Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (27 page)

“Smith ain't giving up. Not Patrick,” an old soldier said, taking up the chorus. “Just come back from the hospital where that surgeon don't figure he'll last to morning.”

“Gawd-awful way for a man to die,” a third whined. “Your scalped ripped off afore your eyes. Laying there—not making a damned peep of it!”

Donegan sat alone in the corner nursing a cup of rye. Moments ago Captain Brown had strolled in, muttering and growling “Carrington this” and “Jack Stead that.” With a pale, puffy hand, Kinney poured the captain a tall one. On the judge. Seamus sensed the sutler wanted to warm things up for the evening—Kinney's marble eyes twinkling mischievously above the fleshy pouches. Donegan figured the judge for a man who loved to stir things up then watch them come to a boil—all from a safe distance.

Across the room sat Reverend White, alone at a tiny table, scratching at his notes or thumbing through his grease-stained Bible. Thursday night. And already preparing his spiritual message for Sunday service. He sipped his coffee, acknowledging Donegan over the lip of his cup before his gray head bent over God's word once more.

“But Private Smith's only one,” Kinney said, his tone dripping with sarcasm within his gray-flecked goat's whiskers.

“What?” a teamster shrieked, not realizing he'd been baited. “Damn you any——”

Kinney threw up a hand. “That's right … just one!” He flung a plump, oratorical finger at the ceiling. “How many will it be tomorrow?”

“He's right!”

“Judge got a proper head on his shoulders!”

“How many?” Kinney repeated. “Two? Three the day after? What next week?”

“By damned!” roared the woodcutter, slamming his big hand down on the bar. “Enough is enough!”

“We have nothing to say about it,” Brown grumbled into his whiskey. Though he whispered, the entire room fell quiet as he spoke.

“By Gawd, it's high time we had something to say about——”

“You don't. I don't.” Brown turned slowly, his elbows sliding back, resting on the bar, the cup sloshing at his belly. “The red bastards are working themselves up into a killing frenzy.”

The others nodded, pressed forward. This was going to be good. If it wasn't Kinney stoking them up, then Brown could put on his fire-breathing speech. Some muttered between them, then studied the captain, eager for the show.

“What we've seen—them hitting my cattle herd, running off horses, burning the hay wagons—all of it … one thing's for certain: they're working themselves up for something big!”

“It's just like he says!” someone rumbled.

“Who's gonna be next?”

“Each attack gets worse.” Brown pointed his cup out at the crowd. “More of them bastards hit us every day. More of us get scalped.”

“Damn right!”

“So!” Brown roared, tossing whiskey down his throat. “When do we strike back?”

“High time we fight!” the teamster shouted. A friend pounded him on the back.

“You've seen the blankets waving every time they attack,” Brown kept kneading his audience. “Can't miss all those mirrors they flash from every hill!”

“Passing the word!”

“Working up to something big, like the captain says!”

“Now they sent some among our number, right, Captain?” Kinney inquired, watching Brown turn slowly. The judge refilled the captain's cup and smiled, nodding his big head with satisfaction atop a wattled turkey-neck.

“That's right,” Brown answered. “Stead and the colonel think those Cheyenne just harmless old men. Wanting to hunt buffalo up on the Tongue. But Red Cloud's camped on the Tongue. Sitting pretty. Waiting for his spies to come riding back from our fort!”

“Red bastards!” the woodcutter cried. “Killed Smith!”

“We don't know that, Frank!” another argued as loudly.

“What you mean?” Frank roared back. “A Injun's a Injun. No difference.”

“He's right!” a soldier shouted at the bar. “I rode with Captain Brown this afternoon. We saw them Cheyenne with our own eyes … watched 'em talking with the Sioux. Ain't that right, Captain?”

Brown nodded. “Completely right.”

“They was in on it. I told you!” the wood chopper shouted. “Told you they was the one's got Smith!”

“Where'r they?” a teamster growled.

“Colonel said they could camp down on the Lil' Piney. 'Cross from the sawmill.”

“I say we settle the score,” Frank hollered, his face mottled with fire. “Ten of them bastards for what they done to Smith!”

