Ashes of Heaven

by Terry C. Johnston

  “A handful. Maybe more.”

  “Lead us out, Irishman.” And he flung an arm forward. “Bring them along, Captain Ball! Column of twos—on the double, goddammit! On the goddamn, ever-living double!”

  * * *

  Dawn was tinting the eastern sky to a bloody rose as Seamus signaled a halt to the cadre of officers riding hard on his tail-root.

  Afoot, Robert Jackson lunged onto the flat near Donegan’s big claybank, yanked there for the last two miles by the fierce grip he had on the tail of Private Charles Shrenger’s mount.

  “What happened to your horse?” the Irishman asked in a harsh whisper as he brought the claybank around, while the officers clattered to a halt.

  Bent at his waist, Jackson cocked his head and peered up sidelong at the mounted scout, huffing breathlessly, “G-gave … out.”

  “How far back?”

  “Long … long ways.”

  “Should’ve hollered for me,” Seamus declared, at the same time angry and sympathetic with the young man. “I’d give you a ride behind me.”

  Slowly Jackson straightened, still wheezing like a winded animal. He was drenched in sweat, droplets trickling off the end of his nose, his wool britches soaked up past his knees from the damp brush they had plowed through in the last handful of miles. “I knowed I didn’t w-wanna … be caught behind our lines where the Lakota might j-jump me. So I just called out … to this s-soldier here,” and he gasped, jabbing a finger at Shrenger.

  Miles’s orderly nodded. “This scout started out hanging onto my stirrup as he run along aside me,” Shrenger explained. “But after more’n a mile he was getting damned tired of that so he grabbed onto my horse’s tail for the last gallop in here.”

  “I get left behind when the fight starts,” Jackson growled, “them Sioux find me alone and chew me up.”

  “Damn,” cursed Donegan, wagging his head as he pulled free the straps to one of his saddlepockets, dragging out a canteen he handed down to the half-breed scout. “Here, drink your fill. The first dance of the ball is about to begin.”

  Up in those heights to their left, William Rowland and the others had waited out the rainy night. Surely from there, those scouts could see the cavalry column as it stabbed out of the creek valley and came clattering to a halt in the new day’s first light.

  As Donegan tore the big, wet hat from his head and began to wave it at the end of his arm, the sky dribbled its last, the constant patter diminishing in those seconds as if the sky had just sighed itself into a sudden silence. He wasn’t sure if the scouts had seen him as he dragged the hat onto his head and turned back to the head of the column with young Jackson.

  Because Muddy Creek seesawed back and forth across the narrow valley, he had been repeatedly forced to ford the stream, with the horse soldiers following at every crossing. Now the troopers were coming to a halt on the north bank, upstream from these last of the Sioux, these hostiles who had dared the Bear Coat to catch them.

  “General—you’re within a mile of the outskirts of the camp.”

  “You said the village lies in a wide horseshoe?” Miles asked.

  “That’s right. A few lodges downstream are on the other side of the creek. But from here you won’t have to make another ford.”

  Standing in the stirrups, Miles twisted about, his raspy voice raised slightly. “Bring up the battalion commander and his company captains.”

  The tension was something real, something tangible, there among those soldiers as Donegan grew aware of the first hint of woodsmoke. He turned to gaze down the valley. In the growing light, he thought he could spot the slowly rising pall of smoke, not near close enough to see any lodgepoles, much less any of the tipis. But make no mistake about it: that gray smoke was lifting far enough from the brushy valley floor to tint itself with streaks of vivid, newborn red as the sun continued its own climb.

  He jerked about to watch the cavalry officers among their men as the ranks came front into line, spreading both left and right within the confines of the lush undergrowth bordering the north bank of the Big Muddy and the base of the jagged ridge.

  “Epa-havee-seeve!”

  Turning with a start at that Cheyenne greeting, Donegan watched White Bull and Brave Wolf slip out of the twelve-foot-tall willow thicket on horseback. Donegan raised his hand, smiling as he spotted Rowland on their tail-roots, the others close behind the squawman.

