Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876 tp-10

by Terry C. Johnston

  In stunned disbelief the Irishman stammered, “F-fort Laramie? Great Mither of God—why’d you wait so long to tell me Crook’s heading back to Laramie?”

  “I’m going with him, Seamus. General’s moving out in the morning—on the double.”

  “There is a God, Johnny boy!” Seamus cheered. “Never should you doubt—there is a God!”

  “I might be more of a believer if we had a dram of whiskey to pour in my coffee. Care to go with me to scare up a steaming cup of something warm, Seamus?”

  Donegan immediately stuffed the pony’s reins into the newsman’s hand and replied, “Perhaps later. Right now I’ve got to speak to the general!”

  He presented himself before General Crook, ready to plead his case, prepared to fall to his knees and beg if he had to. This month was already halfway gone to October. And if Sam’s count was right, then with the last days of October would come her time. While he had no reason to believe a woman could be wrong about so important a thing—mind-boggling mystery that it could be to a man—Seamus nonetheless decided he must not take a chance that Crook’s Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition would mosey back to Fort Laramie so slowly that he would show up late for the birth of his child.

  Most of the top officers of every one of the regiments, both foot and horse, encircled that great fire as he approached, each of them gripping a pint tin cup in which the general had splashed some champagne given him by the grateful citizens of the mining towns, some of whom stood here and there among that joyous circle celebrating both the expedition’s success at Slim Buttes and the rescue of the Black Hills settlements.

  “Yes, I received the lieutenant general’s orders late this afternoon,” Crook explained.

  He stood near the tent half stretched overhead like an awning, boxes of provisions stacked to construct a crude field desk where papers and maps were strewn, held down beneath a pistol, a large brass-cased compass, and his own writing kit composed of an ink bottle wrapped in thick leather and topped with a brass cap to prevent it from breaking in a saddlebag, as well as a series of lead pencils and hefty wooden pens, each one crowned by a metal nib.

  One of the Black Hills officials asked, “So you are hurrying back to Fort Laramie, General?”

  “I’m to turn the command over to General Merritt in the morning immediately after breakfast. We’ll be disbanding the expedition in a few weeks because Sheridan is coming out from Chicago himself, wanting to meet with me and General Mackenzie to plan a fall and winter campaign.”

  Donegan gulped. “Mackenzie? Of the Fourth Cavalry?”

  Crook turned at the sound of the Irishman’s voice, his eyes narrowing. “Yes. You know of him?”

  “A little, sir. Some. Down in Texas—against Quanah Parker’s Comanche.”

  With a sigh the general said, “I see. Texas. You certainly have made the rounds, haven’t you, Irishman? Well —I have an idea I will be using Mackenzie as the lance of our coming campaign—putting him in the field with his veterans as my strike force. While these men with the Second and the Third have served me faithfully since last winter, it’s plain to see that they’re simply worn out. The Fourth Cavalry will not only be eager, but more than ready to strike the hostiles.”

  One of the local citizens asked, “Then it is true you’re going to continue the campaign, General?”

  Gazing up into the Irishman’s eyes, Crook answered, “This war with the Sioux is far from over, I’m compelled to admit. No matter what the eastern press might say about us, we’ve accomplished too much to stop now simply because of the onset of winter.”

  Taking one step closer to Crook, Seamus inquired, “So, General—would you be good enough to consider me riding back with your escort when you leave in the morning?”

  Crook smiled genuinely and nodded. “I’ll see that Major Stanton gets you paid off with a voucher you can use to draw on when you reach Laramie with us.”

  “W-with you, General? With yow?”

  Crook held out his hand to Donegan. “Why, certainly you can ride along with my party. I see no reason for you to lollygag around here with the expedition as the men rest and recruit themselves. Now, tell me: what’s this news I hear from John Bourke that your wife is due to have a child?”

  Chapter 50

  16-20 September 1876

  They might not even call such a collection of crude clapboard buildings and canvas-topped shanties a “town,” but to the eyes and ears and nose of John Finerty, Deadwood exuded the sweet sensation of civilization!

