Seamus yanked on the reins and was off. Through the gate. Turning immediately southwest across the wood road, aiming directly for the timbered hillsides. Knowing enough that the fort was in all probability still watched. He wanted to be into the forest along the black-timbered ridges before the sun ever peeked over the far rim of the prairie.
No sense in letting any of the h’athens have another go at me scalp, is there? He breathed easier when he reached the dewy coolness of the black timber. Way things look now, never will have to worry about Injins raising my hair again. Say good-bye at last to this land and all its red divils …
Although he had promised Burnett, Seamus Donegan knew there was little to smile about until he reached the walls of Fort Phil Kearny. Fearing as many others did as to the safety of the post, the Irishman feared even more for the welfare of his old friend, Captain Marr. Sam was down at Fort Phil Kearny.
And Seamus hoped with every bit of his fiber that the widow Wheatley and her boys were out of harm’s way as well. Safely on their way south to Fort Laramie. Out of Red Cloud’s country and far from the reach of his bloody grasp.
Just keep to the timber and the hills, me boy. Seamus patted the old horse on the neck. We’ll see each other down to Kearny … there’ll be oats and corn for you, me friend. Whiskey for Seamus and Sam Marr.
Sweet mither of Jesus—but Seamus Donegan’s him got a thirst right now that would make the divil himself blush!
* * *
“INDIANS!”
Sam Gibson bolted up, knocking a willow branch over. He fought the gum-rubber poncho aside, searching for his rifle. Tom Garrett hollered again.
“Indians!”
“I heard you, goddammit!” Deming shouted, blinking his sleepy eyes and staring off in the direction Garrett pointed.
“Seven of ’em,” Gibson remarked absently, eyes squinting into the new light.
“Single file, in a dead run,” Garrett replied, swiping his dry lips with the back of a shaking hand.
“Decoys?” Deming asked.
Gibson swallowed. “Don’t have an idea one what they are. But since they’re headed our way … I figure we’re about to find out, boys.”
Deming glanced down at his rifle, then at his sweating palms. “I ain’t fired this gun yet, Sam.”
He grinned loosely, teeth gleaming. “None of us has, Nel. But we’re gonna get our chance now. C’mon. Let’s knock some off their ponies.”
Sam scampered away, the other two on his heels. With a small boulder and a clear field of fire in front of him, Gibson dropped to one knee. He clicked down the first two of the Joslyn leaf sights. Hoping for a long shot of it, he snapped the third leaf into place.
Five hundred … no—six hundred yards. He quickly calculated distance and time as the seven horsemen tore down the slope into the meadow at full tilt. Cutting diagonally across Gibson’s line of sight.
He touched off the first round.
“You see where that went,” he asked without turning to the friends behind him.
“Short!” Deming shouted, excited, hopping anxiously.
“Damn!” Gibson threw open the trap and ran home another of the fat, sausagelike cartridges. He had pockets loaded with them. If the seven warriors turned on the three of them, Sam figured the trio could make a fine show of it with the repeaters. In a way, he itched for a fight of it during that moment he studied the rear sight.
Seven hundred yards, he decided. And give the bastard some running room.
That shot struck a small boulder directly in front of the lead warrior as he raced across the prairie. The ricochet of splattering lead caught the pony in the chest.
Stumbling sideways a step, the animal lurched, pitching its rider into the dust before it toppled to the side, wounded and bleeding.
“Hurrah!” Deming shouted, dancing now instead of prancing his anxious jig.
“Good shooting, Gibby!” Garrett hollered, slapping his friend on the back as Gibson rose.
“Uh-oh!”
Sam and Garrett turned to see what had snagged the dancing Deming’s attention.
“My God—there must be thousands of ’em!” Garrett gulped.
“Hundreds at least,” Gibson whispered, his mouth gone suddenly dry. “And we’ve worn out our welcome here, boys.”
Along the foothills to the north there now appeared hundreds upon hundreds of painted, naked horsemen streaming into the valley from the vicinity of Peno Creek and Lodge Trail Ridge. Several of the anxious, battle-hungry Sioux could not be restrained by their war-chiefs and headed directly for the post herd. There would be time enough to take white scalps this day. But first, the horses and mules.
