Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (27 page)

“I say a hundred, Irishman,” Becher snapped as Donegan skidded to a stop beside him, levering another cartridge into his Spencer.

“More like hundred twenty or so.”

“Your eye better at this than mine,” he said above the roar of the carbines. The Spencer slammed back into his shoulder.

Seamus heaved the moist quid from his cheek, his mouth suddenly gone dry and the leaf-burly grown tasteless.

The Cheyenne were sweeping over the bright, sun-washed hills in two groups that met in a sweeping arc some three hundred yards to the north.

Back they came on themselves in two rushing torrents of painted, feathered horsemen.

“They out looking for us?”

Seamus shook his head for the German. “Don't think so. Figure we just bumped into 'em.” He levered the Henry and cheeked it to his shoulder.

They grew daring—he could see that. Coming in a bit closer with each run. Although there were already two of the naked horsemen stretched unmoving on the sand, the Cheyenne kept coming back for more—feeling here, then there, at the three squads Becher had ordered to make their stand.

“They'll break off soon,” Donegan growled at the German. “Odds aren't good enough in their favor—and they're just as surprised as we are. Can't run us over … so they'll pull back to fight another day.”

“I pray to Gott you're right, Irishman. We don't have enough ammunition along to make a standing fight of it.”

“What'd I tell you,” Seamus cheered moments later when the two swirling columns scattered over the hills to the north instead of turning to attack the Pawnee scouts again.

“By Gott, we did it! Three of them dead by my count.”

“These Pawnee of yours did it, Lieutenant,” Seamus said, feeling the sting of sentiment burn at the back of his throat. “For some reason they stood as you ordered—'stead of going to horse.”

“To horse?”

Seamus nodded. “I'd wager it's only natural for these Pawnee to want to fight from horseback. Brought up that way.”

Becher finished signaling in the other two groups.

Horse-holders stived through the sand with their wide-eyed mounts as Seamus became aware of the sun on the back of his neck once more. He dragged the greasy folds of his huge bandanna up beneath his long, wavy hair.

“Told them to reload, Irishman,” Becher commented as he walked over. “You too?”

Seamus began pulling the brass cartridges from his pocket. “Where you think we are now? Colorado already?”

Becher shrugged. “Only place I know we are is on the right trail now. We're going back to bring up the main column.”

“Carr will be pleased to hear of you being hit by these Cheyenne?”

Becher nodded, smiling. “Very pleased, I think. We have plenty of sign now. Good-size war party like this—painted and feathered—they were out for no good.”

“Letting the wolf loose, you might say, Becher.”

The German grinned even wider. “Let's get these Pawnees back to North—so I can tell Carr we've got Cheyenne wolves to track now.”

Chapter 22

July 8–9, 1869

“Carr just kept staring at them footprints, like something strong came over him,” Cody said to Donegan as he accepted a hot tin of coffee from the Irishman.

For two days after the Pawnees' running skirmish with the Cheyenne, Major Eugene Carr had kept his column marching northwest along the Republican River. Then, during yesterday's march, the scouts first showed the telltale footprints to Major Frank North. Not until running across a second camp with another group of footprints did North finally show them to Carr.

“The general—he finally go back to his bivouac and get something in his belly?” asked Donegan.

Cody nodded. “Only after it was too damned dark to while he walked back and forth over them prints.”

“Gives me a cold feeling too,” Seamus agreed. “Something I can't name, or put my finger on.”

“Them prints?”

“Last two big camps we come on—this village we're trailing.” He sipped his coffee awhile, refusing to gaze up into the inky sky overhead. It would only serve to darken his mood.

Cody finally spoke first as he stretched his feet out to the fire. “Did raise the hair on the back of my neck first time I saw them prints made by a woman's shoe.”

“Two sets of 'em,” Seamus grumbled. “Narrow … short little feet jumbled in among all them moccasin tracks.”

Cody could see some pain glistening in the Irishman's dark eyes before he spoke. “Major's not the only one worried 'bout them women. Hell, for a time there this evening, I was thinking hard on Lulu—thanking God it weren't her with them bastards.”

