So Little Time

by Al Lacy

  The wives and children of the fort’s officers were standing close by, huddled together with deep concern showing on their faces.

  Lamont cleared his throat and ran his eyes over the faces of his stalwart men. “As you know, I’ve been trying to get more Gatling guns for this fort. Washington has promised them, but so far, they have not been delivered by rail as I’ve been expecting. It is Captain Moore’s turn to take our one and only Gatling on the next patrol. I’m hoping that soon every patrol unit will have one.”

  Captain Lance Moore raised his hand.

  “Yes, Captain?” said Lamont.

  “Sir, are we to concentrate our patrols on the areas where the farmers have been hit, rather than sticking to the routes we’ve been following?”

  “Let’s stay with the routes I laid out,” said the colonel. “If we spread the patrols out to cover each of the areas where the Cheyenne have attacked in the past eight days, they’ll be too far apart from each other. I want all patrols to be close enough together that if one gets attacked, there’ll be another patrol close by who can join them.”

  The seven other captains exchanged glances, nodding their agreement with the colonel.

  “All right, men,” said Lamont. “Get a good breakfast down and we’ll assemble on the parade in one hour.”

  As the troops broke rank and hurried in the direction of the mess hall, the colonel turned to Torvall and Chaffee. “You gentlemen are invited to eat breakfast with us.”

  Both men smiled.

  “We’ll just take you up on that, Colonel,” said Chaffee.

  “And you will see to Mr. Slater’s burial, sir?” said Torvall.

  “Yes, and that of his family. We’ll bury them together on his farm. If there is livestock that needs caring for out there along with his horse, I will see to it that they are taken to a neighboring farmer.”

  Precisely an hour later, Colonel Ward Lamont stood before his mounted troops as the morning sun’s heat brooded over the fort. Lamont gave them final instructions and saluted them as the patrols began filing out the gate one by one, each taking its assigned route.

  Captain Jess Adams and Lieutenant Bart Springer sat on their horses in front of the unit of steely-eyed men. There were twelve men in the unit, including officers Adams and Springer.

  Adams mopped his brow with a bandanna and watched the first three units moving out ahead of him. Number three was led by Captain Lance Moore. Adams focused on the wagon at the rear of Moore’s column that carried the Gatling gun, and longed for one—considering the circumstances. When Moore’s patrol was out of the gate, Adams turned around in his saddle and set his eyes on his sweaty troopers. The dark blue shirts of their government issue uniforms were plastered to their chests and backs.

  Raising his hand, Captain Adams gave the signal to move out. “Forward, ho!” He led his troops through the gate and onto the hot prairie, riding two by two. They took a slightly different course northward from that of Moore’s unit.

  Immediately, every trooper’s squinted eyes were moving back and forth across the sun-bleached land, alert for any sign of hostiles. A hot wind was beginning to blow, adding to the discomfort. After about twenty minutes, Captain Lance Moore’s unit passed out of sight over a hill off to the right.

  The morning wore on.

  The creak of saddle leather, the clink of bit chains, the occasional whicker of a horse, and the shrill barking of prairie dogs peering from their holes were the only sounds to break the stillness. From time to time, a flock of blackbirds, disturbed by their passage, whirred out of bushes to wheel through the sky in dark, erratic flight. Wind-whipped buffalo grass and sagebrush dotted the prairie, and the ground was crisscrossed in many places by grass-bottomed gulches, ravines, and an occasional stream of water that wound through the land.

  It was coming up on eleven o’clock when they topped a gentle rise. Adams spotted a creek in a low spot off to their right. Since leaving the fort, there had been little conversation among the troopers. Adams said to Lieutenant Springer, “Let’s go down there to the creek and let the horses get a good drink.”

  Springer grinned. “The way we’ve all been hitting our canteens, I’m sure they need filling, anyhow.”

  Moments later, the troopers dismounted at the creek side and led their horses to the water, each man keeping an eye on the surrounding area. When that was done, the horses were led away from the bank, and the men knelt down and began filling their canteens.

