Little Wolf shifted his position to ease the strain on his knees. His friend Black Feather glanced at him and smiled. Black Feather could squat on his haunches for hours at a time, never moving a muscle. So could most of the other young men in this band of Cheyenne warriors. Little Wolf’s long legs were not built to withstand the strain on his kneecaps, and if he didn’t change his position every ten minutes or so, he would soon be in pain.
“Soon now,” Black Feather whispered and pointed to the last few soldiers mounting up, preparing to escort the work party out of the crude log fort.
Little Wolf nodded. Without consciously thinking about it, he checked his bow, feeling the sinew bowstring for worn places. They would wait until the column of soldiers and workers had cleared out of the fort and disappeared over the rise before leaving their positions in the deep draw that ran tangent to the easternmost corner of the stockade. He had scouted the fort for a few days before this and knew there would be no more than a dozen or so left to guard it. It was his guess that of those left behind, no more than half that number would actually be carrying weapons, the rest being cooks and grooms.
Sleeps Standing rose and made his way quickly and silently along the dry gulley to kneel at Little Wolf’s side. “The soldiers are gone. They are no longer in sight.”
“I know.” Little Wolf smiled patiently. “Do not be so anxious to die.” There were only twenty young men in his war party and they all looked toward Little Wolf to give the signal to attack. In the year since finding Black Feather in the mountains, Little Wolf had emerged as the leader of this small band of Cheyenne and Arapaho braves. Though they fought with their Lakota brothers in what the white man called Red Cloud’s War, they maintained their autonomy and operated independently as a small band of raiders. Little Wolf was considered a bit young to be called a war chief but Red Cloud graciously treated him with the respect shown any tribal leader, especially one who undertook such daring raids upon the enemy while maintaining a reputation for bringing his warriors back safely.
Sleeps Standing began to fidget, causing Little Wolf to lay a steadying hand on his friend’s shoulder. He gestured toward the low hills behind them. “In a little while the sun will come up over those hills. When it is high enough, we will move directly to the stockade wall. It will be harder for the sentry to see us if we have the sun at our backs.”
Sleeps Standing nodded. He had come to trust Little Wolf completely. They had raided all summer up and down the Powder, keeping the army workers too busy to build their road. This day their mission was to raid the nearly empty fort to get rifles and ammunition. Little Wolf’s little band of Cheyenne warriors had only a half dozen outdated muzzle loaders, extremely cumbersome and unreliable. He found his bow to be much more efficient in their style of hit-and-run tactics, where swiftness and surprise were the main elements of combat. As the summer wore on, however, there were more and more soldiers being sent to deal with “the Indian problem.” Little Wolf was smart enough to realize the freedom he now enjoyed, to fight when and where and how he wanted, would not last. He and his braves had decided to operate independently. It was, they acknowledged, Red Cloud’s war and they joined him in his fight with the army, but on their own terms. They were proud of their Cheyenne and Arapaho heritage, and while they did not deny the fierce fighting spirit of their brothers, the Dakota, they preferred to remain a separate force.
Red Cloud was winning his war. It was being waged on his terms. As long as he could choose when and where he struck and then escape on his fast Indian ponies, he exacted a heavy toll on the army. Because of their successes, Red Cloud’s warriors were becoming more and more convinced of their invincibility, taking comfort in their greater numbers. It was true that the Sioux did indeed outnumber the soldiers in this battle along the Powder. But Little Wolf knew there was no limit to the number of soldiers the army could continue to send against them, and the next battle might have far different results. This was another reason to keep his small band independent, to move quickly if need be, to run if necessary in order to fight another day with better odds. Unlike the main body of Red Cloud’s camp, they were not encumbered by women and children and the other trappings a whole village entailed. To give his braves further advantage, Little Wolf wanted weapons equal to the soldiers’ breech-loading rifles. And those weapons were just on the other side of the rough log wall that was just now catching the first rays of the morning sun. His concern now was to scale that wall with enough of his braves to overwhelm the sentries.
“It is time.” With that brief statement, Little Wolf motioned Bloody Claw and Black Feather close to him. Looking directly at Black Feather, he asked softly, “Are you ready, my brother?”
Black Feather smiled and nodded. On a signal, he and three others were to make their way across the open prairie grass that stretched between the draw and the fort, carrying a log that was to be used as a ladder to scale the wall.
Little Wolf turned to Bloody Claw. “You and Sleeps Standing take the two sentries at the front gate. I will silence the other one on the back guard post. There must be no sound before we get inside the fort. Once inside, we must kill the soldiers quickly before they can think to defend themselves.”
