Down the warriors swarmed, toward the weak place where the wooden gates moved. Individual war cries trembled on the cool morning air. From behind him, Burns His Saddle heard the funny notes of the metal horn the white warrior called a bugle. The renegade whites rose now and charged along with the howling braves. Suddenly a big puff of smoke billowed out on the wall. The sound of hail cutting through cottonwood leaves reached Burns His Saddle’s ears. Ahead of him, warriors seemed to be flung from their saddles, ponies shrieked and fled, two dragging their riders along across the hard ground. The goddamn cannon, the bluecoats had deployed it sooner than expected.
Again the smoke bloomed and a dull boom rolled over the grassland. More warriors died screaming. This was too powerful a medicine to contend with. “Back!” Burns His Saddle yelled to his braves. “Turn back! We attack another side.”
With the swiftness of a changing prairie wind, the Indians wheeled their ponies and galloped away from the deadly rain of grapeshot at the front wall of the fort. It left Braithwaite’s men dangerously exposed.
“Bring the horses up!” the former colonel shouted urgently. “Horse handlers, follow me!” Braithwaite charged out onto the corpse-littered field, five men in his wake, each with a string of horses. They spread out and raced for their comrades who fired desperately at the wall and tried to find protection from the deadly lash of grape.
“I know that renegade bastard!” Griff shouted. He had returned to the wall to inform the cavalry officer that the Gatling gun was ordnance stripped, in pieces, a big one-inch bore model, and would take hours to assemble. Griff put aside the field glasses and snatched up the carbine dropped by a wounded trooper. He took careful aim, grumbling inwardly at the awkwardness a right-handed weapon had for a left-handed man, and fired.
Griff’s bullet knocked the hat from Chester Braithwaite’s head. The ex-colonel ducked low and sharply reined his horse away. He rapid-fired his big 1860 Colt, slip-thumbing the hammer, in an attempt to escape the danger.
Griff fired again, the heavy slug creasing the flank of Braithwaite’s horse. The animal spun and lunged into a gallop, the ex-colonel clinging to its mane to keep from being thrown.
“There! See that man in the lead. The one firing the pistol,” Griff shouted excitedly to Damien.
“Yeah. I see him. What of it?”
“He was on Early’s staff. A colonel. Braithwaite’s his name. He’s the one … by damn it, he’s the only one who ever gave me orders to have my men fight to the last one standing. When I questioned those orders, it was Braithwaite who confirmed them. Could it be,” Griff speculated aloud, “that even then he was trying to kill me? And why?”
“Worry about that later. We have a battle to fight,” Damien grimly reminded his friend.
“Only too right. But, consider, Damien, someone’s been trying to kill me, to kill us. Now Braithwaite shows up with this mixed lot of Indians and whites who are no doubt the ones who attacked the wagon trains. It adds up to something, but I don’t know what.”
Beyond the wall, Braithwaite and his horse handlers reached the beleaguered sharpshooters and the survivors quickly mounted. A final flurry of shots sent troopers to hugging the earthen breastworks, and the renegade whites swung away from the danger of the cannon, raced up a distant slope, and disappeared into the lodge-pole pines.
“They’ll be back,” Damien predicted.
Eight-year-old Jeremy Stark climbed naked and dripping from the shallow creek that ran beside Kills Raven’s village. A lopsided grin brightened his face and he puffed out his chest with confidence.
“You see, I can, too, swim,” he announced in English.
“Say that in Cheyenne,” a bigger boy of eleven demanded.
“No. I won’t do it. I’m not an Indian and I won’t talk Indian.”
Behind Jeremy, another youngster crawled from the water and crouched on hands and knees at the back of the white lad’s legs. Half a dozen other boys, in and out of the water watched intently, anticipating the outcome.
“Yes, you will, or you won’t have food tonight.”
“You can’t keep me from eating,” Jeremy countered, responding to the guttural, singsong language although refusing to speak it.
His tormentor advanced suddenly, his hand shot out and he shoved against Jeremy’s chest. Jeremy toppled backward over the youngster behind him and hit the creek with a big splash. The Cheyenne boys broke out in shrill laughter.
