Cry of the Hawk (38 page)

“Exactly,” Custer answered. “Now, go do it.”

“With pleasure!”

“
What’s going on
over there?” Custer inquired moments later, overhearing the growing noise from the teamsters’ bivouac.

Jonah Hook and the rest craned their necks at the increasing clamor from the wagon camp. He and Shad Sweete followed Custer’s officers toward the men’s voices.

“You can’t control your employees, Watkins?” Custer asked of his wagon boss.

“They seen how the rest took off on you, General,” Lyle Watkins, the contract civilian, explained. “How you treated your own men. They figure they’ve had enough. I think—”

“You’re not getting paid to think, Watkins.” Custer whirled to find Elliott nearby. “Major—these civilians who are guilty of mutiny are under arrest. I want them punished!”

Some of the civilians lunged forward. A rattle of pistols greeted them as iron cleared leather, officers and camp guards protectively ringing their lieutenant colonel.

“We quit! Ain’t working for you no more, Custer!” a voice called out.

“I want that man staked out!” Custer ordered. “Some of the rest as well. See how they like the ants and the sun after a while. Who started this, Watkins?”

The wagon boss stared at his boots.

“Who, Watkins?”

Reluctantly, the wagon boss pointed out a big, burly teamster.

“Major Elliott, I want that man tied to a wagon wheel and horsewhipped. Twenty lashes.”

“Twenty?” roared the big teamster as the guards approached, guns drawn.

“Make that thirty, Major. And don’t be shy to lay them on!”

In a matter of minutes, the soldiers had more than fifteen teamsters striped and staked out on the sandy prairie, their sweating bodies attracting ants and all manner of crawling, flying, buzzing insects. Thirty lashes had been delivered to the ringleader who hung semiconscious against the wagon wheel, his back a mass of red welts and crimson streamers.

“We got one over there, General—a fella tried to help some of the others by pulling up their stakes after we spread ’em,” announced Elliott. “You want him get the same medicine, sir?”

Custer thought but a moment. “No. Lash him up and drag the man through the stream. Have the rest watch the show. It will show both soldier and teamster alike that I won’t tolerate mutiny—nor will I tolerate those who aid the mutineers.”

Hook found his stomach filled with about all the gall he could take. He turned away, stalked back to the scouts’ camp with Sweete, leaving the angry hollering behind.

“That how a Yankee soldier keeps order among his men?” he asked nobody in particular. “Never did a Confederate have to run off—we always had something to fight for.”

Sweete grumbled. “Out here on the plains—most of these men don’t know what the hell they’re being asked to fight for … maybe die for.”

They both whirled at the approach of two horses and the sound of splashing water drawing near. Hook bolted down the streambank as the soldiers drew near, dragging a civilian behind them, lashed hand and foot in ropes, arms strung overhead full length, his body bouncing through the gritty, shallow flow of the South Fork of the Republican. The man popped up, eyes clenched tightly, sputtering and gasping for air as he cleared the water. Then he hit another riffle that submerged him, spitting sand and river water, his bound legs flaying helplessly.

Hook was in the water, pistol drawn before the two mounted soldiers knew it. He snagged the reins of one rider, nearly upsetting the trooper. The far soldier tried to pull his pistol, but stopped, finding the Confederate’s muzzle pointed at him.

“You gonna live, Artus?” Hook asked in a loud voice, never taking his eyes off the two soldiers who had been dragging the civilian down the streambed.

Moser sputtered, struggling to come out of the shallow stream, raising himself on elbows. His long hair sopped into his eyes as he hacked up the murky, gritty water, and he drew his legs under him. Moser slowly got to his knees, heaving, puking up river-bottom grit.

“I don’t know—”

“You’re in a heap of trouble, mister!” growled one of the soldiers.

“Looks to me like you’re the one staring down the bore of my pistol, soldier.”

“What’s he to you?”

“My cousin,” Hook snapped. “Now—you there, get down real easy and cut ’im loose.” He glanced at the growing crowd of soldiers and civilians on the streambank.

The trooper shook his head. “I ain’t a-gonna—”

“You’ll do, or I’ll wing you so you can’t sit a saddle for a month of Sundays!”

