“Muldoon?”
The other paused, smiling, looking at what he held. “Did you know, lad, that when you give an Indian a gift, they insist on givin’ you something in return?”
David took a good look at what Muldoon carried; it was a little china doll.
“That wasn’t much of a trade for a smart gambler like you,” David said.
“Aye, and look who’s talkin’.” Muldoon suddenly noticed. “No coat and missing the two finest horses in the West, now, just what—?”
“I got the respect of a better man than I am.” He smiled at the memory, and abruptly felt good about what he’d done. “And this.” He reached into his shirt for the small bracelet and held it up. “Let’s go, Muldoon; it’s colder than hell up here without coats.”
The Irishman clapped him on the back and they started walking toward the back trail together. “Ah lad, they’ll bust us down again, you know that; maybe even drum us out of the corps, comin’ back without any of our supplies, without our horses. Why, we ain’t even fired our rifles!”
David shrugged and put the bracelet back in his pocket. “I never was cut out to be a soldier, and winter’s too cold in Nebraska for an old guy with rheumatism. Have you ever thought about Texas? We could catch and break mustangs, build us a herd.”
Muldoon’s broad face broke into a grin. “Now that sounds just fine! Let’s go, lad!”
Glory watched the two top the rise, disappear over the other side. She sighed with relief, reached for the canteen, discovered it was full of hot broth, held it to Two Arrows’s lips as he swayed on the chestnut stallion’s back. “Here, drink this, my love; we’ve got everything we need to make it now. We’ve been given another chance.”
He looked stronger as he sipped the broth, the food and David’s coat bringing warmth back into his big body. He was a tough dog soldier; he would live.
The wolf howled somewhere far away, as if it were running hard across the prairie, moving away from the fort, headed toward the Cheyenne’s own country. The echo rang almost like a clarion call in the starry darkness, signifying that Heammawihio, the Great One Above was still in charge and looking out for his own.
She smiled. “It is a good omen. Now I will tell you; I am expecting your son; we will call him Wolf Song.”
For a moment, his jaw trembled, and he seemed overcome with emotion. “Why—?”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” she whispered. “Ne-mehotatse, my dearest, I love you.”
“Ne-mehotatse, my Proud One,” he answered. “We have a long life ahead of us together.”
“Together!” she agreed. “Forever together!”
Then they turned and rode away into the snowy night, following the wolf toward freedom.
To My Readers
Yes, the basic story you have just read is actual history. Approximately three hundred Cheyenne, less than a hundred of them poorly armed warriors, traveled fifteen hundred miles, fought four major skirmishes, and outwitted ten thousand soldiers, who were equally determined to stop these ragged, hungry Indians from returning to their beloved homeland. While accounts differ, it appears the Cheyenne dead in that flight were about ten warriors to about forty whites. The attempted escape from Camp (Fort) Robinson, on the other hand, was a slaughter.
Glory Halstead, Two Arrows, Lieutenant Krueger, and Corporal Muldoon are fictional. If the character of Two Arrows seems familiar, you have met him before as a minor character in my earlier books: Cheyenne Captive, Cheyenne Splendor, and riding as an army scout against the Nez Perce tribe in Song of the Warrior.
So what happened to the northern Cheyenne after that bloody, desperate flight from the barracks at Fort Robinson? Most were either killed or recaptured over the next several weeks, and the majority of the captured were wounded or badly frostbitten. The army trailed a handful of the survivors to the Hat Creek bluffs forty-five miles west of Fort Robinson, where a final battle ensued. When that was over, only eight or ten were missing and never accounted for. The army assumed these had either frozen to death or were wounded and had crawled away to die. Perhaps, instead, that handful of missing Cheyenne escaped to follow the wolf to freedom; at least, I want to think so.
Finally, the government, because of popular sentiment and mounting criticism, decided against sending the brave little group of captured survivors back to Indian Territory.
