Chapter 24
Late-summer nights on the high plains had a way of coming slowly down, like a red-hued damask curtain being drawn on a too-long day.
Like the sun, so the heat eased out of the day, bringing little relief to the seventeen wounded after that final charge.
Only twenty-eight of those fifty-one who had marched out of Fort Wallace were not suffering some description of painful wound in the day-long sniping and massed attacks.
Though severely wounded himself, Maj. George Forsyth gave the orders for work to continue connecting the rifle-pits, having a handful carry on with work to widen a central pit where the severely wounded would be watched. Then he sent McCall after the marksmen in the farthest rifle-pit. One of them, for many years a trusted scout for the army, this day having proved himself once more invaluable to Major Forsyth.
The other, a late-comer and troublemaker who had only signed on to reach Fort Wallace in safety, there to run down his uncle. An uncle who lay close to death at this twilight hour, yet clung to life with a tenacity of a street-brawler in olde County Tyrone.
“Sergeant said you wanted to see us,” Grover announced as he and Donegan sank into Forsyth’s pit.
The major nodded, with both hands lifting the leg shattered by a Cheyenne bullet. He swallowed down the pain. “My chain of command’s been whittled down a bit today, boys. You’re it.”
Seamus glanced at the other two, astounded. “I ain’t no sojur. Why me, Major?”
“McCall here, he’s army. An impressive record in the war. Sharp there, he’s about the best there is in this part of the country. And you … well, you, Mr. Donegan, are somewhere in between, I suppose.”
“I figure you can take that as a compliment, Seamus,” Grover said, smiling.
“About as close to one as I’ll hand you,” Forsyth added. “I called you three here to talk of night defense of the island.”
“These Indians ain’t gonna attack at night, Major,” Sharp said.
“Far as everything I’ve learned from the likes of Jim Bridger himself, Grover’s right,” Donegan added.
“They fear for their souls if they’re killed at night.”
“All right.” Forsyth sighed. “Let’s assume we have no fear until dawn.”
“That’s when it will come,” Grover said.
“I’ve been thinking ever since things calmed down after that last charge.” Forsyth plunged ahead with his agenda. “Besides some housekeeping chores with food and water, the most important matter is getting word out that we’re here. Pinned down. And in need of relief.”
“Getting word out, Major?” Grover asked, his voice rising.
“I’ll volunteer, sir.” McCall inched forward, saluting.
“Thank you, Billy—but you’re not going.”
“You’re sending these two?” McCall asked.
He finally wagged his head. “That’s the damned thing of it. I need all three of you here. Nine of us are so critically wounded that I can’t spare any of you. So, Billy—it’s time you gathered the able-bodied men. Call them all here now for a short meeting.”
Minutes later Donegan watched the first of the weary, red-eyed scouts limp up to the edge of the major’s pit in the deepening dusk of the plains. Without a word, the twenty-eight crouched in the lengthening shadows of the swamp-willow and brush and tall grass, huddled near the protective ring of the bloating horse carcasses.
“Fellas, I think it’s time we took inventory of our situation,” Forsyth began.
Donegan heard some man grumble from the growing darkness.
“What was that?” the major demanded. “Who spoke?”
“I did, Major.”
“Sounds like that was you, Lane.”
“Aye, Major.”
“What you got to say?”
“Just that we all damned well know what our frigging situation is.”
Forsyth let a few others spew out the venom they had dammed up all day long, hunkered down in their bloody gopher-holes.
“You boys aren’t in such bad shape, are you now?”
No one replied to Forsyth’s prodding.
“Perhaps you’re right. Wilson and Culver. Beecher and Mooers may have it best of all, don’t they?”
Suddenly McCall wheeled on the group. Donegan could see the sergeant’s sunburned face glow all the redder.
“You sonsabitches! Here the major lays, bleeding in three places—and you chugwater rats think you got room to flap your jaws. Damn you!”
“Sergeant McCall.” Forsyth reached out, tugging on the non-com’s pants-leg to get him seated once more. “I’ll conduct the business at hand.”
