Cry of the Hawk (15 page)

“You still got your shooting eye, don’t you, Shad?” commented Jim Bridger as he walked up among the soldiers celebrating and butchering the shaggy buffalo.

“Bet I do, Gabe. Best you dive in now and claim one of them tongues for us—or we’ll be left with poor doings, certain,” Shad replied.

They shared a fat, juicy buffalo tongue that evening, cooked to a rosy, moist pink down in the glowing coals of a fire pit in the shadow of the Big Horn Mountains while Bridger told his old partner they would be taking some Pawnee ahead in the morning.

“Leave the Rebel behind this time, Shad.”

Sweete felt something seize up inside him. “Gabe, you and me been friends a long time.”

“We have—and that’s why I figure I can talk straight to you.”

“What stick you got to rub with Jonah?”

“Pawnee and me never did get along.”

“I don’t like ’em particular either, Gabe. What’s that got to do with Hook? Something Connor say to you?”

Bridger gazed at Sweete a moment in the firelight. “You stand by this Rebel?”

“He’ll do to ride the river with, Gabe.”

The old trapper wiped his knife across the top of his leather britches and finally smiled at Sweete. “All right. He’s your’n to worry about. I got enough to do keeping Connor’s balls out of a Lakota sling and his hair from ending up on a Cheyenne lodgepole.”

The next day as the sun rose and then fell, Shad and Bridger led Hook and a handful of the Pawnee north by west from the land of the Pineys, descending at last into the valley of the Tongue. They stopped, waiting a moment to enjoy the view of the Big Horns off to their left, waiting for Bridger and Captain Henry E. Palmer, Connor’s quartermaster, to come up.

“You see what lies along the horizon, yonder?” Sweete asked of the small gathering, his eyes resting a moment longer on the face of his old trapping partner.

While Bridger squinted his blue eyes into the hazy distance, Hook turned to glance behind them at the distant column winding its way through the broken land. Then he looked on up the Tongue, to the northeast among the Wolf Mountains, straining to make out what might be something out of the ordinary.

“Smoke. Plain as paint, Shad,” Bridger answered.

“Smoke?” Palmer asked, a touch of skepticism in his voice. “Where?”

“Look up yonder,” Bridger said. “Far off there between the cut in those hills.”

“Those far hills?” Palmer huffed, sounding incredulous. “That’s a full forty—perhaps as much as fifty miles if it’s a two-day ride for this column.”

“Agreed,” Bridger said. “There’s smoke yonder. Best sign of any we’ve run across, right Shad?”

“Aye, Gabe. A heap of brownskins for sure, Captain Palmer.”

The soldier’s eyes measured the two buckskinned scouts for a tangible moment. “You like to have your fun with me, don’t you, Jim?”

“We ain’t funning you none, Captain.”

Palmer considered it a minute more, then wagged his head. “I’ll go let the general know.”

Minutes later Palmer returned with Connor. The general gazed off to the northeast with his field glasses. After a moment, he wagged his head.

“I can’t make out anything like smoke up there, Bridger.”

Sweete prickled with disgust. “You’re doubting our eyes, General? We’ve both spent two lifetimes out here in these mountains and plains. Smoke’s smoke and Injuns is Injuns.”

Connor turned to North. “Major, take a half dozen of your best trackers and scout in that direction where these two say they spotted the smoke. Report back when you find some positive evidence of the hostiles.”

“Damned paper-collar soldiers,” Bridger grumbled as he reined his horse about angrily.

“What was that, Bridger?” Connor snapped.

Shad straightened in the saddle, angry at the arrogant soldier himself. “He said you and your bunch was nothing more’n paper-collar soldiers.”

“I can tell ’im myself!” Bridger growled at his friend.

“You can, can you, Mr. Bridger?” Connor flared with Irish temper.

“If you go and decide to stop trusting in your scouts—ain’t nothing for Shad and me to do, so we’ll just collect our pay now and be on our way.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not resigning, Bridger. I won’t have it!”

“Then you best start believing what you’re told!”

“Major North will be back in a couple days with some good news—if there’s something up there.”

Across the nearby hills, the shadows were lengthening and coyotes beginning to yip and yammer.

“North’ll find that camp—right where Shad and me say he’ll find it.”