When Jeremy surfaced, he looked toward the bank at the boy he had tripped over. The sturdy brown body was now caked in slick, black mud. Jeremy pointed in the polite manner with his chin and began to laugh.
On the bank, fifty yards away, Two Otters stood with his wife, Rainbow. He smiled at the boyish play and pointed with his chin toward Jeremy.
“He is a good boy. He will make a brave warrior. Is he not everything we wanted in our son who went to the Great Spirit?”
“Yes, husband.”
“Already he learns the language of the Beautiful People,” Two Otters continued. “Although he is proud and stubborn and will not speak it. He is stocky and strong for his age. He swims better than most boys in the village.” His face grew serious, thoughtful. “Sometimes, when I look at him, especially at night by the firelight, it seems as though he must have the blood of the People in him. We will call him Snow Rabbit, for like his namesake he swiftly changes color and habits with his winter home.”
“You are content, my husband.” Rainbow formed a winsome smile. “We will keep this boy and make him truly Cheyenne.”
Chapter Fourteen
“THEY’VE BEEN AT this two days now,” Damien observed to Griff as they stood atop the wall. “Indians, just ordinary Indians, would have given up by now.”
“Won’t the wire being down alert Fort Laramie and a relief column be sent out?”
“Not likely. At least not for several more days. The lines are often down. Ice storms in winter, lightning strikes. The hostiles cut them from time to time and the buffalo use the poles to scratch against. If they don’t hear something after four or five days, then a patrol will be sent.”
“Do you think Pendelton will get through?”
“Hard telling. He’ll have to be a lot luckier than poor Jones.”
Griff winced, a tic pulling at one corner of his mouth. He vividly recalled the fate of Trooper Jones. The unfortunate man had been sent as a dispatch rider in hopes of getting a message through to Fort Laramie. He had left after dark, walking his mount to keep down the noise. Half an hour after the small sally port near the stables had been closed, the waiting defenders heard a hideous scream. And then another.
The moans and cries of agony went on until nearly daylight. Then the sentry over the main gate called out that a horse was approaching. Out of the gloom walked a cavalry mount. Trooper Jones sat rigidly upright in the saddle, impaled from his anus to his throat on a war lance. His shell jacket, uniform shirt and longjohns had been cut away at the belt line. From the waist up, he had been skinned alive. “Let’s hope he goes out fighting if he is jumped.”
“I’m sure he will, Griff. He got a good look at what happened to Jones.”
“Captain,” the sentry nearest them called. “They’re on the move again.”
“Gunner, double-shot that cannon. Everyone make ready. They’re going to hit us again. Griff, you’d better get back to that Gatling. Right now that’s the only thing left to turn the tide.”
Chester Braithwaite paced the ground at the edge of the pines. He was furious. His plan called for a single charge. The Indians were supposed to draw fire from the outpost while his men breached the gates. Then a quick rush inside and it would be all over. It hadn’t happened that way. He had not made preparations for a siege, but that was what this was turning into. He turned abruptly and nearly ran into Finn McDougal.
“Brought ya a plate of beans and fatback and some coffee, Colonel.”
“Thank you.” He sat cross-legged facing his lieutenant. “This is getting us
nowhere fast. We don’t seem to be able to lure the troops into the open and so far it’s been impossible to get inside the outpost.” Braithwaite dug into his food, chewing hard until his jaws knotted.
“Why not pull a sneak attack?”
“Sneak attack … hell, they already know we’re here.” He assaulted his meal again, teeth snapping together. Slowly, the beginnings of an idea took shape. “Wait a minute. Of course. That’s it. We can carry off a surprise maneuver.” He rose, food forgotten, grease congealing on the surface of the curdled gravy. Quickly the ex-colonel issued orders to round up his section leaders.
When they gathered, he faced them with a smile of triumph on his face. “Gentlemen, I have found the answer. We will launch a night attack.”
