Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866

by Terry C. Johnston

  Carrington signaled a halt, turned his stallion into the creek to break the ice for those to follow. Several yards from the bank the ice still held, until the colonel’s horse balked, terrified, fighting the bit. Its iron shoes skidded. Wide-eyed, it twisted, clambering back to the bank, crashing through the ice. Floundering in the bubbling flow, Carrington sputtered, drenched to his chest. He yanked the stallion across on foot, kicking the ice free with his sopping boots, wading in freezing water that lapped at his gunbelt.

  “Go back to the fort, Colonel! I’ll take it from here,” Grummond shouted as he reined up beside his drenched commander.

  “N-No,” Carrington stammered, lips numbing. “Can’t allow my men to think me a c-coward!”

  “You’re a damn fool,” Grummond snorted contemptuously, speeding on.

  “I … thought they’d see…” Carrington crawled aboard his horse. Clumsy. Shivering. Teeth chattering.

  Donegan halted beside him. “Some men too busy to recognize another man’s courage … because they’re so busy worrying about their own. Seen it. Many a’time.”

  “I’ve g-got to lead——”

  “Ride on, Colonel!” Donegan slapped the rump of Carrington’s horse. He stayed with the colonel as they raced past some of the slower horses straining up the side of Lodge Trail Ridge. Out of the trees and into the stiff wind that rawhided down from the Big Horns.

  As the soldiers climbed to the top of the first spur, they spotted four warriors waiting on the Bozeman Road beyond.

  “A wee bit late setting up their decoy for you, Colonel,” Donegan shouted, pointing.

  Into the bushes on either side of the road disappeared more Sioux.

  “I counted thirty-two, sir!” Grummond hollered.

  “Where there’s thirty,” Carrington signaled his men to follow, “a safe bet is there’s sixty!”

  “Even more come to join the party,” Donegan announced, pointing his Henry into the valley of the Big Piney.

  Fetterman’s soldiers had dashed to the relief of the wood train, sweeping more than a hundred Indians before him exactly as Carrington’s plan dictated.

  “Time for us to break their party up, Mr. Donegan,” Carrington said. He turned to Grummond. “Lieutenant, we’ll attack those hostiles waiting for us in the valley!”

  “Damn right we will, sir! About time!” He twisted in the saddle to holler back at his men, “Pistols ready! Guide center—at a gallop … ho!”

  Seamus Donegan felt the surge of adrenaline through his veins. The cords along his neck pumped heady juices to his brain as he slapped heels to the eager gray beneath him. Along the columns rose eager shouts and cheers. He turned and glanced at the flushed young faces as the drumming of hoofs and the clatter-clang of saddle gear drowned out all else. Recruits … getting their first raw taste of horse soldiering this day.

  Near the western end of Lodge Trail, Grummond brought his mount galloping alongside Carrington. “Unless we kick straight down the slope at a full gallop, we won’t make the valley in time to cut off the warriors Fetterman’s herding before him!”

  “At a gallop, Mr. Grummond. Just be sure that none of the men get scattered heading down,” Carrington ordered.

  “Right!” Grummond pulled back to pass the word.

  A moment later the lieutenant tore past Carrington, careening down the slope toward the flats near Peno Creek and a hundred screaming Sioux.

  “What the devil!” the colonel screamed.

  Grummond did not respond, racing low, his face along the horse’s neck.

  Carrington looked for help. “He’s headed for certain suicide—the damned fool!”

  “Suicide?” Donegan demanded, pulling his collar up against the wind.

  “Jack Stead told me … the Cheyennes’ warning.”

  “Warning?”

  “When the snows come,” Carrington explained, “Two Moons and the Sioux would give us a big fight.”

  Seamus gazed into the heavy, gray sky. “Snow any time now, Colonel.”

  His lips threaded into a line of determination as he fought to keep his teeth from clattering. “Warned us—the Sioux would bait us … drawing us to our own destruction.”

  “Where?” Seamus asked.

  “Beyond Lodge Trail Ridge.”

  Donegan twisted to his left, gazed down into the valley of the Big Piney. “I’ll be damned, Colonel—but it looks like we’ve come to the end of the Lodge Trail now.”

