The Dragoons 4

by Patrick E. Andrews

  While the haggling and bartering went on, the Indian women went about setting up a small camp that was to consist of a half dozen tepees. The industrious Sioux females soon had the shelters erected, water drawn, fires going, meals cooking, and all the horses tied up and secured for the night.

  By the time the agreed upon amount of whiskey was traded for the excellent pelts brought in by the Sioux, it was early evening. Several of the Indians, already roaring drunk, laughed and danced around a fire set up in the middle of the encampment. The white men settled down and began to give the Indian women who were drinking lusty looks. In a matter of a couple of short hours, the females would be so intoxicated they could be led off into the woods without protest from themselves or their husbands.

  Kenshaw left the wagon in charge of Bobby Slowfoot and Otto Bolkey. He took what appeared to be a nonchalant stroll through the Indian camp. He carried an open bottle of whiskey with him, offering drinks as he sauntered in and out of the circular formation of tepees. Every chance he got, he peered into the lodges to see if the white woman mentioned by Buffalo Horn was confined in one. Happily, he noted that only Sioux were in evidence in the impromptu village. That meant the captive was being held in another damp. Kenshaw hoped it was far away.

  Buffalo Horn and the rest of the male Indians were members of a warrior society called the Wolves. As such, they lived in a special part of the village. They separated themselves from the rest of the tribe several times during the year to follow their own desires in hunting and war making. Sometimes the formidable group, numbering a hundred fighting men with hundred and fifty-five women and two hundred children, stayed away from the rest of their Sioux brethren for months at a time. One year, the Wolf Society and their families spent an entire winter on their own to the northwest of the Greasy Grass River. They did not rejoin the Sioux Nation until that spring.

  Buffalo Horn was the leader of the society. He had been a great war chief in intertribal warfare, counting many coups and garnering numerous scalps of fallen enemy warriors. His followers, as fierce and brave, began to earn a reputation that inched toward that of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier Society. But after making contact with Rollo Kenshaw and learning to thirst after the fiery liquor he was willing to trade for furs and money, their fighting activities and esteem had begun to drop.

  The former quest for glory turned into forays of small raids and trapping to get the goods necessary to have access to Kenshaw’s whiskey.

  Now Buffalo Horn and his best friends—Wild Bull, Flying Hawk, and Iron Hatchet—would rather get drunk than even hunt. The need for pelts and money for alcohol was the only motivating factor in their lives. Even the importance of feeding their families had faded in the warrior society’s activities. The women, too, had a fondness for getting drunk. This meant neglected children and chores during the times the intoxicated females were unable to perform their duties as wives and mothers.

  The night eased in over the forest, and the fires were built up. The drinking continued and the Indian men, staggering and yelling, made such a disturbance that the children fled to the safety of the tepees. The only women who stayed outside were those who also took swallows of the rotgut. Bleary-eyed and crazy, the drunken females shrieked and tried to pull the bottles away from the men.

  That was when Rollo Kenshaw and his gang began to single out particular women for their pleasure. Brandishing containers of liquor, the white men approached the women and let them know their liquor was available.

  Laughing and stumbling, the wives of the Wolf Society warriors lunged and grabbed at the prizes that were teasingly pulled away. Little by little, individual women were lured away from the fire to be grabbed and pulled into the woods. The warriors, making noise, could not hear the few screams as their women were led away for the pleasure of the whiskey peddlers.

  Before midnight, Kenshaw and his men had satisfied their carnal desires. The time had come for the whiskey peddlers to forget about the women. It was time for the white men to take up arms against what could eventually turn to explosive violence as the whiskey boiled in the warriors’ brains.

  Several of the drunken women reappeared in the light of the fires, their dresses in disarray as they sought more drink from their men. A couple, completely naked, were pushed away by drunken husbands. One of the women, badly bruised and with a bleeding nose, had endured Bruno Glotz’s idea of lovemaking.

