They intercepted the column on a broad plateau that was cut by several dry coulees. Jason reined up beside Thad and reported their findings. Upon Jason’s advice, the lieutenant decided to wait until the following morning to move on the Cheyenne encampment. Jason assured him that it didn’t look to him like the renegades were planning to leave anytime soon. He led the column to a wide dry coulee that led down into a shallow valley where the men and horses would be out of sight. The troopers were told to get some sleep if they could because they were going to make a night march. Even though there was little chance they might be seen, no fires were allowed. There was no firewood available, and if the buffalo grass was burned, it would give off a thick brown smoke.
Thad sat down with Jason and Walking Crow to get more details on the Indian camp. He called Sergeant Brady over to join in the discussion. When Brady had settled himself next to Jason, Thad asked, “How many do you think there are?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Jason replied. “There weren’t but a half a dozen or so in the camp but I counted twenty-seven hide lean-tos. I doubt there’s more than one Injun to a lean-to. They ain’t big as a poncho, just a piece of hide.” He paused, then, “But there don’t seem to be any women with ’em so every living soul there is a warrior.”
Thad thought this over for a moment. “How well are they armed?”
“Well, again, I can’t say for sure. We couldn’t see any weapons from where we were watching. Walking Crow told me that when he ran across them a week ago, most of ’em were carrying nothing but bows and war axes. He saw one Henry repeating rifle and a couple of muzzle loaders. He said there may have been one or two other rifles, no more than that.”
This was good news to Thad. “We’ll move up to the base of those hills you scouted and wait there until light. If we can move in fast enough, we should catch ’em napping.” He got up to leave. “Sergeant, have the men ready to ride at dark.”
“Yessir,” Brady replied. He stretched his legs out in front of him and folded his hands behind his head. He watched the lieutenant walk a few yards away and make himself comfortable against a little eroded-out gully. “He ain’t a bad sort, is he? I mean, for a damn officer . . . and a Reb at that.”
Jason laughed. “Reckon not,” he answered.
“Better catch you a little shut-eye while you got a chance. The army don’t give you many afternoons off.”
“Maybe I will,” Jason replied, getting to his feet. “I think I’ll take another look around first.” He picked up Black’s reins and led him up the coulee.
He rode out to the west a couple of miles and then cut to the north, making a wide circle around the column. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular but he wanted to know what was in the area just to satisfy his own curiosity. He wasn’t much for lying around sleeping in the middle of the afternoon. After riding north for a while, he turned toward the east. When he turned back south again, he came upon something curious, wagon tracks.
“Now, that’s downright peculiar,” he announced to Black. “What’s a wagon doing out this far from the agency?” From the prints, it didn’t appear to be heavily loaded and they were leading directly away from where he estimated the Cheyenne camp to be. He guessed the tracks were four or five days old, it was hard to be certain, the grass had just about straightened back up. If it wasn’t for a little patch of bare ground, he might not have even noticed them. Whoever it was had carried something out to the renegades and was coming back empty. He’d tell the lieutenant what he found but he wasn’t sure what it meant.
* * *
“All right, let’s go. We’re wasting time!” Sergeant Brady moved quietly among the resting soldiers. Some, who had been able to fall asleep, had to be roused with a nudge from his boot. “Get mounted and keep the noise down.”
Jason watched as man after man groaned and stretched, trying to clear the cobwebs from confused brains that went to sleep in bright sunlight and were awakened to total darkness. The night was moonless and already deepening. Thad Anderson found Jason and motioned for him. Jason ambled over and the lieutenant commented, “It would sure help if there was a little bit of moonlight.”
“There’s light enough,” Jason responded.
Reassured, Thad grunted and gave the order to mount. Brady passed it along and within a minute’s time the troop was in the saddle and ready to ride. Jason, after a nod from the lieutenant, led them out of the coulee and headed toward the fork of Buffalo Creek. Walking Crow rode beside him; Little Hawk and Cross Bear rode out on the flanks of the column. Jason had advised Thad to keep the two Crow scouts away from Walking Crow. They had no love for the Sioux, even if they were all three in the employ of the army.