Five of the warriors were sent to Kansas to stand trial for the killings of whites there, but were finally released for lack of evidence. Perhaps it would have been embarrassing to try the Indians when so many Cheyenne children and old people had just been slaughtered by whites. Today, in the cemetery of the little town of Oberlin, Kansas, near the Nebraska border, there is a monument to the eighteen whites killed in that area during the Dull Knife raid. You’ll also find the nearby Decatur County Museum interesting. For more complete details on the Sappa Creek raid, I suggest a booklet the museum sells, authored by a local resident, George Nellans. The title is: Massacre of Indians and Cheyenne Indian Raid.
Dull Knife survived that infamous night in the escape from Fort Robinson. Both he and Little Wolf had been part of the 1866 so-called Fetterman Massacre, where a reckless captain led his troops into ambush and total annihilation by a combined force of Cheyenne and Lakota. Dull Knife died in 1883 in Montana and is buried in the Indian cemetery just north of Highway 212 on the east side of Lame Deer, Montana.
Little Wolf, who had also fought at the Little Bighorn battle, took his group to winter among the Lakota in Montana, and thus spared them from the bloody incident at Fort Robinson. It is perhaps ironic, that later, Little Wolf and many of the Cheyenne warriors who had been part of the exodus from Fort Reno ended up scouting for the white soldiers against their allies, the Lakota. Years later, while drunk, Little Wolf finally killed Thin Elk, gave up his position as chief, and went into exile. Almost forgotten, blind, and helpless, Little Wolf lived until 1904 and is buried next to his friend, Dull Knife.
At least twenty-five of the Cheyenne dead from the exodus were turned over to various museums for study by order of the army surgeon general. In October of 1993, the remains of these twenty-five were retrieved from display cases and dusty storage cabinets and returned to the northern tribe, who reburied them with traditional ceremonies to honor Cheyenne war dead at Busby, Montana. After 114 years, these brave ones went home at last.
Like Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Colonel William H. Lewis died in battle against the Cheyenne. In case you are curious, only one general was killed during all the Indian wars of the West, Brigadier General E.R.S. Canby, during the trouble with the Modoc tribe in 1873.
Major “Tip” Thornburgh, whom the New York papers had chided about being lost, would be killed in action in the autumn of 1879 during the Ute uprising in northwest Colorado. I’ve already told you that story in my February, 1997 Zebra romance, Warrior’s Prize.
Fort Reno still exists as an agricultural station. Many of us would like to see the neglected historical site turned into a park or museum, but ownership of the fort is in dispute between the government and the Cheyenne tribe, and until that is resolved, the old fort continues to deteriorate. If you’re curious, the site is near the town of El Reno, overlooking the famous Route 66 highway. Fort Reno boasts the best example ofa Victorian-period cavalry barn still in existence, and the historic cemetery is worth a look.
If you’re interested in the U.S. Cavalry, its two most famous horses are both in Kansas. Comanche, the famous bay gelding that was supposedly the only survivor of Custer’s last stand, has been stuffed and is on display in a glass case at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. The last mount on government rolls, Chief, also a bay gelding, died in 1968 at the age of thirty-six, and was buried with full military honors. There’s a magnificent, monument on his grave at Fort Riley, Kansas. The U.S. Cavalry Museum is also located at this fort. You may be surprised to hear that the last U.S. mounted cavalry charge took place during World War II in the Philippines against the Japanese on January
16, 1942.
As for forts, Fort Robinson, Nebraska, is now a state park. During World War II, Fort Robinson was used to train war dogs and as a center for German prisoners. I have walked its grounds with my fellow members of the Order of the Indian Wars. The barracks that housed the Cheyenne is long since gone, but there’s a good museum operated by the state historical society and a monument to the Lakota chief, Crazy Horse, who was murdered at Fort Robinson in 1877.
If you want to read more about the Cheyenne exodus, the best work on the subject is Cheyenne Autumn by one of my favorite authors, Mari Sandoz, reprinted in 1992 by University of Nebraska Press. A John Ford movie was made from this book in 1964, starring Richard Widmark and James Stewart. You can probably find it at your local video store. By the way, as you watch it, you might be interested to know it was not filmed in Oklahoma, Kansas, or Nebraska, where the actual events took place, but in Monument Valley, Arizona, using Navahos instead of Cheyenne.
