The Stalkers

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Just what I mean … the Cheyenne will let you follow the trail they want you to follow.”

  “And … if I follow the trail they want me to?”

  “It won’t mean you finding the Cheyenne.”

  “No?”

  “It’ll mean Roman Nose closing the back-door on that trap he has planned for us.”

  Chapter 11

  Three days ago Seamus had grown weary of this chase. Up before first light every morning. Out of the saddle long after sundown. Often too weary to do much more than rub down The General with a handful of dry grass, hang the blanket off the Grimsley, and stuff a bite or two of bacon and hard-tack down his gullet. Most nights he never waited for coffee to boil. Much less having any time to talk with Liam O’Roarke.

  Donegan’s uncle was one of the first out in the pre-dawn darkness, and one of the last ones back in come twilight’s hand across the land. Never leaving much time to talk. To say what needed saying. To heal the wounds left festering through these years. All Seamus wanted was to see this hunt done as quickly as Forsyth would have it. Over and done with, only then did Seamus figure he could find the truth behind the answers Uncle Liam had reluctantly given him.

  Now nearing late afternoon on the seventh day out of Fort Wallace, 16 September, Seamus let his mind rove over the long days of Forsyth’s march as easily as his eyes roved across the brown and umber plains rolling like an endless, swelling sea-desert, and he adrift upon it with memories of that cursed ship that brought him to these shores.

  At dawn on the twelfth, O’Roarke, Beecher and Grover had led the scouts north from the banks of Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Republican River. Northwest still. They were fortunate those first few days out of Sheridan, running on to antelope and buffalo from time to time to supplement their diminishing store of beans, bacon, and bread.

  By the afternoon of the thirteenth, Sharp Grover’s eyes had found sign of a faint trail. Forsyth and Beecher determined it was better than nothing, so they put O’Roarke and Grover on the scent. The spoor of the Cheyenne led the frontiersmen across Short Nose Creek, the stream old Pierre Trudeau said the Sioux had long called the Prairie Dog.

  The next morning, the scouts continued following the wisp of a trail toward the dim, hazy line of green in the shimmering distance.

  “That’ll be the Republican itself,” Jack Stillwell piped up.

  “How you know?” Bob Smith asked caustically.

  “Heard Grover and the rest talking ’bout it during the noon stop. He and that big Irishman figured we was getting close,” Jack replied, his eyes flicking to Donegan as he said it.

  “Them two ought to know, Mr. Smith,” Seamus declared, wishing it were so. He wanted something cool to drink. Not the tepid, brackish water grown warm in his canteen, rocking as it hung from the saddle.

  Up ahead from the hoof of every animal rose a yellow dust, spinning into the late sun like golden cobwebs. Alkali enough to eat a man’s eyelids off, and as fine as baby talc.

  “I eat any more dust on the bleeming trail,” Donegan joked, “I’ll have enough to apply for territorial status meself!”

  Yet more than something cool and wet, Seamus hungered for shade. Just a little piece, where a man could close his eyes for a wink or two without having to doze off, listening to the sound of squeaking saddle leather and bit-chains, the curses of men and the complaints of balky mules.

  “What day you make it, Irishman?”

  Seamus eyed Smith, calculating. “I make it the fourteenth, me friend. Looks to be we’re stopping for a spell.”

  “Times like this, Irishman—I wonder why I wasn’t a foot soldier.”

  “Can those dogs of yours stand it better than your arse?”

  “’Bout now I’m willing to give ’em that chance!”

  Seamus dropped wearily to the ground along the bank of the Republican with the others.

  “Break out, boys! Ten minutes to water. Drink enough to go on but don’t make them mounts loggy!” McCall barked his orders.

  After patting The General a moment, Donegan pointed himself away from the rest of the group toward an inviting thicket of willow and alder. Just the spot where the horse could drink of the cool waters in the Republican’s south fork, and he could close his eyes in the shade.

