“There,” he said. “Now I’m all right.”
The wind weakened, keeping its edge but losing some of its enthusiasm for the attack. He and Noyles started off again, riding side-by-side, their horses’ hooves shuffling through the snowy grass. The world around them was made smaller by the enclosing weather, but seemed also endless, as if they traveled in a bubble surrounded by a pale void. The sounds of harness and tack, of horse and man were all that existed in their tiny world. Herron studied the railroad tracks that lay on their right hand, watching as they appeared out of the void before them and disappeared behind, as if consumed by the thing that created them. He shivered at the image, and was glad when Noyles spoke and broke the spell.
“Sir, may speak frankly?”
Herron nodded.
“Well, sir, I don’t intend to criticize. I simply wish to understand...”
“Noyles, you gutless rabbit. I’ve given you my permission to speak. Just say what you mean.”
The pink-cheeked man coughed to hide his unease. “Yes...well...I was only wondering, sir, considering the tragic results of the attack, why you still insist on moving out to Fort Hannibal.”
Herron smiled grimly. “You mean why move out there, without a proper garrison?”
“Well, yes, sir. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, yes.”
He looked over at his aide. “Afraid, Noyles? Afraid of life out on the wild frontier, unprotected, surrounded by belligerent savages?” Noyles frowned and Herron laughed. “You are,” he said. “You figured a post as a general’s aide would keep you safe and warm and well at the rear, didn’t you?”
“I was only thinking of the general’s safety, and the security of the command.”
“Like Hell you were.” Herron laughed again. “You’re thinking of your own pale hide.”
“General, I assure you—”
“At ease, Noyles,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I know your background. I know of your family. Hell, your father wrote to me personally after the attack on the train.”
“My father? Why, sir, I—”
Herron cut him off again. “Don’t worry. He said nothing inappropriate. Didn’t have to, did he? The senatorial letterhead was message enough.”
He glanced over at his aide. The young man was thoroughly furious and holding it in bravely, staring into the snowy nothingness, his cheeks nipped red by more than just the cold, the leather of his gloves creaking on the reins.
Herron took out his flask again, uncorked it, and handed it to the young captain. This time Noyles accepted the offer. He put it to his lips, took a deep swallow, and grimaced.
“Take another,” Herron said. “The second one is worth the first.” The captain did so and handed back the flask.
“Thought you were doing it all on your own, didn’t you?”
Noyles nodded.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I don’t give a damn whose feathers get ruffled by my actions, senatorial or otherwise. I’m going to do as I see fit, when I see fit.” He took a mouthful of whiskey, let its astringency pull at the tissues of his tongue and cheeks, and then let it burn its way down as he swallowed. “That’s why we’re out here, riding through this, instead of waiting for the train to make its way out here again.”
His aide looked at him, not understanding, but as far as Herron could remember, it was the first time that the senator’s young son had ever really listened to his commanding officer. Herron decided to speak plainly.
“Noyles, if the Indians attacked one train, they can attack the next. Safer for us on horseback and moving without a schedule than on the first train in a month and a half, wouldn’t you say?”
His aide nodded, comprehension seeping in past his frown. “But the garrison, sir...”
Herron chuckled. “Don’t fret, son. The Indians haven’t had the guts to attack one of our forts in over a year. The men out at these forts are only at half strength, but they’ll be enough, at least for the next few weeks until we get more recruits out here. Those savages killed plenty of our boys in that train attack, but soldiers, as you’ll learn, can be replaced.” He sighed, his breath frosting in a cloud around him. “I’m more worried about the loss of the arms and munitions. Damn.” He struck his thigh at the thought. “How did they know? The one train among dozens. Who would have told the Indians a thing like that?”
“Sir?”
Noyles looked puzzled again, but Herron was suddenly out of patience. “What don’t you understand now?” he said in irritation.
“No, sir, it’s not that. I just...well, isn’t it obvious?”
