Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (6 page)

“Come now. We must get these new horses among our herd quickly … so they grow accustomed to the smell of us and our animals. Tomorrow will be a long day riding south.”

“South?”

“Yes. We should march south toward the white man's settlements one last time—making a run at the soldiers before we turn about and head north for the winter season.”

“We will travel to the land of Red Cloud's Sioux?” asked Pile of Bones.

“Perhaps,” Tall Bull answered. “I hear the great Oglalla chief has driven the soldiers from his country. He and the Northern Cheyenne have defeated the white man. Perhaps it would be wise for us to spend the winter closer to that land where no white man dares come.”

“
Heya!
Let us go winter where the water is cold and sweet, and the buffalo grow fat for the coming cold!” Heavy Furred Wolf agreed.

“Soon enough there comes a time when we again make war on the soldiers,” Tall Bull said. “I pray this coming winter will not last long—the sooner to return to spill the white man's blood on this ground. My heart yearns to watch this land of my birth drink on the blood of these soldiers who follow our trail. They always follow.”

*   *   *

The next day saw the return of the two battalions about the time a grave detail finished burying the dead soldier. After hearing the brief reports of their fruitless reconnaissance, Major Royall gave the command to move out once more.

“Major, if I might make a suggestion.” Donegan halted his mount beside Royall's.

“What's that, Irishman?” Royall eyed Cody suspiciously.

“As you come about with the columns, lead them over the soldier's grave.”

“You want us to ride over the place we buried the man?”

Cody nodded. “It's a good idea. Critters won't be so likely to come dig his body up when you trample over the ground.”

“Major, if those warriors can't find that sojur's grave,” Donegan explained, “they can't dig the man up, now can they?”

Royall grinned slightly, a look of bemused respect on his face. “All right, Irishman. It's a good idea. Sergeant Major Maynard!”

“Sir?”

“Carry the word back with my compliments to the commands. We're marching over the grave—in silence … with bare heads.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Fifth Cavalry moved out, circling their encampment so they could pound hoofprints over the newly-turned ground. In absolute silence that cold fall morning, the horsemen pointed their noses south by west, pulling their kepis and slouch hats from their heads in paying this last respect before they marched up the Prairie Dog Creek, flankers out and scouts roaming far in advance to pick up the trail of the fleeing hostiles who had stolen twenty-six head of army horseflesh.

By evening Cody found the Cheyenne trail turning south from the creek, angling back toward the country of the Solomon. Yet across the next two days the trail grew more and more faint.

“They're splitting up, Seamus,” Cody announced over a cup of evening coffee.

“Army chases a village, that's what they'll always do.”

“In two more days I may not have but one lodge left to track.”

“You tell the major?”

“He's damned disgusted with me.”

“Ought'n be disgusted with the Injins we're tracking.”

“Major's gotta be mad at someone, Seamus. He's run out of time. This was his big chance to be the one to catch these Cheyenne been burning and killing and kidnapping all summer long.”

“His big chance?”

Cody nodded. “Right. Drawing close to the time his orders tell him to head down to Buffalo Tank.”

“What's that?”

“Water stop on the Union Pacific line south of here.”

“Why's Royall going there if the Injins are splitting up?”

“Sheridan has a Major Carr coming in to take command now for the winter campaign.”

“Who's this Carr?”

“Don't know him. Just his reputation. Good man from what the word is.”

Donegan nodded. “So now the junior major is ordered to ride behind the senior man—that it?”

“Way I see it.”

On 22 October, Royall marched into Buffalo Tank with his battalions, turning over his command of the Fifth to Major Eugene Asa Carr, a thirty-nine-year-old veteran of plains warfare, who sat in camp awaiting the arrival of the regiment. Joining his cavalry at Buffalo Tank were about a third of the reorganized civilian scouts first assembled by Major George A. Forsyth, now commanded by Lieutenant Silas Pepoon of the Tenth Negro Cavalry.

Chapter 3

October 1868

It was a somber reunion for the most part, yet not without some joy when Seamus Donegan walked among those familiar faces at Buffalo Tank on the Union Pacific Line in central Kansas.

