Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869

by Terry C. Johnston

  Cody was the first to speak, sensing the major’s disappointment. “General, if anything, that buck antelope is running a little bit ahead.”

  Holloman and North laughed along with Cody. But Carr never looked up at his chief of scouts. It took a moment before he grinned in resignation and rose.

  “It looks that way, Cody.” Carr climbed into the saddle. “Captain North—Mr. Cody … let’s certainly hope those Cheyenne we’re chasing aren’t as successful in eluding you as that antelope was in eluding my hounds.”

  * * *

  For better than a week Major Carr had been pushing his Fifth Cavalry south from the Platte River. Across Medicine Lake, then Red Willow and Stinking Water creeks, Black Wood and Frenchman’s Fork, until they struck the Republican River. The next day, 15 June, Cody had Seamus Donegan lead the entire column into camp twenty-five miles downriver. No fresh sign had been spotted by a scout, Pawnee or white.

  Seamus had located a gurgling spring near the riverbank, bringing the cavalry into camp there on the north side of the Republican. A quarter-mile below the cavalry bivouac, the wagonmaster and teamsters circled their freight wagons and unhitched their mules. Across the river from their camp and that of Cody’s lay an inviting patch of tall, green grass. The teamsters waded their mules across to grass them until dark.

  Several hundred yards below the camp of Cody’s civilian scouts lay the Pawnee camp. Major North ordered his battalion to keep their horses on the same side of the river, hobbling them north of their bivouac and fires.

  Donegan was the first to bolt to his feet at the shrill war whoop directly across the river among the mules. His mouth was still full of beans and hardtack as a crackle of gunfire and the screams of the herders split the cool evening air. Spitting his mouthful of food into the fire, Seamus wrenched up his rifle as the whole camp whirled into motion. Running blindly toward the bank, the Irishman was unable to see anything on the far bank for the thick stand of cottonwoods. To his left the Pawnees and some of Cody’s scouts were running their horses into camp, shouting. He turned back, sensing the need to be mounted before crossing the river.

  Cody himself was struggling to get his saddle cinched atop the buckskin in all the hubbub as Seamus leaped bareback atop his army mare. They both pushed their horses into the river as the first Pawnees dashed up, in their tongue cursing the seven Cheyenne warriors disappearing over the nearby hills with more than half of the wagonmaster’s mules. One of the two civilian herders lay up the slope of the hill, where he had been scalped and quickly stripped. The second herder loped toward Donegan atop a nervous mule, careening from side to side. The man clung both to the mule and life tenaciously. Three arrows bristled from his back, quivering with every step of the mule as he approached. He tried to speak as he passed Donegan, heading back across the river. Nothing but blood came from his mouth.

  Donegan reined up and watched the man reach the river, where he was helped by other teamsters splashing into the water on foot. Seamus reined about and put heels to the big mare.

  Already the Cheyenne had abandoned their mules and were intent only on making good their escape into the hills to the south of the Republican. Hot on their tails were the Pawnee, shouting, scolding, shooting over the heads of the horse thieves. Cody was just ahead as North’s Indians slowly galloped past him. Through the dust, Seamus watched one of the Pawnee gesture as he came alongside the white scout. The tracker then reached over and took Cody’s pistol from its holster when the white man had his head turned back to find Donegan and Luther North rapidly catching up.

  “Son of a bitch stole my gun, North!”

  Luther North tried to laugh it off as they tore after the Pawnee. “I’m sure he’ll give it back to you, Cody.”

  “He doesn’t—he’d better plan on using it on me.”

  “You’re taking this all a little too seriously, you ask me,” North replied with the hint of a sneer.

  “You can count on me helping Cody get his pistol back,” Donegan growled.

  North’s eyes narrowed on the Irishman. “No, there’ll be no trouble. I’ll get the gun back, my way.”

  “Better keep your boys away from me, North. Doesn’t seem they like me at all.”

  North started to laugh, but it came out hollow. “Why you say that, Cody?”

  “One of them could talk a little English. Told me something as he rode by me.”

  “What’d he say?” North asked as the trio continued after the Pawnees chasing the horse thieves.