  The first sign of trouble came when two of the warriors got into a shouting and shoving match. From there, the conflict evolved into a drunken wrestling match, with one caught in the powerful grip of the other, who had him pinned by the neck in his arms. They huffed, panted, and grunted as they whirled and stumbled. Other Indians, laughing, hit and kicked them. The physical punishment inflamed the combatants’ tempers until the one being held finally managed to break loose.

  The other roared in rage at the escape and made another grab for his opponent. His efforts got him a knife thrust in the belly. He pulled away with the weapon stuck in his midsection. Mumbling and groaning, he stared at it. The other lurched forward, grabbed the bladed instrument, and withdrew it, only to stab it back into the abdomen a half dozen more times.

  The wounded man, his blood flowing in several wide streams from his belly and down his thighs, fell to his knees. Drunk and incoherent, he protested what had happened to him. Another drunken warrior came up behind him, and laughing, put a foot in his back and pushed the man over onto his face.

  He did not get up.

  The new widow, seeing her husband killed, let out a loud shriek from the tepee where she’d watched the murder. A nondrinker, she was sober and enraged as she charged into the crowd of drunken warriors and began to pound the killer with her fists.

  The warrior tried to fight back, but was too intoxicated. He endured the punches and kicks until bumping into Buffalo Horn’s friend Flying Hawk. Flying Hawk, almost blind drunk, was instantly enraged. He struck back, missing the man who hit him, and slammed the widow with an open hand. She staggered sideways from the blow into Iron Hatchet, who cuffed her around with more slaps. Finally, able to get loose, the woman fled screaming back to her lodge. There, with bleeding nose and her children huddled in fright around her, she watched the macabre events of the drunken evening continue.

  Increased shoving and fighting broke out among the Sioux revelers. No more murders took place, but a half dozen of the drunken men were beaten or kicked unconscious by their fellow drinkers. Later the noise died down as others either passed out or staggered into the woods to collapse into drunken slumber.

  Rollo Kenshaw and his men finally could relax their vigil. The drunken Sioux were done for the night. A couple of the younger members of the gang, including Bobby Slowfoot, repeated their fun with some of the unconscious women, before retiring to their bedrolls situated in the vicinity of the wagons.

  Rollo Kenshaw, the last white man to retire for the night, looked at the scene before him. Unconscious Indians, and one dead one, sprawled around the camp. The only sound was the soft sobbing of the woman whose husband had been killed.

  Rollo spat a stream of tobacco juice. “A good day’s work,” he said to himself. Then he went to his bedroll.

  Three

  Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory, was located on the western bank of the Laramie River, a mile and a half from its junction with the Platte. The army garrison, originally a fur-trading post, was established in the country where the plains and mountains met. At that point, at an elevation of over four thousand feet above sea level, the terrain began a gradual rise that soon steepened considerably to flow upward and form the great mountain barriers to the America’s Pacific Northwest.

  Pioneer immigrants, heading for new lives in that part of the country, traveled the Oregon Trail through the wilderness to what they considered no less than the “Promised Land” of their hopes and dreams. This route, destined to for historic greatness, was under the direct protection of the troops stationed at Laramie.

  It was owing to
this mission of safeguarding the wagon trains following that trail that Captain Darcy Lafayette Hays had been summoned to his commanding officer’s presence. This was Colonel Isaac Cowler, who headed up a tough, veteran dragoon regiment.

  The colonel was a small, trim, bald man who made up for his loss of hair with a pair of gigantic muttonchop whiskers. Soft-spoken and coldly efficient, he had entered

  the Army from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He received his commission and initial appointment to the dragoons seven years after Darcy Hays. But because of a great talent and capacity as a staff officer and administrator, Cowler managed to climb higher and faster in rank than the older man.

  The situation caused no ill feeling from Hays, however, since he was destined to see many juniors pass him by in the promotion game. As long as he could command a company and personally lead them in the field, Captain Darcy Lafayette Hays was a contented man. He had no complaints about his position in the Army. Jealous ambition was not part of the captain’s makeup.

