Oushata Massacre

by Robert Vaughan

  Oushata Massacre

  Arrow and Saber Book 1

  Robert Vaughan

  Oushata Massacre

  Arrow and Saber Book I

  Robert Vaughan

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2018 (as revised) Robert Vaughan

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Ave

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-64119-387-0

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Glossary

  A Look at Cavanaugh’s Island: Book 2 in the Arrow and Saber series

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  About the Author

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  This book is for Paul Dinas, a friend.

  Oushata Massacre

  1

  With his bag packed, Second Lieutenant Marcus Cavanaugh crossed the quadrangle where the regiment was hurrying to get into position for the reveille formation, walking carefully through the dust and the horse droppings to keep from dirtying the shine of his boots. He was twenty-one years old, just over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, vivid blue eyes, and brown hair. Three months earlier, in June of 1868, he had stood on the plains at West Point to receive his degree and his Army commission. Now, he was standing in the sally port of the east wall of Fort Reynolds, Colorado, watching the machinations of what had already become his life. He had no father or mother, or other family ties.

  Across the quadrangle, the door to the headquarters building opened and the post commander stepped outside, mounted the horse being held by his orderly, then rode to the flagpole at the edge of the parade ground. It wasn’t necessary, Marcus knew, for Colonel Pettibone to personally take command of the reveille formation. He could have delegated that job to his second-in-command, Major Conklin, or to the next higher rank, Captain Forsyth. But Colonel Pettibone enjoyed it, and he turned what should have been a routine morning formation into an event of pomp and ceremony.

  Commands and supplementary commands rippled through the ranks as the regiment came to attention. Sabers flashed in the early-morning sun as platoon leaders, then company commanders, and finally battalion commanders rendered their reports to Major Conklin. The executive officer received the reports, then turned toward Colonel Pettibone and brought his saber up in a smart chin salute.

  “Fourth Cavalry Regiment all present and accounted for, sir!” he barked.

  Pettibone returned the salute, then sat astride his horse for a moment, looking out over his command. Most Cavalry units, when in-garrison, held dismounted drill for the reveille formation, not going to the bother of saddling the horses. Colonel Pettibone was different. He insisted that the men not only be mounted, but in the proper uniform. That meant shell jackets for the troopers, and blue frock coats for officers. The only concession to the locale was the fact that Pettibone did not insist that his command wear the hated kepi. Instead, officers and enlisted wore the so-called Jeff Davis hat, a brim hat pinned up on the right side and dressed in front with crossed sabers over the number 4, indicating that they were members of the 4th Cavalry Regiment.

  Lieutenant Colonel Pettibone was Marcus’s first commander, and as Pettibone himself was quick to point out, he was not like any other he’d encounter in the western territories.

  “I was a major general during the war,” Pettibone had said to Marcus when the young lieutenant reported in. Pettibone wore his red-gold hair shoulder length, and his whiskers were trimmed into a Vandyke beard. “Before that insolent pup, Custer, was promoted to major general, he was in my command. Now he is getting all the glory. Well, by thunder, he’ll not recover his stars before I do. The only place left for a soldier to make his mark in this army is out here, fighting the savages. And I shall do just that, sir. You may depend upon it, I shall do just that.”

  Pettibone dismissed the formation, then rode across the quadrangle toward Marcus and dismounted. He turned his horse over to an orderly with instructions that it be unsaddled and returned to the stable. Marcus came to attention and saluted his commander. He had been given the privilege of missing the morning formation because he was about to leave on a special assignment and was, even now, waiting for the stage.

  “Well, Lieutenant, all ready to go, I see?” “Yes, sir,” Marcus replied.

  “Pity I couldn’t provide you with an ambulance and a proper military escort to Cheyenne Wells, but with the wheel broken on one of the ambulances, we’ve only one left.” “That’s quite all right, sir,” Marcus answered. “The stage will be here shortly.”

  “You have everything you need? Orders, travel vouchers for the men?”

  “Yes, sir. I have everything.”

  “This is quite a responsibility for a second lieutenant, you know. You are to return to New York to pick up a platoon of new recruits and escort them back to Fort Reynolds. And not only that, I shall also charge you with the duty of turning them into soldiers. But as you only arrived here from West Point a short time ago, you are still well schooled in the art of drill and should do well.”

  “I will do my best, sir,” Marcus said. Though he wouldn’t speak of it, secretly he was disappointed that he was going to have to return to the East so soon after arriving out here. There had been several skirmishes with the Cheyenne lately. As yet he had not been involved in any of them, and he was afraid he would miss the opportunity if he left.

  “Lieutenant!” a guard called down from the top of the wall. “The stage is a-comin’.”

  “Thank you, McKay,” Marcus replied.