After a mile or so, Thad spurred his horse up beside Jason and they rode in silence for a short while before Walking Crow moved out ahead about a hundred yards. He explained to Jason that he wanted to be able to hear the sounds of the prairie, away from the creaking of saddle leather and the clinking of metal cups and bridles. That made sense to Jason. He continued to ride beside Thad. Behind him, there came the occasional snort from a horse or a softly muttered curse from a trooper as a horse stumbled. The darkness seemed to amplify even the smallest sound of a night march. The constant thumping of the horses’ hooves sometimes sounded like a low drumbeat. Back in the column, the men followed blindly, each man barely able to see the horse’s rump in front of him. Occasionally a little burst of flame would flare and die away as a soldier lit his pipe. The deep starry night closed tightly around the column as if they rode through a dark tunnel. More than one trooper wondered what awaited them when the sun came up again.
After a slow march of close to six hours, Walking Crow rode back to meet the column. The line of hills he and Jason had watched the Cheyenne camp from was only about two miles ahead. Thad told Sergeant Brady to pass the word back for silence, no talking from that point on . . . a man’s voice carried a long way on the prairie.
When the foot of the hill was reached, it was four-thirty by Sergeant Brady’s railroad watch. The men were ordered to stand down again to wait for first light and the order to attack. Jason and Walking Crow, accompanied by Thad Anderson, made their way to the top of the hill to scout the encampment.
“I can’t see a damn thing,” Thad whispered. “How do you know they’re there?”
“They’re there,” Jason replied. Walking Crow nodded agreement. Jason pointed to a dark area where the stream was barely visible from the reflection of the starlit night on the water. “It’s hard to see the camp because there ain’t no tipis or cookfires. There ain’t much to see but they’re there all right, on the far side of those willows by the creek. They might as well be underground. They’re dug in like prairie dogs, nothing but skin flaps covering them.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Thad whispered. “I can’t see a damn thing.”
“You will soon. It won’t be long before daylight.”
Walking Crow said something to Jason and Jason nodded. He then passed the message on to Thad. “There’s a little ravine that cuts between this hill we’re on and that little knob on your right. Walking Crow says it’s big enough to move the column through and be right on the creek bank before they even know we’re here.”
It was only a matter of minutes before the darkness softened and began to gray. Soon fingers of light crept through the hills behind them, touching the creek and illuminating the silvery mist rising from the water. A few minutes more and it was light enough to mount up.
Now that he could clearly see the cluster of rude shelters between the branches of the creek, Thad decided a single skirmish line, formed on the bank of the creek, should be able to sweep the camp. There was no sign of activity among the sleeping renegades. “Let’s get after them before they have a chance to wake up,” he whispered and started making his way back down the hill as quietly as he could manage. At the bottom of the hill, Brady was watching and anticipated the order to mount. Thad pressed upon his sergeant the
importance of getting the troop through the ravine quickly and quietly in order to form on the creek bank.
The column filed through the gap between the two hills at a brisk walk, the troopers checking their weapons as they rode. The way was narrow and the trail was strewn with loose rocks that made the passage difficult and noisier than Jason would have liked. He scolded himself for not scouting the passage himself instead of relying on Walking Crow. But it was too late to do anything about it at this point. “Quiet!” he heard someone behind him whisper as a horse almost lost its footing.
He could almost feel it happen before it actually did. Halfway back in the line a horse stumbled and a rider struggled to stay in the saddle. Hauling back on the reins with one hand, his rifle in the other ready to fire, his finger tightening on the trigger. The discharge of the rifle was like thunder in the small ravine. The sharp crack reverberated through the walls of the passage and across the shallow creek. Black started but Jason held him back. Behind him he could hear a horse rear and fall back into the rider behind him. In a matter of seconds the quiet valley erupted into a hailstorm of confusion.
