Wolf Mountain Moon (49 page)

“Then let's be at them!” Miles roared enthusiastically, clapping his mittens together.

His first order sent back to camp directed First Lieutenant Mason Carter to take his ? Company across the ice on the Tongue River and establish a defensive line at the base of the hills should the warriors threaten to make a daring sweep right into the army's bivouac. Next he ordered Captain Charles Dickey and First Lieutenant Cornelius Cusick to bring up companies ? and F of the Twenty-second to form a skirmish line at the base of the low plateau just north of the knoll where Miles stood. Then the colonel had Second Lieutenant William Bowen bring up the supply train and station it at the edge of the timber skirting the base of the plateau where the wagons and animals might be better protected in the event Crazy Horse made a cavalry sweep from across the river, seeking to surround the soldier camp.

“Bring Pope up with the artillery!” the colonel ordered. “I want him to support Carter's company when those warriors charge his position.”

Within minutes mules were hauling the two carriages into position at the base of the oblong plateau where the canvas tops were stripped back from the iron bows, scattering a flurry
of accumulated snow over the gun crews working feverishly under Lieutenant James W. Pope's direction. First the twelve-pounder, under the command of Second Lieutenant Edward W. Casey, was rolled into position and its wheels chocked. Next came the men struggling with the Rodman gun, which would be under Pope's personal command. Both crews took elevation grades for the first time, charting distance and targets on those ridges and ravines across the frozen river where hundreds of warriors were beginning to gather in angry knots as ? Company began its crossing of the ice.

Miles called out, “Major Casey!”

The captain hurried up and saluted. “General?”

“Station your company on either flank of our guns.”

“Very good, sir!”

Arrayed on either side of Pope's and Casey's gun crews was Captain James Casey's A Company to act in support and defense of the artillery position. Then on the far left flank Miles called up Captain Ezra P. Ewers's ? Company to position itself on the southwest side of the ridge, extending from the knoll below the artillery position, its own right flank suspended in the air.

Donegan stepped up into the midst of the frantic activity boiling around Nelson A. Miles. “They might cross below you, General.”

“Yes, I've thought of that,” Miles confided with a brooding squint of his eyes. “You were cavalry in the war, I take it?”

“The Second, sir.”

“A good outfit, Donegan.” Miles had a wry grin on his face as he continued. “So you would be the sort to think about horse troops sweeping around to take our rear, wouldn't you?”

“Damn right.”

“Damn right indeed!” Miles agreed. “Mr. Baird, bring up Butler and McDonald. Place them down there, and there, flank to flank to protect against encirclement on our rear.”

“Very good, General,” and the adjutant hurried off toward the base of the knoll to convey his orders.

Within a matter of minutes the last of the troops in bivouac were trudging out through the snow already halfway to their knees, more falling around them. Captain Edmond Butler quickly arrayed his men, stretching C Company to the
east as far as he dared so that its formation roughly paralleled the northern base of the plateau that Captain Casey, along with Lieutenants Pope and Casey, would be defending with the artillery. On Butler's right flank Lieutenant Robert McDonald attached the left flank of his D Company in another dangerously thin skirmish line. Both companies were told to watch the trees and riverbank to the northwest where the entire outfit had just abandoned its bivouac. It was there the enemy horsemen were expected to sweep across the frozen Tongue.

With McDonald riding beside him Captain Butler slowly urged his horse down that skirmish line of cold, shivering men as the snow continued to fall and the cruel north wind slashed straight into their faces. Butler would not want any of them to think about, much less realize, just how short a line a few score of soldiers made on that rugged, snowy landscape when it came to facing down the coming assault.

“Every man must be a hero today!” Butler told them with hints of his Irish homeland still evident in his peaty brogue. “For when this fight begins, there will be no reassuring touch of a comrade's elbow beside you! When the red bastards come for us, there will be no rear guard! This fight will be won or lost not by our regiment! Not even by our battalion—much less by a single company! No, men … today this fight will be won or lost by each and every man here, fighting alone!”

The cheer that Seamus heard erupt along that painfully thin line of infantry brought a mist of remembered camaraderie to his eyes, a tug at the sentimental strings of his heart—recalling how the officers of the Second Cavalry had worked up their horse soldiers before troop after troop would emerge slowly from the woods and halt, forming up company by company, knee to knee, stirrup to stirrup. Every man's heart in his throat, his saber clutched in a sweaty hand, knowing that in a few seconds the order would be given and they would spur their mounts with a deafening roar—racing toward row upon row of infantry and uncounted cannon that would be shredding their ranks, tearing man from horse, soldier from formation, limbs from body, while the grapeshot and canister slashed through them as if the gates of Hades itself had opened.

Still, those left in the saddle would ride on.

Looking at these shivering men now, Donegan hoped these soldiers would fight every bit as bravely this day as he knew Crazy Horse's cavalry was sure to—knowing that the Lakota and Cheyenne were once more protecting their homes, their families, their dying way of life.

“Mother of God, watch over each one of these boys … these men,” he whispered, his words whisked away by the wind.

