“Damn good idea, John. Let’s do it!” Holbrook said.
“Yes, well, you gentlemen enjoy your . . . paperwork,” Scott said. “I’d better go home now. Tomorrow will be a big day for me.”
Scott started toward the door, weaving around a bit as he left.
“Damn,” Holbrook said. “He sat right here and got drunk in front of us. I hope he makes it back to his quarters all right.”
“I guess we can make allowances for it,” Pershing said. “He’s excited about getting a command.”
“It seems to me that the lad has a bit of growing up to do,” Duff suggested.
When Scott returned to his quarters he saw that Sue had already gotten everything packed for them, leaving out what she and Scott would wear for the trip.
“What is this?” Scott asked, seeing his uniform laid out on the bed.
“It’s your uniform for tomorrow.”
“You dumb bitch!” Scott shouted, picking up the uniform and throwing it at her. “We are going to be on the train tomorrow and, because I am in uniform, I will be representing the U.S. Army. I want to look my best! I may as well pull stable duty in this uniform.”
“I thought you would want to keep your best uniform for when you report in for your new assignment,” Sue said.
“Don’t think!” Scott said. “You don’t have the capacity for thinking. Now get this packed, and get out my best uniform.”
“Do you want your mess dress uniform?”
“No, I don’t want my mess dress uniform, you ignorant bitch! Are you insane? I want my best service uniform. How could you have been raised in a military family, and be so dumb?”
The next morning, Sergeant Caviness was in the stable saddling his horse when First Sergeant Cobb came out to talk to him.
“I understand that Sergeant Major Martell assigned you the job of leading the detail that will be riding guard for Lieutenant and Mrs. Scott this morning,” Cobb said.
“That’s right.”
“Sam, I know that you and Lieutenant Scott don’t get on all that well. If you’d like, I’ll talk to the Sergeant Major and get him to assign someone else.”
“Who else?” Caviness said as he continued to saddle his horse.
“I don’t know. Maybe Sergeant Havercost.”
Caviness shook his head. “Hell, George is comin’ up on bein’ fifty years old now,” Caviness said. “We don’t need to send an old man like him out on a detail like this. Besides,” Caviness stopped in mid-sentence and took a look around the stable before he continued. “I’m so happy to be getting rid of that son of a bitch that I’ll take this detail gladly.”
First Sergeant Cobb chuckled. “I should report you for that, but I can’t report you for saying the same thing I believe.” He reached out to shake Caviness’s hand. “Take care out there, Sam, and when you come back tonight, I’ll buy you a beer over at the sutler’s.”
Caviness smiled. “You’ve got a deal, Top,” he said.
Colonel Gibbon, Major Allison, Captain Kirby, and Lieutenants Pershing and Holbrook were standing out under the flagpole as Lieutenant Scott and his wife were preparing to leave. Scott’s escort consisted of Sergeant Caviness and three other mounted soldiers, plus an additional soldier to drive the buckboard which would take Lieutenant Scott and Sue to the train depot in Douglas.
The other officers’ wives were out there as well to tell Sue good-bye.
“Sue, I have a dear friend there,” Julianne Allison said. “Her name is Tamara, and she is married to Captain Boyce. Do look her up, and give her my best. If you need any help getting settled in, she’ll take care of it for you.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will, and thank you,” Sue said.
“Colonel Gibbon, with your permission, I am ready to depart this post,” Lieutenant Scott said with a salute.
“Permission granted,” Colonel Gibbon replied, returning the salute.
“Sergeant Caviness, give the order to your men,” Lieutenant Scott said.
“Detail, forward ho,” Sergeant Caviness said, and the four riders and buckboard started forward. As it passed through the gate, the gate guard came to attention, and brought his carbine up in salute.
“Watch that son of a bitch,” Holbrook said quietly to Pershing. “He’ll make the guard hold the salute as long as possible.”
As Holbrook stated, Scott waited until he had just about passed the guard before he returned the salute.
