by Judd Cole
Carlson thought again about Hanchon’s companion leaping in front of that slug. Let him leap in front of three hundred and fifty of them!
“Well, you’ll get your chance soon enough to impress me with it,” Carlson assured the trooper.
He fell back to the end of the column. Two packhorses had been allotted for hauling the second special weapon requisitioned by Lofley: muzzle-loading artillery rifles.
Carlson was more familiar with these weapons, having trained with them at West Point. There were three of them, Parrot muzzle-loaders with three-inch bores. Wing nuts held the detachable barrels to portable wooden tripods that folded for packing onto a horse. With a muzzle velocity of one thousand feet a second, their range was an incredible three thousand yards. They fired ten-pound charged artillery shells that burst near the ground in a lethal, destructive radius.
Carlson knew that Indians had some knowledge of Bluecoat canister shot. But Gatling guns and artillery shells were strong bad medicine completely foreign to their experience. When the Cheyennes got a taste of this, they would begin to understand the white man’s concept of Hell.
~*~
Two hours after sunset, just as they were set to picket for the night, a Ute scout named Scalp Dancer rode back from his forward position.
“Indian camp ahead,” he said.
Silver moonlight glimmered like fox fire on the surrounding rocks and pinnacles. Carlson’s tow eyebrows knit in confusion.
“Not a Cheyenne camp? According to the map, that’s hours from here.”
The Ute shook his head. “Piegan. Not a full camp, perhaps a hunt camp. Perhaps twenty braves.”
Carlson looked annoyed. Blackfeet Indians were not in the battle plan.
“Can we get around them?”
Scalp Dancer shook his head. “It would be a full day’s delay because of cliffs and rubble on both sides of them.”
Carlson considered, glancing back once again toward the Gatling and the muzzle-loaders. This might be a perfect opportunity to hone the attack on the Cheyennes.
“Would gunfire be heard by Shoots Left Handed’s band?”
The Ute shook his head. “Too many ridges between this camp and theirs.”
Carlson turned to his sergeant. “Pass the word back quietly. Rig for battle and prepare to mount.”
Quickly, conferring with Scalp Dancer, Carlson formed a plan. Holding their mounts to a walk, enforcing absolute silence, they advanced behind the Ute to within a hundred yards of the camp. Every man hobbled his horse and then fanned out in a skirmish line, advancing from rock to rock, tree to tree. As agreed, Ulrich moved into position first, accompanied by a private who had been shown how to feed ammo into the Gatling gun while Ulrich cranked and aimed it.
Carlson supervised as Ulrich set the gun on its tripod atop a flat rock. Below, Carlson could make out the shadowy shapes of the Blackfeet as they moved in and out of the glow of small camp fires. Another two-man crew assembled the muzzle-loaders.
“You two fire first,” Carlson ordered, speaking in a hushed whisper. “That’ll set up illumination. Then Ulrich opens up.”
The rest of the men, armed with carbines, formed a semicircle behind the Gatling and the artillery rifles.
There was a long silence while bullfrogs croaked and cicadas hummed. One of the Blackfeet coughed, another laughed.
“FIRE!” Carlson screamed.
There was a belching roar from one of the Parrots; then below, the night suddenly exploded. A second shell, a third, exploded with deadly accuracy, hurling bits of rock, ground, and Blackfeet to the four directions of the wind. In the incandescent glow of the explosions, Ulrich opened up with the Gatling.
He cranked the revolving barrels once around to check the action. Then bullets were whacking into the camp below as fast as the private could stuff them into the hopper.
Carlson stood there in mute shock, forgetting to even draw his revolver. Nor was it necessary. The destruction below could not have been more complete if a hundred men had opened fire with pistols.
Indians, caught flush in the Gatling fire, seemed to perform a grotesque dance in the moonlight as the slugs jerked and lifted them like rag puppets. Horses nickered piteously and collapsed, bullets stitching snake holes across their flanks. Another artillery shell exploded, obliterating the faces of four Indians. Caught flush in this lightning attack, the Indians did not return even one shot.
Carlson didn’t believe it, but his watch wasn’t lying. The “battle” was over in less than two minutes. A few Blackfeet still required a slug to the brain to finish them off. But not one had gotten away.
