A Cold Day in Hell (26 page)

“There’ll be some good come of them going along, Seamus,” she said quietly. “Of that I’m certain.”

He gazed down into the red face of that sleeping infant, saying, “I certainly hope so, love.”

“All the good we do will one day be victorious,” Sam explained, hopeful his coming and going would one day be at an end. “At long last we are finally treating the friendly Indians better than we have cajoled and coddled the stubborn ones who mean us no goodwill.”

“Ah, how right you are, pretty one!” he answered. “Too long the agents have been cowed by the belligerent chiefs and haughty warriors, trying to win over the hostiles with gifts and pleadings,
while the agency bands have been neglected as they come close to starving, given only thin blankets with the arrival of every winter.”

“What did Crook have done with all those ponies Mackenzie captured?”

“The North brothers and their Pawnee are bringing them over—likely should get here tomorrow. The stronger ones the quartermaster will turn into remounts for the campaign.”

“I pray to God you won’t have to eat another horse as long as you’re with Crook’s army.”

“My pretty—somewhere south of Slim Buttes, I vowed I’d only sit on a horse from now on—swearing on my mother’s grave that I’d never again take a bite out of one!”

She laughed softly in that way of hers that made his heart leap an extra beat, ever since that first night he had laid eyes on her down in the panhandle of Texas. Looking down at the infant now, he saw so much of the boy’s mother in the child’s face—the kindness, the openness to expressing a wide tapestry of emotions, a ruddy glow that could come only from an earnest spirit.

Seamus continued, “After seeing to the quartermaster’s needs, Crook will give the scouts their pick of the rest. And what’s left will be sold on the market for what they’ll bring.”

“You said they were all a pretty sorry lot.”

“Aye, Sam—they’ve already had a tough go of it this fall—and the real weather hasn’t even poked its head over the hills to the north.”

“And the guns? What about all the weapons Mackenzie’s men took from the Sioux?”

“They’ve been put under lock in a warehouse at Camp Robinson. Crook’s not sure yet what he’ll do with all the guns: whether he’ll come up with a value for them and pay the Indians, or give them back to the Indians who prove they can remain our allies against the hostiles in the Powder River country.”

She pulled the blankets up under her chin. “Weapons were taken from all the tribes?”

“No. Red Cloud’s Bad Face band was surprised to find out that the Arapahos and the Cut-off Sioux of Spotted Tail were allowed to keep their guns.”

“It wasn’t the first surprise Crook’s given them,” Sam added. “And I sure hope it won’t be the last.”

“Listen to you,” Seamus marveled. “Talking just like a soldier’s wife.”

“Well, I am, aren’t I?”

He grinned at her. “I suppose you are at that, Sam.” Then his eyes came back to rest on the infant cradled across his left arm as Samantha struck a lucifer and lit the solitary oil lamp in the darkening room as twilight began to fade. “The more I’ve thought about things ever since riding with Mackenzie into those camps, I find myself in agreement with what Crook wrote to Sheridan after he had his meeting with the chiefs at Camp Robinson.”

“What did the general say to Sheridan?”

“That old Red Beard said he feels that Mackenzie’s success is the first gleam of daylight we have had in this whole business. So now we must get about the matter of putting to rest what’s left of the hostile bands.”

* * *

Now that the government had stolen back the Black Hills, all that remained undone was this nasty business of trespassers.

There were those back east and among the political pundits who said all that was needed was a campaign to herd the winter roamers back onto their shrinking reservations. At the same time, there was also a hue and cry that what was still needed most of all was a crushing defeat for the enemy—a loss so devastating that the hostile bands would have no choice but to return to their agencies in abject humiliation. After Powder River, after the Rosebud, and especially after the burning ignominy of the Little Bighorn, what many in the army wanted most of all as October waned was to whip the enemy holdouts—whip them soundly, whip them once and for all.

The summer campaign that hadn’t fizzled out until autumn was underway had been decidedly indecisive. Although the winter roamers had been hit and their confidence wounded, nonetheless Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the other holdouts remained free and unpunished. There had been but one solution when Sheridan called Crook and Mackenzie to Laramie in September: a winter campaign. Once again the army would attempt to fashion the cold into an ally.

So it was that upon his return to Fort Laramie, George Crook went about putting the finishing touches to prepare for what he was now calling the Powder River Expedition. For the most part, the trials of 1876 had all but used up the forces of the Second, Third, and Fifth cavalries. In their place the general now outfitted six troops of Mackenzie’s Fourth. With new mounts and a healthy sprinkling of fresh recruits popularly known in the press as “Custer’s Avengers,” Crook also called into service four companies of the Third and Fifth—a total of 28 officers and 790 horse soldiers.

Colonel Richard I. Dodge was placed in charge of 33 officers over some 646 infantry and artillery troops (who would be fighting as riflemen). Tom Moore and 65 packers would once more lead their famous pack train north, again attempting to keep tight rein on more than 400 obstinate mules, which would carry the cavalry’s supplies once Mackenzie cut loose from the main column for the attack. In addition, more than 200 teamsters were in charge of a train of 7 ambulances and 168 wagons, which would transport the column’s supplies north to the Reno Cantonment on the Powder River. From there Crook planned on
striking out, swift and hard, once his scouts learned the whereabouts of Crazy Horse.

This time into the field the old Red Beard would utilize mercenaries from six tribes: 48 Pawnee riding under the North brothers; 151 Sioux, some 90 Cheyenne, and Arapaho, all of whom had joined up after the Red Cloud confiscation; and in the last month Crook had sent a wire to the Wind River Reservation hoping to again convince chief Washakie to send his Shoshone and allied Bannock warriors. In just the last week word telegraphed from Camp Brown assured Crook that Tom Cosgrove and his eager warriors would meet the column on the march.