By two-thirty in the morning, no one on guard duty could be called fully awake. The long, trying days of the siege had taken a heavy toll. Heads drooped and men paced their posts with a dragging step. Trooper Richards, on the roof of the officer’s quarters moved mechanically, neither he nor the other sentries aware that he had fallen asleep on his feet. He failed to hear the faint scrapes and scratching made by moccasined feet on the outer surface of the wall. While Richards slowly progressed toward the far end of his station, two Cheyenne braves rolled over onto the flat roof, lying tightly against the sod on their bellies.
Richards turned and started back toward them. They remained motionless until he came within three feet. Then the pair rose as one. The nearer warrior grabbed Richards around the neck and the other plunged a long hunting knife into his heart. His feet shuffled noisily for a moment, then the tension left his body and the first Cheyenne lowered his corpse to the sod roof. The killer cleaned his knife on Richardson’s shirt and crouched in place while his partner went to the parapet. He leaned far over and signaled that all had gone well.
Quickly two dozen of the attackers climbed to the top of the wall and rolled over onto the roof. They started toward the junction with the front wall when the voice of a more alert sentry challenged them.
“Who goes there?” When Trooper Barnes received no reply, he hailed again. “Who goes there?” Immediately, he also sang out. “Corporal of the Guard, Post Number Nine!”
An arrow zipped through the air with a fiendish whir. It hit Barnes in the stomach and he shrieked in pain. Suddenly the outpost came alive. Men yelled and fired at unseen targets. Griff ran from his quarters, still foggy with sleep, and headed directly to the wall where he had set up the Gatling gun. He felt reassured when he saw the four men he had trained headed in the same direction.
On the breastwork, Griff began to open ammunition boxes even before his men arrived. He fed rounds into the hopper and swung the gun to aim at the barracks roof across the way. He gave quick, terse instructions to his makeshift crew.
“Make sure to keep the ammunition coming and see that the percussion caps are in place.” Griff saw movement, aimed at it and turned the crank.
A tremendous roar deafened the crew as the one-inch-bore weapon opened up, spitting out lead in a rapid stream. Huge, one-hundred-caliber slugs pulverized flesh and knocked the stricken men over the wall. Blood flew in a mist through the air around the remainder and they opened up in a hopeless attempt to stop the fearsome machine.
More savages poured over the parapet and took up firing positions.
The moment they opened up, Griff swung the Gatling in their direction and cranked out four or five rounds. Suddenly the big gun jammed, its mechanism fouled with powder residue.
“Water!” Griff shouted. “Hit it with water and that big brush.”
In the silence, he heard Damien shouting from the front wall. “Turn it around. Faster, men. Now, fire!”
The salute cannon belched flame and smoke and a charge of grapeshot howled through the night air. Screams came from the roof of officer’s row. Then the Gatling parts came free and the deadly repeater began to chatter once more.
Suddenly the world turned bright white and a loud boom of thunder drowned out even the fiery breath of the cannon. With a swiftness characteristic of the prairie, the fierce storm Damien had predicted three days earlier broke over the outpost. The wind whipped up to a staggering seventy miles an hour and sent lashing sheets of rain into the faces of attacker and defender alike.
More lightning crackled across the sky and the maelstrom raged with a ferocity unlike anything Griff had ever seen. Clap after clap of deafening thunder assaulted his ears and he only belatedly remembered the attacking Indians and their white allies. He turned the Gatling’s crank.
Heavy led slugs spat through the downpour. Three of Braithwaite’s men had their intestines pulped to slimy goo by the big bullets, and the tiny force on the roof dwindled to only six standing. They beat a hurried retreat. A hollow boom came from the gate, where more of the renegade Confederate officer’s men wielded a battering ram against the wooden poles that made up the barricade.
“Hurry, Mathis,” Damien could be heard yelling. “Get it up here.”
“I’m comin’, Cap’n. I’m comin’. But it’ll be a long time to brew more.”
The cook, Sergeant Mathis, and three men struggled with a gigantic cauldron of steaming coffee. It had only come to a boil when Damien had discovered the attempt to breach the gate. He’d sent a runner to the mess hall and waited impatiently until he saw the cook headed toward the ramp.
Sergeant Mathis and his assistants struggled up into the breastworks and lugged the cauldron to where Damien directed. Then they heaved together and upended it over the parapet.
