Don’t wait long. She needs to know how you feel about her. And I need to know if I am to go on to Virginia City with you or without you come fall. Being an old man, I can’t wait forever to make myself rich, son.
Newspapers come up the other day from Laramie. Got my hands on this one after it had been the rounds of the barracks. Tore this piece of a story out for you to read. Figured it would help make your mind up if you were going on the Alder Gulch with me. Or back to Nebraska to find Jennie Wheatley.
Or if Seamus Donegan gonna chase after some damn-fool ghosts he’s gotta get shet of before he can think about settling down.
I’ll be working as herder for the woodcutters camp down on the Big Piney, near the island, you come looking for me some day soon.
Figure you better decide before the leaves turn, Seamus. Winter doesn’t wait on no man in this country.
Samuel Marr
Donegan swallowed at the hard, dusty knot in his throat, his hands shaky as he unfolded the news story Marr had torn from a page of newsprint. A few feet from where he sat, Warrior Creek ran over its rocky bed with a noise like the westerly breezes nudging a man along in his quest for something unknown. Breezes that whispered his name again and again through the bunchberry and dogwood.
The grass all round him stood full and stiff and stubbornly yellow with summer’s age. Beneath the breeze the newsprint rustled like a woman’s petticoats, causing Seamus to think on Jennie. And in the next heartbeat Donegan’s thoughts of her disappeared as smoke on a strong wind. A brittle, cruel winter wind.
Near the top of the page stood out the bold, black ink:
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Denver City, Colorado Territory
May 27, 1867
And directly below it, the banner headline screamed:
HANCOCK ON THE MARCH
Quickly Donegan’s eyes scanned the article, wondering why Marr had enclosed the story.
Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, the “Thunderbolt of the Grand Army of the Potomac,” will lead a force of infantry and cavalry against the hostile Dog-Soldiers who have been raiding Kansas Pacific Railroad construction crews and carrying on their deadly warfare against settlers along the Republican and Smoky Hill Rivers.
His gray, red-rimmed eyes bounced on down the article, landing here, then there:
… grand punitive expedition …
… special correspondent Henry M. Stanley of James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald …
… artist-reporter T. R. Davis of Harper’s Weekly …
… eight companies of cavalry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer …
“Why that old son of a bitch.” Seamus smiled. “He figured I’d like to know what Custer’s up to, I’ll bet.”
Then his eyes went back to a casual study of the news story, immediately narrowing as he found out that mention of Custer was in all probability the last thing on Sam Marr’s mind when he tore the story from the newspage.
As chief scout, Old Eagle-Eye Hancock has chosen none other than the redoubtable James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickock, who has enlisted a dozen of the more noted frontiersmen of these Great Plains to serve Hancock as scouts. Among them are Wheeler Dunn, Bay Creele, Jonah Hexx, Liam O’Roarke …
“Liam O’Roarke!” Seamus whispered coarsely. “Damn!”
You bastard, Donegan thought as he clambered to his feet, staring at the name on the old, oft-folded newsprint that rattled in the hot breeze. I’ve found you now. All I have to do is run down this grand circus Hancock’s calling an expedition against the Cheyenne … and I’ll have my hands on you, dear Uncle Liam—
“—God’s sake, Seamus!” Finn Burnett’s voice cracked through Donegan’s reverie. “Look at those red sonsabitches coming up the valley!”
Burnett was beside him like quicksilver, pointing off to the northeast. At the same time a rifle shot boomed from a nearby hillside. Galloping downstream toward the corral tore the uniformed picket Lieutenant Sternberg had stationed on a bench of land overlooking the valley some seven hundred yards away.
More shots echoed down in the valley in the direction of the meadows scheduled for cutting that morning. A moment later those in the corral watched the mowers rattle round the corner of the hills, drivers whipping their teams, the mules snorting and wide-eyed.
Half a hundred screeching warriors were hot on their tails, firing an occasional shot at the fleeing teamsters and soldier escort.
As the mowers made the corral, the warriors reined up, just out of range, taunting, luring the white men to come out and fight.
