The Stalkers

by Terry C. Johnston

  The iron-tipped point of a Sioux arrow had lodged in the front of Frank Harrington’s skull that first day as well. Another scout had loosened the sinew binding the shaft to arrow-point so that the wound could be bandaged. Harrington went back to defending the island with the rest. Even after an Indian bullet grazed his forehead, knocking loose the embedded iron arrow-tip. A new bandage was all that was required to keep the blood from Harrington’s eyes as he returned to fighting with the snipers hidden on the riverbanks.

  Many of those imprisoned on that sandy island swallowed down their own pain and squeezed the thoughts of their own misery out of their minds, alone. Brushing the maggots from the open wounds. Bathing the bullet holes with rags of murky water.

  Life descended into nothing more than the essentials. Food. Water. And never thinking about home.

  “Here, Major.” McCall came up with a steaming tin mess-cup that hissed with the cold drops of drizzling rain. “Drink some of this.”

  Forsyth held it under his nose. “What is it?”

  “Don’t ask,” Seamus suggested, grinning. “Try it first.”

  The major drank. “Not horse. What’d you fellas do? Boil down some Cheyenne moccasins?”

  They shared a quiet laugh.

  Grover spoke up. “Slinger bagged him a little coyote.”

  “Coyote?”

  “One what got a little too curious, I’d say,” Donegan added.

  “Bless that little Jew,” Forsyth replied, then sipped at his hot soup.

  “I recall how most of the rest gave Slinger a hard time when we were riding out those first few days,” Donegan said.

  “Weren’t too kind to him, were they?” McCall asked.

  “Times were, I felt bad for talking him into joining,” Forsyth admitted. “But he’s acquitted himself courageously.”

  “He was hurt when you wouldn’t let him go with Jack Stillwell that first night,” McCall said.

  Forsyth nodded, staring at the dregs of coyote stew in his tin cup. “I know. But he’d have no business out there. At least Stillwell grew up out in this country. Living outdoors. Slinger … the Jew would have no business on his own out there.”

  “A good shot,” Donegan offered. “I don’t think there’s a man wouldn’t be proud to fight alongside Slinger now.”

  Forsyth smiled. “And that Lyden fella, the one who gave Slinger such a time of it, right up to the morning we were attacked.”

  Grover snorted. “Ain’t it always like that, Major? The bullies who blow hard like they’re the biggest bulls in the lick.”

  McCall chuckled as well. “Soon as we made it to the island that first charge, Lyden throwed himself down … shaking like a willow in a windstorm.”

  “He hasn’t fought since,” Grover growled.

  “I doubt he will,” Forsyth added. “He’s been sufficiently shamed by Slinger’s quiet courage.”

  Donegan watched the sun creep out of the gray clouds to the west, firing the hillsides with orange and purple hues. “That boy’s become a man this trip out, Major.”

  “For all but Lyden,” Forsyth said, handing his cup to McCall, “I’m certain we’ve all found something new inside to be proud of. Billy, it’s time I speak to the men. Call them together now.”

  As McCall stretched out of the pit to round up the rest, Grover looked back at Forsyth. “Major, none of the men can even stomach the horsemeat no more.”

  “That’s a big part of why I’m calling the men here,” he explained. “We’re on the brink of starvation.”

  “I never had a particular touchy stomach, Major,” Seamus said, “but even I can’t keep the horsemeat down … even with gunpowder sprinkled on it.”

  “It’s plums or coyote now,” Grover added as the others came out of the first fading light of summer’s early evening.

  “Men, we’ve survived four days now. But the real test is yet to come.”

  He waited for some of the muttering to quiet itself. “Without horsemeat, we’re in a mess of it now. Slinger here got us a coyote that’s gone through three boilings to feed the wounded and the rest. That’s what it’s going to take now. From each of you. We’re going to have to try a little harder, hunt a little longer, perhaps hunt a bit farther from the island.”

  The muttering from some grew louder.

  “I know it’s not the safest thing we can do is try to get off the island to hunt for game. But, if we don’t—we’ll all starve here together.”

  “Major Forsyth’s right,” Donegan spoke up. “If a man wants and volunteers, he can hunt off the island. That’s the only way we’re going to last.”