He turned to Black Feather again. “When you are over the wall, you must open the gates quickly or you may have to kill all the soldiers by yourself.”
Black Feather’s smile broadened. “Maybe I should leave all of you outside so you don’t get in my way.”
“What if there are more soldiers than we thought?” This from Walks With A Limp, one of the Arapahos who came to the mountains with Bloody Claw.
“There won’t be,” Little Wolf stated. “Kill the guards first. Then watch for the soldiers coming out of the tent under the flag. They will have their weapons ready. Then the ones who cook and do the women’s work will have no fight in them. They will surrender.”
There were no further questions. Little Wolf had never been wrong before and he had led them on a dozen or more raids. Each man knew his responsibility and felt complete trust in Little Wolf’s words. Silently, the small band of warriors slipped over the edge of the draw and dispersed.
* * *
It had been a long four hours for Private Will Johnson. He didn’t have much love for guard duty but it was better than going out on escort detail again and getting shot at by hostiles. His guard tour was about up and he would be off for eight hours. The worst part about catching the last tour of the night was fighting off the overpowering attack of sleepiness just before sunup. He blinked hard a couple of times in an attempt to remain alert. A faint breeze drifted past the mess tent carrying the distinct aroma of bacon frying. This in itself was enough to make his mouth water. It had been more than two months since he had last eaten pork, having had nothing but wild game until the supply wagons from Laramie finally arrived. Now that the escort detail was up and out, the cooks were preparing a real breakfast for the few remaining men.
Daylight was coming fast now. The distant hills that were black moments before were now fading to gray and beginning to take on detail. He heard the call of a night bird off to the western edge of the grassy draw, answered moments later by another at the far eastern perimeter of the stockade. He often heard night birds calling on other nights. Still it was unusual to hear them this late in the morning. A golden half circle of light on the guard tower behind him told him that the sun had cleared the hills and he turned to view the daily ritual. Looking into the rising sun, he was forced to squint, it was so bright. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a moving shadow near the wall below him. A deer, he thought, and edged closer to the parapet to get a better look. At first he saw nothing but the bright image of the sun still dancing in his eyes. After a few moments, his vision cleared but his mind was confused, failing to comprehend the image before him. It was an Indian, taking careful aim with his bow. At almost the same instant, he felt the heavy blow beneath his rib cage, causing him to reel backward, almost knocking him off the guard walk. At first there was a numbness and he had no idea what had hit him with such force. As he stuggled to regain his balance, he looked down in disbelief to discover the shaft of the arrow protruding from his tunic. In horror, he reached down and clutched the arrow and attempted to pull it out. When he did, he felt the searing pain and saw the rapidly spreading bloodstain. He tried to turn and call for the sergeant of the guard but the pain doubled him over and the fort began to swirl around inside his head and everything went dark. His last conscious thought was that he had to keep from falling. He was unconscious before he tumbled off the guard walk onto the ground below.
Black Feather barely slowed down as he swerved to avoid the body of the falling sentry and sprinted to the front gate. It took but a moment to throw back the heavy wooden bar and push the gate open. When he ran back to the center of the stockade, followed by four Cheyenne braves, Little Wolf was already there directing his small force toward the troop tent area. When Black Feather approached, Little Wolf silently directed his friend toward the mess tent and the cook fire glowing before it. Black Feather knew what to do without being told. He and his four comrades quickly lit the fire arrows they had prepared. Little Wolf watched unhurriedly until all arrows were burning steadily. The stockade was still bathed in the half light of dawn, the garrison unaware as yet that a hostile force was inside the walls. When he was sure the arrows were burning, he directed his bowmen by hand signal, firing at one target after another in the order of importance. First the commander’s tent. Little Wolf knew the commanding officer in this small outpost was not a high-ranking officer and would be out with the main body protecting the workmen. He knew there should be no more than one or two soldiers inside now but they would probably be armed. So they would deal with these men first. Next to be burned would be the larger tents on either side of the command tent in case a second in command was left behind in the commander’s absence. Then the mess tent was to be fired to flush out the guard detail that would surely be eating before relieving the present sentries. Within minutes, the tents were ablaze and the confused and panic-stricken soldiers, sleep still in their eyes, emptied out into the compound, cursing and yelling.