  With Crook’s announcement that the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition was soon to be disbanded and that Sheridan had called him to Fort Laramie, all four of the correspondents applied to the general for permission to accompany his party south via Camp Robinson. The likable Joe Wasson, the much-despised Reuben Davenport, as well as the affable and eminently sociable Robert Strahorn all joined Finerty in saddling up that Saturday morning before reporting to the general’s headquarters promptly after breakfast. Besides the Irishman Donegan, Captain Andrew S. Burt had requested and secured leave, heading back to rejoin wife Elizabeth and children at Laramie.

  Crook had also given permission to several officers to accompany him: his aide-de-camp, John Bourke; Major Alexander Chambers; Captain William H. Powell; and Captain Thaddeus Stanton, the Omaha paymaster; along with adjutant Schuyler, Captain George M. “Black Jack” Randall, and Assistant Surgeon Albert Hartsuff, all had asked to go on that dash south from the Black Hills. In addition, Lieutenant Frederick Sibley led an escort of twenty troopers from the Second Cavalry, along with a complement of a half-dozen mules to carry some medical supplies, ammunition, and an abundant supply of Bubb’s food.

  All the way south to the settlements along the road that snaked beside Whitewood Creek they passed civilians in wagons, civilians leading pack-animals behind them, civilians alone on horseback—all headed north to that army camp with everything they hoped to sell to the soldiers: canned goods and candles, onions and cabbages, turnips and potatoes, and all manner of vegetables grown locally in the Hills. Here and there the party rode past small herds of cattle grazing on the grassy hillsides, each one of those highly valued herds guarded by a well-armed band of wranglers.

  After a short ride of sixteen miles they reached the wooded ravine on the northern outskirts of Crook City, finding it a thriving, smoky community of more than 250 structures erected on either side of the steep slopes rising up from the Whitewood. No sooner had the general’s escort appeared at the edge of town than a loud explosion rocked the narrow valley. Finerty pulled his head into his shoulders like a turtle.

  “Cannon fire,” Donegan explained.

  “Cannon?”

  “I suppose it’s to welcome the town’s namesake, General Crook himself.”

  Indeed, the citizens of the Black Hills settlement were firing off cannons, plus blowing all manner of steam whistles, in addition to loading their anvils with gunpowder to send them cartwheeling into the air with a deafening concussion.

  Hundreds of men and some two dozen of the ugliest, most hard-featured, dog-faced women Finerty could ever admit to seeing, every one of them in some state of un dress, appeared on the streets, crowded the boardwalks, or leaned from open windows on the second stories of those greater buildings in town. In less than two hundred yards, the street was all but blocked as men fired their revolvers in the air, shouted out their oaths and vows to scalp Crazy Horse themselves, and strained through the throng to shake the hands of those soldiers slowly threading through their midst.

  “General! You must come have dinner with us!” roared one local dignitary, gesturing toward his two-story saloon and pleasure palace.

  Glancing a moment at the sun, Crook replied, “I suppose we could stop briefly for a meal.”

  “Very good! Very good!” the entrepreneur said, clapping his hands ecstatically. “We’ll see that your horses are grained while we dine.”

  In moments the entire group was seated at tables, which big-breasted chippi
es and gap-toothed soiled doves wiped clean, smiling winsomely at each of the celebrated guests. Bottles and glasses and cigars all appeared as if by magic.

  “It’s our very best, General Crook,” the businessman swore. “Nothing but the best for you and your men.”

  What was in those bottles proved to be some of the strongest whiskey Finerty had ever tasted, even stronger than what had made him sputter when he had first come to Wyoming Territory and Kid Slaymaker’s saloon near Fort Fetterman.

  “Good God! Is this what they call forty-rod?” the newsman asked, wheezing and wiping his watery eyes.

  “Indeed it is,” Donegan said, pouring Finerty another drink. “If Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse knew how to make this stuff and sell it to the white man, why—the Sioux could whip the whole frontier army in less than a week!”

