With each new volume in this Plainsmen series, which will encompass the entire era of the Indian Wars, you will follow Seamus as he marches through some of history’s bloodiest hours, marching as well among a changing cast of actual historical characters.
Donegan is the sort who is not capable of always doing the right thing, yet he tries nonetheless.
History has itself plenty of heroes—every one of them dead. Perhaps the thing I like best about Seamus Donegan is that he represents the rest of us. Ordinary in every way, except that at some point, we are each called upon by circumstances to do something extraordinary … what most might call heroic.
That’s the epic tale of the Indian Wars. If you will listen carefully now, you’ll hear the grunts of the lathered horses and the balky mules straining to carry their riders into the midst of the Dog Soldier village after four grueling days of relentless pursuit. You’ll hear the shrieking panic of the white women struggling to escape their captors and rushing for the blue-clad saviors on horseback. You can hear the war-cries of the warriors who will not retreat, but instead turn to fight, protecting the flight of families and old ones.
Sniff the air—you’ll likely smell the burning fragrance of gunpowder or the aroma of boiled coffee (if you’re lucky enough to have any left). Run your tongue around the inside of your cheek one last time now, trying to remember how good that mule haunch tasted last winter—especially when mule meat was all that stood between you and starvation in the snows of a winter wilderness.
The fight for survival that harsh winter happened every bit as did the gallant chase after the Dog Soldiers the following summer. Carr’s Fifth Cavalry caught Tall Bull’s camp at a little known spring near the South Platte River. As history, this story needs no false glamour, no shiny veneer of dash and daring. What has through the centuries been the story of man at war—of culture against culture, race against race—needs nothing special in its telling.
My hope is that you will enjoy this ride stirrup to stirrup with Seamus Donegan and Bill Cody.
Come on along—we’ve no time to waste. Tall Bull and his band of deadly warriors are four days ahead of us now and gaining ground. If you’re of a mind to, you’ll sleep this night curled up in a blanket on the frozen ground and warm your hands over buffalo-chip fires.
Saddle up, my friend. We’re riding out now and not looking back.
—Terry C. Johnston
Summit Springs Battleground
Colorado Territory
July 11, 1988
Characters
Seamus Donegan
Cheyenne
Tall Bull (Tatonka Haska)
Feathered Bear
Breaks The Arrow
Big Head
Yellow Nose
Plenty of Bull Meat
Pile of Bones
Red Cherries
Heavy Furred Wolf
Pretty Bear
Bullet Proof
Bobtailed Porcupine
White Man’s Ladder
Wolf Friend
Two Crows
Lone Bear
Bad Heart
Standing Bear
Tall Sioux
White Horse
Sioux
The Whistler
Pawnee Killer
Army Scouts
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody
James Butler Hickok
James Curry
John Donovan
Bill Green
Jack Farley
Eli Ziegler
Thomas Ranahan
Pawnee Battalion
Major Frank J. North
Captain Luther (“Lute”) North
Lt. Gustavus W. Becher
Mad Bear
Civilians
Louisa/Lulu Cody
Arta Cody (daughter)
Mrs. Gustaf (Maria) Weichel
Tom Alderdice
Mrs. Thomas (Susanna) Alderdice (and infant)
Nebraska Governor David Butler
J. E. Welch
I. P. Boyer (trader @ Fort McPherson)
William McDonald (contract sutler @ Fort McPherson)
William Reed (clerk for sutler McDonald @ Fort McPherson)
Dave Perry (owner/California Keg House Exchange–North Platte)
Walt Mason (innkeeper—Sheridan, Kansas)
Dave Cook (Denver City Marshal)
