Trial at Fort Keogh

by Charles G. West

  “I expect Ben and I will stay on their trail, if you boys decide to turn back,” Clint said. “’Cause the tracks leadin’ outta this camp are following the river south. And I wanna know just what a party of hostiles this size has in mind.” He looked at Justin and waited for the lieutenant’s decision.

  “I agree with you, Cooper,” Justin said, after a couple of moments. “I think it would be best to see what these hostiles have in mind. So we’ll be pushing on after them as soon as the horses are rested.”

  Sergeant Cox’s expression of disappointment was reflected in the faces of the rest of the cavalry patrol. The afternoon had turned cold and there was a hint of snow in the air, conditions that made the troopers think longingly of the stoves back in the barracks.

  It was getting along in the afternoon when Justin gave the order to mount, since it was still a little early to make camp for the night. Clint and Ben rode out ahead of the column again, following tracks that headed south along the Powder River. Darkness found them four or five miles above the confluence of Mizpah Creek and the river. They made camp where a wide gully came down from the high bluffs on the western side of the river. While the soldiers searched the almost barren ravines for wood for a fire, Clint and Ben rode out to take a look around the hills on the eastern side.

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “I’ve just got a feelin’. I think I’ll ride on up the river a ways, just to see what’s botherin’ me.”

  “Is that so?” Ben replied. He was familiar with Clint’s occasional feelings. Sometimes they were legitimate, but most times they were not. “Most likely you’re just hungry, or your bowels ain’t moved today. But I’ll go with you to keep you from gettin’ lost.”

  “I appreciate it,” Clint said sarcastically, and nudged Sam with his heels.

  The powdery riverbank was easy to follow in the dark. Even the Indian ponies’ tracks could still be seen. They moved steadily up the river in the chill night air until Clint suddenly pulled up short. “What is it?” Ben asked, coming alongside.

  “There,” Clint said, and pointed above the bluffs up ahead.

  “Damn,” Ben exhaled slowly when he saw the glow in the low clouds overhead. “That looks like a sizable camp, maybe where the creek forks off from the river, if I had to guess.”

  “That’s what I think,” Clint said. He paused to decide whether or not they should ride back right away and report their findings to Landry. “Hell, we’re halfway there. We might as well go on and see how many we’re dealin’ with.” Ben agreed, so they continued on along the river.

  They found the Sioux camp at the forks of the Powder and Mizpah Creek, and as they had speculated, it was a sizable war party. They moved up as close as they dared, tied their horses in the trees, then crawled up to the top of a high bluff that paralleled the river.

  “Where the hell did they come from?” Ben muttered, mystified that a party of this size was bold enough to venture back into this part of the country after Little Big Horn. “There must be forty or fifty warriors camped down there.”

  “Well, I reckon I’ve seen all I need to see,” Clint said. “We’re gonna need a helluva lot more help than that patrol of six troopers back there.”

  “That’s a sure-’nough fact,” Ben replied. They remained where they were for a few minutes longer, watching the warriors moving about the campfire, before Ben said, “Let’s get on back and tell the lieutenant he’d best report to his commandin’ officer that he needs to send a bigger patrol to run these boys to ground. I’m thinkin’ it might not be a bad idea to start back tonight.”

  There was no disagreement from Clint, especially since he figured the hostiles were probably armed with rifles. The five warriors he and Ben had fought on the banks of the Yellowstone had had rifles, so it was an easy assumption that there were more hostiles, maybe all of them, with rifles in the large war party.

  Careful to keep a low profile, the two white men withdrew from the top of the bluff and hurried back to their horses. They returned the way they had come, holding the horses to a slow walk until they were far enough from the camp to push them to a lope. They were not halfway back to the patrol when they heard shots fired. At first thinking they had been discovered, they started to scramble for cover, only to realize that there were no shots coming their way. Clint pulled his bay to a sliding halt to listen. Ben slid up beside him. More shots were heard, sounding like a volley.