“I don't figure it,” Frank's friend moaned. “How they scalped Smith … coming from the south where the captain's group seen 'em?”

“Red's red, far as I'm concerned,” Kinney replied, his oath filling the cabin.

“Judge's right,” Brown agreed. “Not a Injun I know of doesn't want to fry any white man's gut … he had the chance.”

“He's right!”

“Both of 'em right!”

“They're sitting down there by the mill crossing—right now.” Brown swiped a hand across his lips, taking the thick beads of whiskey with it. “Probably laughing at Colonel Carrington himself right now. Laughing at us!”

“By Gawd! I'd give those red devils something to laugh at!” the woodcutter shrieked, waving a thick fist.

“They're Cheyenne, though,” the quiet civilian among them whined in vain. “It's Sioux causing all the trouble, killing——”

“Red's red, like I said before, son,” Kinney said, jumping into the fray again. “An Injun's like a leopard. Won't ever change his spots.”

“They're same as that murderin' Red Cloud and his bunch!”

“Colonel give 'em a place to stay the night!”

“Coffee and bacon as well.”

“Bacon? When we get moldy sowbelly for breakfast. And there ain't enough coffee to fill a working man's gut each morning?”

“Made them Cheyenne beggars feel right to home!”

“Them as drove off the cattle?”

“Sacked the hay mowers!”

“Set fire to the sawmill too!”

“… scalp of a honest white man!”

“… red is red!”

“… we're prisoners here!”

“That's right,” Brown replied. “Held prisoner here if we do nothing about it.” His dark eyes glowered at the Irishman in the corner for the first time. He must have wondered why the big, bearded stranger had not joined in the mob's call.

“And I know just what to do!” Frank the woodcutter pulled the big Walker Colt revolver from his waistband. The blued steel glimmered like dark water in the yellow light of a half-dozen lamps. The room fell quiet.

Donegan glanced over at White. The reverend clenched his Bible, eyes studying the growing ugliness. Seamus figured White understood as well as he what was coming to a boil.

Another teamster drew his pistol, held it aloft. “No time better'n now to burn me an Injun. I'd like to watch 'em cook slow for all they done.” He guzzled the last drops in his cup.

“No!” Kinney cried out. He watched all of them turn his way. Disbelief colored their faces. Now that he had their silence, he almost whispered, “You can't go now. Not even dark yet, boys. Wait till the cover of night.” It was a dangerous gamble, betting the mob would hold its grim resolve.

“He's right!”

“When?”

“After tattoo!” another suggested.

“Yeah! We'll go down then.”

“Who's gonna do it?”

“Any of us!”

“Tell the others!” a soldier cried out. “Pass the word. Go down together.”

“Colonel could hang a handful of us,” an old corporal hollered. “He can't hang the whole bloody regiment!”

“Wait till tattoo—after bed check.”

“Meet at the water-gate … above the sawmill.”

“Who's gonna get a key to the damned gate, let us out?”

“Fellas.” Judge Kinney held up a pink hand for silence, then pointed out the officer standing at the bar, slowly sipping his whiskey and glaring at the silent Irishman in the corner. “Any damn fool knows Captain Brown's got a key to his own gate!”

Chapter 21

Reverend White shivered as the last notes of tattoo echoed from the stockade walls. He was cold. And too old for a stunt like this. Yet something drove him to these shadows across from the log barracks. Watching lamps twinkle out, one by one.
Those soldier boys never go to sleep this quick. Something's afoot for certain.

The reverend waited. Listening. His eyes long ago grown accustomed to the darkness. Shivering, wondering if he should've grabbed the Irishman to come along. Wishing he had as the first shadow flitted along a barrack wall. Then a second. Scurrying low, crouched over. Then more.

Like damned rats. A whole nest of 'em.

More than two hours had passed since he closed the Bible around his crumpled sermon. Angry with himself now for waiting to be sure.

Should've gone to the colonel earlier. Have to be quick about it now. And careful.

“Private Sample.” Carrington turned to his orderly spare moments later. “Hurry to Captain Ten Eyck. Have him meet me here, with the Officer of the Day and the Sergeant of the Guard. The sergeant needs a half-dozen men.”

