So it was with that skirmish in the Dakota Territory in the spring of eighteen seventy-six.
The Sioux warrior who had heeled his pony to the front was flanked by two other young braves. All three of them painted with streaks of colors, wearing fringed shirts and with feathers in their long, flowing black hair. And immediately behind them came another four or five, followed by a second, larger bunch, about thirty yards behind.
It was in this sort of situation that Crow's peculiar choice of a weapon was fully justified. Doc Holliday carried a sawn-down ten-gauge Meteor scatter-gun that he sometimes called his street howitzer. He used it in 'eighty one at the O.K. Corral There are those who say that the Doc copied this from the gun carried by the notorious Mormon Avenger, Porter Rockwell.
Others say that he learned it from a chance meeting with a tall man dressed in black years earlier.
The Purdey was drawn and cocked and Crow didn't wait to get within range for maximum accuracy. The charge that crammed the scatter-gun would burst out like a lethal star. In this kind of battle it was more important to take out several of the Indians, even if they weren't killed, rather than pick off just one man. The Sioux were like other tribes in that the killing of their war-chief would often send them fleeing from the field, demoralized and dispirited, to go back and talk in their groups to select another leader. In this the
akicitos,
or warriors' societies, were paramount among the Sioux. Like Masonic gatherings there would be several in each tribe and they would provide the men of authority.
Crow knew all of this. But he also knew that there would not be a chief among such a small party. If Crazy Horse led the Oglala in the region, he would be up with the main body of Indians, attacking Menges. The fact that he could send twenty braves as a diversionary party was an indication of how many there were likely to be in the band that had ambushed the sixteen men with the Captain.
Crow knew Crazy Horse.
Had met him.
Talked with him.
It had been some time back and Crow had been a different man to the soldier he had become. But he knew Crazy Horse and respected him as a great and brave warrior and cunning leader.
One day he felt he would see the chief again. Perhaps soon. But he was not among this group of young men anxious to establish their reputations for courage. Crazy Horse had made himself conspicuous among his people by his modesty. Not for him the bright colors and warbonnets of eagles' feathers.
Crazy Horse wore only breech-cloth and leggings. In his long hair, lighter than any Indian Crow had ever met or seen, there would be the single feather of a hawk, and before riding out to fight or hunt he would throw dust over himself and his pony. His faith in the medicine of the Oglala extended to a lucky stone he wore beneath one ear with another, a gift from his friend Chips, under the left arm.
And that was all.
From everything that Crow knew about the Sioux leader he would not have permitted his men to charge in such a wild manner, even facing such small odds. But there was enough time in the seconds before the two sides clashed to see that the make-up of the Indian party was typical of those that had been giving the settlers, miners and soldiers such a bad time in the Dakotas and over into Montana and Wyoming.
He recognized Oglala, Cheyenne, Arapahoes, Sans, Arcs, Brules and Miniconjous. A mixed band of tribes that had been attracted towards the leadership of Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Young Man Whose Enemies Are Even Afraid Of His Horses. Building up toward the greatest concentration of Indians ever known in the history of America. It was to be a great ending before the decline into darkness.
'Bastards,' said Crow quietly, keeping an iron hand on his own fighting madness.
Squeezing both triggers of the shotgun.
From then on it was all fragments of the mirror, whirling in a wild impression of fire and screaming and blood and death.
'Aim high and you hit the head or you miss. Aim low and you hit the chest or the guts. Safe shot's the best.'
That's what the lean man who carried the razor in the pouch at the back of his neck had once told Crow.
Good advice.
Crow fired low. The shot boomed out from both barrels simultaneously, hiding the approaching Indians in the great cloud of powder smoke, the double recoil jarring Crow's wrist. But the gun remained steady.
The wind of the gallop blew away the smoke and Crow was quickly able to see the horrendous effects of his shot.
The lead charge had ripped out among the Sioux and their allies with devastating success.
Three men blasted clean off the backs of their ponies, one with his jaw ripped away from his skull, hanging loose and flapping as he fell, tethered to the rest of his head only by threads of gristle and sinew.
