Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866

by Terry C. Johnston

  Ever since his arrival nine days ago, Captain Fetterman stole every spare moment to drill infantry and cavalry alike. Carrington, on the other hand, had a fort to build. He ordered every waking hour of these shrinking autumn days to be used for construction. To assure that the men would remain soldiers, Fetterman ordered his troops out before reveille and kept them drilling long after the last notes of retreat had echoed across the parade.

  For over a week the men had struggled to maintain the pace, serving two taskmasters. One ordered them to raise a post before snow blanketed the land. The other ordered them to be soldiers, first of all.

  “The snow be damned!” Fetterman had growled more than once. “Let the colonel worry about the weather. I want Red Cloud to worry about losing his scalp!”

  They were cheering words to men who too long had suffered one embarrassing defeat after another. Fetterman’s words bristled with bravado. Easy enough for Donegan to realize why old veterans and new recruits alike harkened to the captain’s siren call.

  There’s a boon of courage among most warriors, he thought to himself, until the hell of battle begins.

  Leaning back against a raw-boarded wall outside officers’ quarters, Seamus dreamily watched soldiers drill back and forth across the parade. He sighed, enjoying the high-morning sunlight. A Sunday off. On the autumn breeze floated the tinny piano pounding out an old hymn, “There Is a Light in the Window.”

  Reverend White at it already, he mused. Calling his flock to worship.

  From time to time even the strident notes of the out-of-tune piano disappeared, drowned beneath the profane curses of the tall, blond-bearded sergeant of Company C. Donegan closed his eyes, vowing neither Methodists nor cavalry sergeants would intrude upon the peace of his Sunday morning.

  Eventually he found himself in that warm pool where a man swims halfway down into sleep. Half dreaming, yet still able to make some sense of what his ears overhear. The noise on the parade grew to a chanting roar. The sort of rumble Seamus Donegan recognized. The sound of men making sport of a fight. Goading one combatant or the other. Cheering for the winner. Catcalls for the bloodier man.

  Doubting he should, Seamus cracked his eyes open into the bright light caressing his face. Sorry just as quickly that he took measure of the brawl. For what he saw was not at all to his liking.

  Eli Garrett, Sergeant, Company C, danced easily as a cat back and forth within the ring of soldiers who had broken off their close-order march to watch their drill-master lay into a hapless green recruit. What began with a severe tongue-lashing now found Garrett shoving the private back, back, back into the swelling mob. Time and again the private ducked away from Garrett, who pursued the recruit like a cat toying with a mouse.

  Seamus eased down off the porch, slow to shake the kinks from his shoulders. Shame it had to be the likes of Eli Garrett to ruin a fine Sunday morn, he brooded.

  “You stupid son of a bitch!” Garrett spat into the private’s face. “Never be a soldier! Knew it I first laid eyes on you at Jefferson Barracks!”

  This time Eli swung a big fist and connected. Squarely on the breastbone. Knocking the private down, making him gag for wind. With an arm like an oak fence post, Garrett swept down and locked hold of the youngster’s tunic. Yanking him to his feet like a wet rag-doll, still gasping for air.

  “No-no-no!” he sputtered, bubbles spurting from his lips as he threw his hands up.

  “I’ll show you, Burke!” Garrett shouted. “You’ll not frig up again in my unit!” His eyes swept the growing crowd, his words meant for all in his company. “You each see what awaits the soldier what frigs up in Eli Garrett’s troop!”

  He whirled, shaking the private at the end of one arm. “Gonna make an example outta you, boy! Watched you frig up one thing after another … for the last time, Burke!”

  When Garrett’s fist connected against the youngster’s jaw, it reminded Donegan of the crack of a wood chopper’s axe against a hardwood tree. Solid. Destructive. Still, Seamus hung back at the edge of the crowd.

  Army business, he tried convincing himself. Best to stay far from it.

  “You been trying to make a fool of me ever since you joined, ain’t you, Burke?” He scraped the semiconscious private off the brittle autumn grass of the parade.

  Burke tried mumbling something, his eyes fluttering, spitting some blood from his lip as he stared up into the new-day sun, watching the shadow of Garrett’s arm swing his way again. Eli connected under the jaw. Burke sank to the ground like a sodden rag.

  “We’re not done yet, Burke!” Garrett screeched. “Been waiting just as long as you to settle this. ’Cause you’re no soldier!”