  “What about us as can walk, Major?”

  Forsyth looked over at Lyden, his bushy brows narrowing. “What are you saying? Spit it out.”

  “If we can get off the island, Major … we can walk on out of here, can’t we?”

  Forsyth drew himself up against the side of the rifle-pit. “Some of you can walk, Lyden. Some of us … well—right now the best of chances for us all is to stay with the island until help arrives.”

  “But, Major——”

  “That’s all, Lyden!” he snapped, then watched the civilian slink back into the crowd. “I called you here for just a moment, to tell you about the hunting … and to thank you men. I fought with Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah, and took some Confederate bullets down there … no offense meant, Dick Gantt!”

  Most of the men laughed along with the Southerner.

  “Damn, Major. I’d feel proud if man like you was wearin’ my rebel lead!”

  Forsyth chuckled, feeling better for the warm, pasty soup awash in his belly. “I fought with Sheridan … and I know the general will be proud of each one of you for what you’ve done here.”

  “We’ve made history, Major. Nothing short of it,” McCall cheered.

  “Hear! Hear!” some of the others shouted.

  “To Major Forsyth!” Donegan raised his thick brogue. “He led us out … and by the saints—he’ll lead us back again!”

  * * *

  Corporal Reuben Waller liked the smell of the air here on the high plains. Nothing like the air back in the South. Out here, nothing was like that life he had left far behind.

  When the war ended, Waller had come to Kansas, hoping like so many others of both armies to start anew. But quickly found there was little opportunity for a Negro here on the plains. The army welcomed him with open arms the next year so that by the end of 1866, Rube Waller had been sworn in as a member of the new 10th Cavalry. He had been assigned to Company H, under the command of Capt. L. H. Carpenter. An honest, tee-totalling New Jersey man who brooked no disobedience from his brunettes, but neither did he sneer at his Negro soldiers behind their backs in the way of other white officers.

  It was a proud moment one cold, crisp day early last fall when Carpenter had called Waller aside after arriving at Fort Wallace. The captain asked the tall, lean Negro to become his new orderly. Ever since that day, a warm surge of camaraderie for his commander had never diminished.

  L. H. Carpenter, he thought again as the captain led his H Company west from the walls of Fort Wallace on routine patrol to keep the Denver Road open this dawn of 20 September, eighteen-and-sixty-eight. Twice breveted for gallantry during the war. Once at Gettysburg … and again in the Shenandoah at Winchester. Riding for General Phil Sheridan his own goddamned self!

  Talk had it the last couple of days that the bunch of civilians Major Forsyth had rounded up to chase the Cheyenne were probably going to strike a match to the powder-keg in this part of the Central Plains. And that pleased Carpenter’s H Company no measure. Like Waller, they had all been itching for a good scrap with the Indians.

  Beneath the overcast sky, orderly Rube Waller brushed his gold chevrons, proud to be riding beside Captain Carpenter. And smiled as he gazed into the distance across the awakening plains. Carpenter had them pointing their noses west, for Sandy Creek, some forty-odd miles from Wallace.

  The only thing that could make h
im more proud would be riding with the captain into a good fight of it with the Cheyenne.

  * * *

  As the sun fell over John Donovan and A. J. Pliley alone on this western rim of rolling tableland, the whole sky pinked up in a blaze before going purple. In no time were the heavens dark and dusted with stars, they came to the banks of a water-course a good deal wider than the streams and creeks they had been stumbling across so far.

  “What night is it, Donovan?” Pliley asked after immersing his face in the cool water.

  “Twenty-first. How far you think it is now?”

  “Not far now, Jack.” And he leaned back, reaching for his canteen. “I figure this is a fork of the Smoky Hill. Taste it.”

  “No shit?”

  He nodded, dipping his canteen into the sweet water. “We keep going west, we’ll bump into the wagon-road going to Cheyenne Wells.”

  “West?” Donovan squeaked. “But Wallace gotta be east of here. Here I thought you’d done some scouting for the Kansas cavalry.”

  “I did. And you’re right. Wallace is east of here.”

  “Then why the hell we going west?”

