There shone a glimmer of begrudging admiration in young Cody’s eyes, something any man could read had he been sitting there alongside Seamus Donegan as the sun tore itself into a new day. The sky went red-orange, smearing the old snow a pale pink beneath the gray-bellied clouds hovering against the foothills.
“You want him for yourself?” Donegan asked once he realized Cody had seen the black speck darting through the willow down along the riverbank.
Cody nodded and sighed. “Sort of a funny end to this chase, don’t you think, Seamus? Me just riding down there to retake a man on foot. Not something that sounds so good when we get back to General Carr and tell him.”
“Bevins ran. You caught him without firing a shot. That deserves the general’s congratulations. And he’s getting his bleeming horse back to boot.”
“C’mon, Farley. You and Seamus ride down with me. Bastard’s caused me so much trouble—I might just kill the son of a bitch if you leave me alone with him.”
He saw them coming, turning to glance over his shoulder suddenly as their horses loped through the shallow snow that hugged the clumps of willow and prickly pear cactus. Bevins tripped and fell, crying out, crawling on all fours through the snow, stumbling to his feet and hobbling forward like a cripple. He was crazed, grunting like some treed animal, done in but refusing to end the chase.
“Give it up, Bevins!” Cody called out as he signaled the other two riders. All three slowed to a walk directly behind the frantic horse thief.
Bevins made some unintelligible sound as he swung around, arms wide like post oaks, crouching, stumbling backward into the snow. He lay there, heaving, his hair plastered to his forehead, rivulets of sweat creasing his beard. Cody slid from the saddle. It struck Seamus that Cody trudged over to Bevins like a man not relishing what he had been called upon to do.
“It’s gone sour, Bevins,” he said quietly.
With a growl, the horse thief pushed himself back through the snow.
Cody held out his hand, his right over the butt of his pistol. “Don’t make this any harder’n it has to be.”
Bevins moaned, sinking completely into the snow. He wagged his head, sobbing without restraint for a moment. When he had composed himself, the thief dragged one foot into his lap. Around the ankle hung the muddied, blackened remnants of what had once been a cotton foot-stocking. The sole of the stocking completely worn, it hung in tatters over Bevins’s swollen, bloody foot.
“I can’t go on, Cody.”
Cody glanced up at Donegan and Farley for help. Then back to Bevins.
“Cactus?”
He nodded, cradling the swollen foot. “Damn thorns—lemme use your knife?”
Cody shrugged. “Sure. Don’t wanna keep any man from cutting on himself he takes a mind to.”
Using the point of the blade, Bevins hunched over his foot in the snow, digging at each bloody wound, cutting every thorn from the sole of his wounded foot. He handed the knife back to the scout, then held his hand up for help.
“You’re a big one,” Cody replied as Bevins rose beside him. “I’m thinking you better ride my horse.”
“Shit, you gonna let him ride?” Farley asked, sending a spray of brown to the old snow below him. “What you gonna do—walk all the way back to our camp?”
“No,” he answered. “Since you’re the smallest here, I’ll ride double with you, Jack.”
The older man glared incredulous at the spunk of the young scout. “This is the horse the army give me, and I’ll say if you ride double with me or not.”
He glanced at Donegan a moment. The Irishman nodded in support.
“All right, Farley,” Cody continued. “You got a choice. I’m chief of scouts for this outfit. That makes me your boss, ’cause you’re riding an army horse, on army orders. You can step down and give me your horse to ride alone—or, we ride back double.”
“Shit, you peach-faced ninety-day wonders are all alike,” Farley grumbled. “Back in the war, why, we’d—”
“Back in that goddamned bleeming war, Farley,” Donegan interrupted him, “we’d likely followed a man as good as Bill Cody into Hell and back again.”
Chapter 15
Early May 1869
Bill Bevins caused no more trouble for Cody. But two nights later Nate Williams made good his own escape, easing into the brush to relieve himself after moon-dark, then quietly disappearing.