Duff and Elmer had watched the departure from the porch of the sutler’s store.
“Elmer, I get the idea that Leftenant Scott was nae too popular among the officers,” Duff said.
“I don’t know about the officers, but I know the enlisted men hated him,” Elmer replied. “I expect there will be a few beers hoisted tonight in celebration of his departure.”
Chapter Twenty-four
With the Scott detail
As the steel-rimmed wheels of the buckboard rolled across the hard-packed earth, they picked up dirt, causing a rooster tail of dust to stream out behind them. The wood of the buckboard was bleached white, and under the sun it gave off a familiar smell.
Suddenly, the buckboard lurched so badly that the occupants were very nearly tossed out. “Oh!” Sue gasped in a startled tone of voice. She grabbed on to the seat.
“Whoa, horses,” the driver called, pulling back on the reins. The team stopped and the buckboard sat there, listing sharply to the right.
“What is it, Private?” Scott asked.
“We dropped off into a hole, sir,” the driver said. “I think we have broken an axle.”
“Why, you idiot! Why did you drive through a hole?”
“Sir, I didn’t see it!”
“Are you blind?”
“It ain’t Private Castleberry’s fault, sir,” Sergeant Caviness said. Caviness had dismounted and was looking at the damage.
“What do you mean, it isn’t his fault? He’s driving the buckboard, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir, but this here hole was put here of a pure purpose, then covered up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Who would do such a thing?”
“Well, sir, Yellow Hawk would be my bet,” Caviness said.
Yellow Hawk gave the reins of his pony to another, and then climbed to the top of the hill. Lying down behind the crest of the hill so that he couldn’t be seen against the skyline, he scooted forward on his stomach, and then peered over. There, on the road below him, he saw the buckboard and the detail of army guards. There were six soldiers and one woman, and Yellow Hawk smiled. Some had criticized him because most of his attacks had been against civilians, and the one time he had attacked the army, most of them had gotten away from him. This time, nobody would escape. He returned to his horse, then remounted.
“Come,” he told the others. “This is a good day.”
“Listen,” Sergeant Caviness said.
“Listen to what?” Scott asked, irritably. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Listen,” Sergeant Caviness said again.
All three were quiet for a moment, with only the sound of the ever-present prairie wind moaning its mournful wail. Then they all heard what Caviness had heard, the distant thunder of pounding hooves.
“Get off the road and take cover, men!” Caviness said. “We’ve got company comin’, and I don’t think it’s anyone we want.”
“I’ll be giving the orders here, Sergeant!” Lieutenant Scott said.
“Yes, sir. What do we do, sir?” Caviness asked.
“We, uh, had better get off the road and take cover.”
Scott ran to the edge of the road, leaving Sue still sitting in the buckboard.
“Ma’am,” Caviness said, reaching up for her. She came to him, and Caviness helped her down.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Sue said.
By now the Indians were on them, and Caviness and the four men with him started shooting. Lieutenant Scott was unarmed because he was in transit from one army post to another. Private Castleberry wa
s unarmed because he was the driver.
“Lieutenant, here, take my pistol!” Caviness said, handing the weapon over to Lieutenant Scott.
Scott took the pistol, then ran to nearest horse and jumped on. “I’ll go for help!” he shouted as he rode away.
“Scott! You cowardly son of a bitch! Come back here you . . . unngh!” Caviness’s shout was cut short when he was hit in the head by a bullet.
“Sergeant Cav—” Castleberry shouted, then he, too, was cut down by an Indian bullet.
Now, Yellow Hawk had twenty men with him, against the three remaining soldiers. Yellow Hawk leaped over the rocks, and in and out of gullies, shouting with joy as he pursued the fight. The three soldiers fired at him, but it was as if he were impervious to their bullets. The buckboard was set afire. Yellow Hawk climbed onto it, even as it was burning, and looked at his handiwork, chortling in glee as the last soldier was put to the lance. Now that all the men were dead, he would go to each of them and touch them with his coup stick. That was because as the leader of this war party, he could count coup not only on those he had killed, personally, but on all who were killed. He began singing a victory song.