Little Wolf’s raiding party was small but he had planned his raid well, counting heavily on surprise and confusion on the part of the soldiers. He suspected they would never anticipate an attack on their outpost. They had grown accustomed to the hostiles raiding like all the Sioux war parties they had fought before; with sudden attacks on the workers, out in the open, where they could strike swiftly and then withdraw. Little Wolf had ideas of his own about the most efficient way to battle the soldiers. Foremost in his planning was the safety of his fellow warriors. He would lose the confidence of his braves if he allowed heavy casualties when he led a raid. With this in mind, he had stationed his best bowmen to watch the soldiers bolting from the burning tents. He had instructed them to target those soldiers with weapons to eliminate any danger to the raiding party. They would deal with the unarmed after all those with rifles had been eliminated. Sleeps Standing and two others were positioned where they could watch the rows of tents where the troops slept in the event some had not gone with the main column.
As he had anticipated, the attack caught the small outpost completely by surprise. Not one shot was fired by the soldiers. In all, nine soldiers were killed and several more wounded. The few remaining soldiers, most of them cooks and the stable detail, put up no resistance, having been mesmerized by the suddenness and efficiency of the attack. Horrified, they watched as their captors moved among the dead, taking scalps and counting coup. At Little Wolf’s command, the prisoners were tied up to the stockade walls while the Indians selected their best horses and loaded them with rifles, ammunition, food, clothing and anything else that might prove useful.
Bloody Claw approached Little Wolf, who was preparing to mount a tall bay mare that had caught his eye. “We are ready, Little Wolf. Let us kill these snakes and be gone.”
Little Wolf hesitated. He knew his companions were anxious to kill all the soldiers. Their goal, after all, was to kill as many soldiers as possible and chase the white man from their hunting grounds. He tried to recall the image he had seared into his mind of Spotted Pony lying in a pool of his own blood and Buffalo Woman lying facedown across her cook fire. He had vowed to fight the army but still he did not like the idea of executing defenseless men, white or red. After a moment he spoke.
“Wait. Let these others live.” Seeing the frown on Bloody Claw’s face and the look of puzzlement on the faces of those braves who had heard his decision, he added, “These dogs are not fighting men. They are like women who cook and take care of the horses. We will leave them to tell the other soldiers that we have been merciful this day but they must take this as a warning. We will not allow the road to be built through these lands. They will also tell that this brave deed was done by the mighty Cheyenne and Arapaho so that they may know who their enemy is.”
His statement was met with many blank stares as his men mulled over his suggestion. Little Wolf was not officially in command—as a war chief, he led by popular choice and his leadership was open for question at any time by any member of the band.
“This is a good thing.” Black Feather spoke first, always in support of his friend. “We don’t want the Dakota to take the credit for our bravery.”
This seemed to receive favorable reactions from most of the warriors. Little Wolf was quick to take advantage of the moment. “We all have won the honor to count coup on all these that we leave behind.” The young Indians accepted this. After all, it was more honorable to count coup on an enemy that still lives. “Good,” he announced, “it is decided.” As an afterthought, he added, “Strip them of their uniforms. We may have need of them.”
They quickly went about stripping the clothing from the terrified prisoners and, when they had taken everything they could pack on the captured horses, Little Wolf shouted to the bewildered prisoners in English. “It is Little Wolf and the Cheyenne who have done this. When you tell of this, you must warn your people that Little Wolf will not be so merciful next time. Next time we may do as the cowardly soldiers who slaughtered our people at Sand Creek did!”
The warriors crossed the river and headed across the rolling plains toward the distant mountains. Little Wolf was intent upon gaining the protection of the mountain draws and valleys before the main body of soldiers had an opportunity to pursue them. The raid had been extremely successful. Although the total number of enemies killed had not been great, his band of warriors had inflicted great damage upon the tiny outpost. They would sorely feel the loss of horses, ammunition and food stores Little Wolf’s companions now herded toward the mountains. And, most important to Little Wolf, he would return to Red Cloud’s camp with every man who rode out with him.
Once they reached the protection of the hills, the raiding party relaxed their caution, secure in the knowledge that no army patrol would dare to venture this close to Red Cloud’s camp. They knew the army had no concentration of troops large enough to mount an attack on the Sioux village. They were spread too thin, trying to protect the different groups of army workers and the many wagons that came up the Powder. Now Little Wolf allowed time to congratulate himself on selecting the mare. She had been well trained and cared for. Many of his band rode good army mounts now. Indian ponies were accustomed to the wild country and were more reliable but the army mounts were well-bred and strong. His choice would be envied.
