“Go ahead, you sack of shit, pull it,” Jason implored, his voice soft and low.
Bone froze. He could see Death’s cold eye. Then the color drained from his face when he heard the hammer cock on the pistol right under his chin.
Singleton pleaded, “Please, Mr. Coles, don’t pull the trigger. It’ll make a mess.”
Jason was tempted to do the world a favor but he decided it wouldn’t be a very good way to start his employment at Fort Fetterman. He reached down and took Bone’s pistol out and laid it on the counter. “All right, Bone, let’s you and me walk real slowly out that door. And you better pray I don’t stub my toe ’cause this forty-four has a real sensitive trigger.”
Some of the color began to seep back into Bone’s face when he realized he might have cheated Death after all but he wasn’t fool enough to make a move. “All right, Coles. You got the jump on me this time ’cause I was drunk. But, by God, this ain’t the end of it.”
“It ain’t, huh? Then I might as well blow your head open right now.” He jammed the barrel up so hard it snapped Bone’s head back.
“No, wait!” Bone yelled. “Dammit, I’m goin’.”
Jason walked him out the front door and started him on his way with a little help from his boot in the seat of Bone’s pants. He held the gun on him while he picked himself out of the dust and stumbled off across the parade ground. “You can pick up your pistol from Sergeant Woodcock in the morning. Take my advice and stay the hell out of my way from now on. I ain’t always gonna be in this good a mood.”
Bone considered making a bull rush at his antagonist but thought better of it. He knew Jason wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him. But it was bitter bile he was forced to swallow, humiliated by a man with one bad shoulder.
Jason stood outside watching until Bone disappeared, then went back in to get his rifle and a few staples from the store. “I think I’ll have another drink now, Mr. Singleton. I spilled my first one.”
“Mr. Coles, I thank you for not shooting that coyote in my store but take my advice and watch your back from now on. Bone don’t cotton much to eatin’ crow.”
* * *
Colonel Fleming had suggested that Jason should take a day to get himself settled in, find a place to stay, and take care of any personal things that needed attention, then report to him for duty on the following day. Jason had thought at the time that he didn’t need a day to get ready. He was always, more or less, in a state of readiness and could have taken the field the next morning if need be. All the same to Jason but, if the colonel said day after tomorrow, he was paying his salary so he’d take the day off.
It was probably a good idea after all because he could take the opportunity to check on Bright Feather . . . or John, as he was now to be called. So, after moving his two horses to a better place to graze, he called on Ruth and Wes. It was well after sunup when he rapped on the door.
“Good morning, Jason. I thought you might be coming by this morning.” Ruth Woodcock opened the door and stood aside. “Come on in and have some breakfast.”
“I don’t want to put you out any, Ruth.”
“Fiddlesticks. You ain’t putting anybody out. I was expecting you. You’ll be putting me out if you don’t eat some of this food I fixed.” She took him by the arm and started him toward the table where her husband was seated, drinking coffee. He greeted Jason with a wide grin.
“When’s the last time you had some hen eggs?” Wes asked.
Jason was not aware of being hungry until he saw the spread of food on Ruth Woodcock’s table. “I swear, Wes, I don’t remember. It’s been more’n a year, I can tell you that.” He sat down and watched Ruth pour his coffee from a huge gray coffeepot. “I figured you’d already be at work by now instead of laying around home drinking coffee.”
Wes laughed. “It’s Sunday. Can’t a man get at least one day off?”
“It is?” Jason was surprised. He had lost track of the days since he had started tracking Black Eagle.
“My goodness,” Ruth clucked. “Don’t even know when it’s the Lord’s Day. You’re as wild as those Injuns out there, Jason Coles.”
Jason smiled and replied, “I reckon.” Her remark reminded him why he had come by. “How’s the boy getting along?”
Ruth smiled broadly. “See for yourself.” She pointed toward the kitchen window.
Jason got up and went to the window. John was sitting contentedly while Ruth’s two sons entertained him. If he was harboring any feelings of fear or insecurity, he sure wasn’t showing it. After a few moments at the window, Jason returned and sat down at the table. “Where’d he get the clothes?”