“Obvious? Isn’t what obvious?”
“How they got their information about the shipment.”
Herron bit back an overly harsh reply and succeeded in saying only, “If it was obvious, then I would know, wouldn’t I?” He took a slow breath. “So tell me, Noyles. How did they know?”
“I’m sorry, sir. It just seemed clear to me. They’ve obviously got a spy.”
“Well of course they’ve got a spy. That’s what I’ve been saying. But who? Who would help the Indians do such a thing?”
Noyles’s face was a wide-eyed mask of innocence. “Why, Captain Custer. The president’s son, sir.”
Now it was Herron’s turn to gape. “Custer’s boy?” he said, distracted by his whirling thoughts. “Alive?” He recalled his talk with the president before the bridge had begun; a conversation of loss, death, and finality. He’d thought no more on it, and had only taken his own advice, considered the young captain dead, and driven any further thought of him from his mind. But now, yes, it was all too clear.
“You’re right, Noyles,” he said. “It’s perfectly obvious. You’ve got to speak up more often, Son.”
“Yes, sir,” Noyles said.
“Sergeant Tack!” Herron bellowed.
“Sir,” the sergeant said, reining in.
“Send two men back to Fort Sherman. I want all regiments alerted. Any white man seen riding in the company of the enemy is to be shot on sight.”
“Sir!” The sergeant saluted and wheeled to carry out his orders.
Rainstorms rose from the shallow waters of the Big Salty like vast trees sprouting to the heavens. With violent winds they battered back the early snows of the Big Hard Face Moon and drenched the southern lands with oceans of rain. Storm Arriving, returning from an unsuccessful dawn hunting foray, forded the Sudden River and crossed back into the contested lands. His whistler slipped and slid on a riverbank turned to mud by the passage of the hundreds who had crossed before him. The hen warbled in distress, her face pulsing in bars of anxious red and white. He calmed her with a word, driving her onward with steady pressure from his feet. His war mount, a drake and stronger-limbed, dug his three-toed feet into the muck to push himself up the slope. The hen took heart and pushed harder to keep up with her companion.
They reached the top of the bank and Storm Arriving slowed to take in the view. His throat tightened with pride and he could not keep a smile from his lips as he looked out on a thing that, just a few weeks before, the world had never seen.
It was not just a war party. It was an army. Soldiers from every band, from every society. Soldiers even from the allied tribes and from the people from across the Big Greasy. Tied by blood or honor, clan or friendship, they were a thousand strong, the greatest assemblage of might in the People’s long history. They stood or sat in groups that formed and dissolved as he watched, men moving from one group to another, visiting with old friends, telling stories, gossiping like old women.
But unlike old women, each man was armed, and heavily so. The soldiers carried not only one of the traditional weapons of bow and lance, ax and club, but each also had one of the rifles taken from the attack on the iron hardback. One of the new weapons rested across every man’s legs or leaned up against his belongings, and hanging from bedrolls and slung across backs were packets filled with the small cartridges that the rifles fired. Ten shots the rifles would fire, one after
another before it needed more. Storm Arriving gripped the smooth wooden stock of his own rifle and thanked the spirits for the strength of these new weapons. But even a thousand men with vé’hó’e weapons was not enough to do what needed to be done.
He toed his whistler into a trot and rode up to Two Roads and the other chiefs who had been selected to lead the army. “Any word from One Who Flies?” he asked the Kit Fox war chief.
“No,” the older man said. “He was supposed to meet us here after testing the bluecoat thunder-sticks.”
“We should not depend on your vé’ho’e to save us,” said Good Voice, chief of the Red Shield soldiers. “Look what happened at the attack on the iron hardback.”
“We won that battle,” Two Roads said.
“By luck,” said the chief of the Red Shields. His blunt features wrinkled at the memory. “Besides, he is probably in pieces on the wind by now. I do not trust his thunder-sticks.”
