Chapter 12

Mid-April 1869

Overhead the ducks swept the sky, their great formations pointing north to the feeding grounds in the land of the Grandmother. They did not make as much noise as the great long-necks honking across the blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds left behind with the passing storm.

Tall Bull looked down at the puddle of rain collected in the depression. Like a plate mirror, the unruffled surface of the tiny pond reflected the unhurried passing of the white fleece above. The wrens and sparrows were busy as well. Gathering food for their young. Repairing their nests after the onslaught of the thunderstorm. Industrious animals, these with wings. So perpetually in motion.

Every bit like the buffalo his people followed season after season across the plains. And like the buffalo, the Cheyenne ponies were growing sleek and fat once more on the new grass poking its head through the hardened winter crust of the great prairie that was the home of Tatonka Haska. The Tall Bull had taken control of this collection of wild outlaws and renegades and outcasts from other bands. He became their leader when the chiefs abandoned the fight against the half-a-hundred white men who had huddled together on the tiny island in the middle of the dry riverbed long before the snows of last winter.

Around Tall Bull the young and the daring had rallied. Perhaps because he would not give up the fight. More so because Tall Bull was a war leader who took the war right to the white man’s doorstep. While other chiefs were content to merely defend themselves, Tall Bull led those who still boiled in gall whenever they remembered the Little Dried River. Black Kettle was an old woman who begged peace from the white man. But again last winter the soldiers had attacked the old chief’s camp.

On the Washita.

It would not happen to his people, Tall Bull swore.

He looked south, toward the land of his birth. Where he learned to fire a bow and ride a pony. Where season after season he had hung himself from the sun-prayer pole to give thanks.

It was no longer the land he could call home. The white man had come in with his black wagons that belched oily smoke and ran on a iron trail. Behind them came more white men who pulled huge knives behind mules and oxen, cutting a swath into the breast of the earth. Their kind drove the game away and polluted the streams they camped beside.

At least his people had been safe up here close to the Niobrara River for the winter. But now Tall Bull yearned for the southland once more. If the Cheyenne could not stop the white man in the south, there would be no rest for his people in the north. For, one day, the white man would come north, wanting that land too.

Red Cloud had waged a relentless war on the soldiers and the civilians traveling the Prayer Road north through his coveted hunting ground. In doing so, Red Cloud had defeated the white man. Sent the soldiers scurrying from his land.

Tall Bull rose from the edge of the rain puddle, for the first time sensing the insistent breeze along his cheek, the same breeze ruffling the smooth surface of the blue sky-water.

“It is time,” said one of the four who stopped nearby.

He nodded. “The others are gathered?”

“They wait for you.”

Tall Bull smiled at the four, his lieutenants ever since the battle with the white men on the river. Without another word he led them into the village, to his lodge.

Around the fire his warriors had gathered, eaten and smoked before they began talk of the coming season, and with its approach, the raids they knew Tall Bull would lead.

“I have grown weary of chasing the white man’s wagons up and down his roads. Stealing his horses and his mules. Killing and scalping the white man and his soldiers,” Tall Bull explained when the group asked what plans the chief had for the short-grass time. “Still, the white man comes. There is no end to his numbers. We kill and steal—and there are always more.”

“What is this talk?” demanded Feathered Bear. “You sound like an old woman ready to give up our fight.”

Tall Bull turned on him. “I am not. It would be a very stupid man who thinks that I would deny my people this fight.”

“Tatonka Haska is no old woman,” agreed Bullet Proof, himself wounded in the battle against the half-a-hundred white men on the river island. “There are plenty enough here who remember how Tall Bull stood proud when Two Crows and Turkey Legs ran from the white men.”

The chief held up his hand to silence the clamor. “If there are those among you who believe I should not lead our warriors into battle this season—let him speak it clearly … now.”

Most of the eyes in the smoky lodge turned toward Feathered Bear. Many moments passed until the warrior dropped his gaze and spoke.

“Tall Bull will lead us in war against the white man.”

“Hau! Hau!” roared the warriors with approval.

“All of us, Feathered Bear?” asked the chief.

“Yes—every warrior.”

He nodded. Once more he had them in his hand. Now to excite them, make their blood hot for the hunt and the kill. To make their hearts pound and their temples throb with the promise of the chase.

“This summer we will not send out scouts to hunt for small bands of soldiers. Nor will we look for the white man’s white-topped wagons to attack. Instead—we will concentrate all our warriors on one objective.”