“I … I’m sorry, Major,” Lane spoke up, crumpling his hat in his bloody hands. “I figure I speak for the rest, sir—maybe we wouldn’t made it through the day without you stopping us going for the riverbank.”
“Hear! Hear!” shouted a few more.
“Huzzahs for the major!”
“That’s more like it,” Grover added as they simmered down. “I ain’t any more army than the rest of you, by God. But I’ll tell you what. I figure the major here’s gonna get the rest of us off this goddamned island … and I’ll be one to let him give the orders. Besides”—and he let them see his smile—”any of you figure you’re going to try things on your own and not play it Forsyth’s way—you’ll have me and my friend here to reckon with.”
Donegan watched most of the twenty-six faces turn his way, then found Grover pointing him out. He nodded reluctantly.
“Time now for us to have but one commander,” Seamus said. “Not a one of us will see the sun set on another day if we don’t stand behind the major now.”
Donegan felt something wet hit his cheek. He gazed into the sky, finding the dark underbellies of pewter clouds boiling in prairie torment.
“That rain I feel?” McCall asked, swiping at his own forehead.
“Be a blessing for us all,” replied John Donovan.
“Long as none of us gets chilled to the bone,” Forsyth added. “Gets cold enough out here on the prairie without the rain to soak a man.”
“Only a drizzle, Major,” Sharp Grover cheered. “Won’t none of us get a soaking. Just enough to take the heat off us and the guns.”
A few of the scouts chuckled, then waited for Forsyth to get on with it.
“Like Sergeant McCall was telling me after that last charge, fellas: We turned ’em today. And by God—I know in my guts we can turn ’em again tomorrow if we have to.”
“Major,” Grover jumped in, “we’ve taken some starch out of ’em already.”
“That’s right,” Forsyth said, smiling weakly. “Now, you boys crawl in here a bit closer. I’m a little weak now, so I can’t holler too loud.”
He waited while the twenty-eight crowded in, the stench of their stale, cold sweat and dried blood along with what fear they had shared as brothers-in-arms all washed anew with the cool, summer drizzle softly splattering against their bearded faces, gently soaking their damp wool and linsey-cotton shirts.
“Sergeant McCall’s in charge of work details tonight.”
“Work details?” whined more than one voice from the darkness.
“We’ll work at what’s got to be done. Then we’ll rest.” The major went ahead, undaunted. “I want Burke to widen his water supply some. He’s down to a good source at the bottom of his pit.”
“Aye, Major,” Martin Burke replied. “Consider it done.”
“McCall will get about a dozen of you connecting the rifle-pits. That way when the attack comes at sunrise tomorrow, we can get from one pit to another without exposing ourselves needlessly.”
“Good thinking, Major,” Grover commented, scratching a week’s worth of stubby whiskers on the side of his chin.
“We have water, ammunition, and a place to hunker down when they start bombarding us again. All we need now is food.”
“Ah, for milk and honey!” Pliley cheered, drawing a few laughs.
“Sorry
, A. J. We’ll have to settle for horse,” Forsyth said with a grin.
“Just as long as it ain’t mule!” a voice called out, eliciting more chuckles.
“McCall, see that you get about a half-dozen put to work skinning back the horses and cutting meat from them. We can salvage a lot if we get the meat cooled down quick enough.”
“Come tomorrow, that sun up there’s gonna turn the rest to soup, Major,” Donegan added sourly.
“You’re right, Irishman. That’s why I want as much cut and cooked tonight as possible. We’ll wrap what we don’t eat tonight in a rubber poncho and bury it in a pit next to the central one where we’re bringing the wounded.”
“What do you want the rest of the men doing, sir?”
“Sergeant,” he said, gazing up at McCall, “you’ll assign men to bring the wounded into the central pit. The rest are to start fires. But don’t light them till you’ve dug yourself a deep fire-hole. And those of you the sergeant has cooking meat—stay out of the light as much as possible. I don’t want any more casualties tonight.”
“What about the rest of us?” Donegan asked.