Other books I would recommend are: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, The Fighting Cheyennes, by George B. Grinnell, published by University of Oklahoma Press, and Death on the Prairie, by Paul I. Wellman, University of Nebraska Press.
Cheyenne Song is my sixteenth Western/Indian romance for Zebra Books. Those of you who have been reading my novels for a while know all my books connect in a long continuing saga called the Panorama of the Old West. For those who want to write me to receive an autographed bookmark explaining how my stories all connect, plus news of upcoming books, please send a stamped, self-addressed #10 envelope to: Georgina Gentry, P.O. Box 162, Edmond, Oklahoma 73083-0162. Residents of foreign countries, please enclose postal vouchers I can exchange for U.S. stamps, as our postal authorities will not allow me to use your foreign stamps.
So what story will I tell next? There are two famous bank robberies in the history of the old West; I’m going to tell you about one of them. It’s probably the strangest tale I’ve ever written; part time travel, part paranormal, about a handsome, half-breed gunfighter named Johnny Logan. Johnny served time in the Nevada State Prison with Nevada Randolph, the hero from my earlier book, Nevada Dawn. After that, Johnny did time in Arizona Territory’s infamous Yuma Prison. Yes, this is one tough hombre!
Johnny has been riding with the Dalton gang and gets in such a desperate fix that he makes a deal with the devil. Johnny thinks he’s gotten the best of the bargain—until a blond divorcee named Angelica Newland enters his life and makes him regret his crooked. past and his deal. Is he willing to trade it all for her love?
And is this girl from the twentieth century brave enough to travel back in time and risk getting trapped there in order to help him break that damning contract?
Come along and relive the romance and excitement of the old West with this half-breed gunfighter and his lady in the most unusual story I’ve ever written. In the following pages, you will find an excerpt from this romance, tentatively titled Eternal Outlaw and presently scheduled for spring, 1999 ...
Hahoo naa Ne-mehotatse,
Georgina Gentry
Eternal Outlaw
Kansas. Late afternoon, October 5, 1892
Johnny Logan was bleeding to death, and he knew it. It was all he could do to stay on his paint stallion as it slowed to a walk. Only a couple of miles behind him in the frontier town lay a botched bank robbery, citizens and fellow outlaws dead or dying in the streets. Soon Johnny would be dead, too ... unless the posse got there first.
He put his hand to his bloody, gunshot arm and winced, as the horse stopped. God, he hurt so! Crimson blood dripped dark and wet onto the stallion’s white-and-black coat, then onto the saddle and into the prairie dust.
Johnny struggled to stay conscious, hanging on to the saddle horn, his head whirling. Where was he? He looked around at the desolate prairie. He saw a broken chair, some empty boxes, garbage, shattered dishes, and other refuse. Johnny threw back his head and laughed.
“A garbage dump! This is Coffeyville’s ash heap! How ironic! How funny!” He began to laugh as he reeled in the saddle, the stallion looking back at him as if questioning his sanity. “Don’t you get it, Crazy Quilt, old boy? I’m human trash; fittin’ ain’t it, that I should die here?”
The horse snorted and stamped its hooves as if awaiting orders to move on.
Johnny glanced at the sun soon to set on the western horizon. “You’re right, boy,” he mumbled, “gotta get outa here; law’s lookin’ for me. Reckon all the others are already dead.”
Johnny tried to urge his horse forward, but he no longer had the strength. Instead, he felt himself falling. He hit the ground hard and lay there a long moment, willing himself back into consciousness despite the pain. He lay in the midst of the rubble, his blood-smeared horse now munching stray blades of grass growing up through the trash.
If he could just stand up and get back on the horse. Johnny struggled, but he was growing weaker by the moment. He couldn’t even get up, much less mount and ride across the border into Indian Territory, where he might find refuge among the Kiowa. It would be dark soon, and Johnny was afraid of the dark; silly weakness for a tough, half-breed gunfighter. No matter, he thought; he wasn’t going to be alive to see the sun set.
