Son of the Hawk

by Charles G. West

  Turley graciously accepted the cup of coffee Luke offered after first glancing over at the large cottonwood under which Captain Leach had set up his command tent. Leach frowned upon the fraternization between enlisted men and officers, thinking it only permissible upon special occasions, as when he had invited Turley to join him for supper two nights before. The sergeant was about to comment on the quality of the coffee when there was a flurry of activity at the far end of the camp. He and Luke both stood up to see what had caused it.

  Three of the Pawnee scouts had ridden into camp, quirting their ponies hard. One of them was leading a pony with the body of a fourth Pawnee draped across the saddle. Luke and Turley hurried to the crowd of soldiers that had already gathered around the Pawnees, joined a few seconds later by Captain Leach.

  The Pawnee had been scalped, his arms and legs slashed, his groin mutilated, and his eyes gouged out. Some of the men, upon seeing the ghastly sight backed away in horror. Along with Leach, Luke and Turley pushed through the crowd to the wildly ranting Pawnees. After a few minutes of inflamed raving in a tongue that none of the whites understood, the scouts finally calmed down enough to talk in broken English. They said that the dead one had crossed the river to scout the other side and disappeared for a long time. Worried about him, these three went looking for him and found him where he had been jumped by several Sioux—how many, they were not sure. The other two, of the six scouts, were about a mile ahead of them and these three were uncertain about their safety.

  “Well, looks like we’ve found our Sioux,” Turley said softly.

  “Or they’ve found us,” Luke replied.

  Turley shook his head slowly. “Wonder why they mutilate ’em so damned much?”

  “Buck Ransom says they do it so that their enemies can’t find their way in the spirit world,” Luke answered.

  “All right, men,” Leach sang out, “we’ve found them. By God, they’ve made their first mistake in alerting us of their presence.” He raised his hat over his head and waved it as if to rally his troops. “Bugler! ‘Boots and Saddles’! Mr. Austen! I want to be ready to ride in fifteen minutes. I want to catch them before they have a chance to run.”

  Luke hesitated. “Sir, we don’t know where they are or how many. Shouldn’t we send the scouts back out to see what we’re dealing with?”

  He received a cold hard stare in reply, then Leach said, “I’ll tell you what I’m dealing with—I’m dealing with a lieutenant that hasn’t learned yet how to carry out orders.” The two officers stood glaring at each other amid the frantic hustle of a camp breaking up with men and horses running in all directions, shouting and cursing under the blaring notes of the incessant bugle. “It doesn’t make a damn how many there are,” Leach shouted. “With sixty mounted dragoons, I can take any Indian village.”

  “Well, one thing’s for certain,” Luke said, his voice laden with disgust, “they damn sure know where we are, and how many. So, if they don’t run, God help us.”

  “I already have you marked for insubordination, Austen. Do I have to add cowardice to that?”

  Luke had had a bellyfull of the sarcastic captain. “I don’t give a damn what you have marked down—write it on a piece of paper and stick it up your ass.”

  Leach blanched and took a step backward, his face a twisted mask of fury. “Consider yourself under arrest, mister. You’ll answer for this when we get back to Laramie.” He turned to Turley, who was standing dumbstruck during the brief confrontation. “Sergeant, you are a witness to this officer’s insubordination.”

  Luke turned on his heel and headed for his horse. “Damn fool,” he muttered to himself. “With him in command, we’ll be damn lucky if any of us get back to Laramie.”

  While the troopers scurried to get mounted and underway, the three Pawnee scouts painted themselves and their ponies for war. When they rode to the front of the column, ponies prancing, feathers flying in the wind, they were singing war chants and songs of vengence. At this time, their two missing brothers had not shown up and it was feared they had met with the same fate as the first one.

  The column moved upriver to the point where the slain Pawnee scout had been found. There the scouts covered the area, looking for tracks that would tell them what size force had killed their brother. Then the three of them parlayed over what they had found and reported to Captain Leach.

  “Eight ponies, no more, go that way,” he pointed toward the northwest.