Sue had not been harmed, and she looked up to see about a dozen Indians around her.
“What are you going to do now?” Sue asked, her voice surprisingly calm.
Perhaps it was shock, the shock of the attack, of seeing all of the soldiers killed, and seeing her husband run away in cowardice that numbed her. Whatever it was, it took away all her own fear so that she asked the question, not as a person in hysterics, but almost as a person who was disinterested in the answer. If they told her they intended to kill her now, at this very moment, it would have meant nothing to her.
Yellow Hawk and the other Indians looked at each other in surprise. Never had they heard such a calm-sounding voice from one who was about to die. The fact that it was a woman’s voice made it all the more shocking to them. They began speaking to each other and they spoke in their native language so Sue could not understand what they were saying.
“Yellow Hawk, this is a woman with powerful medicine. See how she does not fear to die?”
“I think she does not know she is going to die,” Yellow Hawk said. “If she knows she is going to die, she will show fear.”
“I think she knows, but does not care,” Spotted Eagle said.
“She will show fear of me,” Yellow Hawk said. “When I raise my coup stick to strike her, you will see fear in her eyes.”
“No, I think not. I have looked closely, and I see no fear in her eyes.”
Yellow Hawk did not like the way the conversation was going. He had led the battle and he had won a great victory, but because the woman was showing no fear, the glory of his victory was being challenged.
“She does not know I am going to kill her. When she realizes that, she will show fear,” Yellow Hawk said. “This, I will prove to you.”
“How will you prove it?”
“I will kill her. Just before she is to die, you will see.”
“Yellow Hawk, if she shows no fear, I think you should let her live,” Spotted Eagle said.
“Why?”
“Because she will be a woman of much medicine. Perhaps we can use some of her medicine.”
“I will kill her, and there will be no medicine.”
“If she shows no fear, do not kill her.” This came, not from Spotted Eagle, but from Running Horse.
“I stand with Running Horse and Spotted Eagle,” Strong Bull said. “If she does not show fear of dying, do not kill her.”
“All right,” Yellow Hawk agreed. “I will prove to you that she has not overcome the fear of dying. I will raise my war club over her head. If she shows fear, I will kill her. If she shows no fear, I will let her live.”
“I believe that she will show no fear,” Running Horse said.
Yellow Hawk raised his war club, and he let out a menacing, blood-curdling yell.
Sue had seen her husband run away in fear, and she had seen the soldiers die, one by one. She was resigned to dying now, and the strange, almost numbing calmness which had come over her before, was still present. If she was to die, let this be the moment. She stared into the abyss and didn’t flinch.
“Show fear, woman,” Yellow Hawk said in English. “Show fear, for I am about to kill you!”
The brief instant Yellow Hawk held the war club over her head might have been the only moment remaining between Sue and eternity. It was a fleeting moment in the lives of those who were standing there, watching, but it was a lifetime to Sue, and she was composed to live the rest of her life in dignity.
“Show fear!” Yellow Hawk shouted, and with that shout, Sue realized that, ironically, the final victory was to be hers!
“I have beaten you, haven’t I?” she asked. She smiled at the thought.
“Look at the woman!” Running Horse said, speaking in his own language. “Look how she smiles in the teeth of death! Surely she has the greatest medicine.”
Yellow Hawk, frustrated by the turn of events, turned and, with a shout of frustration, threw his war club away. He turned back to Sue, and with a look on his red-and-yellow painted face, a look that was far more frightening than anything Sue had ever beheld, he pointed at her.
“I will let you live,” he said. “I will make you my woman.”
“I would rather you kill me than to be your woman,” Sue said.
“Would you rather be the woman of the coward who ran, and left you to die?”
“What?” Sue asked with a little gasp.
Yellow Hawk smiled. He had found a spot of vulnerability in this woman.
