Grady yanked Gibson off his feet, leaving their rifles behind. The work at hand would require no weapons. Only nerve and a bit of pluck. With a damned good dose of luck thrown in.
Sam Gibson followed the old soldier blindly. Hoping he had done nothing in his young adult life that would cause that fickle bitch Fate to turn her smiling face from him now.
Strange … that until this moment, with the coming of the second massed charge, no one had given a thought to the handful of tents erected outside the southern rim of their ring of wagon-boxes. At this moment it seemed every defender was of like mind, without another word needing voice. The tents must come down, giving the white riflemen a wider field of fire, enabling them to sweep from west, to south, back to east, following the enemy horsemen in their wild ride past the wagon-box corral.
As soon as Grady and Gibson leaped from their wagon-box, the Sioux snipers discovered these new and inviting targets. Moving targets and hence all the more sport. To young Sam it sounded like that whole hillside to the north had opened up on them, kicking up dirt in small, angry spouts. Tearing through the canvas of the tents with an angry hiss, ricocheting off wood poles.
Without a word between them, the two soldiers bent to their work while the rest of the corral did its best to cover their daring. Hands shaking like water about to boil, Gibson yanked one peg loose after another. First tent down …
Arrows arched out of the sun like swooping, hissing birds.
A second tent down …
Bullets kicked up dust in front of his hands, spitting dirt into his face.
Now a third …
The tent’s ridgepole collapsed above him as a bullet cracked through, canvas smothering him.
A fourth came floating down in the hot, steamy August air …
One more, Gibson told himself.
Grady looked at him and nodded. This would be the test. The last tent stood sixty yards off to the south. Farther onto the prairie than the others. Powell’s and Jenness’s. Apart from the enlisted quarters.
“Get back here!”
Gibson glanced over his shoulder. Sgt. Frank Hoover stood, shouting and waving at the pair.
Grady threw his weight on top of him. Sam found himself on the ground. Bullets whistled overhead.
“You’ll get me killed yet, boy!” the old soldier growled, smiling.
“S-Sorry…”
“Never mind the captain’s tent!” Hoover kept yelling.
“Leave it now!” another voice shouted.
Gibson looked into Grady’s face.
“You vote for getting our asses back to the corral?”
Sam nodded. “Y-Yes I do.”
He jerked his head, grinning. “What we waiting on, soldier?”
By the time Sam was back in the confines of his wagon-box, his labored breathing echoing Grady’s beside him, the horsemen had galloped into rifle range.
“That was a damned stupid thing you fellas did.” Captain Powell scooted up on his knees, glaring at the two soldiers. Then a broad smile split his muttonchops. “Stupid … but it showed one helluva lot of courage as well. Well done! Well done! Just look!”
He threw his arm in an arc. Gibson saw that his fellow soldiers now had a commanding field of fire on all quarters.
“Well done, soldiers,” Powell said, saluting. “Now kill some of these bastards you’ve stirred up, will you?”
Gibson nodded. Grady crawled off to his loophole without a word as well. Their rifles barked with the rest.
More ponies fell, screaming and thrashing on three sides of the corral. Spilled warriors lay beneath their dying animals. Others tried to crawl off before they attracted the attention of the white riflemen.
Noise and dust. Powder smoke and thirst. Baking sun and the stench of blood. The humanlike cry of the ponies scrambling to rise again until they died. And the moans of the wounded in the corral, calling out for water.
Then the second rush ebbed like the summer thunderstorm that fills the dry coulees of the high plains for but a moment before the ground is left to bake once more.
“By God, I deserve a drink, I do.” Private Grady took up his canteen.
Gibson’s eyes widened in wonder. “Didn’t know you had any water with you.”
“Ain’t water, boy.”
“What is it?”
“Whiskey,” he growled. “And that’s why I didn’t tell you I had any.”
Grady put the canteen neck to his lips and threw his head back. As quickly he jerked it from his face and spit the liquid out, sputtering.
“What’s wrong with you?” Patrick McQuiery asked down at the end of the box.