  “Told me a bunch of his friends went south last summer to steal some horses from the Cheyenne. But the Cheyenne learned of ’em, surrounded ’em and killed a few of the Pawnee on that raid. Your man said that riding with them Cheyenne that killed his friends was a white man … a white man with long hair the color of summer grass.”

  North flicked his eyes at Cody’s long hair. “Sounds like it could be you.”

  “You know damned well it weren’t me!” Cody snarled, about ready to reach out to yank North from the saddle.

  “Man like you, North—gonna get himself in some serious trouble with his mouth,” Donegan said on the far side of Cody.

  North reluctantly nodded. “You’re right. Couldn’t been you, Cody. You’re here to fight Injuns.”

  “You’re savvy enough to know there’s a few renegades running with the tribes,” Seamus muttered, finding he was liking Luther North less and less the more he got to know him.

  “How would you know about that, Irishman?”

  He pointed high on his arm. “I took Cheyenne lead in this arm of mine last summer. Almost lost the arm for nine days of mortification. I was with Forsyth.”

  “Beecher Island?” North asked as they neared the spot where most of the Pawnees had pulled up.

  Donegan thought he recognized a sudden, new respect for him there in North’s eyes.

  As the three white men reined up, the Pawnees drew back. They had been stripping two dead Cheyenne shot from their horses.

  North signed and asked in English, “Where are the others?”

  One of the Pawnee stepped up, a long, bloody tendril of scalp dangling from his hand. “The five ride away from this place.”

  North turned to the white men. “The rest disappeared on them. What is wrong with that horse?”

  They turned to one of the Pawnee mounts that had collapsed not far away on the prairie, foaming at the mouth and struggling to rise.

  “He dies from the heat of the chase,” explained the Pawnee.

  “I suppose it’s a draw, fellas,” Cody said, walking up beside North. “Two Cheyenne for the two teamsters they killed. So, if you’ll get this son of a bitch to give me my gun back—we won’t have no more blood shed.”

  “Is this the one took your gun?” North asked.

  Cody nodded. For a moment the Pawnee glowered at the blond scout as the light faded from the sky. Grudgingly he handed the gun over to North, who passed it on to Cody.

  “Why’d you take it?” North inquired.

  “I had no pistol when I left camp to chase the Cheyenne,” the Pawnee explained. “When I rode alongside the white man, I saw his horse was slow and would not make a good chase of it. I needed the gun and he did not. I do not need it any longer.”

  North translated for the two white men, then turned back to the Pawnee. “This man is not the one you saw with the Cheyenne last summer.”

  “We know,” replied the tallest of the Pawnee. “The white man with the Cheyenne was much smaller than this buffalo killer you call Cody. And he rode in the shadow of another whose long hair was very black. His skin was very dark … like ours. But his hair, it stuck out from his head like wild grass.”

  North shook his head, explaining the Pawnee’s description.

  “Makes me feel a bit better—that your boys don’t think I was riding with the Cheyenne.” Cody sighed.

  Donegan wagged his head. “Still don’t explain who was, Bill. And for the life of me—sounds like one of ’em wasn’t a white man
at all.”

  North nodded. “Irishman’s right. Damned well sounds like it was a nigger riding with them murdering Dog Soldiers.”

  Chapter 20

  June 1869

  “I damn well thought we did a good job for you, General—getting every last mule back,” Luther North snapped at Major Eugene Carr.

  “So I’ll say it again, Captain North—you exercised no command control over your scouts,” Carr fumed. “They all took off on their own—like an undisciplined mob, after seven goddamned Cheyenne. All of you! Good Lord!”

  As Cody returned to the camp of the Fifth Cavalry, with North’s Pawnees leading the entire mule herd and bringing the two scalps, spirits had been high. But instead of congratulating North for saving the animals and running the hostiles off, Carr loomed out of the fire-lit darkness, sputtering his dissatisfaction with the captain’s lack of military discipline.

