Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (32 page)

Seamus brought up his fists, glancing at the officers watching from the shade of their porch. Across the parade stood a group of four women and their children. Carrington among them.

“Got your chance, Eli Garrett.” He backed up a step and shuffled to the side as the sergeant dropped his gun-belt and saber. “You and me now. Like you wanted three nights ago in Kinney's place.”

“Yeah,” he growled hungrily, swaying his long arms from side to side. “Something I wanted to do for a lot longer than that, Seamus. A long, long time.”

“C'mon,
Sergeant
Garrett,” he goaded, bringing his big paws up before his face, hunching his powerful shoulders. “Show me you're not a coward. Show me you can fight a man on even terms.”

“More than that, Seamus Donegan,” he spat his words. “I'll show these soldiers how Eli Garrett kills a man with his bare hands!”

Garrett swung. His blow as quickly blocked by Donegan's left, their arms cracking together like hickory axe handles colliding. Seamus spun in with a quick right snaking under the soldier's jaw. Driving Garrett backward two steps. Eli tapped his lip with a finger, tasting blood. He smiled at Donegan. Without warning he dove headlong into the Irishman's belly, planting his big head squarely below the ribs. Seamus felt the wind explode from him, his legs going to soap as Eli pumped against him. The Irishman sank against the ring of soldiers. They gave way. Donegan collapsed beneath Garrett.

Garrett swung once, twice, a third time. Connecting with his longer reach and oak-mallet fists. Before Seamus realized, the soldier towered above him, a foot cocked back and headed for his face. He snagged the dusty boot inches from his nose, gripping it as he'd cling to life itself. Twisting slowly against the strength in the tall man's leg. Eli hobbled closer, straining to yank free. One hop too many.

Donegan flung the soldier's leg up and back. Garrett crashed with a snort. Shook his head and rolled onto his knees. He turned just as Donegan stomped up, and drove a fist into the Irishman's groin. Seamus doubled, stumbling back, and wheeled, sinking to his knees. Shards of sharp pain flickered through his body like the burning fumaric acid they had poured in the saber cut across the great muscles of his back. His stomach lurched as stars fluttered across his eyelids and dripped to black. Sucking for air, Seamus tried to blink his eyes clear of the blinding meteors——

Like a raging badger Garrett fell on the Irishman before Seamus had settled to his knees. Yanking Donegan's head back with a fistful of hair, the soldier whipped his right fist back and forth from jaw to jaw. Holding Seamus upright as he struck again and again. Watching the Irishman's eyes puff from blood. Grinning madly as cuts opened on the brows, along the cheekbones, trickling free bright, glistening crimson. Laughing now as Donegan's lips puffed and cracked, blood dribbling into the dark whiskers. Fiercely, he brought his knee up beneath the Irishman's chin.

Donegan catapulted back blindly as the knee cracked under his jaw. Beneath his wet cheek he welcomed the dried, freeze-cured grass. Listening to the cheers and taunts of the soldiers ringing him.
Gawd there's something about a fight. Makes a man feel more purely alive being this close to death, it does.

Between sagging shoulders he raised himself slowly, blinking his eyes clear. Hearing more clearly Eli's taunts. He rolled onto a hip and brought a leg under him as a shadow flickered at the corner of his eye. On instinct Seamus swept the ground before him with a thick, hewn-timber of a leg. He connected, sensing more than seeing the soldier topple beside him.

Still blinking his eyes clear of sweat and blood, Donegan rolled toward Garrett's grunt. Pouncing. He dug his fingers into the curly blond hair. Whipped the head back and drove his maul-sized fist down into those blue-gray eyes.

Donegan struggled to his feet, yanking the blond head up with him. Then flung his rail-splitter's fist at Garrett's bloody face again. Eli sagged at the knees. The Irishman snapped him up for a third pummeling. He flung a fourth blow into the washboard belly. Again and again, enjoying the animal grunt that burst from Garrett's lungs each time Donegan drummed the face with his hardwood fist.

“That's enough!”

Seamus blinked his bloodied eyes, a flicker of blue and gold braid passing before him. Hands reached out, clawing at his arms. Like swatting flies, he flung the soldiers away. Then realized Fetterman's inner circle had dashed up behind Garrett.