Puffs of smoke appeared in the morning air over the herd. At the edge of the trees where the herders usually kept a fire going and a coffee kettle hot throughout the day.
“They’ve jumped the herd, Sam!” Garrett hollered, tugging on Gibson’s sleeve.
Sam glanced at his friend’s wide, frightened eyes. Then looked at Deming. “Go down a ways—see what you can of the woodcutters’ camp. Get an eye on the main corral as well. See if they’ve been jumped yet. I need to know what direction to go.”
He watched Deming nod and dash off from the edge of the timber to a point of land twenty yards away.
“If we’re cut off—”
Gibson wheeled on Garrett. “We’re not cut off. And we won’t be!” he snapped.
Deming splashed back across the Little Piney, huffing his way up the slope into the timber. “They run off the herd, Gibby!”
Sam grabbed his friend’s shirt with one hand. “What of the herders?”
Deming swallowed. “Looks like they’re all running for the mountains … straight uphill for the blockhouse … them as ain’t penned down—”
“All of ’em?”
“’Cept one,” he answered, turning to point. “I seen him coming down into the meadow toward our post at a good lick.”
“Headed our way … alone?”
He nodded shakily. “Alone. ’Cept he’s leading a horse.”
“Sonuvabitch ain’t riding?”
He wagged his head. “Uh-uh. On foot.”
“They got the mules, Sam,” moaned Garrett.
Gibson and Deming twisted around, finding some sixty mounted Sioux in among the herd, driving it off toward the north.
“The whole goddamned caboodle!” Gibson swore.
“Looks like the Injuns overrun the camp,” Garrett announced, pointing out the woodcutters’ camp on the end of the island. A growing cloud of oily smoke told the trio the Sioux were setting fire to the place.
Crazy Horse himself led his screeching Oglallas down on the camp, killing the last four teamsters who had valiantly tried to hold off the war-chief’s wild charge. Those soldiers and civilians fortunate enough to escape that sudden death now fought a running battle against the Oglallas as they scampered east, heading straight for Fort Phil Kearny itself and bypassing the questionable safety of the wagon-box corral in the meadow below.
At the same time, those herders who had not headed for the blockhouse were making a beeline for that same retreat. A damned sight closer were they to the soldiers fleeing toward the fort than they were to wagon-boxes. Instead of joining forces at the corral as ordered, Powell’s soldiers and the teamsters were scattering to the winds. Every man for himself and remembering that vivid nightmare of butchery across the Lodge Trail that cast its shadow into this valley of the Pineys.
* * *
“Damn!” Captain Powell cursed under his breath, his muttonchop whiskers throbbing with every clench of his jaws.
“The hostiles are going to cut off those herders hoping to join up with McDonough’s group,” Lieutenant Jenness said as he rushed to Powell’s side.
Powell as quickly looked around him. “A dozen of you! Follow me!” He gripped his lieutenant’s arm as twelve men jogged to the east end of the corral. “John—you’re in charge while I’m gone. If … if we don’t make it back—hold ou
t as long as you can.”
“We’ve plenty of guns … and cartridges, sir!”
“That’s the spirit, John. The fort will send a relief quick enough.”
“Good luck, Captain!”
He smiled at Jenness, turned and led his men from the corral.
Powell hoped to sally out far enough to create a distraction, enough of a diversion to pull the enemy horsemen off the trail of the herders. If he did not, those herders would be swallowed up in a matter of moments and never would reach the retreating wood party and soldiers headed for the fort.
“Fire in volley! At my command and not before!” Powell growled, throwing up his arm. “Form two squads … fire six at a time! Ready … targets … FIRE!”
The new Springfields spat flame, six lead pills crashing into the rear of Crazy Horse’s Oglallas.
“FIRE!” he ordered, waving his arm again, watching the first six soldiers slap cartridges into the smoking breeches of their rifles.
“FIRE!” The second half-dozen reloaded.
“FIRE!” Powder smoke began to hang at their shoulders.
“FIRE!”
“FIRE!”
“They’re turning, Cap’n!” Pvt. Dale McNally shouted as he pulled a cartridge from his lips and rammed it home.