  Finding his way blocked by the tangle of willow, Seamus moved on upstream a few yards and again attempted to force his way down to the bank. Frustrated and struggling, the Irishman finally studied the thick copse of alder. Willow branches had been tied together with rawhide whangs, forming a crude dome on which someone had laid drying stalks of the long swamp-grass bordering the Republican.

  He dropped to his knee and inspected the ground. A piece here and a piece there, some threads had been snagged from the wool blankets thrown over the entire structure for protection against night winds and sudden rain-showers. In a crude circle the grassy floor itself lay trampled.

  Seamus sniffed the grass. The same smell of greasy hides and smoked skins that he had learned to identify with Jim Bridger on the trek to the Crow almost two years past. Much the same smell of the Crow lodge where he had slept the winter through with Eyes Talking.

  “Liam!”

  He watched O’Roarke turn, then amble over. “I been meaning to talk with you, Seamus. Believe me, there’s much to tell——”

  “It can wait for now, Uncle.” He stepped back, pointing. “Have you a look at what your nephew found.”

  Liam immediately went to his knees, inspecting it. Then forced his way through to the bank, crouching as he searched for prints. When he came back, his grin was as big as the bells of St. Mary’s.

  He slammed young Donegan on the back. “Good work, lad! Damned good work!” Liam leveled his voice at the main bunch spreading out to find themselves bits and pieces of shade downstream.

  “Major Forsyth! Bring Beecher and Grover with you … on the double!”

  The trio trotted up, followed by a growing crowd of the interested.

  “This will just about make your day for you, Major,” Liam piped up.

  Forsyth and the rest inspected the place themselves. “Good God, O’Roarke! This can’t be that old. The grass is still fresh on top.”

  O’Roarke smiled. “Thank me nephew, Major. He found it.” He laid a huge arm round Donegan’s shoulder. “It’s him you’d be thanking.”

  Forsyth nodded to Seamus, but his eyes went back to Liam. “Tell me what this means.”

  “You’re right that it’s fresh, Major.” Grover got to his feet from his inspection of tracks and the willows. “I figure they used it last night.”

  “Last night?” Beecher roared. “You hear that, boys?”

  There erupted a spontaneous cheer from the scouts assembled at the fringe of the creekside willow.

  “Last night, Major,” Grover went on. “I figure two of ’em. How you set with that, Liam?”

  “Two of ’em it is, Grover. Appears they’re on foot. Crossed the river. Heading north.”

  “Right where we thought they’d be all the time, fellas,” Forsyth chimed in.

  “Where you was counting the bastards going, Major,” O’Roarke added.

  “These two left here at dawn today?” Forsyth asked.

  Liam nodded. “I figure so.” And he pointed to the trampled grass leading from the shelter to the riverbank. “Appears the tracks were made only this morning before the dew dried off the grass. But I’ll know for certain when we’ve been on their trail a wee bit more.”

  Forsyth grinned. “What we waiting for, gentlemen? We have a trail growing warmer all the time. What say we put some more ground behind us before the light’s gone for the day?”

  With a little grumbling from the men, McCall set the columns back to the march. The eagerness of some to find the Cheyenne was rewarded a scant two miles farther when Grover found the campsite of three mounted warriors. Ashes in the firepit proved that the three had spent last night warming themselves round this fire.

  Now the major ha
d five to track. The first pair had in all likelihood hooked up with the trio not long after leaving the Republican. The trail showed that two of the war-ponies were carrying an extra burden as the warriors pointed their noses ever north by west.

  Not long after leaving behind the small ravine where the trio had slept, smaller trails began to converge from both northeast and southwest. Across the hours of that fourteenth day of September and into the next, the scouts watched in eerie silence as the trail widened beneath the relentless summer sun, a trail taking on a life of its own.

  Wider and wider it became a well-scoured road that led up to the forks of the Republican River, fording to the north bank, then continued upstream. A large pony-herd as well as stolen cattle were being driven along with the march. Hundreds of travois poles had scarred the earth in their passing. And the unshod hooves of burdened ponies told of many families now joining their warriors.

