A Cold Day in Hell (64 page)

T
hroughout their march away from the Cheyenne village that Sunday afternoon, Mackenzie’s men came across the horse tack, clothing, and superfluous equipage the cavalry had cast aside in its hurried, cold-night march to reach the canyon of the Red Fork, abandoned litter that spoke eloquently of a trooper’s privations and sacrifices in service to his unit.

Which only made Seamus dwell all the more on those men who had suffered through the night with their wounds, given whiskey and laudanum and kept as warm as possible. On their shoulders more than any other the weight of battle had been borne.

At least Mackenzie’s sawbones could give them something to ease their goddamned pain, Donegan thought as the procession wound in and around to the east. Too damned many good men fated to die were all too often forced to die in pain.

He squeezed his eyes shut to stop the spill of tears and took a deep, shocking breath of that cold wind. Thinking on Samantha to ease some of the private torment in his heart, thinking on the wee boy who would soon have a name.

Late in the afternoon of that first day’s countermarch, a cadre of Shoshone and Pawnee scouts rejoined the column after making a reconnaissance to learn more of the Cheyennes’ intentions. Back on the twenty-third they had departed Crook’s camp on the Crazy Woman Fork, sent north toward the Bighorns. As it turned out, the fourteen scouts brought in
a few head of ponies, and a report of their own skirmish with the enemy.

“Seems they ran across what the Cheyenne have left of a pony herd,” Frank North explained to Donegan as the two marched along with the slow column. “No more’n two hundred head at the most.”

“But our scouts cut out almost half of them before the Cheyenne herders discovered what they were up to,” Luther jumped into the conversation.

“And for their enthusiasm our boys nearly got themselves chewed up by those Cheyenne licking their battle wounds,” Frank declared. “If the snow clouds hadn’t rolled over about that time, our Pawnee and Cosgrove’s Snakes would not be here to tell the story.”

“They have any guess how many Cheyenne they saw?” Seamus asked.

Frank replied, “Could be as many as twelve hundred, maybe more.”

Luther said, “But the good news is—from what our boys could see, the Cheyenne really are badly cut up, all but naked, without moccasins, blankets, or ammunition … dragging all their wounded through the mountains toward the headwaters of the Crazy Woman.”

“They’re headed for the Crazy Horse people,” Seamus replied. “Just like they did after the Reynolds’s debacle in March.”

Frank stated, “That was right about the time the warrior bands started coming together for the spring and summer hunting seasons.”

For the rest of the day rumors ran through the anxious command because of that nearby contact with the fleeing Cheyenne. Fears arose that Morning Star’s warriors would be waiting to ambush the column somewhere along the trail. So frightened were some of the wounded that the colonel ordered his Indian scouts to the head of the command, where they stayed for the rest of the day in the event of a surprise attack. Indian would again be the first to bear the brunt of any ambush by Indian.

Just past sunset Mackenzie ordered a halt for the night on the far side of Willow Creek, which would lead them out of the mountains and back to the plains, where they could rendezvous with Crook and Dodge on the Crazy Woman Fork. The weary, cold cavalry had put twelve miles behind them by the time they kindled their fires and settled in among the snowdrifts for the long winter’s night.

Tom Cosgrove waved the Irishman over to his fire. “Come. Sit. Have yourself a cup of my terrible coffee, you no-good, sonofabitchin’ blue-belly.”

Seamus took the tin from Yancy Eckles at their cheery fire. He asked the two, “You mind if I bunk in with you here?”

“Sure you don’t mind the noise?” the short squaw man Eckles asked, throwing his thumb back to indicate the loud, uproarious scalp dance the Shoshone were holding nearby.

“No,” Donegan said all too quietly. “The noise won’t bother me near as much as the quiet would tonight.”

“Sit yourself down, then,” Cosgrove replied, stretching out his long frame. “My home is your home!”

“Truth be—I don’t want to stay down there with the others where I was,” Donegan replied, then sipped at the scalding coffee.

Eckles inquired, “With Wheeler’s wounded train?”

Wagging his head, Seamus said, “It ain’t the wounded. It’s them dead ones.”

With a snort Cosgrove threw a fist at Donegan’s shoulder. “That’s a pretty one! With all the dead men you’ve seen in all your goddamned wars—now you’ve gone and got yourself funny feelings about a few dead soldiers?”