“If we do not attack the soldiers and the white men who travel along the trails—who are we to attack?” asked Pile of Bones, a young and eager warrior.

“We kill soldiers … and still more come,” Tall Bull explained, stroking the otter-skin pipe-bag he held on his lap. “We kill the white wagon men … and still more of them come the next time.”

A veteran warrior spoke, “We steal horses and coffee and sugar. Our women like the cloth we bring them, and the kettles too.”

Tall Bull looked at Pretty Bear for a moment before answering. “All these things are good—but in taking them we still do not have our land back. We have not driven the white man from our country.”

“You have a plan to do this?” Bad Heart asked, speaking for the first time.

He nodded, watching the anxious silence come over the council. “The white man is many. He will always be many here in our land. But, you must remember there is one thing the white man values more highly than his soldiers, more highly than his coffee and kettles.”

Pile of Bones’s eyes narrowed. “What does he value more than all these?”

“We will attack the white man’s homes … where he scratches at the ground and builds his mud-earth lodges.”

“Is this what you call your great plan to drive the white man from our land?” demanded Feathered Bear.

“Yes,” he answered quietly, turning to his rival.

“We have done this before—”

He held up his strong, powerful hand, silencing all. “This time will be different, my brothers. This time we will go to take what is most valuable to the white man … what he cannot replace. He can replace soldiers and kettles and blankets. But we will take something he will never replace.”

“What is so valuable, Tall Bull?”

“Soon, we will be riding south and east toward the white man’s settlements.”

“To steal horses again,” sneered Feathered Bear.

“No,” and Tall Bull smiled, a wolfish slash across his face. “This time we steal the white man’s women.”

*   *   *

“Damn them, Cody!” growled Major Eugene Asa Carr when he had burst into the scouts’ camp circle, accompanied by scout Bill Green. “They got away with a horse of mine.”

“Hold up, Major,” Cody had replied. “Who got away with this horse?”

Carr had gone ahead to tell the civilian scouts the story: Fifth Cavalry stock stolen right under the noses of the herders. Including a mule owned by Lieutenant W. C. Forbush and a horse very much prized by the major himself.

That recollection now rolled before Seamus Donegan’s eyes as clear as the day Carr had sent them after the horse thieves.

He gazed from a foggy hotel window he had thrown open just after dawn. Beside it he sat in a crooked wooden chair, watching the huge Denver City corral below for signs of activity that would indicate the auction was about to begin. In the room’s single bed lay Cody and the scout named Bill Green, back to back. Another civilian scout, Jack Farley, lay sprawled on his bedroll on the floor, snoring gently, his mouth hung open, tongue lolling like a hunting dog’s.

Carr had continued his explanation, wringing his hands angrily. “Don’t have an idea or a clue to give you, except that Green here followed the trail back downriver to the old fort site.”

Bill Green had shrugged when the others looked at him. “The trail split up … mixed up and all. I couldn’t make sense of it.”

Cody looked at Carr. “You want me to get your stock back, General?”

Carr had nodded eagerly. “We don’t have long, Cody. I’m expecting orders any day now.”

Donegan remembered the young scout stretching before he replied. “Been looking for a chance to get out of camp, General. Figure I’ll take another man with me.”

Carr had shaken his head that morning. “Make it a foursome, Cody.”

“General’s right, Bill,” agreed Green. “Sign shows there’s at least two polecats involved. I’ll go along—you want me.”

“All right,” Cody had replied. Then he nodded at Jack Farley. “You’re good at reading trail sign, Jack. Wanna come?”

“I do,” he answered readily. “Ever since my brother got his arm shot off at Beecher Island—and died from the blood poisoning—I been itching to see some action. If white men are the only thieves we can trail for now, so be it.”

Cody had turned to Donegan. “I got one more saddle to fill, Irishman.”

Donegan recalled how he had grinned, turning away from that morning fire to scoop up both rifles and pistol belt. “Let’s ride.”

Later that morning the four had reached the site of old Fort Lyon. At one time the place had been known on the plains as Bents’ Fort, purchased years before from the fur and Indian traders, George and William Bent. Later, when the annual spring floods on the Arkansas ate away at the riverbank below the fort, the army had raised a new post upstream.

Below in dawn’s rose light spreading over Denver City, Seamus watched a high-walled freight wagon pull away from the corral and rattle up the ruts of Blake Street. Its taut white canvas top disappeared from view as he went back to remembering what had brought them all to this tiny hotel room overlooking the Elephant Corral.

