Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (8 page)

Every bit as unrelenting as this.

Peering over the heaving ribs of the animal, he watched puffs of white smoke dot the dry leaves of the cottonwood and willow just yards across the creek. Still struggling to free the foot from his boot, he fired a few shots at the powder smoke that marked his targets. A bullet whistled past his cheek, causing him to jerk about in surprise.

Upstream, to his left—another rifleman. And this new warrior had him dead to rights in the open.

Cody stretched out on his back, not only to make himself as small a target as possible, but to push against the rear flank of the great animal with his free leg. His trapped foot popped free, without his boot.

Rolling onto his belly, Cody fired two shots across the creek, then crawled up beside the dead animal. He pulled and yanked, finally freeing his boot from its sandy prison. His toes wriggled in the sand, peeking from the holes worn in his stiffened stockings as he yanked the long boot on—just as a bullet nicked a large splinter from the butt of his Spencer carbine still in its scabbard on the saddle.

He dragged it and the canteen free from the horn once he had clambered over the horse. Its carcass was not the best protection a man could hope for—still, the big neck and legs gave him some cover from one direction, the rear flanks cover from the second sniper as he began to put the Spencer into use.

“Damn,” he muttered, looking beyond the fringe of trees lining the opposite creekbank. “Looks like you flushed 'em from their roost.”

A small band of squaws and children, with ponies pulling travois, hurried away from the scene, protected by the two warriors who had dismounted the white scout. They disappeared in the distance between two flat hills.

“By God, we do have the bunch of 'em split up and running from us.”

For long minutes as the sun continued its climb into the sky, Cody fired back only when he saw gun smoke on the far creekbank. He kept the pistol beneath him, come the time for the close work.

The bloody cry shocked him, erupting so close, driving his heart right into his throat. A few yards downstream one of the warriors had mounted and burst from the timber, screeching out his war-cry as his pony splashed into the shallow creek, droplets raining in a cascade like a thousand tiny jewels in the golden autumn sunlight.

Leaping up on Cody's bank with a spray of water, the warrior slipped behind his pony, firing beneath his neck with a repeater. Coming on in a wide circle around the dead horse so that in a matter of seconds the white man would have no shelter. It was time for a decision.

Cody bellied the ground as flat as he could, stuffing his head between the dead horse's rear legs. In that cramped and odorous spot, the young scout pressed the Spencer to his cheek and fired.

“Damn!” he muttered. He had missed, and cursed himself for it.

More shots rattled through the still air. He jerked backward from his hiding place, peering over the brown flanks of the horse to find Donegan and a handful of soldiers breaking the skyline directly above him.

The lone warrior immediately righted himself and tore back into the stream, looking over his shoulder at the advancing rescuers as he splashed across the Beaver. In the next moment his companion had joined him in a mad dash after the fleeing women and children.

“You hurt?” Donegan asked as he reined his horse up beside Cody, casting a big shadow over the young scout.

He looked up and smiled crookedly. “Nothing but my pride. I missed a damned good shot at one of 'em.”

A sergeant was shouting at his soldiers to return, denying them the chase just when they had the scent good and strong in their nostrils. He rode over to the two civilians.

“We'll wait here for Carr to come up,” explained the sergeant.

“Best you keep them from running on, Sergeant,” Cody said, standing at last. “Them two we saw—and more we didn't—might have a mind to double back and ambush your boys.”

“They'll gripe, not getting blooded today.”

“Their time will come, Sergeant,” Donegan assured. “Your sojurs will see plenty of blood soon enough.”

*   *   *

He could almost ignore the wailing of the squaws, keening in their grief. Days ago the running fight with the soldiers had cost Tall Bull some good warriors. But this day near the beginning of the Moon of Leaves Falling had cost him no more than a half-dozen ponies and sixteen lodges some of his people were forced to abandon in their hasty flight.

After sundown a few of the small bands had come in. Two of them reported skirmishing with the soldiers throughout the day, being chased until darkness forced the white men to give up their hunt. Between them, both groups had lost some of their animals and many of their homes tied to travois, along with cooking utensils and clothing.

