Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877 tp-12

by Terry C. Johnston

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed on Donegan, then peered over the scout’s shoulder at those two oncoming companies who would bolster his command. “We’re soldiers, Mr. Donegan. So we’ll do what the general orders.”

  Seamus’s eyes smarted as he said, “Very good, Major.”

  “You’re the one I heard was a sergeant in the Second Cavalry during the Rebellion? Army of the Potomac?”

  “Yes—but that was a long time ago.”

  “I’ve always figured a soldier once, a soldier you’ll always be, Mr. Donegan.” Casey tapped the Winchester, then gazed into the Irishman’s eyes. “You any good with that repeater?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “You feel like leading out this morning, Sergeant Donegan?”

  Seamus took a deep breath, looking along the slope they would be traversing, sage and cedar puffing out of the deep snow, broken ground cut by a hundred erosion scars. “When it comes time to charge, there’s no better place to be than at the point, Major.”

  “Very good. Sergeant! Form up the men and follow the scout. I’ll wager he’ll see us through this Cakewalk if anyone can.”

  The young sergeant nodded. “Lead on, Mr. Donegan.”

  Starting away on foot, cutting sharply to the left, Seamus heard Casey barking orders to the men who were following him into hell. After ten yards the first snow kicked up in front of him as a bullet thudded into the frozen ground with a muffled thump. Donegan quickly glanced over his shoulder—finding the men with Butler and McDonald double-timing it now. Casey was waving them on as his own A Company trudged past the captain in the deep snow that had drifted to at least three feet in places with the incessant wind.

  Overhead the sky continued lowering, clouds beginning to hover right over the heights where the warriors leaped back and forth, taunting the soldiers. Seamus was getting close enough to see that they had started several fires up there on the top of the ridge, black smudges of smoke slowly rising into the heavy air as the snow continued to come down all the harder. Several warriors hunkered around each fire, warming hands and feet, then rose to return to the firing line.

  Behind him Seamus heard the soldiers grunting, laboring, struggling as much as he in the cold, dry air. One of his buffalo moccasins slipped. Donegan went down hard. His knee cried out in pain. Standing the repeater under him, he got back to his feet painfully and quickly rubbed the knee.

  “You think we got us a chance at this?”

  Turning, Seamus found an old corporal at his shoulder. “As much a chance as we can make of it.”

  The graybeard grinned a moment. “That’s the spirit. Something these young sprouts don’t have. You was cavalry, they say?”

  “Yep.” They set off again in front of the skirmish line.

  “I was foot. I fit all the way from Manassas to Appomattox Wood. Always been foot.” Then the old corporal turned aside to help one of the other men struggle back to his feet in the clumsy leggings and rubber-coated arctic boots. “Union man, I take it.”

  “Right again.”

  “I seen worse’n this, mister,” the old soldier sighed. “Atlanta. Now, that was a seige.”

  “Atlanta,” Seamus huffed, having heard all the stories. His chest was starting to burn as they struggled their way along the jagged face of the ridge.

  “Right up under their goddamned gun walls,” the soldier continued. “So close we could hear their gun crews talking that Johnny talk. Day after goddamned day, never knowing what day it would be my turn to get blown asshole from cock-bag with their canister and grape. So we just huddled in there and some of the boys did a little praying too. Best thing to do until they ordered us to move out. A little praying.”

  “It help?” Seamus asked, hoping.

  After a moment of raspy breathing the old soldier admitted, “No. Them what prayed got blowed to brains and bone just the same as the rest of us. It … it was like God wasn’t on duty them days of war. Not for four goddamned long, bloody years … God wasn’t listening to no man’s prayers. So I give up praying. No one was listening anyhow.”

  Bullets slapped off the snowy tops of some loose sandstone shale nearby, ricocheting with a whine.

  “Now might be a fine time for you to try again,” Seamus suggested.

  The old soldier grabbed his elbow suddenly, looked into Donegan’s eyes, and quickly licked his tobacco-stained lower lip with a leathery-looking tongue. “I just might do that, stranger. Just might see if God’s back on duty for us ol’ soldiers … like you an’ me.”

