Bloodshed of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “I want.”

  “Well, that’s why we come up here, Chief. We brought them to you.” He pointed to the two guns. “Do you have any money?”

  Cut Nose looked at one of the other Indians, who walked back to his horse, then brought two cloth bags. He emptied the bags onto the blanket Harris had been sleeping on. The contents were a mixture of gold coins and gold nuggets. Even the quickest estimate convinced Harris that there was more money here than he had anticipated. So much that he didn’t even bring up the idea of charging more for the ammunition.

  “It is not as much money as I wanted, but it will do,” he said, not wanting to let on how pleased he really was with the amount. “But we brought the guns here, so they are yours.”

  “You show how to use,” Cut Nose said.

  “Yeah, all right,” Harris said.

  Opening the box on the caisson of one of the guns, he took out an empty magazine, then showed it to Cut Nose.

  “This is called a magazine,” he said.

  Opening one of the cases of ammunition, he took out a handful of bullets and started sticking them down into the magazine.

  “Before you can shoot the gun, you have to fill the magazine with bullets. Like this.” He demonstrated by pushing several down into the magazine.

  “Next, you stick it down in here like this, point at what you want to shoot”—he aimed the gun at a small bush—“then turn this crank.”

  Harris turned the crank rapidly, spinning the six barrels. As each barrel came under the firing pin, it fired the rounds in rapid sequence.

  The gun roared, fire leaped out from the end of the barrel, and the small shrub that Harris had selected as a target, began disintegrating as the stream of heavy fifty-caliber bullets whipped through the branches.

  “Ayeee!” several of the Indians shouted at the demonstration.

  “Now you try it,” Harris said, holding his hand out toward the gun and stepping away so Cut Nose could move behind the gun. Cut Nose stepped behind the gun and started turning the crank. It began firing, but because Cut Nose was not bracing it, the gun pivoted about on its caisson wheels, spraying bullets everywhere. Harris and his men managed to get down. But one Indian and two of the Indian ponies were hit, and they went down.

  Despite the fact that he had shot one of his own, and two ponies, Cut Nose let out a shout of enthusiasm and excitement. After that, he started dancing around, and the others joined him.

  “Listen to that! That’s a Gatling!” Falcon said, slapping his legs against the side of his horse and urging him forward.

  Dorman hurried behind him.

  After a short gallop, they were close enough that they could hear some of the bullets cutting into the trees around them.

  “Whoa, hold it!” Falcon said, reining in his mount. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’d better stop here.”

  Both riders stopped, then led their horses into a little draw where they would be protected from stray bullets. Pulling their carbines from their saddle sheaths, they climbed up the side of the butte to get into position to look down on the other side. Once in position, they saw the two guns, and those who were gathered around them. One of the Indians was pushing shells into the magazine, while one of the white men was showing him how to do it.

  “That’s Cut Nose,” Dorman said quietly, pointing to the Indian. “He’s a mean one, all right. If he could get these guns back to the Indians before the gen’rul runs into ’em, why, he could become the top dog among ’em.”

  “And I recognize two of the white men,” Falcon said. “That is Clete Harris, and that is Jim Garon. It’s no wonder now that Garon beat the stagecoach robbery charge. Harris was the foreman of the jury. The two men were in cahoots.”

  Suddenly, an Indian leaped out from behind them and with a yell, charged with his war club erect. Falcon turned just in time to see him and, as the Indian closed on him, Falcon grabbed the Indian by the wrist to keep him from using his war club, then fell on his back, put his feet in the Indian’s stomach, and threw him over. The Indian went over the edge of the butte, screaming as he fell, headfirst, over one hundred feet down.

  “Harris, up there!” one of the white men shouted, and Cut Nose pushed the magazine into place, then elevated the gun and began shooting.

  He could not elevate the gun high enough, and the bullets ricocheted off the stone wall, several feet below Falcon’s position.

  The others began firing as well, and their shooting had more effect as the bullets whizzed by very close, some of them even kicking up little chips of rock that cut into Falcon’s face.

