Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866

by Terry C. Johnston

  Carrington swilled at the last of the coffee grown cold in his cup while he peered through the frosty pane. Welcoming the warmth beside the sheet-iron stove. With a fresh cup, he brooded over the troubling report of another ambush on Carter’s hay operations just hours ago. Across Peno Creek in the Goose Creek Flats, a large war-party of Sioux and Arapaho had discovered the mowers and their guard under command of Lt. Winfield Scott Matson. The lieutenant and his civilian workers had themselves pinned down for the better part of three days, until Carrington had learned of their predicament and ordered out a relief column from the fort. Carter’s men returned with their mowers and what empty hay wagons the Indians hadn’t burned. Four wounded. Three more bodies stacked in one of the bouncing carts.

  He recalled what Quartermaster Brown had argued when word spread of this recent attack on a hay party. “We won’t find a single civilian who’ll work out of sight of the fort now! For the love of God, Colonel—you’ve got to strike back now, and strike fast. Wring one, just one victory from all this defeat and despair! Be something more than a … damned garrison officer!”

  Still, Henry steadfastly refused to mount an expedition against the Sioux. Forced to watch his civilian workers whittled down by the hostiles.

  Yet, that ambush troubles me less than Matson’s report that he encountered a white man during the battle. A white man, dressed in warrior’s clothing!

  If what Bridger reports is true—that white men are joining Red Cloud’s hostiles—it would confirm Matson’s startling confrontation during the skirmish. He told me the white man was missing the fingers of one hand!

  Pain needled through Henry’s head. Dreading the walk over to the hospital, begging a powder from Surgeon Horton. Even he’s calling to have Fetterman reassigned to my post Where are those——

  Carrington located the notes Phisterer had transcribed almost two months earlier, during Henry’s questioning of Jack Stead concerning the mood of the Cheyenne in the area. I was right. Stead did mention a renegade. Missing four fingers on one hand. The one called Captain North.

  Closing his eyes for several moments, Henry fought the pain pricking his skull. We still remain vulnerable on two fronts—down in the timber cuttings, where the men work in scattered groups … and atop Pilot Hill itself. Where the pickets can only warn us of their own imminent danger.

  His head nestled atop his forearm, Henry waited for the pain to pass. Brooding on the man he had ordered to remain behind at Fort Sedgwick when the regiment marched north to Indian country.

  Damn him! He’s everything I’d ever hoped to be. Born in Garrison—son of an old army officer. Inbred with that singular instinct and ambition of a born soldier. A graduate of West Point … while I was too sickly for acceptance. The handsome devil even has a reputation for gentlemanly manners. Everything … I ever wanted——

  The cold began to creep along his legs, and his fingers grew chilled.

  The fire’s died out.

  Then opened his eyes. Removed a sheet of paper from a drawer. For a moment he stared at its ivory purity. Then dipped his pen and wrote:

  20 September, 1866.

  Henry suddenly froze the pen over the page, his mind brooding on dark thoughts. Remembering the stories he heard repeated so many times on their march west. Those tales of his very own beloved 18th Infantry in battle … the siege of Fredericksburg … later their siege of Atlanta. He shuddered again. Recalling how it was said Fetterman and Brown maintained control over the 2nd Battalion during those fateful days with Sherman, marching to the sea. Though time and again Henry had heard of such rumors on other units during the war, it had proved something altogether different when he overheard reports of his own officers maintaining their control of the battalion by …

  Not only shooting deserters, but shooting cowards! Men who simply——

  Carrington shook his head. To shoot a man simply because he’s nowhere near as rash nor foolhardy as Brown. Simply because Brown believes any man not ready to dash into the jaws of death is a patent coward.

  Carrington shuddered, finally scratching feverishly at the paper. Sweating as he thought on men who would murder their fellow soldiers.

  His breathing hard. His heart pounding. Muscles tensed, knotted. Afraid of admitting his private fears to anyone.

  When he had finished, Carrington folded the page and stuffed it into an envelope upon which he printed:

  Colonel Henry E. Maynadier

  Fort Laramie

  Territory of Dakota.