* * *
Spirits were high in Red Cloud’s camp when Little Wolf and his braves returned. Word had come to the chief that the army was pulling out of several outposts along the intended line of the road to the Montana goldfields. It was beginning to look like the constant harrassment by the Sioux war parties had not only taken effect, they had beaten the blue coats and driven them out of their sacred hunting grounds. Confidence was rising like a fever and spreading like wildfire through the encampment as Red Cloud’s war chiefs hastily organized their war parties to pursue the departing soldiers. There was a general feeling that the army was in full retreat, which was not the case. In fact, they had only given up on most of the work sites, and were just withdrawing to the established forts. But this fuel added to the fire already burning in the hearts of every young warrior. Little Wolf’s comrades joined in the dancing and singing and soon were pressing him to join the battle with their Dakota brothers. Little Wolf was hesitant. He was not sure why, but he preferred to fight as they had been fighting, as a small raiding force, operating independently of the main body of Sioux.
“We must finish the battle with the blue coats,” Bloody Claw insisted.
Little Wolf could see that he was going to be outvoted if he did not concur. “I agree, my brother. We will fight until the soldiers have all left this country.” By the expressions on the faces of his young followers, he could see that this was what they had expected to hear. “We will go to fight the soldiers that were camped at the fort we have just attacked.” He smiled and added, “Maybe they would like to see their horses again.”
Black Feather grinned and threw back his head and offered a loud war whoop to the heavens.
* * *
Lieutenant Tom Allred shifted his weight in the saddle in an attempt to ease the ache now running the length of his backbone. It didn’t seem to help, so he dismounted and walked a few yards away from his horse. The animal immediately started to graze on the buffalo grass that covered the hilltop. Tom stretched. Taking out his watch, he studied it for several seconds, as if he wanted to make sure it had not stopped. “Damn,” he swore, gazing down across the grassland where the engineers were working. He hated escort duty. He felt like a guard over a group of convicts, waiting for the time to pass, and time was in no hurry when waited upon. At times he almost wished hostiles would attack, if only to break the monotony. Things had been pretty quiet since the fort had been attacked four days before. “Damn,” he uttered again when he thought of the damage that raid had done on his men and supplies. It was not his decision to make, but had he been the ranking officer, he would not have left so small a detail to defend the fort. Captain Wes Bluefield was a competent officer, having proven himself as a first-rate Indian fighter and Tom wouldn’t second-guess him. He just made an error in judgment and got caught. Tom knew that everybody made mistakes. This one cost nine lives plus horses and ammunition, not to mention the weapons that would now be used against them.
The sound of hooves below him broke into his thoughts and he turned to see Sergeant Erwin Hale coming up the hill at a gallop. “Sir, Lieutenant Perry says to form up the men. We’re going back to the fort.”
“It’s a bit early, ain’t it?” Tom looked at his watch again.
Sergeant Hale shrugged. “That’s what he said, form ’em up.”
“All right.” Tom stretched once more and stepped up into the saddle. “Signal the outriders in.” He watched for a moment as Hale galloped down from the hill. It suited him fine to go back early. It was getting too damn cold to sit around out on the prairie all day. Like as not, the winter snows would stop all work along the road before the month was out anyway. The last of the immigrant trains had gone through long ago and travel would not likely start again before late spring. Christmas was only four days away. They had been lucky the weather had held this long, with only a few light snows. Guiding his horse down the hill, he couldn’t help but smile as he formed a picture in his mind of Lieutenant Perry, thin and shivering in the cold wind that was now sweeping across the prairie.
Lawson Perry and Tom were friends. Since Lawson was senior to him by a full year in grade, he was in command when Bluefield stayed at the post. Lawson made no bones about the fact that he had not gone through West Point just to fashion a career of chasing ragtag savages around the Western frontier, freezing his ass off in the winter and burning up in the summer. His every day was spent marking time, awaiting orders that he was sure would someday come to deliver him from this wilderness and transfer him to a post back East. He often expressed his amazement that Tom didn’t expend any energy on regret. He even envied Tom’s attitude, that one place was about as good as another. As far as Tom was concerned, he wasn’t a West Pointer, he had come up through the ranks and he more than likely had no future in the army outside this duty station.
By the time he rode down into the basin, the column was already forming. The engineers and civilian workers, more than happy to call it a day, were loading the wagons and hitching the teams. Lawson Perry sat stiffly in the saddle, off to the side, watching the preparations with the bored expression of a man who had seen it a hundred times. Tom pulled up beside him.
“What’s the matter, Lawson? Your backside get too cold?”
Lawson laughed. “I suppose yours isn’t,” he replied in his precise manner of speaking, a manner that offered evidence of his education and West Point background.
“Why, no, I was just thinking how pleasant it is out here.”