  Falcon and Dorman began returning fire, and one of the white men went down as well as two of the Indians.

  Cut nose turned and leaped onto one of the mules that were still attached to the Gatling gun and with a yell, started the team running. Seeing him, one of the other Indians jumped on the back of the mules attached to the other gun, but Falcon shot him, and the mules stood their ground.

  There was a further exchange of fire; then all the Indians and the whites were gone, the Indians going one way, the whites another.

  “Which ones are we going after?” Dorman shouted.

  “We have to get that other gun back,” Falcon said. “We can’t let the regiment go up against them.”

  Retrieving their horses, Falcon and Dorman rode back down into the flat where they had seen the guns. There were three dead Indians and two dead ponies. The Indians had gotten away with one of the guns, but the other one was still there. There was one white man lying near the gun and he was alive, but barely.

  “They left me,” the white man said. “The sons of bitches run off and left me.”

  “Who are you?” Falcon asked.

  “The name is Richland. Ken Richland,” he said. “You are Falcon MacCallister, ain’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Richland coughed, and blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. “I thought so. You don’t know me, but I’ve seen you before.”

  “I recognized Clete Harris and Jim Garon,” Falcon said. “Who was the other man?”

  “Why should I tell you that?”

  “Why not? Like you said, they ran off and left you.”

  “Yeah,” Richland replied, his voice strained with pain. “Yeah, they did, didn’t they?”

  “The third man. What is his name?”

  “His name is Bryans. Jay Bryans.”

  “Why did you do this, Richland? Why did you put Gatling guns in the hands of the Indians? Don’t you know they are going to use them against whites?”

  “We did it for money,” Richland said. “And we got us a lot of money for them guns. A lot of money.”

  “It’s not doing you a lot of good right now, though, is it?” Falcon asked.

  The smile left Richland’s face as he realized the truth of what Falcon was saying. Then his face was racked by a spasm of pain. He coughed again, coughing up more blood, then, with a gasp, quit breathing. His eyes remained open, but the stare was sightless.

  Standing up, Falcon looked over toward Dorman, and saw that he was squatting by one of the Indians.

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Not now, he ain’t,” Dorman replied. “His name was Two Bears.”

  “Did you know him?”

  Dorman nodded. “Yeah, I knew him,” he said. “Falcon, we’re in a lot of trouble here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Accordin’ to Two Bears, they’s Indians from all over the nations gatherin’ up for this fight. They actually figure on pushin’ the white man out of here once and for all.”

  “How many Indians are we talking about?” Falcon asked.

  “They’re comin’ from six tribes. Miniconjou, Oglala Blackfeet, Hunkpapa, Cheyenne, and Sans Arc,” Dorman said. “Maybe as many as twenty thousand of ’em.”

  “Twenty thousand?”

  “If all them tribes get together, there will be that many,” Dorman said. “I’m tellin’ you the truth. We are goin�
� to have us one hell of a fight on our hands.”

  “You’re right,” Falcon said. “I don’t think the general realizes that.”

  “So, what do you want to do? Try to run down that gun? Or go back and tell the gen’rul what we found out?”

  “Look,” Falcon said, pointing to a couple of boxes of ammunition. “They got away with one of the guns, but none of the ammunition.”

  “Don’t you think they’ve got bullets?”

  Falcon shook his head. “Not this kind,” he answered. “These are special fifty-caliber bullets. The cartridges have to be machine-made to fit these guns, or the gun will jam up. We’ll spike this gun and burn the ammunition. Without bullets, I don’t think they will be able to do much with the gun they got. We’ll go back and warn the general.”

  A few minutes later, as they were riding away, they heard the ammunition explode. Falcon hadn’t recovered the guns, but he had made it so that they weren’t going to pose a danger to the cavalry.

  Chapter Fifteen

  May 27, 1876

  The Bighorn Mountains

  It was getting dark as Falcon and Dorman followed the path of a swift-running mountain stream. They had been riding in silence for a couple of hours, with the only sound being the scraping of shod hooves on the gravel along the streambed.