  Minutes ago Wooden Leg had spotted his sister among the rest of the captives as they’d been herded away from the soldiers’ camp and brought to the base of the low plateau where the Bear Coat had uncovered his two wagon guns.

  His heart leaped.

  At least the ve-ho-e hadn’t killed them the moment this fight had started. Such had been Wooden Leg’s greatest fear.

  But his second-greatest fear was that once the warriors had the soldiers completely surrounded and under siege, the white men would use the women and children to bargain with—perhaps even kill right before the warriors’ eyes as the red hoop grew tighter and tighter around the Bear Coat’s men.

  “Wooden Leg!” Black Hawk yelled. “Come with us! We’re following Big Crow to the top of the ridge to the east!”

  He looked over Black Hawk’s shoulder, in the direction where more and more warriors were flowing now as some gray, dull light seeped along the edges of that cold dawn sky. “I want to stay where I can watch Crooked Nose Woman.”

  Yellow Weasel loped up to say, “You can do nothing here!”

  Wooden Leg felt frantic, watching the way the soldiers ducked the incoming flights of arrows, the way a stray bullet now and then sang off the iron of the wagon guns, splintered a wheel, how his sister huddled her body over that of a child with each new volley from the attacking warriors. How he wished that they could rush down and rescue the captives … wishing at least that he could stand before the hundreds of other warriors and convince them that their arrows and bullets might well kill the women and children.

  He cried, “Do you see how we are endangering our own people? I must find a way to slip in there and—”

  “The best that you can do to help your sister is to fight with us this day,” Black Hawk replied with an edge to his words, sounding as one would correct a younger brother. “Crooked Nose Woman knows you are a warrior, that you will be fighting to free her and the others. There is nothing to be done here.”

  Yellow Weasel said, “Look, Wooden Leg! See how the soldiers are starting to walk along the bottom of the hill. Let’s follow Big Crow and the rest to stop them from slipping around behind us!”

  At that moment the Tse-tsehese war chief named Big Crow stopped and turned so suddenly that the long feathered trailer on his warbonnet slurred across the crusty snow like a sidewinder snake.

  “Ohmeseheso!” he shouted. “Maybe we can even circle behind them!”

  Beaver Claws cried out, “And sneak up behind those ve-ho-e in their silly buffalo coats and leggings!”

  “I would like to kill some soldiers today!” Wooden Leg admitted with a roar. “They took my sister, and the little ones—and now they deserve to die!”

  “Quick or slow, it does not matter to me!” boasted Wolf Tooth. “Just as long as we spill ve-ho-e blood!”

  “Hurry, Tse-tsehese!” squalled Big Crow. “We must be over there on top of that ridge before the soldiers ever get close to the foot of Belly Butte!”

  “Look!” warned Leff-Handed Wolf. “Even more ve-ho-e are coming!”

  Wooden Leg turned to peer down into the valley, his eyes narrowing with unmitigated hate. “Have faith, Uncle! No matter how many the Bear Coat sends against us—not one of the soldiers will reach the top of these hills alive!”

  * Blood Song, vol. 8, The Plainsmen Series.

  Chapter 32

  8 January 1877

  “Captain Butler!” James Casey called out as the men of C Company struggl
ed up behind their commander. “Good to have you pitch in with us!”

  Edmond Butler saluted. “Looks like we’ve been handed the yeoman’s work of it today, Major.”

  “I’ll say,” Casey replied, turning back to watch the last company approaching. “C’mon, Mr. McDonald—bring your doughboys up here so mine won’t get all the fun!”

  “Your … orders … Major?” Robert McDonald huffed as he lumbered to a halt a good twenty yards ahead of his D Company.

  Casey slapped a hand against McDonald’s shoulder, sending up a small eruption of dry snow collected on the buffalo fur. “Lieutenant, deploy your men in light skirmish order on my right.”

  “Yes, sir,” McDonald responded. “How far to the right do you need us to deploy, Major?”

  For a moment Casey studied the tall volcanic butte. “Hang your right flank in the air opposite that highest point.”

  “The bastards are spreading out clean across the high ground,” Butler grumbled thick as peat as they watched McDonald move off, waving and ordering his men to the right of the increasingly rugged slope.