“FIRE!”
“Hurraw!” Pvt. John Grady shouted.
“FIRE, goddammit!” Powell shouted even louder, his command answered by another volley. The powder smoke stung his eyes, stank in his nostrils. It clung around his steady soldiers like a whiskey-hungry whore near an army post.
“We got ’em on the run, Cap’n!” Sgt. Frank Hoover shouted into Powell’s ear.
“Give ’em hell, boys!” Powell hollered. “Shoot the bastards in the ass, they turn tail like this!”
“Cap’n!”
“Jehosophat! They’re coming back at us!”
“Orderly retreat, men!” Powell shouted above the anxious muttering of his dozen. “First squad—keep your chambers loaded … fire only on my command. Second squad—retreat orderly … ORDERLY! Twenty yards and hold—ready to fire!”
In that way, Powell kept his dozen from breaking and running in a wild retreat to the corral. Yard by yard, six men scampering off, turning, and holding the Oglallas at bay while the other half dozen joined up. Leap-frogging his unit until all thirteen soldiers sprinted the last fifty yards into the corral.
“You’re a pretty sight, mister!” Powell shouted to his lieutenant as he skidded inside the wagon-box oval.
Jenness saluted, smiling. “Thank you, sir! We’ll give ’em a case of lead poisoning this day, Captain!”
“By God!” Powell slapped Jenness on the shoulder. “We will at that, son. We will at that!”
Chapter 36
Sam Marr hurried the big blue-roan stallion along. He dared not leap on its back until absolutely necessary. Only if the warriors swept down on him. For now, he would use the animal as a shield. Not so easy for the Sioux to spot him if he trotted beside the stallion. Sam pulled and urged and coaxed from beneath the roan’s neck, yanking on the halter. And cussing. One hell of a lot of cussing.
“You fellas best come along with me!” Marr cried out as he neared the three young soldiers scampering down that neck of land sloping into the Big Piney meadow.
“We’re coming,” Sam Gibson hollered back. “If you’re headed to the corral, Captain Marr!”
“We don’t stand a chance making that bunch!” and Marr flung an arm toward the retreating herders joining with the wood party, the whole lot of them scurrying toward the fort.
“We don’t stand much a chance out here as it is!” Nelson Deming groaned.
“They spot us … we’re soup!” Tom Garrett agreed.
“They spot us—we make a fight of it,” Marr explained. “But we’ll make it—so buck up, boys.”
“Let’s go!” Sam Gibson said, shoving his fellow soldiers off behind the civilian.
The four hadn’t gone far across the grassy plain, huddled around the nervous stallion, before they spotted some warriors popping up from the creek bottom at their rear. Warriors who caught sight of the four white men retreating to the corral.
“Captain Marr!” Deming whimpered as a bullet whined in the air overhead.
“We got company, boys! They draw close enough to jump us, two of us gonna hold up and stand tight—covering the other pair. Got that?” Sam watched the soldiers nod anxiously, their eyes not on him, but on the warriors streaming from the willows along the creek.
“Leap-frog was always one of my favorite games as a young’un, Cap’n Marr!” Gibson cheered. “I’ll stay with you—Deming … you and Garrett take off!”
The pair needed no further urging. Fifty yards away they stopped, turned and dropped to one knee to begin placing rounds among the pursuing warriors pouring across the plain on foot. That was Marr’s cue.
“C’mon, Sam!”
“I’m hugging your ass, Cap’n Marr!”
When they reached the other two, the Missourian shoved them off. “Git, boys! You’re doing a fine job! Fine!”
“Cap’n Marr?”
“Yeah?” Marr replied, firing his pistol once more at the pursuers.
“A few of them redskins look to have Springfields, don’t they?” Gibson asked.
“That they do,” Marr whispered, his eyes focusing on the distance.
“They got them from Fetterman, didn’t they?”
He slammed loads into his second pistol, keeping the loaded one in his belt for the close-in and dirty work. “They didn’t buy those goddamned Springfields from Mormons, son!”
“Got one!” Gibson piped as a warrior lumbering out of the creek bottom on horseback tumbled off his pony.
“Good shooting, boy!” Marr cheered. “Our turn! Let’s go!”
