The Stalkers

by Terry C. Johnston

  Only then did the Cheyenne gaze sadly into the eyes of the mulatto. “I do not know if the tall whiteman with the eyes of gray survived the hooves of all our ponies or not, Nibsi.”

  “Surely, he could not last——”

  “For in my vision I myself could not make it to that lone cottonwood on the far end of the island.”

  When Jack opened his mouth to protest, Roman Nose raised his hand for silence.

  “Nibsi, my pony obediently carried me away to the creekbank, away from the battle. There I saw myself fall from that wounded animal, bleeding myself from a terrible wound opened in my side.”

  “In your vision, we rescued you. Did we not, Roman Nose?”

  He nodded gravely. “Yes. My body did not fall into the hands of the whitemen on that sandy island.”

  Jack swallowed. He felt momentarily better. “That is good, powerful one. That you should survive and the Shahiyena go on to rub the whitemen——”

  “I died at sundown that day, Nibsi,” Roman Nose said in a hoarse whisper. “It was not an easy journey. But I traveled that road as bravely as any man.”

  For the longest time, Jack stared at the Cheyenne’s face, while Roman Nose watched the kettle roll into a boil. As he dragged it off the flames, the water slowed its tumble.

  Once again Jack found that frightening, sad countenance directed at him.

  “Nibsi must pay careful attention to what I now ask of him, for no one else will be capable of doing what Roman Nose asks.”

  Jack bobbed his head, frightened.

  “I leave it to you to find the tall, gray-eyed one who killed me. You must follow him to the ends of the rivers, beyond the tall peaks, down to the big waters if need be. Follow him—and kill him for me. For our people, kill him.”

  O’Neill swallowed hard, like trying to force down a handful of cockleburrs, the kind that clung to his woolen trousers back in Georgia. “Your medicine tells you that I will do this for Roman Nose?”

  “At the sundance, the water-spirits came to me again. I would die by the water, they told me. Flowing water. Telling me this tall man with the deadly gray eyes must die by still water.”

  “It is done, Roman Nose. I will follow the gray-eyed one, until my own medicine tells me the time has come. Until I have found the still water where the whiteman will meet his death.”

  “You are welcome to stay in my lodge this night … and all the nights to come. It is yours now that I am going far away, leaving this prairie of my birth. I will not sleep this last night, Nibsi. You may lay your head on my blankets here. They and everything else I own—all but the clothes I wear and this rifle I carry—are yours. Bury me only with my weapons of war.”

  “I will not sleep. Instead, I will see the morning come with Roman Nose,” Jack O’Neill said finally, his voice cracking with the frightening sentiment about to overwhelm him. So many years since he had felt this way about anyone. His father, torn from him by other white men. Emmy, butchered by a white thief who escaped into the night. And now Roman Nose, his new friend. Who had seen his own death coming, staring into the face of the gray-eyed killer.

  White men all.

  Jack sensed his stomach tumble, not from hunger, but from revulsion. This would be an errand he would gladly undertake. The tracking of this tall, gray-eyed killer.

  “It is good. We will see the morning come together, Nibsi,” Roman Nose replied, handing the mulatto a hunk of the buffalo-fleece and some dripping ribs from the kettle.

  “Yes, Roman Nose,” Jack replied slowly, picking his words. “I will ride beside you, great warrior—and see for myself the face of this one who will kill you.”

  * * *

  “I am cold, Starving Elk,” complained the young warrior to his Cheyenne friend riding beside him.

  “Soon enough, Little Hawk—you won’t have time to think about the cold of this night.”

  The two young Cheyennes had never gone on a pony raid, much less attacked a camp of white men. Yet both had eagerly accepted the invitation of a half-dozen older Sioux boys to sneak out under the blackness of night in search of the soldier camp that Sioux scouts had announced lay somewhere nearby. They crept on foot into the herd to catch up their ponies without a sound, for had any of the eight been caught, the punishment would be severe. The old ones wanted no foolish coup-hunters alerting the soldiers before the dawn attack was ready.

  But we are not fools, Starving Elk had told himself repeatedly as the eight had inched over hill after hill after hill, searching for the white man’s camp. We are due this look at the soldiers, before the rest of our brothers slaughter them the way surrounded buffalo are brought down, hamstrung by the wolf pack.