For a moment Seamus stared into the fire. “They’re frozen.”

“We all are,” Cosgrove replied casually.

“No. I mean really frozen, Tom,” Donegan argued. “They froze near solid on the ride here this afternoon.”

His eyes narrowing, Eckles asked. “Hanging over the backs of them mules?”

Nodding, Donegan said, “And when Wheeler’s men took the bodies off the mules, they just set each dead man up to stand all on his own, bent over in a half hoop, posted on hands and boots.”

Cosgrove trembled involuntarily. “Like they was bowed up?”

As the war cries and songs of the Shoshone reached another crescendo, Donegan only nodded, his cracked, bloody lips warming at the rim of the coffee tin and didn’t say another word.

Finally Cosgrove stated quietly, “Sure, Irishman. We’ll always make room for you here.”

They drank their coffee in silence for some time, each of them listening to the noisy Shoshone celebration, until Eckles spoke.

“You figure Grouard got to Crook already?”

“Yeah,” Seamus replied. “I’ll wager the infantry’re headed this way already.”

“General?”

George Crook sat upright at the sound of the orderly’s voice, rubbing at his gritty eyes. Damn, but it was dark. “Yes! Yes! What is it?”

He could see it was not yet light. Nothing more than the first seep of gray from outside, a gray that streamed through the canvas shelter half he had stretched out from the sidewall of one of Furey’s freight wagons to keep the snow off his bed. Crook shifted on his mattress of blankets and sagebrush, hurriedly grabbing for the first boot in the dark.

“It’s a courier, General.”

His heart rose to his throat. “From Mackenzie?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And?” he snapped, bursting to his feet and bolting out of the shelter half with one boot on and the other in his hand, both braids of his long red beard flung back over his shoulders.

The orderly fell back two steps, surprised by the general’s sudden appearance. “Th-th-there’s been a f-fight, sir.”

“By Jove! That’s exquisite news!” Then he noticed the courier at the fire, having just filled his cup. “So you’re the one who rode in with this splendid report, Frank?”

The half-breed Grouard nodded, taking his first sip at the coffee sending curls of steam into the frosty light of predawn. “Cold as hell out there, General.”

Dammit, he wanted answers—now. “Mackenzie … he won?”

Nodding, Grouard replied in that easy, slow way of his. “Not like Reynolds last winter. Not like that at all.”

Crook did a quick little stamp with his feet, something on the order of a Phil Sheridan Irish jig, only then realizing he hadn’t put his second boot on as he stomped down on the pounded snow with his thin stocking. “A victory, Frank?”

“Damn right, it’s a victory, General. But the
Tse-Tsehese
are up in the rocks around their camp and the carbines can’t bring ’em down. Mackenzie said to tell you he needs the Long Toms.”

“Fix this man some breakfast,” Crook ordered the men around the fire, grinning from ear to ear and waving his arms like a man possessed, getting all of his orderlies and dog-robbers moving at once. “And pour me a cup of the strongest coffee you’ve got. Wait right here, Frank—I’m going to grab my coat
and hat … then go roust Dodge. When we’re back, you’re going to tell us all about Mackenzie’s fight.”

The commanding general of the Department of the Platte awakened Colonel Richard I. Dodge that cold dawn of the twenty-sixth, literally pulling the infantry commander from his trestle bed.

“Mackenzie sent back for your boys and their guns! He’s got the whole lot of ’em on the run!”

“M-my guns?” Dodge said, shuddering as he pulled on his tall boots, blinking his eyes.

“Damn. Tucked away up there in the rocks, one of those blasted warriors is worth ten of my troopers,” Crook growled, grinding his gloves together thoughtfully. “But your riflemen should more than even the odds for General Mackenzie.”

Dodge stood, buttoning his long caped coat. “When shall we embark?”

“As soon as you’ve drawn two days’ rations and issued every man one hundred rounds of ammunition.”

The infantry commander stabbed his way out from the flaps of his canvas tent. “I’ll return shortly, General—to report to you when we’re ready to depart.”

“Perhaps you misunderstood, General,” Crook said to Dodge, watching the colonel freeze in the middle of his salute. “I am accompanying you on this forced march.”

“Of … of course, General,” Dodge finally replied with studied disappointment, and finished his salute.

