Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (15 page)

“Bill, you gotta come with me,” Ezekiel said quietly over the rattle of chips, the scraping of chairs and the banging of the out-of-tune piano.

“What's he gotta come with you for?” Donegan demanded, closing on the doorway. He watched two of the brunettes behind Ezekiel bring up their pistols.

The captain pushed the weapons down. “We won't need any gun-play here, mister. I merely came to ask Bill to come along with me.”

“What for, Israel?” Cody asked, standing but wobbly still, anchored against the bed's crude foot-rail for support.

“Assault on the quartermaster's agent.”

“Shit,” Cody grumbled. “He had it coming … lying 'bout me the way—”

“I'm sorry, Bill. Sorry I had to be the one to come for you.”

Cody staggered closer to the doorway, then of a sudden his eyes blinked clear as he straightened. Then wagged his head, angry, filled with disappointment. “You didn't have to bring these … bring your brunettes, Israel.”

Ezekiel stared at his boots a moment, sheepish. “Figured I had to, Bill. What with the way I heard you was acting. Beating on the agent, then coming out to Wallace to threaten Lauffer the way you did.”

“A pompous duck, that one is,” Cody snarled. He shook his head. “Why'd you bring your … brunettes. I thought we was friends.”

“You haven't been in too good a humor last few hours. Didn't know how you'd act. You'll go with me now, as a friend?”

“I'll go with you—if you're gonna take me in by yourself.”

“I got your word on it, Bill?”

Cody stepped right up to Ezekiel. “My word's been good enough for you until now. Anything changed that between us, Israel?”

The captain thought on it a moment, then shook his head. He turned, whispering to his squad of Negro soldiers. They quietly retreated down the steps to the gaming room as the saloon grew quiet, watching the brunettes march into the street, go to saddle then ride slowly away from Mason's place.

“All right, Bill. It's just you and me now. You ready to go?”

“Gimme a minute. Splash some water on my face.”

“I wanna go along, Bill.” Seamus whirled on the captain. “Can I go with him?”

“Afraid not, mister. It's just him and me going back.”

“Where you taking him?” Donegan asked as Cody stepped to the bed table, dipped his hands and brought the water to his face.

“Wallace. Who are you? Do I know you?”

“Donegan.”

“You're one of Forsyth's men, weren't you?”

He nodded. “What happens when he gets to Wallace?”

“I've got orders to lock him up, awaiting the pressing of charges.”

“For beating that civilian?”

“Stealing army property.”

Donegan chuckled as Cody came up, struggling with his coat. Seamus helped him get his arms through it. “Cody and me stole lots of things this past winter. Sometimes it was sleep, sometimes it was Mexican beer. But Bill Cody will never steal army property.”

Cody leaned over and gave the Irishman a one-armed hug. “Thanks, my friend.” He looked at Ezekiel as they scuffed from the room. “Donegan's right. I'd never steal army property, Israel. Shit, I never found anything the army owned that was worth the stealing.”

Chapter 11

Late March 1869

“No place like home, Seamus,” Bill Cody grumbled as they climbed down from their saddles in front of the guardhouse. The whiskey had given him a head the size of Kansas Territory.

By the time Captain Ezekiel and his prisoner had reached the hitching post outside Walt Mason's saloon, the Irishman had convinced the soldier that he should be allowed to come along to Wallace.

“I know Colonel Bankhead.”

“Know him well?”

Seamus pursed his lips, then finally shook his head. “Not really. He brought out some troops from Wallace after Carpenter rescued those of us with Forsyth.”

Israel Ezekiel studied the tall Irishman a moment. “Only place you can sleep is with Cody in the guardhouse.”

Seamus smiled, winking at Cody. “You haven't scared me off yet, Captain.”

“You want to ride with Cody and spend a night on a poor soldier's hay-tick mattress—that's your business. C'mon.”

Now well into the wee hours of the morning, Fort Wallace was as quiet as the inside of a church on Saturday night. Some greasy-yellow light spilled from the window across the muddy parade to show that the Officer of the Day was on duty. Over by the quartermaster's billet the only other light coming from the window reflected from the muddy puddles of rain water slowly freezing as the temperature continued to drop. The guardhouse door opened when the three horsemen reined up out front.

