After suffering that cold night at the mouth of Otter Creek, where the rain soon turned into a frozen sleet that coated man, animal, and equipage with a layer of ice, Miles had his men up in the dark, gulping coffee and wolfing down their hard crackers. With the command up and about the colonel ordered that the teams of slow-plodding oxen not be hitched to their wagons.
“Mr. Bowen, it’s my belief we can cover the ground a little faster if the oxen don’t have to pull their wagons,” Miles explained to the second lieutenant he had placed in charge of his supply train.
William Bowen asked, “We’re leaving all the wagons behind, General?”
“No, Lieutenant. We’ll take the company wagons along.”
“The ones pulled by mules,” explained Frank Baldwin.
“So what will become of the civilian’s oxen?” asked Captain Casey. “Leave ’em behind?”
“I think it best that we don’t,” Miles replied. “Unhitch them and drive them along with the column. We might just need those big brutes for food before this chase is over.”
“Damn right,” grumbled Edmond Butler, a tough forty-nine-year-old Irish-born captain. “In a pinch tough beef is better than no rations at all.”
Leaving behind the four huge freight wagons the oxen had struggled to drag through the snow, slush, and mud for the better part of four days, Miles trudged on, leading his infantry south on the trail clearly marked by the stolen cattle and all those unshod hoofprints. They had marched better than fifty-five miles already and would have at least that much more ground to cover before they reached the ground Crazy Horse had chosen for his battle.
“Was that a war party we bumped into yesterday?” Kelly asked the morning of the second after the blood-red sun began to rise low along the southeastern horizon. “Or was it only a hunting party?”
With a shrug Seamus replied, “Either way, Luther. I figure the h’athens knew we were coming—they have to have scouts hanging back to keep track of us.”
“Yeah,” Johnny Bruguier said, nodding.
“Or that bunch could’ve been out hunting to feed a lot of empty bellies,” Donegan continued.
“A big village like Crazy Horse got,” the half-breed stated, “it need lots of meat.”
Kelly turned to Donegan. “And we haven’t run across much in the way of any game at all, have we?”
“One way or the other, let’s just say that bunch of Sioux was out hunting,” Seamus declared, shaking off a cold shiver as the wind picked up. “Hunting four-legged game … maybe hunting two-legged enemy.”
Early that afternoon the advance party was forced to divert the line of march far to the eastern side of the valley, where the going wasn’t so tough but where the men were forced to march some distance from the Tongue. It wasn’t long before they came across an abandoned camp of rustic shelters erected from slabs of wood, poles, and rocks, along with some sections of sod and thick boughs of cedar and evergreen.* Here and there among the makeshift hovels lay the carcasses of butchered cattle.
“Smell that, Irishman?” Kelly asked.
Seamus put his nose in the wind and sniffed. Then sniffed again. “Tobacco smoke.”
“That isn’t soldier smoke,” Kelly declared. “The column hasn’t gotten anywhere close yet.”
“Warriors were here this morning, I’d wager,” Seamus replied.
“Keeping a close eye on us, aren’t they?” Kelly asked. “Even returning here to these shanties to do it.”
“What you make of this, Luther?” Donegan asked as they both climbed out of the saddle. He hadn’t seen anything quite like these heart-wrenching hovels since he’d been a young boy in poor famine-ravaged Ireland.
“I figure you’d be the one to know better’n any of us, Seamus,” Kelly answered as he knelt before one of the shelters and peered into its dark, snowy interior.
“How’s that?” he asked, straightening as he bristled, thinking Kelly was marking him down because of his Irish roots.
The chief of scouts got to his feet and turned. “Why don’t you tell me what Injuns with Crazy Horse wouldn’t have their own lodges along?”
“Wouldn’t have lodges?”
“What Injuns did Mackenzie run off into the countryside not so long ago?”
Donegan wagged his head dolefully, his eyes studying the pitiful hovels where human beings had actually taken shelter from the brutal weather. “Cheyenne,” he answered quietly. “Morning Star’s Cheyenne.”