  Among the troopers were Privates Matt Koehn and Ernie Widner, who had arrived three days ago with several other men who had been transferred to Fort Steele from Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. While dipping their canteens into the water, both men noted the sergeant who knelt beside them.

  Koehn elbowed Widner. “Let’s talk to him about it.”

  The sergeant heard his words, looked at them, and said, “Talk to me about what?”

  “Well, Sergeant Reardon,” replied Matt Koehn, “ever since we arrived at Fort Steele, we’ve had at least a dozen men tell us about you.”

  “What about me?” asked Sergeant McClain Reardon.

  “They’ve told us about your prowess in fighting Indians,” said Ernie Widner. “They say you’ve distinguished yourself time and time again during battle. Corporal Max Noland told us how you saved his life back in March when you were fighting Chief Black Hawk’s warriors over by Medicine Bow Peak. You had to take on three warriors at one time to do it.”

  “Yeah,” said Koehn, “and Sergeant Jake Ridgeway told us how you risked your life to save Captain Adams’s life in a battle with a Blackfoot war party up by South Pass City last October. We’d just like to know more about you.”

  A familiar voice from behind said, “I can tell you firsthand about that battle by South Pass City.”

  All three turned to see Captain Jess Adams pulling the cork from his canteen. Kneeling, he dipped the canteen under the surface of the water, smiled at Reardon, then looked at the other two. “I’d be a dead man if it weren’t for Sergeant Reardon’s raw courage. We were fighting the Blackfoot hand to hand in a rocky gulch. Four warriors were closing in on me, no doubt because they saw my rank. There was dust and gun smoke everywhere. I had one bullet left in my revolver. Just as I took a step back and fired at the Indian who was closest to me, I stumbled over a rock and fell. The slug missed the Indian.

  “Sergeant Reardon had already seen my predicament and was coming on the run. He fired and dropped one of them, then two of them turned on him while the other one raised his tomahawk to finish me off. Reardon fired between the two who were coming after him and dropped the one that was after me and then another, but also found that he had fired his last shot. He had to take on the fourth warrior barehanded. The warrior tried his best to kill Reardon with his tomahawk, but soon found out he was up against a real man. I won’t go into the details, but the sergeant was cut twice with the tomahawk: once on the upper left arm and the second time on his ribs. But as you can see, he’s still here. The Indian isn’t. I wouldn’t be here either, if it hadn’t been for this brave man.”

  McClain’s face tinted. “Aw, Captain, you’d have taken that last one out if I hadn’t.”

  Adams lifted his canteen, took a long swallow, then dipped it back into the stream. “I’d like to believe that, Sergeant, but I don’t. He was a fierce one and very muscular. He’d have killed me. I owe my life to you.”

  “Like I said, Sergeant,” spoke up Matt Koehn, “we’d like to know more about you.”

  “I’ll tell you this much,” interjected Captain Adams, “because of this man’s courage under fire and his excellent ability in fighting Indians, he went from private to corporal in his first six months at Fort Steele, and was made sergeant about a year later. If enlisted men could become officers today like they did in the Civil War, he’d be a general by now—even though he’s only twenty-five.”

  Embarrassed, McClain shook his head.

  “Another thing,” said Adams, “he also assists the fort chaplain
with church services on Sundays.”

  “What do you do, Sergeant?” asked Matt Koehn.

  “Oh, what ever Chaplain Fremont needs or wants. Often, I teach Sunday school and he preaches.”

  “And when the chaplain gets sick or has to be away, he even preaches,” said Adams.

  “I’m impressed,” said Koehn.

  “Me, too,” said Ernie Widner. “How long have you been at Fort Steele, Sergeant?”

  “Be three years next month.”

  “Got a girl somewhere?”

  “Not really. Had a few I dated at home, but around here, there aren’t any.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Blue Springs, Missouri.”

  “Family live there?”

  “Mm-hmm. My mother and two sisters. Actually, I was born on a farm near Bowling Green, Virginia. When I was thirteen, my father died. Right after that, we moved to Blue Springs to be near my mother’s relatives, who had lived there most of their lives.”