  The group came to a halt just as Miles loped up with a big grin.

  “By damn, you did get back by sunup, Irishman!” Rowland cried, his eyes darting back over the cavalry forming up.

  “I give you my word, Bill,” he said, then nodded his head back at the Cheyenne warriors. “What’d White Bull say to me?”

  Rowland smiled, “He said, ‘It is a good day.’”

  “I s’pose it will be a damned good day now,” Seamus agreed.

  Dragging the back of his hand across his wet, hairless face, Rowland explained, “White Bull and the others—they wanted to get down here quick to tell the Bear Coat the women in that camp are starting breakfast fires.”

  “The camp is waking up?” Miles growled, glancing to the east at the brightening sky just then beginning to dome over the creek valley. “Captain Ball!” he bellowed angrily, turning back to his cavalry battalion. “See that your men are ordered to spare the women and children in our attack. I’ll have Bruguier and the Cheyenne demand their surrender the moment we make the charge.”

  “If this bunch’ll surrender,” Donegan declared.

  Both of the Cheyenne said something sharply to the squawman.

  With an impatient gesture, flinging his arm at the village, Rowland bellowed, “General—White Bull and Brave Wolf say it’s time for the Bear Coat’s soldiers to strike!”

  Growing nettled at the interpreter’s agitation, Miles wheeled on his officers. “Mr. Casey, form up twenty of your Cheyennes over there with your mounted infantry. You will be the spearhead of the attacking column. Tell your scouts they’ll be going after the herd.”

  “The herd, sir!” The young lieutenant saluted. “Yes, sir, General!” then reined away, gesturing at his warrior scouts.

  The colonel wheeled on the cavalry officers. “Mr. Jerome, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, General Miles,” said the young officer, urging his horse forward a few yards, coming to a halt close to Miles. “Second lieutenant.”

  The colonel asked, “H Company?”

  “Right again, sir.”

  “You will follow on the heels of Mr. Casey’s scouts, charging through the village, continuing downstream until you reach the herd. Together you will stampede them, drive them off so the hostiles can’t recover them. Once that’s done, you’ll be in charge of those captured ponies. Your men are to secure the herd until I decide on their disposition.”

  “Very good, General,” Lovell H. Jerome answered. “We’re ready to follow Mr. Casey past the village!”

  By then the rest of the officer corps had formed a ragged semicircle no more than an arm’s length from the colonel, each one of them showing his own brand of anxiousness in these moments before their attack was launched. Kicking at the clumps of grass with a boot-toe, chewing on a lower lip, repeatedly rubbing at the end of a nose, fidgeting with buttons or a gunbelt, or re-creasing the shapeless crown of a rain-soaked slouch hat.

  “Captain Tyler,” Miles said, taking a step toward the cavalry officer, “you and Captain Wheelan will serve as the attack squadron. As soon as Mr. Jerome and Mr. Casey are away after the horse herd, you will follow immediately into the village itself. I’m having your companies F and G ride out front in the first wave.”

  “The fighting line, sir?” George L. Tyler asked. “Very good, General!”

  Then the colonel turned to the last of his cavalry commanders. “Captain Norwood, Company L, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, General.”

  “I’m going to hold your men in reserve,” Miles explained. “We’ll see how things shape up in the first minutes o
f the fight, and I’ll throw your men in where they are needed.”

  Randolph Norwood saluted and said, “Yessir.”

  Now Miles turned to Bruguier. “Johnny, take Hump with you. The two of you will ride in with Casey’s scouts—tell the people in that village that they will not be harmed if they surrender. Tell the men their women and children are not in danger. Remind them that we are attacking because they have failed to go into their agencies. I want you both to shout that repeatedly as you ride north through the camp.”

  “We tell them, General,” Bruguier promised.

  “Now, go catch up Hump and the two of you report over to Casey’s auxiliaries,” Miles ordered.