“A proud people,” Kelly said with complete admiration, dusting the snow and mud from his knees and gloves.
“A damned proud people,” Donegan said, almost choking on the words. His eyes stung. “They’d rather live out in this weather, eating jackrabbits and gophers, sleeping under rocks and brush, than go back to the white-goddamned-reservation. I’ll say they’re a damned proud people.”
He turned away before his eyes betrayed him, and stuffed a big buffalo moccasin into the stirrup. Swinging into the saddle, Donegan said, “I’ll go fetch up the general. He’ll wanna see for himself just what sort of warrior we’re following.”
“What do you mean?” Kelly asked, catching up his reins. “What sort of warrior?”
“I think Miles needs to know that he’s following a bunch of iron-riveted hard cases what can live out here under rocks and scrub brush, running about on foot, eating what they got when they got it.”
Kelly nodded, his eyes fired with admiration. “Damn right I think Miles should know. He and his soldiers won’t be going into battle with a bunch of young sprouts who’ll fight only as long as it takes for their women and young’uns to pull out.”
“No, this outfit we’re scouting for is due for a fight of it, Luther,” Seamus responded as he eased his horse around and Kelly came into the saddle. “Some of them ain’t got nothing more to lose.”
Kelly nodded. “And that makes a man one hell of a tough bravo in a fight—when he hasn’t got anything left to lose.”
“This bunch Crazy Horse has got around him now ain’t the kind give up easy. These warriors are all breechclout and balls, Luther. I figure Crazy Horse is going to pick the ground where he’ll stand and fight. Just like he done us at the Rosebud.”
Kelly slapped the end of his reins down on the horse’s flank to put it into a lope, saying, “And just like General John Buford picked the ground to make his stand at Gettysburg.”
There had been times in the last five days when the scouts had turned about and reported to the head of the column that the easiest route was that provided by the river itself. Their slow, tortuous march of the second was again that sort of day where the foot soldiers and the wagons made their way off the bank onto the ice to follow every twisting curve and corkscrewed turn of the Tongue, always on the lookout for soft ice and narrow stretches of open water where a warm spring fed the otherwise ice-choked river.
Due to weakening ice the column was forced to cross the Tongue four times with their exhausted, played-out animals. In the end they put no more than another five miles behind them that second day of 1877. Perhaps because they believed the overtired stock were not likely to wander astray, Lieutenant Bowen’s detail soldiers did not corral the huge oxen.
At dawn on the third it was clear they had made a mistake.
It was also plain from examining the tracks of the cloven-hoofed beasts that the oxen hadn’t been stolen—they had merely wandered away on the backtrail through the night. In the dim half light Robert Jackson was assigned to lead four of Hargous’s mounted soldiers back to the north to round up the wayward stock while the column formed up and pushed off for the day.
No sooner had the five horsemen disappeared downstream and the rear guard marched out of sight than some twenty warriors kicked their ponies into a gallop, streaking off the hillsides in a blur, thundering down on Jackson’s roundup detail. Shots echoed off the snowy bluffs.
At the first crack of enemy carbines, Colonel Nelson A. Miles immediately ordered a halt, wrenching his horse around to gall
op to the rear, where he sent that day’s rear guard, Edmond Butler’s C Company, back to the rescue.
“They got there too late,” Jackson told the other scouts and officers who later on gathered around the trampled snow where the lone soldier had fallen from his horse.
Seamus rubbed his oozy lower lip with bacon grease and said, “Butler’s men got here soon enough to keep the bastards from cutting up the poor lad.”
Surgeon Henry R. Tilton had been kneeling beside the body of Private William H. Batty. He brushed his mitten across the young soldier’s face one more time, clearing it of some of the icy snow that continued to fall, then got to his feet. The major said, “Let’s get him buried.”
While Batty’s body was carried back all the way to the front of the column, Captain Butler had the men of his C Company begin working in relays on the frozen ground. The private had been one of their own.