The soldier clambered down and pulled out a folding knife. He was cutting Artus loose when some new, loud voices drew Hook’s attention to the riverbank. A squad of armed soldiers bolted down the slope, piercing the gathered throng of curious spectators.

“Drop your gun, mister!” bawled a soldier.

Hook flicked him with his eyes. He wore three stripes. Red from the neck up and nervous looking, the way he chewed his lip.

“You best keep your finger away from that trigger, soldier,” said Shad Sweete.

Hook quickly glanced at the bank, finding the old trapper wading into the water.

“I ain’t taking my gun off these two until they cut my cousin loose,” Jonah growled.

“We’ll shoot—we have to,” said the nervous sergeant.

“They probably will at that,” Sweete said, measuring the half dozen soldiers.

“Then tell ’em to start shooting.” Hook turned his back on them, again facing the pair who had dragged Moser downstream. “They want to shoot a man in the back—they can start with me. But you remind them, Shad—that this big ugly Yankee here is gonna get a lead ball in the face before I go down.”

The eyes of that burly soldier who still sat his horse widened even more, flickering over the half dozen come to his rescue, then back to the bore of the Confederate’s gun. “Now …” His deep voice cracked, a slight squeak around its edges. “Now, let’s no one go getting fretful here, fellas. Sarge, suppose we just cut this man loose”—and he motioned to the kneeling Moser at the middle of the stream—“and we all call it a day. I figure he’s had enough. What say, Sarge?”

“Can’t do that, Henline,” grumbled the itchy sergeant. “Custer ordered punishment. So punishment it will be.”

“Cut ’im loose—like I told you!” Hook snarled, for a moment wagging his pistol’s muzzle down at the soldier with the folding knife who stood over his cousin.

“Don’t you move, soldier!”

Hook looked up to find Tom Custer loping down the grassy bank.

“There’s hell to pay now, Jonah,” Shad said with a sigh. “We got the general’s brother in the pot now.”

“This man is being punished for mutiny!” the younger Custer declared as he came to a halt in front of the half dozen soldiers, less than ten yards from Jonah and Artus.

“He’s being dragged through the river until he drowns, you stupid sonofabitch!”

Young Custer flared. “Drop your weapon, mister—or there’ll be a dead man in this river.”

“There’ll be two.” Hook slowly brought his pistol off the mounted soldier and pointed it at Tom Custer. His gut told him enough—that at least it was the smart thing to point your gun at the man doing the talking. “You and me, Custer.”

“What’s going on here, Tom?”

The lieutenant colonel appeared in the parting crowd at the top of the bank.

“Got us someone ready to die to cut loose one of the teamsters.”

“The man with the pistol—”

“I know damned well who he is,” Custer snapped at the sergeant. “Hook, isn’t it? One of Hickok’s guides.”

“That’s right, General,” Jonah replied.

“Tell him what’s going on, Jonah,” Shad pleaded.

“Don’t want your goddamned soldiers dragging my cousin through your goddamned river, General. He was trying to help the others you staked out—when he was caught and your men here tried drowning him.”

“I ordered the punishment for your cousin myself.”

Hook smiled. “Then it’s your brother going to die when your soldiers start shooting, General.”

“None of this warrants any shooting,” Custer said, his voice laced with strain.

“You had your own soldiers shot, General,” Hook said. “I think the shooting’s already started. Let’s just get it finished.”

“Don’t threaten me, Mr. Hook.”

“No threat. I just don’t figure I got much left to live for but family. That goddamned war you Yankees whipped on us caused me to lose my wife and children. Far as I know—all I got now is my cousin … this man you about drownded in this shithole river. So—you go and kill him, I figure you might as well kill me same time.”

“I don’t plan on killing anyone, Mr. Hook.”

“I do—and it’s gonna be your brother, General.”

For a long moment the sun beat down on that stretch of prairie river, while the water continued to riffle around the horses’ legs and Artus Moser’s bound and bloody body.

Finally. “Cut the prisoner loose,” Custer said.

“Don’t back down, Autie!” Tom said. “He ain’t got the nerve to shoot me.”

Hook leveled the pistol at the younger brother’s heart, his arm straightening.

“I don’t have time to find out, Lieutenant Custer,” said the elder brother. “We have Indians to track and Indians to fight. Not our own teamsters and scouts. It’s time this outfit was on the march. Now, Sergeant—cut the prisoner loose. Cut all them loose. We’re pointing this bunch south, to Fort Wallace!”