Seamus looked at Cody, his eyes growing moist. “It's the Alderdice woman, I know it. Tom's wife. He fought … with me, with Forsyth—”

Cody heard the sound snag in the tall man's throat. “I'll wager the other tracks belong to Mrs. Weichel—German woman.”

Donegan set his coffee cup aside and pulled the plug from his vest pocket. From it he cut a corner with the pocket knife he kept in another vest pocket.

“I like being in camp this time of night, Seamus. Getting them soldiers bedded down and all. Prairie gets pretty quiet. Sometimes so quiet you can hear a horse fart on some bad grass he's et, maybe even hear the stars whir overhead.”

“Things so damned quiet—sometimes forces a man to think on things he'd rather not,” Seamus commented after a pause.

Cody could tell Donegan was not fully there with him.

“A woman?”

“What troubles a man more than anything else in his life, I ask you?” Donegan said quietly. “More than matters of life and death—it's matters of the heart, even more what a woman does to a man's heart, that trouble him most.”

“Carr won't let us stop now that he's got a trail to follow.”

“Forsyth was the same way—once he got the scent in his nostrils.”

Cody nodded. “I think I understand how the general feels about them women dragged along with that band of Cheyenne outlaws. He asked me—and I told him. I said we don't run 'em down and run 'em down soon, that bunch we're tracking is going to fly from our reach.”

“And we'll never get a chance at 'em again, will we?”

“They've turned north now. Aiming right for the Laramie Plains. From there it's a quick run to the Black Hills, sacred land of the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. We'll never find those women then. Be the chance of breathsmoke on a whirlwind that we—”

They both rose together at the hammer of hoofbeats. Staccato from the hills rising just past the Pawnee camp. The pair was moving when the first shrill war whoop echoed eerie and disembodied from the black of night.

Cody looked at the man running through the dark with him, certain that shrill, ghostly cry gave the Irishman willies too. With the cavalry sleeping a mile away, at that moment it seemed they were the only men awake in camp, heading for the dull white of the low tents clustered where the Pawnee battalion had bivouacked. Only they—and the Cheyenne, that is—making a second unpredictable night raid on the forces marching under Major Eugene A. Carr.

The Pawnee camp erupted with life. Orange muzzle-flashes flaring the night with blinding light and the deafening racket of pistol fire. Three languages caught in a tangled web of confusion, all smothering one another in a hodgepodge of orders and war-cries and profanity.

Gunfire and grunts, war whoops and startled cries from half-sleeping men all followed the disappearing hoofbeats.

Frank North appeared out of the black beside Mad Bear, the trusted sergeant of his Pawnee battalion. At first sight of the two white scouts, Mad Bear turned back into the dark.

“What's wrong with him?” Cody asked.

North looked after Mad Bear, shaking his head. “I figure as soon as he found out it was you two out here, he hightailed it back to grab his horse.”

“Chasing our night callers?” Donegan inquired.

“Yeah. How many you figure, Cody?”

“Six, maybe seven.” Cody asked. “Anyone hit?”

“My tent, for the most part. They came barreling right by, firing into it. Running east to west. Fired into Lute's tent too. Then out of camp, trying to chivvy the horses.”

“Get any?”

“Not a damned one for all their trouble,” North replied. “All of 'em tied and hobbled as I've ordered.”

“Damn, but this bothers me,” Luther North grumbled, appearing out of the black.

“The night raid?” Cody asked. “Injuns not supposed to attack at night.”

“These do—twice now,” Luther replied. “It's not only that…” He turned to his older brother. “Mad Bear's gone out after 'em. Says one Pawnee is worth a half-dozen Cheyenne any day.”

As he said it a trio of shots boomed from the west side of camp. The four men sprinted to the sound of the gunfire, reaching a group of more than ten Pawnee scouts walking onto the prairie in the starlight. As the North brothers came up, several began chattering excitedly.

“Says Mad Bear ran after one of the Cheyenne who came through camp,” explained Frank North.

“One of the enemy's ponies was hit—spilling a warrior. Mad Bear was on his way to kill the Dog Soldier when the new shooting started,” continued Luther North.