  “Let’s get after them,” Leach commanded, and the column was underway again, the Pawnee scouts leading them out across the rolling prairie.

  They had been in the saddle for less than fifteen minutes when they sighted buzzards circling on the far side of a rise back in the direction of the river. As Luke suspected, they found the mutilated remains of the two missing Pawnees. Unfortunately, the buzzards had been at work for a good while, leaving very little but bones and a few rags to bury. This latest discovery set the remaining three scouts off in a death song again, a loud mournful chant that seemed to try Leach’s patience.

  “Sergeant,” he barked, “get some men with shovels and get them in the ground. We’re wasting time.”

  One of the scouts, a short sturdy-looking Pawnee named Bad Horse, was a cousin of one of the slain men. He was visibly upset at the hastily scratched graves, protesting that his cousin should have been buried with more dignity befitting the warrior that he had been. Bad Horse complained that the first scout killed back near the river had been rudely covered with sand and stones. Now he wanted time to properly prepare his cousin for his journey to the spirit world. Leach had little patience with him. In his mind, he had already shown more than ample compassion when he delayed the column for even the short time it took to cover them with dirt. After all, they were Indians. His plea rejected, Bad Horse threatened to take the other two scouts and return to Laramie, leaving the soldiers to find the Sioux themselves. Leach did not take kindly to threats, especially from savages.

  “By God, I’ll blow a hole in that heathen head of yours if you quit my command.” He pulled his pistol and pointed it at Bad Horse’s forehead. “Do you understand?”

  Bad Horse recoiled in anger, but he thoroughly understood that the captain was serious and would not hesitate to kill him. Luke saw the muscles in Bad Horse’s arms tightening and he stepped forward, ready to interfere if the Pawnee decided to act. But Bad Horse held his anger. Still seething, he suddenly turned away and moved back to stand with the other scouts. While the column was forming up to ride, the three Pawnees talked quietly among themselves. They didn’t look any too happy about the treatment Bad Horse had received. Luke wondered if there would be trouble from the scouts before this campaign was completed.

  But, as before, the three scouts rode out ahead of the column, flankers were sent out to the sides, and a trooper took the point five or six hundred yards in front of the main body. Leaving the Cheyenne River behind them, the detachment moved up a dry coulee to a grass-covered flat beyond. The flankers rode the rims of the coulee, their eyes peeled for any sign of Indian activity. Using a crude map, drawn for him by Jim Bridger, Leach calculated that the direction the Pawnees had started out would eventually lead them to the Powder River.

  Although Bridger certainly knew the country well enough to draw an accurate map, Luke would have felt a good deal more confident if a seasoned scout like Buck Ransom or Trace McCall had accompanied them. He had his concerns about the Pawnee scouts. Leach should not have insulted them. One thing Luke had learned in the short time he had been assigned to this country was that an Indian had a great deal of pride as well as a sense of dignity. Leach apparently had not learned that yet, or simply didn’t care. In any case, his treatment of the Pawnee scouts certainly wasn’t going to help matters.

  There was a definite sense of wariness throughout the whole detachment now that it was known that hostiles could not be far away. Each soldier had been provided with a vivid picture of the Indian’s capacity for butchery, as witnessed by the
condition of the three Pawnee corpses. The flankers especially were alert as they scanned the rolling hills around them, knowing that they would probably feel the first thrust in the event of an attack.

  After a two-hour ride, with no sign of the Sioux, the tension began to lift among the troopers and pretty soon the normal banter began among the soldiers. Leach, expecting to have made some sighting of the Sioux almost immediately, was now frustrated, his patience waning with each mile that was void of sign. It soon became apparent to him that the column had continued on the same course since leaving the Cheyenne, with no variance in direction.

  “Recall the point man,” Leach finally ordered. When the private had galloped back to join the column, Leach questioned him. “Are the scouts still tracking the Sioux? We seem to be making no progress in catching up to them.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Private Orwell replied. “I ain’t had no contact with ’em for an hour.”

  “But you can see them ahead of you, can’t you?” Leach prodded impatiently.