  The unit in which Hays, Colonel Cowler, Lieutenant Tim Stephans, and the others served was a far-flung regiment of dragoons. Like her sister outfits, she was an overworked, understaffed part of the frontier army made up of tough, professional soldiers with more demands placed on them than resources with which to meet them. Officers came and went, many disillusioned with slow promotion and arduous postings. There were better opportunities in civilian life, and a hell of a lot more money that could be earned by engineers trained at West Point.

  The enlisted men, even though most were poorly educated and hadn’t the abilities or opportunities to earn good wages in the outside world, also displayed a tendency to leave the service. Many of the lower ranks were depleted, not by resignations or even the end of five-year enlistments. The soldiers’ numbers were thinned yearly by desertions. Many soldiers chose to flee the harsh discipline and brutal conditions under which they were forced to serve.

  These were the reasons that, when duty called, even an overage, rheumatic, retirement-requesting officer like Hays would be sent to the field.

  The interview with the colonel let the captain know that his last days in the Army had the very real potential of being both busy and bloody ones. Hays had reported in sharply after being summoned from his quarters. Proud and sensitive, the old captain made a special effort to show no limp as he marched to a spot in front of Colonel Cowler’s desk.

  “Sir!” he barked with a salute. “Captain Hays, commanding officer of ‘L’ Company, reporting to the regimental commander as ordered.”

  Cowler returned the salute, saying, “Stand at ease, Darcy.” He used his prerogative as the senior man to address the other in a friendly, informal manner. He eyed the captain. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Tip-top, sir, by God! I feel wonderful, yes, sir!” Hays answered. Military courtesy and custom demanded that he remain respectful and proper in his manner of speaking to the colonel.

  “You look a bit tired,” the colonel said.

  “Only the effects of last night’s drinking, sir,” Hays assured him. “I’ll be fit as a fiddle by noon.”

  “You drink too much, Darcy,” Cowler said.

  “Yes, sir,” Hays remarked. “That is something I will not bother to contradict.”

  “I’m afraid the Army has made a drunkard out of you,” Cowler said.

  “I am forever indebted to the service for that, sir,” Hays remarked with a grin.

  The colonel smiled at the reply. “You always bounce back, Darcy.”

  “It’s like I’m made of India rubber, sir,” Hays said. “So!” the colonel exclaimed. “You’ve applied for retirement, have you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hays said.

  “Well, I would like very much to make your final weeks of service pleasant and relaxing. But I fear that I have one more job for you,” Cowler said. “I would send somebody else; however, no other officer is available, as I am sure you are aware.”

  “Fine with me, sir,” Hays said. “I’m fit as a fiddle, tip-top, sir.”

  “So you’ve told me,” Cowler said. “Drag up a chair, Darcy. Let’s keep this informal, shall we?”

  Hays got a chair and sat it in front of the desk, then plopped himself down on it. “What’s this mission you have for me, sir?”

  “First names, Darcy, old man,” Cowler said, “if you please. I would like very much to dispense with the rank protocol. We’re old comrades, after all. How far back do we go?”

  “I’d say about twenty-three years, Isaac,” Hays said. “I believe we first began serving together in 1822, was it not?”

  “Indeed,” Cowler said. “Who would have thought—” He let the statement hang. “So, it’s rather ridiculous if we keep up this pretense of military formality while we are alone. Especially since you’re nearing the end of your career.”

  Hays smiled. “Sure. Anything you say, Isaac.”

  “Margaret is worried about you,” Cowler said. “She’ll have a fit when she finds out I’ve sent you to the field.”

  “Your wife is a wonderful woman,” Hays said. “I’ll never forget all those years of kindness and consideration she’s shown me. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have been much lonelier since losing Chandra and the children. Those wonderful evenings spent with you two will be the warmest memories I take with me from the regiment.”