  Standing over Burke, Garrett looked to his left, seeing Fetterman among others atop the porch in front of headquarters. Bisbee, Wands, Powell, Brown, and others watched too. Yet Fetterman made no move to stop the beating. Nor did any other officer. Garrett nodded to Fetterman. Instead of nodding in reply, the captain merely crossed his arms and leaned against a porch timber. That simple gesture told the cavalry sergeant all he wanted to know. With the approval of Capt. William Judd Fetterman, wasn’t a soldier on this post going to stop Eli Garrett from giving Pvt. Thomas Burke the beating he so richly deserved.

  He savagely drove a dusty boot-toe into Burke’s ribs. Donegan listened to the familiar crunch of bone as Garrett struck a second time. Grunting in agony, the private rolled over, struggling to crawl onto his knees, with one arm protecting his ribcage. With his fist driven like an oak mallet, Garrett smashed the back of Burke’s neck. Driving the private’s face into the dust and dried grass.

  Donegan parted the men before him like sheaves of wheat, paying no attention to the faces or the uniforms they wore.

  “Fact be, you frigging bastard!” Garrett screamed as he snatched the back of Burke’s collar, yanking him off the ground, swinging his limp body around. “I think I’ll finish the job ’stead of waiting for Red Cloud to do it for me. I’ll finish you first my——”

  The cheering stopped. Fell silent. As Eli Garrett slowly turned round, his huge right fist held aloft, ready to swing at Burke—but imprisoned for the moment in the grip of the dark-haired Irishman.

  A look of surprise, then shock. Finally something like raw pleasure crossed Eli Garrett’s face as he came face to face with Seamus Donegan. The Irishman recognized the crazed, feral eyes. Seeing something in their raw, red depths that told him not only had Garrett been punishing the whiskey early this morning, but something even more frightening and foreign lay behind them. Something Seamus had only rarely seen. That look of a timber wolf as he closes in on a hamstrung buffalo calf.

  “Seamus!” he bellowed, happy to see Donegan. “Surprised you’re out of your blankets this early to a Sunday morning. Going to church, are you?”

  Donegan gripped Garrett’s fist all the tighter as the sergeant struggled to wrench his arm free. “Ought to let the boy go, Eli,” he said calmly, squeezing. “Youngster like him don’t go a hundred fifty pounds, what with a sackful of old horseshoes in each hand. I figure you can find something better for your darty hands to be doing.”

  “If I ain’t whoring, I’m drinking,” Eli replied, struggling to free his fist. “And if I ain’t drinking, I’m fighting.”

  “Smells of you holding Sunday service atop Judge Kinney’s whiskey barrel this morning. You been burning your goozle with his saddle varnish already, eh?”

  “Was a time we drank and fought side by side, Seamus Donegan,” Garrett replied. “Afore you lost your taste for fun and soldiering. Afore you growed a yellow band down your spine.”

  Donegan flung Garrett’s arm backward, spinning the sergeant off balance. Eli recovered on the balls of his feet instantly, rubbing the fist Seamus had crimped.

  “Taken me better than two years now,” Donegan said as his left hand popped the horn buttons from their holes on the front of his mackinaw overcoat. “Think now I figured out about you and me … and that grove of hangman’s oak at Front Royal in the
Shenandoah back to ’sixty-four.”

  “You’re yellow! Plain and simple!” he roared, listening as many of the soldiers laughed with him. “Didn’t hang that rebel leader. Didn’t raise your gun to shoot the rest of Mosby’s raiders neither. Admit it, Seamus Donegan—you gone coward!”

  Donegan sighed, his gray eyes flitting over the crowd for an instant. Even at his young age, a man found Donegan’s face etched with the fine seams of experience a long and bloody war had given him. A lifetime for any fighting man.

  “No, Eli Garrett,” he replied quietly. “You’re the coward.” He waited while the sergeant quit laughing. “You’re afraid to stand before a man on equal terms, aren’t you? Like Mosby’s men who you hung and shot for Custer at Front Royal. You’re a mighty big man when the enemy can’t fight back, eh, Eli?”

  “Goddamn you! I’m no cow——”

  “That’s it, ain’t it? You screamed long and loud about me being a yellow-back,” he said as he flung his coat down. “But, Eli Garrett can only work up the nerve to kill when the enemy’s already beaten. Like those bushwackers you and Custer had strung up and shot. And,” he glanced at Burke slumped in the grass, “like that poor sojur there. Ain’t got no more a chance against you than a boy.”

