Herron ground his teeth together. Private Andrews stood before him, bruised and bloodied. Smoke smeared his face and soiled his uniform. Colonel Lewis Grey, the commander of Fort Hannibal, stood behind Herron at the shuttered window. A single hurricane lamp lit the room, its flame turned low to conserve oil. Noyles stood near the door, hidden in the shadowed corner where the dim lamplight could not reach.
“How many?” Herron asked the soldier.
“Hundreds, sir. More’n I’ve ever seen afore.”
“And they used explosives?”
“Blew a hole big enough to drive a train through, sir. And then they just...just poured in. Like the sea. And then it was nothing but injuns and lizards and gunfire. The horses stampeded an’ I...I...”
“You what?”
“Sir? I know it looks bad, sir. I know it does.” The private’s eyes were wide with remembered terror, his lank hair plastered to his sweaty brow. He leaned forward onto the lip of Herron’s desk, his hand wrapped in a bloodied kerchief. Herron could smell the smoke on his clothes, the scent of gunsmoke clinging to him. “Honest, I didn’t run, sir. I didn’t. I mean, we were done for. Our sixty-five against their hundreds. A fool could see it was so. Someone had to come. Someone had to come and warn you. I didn’t run, General. I swear I didn’t.”
Herron nodded, accepting the man’s explanation. “Don’t worry, Private. No one’s accusing you of anything. Now go and talk to the quartermaster. He’ll see to your needs.”
“But General Herron,” the private said, his eyes wide, his tone urgent. “We’ve got to pack up. We’ve got to get out of here. They’ll be comin’ this way.”
“Private Andrews,” said Colonel Grey from his station near the window. “Thank you for your report. You are dismissed.”
The soldier suddenly remembered that there were others in the room. His gaze shifted from colonel to general, and Herron could see sanity return to the young man’s face. He stood straight, attempted a snap to attention, and saluted.
“Thank you, Private,” Herron said, and watched the young man leave. Noyles closed the door, and Colonel Grey came around and sat down in the chair before the desk. Grey was a precise man, fiftyish but still with jet-black hair and moustache. His dark brown eyes glittered like obsidian in the lamp’s light.
“When is the next train east?” Grey asked the captain.
“Day after tomorrow,” Noyles said. “Noon.”
Herron scowled. “What are you thinking, Colonel?”
“Of decamping, sir. If Andrews is accurate, we’ll be overrun by this time tomorrow. I recommend a full withdrawal, and as soon as possible.”
“I do not intend to surrender all our gains—”
“General...” Noyles stepped forward from the shadows. “If Andrews is telling the truth, both of our westernmost positions have been annihilated. That means that you, sir, are now at the front line, with only one hundred men to protect you against a force many times greater.”
“But evacuate?”
Grey leaned forward in his seat. “Not evacuate, sir. Withdraw. Pull back our lines to a defensible position. You’ve been fighting a defensive campaign all along, sir. Now would be the worst time to change that strategy.”
Herron tapped his fingers on the desktop. They were right, he knew, and the best way for a commander to commit suicide was to ignore good counsel. He went to the window and pushed open the shutter. Outside, the yard was quiet. Lanterns swung and guttered in the wind. Horses whickered among themselves and friendly voices could be heard from inside the smithy where a supposedly clandestine poker game was being played.
We were safe, he told to himself. As long as the Indian remained thwarted by our forts, we were safe. But now he has weapons, and explosives...
And confidence.
“Send riders out to the homesteads. Send a rider to Fort Beckwith as well. Have them wire Westgate. I want a train out there to meet us. We’re pulling back.”
“How far?” Colonel Grey asked.
“We’ll combine all our strength at Fort Assurance and send as many of the civilians as we can back across the river to Westgate. If there’s a war coming, it’ll be on ground of my own choosing.”
George crawled up to the limit of the low rise, the others close behind him. He reached into his bag and took out the binoculars he’d taken from the first fort they’d attacked. With them he scanned the landscape.
