Bullets smacked the water. Slapped into the old grayed timbers of the bridge long used by the stages bound east or west from Plum Creek Station along the Platte River Road. Snarled overhead madly like angry hornets.
As he reached the far end of the bridge, the Cheyenne were slowly backing into the nearby bluffs, already carrying five of their own with them. On the north bank of Plum Creek lay a wounded Pawnee calling out to the others. Nearby lay another scout, past all caring, his body lapping against the sandy mud and willows on the bank.
“Hook! Get those men to force their horses out of the river!” North shouted, pointing his rifle at the horses struggling in the creek.
Hammering heels against his mount’s heaving sides, Jonah was among the scouts in a heartbeat, yelling in Pawnee, trying to make himself heard above their own courage-shouts and the rattle of their gunfire.
“We can’t follow the Shahiyena if you do not have your horses to ride!” he screamed at them.
The first to understand rose from his knee where he had been firing at the fleeing Cheyenne and turned back into the creek. Then a second, and finally more rose and returned to the muddy, churning water, snagging up the reins to their frightened mounts, soothing the animals if they could. The scouts got the horses to the north bank, where they quickly mounted and swirled around Hook.
Jonah realized if he did not take command immediately, the hot-blooded Pawnee would go to fight without him. Flicking his eyes at North and Murie, Jonah found the white men waving him to advance with his thirty scouts.
But to do that did not make sense to him. Why go join the officers and their ten warriors … when the Cheyenne were escaping in a totally different direction?
“Follow me!” he ordered in Pawnee.
With an ear-shattering whoop, the thirty obeyed. A rattle of saddle and bit, a grunt of frightened animal, and the shriek of worked-up warrior in each of them drowned out all protests flung in their direction by North and Murie.
But instead of sitting back to watch the chase, North and Murie led their ten to join it.
The Cheyenne were not long in running, stopping after less than a mile among their women and children. The travois filled with lodges and camp plunder had been following the procession of warriors when the men blundered into the Pawnee. Now they were back among their families, where the warriors turned about on their Pawnee pursuers, shouting the courage-words to one another, here to make a stand and protect the weak ones from their tribal enemy.
With screams of panic, the women furiously tore at the baggage, freeing the lodgepole travois from most of the ponies, abandoning their camp gear, putting a child and old one on nearly every animal before turning to scatter north into the hills, away from the charging Pawnee.
Ahead of the broad line of scouts he led, Jonah watched the Cheyenne warriors swirl in among themselves, as if confused, disorganized, until suddenly they reined about with a shout and leapt away from the scene. They left the field littered with baggage torn from the travois and backs of packhorses.
It was now a race. The trail-weary ponies of the Cheyenne versus the army horses the Pawnee rode.
For better than twelve miles the scouts followed the warriors covering the retreat of their village, gaining little of the ground between them. Disappointed, North ordered a halt just past sundown. The command’s horses were all but done in. Lathered and weak-kneed, the mounts quickly obeyed their riders when asked to slow the pace and turn about.
“How many we kill, Hook?”
Jonah quickly asked his men for an accounting.
“Near as they can count, seven—maybe eight.”
“Along with all the camp plunder we can carry off,” Murie commented.
“Or burn,” Hook added.
“That’s the idea, Sergeant. We’ll burn what we can’t carry back.” A grim smile creased North’s dusty, sweat-stained face.
“Don’t forget the prisoners,” Hook reminded the officers.
“The old woman and girl?”
“Them and a boy—maybe ten years old.” Hook looked over his shoulder, watching a half dozen of the scouts bringing the three prisoners up.
At separate times during the wild chase that afternoon, each of the Cheyenne captives had fallen from a pony and been captured by a swarm of Pawnee. A young girl no more than eight years old. An old woman, her well-seamed face still haughty and arrogant in the midst of the Pawnee calling for her death. And the ten-year-old boy. Jonah looked at his dirty face, the wide brown eyes—remembering that Jeremiah would have been ten years old this past summer. He had not seen his son since …
Since Jeremiah was five years old.
