knew that they did know what they were doing, and forgiveness was not one of his strong suits. He came up, reaching for his Colt, but Miss Sabrina threw herself against them.

  “Let them be, please, Dooley. Uncle Bob wouldn’t want this.”

  So Dooley watched this pack of animals turn a dead man’s pockets inside out, and eventually rip out the arrow.

  McCreery swore, and Abercrombie laughed the cry of a madman when he picked up a bloody piece of paper that fell apart in his fingers. “He wasn’t lying. That arrow . . .” He turned, raising his hands over his head, and falling to his knees. “Those damned Indians!”

  Then Abercrombie turned, levering a round into his Henry rifle, and pointing that old .44 at Dooley Monahan.

  “You saw the last map. Before the wind carried it away . . .”

  “That’s right!” Hentig bolted past the dead horse, over the dead oxen, through the ashes, going from sagebrush to sagebrush, looking for a bit of map that the wind had probably deposited miles from here, or had been burned in one of the small grass fires the Indians had tried to turn into a prairie inferno.

  McCreery stopped his ranting and stood awkwardly, watching and listening to Abercrombie.

  “You can get us closer . . . to Slim Pickings.”

  Dooley shrugged. “Close don’t count . . . not in this country.”

  “Al, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?” the Widow Kingsbury asked.

  “Not heaven’s name,” Miss Sabrina corrected.

  “I’m talking about,” Mr. Abercrombie said, as though speaking to a four-year-old boy. “About getting you to your darling nephew.” He waved the rifle’s barrel. “He saw the map. He knows this country. If he can get us close, maybe we can find this place.” He cocked the rifle again, even though it was already loaded, and Dooley watched the .44 shell spin up and land in the dirt.

  “Josiah!” Abercrombie called out to the crazed map chaser. “Stop that nonsense. Get over here. Get as many canteens as you can carry. We’re walking.” His eyes lighted. “To gold. Walking . . .” The barrel waved like the needle on a compass. “That way.”

  * * *

  Even Cincinnatians driven mad by an Indian attack and the wicked gold lust have their good points. Or maybe it’s hard to take civility out of city folks. They had one horse, and they let Miss Sabrina and the Widow Kingsbury ride General Grant.

  And they had even made sure the dead men from the wagon train got a burial. Well, it was only one grave, and only as deep as Dooley could manage with his hands and some broken, burned tools from the heaping mounds of ash that had once been a farm wagon. After that, they had left the massacre site and moved northeast, toward the pine forests, toward the Black Hills, toward—they hoped—Slim Pickings.

  It wasn’t like Dooley ever played a whole lot of blackjack. Maybe it was because he had never been goo
d at counting cards, remembering what all had been played. And that bout with amnesia back in San Francisco that had held strong till Cheyenne certainly had not improved his memory. But now Dooley could see that bit of map that the late Reverend Granby had shown him, and see it in perfect clarity.

  Having three men behind you with guns—they had taken away Dooley’s Colt—did wonders for a man’s memory.

  Of course, remembering the sketchy details in a crudely and hurriedly drawn map was one thing. Trying to figure out what it meant in a place like this turned things sideways and upside down.

  They camped that night in a coulee, got up early the next morning, and continued. Two days later, they began climbing higher, and the air cooled, and the trees from the approaching hills must have stopped the wind. That night, they spent the evening in the trees, hearing the wind rustle above them. It spooked the three men from Cincinnati, but Dooley understood that. You spend what seems like a lifetime in Nebraska and Colorado, crossing these Great Plains, and suddenly you find yourself back in trees, where you can’t see forever . . . well . . . it tugs on a man’s nerves.

  The next day, at Mr. Hentig’s and Mr. McCreery’s insistence, they left the forest and walked along the grasslands, up and down hills, keeping the trees to their right, never farther than a hundred yards away. They moved along, and then Dooley Monahan stopped.

  They were in a clearing, the Black Hills and the forests to the northwest. Dooley looked ahead, like he was staring at a valley. Indeed, that’s pretty much what it was. A hill rising off on the southern edge, the timber beginning about halfway up, and to the north, another hill, rougher, though, almost a small cliff before the tree line began not fifty feet up. A creek flowed along the side of the hill, turning, twisting, and disappearing into the forest. Between the two hills, maybe fifty or sixty yards across, stretched this valley. He could see a smaller hill maybe two hundred and fifty yards due east, three trees that could have been those crosslike symbols Logan Kingsbury had scribbled onto his map, and a conical hill far beyond that, green with trees. Beyond that, nothing but blue skies and white clouds. The wind blew, and Dooley wet his lips.