  “By the gods, I’ll cleave you, Donegan!” he shouted, trembling.

  Seamus brought up his fists, glancing at the officers watching from the shade of their porch. Across the parade stood a group of four women and their children. Carrington among them.

  “Got your chance, Eli Garrett.” He backed up a step and shuffled to the side as the sergeant dropped his gun-belt and saber. “You and me now. Like you wanted three nights ago in Kinney’s place.”

  “Yeah,” he growled hungrily, swaying his long arms from side to side. “Something I wanted to do for a lot longer than that, Seamus. A long, long time.”

  “C’mon, Sergeant Garrett,” he goaded, bringing his big paws up before his face, hunching his powerful shoulders. “Show me you’re not a coward. Show me you can fight a man on even terms.”

  “More than that, Seamus Donegan,” he spat his words. “I’ll show these soldiers how Eli Garrett kills a man with his bare hands!”

  Garrett swung. His blow as quickly blocked by Donegan’s left, their arms cracking together like hickory axe handles colliding. Seamus spun in with a quick right snaking under the soldier’s jaw. Driving Garrett backward two steps. Eli tapped his lip with a finger, tasting blood. He smiled at Donegan. Without warning he dove headlong into the Irishman’s belly, planting his big head squarely below the ribs. Seamus felt the wind explode from him, his legs going to soap as Eli pumped against him. The Irishman sank against the ring of soldiers. They gave way. Donegan collapsed beneath Garrett.

  Garrett swung once, twice, a third time. Connecting with his longer reach and oak-mallet fists. Before Seamus realized, the soldier towered above him, a foot cocked back and headed for his face. He snagged the dusty boot inches from his nose, gripping it as he’d cling to life itself. Twisting slowly against the strength in the tall man’s leg. Eli hobbled closer, straining to yank free. One hop too many.

  Donegan flung the soldier’s leg up and back. Garrett crashed with a snort. Shook his head and rolled onto his knees. He turned just as Donegan stomped up, and drove a fist into the Irishman’s groin. Seamus doubled, stumbling back, and wheeled, sinking to his knees. Shards of sharp pain flickered through his body like the burning fumaric acid they had poured in the saber cut across the great muscles of his back. His stomach lurched as stars fluttered across his eyelids and dripped to black. Sucking for air, Seamus tried to blink his eyes clear of the blinding meteors——

  Like a raging badger Garrett fell on the Irishman before Seamus had settled to his knees. Yanking Donegan’s head back with a fistful of hair, the soldier whipped his right fist back and forth from jaw to jaw. Holding Seamus upright as he struck again and again. Watching the Irishman’s eyes puff from blood. Grinning madly as cuts opened on the brows, along the cheekbones, trickling free bright, glistening crimson. Laughing now as Donegan’s lips puffed and cracked, blood dribbling into the dark whiskers. Fiercely, he brought his knee up beneath the Irishman’s chin.

  Donegan catapulted back blindly as the knee cracked under his jaw. Beneath his wet cheek he welcomed the dried, freeze-cured grass. Listening to the cheers and taunts of the soldiers ringing him. Gawd there’s something about a fight. Makes a man feel more purely alive being this close to death, it does.

  Between sagging shoulders he raised himself slowly, blinking his eyes clear. Hearing more clearly Eli’s taunts. He rolled onto a hip and brought a leg under him as a shadow flickered at the corner of his eye. On instinct Seamus swept the ground before him with a thick, hewn-timber of a leg. He connected, sensing more than seeing the soldier topple beside him.

  Still blinking his eyes clear of sweat and blood, Donegan rolled toward Garrett’s grunt. Pouncing. He dug his fingers into the curly blond hair. Whipped the head back and drove his maul-sized fist down into those blue-gray eyes.

  Donegan struggled to his feet, yanking the blond head up with him. Then flung his rail-splitter’s fist at Garrett’s bloody face again. Eli sagged at the knees. The Irishman snapped him up for a third pummeling. He flung a fourth blow into the washboard belly. Again and again, enjoying the animal grunt that burst from Garrett’s lungs each time Donegan drummed the face with his hardwood fist.

  “That’s enough!”