A month before, many of these same plainsmen had been pinned down by the Cheyenne like cornered badgers in their holes, on an island Forsyth named after Lieutenant Fred Beecher. After returning to Hays, most had elected to stay on scouting with Lieutenant Pepoon, although a handful had gone their way, having had enough of Indian fighting to last them. Besides Sergeant William McCall and veteran scout Sharp Grover, there were a few who sought out the tall Irishman, to shake a hand or slap a back and talk of nine days of siege on Beecher Island. Only one of the boy-faced men was still among those scouts to celebrate the grim reunion.

“Jack is the one who carried word from Beecher Island to Fort Wallace,” Donegan bragged on the youth after he had introduced young Stillwell to Bill Cody.

“Just one of four, don't forget that,” Stillwell admitted.

“Where's Slinger? He riding with Pepoon and Custer?”

Stillwell shook his head. “Had a letter waiting for him at Hays when we got in there. His family back East thought it better for him to come home,” Stillwell explained.

“Not like you—grown up out here.”

“He might not be born in these parts, but I heard Slinger held his own on the island after I left.”

“He did, Jack. Every bit as much as any man, and more.”

“Who is this Slinger?” Cody asked.

“Name's Sigmund Schlesinger,” Donegan said.

“Damn but I remember a fella of that name,” Cody replied.

“He ain't the sort you'd forget,” Seamus continued. “Him or the name.”

“Met him earlier this year at Hays while I was hunting buffalo,” Cody said. “So Slinger was on the island with you two?”

“Damn right. Major Forsyth was proud of the man.” Donegan turned to Stillwell to ask, “How's this Pepoon?”

“Sharp don't like him worth squat,” Jack admitted. “But, the man's all right at his job for a soldier. He's just dyed-in-the-wool army is all.”

“Thing is, it sometimes takes more than soldiering to get the job done out here,” Donegan replied. “Major Forsyth was the sort of man who didn't let his army-mouth overload his common-sense ass. Forsyth had sense.”

“Him and McCall was the best I served with,” Jack sighed as orders thundered up and down the line of picketed horses.

“Prepare to mount!” the sergeants were bawling at their men, soldiers and civilian scouts alike.

“Looks like it's come time we're gonna find out what this Major Carr is made of,” Seamus said, slapping his big hand into Stillwell's. “See you come evening camp, Jack.”

*   *   *

Retracing Major Royall's inbound steps, Carr marched his Fifth Cavalry and Pepoon's scouts north to Prairie Dog Creek in two days. There, on the morning of 25 October, Captain Jules Schenofsky's M Company and Seamus Donegan joined the civilian scouts to form the advance guard for the day's march north by west to Little Beaver Creek. With flankers out, the Irishman joined the point riders carefully picking their way along, searching the country for fresh sign as they ascended a hill.

“Little Beaver should be over this rise,” Sharp Grover said, pointing.

“You got any idea what would be kicking up that much of a cloud off over there?” Donegan asked, the only one looking in that direction.

A dozen heads turned to the west, only then noticing the fine film of dust rising up the valley of the Little Beaver.

“Ain't no whirlwind, that's for sure,” Grover said with a growl. He brought his horse about, hammering it with his heels. “Lieutenant!”

Schenofsky galloped to the top of the next rise to join the point riders. The tree-lined Little Beaver meandered through the wide, grassy valley just below. And off to their left ambled the tail end of a Cheyenne village on the move.

“They know we're here?” Schenofsky asked.

“They do now,” Grover replied, pointing at the rear of the procession.

Half a hundred warriors streamed past the rear of their march, bursting through the milling squaws and children, barking dogs and travois ponies.

“How many you figure in that village, boys?” Schenofsky inquired after he had dispatched a rider to dash back across the miles, carrying word to Major Carr.

“Four hundred,” said scout Tom Alderdice.

“Closer to five hundred, I'd say,” Grover replied.

“You're probably right,” Alderdice agreed. “That makes at least a hundred warriors.”