Thad yelled to Sergeant Brady to hurry the last of the column through and form as skirmishers on the creek bank. Brady, cursing loudly, was already struggling to keep the men moving. Thad’s urging was unnecessary. To Jason’s surprise, there was no confusion in the Cheyenne camp. The sleeping warriors threw off their robes, keeping low in the shallow holes they had been sleeping in. As soon as the last trooper cleared the ravine and fell into the skirmish line, Thad gave the order to charge. The element of surprise was now wasted but he decided he still held the advantage in numbers and weaponry. He was soon to be stunned by the events that took place during the next few minutes.
B Troop galloped into the shallow water, firing and reloading as rapidly as possible. Just as the foremost riders cleared the low bank on the opposite side, they were met by a blistering wall of fire from the Cheyenne camp. Thad was stunned. A soldier screamed and fell from the saddle, then another and another. The Cheyenne fire was continuous, cutting his men from their saddles. The Indian gunfire rolled over the line of cavalry like an ocean wave, taking every other man with it, it seemed.
“Back!” he shouted. “Recall! Recall!” he screamed to his bugler and the bugler blared the order to retreat. Thad looked frantically to his right and left, trying to get his men back to the cover of the hills behind them. Off to one side, he saw Jason Coles, cranking round after round from his Winchester. Jason looked at him and yelled, “Get ’em back in that ravine and find some cover before we lose the whole damn troop.”
Thad, still devastated by the superior firepower confronting him, shouted to the scout, “What the hell happened?” He could not understand the overwhelming rifle fire.
“Goddammit, they’re better armed than your soldiers. Every damn one of ’em is carrying a repeating rifle and it looks like they were expecting us.”
It soon became apparent to the Cheyennes that their superior firepower had stopped the soldiers cold and the advantage was clearly theirs. As the lieutenant moved his troopers back to the hills, one warrior stood up to take command of the rest and rallied his braves to pursue the retreating soldiers. He was a tall, smooth-muscled warrior. His hair was long, to his shoulders, and he wore one eagle feather. In his hand, he held a Winchester and he fired at the retreating troopers as rapidly as he could pull the trigger and cock it.
“Black Eagle,” Jason whispered. He had never laid eyes on the renegade who had killed Lark and had vowed to kill him. Something told him he was looking at Black Eagle now. It could be no other.
In the confusion of the disorderly retreat, Jason had been covering the withdrawal of the near-panicked troopers, making every shot count. Now, seeing the warriors rallying to the urging of Black Eagle, he tried to get a clear shot at the renegade. For an instant he had him in his sights but the opportunity was lost when a Cheyenne bullet snapped too close to Black’s fetlock, causing the horse to rear back, spoiling Jason’s aim. He pulled back hard on the reins as another bullet snapped close to his head. It was getting too hot to stay where he was. The Indians had discovered where the deadly fire was coming from and were now concentrating on him. A quick scan of the creek bank told him that all the surviving troopers had pulled back to the hill so he darted for the cover of the ravine, the Cheyennes hot behind him.
Rifle slugs were singing through the sparse trees of the ravine and kicking up dirt on the hillside as Jason galloped into cover and slid from the saddle. Running in a crouch, he dropped down beside Thad Anderson who was firing at the advancing Indians with his revolver. He took a quick look around him to evaluate the situation and didn’t like what he saw. The men were firing but not taking careful aim and they were bunched together like quail in the underbrush. They wouldn’t last long like that. Thad seemed intent on staying where he was so Jason decided it was time to take control of the situation or they would all be buzzard’s breakfast.
“Lieutenant!” Thad looked startled when Jason shouted, almost in his face. “Thad, tell Brady to have the men fall back in the ravine. When you get ’em almost through, split ’em up—half on each side of the hill. There ain’t no sense in every fourth man holding the horses. We need their rifles. Two men ought to be able to handle all the horses in that narrow ravine. Your boys can catch them Cheyenne when they come through. And, dammit, tell ’em to hit something.”
