“No,” Sue said, speaking up quickly. “He is telling the truth.”
“Have you seen this here dry gulch, Miz Scott?” Sergeant Havercost asked.
“No, Sergeant. But Ska Luta and another young Indian rescued me. The other Indian lost his life doing it. If Ska Luta says that is the place to go, that is where we should go.”
“Lieutenant?” Sergeant Havercost asked.
“By all means, Sergeant. I think we should do what Ska Luta suggests.”
“What did you say the boy’s name was?” Elmer asked.
“Ska Luta,” Sue said.
Elmer stroked his chin and stared at the Indian for a long moment. “Yes, that’s what I thought you said.”
“Well, if we’re goin’ to go to this here dry gulch, I think we should go,” Havercost said.
Lieutenant Pershing, Sergeant Havercost, Duff, Meagan, Elmer, Ska Luta, and Sue, and the four troopers all mounted. Then they rode away quickly.
On the field maps, the name of the stream they had stopped near was called Horse Shoe Creek. They rode at a rapid, but not killing pace, to the next stream, which on the map was called La Bonte Creek. Just beyond that creek, as the Indian had promised, was a dry gulch, about chest deep.
“Payne, you and Schulz take the horses into the tree line and secure them,” Sergeant Havercost said. “Then come back!” he added.
Quickly, the horses were secured and all eleven got down into the gulch in position to receive an Indian attack.
“Lieutenant, you ain’t armed,” Sergeant Havercost said. “Do you want my pistol, or my carbine?”
“I’ll take your pistol,” Pershing said.
“Miz Scott, you think you can shoot a gun?” Sergeant Havercost said.
“Yes.”
“Payne, give the lieutenant’s lady your handgun,” Havercost ordered, and the soldier complied.
“I have my own pistol, and I can shoot,” Meagan said.
“Yes, ma’am, I sort ’a figured you could,” Sergeant Havercost said.
They were down in the dry gulch where they dug themselves in to create as secure an area as they could, under the circumstances.
“If they was chasin’ you and Miz Scott, seems to me like they’d be here by now,” Sergeant Havercost said.
“They are here,” Ska Luta said. He pointed. “Look, there, on the ground at the top of the hill. They are watching us.”
“I don’t see nothin’,” Sergeant Havercost said, looking toward the top of the hill. He carved off a bit of tobacco and put it in his mouth.
“They are low to the ground, like worms,” Ska Luta said.
“The Injun’s right, Sarge. I see the sons of bitches,” Schulz said.
“Nissen, you go on down to the edge of the water, just this side, and keep a sharp eye. If you see the Injuns get mounted, come back here quick, and tell us,” Havercost said.
“All right, Sarge.”
“George, I wonder if you might share a chaw?” Elmer asked Sergeant Havercost.
Sergeant Havercost carved off a piece and handed it to Elmer, who stuck it in his mouth. Elmer had been studying Ska Luta ever since he learned his name. He was about to say something to the Indian when Nissen came running back.
“Get ready! Here they come! Injuns are comin’!” Nissen’s call was shut off by the whistle and thud of an arrow. The arrow buried into his back, and Nissen spread out, face down on the ground before him. It was a shot of nearly one hundred yards, and when the bowman saw he was successful, he let out a victory cheer.
When all were mounted, Yellow Hawk held his rifle over his head, let out a loud yell, and then slapped his legs against the sides of his horse. His horse leaped forward, reaching full gallop in a couple of strides. The mounted warriors made a grand show of it, as they started down the ridge, then splashed through the stream that separated them from the entrenched group of whites. A shower of silver bubbles was kicked up as the horses entered the stream, and a fine rain was sustained for a few seconds by the churning action of the horses’ hooves.
“Son of a bitch, look at ’em! Where’d they all come from?” Sergeant Havercost said.
The Indians didn’t attack, but rode back and forth shouting, holding their weapons over their heads. One of them shouted, “Zastee hohe anho!”4
“Were there this many that attacked you and your escort team?” Pershing asked.
“No, there weren’t nearly as many then as there are now.”