“This is the place,” he said. “Fort Assurance. This is where they’re going to make their stand.” He handed the binoculars to Two Roads. He and the other chiefs—all part of an advance scouting party—reviewed the scene and eventually passed the glasses back to George.
The town that hung on the tracks was empty despite the midmorning hour. No smoke rose from chimneys, no horses stood at hitching posts. It was just as desolate as the other forts and homesteads they’d encountered on their way here. The Army had taken every article of possible use with them in their retreat—food, tools, supplies of every kind. Nothing had been left behind except the buildings themselves, and those the People’s forces had burned to the ground. As George looked out on the town, he saw the same signs of orderly evacuation.
But the fort before them was a different story. It sat beyond the town, a squat structure south of the railroad. He could see men on the towers and walking along the battlements. Two pale trails of woodsmoke rose from within the fortress walls, slanting to the east in the west-born wind. The gate was open, and riders moved in and out as patrols came and went. Around the perimeter, outside the walls, barriers with sharpened poles had been erected and breastworks had been dug. In the trenches, George could see more soldiers. He put the binoculars away.
“We are most definitely expected,” he said.
Good Voice grunted. “We still outnumber them.”
“Those breastworks will make a difference,” George said.
“Perhaps,” Two Roads said. “But I saw nothing there that would make us change our plans. Did you?”
The other chiefs, Good Voice included, indicated that they had not.
“Are the men prepared?” Two Roads asked.
“They are,” the chiefs answered.
“And yours?” he asked George.
“They are waiting for your command.”
“All is well,” Two Roads said. “Let us begin.”
The wind smelled of the sea. Herron stood at the tower rail and looked westward. The clouds were piled up above the world’s rim like a Roman shade, ready with tomorrow’s weather, waiting for the wind to pull the cord and unroll them across the land.
More rain, Herron fretted, is not what we need. The ground in the yard is thinner than a cold French soup as it is.
He studied the young lookout who shared the platform with him. The private stood at the rail, his eyes scanning the horizon, his hands clasped behind his back. From a lanyard around his wrist hung the bright metal whistle that he would blow at the first sign of an attack force.
“Make sure you watch more than just the horizon,” Herron told the young soldier. “Keep an eye on the middle distances, beyond the edge of town, as well.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
A lieutenant pounded up the ladders to the tower. “General Herron, sir,” he said. “Colonel Grey wished to inform you that the western patrol is overdue.”
Herron nodded. “My compliments to the Colonel. Please return and tell him to prepare the men. We should see action within the hour.”
“Very good, sir.”
Herron turned his attention to the landscape. He felt his blood cool and his heart calm at the certain prospect of battle. He turned to ask Quincy for his glasses and found that it was not Quincy, but Noyles at his side.
Of course, he reminded himself. Poor Quincy’s gone.
He held out his hand and Noyles gave him the binoculars.
“I can’t see anything out there, sir,” Noyles said. “What are you looking for?”
“Ghosts,” Herron said. Throu
gh the dark-walled tunnel of the binoculars’ enhanced vision, he scanned the horizon, searching for anything that seemed out of place. He found nothing, and continued his scan around to the north and east.
“How can you hide in this land?” he asked his unseen enemy.
A whistle blew at the southwest tower, sharp and shrill. Herron looked and saw men pointing. “To your posts!” he bellowed. Inside the walls, men ran across the muddy yard and scaled ladders to the walls. Outside, men ducked down in their trenches. Another whistle sounded from the opposite corner of the fort. Two forces, then, Herron thought; out of the west and east, flanking our gates. He looked beyond the walls, expecting to see the enemy charging in from miles distant.
The enemy was not miles away. He was nearly at their doorstep. Less than a mile away, to the east as well as the west, a line of whistler-borne Indians had appeared. Herron cursed again the savage’s skill at stealth and surprise, but could not understand why they were not attacking. The two lines, several hundred on a side, simply stood their ground, beyond effective rifle range.
“What are you planning?” he asked them and raised his binoculars again.
