Reap the Whirlwind (54 page)

In the pit of his belly Plenty Coups knew if those Lakota were not stopped now, they could roll right through the soldiers scrambling across the far side of the coulee, through the soldier horses and straight on to the creek bottom below. Uncontested, the enemy would have Lone Star and his soldiers surrounded along the ridgetop.

Slowly, like the flow of autumn water in the drying streambeds, the soldier chief slipped from his horse, one arm hanging a final heartbeat to his saddle as he struck the ground. When his horse bolted, the officer rolled onto his back and lay still, sprawled in the dust and trampled grass, all but alone.

Ahead to his right Plenty Coups saw little Humpy leading a handful of the Crow up from their positions, sprinting down the side of the coulee, into the bottom where
they joined some of the Snakes, maybe more than two-times-ten, all of them rushing toward the fallen pair. Beyond the soldiers on the far slope the enemy massed in great black streams fingering toward the fallen men as well, each one of the Lakota wanting to be the first to count coup: to touch the body, take the gunbelt, or claim the dusty, braided shirt of that brave soldier chief.

In that moment Plenty Coups’s heart went out to the brave little warrior called Humpy, so-named because of the curved spine and the misshapen lump on his shoulder. Although he was smaller than all the rest who followed, the little warrior’s heart was as big as any man’s this day.

For Humpy was the one out front of all the rest—sprinting to save the life of the fallen soldier chief.

“
F
ace them, men! Goddammit—face them!”

At the commanding sound of the voice, Donegan whirled, finding one of the older sergeants, John Henry Shingle of Company I, in among troops, moving back and forth along his piece of that 325-yard front where less than a hundred soldiers struggled against more than seven hundred brown-skinned foes.

“Thought you was back there in charge of the horses, Shingle!” Donegan growled as he shoved some of his last cartridges down the receiver and repositioned the loading tube beneath the muzzle.

“I was, Irishman,” Shingle replied with a grim smile, the dust on his face cut with rivulets of sweat.

“But an old soldier like you just can’t stay away from the fighting, eh?”

He nodded, pulling the Springfield from his cheek after firing into the onrushing mass. “Give that livery job to a private, don’t you know! And come here to the top of the hill to join in the dance. I didn’t sign on back to ’63 to take care of the goddamned horses. I joined to fight!”

“Good man, Shingle!” Seamus roared as he knelt and peered along the blued barrel of the Henry, the worn cheekpiece snugged below his cheekbone.

“Don’t give up, men!” Shingle repeated as the line around them wavered and some of those nearby began to
fall back a yard, then another. “Stand and look ’em in the eye!”

“Give ’em hell!” bawled another old soldier, nearly alone and standing his ground while others retreated first a foot, then gave more and more along that long skirmish line.

Off to the right side of Guy V. Henry’s front the warriors pressed, trying to put their strength here, then there, to break through one flank or another while Vroom and the other officers with the gallant Henry tried desperately to hold their skirmish line together.

“Great God, men! Don’t go back on the old Third now!” one of those officers hollered.

It sounded like Henry himself. Seemed he was everywhere in the dust and gunsmoke, still mounted, refusing to get down off that dun mare of his in the midst of all that gunfire. Closer and closer the warriors pressed them, daring to approach the lines like never before all morning. The captain rallied them for the moment. The soldiers no longer inched backward. Some came back to drop to their knees beside the old files, reloading and firing into the swirling dust and blurred mass of horsemen.

“That’s it, boys! Stand firm!” Donegan himself shouted now.

“We’re gonna be overrun!” someone shrieked nearby, his voice drenched in panic.

“Stand and give it back to them,” Donegan bellowed, “or you will be overrun!”

The fight near the southernmost end of the ridge under Guy Henry’s direct command grew fierce, desperate. Again and again Seamus swore but these stalwart men had to be blackening the hair on the muzzles of those ponies the warriors dared ride so close to the Springfields, rattling and booming with the coming of each new wave.

One warrior, then another, and finally a third fell less than fifty yards from Donegan, that last horseman tumbling over and over, then sliding another ten yards closer to the blue line before his body skidded to a rest on the dusty grass. Of a sudden it was yanked into motion, tumbling over at the end of a long rawhide tether lashed about the pony’s neck and secured to the warrior’s waist. The body
spun wildly, over and over again, spewing up a cascade as the frightened war pony dragged its inert master away from the fight, away from the white man’s thundering guns.

Behind them arose the sharp yips and war cries. Wheeling instinctively, Seamus knew they were being descended upon by more Sioux and Cheyenne who had made it to the ravine and had them surrounded. What he saw through the murk and haze was instead some of those dirty red arm bands Quartermaster Furey had given out to the allies two days before. The Crow and some Shoshone were coming now, falling on the thick cordon of horsemen who had Guy Henry’s men all but swallowed. All but doomed.

His heart hammering in his ears, Seamus understood these soldiers needed to know the allies were coming—if for no other reason than Donegan knew that more than one of these frightened cavalrymen would shoot without thinking at anything that remotely looked like an Indian. The Crow and Shoshone were coming—daring to throw themselves into the fray, daring to take the chance of being mistaken for the enemy.

“Colonel Henry!” Donegan shouted as he rose to a half crouch, twisting about to peer through the dust and gun-smoke gloom, locating the mounted officer.

In turning to face the Irishman at that very moment, the captain might well have saved his life.

As Seamus watched, Henry’s face was driven violently to the right as an enemy bullet smashed below his left eye, coursing through the hard upper palate below the nose before it blew flesh and bone and blood out below the right eye.

“Mither of God!” Donegan gasped as he lurched forward, just like the soldier was doing on the far side of Henry.