Schenofsky regarded the scouts a moment before speaking. “That makes us almost equal in manpower, gentlemen.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Grover agreed, a big smile crossing his tanned face. “We have one of two choices: stand here and take their charge, or we can take the fight to them.”

“I'm all for taking it to 'em!” Alderdice shouted.

“Hit 'em hard and make 'em reel!” Donegan said.

“Let's fight 'em on the run!” Schenofsky hollered above the clamor. “Skirmish formation—flankers in!”

The columns quickly rattled into formation at the top of the hill, sending that old shiver of anticipation down Donegan's spine as the restless horses snorted and pranced, sensing the coming of battle through their riders.

“Right flank loaded!”

“Left flank report!”

“Left flank loaded and ready, sir!”

“Forward at a walk—to gallop on my command!” Schenofsky shouted above the squeak of dry leather and the rattle of bit-chain, the noisy thunk of bolt and the mumbled curse of a green rookie worried of soiling his pants.

“Forward!”

“Jesus God!” grumbled someone to Donegan's left as more warriors broke from the trees like maddened wasps, splashing across the shallow, late summer flow of the Little Beaver.

“Weapons ready!” bawled Schenofsky as the line of soldiers loped down the slope into the valley.

It was the last order Donegan heard clearly, for in the next heartbeat there arose a resounding clamor up and down the line as they began to take the first fire from the warriors. With a wild whoop the skirmish line broke into a ragged gallop.

At two hundred yards the warriors turned, racing down the line of soldiers. Dropping from the side of their ponies, they fired beneath the animals' straining necks as soldier bullets whined harmlessly over their heads.

“Aim for the ponies—their ponies, goddammit!”

Frustrated, many of Forsyth's veterans hollered at the green troopers, knowing from firsthand experience that a man must shoot the target presented him by the enemy.

“Drop the horses, by damn!”

A few of the ponies spilled, pitching their riders into the grassy sand. Some held up a hand for rescue, others crouched, awaiting riders in the midst of the powder smoke and swirling dust.

Two dozen warriors suddenly swept back on the end of Schenofsky's column, effectively bringing the charge to a halt as the horses wheeled back on themselves. With the white men stopped in the open, the warriors began to circle back and forth, firing into the confused soldiers.

“They're gonna get chewed up down there!” Grover shouted from the hilltop where the civilians had watched the soldiers charge into the fray.

Stillwell nodded. “We've got to help.”

“Look there, boys,” Cody said, pointing west. “The village is getting away.”

“That's what this is all about,” Grover replied. “Them bastards are covering the escape.”

“I'm for going after the village!” Alderdice shouted. Several others hollered their agreement. “Those soldiers can take care of themselves.”

“Don't think so,” Donegan said. “Those men will be butter if we don't get down there now.”

“The Irishman's right,” Cody shouted. “Time enough to chase squaws and travois!”

“Let's ride!” Grover bawled.

It was a mad dash made by the whooping civilians as they tore down on Schenofsky's command, splitting at the last minute to race past the pinned-down soldiers, racing among the ring of warriors. The Cheyenne scattered, regrouped and tore off for the west, where once more they would cover the retreat of their village.

It took some time to regroup the commands. Schenofsky had to get his soldiers back into the saddle, and Grover had to regroup Pepoon's civilians before they were off again, trailing after the disappearing village. North by west, the fleeing Cheyenne hurried toward Shuter Creek, and crossed late that afternoon. Rarely did the warriors turn to fight the rest of the day, more often choosing to snipe at the outriders as the white men came on like troublesome gnats.

Only once, when the women and old ones were forced to slow their escape due to a narrowing of a canyon, did the warriors wheel and stand their ground, before breaking into a gallop with wild screeches climbing into the afternoon sky.

Shaking their rifles and bows, lances and war-clubs, the hundred charged back on their pursuers, like swallows turning about and swooping down on the nighthawk.

“Halt!” the order thundered up and down the line.

Horses were reined up in a swirl of dust.

“Dismount! Horse holders to the rear!”