He turned to face the big civilian. “Once you’ve seen Liam O’Roarke made comfortable here in the pit with the rest of the wounded, I want you standing guard over the others. You and Grover. Hutch Farley?”
“Yes, Major?” the youngster answered quietly.
“Once your pa is resting here with me, you get out there and stand watch with Grover.”
“Stillwell’s a good shot too, sir,” Sharp commented.
“I know, but I’ve got plans for him,” Forsyth hinted. “Once we’ve strengthened our pits by ringing them with the saddles taken off all the dead horses, I turn to the next immediate problem.”
“Getting outta here?” someone snorted from the dark. A few of the scouts laughed self-consciously.
“Damn right, fellas,” Forsyth answered softly. “All we’ve got to eat is horsemeat that’s started to go bad. And we haven’t got a blessed drop of medicine for our wounded, no bandages except for rags torn from our own shirts and dipped in this muddy water seeping into the bottom of our rifle-pits. Our only chance, boys—is getting word to Wallace.”
“A damned fool’s errand that is, Major!” Pete Trudeau snarled sourly.
Forsyth turned to the oldest of the plainsmen gathered in that pit as the drizzle slacked off. Off in the distance some green phosphorescent lightning brightened the western prairie for an instant. Then Forsyth dropped the canister of shot on them.
“I’m asking for volunteers, Trudeau. No one ordering a man to go.”
“I offered, Major.”
“You’re staying, Irishman.” He turned, his eyes piercing the dark.
“How far you figure it is, Major?”
“Over a hundred miles.”
“I’ll go.”
“That sounded like Jack Stillwell’s voice.”
“It were, Major. Said I’d go.”
Donegan thought he heard the breath catch in Forsyth’s throat before he spoke. “Y-you’re just a … a youngster … lot younger that the rest of these——”
“I’m volunteering, Major. I’m every bit as good as——”
“Dammit! I know that, Jack,” he snapped, the aggravation, the indecision, edging his voice. “All right. All right, you’ll go, Stillwell.”
“And if I’m going, Major—I’m requesting permission to pick my partner.”
Forsyth was silent for a few moments. They could all hear the rise and fall of Mooers’s ragged breath in the same pit. Then the major spoke.
“Who you want to try with you, Jack?”
“Old Pete.”
“You’ll go with Jack, Trudeau?”
He cleared his throat. “I go with the boy, Major.”
Forsyth snorted back some dribble from the end of his nose, then gave his orders. “All right. You men know what we need doing. McCall, get these fellas to work. I want a lot of meat cooked—for the wounded, and for the two who leave at full-dark.”
Forsyth waited while McCall assigned duty, calling names out of memory rather than referring to the small notebook he had carried out of Fort Hays nearly three weeks ago, pages filled with his scrawl detailing duty rosters.
Once the twenty-six spread out along the rifle-pits, cutting meat, building fires, connecting rifle-pits, Forsyth whispered to McCall, Grover, and Donegan to draw close.
“Fellas, the pain’s getting pretty bad in my leg.”
“That bullet’s got to come out, Major,” Grover said.
“No.” He said it a little too strongly. “Not … just yet, Sharp.”
“What I’m worried about is come a time I lose consciousness.” And Forsyth gazed down at Dr. Mooers. “Get like our surgeon … or worse, like Beecher in his final hours. I … I just want you three to understand where things stand if I can’t command here.”
“I’ll take over, sir,” McCall spoke up.
“This is hard, Billy, but I want you to understand me. You and me—we aren’t fighting Rebels anymore. This is a whole new game out here. Don’t take offense at what orders I’m laying down. You’re a damned good soldier … but to keep these men pulled together … to hold out until we get word to Wallace and a relief column gets back, I need Grover in charge.”
“Major, for the better part of a week we’ll be holed up here, waiting for them two to make it to Wallace and back with help.”
“That’s why you’re in charge if I can’t command, Sharp.”
“Yes, Major.”
“I … I understand, sir,” McCall said, his voice cracking a bit. “I’ll help Sharp every way I can.”
“I know you will, Billy. That’s why I asked to have you along. You’re the best damned sergeant I could get my hands on. And I know you won’t let me down now.”