Miles had his regimental adjutant, First Lieutenant George W. Baird, say a few words over the dark scar of earth in the midst of all that scuffled snow. After Butler’s men had each tossed in a handful of sod, the colonel had other soldiers fill in Batty’s final resting place and shovel enough snow over the grave to cover it from view. Miles ordered the march to resume.
Over that crude mound walked every foot soldier, rolled the wheels of their wagons, plodded the hooves of mules and oxen alike, obliterating all sign of the grave … in hopes of protecting it from predator and warrior alike.
After the brief service Donegan and the rest of the scouts led the wary troops south past the mouth of Turtle Creek. At noon the column was forced to recross the Tongue on ice softened by the recent rains. Beneath that heavy weight of the overburdened wagons the semisoft surface of the river groaned and creaked. But as much as the men feared the Tongue would swallow them, wagons and all, not one was lost in the crossing.
“Donegan!”
Reining up, Seamus turned to find Kelly riding up with Bruguier and Buffalo Horn, the lone Bannock.
Luther Kelly brought his horse to a halt beside Donegan’s. “Wanted to let you know the three of us will be gone for the better part of a day.”
“Headed where?”
With a nod to the west Kelly said, “General wants to know if there’s any camps in the valley of the Rosebud.”
“Just the three of you?”
Kelly replied, “If we have to make a run for it—best keep our outfit small.” He smiled at Donegan in that handsome way of his. “You’ll watch over the old man for me, won’t you?”
“Miles?”
“Yep. Stay out front and make sure he doesn’t run into an ambush before I get back.”
Dragging off his mitten and holding out his bare hand in the cold wind, Seamus watched Kelly pull off his glove, and they shook. Donegan said, “I figure I know what kind of ground cavalry will want to use against foot soldiers.”
“Even Crazy Horse’s cavalry.”
The Irishman smiled, the skin on his face tight and drawn in the bitter cold. “Bet your life that I’ll know the ground that savvy bastard will likely use, all right.”
Kelly started to rein away, tugging on his horsehide mitten. “I’ll let you bet my life on that any day, Donegan.”
“Keep your eyes peeled, Kelly!”
“Yup—and you watch your hair, you ol’ horse soldier.”
*Near the mouth of Beaver Creek.
Chapter 23
4-6 January 1877
BY TELEGRAPH
OHIO
Hayes Confident of Success
NEW YORK, December 27.—The Graphic’s correspondent at Cincinnati telegraphs that he has been informed on good authority that Governor Hays intends to resign the governorship of Ohio, on the re-assembling of the legislature next Tuesday, confidently believing that he will be peacefully inaugurated president of the United States on the 4th of March.
FOREIGN
War News and Rumors
CONSTANTINOPLE, December 28.—The prevalent opinion is that the port will not accept Lord Salisbury’s proposals.
LONDON, December 28.—A special from Paris says the sultan in answer to Salisbury’s representation, said his personal safety would be compromised if he conceded all that the powers demanded. MOSCOW, December 28.—The Gazette declares the new Turkish constitution a mere mockery of the powers, and says the only way of improving the Christians in Turkey is efficacious occupation, and granting to Christians the right to carry arms or depriving Muslims of this right. VIENNA, December 28.—General Hanken, at the review held in taking command of the Servian army said, “in a week’s time you will have an opportunity to prove your courage before the enemy.” A special says that on Tuesday 500 Russians crossed the Danube from Thunzevenin. A cabinet meeting on the eastern question will be held at Vienna to-day.
“Forget all that foreign gobbledygook!” Martha Luhn said to Samantha as she smacked her palm down on the paper spread across the tiny table in the fire-warmed kitchen. “You remember just a few days back when this same Rocky Mountain News had that headline story about the ore strikes they were making down at Silver City?”