“What a rotten end to a rotten life,” he muttered, and tried to staunch the flow of blood from his arm, but he didn’t even have a bandanna to tie around it. “The fastest gun in the West dies amid a pile of trash.”
Well, he was human garbage himself; the unwanted bastard of a mixed-blood Kiowa Indian girl and a frontier soldier. He didn’t even have a real name; Logan’s was the name of the saloon where, as a starving urchin, he’d been fed in exchange for sweeping up and emptying spittoons.
Johnny licked his cracked lips in desperation and screamed at the sky, “I don’t want to die! I want to live! I’d do anything to live!”
Abruptly, a rider seemed to appear out of nowhere, loping toward him. It must be the sheriff or a bounty hunter. If it were a posse, they’d string him up right here. Johnny managed to turn his head and look around, chuckled softly. “No tree,” he whispered. “Can’t lynch me; no tree.”
The stranger reined his shadow gray horse to a halt, leaned on his saddle horn, looking down at Johnny. “You’ve left a blood trail. I’m surprised no one but me has noticed it yet.”
Johnny stared up at him. The handsome stranger’s voice was deep as a tomb, and it seemed to echo through the stillness. His eyes glowed dark and hard as obsidian, and he fingered his small mustache. He was dressed all in black with the finest boots, Western hat, and a long frock coat.
Something about him sent a chill up Johnny’s back. “Don’t—don’t I know you?”
The lean stranger nodded and lit a slender cheroot as he stared down at Johnny in the twilight. “We’ve known each other a long time. I didn’t figure you recognized me when we played cards earlier today in the Lady Luck saloon. You cheat as badly as you rob banks. No wonder you’re a loser; you don’t have any real talent for evil.”
“Hot, so hot. Help me.” Johnny gasped, ran his tongue over his dry lips again. “You’ve got a canteen, give me just a sip of water.” .
The other grinned and shrugged as he dismounted. “You’ll think hot and thirsty when you get where you’re going.”
“Going? I can’t even ride. I—I don’t want to die,” Johnny begged, holding out a bloody hand in appeal. “Please, get me to a doctor—”
The gambler yawned and squatted next to Johnny, looked at the setting sun. “Stop whining, Logan, you’ve always been brave, no matter what.”
“I—I’ve never been this hurt before.”
“It’s almost over; you’ll be dead when the sun sets.”
Johnny stared up into the soulless dark eyes and then at the ghost gray horse. An eerie, troubling memory came to him of an old preacher on a street corner in a lawless trail town shouting scripture at the sinners passing by.
... and I looked up and beheld a pale horse and his name that sat upon him was Death
and hell followed with him.
Johnny fumbled for his Colt. “Whoever the hell you are, help me, damn you, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” the gambler blew cigar smoke into the air. “Your pistol is empty.”
“How—how do you know—?”
The other only smiled.
Of course his Colt was empty. The bank robbery had been an inferno of gunfire. Johnny knew who this rider was now. Ironic. He had not planned to die like this. Handsome, tough gunfighters went out in a blaze of bullets in some wild saloon with half the town and all the pretty, adoring whores watching. “You—you’ve come for me?”
The other nodded and tossed away his cigar. “Of course, there is an option....”
Johnny looked at his life running out, mixing with the dust beneath him. “Anything,” he gasped, “I’d do anything—”
“Fine.” The stranger pulled a paper from his black frock coat, knelt next to Johnny. “Here’s a contract; good for one hundred years with option to renew.”
Johnny began to laugh through his pain. “A joke; it’s a joke; I’m dreamin’ all this.”
“Just sign it,” the gambler snapped. “I’m running out of patience, and you’re running out of daylight.”
Johnny looked toward the dying sun. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch.” The other unrolled the ancient-looking parchment and laid it next to Johnny’s hand. “People make bargains with me all the time.”
Johnny felt so very weary and in pain. “Nobody ever did nothin’ for me, and I don’t do nothin’ for no one.”
Cheyenne Song Page 34