“Arrest that man!”

Stunned, still drunk with adrenaline, Donegan watched Fetterman bellow his orders.

“By god, we've got this mick bastard to rights now!”

A different voice this time.
Brown.
As he thought it, the weight of several bodies collapsed atop his back at once. Seamus flung Garrett free, then shrugged his powerful back free of the soldiers clawing over him like a dog shook water. The Irishman started his turn, fist poised in the air—when the click of the revolver pierced the loud clamor. And everything got quiet.

Swiping a hand across his bloody, sweat-stained eyes, Donegan recognized the gaping muzzle of a regulation army .44. Aimed at his puffy nose. At the business end of the pistol hung an officer's trembling hand. Captain Brown.

“Just make a move,
Mister
Donegan,” Brown growled. “Please. Any provocation whatsoever … and I'll oblige you by blowing some army lead through what you've got for brains.”

Seamus swiped his eyes again. Watching Fetterman and Bisbee, Grummond and Wands gather on either side of Brown, their mule-eared holsters unsnapped. Two more hands filled with revolvers while Fetterman and Bisbee struggled to haul Garrett to his feet.

A big load, that one, Seamus thought. Donegan brought his arms up, slowly—hands empty.

“Want no trouble from an armed man,” he sputtered, his lips swollen.

“That's all you've got now, mister!” Fetterman bawled. “Interfering with my sergeant's drill.”

“Drill?” Seamus replied with a quick chuckle, eyes on the muzzle of Brown's pistol.

“You're fired from my payroll.” Brown said. “Don't want you cutting timber on army wages no longer. Knew something stunk about you first day you rode in here.”

“Arrest him, Fred,” Fetterman goaded. “He deserves some time to cool his heels in the guardhouse.”

“Yes! Perhaps you're right,” Brown replied. “Not only fire him off the rolls, but lock the bastard up as well.
Interfering with military discipline!
Well, Mr. Donegan—how does that charge do your uncivilized Hibernian heart now?”

Seamus smiled. Too often he had watched things just like this run their course.
If it wasn't such a bleeming shame, I'd laugh in their faces!

“Every man here saw Garrett beat that young sojur over there,” Donegan said. “All of you watched. But done nothing——”

“Burke's been a problem for some time now!” Fetterman said with a smile. “I knew there'd come a time when he'd have some ‘soldier' knocked into him.”

Donegan squared his shoulders, sensing the mass of troopers at his rear. “You career officers all alike, ain't you now, Fetterman? To you bastards, sojurs are nothing more than cattle. Fit to be prodded and manhandled, with the whip or pistol butt.”

“Dare you question military——”

“No,” Seamus interrupted. “I don't question military authority, Cap'n Fetterman. But what I watched Garrett do today had nothing to do with your military authority.”

“What the goddamn hell do you know about the military, you stupid sonofabitch!” Fetterman seethed.

“Served under plenty of arrogant martinets like you, from the first battle of Bull Run,” he answered, licking his bloody lip, “all the way to the time we swallowed up Uncle Bob Lee in Appomattox Wood.”

Fetterman eyed the Irishman severely. “Just who the frigging hell did a jackanape like you march behind?”

“Never marched behind nobody, Cap'n. I rode.”

“Cavalry?”

“Aye,” he answered, glaring at Garrett for a moment. “Of a time I wore those stripes Eli Garrett's got sewed on his tunic.”

“Company C?” Fred Brown squealed.

“Aye, Cap'n. Second, by god—Cavalry.”

“Sergeant of the guard!” Brown hollered. “Bring two of your men. I want this man locked in the guardhouse. Now!”

The sergeant and his two guards grabbed Donegan as Brown stepped back.

“Every one of you halt! Right where you stand.”

Seamus put the voice with a face, and came up with Carrington.

“Care to explain yourself, Captain?” he snapped.

“I'm locking this civilian in the guardhouse, Colonel.”

Donegan wasn't sure, but it seemed Brown was the sort of man who could strut just standing still.