Elated, throat swelling with the effortless victory, Carlson reminded himself: this was a far cry from Orrin Lofley’s debacle with the Hunkpapa Sioux. And it was a sweet foretaste of what was in store for Hanchon and the rest of the Cheyennes.
Chapter Ten
“Is this a wise thing, brother, riding out by yourself?” Little Horse said. “One more sleep and I will be strong enough to ride with you. Perhaps I could now.”
Touch the Sky was stitching a tear in his moccasins with a bone awl and buffalo-sinew thread. He looked up at his friend. Little Horse was recovering from his wound, though he still moved stiffly and tired easily.
“You shall not ride today, buck, though I would feel easier if you could go,” he admitted. “But brother, I must scout on my own. That Ute I killed—or rather, who fell on his own knife—I fear he was only waiting for soldiers. I know that Pawnee Killer has sent out scouts, but I am weary of doing nothing except wait for death to arrive.”
Little Horse eyed his friend’s many knife slashes. They were crusted in dried blood. “From the look of you, death has already arrived and been repelled.”
“As you say. But count on it, he will return, and soon.”
“Brother,” Little Horse said, “do you think these pretend Cheyennes might be Bluecoats in disguise? After all, the little eagle chief named Carlson was with them.”
“I have wondered this same thing. But soldiers or no, count upon it—they are palefaces. Carlson despises all red men too strongly to ever join with any tribe.”
“I have ears for this.” Little Horse paused, then added carefully, “I also have eyes to see.”
“And what do these eyes see, brother?”
“That you are worried about more than the fate of this camp. That your mind is on our own camp, and how it goes with Honey Eater.”
“Those eyes of yours see well. But if you have eyes to see, then you also have eyes to sleep. Close them, brother. I am leaving now.”
“Let me ride with you.”
“Has Little Horse been visiting the Peyote Soldiers? You must rest.”
“Ya-toh-wa ipewa,” Little Horse called behind him. “May the Holy Ones ride with you.”
Touch the Sky sought out Pawnee Killer and explained to the battle leader that he was riding forward to scout. Pawnee Killer, busy counseling with White Plume and Chief Shoots Left Handed, only nodded, his eyes sliding away from Touch the Sky’s.
Again the youth realized: so far, with the exception of killing one Ute, he had done precious little to justify Arrow Keeper’s faith in sending him. The others were only politely hiding their scorn.
Holding his face impassive, Touch the Sky grabbed a handful of the bay’s mane and swung up onto his pony.
~*~
After the massacre at the Blackfoot camp, Seth Carlson ordered his men to make a camp for the night. The horses were still nervous from the sudden commotion of battle, the men still adrenaline-tense from the encounter.
Carlson set up the picket outposts, warning the sentries to keep an eye open for the Ute scout Rough Feather. He was supposed to rendezvous with the main unit, then guide them in to the Cheyenne camp.
By dawn, when Rough Feather still hadn’t appeared, Carlson was fretting. Clearly, he told himself, something had gone wrong. Before he had more information, it was dangerous to move his unit further. Yet with Matthew Hanchon to
sweeten this kill, this mission was too important to trust to the others. He decided to scout ahead on his own.
He ordered his men to lay low in a canyon sheltered from view overhead by huge limestone outcroppings. Then, after consulting the map Rough Feather had made for him, he broke out his compass. He sighted on a distant pinnacle and shot an azimuth. After he had his bearings firmly fixed, he set out.
~*~
Touch the Sky crossed ridge after ridge, sticking to cutbanks, coulees, and other natural shelters as much as possible. As he had been taught to do in dangerous situations, he did not let himself “think”—thinking distracted a brave and got him killed.
Instead, he attended only to the language of his senses. His shadow grew steadily longer behind him as he advanced north across the face of the rugged Bear Paws. Always, he was keenly alert for any sign of soldiers, watching for sudden movements by flocks of sparrow hawks and finches.
The provisions he and Little Horse had brought in their legging sashes were gone, much of it given to the hungry children. Now hunger gnawed steadily at the pit of his belly. It made him recall his vision quest to Medicine Lake and how starvation and murderous Pawnees had tracked him every step of the way. He had also had a brief glimpse of Seth Carlson, though his enemy hadn’t spotted him.
