Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (53 page)

“A few who marched with Fetterman were every bit as brave as they had to be on that hellish day,” Marr whispered, taking a step closer to the tall man.

“She say what it was?”

Sam shook his head. “Not a word. Just asked me to fetch you to her place … small cabin outside the east wall of the quartermaster's stockade.”

“I know where it is.”

“Oh?”

“I've kept me eye on her since.”

“I see.”

“It's not what you're thinking, Cap'n,” Donegan growled.

“Didn't say it was. Just, I've got a fatherly feeling for the girl. Not yet out of her teens … and with two young boys to raise … her husband butchered with Fetterman's command but a month ago this day. She's alone in the world now.”

“No she's not, Cap'n.” Then Donegan slapped a big paw on the older man's shoulder. “She's got you … and me both watching out for her and the boys.”

Marr winked in the pale light. “Best you get now. I told her I'd send you straight-away.”

“You'll be at Kinney's for the evening?”

Marr nodded. “Nowhere else to be, is there, Seamus. You'll find me here.” He turned and scuffed off across the old snow, his boots squeaking over the icy crust as he stomped toward Kinney's door.

Donegan watched after him while the old man's form faded from the pale snow. He loved that old man, he did. Captain Samuel Marr, Missouri Union Volunteers.

When Seamus had mustered himself out in those months following Appomattox, he had wandered west with the big gray stallion, his yellow-striped cavalry britches now patched and worn, and the .44-caliber Navy pistol that had carved out a comfortable place for itself at his hip. Wandering into Missouri he had run into Sam Marr, busy buying horses for the newly-organized frontier army. After the canny horse-trader Marr discovered he couldn't buy Donegan's gray stallion, they had learned together of the wealth to be made in the Montana diggings along Alder Gulch. And from that moment had begun forming a fierce friendship frequently tested as they fought their way up the Bozeman Road through Sioux hunting ground.

Seamus Donegan would not do a thing to hurt Sam Marr. Nor would he ever do anything to harm the Widow Wheatley.

Purposefully he slid to the door as quietly as a winter-gaunt wolf and listened. Inside he made out the muffled voices of the two young boys. The oldest, Isaac, named for his father's best friend. Isaac Fisher who had stood and stared cold-eyed into Red Cloud's Sioux ambush at Wheatley's side. Then Donegan made out the smaller boy's voice. Little Peter. Taking after his mother. A beauty she was, that woman. With so much to bear at her young age. He heard her scolding the two, then listened as she laughed.

Never was one to get hard with those boys of hers,
Seamus thought, bringing his big fist up to the rough-hewn door.

Two pairs of little feet hammered to the other side of the door, accompanied by excited voices. He listened as her feet scuffled up, her whisper shushing the boys as she drew back the huge iron bolt and cracked the door an inch.

Seamus gazed down at the single eye peering through the crack at him under the pale moonlight. He cleared his throat.

“Mrs. Wheatley. It's Seamus. Seamus Donegan.”

Then he suddenly remembered his hat. Quickly he raked the big, stiff, quarter-crowned brown-felt hat from his long, curly hair and nodded.

“Pardon me, m'am. A man out in this country doesn't get much of a chance to be a gentleman.”

By this time the door had opened and the shy, liquid eyes were blinking their welcome as she waved him inside. “Please … Mr. Donegan. Come in.”

He stooped through the door-frame and stopped two steps inside as the woman urged the heavy door back into its jamb and slid home the iron bolt. She came 'round him, shyly reaching for his hat.

“I'll take that, Mr. Donegan,” she offered, taking the hat from his mittened hands. “Your coat. Please. Make yourself to home.”

Beyond her the two boys stood huddled as one, staring at the tall man who had to hunch his shoulders beneath the exposed, peeled beams of the low-roofed cabin. Their eyes wide with wonder, Isaac finally whispered to his young brother.

“We see'd him afore, Peter. Day we put Papa to rest.”

“It was cold, Isaac,” the little one whispered. “I don't remember him.”

“I do,” Isaac replied protectively of his mother, never taking his eyes off Donegan. “I remember
that
one.”

Jennifer Wheatley slid an old cane-backed chair across the plank floor toward the Irishman. Donegan slipped the heavy mackinaw coat from his shoulders and shook it free of frost before handing it to the woman. He settled carefully on the chair many-times repaired with nails and wire.

Things had to last folks out in this country,
he brooded as he watched her pull up the only other chair in the one-room cabin.

He saw a wooden box turned on its end that served as a third chair at the tiny table where the family took its meals.

“You'd like coffee, Mr. Donegan?” she asked, pointing to the fireplace of creek-bottom stone and mortar.

“If it's no trouble, ma'am.”

“Have some made. But you must stop calling me ‘ma'am,' Mr. Donegan,” she said as she knelt by the iron trivet where the blackened and battered coffee pot sat warming over the coals.