  “We always enjoyed your company, Darcy,” Cowler said.

  “It was mutual, believe me,” Hays said. He cleared his throat and straightened up. “But let’s get down to business, shall we? What is this mission you are regretting so much to send me on?”

  “We’ve just received a report that a lone wagon has been attacked by Indians on that trail at a place a few miles south of the Powder River,” the colonel said. “So many of those damned stubborn immigrants won’t listen to advice to travel with a large group.”

  “Only brave and headstrong people leave comfortable lives back East to go to Oregon and build a new country,” Hays pointed out.

  “I suppose,” Cowler said. “At any rate, you are to take your company to the vicinity and see if you can verify that particular intelligence. If it proves true, you are to take the appropriate action and bring in the malefactors for proper punishment.”

  “Or kill them if they resist,” Hays added.

  “Or kill them if they resist,” Cowler confirmed. “If you’ve not found anything or are unable to make contact with the hostiles, you are to bring your command back to Fort Laramie in two weeks.”

  “Is that all the information you can give me about the incident?” Hays asked. “That isn’t a hell of a lot to go on, Isaac.”

  “I’m sorry, Darcy,” the colonel assured him. “But we received word of the outrage from a prospector. He said he heard it from another man who asked the fellow to bring us the word since he was heading south toward us. That gold seeker went three days out of his way to let us know about the attack.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Hays said. “It all sounds pretty routine.”

  “You’ve done it hundreds of times,” Cowler said.

  “I can do it once more,” Hays assured him.

  “By the way, Darcy, what are your plans for retirement?” Cowler asked. “Will you be heading back to your native North Carolina?”

  “I think not, Isaac,” Hays said. “I've made contact with a gentlemen's hotel in St. Louis. My pension will allow me a nice room, a couple of meals a day, and enough money for some serious drinking now and then.”

  “Oh, I see,” Cowler said. “I’d have thought you’d want to go back to your old home.”

  “No,” Hays said. He stood up and took the chair back to where he got it. He returned to a spot in front of the desk snapped into the position of attention. “Permission to begin the mission, sir.”

  The colonel went back to being a commanding officer. “Dismissed, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hays saluted, made an about-face, and marched out of the office.r />
  That had been the previous day. Now, at less than a quarter of an hour past sunrise, Captain Darcy Hays, Lieutenant Tim Stephans, and the twenty-five available men of “L” Company stood in formation at the garrison stables.

  The troopers were equipped for the field. Each was dressed pretty much as he pleased, wearing practical civilian clothing in conjunction with certain items of military uniforms. All had wide-brimmed hats purchased in the sutler's store to wear in place of the impractical shakos issued to dragoons by the Army. Kerchiefs of various colors adorned the troopers' necks while both service and civilian shirts and trousers made up the rest of the attire. All pairs of boots were government issue, since the price of a good pair was out of the range of the soldiers' miserable pay. Only Hays and Tim had well-made footgear they had both gotten through mail-order purchases from a store in St. Louis.

  Of the twenty-five men, three were noncommissioned officers. Sergeant Sean O’Murphy and Corporals John Grady and Tom Dickson would be the backbone of the enlisted men. First Sergeant George Aldridge had been forced to keep the remaining fifteen men of the company behind to meet the commitments of guard duty and fatigue details demanded by the garrison’s tough sergeant major.

  Hays had already explained the patrol’s purpose to the men. All were veterans and well armed with model 1848 breech-loading Sharps carbines. Each also had an issue dragoon saber, in addition to various personal knives that varied as much as their clothing. Darcy Hays and Tim Stephans, along with those store-bought boots, could also boast of owning a brace of Colt dragoon revolvers. Fully armed, carrying rations, blankets, and other necessary equipment, the dragoons stood to horse.

  “Prepare to mount!” Hays barked. “Mount!”

  The troops swung into the saddles, making quick adjustments as they waited to begin their adventure.