Donegan, Cody and Farley turned their lone prisoner over to civil authorities at Bogg’s Ranch on Picket Wire Creek, more properly named the Purgatoire, which flowed into the Arkansas River upstream from Fort Lyon, where Major Eugene Asa Carr awaited the return of his chief of scouts with his favorite thoroughbred.
By the first day of May the major marched his seven companies of the Fifth Cavalry out of Fort Lyon, on orders to head north for their new duty station of Fort McPherson, on the Platte River in Nebraska. At the head of the column rode Bill Cody and his band of civilian scouts hired from the surrounding country for the coming spring campaign. Cody kept Seamus Donegan busy riding advance scout those first days of their march, steering a course past Cheyenne Wells.
Odd duck that Colonel Henry Bankhead was, when the Fifth Cavalry arrived at Fort Wallace behind the young scout, the unpredictable Bankhead swallowed his pride enough to patch things up with Cody. The following day Cody and Donegan escorted Captain William F. Brown the thirteen miles into Sheridan to purchase some supplies needed by Brown’s F Company for the next leg of Carr’s journey to McPherson.
Springtime on the prairie can bring about changes in the chemistry of a young man’s blood, of that there is little doubt. Cody and Donegan weren’t immune to the season.
Captain Brown, along with these two jolly scouts, agreed that there was better use of their time than spending it all on buying grub. Brown was soon in no condition to purchase provisions. But, taking a break during their drinking, the three provisioned as best they could and sent the goods back to Fort Wallace with the company cook. The revelers stayed behind until sundown came and the money ran out.
The next morning, Carr ordered the march north resumed. From here on the Fifth Cavalry would enter Cheyenne country, bound for Fort McPherson. That first evening’s camp out of Wallace, the F Company cook stomped up to Captain Brown and the rest at their mess fire as a spring sun settled in the west.
“Captain,” the cook fumed, wringing his apron angrily, “dunno what to do—can’t find a trace of those damned victuals you bought yesterday in Sheridan.”
Brown gazed at Cody for a moment, strangely. “Can’t for the life of me figure where your victuals would be, Corporal Murphy. We bought them in Sheridan and put them in the wagon.”
Murphy wrenched the apron between his hands nervously. He whispered, “Captain—ain’t nothing in that wagon but a five-gallon demijohn of whiskey, another five gallons of brandy, and two cases of Old Tom-Cat gin.”
Cody and Donegan howled, slapping each other or pounding a leg as they fought to catch their breath. All about them, Brown’s company roared with laughter.
“Dammit, Cody!” Brown shouted above the noise. “You and that bloody Irishman going to tell me what happened?” He gazed up at Murphy, his eyes begging forgiveness of the company cook as he pointed at the two civilians. “These two are to blame! They put me in the brine in the worst way.”
“By the saints, Cody—Brown’s claiming we got him drunk, ain’t he?” Donegan said, stomping his boot on the ground in a fit of laughter.
From the small crowd of soldiers who had gathered emerged an officer. “Captain Brown, we’ll damn well trade some of our victuals for some of your … your provisions!” declared Philip Dwyer, commander of E Company.
“See there?” Donegan roared. “Cap’n Dwyer’s here to pluck your cheeky ass from the fire, you fog-headed rummy!”
The soldiers guffawed at Brown’s expense until he reluctantly smiled and wagged his head. “All right, Dwyer—we’ll trade: some of your salt-pork and beans, for some of our re
freshment.” He glared at the two civilian scouts. “Last time I go to town for supplies with you two barleycorns!”
Cody stomped up, slapping Brown on the shoulder. “I’ll damn well bet you make out better trading E Company for food than you’d done back at Sheridan bartering with that storekeeper.”
Brown licked his lips, a begrudging smile growing on them. “Bet I will at that, Cody.”
For days after leaving Fort Wallace and Sheridan, Kansas, behind, Brown’s F Company ate every bit as good if not better than the rest of the Fifth Cavalry. Every day found the other companies bartering with Brown, trading their food for his liquor. It had all the makings of a good march north into Cheyenne country to reach the Platte River.
These would be the last easygoing days Carr’s troops would share for some time to come.