Yes, she had seen the story, read it, and thought of them all fleeing south from Indian country. But it wasn’t something she was ready to admit—not just yet. Samantha gently pulled the sleeping baby from her breast and laid him on her shoulder. As she began to pat his back softly, she said, “I usually don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. Mostly looking for any notices on the campaign—”
“Well, you should give it some attention,” Martha said. “More than any of the rest of us, you ought to feel like you and your Mr. Donegan are free of the army. Which means you can pick up and get right on out of this country. Say good riddance to all this waiting and the terrors of army life.”
“What are you trying to get at?” Sam inquired.
Martha replied, “Those silver strikes down in New Mexico—that’s where they are, you know? Not so bad a place to raise a family.”
“If you don’t have to worry about Apaches wandering away from their reservations!” Nettie Capron squealed.
Martha Luhn turned to Samantha. “You don’t have to worry about such things. That’s just the point I’m making.” Her eyes dropped a minute to the dozing child Samantha was burping at her shoulder. “You’ve told me more than once that your Mr. Donegan first came west after the war to look for gold in the Montana diggings.”
“Yes—well, but … he never got that far to try,” Sam began to explain.
“Still wants to make his fortune in that precious ore, doesn’t he?”
Samantha nodded less than emphatically. “Seamus has talked about it with me a time or two, yes we have.”
“When he gets back this winter—you sit him down and convince the mister that it’s high time for him to get back to what he intended to do ten years ago,” advised Martha.
“Yes, digging for gold and silver must be a much safer occupation for a husband and a father than riding scout for Crook or any of the rest of them,” Nettie added.
“It’s really a single man’s profession, Samantha—don’t you see?”
“I … I never thought of it in those terms. It’s just what I’ve come to believe he has to do—so I’ll wait behind.”
“And when he gets back,” said Nettie, coming around behind Sam’s chair to lay a hand on the young mother’s shoulder, “don’t you think it better for your child to grow up some other place where you’re not in the middle of the comings and goings of Indian country?”
“It’s what we both talked about …,” Sam began, feeling a little put upon by the others, who were taking far too much an interest in what Seamus should be doing with his life. That sort of thing was for a man to decide for himself.
“Just … just think about it, Samantha,” Martha said, in her own way shushing the other women in the kitchen, all in flour-dusted aprons, as this was baking day for the week. “I’m sure it will all make sense to your mister when he comes riding back home to you.”
Sam pushed herself up from the chair, adjusted the tiny blanket around the sleeping baby in the crook of her arm, and said, “Seems I better put Mr. Donegan’s son down for a nap. I’ll be back down to help later.”
She heard their voices as she slipped out to the landing and began her climb up the narrow stairs. Women talking about this and that of no real consequence to her, bits of news from the papers just come to the post late yesterday, perhaps the latest rumor to find circulation among the officers and their wives, or the most recent tremor in relations with the Sioux up at Red Cloud’s agency. All of it meant nothing much at all to her.
She waited only for news of Crook’s army and its return to Fetterman. Then heard that Mackenzie’s Fourth was moving back to Camp Robinson. But neither of those meant Seamus was coming back.
What did she have to count on? she asked herself as she laid the boy in his nest of blankets. Was she really being selfish to want Seamus with her more than he had been around her for most of their married life?
Oh, Samantha! she chided herself, catching a glimpse of herself in a faded, scratched mirror she had nailed above the tiny bureau. You have as much of your husband as any army officer’s wife. Yes—he could be a store clerk or a blacksmith, or he could be a farmer gone all day to the fields like Pa.
“No, he couldn’t,” she whispered quietly.
And looked down at the child.
“You and I both know it, don’t we, God? Seamus Donegan couldn’t be any of those.”
But maybe it wouldn’t hurt—she thought—to look downstairs for that old paper with the news story about the Silver City ore strike. Just to have it here and ready when he did return home soon.
Maybe the lure of silver and gold and riches beyond imagination would entice him once more. God knows there’d never be any money in army scouting.
BY TELEGRAPH
More Indian Murders Toward
the Black Hills
Wolf Mountain Moon Page 24