One man holding the stump of his right hand, rolling to the dirt, screaming and trying to stop the fountain of blood that jetted from the raw flesh of the wrist.
The third one with his buckskin shirt speckled with blood as if it had been splashed, the speckles growing larger as he toppled backwards, blown off the pinto to fall directly under the hooves of the riders behind him.
It was good enough to take out three of the leaders of the attack, but the greatest value of deliberately firing the scatter-gun low was in the effect it had on the small ponies of the Indians. The buckshot splattered out at close range directly into their faces, blinding several of them, inflicting great bloody wounds in their heads.
Out of the leading bunch of eight or nine warriors, that single shot from Crow brought down all but one. The horses at the very front fell, and the rest toppled over them, stung by the shot, kicking and flailing, squealing like whipped girls, sending their riders down into the trampled grass and dust.
The remainder of the Indians fanned out sideways at the sight of the devastation, and Crow was able to ride clean through them, waving the smoking gun at them.
One aimed a blow with his spear but Crow ducked under the cut. There was time to holster the empty scatter-gun, tugging the Colt Peacemaker from the back of his belt.
Crow didn't like using an ordinary pistol, reckoning it to be a weapon where luck played too large a role. But this was a place and the time to use it.
He tugged up on the reins of the stallion, wheeling it on a dime, looking back on the carnage. More fragmentary impressions filling his eyes.
Trooper Clynes following him on through the shattered ranks of the demoralized Indians, with an arrow sticking out through the side of his face, angled upwards through the cheekbone, the feathered end wobbling as he spurred his horse on, mouth open in a soundless scream of pain.
From the way the point seemed to be buried under the eye, Crow immediately wrote Clynes off his strength.
His own stallion rearing and kicking up dirt, clouding around him like a dream cloak. Clearing, and seeing Clynes slide from the back of his mount, hands grabbing at the pommel of the beechwood, leather-covered McLellan saddle, slipping from it and rolling over, the fall driving the arrow deeper into his skull, snapping off the feathered end of the shaft.
The body rolled over twice and for a moment Crow thought that the mortally wounded Trooper was going to defy the odds and rise again to his feet. He tried. God knows he tried! Clynes made it on his hands and knees, eyes staring blankly, not seeing Crow watching him from less than ten paces off. One hand rose to the stump of wood that protruded from the dark hole in his face. There was very little blood to see. Not until his mouth sagged open and then a trickle of crimson eased from his lips, threading down from his nose. Clynes slid forwards on his face, hands reaching out and grabbing hold of a tuft of dry Dakota grass to carry with him into eternity.
The other three seemed to have got through safely.
First Stotter, then Cantwell and Baxter came through the broken relics of the Indian charge, all holding their pistols, faces lit with the fire of battle.
'Hold up!!' yelled Crow, waving his own hand-gun to check them. 'Hit them again, as they turn!! Come on...!!'
The remainder of the Sioux had just managed to halt their own attack, shaken by that single burst of lead from Crow's gun, trying to reform, looking back to see what had happened to their fallen comrades.
Before they could realize what was happening, the soldiers were among them again.
As they spurred their horses on past the fallen Indians, Crow and his little troop gunned down any of them showing signs of life. The lean figure of the officer was at the front, shooting one of the wounded Sioux at such close range that the discharge from the barrel scorched the Indian's skin as the bullet smashed his face apart.
The big Cavalry horses were more than a match in size and strength for the ponies and Crow deliberately rode in among them, sending them spinning aside with the force of his charge, shooting one through the head and another in the stomach as he broke through them. The Troopers followed him successfully, none of the hostiles being in a fit state to shoot back.
He thumbed back the hammer, firing at the warriors until the pin clicked down on a spent round, reholstering the gun in his belt, taking a moment to count the survivors.
Of the original twenty or more attackers, there were now only about nine still up on their ponies and unwounded.