“I marked the spot where I lost the trail, fellas,” Bill Green had explained when he dropped from the saddle and handed his reins up to Farley.

As well, Donegan and Cody had dropped to the ground at the site of old Fort Lyon.

“Trail just up and disappears,” Green apologized.

“Got to be something here,” Donegan had muttered, his gray eyes scanning the tall grass. Something about it tugged at him, the way it stood and bent with the morning breeze, leading all the way to a large stand of cottonwood near the riverbank.

“Let’s put your noses to work,” Cody said, leading them from the spot Green had marked.

They fanned out, Farley bringing up the rear with the horses. Slowly working back and forth, studying the ground, the grass, the sage and willow for tracks, threads of clothing, horsehair, even a rock rolled out of the soil where it had been half buried by spring flood of years past.

“Looka here,” Cody had said, motioning the other three close. From the broken grass he pointed.

“I bet we find something in those trees,” Donegan had replied when they all stood staring at the stand of cottonwood.

They had not been disappointed.

“Must be about a dozen,” Farley declared when he had gone over the ground in the cottonwood grove.

“Can’t figure how I missed it, Bill,” Green said.

“Don’t matter,” Cody had replied. “We got the smell of ’em now. Look fellas, how they led the horses out of here, one at a time—just to confuse any trackers coming along after ’em. You listening, Irishman?”

Watching the Denver street below him, Donegan remembered how he rose from the ground where he had been inspecting footprints. While Farley had studied the hoofprints, Seamus studied the clues of man’s passing.

“Two of ’em come in,” Donegan had told them. “Two of ’em rode out each time. I figure they rode a pair of animals off a distance each time. Come back on foot for another two. Rode them off in a different direction … just to confuse trackers.”

“You read it that way, Farley?”

He had nodded at Cody. “Yep. I see it the same way.”

“Let’s do an Injun circle,” Cody had suggested. “Till we cut some trail.”

The four had ridden out a mile from the grove, making a large arc around the old fort site. When they hadn’t cut any sign, Cody led them out another mile. Then three. And four. Finally, at a five-mile circle out from the cottonwood grove, Farley had come upon the joining of the tracks.

“I make it some eight horses and at least four mules,” the tracker had said, beaming up at the three horsemen.

“By damned, we’ll get Carr’s horse back yet,” Cody had said. “They got a lead on us, so let’s buck.”

The trail they had followed led them farther east down the north bank of the Arkansas River until it reached the mouth of Sand Creek. From there the trail led north, upstream from the Arkansas.

“Cheyenne call this the Little Dried River,” Cody had told them. “Not far upstream is the place where Chivington destroyed Black Kettle’s camp back to ’sixty-four.”

“You was a young whip back then, wasn’t you?” the older Farley had joked with Cody.

“Old enough, Jack—to know Sand Creek’s nothing to be proud of.”

After following the tracks a few miles upstream, the trail stopped in a copse of swamp willow where the prints became confused and split up once more.

“They’re pulling the same stunt again,” Farley had said, wagging his head.

“Don’t matter,” Cody had replied, staring off into the distance. He had turned to the rest of them as they loosened cinches and adjusted their saddles. “Tell me fellas—what are these thieves gonna do with a dozen horses and mules in this part of the country?”

“I suppose they’re gonna sell ’em,” Green had answered.

“Right. And where do you boys think these horse thieves gonna sell their booty?”

Farley had shrugged his shoulders. “Closest place … be Denver City.”

“Exactly,” Cody had said. He pointed to the confusion of tracks. “That may be a mess and won’t tell us a thing … but my money says we can find the general’s animals and those horse thieves in Denver.”

“How far?”

“Does it matter, Irishman?”

Donegan recalled shaking his head. “Got nothing better to do, I suppose.”

“Let’s go to Denver City, boys,” Cody cheered, climbing to the saddle and pointing them north.

Seamus stretched his back and shoulders now, stiffening with the sitting he was doing at the window. Over time he had become as certain as Cody had been they would find the thieves today.

It was Saturday. And every Saturday some of the finest stock in these parts came to Denver City, to be auctioned off at the Elephant Corral.

Below him inside the corral itself stirred the first sign of life for the day. It was Robert Teats’s boy, Eugene, dragging a bucket of oats at the end of each arm.

The sun would come up soon to chase the gray from the day.

Seamus figured their chase was just about over.