Besides, Crook had already dispatched Captain George M. “Black Jack” Randall north along the west side of the Big Horn Mountains to again convince the Crow they should enlist in the army’s struggle. Reports had it that the tribe would be sending two hundred of their best warriors to rendezvous with the expedition at or near the Reno Cantonment, if not by the time Crook reached Pumpkin Buttes.

In all, there would soon be nearly twenty-two hundred men marching north to stalk Crazy Horse.

“You’ve no business bringing him out into this cold,” Seamus scolded Samantha, halting her at the bottom landing there at the front door of Old Bedlam. Outside on the parade, all was a ruckus of men and horses, wagons and mules. “I can say my farewells to you both right here—inside, where it isn’t so bloody cold.”

She looked up at his face with those eyes of hers and said, “If this truly is a son of yours, Seamus Donegan, then he’d best be getting used to this unearthly cold right here and now.”

For a moment he studied the fiery intensity in her big, bold eyes and decided he was not about to talk her out of venturing onto the porch or the parade with the rest of the wives. “All right, then—cover him up best you can. The wind’s kicked up this morning, Sam.” Then, as she pulled the layers of swaddling and blankets over the infant’s face, Seamus tugged at her shawl, bringing the long folds up on her head, tucking it all beneath her chin in a fat knot.

“There, now,” she whispered up to him, her cheeks already rouged with the cold blustering in through the open door, “don’t we two look a sight?”

“Never been a prettier mother.”

“Perhaps your own, Seamus,” she replied quietly as she took his elbow, the babe cradled across her right arm.

He stopped just outside the doorway as officers barked their commands, sergeants bawled out their orders, mules brayed, and horses strained at their wagon hitches, rattling trace chains with the strident squeak of cold axles and hubs.

“Prepare to mount!”

Gazing down into her face, he felt his eyes begin to mist. “My mother would have loved to meet you, Samantha Donegan.”

Gazing at the carefully wrapped child, Sam said, “And to hold her grandson too.”

Swiftly he brought her into him, yet gently, ever so gently, as he clutched them both to his bosom, the babe there between them, sheltered in their warmth from the wind and the brutal cold, sensing the tears spill down his cheeks.

“Mount!”

Cherishing this last moment between them, the last time he might hold these precious pieces of his heart for weeks to come. No more than a few weeks, he had promised her in the last days together—pained each time he remembered just how often he had been forced to break that very same vow.

Stirrups groaned as weight came down upon them. Saddles squeaked and horses snorted. The entire parade a fog of cold frost.

“You must go,” she whispered, her voice muffled against the bulk of his blanket and canvas coat.

Blinking his eyes, Seamus looked over the parade, seeing how Dodge already had his infantry well away on their march, followed by the artillery caissons and all those wagons rumbling two by two down to the big iron bridge that would carry them across the North Platte. Only now were the cavalry wheeling about into column, company, by company, by company. Always were they the last in the line of march, and the first into the action. By the luck of the march, horse soldiers were the ones chosen to eat every other man’s dust—and the first thrown against the enemy, the first to spill their blood.

Somewhere miles ahead already were Crook and his headquarters group, likely following the North brothers and their Pawnee trackers. It suited Seamus just fine that he would ride back here with Mackenzie’s Fourth and the rest of the scouts, most of them Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, some of whom were beating on hand drums, all singing in their own tongue to the cold dawn sky.

Prayers.

Dear Father in Heaven, did he ever feel like praying right then.

She pulled her damp face from his coat slightly, looking up at his bearded chin. “You’ll do nothing foolish this time out, Seamus Donegan.”

“I’ve done nothing so foolish in my youth that got me killed—”

She grabbed some curls resting upon his shoulder, whispering, “Though many’s tried to raise that beautiful hair of yours.”

“But now that I’ve grown older, I find I’m one to do less and less that’s so daring and foolish.”

That too might be a vow hard for him to keep.

“It’s just two days to Fetterman, Seamus. Promise you’ll write us from there.”

“As I always do.”

“But this time write a letter to your son.”

“And you will read it to him for me?”

“Over and over again, I’ll read it to him,” Sam answered, pressing her face back into the mass of him when the wind kicked up a skiff of old snow across the icy porch. People were cheering, crying out, young children leaping across the parade as they banged away on pots and pans while the cavalry strung itself out at long last and the rear guard was finally in motion. She sobbed, “I will read it … like his father was singing a lullaby to him every night.”

With one finger he pushed back the shawl’s hood slightly and smelled deeply of her hair this last time. The tears coming freely now, he could almost feel them freezing on his cheeks, in the burr of his beard. He wanted so to remember this scent of her across all those cold days and freezing nights yet to come.

“This will be swift and sure—I’ll be home soon.”

“And when you do, Seamus—you promised to bring home a name for your son.”

“Aye,” he whispered, his lips against her ear now. “We’ll name him when I return from … from—”

“From Hell.”

“I’ll be home soon, Sam”—he barely got the words out. “Soon …”

Then he gently parted the blanket and gazed one last moment at the infant, bending slightly so that he could softly plant a kiss on the boy’s forehead. In the next moment Seamus raised
his face to her, laid his mouth against her full lips moistened with the gush of her tears, then suddenly, brutally, tore himself away from them.

From family. From what clutched most tightly at his heart.

Gone to plunge back into the maw of Hell once more.