There were at least seven of them clearly dead and only one of the men on the ground looked as if he was going to make it. Several of their ponies were also hit, one kicking out in the grass, blood gushing from a bullet hole in its neck.
'Reform and go again!!' Crow shouted. 'This one'll do it for us!!' Drawing his saber and waving it over his head so that it flashed in the bright sunlight.
But they had taken enough.
The surviving Indians paused only long enough to fire off a scattered volley of bullets and arrows, none of them coming close to any of the soldiers, then turned their ponies and rode off in silence, galloping towards the east, away from the conflict.
Stotter whooped his delight and was ready to set off after them when Crow called him back.
'No. We have to get to Captain Menges and the column. What's left of the column.' Something gleaming among the dead caught his eye and he pointed to it. 'Cut down those wounded men. Quickly, now. And get that. There! One of them was carrying a damned bugle.'
The three Troopers gleefully carried out his orders, hacking away at the few Indians that had survived the initial onslaught, slicing down with the heavy eighteen-sixty sabers, the brass hilts flashing. Blood jetted in the warm air, the sweet scent of sickly death filling the nostrils.
To make sure that they were all dead, Stotter, Baxter and Cantwell dismounted and walked among the corpses, slashing off the heads of every man there.
It was Stotter who brought the bugle to Crow who was sitting patiently on his stallion, listening to the fusillade of shooting from the further side of the ridge. The leader of the Indians would expect to hear from his men that they had wiped out the relief column, but those survivors had ridden off in virtually the opposite direction. So Crazy Horse, or whoever was in charge of the main attack, would have no way of knowing what was going on. That was the foundation of the plan that had formed in Crow's tactical mind.
'Looks kind of old, Sir,' Stotter said, handing it to Lieutenant, while the other two Troopers busied themselves tearing off scalps, knowing that they would be able to sell them to the traders or to the miners and settlers who still flooded into the region.
The bugle did look very old. It might have been taken by the Sioux many years back. It was so battered and dented that Crow was unable to make out any regimental markings. He raised it to his lips, first wiping off the mouthpiece. And tried a tentative blow. A low, clear note came from the brass instrument. He grinned to himself.
The bugle still functioned. And that meant his plan might work.
'Mount up,' he snapped. 'Let's go see if we can save the Captain's bacon for him. Quickly!'
* * *
It took them a little over fifteen minutes to top the next rise along, skirting a deep draw that blocked their path.
The trail of the patrol was clear ahead of them, trampled in the dry grass of the plains, stretching in front of them like a road. The noise of shooting still came from the next valley though it seemed to Crow to be getting feebler and more infrequent. He could even make out the yelling and whooping of the Indians, above the gunfire.
He glanced back once, seeing that the great bird that bad been circling so high overhead was now sweeping in lower, moving in lazy swirls, centering on the pile of raggled corpses lying around the dead and injured ponies.
It would be a great feast of carrion for the scavengers if the rest of the Sioux and their allies didn't get back quickly to rescue the bodies.
'Easy,' he said quietly, holding up his right hand, checking the three Troopers as they came to the brink of the final ridge. 'Goin' to sound this. Then we appear there. Ride back and forwards a couple of times so they thinks there's more of us. Then I'll blow the "Charge" and down we go. Yell and scream like we're a whole regiment.'
'The bastards'll think we're a big relief column,' said Baxter, eagerly, wiping his forehead with a hand dappled with blood from the scalpings.
'What if they don't?' asked the more cautious Stotter.
Crow smiled at him, genuinely amused by the question.
'Then we're goin' to be dead in about two minutes from now, Trooper.'
Stotter grinned back, trying to hide his nerves behind the mask. 'Guess that's right, Sir. Let's go.'
Hardened Indian fighter though Crow was, the scene that met his eyes over the brink of the last ridge shook him. There must have been well over a hundred Sioux there, with a scattering of warriors from various other tribes. They were trotting their ponies in a circle, keeping their distance from the ring of blue that was the patrol from the First Squadron, Third Cavalry, Captain Silas Menges commanding.