  Once the party emerged from the saloon back onto the street to find their horses watered and well fed, the wild cheering erupted again. But when they left Crook City behind, they could plainly see the town had already enjoyed its short-lived glory. Founded in May, it was already suffering a long downhill slide as the richest gulch had quickly played out and every day more and more miners headed for other nearby strikes or to build their sluices farther upstream.

  Quartz and timber were both in abundance—that much was apparent from their ride up the graded wagon road that would take them another ten miles to Deadwood. Every mile saw more teamsters and packers, as well as assorted horsemen, each one of them sporting a pair of spurs with rowels as big as tea saucers, jingling like hawk’s bells as they bounced along. A few miles out from Deadwood they came upon a handful of riders who wore the finest in bowlers and claw-hammer coats, brocade vests and fine silk ties—the sort of haberdashery that made Crook’s seedy, tattered, unkempt bunch look all the more like a wandering band of Nordic raiders.

  “General Crook, I presume?” one of the citizens asked, removing his hat.

  “I am George Crook, yes.”

  “Good day, sir!” The speaker smiled, as well as all those with him. “My name’s E. B. Farnum, Deadwood’s first mayor. Welcome, may I say. Welcome, indeed, to a grateful town!”

  After shaking hands all round with the mayor’s aldermen, Farnum reined about and led the party on through Montana City, Elizabeth Town, China Town, then Lower Deadwood, and finally in to Deadwood itself, where the whole town had turned out, waiting expectantly for the general’s arrival. No sooner had Crook reached the edge of what was then the business district than thirteen small field pieces erupted in a grand martial salute. Smoke hung lazily over the street as a wonderful breeze teased the red, white, and blue bunting strung from awnings and porches and second-story balconies in a festive salute to the man the town regarded as their savior. Cheering, dancing, shooting handguns—the noise was deafening.

  Finerty smiled, watching the general tip his ragged,weather-beaten chapeau, bowing left, then right, then left again, shaking hands as they inched slowly along, waving to those on porches and balconies, throwing a kiss here and there to the second-story working girls of that mining town—all in the manner of a man running for political office.

  “Crook could be elected mayor of Deadwood if he wanted,” Finerty had to yell above the pandemonium to the Irishman riding beside him.

  Donegan nodded, saying, “Hell—he could damn well be elected governor of the whole bleeming Dakota Territory!”

  Drawing up in front of the Grand Central Hotel and gesturing across the street, Mayor Farnum politely offered, “General, should your men wish to make use of our public bathhouse over there, you will find it at your disposal—free of cost.”

  It had been the first hot water Finerty sank into since that tiny galvanized tub in a whore’s crib at Kid Slay-maker’s clear back in May. Going four months between good soakings had become too onerous a habit. After he was done, Donegan stood naked and anxiously ready while the bath attendants dumped Finerty’s water.

  “Look at that, will you now?” the Irishman exclaimed, pointing at the newsman’s bathwater being poured into a wooden sluice that went through a hole in the wall, where it spilled into the creek. “I ain’t seen the likes of such filthy, scummy water since we camped beside the Powder River!”

  In less than an hour the entire detail had bathed and felt better for it, despite the fact they were forced to climb back into the same mud-crusted clothing the attendants had at least brushed and shaken. Out onto the street, as the sun began to set, they again poked their heads, and at once the town again erupted. Both sides of the long main thoroughfare were lined with saloons and drinking houses, restaurants and hotels, mercantiles and those parlors where the soft flesh of women was daily bartered, all of it closely hemmed in by the timbered hills that looked down on the merry celebrants.

  At dusk, after the general’s staff had ceremoniously panned for gold along the banks of Whitewood Creek, the town’s leaders prevailed upon a reluctant Crook to give a short speech from a balcony of one of the hotels. Lacing his talk with a few jokes, most of them at the expense of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and their Sioux, the general was even more popular when he walked down to supper than he had been when first stepping onto that balcony.

  Again the town fathers stuffed their visitors to the gills, then escorted them over to the Langrishe Theater, where Mayor Farnum and his aldermen presided over a spate of formal speeches. When the officials presented the general with a petition signed by Black Hills citizens urging construction of a military post in their country, the general politely declined.