With his entire village of fighting men licking its wounds, the tall chief seethed, wanting so badly to gather his warriors and strike the soldiers beneath the starry night sky. But he again listened to his medicine man, who advised the Dog Soldier camp to turn about and point their noses north for the winter. The white man would eventually give up his chase and snow would blanket the land.

There were many who would sleep in borrowed blankets this night. Worse yet were the women and children, keening pitifully at the loss of home and husband and father.

There in the silvery autumn light of a quarter-moon spilling its faint brilliance on the far prairie, Tall Bull vowed he would return. When the short grass time came next spring, he and his Dog Soldiers would come to burn and steal, to kill and carry off many white women and children.

Come the short grass time, Tall Bull pledged to renew a war so bloody, exact a revenge so terrible, that the white man's heart would turn to water.

Chapter 5

November 5, 1868

The pink limestone walls of Fort Wallace lit up with a rosy light this autumn sunrise. The sky came up red in the east, then softened to an orange glow on the squat buildings that cast long shadows across the cold parade.

Seamus Donegan watched his breath rise gauzy before his face as he saddled the big mare at the hitching post outside the stables. Cody and ten of Pepoon's scouts strapped on bits and tightened cinches. Nothing more than a morning hunt, with hopes of feeding Carr's Fifth Cavalry, troops who had put an unexpected strain on the post larder.

“We'll be all right,” Seamus said, seeing Cody turn in the saddle with a look of apprehension on his face, sizing up the soldiers who followed the pair out the gates.

Cody settled, pulling his heavy collar up against the dawn wind. “Had my way—we'd have more along.”

“Too many still hung over, Bill.”

The young scout finally cracked a smile, his gray-blue eyes merry as he looked back at Donegan. “Not many like you and me, eh? We drank our share.”

“And then some, Mr. Cody!”

“Aye, you goddamned Irish bastard!”

They were of a kind, the sort who worked over a bottle until it hurt, yet still young enough that they rarely felt their liquor the next day, that head-pounding and queasy belly. All of that would come soon enough, Sharp Grover warned them like an austere uncle last night … in the end, the aging scout added, a man had to admit he was getting on in his years when he finally felt his cups.

“Life's short enough not to celebrate what little we got to celebrate,” Seamus repeated the sentiment.

“Out here, life can just be too damned short.”

“All the more reason for a man to celebrate with his friends.”

“You know, Irishman—every day I get reminded why I liked you from the start.”

“You needed someone to drink with, Cody.”

“No,” and his eyes got that serious, cloudy look to their blue, like clouds suddenly soiling the sun-bright sky. “I just needed someone who understood that a man could have his fun and still be good at what he did. I needed a friend.”

“I'm glad to know you, Bill Cody.”

He held out his hand, and they shook awkwardly in the saddle. “Let's make meat, Irishman.”

For better than three hours the twelve hunted the draws and coulees of the rolling country north of Fort Wallace, dividing into three groups which stayed in sight of one another. Each band of hunters took with it a pair of the pack animals—big, black army mules, ugly as sin and twice that mean to the unwary. Yet it was one of those yellow-eyed brutes who brought the first warning to the hunters.

Cody and Donegan had stopped atop a low hill, enjoying the shade beneath a small stand of trees to allow their horses to blow. Tom Alderdice and another scout, Eli Ziegler, squatted on the ground, smoking their pipes as Seamus cut a slice of chaw from his plug with the folding knife he carried in his boot.

“You still see 'em, Seamus?” Cody asked beneath his hat brim.

He nodded, his eyes locating the other two groups inching over the rolling oceanlike landscape far to the left, working up and down through the broken countryside. Donegan turned when the big mule snorted and stamped the ground, pulling cautiously at the tree where Alderdice had tied it.

The civilian got to his feet and ambled over to calm the animal. “What the devil got into you now?”

“He's just a strange one, Tom,” Bill Cody said.

“Don't like the smell of civilians like us, I'll bet,” Seamus joked.