  “Down there—that fool Grummond is about to throw his life away!” Carrington shouted into the rising wind.

  “I’ll pull him, Colonel!” Donegan shouted into the clatter of hoofs and saddle gear as he sped off, pounding heels against the gray’s flanks.

  As his horse pitched headlong down the slope, Seamus whispered into its ear, “Let’s pray there’s nothing but wind to a Sioux promise.”

  Chapter 26

  It wasn’t as if this were his first battle at all. German-born bugler Adolph Metzger had six years of service under his belt before the rebels fired on Sumter. Stayed regular army after Appomattox, finding the promise of three squares and a warm bunk some security for a man who didn’t know but twenty words of English when he first donned army blue. Now, eleven years later and sporting a tinge of gray at his temples, Metzger wasn’t one to let a bunch of screaming Sioux rile him. Was a time he’d thought about a pair of sergeant’s chevrons, like they gave that wild young Irishman during the Rebellion. But Adolph had quickly figured it much safer to remain a common soldier.

  What with the way sergeants went at it. Two he had known during the war tossed in the guardhouse. Eli Garrett set free two days later. And Donegan, Adolph thought, left to rot in the dark for the better part of a month.

  Minutes ago he had followed Fetterman, Brown, and Bingham around the brow of a hill to discover the wood train corraled near the middle of the road. Some of the soldiers rasped their glittering sabers into the sunlight. Others began firing even though the Sioux were still more than a half mile off. For all the shouting and bravado, they watched the warriors turn to flee then immediately split into two bands. Fetterman ordered Bingham to follow the group sweeping right, heading toward the western end of Lodge Trail Ridge, while the captain’s own platoon followed the band galloping into the valley of the Peno. Metzger stayed with his company commander. But it hadn’t taken long for Bingham to lose his head.

  None of us knew what we was in for, fighting Indians, Metzger thought as he watched Bingham race ahead with a handful of men, following a few warriors baiting their trap. Not a man among us knew these Indians would not stand like Confederates stood and fought … like white men! None of us had an idea what we was facing.

  A moment later Metzger realized how alone he and the other fourteen men left behind really were. He threw up his hand and looked round at the young faces tight with fear. Dry-mouthed, Metzger realized he was the oldest man there. Not an officer in sight.

  Metzger swallowed. Calmed himself and hollered, “We’ll take cover, men!” Sweeping an arm toward the Peno Creek cottonwoods better than fifty yards off, “Stay together at all costs!”

  Before his squad even began their ride, the cottonwoods belched half a hundred screaming warriors. The soldiers rolled over one another in a jumbled mass, dashing for the base of the ridge where some huge boulders stood that might give cover until rescued. Then, as suddenly as the warriors had materialized, they disappeared. Back down to the creek, across and gone. Metzger reined up, signaling his green fourteen.

  “They’ll bunch for attack!” he shouted, remembering how Confederate cavalry bushwackers would whittle away at small detachments of Union horse. “Dismount, boys! Fight them where we stand!”

  “They’ve run off, you dumb Kraut!” one young red-haired soldier cheered.

  Metzger wheeled, watching the warriors disappear over the knobs and knuckles of raw landscape. Turning, Adolph understood as he watched the horsemen ripping down the bare slant of ridge in their direction. Carrington reine
d up near the fifteen dismounted soldiers, his detail a noisy clang and squeak of cold saddle-leather.

  “What the devil you doing here? Who’re you with?” the colonel demanded.

  “Lieutenant Bingham, sir,” Metzger answered. “C Company, Second—”

  “Where’s Bingham?” Carrington snapped.

  “Gone that way,” he answered, pointing west across the Peno. Into the snow swept hills where the fifty warriors had suddenly appeared, then flitted off like spring butterflies. “Gone down the trail——”

  “He rode ahead of you?”

  “Outrun the rest of us, sir.”

  “A bloody lot of that happening today,” Carrington muttered bitterly.

  Metzger watched the colonel seethe a moment, his lips pursed into a grim line of consternation.

  “By god,” Carrington growled, “Fetterman’s off in one direction, his unit torn apart … Bingham dashing off God knows—I go to one of them, soldier, the other is sacrificed.”