  Donegan’s ears immediately perked at the sound of that voice clearly come from the Emerald Isle. He started to inch his way over toward the ground where the two officers stood—getting himself a good, close look at the forty-nine-year-old Butler.

  “And that means they’re spreading us too damned thin to boot,” Casey replied, turning back to Butler. Then he spoke quietly, almost in confidence. “Look, Captain—I’ve saved the toughest job for you. I know what you’re capable of doing in the field. You see, if those reds keep massing on our left, they could damn well roll right around us.”

  “You want me on the left flank, Major?”

  Casey nodded.

  Butler straightened, his lips grim with determination as he said, “They won’t get around us, sir. Count on that.”

  Casey stepped back, saluted. “Good to have your men in this with me.”

  “Very good, Major,” Butler replied. “We all want a piece of it today.”

  “I’ve waited long enough myself,” Casey declared. “Deploy your company, then send word back to me should you find any in your outfit running low on ammunition.”

  Edmond Butler turned away to shout his orders, commands echoed down the line through the lieutenant, and finally to the old noncoms, who did their best to keep the trembling soldiers lined up as they started across the broken ground, old files struggling to keep every man’s spirits up despite the cold, despite the bulky clothing that hampered a man’s movements, despite the arrows that strayed far enough to land among them in the snow.

  By the time McDonald was deployed on Casey’s right, and Butler had spread his men left toward the base of a high timbered knoll south of the steep volcanic butte, the entire front line of battle now extended for more than a thousand yards, a thin blue wall running from the Tongue River on the north, down along snowy ridges to the steep hillsides above Butler, where it seemed more and more of the warriors were beginning to flock.

  From these heights the Cheyenne and Sioux could easily rush down and sweep around behind Casey’s entire battalion—all three companies—therein threatening the gun positions, the supply-wagon corral, even Nelson A. Miles’s escape route north … back to the Tongue River Cantonment.

  You’re a bleeming fool! Seamus thought to himself as he started forward, easing over toward Butler’s company. Miles was far from even considering a retreat. No matter that the soldiers were facing odds better than three to one. No matter that they were all but out of rations. Why even worry that they were more than a hundred miles from their base?

  Miles simply wasn’t the sort of man to tuck tail and run.

  No matter that he might very well lose half his men, hurling them against these steep, icy slopes.

  Back and forth the warriors danced in and out of the thickening snow along the ridgetops. Gray smoke hung heavy, sleepy, refusing to rise from the many fires the Indians fed. At times as the soldiers stumbled and trudged across the slowly rising ground from the meadow, the warriors would huddle around their fires for a few minutes, then return to the edge of the bluffs in rotation. But as soon as three companies reached the sharp-sided coulee cutting the base of the bluffs, all the warriors suddenly bristled atop the slopes together.

  “How deep is that snow down there?” someone growled behind Donegan as the first of them reached the lip of the ravine.*

  “Can’t be much deeper’n any of this,” Seamus said as he started easing himself over the side.

  The racket from the hilltops was growing, as if those heavy snow clouds rolling in amplified the shrieks and screeching from the warriors.

  “There water down there?” one of the soldiers asked, down on his hands and knees at the lip of the ravine as Donegan slid, stumbled to the bottom.

  “How deep is it?” Casey asked, suddenly appearing at the edge of the ravine.

  Overhead more bullets whined. Once more Seamus was thankful that the Indians were shooting downhill—which caused most of their shots to sail harmlessly over the soldiers.

  Hammering down one of his boots encased inside the thick buffalo-hide outer moccasin, Donegan found the snow deep enough to spread out the long tails of his buffalo coat as he sank up to his crotch.

  “’Bout this deep, Major!”

  “Any water?”

  Wagging his head, Seamus answered, “None—it’s all froze. Bring ’em on!”