  He returned to the window, watching the snow melt on the frosty windowsill where his breath collected and froze in patterns of glazed sugar.

  Carrington wondered if he had done the right thing, ordering up Capt. William J. Fetterman.

  Chapter 20

  Damn you, Carrington! Fred Brown seethed to himself. Struggling to control his rage. “Don’t you see them for what they are?” he demanded.

  “Explain yourself,” Carrington replied.

  Brown studied the faces of the others crowded in Carrington’s small office. His heart pounded, fired by anger. By his humiliation before the Sioux warriors his detachment had chased off Pilot Hill less than an hour ago. And exasperation that no one saw Carrington for what he was. An incompetent, bumbling coward unfit for command.

  “We came upon that band of Cheyenne while they were parleying with the escaping Sioux I was following, Colonel.”

  “Weren’t parleying at all, Brown,” Jack Stead advised, his arms crossed, balanced on the balls of his feet. “Two Moons tells me they came from Black Horse’s camp in the mountains. Just nine old warriors, Colonel. And a squaw. They don’t own enough belongings to sag that travois being pulled by a skinny pony. They’ve come to ask Black Horse’s friend, the soldier chief, if he’ll allow them to hunt in the valley of the Tongue this autumn. They’re poor.”

  “Bastards’re in league with the Sioux who’ve run off my cattle! They get a few more almost every day!” Brown hollered.

  “Two Moons’s Cheyenne bumped into the Sioux, who were running from the captain here.” Stead addressed Carrington, but he kept his eyes on Brown. “Some of them Sioux were the same warriors who beat the Cheyenne chiefs in French Pete’s camp, the night before the Sioux killed the trader and his teamsters.”

  “So what’s this got to do with that soldier shot down at the Pinery today?” Carrington asked.

  “He was shot by Sioux, Colonel. Not Cheyenne. When the fleeing Sioux rode up on Two Moons’s bunch in the middle of the trail this afternoon, they asked the Cheyenne where they were headed. Two Moons told the young warriors that they were coming to the fort. That got the Cheyenne another beating. Those Sioux had to be pretty worked up—scalping that soldier down with the timber crews. Then rushing your pickets on Pilot Hill. All that effort for one poor scalp.”

  “One poor scalp!” Brown shrieked. “Private Smith was scalped and left for dead. By the grace of God and that brave soldier’s guts—he crawled for help.” He pointed out the door to the busy parade. “Colonel, you have no idea what’s going on out there right now. Those soldiers are pretty worked up themselves … seeing one of their own brought in here butchered like that. Blood and all. Smith’s scalp in tatters ’round his face. Those broken arrow shafts in his back——”

  “We’re all aware of the seriousness of our predicament here, Captain Brown.” Carrington tried saying it calmly. “Every man feels the same sense of desperation … that sense of utter isolation, under siege here——”

  “Colonel,” Brown interrupted, lunging forward, “the men don’t just feel utter isolation—every one of them feels utter desolation that you won’t strike back while we are picked off … one by one … day by day. Until you get the balls to send two companies out there to destroy those red bastards!”

  “Captain!” Carrington shouted more loudly than he had wanted. “Unlike you and the rest of those who want me to delay the building of this post to send a punitive force against the Sioux. Unlike all of you, I have
two enemies. While we both are cursed with the Sioux as enemies, I have another—perhaps even more formidable—enemy.”

  Brown fumed, chewing on his lower lip, waiting. “Just who the hell is that more formidable enemy? Me?”

  The colonel shook his head. “As much as you might like to flatter yourself, Captain, you are not my most formidable enemy. Instead, the enemy I fear most at this time is winter itself.”

  “W-Winter?” Brown squeaked in disbelief.

  “Winter, Captain. Unless I use every available man and every hour of daylight left us, this post will not be secured before winter comes to this land.”

  “B-But … your problems getting this post built has nothing to do with those Cheyenne out there … going free after they’ve scalped and maimed——”

  “Jack? Today’s attack doesn’t have anything to do with the Cheyenne, does it?” Carrington had turned to his scout, his voice growing desperate.

  “It sure as hell does have everything to do with those Cheyenne!” Brown roared, lunging toe to toe with Carrington. “I saw the Sioux talking with your beloved Cheyenne, Colonel.”