Lawson’s face sobered as he confided in his friend. “Look at this mess,” he said, gesturing toward the half finished log bridge across a deep ravine, his tone laced with sarcasm. “You know damn well it’s a waste of time and effort to build a bridge out here in the middle of nowhere. Even if the damn Indians let it stand, who’s going to use it? Hell, anybody going to Montana has got the whole country in front of them. Why would they have to cross over this bridge over this little ravine?”
“I don’t know, Lawson. Why would they?”
Lawson knew Tom was baiting him. “Ah, why am I wasting my time telling you? You don’t clutter your mind with serious thoughts.”
Tom laughed at his friend’s exasperation. Lawson was right, however. Tom didn’t clutter his mind with the why of things. Whether the bridge made sense or not was not his concern. His job was to guard the workers. He didn’t worry about what the workers were doing. Seeing that the column was ready to move, he asked, “Want me to move ’em out?”
“Yeah, let’s go get some hot food.”
As the column topped the first line of hills, Tom saw Andy Coulter cutting across a grassy slope to join them. He soon pulled in beside the two officers and reined up next to Tom.
“Quittin’ a mite early, ain’t you?”
Tom laughed. “Yeah, Lieutenant Perry’s backside is getting cold.”
Lawson glared at them with mock disgust. “You know the brass will have to recall all of us off this silly damn detail anyway. It’s a damn fool project and a waste of an officer’s time.”
To Tom, it was a waste of time debating the issue so he changed the subject. Turning to Andy, he asked, “See anything out there?”
Andy shook his head. “No, nary a sign. I scouted all the way to the river to the east, all the way back to them foothills to the west. I believe the Injuns took the day off.”
“It’s just getting too cold,” Lawson offered. “They probably won’t do too much more before spring.”
“I don’t know . . .” Andy took his hat off and thoughtfully scratched his head. “Some folks hold that Injuns don’t like to go to war in the wintertime. And I reckon for the most part that’s a fact. But I’ve seen ’em fight in the winter, seen ’em fight plenty. And this here Red Cloud is pretty dang serious about protecting his huntin’ grounds.”
Lawson shrugged, not wanting to recant completely. “Well, maybe some small raids, but I doubt they’ll start anything major.”
“Hard to say,” Andy replied, after launching a stream of tobacco juice over his shoulder.
“S’pose we’ll get another visit from that bunch that hit the post?” Tom wondered aloud.
“Doubt it,” Andy answered. “They got what they was after, guns and ammunition. Besides, that was that bunch of Cheyennes that’s been raidin’ all summer. They don’t usually hit the same place twice. That ain’t their style.”
“Little Wolf,” Tom uttered, almost under his breath.
“What?” Andy asked.
“Little Wolf,” Tom repeated. “Said his name was Little Wolf, said it in pretty good English according to the mess sergeant.”
“Well, the bunch he’s running with is Cheyenne all right.” He paused to spit for punctuation. “Least the arrows I seen had Cheyenne markings.”
* * *
The column was approximately halfway back to the post when the point man suddenly came back to them at a gallop.
“Hey-yooooo!” Lieutenant Perry halted the column and rode out with Andy and Tom to meet the rider.
“Lieutenant!” he called as soon as he was in voice range. “Gunfire! Over toward the river!”
“How many?” Lawson asked as the trooper pulled up and wheeled his mount around to parallel them.
“Hard to say, sir. I heard half a dozen shots, maybe more.”
Both officers looked to Andy Coulter for a possible explanation but he was as puzzled as they were. There were no patrols out in that area. In fact, there were no patrols out anywhere since Bluefield insisted that the escort detail not be diluted. He had ordered that all engagements with the hostiles were to be defensive. They were vastly outnumbered if the savages decided to join forces in an assault on their little post. He felt his strength was in keeping his firepower in concentration.
“Want me to go have a look?” Tom offered. “Maybe some immigrants or prospectors run into some Indians.”
“Yeah,” Lawson quickly agreed. “Take Andy and a half dozen men.” Tom started to leave. “And Tom, you be careful.”
“Right.” Tom reined his horse around and called out, “Sergeant Hale! Pick five men, on the double!”
With Andy in the lead, they galloped away from the column in the direction pointed out by the advance guard. After covering about a mile, Andy held up his hand to halt the detail. They could hear the gunfire distinctly and it appeared to come from the river, some seven hundred yards in front of them.
“Peers to me it’s coming from just the other side of that bluff, where the river takes a turn around that clump of trees.” Andy looked to Tom for agreement. When he got a nod in return, he kicked his horse into a canter, headed for a little hill before the river in order to find a place for a better look. Once they had reached the shelter of the hill, they dismounted and Andy, Tom and Sergeant Hale crawled up to the top to have a look.