  Some of the men began to murmur among themselves that this wide, well-beaten trail of women and children might not be so good an omen after all. Now with their families joining them, the warriors were forced to slow their march. Which meant Forsyth’s scouts would in all likelihood catch them much sooner than expected. Most sobering of all, with their families soon to be threatened by the fifty, in all probability the warriors would turn about and fight all the harder.

  Muted talk rumbled round the small fires that night. As he soaked his hard-bread in his coffee, Seamus refused to join in arguing among the scouts. He lay warming his blankets between Smith and Stillwell by the time Liam O’Roarke returned from Forsyth’s fire.

  “You ’wake, Nephew?”

  “Barely.”

  Liam quietly pushed his huge frame beneath his blanket, inching backward until he lay against Donegan, so the two would share each other’s warmth.

  “Tomorrow we march down into the valley of the Arickaree, young Seamus.”

  “Aye,” he replied groggily.

  “Grover and Beecher both been arguing with me.” Liam went on to explain quietly as the camp began to snore around them. “They said we’d be in the valley of Delaware Creek. I told ’em they was daft. It’s the Arickaree we’ll see tomorrow.”

  “Does it make any difference, Uncle?” Seamus inquired, closing his eyes at last to the spinning stars in the night-sky overhead.

  After a moment, Liam answered. “S’pose it doesn’t make a tinker’s difference, Seamus. Whatever name a man chooses to put on that stream, make no mistake of it—we’ll be in the very gut of Cheyenne hunting ground.”

  O’Roarke said no more. And within moments, Donegan was surprised to hear his uncle’s throaty snore. Just as he was closing his eyes once more and for good, he was greeted with the quiet, Southern drawl from a bedroll close by.

  “G’night, Seamus Donegan.”

  * * *

  The next morning, the scouts again took up the well-beaten trail, watching as more and more smaller trails converged with the widening road. The grumbling among some of the scouts grew in volume.

  By noon-halt of the fifteenth, a small self-appointed group approached Forsyth and Beecher, demanding an audience for their grievance. At the same coffee-fire sat Grover, O’Roarke, and Seamus Donegan.

  “Major, we’d have a word with you,” announced the spokesman as the group ground to a halt behind him.

  “Smith, isn’t it?” Forsyth asked, taking a blade of dry grass from his sun-chapped lips.

  “Yeah. Me and the others,” he began, flinging a thumb over his shoulder, “we been talking.”

  Forsyth inched off his elbow and slowly stood. “I figured you had, Smith. Last few days, in fact, you’ve made yourself a real pain in my saddle-muscles. So, what have you boys got to say?”

  “If we keep following this village, we’ll be staring some pretty nasty odds in the face, Major.”

  “I won’t argue with you there, Smith.”

  The Southerner’s eyes narrowed as if he believed he had the major to his way of things now. “There comes a time they decide to attack us with them odds, no way our bunch can make a decent show of it.”

  “I see.”

  “Happens we don’t think you do see, Major.” Smith plunged ahead. “Men like us don’t mind fighting Injuns … maybe even dying. What troubles us most is that we won’t make a good show of it. And sometimes, what matters most to a man is that in his dying…”

  “——he makes a good account of himself, Mr. Smith?” Liam O’Roarke suddenly entered the conversation.

  The Confederate’s eyes snapped down to the Irish scout. Harsh and cold blue chips lit with some inner fire. “Damn right,” he barely whispered.

  “Gentlemen,” Forsyth said as he took a step toward Smith, “the decision has been made. I’ll remind you I’m in command here. But if you care to listen, I’ll explain for all of you.”

  The major waited a moment longer while more of the civilians came to a rest around Smith’s group. He took the blade of grass from his bleeding lips.

  “You fellas are assuming no more risk than I am. Or Lieutenant Beecher. We’ll all sink or swim together. Beyond that, I remember no man among you being forced to march up to the recruiting table and give his mark in signing on. Any of you forced against your will?”

  Forsyth waited an appropriate time, his eyes slewing the bunch. Seamus found that few men would look the major in the eye.

  “For the most part, fellas—we’re here. In the heart of Cheyenne country. And since we’re here, there is less danger to going on, staying on the heels of a village that from all indications knows we are following it.”