“If you ask me, we should start prayin’. There are ten of us. Now nine, but there must be forty or fifty of them,” Payne said. “What should we do?”
“The only thing we can do!” Havercost replied. “We’ll fight them, but don’t waste your ammunition. Wait until they come toward us and you are sure of your shot.”
Ska Luta stood then and shouted out loud, holding his fist in the air, “Hoka hay Hinzi Cetan, mieybo najin yunke-lo mila hanska!”
“What the hell is that Injun tellin’ ’em?” Schulz asked.
“It’s all right!” Elmer said quickly. “He just told Yellow Hawk that he would stand with, and die with, the soldiers.”
“You speak their lingo?” Sergeant Havercost asked, surprised by the fact.
“Yeah,” Elmer said. “I speak their lingo. The boy is on our side. We can trust him.”
At that moment, one of the Indians raised his rifle and fired at them. They could see the white puff of smoke, followed an instant later by the whine of the bullet as it whizzed by. One of the cavalrymen fired back.
“Hold your fire, Payne! Don’t shoot until you know you can’t miss. We can’t afford to waste ammunition.”
Trooper Davis was the next to be hit. As it so happened, Duff was looking right at him when he went down. Duff heard the sound of the bullet hitting flesh, and he saw Trooper Davis holding his hand in front of him, looking, with surprise, at the blood that filled his palm. The blood came from a hole in Davis’s chest.
“Davis!” Schulz shouted, moving to him quickly.
“Oh, shit,” Davis said. He went down on one knee. “It don’t look like I’m going to live long enough to collect that two dollars you owe me, Schultzie.”
“Hang on, Davis! Hang on!” Schulz pleaded. But he knew that it was too late. Davis, like Nissen, was dead. Within less than a minute, two of the defenders were dead.
Now several Indians broke away from the others and galloped toward the defenders in the dry gulch.
“Start shooting!” Sergeant Havercost yelled, and the others were galvanized into activity by Havercost, keeping up a brisk fire against the Indians.
One Indian broke away from the group and started toward them. Elmer fired and the Indian went down.
For the next few minutes, it was quiet, and that gave Elmer the opportunity he had been looking for to talk to Ska Luta.
“Ska Luta. That means ‘red white’ don’t it?” Elmer asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Does that mean you are a half-breed?”
“I . . . I don’t think of myself as half white,” Ska Luta replied. “I think of myself as all Shoshone.”
“Yes, well, seein’ as you was mostly raised by the Shoshone, I can see why. What part of you is white? Your mama, or your papa?”
“My father is white, but I have never seen him. And my mother was Indian, but she died as I was being born.”
“Here they come again!” Sergeant Havercost shouted, his shout interrupting the conversation between Elmer and Ska Luta. “This time the whole bunch of ’em is comin’ at once!”
The Indians came hard, galloping through the dust, shouting and whooping their war cries. They charged almost all the way up and fired from horseback, then withdrew.
Duff, Pershing, and Elmer took very careful aim, then fired. There were three Indians who went down, and three empty horses whirled and retreated, leaving their riders dead or dying on the ground behind them.
Over the next several minutes, the Indians attacked several more times, getti
ng a little closer each time, before being driven away by deadly accurate gunfire.
“Why don’t they come all the way?” Payne asked, nervously. “Seems to me like they’re just playing with us, as many of them as there are.”
“There are a lot more of them than us, that’s true,” Havercost said.
“If we can hold ’em off till dark, they’ll go away. I’ve heard that Injuns don’t like to fight at night,” Schulz said. “Somethin’ about the Great Spirit not bein’ able to find ’em in the dark.”
“Well, we don’t like to fight at night, that is true. But that doesn’t mean they will leave,” Ska Luta said. “We could wake up in the morning and find them right on top of us.”
“The boy is right,” Elmer said. “If we are going to get rid of them, we’re going to have to do it now, before it gets dark.”
“How we going to do that?” Payne asked. “Run ’em down and club ’em?”
“Tell me that . . . and we’ll both know,” Elmer said.