  Because of that dressing down, North was growing madder by the moment. “These Pawnee aren’t like your goddamned, yellow-back soldiers, General. They’ll fight. Hell, not only will the Pawnee fight the Cheyenne while your soldiers cower back in some safe place—these Pawnee of mine will go out to meet the attack. Think about that, damn you! Think about the fact that my Pawnee charging across that river was the only reason you got your precious mules back!”

  “Captain North—you damn well know you’re close to being insubordinate.”

  North laughed, almost insanely; his chin jutted as he squared his shoulders, seemingly eager to provoke the commanding officer of the Fifth Cavalry. “Insubordinate, hell! You damn well know I’m speaking the truth about your soldiers.”

  “Captain North, I warn you—”

  “Your soldiers aren’t cavalry—”

  “Captain Cushing!” Carr growled.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “… don’t really give a damn what you think, General—these Pawnee are the only fighters you’ve got along on this march—”

  “Captain Cushing, you’re now in charge of the Pawnee scouts.”

  “What?”

  Carr ignored North, continuing to look only at the dumbfounded Sylvanus E. Cushing. “I’m relieving Captain North from command. When Major North arrives in a few days, we’ll review the situation.”

  “You can’t do—”

  “I damn well can do this, Captain North,” Carr said, whirling on the young man. “And, you’re under arrest for insubordination. He’s in your custody Captain Cushing.”

  “Arresting me—”

  “Best hold your tongue, Lute,” Cushing replied quietly as Carr turned and stomped away.

  “You’re my goddamned brother-in-law, Sylvanus!”

  “And you’re a soldier, Lute. We both knew I was a soldier when I married your sister Sarah. Now act like a soldier and make her proud.”

  North grumbled under his breath as Cushing led him off into camp.

  The following day, 16 June, Cushing and North rode at the head of the Pawnee scouts, leading the cavalry up the Republican in search of some sign of the Cheyenne who had hit their camp the previous night. The sun was climbing to mid-sky when Luther North turned at the sound of hooves coming up from the rear at a gallop.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Carr’s adjutant,” Cushing replied. “So keep your opinions to yourself, Lute.”

  “General’s compliments, Captain!” cheered Robert H. Montgomery as he slowed beside Cushing.

  “Lieutenant,” and he saluted.

  “General orders that you send a scouting party of your Pawnee south across Prairie Dog Creek, to look along the Solomon.”

  Cushing sucked at the inside of his cheek a minute, looking back at the copper-skinned scouts behind him. “Lieutenant, give my compliments to the general—but inform him that I won’t be able to get these Pawnee to do a damned thing.”

  Montgomery appeared confused. “I don’t understand, Captain.”

  Cushing was nettled. “Captain North here is the only white man we have along who can make these Pawnee understand where the general wants them to go.”

  The adjutant smiled, then chuckled some before he reined off with a salute. “Very good, Captain. I’ll pass on word to the general to that effect.”

  “Sure as hell hope you didn’t get your own ass in hot water with the old man,” North whispered when Montgomery was galloping back to the main column.

  “It’s the truth, Lute,” Cushing replied quietly. “Carr can’t ignore the damned truth.”

  Twenty minutes later North turned again at the sound of hooves. Montgomery was once more galloping up to the advance guard.

  “General’s compliments, Captain North.”

  North glanced at Cushing a moment. “His compliments, eh?”

  The adjutant grinned. “He informs Captain Cushing that Captain North is no longer under arrest and custody. The general wishes Captain North to take his Pawnees and scout south toward the Solomon as he directed.”

  Cushing looked relieved.

  North swallowed a bit of his pride. If Carr was doing the same, he could be every bit as magnanimous about it as well. “Inform the general that the Pawnee Battalion is moving out, Lieutenant—for the Solomon.”

  * * *

  The following afternoon, the seventeenth, Major Frank North rode in with another two dozen Pawnee, joining the Fifth Cavalry on the march and completing his battalion of scouts. That evening when Luther North came in with his detail to report some sign of hostiles on the Solomon, he greeted his brother and the reinforcements with great cheer.

  As second in command of the Indian trackers, Captain North led the way the next morning, guiding Carr’s column south for the Solomon. Upon reaching the north fork of that river, Major Carr ordered a day of rest for his troops while the North brothers took their Pawnees out on a meticulous search of the countryside: Frank heading upstream, Lute riding down the Solomon.