“They’re some of Lemuel’s hand-me-downs,” Ruth replied. “You should have seen the way that child ate this morning. You must not have fed him for a month.” She shook her head in mock despair.
“When I get the rest of my money for the horses, I can give you a little something for his board.”
“No such a’thing! He’s part of this family now and we don’t charge our younguns board. Do we, Wes?” Wes just grinned. “If you want to stay on my good side, Jason Coles, you better not come up with any more of that kind of talk.” She shook a long wooden spoon at him for emphasis. “And don’t ever think about taking him back. He’s John Woodcock now.”
Jason threw up his hands and laughed. “All right, he’s yours.”
Wes sat there quietly amused by the conversation between his wife and Jason. It didn’t truly matter to Wes if they had three younguns or twelve. He liked having them around. He watched Jason while he cleaned his plate and sopped up the gravy with a biscuit. “Don’t look like you or the boy has et much lately.”
Jason pushed his chair back to give his belly some breathing room. “That’s a fact. I don’t get vittles like this very often.”
“Let’s go out on the porch and set.” He got up and led the way. Jason followed after thanking Ruth for breakfast.
Wes offered Jason a straight-backed chair while he pulled up another one for himself. After Wes packed his corncob pipe and got it fired up, he started talking. “Heard you had a little face-off with Simon Bone last night.”
Jason dismissed it with a shrug. “Wasn’t much, just a bunch of words.”
“Seems to me I heard you had a little set-to with Bone when you was riding scout outta Fort Cobb.” Again Jason shrugged it off. Wes studied his friend’s face for a moment, concerned that Jason might not be taking Bone as serious business. “You know, that mean son of a bitch ain’t all talk. He’s put some men under, Jason, and they weren’t all Injuns. I don’t know why the colonel don’t run him off. He ain’t even around a lot of the time—disappears for two or three weeks at a time—always shows up again to scout for D Troop under Lieutenant Lassiter and the colonel puts him back on the payroll.” He looked straight into Jason’s eyes, looking for a response. The scout remained stoic. “You just be shore you watch your back is all I’m sayin’.”
“I will, Wes. I always do,” Jason finally replied.
They sat in silence, watching the sparse activity of a frontier army post on a peaceful Sunday. After Wes’s pipe went out twice and the load tamped and relit three times, he filled Jason in on the orders for the following morning.
“You’ll be riding out to Camp Robinson in the morning, scouting for Lieutenant Thad Anderson. You know him?” Jason shook his head no. Wes continued, “He’s a good officer, been out here since the war back east ended. He’d probably be a major or at least a captain by now but he fought for the Rebs so he’ll more’n likely stay a lieutenant.” He took his pipe out and looked at it, then tamped it again with his finger, jerked it out when he discovered there was still a live spark, and quickly wiped his finger on his pants leg.
Jason waited patiently while Wes examined the end of his finger and decided it was all right. “Damn,” he swore. “Anyway, Lieutenant Anderson is gonna take a patrol out to Robinson and you’ll be riding out of there for a while.”
“That’s a new one o
n me,” Jason said. “Where’s Camp Robinson?”
“It’s a post they set up on the Red Cloud Agency to guard the Injuns there. It’s about a four- or five-day march from here, east and a little south.”
Jason thought about that for a moment, then, “Seems to me that would put it closer to Fort Laramie than here.”
“It is. Matter of fact, you’ll most likely go back down the Platte to Laramie and go east from there.” Anticipating Jason’s obvious question, he continued, “Laramie is worse undermanned than we are so Colonel Fleming said he’d spare a few men for a while.” He chuckled and added, “You know the army always does things the hard way.”
“I reckon,” Jason replied thoughtfully. “What’s the purpose of the patrol?”
Wes grinned. “Well, now, that’s the part I figured might tweak your interest a tad.” He knocked the ashes from his pipe on the porch railing and put it in his pocket. “We got a message from Laramie that a band of Cheyennes jumped the reservation over at Camp Supply. One of the Lakota scouts said they showed up at the Red Cloud Agency, been there for two or three days, and they’re stirring up some of the young bucks to leave and go join Sitting Bull. Major Gaston asked for some help to round them up. The part I thought might interest you was he said another Cheyenne renegade showed up, name of Black Eagle.”