Again the Indians attacked, and this time both Payne and Schulz went down. Sergeant Havercost was killed on the next charge and now, Lieutenant Pershing was the only soldier remaining, and the defenders had been cut down to only six: Pershing, Duff, Meagan, Elmer, Ska Luta, and Sue. Ten of the Indians had been killed, but opposing them were at least twenty-five more.
“I figure we’ve got about one, maybe two more charges, and that’ll be it,” Elmer said.
“If we could kill Yellow Hawk, the others would leave,” Ska Luta said.
“Are you sure about that?” Lieutenant Pershing asked.
“Yes. Yellow Hawk has all the medicine. Without him, the others will return to the reservation.”
“Which one is Yellow Hawk?” Duff asked.
“That one is Yellow Hawk,” Sue said with a shudder. She pointed to an Indian that was sitting tall on his pony, holding a feathered lance, but keeping back behind the others.
“Are you sure?”
“The woman speaks the truth,” Ska Luta said. “I will call him, and challenge him to come to the front. If I shame him, perhaps he will.”
Ska Luta climbed up onto the edge of the dry gulch embankment.
“Hokahay, Hinzi Cetan, nimitawa ktelo, gusano!”
Ska Luta looked back at the others. “I told him that he is mine, and he is a worm.”
At least three of the Indians fired, and Ska Luta fell back into the ravine with a hole in his chest, and a surprised look on his face.
“I thought Yellow Hawk would be man enough to come forth,” he said in a tight, pain-filled voice. “I was wrong. I thought he was a man. But he is a coward.”
Duff had seen such wounds before, and he knew that the wound was fatal.
“Ska Luta!” Sue called, kneeling on the ground beside him. She grabbed his hand and held it tightly.
Elmer knelt beside him as well, and he put his hand on Ska Luta’s shoulder. “Ska Luta Glee Jon, mita kuye ayasin cinks,” Elmer said.
“Nituwe he?”
“Ate.”
“Ate?” Ska Luta asked, his eyes opening wide.
“Ai.”
Ska Luta grabbed Elmer’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
“After all this time, that we should meet now,” Ska Luta said.
“Hopo Naga Tanka,” Elmer said. He repeated it in English. “Go with God.”
“Ai, Hi disho.”
Ska Luta took one last gasping breath, and then he died. Tears began flowing down Sue’s cheeks, and Meagan moved over to embrace her. But it was when she looked up at Elmer, that Meagan got the biggest shock. There were tears welling in his eyes. For as long as she had known Elmer, she had never seen him exhibit such emotion.
Duff had been using a pistol, but now he walked over to Sergeant Havercost, and picked up the sergeant’s carbine.
“If Ska Luta was right, we can end this, here and now,” he said
“What are you going to do?” Lieutenant Pershing asked.
“I’m going to kill Yellow Hawk.”
Pershing shook his head. “You can’t do it from here.”
“Watch me,” Duff said.
“If that was a rifle, maybe,” Pershing said. “But he’s over five hundred yards away, and you’re using a carbine. It doesn’t have the range.”
“We’ll just have to do something about that,” Duff said. He took two of the .45 caliber rounds, and pulled the bullet away from the cartridges in both. He loaded the cartridge, without the bullet, into the breach, then closed the breach. Next, he poured the powder from the second cartridge down the barrel. After that, he dropped the bullet down as well, ramming it home with a cleaning rod.
“Well, now,” Pershing said. “I don’t think I would have thought of that, but doubling the powder load might just give you enough range.”
“If it doesn’t blow the barrel apart,” Elmer said.
“Aye, ’tis a possibility,” Duff said. “I think ’t would be best if ye dinnae stand close when I shoot.”
“Duff, no!” Meagan said. “If the barrel explodes, you could be killed.”
“Meagan, if I dinnae try, we could all be killed on the next charge of the heathens. ’Tis the only chance we have, I’m thinking.”
“He’s right, Miss Parker,” Pershing said.
With the carbine double-loaded, Duff cut a “Y” shaped branch. Then he lay down and used the “Y” as a rest for the weapon. Estimating the range, he elevated the barrel, then pulled the trigger.
