Wolf Mountain Moon (56 page)

Chapter 34
8 January 1877

W
ith every shot he took at the Indian, Donegan grew more certain that war chief up there led a most charmed life.

The way he danced and cavorted on the hilltop, what with all the bullets kicking up skiffs of snow, lead smacking off the rocky ledges behind him, sprays of dirt and sandstone puffing into the stiff breeze—and not one soldier able to drop the red son of a bitch.

He had seen bravery like this only a few times before in his decade in the far west—as recent as Mackenzie's fight with the Dull Knife Cheyenne. Twice warriors had come out of hiding, each dressed in their finest bonnets as they steered their ponies back and forth in front of the soldier lines: taunting, teasing, making the soldiers look the fools with their poor shooting. Nevertheless, on that cold day in hell some soldier or one of the scouts had done in the first daring warrior. And eventually the second toppled as well.

Still, for a time there back on that November day, Seamus d wondered if there truly was something to this thing of a warrior's magic. Exactly the way he was beginning to feel again down in the gnawing pit of his all but empty belly. What little hard biscuit and half-cooked bacon he had shoved down
before the shooting began did him little good now after all the exertion and strain of slogging through knee-deep snow in heavy winter clothing.

Up and down the loose skirmish line formed by Butler's men the soldiers hollered to one another, exhorting their comrades to take their best shot at the prancing, preening, strutting cock-of-the-walk who leered at them from above, daring them all to shoot him.

But none of them could.

The first seconds and those first volleys were long-ago history now. It wasn't only that war chief in his big bonnet, but several others who jumped up and down on either side of him across the top of the same hill—showing themselves only long enough to take a shot at the soldiers advancing no faster than a snail's crawl. Then the riflemen in those rocks would duck back down behind their breastworks once more as the bullets smacked and zinged and whined around them. Up and down, up and down, up and down like the working of some steam piston on a locomotive. Never in the same place. Never the same warriors. No telling how many were up there the way they all dodged and zigged, twisted and zagged. There could be twenty. Or there could easily be as many as a hundred just right above the soldiers' heads.

Yet for all their gyrations, one thing was for sure. Unlike all the rest, that war chief in the big, showy bonnet wasn't ducking out of sight behind the breastworks the others had piled up in the snow. Instead, he stayed in full view, dancing one way a matter of ten yards, then prancing back a full twenty yards in the other direction as he sang and swiveled and waved his big rifle at the soldiers. Every now and then he would throw it against his shoulder and shoot down at the white men—then throw up the trapdoor, slipping another cartridge from the wide belt at his waist, and shove it into the breech.

A Springfield, Seamus thought to himself. Easy to recognize—what with the bands on that barrel. Carbine. Cavalry piece. Likely the son of a bitch got it at the Little Bighorn.

“Someone shoot that red bastard!” a man growled off to Donegan's right, behind his shoulder.

No more than a hundred yards separated the enemies now.

“We're trying, Sergeant!” a young soldier claimed with no little exasperation.

Then, as Seamus watched, the war chief on the ledge found himself out of cartridges. Hollering at those around him, he ducked out of sight.

“You think we got 'im, Sarge?”

“No,” the noncom stated flatly. “Red snapper didn't fall. Just hidin'. So you ain't got 'im dead to rights.”

“Went to reload,” Donegan declared quietly to those nearby.

The men only nodded grimly before their eyes went back to the ledge above, concentrating as they rocked up onto their knees and hands, dragging their buffalo coats through the snow with a slur to claim a few more precious feet of the hillside. A foot at a time, if no more than inches. Hunker behind this clump of sage, fire if you spotted yourself a target—plan out your next crawl to the next sage bush for your next rest.

Maybe an hour later they were no farther than seventy yards from the warriors above them, each man scrambling, slipping, backsliding until he secured another grip in the icy, crusty, wind-whipped surface of the snow. Men who stared into that raw wind, most with nothing but their eyes exposed behind wool-blanket masks, small explosions of frosty breath puffing from the holes the soldiers had cut for their mouths. Lay and shoot, fight and survive, on this steep slope while the enemy rained down bullets and arrows … while the blizzard moved in, already obscuring the hills just across the Tongue behind a curtain of frothy white gauze. The wind howled, managing to find every loose crevice of a man's clothing, penetrating past the layers of buffalo hide, wool blanket, army wool, merino wool, and burlap sacking.

No matter how many layers—none of it could stop a man from shaking when it was no longer the cold that made him tremble so.

As the minutes dragged into another hour, as their desperate clawing advance up the steep hillside bogged down, it was becoming clear that this far southern end of Miles's line might not be going any farther. While the soldiers' big guns commanded the knoll on the north end of the valley, the greatest Indian strength held the tall hill on the east side of the
valley at the opposite end of the ridge. Not only was it a position secured by military strength in sheer numbers, it was the one place on the battlefield where a lone warrior continued to rally his forces through the strength of his personal medicine.

Seamus wondered how long it would take before bullets won out over magic.