The Indians, faces painted with white and black, red and ochre, sat atop whistlers mottled to match the winter terrain. Each man, to Herron’s chagrin, carried a new Winchester repeater across his knees, spoils of the attack on the supply train. But they did not attack.
You’ve got our rifles, Herron said to himself. And our explosives. What are you planning, if not an attack? A siege? Has Custer’s boy taught you siege warfare?
His mind worked, the clarity of battle taking over his senses. Siege warfare. What would Custer teach them? To draw us out? To goad us beyond our defenses? What about the heavy guns from the train?
Herron checked the enemy lines again. Just Indians and rifles. He checked the fort’s perimeter. Men manned the walls and towers, rifles ready. Men down in the trenches were prepared as well. Horses at the back of the yard were saddled, and carbine-armed troops stood by, waiting to sally forth when the Indians began their standard circling attacks. They were ready for an attack, but not a siege.
And then the enemy began to move.
It wasn’t an attack. It was an advance. They started forward in a slow, measured progress. Herron looked through his glasses and saw the whistlers take a step and then pause; another step, and a pause.
A murmur swept through the men along the walls. Herron heard it and hated it. The Indians were playing with his men, toying with them, eroding their confidence. Custer’s boy had taught them something. Warfare of the mind.
More steps, and the Indians began to chant in rhythm with their hesitant advance. The chant built, and Herron saw his soldiers glance from one side to the other, realizing that the enemy was closing in.
“Don’t fret, boys,” he heard Grey shout from his position on the far tower. “Let them walk right on up. Makes it easier to blast them on to Hell.” Laughter followed the colonel’s remarks and Herron silently approved. Still, he could not understand what the Indians intended.
A whistle pierced his ears. The lookout on his own tower was pointing north, toward the town. Herron saw Indians in among the buildings and along the tracks, less than a half mile away. Some carried bows, and they fired. Arrows leapt upward, sputtering flame and drawing lines of smoke across the sky. One was heading for his own position.
“Down!” he cried. “Off the towers. To the south.”
He shoved the lookout toward the ladders. Another man leapt down from the tower to the ramparts. Noyles pulled at Herron’s arm, urging him to safety. Herron grabbed his aide and pushed him ahead. He had his hand on the ladder when the arrows hit.
The explosion ripped away the footing of the tower and Herron grabbed the railing as the flooring slewed and bucked. Another explosion blasted the gatework and he felt his face and arm struck by splintered wood. He pulled himself up to the lip of the tower platform, toward the ladder that still, somehow, hung to the side. He got a leg up over the edge and looked over to find Noyles, blood smearing his cheek, holding the ladder in place for his general. He gave silent blessing for the senator’s only son and grabbed onto the ladder. A third explosion detonated and Herron saw the platform of the northeast tower lift up in the air like a feather in a gentle breeze. It tipped in midair, spilling men, and slowly came crashing down upon them.
Gunfire chattered from the flanking forces and Herron heard bullets spatter the wooden walls. That was just for show, he thought, knowing the main attack was still to come. He clambered down the ladder to the parapet, almost lost his footing again as the tower shuddered, but was seized by soldiers and saved a fall to the yard below.
“General,” Noyles said. “Are you all right?”
His aide’s voice sounded muffled. Herron shook his head and realized his ear was full of blood. He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and put it to his brow. It came away bloody. “Just a cut. I’m fine. We’ve got to barricade the yard.”
The gate was a ruin. The northeastern tower was damaged but still structurally sound; only the platform had been wrecked. The front of the northwestern tower—Herron’s position—was a pile of broken lumber. The whole front of the fort was open to attack. By the time Herron reached the yard, Grey had already set men stacking timbers to form barricades.
“Colonel, are we still defensible?”
“I believe so sir. We never planned on having to withstand explosives, though.”
“I know. Make do with what you can.” He stopped as gunfire began again outside the walls. “Sounds like they’re coming in. Let’s use this to our advantage. Place our Gatling guns in the gap.”
“Yes, sir.”