The sound of the shot was much louder than normal, and a huge cloud of smoke erupted from the end of the barrel.
Running Horse was next to Yellow Hawk, looking toward the dry gulch. He saw a puff of smoke, much larger than normal. Then he heard an angry buzz and the smack of a bullet hitting flesh. He heard Yellow Hawk grunt, and looking toward him, saw dark, crimson blood pouring from a very large hole in his chest. Yellow Hawk tumbled backwards from his horse.
“Yellow Hawk!” Running Horse called.
“What happened?” one of the other Indians asked.
“Yellow Hawk is killed!” Running Horse announced.
“Running Horse, what shall we do now?” Spotted Eagle asked.
Running Horse had not assumed the position of command, but it had been thrust upon him.
“Our way on the path of war is no more,” Running Horse said. “We will return to the reservation.
When the handful of defenders saw the Indians leave, they breathed a sigh of relief.
“Come,” Lieutenant Pershing said. “Let’s get these brave men back to Fort Laramie for a decent burial.”
When the party returned to the post, everyone turned out to see them and to celebrate the final defeat of Yellow Hawk, as well as Sue’s return.
“Sue! Oh, my dear! How wonderful to see you! We thought you were dead!” Kathleen Gibbon said.
“Yes,” Colonel Gibbon said. He turned to Lieutenant Scott who, significantly, was the only one who hadn’t gone forth to welcome his wife’s safe return. “Lieutenant, did you, or did you not put in your report that you had seen your wife bludgeoned to death by an Indian?”
“You told them, didn’t you?” Scott shouted, pointing an accusing finger toward Sue. “You told them I ran away and left my men to die!”
Sue shook her head. “I have said no such thing, Clay.”
Scott suddenly realized what he had said, and sheepishly, he looked around to see all the officers, noncommissioned officers, and men. The eyes of everyone on the post were looking toward Scott with contempt.
“I—I left to get help.” Scott tried to explain. “Tell them, Sue. Tell them I left to get help. Sweetheart, you know I wouldn’t have just abandoned you and my command.” His voice was weak and pleading.
“Captain Kirby,” Colonel Gibbon said.
“Yes, sir?”
“Put this . . . officer . . . under arrest.”
Colonel Gibbon set the word “officer” apart from the rest of the sentence, to show his disdain for Scott’
s commission.
“No! For God’s sake, no!” Scott begged. “I had no choice, don’t you see? There were too many of them. You tell them, Sue. You know I was leaving for help.”
Sue looked at her husband with an expression that was a cross between pity and disgust, but she said nothing.
“Don’t you see, Sue? When I first came back, they honored me as the sole survivor of the attack. I was going to get the Medal of Honor! Do you understand that? The Medal of Honor! Now, by coming back, you have ruined it. What white woman would want to come back, after being used by the Indians? You have ruined everything. What do you think this will do to my career?”
“Lieutenant Scott, you have no career,” Colonel Gibbon said ominously.
Looking around, Meagan saw Elmer standing near Ska Luta’s body, it being separated from the soldiers’ bodies, preparatory to being taken to the Wind River Reservation. She walked over to stand beside him.
“Elmer, when you were talking to him, just before he died. What were you talking about?”
“I told him,” Elmer said.
“You told him what?”
“I told him that he was my son.”
Epilogue
Meuse-Argonne, France, October 4, 1918
The arrival of additional German troops had ended American hopes for a quick victory in the Argonne. While Montfaucon was taken, the advance proved slow and American forces were plagued by leadership and logistical issues. By October 1, the offensive had come to a halt. On October 4, Pershing ordered an assault all along the American line. This was met with ferocious resistance from the Germans with the advance measured in yards.
It was then that General John J. Pershing gave Sergeant Duff Tavish MacCallister, Jr. his orders. Bringing him back to the Château de Chaumont, Colonel George C. Marshall, who was General Pershing’s chief of staff, spoke to him.
“I want to show you a couple of photographs,” Marshall said.
“This is Colonel Fritz von Krueger.” He put the first photograph on the table for Tavish to examine.
MacCallister, the Eagles Legacy: Dry Gulch Ambush Page 23