“No, sir.”
“We all understand one another?”
“I do, Major.”
“You, Donegan?”
“Aye, Major. I’m here to follow orders—like the rest.”
“By God, Irishman—you damned well better let Grover know what you’re thinking as well. You come up with an idea how to defend this hell-hole, you tell him.”
“Blessed saints, I’ve never been one to keep my mouth shut, Major. And with every Dog Soldier in the territory camped on our doorstep out there—I sure as hell ain’t gonna worry about speaking my mind if it gets these men off this island in one piece.”
“Thank you, boys.” Forsyth sighed in the dark, turning to watch a handful of fires beginning to twinkle brightly, glowing red on the faces of those who had started them down in fire-pits.
“We’ll pull through, Major,” McCall cheered.
“That’s right, Billy,” Forsyth replied. “If hunger and thirst and infected wounds don’t do to us what the Cheyenne couldn’t.”
Chapter 25
In that day this far eastern rim of Colorado Territory was a veritable paradise for the nomadic tribes who followed the great Republican herds in their seasonal migrations. Not much of any settlement east of Denver or west of Fort Wallace marred the landscape. In 1868 this land was a hunter’s paradise, whether he sought turkey, quail, or blue-grouse whirring into the sky. Deer, elk and antelope hid in the thick cover along water-courses and immediately bounded out of range at man’s approach. Ducks and geese annually made two passes over this rolling prairie grassland, staying only a short time amongst the lush reeds and tall, protective brush beside each river, stream and creek, water-fowl going and coming with their own seasonal imperatives.
Just like that country of the Big Horns, Seamus thought as he felt his way back toward his rifle pit and Uncle Liam. Places as good as these the Injins hold on to with a mighty fierce grip.
He stopped suddenly, crouching. His ears strained as he held his breath, eyes widening to catch any movement on the bank as the sky grayed with dusk. Movement along the north bank. He figured they were pickets ordered posted by the war-chiefs, to assure themselves
none of the white men crept off the island and sneaked away in the dark.
Injuns don’t attack at night, he recalled Jim Bridger telling him across their five-day journey to Crow country, where they would visit the aging mulatto mountain man, Jim Beckwourth. Bridger echoed Sharp Grover’s words to Major Forsyth.
Brownskins don’t never fight at night, neither. Bad medicine to their kind—when a warrior is killed after sundown, his soul wanders for all time. Never finding rest because it wanders between earth and sky.
His stomach growled, reminding him of the wild plums he had picked that last evening they made camp below the bluffs on the north bank. He had wrapped them in some oilcloth, then strapped them in his saddlebags. That made him remember The General.
It was a painful walk, groping his way among the men and the dark pits to reach the north slope of the sandy island. Painful, too, finding the big animal already stinking, bloating after some fourteen hours beneath a summer sun. Its lips drawn back, teeth bared in a grotesque, mournful grin. Ribcage dotted with huge, dark holes, each one puffy at the end of a dried streamer of blood.
Here beside the carcass, amid the faint noises of the others digging in the wet sand behind him, Seamus listened to the night-sounds of the insects at work on the gore and blood. Glad he didn’t have to see it.
Making quick work of the McClellan saddle, he yanked it, his bedroll, and saddlebags from the big animal, then splashed out of the shallow stream onto the sandy island once more. He tossed his wet tack onto the grass, turned, and knelt by The General’s eyes, open and glazed from those last frantic seconds of the hardest ride of its life.
He stroked the animal’s neck, ran his fingers through the mane. Patted the strong jawline, saying good-bye in his own way. And when he had it all cried out, Seamus ran a damp sleeve across his face, gathered his saddle-tack, and moved off through the plum thicket.
“Seamus.”
“Sharp,” he replied as he approached the front of the island. “Liam … is he still——”
“Still breathing,” Grover replied. “Don’t figure it, how a man like him can hold on like this, what with losing so much…”
“I know,” he answered as Grover’s voice dropped off self-consciously. Seamus stepped into the pit, sand-sliding his way to O’Roarke’s side.
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