Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (20 page)

The soldiers guffawed at Brown's expense until he reluctantly smiled and wagged his head. “All right, Dwyer—we'll trade: some of your salt-pork and beans, for some of our refreshment.” He glared at the two civilian scouts. “Last time I go to town for supplies with you two barleycorns!”

Cody stomped up, slapping Brown on the shoulder. “I'll damn well bet you make out better trading E Company for food than you'd done back at Sheridan bartering with that storekeeper.”

Brown licked his lips, a begrudging smile growing on them. “Bet I will at that, Cody.”

For days after leaving Fort Wallace and Sheridan, Kansas, behind, Brown's F Company ate every bit as good if not better than the rest of the Fifth Cavalry. Every day found the other companies bartering with Brown, trading their food for his liquor. It had all the makings of a good march north into Cheyenne country to reach the Platte River.

These would be the last easygoing days Carr's troops would share for some time to come.

*   *   *

“Country's thick with sign, Irishman,” Bill Cody whispered as they led their horses down the bank to water the animals in Beaver Creek. They were twelve days out of Fort Wallace already. Until that morning, they had crossed not a single track.

“Carr knows it. He's posting double pickets tonight. Wants 'em doubled from here on to McPherson.”

“Cody!”

They both turned to find young Major Eugene W. Crittenden halting his mount on the bank above them.

“General Carr wishes you to accompany a reconnaissance.”

Cody looked at Donegan. “Must mean I don't get supper with the rest of you.”

“I have some tacks in my bags,” Donegan offered.

He waved them off. “So do I,” and he laughed while rising to the saddle, pulling his reluctant mount away from the cool waters of the Beaver. “But if I wanted to eat hard-bread in the saddle—I would've joined the army for thirteen dollars a month!”

Cody led Lieutenant Edward W. Ward and a dozen troopers from Brown's F Company northeast, following sign of a village on the move. After easing down the Beaver more than five miles, the scout signaled the young, smooth-faced lieutenant.

“Let's halt your men here. Dismount them in that draw over there. You and me go on a ways ourselves.”

“You found some evidence of the hostiles?” Ward asked eagerly.

“Not here. Up yonder a ways.” He pointed over the rolling hills along the Beaver.

“You figure that's camp smoke?”

“Sure as hell ain't dust from a cavalry column.”

Ward nodded without another word, turning to order his dozen into hiding before he rejoined Cody to consider the smoke smudging the far horizon.

Bellying up to the crest of a grass-covered hill, the two studied the countryside downstream, below the smoke of many fires. In the clear, pristine air of the plains, they were able to make out the gathering of hide lodges and the nearby pony herd milling in the grassy valley of the Beaver.

“How far you make it, Mr. Cody?”

He calculated. “Three miles. Not any more'n that, Lieutenant.”

“I'll send word back to the general.”

“Have him bring his men up quick. This is what Carr's been wanting for some time now.”

Ward nodded, his lips in a grim line of determination. “We were sacked last winter when Custer and Penrose got all the action. Empty-handed for all that marching. Carr's itching to have him a shot at the hostiles.”

“There's his chance, Lieutenant—yonder.”

They loped back to the draw where Ward had left his men behind. Quickly scribbling a note on the small ledger he carried in his blouse, the lieutenant handed his report to his ablest horseman.

“Skaggs, take this back to General Carr. I've told him we'd wait here for him to bring up the rest of the outfit.”

The solitary trooper leaped to the saddle and was gone over the hills.

“It's time for us to put a little more distance between us and that village,” Cody advised.

“Whatever you advise. We'll follow,” Ward replied. “Mount up, men.”

The dozen soldiers were climbing to their saddles behind Cody when a shot rang out, followed quickly by two more.

“Those came from the direction Skaggs took!” Cody shouted.

As Cody brought his mount around, Skaggs himself burst over the rise to the southwest, laying low in the saddle, whipping his mount back to Ward's detachment for all he was worth.

“Get ready to stand and fight, Lieutenant!”

Ward raked the back of his hand over his lips. “We'll make a dash for it, Cody.”

“You'll be damned for it, you do—and earn yourself a grave if you try to make these green recruits outrun warriors on horseback.”