“You're a married woman, ma'am,” he started, then ground his hands over his knees, growing angry with himself for his careless words. Words that caused her to stop pouring the coffee. “You've got two fine boys here,” Seamus tried again, hoping it would ease the pain of his thoughtlessness.

Jennifer rose slowly, two cups in hand. She passed one to Donegan. “My name's Jennifer. Family and friends back in Ohio called me Jennie. I … I want you to be my friend.” For a moment she glanced at the two boys. “We … we all need a friend. So, please—call me Jennie.”

He sipped at the hot liquid. The coffee tasted as if it had been setting in the kettle, re-heating for most of the afternoon. Seamus nodded. “Make you a deal … m'am. I'll call you Jennie—if you and the boys here call me Seamus.”

Jennie looked over her shoulder at the boys huddled by the fireplace with wooden horses in hand. They had stopped play to stare once more at the big man sprawled over the tiny chair.

“Boys, I want you come over here now,” the woman directed. “Want you meet a kind man who knew your papa.”

Isaac nudged Peter across the floor until both stood at their mother's side. “You knowed my papa?” Isaac demanded gruffly.

Donegan nodded and smiled. “As fine a man as any I've met, Mr. Wheatley was.” He stuck out his hand to the boy. “My name's Seamus Donegan. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

Isaac wiped his hand across his patched denims and stuffed it into the Irishman's paw. “Isaac Wheatley, sir. Pleased to meet a friend of my papa's.”

Seamus gazed at the youngest when Isaac stepped back. Peter glanced up at his mother. She nodded before he inched forward.

“Peter, sir. I'm pleased.”

“Not as pleased as me, Peter.” Seamus felt the small hand sweating in his grip. “Your papa would be proud to know how his boys help their mother.”

Seamus tried to blink away the stinging tears, glancing 'round the little cabin split in half by wool blankets suspended from a rope lanyard. In the back was barely enough room for the one small bed he supposed the boys shared. Here in the front half of the cabin, another small prairie bed joined the table and chairs, along with a battered old hutch where Jennie kept what dishes had not been broken in her travels west.

When he looked back, he found her staring at her hands in her lap, wringing them silently as she bit her lower lip between her teeth.

“Jennie?” his deep-throated whisper filled the tiny room. “You have nothing to fear now, ma'am. You and the boys got a friend.”

 

DON'T MISS
RED CLOUD'S REVENGE
—
BOOK 2 IN THE EXCITING
PLAINSMEN
SERIES!

THE PLAINSMEN SERIES BY TERRY C. JOHNSTON

B
OOK
I: S
IOUX
D
AWN

B
OOK
II: R
ED
C
LOUD'S
R
EVENGE

B
OOK
III: T
HE
S
TALKERS

B
OOK
IV: B
LACK
S
UN

B
OOK
V: D
EVIL'S
B
ACKBONE

B
OOK
VI: S
HADOW
R
IDERS

B
OOK
VII: D
YING
T
HUNDER

B
OOK
VIII: B
LOOD
S
ONG

B
OOK
IX: R
EAP THE
W
HIRLWIND

B
OOK
X: T
RUMPET ON THE
L
AND

B
OOK
XI: A C
OLD
D
AY IN
H
ELL

B
OOK
XII: W
OLF
M
OUNTAIN
M
OON

B
OOK
XIII: A
SHES OF
H
EAVEN

B
OOK
XIV: C
RIES FROM THE
E
ARTH

B
OOK
XV: L
AY THE
M
OUNTAINS
L
OW

B
OOK
XVI: T
URN THE
S
TARS
U
PSIDE
D
OWN

High praise for Terry C. Johnston's

“Titus Bass” trilogy–
Carry the Wind, Borderlords,
and
One-Eyed Dream

“COMPELLING … Johnston offers memorable characters, a great deal of history and lore about the Indians and pioneers of the period, and a deep insight into human nature, Indian or white.”

—
Booklist

“RICH AND FASCINATING … There is a genuine flavor of the period and of the men who made it what it was.”

—
Washington Post Book World

“An exciting trilogy, full of unforgettable adventure.”

—
Rocky Mountain News

“Johnston's books are action-packed.… A remarkably fine blend of arduous historical research and proficient use of language … LIVELY, LUSTY, FASCINATING.”

—Colorado Springs
Gazette-Telegraph

“Slick with survival-and-gore heroics and thick with Northwest-wilderness period detail (1820-40), this gutsy adventure-entertainment is also larded with just the right amounts of frontier sentiment.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“DARNED GOOD … colorful writing … believable characters … Johnston's way of telling his story will capture your imagination!”

—
Guns & Ammo

Copyright © 1990 by Terry C. Johnston.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-92732-0

EAN: 9780312-92732-5

St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / May 1990

eISBN 9781466849839

First eBook edition: July 2013