Hook waited as Custer wheeled from the bank and disappeared among the gathered crowd in dusty blue. Some of the half dozen soldiers grumbled, most of all their sergeant as he turned his detail around and trudged away up the slope.

“You heard the general—cut my cousin loose, soldier,” Hook repeated.

As the pair of soldiers led their horses out of the river, Jonah went to his knees in the water beside Artus, dragging his cousin against him, cradling his head, stroking his wet, gritty hair, wiping sand from Moser’s mouth and eyes and nostrils.

“Ain’t no one gonna treat my family this way,” Hook said quietly. “Don’t care if I gotta take on the whole goddamned Yankee army. Ain’t no one gonna dare treat my family this way.”

32

July, 1867

T
HEY HAD COVERED
at least half the ground from the South Platte to Fort Wallace, marching on a trail a shade east of south.

Shad Sweete was today riding point, far in the advance of Custer’s columns. Alone. For three days Jonah Hook had been assigned to bring up the rear of the columns, closing file and watching the backtrail for both stragglers and lurking hostiles. At least that’s what Custer called it.

Yet it was really nothing more than Custer’s way of punishing the civilian scout for what had happened back at the South Fork of the Republican. Make Hook eat the dust of the entire regiment and wagon train as the command ground its way through the low, grass-covered hills of western Kansas. Every night a few miles closer to Fort Wallace and the Denver Road. That much closer to some real food and some shade.

Someone had reminded Sweete this morning that it was the twelfth. July. Just the word itself had always made him hot enough even without this midsummer sun suspended overhead. At least it was nudging off midsky now. Casting a little bit of a shadow it seemed. Not like at full high, when the only shadow a man could see was directly under a horse’s belly.

It was in that bright light shimmering off the rolling prairie land that he spotted the big-winged black birds fluttering down to roost not far ahead. They were cackling, fighting among one another over their carrion—but scattered momentarily at his approach. The great buzzards came to a rest just yards away, craning their great wrinkled necks at the man as he brought his horse to a halt, having first circled upwind.

A terrible stench greeted Shad when he drew close.

Trying not to breathe through his nose, he ground-hobbled the horse with the rein, then stepped up, cautiously, his eyes watering with the strong smell of death. His skin already crawled, knowing this was only the beginning of it.

“Damn,” he muttered when he recognized what was left of the telltale brand on the torn meat of the rear haunch.

Without slowing, the old man snagged up the rein and did not use the stirrup to vault atop the saddle. In a tight circle he brought his horse around, hammering it with his heels. He feared he knew already.

At the top of the next hill, he was sure of it. Ahead of him, in that broad bowl of rolling country, he spotted three more … then a fourth … four bunches altogether, knots of the big-winged black birds swirling overhead, landing,
kee-rawing
, then ripping flesh from bleaching bone.

He had seen enough and turned his horse around, pounding hooves back across the sunbaked prairie to the head of the strung-out cavalry column. Shad could see Hickok’s mouth
O
up, and imagined what the chief of scouts was hollering back to Custer.

“Rider coming in, General! It’s Sweete.”

He brought the big Morgan mare hard around, slowing her, nostrils flaring as he matched the gait of the lieutenant colonel’s mount.

“You and Hickok might wanna come have a look. Something I run onto that will snag your interest, General.”

“Indians?” Custer asked, his pale, sunburned face flushing with excitement.

“Not exactly.”

“Some sign of hostiles?” Hickok inquired.

Shad leveled his eyes on the young chief of scouts. “All the sign a man would care to see.”

Custer turned in the saddle, flinging orders to his adjutant and to the officer of the day to continue their march at the present pace. Then he broke out Major Elliott, along with a sergeant and a half dozen men to escort the two officers behind the two scouts.

“Lead on, Mr. Sweete.”

Without a word, Shad reined away from the head of the column, pointing his nose a little more east of south than the line of march had been taking.

“Buzzards?” Custer inquired as they topped the knoll where they could see the first gathering of the huge flesh-necked meat-eaters.

“Something dead down there, General,” Hickok said.

Custer cleared his throat, removing one of the damp deerskin gloves and stuffing it in his belt. “Mr. Sweete will tell us if we’re going to find a body down there.”