“Damn!” Hale was the first to speak. “Where the hell did they come from?”
“Looks like we got some boys in trouble all right,” Andy observed. “Wonder what they’re doing out here in the first place.”
Tom, anxious to size up the scene taking place on the opposite riverbank, was trying to decide what the best course of action was. A small army patrol of five or six troopers had obviously been ambushed by a band of twenty or more hostiles. From the look of it, they had taken a defensive position on the riverbank. The hostiles were armed with rifles and had the troopers ringed on three sides with the river at their backs. Tom’s decision was not that hard to make. He had to come to their aid but he could see no way to get to them without crossing the river. And that would make his men sitting ducks. They would be picked off before they got halfway across. If he was to have a chance to rescue the soldiers, he would have to have more than the seven of them to charge across that stretch of open water.
“Whaddaya wanna do?” Andy asked calmly.
“You see any way to get to those men without crossing that open water?”
“Nope,” was Andy’s terse reply.
“Well then, we need more men.”
“Glad to hear you say that, son.”
Tom turned to Hale. “Sergeant, send one of the men back to the column. Tell Lieutenant Perry I need half of his detachment on the double.” He turned back to Andy. “Maybe if they see us coming in strength, they’ll run without a fight.”
Upon receiving Tom’s message, Lawson was inclined to lead the whole escort column to his aid, leaving the engineers and the workers to fend for themselves until he got back. He knew he would catch hell from Bluefield if he did, even if nothing happened while he was gone. So he did as Tom requested and sent approximately half of the escort, twenty-two troopers.
Tom anxiously awaited their arrival while watching the battle going on across the river. It was more than a quarter of an hour before his reinforcements pulled up at the base of the little hill, but the embattled soldiers on the opposite bank were still alive and apparently holding off their attackers.
“All right, men, we’ve got to move fast. Check your weapons.” Upon noticing a bugler in the detachment, he signaled to him. “All right, let’s let them know we’re coming. Don’t slow down until you reach the other side of the river!” He took one last look to see if everyone was ready then spurred his horse over the crest of the hill, leading his troops straight down the slope. With bugle blaring and rifles popping, they charged into the shallow river toward their beleaguered comrades.
His horse almost stumbled when its momentum was suddenly stopped by the chest-deep water and it began to struggle toward the opposite side. At once Tom was lost in the confusion of the fighting. Bullets were flying all around him and the almost constant roar of rifle fire was punctuated by the screams of horses and men. Something was wrong! In their confusion, the soldiers trapped by the hostiles were firing at his troopers as they attempted to come to their rescue. He began shouting, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Then something heavy hit him in the back, knocking him from his horse. He remembered feeling the shock of the icy water, sucking the breath from his lungs, but he remembered nothing else after that.
* * *
It was dark when he finally came to. At first he thought he was drowning for he was up to his chin in the freezing water and, panic-stricken, he began to flail his arms in an effort to swim. He would have cried out but a hand immediately clamped over his mouth, choking off the sound.
“Easy, son . . . easy. I gotcha. You’re all right.” He recognized the familiar voice of Andy Coulter. “Be real quiet. Don’t worry, I got a’holt of you. We’ll be all right, long as you don’t make no noise.” Tom let himself relax and Andy removed his hand from over his mouth. “Well now,” he whispered, “glad to see you coming around. For a while there I thought you was a goner.”
“Andy, what happened?” Tom whispered. He was gradually coming back to reality and he became aware of the feeling of numbness from his neck on down throughout his entire body, right down to his toes, which had no feeling in them at all. His head felt as if it would split and there was a throbbing in his chest. He didn’t remember much about the events that caused him to be in the river so he repeated the question. “What happened?”
Before answering, Andy shifted his body around to get a better hold on his young friend. Tom’s vision, which until that moment had been blurred, began to gradually focus and he could now see that they were up under a steep bank, behind a log. Softly, almost in a whisper, Andy told him what had taken place some two hours before when they had charged to the rescue of the embattled soldiers. “It was an ambush,” Andy said. “Them weren’t soldiers on the other bank. They was Cheyenne, dressed up in army uniforms. I seen you go down and, by the time I got to you, it was already too late. They was more of ’em dug in the riverbank behind us. They had us in a crossfire. There wasn’t no place to go. They cut us down like wheatstraw.”
Tom was stunned. “How many? How many wounded?”