  One of the Sioux, the oldest of them all, had been among that group bringing the startling news of the soldiers’ approach the previous day. Appointing himself leader, Bad Tongue had led the other seven into this darkness of the rolling plains the Northern Cheyenne and Brule claimed together as hunting ground. At the top of each hill sixteen eyes strained into the murky darkness. Some placed ears on the ground while the others held their ponies quiet. No sight of the white man here. No sound to hint they were drawing close.

  Hill after hill after——

  “Starving Elk!” Bad Tongue whispered sharply in his crude, unpracticed Cheyenne. Once the older Cheyenne boy drew alongside at the crest of the hill and knelt with the others, Bad Tongue began his hands-dancing, talking in sign.

  “Yes, I can see!” Starving Elk answered with his hands, glancing at Little Hawk, his young head bobbing eagerly.

  Far off, across the starlit prairie, twinkled the faint dots of light. Perhaps a handful of fires, a dim glowing beneath the dark skies. White-man fires.

  “Let’s go close enough to see these soldiers?” Little Hawk asked of the group leader.

  Bad Tongue sneered. “Yes, my little friend. We go close enough for you to see all the soldiers.”

  “Then we ride back to wait for the others to attack at dawn,” Starving Elk added, feeling an apprehensive nibble at the inside of his belly with the look he saw on Bad Tongue’s face.

  The Sioux youngsters stood, all six as one.

  “We Lakota did not come to see the whiteman, my little friends. We came to take his horses.”

  Starving Elk swallowed hard. He had never been on a pony raid before. Not against an enemy tribe. Much less white soldiers heavily armed. Worst of all, he had not taken time to make his medicine for a pony raid. The others were looking at him now, daring him as boys will.

  Starving Elk felt his knees turning to water. “I … I go to steal the horses. My friend Little Hawk can choose if he wishes to return to camp before the attack.”

  “No! I will ride with Starving Elk. He is my cousin and I will follow him.”

  Without another word, the half-dozen Sioux were atop their barebacked ponies, unfurling blankets, some unrolling stiff pieces of rawhide brought with them. One even pulled a large hand-drum from a coyote-skin cover hung over his shoulder.

  “What is this you are doing with these things, Bad Tongue?”

  The Sioux youngster glared at his Cheyenne companions. “Make ready, little ones. Shahiyena and Lakota go now to make war-music for the whiteman!”

  Chapter 15

  “Seamus!”

  Uncle Liam’s harsh whisper shattered the warmth of his dreaming, down where he swam swathed in sleep. Donegan came up from the depths quickly, kicking at his blankets. O’Roarke knelt over him, shushing.

  “Be quiet, lad,” he warned. “Want you come with me.”

  Seamus ground knuckles into his gritty eyes, ran a tongue round the inside of his scummy mouth. Already he was hungry. With regret he remembered Forsyth’s fifty had eaten the last of their rations last night. Only salt and coffee now, until someone brought down some game.

  His eyes quickly grew accustomed to the darkness. The fire at his feet had gone to coals. Nearby Jack Stillwell lay rolled up on an elbow, watching.

  “Come with you?”
>
  O’Roarke yanked on his nephew’s arm.

  “Why?”

  “Just feel something in me gut, boy.”

  “Feel something——” Seamus started to say, then sensed his uncle stiffen as they both heard a single, distant bird whistle. A heartbeat parted a moment in time, then a second out-of-place chirp.

  “Come … or stay here.” Liam’s tone was suddenly gruff. “No matter to me now.”

  Donegan clambered to his feet, grumbling and grabbing up the heavy Spencer. Finding it damp in his hand, here beside the river barely audible, just beyond the swamp-willow and plum-bushes. Standing, he thought he heard something foreign, and looked to the east, where the first thin ribbon of gray had strung itself across the horizon.

  “’At’s right, Seamus,” O’Roarke said at his nephew’s ear. “But they won’t be coming from there, out of the east.”

  “Why not?”

  “Injuns come out of the light?” he snorted. “Thought you knew better. They’ll come from this way.”