Reverend White watched Sample slip out the door. The minister had awakened the orderly by rapping on Carrington's door. Getting here by staying to the shadows, hugging the dark places. “Just got too quiet, Colonel,” the reverend explained.

“I believe you,” Carrington muttered, like a man disbelieving. “But, I must … get dressed now.”

“Quickly, Colonel.”

“Yes. There's no time to waste.”

By the time Carrington emerged from his private rooms, buckling a pistol at his waist, Ten Eyck and Lieutenant Bradley swept into the office.

“Who the devil's attacking the Cheyennes down at the mill?” Ten Eyck demanded, his tongue thick with whiskey and his eyes gummy with sleep.

“I'll need you to post a guard around the Cheyenne camp, Lieutenant.” Carrington ignored Tenedor for the moment. “You have six men?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “Four waiting outside. The other two I sent off to——”

“Lieutenant!” A young private burst into the room. “F company … the barracks … they're gone!”

“Captain.” Carrington turned on Ten Eyck, “Let's pray we're not too late.”

“By all means, Colonel.” Ten Eyck whirled, flinging his arms and shooing soldiers out the door.

“You coming along, Reverend?” Carrington asked as the troopers scurried into the night like starlings.

“Wouldn't miss a prayer meeting like this for the life of me, Colonel.”

*   *   *

“What're we waiting for?” the big teamster growled, his pistol weaving, muzzle pointing here then there at the nine old Cheyenne close around their small fire.

“Not a gawddamned thing!” Frank the woodcutter snarled, leveling his own pistol at Two Moons.

From the moment these white men had crossed the creek to surround their little camp, the Cheyenne hadn't budged. Only the old eyes swept round, from white face to white face illuminated in the copper firelight. Better than ten-times-ten, whitemen stacked like cordwood, pressing in on the fire-ring to watch. To witness another man's bravery. To hang back in the anonymous darkness and watch.

Every now and then flames jumped restlessly along a limb. A soft, yellow glow shimmering off the unmoving copper faces. Even the old squaw sat silent, motionless. No longer did she stir the coffee she'd been boiling in the old kettle. A gift from the soldier chief—a treat for his friends, the Cheyenne. Until these white men had poured out of the darkness.

“Well, we gonna take care of business?” someone shouted.

“Let's do what we come for!” another yelled from the ring.

The ringleaders fidgeted. Frank spun the cylinder on his Walker. Once round, hammer clicking back on each chamber. Somehow, he sensed the fire in the mob had flickered and gone out. Not as warm as up at the sutler's.

“Hey, Judge!” he hollered. “We got the bastards now.”

“That's right,” Kinney sang, a bit hollow. No grand oration. His lower lip hung out like a slice of raw calf's liver—pouting. “Look at 'em. You ever see a more guilty bunch than this?”

“Never!” Frank tried to whip them up again the way they had snarled and foamed for blood back at Kinney's place. “I'll take the first one. Who want's another?”

“I'll take that fat one there!” a teamster barked. “Like to see him squirm when I shoot his balls off first. Watch him beg for his life.”

“Smith didn't get no chance to beg for his life!”

“This'uns for Smith!” someone across the fire hollered.

“For all the rest they murdered!”

Frank spat into the fire. “It's time,” he muttered, striding right over the low flames until he stood before Two Moons, jerked the Walker down, and pressed the muzzle to the old Indian's head.

“That'll be far enough, mister!”

Frank spun with the others at the voice clawing out of the darkness.

“What you're about to do is murder.”

The big woodcutter's eyes blinked as he watched Jack Stead stroll into the firelight. He saw the scout carried a pistol. Stuffed in his belt.

“You're a brave man, aincha?” Frank challenged.

“Sorry, can't say the same for you.” Jack strode full into the firelight, stopping before the woodcutter. “Shoot an old, unarmed Indian.”

“Murderer—what he is!”

“This old man didn't scalp that soldier today.” Stead pointed at Two Moons.

“Others say differ'nt.”

Stead gazed round the circle. “I can see. Lots of 'em. Ninety to nine doesn't sound like fair odds to me.”