  He went on to explain. “The Black Hills are not in my department. General Terry commands here. Your petition should be presented to the secretary of war. Not to me. But I will be honored to carry your petition to Fort Laramie with me and deliver it there to General Sheridan.”

  After receiving the crowd’s warm appreciation, the general concluded, “When the rank and file pass through here in the days ahead, show that you appreciate their admirable fortitude in bearing the sufferings of a terrible march almost without a murmur, and show them that they are not fighting for thirteen dollars per month, but for the cause—the proper development of our gold and other resources, and of humanity. Let the private soldier feel that he is remembered by our people as the real defender of his country.”

  When the crowd clamored and hooted for more from Crook, he instead prevailed upon Captain Burt, who excited the packed house by delivering his impromptu tale of their horrid march. Nonetheless, at every turn he extolled his own personal satisfaction serving under a general “who gets things done.” Burt went on to tell the miners and merchants just how much he “enjoyed the satisfaction of standing in a Sioux village and watching it burn.” Amid the raucous cheers and thunderous applause in response to those stirring comments, Crook’s men were officially handed their “keys” to the city.

  One of the crowd hollered out, “You better turn over to us those Sioux prisoners you left back on the Whitewood! If you take them on back to the agency, Uncle Sam will feed them until they want to take the war path again!”

  Burt replied, “No, we can’t turn them over to you. We won’t give you those Indians to kill, and we won’t kill them ourselves—provided they show us where there are more to kill.”

  By the time Finerty pressed his way out of the theater and onto the street once more with the rest of the general’s entourage, he was sure his arm had all but been pumped out of its socket with so much hand shaking.

  Taking Donegan by the arm, the pair of jubilant Patlanders strolled down the south side of Main Street until they happened before a likely looking saloon. Inside Johnny Manning’s Gambling Hall they were told to put their money back in their pockets.

  “Why, hell, fellas,” Finerty bellowed. “We haven’t any money anyway!”

  It made no matter to the miners, who all were anxious to put up for a round or two, treating those who had helped Crook whip the Sioux at Slim Buttes. For some time they drank and watched the gaming tables, where Finerty was
surprised to find that more than half the dealers were women—older, hard-faced women who clearly showed the effects of years at a hard life. They nimbly dealt not just poker, but faro and keno and monte too. Beneath the smoky lamplight, cards and whiskey, colorful chips and coins and gold dust, lay spread across the emerald felt stretched over every table. Scales lined the bar, where for every ounce of dust a man could earn himself twenty dollars’ worth of credit at the tables, or right then and there with a miner’s choice of whiskey, rye, or gin with bitters.

  Then it was out the open doorway and down the boardwalk until they found a second likely saloon, and in they went for another series of toasts at Al Swerington’s. On and on the evening went in just that way until they both staggered, shoulder to shoulder, down the street reaching China Town, where they crossed to the north side of Main, ducking into Billy Knuckle’s Belle Union, then next door to drink at the Big French Hook. Finally they stood on the muddy boardwalk before a sixth watering hole.

  Back Donegan rocked on his heels unsteadily, squinting, peering intently at the sign above their heads. “Number … Ten? That what it says?”

  “Yep—says so right there in plain English, you idjit Irishman!” Finerty burbled.

  Wagging his head, Seamus replied, “Who the hell would name a saloon after a god-bleeming-blamed number?”

  “C’mon,” Finerty said, grabbing hold of Donegan’s arm as the big Irishman suddenly froze. The newsman tugged, saying, “Just one more for a nightcap.” Then he looked up at the scout’s face, gone as white as a ghost, and Finerty’s belly went cold as January ice.

  Turning slowly, the reporter saw what had stopped Donegan dead in his tracks there before the Number Ten Saloon. A big freshly painted sign nailed beside the open doors, announcing to one and all:

  NUMBER 10 SALOON

  Where Wild Bill Hickok

  was murdered by

  Jack McCall

  on