  Orwell hesitated. “Well, no, sir, not for ’bout an hour. When we first started out, I saw ’em. They’d signal once in a while. It was always the same, just kept waving me on toward them hills in the distance. Then, when I didn’t see ’em for a while, I figured I was supposed to keep going—figured if I was supposed to change direction, they’d show up again to tell me—so I just kept going.”

  Leach was flustered. He didn’t know if he should chew Orwell out or not. One thing was clear, however, the detachment had been marching for the better part of two hours in a straight line for what even Leach knew to be highly concentrated Sioux country. Ignoring his second in command, he turned to Sergeant Turley “What do you think, Sergeant?”

  Turley glanced apologetically at Luke before answering. The sergeant recognized the obvious slight by Leach. Luke acknowledged Turley’s concern with a faint smile and a nod. Like Luke, Turley had witnessed the threat Leach had made toward Bad Horse. “Captain,” he said, “what I think is that we’re riding on a wild goose chase. I think them Pawnees took off and left us out here with no scouts. They ain’t coming back.”

  There was no apparent reaction in Leach’s eyes as he received Turley’s opinion. He stared, unblinking, at his sergeant for a long moment, realizing that what Turley said was probably true. His confidence slipped, but for only a moment, then his arrogant sense of superiority returned. “Well, no matter, we should be able to do our own scouting. Sergeant, send two men out to scout the country ahead. We’ll continue on until we find the enemy or until we strike the Belle Fourche.”

  It was getting on toward the middle of the afternoon when a small party of Sioux riders were spotted on a rise off toward the west. One of the troopers serving as scout rode back to alert the captain. “By God, I knew we would find them,” Leach exulted. “How many?”

  “We counted eight of ’em, sir.”

  “Eight, huh?” Leach smiled. “That’s got to be the party that killed our scouts. Good work, Private! Go on back and don’t let them get out of your sight.” He paused to watch the private wheel his horse and gallop off again, then he turned to Turley. “Sergeant, we’re going to catch that bunch. Turn the column out toward that rise . . at a canter.”

  Luke watched Turley drop back to pass on Leach’s orders, then gave voice to his concern. “Captain, don’t you think we should find out if these eight Sioux are part of a larger band? They could be decoys.”

  Leach blistered Luke with a gaze filled with contempt. “Mister, I don’t believe I requested your opinion on this matter. But since you insisted on giving it, I’ll respond. I imagine this small party of Sioux is just that, a small party out to cause mischief—eight hostiles, the same eight horses the Pawnee scouts tracked back at the river.” His eyes flashed fire as he added, “I hope to hell they are part of a larger band. It’ll be an excellent chance to teach the bastards a lesson in modern warfare.”

  Luke fell in line behind the captain and Sergeant Turley as the column moved out smartly toward the low hills to the west. The pace seemed a bit strained for horses that had still not been properly rested, but Leach spurred them on. We’re not going to be able to give much chase if we do spot them, Luke thought as he held his mount to the pace. Cresting a slight rise that led to a flat a half mile wide, they were met by the two men who had been sent out as scouts. Riding hard, they slid to a stop before the captain, waving their arms excitedly.

  “They’re still there!” Private Orwell blurted, struggling with the reins in an effort to prevent a collision with the captain’s mount.

  “Where?” Leach demanded, standing in his stirrups to get a better look.

  “Yonder,” Orwell responded, pointing to the far side of the flat.

  Luke pulled up beside Turley. They were there all right, eight Sioux warriors, sitting on their ponies, calmly watching the approaching soldiers. Turley spoke. “Hell, they’re just settin’ there. They don’t look like they’re worried about us, do they?”

  “They probably aren’t,” Luke answered. “We better look out for something fishy.”

  Overhearing Luke’s remark, Leach gave him a quick glance, then turned back to Orwell. “Any sign of any more hostiles in the area?”

  “Nossir, just them eight—for as far as we could see.”

  “Very well,” Leach replied, “let’s get after them, then.”