  Stead stuck his thumbs in his belt. “Like I said, Captain Brown, Two Moons’s people were getting a beating when you rode up. You’re the only reason the Sioux skedaddled and left the Cheyenne be.”

  “Spies!” Brown roared. “Those Cheyenne you’ve just given bacon and coffee to—they’re spies! You’ve even let them camp down on the Big Piney, like they were guests of ours. And tomorrow you gave them permission to ride on to the Tongue River to hunt for the season. They’re spies, Carrington! Headed to Red Cloud’s camp on the Tongue!”

  “Jack?” Carrington appealed to his scout.

  “They’re Black Horse’s chiefs. Most of ’em old men, Colonel. A handful of ’em even have your letter of good conduct you passed out when they were here last. When they showed your pass to Captain Brown here, he threw it in the dirt on the road, spat on it, and then had the gall to have his soldiers search ’em for weapons.”

  “Damn right I did!” Brown whirled on the scout. “I wasn’t about to let them sneak a weapon into this stockade.”

  “Most of ’em are poor, ill-fed, old men. Looking for a place to hunt,” Stead protested.

  “Spies, I tell you. You’ll see. Damn their red hearts, anyway! If Indians aren’t sneaking around behind your back, the red bastards are running away from a fight. Won’t stand up to you like a man! And that bunch of Cheyennes—they’re worse than the rest. Sniveling cowards, afraid to look me in the eye when I surrounded them. Sorry now I didn’t order my men to finish them off.”

  “That would’ve been more than folly, Captain. Some poor judgment,” Carrington said quietly.

  He’s a fine one to be talking about poor judgment, Brown fumed. “Been better for the red bastards in the long run,” he growled, then flung an arm toward the parade outside the colonel’s office. “None of you have the slightest idea what’s going on out there among those soldiers. They’ve seen what Stead’s Cheyennes done to Private Smith. Almost every day it’s another poor soldier butchered——”

  “Wasn’t those Cheyenne, you pigheaded fool!” Stead roared.

  “Maybe it wasn’t,” Brown answered quietly. Intense. “But, out there, it doesn’t really make a difference right now. Lotta soldiers got blood in their eye. So, Mr. Stead, it really doesn’t matter now who scalped Private Smith!”

  * * *

  “They hacked his damned scalp off and he didn’t even whimper!” one of the civilian woodcutters grumbled at the pinewood bar. He banged his empty cup down loudly.

  Judge Jefferson T. Kinney poured him a stout pull, then placed another mark beside the man’s name in his ledger. A short, thick man with a large head that gave him a top-heavy appearance, Kinney’s flat nose topped a sensual, feminine mouth. A good evening for business—two dozen soldiers and civilian workers jostling each other at his bar or squatting on stools and chairs, eating the judge’s crackers and grumbling over the afternoon’s Indian attack.

  “Smith ain’t giving up. Not Patrick,” an old soldier said, taking up the chorus. “Just come back from the hospital where that surgeon don’t figure he’ll last to morning.”

  “Gawd-awful way for a man to die,” a third whined. “Your scalped ripped off afore your eyes. Laying there—not making a damned peep of it!”

  Donegan sat alone in the corner nursing a cup of rye. Moments ago Captain Brown had strolled in, muttering and growling “Carrington this” and “Jack Stead that.” With a pale, puffy hand, Kinney poured the captain a tall one. On the judge. Seamus sensed the sutler wanted to warm things up for the evening—Kinney’s marble eyes twinkling mischievously above the fleshy pouches. Donegan figured the judge for a man who loved to stir things up then watch them come to a boil—all from a safe distance.

  Across the room sat Reverend White, alone at a tiny table, scratching at his notes or thumbing through his grease-stained Bible. Thursday night. And already preparing his spiritual message for Sunday service. He sipped his coffee, acknowledging Donegan over the lip of his cup before his gray head bent over God’s word once more.

  “But Private Smith’s only one,” Kinney said, his tone dripping with sarcasm within his gray-flecked goat’s whiskers.