He glowered at the civilian. “All right, we'll play it your way.”

As Skaggs reached the base of the hill and raced on, a half-dozen warriors cleared the crest behind him, hot on his tail. Screeching with blood in their nostrils, they waved their rifles and warclubs as their heels hammered the sides of their strong, grass-fed ponies.

“Dismount your men, Lieutenant!”

“Dismount!”
he cried.

Skaggs skidded to a halt, leaping to the ground and sprinting the last twenty yards beside his lathered mount.

“Two squads—left and right!” Ward hollered. “Horse holders to the rear, dammit!”

Three soldiers pulled the mounts to the mouth of the coulee, where they had secreted themselves only moments before.

“Fire on my command!”

“Damn your commands. Just drop the sonsabitches!” Cody countered as he brought the Spencer to his shoulder.

The crack of his carbine served as cue to the rest of the soldiers on both flanks. Nothing pretty about it, just a lot of lead fired into the face of those half-dozen warriors.

“They turned!” one of the troopers hollered, rising from his knee.

“Damn right they did. There's too many guns here for 'em to tackle.”

“Let's go get some scalps!” another young trooper shouted.

“You'll die if you try,” Cody replied, stomping up beside Ward. “Likely that bunch was out hunting when they spotted your courier. Just as likely they're hightailing it back to that big village right now—with word that they can wipe out a small squad of pony soldiers if they hurry.”

Ward nodded, his tongue raking his dry lower lip. “Which means we run for it?”

He shook his head. “Better you get your men into the mouth of that draw. Make yourselves a place to take a stand.”

“What're you doing?” Ward asked as Cody went into the saddle, his carbine jammed into its scabbard.

“I'm riding back to bring Carr up—and fast.”

“But you don't have my report!”

Cody was gone before the lieutenant's words fell from his lips. He looked over his shoulder only once as the horse beneath him found its second wind, leaning into the race. Cody smiled, finding Ward hustling his soldiers into the willow-covered coulee far behind him.

Tearing past the outlying pickets, he reined up in a glittering spray of sand made golden in the falling sun. “General! Your Lieutenant Ward is penned down. Found us a village.”

“How big?” Carr came huffing up.

“Big enough to give your men a good fight of it.”

“Splendid!” Carr wheeled, firing orders to his adjutant to alert the entire command. “We'll leave G and D with our train. ‘Boots and Saddles' for the rest. Five minutes, Mr. Price!”

Adjutant George Price was gone to pass the word and order the bugles blown when the major turned back to Cody. “Will Ward hold out?”

He wagged his head. “We need to cover some ground and quick, General.”

“If I might make a suggestion, Cody?” Seamus Donegan loped up, leading his mount.

“What do you have to say?”

“Let Cody and me lead the first company or two ready to ride.”

Carr thought on it only a moment. “Take those ready to make the charge with you, fellas. I'll follow with the rest of the outfit and support you shortly.”

By the time Cody had Lieutenant Ward's detail in sight ahead, Carr and the rest of the regiment were in sight to the rear. At the moment he turned back around in the saddle, half a thousand warriors made their noisy appearance on the hills behind Ward, ready to swallow the lieutenant's men. When they spotted the advance guard under Cody and Donegan headed their way at a gallop, the Cheyenne pulled back from their attack on the dozen soldiers, allowing Ward to make an orderly retreat to join up with the rest of the Fifth Cavalry.

Carr came up with his three companies about the time the warriors reined up and turned about, intending now to make a stand of it to cover the retreat of their women and children scattering north onto the prairie. Ponies were driven ahead by young boys and old men. Women squawked at balky animals dragging travois. Children cried out, racing about on foot or plopped atop the mounds of lodge-goods heaped aboard the drags. Their escape raised a thick curtain of golden dust as the sun eased out of the day.

“General!” Cody roared as he skidded up beside Carr. “That company you sent out on the right flank is about to get swallowed up!”

Every neck craned. Rifle-fire crackled along a wide front, but no more insistent than far to the right. That growing cacophony of gunfire was all that could be heard, a thick cloud of dust all that could be seen of the action.

