"Carr's original orders, and mine when I assumed this command," he said, "were at all costs to prevent the Cheyennes from joining with the Sioux. Now I have a conflicting directive to return to Fort Laramie for fresh supplies and then proceed by way of Fort Fetterman to join General Crook, who has got his ears pinned back by the Sioux at the Rosebud in Montana."
"The Sioux are fighting?" asked an astonished Colonel Mason above the excited babble that followed the announcement.
"We all knew they would when they stopped running." Merritt looked up from the map, supporting himself on his fists. "Our orders are clear. We are to cut across the Cheyennes' line of march in the south and turn them back whilst simultaneously reinforcing Preacher George against Crazy Horse in the north. Gentlemen, I'm throwing it open to discussion."
Mason snorted. "What's to discuss? We're to be in two places at once as usual."
"Faced with conflicting orders, obey the most recent," declared Lieutenant Hall. "That's the Army line."
"The desk cavalry in Washington knows nothing of the situation out here," the colonel argued. "We know the southern Cheyennes are moving to hook up with Sitting Bull. Where they go, the Arapahos are certain to follow. I say we go on as arranged."
"And risk court-martial if we fail," finished the general. "They broke Custer once for doing much the same thing. Still, I'm convinced that in that direction lies the success of this campaign. Shall we put it to a vote?"
"Rider coming, General." One of the other officers pointed.
The newcomer leaped down before the sentry post, exchanged words with the trooper stationed there, and entered camp on foot leading his lathered buckskin. A sergeant who knew him whistled at his Spanish-looking outfit of black velvet under a layer of dust and plumed hat ruined by sun and sweat. He waved back good-naturedly. Sunlight caught his long copper-colored hair and Merritt said, "It's Cody."
"How come he's dressed like that?" Lieutenant Hall sounded indignant.
"He's in the show business. What have you got for me, Will?" The commander stepped out of the shade to confront the scout, who drew a dispatch pouch from his shirt and handed him a wilted fold of paper from inside.
Merritt read swiftly. He turned bright eyes on his officers. "The Red Cloud agency reports that eight hundred Cheyennes are leaving the reservation tomorrow morning for Sitting Bull's last known camp on the Rosebud. General Crook will have to bank his fires for the present. We will proceed as originally ordered."
Forward, ho. Keep moving. Cover eighty-five miles before the renegades make thirty. Borrow a leaf from Bonaparte: substitute pack mules for supply trains where possible, jettison the hospital train and take along only the surgeon and a skeleton staff of medics with just the instruments they can carry on horseback. If you're too sick or too hurt to ride, fall out and get better or die. Keep moving. Snap jerky and bolt warm water in the saddle. Urinate and defecate in your pants, no time to find a bush, much less dig a latrine. Keep moving. Ignore the heat, sleep in snatches while riding, let that horsefly on the back of your neck draw his fill and keep moving. Stop once, you're on report. Stop twice, you're shot for a deserter. Keep moving or get out of the way.
Rider coining. A small scout on a mustang with no saddle to slow him down and only one revolver, no other weapons, trotted down the moving line of horsemen until he found the general and handed him a scrap of dirty paper. Seven words scrawled in travel-blurred pencil:
Custer and five troops, 7th Cavalry, killed.
Tight-faced, Merritt gave the message to his aide. "Spread the word back through the ranks. From here on in we make speed."
The news sped from regiment to regiment with telegraphic rapidity. When it reached Will, his first thought was of a mouse-colored mule.
Dawn peeled the sky away from the horizon like a scalp, opening a raw gash that bled over the shadowed bluffs grading downward from Warbonnet Creek and tinted the waters pink. At the base of the grade lay Will and Lieutenant Charles King of Company K on their stomachs on a small grassy mound with mosquitoes singing in their ears and the bluffs rearing behind them, the expanse looking from a distance like clear even ground but concealing seven companies of the 5th in the pockets and creases like flakes of tobacco on Ned Buntline's swollen vest. It was precisely this deceptive terrain that had enabled Crazy Horse and Gall to rout General Crook and cut Custer and the 7th to pieces.
"There's another bunch," said King, pointing.
