“Ruined, sir?”
Wessells turned and was at Ten Eyck’s side before the captain realized it. “Perhaps a poor choice of words. But, you can’t tell me you don’t drink because of the pain. The pain left you by that prison. The pain of your wounds. The pain of surrendering your command not once, but twice … for the sake of your men. That’s a lot for any man to bear, Captain.”
Ten Eyck’s chin dropped. His one good eye blinked at the sting of tears. The other, droopy lid burned as well. “I … I do drink, sir.”
Wessells put a hand on Ten Eyck’s shoulder. “You must get a hold on yourself, Captain. For the sake of this command. For the sake of your own command. And for the record, as of today, thirty January, 1867—I am reassigning you.”
“Reassigning me, sir?”
“Moving you from command of Company H—”
“My company … I fought with them during the—”
“… to Company F.”
“But why, sir?”
“There’s far too much grumbling among your men.”
“My men, sir?” Ten Eyck squeaked, rising from his chair as he twisted the buffalo-hide mittens ruthlessly.
Wessells nodded. “Yes, Captain. As cruel as it sounds, your men are your own worst critics on this post. Far too much grumbling. For the good of the command—”
“Yessir.” Ten Eyck straightened and saluted. “As you command.”
He was stunned a moment. “You … you are a good soldier, Captain.”
Ten Eyck blinked, the sting back at his eyes. “I have a job to do, sir. When do you want me to report to my new assignment?”
“In the morning. The first of the month.” Wessells wormed back behind the desk, pushing some papers aside. “I’m in hopes that not only will this new command better the morale on the post, but will work an improvement on you as well.”
Ten Eyck studied Wessells’s face. “On me as well?”
“I want you to tame your drinking, Captain. It’s that simple.”
“I don’t abuse the bottle, sir. Just a little at times to dull the pain—”
“You and I both know that’s a lie. But, I can sympathize with you wanting to dull the memories.”
“And the pain of my own men calling me a coward … or worse behind my back.”
“Well, yes.” Wessells cleared his throat. “I’ve heard more than one soldier who rode with you that day say that a civilian advised you against following directly in Fetterman’s tracks. Is that correct?”
Ten Eyck squinted the good eye a moment. “It’s true, sir. What of it?”
“I’ve wanted to ask you that question many times in the past two weeks I’ve been here as post commander. Wanted to know myself just who that civilian was who advised you in taking a longer trail to the Fetterman site … and what business did a battlefield-experienced army officer have listening to a goddamned civilian?”
Ten Eyck coughed nervously, wiping the back of his hand across his lips. He had started to sweat in the small office, despite the fact that the stove had to struggle to put out any heat at all.
“His name … sir—Seamus Donegan.”
“Donegan … Donegan,” Wessells repeated, his hands pushing papers around atop his messy desk. “Seems I’ve seen that name written up in reports … yes—several reports, as a matter of fact.” He stared at Ten Eyck. “What could this Seamus Donegan possibly know that would make a proven soldier like you want to listen to him while riding to the rescue of Fetterman’s command?” Wessells pulled up the sheaf of papers with Henry Carrington’s writing scrawled across them. Reports.
He gulped. “Donegan … sir. He was in the Second Cavalry during the war.”
“That doesn’t explain a thing, Captain.”
Ten Eyck stiffened, his eyes locked on the dirty map behind Wessells’s head. “Seamus Donegan is the best soldier—”
“He’s no goddamned soldier!” Wessells roared.
Ten Eyck waited for Wessells to calm himself, his eyes still locked on the map. “Begging the colonel’s pardon—Seamus Donegan is the best goddamned soldier this captain’s ever had the privilege to run across.”
“And just what the hell makes him the best damned soldier you’ve ever run across, Captain?”
“Two medals of honor, Colonel.”
“Two?” Wessells choked. He knew only two men during the entire war had been awarded two medals of honor for heroism.
“Yessir. Both earned in the face of intense enemy fire as his unit assaulted Confederate artillery positions.”
“I see.” Wessells gazed into the distance through the window, shadows shifting beyond the glazed, frosty pane of glass.