  “I think it’s time we turned round!” Smith suddenly barked. “Turn round and head back to Wallace while we still can.”

  “Head back to Wallace?” Sergeant McCall exploded as he leaped to his feet. “The red bastards would jump our tails!”

  Smith turned on him. “Let the army do the Injun fighting!”

  “That’s what you was hired good money to do—seventy-five goddamned dollars a month, Smith!” McCall roared. “And me? A sergeant like me mucking in the same shit as you—I still draw my shitty twenty-three dollars, month in and month out.”

  The Confederate smiled. “It’s your army, McCall. I didn’t fight for Lincoln’s Union.”

  “Gentlemen.” Forsyth stepped between them as the sergeant was about to lunge for the rebel. “Most all of you served one side or the other during the war. So you’ll know in your gut just how important it is that you obey my orders at this point, deep inside enemy territory.”

  Seamus listened as more than half of the scouts grudgingly agreed.

  “I’m of a mind to release those of you who don’t want to continue,” Forsyth admitted. “But, my conscience would bother me, knowing the odds against you making it back to Wallace now that the bands appear to know we’re on their trail.”

  “Some of us take our goddamned chances of it.”

  The major wheeled on the Confederate. “You don’t have that choice, Smith! I simply won’t release a man among you … because at this point it would be as good as signing that man’s death-warrant.”

  Chapter 12

  There were none braver than he.

  Though not a chief, Roman Nose stood before his people as an acknowledged leader in war.

  In this Drying Grass Moon, he listened to the excited voices announcing the approach of Sioux riders, coming hard from the southwest.

  A strange direction, he considered. To come riding hard into this Cheyenne village along the Arickaree, skin lodges breasting against the summer sky, huge pony herds dropping fragrant offal on the surrounding prairie, watched over by young pony-boys. Three of the youths came tearing into the village carrying the news of the Sioux riders, their small, brown feet hammering pony ribs into a frantic race.

  Upstream from this Cheyenne camp stood two large villages of Brule Sioux under the bellicose Pawnee Killer. It was The Killer himself who had rubbed up against George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry one summer gone
now, when the short-grass time made the Lakota war-ponies sleek and fast. Now the Brule had joined the Cheyenne, mostly Dog Soldiers under Tall Bull and White Horse. Nearby camped a small band of Northern Arapahos who traveled in the shadow of Roman Nose.

  The bands had come one together with the rest to hunt buffalo here, where the great herds gathered in the great valley of the Plum River, what the white man called his Republican. Last moon, while celebrating their annual sundance on a tributary of the Plum called Beaver Creek, roaming scouts from the villages had reported spotting Forsyth’s plainsmen. From that point the bands quickly migrated to the northwest. Surely, the tribal leaders debated, if we have seen white scouts on our trail, close behind will come the long columns of soldiers.

  Aggravating, yes. On came the small band of white men, like a persistent badger intent on clawing his prey from its hole. Following … forever following.

  “They have entered this valley?” Roman Nose asked the first young Sioux horseman who galloped to the center of the Cheyenne camp.

  The youth nodded, breathless still. Explaining that he and a handful of others had been out for several days with a larger war-party of Sioux, they had decided to turn back two days ago, intent on returning to their village. On their way across the plains, the young warriors discovered the dust rising above Forsyth’s command in the shimmering distance beyond the dry, rolling hills.

  “You are sure these are whitemen?” Roman Nose inquired, his eyes narrowing beneath the heavy brow. “Sure these are not your buffalo hunters?”

  The hands of the young Sioux flew before him as he spoke in sign. “These are not buffalo hunters. This is a band of fighting men. All carry many weapons. On strong horses. With only four pack-animals.”

  Roman Nose glanced quickly at the swelling crowd of Cheyenne warriors gathering round him in the morning light. “How is it they did not see you?”

  The hands signed again. “We rode wide around, Roman Nose. And once out of danger, far beyond the hills where the whitemen marched, we raced back here with the news. Now we must go tell Pawnee Killer and the rest.”