“That was your man, wasn’t it? The coward who ran?”
“He was afraid,” Sue said.
“Ayieee!” Yellow Hawk said, his mood considerably changed with the knowledge that he had found the woman’s weakness.
“Come,” he said to the others. “We will take this woman with us. Perhaps we can learn something of her strong medicine.”
A couple of the Indians took Sue gently, and led her to a horse, then helped her to mount. She realized then that, for some reason, she was going to be allowed to live. What she did not realize was that her actions had caused Yellow Hawk to lose face. And she did not realize what the implications of that could be.
Chapter Twenty-five
When Lieutenant Scott came through the gate of the fort, he was still at a gallop and his horse was covered with a white, briny lather.
“We were attacked! We were attacked! Yellow Hawk!” he shouted. He continued to gallop the horse all the way across the parade ground, and didn’t stop until he reached Old Bedlam. He slid down from the horse and turned it loose. The horse walked a few steps away, whickered, dropped to its knees, then rolled over onto its side.
Sergeant Havercost, who, along with several other soldiers of the fort, had been drawn away from their duties by the commotion, went out to the horse. He knelt beside the animal and put his hand over the horse’s heart.
“He’s dead,” Havercost said.
“That’s Sergeant Caviness’s horse,” First Sergeant Cobb said.
By now Colonel Gibbon had been drawn outside, along with Lieutenants Pershing and Holbrook. Duff and Elmer came out to join the others.
“What happened, Lieutenant?” Colonel Gibbon asked. “Where are the others?”
“They’re dead, Colonel. All are dead,” Scott said. He put hands over his face. “My wife is dead. I watched the savages kill her.”
“Oh, my,” Julianne Allison said. “Not sweet Sue. Oh, you poor man.”
“It was awful,” Scott said. “I fought them off as best I could.”
“How is it that you weren’t killed, too?” Captain Kirby asked.
“I don’t know,” Scott said. “I know that I killed four or five myself. The last one I killed was after I ran out of ammunition, and we were fighting hand to hand. He had his war club. I was armed only with a knife that I’d taken from the body of one o
f the savages I had killed earlier.
“Then, when I looked up, the Indians were all withdrawing.”
“Are you sure that Sergeant Caviness and your escort detail, all of them are dead?” Colonel Gibbon asked.
“Yes, sir, they are all dead,” Scott said. “Sergeant Caviness fought bravely. He was the last to die, and he gave me his horse and wished me luck on coming back to tell the story.”
“And your wife?” Captain Kirby asked.
“Yes, Sue,” Lieutenant Scott said. Again, he covered his face with his hands. “She cried out to them, begged them not to kill her, but those savage bastards . . . they aren’t human,” he said. “I can’t describe what they did to her, to my beautiful wife.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Julianne said, walking over to put her arms around him.
“Lieutenant, take some time to get yourself cleaned up, then get some rest. When you feel up to it, I want you to submit a full report on what happened.”
“Yes, sir,” Scott said.
Sue had no idea why she hadn’t been killed. Perhaps they would kill her later. She mounted the horse they brought for her, and went with the Indians, riding hard to keep up with them. She wondered that she hadn’t lost her mind out of fear, and the only way she could maintain any composure was just to block her mind to everything she had seen and experienced—all sight, sound, memory, even all thought. She made the conscious decision to just take things moment by moment, not anticipating the next moment, but just letting it happen.
When they reached an encampment, Sue was surprised to see that there were women and children here. She knew that some Indians had left the reservation. She had read about it in the newspaper, and of course, Clay had encountered them before. But she had no idea that the renegade Indians would actually have women and children with them.
They were gathered along the banks of the stream, staring at her with eyes open wide in curiosity and wonder. She vowed to herself that she would show them no more fear than she had shown the one who had raised his war club to her. She may be killed, but she would not beg for her life. She would not let them see her fear.
MacCallister, the Eagles Legacy: Dry Gulch Ambush Page 19