Two days later just past dawn, a pair of the Pawnee came tearing into the soldier camp, bringing back the news Major North had sent to Connor.

A big enemy camp had been located, the trackers explained in sign. Nearby stood Bridger and Sweete, completely vindicated. But there was no apology, nor recognition of the abilities of the white scouts, forthcoming from the general.

“Ask them how many lodges?” Connor asked his chief of scouts.

Bridger wagged his hand at the Pawnee to signify asking a question. With two fingertips he formed a triangle. “Count the lodges.”

The Pawnee pinched his face in thought, then shook his head.

Bridger smiled. “These Pawnee are horse thieves, General. They only count ponies. Ain’t much interested in a count of the lodges.” He turned back to the Indian and signed, “How many ponies?”

“Big herd.”

“That’s enough for me,” Connor replied brusquely, turning to bark orders to his officers, preparing to move out on the attack. “No loud voices, no bugles from here on out. Talking at a minimum, and it must be at a whisper.”

“General, I want to go along,” Palmer requested.

“Captain, you will be in charge of the guard left with your supply train.”

“Begging your pardon, General—I respectfully ask to accompany your assault force. There are several officers who are ill this morning.”

“Ill?”

“Bad water, I suppose, sir. So one of them would gladly stay behind with the train, and I could accompany you.”

Connor wagged his head. “Very well, Palmer. Make it so.”

For the rest of that day and through a night of stumbling struggle, fighting the darkness of that yawning, broken wilderness, Bridger, Sweete, and North led Connor’s troops northeast along the Tongue River. By the first streaks of dawn, North informed the general that his troops were still some distance from the enemy’s village.

“We’ll just have to hurry the troops along,” Connor said. “In the meantime, North, take your scouts ahead and be sure the hostiles don’t bolt on us. Let me know at the first sign that they are fleeing.”

Shad rode with North and Palmer as the Pawnee spread out onto a wide front, carefully picking their way across country. The sun had risen close to midsky before the enemy camp was once more discovered by the scouts inching their way along, staying down in the safety of a streambed, their unshod pony hooves moving quietly on the pebbles beneath the clear surface.

Inexperienced and unaware of the danger, Palmer had allowed his horse to surge ahead of the rest and found himself following a game trail that emerged from a brushy ravine. Suddenly on the flat tableland, Palmer discovered the enemy camp spread before him, a sizable pony herd grazing between him and the lodges. By some stroke of luck, the camp appeared too busy to notice the soldier as he quickly grasped the muzzle of his horse in one hand and reined about, back into the ravine, where he slipped from the saddle.

“I found the camp!” he whispered excitedly as Sweete and North came up.

“Get on back there and tell the general,” North ordered.

Connor quickly issued battle orders to his officers, then formed up two columns before he spoke personally to the enlisted men.

“This is our day! Should we get in close quarters, you men must remember to form by fours and stay together at all costs. Use your rifles as long as possible to defeat our enemy, and under no circumstances are you to use your service revolvers unless you are out of rifle ammunition and have no other choice.”

He took his hat off and swiped a finger inside the headband, preparing to lead the charge himself. “You must endeavor to make every shot count, but each of you must be ever mindful of leaving one shot for yourselves. Rather than fall into the hands of the hostiles, use that last shot for yourself—as it will be preferable to falling into the hands of these savages who have killed up and down the length of Dakota.

“Very well, men. This is our day!”

11

August–September, 1865

A
S HOOK FOLLOWED
Sweete out of the ravine behind the hundred Pawnee scouts, the level ground where Wolf Creek poured into the Tongue River sprouted close to three hundred lodges, most already nothing more than skeletons bare of buffalo–hide lodge covers.

“They’re breaking camp a’ready!” Sweete hollered as the pony herd began to whinny alarm. The frightened animals bolted in all directions as the soldier columns poured out of the ravines like columns of black ants across the brown landscape.

The village erupted with the shrieks of women, cries of children, and shouts from warriors hustling for their weapons. Every throat rang with alarm as ponies were caught up. Dogs barked and howled, a thousandfold. A frightening cacophony more fitting to hell itself.

Connor’s battalion burst from the ravine, wheeled left into line.

“
Charge!
” shouted the general.

