Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (33 page)

“Margaret!”

She watched him turn wearily at his desk, his papers spilled beneath yellow lamplight. His long hair messed. The blue tunic tossed carelessly over the back of another chair. Margaret moved to his side, sweeping his head against her bosom as a mother would a child. More frantically than even little Jimmy would cling, her husband hung to her in that desperate moment.

“Henry,” she whispered. “Please. You must come to bed.”

“I … I'll be there soon.”

She sensed his need. Not for her body. There had been nights for that in their past. Afraid this time, she sensed Henry needed more from her than he had ever needed before.

“Tell me what it is,” she asked, still cradling his head.

There came a strained, empty moment of silence before he answered in a weary voice. “My command, Margaret. I am … so alone.”

“No, Henry,” she whispered. “I'm right here with you. I always will be.” Then felt him shudder.

“We're all so alone here. I don't know how long any of us can last under these conditions. Virtually cut off from our other posts. Not knowing if any mail gets through. Every day, Margaret … every day it's another skirmish. A running battle with some Sioux horsemen. Civilian woodcutters killed. Couriers missing. Private trains attacked on the road both north and south.”

“We all sense the same isolation, Henry. Believe me.”

He took his head from her bosom, gazing at the desk littered with maps and plans, orders and correspondence. He held a letter aloft. “It's from Cooke. Another of his scathing rebukes, Margaret. I'm certain one of my staff is sending Cooke reports on me. Giving the general the wrong impression of conditions——”

“You have an idea who it is?”

“Anybody.” He shook his head. “Everybody! They're all more versed in warfare than I—there's the rub. War! They want to attack. And I need to finish the construction.”

“Those were your orders.”

“
Were
my orders, Margaret.” He fluttered the letter again. “The bloody discontent among these postwar officers. Too damned many of them and too few positions that will allow for advancement. The war did that to us. The bloody war! It created far too many chiefs.” He snorted. “I'll wager Red Cloud doesn't have the problems I do!”

“Henry——”

“Every damn one of my staff—lieutenants and captains—held high brevet rank during the war, Margaret. They chafe—Lord, do they chafe—now that they're bucked to lower rank and pay … with little prospect of promotion. Even dimmer prospect of command.”

“But you command, Henry.”

“By my teeth, dear. I hold on by my teeth!” He banged the desk with his fist.

“What's happening with your officers?” she asked, pushing a stray lock of Henry's hair from his eyes.

“Some … some have evidently accused me of being inept,” he answered, his head slung between his weary shoulders. “As the chasm widens between me and my battle-hardened staff, I hear myself accused of tolerating insubordination … even from those I am tolerant of.”

“Brown?”

“Yes.”

“Bisbee? Hines? Wands and Powell?”

“Yes,” and he nodded.

“Fetterman.”

Henry looked up at her. No sense in hiding it. She knew. “Yes.”

“They encircle him, don't they, Henry? He's their … their Mars. Their god of war, isn't he? Riding into
your
post, to become
their
savior. It's what Fetterman says that stings you most, isn't it?”

He nodded once. Finally looked back at her when she settled on the edge of the desk. “Brown's been saying I'm lenient toward offenders against military discipline.”

“That awful incident with the fight two weeks ago … Sunday morning——”

“Yes,” he answered quickly. “Brown is probably just Fetterman's mouthpiece. They both cross me. In front of the men. Right in front of my command!”

“What else are they saying about you, Henry?”

He raked a hand across one eye in exasperation. “Margaret, word has it I go to pieces under any pressure.”

“I've never seen you fall apart, dear.”

“I haven't—that's just it. Just one more imagined flaw reported to Cooke.”

“You really believe some member of your staff is undermining all your noble efforts here?”

“Yes. This arrived in the mail today. I didn't want you to know——”

“Read it to me,” she commanded.

He swallowed. “It's from Cooke.”

“I know.”

“Colonel: You are hereby instructed that so soon as the troops and stores are covered from the weather, to turn your earnest attention to the possibility of striking the hostile band of Indians in their winter camps.