“I know damned well what you're about to do,” he sputtered. “I want to know
why!
”

Carrington's sudden, fuming anger caught Brown by surprise. “He … Donegan, I'm saying—interfered in army business. I'll have charges written up later. For the time, he'll sit in there and rot till——”

“You saw the whole thing happen, did you?” Carrington inquired.

“I did, Colonel. Sergeant Garrett here drilling his men. Correcting a problem when this civilian——”

“Captain, best you understand I watched as well,” he interrupted Brown. “Right over there.” Every man's head craned as Carrington pointed across the parade to the tiny knot of women and children clustered at the front of the chapel.

“And, I might add,” the colonel went on, “every woman on the post—all eleven of them—heard every word of the altercation as well. My boys subjected to the … earthy vocabulary Sergeant Garrett used. As well as the … shameful words used by members of my own staff. Captain Brown and … you—Captain Fetterman.”

“Sir.” The captain nodded his head. “I'm sorry if any of my language——”

“My own two sons, captains!”

“Our apologies, sir,” Brown replied, contrite. “An unusual circumstance. Now, if you don't mind, we'll see that the flap's put to rest and the sergeant's free to drill his men once more.”

“I don't think you understood me when I said I watched it all, Captain Brown. In full sight of the garrison, its women and—God forbid!—its children. This sergeant,” and he flung a finger at Garrett, “reviled another soldier in language which has no place among Christian peoples.”

“Colonel, I damn well don't believe it fitting that you should interfere with your officers in the performance——”

“Captain Fetterman!” Carrington wheeled, shouting. “You have the gall to … to swear at me?”

“By damn if it takes that to make my point!”

Carrington fumed a moment, then whirled on the guard detail. “You'll see Sergeant Garrett is locked up.”

“You're letting Donegan go free?” Brown howled.

The colonel turned back to his scowling officers. “No. They'll both spend some time in the guardhouse. While we sort this out.”

“The duty of a commanding officer should be to enforce what his officers——”

“Don't lecture me on the duties of a commanding officer, Captain Fetterman!”

“Someone ought to! Appears you don't have a frigging idea one what it means to
command!”
The compound fell to a hush. “While the rest of us placed our lives on the line in battle, you were pushing pens——”

“Before I say or do something I'll regret, Captain Fetterman—you're dismissed!” Carrington snapped, near the end of his string.

“Colonel, if I may?” Adjutant Wands stepped between his superior and the captains. His face glowed with anger. “Not backing your company commanders in their exercise——”

“Mister!” he shouted at Wands. “I have a post to run. And I'll run Fort Phil Kearny as I see fit.”

“As long as it's yours to run,” Brown growled.

“What was that, Captain?” Carrington seethed.

“This is your post … for
now,
Colonel,” Brown replied, turning on his heel and stomping off.

“Sergeant?” Carrington demanded.

The guard got the message, taking both brawlers into custody, shoving them across the parade toward the lockup. As the milling crowd of soldiers dispersed, the colonel turned. On the headquarter's porch he recognized Bridger and Stead. Farther down the company street he watched the women disappear into Reverend White's chapel. Only Margaret Carrington remained frozen to her spot. Young Harry and Jimmy clutched the folds of their mother's long overcoat.

Donegan looked over his shoulder to see the colonel flick his hand, sending his wife and sons into Sunday service. Two soldiers yanked on his big arms, hurrying their prisoner.

Seamus strained to overhear what Carrington said to Fetterman when the two officers finally stood alone. From what he saw, Donegan realized no man would ever know what was exchanged in private between those two determined men at this crucial moment.

Chapter 25

Pulling the flannel housecoat more tightly about her shoulders, she tiptoed into his office adjoining their private quarters. A few moments ago she had awakened sensing some dread and flew to the boys' room. Four of her six babies had been snatched from her at birth or infancy. A cruel curse for any woman to suffer. Both slept soundly. Her babies safe.

But she didn't find Henry asleep in his tiny cloister off the parlor. From the day of their arrival here at the foot of Cloud Peak, she and Henry had slept in separate rooms. For her, it made things easier. To his way of thinking, it made sense. He worked long into the night, writing reports and dispatches, mulling over construction details. And her? Why, she knew separate quarters made sense too—when the fire had gone out of their marriage and she hadn't the slightest desire to rekindle even the smallest of flames.