  “So where did you join the army?” asked Widner.

  “At Fort Larned, Kansas. After graduating from high school, I decided I wanted some adventure in my life, so I joined the army. I was transferred to Fort Steele some four years later. I like it here. I really like serving under Colonel Lamont. I’m glad to be in Captain Adams’s patrol unit, and as a Christian, I am especially happy to be assisting Chaplain Fremont.”

  Koehn chuckled. “You sound like a satisfied man. Are you planning on making the army your lifetime career?”

  McClain shrugged. “Whatever the Lord wants for me. There might be something else down the line, but for now I know I’m where I’m supposed to be and doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  “You mentioned how you like serving under Colonel Lamont, Sergeant,” said Widner. “We were told upon arriving at Fort Steele that he is planning on retiring soon. What do you think of that?”

  “Well, the colonel is a Christian, too, and if the Lord is leading him to do something else, that’s what he ought to do.”

  “Isn’t forty-nine pretty young for a fort commandant to retire?” asked Matt Koehn.

  “It is. Most of them, as you know, usually stay at it until they are about sixty. But, as I said, if the Lord is leading him to retire, that’s what he ought to do.”

  “Well, men,” said Captain Adams, “we’d better mount up and keep moving.”

  By midafternoon, the sun was a burning brand in the brassy blue sky as a band of mounted Cheyenne Indians pulled out of a draw and paused on the edge, looking across a sweeping valley. In the distance to the south, they could see the town the white men called Rawlins.

  Chief Black Hawk sat on his pinto proudly with the hot wind plucking at the feathers of his large headdress. His dark eyes were like bits of stone as he pointed to a small farmhouse about a half mile eastward. “That is next one.”

  The warriors studied the scene. Behind the house were three outbuildings and a corral that surrounded a barn. Atop the barn were two men, just finishing the roof.

  Black Hawk’s twenty-year-old son moved his pinto up beside him. “That farmer and his family settled there many moons ago, my father. They have worked hard to put up their buildings, and it looks like they are almost done with the barn.”

  Black Hawk turned his head and looked at his son, scowling. “Do I hear a weak tone in voice of Sky Eagle? Is he thinking that we should not kill the paleface farmer and his family?”

  Sky Eagle swallowed hard under the frown of his father. “Ah … I am only thinking that there must come a time when we cease our war with the white men, my father. They come from the East like snowflakes come in the winter. They will soon be greater in number than the Cheyenne and our brother tribes. Should we not seek to live with them in peace?”

  While the other warriors looked on silently, Black Hawk slowly ran his gaze over the sun-washed land around him. He loved the prairie, the mountains, and the forests which had been home to his ancestors from time immemorial. “Sky Eagle speaks of hard work the white men have done to put up their buildings. Yes. They have worked hard cutting down trees in our mountains to make wood for house and buildings. Like all white men, they come here, settle on Indian land, cut down our trees, kill our deer and buffalo, expect us to welcome them.”

  Sky Eagle noted the cold, dark shine of his father’s eyes, the thin, vicious trap of his mouth, and the forbidding hawk-like features of his face as he hissed, “We do not welcome them, Sky Eagle! The paleface invaders come to steal what not belong to them! Because in mind of white men Indian is ignorant, and he does not put the land to same use as whites, so they say we not deserve to live on this land. They have right to take it away from us.”

  The chief’s features grew even darker than normal. His breath was heated and coming in short puffs. “They want our land, we bury them in it! There are two more farms beyond hills behind this one. We also kill those invaders today!”

  As Black Hawk led his warriors toward the farm before them, their horses’ hooves stirred clouds of dust that were instantly whipped away by the hot wind.

  As Captain Jess Adams led his men over the rolling hills and flat spaces of south central Wyoming Territory, the hot afternoon dragged on. The windswept plains were ominously still.

  Plagued by a growing feeling of uneasiness, Sergeant McClain Reardon left the corporal who was riding beside him and moved his horse up beside the unit leader.

  “Yes, Sergeant?” said Adams.