Will nodded. He had already observed the party of Indians on horseback three miles to the south moving west. Their horses were gaunt and grass-fed, reservation ponies and not stolen Army mounts. "That makes six," he remarked. "I wonder what's drawing them."
There was no reply, nor did he expect one. King had posed the same question last time.
The gash opened slowly, sending streaks of bright yellow lancing out over the plain. They overshot the feathered braves moving into and out of sight among the long rolls of ground and touched a broken white line crawling along the western edge of the circle of earth and sky.
Will said, "That would be Lieutenant Hall and the supply train."
"Now we know."
The scout crawled back down to the bottom of the mound and straddled his buckskin. Zigzagging to keep the bluffs between him and the Cheyennes like a dog quartering a corn patch for grouse, he approached General Merritt and the main body of cavalry massed in a depression invisible from the south. The commander was sipping coffee from a smoking tin cup. Will reported what he had seen. Merritt nodded. "Keep me informed."
Will returned to his post beside the lieutenant. The sun was visible now, brick-red but turning golden in the center. Its rays flashed off the distant braves' war regalia of copper and polished bone, silhouetted the trailing ends of their warbonnets like devils' tails, and caught fire on the bright colors painted on their buffalo-hide shields. The six bands had grouped to form a formidable force.
"Jesus Christ." The scout observed them through King's glass. "I haven't seen them this gussied up since before the war."
"Which war?"
"Pick one. They must have looked something like this when they came to sign the big treaty at Fort Laramie twenty-five years ago." He handed the instrument to King, who focused on a splinter of seven warriors that had split off the main shaft, then tracked ahead to a pair of uniformed troopers riding well ahead of Hall's train. The braves were moving to cut them off along a route that would take them close to the observers' position. The lieutenant described the scene.
"That's it." Will withdrew again to fetch his horse.
Merritt's cavalry was mounted now and strung along the ridge behind the observation post. The general heard Will out, then watched the predatory band for a while through his glass, admiring the colored streamers flying from their lances as they broke into gallop.
"By God, they're almost beautiful," he said. "Like a pack of wolves on the scent. And they're all yours. Give 'em hell." He folded the glass decisively.
The scout stepped into leather and joined his little command, made up of six troopers and fellow scouts John Tait and Jim "Buffalo Chips" White, and waited for Lieutenant King's signal from the mound. The morning dampness had evaporated; the spreading heat drew steam from the horses' withers.
The lieutenant had put away his glass, which he no longer needed to see the light glistening on the braves' naked chests and the gash of white in their mounts' muzzles when they bared their teeth against the hackamores. He heard the pounding hoofs and then the terrific explosion of spent animal breath. He raised and lowered his arm. A cry went up from Will's band and they tore down the hill bound for the Indians' flank.
The first shot came from the main body of cavalry on the ridge. A lone brave who had drawn rein and fallen behind the party of attackers-turned-victims disappeared from his horse's back, and King thought he had been hit. Then flame spurted from under the neck of the frightened animal, followed an instant later by the crack of a rifle. The Indian had swung behind the horse without
relinquishing his seat and fired from cover. More shots sounded. Merritt's cavalry was moving.
Down below, the original seven Cheyennes reared their mounts and wheeled in confusion. The eighty-five-mile "lightning march" had caught them flat-footed. Then beyond them the horizon bristled suddenly with scores of feathered braves on horseback.
King's warning was drowned out by the bugle. The first wing of cavalry broke forth like flushed game, flying the guidon of K Company, the lieutenant's own outfit. He sprang to his feet with a yell and ran back down the hill for his horse. But the beast had broken away, dragging its picket. Clucking and cooing, King maneuvered it against the incurving side of a bluff, lunged for the bridle, almost missed it, got a hand on the bit chain, and swung a leg over the saddle. He reeled in the trailing reins, shook loose the picket, and took off on the heels of the last straggler, whipping the ends of the reins quirt-fashion across the horse's flanks. He caught up halfway down the hill and charged past a strange figure in some kind of Mexican dress standing over the body of a fallen Cheyenne.
"First scalp for Custer!" the man was shouting over and over.
Lieutenant King made another fifty yards before his excited senses arranged themselves and he realized who it was in the theatrical costume waving the ghastly thing over his head.