“I don’t think the colonel understands at all, begging the commander’s pardon.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Seamus Donegan is the type of soldier we need more of out here, sir.”
“What type of soldier is that, Captain?”
Ten Eyck turned on his heel and stomped to the door, where he pulled on his mittens thoughtfully. “The kind of soldier who cares more about his men than he does about his climb up the ladder.”
Wessells stiffened noticeably. “You don’t mean to—”
“No offense intended, Colonel,” Ten Eyck interrupted. “You just might enjoy meeting Seamus Donegan one of these days, sir.”
Wessells nodded. “I might at that, Captain. I just might at that. Two medals of honor, you say?”
Ten Eyck snugged the hat atop his greasy hair and swiped at his red nose. “He was awarded two, sir. Friend of his showed ’em to me. The friend said Donegan ain’t the type that will show ’em off. But I saw ’em. And to hear Donegan’s friend tell it, the way Donegan fought in the war—should’ve been more than two medals awarded him.”
“Oh?”
“Time and again he did what no other man would.”
“Meaning?”
“Seamus Donegan acted like he wanted to die at times, so his friend tells it.”
“A bit crazy?”
“Perhaps, Colonel. But, Seamus Donegan always did the craziest things when he was looking out for his men.”
“Tell me, Ten Eyck. Was this Donegan a captain … a major perhaps?”
“Lord, no, Colonel.” Ten Eyck chuckled. “Seamus Donegan wore chevrons.”
“A sergeant?”
He nodded. “Time and again turned down the chance to field-jump his rank.”
“What do you suppose would have made a man like this Donegan want to turn down such promotions?”
“His men, sir.”
“His men?”
“Yessir. And that’s something I can learn from Donegan. Having your men care about you and respect you the way Donegan’s men felt for him. Especially the way Seamus Donegan felt about the men who fought beside him.”
Wessells felt the bite of cold as Ten Eyck pulled the plank door open, allowing the wind to force its way inside. “Something for us all to learn from, perhaps.”
Ten Eyck smiled. “Difference between Donegan and the rest of us, Colonel Wessells—the rest of us order men into battle. Seamus Donegan, he leads his men into battle.”
Wessells stared at the bare-plank door long after Ten Eyck had left. Wondering if having such a man as this Irishman Donegan on his post would be a blessing or a curse. In such a small command, there was little room for sharing command. Even sharing the command of the men’s respect.
I haven’t worked all these years and sweated in all those damned backwater commands to have my authority questioned by some dad-blamed ex-sergeant! He stared out the window as he fumed.
We’ll have to see what this Donegan is made of, perhaps. To let him know who’s in command here.
Make no mistake about it, Seamus Donegan.
* * *
Jack Stead leaped to the porch in front of Kinney’s bar just as the door flew open. He was too late.
Through the doorframe struggled four soldiers, each one with a lock on Seamus Donegan. Jack had
heard the ruckus begin clear across the parade ground, and raced across the starlit snow toward the sound of Donegan’s roar. Too late to help.
“What the devil’s going on here?” Jack demanded, planting his feet in front of the four troopers.
“Out of the way, Stead!” the voice growled. Major Benjamin Smith slipped past the four guards to confront the scout.
“I asked what’s going on here—”
“No concern of yours … Stead—isn’t it?”
“It is my concern.” Stead held out an arm to slow the soldiers from dragging the semiconscious Donegan off the porch.
“It most certainly is not,” Smith replied, waving the soldiers past the scout and into the night toward the guardhouse across the parade.
Stead stood his ground on the porch, jostled by soldiers and civilians alike pouring back into the sutler’s saloon like a retreating tide. A shadow forced its way against the crowd until it stood beside him.
“Captain Marr!” Stead whispered. “What happened to you?”
Sam Marr held a bandanna over one eye. “I’m afraid I’m not as young as I used to be, Jack. When Seamus gets to brawling, he’ll have to brawl alone from now on. This ol’ warhorse ain’t as spry as he once was.”