  “Let’s say I’d like to ride into Wallace, Jack. Your feet gotta be every bit as dogged as mine are by now.”

  “How far a piece is it?”

  “Can’t say … till we hit the Federal Road.”

  “And once we hit the road?”

  Pliley came up, wringing back his long, greasy hair he had dipped in the cool water. “Thirty, maybe forty mile.”

  “That’s all!” Donovan felt cheered. “We can do that walking on our hands, A. J.”

  He snorted a quick laugh. “If them Indians got the road shut down and we don’t find a coach or wagon headed east to Wallace … we may just have to walk the rest of it on our hands.”

  “For now, I’ll stick with these sore, bloody feet of mine.” Muttering, Donovan turned southwest from the stream with Pliley. “Can’t see how them red niggers stand to wear these moccasins when they should jump at the chance to wear a good pair of boots.”

  The cool dip at the river lasted Donovan for the next few hours as his shirt dried. Then the wind shifted out of the northwest as clouds scudded across the sky, blotting the quarter-moon.

  “Hold up, A. J. How we gonna tell which way to go now?” Donovan stopped, catching his breath from their bruising pace.

  Pliley sniffed.

  “What you smelling for now?”

  Pliley came closer. “Air always smelled different farther west I come. Suppose it’s closer to the mountains.”

  “So?”

  “So, from the smell of things, we might be in Colorady Territory.”

  “Colorady? Jesus, you got us off——”

  “We ain’t far now, Jack.”

  “You sure?”

  “Road can’t be that far.”

  “Let’s go,” Donovan said, his spirits renewed once more.

  Four hours later as they blindly felt their way west by south under the heaving sky, the pair ran onto the Smoky Hill Road.

  “It’s wagon-ruts, by God!” Donovan hollered, dancing on his wounded, tired feet in the middle of the dusty trail.

  “Told you,” Pliley answered wearily, head turning east, then west, then east again.

  “Which way now, A. J?” Donovan asked, seeing for the first time the signs of strain coming over his partner.

  “I … I think…”

  “Yes?”

  “West?”

  “Still west?”

  “Cheyenne Wells … it’s gotta be west of here.”

  “Is that a guess—a hunch or what?” Donovan grew suspicious, grabbing Pliley, supporting his weary partner.

  “Yeah.” Pliley drew himself up again, shoulders back. “Cheyenne Wells gotta be over there.”

  Donovan followed his partner on into the darkness, hoping.

  A. J. Pliley came through that black, cold morning of 22 September. A few miles’ more brought them to the road-ranch situated three miles east of Cheyenne Wells in Colorado Territory. They hurried toward the dim lantern-lit structure that loomed out of the early morning gloom.

  “Hold it right there!” a voice boomed out of the darkness.

  They halted in their tracks.

  “Howdy, friend!” John Donovan shouted back. “Me and my partner sure done in.”

  A figure approached. Even in the darkness Donovan could see the shotgun in his hands. “Who you?”

  “We were with Major Forsyth. Out of Wallace. Got hit by the whole Cheyenne nation four days back. Five now.”

  “You fellas all that escaped?” the ranchman asked as he came close enough to look the two in the face.

  “There’s more alive … was,” Pliley explained. “Back there. When’s next stage east?”

  “Be here six in the morning,” the ranchman answered, using the shotgun muzzle to signal the pair ahead to the low, adobe building surrounded on three sides with corrals. “C’mon in. You boys could do with something to eat.”

  “Eat?” Donovan asked, his voice rising in a squeaky rasp. “Why the hell would we wanna eat when you probably don’t have anything to offer what’s better’n mule jerky?”

  * * *

  By late that same morning of the twenty-second, Jack Stillwell dragged Trudeau over a low rise to find the sun shining dull on a narrow cut of dusty wagon-road.

  “Sit, Pete. Rest. We’ll go on in a minute.”

  For what would be the last time in his journey south, Jack reached inside his shirt, pulling out Forsyth’s only map. Slowly he sounded out the words as his fingers traced the route from the X the major had showed him he figured for the island’s position. South by east he ran a dirty fingernail, crossing rivers and streams he and the old man had forded in their dangerous journey.