Thad, steady now, was eager to follow Jason’s orders. “Right! Sergeant Brady!” He passed on Jason’s instructions. When Brady was on his way, he asked, “What if they don’t follow us through the ravine?”
“They’ll follow. They smell blood and they damn sure know they’re whipping our butts.” He paused to reload his rifle. “There’s a knob up there about halfway up the hill. That’s where I’ll be. My rifle will do the most good from there.” He started to leave, then paused. “And tell your boys not to shoot at me, dammit.” He looped the reins over his saddle and gave Black a slap on the rump and watched until he was sure his horse was headed back to the other horses being held by the handlers at the rear. Then, in a crouch, he quickly made his way up to the knob and positioned himself to bring fire on the advancing Cheyennes, by this time splashing across the creek, screaming angry war whoops.
You may have won this damn battle but it’s going to cost your ass, he thought, and began to lay down a deadly fire, making every shot count. With the patience of a man accustomed to performing coolly under fire, he carefully picked each target and, unhurriedly, squeezed and cocked. As one by one his brothers began to fall from the deadly rifle fire from the knob, Black Eagle realized his victory was becoming too costly. He tried to call his warriors back but it was too late. The blood-crazed warriors were already charging through the narrow pass after the retreating soldiers. Now they came under fire from Brady’s men on both sides of the ravine and were being cut down by the volley from the army carbines.
In a short time, the cost in casualties became too much to continue the assault and the Cheyennes dropped back to the creek. In a time span of no more than twenty minutes, the battle was over. Only a few sporadic shots were heard now as the renegades mounted and galloped away to the hills beyond.
Jason made his way back down to the creek where he stood watching the departing Cheyennes as they disappeared over a rise in the narrow plateau between the creek and the hills. He was joined shortly by Thad Anderson and Sergeant Brady.
“You want to go after ’em, Lieutenant?” Brady looked uncertain even as he asked.
Thad hesitated, wondering himself. Jason filled the void and answered for him. “Hell no, he don’t want you to chase ’em. They’ve already wiped out half the troop. They’d love nothing better than for you to go chasing them out in the open where they could soon settle for the rest of us.”
Thad was still hesitant but he also knew what his orders were. “Our orders are to bring this bunch in to the reservation.”
“Your orders didn’t sa
y anything about them having new repeating rifles, did they?” Jason didn’t like the smell of the whole engagement. It seemed too much like a setup to him. One thing in particular that bothered him more than a little was the whereabouts of Walking Crow. He was thinking that he damn sure better be dead because he was conspicuously absent after the shooting started. Walking Crow did not impress him as being fearful of a fight. Jason had other suspicions.
“Anybody see Walking Crow?” Jason asked. No one had and he was not among the dead the soldiers were now in the process of recovering. Then Jason wanted to know something else. “Whose horse bolted back there in the ravine?”
“Belton,” Brady replied. “He fired the shot.”
“’Tain’t so, Sergeant,” Belton, a tall, rawboned man from Kentucky, replied. “Hit were my horse jumped all right. ’Twarn’t my rifle what farred though.”
“Who did then?” Brady demanded.
“That damn-fool Injun scout of yourn, that’s who. Your horse’d jump too if somebody farred a gun under his hind end.”
Jason’s suspicions were confirmed. They had been led into a trap. Walking Crow had been the one who reported the enemy’s strength as mostly bows and a few muzzle loaders. He also insisted the best approach to the camp was through the narrow ravine. “Looks like our friend Walking Crow decided to join Sitting Bull with the rest of his friends.”
Thad and Brady stood by Jason, surveying the damage done to the troop. Of the original thirty-four men, nine were dead and seven wounded. One of the Crow scouts, Cross Bear, had been wounded in the leg. Thad’s concern now was taking care of the wounded and burying the dead. No one had any interest in burying the dead Indians so they were left where they fell. The Crow scouts and a couple of the older troopers took the scalps from the twelve bodies Jason counted, five of which were done in by his Winchester.
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