An extraordinary effort in winter, when the Indian horses are unserviceable, it is believed, should be followed by more success than can be accomplished by very large expeditions in the summer. With two hundred or three hundred infantry, with much suffering, perhaps you might accomplish more than two thousand troops in summer.

You have a large arrear of murderous and insulting attacks by the savages upon emigrant trains and troops to settle, and you are ordered, if there prove to be any promise of success, to conduct or to send under another officer, such an expedition.”

“Henry, you must give up ever making General Cooke understand the realities of what you face here. So far from Omaha. Surrounded by Sioux——”

“Again tonight I've written, telling him how unreasonable it is to propose an attack on the camps of Red Cloud's warriors. I lack more than a hundred Springfields. And the cavalry he so graciously sent me? Why, they're busy performing escort duty for the wood trains. I again begged for the carbines promised for the cavalry. Until they arrive, those horse soldiers must content themselves with outdated and wornout Starr carbines.”

She waited when he fell quiet. “Henry, what are you going to do about Cooke's order to attack the Indians?”

He gazed into her moist eyes. Perhaps sensing something there in the way she looked at him that had too long been absent from her eyes. “It was an order, Margaret. A direct order. And I am, above all else——”

“A
soldier,
Henry Carrington.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “So I replied,” and he read to his wife: “‘I will, in person, command expeditions, when severe weather confines the Indians to their villages, and make the winter one of active operations, as best affords chance of punishment.'”

“You … you have a plan?”

“Yes,” he answered, seeming to really smile for the first time since she had entered the room. “I believe I can capture one of their raiding parties, Margaret. Like a hammer on an anvil, I can capture the warriors between a relief party I'll send out under one of the men. The hostiles know we always send out a small relief party.”

“How will you capture the warriors with a small relief?”

“By pinching them between that relief party and a main attacking force I will lead.”

Margaret felt the air freeze in her lungs. “You … you'll go yourself … lead the attack?” her voice sounded small.

“I must. For the sake of my command. My career, Margaret. For the future of this post and all our dreams.”

*   *   *

“What the devil do you think you're doing, Mr. Donegan?” Carrington demanded.

“Breathing my first as a free man this fine morning, Colonel,” Seamus explained as his horse joined Carrington's. Together they loped down the trail toward the crossing of the Big Piney that would take the colonel's detail of twenty-four soldiers climbing Lodge Trail Ridge.

“I know,” he snapped. “I signed your release order myself.”

“That doesn't explain what he's doing riding with us, Colonel!” Lt. George Grummond flared. He and Carrington led one half of the pincer movement the colonel hoped would catch some of the warriors who had attacked a wood train south of the Sullivant Hills early that afternoon.

Donegan smiled at the dark-headed lieutenant with the bushy mustache that hid his lips, then touched the brim of his floppy hat. “A good day to you too, Lieutenant. By the by, for a man who's spent time enjoying your hospitality, Colonel—I've lost track. What day would it be?”

“The sixth,” Carrington answered.

“December?” Seamus shrieked. “Locked up since the eleventh of November!”

“Damn right,” Grummond answered. “Funny, ain't it, Colonel. Been real quiet without this trouble maker stirring things up.”

Donegan shook his head. “Nigh a month of me life stole in that cold pine house of yours, and neither of you the least bit grateful to see Seamus Donegan and his Henry rifle ride with you on this little set-to.”

Carrington's eyes settled on the rifle the Irishman cradled across his thighs. “Mr. Donegan, we'll undoubtedly use every able man to settle a score with Red Cloud's warriors this day.”

Nodding at Carrington, Seamus glanced at the undisguised loathing he read in Grummond's eyes. Damn, if army officers ain't all the same, he thought, easing back into the column of twos struggling up the slope behind Carrington.
North, south … or west. Most of 'em a bag of wind—and what officers ain't, they're a bag of bad-smellin' mule-droppings.

The sun had dawned bright in a sky as clear as rinsed crystal that Thursday morning. Donegan had squinted some as he stepped from the guardhouse door, rubbed his eyes, then gazed for a long moment at the snowy mountains shouldering the sky. Freed at last, he had scampered down the hill to the civilian camp along the Little Piney. Fires smoldered, dying. The camp deserted. Every man at work—hay-cutting, wood-chopping, laboring in the quartermaster's stockade.