The heavy Gatling guns were slogged and pulled into position behind low barricades. Herron climbed up onto the southwest tower to get a view of what was happening.
The Indians had begun their attack in earnest. While some sped around the fort in a wide circle, firing the occasional shot toward the ramparts, others rode their whistlers to a harsh stop and ducked behind their beasts’ camouflage and fired with lethal accuracy into the defenders.
The trench-bound shooters were doing deadly work in turn. From their low vantage they could see the whistlers against the flat horizon and the still-blue sky. Firing was erratic but not panicked, and Herron watched as Indians fell from their mounts and dropped from behind the screen of their whistlers’ stippled flanks.
The Gatling guns were in place. Grey shouted the order and the multi-barreled weapons opened fire. They spewed short bursts of heavy-caliber shot into the circling attackers. Men died, torn to pieces by bullets nearly half an inch wide.
He saw movement at the town. “My binoculars.”
“Lost, sir.”
He squinted, but was looking across the smoke-filled yard as well as an intervening half mile. “Look,” he told Noyles. “In the shadows between the buildings. What is that?”
“I can’t quite make it out, sir. Looks like some sort of animal.”
Bullets from the Gatling gun chewed into the tavern wall. George touched the hardback’s front foot with his stick, trying to stop him before he left the building’s protective shadow. Pine did likewise, and the thousand-pound beast bleated like a monstrous lamb and slowed. On its back, the frame of willow-twig wicker and hewn lodgepoles creaked. The huge, five-barreled Hotchkiss rifle it supported swayed. Finally, the beast lumbered to a halt, half in the sunlight. George moved to the gunning position and Pine went to one of the wicker baskets that held the ten-shot magazines. He handed one to George.
“Are you ready?” George shouted over the rooftop to Gets up Early.
“I am ready, One Who Flies,” came the response from the other side of the tavern.
“Send the signal!”
An arrow rose into the air, a half-stick tied to its shaft. It exploded mid-air with a boom that echoed off what was left of the gate and northern towers of Fort Assurance. The soldiers circling the fort parted, pulling back awa
y from the northern side. Pine put his hand to the crank and George dropped the magazine into place.
“Begin,” he said.
The barrels began to turn, picking up one of the six-inch long, one-pound cartridges and carrying it around to the firing mechanism; not too fast—the manual warned that a fast fire rate could overheat the barrels. George clenched his teeth and squinted, anticipating the percussive shot. The first cartridge neared the top. George turned the wheels and capstans to line up the iron sights with the barricades where he had seen the sputtering fire of the Gatlings.
The Hotchkiss fired, the sound magnified by the buildings to either side. The rifle rocked backward. The hardback squalled, but held his place. Inside the gate, a bloom of fire erupted. George grinned and trimmed his aim. The second cartridge came up toward the firing pin.
“Oh, Christ,” Herron said aloud as his fears became reality. The artillery round ripped into the barricade protecting the Gatling gun. A second round plowed into the soldiers behind it, tearing one man in half, his torso cartwheeling off to the side. The soldiers manning the second gun dropped their post and ran. Another round exploded behind them. The yard filled with smoke.
Herron abandoned the platform, Noyles quick on his heels. He grabbed a rifle from a dead soldier’s hands. “Come with me,” he ordered a squad of soldiers.
They ran along the parapet, heading to the north side. Gunsmoke filled the air with the taste of metal.
One-pound rounds from the Hotchkiss cannons flew into the yard, punching into the corralled horses, exploding against the far wall. Colonel Grey hollered orders down in the yard. Soldiers mounted up and headed out for an attack that was safer than sitting inside the yard like fish in a barrel.
More rounds came in, pounding the walls, finding the limits of their inner defense.
God help us if they hit the armory, Herron thought.
He reached what was left of the northern wall, slipped a cartridge into the rifle’s block, and clamped it shut. He pointed, showing his squad the men and animals partially hidden by the shadows between the buildings beyond the tracks.
The Spirit of Thunder Page 31