  Metzger nodded. “Bring ’em to you, Colonel.”

  “Bring them to me?”

  Adolph pointed to what he carried on a thick, braided cord over his shoulder. Carrington nodded with half a smile.

  “Bugler?”

  “Sir?” Metzger replied enthusiastically, bringing the brass horn to his lips.

  “Sound Recall.”

  Metzger licked the cold mouthpiece, blew the call once, then twice more before his breath moisture froze in the bugle.

  “Colonel—” he started to explain.

  “Good enough, soldier.” Carrington flung an arm forward. “You men mount up. We’ve got to——”

  The trees and tumble of brush erupted with rifle fire and a flight of arrows. An iron-tipped shaft hit Carrington’s stallion high on the flank. He fought for control as the soldiers about him hollered with struggles of their own.

  “Fall back! Fall back! Skirmish formation!”

  “Say, bugler!” An old infantryman dashed alongside Metzger. “Like old times, eh, friend? Appears the ball’s opened for sure now!”

  “With one hell of grand march!”

  “Old soldiers like us—always love to fight to music, don’t we?”

  “Gottamn!” Metzger replied, tugging at his lunging horse. “If we had Curry’s whole band here, we could play these savages a fine number!”

  Pvt. James McGuire pitched from his horse in the melee and lay senseless for a moment in the dust and old snow along the road. Carrington himself rushed forward when he spotted a warrior dashing out, ready to swing his warclub at McGuire. His action scared the warrior off, but it drew a phalanx of arrows from other Sioux.

  “By the gods! Under fire at last!” the colonel roared lustily.

  “More’ve come to join the dance, bugler,” the old infantryman yelled grittily as he pulled his ramrod into action.

  “More a hundred now,” Metzger replied sourly, reloading his old Starr carbine.

  “Tell you what, bugler,” the old soldier replied. “You shoot only your share. You hear? Leave half for O’Malley!”

  “Half I’ll leaf you, O’Malley!” Adolph cheered.

  For more than fifteen minutes, each moment as heavy as an hour, the warriors circled and stabbed at the defensive perimeter the soldiers had thrown up at the base of the ridge. With constant reminders from Metzger and a handful of others, most of the green recruits fired slowly. Firing only with a target in their sights.

  Close enough I could spit on ’em, Adolph brooded, struggling with his heated Starr carbine.

  On the warriors swept across the creek and along the brow of the hill. Smoke hung heavy in the cold air. Thicker than those Virginia hickory ham-sheds.

  Arrows whispered through the thicket like nervous, probing, iron-tipped fingers. Across the slopes of Peno Head, above the fight, signal mirrors flashed in the pale, frosty light. Moments later the warriors withdrew, as if swept over the hills by a broad hand. Only then did the soldiers understand what the mirrors had been signaling.

  Fetterman’s command dashing to Carrington’s rescue.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Wands had watched Fetterman turn in his saddle, both of them startled to hear the pounding hoofs clattering up behind them. Their detail had scattered the warriors swarming over the wood train. Already Bingham had dashed off to pursue a splinter band with half the troops. Wands recognized the familiar bearded figure spurring the little calico pony beneath him, straining to catch up.

  “Fred!” Fetterman shouted into the cold wind.

  “Judd!” Brown answered breathlessly. “Alex!”

  “What took you so long to join the fight? You suffering from Carrington’s cowardice, eh?” Fetterman yelled.

  “You dare mention my name beside that spineless bastard’s!” Brown growled. “Had to wait till the old fool set off with Grummond. You damn well know he wouldn’t let me join the attack—much less ride with you!”

  “Let’s all raise some scalps!” Fetterman flung an arm forward, wolf-grinning at Brown and Wands.

  Across the base of the Peno Head the trio led their troops in the wake of the fleeing warriors. No man paying any attention to glittering mirrors signaling above them.

  Down off Peno Head they clambered, their quarry flitting through brush and thicket. Wands swept the horizon, making mental note of the narrow spur of broken land jutting north, spreading the two branches of Peno Creek the way a woman opens her legs for a lover.

  Ah, Katie, Wands moaned silently.