Gibson took off on a dead run. Marr yanked and struggled. The wide-eyed stallion rared back, nearly pulling the old man off his feet like a limp, rag doll clutching the bridle for his life. The animal backed up. Then backed up some more.
“Gibson!”
The soldier looked over his shoulder, then halted. Darting back.
“Stick your damned bayonet in this bastard’s ass, Gibby!” Marr ordered.
“Stick ’im?”
“Now! He ain’t going nowhere without a little prodding!”
“Leave ’im here, Cap’n Marr!”
“I ain’t leaving this blooded animal for them red niggers get their hands on him.”
“He’ll be the death of you, old man!”
Marr shoved Gibson off. “Then get up there with the others, Gibby! We ain’t got far to go. You boys cover me best you can. Now get! Cover me if you can. Things get too hot for this old warhorse, I’ll jump on the roan, go and ride it to the corral right behind you. GO!”
Gibson did not wait for more prodding. He was gone. And Sam Marr stood alone, struggling and coaxing the blooded Kentucky thoroughbred stallion. On three sides now the naked warriors sprang up as if from the prairie itself. Rising like a fluttering, shrieking covey of noisy, thieving crows.
“Damned scavengers—all of you!” the old man growled, moving the stallion another twenty yards until a bullet whined overhead. The roan reared again, dragging Marr into the air, legs flopping, his pistol arm clawing at blue sky.
Breechclouts and bonnets. Moccasins and war clubs. Single war-eagle feathers and roached hair. Faces hideously painted: ocher and crimson, charcoal-black and green—faces already close enough that Sam Marr could see the bear-grease colors furred with prairie dust.
The stallion whirled around in a circle, a second arrow slapping into his flanks.
“You sonuvabitch—I’ll not find you another mare to stud … if you mean the death of me!” Marr swore, steadying the animal with one hand, the other stuffing the second pistol into his belt.
For an old man, the Missourian leaped atop the stallion smoothly, gripping the halter up close to the roan’s jaw.
“Now, git—you long-dicked bas
tard. Run like the devil hisself gonna castrate you!”
* * *
Sam Gibson had witnessed for himself what the Sioux did to soldiers. With his own eyes he had seen the Fetterman dead, frozen into grotesque, tortured positions. Hacked and …
The young soldier didn’t want to think about it anymore. Refusing to dwell on what would happen should the Sioux cut off the trio of sprinting troopers from the corral. Just run. And keep his two friends with him.
That looks like Littman. His mind burned like his lungs, watching a tall, flaxen-haired soldier scamper out of the corral, around the canvas-bowed wagon and onto the prairie itself.
By God, he’s coming out to cover us!
Gibby recognized the stripes on the soldier’s arm now, his eyes tearing as his heavy, thick-soled, ill-fitting brogans lumbered over the bunch-grass and sage. He and the others had repeatedly stumbled in their wild dash, nearly falling more times than they would ever recount. But here they were, by nothing more than divine Providence, nearing the wagon-box corral.
Two hundred yards …
The whistle of lead and the hiss of arrows overhead.
… a hundred fifty yards …
Painted, screaming, red-eyed warriors breathing down their necks.
… a hundred twenty-five yards …
“C’mon, boys!” The tall oak of a sergeant stood, waving his arm, swearing briefly in his native German before he dropped to a knee once more. Firing and reloading.
Sam Gibson watched Max Littman slap each fat sausage cartridge into the breech across those last few yards. Watched the blond-haired, hook-nosed old Prussian calmly blow the stinging, black smoke away from the breech each time he ripped open the trapdoor.
“Sergeant!” Deming flew past Littman, literally diving among the wagon-boxes.
“Thanks, Sarge!” Garrett shouted his greeting as he passed by, not seeing Littman nod coolly.
“You comin’ this fine day, Gibby?” Littman hollered, his cheek nuzzling the rifle stock as the front blade swept across the chest of the warrior bearing down on Sam Marr far in the rear.
“You want help?” Gibson slowed, the Springfield already like a load of bricks at the end of his right arm.
“Get your ass in the boxes, soldier!” Littman growled. “I cover the old man!”
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