“Calm down,” Fetterman said, winking at Harry while Jimmy thrashed in his arms. “You’ve got your blood up, I can see that, but a man must learn to master his feelings. Can you do that, Jimmy? Can I set you free?”
Jimmy kicked a few more times, then nodded. Fetterman put him down. “Anyhow, it’s too nice a day for fighting,” he said. “Say, look there.” He pointed to a flat stretch of ground outside the stockade where a group of children were playing ball. “The Wheatley boys are getting up a game. Why don’t you join them?”
The children of enlisted men and civilian employees were allowed more freedom than the children of officers. Lately, the two Wheatley brothers had been organizing games of dare ball outside the main gate. The towheaded twins were the sons of James Wheatley, a quartermaster’s employee from Nebraska. Jimmy had not been allowed to join the ballplayers, partly for safety reasons but also because officers’ children weren’t supposed to associate with those of enlisted men. But before Harry could stop him, Jimmy took off running. Harry followed, catching up just as Jimmy was starting through the heavy, double-plank doors of the main gate. He grabbed Jimmy’s arm. “You can’t go out there,” he said.
“Please, Harry,” Jimmy pleaded. “You heard Captain Fetterman—it was his idea. Just this once, just for a little while. I want to play ball. Mother won’t even know.”
Harry ran a hand through his hair. It would be an easy way to keep Jimmy occupied for the required two hours. “Well,” he said, “you’ll come in when I say, right?”
Jimmy agreed with a happy nod and they slipped out of the post, not through the main gate but the sally gate on the west side. Once outside, they crept around to the north face, holding close to the wall. If the guards noticed their escape they took no action. Why should they, Harry thought. They weren’t responsible for the commanding officer’s sons.
As Jimmy joined the ballplayers, Harry found a place in the sun next to Wheatley’s cabin. He leaned back against the bark-covered logs and pulled The Count of Monte Cristo from his coat pocket. Within seconds he was sewn up in a dead man’s bag alongside Edmond Dantès, trying to escape the jailers at the Château d’If.
At ten o’clock he heard the mill gates swing open and the rumble of wagons leaving for the Pinery. They were getting a late start for this, the last wood run of the season. Harry glanced up from his reading as the train moved slowly past the buzzing sawmills. It was accompanied by an unusually large guard, he noticed, almost one hundred men by his estimate. He returned to his book.
The sun was warm on his face and the thrumming of the steam-powered saws was hypnotic. He dozed, letting his book fall open, only to be jolted awake by the blast of the sawmill whistle. Indians! Panicked, Harry jumped to his feet and searched for Jimmy. He was not among the throng of boys running pell-mell for the gates. Inside the fort, men were rushing to take positions on the banquette as the Pilot Hill sentry signaled an attack on the wood train. Harry heard gunfire.
“Jimmy!” he called, turning full circle in his search. “Where are you!”
“Harry—over here!” Jimmy’s white, frightened face appeared in the cave-like opening of a civilian’s dugout near the Big Piney. He burst out like a frightened quail running toward Harry at top speed. At the same time two Sioux warriors rode out of the cottonwoods on the far side of the creek. They were barely fifty yards away, close enough for Harry to see black and yellow war paint on their faces and red handprints on their ponies. One of the Indians waved a rifle above his head taunting the soldiers in the fort.
“Sons of bitches!” he shouted, his pony dancing beneath him. “Come out and fight us, sons of bitches!” The other sat motionless, his eyes trained on Jimmy. Even from a distance, Harry could see the calculation in his black eyes. Could he reach the boy without risking a soldier’s bullet? Harry raced toward his brother. Frightened as he was, Harry knew he could never live with himself if anything happened to Jimmy.
Jimmy tripped and fell headlong. The watching Indian saw this and kicked his pony in the ribs, urging him into the icy waters of the Big Piney. Harry was chilled to see his smile, his teeth white against the black face paint. Jimmy got up and hobbled forward, blood flowing from his mouth.
“My ankle!” he said when at last Harry reached him. “I hurt my ankle.”