Robert Teat (son: Eugene Teat)—owners of Elephant Corral
Nate Williams—horse thief
Bill Bevins—horse thief
Reuben Wood (contract sutler at Fort Sedgwick)
John Wilson—wagon-master, winter campaign, Fifth Cavalry
Soldiers
Major General C. C. Augur—Commander, Dept. of the Platte
Colonel Henry C. Bankhead
Captain Samuel B. Lauffer—Fort Wallace Quartermaster
Captain Israel Ezekial
Captain George Wallace Graham
Captain William H. Penrose—Third Infantry
Reuben Waller—10th Negro Cavalry
FIELD AND COMPANY OFFICERS
Fifth U.S. Cavalry
Colonel—William H. Emory
Lieutenant Colonel—Thomas Duncan
Major—Eugene A. Carr
Major—William B. Royall
Major—Eugene W. Crittenden
Captain Sylvanus E. Cushing
Adjutant—Robert H. Montgomery
Quartermaster—Alfred B. Taylor (till 6/22/69)
—Edward M. Hayes (after 6/22/69)
Sergeant-Major—Joseph H. Maynard
Quartermaster-Sergeant—John Young
Chief Bugler—John Uhlman
Saddler-Sergeant—Jacob Feathers
Surgeon—Louis S. Tesson
Veterinary Surgeon—Francis Regen
Company A
Captain—Robert P. Wilson
First Lieutenant—George F. Price
Company B
Captain—Robert Sweatman
First Lieutenant—Jules C.A. Schenofsky
Second Lieutenant—Charles H. Rockwell
Company C
Captain—Thomas E. Maley
First Lieutenant—Edward P. Doherty
Second Lieutenant—Frank C. Morehead
Company D
Captain—Samuel S. Sumner
First Lieutenant—Calbraith P. Rodgers
Second Lieutenant—Robert A. Edwards
Company E
Captain—Philip Dwyer
First Lieutenant—Robert P. Wilson (till 6/12/69)
—Robert H. Montgomery (after 6/12/69)
Second Lieutenant—Jacob A. Augur
Company F
Captain—William H. Brown
First Lieutenant—Edward W. Ward
Second Lieutenant—William C. Forbush
Company G
Captain—John H. Kane
First Lieutenant—Jacob Almy
Second Lieutenant—J. Edwin Leas
Company H
Captain—Leicester Walker
First Lieutenant—Peter V. Haskin
Company I
Captain—Gustavus Urban
First Lieutenant—George F. Mason
Second Lieutenant—Earl D. Thomas
Company K
Captain—Julius W. Mason
First Lieutenant—James Burns
Second Lieutenant—Bernard Reilly, Jr.
Company L
Captain—Alfred B. Taylor
First Lieutenant—Charles B. Brady
Company M
Captain—Edward H. Leib
First Lieutenant—John B. Babcock
Second Lieutenant—William J. Volkmar
Corporal—John M. Kyle
Prologue
October 1868
As bad as the whiskey was, it proved the cure.
By the time he had thrown the fourth splash of its liquid fire against the back of his throat, Seamus Donegan sensed the tension easing the long cords in his neck. Not to mention
the tension seeping from those great muscles in his back which bore the scar carved there by Confederate steel. Slowly, ever slowly, his big frame strung with muscle was loosening like a worn-out buggy spring after a long haul of it over a washboard road.
It had been some ride for the Irishman. His great bulk now sat hulking like a predator over the small glass all but hidden within the big, roughened hands. Returned from the dead he was again, and working steadily to pickle himself even more than the last.
Back from the grave that had done its best to swallow the Civil War veteran at Beecher Island.
In the space of the past three weeks, Donegan had returned with Major George A. Forsyth’s band of civilian scouts to Fort Hays, where the survivors of the bloody, nine-day island siege were promptly reorganized under Lt. Silas Pepoon. Yet, without a look back, the Irishman decided he had had himself enough of the plains and Indians, enough of blood and sweat and death to last him for some time to come. Seamus pointed his nose north, aiming for Nebraska. He had started there once before—a year gone now.
Nebraska. There in the Platte River country near Osceola, the widow Wheatley had promised she would be waiting for him to fetch her.