  Dorman interrupted the silence.

  “There’s someone down there,” he said.

  “Where?” Falcon asked.

  “Down there, in that ravine.” Dorman pointed. “Do you see him?”

  “I see something,” Falcon said. “Don’t know if it’s a rider or just an animal. It’s too dark to make out.”

  “We’d best keep our eyes open,” Dorman said. “If it’s an Injun and we seen him, then that means he sure as hell has seen us.”

  The two men rode on, maintaining their silence. Dorman took a bite of his tobacco twist, then held it out in offer to Falcon.

  “Never picked up the chewin’ habit,” Falcon said.

  “You’re smart. It’s a nasty habit,” Dorman replied. “Only, when you got a hankerin’ for terbaccy, like now, well, a chaw is a lot better’n a smoke. Injuns can smell terbaccy smoke from a mile away.”

  The moon was but a sliver of silver in an overcast sky, making it very dark, too dark to proceed any further. They moved into some trees, tied off their horses, then stretched out on the ground.

  “Benteen tells me you were married to a Sioux,” Falcon said.

  “Yeah, I was,” Dorman said defensively.

  “I was married to a Cheyenne.”

  Dorman raised up on his elbows and looked over at Falcon, though in the darkness, Falcon could barely see him. Dorman chuckled.

  “I’ll be damn,” he said. He chuckled again. “I should of know’d there was somethin’ I liked about you. That Injun that I was talkin’ to back there? Two Bears? He was my brother-in-law.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t much care for the son of a bitch when I was married to his sister.”

  “Where are you from, Dorman?”

  “If you had asked me that fifteen years ago, I wouldn’t have give you a answer. I would’a figured you was tryin’ to take me back.”

  “Take you back?”

  “I was borned a slave,” Dorman said.

  “I wouldn’t have taken you back.”

  “Someone tole me that you was in the Rebel army.”

  “I was,” Falcon said. “My brother was in the Yankee army. But the thing is, neither one of us held with slavery.”

  “Then how come you fought for the South?”

  “There was a lot more to that war than slavery.”

  “Not for me, there wan’t,” Dorman said.

  “I can understand that.”

  “My pap was a Jamaica man. My mammy was a slave woman down in Louisiana for the D’Orman family. When I got old enough—around fifteen or so, I reckon—I just up and run off. I kept on a-runnin’ and a-dodgin’, avoidin’ anyone I thought might be a slave catcher, till finally I wound up out here. Some Sioux found me wanderin’ around in the Paha Sapa, more dead than alive. They took me back to the village with them, fed me, and brought me back to life so to speak. You can understand why I made friends with them.” Dorman chuckled. “They didn’t quite know what to make of me. I was the first colored man any of them had ever seen. They called me ‘Black White Man.’” Dorman laughed. “Black White Man,” he repeated. “But I don’t reckon bein’ called a white man would have got me into any restaurants back where I come from. Anyhow, I married up with a Sioux woman, stayed with her till she up an’ died on me. Then, didn’t really feel like stayin’ with the Injuns any longer, so I left. I started carryin’ mail, choppin’ and sellin’ wood, until the gen’rul hired me to do some scoutin’ for him. Lots of folks don’t know this, Falcon, but them soldier boys only get thirteen dollars a month. Do you know how much money I get?”

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  I’m getting a hunnert dollars a month. Can you imagine that? A colored fella like me, gettin’ a hunnert dollars a month?”

  “That’s a lot of money, all right,” Falcon agreed.

  “Yes, sir, it is. ’Course, the question is, is it enough money to get myself kilt over?”

  “Do you think that is likely?” Falcon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dorman answered. “If I didn’t tell you I was a site more fearful ’bout this particular scout than any other’n I been on, I’d be lyin’ to you.”

  “What makes you fearful?”