Harry turned and gave Jimmy his back. “Hop up!” Jimmy threw his arms around Harry’s neck and wrapped his legs around his waist. Harry ran for all he was worth, turning once to look over his shoulder. He wished he hadn’t. The warrior was more than halfway across the Big Piney and coming fast. “Faster, Harry!” Jimmy’s breath was hot in Harry’s ear. The sentries on the banquette fired at the Indian but their shots went high.
“He’s coming, Harry!” Jimmy screamed. “Faster!”
By now the Indian had cleared the water. Harry heard the pounding of the pony’s unshod hoofs on the hard ground. Desperate with fear, he saw James Wheatley, down on one knee by the gate, squinting down the barrel of his sixteen-shot Henry rifle. He fired. Harry heard one boom, then another, followed by the scream of the warrior’s charging pony. Harry looked back to see the horse lying motionless on the ground and his rider scrambling to his feet. The Indian turned and ran back toward the creek, where his companion was riding to his aid. Wheatley did not press his advantage, allowing the rescuer to pull the other up behind him onto his pony’s back. They recrossed the Big Piney and retreated into the safety of the cottonwoods. Harry staggered through the gate and collapsed beside Jimmy on the ground.
“Are you boys all right?” Wheatley said. “What’s wrong with your mouth, son?”
Jimmy stuck out his tongue to reveal a deep gash. He had bitten it when he fell. “And my ankle too,” he said, his teeth red with blood.
“Thank you, Mr. Wheatley,” Harry said. “He would’ve caught us if not for you.”
Wheatley was a handsome man with white-blond hair like his twin sons and pale blue eyes. “You did all right too, Harry,” he said.
Harry saw his mother running toward them. She kneeled beside Jimmy and covered her ears as the howitzer boomed, sending a shell into the cottonwoods. Harry looked across the creek to see twenty Indians, including the two who had threatened him and Jimmy, fly from the thicket on horseback.
“Take your brother to the house then fetch a surgeon,” Margaret said when she finished examining Jimmy’s injuries. “Then you can explain to me what you two were doing out there.”
She followed as Harry carried Jimmy across the parade where men were preparing to ride in support of the wood train. Carrington had given command of the detachment to Powell but Fetterman stepped forward.
“As senior officer, I request permission to lead the party,” he said. “As you see, my men are ready.” Harry saw the men of Fetterman’s A Company standing in neat formation.
Carrington looked at Powell, who shrugged. “Very well, Captain Fetterman,” Carrington said. “Take any additional men you think you may need. And study this before you leave.” He gave Fetterman a painstakingly prepared map of Lodge Trail Ridge and the Peno Valley beyond. The colonel had drawn it himself after the disastrous action of December sixth. It showed every stand of trees, each ravine and swale. “I’ll send the cavalry out fifteen minutes after you leave,” he said. “They should catch up to you before you reach the wood train.”
Fetterman saluted and turned toward his men.
“Wait.” Carrington placed his hand on Fetterman’s right arm. “Support the train, Captain, and return to the post. Nothing more. Engage the Indians only as needed to defend yourselves and the train. Do not, under any circumstances, pursue them over Lodge Trail Ridge. Do you understand?”
The two men stood face-to-face in the hard morning sun.
“I understand, Colonel,” Fetterman said. With a crisp salute he joined his waiting company.
Harry continued on to the house carrying Jimmy. A half-decorated Christmas tree stood in the parlor and swags of pine hung from the windows. He thanked his lu
cky stars again for Wheatley’s marksmanship. Some Christmas this would have been if Jimmy had been killed or, worse, captured. He carried his brother up the stairs and into the bedroom with Margaret close behind. He put Jimmy on the bed and, before his mother could scold him, ran down the stairs and out of the house in search of a surgeon. At the hospital, he found Hines, who agreed to come with him.
As Hines packed his case, Harry stood at the window, watching as Fetterman marched his foot soldiers through the mill gates. To Harry’s surprise they did not take the wood road to the west, but headed north toward Big Piney Creek. Meanwhile, Grummond had prepared the cavalry and mounted infantry for inspection. As Harry and Hines crossed the parade, they saw Carrington walking down the line examining weapons and ammunition supplies. Three soldiers were dismissed but the rest passed muster. As they neared the house, Harry heard someone call his name. He turned to see Captain Brown, running toward him.