“Some … someone switched canteens on me, Sergeant!”
“Whadda you mean, Grady?”
“I had whiskey in mine!” he roared, his face and neck red from more than the sun. “This one … it has—God … it has water! And warm goddamned water to boot!”
“Hand it here, Grady,” McQuiery ordered. “I’ll drink it.”
“Gladly, Sergeant. Warm water isn’t fit for a man to drink.”
“Unless,” McQuiery began, smiling as he wiped off the canteen neck with his dirty hand, “a man uses that warm water to wash down your whiskey, Private Grady!”
Chapter 39
“Captain Powell is a proven commander,” Col. Jonathan Smith said, rubbing the sulfur-head lucifer across the flat stone on the desk. He lit his pipe. “Besides, he has a full company of soldiers with him at the corral.”
“Not any more, sir,” Tenedore Ten Eyck disagreed, pointing out the post commander’s window. “The men who just came in are evidence of that. Powell’s forces are divided.”
“How many made it to the fort, Captain?” he asked, yanking the pipe stem from his fleshy lips.
“All but four,” Ten Eyck answered. “They were killed in their retreat.”
“How many does Powell have in the corral?”
Tenedore’s foggy mind worked at it, the way he would load his own pipe bowl, or stare at the color of the whiskey in his glass, red as a bay horse. Working, tugging, struggling to yank an answer up. Other lives might depend on this.
“He can’t have more than thirty men in the corral now.”
“Damn you, Captain!” Smith suddenly roared. “You’re nothing more than a feeble, whiskey-soaked has-been. No more a soldier than my nigger houseman is! James Powell amassed a credible record during the war. I see no need in rushing a relief to the Pineys for another of these brief forays by troublesome Sioux.”
Lt. Col. Henry Walton Wessells cleared his throat nervously, stepping forward. “Colonel, if I may offer a thought … it appears from the retreat of the wood-train escort to the fort that this attack on the woodcutting operations is not merely another short-lived foray.”
Smith’s eyes narrowed on Wessells. The sort of smoky-gray eyes that could broil a man on the spot. Then suddenly the hardened crease between his eyebrows disappeared.
“Am I to understand, gentlemen—that this is a concerted attack on Powell’s position?”
The other officers in the room agreed. Most of them had seen enough of hit-and-run attacks since spring. Only Ten Eyck and Powell himself had witnessed what the Sioux could do when they had a small force surrounded and overwhelmed.
Minutes ago, Tenedore had given his sweaty brow one more swipe with the cool cloth, set his hat on a hangover-aching head, and braved the high, midday light of the Fort Phil Kearny parade. Down the graveled walk along officers’ row he walked, boot soles crunching, his head aching more this morning than usual. With even more pain at this moment than he had in sitting on the war-torn hemorrhoids that were his legacy of a Confederate prison called Libby.
His midday walk in the high sun had put him near the south gate about the time the sentries along the banquette hollered that two separate parties were hurrying toward the fort walls.
Ten Eyck had been the first officer to reach the gate. The first to receive those initial, garbled, gasping grunts of warning
for Captain Powell’s command left behind in the wagon-box corral. Tenedore had ordered “Officers’ Call” blown by the bugler on duty, a hasty decision that brought Colonel Smith flying from his office door as Ten Eyck loped straight across the parade toward the post commander’s office to explain himself and the bugle.
“Is there one among you who would not agree that this fort itself now stands a chance of assault by the hostiles?” Smith asked his officers.
Tenedore glanced from face to face. Some stared at the floor. Others studied a fly speck on the crude walls. It was up to the Dutchman to speak out.
“Colonel, if the Sioux did not attack us those first few days after wiping out Fetterman’s command—when the snow drifted high enough for them to breech the walls—I don’t think they’ll be foolish enough to try us now that this post is at full manpower—”
“And on full alert, Captain Ten Eyck,” Smith interrupted. “Colonel Wessells, you will see that preparations are made. Double the guard. All men on alert. Issue arms and ammunition. Captain Dandy, you’ll see your men and quarters are put into shape for a siege?”