Like a child’s toy on a string, the trooper was yanked off his feet, hurled backward. He lay still near the hooves of Henry’s frightened mount as it sidled first this way, then sidestepped the other, getting no firm commands from its rider as the enemy pressed in—an enemy it could surely see and smell and hear as the warriors saw those two soldiers hit. Donegan knew the Sioux had to sense victory more at this moment than they had all morning. That
uncanny fighting man’s sixth sense told them when an enemy’s leader had fallen.

In horror he rushed for the officer, seeing Henry’s face become an ashen mask above the ghastly wound, blood shiny, soaking, darkening, blotting out everything below the stark pasty gray as the captain slowly keeled to the side in the vertigo of wound sickness, finally tumbling from the saddle and for but a moment clutching the front of his McClellan with one hand.

Donegan’s legs pumped, his big boots clomping across the trampled, dusty grass as he muttered, “A damned good horse sojur, this one. This Henry.”

A cavalry officer stayed with his mount. No matter what … until the captain’s horse bolted, tearing itself from Henry’s futile death-grip. In the dust kicked up by the animal’s hooves, the captain collapsed to the ground, rolled onto his back, head lolling. And lay still.

Knowing the officer had to be dead, as dead as the soldier who had been shot while going to Henry’s aid, Donegan lunged across the slope of the ravine, watching a tangled string of warriors racing for the bodies from the opposite direction. He leveled his repeater, not sure how many rounds he had left, but certain only of making each one count if he needed.

Simply that—because from the looks of things, the Indians were going to reach the bodies before him.

Dropping to one knee as he brought the Henry to his cheek, Seamus felt with his right thumb to be sure the hammer was cocked and sighted down the blued barrel on the chest of the first Indian racing for the fallen captain. His long black hair streamed out behind him, the breechclout that reached his knees like a swirl of dirty spring runoff at his legs. Donegan began to squeeze the trigger … and in that instant he saw the red arm band. A dusty, obscure strip of red cloth the white men had issued the allies at Goose Creek.

His lungs still burning from the run through the dusty haze, his heart hammering with a fierce pride, Seamus knew as all old plainsmen understood—these Shoshone scouts were no different from the Sioux or Cheyenne—warriors always exhibited their greatest courage and most
reckless daring in rescuing the bodies of their own dead and wounded.

Bolting again to his feet at a dead run, Seamus reached the captain a heartbeat after that first Shoshone, where without a word exchanged between them, they both whirled about to stand over the two bodies, ready to meet the oncoming charge.

Four hundred yards was all they had left to go, less than a quarter of a mile to reach the end of Crook’s line, where the infantry with their long rifles were coming on the run behind the allies to stem the red tide. Yet Donegan knew those foot soldiers could do nothing. Not really.

For to fire at Sioux and Cheyenne streaming toward Donegan and the lone Shoshone would mean firing at the backs of Henry’s men. Rescue waited four hundred yards across that wide ravine. It might as well have been a hundred miles.

The infantry couldn’t help now. Rescue was no more, no less, than these dismounted horse soldiers standing firm and saving their own hash on this bloody hillside.

Together they stood, back to back, the Shoshone and the Irishman, prepared to meet the enemy’s rush, their ears battered by blood oaths and grunts of pain as the Sioux and Cheyenne lunged forward toward the two who stood over the bodies. Running with a fury into the fire, the rest of the allies poured into their enemies across the narrowing distance along the slope.

First came three of the Lakota, who made it through the dusty haze to reach the bodies before they fell to the bullets that could not miss. Then the rush of a handful as the Irishman and Shoshone levered cartridges through their overheated weapons again and again and again. And finally more than ten appeared like apparitions out of the dust, vaulting over the bodies of their fallen to rush the lonely pair.

Weapons empty now—both defenders swung their rifles savagely. Like two long and slender scythes reaping those stalks of wheat rushing before the giant blades.

Those rifles whistled and sang as they cut through the dust and gunsmoke, chopping viciously through the curses and war songs and shrieks of pain and grunts of terror as
bones were broken and skulls cracked and bullets struck bare flesh and sinew.

And brave men went down in blood, thinking of loved ones back home.

As brave men always will.

17 June 1876

H
e could almost feel their breath, smell their breakfast.

Seamus was closer at this moment to the screeching, painted, dust-furred faces than he had been in years.

Close enough that when he swung the Henry rifle, he gripped with two hands at the muzzle.

Face to face as he snagged a warrior by the throat and held on for his life, sensing, maybe even hearing, the windpipe snap and crunch beneath his grip as the enemy went bug-eyed before him, collapsing, limp and gasping at his feet, rolling away in the sheer agony that accompanied his last breath.

Swinging, lunging, slashing at them with the broken, splintered stock of the rifle.

The terror seemed to last longer than anything he could remember. Though it was over in a matter of minutes.

The Sioux and Cheyenne were gradually falling back, pulling away a few yards at a time—threatening a new charge. Then scurrying off in a more wholesale retreat as other sounds grew behind him.

Over his shoulder Seamus caught glimpses of the blue line returning from the sides of the ravine, more of Royall’s battalion struggling back out of the bowels of the Kollmar. Henry’s men rallied—coming back to reclaim the ground
so gallantly held by less than two dozen of the Indian allies, having returned to help these horse soldiers redeem the honor of the Third Cavalry, willing to throw their bodies into the breech, to effect the rescue of the soldier chief, so that his body would not fall into the hands of the enemy.

The Crow and Shoshone, Donegan thought. Such brave, brave men …

Seamus whirled again to take a look, a good look now, at the tall Shoshone near him, the one who had been swinging the Springfield carbine by its muzzle at Donegan’s back. In the warrior’s eyes at that moment was a flicker of something like a smile, though it never did crease the paint and furred dust and grimly contorted features on that copper-skinned face.