The mule's eyes widened, its nostrils flaring as it pranced back from Alderdice when he again attempted to calm it. Then of a sudden, its ears twitched and laid back.

Several gunshots drifted to them from the direction of the other groups, off more than a mile across the broken country now.

“Maybe they've had some luck,” Seamus said.

“'Bout time,” Cody agreed.

“What the hell?” Alderdice muttered as he stepped around the nervous mule, shading his eyes with a hand, gazing across the far prairie.

“They chasing something?” asked Donegan, watching the faraway dark specks. “Antelope?”

“Only one thing mules hate worse than civilians,” Cody grumbled, scrambling to his feet quickly. “Injuns.”

“By the Mither of Saints!”

Donegan was on his feet in an instant, joining the rest as they peered across the landscape, watching the two other groups riding hell-bent up and down over the gentle swales of the tableland.

A war-cry broke the cold air below that hilltop, announcing the arrival of more of the war-party as it burst from the trees down along the dry creekbed below.

“Appears we're not the only ones in trouble!” Donegan shouted, whirling to his mount, tightening the cinch with a frantic yank before he swung into the saddle.

“There's more'n twenty of 'em!” Alderdice yelled.

“Twice that now.” Cody reined up, snagging the mule's lead from the brush where it had been tied.

“Best we join up with the others—and now.”

“Let's go, Irishman!”

The four hammered their heels into the army mounts, clattering downhill toward the two other groups racing back across the rolling land with the same intention of rejoining for strength. Behind Donegan's group more than a dozen warriors topped the hill just abandoned by the four white men and their mule.

Over his shoulder Seamus watched one of the Cheyenne send half a dozen Dog Soldiers in one direction down the slope, waving the rest on with him in another.

The war whoops crackled on the air behind them, and in front as well, as the first group of hunters reined in among Cody's band, spraying dust that lit up like fine gold.

“Where, goddammit?” one of the scouts shouted.

“Jezuz—we gotta find a place to make a stand of it!” cried Beecher Island survivor Thomas Ranahan.

“Everyone shut up and we'll make it out with all our hide!” Cody growled.

“Down there!” James Curry said, pointing. “In them trees.”

He and Ranahan were turning their mounts, ready to lead some of the others as the second group of hunters reined in.

“You boys go down there—ain't none of you coming out!” Seamus said. “It'll be your grave.”

“Them trees is enough for me!” shouted Ziegler.

“Those Cheyenne can pick you off from the hillsides, easy as you please,” Cody said. “You care to make a ride of it, we've gotta take some high ground. Right, Irishman?”

Seamus liked the way that cocky smile blossomed on the young scout's face whenever trouble drew near.

“Time for this cavalry to make a stand—up there.”

Seamus pointed, then heeled his horse around savagely, yanking on the lead to one of the mules.

Curry shouted in protest. “You're heading back through them bastards—”

“Back to the hilltop—all twelve of us!” Donegan ordered, leading the rest into a ragged hand gallop.

“Don't shoot at the red bastards,” Cody suggested. “Just worry about riding through 'em for now.”

“We can't just ride—”

“Shuddup, Curry!”

Cody spurred the rest into a hard gallop as they neared the half-dozen Cheyenne. For a moment the odds were in their favor. Behind them, more than forty painted, feathered warriors came on at a full gallop. Another half-dozen Cheyenne burst 'round the brow of the hill in a splash of color and sound.

A few of the warriors drew back bows, others brandished rifles overhead, threatening. As arrows sailed in among the white men, Seamus freed his pistol and fired.

The smell of burnt powder raked his nostrils. He fired a second time. And missed again.

A third shot sent a warrior tumbling from the back of his pony. The rest broke off as the dozen white men clattered to the top of the hill.

“Get the stock tied off in them trees!” Cody ordered. “Donegan—you, over there.”

“There's more'n fifty of 'em, Cody,” Ranahan hollered.

“Don't matter. They can't get close enough to do us damage—we don't let 'em. Now get down and put your carbine to work!”