In those anxious moments for the soldiers and their officers, the Indians began to mill and circle across the river. But instead of making any charge on Carter's ? Company, which took up a tight position on the west bank after stepping clear of the trees and willow, the horsemen slowly melted back into the ravines and the cedars, remaining out of sight for the most part and not making any show of force against Carter's lone company.

“By Jupiter!” Miles bellowed with his field glasses at his eyes. “Maybe we've got them cowed! Doesn't look like they'll try to cross and sweep us after all!”

“General, there's our real problem now,” Donegan declared, pointing into the valley south of the long ridge.

Many, many more horsemen were appearing out of the cold fog, coming downstream on the east bank of the river behind the line of rugged bluffs.

“Just look at them,” Miles marveled as hundreds of ponies carried warriors up the back slopes, where the Indians began dismounting in the snow, brandishing their weapons, shouting and yelling at the soldiers below.

Gunfire suddenly crackled west of the river. Those men gathered beside Miles atop the knoll spun on their heels to watch small knots of Indians down among the cedars and clumps of leafless willow open up a sporadic fire upon Carter's K Company. Within moments close to a hundred warriors burst out of hiding, all of them sprinting on foot, waving their weapons and screaming—headed straight for those fifty infantrymen.

Carter held them, held them in the face of that charge, ordering his first platoon to advance three paces, where they dropped to one knee to return fire, when the lieutenant coolly ordered up his second platoon to advance and fire three paces farther on. The Indians were no farther than fifty yards from
the lone company, inching forward on both sides, threatening to sweep Carter's men on one flank or another. Still, ? Company held their ground as Carter barked his orders, rallied his men, steadied them in their advance platoon by platoon, turning back every attempt the warriors made to sweep past him to the river.

No more than fifty scared soldiers, alone and by themselves, all but cut off across the frozen Tongue—as Carter moved among them on horseback: assuring them, shouting his orders, keeping them together, preventing them from having time to think of the danger, so busy did he keep them that they could think only of loading, firing, advancing. Loading, firing, advancing. Loading, firing, advancing—

“Mr. Pope!” the colonel hollered down to the gun position, “Put that Napoleon to work on those Indians across the river and take the pressure off Carter's outfit!”

“Very good, General!” the lieutenant replied, turning immediately to the officer assisting him with the mountain howitzer.

As Lieutenant Edward W. Casey barked his orders and elevation, the gun crew quickly snapped to, adjusted the caisson, rechocked the wheels, cranked the elevation, then stepped back in a flurry.

Young Casey cried, “Fire!”

The first twelve-pound shot was on its way across the foggy Tongue.

But Casey was already giving the order: “Reload! Be quick about it! Reload!”

Frantically his men shuffled in and out of position, first to jam the swab home down the howitzer's huge brass muzzle; then a second soldier jumped forward to ram home the pouch of coarse black powder. Then a third soldier hobbled forward with the ball clutched in both hands as another spiked the powder pouch through the touchhole, preparing the ignition of that second shot.

“Fire!” Casey yelled the instant his men jumped back from the muzzle.

Again the brass weapon rocked back on its carriage in the snow, belching even more gray-black smoke, which hung heavy on the cold air, its stench burning every man's nostrils downwind.

“Reload!” again cried the young lieutenant just three years out of the academy—even though his men were already leaping into position. This was no drill.

Across the river the second round collided with earth and snow, exploding among the brush at the mouth of a ravine where half a hundred warriors scattered as cascades of ice and red dirt came showering down from the sky above them.

In the disappearing echo of the cannon came the shrill, sudden call of Crazy Horse's warriors.

Behind Miles on the knoll floated those first shrieking whistles. The sort of sound that once a man hears it on the field of battle, he will never forget, if he lives to remember.

High-pitched, like the shriek of hawk or war eagle. First a handful, then a dozen … and finally more than a hundred of those whistles from the hundreds of warriors arrayed along the top of the ridge to the southeast of the soldiers.

Casey kept at his work: “Fire!”

That third round from the twelve-pounder crashed just beyond Carter's men, driving off the last of those warriors who might still threaten to ride over ? Company and sweep across the river, flanking the entire outfit behind Butler's battalion.

“Whooeee! We've got that bunch on the run, General!” Pope cheered, turning immediately to pound Lieutenant Casey on the back.

“Yes,” Miles answered approvingly, yet he did not celebrate long. Instead, the smile disappeared with the next gust of cold wind as the colonel turned back to the ridge to the southeast, where Donegan and the rest of the scouts were watching the enemy massing.

“General!” Hobart Bailey roared enthusiastically. “The artillery have broken their charge!”

But as the aide-de-camp's words were spilling from his lips, Bailey could already see that Miles was not listening, nor was he ready to celebrate.

Instead, the colonel's eyes narrowed, a deep furrow in his brow as he peered at all the warriors bristled above them along the snowy ridges like hair along the backbone of an angry dog. “Lieutenant, that bunch we just ran off over there across the river is the least of my worries now.”

Chapter 30
Wiotehika
1877