* * *
“Country’s thick with sign, Irishman,” Bill Cody whispered as they led their horses down the bank to water the animals in Beaver Creek. They were twelve days out of Fort Wallace already. Until that morning, they had crossed not a single track.
“Carr knows it. He’s posting double pickets tonight. Wants ’em doubled from here on to McPherson.”
“Cody!”
They both turned to find young Major Eugene W. Crittenden halting his mount on the bank above them.
“General Carr wishes you to accompany a reconnaissance.”
Cody looked at Donegan. “Must mean I don’t get supper with the rest of you.”
“I have some tacks in my bags,” Donegan offered.
He waved them off. “So do I,” and he laughed while rising to the saddle, pulling his reluctant mount away from the cool waters of the Beaver. “But if I wanted to eat hard-bread in the saddle—I would’ve joined the army for thirteen dollars a month!”
Cody led Lieutenant Edward W. Ward and a dozen troopers from Brown’s F Company northeast, following sign of a village on the move. After easing down the Beaver more than five miles, the scout signaled the young, smooth-faced lieutenant.
“Let’s halt your men here. Dismount them in that draw over there. You and me go on a ways ourselves.”
“You found some evidence of the hostiles?” Ward asked eagerly.
“Not here. Up yonder a ways.” He pointed over the rolling hills along the Beaver.
“You figure that’s camp smoke?”
“Sure as hell ain’t dust from a cavalry column.”
Ward nodded without another word, turning to order his dozen into hiding before he rejoined Cody to consider the smoke smudging the far horizon.
Bellying up to the crest of a grass-covered hill, the two studied the countryside downstream, below the smoke of many fires. In the clear, pristine air of the plains, they were able to make out the gathering of hide lodges and the nearby pony herd milling in the grassy valley of the Beaver.
“How far you make it, Mr. Cody?”
He calculated. “Three miles. Not any more’n that, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll send word back to the general.”
“Have him bring his men up quick. This is what Carr’s been wanting for some time now.”
Ward nodded, his lips in a grim line of determination. “We were sacked last winter when Custer and Penrose got all the action. Empty-handed for all that marching. Carr’s itching to have him a shot at the hostiles.”
“There’s his chance, Lieutenant—yonder.”
They loped back to the draw where Ward had left his men behind. Quickly scribbling a note on the small ledger he carried in his blouse, the lieutenant handed his report to his ablest horseman.
“Skaggs, take this back to General Carr. I’ve told him we’d wait here for him to bring up the rest of the outfit.”
The solitary trooper leaped to the saddle and was gone over the hills.
“It’s time for us to put a little more distance between us and that village,” Cody advised.
“Whatever you advise. We’ll follow,” Ward replied. “Mount up, men.”
The dozen soldiers were climbing to their saddles behind Cody when a shot rang out, followed quickly by two more.
“Those came from the direction Skaggs took!” Cody shouted.
As Cody brought his mount around, Skaggs himself burst over the rise to the southwest, laying low in the saddle, whipping his mount back to Ward’s detachment for all he was worth.
“Get ready to stand and fight, Lieutenant!”
Ward raked the back of his hand over his lips. “We’ll make a dash for it, Cody.”
“You’ll be damned for it, you do—and earn yourself a grave if you try to make these green recruits outrun warriors on horseback.”
He glowered at the civilian. “All right, we’ll play it your way.”
As Skaggs reached the base of the hill and raced on, a half-dozen warriors cleared the crest behind him, hot on his tail. Screeching with blood in their nostrils, they waved their rifles and warclubs as their heels hammered the sides of their strong, grass-fed ponies.
“Dismount your men, Lieutenant!”
“Dismount!” he cried.
Skaggs skidded to a halt, leaping to the ground and sprinting the last twenty yards beside his lathered mount.
“Two squads—left and right!” Ward hollered. “Horse holders to the rear, dammit!”
Three soldiers pulled the mounts to the mouth of the coulee, where they had secreted themselves only moments before.
“Fire on my command!”
“Damn your commands. Just drop the sonsabitches!” Cody countered as he brought the Spencer to his shoulder.