  “Sir, I’ve been in this Indian fighting business long enough to have instincts honed pretty sharp.”

  “You have. What’s the matter?”

  “Well, sir, with the Cheyenne on the warpath for sure, I just—well, I just have a feeling that things are too quiet. Something is in the air.”

  The captain was about to comment when suddenly they heard a sudden volley of guns roaring rapidly like a string of giant firecrackers amid the familiar whoops and screeches of wild Indians.

  Every man in the patrol tensed up as their leader pointed due north. “The fighting is going on just over that next rise, Sergeant. You were right. Things were too quiet.”

  Adams gave the command for his men to follow and led them toward the sounds of battle.

  10

  WHEN CAPTAIN JESS ADAMS AND HIS MEN topped the rise in a cloud of dust, they saw a battle going on between an army unit and a Cheyenne war party in a farmer’s yard.

  Adams signaled for his men to stop, and as they sat their horses to take stock of the situation, they saw amid the clouds of gun smoke that the Cheyenne warriors were in breechclout leggings, wearing shirts whose tails dangled against their thighs. All of them were wielding repeater rifles, their legs curved against the bare flanks of their pintos.

  Lieutenant Bart Springer said, “Sir, that’s Captain Lance Moore’s outfit down there. A couple of his men are jumping onto the wagon to use the Gatling.”

  “Yes,” said Adams. “I see two dead men sprawled on the roof of the barn, and a woman and two children lying on the ground by the front porch of the house. No doubt they’re all dead. Captain Moore must have caught them in the act of killing the farmers. The battle is just getting started. Let’s go!”

  As they galloped down the slope toward the farmyard, the Gatling gun cut loose. Immediately warriors began falling from their horses, surprised by the rapid-firing, deep-throated Gatling.

  The Cheyenne leader noticed the second cavalry unit charging down the hill. He wheeled his pinto about and signaled for his remaining warriors to follow him. They quickly galloped away and disappeared over a grassy hill. Riderless pintos followed them, manes flying in the wind.

  When Adams and his men came to a halt in the front yard, Captain Lance Moore hurried up. “Thanks for joining the fight!”

  “We didn’t get to help, but we would have been in the thick of it in a few more seconds,” said Adams. He ran his gaze over the area and saw five Indians on the ground, along with two uniformed men who were each being attended to by t
wo troopers. Other troopers were moving among the fallen Indians.

  While Adams and his men were dismounting, Moore sent three troopers to see about the men who lay on the barn roof.

  When Captain Adams moved up to the bodies of the woman and children who lay near the front porch, he groaned. Turning to Moore, he said, “You must’ve come along just as the Indians were shooting these people down.”

  “Exactly,” said Moore, using a bandanna to mop perspiration from his brow. “Wish we could have arrived sooner. One bunch of them was cutting down the woman and children, while another bunch was shooting the two men on the roof.”

  Adams nodded. “I knew you couldn’t have been here long when I saw your men use the Gatling. Do you know which Cheyenne village the war party was from?”

  “I sure do. Their leader was Chief Black Hawk.”

  Adams gritted his teeth. “Black Hawk. Mmm. He’s probably the fiercest of all the hostile chiefs of any tribe in Wyoming Territory.”

  “I agree,” said Moore. “He’s the worst.”

  The smell of dust and gunpowder still clung to the hot air.

  Sergeant McClain Reardon was standing close by, listening to the captains talking, when his line of sight went to Moore’s troopers who were moving among the fallen Indians. Lieutenant Carl Pierson was standing over a bleeding Cheyenne. The Indian was still alive, clutching the wound in his right shoulder.

  McClain stiffened when he saw Pierson grinning viciously at the Indian while he pulled his revolver from its holster.

  “No!” shouted McClain while running toward Pierson. “Don’t do that! Don’t shoot him!” As McClain drew up, Pierson snapped the hammer back and aimed it at the young warrior’s face.

  “I said don’t do that!” said McClain, noting the blood flowing between the Indian’s fingers as he clutched the wound. He also noted that the warrior’s feathered rifle lay on the ground, out of his reach.