“Harry,” he said, out of breath. “I need a favor.” His face was beaded with sweat though the temperature was dropping.
“A favor from me?” Harry said.
Brown looked at Hines. “Get on with your business, Hines. This is between me and the boy.” When they were alone Brown said, “I need to borrow your horse.”
“Calico?” Harry said. “You can’t ride Calico.”
Brown stepped in close. His breath was sour and tobacco-tainted. “The cavalry is leaving in a few minutes and I’ve got to go with them,” he said. “That pinto is the only horse left.”
Harry took a step back and shook his head. “You’re too heavy,” he said. “I don’t think—”
Brown gripped Harry’s arm. “This is important, Harry. I’m bound for Laramie in a few days—this could be my last go at the devils. Don’t deny Baldy Brown a last chance to revenge Gid Bowers.” His eyes gleamed in a way that seemed to Harry somehow indecent.
“Take him,” Harry said, pulling his arm free. “But don’t let anything happen to him.”
Brown grinned and slapped Harry on the back. “That’s my boy!” he said. “And don’t you worry. I’ll bring him back with a couple of Sioux scalps swinging from his bridle!”
Icy fingers tickled the back of Harry’s neck as he watched Brown jog toward the stables. He did not follow Hines inside the house but went instead to the quartermaster’s yard where the cavalry was preparing to leave. He heard Wands relaying his father’s orders to Grummond.
“You’re to join Fetterman. Together you will relieve the wood train and bring it back here, or, if Fetterman thinks it’s safe, escort it on to the Pinery. The colonel says do not—under any circumstances—cross the ridge in pursuit of the Indians. Make sure Fetterman understands that.”
As the corporal unlocked the mill gates, Wands added a caution of his own: “And dammit, Grummond, be careful. Remember, you’ve got a child on the way.”
Grummond smiled, looking to Lodge Trail Ridge, where a group of fifteen Indians observed the feverish activity inside the soldier fort. With a wave of his gloved hand, Grummond moved his men through the gates. They had gone about two hundred yards when Carrington called from the observation platform.
“Halt!”
Grummond stopped the column and an unnatural stillness fell over the post. Even the mules were quiet.
“Report to Fetterman and relieve the train,” Carrington shouted. “Do not pursue the Indians over Lodge Trail Ridge. Is this clear?”
Grummond stood in his stirrups and gave Carrington an exaggerated salute. “It is, Colonel.” He gave the command and his troop rode through the gate following Fetterman’s path, with civilians Wheatley and Isaac Fisher bringing up the rear. Just before the corporal of the guard closed the gates, Brown galloped through on Calico, racing to Grummond’s side at the head of the column. Harry instantly regretted giving Brown permission to take the pony. Jimmy could not know of it.
After the men were gone, those remaining in the post went about their normal routines. Laundresses brought the wash indoors for folding, carpenters picked up their handsaws and hammers, teamsters went back to greasing axles and tightening bolts. But there was a charge in the air, a sense of fear and anticipation.
Harry joined his father and Ten Eyck on the lookout platform. The weather was deteriorating rapidly, with gray storm clouds moving in from the north. They heard gunfire from the direction of the wood train. Carrington fixed his field glasses on Fetterman’s infantry.
“It looks like he plans to march up the creek and along the south slope of the ridge to cut off the Indians’ retreat,” he said. To Harry’s unaided eye they looked like fat black ants moving slowly up the brown slope.
“I thought you told him to take the wood road directly to the train,” Ten Eyck said.
Carrington responded, not lowering his glasses. “I did say that but I suppose this will be all right. He’ll be in a good position to cut them off or save the train, should the Indians press the attack.”
Soon Grummond’s cavalry caught up with Fetterman’s foot soldiers. The combined detachment, with the horsemen flanking the infantry, pushed north and west along the Bighorn Road until it disappeared behind the Sullivant Hills. Only then did Carrington realize he had not sent a surgeon out with either troop. “Find Dixon,” he said to Harry. “Tell him to take an ambulance to the wood train.”
“Sir,” Ten Eyck said, “one of the men sawed most of a finger off. Dixon’s busy with him.”
Carrington shook his head impatiently. “Well, find Hines then. Tell my orderly, Private Sample, and Phillips, that foreign fellow—what’s his name?”