  Shortly thereafter Marcus could hear the crack of the stage driver’s whip and his loud whistle as the coach drew near. A nearby private picked up Marcus’s bag without being asked, then stepped through the sally port to the outside of the post and flagged down the stage. The shotgun guard crawled down and opened the leather flap over the boot for the suitcase, while Marcus, with a good-bye salute, climbed into the coach. There were three passengers inside, all men. As they identified themselves, Marcus learned that one was a leather-goods salesman, one a farmer, and the third, a lawyer.

  It was a long, tiring ride, though the monotony was relieved somewhat by a lapboard and a deck of cards the salesman had brought with him. The drummer traveled often by stage and had learned that a little diversion made the trips a bit easier.

  It was about noon when, from atop the stage, the driver blew a loud bleat on his horn. He blew it a second time, then a third, before the salesman got a strange expression on his face, then stretched around to look out the window.

  “That’s funny,” he said. “We’ve saluted three times but old John Minner hasn’t answered.” When he saw that the other passengers hadn’t yet understood the significance of it, he went on, rather enjoying his role of seasoned traveler.

  “You see,” he explained, “the driver gives a long
bleat on his horn to let the man at the stage depot know we’re comin’. Then the depot men . . . this here is Minner’s Switch, named after John Minner . . . well, John gives a toot back to let the driver know he heard. Then John starts roundin’ up the horses so that by the time we get there, he has a fresh team ready to be harnessed. Only, John ain’t tooted back.”

  Up top, the driver shouted to his team and hauled back on the reins, while putting his foot on the brake, bringing the coach to a stop.

  “Iffen you fellas want to get out and stretch your legs a mite, go ahead,” the driver called down.

  The four men stepped out of the coach. Three promptly began relieving themselves, while Marcus walked toward the driver and shotgun guard, who were standing together at the head of the team in a quiet conference.

  “Anything wrong?” Marcus asked.

  The driver spit out a wad of chewing tobacco, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he answered.

  “Well, now, maybe they is, an’ maybe they ain’t,” he said. “Lookin’ over in that direction, I don’t see no smoke or nothin’. But I ain’t gettin’ no answer to my horn, either.”

  “Has he ever failed to answer before?” Marcus asked. “I mean, is it possible that he could be . . . indisposed?”

  The driver looked at Marcus. “Is that a fancy word for bein’ drunk?”

  “Could be,” Marcus admitted.

  The driver shook his head. “Some of the other fellas, maybe. But ol’ John, he’s a teetotaler. Don’t reckon I’ve ever seen him touch a drop. He ain’t drunk, soljer boy. He just ain’t answerin’.”

  “You pretty good with a long gun?” the guard asked.

  “Yes,” Marcus said. This was no time for false modesty, and he had taken the top award for marksmanship in his class.

  “Besides the shotgun I’m carryin’, I got two Henrys up in the boot. I’d be obliged iffen you’d take one of ’em an’ come up on top ’til we get into the station.”

  “Of course,” Marcus answered.

  Fifteen minutes later, with Marcus on the roof of the stage, his rifle at the ready, the coach pulled into the depot.

  The first thing they saw was another stagecoach. This had been the westbound coach, but there was no team attached, and the coach was tipped over on its side. A short distance away from the coach, a man lay sprawled on his stomach with the top of his head missing.

  “That there is John Minner,” the driver said, pointing to the body as he halted the team.

  The driver, shotgun guard, and passengers got out of the coach gingerly, then began looking around the station, straining their eyes to see into the shadows and behind the corners. It was quiet . . . and dead still. When the windmill, answering a breeze, suddenly swung around with a loud squeak and clank and started spinning, Marcus and the others were startled. He swung his rifle toward the stable, only to see the windmill whirling into life.

  “Billy, have you noticed that they ain’t horse one in that stable,” the guard said to the driver.

  “Yep,” the driver said. “I noticed that.”

  “Oh, my God!” the drummer suddenly shouted. He turned and ran several steps, then started throwing up. Marcus looked over to see what had set him off, then he had to fight his own stomach. Behind the corner of the porch he saw two naked bodies ... a woman and a little girl. The little girl had been scalped; the woman, probably the little girl’s mother, had not only been scalped, but had had her breasts cut off.

  There were three more bodies inside. All three were men, and all had been scalped and had their genitals removed. Billy identified two of them as the driver and guard of the other stage. He didn’t know the third man, but figured he may have been the husband and father to the woman and girl outside.

  “What’ll we do now, Lieutenant?” Billy asked.

  Marcus was a little surprised that he had been asked by the stagecoach driver. But he was the Army, and he could understand how, in Billy’s eyes, this had become an Army problem.

  “How far to Cheyenne Wells?”

  “With a fresh team, four hours,” Billy answered. “With what we got ... I’d say six, maybe eight hours.”

  “If we get going right away, we could make it just after nightfall?”,

  “That’s what I figure.”