  In a heartbeat Casey had turned his horse at the lip of the ravine above the Irishman, signaling, calling out, moving his men up through the sagebrush and tall grass that tripped the men, snagged the long tails of their heavy coats. As Donegan began to wade through the snow, inching across the narrow ravine bottom, then started to clamber his way up the far side, the soldiers dropped over the north side by the dozens. Sliding, slipping, spilling into the deep snow, standing once more to dust ice from their Long Tom Springfields, holding their rifles overhead to push ahead the way a man would wade through water in a waist-deep stream.

  Hurtling themselves against the far side, most slipped more times than not against the ice-slickened, snowy side. Then Donegan was at the top, turning, crouching low as he barked down at those right below him.

  “Use your rifle butts, fellas!” he called out to them, first to one side, then the other, along the ravine wall. “Jab yourself a foothold,” and he started to pantomime in the air with his own Winchester. “Jab yourself some handholds in the side.”

  By the dozens they cocked their rifles back over their shoulders, lunging forward violently against the frozen ground, the rifle butts sinking into the hard, unforgiving Montana soil. Foot by foot by foot they carved tiny niches into the side of the ravine for their hands, for their frozen toes encased within the clumsy arctics they wore. Leaning down to offer an empty hand, Seamus pulled the first man over the top.

  Then as the warriors above them screamed louder, that soldier turned round, his back to the enemy on the ridge, crouching down as bullets whined past them. He too pulled up another soldier. Two became four, and those four grew to eight, hands going down, men grunting, scrambling, slipping and falling, rising to climb again in those tiny footholds on the side of that dry-bottomed ravine. Sixteen became thirty-two.

  Hands rose, gripped by hands coming down … hauling, straining, cursing their way out.

  Then Casey and Butler were down in the snow, McDonald heaving himself over the side, tripping and sliding on his back to the bottom like a child on a wooden toboggan. A pair of soldiers helped the lieutenant to his feet, and together they wobbled to the far side—the last of the battalion to close the file.

  Ten or more at a time these clambered up the side, pulled over the lip by their comrades as the shrieks from the hilltops grew more strident. The snow was growing thick as Casey snapped a look left and right.

  “Form up! Form up!”

  Officers and noncoms barked commands as the three companies deployed themselves once more. Every now and
then a bullet sang among them, causing the soldiers to flinch, some to duck aside. A stray arrow might hiss into the snow and sage in front of them.

  It made Seamus shudder as the battalion started forward again. Those arrows landing in front of them now meant one thing: in a matter of moments, in no more than a few steps, these soldiers would be within range of the enemy’s deadliest weapons. They had reached the foot of the slopes that would carry them right into the arms of the enemy.

  To be hit with a bullet was one thing, Donegan brooded as he lunged and stumbled clumsily through the deep, drifted snow while the earth tilted slowly toward the sky. Quick and clean a bullet was—and if it hit a bone, that arm or leg was sure to come off. Although he did remember how Major Sandy Forsyth had refused amputation after nine long, hot days on a sandy scut of ground in a nameless fork of a high-plains river.

  Oh, how the sawbones were kept busy in the Civil War, he remembered—for there was simply no repairing such a wound. Just take the goddamned arm or leg off and heave it aside, into the pile of arms and legs, feet and hands, outside the surgeons’ tent. Bloody butchers leaving all those poor men crippled.

  But an arrow—how silent, how clean as it sank inside a man’s chest, his back, and all the worse yet: his soft gut. Blood and juices softening the sinew that held the long iron point to the painted shaft the warrior had grooved so that the victim bled internally. And once the sinew was soft enough, the shaft was easily yanked free of the deep wound, leaving the deadly chunk of iron deep inside. A man died slow, miserably, tortured.

  Not the clean death of a bullet wound.

  By the time he had stumbled and fallen, and somehow trudged another twenty yards toward a low clump of cedar, Donegan could almost begin to make out the painted faces above them. Close enough to see eyes, and the bright paints, close enough to tell feathers from hair as the wind came up and the thickening snow began to dance.

  This suddenly had the makings of no ordinary snowfall. Now the heady gusts were whipping the falling flakes sideways, spinning devilishly every which way at a man, blinding him for a moment as the wind slipped past the eyeholes he had cut himself in a scrap of wool blanket. Snow crusted on his eyelashes, hardening with the frost of his breath suddenly freezing in the supercold air.