Up and down the long line of 250 troopers, officers echoed the order. Now the soldiers raised their throaty roar to the sky, matching that of the warriors waiting to take the blow of the coming charge.

At four hundred yards officers ordered the first volley.

“Look at all them sonsabitches!” Hook muttered, just loud enough for Sweete to hear.

“These soldiers are outnumbered, Jonah. We best hope Connor can put the fear of God in these Injuns.”

“Bunch of ’em running already.” Jonah pointed to the north where those on ponies and on foot were struggling up the bluffs into the surrounding hills along Wolf Creek.

“Mostly old women and young’uns, Jonah. Scattering whilst the warriors cover the retreat. You’re gonna find a lot of the younger squaws hanging back in the village—fighting ’longside their men as these soldiers charge in—”

“Shad!”

They both found Bridger reining for them at a gallop, his bony, arthritic hands gripping the reins like life itself.

“This is Black Bear’s bunch!” cried the old trapper as he came alongside the two horsemen. The three reined up in a swirl of dust as the Pawnee surged on, yelling their own war cries.

“Arapaho? You sure, Gabe?”

“You never questioned me afore, you idjit!”

“You always been right as I recollect. But this bunch can’t be Arap.”

“They are—and Connor’s making him one big mistake.”

“How you gonna get him to stop?”

“No way. Blood’s spilled now,” Bridger groaned.

“What’s the difference?” Hook asked. “This bunch made trouble for the settlers and soldiers, haven’t they? Time they paid.”

“This is a ragtag band compared to the Bad Face fighting bands we ought to be hunting down,” Shad said.

Ahead of them the first soldiers were now among the lodges, forced into a fierce firefight with the warriors and half again as many squaws who shot rifles, pistols, and bows, then ran and dodged before they would wheel and fire again behind another lodge or some concealing brush. The ground lay littered with robes and blankets and bodies of those men and women who had fallen in their fight or flight.

A light rain of arrows fell short of the trio’s horses, some sticking in the ground, others clattering against brush and rocks noisily.

“We can’t be sitting here!” Bridger shouted.

“You figure to fight now?” asked Sweete.

“If we don’t—it’s our hair, you old pilgrim!”

“C’mon, Jonah!” Sweete hollered as Bridger tore off into the fray, flailing the sides of his army mule with his moccasins.

In the time it takes the sun to move from one lodgepole to the next, the Arapaho were driven from their village, into the rough, brushy country upstream along Wolf Creek. For ten miles Connor and his men pursued the fleeing band. Yet with every mile more and more of the soldiers were forced to drop out and turn back, their horses exhausted from the forced march of the past two days.

“General!”

Connor finally turned, clearly surprised to find only Sweete, Bridger, and Hook—along with no more than a dozen soldiers still capable of maintaining the chase. He threw up an arm and ordered a halt.

“Bridger! My God—where’s the rest of my command?”

“You damned well outrun ’em, General.”

“What man among you has paper and pencil?” Connor inquired. A corporal raised his hand, patting his tunic. “Good, soldier. Take the names of every trooper here who was capable of keeping up with the chase. I want a commendation written for each man.”

“You ain’t got time to take names and hand out your congratulations!” Sweete warned in a blistering tone.

Connor twisted in the saddle. He and the rest of the soldiers saw them coming.

It hadn’t taken the Arapaho long to realize the soldiers had slowed their pursuit. The warriors doubled back on the trail and found the soldiers greatly outnumbered. In a screeching, angry mass, like a disturbed nest of hornets, the warriors swarmed back down the creekbank in a rattle of rifle fire and the hiss of stinging arrows.

“Let’s get—”

A soldier yelped in pain as an arrow caught him in the leg.

Jonah felt his horse jerk, then wheel suddenly, around and around in a wild circle. It collapsed on its front legs as he dismounted to keep from falling, yanking free the carbine from its shoulder sling.

“Up here, son!”

He turned. The old mountain man held out a hand. In a fluid leap, Jonah was atop the big Morgan mare behind Sweete, who whirled the horse about as the last of the soldiers lit out.

As they raced downstream, Connor picked up more and more of the soldiers who had been forced to turn back. Slowly, by adding small groups of troopers here and there along the way, the white men were able to hold off the counterattacking Arapaho.