Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (40 page)

Someone smacked a chair-leg across his brow. Startled, Donegan rocked back, watching bright meteors. He'd just seen the stars appear behind the clouds through the window … some time back … so long ago now. The soldier with the chair-leg swept his arm back for a second go at Seamus. At the same time at least five of them dove at him. All legs and arms, pummeling the Irishman as they roared curses in his ears. He sensed six on him now, tearing at his arms. Then seven kicking at his legs, trying to bring him down.

Finally the clean, solid clunk of metal against his skull. Seamus Donegan recognized that sound well enough.
So bleeming many times before they've brought me down with a crack of a wee pistol.

Blessed, bleeming darkness.

Chapter 31

After failing to lure the soldiers into their trap, the tribes argued through the next day and into the night. Huddled round their fires behind saddle-blanket wind-breaks as the snow fell. Then melted, before a cold wind swept out of the arctic itself.
Wasiya,
the Winter Giant glazing the weary land.

“Perhaps another should lead the decoy,” Crazy Horse suggested.

“No,” Man-Afraid stated firmly.

“Some stronger medicine——”

“There is no stronger medicine than yours, Crazy Horse.”

“Man-Afraid speaks the truth,” High-Backbone echoed. “I will lead the ambush … and I want Crazy Horse to use his medicine to bring the soldiers to my
wickmunke,
our trap.”

“If you don't believe, Crazy Horse,” Man-Afraid clamped his hand on the young warrior's shoulder, “you'll find no success at the end of your ride. No one can give you any more power than you find within yourself.”

Crazy Horse studied the two faces before him. High-Backbone's penetrating eyes seemed to implore him to complete the ambush as planned. While Man-Afraid's fiery glare urged him to believe in himself.

“I will lead many
nisma wica,
the hair-mouth soldiers to High-Backbone,” he declared evenly. “We will catch many in the hand!”

Behind him erupted the grunts of approval and the rhythmic,
“H'g'un … h'g'un … h'g'un!”
The Lakota courage word.

“Woyuonihan!”
Man-Afraid shouted above the clamor. “I salute you, Crazy Horse! Your power is your own best
wyakin,
your war charm!”

“Simiakia.”
The young warrior bowed his head, feeling the praise heaped on him by the warriors of all the tribes. “Again, I have faith in my own medicine.”

While the pale rind of a winter moon slipped from the sky, most of the warriors crawled beneath warm robes and blankets to try at sleep. For most, sleep was not an easy thing. Their medicine was strong once more, so announced the shamans who had studied the entrails of a young doe shot for dinner.

With the coming of the new sun, the last day of the third week of the
Moon of Deer Shedding Horns,
the soldiers would be swept away.

*   *   *

“Your young men are ready?” Man-Afraid stepped up beside Crazy Horse the next morning.

He gazed down from atop his war-pony painted with the lightning bolts of white clay, crimson hail-stones dabbed in buffalo blood.

“Those who come with me are the youngest … perhaps the most reckless,” Crazy Horse answered with a smile that danced at his eyes. “They are the best to ride with me—for they have blood running in them hot as a rutting bull.”

“It is good.” Man-Afraid stroked the war-pony's withers. “Soldiers will come running after you this time. They will not stop until they are in the jaws of death. High-Backbone is ready to lead his warriors to the white-man's road near the foot of Lodge Trail Ridge. He gave the Arapaho and Cheyenne their choice of hiding places. They will lay in wait among the brush along the west side of the road. The Lakota will hide on the east. I will hold ten-times-ten on ponies with me behind a low ridge. If needed, we will sweep through the walk-a-heaps, swinging our clubs.”

“You do not fear killing all the soldiers?” Crazy Horse asked.

“No, none will escape.” He smiled. “We will have no trouble against the soldiers and their
mazawakans,
their rifles.”

Crazy Horse straightened a moment, looking over the heads of the young warriors who would lure the soldiers into the trap. Behind them as far as the eye could see, more warriors tied bridles and pad saddles to their war-ponies. Some smeared clay on the animals' flanks for power and speed. Others tied feathers and hawks' bells in bushy manes. All men bound up the long, brushy tails in strips of red trade-cloth. The color of war.