  Seamus blinked his bloodied eyes, a flicker of blue and gold braid passing before him. Hands reached out, clawing at his arms. Like swatting flies, he flung the soldiers away. Then realized Fetterman’s inner circle had dashed up behind Garrett.

  “Arrest that man!”

  Stunned, still drunk with adrenaline, Donegan watched Fetterman bellow his orders.

  “By god, we’ve got this mick bastard to rights now!”

  A different voice this time. Brown. As he thought it, the weight of several bodies collapsed atop his back at once. Seamus flung Garrett free, then shrugged his powerful back free of the soldiers clawing over him like a dog shook water. The Irishman started his turn, fist poised in the air—when the click of the revolver pierced the loud clamor. And everything got quiet.

  Swiping a hand across his bloody, sweat-stained eyes, Donegan recognized the gaping muzzle of a regulation army .44. Aimed at his puffy nose. At the business end of the pistol hung an officer’s trembling hand. Captain Brown.

  “Just make a move, Mister Donegan,” Brown growled. “Please. Any provocation whatsoever … and I’ll oblige you by blowing some army lead through what you’ve got for brains.”

  Seamus swiped his eyes again. Watching Fetterman and Bisbee, Grummond and Wands gather on either side of Brown, their mule-eared holsters unsnapped. Two more hands filled with revolvers while Fetterman and Bisbee struggled to haul Garrett to his feet.

  A big load, that one, Seamus thought. Donegan brought his arms up, slowly—hands empty.

  “Want no trouble from an armed man,” he sputtered, his lips swollen.

  “That’s all you’ve got now, mister!” Fetterman bawled. “Interfering with my sergeant’s drill.”

  “Drill?” Seamus replied with a quick chuckle, eyes on the muzzle of Brown’s pistol.

  “You’re fired from my payroll.” Brown said. “Don’t want you cutting timber on army wages no longer. Knew something stunk about you first day you rode in here.”

  “Arrest him, Fred,” Fetterman goaded. “He deserves some time to cool his heels in the guardhouse.”

  “Yes! Perhaps you’re right,” Brown replied. “Not only fire him off the rolls, but lock the bastard up as well. Interfering with military discipline! Well, Mr. Donegan—how does that charge do your uncivilized Hibernian heart now?”

  Seamus smiled. Too often he had watched things just like this run their course. If it wasn’t such a bleeming shame, I’d laugh in their faces!

  “Every man here saw Garrett beat that young sojur over
there,” Donegan said. “All of you watched. But done nothing——”

  “Burke’s been a problem for some time now!” Fetterman said with a smile. “I knew there’d come a time when he’d have some ‘soldier’ knocked into him.”

  Donegan squared his shoulders, sensing the mass of troopers at his rear. “You career officers all alike, ain’t you now, Fetterman? To you bastards, sojurs are nothing more than cattle. Fit to be prodded and manhandled, with the whip or pistol butt.”

  “Dare you question military——”

  “No,” Seamus interrupted. “I don’t question military authority, Cap’n Fetterman. But what I watched Garrett do today had nothing to do with your military authority.”

  “What the goddamn hell do you know about the military, you stupid sonofabitch!” Fetterman seethed.

  “Served under plenty of arrogant martinets like you, from the first battle of Bull Run,” he answered, licking his bloody lip, “all the way to the time we swallowed up Uncle Bob Lee in Appomattox Wood.”

  Fetterman eyed the Irishman severely. “Just who the frigging hell did a jackanape like you march behind?”

  “Never marched behind nobody, Cap’n. I rode.”

  “Cavalry?”

  “Aye,” he answered, glaring at Garrett for a moment. “Of a time I wore those stripes Eli Garrett’s got sewed on his tunic.”

  “Company C?” Fred Brown squealed.

  “Aye, Cap’n. Second, by god—Cavalry.”

  “Sergeant of the guard!” Brown hollered. “Bring two of your men. I want this man locked in the guardhouse. Now!”

  The sergeant and his two guards grabbed Donegan as Brown stepped back.

  “Every one of you halt! Right where you stand.”

  Seamus put the voice with a face, and came up with Carrington.

  “Care to explain yourself, Captain?” he snapped.

  “I’m locking this civilian in the guardhouse, Colonel.”

  Donegan wasn’t sure, but it seemed Brown was the sort of man who could strut just standing still.