It wasn’t until close to noon that Dodge had his men dressed, fed, outfitted, and mustered into columns. By then the sky had lowered and the tops of the nearby Bighorns had once again disappeared among the gray, heavy clouds. Three inches of new snow had fallen atop the eight inches already on the ground from last night. And even more was dropping as the column of foot soldiers set out at a trudge, their faces pointed into a harsh west wind.

The snow eventually began to let up near sundown and the sky turned patchy overhead as the infantry pushed on into the coming of that winter night without halting. All afternoon they had repeatedly found Mackenzie’s trail to be wide enough to accommodate only one foot soldier at a time, forcing their march to slow as it proceeded in single file up and down steep slopes, across slick-sided ravines and fording icy creeks.

As the darkness swelled around them, Crook hurried ahead with Grouard, thankful the new moon was some ten days old
that night. From time to time it splayed the forbidding canyons of the Bighorns with a silvery light reflected off the brilliant tableau of the rugged landscape. Theirs became a two-color night as the black of scrub timber and huge stands of pine and fir contrasted sharply against the shimmering monotony of a whitewashed world.

Near eleven that night the general and the half-breed reached the valley of Willow Creek, a small tributary of the Powder River.

“How much farther, Frank?”

Grouard considered a moment, then answered, “A few hours. Not many. We’re mighty close.

He sighed in disappointment. “Let’s wait for the rest to come up.” Crook said as he stepped down from the saddle.

“Hoping you were going to say some such, General.”

“Get us a small fire going, will you, Frank?” Crook suggested. “I feel like making us some coffee.”

“You’re going to call a halt here?”

Crook stared back down the trail, then up toward the Bighorns. He had to resign himself to it. “We’ll stay the night.”

When Colonel Dodge’s infantry came up, they were ordered to fall out by companies. Some built small fires, where they boiled coffee and ate their supper of cold bacon and frozen hard bread, while others simply collapsed where they were in the snowdrifts and sank into a sound, sound sleep without ceremony or any coaxing.

Oblivious to the cold.

At dawn on Monday, the twenty-seventh of November, after a restless night, Mackenzie’s men were no less skittish about a possible hit-and-run attack by the Cheyenne than they had been the day before. The cruel, slashing mountain wind finally died and it again began to snow heavily.

Seamus ached to the marrow with the cold, thinking again on how warm he could be within the shelter of Samantha’s arms.

Even before the column moved out at midmorning, some of the Indian scouts rode in from their dawn search of the country, reporting the presence of another large village of hostiles off to the west of Mackenzie’s position. Strung out in single file and scattered as they were forced to cross that rugged piece of country, Donegan grew every bit as concerned as the soldiers: should the enemy jump them in the narrow canyons or crossing these
deep ravines, Mackenzie’s command would be in sad shape to withstand such an attack without suffering terrible casualties.

The new snow of the past two days made the narrow trail all the more slippery, forcing the horses to work all the harder for their footing. That day some of the weakest, poorly fed mounts gave out, were shot, and their carcasses abandoned along the banks of the eastbound Willow Creek. By late afternoon they had put no more than fourteen miles behind them when Mackenzie ordered the column to halt for the night on that feeder of the Powder River as the sky continued to snow.

At this time of the year, a few hours of daylight became all the more precious to an army on the march, Seamus ruminated. Then he brooded on Samantha, wondering if it was snowing down at Laramie. If she was warm. How it must feel to hold the boy.

From dawn till dusk that day, Mackenzie kept his Indian scouts ranging on all sides of their line of march, determined not to be surprised by the Cheyenne. In addition, for that night he ordered a double running guard posted around the camp and the herd as the sun sank beyond the white-draped mountains lit with a rosy spray of dying light. Up and down the banks of the creek tiny fires began to glow like red and yellow eyes in the black face of winter night as evening came down, men heating their coffee and salt pork, soaking their hardtack in the thick, sizzling grease that popped and crackled in the small skillets.

“Crook’s camp can’t be that far off,” John Bourke commented as he flung his saddle down near Donegan’s fire and settled atop it to hand over his empty tin cup. “Fill me, would you?”

“The infantry coming, are they?”

John nodded. “Mackenzie just got word from one of the Sioux scouts that they ran into the general and Dodge’s boys going into camp a few miles east of us.”