Andy snorted in disgust. “Wounded? Hell, dead.” He had to restrain himself from allowing his voice to raise. “You and me, Tom, we’re the only ones left. And the only reason we ain’t dead is we washed downstream behind your horse. I reckon they couldn’t see us behind it. When we got ’round a little bend, I pulled us up under this bank. I weren’t sure but what I was holding on to a dead man up till just now. But I figured I’d hold on to you till it got good and dark and then I’d get my ass out of here.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Tom moaned softly, the extent of the massacre just now becoming clear to him. The realization that he had led those men to their death hammered home to him. “Oh my God, Andy, I led them right into it.”
“Hold on a minute, son,” Andy quickly admonished. “Don’t go putting thoughts like that in your head. It weren’t no more your fault than it were mine. Hell, I didn’t see it coming either and I sure as hell ain’t taking on the guilt for them soldier boys getting killed. We got out-smarted. That’s all there is to it.”
“Little Wolf?”
“Yeah,” Andy snorted, “Little Wolf all right. I heard his name called out a couple of times when we was floating downstream. I think I seen him. Leastways I seen a kinda tall buck that seemed to be giving the orders. I tell you, Tom, they just slickered us good on this one. They was dug in so good, I swear, we wouldn’t have seen ’em if we had been squatting right on top of ’em. And once we got out in the middle of the river, it was Katie bar the door. We were goners.”
They waited and listened for a while longer. Andy finally decided there were no hostiles left in the area and it was time to try to make their way back to the post. He knew Tom was wounded pretty badly even though the young lieutenant did not appear to be in serious pain. Andy knew that it was the icy water that numbed the pain. He figured Tom didn’t know how bad he was hurt. He had to get him out of the water pretty soon though. He was afraid that if he didn’t, Tom was going to freeze to death. Already his teeth were chattering uncontrollably. Much longer in the water and they would both be corpses.
“I’m gonna let you go for a few minutes. Hold on to the log. Can you hold on to it?”
“I think so.” Tom struggled to pull his arms over the log.
Andy waited a moment until he was satisfied Tom could manage to keep his head above water. Then he moved with the current out from under the bank and slowly pulled himself out of the water. The cold night air slapped his wet buckskins up against his skin, chilling him to the bone. Sopping wet, his boots squishing with every step, he quickly scouted the trees up and down the riverbank. There was no sign of anyone around. He was satisfied that the Indians were gone. He was afraid to leave Tom for too long but he knew he had to find a place to make a fire before he pulled the wounded man out of the water. If he could get Tom to a fire right away, he had a better chance of making it back alive. A quick search turned up a big cottonwood that was half hollowed out, making an acceptable backdrop for a campfire. There was plenty of dried brush and small limbs around to start a fire so he stacked them inside the hollow of the tree. He would have ordinarily started the fire the easy way, by striking a spark over a pinch of gunpowder. But his gunpowder was ruined by the water. At least his flint and steel were still reasonably dry, wrapped securely in the oilskin pouch inside his shirt. He labored steadily over a handful of dried buffalo grass until finally a spark caught fire. In a matter of minutes after that, he had a blaze going inside the hollow of the tree. When he was sure it was a serious fire, he left it and went back for Tom.
Andy had been correct in his assumption that the icy water had numbed the pain of Tom’s wound because Tom’s toes were almost frozen by the time Andy carried him to the fire. The pain of his thawing extremities was as excruciating as the throbbing pain of the wound in his back. Andy stripped all of Tom’s clothes off and covered him with green branches pulled from the trees. He got him as close to the fire as he deemed prudent without setting him on fire. When he felt he had done all for Tom that he could, he saw to warming himself.
When looking back on that night, Andy would always marvel at the dumb luck and the good Lord for watching over the two of them. Tom was in considerable pain and, when he did fall into a fitful sleep, he moaned constantly and cried out at regular intervals. Andy was afraid to let the fire die down too low, afraid they would both freeze, so they spent the night in hostile territory as obvious as a beacon in the darkness of the prairie. He would be forever grateful that there couldn’t have been an Indian within ten miles, else their scalps would have been drying on Little Wolf’s lodge pole by morning. One thought that kept coming back to trouble him was, where was Lieutenant Perry? When Tom did not return with his men, why didn’t Lawson send a detail to find them? Andy didn’t sleep at all that night, waiting for the sudden attack that, mercifully, never came.