  “Son of a bitch!” Ben blurted. “That’s comin’ from our camp!”

  “They’re in a fight!” Clint exclaimed. They could hear a mixture of gunshots, the solid reports of Springfield rifles telling them that the Indians were armed with captured weapons. And the distinctive snap of the Spencer carbines the troopers carried confirmed the skirmish. Adding to the mix was the sound of other rifles hard to identify.

  “How the hell did they get around us?” Ben demanded, unable to understand how they could have missed a war party heading back to attack the soldiers. They would have had to circle around them. And if the Indians had already been in a position to attack the army patrol, why did they allow the two of them to continue on toward their camp at Mizpah Creek without attacking them?

  “They must have seen us coming and let us pass so they wouldn’t alert the soldiers they were goin’ after,” Clint said. “I reckon they felt sure the two of us weren’t gonna attack a camp as big as theirs. And they figured on waitin’ for us to come runnin’ when the shootin’ started at our camp.” That still didn’t make sense, because the question remained as to why the rest of the hostile camp wasn’t in on the attack. The answer was they didn’t know about it.

  As if to verify that, they could now hear sounds of excitement in the Indian camp behind them. They were surprised by the gunfire, too.

  “It’s gotta be a different bunch,” Clint exclaimed, “maybe on their way to join the camp! They probably don’t even know about you and me.”

  That made sense as far as Ben was concerned. “We’d best get away from this river before those Injuns behind us come chargin’ outta that camp to see what’s goin’ on.” They were clearly caught between two parties of Indians. “Maybe we can circle around our camp and help the lieutenant out.”

  He received an agreeing nod from Clint, so without further hesitation, he wheeled his horse and headed up into the bluffs west of the river. Clint was right behind him.

  * * *

  Justin Landry had never been shot at before. He wasn’t aware that he had been until he was suddenly startled by the dull smack of a rifle slug into the side of the gully, followed almost immediately by the sound of the weapon that fired it.

  Puzzled, he remained seated on the side of the gully until Sergeant Cox shouted, “Get down!”

  Totally aware then, Justin rolled off the edge of the gully and scrambled back into the deeper part. Seconds later, the air over his head was alive with the snapping sound of bullets tattooing the earth where he had sat.

  “Over there!” Cox yelled, pointing to a bank of bushes on the opposite side of the river where he had seen muzzle flashes. Hustling his troopers in position to return fire, he was thankful that they had made their camp in the cover of the deep gully. Soon his little detail of six troopers was returning fire.

  “How many?” Justin exclaimed. “Can you tell?”

  “Can’t tell,” Cox answered. “We can hold ’em off as long as we stay in this gully. The problem is they can keep us pinned down here as long as they want.” After the exchange of gunfire went on for a few minutes longer, it appeared that the Indians attacking them were no more than half a dozen or so, and Cox came to the same conclusion as had Ben. “This ain’t near as many as that party we’ve been followin’. These warriors musta been on their way to join them others and we were just unlucky enough to have ’em land right on top of us. They musta seen the smoke from our fire.”

  “Any way out of this gully?” Jus
tin asked, although he could see that the gully ran up to the bluffs above them only to end at the bottom of a steep cliff.

  “Not that I can see,” Cox answered between two shots aimed at the clump of foliage where he had first seen muzzle flashes. “It runs out under that cliff and then we’d have to come out in the open where they could pick us off like turkeys. We can’t take the horses up there, anyway.”

  The situation didn’t look good. Justin could see no way out of their dilemma without risking casualties. He felt he should be giving orders, but he didn’t know what to do. “Don’t shoot unless you have a clear target,” he finally ordered. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be pinned down here.” He stared at the foliage by the river. “I wonder what happened to our scouts.”

  The stalemate continued for a while longer. Justin feared that when daylight came, the rest of the Indians would join this small party attacking them now and they might be overrun. He was almost ready to order a dash for the horses, thinking that at least some of them might make it out alive and get word back to Fort Keogh. But moments before giving the order, one of the troopers exclaimed, “I see one of ’em! There’s another one behind him! They’re running toward that mound in the middle of the river.”