That hurt more than any bullet smashing through his insides. The thought was as cold as any pain could be. As he stared at the Cheyenne child, he wondered if he would ever know his son, if he would even recognize Jeremiah after so long a time.
“Tell the men we’re riding back toward that stand of trees, yonder,” North explained. “We won’t go any farther tonight to make camp. But we will send back ten men to guard the camp plunder. With instructions to abandon it if the Cheyenne double back to reclaim it.”
“I don’t figure they will, Major,” Jonah said. “Those Cheyenne have had their fill for one day.”
Turkey Leg did not like licking wounds.
Even if none of them were his own, the old chief did not like having to look over his people and see so many without so much.
They had to leave most of what they owned behind when they ran into the Pawnee at Plum Creek. Turkey Leg’s band had been on their way to a second raid on the smoking wagons of the white man here in the Moon of Scarlet Plums when the Pawnee bumped into them.
So now, instead of being richer for the raid, they were poor. Huddled beneath the cold prairie night sky, gathered like beggars around their fires they would keep going until sunup. No lodges. Few blankets to go around. The little ones crying in hunger and the old ones in need of comfort. Remembering the old days before the white man and his soldiers and their great smoking wagons came to this land thick with buffalo.
Now the buffalo refused to cross the great, endless iron tracks.
Seven women keened loudly at the edge of camp, refusing to join the rest at the modest warmth of the small fires. Instead they mourned the loss of their men in the old way, outside the village circle—slashing themselves, cutting off hunks of hair, chopping off the tips of fingers, and wailing.
The seven would not stop with the rising of the moon, Turkey Leg knew. The keening would echo from the hills all night and into the morrow. He felt like mourning himself.
Spotted Wolf had been wounded. At first it had worried them all that the war leader had been shot through the body by a Pawnee bullet. But though the wound was painful, Spotted Wolf claimed he would be able to mount his pony come morning. He lay now on a blanket by one of the fires with his two wives in attendance, drinking water from a horn spoon. He complained of much thirst.
It was not a good sign, Turkey Leg knew.
The sound of hooves drew his attention onto the starlit prairie. Four, perhaps five, riders. They came on, past the outer guards, past the herders keeping watch on the last riches still claimed by Turkey Leg’s band—their ponies.
“Turkey Leg! We have news!”
He watched the young warrior dismount even before his pony was at a complete stop. “Porcupine!”
The warrior strode into the firelight. “Yes. We scouted our backtrail. The scalped-heads do not follow us,” Porcupine explained, using the Cheyenne term for the Pawnee, indicating their practice of shaving most of the hair from their heads.
“It is good, for we have little left to lose,” Turkey Leg replied. “Tell me of the three who are missing.”
Porcupine shook his head. “We found no sign.”
“No bodies? Didn’t you call out for them?”
“We looked carefully. We called out for the three by name. All six of us called into the darkness. There was no answer from th
e prairie night.”
The old man felt hollow again where there had been a moment of hope. Three of his people were not accounted for when they finally stopped to build their little fires long after sundown, here in the dark. Yes, here in the dark—the despair seemed to weigh that much more on the chief.
“I was afraid we would find their bodies,” Turkey Leg said quietly, careful that no one should overhear.
“It is better, I keep telling myself,” Porcupine replied. “Better that we found no bodies. The scalped-heads have not killed the three and left their bodies to rot on the prairie.”
“How far back did the scalped-heads ride this night?”
He pointed. “We saw the red light from their fires. A few have gone back farther—back to where we left our belongings.”
“I want to know what they take and what they leave behind when they go in the morning, Porcupine,” the chief ordered. “But more important, I want you to send some of your warriors to look over the main camp of these who scout for the white man.”
Porcupine gazed steadily into the chief’s eyes. He had a grin on his face. “You want to know if the scalped-heads have captured our people?”
“Yes—the girl, the boy, and the old woman.”
“Your mother?”