But Donegan’s quest for Uncle Liam O’Roarke had pulled him off that trail to Osceola and to Jenny. That quest, and the Cheyenne of Roman Nose.*
Seamus was too late getting out to the Wheatley place.
He angrily threw another splash against the back of his throat, remembering the old woman’s eyes as she glared up at him in the late afternoon light from beneath her withered, bony hand.
“No, mister. Jenny took herself and the boys back east. Dead set on getting back to her own folk, she was,” James Wheatley’s mother confided.
“Ohio?” he had asked numbly.
She had nodded, her eyes softening, perhaps recognizing what crossed the tall Irishman’s face. “Ohio.”
He had thanked her, crawled into the saddle without feeling much, and reined about toward the south. Kansas and Fort Hays.
Nursing his grief and anger like a private badge of passion he alone could wear.
For some time he had looked forward to this moment with the tall-necked bottle. Promising himself all the way down that long trail from Osceola that he would sit here and drink the night through if he had to—until he decided where next to go and what next to do. Feeling adrift and lost, having no clue worth a tinker’s damn where he could find his second uncle, Liam’s brother, Ian O’Roarke—was Seamus cursed now to wander aimlessly, searching the California Territory where Liam had hinted Ian would be found?
Yet that was the only thing left for him now that Jenny Wheatley had moved on after a year of waiting for a restless man.
“Maybe ’tis better, after all,” he murmured, bringing the chipped glass to his lips beneath the shaggy mustache once more. “Better a woman like that has her a man who can work the land and stay in one place. I could never give her kind of woman something like that.”
Over and over in his mind on that long ride south a scrap of Irish poetry had hung in his thoughts like a piece of dirty linen. John Boyle O’Reilley’s words reminded him most of her.
The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
Too much of an unquenched burning inside him yet. Unanswered yearnings. Better for everybody now that Jenny moved on without him. Seems she needed something more than he could give, and he sure as hell needed more right now than any one woman could find herself giving him in return.
Slowly the whiskey reddened his gray eyes, appearing to soften the harsh edges on things, especially the noise of this dimly lit Hays City watering hole. Soldiers and wagon-bosses, teamsters and speculators, all shouldered against one another at the rough bar beneath a growing cloud of blue smoke. The smoky oil lamps cast dancing shadows on the murky canvas walls and muddy plank floor each time the door swung open to admit some newcomer along with a cold gust of October wind.
He would need something to eat eventually … hell, it could wait until morning now.
Perhaps if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up spending the night right here at this table near the corner where the stench of old vomit and dried urine could make a strong man lose his appetite for anything but whiskey. Perhaps if he punished the bottle until he passed out right here, Seamus would not need to fill the gnawing hole inside his soul with one of the pudgy chippies who worked the half-dozen cribs in the back of this place. Lilac-watered women all, come to ply their trade in the fleshpots that followed the army and the railroad west.
“Lookit this, will you? I wouldn’t’ve gambled a warm piss that I’d find Liam O’Roarke’s favorite nephew hugging up to a bottle of saddle varnish here in Hays City ever again!”
Through the late afternoon light sneaking through the few smudged, smoky windowpanes, Seamus immediately recognized the war-lined face of Sharp Grover. Major Forsyth’s former chief of scouts strode across the crowded room, heading directly for Donegan’s table. Abner Grover—comrade in arms from the private hell that had been Beecher Island.
“If it ain’t Mother Grover’s ugliest son!” Seamus cheered, momentarily eyeing the younger man who came up close on Sharp’s heels. “Sit, gentlemen!”
“You’re in a better humor than when I found you here in the Shady Rest end of last winter,” Grover said, dragging a wobbly chair close.
“And you a goddamned scout, Abner. You’re supposed to know where to find me.” Seamus held up his cup of amber whiskey to them both, then tossed it back.
“You’re drinking alone again?”
“Till the two of you sat down.”