  “Damn you, Liam O’Roarke,” Seamus snarled as he followed, skirting the fringe of camp, hurrying past black mounds against the gray sand, slipping by most of the stock scattered through Forsyth’s bivouac.

  On the far side of camp they found the major himself, just then reaching John Wilson, the picket stationed about a hundred yards to the west of their mounts grazing at the edge of camp.

  “Surprised to see you awake, Liam,” Forsyth whispered as the trio came to a halt in the darkness. “Figured you’d be sleeping in, as late as you were out last night.”

  “Didn’t sleep a wink, Major,” O’Roarke grumbled.

  “Worrying about that village you were hunting for in the dark?”

  Liam smiled. His teeth gleaming in the starlight. “Women, whiskey, or warriors—them’s the only things worth losing sleep over. Looks you been up all night yourself.”

  “How would you know that?” Forsyth demanded.

  “I’m the best damned scout you got along, Major. You’d expect me to know what was going on around me in camp.”

  Forsyth grinned. “It’s good having you along on this one, Liam.”

  “My sentiments as well, Maj——”

  “Shh! Dammit!” Wilson, the sentry, rasped, waving one arm as he knelt, his eyes straining at the horizon.

  O’Roarke yanked Donegan down beside Forsyth, all holding their breath.

  “There it is again, sir,” Wilson whispered.

  “I hear it too,” Forsyth answered.

  “Pony hooves,” Liam replied. “You see anything out there, boys?”

  “Not yet I don’t,” Seamus answered.

  “There’s one of the sonsabitches!” Wilson hollered suddenly, bolting to his feet as he threw his rifle to his shoulder.

  “Don’t shoot!” Sharp Grover hollered, sprinting for Wilson.

  By putting his chin on the ground, Donegan could just then make out the shadowy form slipping up on horseback, feathers in a spray round the warrior’s head as he emerged atop the far knoll. The sky just beginning to drain some of its black. The valley of the Arickaree drenched in bloody gray light.

  “Don’t look straight at it, Seamus,” Liam instructed. “Look to the side of something you want to see at night. You can pick out the red bastard better that way.”

  “Here come the rest of ’em!” Sharp Grover shouted as he hurried up.

  Grover and Wilson were moving like grapeshot from a cannon. Footsteps pounding the hard ground, grass and sage rustling. Then the hammering of unshod pony hooves could be heard on the chill morning breeze.

  “They’re after the horses, men!” Forsyth shouted, turning to hurl his voice back into the camp. “Turn out! The bastards are after our horses. Turn out!”

  His last few words were drowned under the onrush of the warriors. The handful of horsemen shouted and shrieked, flapping blankets and rattling dried buffalo hides, beating on a drum and blowing on eagle wingbone whistles, making noise enough for twice their number.

  “Indians!” Grover bawled, trotting straight for the enemy. “Get your asses up, boys! Indians!”

  “Turn out, men!” Beecher ordered, in their midst a heartbeat later, his boots scuffing over the sandy ground.

  “Dropped that bastard, I did!” O’Roarke shouted as he pulled his Spencer from his cheek.

  Donegan watched one shadow weave, then topple from his pony as the rest, less than ten in all, reached the far western edge of camp itself, spooking horses and mules. With the screeching warriors, the whinnying horses, and the gunshots from the pickets, the whole camp was in instant pandemonium. Every man on his feet, furiously pulling at reins, many of the scouts having tied their horses to their belts through the night rather than trusting to picket-pins. Some began stomping out the coals of their fires to kill any back-light. All of them sweeping up their Spencers laid close at hand. Hollering questions and orders and curses. Animals yanked and prodded, bucking and rearing with the sudden noise and the gunfire and the hide-rattling of the warriors, who swept off the western horizon between the river and some low, inky bluffs north of camp in a whirl of noise and the clatter of hooves.

  Heading for the middle of Forsyth’s camp.

  As they thundered into the midst of the confused scouts, the army mounts fought their handlers, dragging some of the men through the camp as they struggled to regain control. Like an oak tree, Martin Burke gripped two of the brutes, each horse fighting to tear off in different directions.

  The Confederate came hurling by, vainly trying to hold on to his horse, and was dragged through the coals of a fire for his trouble. Smith yelped, releasing his mount as he slapped at his smoldering clothing, cussing a blue streak.