Jason’s eyes hardened. So it was Black Eagle who got away that night. To Wes, he said, “That makes it interesting all right.”
They talked awhile longer. Wes filled Jason in on Thad Anderson’s record on the frontier and let Jason know that it was his doing that got him assigned as Anderson’s scout. He wouldn’t be the only scout. There would be two Indians also, both Crow, sworn enemies of the Sioux.
Wes said he had also advised Colonel Fleming to avoid assigning Jason and Bone to the same patrol if he wanted both men to return to the fort. “I don’t reckon you’ll have to worry about that on this detail, though.” When Jason looked puzzled, Woodcock pointed toward the far side of the parade ground to two riders leaving the garrison. There was no mistaking the huge form of Simon Bone, even from that distance. “Looks like Bone is heading out on another one of his little vacations . . . taking along one of his Sioux friends as usual. I swear, I don’t know why the colonel puts up with that man. Like I said, every once in a while he just takes off, sometimes for weeks at a time. Always shows up again and Lieutenant Lassiter always takes him back. Lassiter says it’s because Bone is such a damn good scout.” Wes snorted his contempt. “The only reason he thinks that way is because Bone tells him he is.”
Jason was only mildly interested. “Where does he go when he takes off like that?”
“Who the hell knows? Probably off robbing some poor settler or something. I wouldn’t put it past him.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the two riders until they faded into the morning gray.
When Jason got up to leave, Wes walked with him as far as the Orderly Room. Even though he was generally off on Sundays, he always checked on the Officer of the Day. It was, after all, Wes’s responsibility to run the regiment and the largest part of that job was to keep the officers from messing it up.
CHAPTER V
It was a typical late summer day in the North Platte country. Lieutenant Thad Anderson led B Troop, thirty-four troopers and three scouts, out of Fort Fetterman about an hour after sunup. Now, after only four hours’ march, the morning was already warm, promising a hot, dry day. It had not rained in three weeks and the Platte was little more than a ghost of its usual dimensions.
Lieutenant Anderson felt no need for caution as the troop followed the river back to Fort Laramie. Since it was a standard practice, he had the scouts out afield anyway. No need to take chances, even small ones. He liked Jason Coles as soon as they were introduced by Sergeant Woodcock. He sensed that the feeling was mutual. Coles seemed to be a serious and confident man without the swagger that was often typical of civilian scouts. Although this was their first meeting, he had heard of Jason Coles. Colonel Holder, now assigned to Fort Lincoln, had once told him Coles was the best scout west of the Missouri. Jim Riley, who worked with him at Fort Cobb, said if he was backed up in a box canyon by the entire Comanche nation and could only be granted two things, he’d wish for one of those new Winchester Model 1874s and Jason Coles. After praise like that, Thad had expected a cocksure attitude about the man, maybe like Simon Bone. But, to his surprise, Coles was a quiet, almost self-effacing man. He had not seen him in action but something told him he would still be there when the fighting was over.
Jason pulled Black up short and dismounted. He looked at the tracks left in a dry streambed that told him a party of seven Indians had crossed the river there. From the river, the trail led to the northwest. Here come some more reinforcements for Sitting Bull, he thought. The one set of shod prints told him that they had stolen one of the army’s horses to boot.
He didn’t feel the need to ride back to the column to tell the lieutenant about the trail. Their mission was to march downriver to Fort Laramie and then east to Camp Robinson, not to chase after small parties of reservation Lakotas. He stepped up into the stirrup and threw a leg over the saddle. Black started to surge forward but Jason held him back when he heard the bugler. He was calling the scouts in. Dinnertime, he thought, and wheeled Black around.
It was as he figured. Anderson, being a sensible young officer, decided to rest his troops when he came to a sizable grove of cottonwoods that afforded some relief from the noonday sun. With no threat of hostile activity to impede their progress, the column was making good time. With that in mind, the lieutenant ordered an hour’s break so the men could make some cookfires if they wanted to.