  Donegan watched the half-breed turn to go before he glanced at Rowland and Culbertson. “General,” he called as he stepped up to the headquarters group, “since you’ve got all them Cheyenne going in for the herd, what you intend for the three of us?”

  The colonel’s eyes quickly flitted over the other two white men who had come up to stand some distance behind the Irishman. “I want you to ride with me. All three of you, Mr. Donegan.”

  “Very good,” Seamus said, then found himself saluting the colonel. “Can’t speak for them other two, but as for me, I want to be in there to see for myself that this fight is the last we’ll have in this war with the Sioux.”

  Chapter 36

  Moon of Fat Horses

  1877

  BY TELEGRAPH

  The Russians Preparing to Cross the Danube.

  Investigating the New York Postoffice Disaster.

  DAKOTA.

  The Surrender of Crazy Horse.

  CHICAGO, May 7.—The official report of the surrender of Crazy Horse puts the whole number of surrendering Indians at 889, of whom 217 were men; 2,000 ponies were also given up, and 117 stand of arms and other firearms are known to be in their possession.

  As the Bear Coat turned to take the reins of his horse from one of the little chiefs, White Bull grabbed Long Knife’s elbow, spinning the squawman around to face him.

  “You must tell the soldier chief I have an idea in my head!”

  He was a holy man of the People. He had been given a gift, and that gift was to share what he could see, especially when it was something others could not see.

  Sometimes, White Bull knew, a man put his feet on that trail where the Spirits directed, no matter what others might say.

  “What? What idea do you have?” Rowland demanded, perturbed at the interruption now as the cavalry was forming up for its charge.

  “I think I know a way we can get these soldiers in close enough to surround the village before the Lakota know the soldiers are there.”

  Long Knife wagged his head. “How are you going to do that?”

  “When I was on the rocks yesterday at sunset, counting the lodges and making those marks in your little book,” White Bull began to explain to the interpreter, “I saw two little streams coming into Fat Horse Creek from the hills. One reached Fat Horse Creek in the camp, and the other just below it. On that hill across from me—on the far side of the Lakota camp—there are many pines.”

  “To the east?” asked Long Knife.

  “Yes. Tell the Bear Coat I know a way I can lead the soldiers up to that first creek I saw, slip all the way up that stream and over the divide, coming down to the other creek where the cavalry can be waiting to attack. His walking soldiers can charge up the main valley into the camp—”

  “Why would the Bear Coat want his cavalry to be up there on the side of that hill?” the squawman interrupted.

  “To prevent Lame Deer’s people from running away,” he explained.

  Aghast at that, Long Knife shook his head violently and snarled, “No! I remember the Red Fork Valley fight! Here too we must let those poor people have a chance to get away!”

  “Why?” White Bull demanded. “If we surround them and they have nowhere to run, they will have to surrender—warriors and the rest—and we will get them all.”

  “No! I will not tell the Bear Coat anything of what you’ve said,” Long Knife whispered angrily. “You’ve brought these soldiers to the village. That’s all you needed to do—now stay out of this and let the soldiers finish their job!”

  * * *

  “General Miles!”

  He turned at the call from Captain Tyler. Several others in the broad front that was forming up were beginning to point at that hillside closest to the village.

  There, he saw: one of the hostiles … on horseback.

  “Has he seen us?” Nelson demanded as he lunged up to the front of the formation, watching that solitary rider make his way toward the tipis with no apparent haste.

  “Sure as the stars in heaven,” Seamus Donegan growled. “No way he could miss seeing your sojurs from where he was riding there on the side of the hill.”

  “A camp guard?”

  “Maybe,” Johnny Bruguier answered.

  “For the life of me I can’t figure out why he ain’t running for the village,” Donegan added.

  Miles glanced at the east, saw how the light was growing beneath that swollen rumble of the previous night’s rain-clouds. He turned on his heel suddenly and continued repeating the disposition of his troops to Adjutant Baird.

  “Private Shrenger,” the colonel called to his orderly, handing the soldier his big cream-colored hat. “Bring me my bandanna.”