“Take these horses to a stall and wipe them down,” Ezekiel ordered a young soldier who took the civilian horses away. A second guard stood holding the reins to the captain's animal.

“C'mon in, boys,” said a rotund officer who suddenly filled the yellow-lit doorway.

“I'll be damned—is that you, Graham?” Cody sang out.

“Nobody else gonna haul his ass out of bed for you in the middle of the night, Cody.”

Cody dragged Donegan up to the door. “Like I told you, everything's gonna be all right. Seamus, here's another old friend: Captain George Wallace Graham.”

After they shook hands, Graham led the pair into the main room of the guardhouse, followed by two young soldiers. “Why don't you go get yourself some sleep, Israel,” Graham suggested.

Ezekiel nodded, looking at Cody. “You get some sleep too, Bill. I fear tomorrow's gonna be a long one.”

He glanced at Donegan and was gone, closing the door behind him.

“Well, boys. I haven't got much in the way of anything to offer you—but I'll give you my best,” Graham said, waving an arm toward the ring of cells surrounding the center room on three sides.

“Damn, this is a stroke of providence—having you here tonight, Graham … when they bring me in on these charges.”

Graham's face went sour, as if he didn't like the situation any better than Cody. “My company's on guard duty tonight. That soldier took your horses away will see to them proper. So we'll do what we can to get through the night.”

“Where's my bunk?” Donegan asked.

“Take your pick, Irishman,” Graham replied.

“I'm not gonna sleep in a cell, Captain,” Cody protested.

Graham wrinkled up his nose a moment, thinking. “I can sleep in this chair over here just fine. Why don't you sleep in the sergeant's bunk, back there.” He flung a thumb at a bed against the far wall, one with a thicker, wider mattress than those bunks crowded in each tiny cell.

“Believe I will, George. G'night, Seamus.”

“Got a extra blanket?” Donegan asked, heading back through an open cell door.

“We can rustle one up for you. Cold out tonight, ain't it?” Graham said. “Sorry about you being a guest and all.”

“No need for apology, Cap'n. Slept some of me best nights in a prison cell. From Boston's constabulary to Fort Phil Kearny. Locked in some of the best and some of the worst in me time! Doubt this will be the last night for me behind bars.”

By the time Cody got his boots off and his feet stuffed beneath the blanket, Donegan's snores already rumbled against the guardhouse walls.

After breakfast the next morning Cody asked Graham to have the post's telegraph operator come to the guardhouse.

“You want to send word to your wife, Mr. Cody?” the old soldier asked as he took back the sheet of paper on which the young scout had scrawled his message. He glanced over it once, then looked up at Cody a moment, before reading the note a second time. “You want me to send this, do you?”

Cody nodded. “To General Sheridan. He's the one hired me as a scout for the army. I figure Sheridan himself ought to know what a jam Bankhead and you boys got me in out here.”

The old soldier glanced at Graham for guidance. The captain shrugged his shoulders.

“He's got a right to send the wire, Sergeant,” Graham replied.

“All right,” the operator responded, a strange, tight look come over his face. “You want to send this to General Sheridan—I'll see what I can do to reach him.”

“Try Fort Hays first,” Cody suggested, stepping back over to the guardhouse stove, where he poured himself another cup of coffee. He turned on the operator. “If not there, try Leavenworth. While I was visiting St. Louis a few weeks back, I heard Sheridan was called back East to attend Grant's inauguration.”

The operator nodded. “You know the general pretty good, do you?”

Cody smiled, sipping at the hot coffee, enjoying every bit of it. “Sheridan hired me to carry dispatches between some posts when no other man jack of you would do it. And because I carried them dispatches, the general made me chief of scouts for the Fifth Cavalry. Can't say I know him like a brother—but good enough he oughta know what's happening to me out here.”

“I'll see what goes—who's up and listening.” The operator closed the door behind him as he left, a gust of wind blowing some orphan flakes of snow into the guardhouse.

Early that afternoon, Cody sat across the table from one of his guards, moving faded checker pieces back and forth across a scratched board when Seamus Donegan burst into the guardhouse.