“Yessir!”
“Colonel?” Ten Eyck asked. “You plan a relief for the men in the corral?”
“I have considered that, Captain.”
Wessells had not yet turned from the room. Eagerly he stepped forward. “Request permission to lead the relief, Colonel.”
“Permission denied,” Smith replied. “I want you to command the forces here at the fort when the full-scale assault comes, Wessells.”
“Who … who will go to relieve Powell?” Wessells asked.
Ten Eyck saw Wessells’s eyes flick at him apprehensively. And Tenedore knew Colonel Smith saw that gesture as plainly as he.
“Major Smith?” the colonel said.
“Sir?” Benjamin F. Smith stomped forward two paces.
“Prepare a hundred men immediately.”
“Ambulances, Colonel?”
“Of course, Major. Take a wagon filled with ammunition to the corral as well. If you need it, you will have it. If it is not needed by you, then I’m sure the corral needs restocking.”
Wessells inched up, nervously. “Colonel, with all respect—Major Smith has no field experience with these Indians. Would it not be wise—”
“Colonel Wessells, I believe you have your orders. Carry on.”
“As you wish.” Wessells was a long time in replying. He eventually saluted and disappeared from the door.
“Captain Ten Eyck, you will place yourself at the disposal of Colonel Wessells. You are excused. The major and I have some last-minute plans to formulate.”
Tenedore saluted, his head hurting like nothing before. Wondering if he would have time to go back to quarters for a drink before following Wessells.
In the worst way, he needed that drink. Shivering now as he stepped into the bright light. The heat of a day already climbing over ninety once again. But still, Tenedore Ten Eyck shuddered. Not so much from the pain this time. But from the memory of that twenty-first day of December when he saw the bodies.
From that day the men at this post had claimed the captain was no longer a soldier.
No more than a washed-up, drunken has-been coward.
Ten Eyck decided he would make time to go by his quarters for a drink. The red, red whiskey was what gave him courage to put on his boots and button up his tunic.
Whiskey gave the captain courage to play soldier one day at a time.
* * *
Sam Marr watched with pride as Sgt. Frank Robertson crawled on his belly toward Lieutenant Jenness’s perforated body. Amid some renewed sniping from the north, Robertson slung a piece of canvas over the corpse.
Hot enough as it is, Marr thought to himself. No sense that body laying out under the sun like it was. A fine bunch, these. They take care of their own …
After the second mounted charge that swept past the corral walls, the warriors seemed content to make smaller, noisier, and infrequent forays across the open plain. They brandished their tomahawks and warclubs, their Winchesters and captured Springfield muzzle loaders, shouting their warsongs. And time and again Sam thought he saw the same tall giant of a warrior leading the rest across the summer-burnt grass to harass the corral from the east.
Time and again the tall one had escaped their rifle fire while other warriors around him dropped and were dragged from the field when the rest retreated to regroup.
Now the tall one came out once more, waving above him a long spear from which dangled long tendrils of human hair. On the other arm hung a huge buffalo-hide shield.
“Sergeant?” Marr hollered at the man in the next box.
“Yeah, Cap’n?” Frank Robertson asked.
“You any good at long range?”
A slow smile came over Robertson’s face. “I suppose I might just be about the best here… ’sides you, of course, Cap’n Marr.”
Sam nodded. “What say we put some holes in that tall bastard’s lights?”
Robertson spit a long stream of brown juice into the dust, causing a small eruption where it landed. “Let’s make that sonuvabitch dance!”
Out on the plain the tall war-chief was dancing, alone. Round and round, he inched slowly toward the corral, but never stood motionless. Always daring. Taunting the white men to try once more to hit this huge, moving target. He jumped and cavorted. He spun around and mocked the white men with his spear and shield. All the while his fellow warriors cheered him on, shaming the defenders huddled behind their walls.
“How far you make it, Cap’n?”
“Your eyes better’n mine, Robertson. I say it’s close to two hundred.”
“I’ll lay a bet he’s out there two fifty.”