For almost a quarter hour Seamus and the rest watched the naked warriors throw their curses at the corral’s defenders. Standing near the middle of the compound, Lieutenant Sigmund Sternberg was occupied shouting orders to his soldiers, moving manpower this way then that, busting open boxes of ammunition, and all the time assessing the nearness of the warriors.
Donegan looked over at Finn nearby.
“You thinking what I’m thinking, Seamus?”
He nodded. “We both seen what happened to Fetterman’s men when they got suckered into a decoy ambush.”
“My thought too. Figure they want to draw us out.”
“Which means there’s one helluva lot more of those red bastards than what we can see, Finn.”
“I don’t figure where they could be, Irishman.”
Seamus wagged his head sadly, pursing his lips within his dark beard. “Look there, lad.”
Burnett and the rest stood cautiously as they watched the entire lower valley fill with mounted warriors loping easily into sight of the corral. Hundreds upon hundreds of them whooping and hollering, waving rifles and bows overhead, riding in slowly from the northeast.
“Good God!” Lieutenant Sternberg swore. “That force will surely ride over us!”
Donegan swallowed hard. His throat scratchy from the dust kicked up by the mules growing nervous tethered at their picket line in the center of the compound.
“You don’t show them your backs,” Seamus hollered, “we can hold our own against undisciplined cavalry!”
Sternberg, a Prussian immigrant to America, almost sneered at the tall civilian. “You’re Irish, aren’t you?”
“Has nothing—”
“Leave the military strategy to the Prussians, Mr. Donegan.”
“Keep my mouth shut, eh?” Seamus asked. “Like good cannon fodder … all us Irishmen—”
The lieutenant turned and barked orders as more of his frightened soldiers shouted warnings to him.
The wave of warriors had moved into a hand-gallop, a solid, steady front thundering more quickly toward the corral.
“Man the trenches!” Sternberg ordered. “Everyone to the rifle-pits!”
“Son of a bitch is gonna get his men killed this day,” Seamus grumbled as he watched the first of the soldiers reach the opening in the willow branches forming the south wall of their corral.
As suddenly, the bullets whistled overhead and slapped against that wall, causing the soldiers to duck and seek cover inside the corral. Already the warriors had charged so close that the defenders could not reach the three crescent-shaped trenches dug outside the walls without coming under heavy fire. Twenty-one soldiers and nine civilians would have to make do inside the corral now.
The green willow branches lashed between the pine-log uprights had tightened in drying. Although such a wall would not keep arrows nor bullets out, the warriors were unable to see the white men inside. Besides the four canvas-topped wagon-boxes sitting on the ground alongside four wall-tents, all the attackers would be able to see of the corral was that picket line of army mules.
“Spread out, lads!” Donegan shouted, flinging his arm this way and that, watching the civilians crab off along the sides of the corral as the wave of warriors drew dangerously close. “Don’t bunch up now—”
“I’ll give the orders here!” Sternberg shouted.
“You’ll give the orders to your sold
iers, Lieutenant!” Seamus replied. “Rest of us covering our own backsides this day!”
Chapter 29
While Lieutenant Sternberg deployed his twenty men around the perimeter of the corral, Finn Burnett watched the other eight grim-jawed civilians disperse into those pockets needing reinforcements along the walls.
Most of the men slid into position by the time the horsemen splashed across Warrior Creek, streaming toward the eastern wall of the corral. From behind the big pine logs that formed the base of the wall, the modified Springfields began to bark, answering the Winchesters and Henrys fired by the shrieking brownskins.
In seconds the warriors had the entire corral surrounded, riding in a wild, thundering, dusty nightmare of screaming torment.
“Stant up, got-tamn you!”
Burnett glanced over his left shoulder. Sternberg stood at the southern, and only, entrance. Fully erect, he chose not to duck behind the hay wagon pulled into place to block the gate.
“I order you to stant up and fight like soldiers!”
Burnett shook his head and then fired again, spilling another warrior. He glanced at Donegan, seeing that the Irishman kept an eye on the brash lieutenant as well.
“He’ll stand there like a little tin soldier and get himself killed before the shouting’s done,” Seamus growled.