“Aiyeeee!”
the young Oglalla exclaimed. “How many will be waiting for the soldiers I lead into the trap?”

Man-Afraid smiled broadly. “It fills my heart,
Tashunka Witko!
Earlier this morning the chiefs counted twenty ten-times-ten ready to fight!”

“Tunka sila le iyahpe ya yo!”
Crazy Horse shouted back to his young decoy warriors. “Father! Receive this humble prayer! We will lead many into
Wanagi,
the Land of Shadows, before the sun rides low in the sky!”

Man-Afraid slapped the neck of the war-pony. “I may not see you until it is over, young friend. I wish you well,
Tashunka Witko.
”

“H'g'un!”
the young warrior shouted at Man-Afraid. The louder the better, for this was the courage word of the mighty Lakota warrior.

Man-Afraid touched the fingertips of his right hand against his forehead,
“Woyuonihan!
I salute you, Crazy Horse! May you ride like the wind!”

“Come, my brothers!” the Oglalla yelled to those anxious young warriors prancing behind him. “It is a good day to die!”

Man-Afraid watched until the last Oglalla war-pony disappeared from sight, the pounding of their many hoofs fading from his ears.

“The scouts tell me our spotters are on the ridges with their mirrors,” High-Backbone said quietly as he stepped alongside the Oglalla war-chief. “All is ready.”

Man-Afraid nodded. Then gazed down the trail Crazy Horse had led his young bull-hearts. “Yes, High-Backbone. It is a good day for many
soldiers
to die!”

*   *   *

Damn cold. His rheumatism bothered him so badly that he hadn't even crawled out of the blankets to scrounge some breakfast. Bridger lay still, trying to ignore the dull pain until Lieutenant Wands banged on the door to his little room among the noncom staff, near the cavalry yard.

“Colonel wants you come as soon as you can, Mr. Bridger,” he explained.

Wearily, Jim swung his creaky legs to the side of his rope cot. “What for?”

“We got some Cheyenne at the gate.”

“What day is it?”

“Why—it's the twenty-first. December.”

“No, day of the week, son.”

“Friday.” He waited while Bridger dallied in tucking his woolen undershirt into his breeches. “Two Moons's the leader.”

“He's the one come through here on his way north few weeks back,” Bridger said as he tugged on the first boot. “Wanted to go hunting up on the Tongue.”

“That's what he claimed,” Wands answered impatiently.

“Bet ol' Two Moons's hunting something else.”

“How's that, sir?”

He leveled his blue eyes at the lieutenant. “I figure Two Moons is hunting soldiers this morning.”

“How could he be hunting——”

“Red Cloud got his ol' friend Two Moons to get inside the fort.” Bridger yanked his second boot on then swept his old blue army coat off the bed. “Where's the colonel?”

“He wants you to talk to Two Moons first … at the gate,” Wands said. “Before he'll let the Cheyennes into the fort.”

Bridger smiled. “You pay attention to the colonel, son.” He knew well enough that Wands didn't stand on Carrington's side in any of this. “The man's growed pretty smart since he come to the mountains. Heap smarter than the whole lot of his goddanged officer staff.” Wands headed for the door. “Paper-collar soldiers fighting rebs down South … don't know a goddanged peedoodle 'bout fighting Injuns. Nary a one!”

Overhead the sky hung the color of skimmed milk. The sun flung against it no brighter nor no warmer than a pewter button. As he and Wands walked across the parade to headquarters, Jim saw most of the snow from yesterday had already disappeared, though icy, white collars still clung to the lee side of ridges and down in the coulees. The air felt cold and dry, stinging a man's face if he didn't watch out. Down in the valley, both creeks lay frozen from bank to bank, bubbling and tumbling beneath winter sheets of translucent ice.

“Morning, Jim!” Carrington waved to a chair by the sheet-iron stove where the old scout would be warmer. “Coffee?”

“Don't mind a'tall, Colonel.”

“Mr. Wands. Three coffees, please.”

“Three?”

“You'll join us, won't you, Lieutenant?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Before I let Two Moons in, want to talk with you first.”

“You done the right thing, Colonel.”

He smiled briefly. “Had a good teacher in Jim Bridger. Something here doesn't feel right.”