He found a handful of chokecherries and ate them, popping them loudly between his strong white teeth. He was still scouring the area for food when he rounded a dogleg bend and encountered a huge deadfall.
It blocked the narrow trail completely. Sheer granite walls rose on either side. He realized there had to be a hidden opening in the deadfall because Shoots Left Handed’s band had had to use this trail to reach their camp from this direction.
He approached, cautiously reaching out to separate the obstructing branches. Even as his fingers made first contact, a chill premonition of danger moved up his spine.
~*~
Carlson approached the huge deadfall carefully, telling himself the same thing Touch the Sky had: there must be a way through it. Rough Feather had marked some sort of obstruction on his map, but indicated nothing about an opening.
Carlson walked the entire length of the deadfall twice before he spotted it: a little opening, near one granite wall, that grew wider as one penetrated the mass of limbs and debris. Obviously it had been ingeniously designed by local Indians.
Carlson was a big man, with muscles heavily bunched around his back and shoulders. It was a hard struggle at first as he wriggled past the opening. But he quickly wormed his way through the leafy tunnel and stepped out on the other side.
Coming face to face with his enemy Matthew Hanchon!
The Cheyenne had been rattling the deadfall on the other side of the trail at the same time Carlson was emerging from his side. Each man’s noise had covered the other’s.
“You!” Carlson shouted, blood surging into his face. A moment later he was clawing at the snap on his holster.
Touch the Sky seized the throwing ax in his sash and whirled it even as Carlson’s revolver cleared the holster. The officer leaped back just in the nick of time, the ax slicing past his face and missing by only inches. The leap threw him off balance, and he fell awkwardly into the dead brambles and limbs.
Touch the Sky’s rifle and lance were back on his pony, well behind him. He raced at Carlson, jerking his knife from its sheath, and leaped on him as the big man struggled to stand back up.
Carlson was a trained wrestler. As soon as the Cheyenne landed on his back, he went forward with the motion, then tucked and rolled clear of his attacker. A moment later he had whirled and connected a solid right fist to Touch the Sky’s jaw.
A bright orange light exploded inside the Indian’s head. But he knew if he let himself pass out now, he’d never wake up again. Rallying strength he didn’t even realize he had, he raced at Carlson full-bore and head-butted him, knocking the soldier back into the deadfall for a second time.
Before he could get clear of Carlson, however, the cavalry officer brought a vicious knee up into the Cheyenne’s groin. As the Indian fell forward, pain knocking the breath from him, he latched onto Carlson’s neck with both hands and squeezed with all his strength.
Carlson was pinned at an awkward angle, one arm trapped by a dead branch. His face bulged as the young brave squeezed harder and harder, then it turned purple, then black. The whole time, he beat at the Cheyenne’s head with his free hand, adding bruises and cuts to the knife slashes already disfiguring him.
Touch the Sky refused to let go, his mouth a grim, determined slit. Finally, moments before Carlson would have passed out, the officers twitching death agony dislodged a huge limb from the top of the deadfall. It crashed down on top of them, knocking the Cheyenne clear.
Touch the Sky wasn’t hurt by the limb. But by the time he made it to his feet again, Carlson had his .44 in his fist.
The Cheyenne knew a moving target was difficult to hit with a short-iron. He immediately burst back down the trail toward his pony and his rifle, zigzagging to make a difficult target.
Shots rang out behind him, bullets whanged past his ears. On the run, he snatched his rifle from its scabbard and then leaped for the side of the trail, even as another slug nipped at his heels.
For now it was a standoff. Carlson was crouched inside the deadfall, Touch the Sky in the bushes beside the trail. His pony was around a slight bend now, having shied back at the first shots. But he would be killed trying to mount and ride out. The Cheyenne had a rifle, which was a slight advantage.
Until he heard it: the sounds of more gunfire as Carlson’s men answered his shots, letting him know they were on the way.
Touch the Sky hunkered down, snapping off a round now and then just to keep the soldier honest. But he knew he had to somehow get out of this death trap, and quick.