“Schenofsky?” Carr asked of his adjutant.

“Lieutenant,” was Price's answer. “B Company.”

Carr's eyes darted over the officers gathered about him. “Company A is closest. Take them with you, Cody. The Irishman too—he cut his teeth on the best horse soldiers the Confederacy could throw at him. Let's see what Donegan can do against mounted warriors!”

“Aye, General!” Seamus shouted, whirling his mount about to follow Cody.

The young scout ordered Captain Robert P. Wilson's A Company to follow him over the hill, informing the soldiers they were to follow the Irishman's battle commands.

“Just who the hell does this pompous ass think he is?” Wilson demanded, nodding toward Donegan.

“Carr wants him to pull Schenofsky's fat out of the fire,” Cody replied, waving a hand to silence Donegan. “The Irishman rode with the Army of the Potomac. J.E.B. Stuart carved his initials in Donegan's back of a time—and he lived to tell of it. I'll ride with him … and so will you, Wilson. Carr's orders.”

At the top of the hill Donegan reined them up as he quickly assessed the turmoil below. Lieutenant Schenofsky had fallen for the oldest trick in the Indian book. Following a luring, seductive decoy away from the far end of the right flank—thinking he had an easy kill. Until more than 120 warriors swooped down on his little command of less than thirty-five frightened soldiers. Cutting them off from the rest of the Fifth Cavalry, with little hope of rescue.

Most of the horses were down in the grassy sand, either from Indian bullets or sacrificed by their riders to serve as bulwarks in their desperate stand. Schenofsky clearly stood at the center of things, pistol high in the air, glancing over his shoulder at the troops on the hilltop as Donegan spread his formation for the charge.

“Skirmish—front! Left flank: out. Right flank: out! On the gallop, my command!” he roared.

Forty-five horse soldiers whipped their mounts into a wide front, sweating flank to sweating flank in a clatter of metal bit chains and a squeak of protesting leather. The horses grew wide-eyed, snorting, sensing the impending call.

“Captain?” Seamus nodded to Wilson.

“Your call, Mr. Donegan,” he replied, and bowed elegantly in the saddle.

“Charge!”

Behind the civilian the soldiers streamed off the hill, like the two barbs of an iron-tipped arrow, following the mad race of the arrow-point into the fray. A flurry of dust swirled just beyond Schenofsky's desperate circle of horse carcasses. Gunshots volleyed into the yellow cloud. Then ever so slowly the firing let off as the yelling, screaming, dusty blue horsemen swept around Schenofsky's men on two sides, chasing the retreating warriors.

Donegan ordered the halt and retreat. “Cap'n, we better get back and get that unit rejoined with Carr before those Cheyenne come up in force to swallow us.”

Wilson had galloped up after the soldiers were reformed in column of fours, returning to Schenofsky's ambush. He tapped the brim of his slouch hat, a begrudging smile on his face.

“My hat's off to you, Irishman. That was a pretty ride of it.”

“It was at that, Cap'n,” Donegan beamed, knocking dust from his patched and faded cavalry britches. “It was a damned pretty ride at that!”

Chapter 16

May 13, 1869

Lieutenant Jules Schenofsky saw four of his men killed when his unit was swallowed up by the decoy and ambush at Elephant Rock. Only one of those bodies was recovered. Another three soldiers were wounded in the desperate fight.

With no other casualties, Carr ordered Cody to lead two companies in the chase and until dark to keep the pressure on the warriors covering the escape of their women and children. As the sky sank to black, Cody halted the soldiers on the south bank of the Republican River.

“I'll be damned if I can't hear 'em rustling around on the other side,” Cody whispered to the Irishman as they stood on the riverbank.

“You figure they're moving off?”

“Like us to think so, I'll wager.”

“We can't make a go at 'em in the dark, and they know it,” Seamus replied sourly.

“You find something?” Major Carr asked as he brought his horse to a halt behind the two scouts in the deepening gloom of twilight. Only the evening star showed itself overhead.

“Your Cheyenne, General,” Donegan replied.

“They make it across before dark?”

Cody nodded. “It's why they were in such a hurry and didn't put up so much of a running fight to get here.”