“Listen to your innards, Colonel. Two Moons's a cagey one. I'd trust Black Horse with my wife and children. That Two Moons—I'd not trust him with another man's dead skunk in a burlap sack.”

“Exactly why I want you with me. For some reason, he and his cronies are back at our gates.”

“Begging again, Colonel,” Wands offered as he set coffee before the two men.

“Mr. Wands remembers Two Moons's last visit.”

“I heard some of your hotbloods almost rubbed out the bunch of 'em.”

“Saved us all a lot of trouble if they had!” Wands said.

“Lieutenant, if you please?” Carrington gestured for his adjutant to take a seat. “Tell me what your intuition says, Jim.”

Bridger sipped at the scalding potion Wands had served. “That sawed-off runt of a two-timing, back-stabbing sonuvabitch will require some watching. But,” and Jim replaced his frown with a grin, “let's give the ol' boy a real show of it.”

“Now you're talking!” Carrington agreed and slapped a knee. “A real dog and pony of it!”

“That's the idea, Colonel!” Bridger grinned even wider.

“Dog … and pony?” Wands asked.

“Shut your mouth and pay attention, Lieutenant,” Carrington said as he rose. “You're liable to learn a thing or two this morning from Mr. Bridger. Now, Mr. Wands—if you'll go to the gate and have the sergeant of the guard escort our Cheyenne guests to my office.”

*   *   *

“Sad in a way, Colonel,” Bridger admitted later, after he had been palavering with Two Moons for half an hour. “Just as I figured. This big-mouthed runt don't have the stomach to stand up to Red Cloud's bunch like Black Horse. Two Moons's riding a Sioux pony for sure.”

“Riding a Sioux pony?”

“Way of speaking, Colonel. Two Moons's no better'n a Lakota now.”

Carrington wagged his head, watching the Cheyenne chiefs' eyes studying him and Bridger. “I was afraid of that. All right—let's tell Two Moons what he really wants to know, Jim.”

Bridger grinned like a coyote about to pounce on snowshoe. “Be purely pleased.” He turned to Two Moons and the chiefs who had spread blankets across the floor near the stove, where they could warm themselves during the council with the pony soldier chief.

“Two Moons,” Bridger began, “take word back to Red Cloud and his warriors that they'll never steal into this fort.”

Two Moons played his best look of shock. “Big Throat Bridger does not speak straight of Two Moons. I am Cheyenne. Not Sioux!” He ran a finger across his throat to sign the Lakota.

Bridger smiled. “Big Throat knows where you've camped the last two moons. On the headwaters of the Tongue, where you smoked with Red Cloud.” He did not wait while Two Moons chattered angrily, but flung his hand in the air, telling the chief to shut his mouth.

“You are as much a fool as the Sioux if you plan to attack this fort. The soldiers' hearts are big. Your warrior friends will lose the fight if you attack the fort—and there'll be much crying in your villages.”

Two Moons rocked back. “Big Throat tells a mighty story!” he sneered.

“Colonel, think it's 'bout time to show these red cutthroats.”

“Show them our fort?” Wands squeaked, lunging forward at the old scout in disbelief. “You can't show the red bastards our defenses … our, our powder magazine——”

“Relax, boy,” Bridger replied, wagging a gnarled hand in the air. “If your soldiers out there doing their job, we got no worry of any one of these red niggers sneaking on the post and blowing up your precious powder-magazine.”

Simply put, with the state of siege that had now existed for the better part of six months around Fort Phil Kearny, no soldier ever gave a second thought to the question of infiltrators creeping past the stockade walls. Every copper-skinned guest to the post was under constant, vigilant watch. And just such a tour as the one Bridger gave Two Moons had to go far convincing the hostiles they had not a ghost of a chance getting past the outer pickets, much less slipping by the sentries who surrounded the soldiers' powder magazine. Besides, if any snake-skinned warrior had gotten that far into Carrington's post, he would have to contend with the multiple locks securing the huge door of forged iron and rough-hewn timbers.

Carrington cleared his throat. “You want us to show this Cheyenne … everything?”

“Right,” Jim answered. “Better showing. No use telling a goddamned mule-headed Injun … show the bastard what we want him to take back to them Sioux hiding on the ridges off yonder.”