Concentrating on the sounds as men approached the other side of the deadfall, Touch the Sky failed to glance overhead. A sharpshooter from the unit had arrived ahead of the others and circled around through the rimrock. Now he was moving into position about fifty feet over the Cheyenne’s head.
Only when the bolt of the soldier’s carbine snicked home did Touch the Sky realize his danger. He glanced up, but too late. The soldier’s finger had curled inside the trigger guard and was taking up the slack.
A second later there was a booming report, and the sharpshooter dropped dead from the rimrock, almost crushing Touch the Sky when he landed below.
“Brother!” Little Horse screamed, signaling from the rim of the opposite wall. He raised his shotgun to get his friend’s attention. Some sixth sense had warned him to disobey his friend and follow him. “Fly like the wind now! I will cover you!”
With Little Horse’s revolving-barrel, four-shot scattergun roaring over and over, forcing the soldiers to hunker down, Touch the Sky raced for his pony.
Chapter Eleven
“I don’t get it,” Lumpy said. “Wha’d’you mean, we ain’t gunna meet up with Carlson after the heist? We always go to the shack and divvy up the swag with him.”
Woodrow Denton was busy tucking horsehair braids under his Cheyenne headdress. He looked at Lumpy as if he were something he had just scraped off his boot.
“Is your brain any bigger’n that bump on your neck? Now why would you think we won’t be meeting him?”
“Cuz,” said a man named Omensetter, “we ain’t dealin’ him in for this hand?”
All five of the disguised thieves sat their mounts in a little short-grass clearing near the Milk River Road. Their rifles were balanced at the ready across the withers of their Indian ponies. By now the whites had gotten proficient at riding without saddles. Beaded leather shirts and fur leggings, the style of northern Indians, covered the skin that wasn’t darkened with berry juice.
“Right as rain,” Denton said. “We’ll be going to the shack, but Carlson won’t. Soldier Blue set this one up weeks ago. Since then he’s got ice in his boots. His C.O. is still farting blood on account of how ‘Injun
s’ aired out his wife. Carlson says no more Cheyenne attacks. But I say, he can go piss up a rope! There’s going to be one more heist. This haul today will leave all of us in the Land of Milk and Honey.”
“We talking gold?” Lumpy said.
“It will be soon enough. It’s a freight wagon, and we’re heisting the whole damned she-bang. It’s loaded with good liquor, tobacco, and coffee, all bound for the sutler at Fort Randall.”
“Hell,” Lumpy said, “a wagon? Are you soft between your head handles? What need we got for such truck? We already smoke good Virginia ’baccy and drink top-shelf mash liquor. I reckon my coffee ain’t fit for the Queen of England, but—”
“Lumpy,” Denton cut in sarcastically, “if brains was horseshit, you’d have a clean corral, you know that? Of course we don’t need the goods. The Blackfoot Indians need it. They need it so bad they’re doing the Hurt Dance. Oh, do they want it.”
“Blackfeet! They ain’t got no gold.”
“Neither does a beaver, numb-nuts. But what he don’t carry in ready cash he’s good for. The Blackfeet tribe is rich right now in good beaver plews. They’ll give us every damn one of ’em for that wagonload of goods. Then we haul ’em to the trading post at Pike’s Fork. The dandies in London are crying for their beaver hats. The price is up to two hundred dollars for a pressed pack of eighty furs.”
“Hell, that shines fine by me,” Omensetter said. “But the Blackfeet are no tribe to fool with. How do we get them plews without them gettin’ our topknots?”
“I know a war chief named Sis-ki-dee. Leads his own band, palavers English real good. He’s a crafty son-a-bitch and keeps one hand behind his back. But he’s smart nuff to know when the wind’s blowing something his way. I’ve dealt with him before.”
“The hell we do with the freight wagon?” Omensetter said. “Where do we store the goods until we can swap ’em?”
“You ever knowed ol’ Woody to leave any loose ends? I already checked behind the shack. There’s a watershed gully runs right down to the road. She’s bumpy, but not so steep a wagon couldn’t make ’er. Carlson won’t be coming around here for at least a few days. He’s off in the field killing Cheyennes. We unload the stuff into the shack, then wait until nightfall and douse the wagon with kerosene. Nobody’ll spot the smoke after dark.”