The crack of his carbine served as cue to the rest of the soldiers on both flanks. Nothing pretty about it, just a lot of lead fired into the face of those half-dozen warriors.
“They turned!” one of the troopers hollered, rising from his knee.
“Damn right they did. There’s too many guns here for ’em to tackle.”
“Let’s go get some scalps!” another young trooper shouted.
“You’ll die if you try,” Cody replied, stomping up beside Ward. “Likely that bunch was out hunting when they spotted your courier. Just as likely they’re hightailing it back to that big village right now—with word that they can wipe out a small squad of pony soldiers if they hurry.”
Ward nodded, his tongue raking his dry lower lip. “Which means we run for it?”
He shook his head. “Better you get your men into the mouth of that draw. Make yourselves a place to take a stand.”
“What’re you doing?” Ward asked as Cody went into the saddle, his carbine jammed into its scabbard.
“I’m riding back to bring Carr up—and fast.”
“But you don’t have my report!”
Cody was gone before the lieutenant’s words fell from his lips. He looked over his shoulder only once as the horse beneath him found its second wind, leaning into the race. Cody smiled, finding Ward hustling his soldiers into the willow-covered coulee far behind him.
Tearing past the outlying pickets, he reined up in a glittering spray of sand made golden in the falling sun. “General! Your Lieutenant Ward is penned down. Found us a village.”
“How big?” Carr came huffing up.
“Big enough to give your men a good fight of it.”
“Splendid!” Carr wheeled, firing orders to his adjutant to alert the entire command. “We’ll leave G and D with our train. ‘Boots and Saddles’ for the rest. Five minutes, Mr. Price!”
Adjutant George Price was gone to pass the word and order the bugles blown when the major turned back to Cody. “Will Ward hold out?”
He wagged his head. “We need to cover some ground and quick, General.”
“If I might make a suggestion, Cody?” Seamus Donegan loped up, leading his mount.
“What do you have to say?”
“Let Cody and me lead the first company or two ready to ride.”
Carr thought on it only a moment. “Take those ready to make the charge with you, fellas. I’ll follow with the res
t of the outfit and support you shortly.”
By the time Cody had Lieutenant Ward’s detail in sight ahead, Carr and the rest of the regiment were in sight to the rear. At the moment he turned back around in the saddle, half a thousand warriors made their noisy appearance on the hills behind Ward, ready to swallow the lieutenant’s men. When they spotted the advance guard under Cody and Donegan headed their way at a gallop, the Cheyenne pulled back from their attack on the dozen soldiers, allowing Ward to make an orderly retreat to join up with the rest of the Fifth Cavalry.
Carr came up with his three companies about the time the warriors reined up and turned about, intending now to make a stand of it to cover the retreat of their women and children scattering north onto the prairie. Ponies were driven ahead by young boys and old men. Women squawked at balky animals dragging travois. Children cried out, racing about on foot or plopped atop the mounds of lodge-goods heaped aboard the drags. Their escape raised a thick curtain of golden dust as the sun eased out of the day.
“General!” Cody roared as he skidded up beside Carr. “That company you sent out on the right flank is about to get swallowed up!”
Every neck craned. Rifle-fire crackled along a wide front, but no more insistent than far to the right. That growing cacophony of gunfire was all that could be heard, a thick cloud of dust all that could be seen of the action.
“Schenofsky?” Carr asked of his adjutant.
“Lieutenant,” was Price’s answer. “B Company.”
Carr’s eyes darted over the officers gathered about him. “Company A is closest. Take them with you, Cody. The Irishman too—he cut his teeth on the best horse soldiers the Confederacy could throw at him. Let’s see what Donegan can do against mounted warriors!”
“Aye, General!” Seamus shouted, whirling his mount about to follow Cody.
The young scout ordered Captain Robert P. Wilson’s A Company to follow him over the hill, informing the soldiers they were to follow the Irishman’s battle commands.
“Just who the hell does this pompous ass think he is?” Wilson demanded, nodding toward Donegan.
Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 Page 15