The "battle" was anticlimactic. Stunned by the unexpected enemy numbers, the Cheyennes broke and fled for the reservation at Red Cloud, where by the time Merritt caught up with them at nightfall, they had cast off their war dress and mingled with the Indians who hadn't left. The oft-heard complaint "You can't tell the good redskins from the bad ones" was just as often met with General Sherman's notorious caustic comment on good Indians being dead Indians. But after that first brief clash at Warbonnet Creek no more blood was spilled. The frustrated command set up camp on agency grounds.
The scalp Will had lifted from the Cheyenne he'd slain, a minor chieftain whose name was first translated as Yellow Hand (later amended to Yellow Hair and attributed to the long blond scalp he'd worn), made the rounds of awed scouts and troopers at a celebration held around a blistering bonfire in honor of the symbolic victory. Several offers to buy it were turned down.
"What you fixing to do with it, Will?"
"I got a neighbor in Rochester who'd admire to display it in his clothing store till I come to collect it. Believe I'll send it to him for safekeeping, along with Yellow Hand's headdress and bridle and such."
"Hell, why'n't you stuff the bastard and be done with it?" The men laughed and pummeled the guest of honor.
He left early. Chips White, going off to search for his idol, almost bumped into him in the dark. Will was standing on the edge of the reservation, his tall bulk punching a starless hole out of the sky.
"Celebration's just getting started, Will."
"One's pretty much like another. Best I ever was at had just one sip of whiskey to it. That was a long time ago."
"Heck, we got lots more whiskey than that. There's always plenty to be had on a reservation if you know where to look."
"Thanks just the same."
"No one ever seen you take hair before today. Lieutenant King says you done it on account of that white woman's scalp the injun had."
"I didn't even see it till I had my knife out." He chuckled dryly. "I thought at first it was Custer's, but his hair wasn't any yellower than mine."
Chips smacked a fat mosquito on his cheek. "What you doing out here all by yourself anyway? It ain't safe."
"Something I don't believe I'll be doing again for quite a spell," Will said after a moment. "And maybe not ever."
The wind freshened, combing the grass with a noise like surf. Under a beaded sky the earth rolled.
Chapter Ten
"Scissors, please, Arta." The little girl seated at her mother's feet handed up the pearl-handled scissors from the wicker basket in her lap and resumed her study of the pattern in the carpet. Eight now, she had grown into a serious child—no more swinging dolls for her—with her mother's brooding eyes and square jaw, and auburn hair like her father's. Since her brother's death she had not laughed, and spoke only when addressed. She seldom played, seeming to exist only for errands.
Louisa snipped the thread on the shirt she was brocading and worried about her children. Orra was a sickly baby; her sister would watch her for hours sleeping in her cradle, waiting. Alarmed, Louisa had asked Will to explain death's random nature to the child. He had tried, but his many absences had made him a benevolent stranger to his daughter and it was clear—astonishingly so, in view of the loss of his parents, two brothers, and a sister in rapid succession, and his violent life on the plains—that he had yet to accept it himself. His close brush with death in the Cheyenne skirmish of '72 had made him a believer in destiny, though he never confided as much to his wife. So Louisa made pretty clothing and watched the girl withdraw further inward each day and waited for the year of mourning to end.
The shirt's red and blue beads were startling splashes of color in a parlor made drab by grief. The work was flawless. She had a callus on the tip of the third finger of her right hand as thick as a sailmaker's palm from years of pushing needles through tough buckskin, and she could embroider or brocade an entire outfit in an hour. The results were satisfyingly gaudy and the work took her mind off Kit. She had been intensely annoyed to learn that her masterpiece, the black vaquero ensemble she had carefully patterned for Will from a picture in a book, had been ruined on the plains, whose rigors it was scarcely designed to withstand. Even the ignorant heathens he acted with changed their clothes before leaving the theater.
He strode in from the hall, buttoning his collar. His force filled the somber room like an explosion of light. Louisa's scissors slipped, puncturing the fleshy mound on her left palm. A rill of blood appeared. She exclaimed in French and sucked it.