Turkey Leg gazed at the ground. It was where his heart rested, cold and on the ground. “Yes. My mother fell from her horse in the chase. She cannot see, for the Grandfather Above has put the milky flesh over her eyes. She cannot hold tight to the pony reins, for her old hands are seized with spasms of pain. They are hands that once held me as a child, hands that taught me to walk. Hands that never begged anything of any person—much less her own son.”
“I will find out if the scalped-heads have the three, Turkey Leg. Will you—” He paused a moment, thoughtful before he asked the question. “Will you trade our prisoners to gain the release of our people?”
“You already know the answer to your question, young one.” The old warrior sighed, the cold inside him no warmer. “These scalped-heads must not ever know they have captured the mother of Turkey Leg.”
37
September, 1867
HE HAD NEVER truly lost his wonder at it—how this wide and rolling land did its best to swallow a man, especially at night.
Not much of a moon to speak of overhead. But a generous sprinkling of stars well scattered in the dark dome that greedily licked every last bit of warmth out of the land like the Pawnee licked every last smear of marrow from the center of the bones they roasted in their fires.
Here Jonah roamed with the rest, eleven of North’s Pawnee, digging among the baggage and folded lodge skins and camp equipment and broken travois poles abandoned by the Cheyenne in their mad flight away from Plum Creek. Much of it looking like black lumps on the prairie beneath the pale starshine—no pattern at all. More like a random scattering of buffalo chips.
With his teeth, Jonah yanked on a strip of dried jerky. Antelope or deer, he figured. One of the Pawnee had found some among the abandoned baggage. The one among them who had the best nose, so joked the rest. They were thankful for that dried meat and marrow bones, especially after darkness smothered the land. The Pawnee extinguished their cooking fires and contented themselves with waiting out the rest of the night. Talking softly among their little knots and drinking sips of cool water from canteens dipped into Plum Creek not far away, eager for the sun-coming.
Jonah leaned back against a bundle of smoked lodge skins, warmly pungent with the fragrance of many fires. It had been a long time since he felt this lonely. Something to do with the overwhelming darkness, for out here, unlike nighttime in the timbered hills back home or the high slopes of the Rockies, the plains magnified the darkness, and the bigness of the land, and hence the smallness of one lonely man.
Perhaps he was more lonely because he was the only white man here among so many Pawnee. But right now he really didn’t want to have to work and strain at translating their foreign tongue to follow their conversation. So he sat by himself, off a ways from the rest as they laughed quietly, poked fun at one another, told of coups from bygone days and what feats had belonged to the day just grown old with night’s coming.
Listening to the horses hobbled nearby crunching the dried grasses aroused a feeling of yearning for a time already gone from his life—of early autumn nights such as this, after the children had been bedded down, wandering outside the cabin into the moonlit yard, leaning against the barn door and hearing the animals in their stalls, working their feed hay.
It was a good sound, reassuring, a sound claiming that in some manner of thinking all things were made right at this moment in his world. But Jonah knew they were not. There were pieces of his life left unraveled, like the hem to one of Gritta’s long dresses snagged on her heel and slowly unfurling with time.
Time lost. Never to have those minutes, hours and now years back again. Time.
And he didn’t know how to stop it. How to repair the damage. How to make it good as new. At least make things almost as good as they were before he marched off to fight the damned blue-bellies when he should have been home to mind the fields and fight off the bullyboys who came in to tear his family asunder.
His kidneys hurt from the pounding they had taken in the running battle. Jonah slowly rolled onto his side, drawing his legs up to ease that pain at the small of his back, knowing by morning, he would be needing to relieve himself. It hurt to even think of that—what with the hammering his body had taken in the fight and the ride back. He closed his eyes and thought on that rutted, muddy road leading down among the trees, and at the end stood Gritta, her poke bonnet at the end of her arm, waving … waving him on ….
It was damned cold later when the urge to piss would not be denied. He snorted quietly, seeing the breath before his face turn silver in the late starshine. Blinking his eyes clear of grit, Jonah glanced at the east. The autumn nightsky was gray there. The land coming to life far off … somewhere over Big Cobbler Mountain in Virginia it was morning now. Soon to be over the homestead left behind in Missouri. Right now it was light enough that a man could tell the baggage from the sleeping Pawnee rolled in their blankets or cocooned in the Cheyenne’s abandoned buffalo robes.