Stead laughed easily with the civilian. “What’d Seamus do this time to land in the guardhouse?”
Marr stopped laughing. He stared off across the parade toward the guardhouse. It would not be the first visit Seamus Donegan had made to Fort Phil Kearny’s constabulary.
“A brainless wonder—Donegan is,” Marr growled under his breath. “Like he wanted to pick that fight—”
“And he’s forbidden to return to my establishment!”
Marr and Stead jerked around at the barking voice. In the doorway stood Judge Kinney, post sutler, wringing his hands on a soiled apron.
“You had a good deal to do with his going to the guardhouse, Kinney!” Marr flung his words.
“I want him in my place no more, Captain. You behave yourself—you’ll be welcome.”
“You’ll get no more of my business!” Marr snapped.
“Suit yourself, Marr. I’ve plenty enough as it is. You’ll not hurt me nor my standing here at this post.”
“Was I to have a chance at carving up your fat carcass—”
“You threatening me too?” Kinney barked. “Like your friend Donegan?” He shook an arm after the group that was nothing more than a shadow now on the old snow as they trudged on across the parade. “Look what he got for causing me trouble … threatening me. Me! I’m as good as government property, I am. And no one the likes of him will get my respect. Seamus Donegan. Colonel Wessells himself was asking ’round about him just yesterday, and I gave him a word or two on that black Irishman.”
“I’ll bet you did, Kinney,” Stead growled.
“Best you watch yourself, young scout!” Kinney glared. “Told Wessells what I thought of a man who stirred up trouble with all the finest of soldiers this post has ever seen. Fetterman and Brown both. Not to mention that Sergeant Garrett himself.”
“And I’ll bet Wessells was all ears, wasn’t he?” Stead demanded.
Kinney smiled broadly, his cherubic face grown ruddy in the cold. “He was damned interested in what I had to say about Seamus Donegan. Appears the colonel isn’t one to allow the morale and condition of this post be affected by the likes of an unruly drunk civilian like your friend Donegan.”
“Way I saw it, you baited him,” a new voice added.
All three turned to watch a young soldier push from the shadows at the door.
Kinney sputtered. “Who the hell are you, soldier? And what business is it of yours anyway?”
“Private Gibson. Sam Gibson, Judge. And I know a setup when I see it. You baited that Irishman.”
“Baited?” Marr asked.
“Set the Irishman up, most like,” Gibson replied. “I can see it now. Why Major Benjamin and them four guards was at the bar when the judge started arguing with Donegan.”
“He’s the bastard started it!” Kinney sputtered.
“Arguing over what?” Stead asked.
“Who the real soldiers were on Massacre Ridge when Fetterman took his men to their deaths.”
Marr and Stead glared at Kinney. A suddenly silent Kinney.
“The judge here said Fetterman and Brown, Grummond too—was the real soldiers that bloody day.”
“And Seamus said what?” Stead asked.
“He laughed, is what!” Marr answered.
“That he did, and said Fetterman and Brown was cowards. Put pistols to their heads and killed themselves before the Injuns could have at ’em. Said Grummond was the bravest of the officers on that hillside that day—covering the retreat up the ridge until he was cut down.”
“Aye,” Marr nodded. “I saw the body myself. It was down in the bottom near where Wheatley and Fisher made their stand. He covered the retreat of the rest up the hill … to the rocks where they was finished off.”
“That’s when Donegan grabbed hold of the sutler here,” Gibson continued.
“So that’s why you pulled your club, eh, Judge?” Marr demanded.
“The mick threatened me!” Kinney squeaked.
“It’s what he said to the judge that’s most important,” Gibson added. “Grabbed the judge and was lifting him over the bar with his one arm … his one goddamned arm, it was! Screaming that the bravest man on that bloody field was some bugler.”
“Metzger,” Marr whispered. “Adolph Metzger. Company C. Second U.S. Cavalry.”
“Good lord!” Kinney choked. “No wonder—”
“Seamus told me how they found Metzger’s body in the center of the rocks on Massacre Hill. His was the only body left untouched, while the rest were hacked piece from piece. And in his hand still—his dented, battered tin horn.”