“Shame of it,” Finn said as he hunkered down to reload, “that’ll make one less to hold off the red bast—”
“Watch that sonuvabitch, Zeke!”
Burnett whirled. Behind him across the corral knelt Zeke Colvin, former captain in the Confederate army, straining to peer through the willow branches. Some fifteen feet away huddled Sergeant Horton, his greasy chevrons a splash of color against his dusty uniform. For a moment the two men disappeared from Burnett’s view as the mules tied at the picket line jostled one another, kicking up a curtain of fine dust.
“Here he comes!” shouted William Haynes, another civilian on down the wall from the sergeant.
A solitary horseman dashed from the mass of screaming warriors, brandishing aloft a burning torch he had fashioned from dry hay. His wide-eyed, black pony cleared Warrior Creek in one leap, bringing him immediately to the east wall of the corral. Slowing only slightly, he leaned to the side and thrust the firebrand into the dry willow woven among the log railings.
“Shoot the sonuvabitch!” Horton shouted.
Colvin fired as the warrior passed less than an arm’s length away. So close that he could not aim at the Indian. The bullet smashed into the pony’s chest, spinning the animal around in fear and pain. The horse toppled against the wall, pinning its rider to the ground as it fell, legs thrashing.
For a long moment while Colvin yanked his rifle barrel from one hole in the wall and stuffed it out another, the warrior struggled to wrestle his foot free of the screaming pony. As he leaped up and burst off toward the safety of the willows by the creek, Colvin fired on instinct.
Clawing at his bloody back, the warrior toppled headfirst into the water.
The brave horseman’s death drove the rest into a fury. They set up a screeching, whooping howl of dismay, whipping the air with their warclubs and tomahawks.
“This ain’t your everyday raid, Burnett!” Seamus shouted over the hubbub.
“Didn’t take long for me to figure that out, Irishman!”
“They’re painted up good and worked into a lather.”
“Feathers tied in the ponies’ manes,” Burnett agreed.
“Likely they planned to run right over us,” Seamus muttered sourly as he rolled onto his back, reloading the Henry in his powder-grimed hands.
Already the stench of powder and the sting of dust clawed at Burnett’s nostrils. “How you figure?”
“Ride into the valley. Make quick work of us … on to capture the fort.”
“The fort?”
“Damned right. But now that they see they’re not about to ride right over us, we’ve gone and made the red h’athens mad.”
“Shame, isn’t it, Donegan?”
Seamus cracked a smile, then laughed along with Burnett. “A damned shame, i’tis, Finn.”
Showers of bullets spat against the logs and willows. Arrows hissed through the dry leaves of the corral wall, sailing inches overhead, to drop in every corner or strike the frightened, crazed mules. Action was hottest now near the southern end of the compound. All along Warrior Creek the hostiles gathered among the willow, allowing the Indians some cover to creep all the closer to the white man’s corral. There they kept up a steady, sniping fire at the hidden soldiers and civilians. In turn, the white men made every shot count. Finn knew it didn’t take a marksman to make a good Indian every time he pulled the trigger. The warriors pressed thick enough at the walls that every bullet was sure to do damage.
Like swarming red ants the enemy flung themselves at the corral, more deadly, charging faster and more frightening than any Rebel cavalry. And with every wave coming within feet of the walls, the thirty defenders inside repeatedly repulsed the first attacks. Back the warriors fell again and again, dragging their dead and dying with them. Rallying in moments to charge the corral with renewed courage.
“Stant, got-tammit!” Sternberg kept ordering, the Civil War veteran waving his pistol in the air, shaming some of his soldiers into accompanying his bravado.
“No! Get down, Lieutenant!” Burnett hollered, his arm automatically reaching out for the soldier. “Get down, dammit! Don’t expose your—”
The impact flung Sternberg’s body backward into the dust like a sack of wet oats. Mules snorted and stomped around the soldier, shoving against each other at the smell of blood and the hiss of more arrows.
“Donegan!” Finn shouted as he bolted into a run.
“Damn!” Seamus growled as he slid to a stop beside Sternberg’s body.