  In a moment the young private was back with a huge white bandanna, which Miles folded in half, laid over his head, and knotted in the back. Stepping before the ranks of cavalry now, the colonel proudly explained to the cavalry commanders, “This white bandanna I’ve tied on my head will show your soldiers that I’m going into the fight with them.”

  Battalion commander Ball snapped a salute. “The Second Cavalry is proud to have you lead us into the coming fight, General!”

  Private Shrenger started to move toward Miles with the colonel’s big chestnut as Nelson felt the sour ball of sentiment choke him.

  “General—you may want to see this,” the Irishman called out.

  When Miles stepped close, he looked where Donegan pointed at the edge of the village, and saw that solitary rider had been joined by a few other forms—all of them quickly loading up their horses with bundles. In a matter of moments the small group was on the back of their ponies and hurrying out of camp, heading back toward the hills where the lone rider had first been spotted only minutes before.

  “I’m not going to worry about that handful slipping away, especially since they didn’t raise an alarm in the camp,” Miles told those around him, turning back to his cavalry officers and tucking in the knot on that white bandanna he wore. “Now we have the rest of these fish to fry.”

  * * *

  Johnny had never done anything remotely like this.

  Swept up, powerless, hurtled along with these soldiers racing right on the hooves of Casey’s Shahiyela scouts, Bruguier found the noise of it deafening. Watching these mounted foot soldiers shout and bellow, unable himself to hear much for all the thunder of hooves, the screams of alarm and shock from the camp, the war cries of the Lakota men … then he realized he was shouting too; bawling and shrieking at any of the blurry forms that leaped into view as the charge swept this way and that past the lodges.

  His throat hurt already—bellowing to these Lame Deer people that they must surrender to save their lives, give up to save the lives of their women and children.

  “Do not fight the soldiers! Give yourselves up!” he cried as his horse raced past the rain-soaked lodges, skirting the north side of the encampment. “Do not throw your lives away!”

  Despite his futile efforts, the women and children and those few old ones in camp were already on their way with no intention of surrendering.

  Within heartbeats Johnny was glad these soldiers were such bad shots firing from the backs of their big horses. All this shooting, all that lead buzzing through the air, and it did nothing more than to hurry the escapees along.

  Up ahe
ad, more than half a mile beyond the village, he could now see how Lame Deer’s people had put their ponies out to graze farther down the creek. While there were a few favorite animals tethered in among the lodges or grazing close at hand, the hundreds waited downstream. The Bear Coat ordered those ponies driven across the stream and away from the village.

  But suddenly, looking close up at the tight, winding path of the creek, Bruguier realized how sharp and high were its banks. He doubted these soldiers would be able to make their charge across the stream in that same wide front the way they were sweeping past the lodges.

  Off to Johnny’s right, a pony soldier jerked spastically as he was struck with a bullet. Wheeling to the side, the man slid off his horse in a tumbling heap as the rest of the disordered formation hammered past.

  One dead man already. Likely to be more … if this charge got bottled up driving the herd across the creek.

  Breathless, Bruguier twisted in the saddle, looking right, then left, finally spotting one of the white men whom Miles had ordered to lead his soldiers in this charge. The soldier rode close as he crossed behind Bruguier.

  Since he didn’t know what rank any of the bars or stripes meant on the uniforms, Johnny shouted, “Soldier chief!”

  Against the racket of screams and gunfire and panic, the officer turned his head, his eyes finding the half-breed at the very moment Johnny heard the onrushing snarl of a bullet. As he watched, the side of the officer’s jaw opened up in a deep red furrow slashed from chin to earlobe. Slapping one hand against the wound, the officer reacted by yanking back on his reins with the other.

  Already the first of the Lakota ponies were leaping from the steep banks into the creek, lunging across.

  In his next breath the half-breed was reining to a halt beside the soldier called Jerome. “You can ride?”

  At first all he could see of the man’s face were those angry eyes above the glove he had fiercely clamped across his cheek. Then the soldier nodded. In a muffled voice he growled, “I can … ride.”