  The eight Sioux warriors remained on the far edge of the flat plain and watched the advancing military column. Motionless, save for the occasional flutter of a feather in the light breeze or the stamping of a pony’s hoof, they seemed almost unconcerned that the soldiers were of any danger to them. In one line, side by side, they continued to sit there until the troopers had cut the distance between them in half. Then, as if on a signal, they raised lances and bows, shaking them defiantly at the oncoming soldiers, and calling out insults and war whoops. When the troopers broke into a gallop, the Sioux wheeled and sped away toward the low line of hills to the west.

  Knowing his tired horses were no match for the Indian ponies, Leach nonetheless spurred his command onward, fearing the hostiles would escape into the rolling prairie. Just as the galloping army mounts seemed to be closing the distance, the hostiles disappeared down a narrow draw. Leading the charge, Leach galloped into the draw behind them only to discover the Sioux were nowhere in sight.

  With a signal of his hand, Leach halted the column, which was by this time strung out rather thin as the weaker horses had become unable to keep up with the stronger mounts. Realizing that he was blindly following the small party of Sioux into a possible ambush, Leach shouted, “Flankers! Sergeant Turley, get flankers out! Be alert now. I don’t want to lose these savages.” He frantically scanned the grass-covered slopes on either side.

  Luke dismounted to try to give his weary horse a rest. Most of the men followed suit, causing the captain’s anger to flare. “Dammit! I didn’t give the order to dismount!” Sheepishly, the guilty troopers climbed back aboard their winded mounts.

  Luke couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. Leading his horse up beside Leach’s, he said, “If we don’t rest these damn horses, we’re gonna be chasing those Indians on foot.”

  Leach’s eyes narrowed, his face contorted in rage. “By God, Austen, I won’t tolerate any more of your . .” The sudden thud of an arrow in the ground a few yards in front of his horse caused him to bite off his threat. In the next few moments, several arrows landed near the first. Leach pulled his horse back.

  “There!” someone shouted. “On the ridge!”

  Luke looked in the direction now being pointed out by several of the men behind him. The hostiles had crossed over the rim of the draw and were kneeling in the high grass. It seemed a useless gesture, shooting at the soldiers. The range was too far for their bows. Luke decided it was just a form of harassment.

  “Sergeant,” Leach ordered, “bring some rifles to bear on that ridge. Let’s see how they like a little hot lead.”

  “Yessir,
” Turley replied and signaled for the first twelve men to advance. After they were in place, he ordered a volley fired at the hostiles still kneeling in the tall grass on the ridge. The heavy silence of the valley was split by the roar of twelve rifles discharging simultaneously. Luke watched the ridge intently as a thin cloud of blue rifle smoke floated above the line of troopers now reloading in anticipation of a second order to fire. Leach held up his hand, ordering them to wait. He wanted to evaluate the effect of the volley. It was not as he had anticipated. The eight Sioux warriors yelled defiantly, waving their weapons in the air and making insulting gestures. Leach was furious. “Sergeant, aren’t there any marksmen in this company?”

  Turley didn’t reply immediately, but Luke knew what the sergeant was thinking. One of the first things Turley had complained about when assigned to this regiment was the poor quality of recruits. Green and inexperienced, most of them foreign-born, some had not fired their rifles since their induction into the army. It was a source of frustration to professional soldiers like Turley that, due to the lack of ample supplies of lead and powder, there was no allowance for target practice. Consequently, no one should have been surprised by the poor marksmanship exhibited by the troopers.

  After the ineffective volley that sprayed the tall buffalo grass around them, there was little wonder that the eight Sioux warriors expressed their open contempt. Turley was about to order a second volley when the eight hostiles let fly another flight of arrows—this time, some of the missiles landed close to the mounted soldiers.

  “Gimme that!” Turley barked, taking the rifle from the soldier nearest him. He checked the load then spurred his horse a few yards in front of the column. Taking careful aim, he pulled the trigger. An instant later, one of the hostiles yelped in pain as the rifle ball imbedded itself deep in his shoulder. This prompted the Indians to retreat to their ponies, and with two of them helping the wounded man, they leaped on their horses and disappeared over the far side of the ridge.