As Donegan lay there in the cold—some two feet of dry, flaky snow all around him as he repeatedly levered, aimed, and fired—his mind flitted back to dim, remembered glimpses of old Ireland: how the priests did all that they could to combat the pagan superstitions of the poor country people with superstitions of their own Mother Church. Centuries of druid legends were spurned, replaced with miraculous tales of water turned to wine, a loaf of bread become enough to feed a multitude … and a dead man commanded to come forth from his very own tomb, called out to walk again, his eyes able to see once more when they had been sightless for three days.

So just whose superstition was he to believe now?

“Damn, that was close,” muttered a young soldier to Donegan's left. The man held up his arm so that it was plain to see the furrow and the hole made by the bullet's raking path.

“Keep your head down, sojur,” Donegan advised with a wry grin. “Chances be they'll go and shoot over you. But always remember: when you're taking heights, keep your ever-living head flat on the ground.”

At the sound of growing excitement among the enemy, Seamus peered up the slope, finding the war chief back again—this time gesturing to his kinsmen as he pranced along the ledge above, bullets landing all around him, smacking into the rocks. For a moment he stopped, shouting to the other warriors, appearing to goad them into joining him in making an assault on the white men.

One of the soldiers cried, “You think them sonsabitches gonna try charging us?”

“Not a charge,” came the answer from off to Donegan's right.

Seamus looked, finally recognizing the speaker as Black-foot half-breed William Jackson from nothing more than the scout's clothing.

Donegan shouted, “Jackson—you figger he's making bravery runs?”

The half-breed nodded behind the wolf-hide hat pulled down securely over the scrap of blanket protecting his face from the wind. “Four to do. He has made two.”

Up piped a cocky soldier, “Which means the red-belly got him just two more runs back and forth to do!”

“Get 'im this time!” came the call, which was taken up by many voices.

More of the soldiers grunted onto their knees, scrambling for foot- and handholds on the icy slope. Some firing as others crawled inches closer to that most desired target. They were closing on fifty yards of the Indians above them. Close enough that either side could make their shots count, Donegan brooded. But—as always seemed the case—the anxious soldiers seemed to be frittering away their issue of ammunition without much effect on the enemy. At the same time, the warriors appeared to be growing even stingier with their cartridges. Firing less and less down into the soldier lines … perhaps waiting for a better shot, a certain target, a sure kill.

Donegan could hear the Jackson brothers hollering at each other now—unable to understand their Blackfoot tongue laced with an English curse word every now and then. If it hadn't been for that, the two would have been indistinguishable from the soldiers. Every man along this base of the ridge was masked in some way, a faceless battalion that struggled to hold on, more determined than ever as the minutes crawled past to knock down that strutting war chief above them.

With no more than fifty yards separating Butler's men from the brow of the hill where the warrior in the bonnet pranced in full view, the officers moved back and forth through the snow and sage on horseback just behind the soldiers—encouraging, assuring, rallying, reminding the men to husband their ammunition.

Seamus had no idea how many carbine cartridges he had left in his pocket for the Winchester—but something in his gut warned him that he shouldn't waste any more bullets on that war chief. Not the way the soldiers were throwing it away. Why, if they were ordered to push on to the top in one grand assault of the ridge, he would need every bullet he still had down in those pockets. Or if it came time that the warriors
poured off the hill and Butler's men fell back, retreating all the way back to the wagon camp to fort up, then chances were Seamus would need every last bullet until he got his hands on his cartridge belts so heavy he had to carry them over his shoulders.

“I got 'im!” some man suddenly bellowed.

Donegan twisted to peer uphill, watching the war chief stagger back a yard, a hand slapping against his chest. The Indian hobbled to the side a few more steps, then clumsily spilled out of sight on the ledge directly above the Irishman.

Shrill cries erupted from the rocks around that high knoll. Warriors had watched their leader fall. They were angrier now—perhaps furious. Chances were good they might well work themselves into a suicidal frenzy and come spilling down from their breastworks.

But all that showed themselves were two warriors who leaped from behind the rocks, pitching to their hands and knees in the trampled snow, crawling from different directions toward the war chief's body. Then a third appeared, scurrying in a crouch toward the others as the soldiers shouted among themselves—boasting on who dropped the chief—then several soldiers had sense enough to remember to train their weapons on those who had come to rescue their daring leader.

Bullets sang against the rocks, but it was impossible to see where they were striking: both wind and snow had whipped themselves into an angry torrent that cut down a man's visibility to no more than the fifty yards between warriors and soldiers at that moment. Through the thick, flying snow Seamus saw the three Indians wheel about and hurry for cover. The soldier fire must have been enough to drive them away from the body.

Donegan laid his head on the crusty snow, closing his eyes a moment, of a sudden feeling the weary ache that pierced him to the marrow of every one of his bones, sensing the cold settling into the core of him despite the thick layers of clothing. Oh, how he only wanted to rest for a few minutes, maybe even to sleep—eyelids so heavy. Perhaps just a few winks …

Across the open ground the Napoleon gun boomed again. This time the whistle was a sodden, muffled one. It was snowing but good now, blowing at a man sideways. And if he lay
there any longer, Donegan realized he might never get up. Fall asleep and freeze to death.