"How is the world's youngest seamstress?" He scooped Arta off the floor. She gasped, clutching his arm tightly as he hoisted her to his shoulder. Her fear unsettled him. He kissed her on the cheek, his beard scratching her, and set her back down. She knelt and started scooping buttons and spools of thread back into the spilled sewing basket. He noticed Louisa's injury then and seized her hand to kiss it too.
"It's stopped bleeding," she said, withdrawing the hand. "There are other ways to enter a room than at full gallop. Hold still." She stood and held the shirt up to his torso, aligning the shoulders with his. "I may have to let it out around the waist." Her tone was accusing. Unlike hers, his appetite had not suffered in the past few months.
"No time, Mama, if you're expecting me to wear it in California. My train leaves in twenty minutes."
The colored butler appeared in the doorway. "Your cab is here, sir."
Will threw him the shirt. "Pack this and have him load my traps." When the servant had gone with the garment: "Mama, a child shouldn't fear her father." He spoke low, watching the grave little girl arrange the items in the basket on the floor.
"Sometimes you forget how big you are. She was afraid of falling."
"Heights don't scare kids. When I was six I climbed trees I wouldn't now if Crazy Horse and the whole Sioux nation were on my heels."
"You were a boy." She reached up and tucked the ends of his black bow tie under his collar. He was wearing his traveling suit over a plain white shirt. "Maybe you wouldn't frighten her so if you were home more."
"I've a family to support. Sitting Bull is in Canada and the rest of the renegades are back on reservations or on their way there and there's no work for me on the frontier. But they want me on the Pacific Coast, and I go where I'm wanted."
"Don't you find it strange that you moved us East so you could be with us, and that ever since you've spent more time in the West?"
"Why don't you come with me?"
"Who'd look after the children?"
"Bring them along."
"No. Orra is sick."
"She's always sick. I've a hunch she'll grow up healthier than all of us put together. I jus
t looked in on her upstairs and she seemed all right."
"The girls are staying here and so is their mother," she said firmly.
He glanced down at Arta and turned his back to her. His voice dropped. "I want another boy, Lulu."
"Not another Kit." They had discussed this before. "We'll call him James. That was Wild Bill's right name." "I'll not have my son named for a killer."
"He was my friend."
Hickok was dead, shot from behind in the Black Hills of Dakota by a saloon swamper named McCall just six weeks after Custer fell at the Little Big Horn. The murderer had been freed by a vigilante court in Deadwood, arrested again when he left town to avoid the dead man's friends, tried in Yankton, pronounced guilty, and hanged. Will remembered the death in his friend's eyes the day they were reunited in New York City.
"Your bags are loaded, sir," the butler reported.
Louisa said they'd talk when Will returned from his tour. He kissed her, disregarding the needle pricking his back where her hands held him, and left with a promise to Arta to bring back enough seashells to fill her room to the ceiling. She replied gravely that one would do.
The new play, Life on the Border, introduced fellow scout-turned-writer Captain Jack Crawford, a long-haired, goateed dandy like Will with girlish features, in whose mouth Ned Buntline's leftover temperance speeches found a natural home. The Irish-born veteran of Spotsylvania Courthouse and the Indian wars kept his promise to his mother on her deathbed never to touch hard liquor, and while Will enjoyed his company and envied him his superior acting ability, he ducked him from time to time to visit the gin mills along the Barbary Coast with Arizona John Burke. The drama swept through San Francisco and finished the season before a sellout audience in Virginia City, Nevada, against a boomtown background of hammering and sawing that brought back bittersweet memories of Rome, Kansas. Will wrote on board the train between engagements, scribbling freely and without regard to capitals or punctuation, about massacres and buffalo hunts—borrowing liberally from tall tales he had heard around campfires and in the dank dimness of saloons, for he had run low on material from his own experience. His sister Helen would then correct his grammar and spelling back East and turn the amended scrawl over to Buntline or (increasingly, as the rotund journalist passed beyond Will's ken aboard his steam yacht on the East River) Arizona John, who would give it a literary twist before delivering it to the publisher. The stories appeared in the New York Weekly and the Saturday Evening Post, and, expanded to book length, through Beadle's Dime Library, and sold in the millions of copies. There seemed to be no bottom to this well. And he hated it.
This Old Bill Page 14