In the tent he shared with Captain Marr, Seamus found his rifle well-oiled and wrapped in a piece of old canvas. “Like as not,” he had said aloud to himself, “the cap'n didn't have the foggiest when I'd come free, neither.”

After tugging on a clean pair of long-handles, Seamus stuffed a clean shirt into his gray cavalry britches. The cleanest pair of stockings were pulled onto his feet before he stuffed them once more into the dusty, hog-leg cavalry boots. When he had filled himself on some jerked elk Marr had left behind and drunk his fill of creek water, Donegan strolled over to the civilian corral next to stockade. There he found his big gray well-fed and curried.

“Thankee, Cap'n Marr,” he had whispered while stroking the gray's muzzle. “You're a gentleman among uncivilized, selfish poltroons.” He nudged the bridle gently. “I best take you down to camp, boy. Seeing how we're no longer in the employ of this fine army establishment—best you stay near me. No telling when we've got to make a run for it, eh? Red Cloud's warriors love to get their paws on the likes of you, wouldn't they?”

A little past noon Donegan had been awakened from his nap by distant gunshots. Using a mariner's brass looking-glass, Seamus spotted several mounted warriors descending Lodge Trail Ridge toward Big Piney crossing. All along the Peno Head and Lodge Trail, signal mirrors flashed, spitting back light like fractured pieces of sunbeams dappling the valley. Rifle shots cracked in the distance. Miles off, along the south slope of the Sullivant Hills.

“A wood train, no doubt,” he had grumbled, eyes searching the tent for his pistol and extra ammunition. Every pocket in his trousers, vest, and mackinaw he stuffed with shells for the Henry. Quickly slapping the saddle blanket and his old McClellan atop the gray, Donegan nudged the bridle back in the horse's mouth and swung aboard.

As he wheeled the animal, wondering what direction to take, the Irishman had the decision made for him. Out of the fort's sawmill gates clattered the cavalry, a squad of mounted infantry struggling to bring up the rear. Seamus figured he'd be less than welcome joining that group. Eli Garrett hurried his troopers down the slope. And riding just in front of him, leading the relief itself, rode three officers to make four of a kind. Lt. Horatio S. Bingham, commanding cavalry, assigned to Capt. William Judd Fetterman. Between the two rode the man who loathed Seamus Donegan no less than did Eli Garrett—Capt. Frederick Brown.

“Won't do to join that pack o' snarling wolves, boy,” he had whispered, kicking heels. “Let's see what we can scare up elsewheres. While Fetterman's crew scampers after the wood train, we'll look into all those mirrors. Hep-hah!”

He had swung north around the brow of the low plateau to bump into the troopers galloping out of the main gate behind Carrington and Grummond. To a veteran horse soldier, it made sense.

“C'mon, boy!” he urged the gray. “Fetterman's bunch'll drive the Injins into retreat … and Carrington'll cut that retreat off sweet as kidney pie. Let's ride!”

When the colonel's detail reached the Big Piney north of the fort, they found the crossing sheeted from bank to bank. Beneath the translucent mica an icy cascade tumbled across the gravel bottom, creating great, boiling bubbles of trapped air that foamed and flutted downstream. The roving bands sighted across the creek barely moments ago had disappeared like woodsmoke in the wind. Only three warriors sat atop the ridge now, watching the soldier advance.

Carrington signaled a halt, turned his stallion into the creek to break the ice for those to follow. Several yards from the bank the ice still held, until the colonel's horse balked, terrified, fighting the bit. Its iron shoes skidded. Wide-eyed, it twisted, clambering back to the bank, crashing through the ice. Floundering in the bubbling flow, Carrington sputtered, drenched to his chest. He yanked the stallion across on foot, kicking the ice free with his sopping boots, wading in freezing water that lapped at his gunbelt.

“Go back to the fort, Colonel! I'll take it from here,” Grummond shouted as he reined up beside his drenched commander.