“The vision haunts Seamus. I know it does,” Stead said as he turned on Kinney. “Donegan and Metzger fought through four years of war down South. And to know his friend was left with no other weapon but his tin horn in those final, terrible moments—you must understand why Donegan went to pieces in there.”
Kinney shook himself. He wrung his hands on the apron once more. “None of my concern that a man blows his cork over a dead friend. Lots of those men in there … on this post … lost friends on that bloody ridge. Donegan has no monopoly on grief.”
“It’s not grief he’s feeling when he thinks about Metzger alone on that hillside with all those screaming Injuns,” Marr growled, stepping off the porch. “I figure it’s rage.”
“C’mon, Captain,” Stead said as he joined Marr at the foot of the steps. “Mr. Gibson, I’d like you to join us. We’re going to see Colonel Wessells about getting Seamus freed.”
The trio turned as gusty laughter roared out of Judge Jefferson T. Kinney.
“Try your damndest, gentlemen,” Kinney scoffed. “But your pleas will fall on deaf ears, let me assure you.”
“Neither Wessells nor you gonna stop me getting Seamus Donegan out of that guardhouse.” Marr leaped halfway up the steps, startling Kinney and forcing the sutler to scurry back to his door.
“Be my guest, Captain Marr.”
“I will, Judge,” the civilian whispered loudly. “I won’t rest until I see Seamus Donegan safely away from this post—away from you and Colonel Wessells both.”
Chapter 3
“Go away!” he mumbled through swollen, cracked lips.
“Seamus—you can leave now.”
“I’m fine right here.”
“C’mon, Seamus. Wessells gave the order to free you. Wants to see you right now.” Marr clung to the cell bars.
Donegan rolled away from the wall, clutching the two thin blankets around himself, hoping still for some warmth as the first shaft of sunlight broke through the small window above him.
“Wessells, eh?”
“C’mon, Seamus Donegan.”
The Irishman blinked, working to clear his bleary eyes so he could foc
us on the new voice. “By glory!” he whispered. “If it ain’t Cap’n Ten Eyck. How’s the Dutchman?”
“Glad to see you’re among the living. C’mon—the colonel wants a word with you, you troublemaking blaggard.”
Seamus stood, weaving and unsteady at first. Every inch of him hurt. What hadn’t been beaten during last night’s scuffle at Kinney’s ached from the intense cold of the unheated guardhouse. “Gonna snow again, it ’tis.”
Marr watched his friend stumble toward the cell door. “How you so blamed sure of that, Seamus?”
“Feel it to my bones, Cap’n Marr. The ones what aren’t bruised or broke, you see.” He tried to laugh, but it hurt his face.
“You’re a mess, Seamus Donegan.”
He saluted. “Present and accounted for, Cap’n. Sergeant Mess, reporting for conference with the post commander.”
“Maybe you should wash up a bit,” Marr said, looking for something he might use to wipe off the crusted blood.
“No time,” Ten Eyck advised. “Wessells wants to see him first off … and that means now.”
“You heard the man, Seamus.” Marr grabbed Donegan’s arm as he stumbled out of the cell. “You’re off to see the brass.”
“I always love seeing the brass.” Donegan giggled. “It’s the highlight of me day. Almost as much as I love getting the piles.”
The three of them laughed together as they pushed into the sunlight just breaking over the east wall of the stockade.
“So you’re Seamus Donegan,” Wessells declared as he stood and cornered his desk toward the trio who entered his office. He held out his hand halfway there. “Been wanting to meet the man who single-handedly wrecked the sutler’s place three times.”
Donegan stared down at the offered hand. “I had help—each time.”
Wessells glanced at his hand hanging in the air between them, then dropped it. He drew himself up expansively and stomped back to the desk, his collar a little warmer. Flinging an arm toward the young lieutenant standing close to the stove, Wessells announced, “You’ve not met the officer of the day? Lieutenant John C. Jenness. He’ll be in charge of you until you leave the post, Donegan.”
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