“Why, did the Pawnees see some more horsemen?” Donegan asked.

Frank North shook his head. “No, says they just saw some movement out here in the dark.”

After walking another fifty yards, following one of the scouts, the lone Pawnee called out ahead of them. As Cody and the rest came up, they found the tracker kneeling over a body lying among the trampled grass.

“We get one?” Luther North asked.

“Damn!” muttered the older brother as the body was rolled over.

All could see the dull brass buttons of the army blouse the dead man was wearing, the bright reflection of the blood spreading damp across his chest evident beneath the starshine.

“Shot in the back,” Frank translated as the rest of the Pawnee dropped to their knees surrounding their fallen kinsman, wailing, crying out in grief.

“He wasn't killed by the Cheyenne?” Cody asked.

“They saw Mad Bear out here—chasing the damned Cheyenne—and opened fire on him—thinking he was one of the bastards rode through camp.”

Seamus made the sign of the cross, a rare thing for him to do.

At that moment in the dark it struck Cody as a superstitious thing to do as well—every bit as superstitious as the way the plains Indian made his medicine over things unexplained. It gave Cody shivers standing here over the dead Pawnee, listening to the death-songs of the others.

“We're going to find them soon, boys,” Frank North said quietly, turning back to camp with the other white men.

“We better,” Donegan said quietly. “I feel bad blood come a'rise more and more every day. It's time we found us something more than old footprints and cold firepits.”

*   *   *

That next morning Major Carr ordered a day's layover in camp while various parties of the Pawnee scouted the area for more sign of the Cheyenne.

“Wish we was laying to in camp, Bill,” Seamus said as he refilled the loading tube on the Henry repeater.

“Wish I was going along with you, Irishman.”

“Better I than you to go with Lute North's group, young man.” Seamus winked and slipped the repeater into its boot before climbing into the saddle.

“He don't like me much, does he?” Cody asked, leading his big buckskin off.

“Neither do I—come to think of it!” Donegan said, then laughed easily as Cody waved him farewell, slapping the mare's rump.

Seamus joined Captain Luther North and Carr's Lieutenant Billy Harvey along with five Pawnee trackers in a small scouting party that would scour the countryside south and west of Frenchman's Fork of the Republican. After a day-long ride covering the rolling, grass-covered sandhills of the western plains, the eight horsemen had made a wide circuit back to strike the river about twenty-five miles above the camp of the Fifth Cavalry.

North called a halt.

“Your butts as sore as mine, we could do with a night out of the saddle. Ride back in the morning.”

“Splendid idea, Captain,” Seamus said cheerfully.

North turned to the cavalry lieutenant. “Billy—I imagine it'd be a good idea for us to ride up that hill yonder and take a look around before we go into camp.”

The sun was settling amid a blazing show of red-orange as the eight worked up the slope. Near the top North signaled another halt and ordered one of the Pawnee to crawl on up to the crest, where he could have a look before the rest broke the skyline.

As the Pawnee scout made the top on all fours, he suddenly dropped to his belly. In a matter of moments he signaled the rest to dismount and join him. As the others reached the crest on foot, the sun eased beyond the western mountains, from here no more than a ragged, worn hemline of horizon.

What greeted the Irishman's eyes made the breath seize in his chest.

Less than a mile west of that hilltop Frenchman's Fork swept gently to the north. Between that bend and the bottom of the hill where the scouts lay in hiding was strung a long, wide coulee that in the spring rushed its rain-swollen runoff into the river.

But for now, moving without hurry down among the shady willow and alder and rustling cottonwood, was what seemed like the whole Cheyenne nation on the move: mounted warriors and old men on foot, children and dogs and travois drags, while on the flanks throbbed the massive pony herd.

“You figure that's Tall Bull's bunch?” asked Lieutenant Harvey.

Luther North nodded. “None other. For some time we've figured it was his bunch been making for trouble after Roman Nose was turned good Indian at Beecher Island.”

Seamus found North gazing at him. “Never thought I'd see that many Indians again in me life, boys.”