  Justin swung around quickly to look where the trooper pointed. He saw them. They were trying to get across the river to get to the horses. Before any of the soldiers could bring their weapons to bear, however, they heard two shots at almost the same time, and both hostiles fell. In a matter of moments, more shots were heard and the soldiers realized that the shots had come from the other side of the river.

  * * *

  “They’re runnin’ for it!” Ben blurted when two more warriors backed away from a rise they were using for cover, aware now that the shots had come from behind them.

  “I see ’em,” Clint said, acting quickly enough to drop one of the fleeing hostiles a fraction of a second before Ben cut the other one down. “There’s another one down there somewhere.”

  He strained to search the dark expanse of bushes among the trees. Too late, he caught a glimpse of the Indian as he darted out of the brush and jumped on his pony. Both Ben and Clint shot at him, but both missed as the warrior galloped away, riding low on the horse’s neck.

  “Damn,” Clint swore for missing, but there wasn’t time to linger. “We’ve got to get the hell outta here,” he exclaimed.

  “You’re right about that,” Ben came back as they both hurried back to their horses.

  Once they were in the saddle, they pulled up in the trees close to the riverbank to alert the patrol. “Lieutenant!” Ben yelled. “Hold your fire! It’s me and Clint comin’ across. We’ve got to get outta here right now, so get on your horses and get ready to ride like hell.”

  When there was no immediate reply from the gully on the other side, they both held up until they heard Sergeant Cox yell for them to come on. “We hear you! Come on across!”

  Clint and Ben crossed over while the besieged troopers were scrambling to their horses. When they pulled up beside Justin, Clint gave him the bad news.

  “There’s a helluva lot more hostiles up the river than this patrol can handle, Lieutenant. So we’ve got to ride outta here right now. I’d guess that there’s at least fifty or sixty and I expect they’re on their way here to see what the shootin’ was all about.”

  “And they ain’t gonna be too tickled when they find those four we just shot,” Ben added. There was no need for Justin or Cox to give the men an order to mount. They were already saddled up and ready to ride while their two guides had galloped up the gray riverbank. The troopers did not wait for Justin to give the order to ride. Led by Sergeant Cox, they rode out at once after Clint and Ben.

  Since they were quite familiar with the twenty and some odd miles of rugged, hilly country between the river and Fort Keogh, they left the banks of the Powder and led the patrol to the northwest. As soon as they felt they were safely away from the open river valley, they slowed their escape down to a fast walk. The country they rode through was rough in broad daylight. In the current darkness, there was too great a risk of pushing the horses any faster, for fear of breaking a leg or worse. After a couple of miles, Clint decided to fall back behind.

  “I’m gonna drop back to make sure they ain’t catchin’ up with us,” he told Ben. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  “It’ll be pretty hard for them to trail us through this draw,” Ben said. “But I reckon it ain’t a bad idea to make sure.”

  “If you hear me fire a shot,” Clint advised, “you’d better find you a place to hold ’em off, ’cause you’ll know they’re on our trail.” He pulled his horse aside to let the line of soldiers pass him in the narrow draw.

  Justin, having overheard the comments between Ben and Clint, paused before passing. “Do you think we should go ahead and pick a spot to fight, and wait for them to catch up?”

  “Nope,” Clint answered. “The best hope you’ve got is to run, and pray those Indians don’t find out which gully we took offa that riverbank. If we have to hole up somewhere to hold them off, we might make it through the night. But when daylight comes, they’d most likely surround us and wipe us out. They might sing about you back at the fort, like they did for Custer, but it’d be downright stupid to try to fight those Indians. You’re gonna need a troop-sized patrol to fight a bunch that big.”

  “Right,” Justin replied. “I’ll accept your opinion.” He prodded his horse and continued after his men.

