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!”

The twelve sprawled in the tall grass, fanning out in a crude half circle about the time the warriors made their first serious charge past the defenders clustered at the crest of the hill. For the better part of an hour the Cheyenne kept at it, racing back and forth, sweeping the hillside in a giant arc before they would rein about to sweep in the opposite direction.

While bullets for the most part sang harmlessly overhead, it was the iron-tipped arrows falling among the defenders that created the greatest danger. A bowman could fire uphill without showing his position with a puff of rifle smoke. And, perhaps even more telling, a warrior using a rifle had to expose himself to his enemy, rising from the grass long enough to fire his bullet in a straight line.

The Cheyenne archers, on the other hand, had only to fire their arrows into the air, where they would gently arc, falling from the autumn sky onto the hilltop.

From time to time the whistling shafts fell among the white men, but for the most part did little damage. One scout’s leg was pinned to the ground. Another had his coat sleeve pierced. Even Curry shrieked in panic when a shaft punctured the wide brim of his slouch hat. Yet the greatest number of arrows fell among the frost-dried leaves of the trees where the horses stood hobbled and tied. Each time the shafts came down in waves, clattering like dry beans falling through the limbs and branches, the animals pranced nervously, snorting and pulling at their halters.

Three warriors lay dead down the slope, close enough to the white men that none of the rest dared rescue the bodies. Back and forth the Cheyenne milled for a few minutes, as if debating among themselves.

“What you make of it, Cody?”

“They’re trying to figure why their medicine went bad, I suppose.”

“One of them bucks is brave enough to try,” said Ziegler.

“Yep, here he comes,” Donegan said.

A single warrior had removed his war-shirt, handing it to a companion before he kicked heels against his pony’s ribs. He carried only a military carbine as he charged up the hillside, from the muzzle of which dangled a single war-eagle feather.

“You want him, Irishman?”

“Tell you what, Cody—I don’t get him, he’s yours.”

“I like the cut of your cloth, Donegan,” Cody said, smiling as he pushed another cartridge into the Blakeslee loading tube for his Spencer. “Let’s see how good you are.”

“Like running buffalo?”

“You might say that.”

Over the front blade of his Henry, Seamus worked at keeping the warrior down the blued barrel, between the notches of his rear sight. Swaying side to side, then dropping off the far side of his pony, the Cheyenne was not about to give the Irishman a good target.

“Bleeming bastird,” he muttered, at last moving the front blade to the pony’s head as it strained up-slope. Donegan squeezed the trigger.

The war-pony pitched forward, spilling its rider into the tall grass, both bodies kicking up thin clouds of dust as they settled.

“You still want the rider?” Cody shouted as a few of the scouts hurrawed behind Donegan.

“Damn bloody right I do!”

“Then knock ’im down, by God!”

The hot brass spat from the chamber as he levered another round into the breech, the smell of hot oil and burnt powder like nothing else on the dry, autumn wind with a bite of winter to it.

Standing to face the knot of white men above him, the warrior brought up his rifle, firing it without fear when Donegan squeezed off his own shot.

The blast knocked the Cheyenne backward two steps. He stopped, staring down at his chest, which began to seep red.

Donegan chambered another round and let out his breath, held high again, then squeezed.

Disbelieving, the warrior stumbled three more steps downhill, clawing at his chest still, then fell backward, still-legged. And moved no more.

Down the slope arose cries of frustration as the warriors milled about for a moment then slowly, one by one, headed off to the northeast.

“You boys wanna follow ’em?” Cody asked, that big smile on his face.

“You and your ruddy notions!” Donegan replied, crawling to his feet. “Do we wanna follow ’em? he says.”

“I’m for getting us them four scalps,” Curry cheered. “C’mon, boys!”

Curry led the others down the slope where the white men yanked and pulled at the Cheyenne bodies, searching for plunder or at the least a souvenir to show the soldiers back at Wallace.

“I’ve taken a liking to that belt pouch, Ranahan,” Donegan said as he strode up on the frantic activity over the dead warriors.

“This?” Ranahan held the pouch up, admiring the colorful porcupine quillwork. “Thought it was pretty myself.”

“The plunder is mine, Ranahan.”

“We all got call to it, Irishman.”

“You watched me, like the others. I killed this one.”

“Get something off one of them others, Donegan. I like this pouch—”

“No,” and he said it quietly. “I want that pouch.”

“Best give the Irishman the pouch, Ranahan.”

He eyed Cody like a frightened animal. Then the small, feral eyes went back to Donegan. “All right, Irishman.” He slapped the pouch into the big man’s hands. “It’s yours. Take it. I … I didn’t want it anyway. Just leave me his scalp.”

“You know how I feel about scalps—don’t you, Ranahan? Remember Slinger—how you and Lane chaffed on him?”

The black eyes hardened with a glint of fire to them.

“Don’t push the Irishman, Ranahan,” said Tom Alderdice. “Just leave it alone.”

Seamus watched as Ranahan suddenly turned on his heel, grumbling, moving off down the slope to join some of the rest combing over the other dead.

“That one doesn’t like you much, Seamus.”

He looked at Cody a moment, then grinned. “Don’t like him much either.” Seamus stuffed the pouch under his belt, letting the decorated flap hang free. “I’ll damn sure be glad when he goes south to rejoin Pepoon fighting with Custer.”

“Soon enough.”

“Never soon enough for me,” Seamus whispered so that no other man heard. “Cowards and back-shooters only men I’m afraid of. I’ll be happy when that one’s gone south with Custer. Cowards and back-shooters…”