“Portugee,” Harry said.
“Yes, that’s the one. Tell Sample he and Portugee Phillips are to escort Hines. If they’re not needed at the train, the three of them are to press on and hook up with Fetterman.”
Harry found Hines at his house, where he had just finished wrapping Jimmy’s ankle. The surgeon did not receive the colonel’s orders happily and he climbed the platform to complain. “You’re sending me out there with two men? Colonel, I won’t go, not without a larger escort.”
Carrington did not try to conceal his anger. “I can’t spare them, Hines,” he said. “I am undermanned here—dangerously so.”
“Well, sir, I will not go with only two men,” Hines said flatly. “It’s simple as that. You can throw me in the guardhouse, court-martial me, whatever you want, I will not do it.”
“Dammit, man!” Carrington said. “Get started with Sample and Phillips and I’ll send two more men after you—but no more.”
Hines agreed with obvious reluctance. Soon after they left the stockade, the Pilot Hill sentry signaled the Indians had quit their attack. His waving flags meant the wood train was breaking corral and moving on toward Piney Island. Carrington pulled out his pocket watch and flipped open the lid.
“Twelve fifteen. Make note of the time, Tenodor.” He stepped to the edge of the platform and called down to an officer, telling him to select a mounted infantryman and follow Hines’s party. “It may not be necessary, now that the Indians are withdrawing,” he said to Ten Eyck, “but I promised and I’m a man of my word, though Hines’s manner was quite out of line.”
Carrington put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “It’s almost dinnertime, son. Let’s go to the house and see what George and your mother have for us. Today I believe it’s a saddle of mutton with mint jelly, yellow squash, and beets. For dessert, a custard blancmange with cream. How does that sound?”
Harry smiled. Now that the danger was past, his father was in a playful mood. The midday meal would be the usual, bread, soup made of reconstituted dried vegetables with maybe, if they were lucky, a bit of venison, perhaps some floury cake. “Great,” Harry said. “I love mutton.” He hoped his father’s good mood would hold when he learned of Jimmy’s near-disaster. They started down the stairs when Ten Eyck spoke.
“Colonel, hold up. It’s Hines—they’re coming back.”
They looked to the wood road where Sample and Phillips were
racing their horses around the shoulder of the Sullivant Hills. Hines was close behind in the ambulance. Again they heard gunfire.
“What’s that?” Carrington said. “Is the wood train under attack again?” The Pilot Hill sentry gave no signal.
“Sir, those shots are coming from the northwest,” Ten Eyck said, “from the far side of the ridge. That would be Fetterman and Grummond.”
Carrington pounded his fist on the platform rail. “Damn—they’ve crossed over! How many times did I tell them not to?”
They were struck by an icy blast of wind, so violent it took Harry’s breath away. At the same time they heard a volley of gunfire, then another, another, and another, followed by rapid, random shots. Lieutenant Wands ran up the steps to join them on the lookout.
“What is it, Colonel?” he said breathlessly. “What’s happening?”
Carrington swept the ridge with his field glasses. “I don’t see anything.”
The volley fire brought all activity at the post to a standstill. Harry saw his mother at the door of their quarters, looking anxiously up at the platform. In the quartermaster’s yard the corporal of the guard unlocked the water gates for Hines, Sample, and Phillips, who flew through without slowing. Hines jumped down from the ambulance and ran toward headquarters with Sample right behind him. Men called out to them, seeking information, but they did not stop. They climbed to the platform, their boots pounding on the stairs like war drums.
“Colonel,” Hines was breathless, “we couldn’t reach Fetterman. The western slope is swarming with Indians. We couldn’t get through. There was no way.”
“Did you see Fetterman or the cavalry?” Carrington asked.
“No, but the shooting was coming from the far side of the ridge, from the Peno Valley.”
All color drained from Carrington’s face. He stepped to the rail and called to a man below. “Soldier, tell the quartermaster to ready three wagons and an ambulance. On the double.” To Ten Eyck he said, “Assemble every man fit for duty, including those under guard. You will lead them. Take the most direct route to Fetterman and join him at all hazards. Hines, go with Ten Eyck. Sample, take my horse, bring communications back to me as Ten Eyck directs.”
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