  Clint waited until he could no longer hear the patrol disappearing into the darkness of the draw; then he slowly walked the bay back the way they had come. When he reached the head of the draw, he pulled up and listened for signs of pursuit. There was nothing but silence across the rocky ridges, broken only by the sudden flutter of a night bird’s wings as it swooped over him, causing the bay to start. Then the silence returned, unbroken, and he felt confident that the Indians had been unable to determine which way they had fled. He wheeled his horse and rode after the troopers.

  The first rays of sunlight penetrated the scattering of low clouds as the cavalry detail rode wearily out of the high ridges and emerged onto the gently rolling hills of the Double-V-Bar range. It was still about four miles to the ranch headquarters and another five miles beyond that to Fort Keogh. It was of paramount importance for the lieutenant and his men to get to the fort as soon as possible, of course. But unless they stopped to rest their spent horses, they were going to end up walking there.

  Of additional concern now to Clint was the discovery of small groups of stray cattle that told him the main herd was not far away. With like concerns, Ben rode over next to him to confer.

  “We gotta find out who’s ridin’ night herd and tell ’em to move the herd to hell away from here,” he said. “They’ll most likely be fixin’ to ride back in for breakfast about now.”

  “I know,” Clint replied. “Let’s get these soldiers to that creek up ahead, so they can rest the horses, and we’ll push ours a little farther and see if we can find some of the boys.”

  Upon reaching the creek at the southern end of a long line of low hills, the first person they saw was Charley Clark. He pulled up short when he spotted the small detail of soldiers approaching. “I swear,” he called out when they rode up to the creek, “I didn’t figure on seein’ you boys back so soon. Did you find them Injuns?”

  “Yeah,” Ben answered him, “and we mighta brought ’em back here to you.”

  “Who’s out here with you?” Clint asked.

  Puzzled by Ben’s comment, Charley answered, “Bobby Dees. He’s circlin’ around the other end, lookin’ for strays.” He nodded toward the troopers as they dismounted and led their horses to the water. “Looks like you fellers are plumb wore out.”

  Clint didn’t waste much time explaining the cause for moving the herd. “You need to ride in to the ranch and get the whole c
rew out here. We have to move the cattle up close by the river.” He figured the closer to Miles City and Fort Keogh, the better. “If our luck is holding out, that party of Indians might not wanna come this close in, but we’d best get ready in case they do.”

  Sufficiently alarmed, Charley responded at once. “I’ll get Bobby and we’ll hightail it in to get the rest of the boys.” He wheeled his horse to depart.

  “And bring Ben and me fresh horses when you come back,” Clint called after him. “We’ll be here with the soldiers.” Charley signaled with one hand that he had heard. Turning back to Justin then, Clint told him what he was going to do. “I reckon Ben and I are gonna let you go on back to the fort after you rest your horses. There ain’t nothing else you need from us.”

  Justin was not sure that was what he wanted. “I thought you would be riding back to the post with us to report.”

  “What for?” Clint responded. “That war party is the army’s responsibility. That’s why they built Fort Keogh, to protect the settlers. I’ve got the ranch and Mr. Valentine’s cattle to worry about, so Ben and I’ll be needed here.” Justin looked distressed and uncertain, so Clint tried to reassure him. “You have to report to your superiors that you ran into a war party of about sixty warriors, and it’s gonna take a troop-sized patrol to go after ’em. You don’t need a guide to take you back to that fork where Mizpah Creek ties into the Powder, so there ain’t anything Ben or I could add. All right?”

  “Right,” Justin replied when he thought about it. “I won’t need you anymore. We’ll head straight for the post as soon as our horses have rested.”

  When the inexperienced lieutenant seemed to be confident in what needed to be done, Clint and Ben left the soldiers by the creek and set out to drive a small group of strays back toward the ranch.

  * * *

  It took most of the day to herd the cattle back close to the river, where they were left to graze. Alert to the possibility of an attack, although Clint believed the odds of that were slim now, the entire crew, including Valentine himself, rode night herd to keep an eye out for a raid on the cattle.