He was warm enough and did not want to stir, but damn if his kidneys and bladder would let him wait any longer.
Jonah struggled to his feet, cold as they had grown in the boots. He shuffled his clothing around him and buttoned the wool mackinaw clear up to his neck, blowing in his hands as he strode off several yards. While he unbuttoned his fly and was spraying the ground, Jonah gazed at the dozen horses grazing here and there among the scattered baggage. Perhaps he could find some Cheyenne coffee to boil. Get a fire started and find a pot or kettle. As empty as his bladder was at last, Jonah figured he could drink a mess of coffee—
One of the Pawnee yelled out, falling at the crack of a rifle. As Jonah took off, his fly still unbuttoned, the scouts came out of their blankets and robes behind him. The two other camp guards were already on their feet and coming on as well. But Jonah was going to get there first.
As he drew his pistol from its mule-ear holster, the gray horizon north of their position suddenly sprouted a weaving mass of horsemen, surging down on the Pawnee. At least two dozen. No, more than that now. At least three-to-one odds, he figured. Who was to know, he argued with himself, his breathsmoke disappearing as quickly as his lungs ached with each step into the cold, seeping darkness. All he cared about was his little piece of it. Three of the horsemen were peeling off from the rest, heading for the wounded Pawnee picket who struggled to crawl backward, his hand gripping the side of his hip, dragging the useless leg.
On instinct Jonah fired. Not so much aiming into the dark, but sensing where he ought to point the weapon at one of the trio of screeching horsemen.
A yelp answered the bark of his pistol. A body tumbled backward off the rump of a pony with a thud, and air was driven from his lungs as the warrior landed on the grassy sa
nd.
Jonah’s eyes stung from the bright muzzle flash, and as they cleared, he found another target bearing down on him with a horrifying scream. A war club raised overhead. Pony knees coming up and hammering down like steam pistons. Hooves clawing at the sandy soil, sending dark clods flying into the gray light of morning coming. Nostrils swollen wide as it carried its rider closer and closer still to the white man.
Behind that faceless, formless rider came another, turning off to claim the wounded Pawnee.
Jonah met the Cheyenne horseman as he swept low off the side of his pony. He caught the warrior’s arm with the war club in it, yanking so hard as the pony tore by that Jonah heard a distinct snap, a yelp of pain, and the thud of the warrior striking the ground.
Jonah whirled, firing … then firing again as the third rider closed on the wounded Pawnee. Another screech of surprise, perhaps pain. The pony Hook had wounded suddenly skidded to a halt, reared wildly, and spun about with its rider holding dearly to the withers.
“Stay down!” he shouted, then realized he had yelled in English. Jonah couldn’t remember the Pawnee words. Even the one for down.
But the scout’s eyes told him he understood. Darkness oozed between the Pawnee’s fingers where he held his hand over the bullet hole in his hip. Jonah dragged him upright on one leg, the other dangling useless now. Behind them the whole of the scattered camp was ablaze with spurts of orange and yellow light. There really was no safe place, except at the center of it all, among the baggage and lodge skins.
Madness and terror brought in the new day—screaming horses and shouted curses, chanting songs and death wails from warrior throats on both sides. Bullets singing through the cold morning air. The flat putty-smack of lead and snake-hiss of iron-tipped arrow.
“Follow them!” one of the Pawnee shouted.
“Don’t let them ride away!”
“Finish these scalped-heads—now!” cried a voice from beyond.
As most of the young Cheyenne circled the camp, firing into the dark lumps of scouts and baggage, the Pawnee struggled to control their horses enough to mount and pursue the enemy. Jonah marveled at their courage. Outnumbered more than three to one, they coolly went about wresting the offensive from the Cheyenne when most men would be content finding a big place in which to make themselves small. In Jonah’s breast burned a pride for fighting alongside such brave men.
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