“Two fifty it is,” Marr replied, adjusting the Merrill sights on one of the big-bore needle-guns Powell had assigned him when the battle began hours before. He slipped the barrel over the top of the wagon-box for a rest and adjusted himself comfortably. “You tell me when you’re ready, Sergeant. You fire first … I’ll fire behind you.”
“Sounds good to me, Cap’n. I figure we’ll only get one shot at this bastard.”
The noise in the corral fell off to an eerie silence as both riflemen nestled guns into their shoulders and cheeks. A minute later as the big warrior flung out his arms, his head thrown back for a heartbeat, Robertson squeezed the trigger, knowing he had held on his target, hoping he had correctly calculated the range.
Another heartbeat and the warrior stopped his wild dance. The iron-tipped, scalp-decorated lance fluttered from his right hand, a hand he brought to his belly. From what Sam Marr could tell over the blade of his front sight, Robertson had dropped a huge round through the Indian’s gut. The old civilian blinked, clearing his eyes for the last time. He took in a long breath, let half of it out …
The big-bore gun exploded.
Its high-powered lead sphere tore into the top of the warrior’s chest as he stood in his tracks, staring down at his belly wound. Marr’s shot knocked the Indian backward five feet, landing spread-eagled. Dead before he kicked up a small cloud of dust in falling.
When the cheering and joy in the corral died, the defenders heard the chilling wails from the other warriors and the women who had seen their hero killed so easily. Then from that hilltop a half mile to the east arose one voice. It was but a moment before that single voice silenced all others. Haranguing them. Challenging them. Cursing the white men. Vowing death to the soldiers.
Sam Marr grinned as he looked at the three young troopers assigned his wagon-box. “Bet that’s ol’ Red Cloud hisself. Angrier’n a bear come outta his hole a month early!”
A large force of mounted warriors swooped down the Big Piney valley out of sight. Another group of horsemen, still numbering several hundred, gathered on the plain to the northeast.
“They’ll come in again, boys. Them guns ready?” Sam asked.
“Yessir, Cap’n Marr. They’re ready, by God!”
“Good work, son. G
ood work.”
“They ain’t riding down on us,” Robertson shouted from the next box. “They’re … they’re just sitting there.”
It was eerie, uncanny, waiting there beneath that glaring sun and watching those hundreds of mounted horsemen waiting in a long phalanx on the plain. Not a chant being sung. Not a war cry uttered.
Then something happened that raised the hair along the back of Sam Marr’s neck for the first time that day. Over the shimmering, gold-coated silence of that dusty prairie, there arose a low hum.
“That them squaws crying over their dead up there on the hills?” one of the soldiers across the corral called out.
“The sound don’t rightly come from those hills up there,” answered another.
Instead, the hum seemed to shift more to the northwest now. Marr wasn’t sure if it really was a humming any longer. More of a spooky chant. And growing louder with every throb of his heart.
Then on some cue, the warriors on the plain dashed forward with a single, deafening cry. Those with guns fired them at the corral. Once more the defenders made themselves small in the wagon-boxes and turned their destruction on the horsemen sweeping down upon them. And still, beneath all the rattle of rifles and screams of horses, the cries of men hit and dying, that eerie humming grew louder and louder and louder …
Until the attacking force turned away as suddenly as it had swept down on the corral, retreating from the plain. Withdrawing. Turning. And waiting. As if something momentous were about to happen beneath the growing, ghostly chant.
“My God!”
“HERE THE BASTARDS COME!”
“Look at that, will ya?”
Sam looked with the others, finding a sight that would chill the blood of a lesser man.
Up from the ravine to the north of the corral, little more than ninety yards away, poured hundreds and hundreds of warriors on foot. Clad only in moccasins and breechclout. Every one of them carrying two weapons. Pistols, knives. Tomahawks and clubs. All chanting the same, eerie blood oath.
Marr realized time had come that Red Cloud wanted the corral wiped off the prairie. Time had come, Red Cloud threatened, for the close and dirty work of seeing your enemy’s face an arm’s length away.
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