  That evening of the eighteenth the Indian scouts returned without having seen much evidence of the hostile Cheyenne. Major North’s command did not, however, return to the cavalry camp empty-handed. During the day, the Pawnee had come across a small herd of buffalo. Their ponies were loaded with fresh meat intended to sizzle and drip over the mess fires as twilight sank over the rolling prairie.

  The next morning found the command moving northwest, back to the Prairie Dog, then west along the creek. Major North kept his scouting parties out every day for the next week, ranging far to the north and south as Carr marched his cavalry west, continually probing the country for the hostiles believed responsible for the depredations along the Saline and Solomon. From time to time the Pawnee came across the tracks of small hunting or war parties. Still, no sign of travois was discovered.

  Carr turned the command northwest once more, crossing the Little Beaver, then striking Beaver Creek, known to the Cheyenne as the Sappa. Crossing Driftwood Creek, the Fifth Cavalry moved north to the Republican, marching upriver in search of the Solomon and Saline raiders.

  To Seamus Donegan it had been a march over very familiar ground. As the sun rose high each day, hanging longer and longer while summer matured and aged the central plains, it reminded him more of that march behind Major George A. Forsyth one winter gone. Covering the same ground. Looking for what might turn out to be the same bands of Cheyenne who had forced the fifty civilians to that coffin-shaped island in the middle of a nameless creek on this sun-parched prairie.

  He dragged his plate of beans and salt-pork onto his lap, squatting back from the fire as the sun’s final rays dressed the western sky with a brilliant orange curtain. The food no longer had any taste to it. Only something to fill his gnawing belly each evening. Like the hard bread he soaked in the hot grease over breakfast fires while the coffee boiled in the predawn darkness before Cody moved his civilians out for the day. At least he had the boiled coffee tonight—it had taste on his tongue. Something close enough to the remembrance of whiskey.

  Seamus pushed the thought away and shoved a chunk of
the slimy pork in his mouth. Dangerous for a man out here to be brooding so much on whiskey.

  The gunshot startled him.

  Hustling up, beans spilling into the dusty, sun-parched grass at his feet, he hurried off toward that single gunshot with most of the others. There was shrill shouting yonder in the Pawnee camp as he loped up.

  No Cheyenne running off horses this evening. Instead, only one of North’s trackers playing a bit with his pistol. The weapon still lay in the grass as the white men joined the Pawnee in a tight knot around the wounded man.

  “Shot himself,” Luther North explained as he turned away from the commotion. “Think I’ll have another cup of coffee. Want one, Irishman?”

  “Yeah,” Donegan replied, following North to a nearby fire. He glanced over his shoulder at the crowd dispersing. “Shot himself?”

  “In the hand. Nasty-looking wound. Frank’s going to take care of it. Appears the bullet went up the man’s arm—came out at the elbow with his arm bent the way it was.”

  Seamus shuddered to think of it. “Long and oozy wound like that—be a long time in healing.”

  “Here’s that coffee I promised you.”

  They drank in silence for some time as camp settled back down. Donegan was soaking a piece of hard bread in his cup when Frank North ambled up.

  “Got the Fifth’s surgeon to have a look at it,” he said, settling to his haunches at the fire, spreading his hands before the flames. “Damn, it still gets cold out here when that sun goes down.”

  “Surgeon have to take it off, won’t he, Frank?”

  He looked at his younger brother. “Yeah, Lute. But the sonofabitch won’t let him cut his arm off.”

  “During the war they didn’t wait for you to say yes or no,” Seamus grumbled, staring at the fire and remembering the piles of arms and legs, feet and hands outside the surgeon’s tents and makeshift hospitals. He shuddered with the memory.

  “Enough walking wounded from that war, eh, Irishman?”

  “Man went through it—he’s scarred for life, way I see it. He doesn’t have to be missing an arm or leg.” He looked up at the clear, starry sky. “A man just had to live through it—see what we did to each other in the name of whatever we were fighting for.”