  “What?” a teamster shrieked, not realizing he’d been baited. “Damn you any——”

  Kinney threw up a hand. “That’s right … just one!” He flung a plump, oratorical finger at the ceiling. “How many will it be tomorrow?”

  “He’s right!”

  “Judge got a proper head on his shoulders!”

  “How many?” Kinney repeated. “Two? Three the day after? What next week?”

  “By damned!” roared the woodcutter, slamming his big hand down on the bar. “Enough is enough!”

  “We have nothing to say about it,” Brown grumbled into his whiskey. Though he whispered, the entire room fell quiet as he spoke.

  “By Gawd, it’s high time we had something to say about——”

  “You don’t. I don’t.” Brown turned slowly, his elbows sliding back, resting on the bar, the cup sloshing at his belly. “The red bastards are working themselves up into a killing frenzy.”

  The others nodded, pressed forward. This was going to be good. If it wasn’t Kinney stoking them up, then Brown could put on his fire-breathing speech. Some muttered between them, then studied the captain, eager for the show.

  “What we’ve seen—them hitting my cattle herd, running off horses, burning the hay wagons—all of it … one thing’s for certain: they’re working themselves up for something big!”

  “It’s just like he says!” someone rumbled.

  “Who’s gonna be next?”

  “Each attack gets worse.” Brown pointed his cup out at the crowd. “More of them bastards hit us every day. More of us get scalped.”

  “Damn right!”

  “So!” Brown roared, tossing whiskey down his throat. “When do we strike back?”

  “High time we fight!” the teamster shouted. A friend pounded him on the back.

  “You’ve seen the blankets waving every time they attack,” Brown kept kneading his audience. “Can’t miss all those mirrors they flash from every hill!”

  “Passing the word!”

  “Working up to something big, like the captain says!”

  “Now they sent some among our number, right, Captain?” Kinney inquired, watching Brown turn slowly. The judge refilled the captain’s cup and smiled, nodding his big head with satisfaction atop a wattled turkey-neck.

  “That’s right,” Brown answered. “Stead and the colonel think those Cheyenne just harmless old men. Wanting to hunt buffalo up on the Tongue. But Red Cloud’s camped on the Tongue. Sitting pretty. Waiting for his spies to come riding back from our fort!”

  “Red bastards!” the woodcutter cried. “Killed Smith!”

  “We don’t know that, Frank!” another argued as loudly.

  “What you mean?” Frank ro
ared back. “A Injun’s a Injun. No difference.”

  “He’s right!” a soldier shouted at the bar. “I rode with Captain Brown this afternoon. We saw them Cheyenne with our own eyes … watched ’em talking with the Sioux. Ain’t that right, Captain?”

  Brown nodded. “Completely right.”

  “They was in on it. I told you!” the wood chopper shouted. “Told you they was the one’s got Smith!”

  “Where’r they?” a teamster growled.

  “Colonel said they could camp down on the Lil’ Piney. ’Cross from the sawmill.”

  “I say we settle the score,” Frank hollered, his face mottled with fire. “Ten of them bastards for what they done to Smith!”

  “I don’t figure it,” Frank’s friend moaned. “How they scalped Smith … coming from the south where the captain’s group seen ’em?”

  “Red’s red, far as I’m concerned,” Kinney replied, his oath filling the cabin.

  “Judge’s right,” Brown agreed. “Not a Injun I know of doesn’t want to fry any white man’s gut … he had the chance.”

  “He’s right!”

  “Both of ’em right!”

  “They’re sitting down there by the mill crossing—right now.” Brown swiped a hand across his lips, taking the thick beads of whiskey with it. “Probably laughing at Colonel Carrington himself right now. Laughing at us!”

  “By Gawd! I’d give those red devils something to laugh at!” the woodcutter shrieked, waving a thick fist.

  “They’re Cheyenne, though,” the quiet civilian among them whined in vain. “It’s Sioux causing all the trouble, killing——”

  “Red’s red, like I said before, son,” Kinney said, jumping into the fray again. “An Injun’s like a leopard. Won’t ever change his spots.”

  “They’re same as that murderin’ Red Cloud and his bunch!”

  “Colonel give ’em a place to stay the night!”