  Fearlessly they raced after the warriors into the yawning maw of the Peno. Down slopes carved by centuries of erosion, over raw scars of narrow ravines. Through brush and bramble thick enough to conceal an ambush.

  “Fred!” Wands shouted into the wind. His voice whipped along his cheeks like the cold tears streaming from his eyes.

  “FRED!”

  Brown turned.

  “We go down there.” Wands pointed into the thickets ahead, “none of us come out!”

  Fetterman and Brown laughed metallically.

  “You lost your nerve of a sudden, Alex?” Brown demanded.

  “Been trapped before,” he explained limply. Shamed before them. “Crazy Woman——”

  “Leave the goddamned command to us!” Brown hollered into Wands’s face, spittle on his lips.

  He only wants to be certain his order’s understood, Wands brooded, trying to lessen the sting of Brown’s words.

  A moment later it didn’t matter who was right or wrong. They were all in the thick of it. Surrounded. Horses turning, skidding, bumping. Soldiers dropping to the ground to fight. Every man screaming.

  “By god they’ll stand and fight now, Judd!” Brown raised his shrill voice above the clamor, struggling with the skittish calico.

  “Damn right, Fred! Here’s our chance to get our licks in!” Fetterman cried.

  Behind them along a thin rib of bare ridge, more than thirty feathered warriors blotted a span of skyline. Pouring down toward the bottom of the draw. Wands pointed, begging Fetterman to realize what he had ridden into.

  “More keep coming!” Wands yelled. “Till we run out of ammunition and they overrun us!”

  As swiftly as the thirty warriors raced off the rib, they were followed into the ravine by Bingham’s squad. Down the face of the slope his cavalry charged toward the cheering troopers penned down with Fetterman and Brown. Straight through the center of the ravine the warriors scrambled. Bingham driving the Sioux before him in a wild charge through Fetterman’s position.

  “Lieutenant!” Fetterman hollered at Bingham as he raced up, then swept on by without slowing.

  “BINGHAM!” Brown leaped from cover to holler after the lieutenant.

  Fetterman and Brown stood their ground at the bottom of the ravine, holding their rifles in the air, shouting, ordering Bingham’s troops to stop.

  “It’s an ambush!” Brown shouted.

  “You’ll be killed, you follow him in there!” Wands joined the captains. Surrounding the
trio, lathered horses snorted, their riders fighting for control.

  “C’mon!” Bingham hollered to his men as he disappeared around the brow of the ravine, a handful of troopers hot on his tail. The rest fidgeted, confused, halted by Brown and Wands. Staring at the officers’ carbines.

  “First man moves to retreat…” Brown screamed maniacally, “just one of you rides anywhere—I’ll shoot!”

  The quiet grew eerie as the pounding of iron-shod hoofs disappeared with Bingham’s handful of faithful cavalry. The whoops and screeches of warriors faded over the bare, windswept knobs. Beside Wands a young horse-soldier’s teeth rattled like dice in a horn cup. Off in the distance he thought he heard a bugle. He couldn’t be sure—this high, thin air might play tricks on a man. Might only be the wind …

  Alex thought it almost quiet enough to hear the cold breeze nudging the brittle grasses in the thicket. Like the rattle of arrows seeking him out. The nightmare of the Crazy Woman returned to haunt him still.

  “Mount!” Fetterman bawled.

  “Mount up, men!” Brown echoed. “We’re going after those warriors.”

  “Let’s raise some scalps!” Fetterman hollered, leading off. “Show the red devils what real soldiers are!”

  As Alex climbed into the saddle, he finally realized his own teeth were chattering like a box of dominoes.

  Chapter 27

  “Carrington can rot in hell!” Grummond flung his words back at Donegan. “I won’t go back. Won’t retreat … he’s a craven coward!”

  The lieutenant spat his words into the cold wind as they scrambled down the scarred slope of Lodge Trail Ridge together.

  “You’ll be killed!” Donegan repeated. “What can one man do——”

  “I’m not alone!” Grummond pointed.

  Directly ahead appeared Lieutenant Bingham and a handful of troopers, chasing more than thirty feathered warriors over a raw finger of bare ridge. Into the badlands north of the Lodge Trail.