“Cody—thought you ought to know: that rat-eyed telegraph operator never sent your message to Sheridan this morning.”

Bill turned, the gust of wind from the door hitting him full in the face like the news. “How you so sure of that?”

“Heard it meself.” Donegan plopped onto a stool. “He went right over to the colonel's office with your telegram. Bankhead tore it up—didn't want it sent.”

“You know that for certain?” asked Captain Graham, coming back from the stove and coffeepot.

Donegan nodded, then looked at the young scout. “You're stirring trouble here that Bankhead don't want, Bill Cody. He'll do everything he can to keep a lid on you. If Sheridan finds out—”

“Damn him!” exploded the young scout, rising so quickly the table tipped, sending coffee cups, checkerboard and pieces flying.

“Wait, Bill!” Graham shouted, waving two guards toward the civilian tearing for the door.

Cody felt them clamp his arms and wheeled on Graham. “You got no right!”

“I'm trying to help you, Cody,” the soldier explained, warily eyeing the tall Irishman. “You go raring over there in the funk you are, there'll be big trouble—more than I can help with.”

“He's right, Bill,” the Irishman agreed, but he turned on the captain. “Still, he's got every right to send that wire. Sheridan is the one who hired him.”

Graham hung his head, wagging it. “I know, I know.”

“Damn you, George Wallace Graham—you and your boys rode with me before … you know me, George,” Cody pleaded.

“That's so, Captain,” said one of the guards.

“You're making things hard.” Graham straightened, breathed deep. “All right. I'll go to Bankhead myself—tell him you want to go to the telegraph office—under guard—to send your message.”

Donegan waited while Cody fumed. Finally the young scout nodded.

“All right. Go tell that pompous popinjay that I'm not gonna play soldier with him no more … that he better let me go or send my message to Sheridan. It's one or the other, George.”

Graham nodded as he turned to go. “Understood.”

Thirty minutes later both civilians stood outside the guardhouse, watching the pair of horses being brought to them by soldiers. Striding across the parade were Bankhead and some of his staff. The colonel came to a stiff halt about the time the horses arrived.

“Well, Cody,” he blustered, “I'd just as soon put this whole thing to rest right here and now. Have you on your way.”

Cody did not reply at first. Instead he took the reins to his mount before turning to Bankhead. “Colonel—I figure you for the sort who just doesn't like stirring muddy water.”

Bankhead hard-eyed them both as the two civilians went to saddle. “I want you to remember your promise to leave the quartermaster's agent alone when you step foot in Wallace.”

“Not going that way—not now, Colonel,” Bill replied. “Heading for Lyon. Fifth Cavalry has work soon enough for us.”

“Remember you're not welcome back on this military reservation, Cody,” Bankhead repeated, stepping back as the scout brought his horse around. He looked up at the Irishman. “Seems I recall you with Forsyth's bunch.”

Donegan nodded. “Right, Colonel.”

“Maybe you should think twice about getting yourself into trouble—Indian or army—again, Irishman.”

Seamus smiled at Cody, then gazed down at Bankhead. “Colonel, way I see it—you're the one ought to be skittish about things. See, the way you overstepped your legal bounds by arresting a civilian off this military reservation—holding him in a military guardhouse, not allowing Cody the rights of every civilian … why, I think General Sheridan would love to hear about what you've done to the chief of scouts for the Fifth Cavalry.”

Bankhead's lips went into a white, straight line of seething hate beneath his flaring eyes. Finally, his lips trembled as the words came out. “See these two men away from the fort immediately!”

“Good day, Colonel,” replied Donegan.

“Best o' luck to you,” Cody said, saluting as they turned toward the gate.

“Made 'im mad, didn't I, Bill?” Seamus whispered.

“Yeah, damn you,” Cody answered. “Didn't give me the chance to.”

*   *   *

“Looks like you made your trip here from Fort Dodge for nothing, boy!”

Jack O'Neill stared at the black hole of a mouth in the man's face when the sutler plopped his head back to laugh with all the rest of the customers stuffed in the dingy, mud-roofed watering hole that smelled of urine and vomit and unwashed anuses claimed by soldier and buffalo hunter alike. He did not like the rancid smell coming from that brown-toothed mouth.