The young teamster laid his ear against the lieutenant’s chest. He slowly raised his head and shook it. “He’s dead, Seamus.”
“Lieutenant’s dead?” a voice sang out nearby through the dusty, yellow prison of their corral.
Burnett laid his hand under Sternberg’s cheek lying in the yellow dust. Warm, damp and sticky. He took his fingers away. The back of the lieutenant’s skull gone from the bullet that had entered above the right eye.
“Fight, goddammit! Make ’em pay!” Seamus shouted, clambering to his feet, starting back to the wall.
“Listen, goddamn you!” Burnett hollered to the others. “Listen to the Irishman! Sell your lives dearly today! Make these bastards pay!”
“Gimme a hand here, Burnett!” Seamus growled.
Finn turned from Sternberg’s body. The Irishman struggled with a mule lashed to the picket line. Severely wounded, the animal stomped and fought the lariat, frightening the others. Burnett threw his weight against the mule. Seamus struggled to free the knotted lariat.
“Gotta get her loose!” Seamus said as his fingers worked the rope. “She’ll stampede the others we don’t—”
The mule pulled free in the midst of the stinging dust and burnt powder mist hung over the corral. With a lurch, the jenny staggered backward two steps, lumbered in a crazy circle, then toppled her weight onto Sternberg’s battered body.
The mule died in a pool of the lieutenant’s blood.
* * *
“They’ve gone!” George Duncan hollered.
All around Seamus Donegan some of the soldiers and civilians grumbled their begrudging thanks for this momentary deliverance.
“Keep your eyes peeled, boys,” Al Colvin hollered. “They ain’t runned off, not by a long chalk.”
“Al’s right,” brother Zeke intoned. “They just gathering for ’nother charge, I ’spect.”
Seamus watched the men work silently at their lonely tasks. Reloading. Binding a bloody wound with a piece of torn shirt. Swiping sweat and grit from powder-burnt eyes. And every one among them waiting at the walls for the next rush as the sun rose ever higher, beating mercilessly on their backs. The same sun scorching the
rolling hills of sun-cured buffalo grass where the swelling mass of warriors milled restlessly.
“We’ve gone and made them mad, fellas,” Seamus said.
“Damn right, we have,” Al Colvin replied. “Figured to run right over us, didn’t they, Irishman? Like you blue-belly horse soldiers always figured to run right over Confederate foot.”
Donegan glanced over at the former Rebel captain. And found Colvin grinning, his face a smeared painting of powder and yellow dust.
“You Johnnies always had the grit, I’ll hand you that,” Seamus hollered. “Standing up to odds three, four times your number.”
“We’ll do the same here today, Irishman,” Colvin shouted. “Us … together. Blue-belly … and Johnnie Reb.”
Seamus nodded his head, knowing the rest, soldier and civilian alike watched him and Al Colvin now. Now that Sternberg lay in a pool of his own steamy blood. The back of his head splattered across the trampled ground.
“Where’d you go, Burnett?” he asked as Finn slid back into the southwest corner of the wall.
“Fetch this,” he replied, holding forth his ten-gauge double barrel.
“You got loads for that bird shooter?”
“Aye, Seamus.” He patted the canvas satchel beside him on the ground.
Donegan glanced round, assessing their defensive island in the middle of a red sea. Zeke Colvin squatted near the southeast corner. Brother Al paced near the northeast corner, watching the milling warriors. Al Stevenson huddled near the entrance on the south wall. Up a ways were the other civilians dotted between the blue shirts of the soldiers, every man among them hunkering down in the shade, alone with his own thoughts. Waiting for the next rush.
At the picket line a handful of the wounded mules whimpered and brayed at times, arrows quivering from their sides and withers like the tough, brittle stems of buffalo grass trembling beneath the onslaught of a prairie blizzard. Others, less severely wounded, stood patiently, flicking ears and swishing tails at the huge summer flies that hung in annoying clouds over man and animal alike. Those mules hungry enough pulled at the dried hay piled along the picket rope. In the quiet of their wait, Seamus listened, the dried and hollow stems bursting apart as the mules ate, making a sound like corn kernels popping in a greased cast-iron skillet.
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