Pitiful, agonized screams rose from below when the scalding gallons of Arbuckle’s Finest cascaded down on the men at the gate. A sudden burst of fire concentrated on them and the shrieks lasted until the last man fell to a Springfield round. Griff’s Gatling opened up again, this time pointed out over the wall to where a searing flash of lightning had illuminated a cluster of mounted warriors. Five of them went spinning away from their ponies, smashed to bloody ruin by the huge bullets. The storm continued to unleash its mindless fury on friend and foe alike.
Gradually the fighting dwindled to an occasional sniper round that kept the outpost complement awake. The incessant rain turned the ground to a slippery lake of mud. Dawn came gray and dismal. Still the deluge continued.
Then the downfall slackened and it grew uncannily silent. A weird green nimbus appeared on the western horizon. Then the wind returned, sucked back in the direction from which it had come, icy cold now and wailing like the damned.
Griff heard the powerful onrush of a giant freight train under full throttle, hurtling toward the sod-walled outpost. He looked up to see a long, funnel shaped cloud descending from the black belly of a truly giant thunderhead that filled the entire scope of his vision. Its thin, sinuous tail lashed about like a headless snake and skipped across the ground. The apocalyptic whirlwind ripped up trees and hurtled brush and dust into a billowing turmoil that advanced ahead of it. Out on the sodden field, the Indians paused and peered at this monstrosity of nature.
Superstitious dread paralyzed Burns His Saddle for a long moment. The twisting wind! He had never seen one so close before. Anger from the sky spirits. Sure death to be near. With a frightened yelp, he waved to his followers and they streamed away, tails turned to the battle. Driven by their primal terror of these enormously powerful phenomena of nature, they fled to safety, not to return again. Surprised at this turn of events, Damien climbed to the top of the parapet to watch the frightened retreat.
One of Braithwaite’s sharpshooters drew a careful bead and squeezed the trigger. He felt the solid jolt of the stock against his shoulder and watched the wind whip away his smoke. On the wall, his target jerked back out of sight as though on a powerful spring.
Damien hit the platform with a painful thump. A red smear had already begun to spread from his left shoulder. With a vengeance, the tornado bore down on the outpost. The tin roof of a shed began to slam up and down, then took off from its fastenings, whirling away over the wall to sail o
ut of sight.
Griff started toward his fallen friend, only to be sucked off his feet by the powerful winds that roared overhead. He looked up in time to see the capricious tail of the funnel cloud lift and whirl away, sparing, at least this time, the outpost and everyone in it. He struggled upright and ran to Damien.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” he reassured his friend. “A couple of weeks and you can use it like new.”
“The Indians ran. There’s only the white renegades out there,” Damien began. “We’ve got to go after them. I’ve got to get the troop mounted and lead them out.”
“You’re not going anywhere. Let Lieutenant Hastings do that.”
“He’s not up to a job like that. Too green. Griff … will you take command, Griff?”
“Me? I’m a civilian.”
“Not now you aren’t. Go get ’em, Major Stark.”
“Sergeant,” Griff called to the first sergeant. “Get the troop mounted. Rations for four days, plenty of ammunition. We move out in fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Braithwaite’s trail led into the wild, rugged country of the Yellowstone Valley. The cavalry remained in close pursuit, often keeping the fleeing renegades in sight for hours at a time. Long before darkness fell, they closed in. Suddenly a loud rumbling ahead warned Griff to halt the troop.
A mighty shaft of roiling water spurted high in the air, accompanied by the roar of escaping steam. Then, to the troop’s right, another cut loose. When they subsided, Braithwaite had led his men out of sight. Griff pressed on.
Around a cluster of tall stone pillars, they brought their quarry to bay. Trapped in a box canyon, Braithwaite had formed his remaining men up for a final battle for survival. Griff quickly seized up the situation and drew his saber.
“Trumpeter, sound the charge.”
Slowly at first, then with gathering speed and power, the heavy cavalry mounts surged forward, spurred on by a shower of bright notes. Sabers waving in the air, they closed with their enemy. They hacked and slashed and worked free, only to wheel about and charge again. Rifles and revolvers cracked and three troopers went down. A ragged cheer rose from the belabored outlaws.
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