  The warriors were gone as swiftly as had come the morning breeze. Their stampede a failure.

  “McCall!” Forsyth bellowed, dashing back into camp.

  The sky to the east grayed of a sudden.

  “Over here, Major!”

  “What’d they get?”

  “Two of the damn mules,” the sergeant reported breathlessly.

  “Ammunition?”

  “No, sir. Medical supplies. Some of our coffee, all our salt.”

  “No ammunition lost?”

  He shook his head, watching Beecher trot up.

  “Every man accounted for … but two of the fellas lost their mounts,” declared the lieutenant.

  Donegan watched Forsyth grind his teeth on that. “Damn those two! I gave orders to securely picket their mounts——”

  “Both headed out now on foot to fetch ’em,” Grover announced, pointing at the two.

  “You men!” Forsyth screamed, his voice inflamed with anger. “You’re fools to follow those animals!”

  “The hostiles will have your hair inside of five minutes!” Liam O’Roarke added as the two scouts shuffled back to the group like scolded schoolboys.

  “Eutsler … and what’s your name again?” Forsyth demanded.

  “Smith,” Bob North drawled.

  “By damn—I gave orders to picket your animals.”

  “Major, I think we better give the order to saddle now, sir,” Grover said, growing edgy.

  “Sharp’s right,” O’Roarke agreed as he stepped up. “You’ll want to move this bunch out bloody quick.”

  “Best hump it to the island, Major,” Grover suggested.

  “Yes, Sharp. The island seems our best bet,” Forsyth echoed, turning to gaze at the sandbar in the center of the Arickaree Fork of the Republican River, for but a moment studying the lone cottonwood on the far end as the sky paled all the more.

  “They’ll come now that it’s light,” Liam urged quietly, his eyes glancing at his young nephew.

  “Saddle up, men!” the major shouted above the clamor of man and animal. “Sergeant, have them stand to horse!”

  McCall was gone into the half-light. Seamus watched after him, then slapped the thick blanket on The General, trying to calm the big gray with one hand. Then the McClellan sadd
le. Cinch down, up and in, yanked once, then a hard nudge against The General’s belly. The horse blew, with Seamus there yanking up to secure the cinch. Down and buckled. Stirrup dropped, Spencer flung into one boot.

  The Henry kept in hand now as he turned, conscious at last of the rumbling clatter about him as the others saddled, cursing, hollering at one another, every set of eyes locked on the western horizon.

  They would not come out of the sun, but from the west. And if a man strained his ears hard enough, shut out enough of their noisy camp——

  “By God, you were right, Liam!” Forsyth loomed out of the gray light.

  “Told you when I come in last night. I never found it—but I’ll be damned if I didn’t have the feeling … my bones told me there was a village nearby.”

  “Lookee here, Major,” old Pierre Trudeau announced as he trotted out of the darkness, his reins in one hand, a long, dark object hanging from the other.

  “Damn you, Trudeau. No one gave you the right to scalp that——”

  “No one tell Pierre not to take scalp!” He shook it at arm’s length. “Sioux, it is——”

  “Get out of here with the damned thing!” Forsyth bawled. He whirled on Grover and Beecher. “We can be proud of our bunch, boys. Came out of that in good shape.”

  “They haven’t even begun with us, Major,” Liam grumbled sourly.

  “Leave it to you damned Irish to find the fun in everything!” Grover said, pounding O’Roarke on the back as Seamus laughed with them.

  “Stand to horse!” McCall shouted again.

  “You hear that?” Liam asked.

  “I do. Goddamn!” Grover answered.

  “Major! Best be moving your boys now!” Liam was pulling up his nephew’s and his own mount at the same time.

  “Sweet Mither of Christ, I ain’t heard anything like that since——”

  Then Donegan made out the rumble like distant thunder out of the west. As he looked back to the east, the far end of the sandy island grew pale in the coming light.

  “They’re coming now!” Beecher was shouting. “To the island!”

  “Cross to the island!” rose the chorus from the soldiers.

  Echoed by the civilians in tatters of voices and the hammering of butts landing on saddles.