  “All right,” Marcus said. “Let’s bury these people and get to Cheyenne Wells. From there, we can send a wire back to Fort Reynolds, and Colonel Pettibone can deal with whoever did this.”

  “What if they’re still out there, waitin’ for us?” the driver asked.

  “Then we’ll just have to fight our way through,” Marcus said.

  With a tired team, the driver had to stop twice as often to give the horses a breather. They had been gone from Minner’s Switch for the better part of three hours. It was midafternoon and the sun seemed to hang halfway through its western arc, pouring down a blistering heat. Marcus was still riding on top of the stage, and he removed his hat and mopped at his face with his bandanna, then put the hat back on.

  “Want a drink of water, Lieutenant?” the driver offered, passing his canteen back to Marcus.

  “Thanks,” Marcus said. He took a swallow, then handed the canteen back. A dry, rattling wind lifted dust from the plains. A dust cloud swirled high on the hot, rising air and spread a red halo around the sun. Even the sky had lost its soft blue to a dingy orange. So far Marcus had known only the summer heat of the plains, but the other men at the fort were quick to point out that it was even worse in the winter, when a heavy snowstorm would set in, causing the cattle, buffalo, and deer to huddle helplessly in fields of white, to starve and freeze to death.

  And yet, despite the extremes of weather, there was a steady and ever-increasing immigration of white settlers. And with the coming of the railroad, the settlement would be even faster. The Indians realized it, too, and that was why they were making a last-ditch effort to drive the whites out.

  “Lieutenant, I don’t know if you see ’em or not,” the driver said, interrupting Marcus’s thoughts. “But we got company.”

  “Where?”

  “Off to our right, ’bout a hunnert fifty, maybe two hunnert yards. They been ridin’ just on the other side of that ridgeline there.”

  Marcus looked in the direction indicated by the driver, then saw them. More accurately, he saw one of them slipping in behind a dump of rocks. He was angry with himself for not having seen them before the driver did. “Damn, I should’ve noticed,” he said.

  “Don’t be down on yourself, Lieutenant. I been drivin’ through here so much I don’t have to see ’em. I got a feel for ’em.”

  “You men ready?”

  “I got a shotgun and a rifle handy,” the guard said.

  “In the coach,” Marcus called down. “There are Indians about two hundred yards off to the right. Have your weapons ready.”

  “I’m not armed,” the lawyer called up. “Here,” the guard said, handing his shotgun to Marcus. “Give ’im this. I’ll take the other rifle for myself, and he don’t have to be much of a shot to hit anything with this. I’ve got ’er loaded with double-aught buck.” Marcus passed the shotgun and a little sack of shells down through the window to the lawyer, then he lay flat on the roof, cocked his rifle, and waited.

  The Indians trailed alongside for about half an hour longer, then, as the coach approached a ford in a creek, the driver turned toward Marcus. “They’ll have to do somethin’ now. On the other side of this here ford the land is flat for more’n a mile to either side. They’ll have to show themselves.”

  Marcus waited, every nerve ending in his body tense. He had been looking forward to his first engagement with the Cheyenne, but he had not imagined it this way. He had thought he would be at the head of his troops, surrounded by well-armed, well-trained men. He was the only soldier on a stagecoach of five civilians. Hardly the classic battle to begin his fighting career.

  The coach rolled through the ford, kicking up sand and bubbles of water. When i
t came out on the other side, the Cheyenne war party made their first attack. There were at least a dozen of them, and they dashed toward the stage at a full gallop, bending low over their horses. From several yards away one of the Indians shot an arrow and Marcus watched it approach, almost hypnotized by the majestic arc of its flight. At the last instant he realized the graceful-looking missile was dangerous, and he pulled aside just as the arrow thunked into the roof of the coach.

  “Hold your fire!” Marcus shouted. “Hold your fire until they are right on us!”

  “Whatever you say, Lieutenant. You’re the Indian fighter,” the guard replied.

  Marcus couldn’t tell him that this was his first Indian fight ever. But he knew that firing too soon would just be a waste of ammunition. If he made them wait until the war party was much closer, there would be a better chance of hitting the target when they did fire. He watched until the Indians came to within thirty yards.

  “Now!” Marcus shouted. He had drawn a bead on the nearest Indian, and when he squeezed the trigger, he saw the Indian pitch from his saddle. One of the other Indians dashed right up to the side of the coach, shouting. Marcus heard the blast of the shotgun from below and he saw the Indian’s face turn to pulp. A third Indian went down from the guard’s rifle, and Marcus brought down a fourth.

  The Indians had been totally surprised by the sudden and accurate burst of fire. Four of them went down on their initial charge and it was here, in his first skirmish, that Marcus learned a characteristic of the Indians that was both their strength and their weakness.