The chief of the Little Bowstrings strode up. “Do we wait?” he asked, his tone indicating that he thought they should not.
“I say we go,” Good Voice said.
“We can’t go without One Who Flies,” Storm Arriving said.
“Look at the sky,” Good Voice said. “How long do you think we can count on this easy weather? We must attack.”
Two Roads looked at Storm Arriving, his face creased with concern. “We cannot wait any longer,” he said. “He should be here already. The Hoop and Stick Game Moon is past full. We must go.”
One of the Red Shield soldiers whooped and pointed eastward. “One Who Flies,” he shouted. Men stood and shaded their eyes as they peered into the rising sun. Word spread. Whoops filled the air.
Seven men on whistler-back rode in at a run. Storm Arriving saw One Who Flies in the lead, his pale hair tied up behind in a short braid, his eyes as bright as his smile. With him were Gets up Early, Pine, Standing Motionless, and the rest of the soldiers who had first worked with him digging for the yellow chief-metal. They whooped and shouted their greetings as they sped in.
Storm Arriving goaded his whistler into a lope and reached the new arrivals just as they met up with the main body. One Who Flies spied his friend and grinned even more broadly than before. He said something to Gets up Early. The Little Bowstring soldier signed his understanding and rode on toward the chiefs while One Who Flies waited for Storm Arriving to join him.
“My friend,” One Who Flies said, his mood beyond joyful.
“The bluecoat thunder-sticks worked?” Storm Arriving asked.
One Who Flies laughed out loud. “Even better than we had hoped. The bluecoat supplies are far superior to what we had before. Stable, reliable, easier to use. We have a few surprises for our enemy.”
“So we are ready?”
“We are ready.”
Storm Arriving shouted his joy and startled the whistlers. The men laughed together as they got their dancing mounts back under control. Then they rode to the chiefs. Good Voice had heard the news and looked as if he could not decide between disapproval and suspicion. Storm Arriving laughed at the chief’s consternation.
“Do not worry,” he told Good Voice. “We still might fail. Then you will have been right all along.”
The other chiefs chuckled at the teasing, but grew quickly quiet. They all looked at one another in silent conversation. Finally Setting Sun, war chief of the Crazy Dog soldiers, said, “Let us make ready.”
Whistlers sang. Men laughed and joked. Spirits were high as the army split into two groups and got underway. They rode quickly, letting the whistlers fly across the flat lands. The beasts shifted colors to match the landscape—tawny brown for the fallen grass of summer; a pale, attenuated green to mimic the mosses that thrived only in winter. The sky was clear and the sun strong, but the air was cold with the speed of their passage. They raced southward and after a few hands of travel, with whoops and good wishes, the two groups parted.
Storm Arriving rode with the other Kit Foxes. The Wolf Men and the Crazy Dogs and some from the other tribes were with them, as well. One Who Flies and three of his mining men were with the group, too, though they rode to one side, apart from the main body. The soldiers rode, and as the miles passed, their target grew near and their jubilance waned. Storm Arriving knew why, for he shared their thoughts.
For some of us, today is the final day.
The short winter day was half done before someone shouted and the chiefs called the force to a halt.
“There,” someone said.
The bluecoat fort seemed so small, so harmless against the expanse of the land around it. It was still miles away, and from this distance, it was little more than a dark patch on the ground, its smoke barely a smudge in the pale blue of the afternoon sky. It was alone, isolated, surrounded by miles and miles of flat, unwelcoming land. It was not swarming with bluecoats. It was not the nexus of an invasionary force.
“We can hardly have feared this,” he said to no one in particular.
“Fear it,” said One Who Flies, suddenly at his side. He reached into bags on his whistler’s rump and withdrew a variety of tools and items. He jutted his jaw toward the bluecoat fort. “It is the canker from which will grow the plague that will kill us.”
Storm Arriving turned to his friend. “Us?” he said with a kindly smile.