  “Even before we left Ft. Lincoln to come on this scout, I seen me a couple of Injuns that I know,” Dorman said. “They say there’s a feelin’ runnin’ amongst the Injuns that somethin’ big is goin’ to happen. It’s like Two Bears told me. They’re actually plannin’ to run all the white men out of Montana and Dakota territory. I don’t mind tellin’ you that I don’t feel none too particular good about this.”

  “That’s funny,” Falcon said. “Libbie Custer has the same feeling.”

  “When women has feelin’s like that, you ought to pay attention to ’em,” Dorman said. “Lots of times, women just knows more than men.”

  “I wouldn’t want to argue with that,” Falcon said. He yawned. “But are we goin’ to talk all night, or get some sleep?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get some sleep,” Dorman replied. “And if you answer me this time, you’ll be talkin’ to yourself.”

  May 28, 1876

  Both men slept well, and both were awake by sunrise the next morning. After a cold breakfast of jerky and water, they saddled up and got under way, riding as alertly as possible. As they approached each knoll, one of them would dismount and hand the reins of his horse to the other, then go up to the top of the knoll to have a look around before riding over it. They had been taking turns doing that all morning, and this time it was Dorman’s turn. Dismounting and giving his horse over to Falcon, the scout moved cautiously to the top. There, he got down on his stomach, took off his hat, and rose up to have a quick look over the crest.

  Then, suddenly, Dorman spun around and, bending low, ran back to his horse.

  “We’ve got to get out of here, now!” Dorman said. Leaping into the saddle, he turned his horse back down the trail and lashed it into a gallop.

  Falcon followed without question, and the two horses raced toward a bluff that was some distance ahead of them. Not until they reached the bluff did they dismount and pull their horses in behind some trees.

  “Tie ’em off and come up here and have a look,” Dorman said.

  Falcon did as Dorman suggested, and no sooner did he reach the top than he saw what had Dorman spooked. There were scores upon scores of Indians, at least one hundred and maybe more. They were now where Falcon and Dorman had been but a few moments earlier, and as the Indians advanced down the side of the knoll, they were scattered out all across the valley, as if they were looking for something.

  Suddenly, one
of the Indians stopped and stared at the ground. Calling one of the other Indians over, he pointed to the ground, and a few others came over as well. For a moment, they appeared to be talking excitedly among themselves, though they were too far away from Falcon for him to hear.

  “They’ve spotted our trail,” Falcon said.

  “They have that all right,” Dorman replied. “And they are going to be on us like a fly on shit if we don’t get out of here.”

  “Let’s go,” Falcon said, turning toward his horse.

  “Wait,” Dorman said. He pointed to a nearby mountain. “Let’s go that way.”

  “You know that way?”

  “Yeah, I’ve hunted there. It will be rough for the horses, but I think we can make it. And even if the Injuns follow us, there are so many of ’em that they can’t all come through at the same time, and the ones that have to hold back are goin’ to slow the other ones down.”

  “Good idea,” Falcon said.

  The two men started out at a trot, taking advantage of the flat ground while they could. By the time they reached the base of the mountain, the Indians had discovered them and, though they were still some distance away, they were coming up hard and fast.

  The mountain looked very close, but Falcon had spent his entire life in mountains, and he well understood the illusion of a mountain being much farther away than it appeared to be. Not wanting to overtax the horses, they trotted, galloped, and walked, reaching the actual mountain after about eight miles. But by the time they were actually at the foot of the mountain, the horses were beginning to tire from their long flight.

  “If we don’t give these horses a blow, we’re going to kill them,” Falcon said.

  “I think you are right,” Dorman replied. “All right, we’ll let ’em take a break.”

  The two men dismounted. Falcon took off his hat, poured some water from his canteen into it, then held the hat in front of the horse. The horse began drinking thirstily.

  “As I recall, we are some distance away from water right now,” Dorman said. “Could be you’re goin’ to need that water for yourself.”

  “I’m going to get thirsty, that’s for sure,” Falcon replied. “But I can take it better than the horse. I can’t have him going out on me now.”