Jason took his time riding back to the troop. He watched the two Crow scouts ride in, one from the north and the other from the other side of the river. Satisfied that there was no one in the area but the cavalry troop, he joined the others.
“Mr. Coles.”
Jason looked around when his name was called. It was Sergeant Aaron Brady, the ranking noncom on the patrol, and a man Jason had met for the first time that morning.
“Mr. Coles,” Brady repeated. “I’m gonna boil me up a little coffee. You’re welcome to have a cup if you care to.”
“That’s might neighborly of you, Sergeant. I believe I would.” He stepped down from Black and dropped the reins. He and Black had been partners for long enough now so the horse knew not to move as long as the reins were on the ground. Jason got some biscuit and side meat from his saddle pack. The mess sergeant at Fort Fetterman had wrapped them up for him that morning. “Here’s some biscuit to soak up some of that coffee,” he said and settled himself across from the small fire Brady had kindled. The sergeant’s face reflected his appreciation and he gladly put away the hardtack he had expected to eat.
Sergeant Brady was a short, wiry man with a red mustache so long that it nearly touched his shoulders. Like the lieutenant, Brady had been on the frontier since the War Between the States, the difference being that Brady fought on the Union side. Jason was to learn there was no animosity between the two men because of their different loyalties. To the contrary, there was a good-natured rivalry shared due to the fact that they had both been present in the Battle of the Wilderness.
Brady swirled the coffee around a few times in the pot to make sure the brew was strong enough. Then he filled the cups, catching the grounds with the pot lid. It could not be considered the best coffee Jason had ever tasted. Due to the poor quality of the water from the small stream they camped by, it was bitter and strong, but it was coffee so it hit the spot as far as he was concerned.
Lieutenant Anderson strolled over and joined his sergeant and the scout. “I knew Sergeant Brady would make some coffee, even if it was a hundred degrees in the shade.”
Brady grinned. “And I knew if I started some coffee, the lieutenant would show up looking for a cup. Sit down, Sir, and gimme your cup.”
Lieutenant Anderson took the cup and settled back against th
e trunk of a tree. “Damn!” he exclaimed. “It’s worse than usual.” Brady just chuckled. Anderson turned his attention to Jason. “Well, Mr. Coles, have you seen any sign of hostiles in the area? Little Hawk said he picked up a trail on the other side of the river.”
Jason nodded. “Yessir, I saw where they crossed up ahead about a quarter mile. Seven of ’em, one of ’em was an army horse. There was no travois so I figure it was some more Cheyennes jumping the reservation and heading north.”
Anderson shook his head, a serious expression replaced the grin he had worn. “Damn. There’s going to be a full-scale war if this keeps up. We don’t have enough troops out here to keep all those Indians on the reservation.”
“Reckon not,” Jason agreed. “Some of ’em usually come back when winter hits but, if the government don’t feed ’em like they promised, they may break out for good.”
“I thought when Red Cloud made peace and came in to the reservation with his Sioux, the Cheyenne and Arapaho would settle down too.”
Jason shrugged. “Red Cloud was big medicine when he was making war on the Bozeman Trail. He gave the army a good lickin’, burned down the army’s forts, forced ’em to the peace table. But Red Cloud ain’t such big medicine anymore, since he’s turned into a reservation Injun. Sitting Bull is the king stud now and he’s the one the wild ones are listening to. He ain’t ever signed a treaty and he ain’t got no intention of coming to the reservation.”
Anderson tossed the dregs from his cup, then took a drink from his canteen to rinse the bitter taste of Brady’s coffee from his mouth. “Mr. Coles, I’m afraid you’re right on the mark. Things are going to get hot before it’s over.” He got to his feet and stretched. “All right, Sergeant, let’s get ’em in the saddle.”
* * *
The troop rode into Fort Laramie on the following afternoon and Anderson ordered Sergeant Brady to see to the men’s bivouac for the night while he reported in to the commander of the post.
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