One Who Flies looked up from his ropes and pieces of metal and Storm Arriving saw no humor in his eyes. There was no room in that gaze for anything that was not hard or edged.
“Yes,” One Who Flies said. “Us.”
Grasshopper, Pine, and Standing Motionless rode up. Their rifles had been stowed and they all carried their bows. They each handed One Who Flies an arrow with an extra-long shaft, and he worked on them with leather laces and his rope.
Two Roads came up to them. He said nothing, only watching the work in silence, patiently waiting for its completion. When all was ready, he turned and signaled the other chiefs. A great whoop went up from the soldiers and they wheeled their mounts and rode toward the fort.
Storm Arriving looked at his friend, at the three soldiers with their bows beside him.
“I will see you after,” he said.
“Yes,” One Who Flies said. “And I will see you.”
“We go,” he said to his whistler, and headed toward the bluecoat fort.
He rode in at full speed, keeping low over his whistler’s spine. He had his rifle in one hand and held onto the first rope with the other. He barked and whooped as he rode. The dark, uneven line of the fort grew in his sight, walls sprouting up from the ground, towers lifting their sinister heads. He saw the bobbing faces of bluecoats looking over the walls. He smelled the savor of their cookfires. He levered a cartridge into his rifle. Muffled gunfire popped, like corn kernels thrown into the fire.
The attacking force split in two, flowing around the fort like water. He heard shouts above his head as he swung left past the main gate and under the bulk of one of the square towers. He could even hear the pounding of feet on the wooden ramparts as bluecoats ran to man the walls.
They rode around the fort, circling it as they had always done before. Storm Arriving fired up at the bluecoats, but seldom and without aiming. On his second circuit around the fort he saw the three miners ride in. Smoke trailed after them. They halted fifty yards from the gate and pulled back their bows. They fired, and Storm Arriving saw the sparks and smoke arc through the clear, blue sky.
“Thunder comes!”
The arrows sailed toward the fort, one toward the timbered wood of the tall gate, and the others up to the towers that commanded the corners on either side. The riders barely had time to retreat before the thunder-sticks tied to the arrows struck.
Fire exploded across the fort. Bluecoats screamed in terror and agony. Storm Arriving turned and saw the hole where the gate had been, the fire that burned there, the smoke and flames that rose from the ruins of the towers. Splinters of wood rained down from the sky, and through the smoky gap in the wall, Storm Arriving
saw bluecoats—some sitting in the dirt, some still standing—staring at the damage the thunder had wrought. Horses began to pound out of the yard and onto the safety of the prairie.
A rider sped past. Storm Arriving saw pale hair and the glint of the afternoon sun off a rifle barrel.
“We go!” he shouted.
They poured through the gap and into the bluecoat fort. Bluecoats on the undamaged walls fired at them and men and whistlers went down. But as the bluecoats reloaded, Storm Arriving and the others fired again. And again.
And again.
And then it was over.
Later, Storm Arriving found One Who Flies sitting on his war mount outside the broken walls.
“How many did we lose?”
“Three dead,” Storm Arriving said. “A dozen men wounded. One may die.”
“Is Good Voice happy?”
Storm Arriving heard the bitterness in his friend’s voice. “Good Voice will never be happy,” he said, and won a smile. “Do you think it went as well with the others?”
“Yes,” One Who Flies said. “I’m sure of it.”
“That’s two forts, then.”
“And four to go.”
Two Roads and the other chiefs rode out of the ruined fort. Behind them, soldiers led whistlers laden with goods taken from the commissary and armory. Two Roads motioned to the spoils of their victory. “We have regained all that we expended and more,” he said.
“We will grow stronger as they grow weaker,” One Who Flies said. “But we should not take anything that will slow our progress.”
“Such supplies can help families at home. We will cache what we do not need for battle,” the chief said. He glanced behind him and they all saw Kit Fox setting fire to the rest of the fort. “We are done here. We ride now to the meeting place.”
The Spirit of Thunder Page 30