“You going to invite us to drink with you?”
He glanced at Grover’s young blue-eyed companion who sported a long, blond bantam tuft below his lower lip. Then he answered. “I never enjoyed drinking alone, Sharp.”
“Get us some glasses, will you, Bill?”
Grover’s companion nodded and rose from the table without a word, shoving his way into the crowd milling at the bar.
“He’s a big one,” Donegan whispered.
Grover agreed. “Almost tall as you, Seamus.”
“He a scout for you … riding with Pepoon now?”
“Not working for me. Bill tells me General Sheridan’s wired him orders to sit right here till the Fifth Cavalry comes through.”
Seamus went back to regarding his whiskey glass as Bill came back to the table with a pair of glasses and another bottle of whiskey. “Didn’t figure none of you’d still be hanging ’round Hays, Abner.”
“We’re getting ready to hove away for Fort Dodge soon enough, Seamus,” Grover replied. “And you could go too. It’ll be good winter’s wages—riding with Pepoon’s scouts.”
“Where you riding this time?” he asked, watching Grover’s young companion pour two glasses of the whiskey from the new bottle.
“Word has it that most of us will be marching with Sheridan himself—down into The Territories.”
“Right into the heart of Injin country, eh?”
“That’s right, Irishman. Them young bucks been busy since late last summer.”
“Don’t we know it, Sharp? Penned up like we was on that island far out in the middle of hell itself.”
“No,” and Grover shook his head. “This is something different. The Cheyenne been raiding up on the Solomon and Saline rivers. Burning, raping, killing stock. Carrying off white women and children.”
“Sheridan’s going down into The Territories to get them women back, is it?”
“He’s called Custer back to do it for him.”
That struck Donegan like a chunk of winter river-ice thrust into the middle of his chest. Seamus leaned
back in his chair, a fingertip playing at the chipped lip of his glass. “Custer, you say? I heard he was serving out his year away from the Seventh—for having them deserters shot.”
Grover hunched over the table as he glanced about quickly. “Hays is Custer country, Seamus.”
“I damned well know that.”
“You’re aiming to start a fight of it?” Grover asked.
“If one steps up, I won’t back away.”
“Best keep your voice down in this town when you’re speaking your mind about Custer.”
“I’m touched you care so much about me spilling me blood, Abner.”
“I do, you thick-headed Irishman,” he said, slapping Donegan on the shoulder to show all was forgiven. “Best you know—Custer’s already back with his regiment.”
His eyes narrowed and he felt his windpipe constrict. “Here?”
“The Seventh’s marched on to Fort Dodge, where they’re training for the coming campaign. Custer’s there with ’em.”
Donegan’s teeth ground with disappointment.
“You were hoping to meet up with the boy general again, were you?” Bill asked, speaking for the first time.
Seamus looked at Grover’s companion. Then smiled. “We—We just go back to the war, let’s say.”
“Never fought in the war myself,” the young Bill admitted, speaking for the first time with some wistfulness in his voice. “Too young. But I have heard all about Custer’s part in Hancock’s campaign last year. Sure glad I wasn’t no thirteen-dollar-a-month private … living on beans and dreams of whores—following that curly-headed bastard. For a time last month I worked ’round some of his soldiers. Out to Fort Larned.”
“Larned is some way from here,” Seamus muttered.
Grover nodded, saying in praise, “Bill here just come in from one hell of a ride, Seamus.”
“First job I had for the army, Lieutenant Billy Cooke signed me on ninth of September to resack forage for their mounts. Week later on the fifteenth, Cooke finally hired me as a scout.”
Seamus regarded the young man more carefully, recalling the youth of Jack Stillwell who had handled a man’s job and more during Forsyth’s chase after the Cheyenne. Donegan looked down into the amber of his glass. “The fifteenth, eh … Sharp and me was less than two days out from that godforsaken island in September.”
Black Sun: The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (The Plainsmen Series) Page 2