  He clenched his teeth at last, glancing into the hazy sun of an overcast sky. Fighting back the sting of tears and the knot at his throat.

  “C’mon, Pete. We almost home now.”

  He was pulling Trudeau to his feet when he caught wind of hammering hoofbeats on the road. Out of the east. From the sounds of it, wasn’t many of them. The tears poured onto his cheeks as he cursed himself. To come this far and get so close … only to have to sell his life here by this dusty road that would have taken him on to Wallace.

  “We fight,” Pete whispered, his strength almost gone.

  Jack nodded. “Yes, old man. We made a good try of it, didn’t we?”

  Trudeau smiled, his eyes glistening, his stained teeth like pine shavings. “You got me this far, boy. I go the rest of the way myself.”

  They pulled their pistols, inching backward into a stand of weeds as the horsemen broke the hilltop.

  Pete choked, rubbing his eyes. “S-sol…”

  “Yes, by God!” Jack shouted as he recognized dusty blue tunics worn by the two riders.

  “Buff … buffalo soldiers…” Pete cheered weakly, waving his pistol.

  “Brunettes!” Jack shouted, dancing round the old man, letting the tears fall without shame.

  “Hold up there!” One of the Negro soldiers flung up his arm. Bouncing beneath the arm he carried a leather satchel, strapped over his left shoulder. The pair skidded to a stop in the dust. “Who you fellas?”

  “Come from up on the Republican,” Jack answered, snorting back some of his tears. “Mighty glad to see you.”

  “From the Republican?”

  “With Major Forsyth’s scouts.”

  The soldier glanced at his companion, wide-eyed. “You with Forsyth?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Colonel Bankhead at Wallace starting to believe you all done in,” the soldier explained.

  “Wallace that way?” Jack asked, pointing east.

  “Yessuh.”

  “Where you two going in such a hurry?” Stillwell prodded.

  “Dispatches for Captain Carpenter, Tenth Cavalry.” He patted his dispatch satchel.

  “Carpenter?”

  “On patr
ol northwest of here,” the soldier explained.

  “Where’bouts?” Jack asked, yanking his map out again.

  “Up by Sandy Creek.”

  Stillwell found it on the map. “Listen close!” The excitement rose in his voice, drawing the soldiers close, until they sat directly over the young scout. “That horse you riding got some bottom left in it?”

  “Why, I s’pose so. Why?”

  “You take this map to Captain Carpenter. Make sure he sees this X Major Forsyth put on it. You see it?”

  “I do.”

  “Carpenter can make it to the river before anyone else. So tell the captain this X shows where Forsyth and the rest of ’em are holding out against the Cheyenne.”

  “How many Cheyenne?”

  Jack shook his head. “Damn lots. Sioux and Arapaho too. Can’t figure——”

  “We’ll tell him,” the soldier said, snatching up the map and stuffing it in with his dispatches. “You go on into Wallace. Your friend there looks done in.”

  How dearly Jack wanted to ride on with the couriers, to be there when that Captain Carpenter and his brunettes rode into that distant river valley, just so he could see the looks on those faces of his new friends. Especially Slinger’s. His good friend, Slinger.

  But as Stillwell gazed back at old Pete, squatting in the dust alongside that wagon-road, he realized he most needed to see Trudeau to Fort Wallace.

  “You need a canteen of water?” the second soldier asked, speaking for the first time.

  Jack took it, handing it on to Pete. “We thank you, soldiers.”

  “No, we thank you!” the first courier said, his teeth gleaming in his shiny, ebony face. “We’uns in Captain Carpenter’s unit been looking for some action for a long time now. And this is it. A chance to get a lick or two in for ourselves again’ Roman Nose and his hellions!”

  Chapter 37

  “We will rejoin you before the new moon,” Jack O’Neill told Two Crows.

  He held an arm out to indicate the fifty warriors who were staying behind, both Cheyenne and Sioux, as the villages of Two Crows and Pawnee Killer struck their lodges in a hasty, noisy departure.

  “How long will you stay, Nibsi?” Two Crows asked.

  “As long as it takes. Until there are no more whitemen on the island. Or, until all these warriors are dead.”