Morning came with a heavy frost that coated the cottonwoods like a silver blanket. Andy greeted the new day with bleary eyes and a sense of relief and gratitude. He was reasonably sure they were alone in that part of the wilderness by the simple fact that they were still alive. Tom was feverish but lucid, enough so that he and Andy were able to talk their situation over. It was obvious that Andy would have to leave Tom there and go for help. There was nothing else they could do. They had lost horses, weapons, food, everything but their clothes. At least they were dry now. Tom understood that his only chance was if Andy could make his way back to the troop and get back to him with help. On foot, he should be able to make it in half a day if he didn’t run into any hostile scouting parties. Since there was no sign of Indians during the night or again that morning, they felt reasonably sure that the Indians had not seen their escape downstream. As the sun began to paint gold tips on the uppermost branches of the trees, Andy carried Tom to a hiding place some one hundred yards further downstream. Tom was unarmed so Andy felt it safer to hide him away from the smoldering hollow tree that had served as their campfire during the night.
After Tom assured him that he would be all right, Andy took his leave, promising to be back for him come hell or high water. Before setting out straight toward the rising sun, he decided to scout upstream where the battle with the Cheyenne had taken place the day before. His hope was that the hostiles might have left something that could be of some use to him, a weapon or, better yet, possibly a frightened horse that might have returned after the noise of battle had subsided.
They had drifted further downstream than he had remembered for it took him almost half an hour to make his way back along the bank to a clump of juniper overlooking the spot where the troopers had made their ill-fated charge. He felt his stomach twitch with a sudden feeling of nausea when he cautiously peered through the branches at the scene on the riverbank. There were over a dozen bodies scattered across the sandy shore in various grotesque postures of death. All had been scalped. Other bodies must have floated down past them during the night for there were more soldiers to be accounted for than what he saw before him. He could see the pits, dug in the sand, that hid the ambush from them as they had galloped past in their haste to meet death in the middle of the river. Andy shuddered at the scene, though not because of the carnage. He had seen death before, as well as the aftermath of an Indian massacre. He shuddered because they had charged so blindly into that river and he might have been responsible. He sure as hell didn’t see it coming. Little Wolf staged a perfect ambush. Andy decided that no one would have seen it coming and, consequently, there was no blame to be shouldered. Having acquitted himself of any act of carelessness, he put the matter behind him. Back to the business at hand, he decided there was nothing there that would be of use to him so he set out toward the post.
He was accustomed to long hours in the saddle but he wasn’t much for walking, his legs being short, his body barrel-shaped. For that reason he was mighty thankful to sight the column of cavalry topping a rise in the prairie after he had walked for the better part of three hours. At first, he dove for cover until he was sure they were soldiers, having been fooled the day before by Little Wolf’s braves. Once they were close enough for positive identification, he climbed up on top of a knoll and yelled until he got their attention. As they approached, he recognized the slender, unmistakable features of Lieutenant Lawson Perry.
“Where the hell have you been?” Lawson demanded, reining his mount to a halt in front of the squat figure now awaiting him on the knoll.
“Where the hell have you been?” Andy returned.
In the accounting of the previous day’s events Andy learned that Lawson’s body of men had been ambushed themselves shortly after Tom had left the column. This explained why Lawson had not ridden to Tom’s rescue. The bunch that attacked Lawson were Sioux but, after discussing it, it seemed obvious that they were fighting in collusion with the band of Cheyenne that Little Wolf led. It was obvious that the two-pronged attack was not only premeditated, but well planned and executed. Lawson, however, was more fortunate than Andy and Tom. He was able to fight his way through after a running battle that consumed the entire afternoon, finally gaining the safety of the fort after losing half a dozen men. He figured Tom was dug in somewhere, in a defensive position, waiting for relief. That was the mission he was leading when he found Andy. He was shocked by the devastating news that of the detail that rode into the river ambush, only Andy and Tom survived and Tom was still a question mark.
Lawson’s patrol turned out to be a burial party that day but Tom was still alive when Andy led them back down the river. He was out of his head with fever for the most part and probably didn’t even know what was going on but his constitution proved strong, and after a few days, he was well on the way toward recovery. The doctor said the freezing water probably was the only thing that kept him from bleeding to death.
Having lost a great number of his men in one day’s fighting, Captain Bluefield decided that he would be forced to cancel all work parties on the road to Montana. His men would be stretched thin enough just escorting the woodcutters and water details from the fort. These were vital to their survival and he refused to reduce the number of troops necessary to guard the fort while the other details were away. To make matters worse, he received word a week later that his unit was not the only one to suffer defeat at the hands of the Indians. More than eighty troopers, led by Captain William J. Fetterman, had been massacred at another post. Bluefield had served with Fetterman and knew him to be an officer disposed to being somewhat cocksure. The word was he had allowed himself to be lured into ambush by a band of Sioux, led by Chief High Backbone on the same day Perry and Allred’s men were attacked. It was not a very joyous holiday season for the army.