Wolf Mountain Moon (38 page)

At the first crack of enemy carbines, Colonel Nelson A. Miles immediately ordered a halt, wrenching his horse around to gallop to the rear, where he sent that day's rear guard, Edmond Butler's C Company, back to the rescue.

“They got there too late,” Jackson told the other scouts and officers who later on gathered around the trampled snow where the lone soldier had fallen from his horse.

Seamus rubbed his oozy lower lip with bacon grease and said, “Butler's men got here soon enough to keep the bastards from cutting up the poor lad.”

Surgeon Henry R. Tilton had been kneeling beside the body of Private William H. Batty. He brushed his mitten across the young soldier's face one more time, clearing it of
some of the icy snow that continued to fall, then got to his feet. The major said, “Let's get him buried.”

While Batty's body was carried back all the way to the front of the column, Captain Butler had the men of his C Company begin working in relays on the frozen ground. The private had been one of their own.

Miles had his regimental adjutant, First Lieutenant George W. Baird, say a few words over the dark scar of earth in the midst of all that scuffled snow. After Butler's men had each tossed in a handful of sod, the colonel had other soldiers fill in Batty's final resting place and shovel enough snow over the grave to cover it from view. Miles ordered the march to resume.

Over that crude mound walked every foot soldier, rolled the wheels of their wagons, plodded the hooves of mules and oxen alike, obliterating all sign of the grave … in hopes of protecting it from predator and warrior alike.

After the brief service Donegan and the rest of the scouts led the wary troops south past the mouth of Turtle Creek. At noon the column was forced to recross the Tongue on ice softened by the recent rains. Beneath that heavy weight of the overburdened wagons the semisoft surface of the river groaned and creaked. But as much as the men feared the Tongue would swallow them, wagons and all, not one was lost in the crossing.

“Donegan!”

Reining up, Seamus turned to find Kelly riding up with Bruguier and Buffalo Horn, the lone Bannock.

Luther Kelly brought his horse to a halt beside Donegan's. “Wanted to let you know the three of us will be gone for the better part of a day.”

“Headed where?”

With a nod to the west Kelly said, “General wants to know if there's any camps in the valley of the Rosebud.”

“Just the three of you?”

Kelly replied, “If we have to make a run for it—best keep our outfit small.” He smiled at Donegan in that handsome way of his. “You'll watch over the old man for me, won't you?”

“Miles?”

“Yep. Stay out front and make sure he doesn't run
into
an ambush before I get back.”

Dragging off his mitten and holding out his bare hand in the cold wind, Seamus watched Kelly pull off his glove, and they shook. Donegan said, “I figure I know what kind of ground cavalry will want to use against foot soldiers.”

“Even Crazy Horse's cavalry.”

The Irishman smiled, the skin on his face tight and drawn in the bitter cold. “Bet your life that I'll know the ground that savvy bastard will likely use, all right.”

Kelly started to rein away, tugging on his horsehide mitten. “I'll let you bet my life on that any day, Donegan.”

“Keep your eyes peeled, Kelly!”

“Yup—and you watch your hair, you ol' horse soldier.”

Chapter 23
4-6 January 1877

“F
orget all that foreign gobbledygook!” Martha Luhn said to Samantha as she smacked her palm down on the paper spread across the tiny table in the fire-warmed kitchen. “You remember just a few days back when this same Rocky Mountain
News
had that headline story about the ore strikes they were making down at Silver City?”

Yes, she had seen the story, read it, and thought of them all fleeing south from Indian country. But it wasn't something she was ready to admit—not just yet. Samantha gently pulled the sleeping baby from her breast and laid him on her shoulder. As she began to pat his back softly, she said, “I usually don't pay much attention to that sort of thing. Mostly looking for any notices on the campaign—”

“Well, you should give it some attention,” Martha said. “More than any of the rest of us, you ought to feel like you and your Mr. Donegan are free of the army. Which means you can pick up and get right on out of this country. Say good riddance to all this waiting and the terrors of army life.”

“What are you trying to get at?” Sam inquired.

Martha replied, “Those silver strikes down in New Mexico—that's where they are, you know? Not so bad a place to raise a family.”

“If you don't have to worry about Apaches wandering away from their reservations!” Nettie Capron squealed.

Martha Luhn turned to Samantha. “You don't have to worry about such things. That's just the point I'm making.” Her eyes dropped a minute to the dozing child Samantha was burping at her shoulder. “You've told me more than once that your Mr. Donegan first came west after the war to look for gold in the Montana diggings.”

“Yes—well, but … he never got that far to try,” Sam began to explain.

“Still wants to make his fortune in that precious ore, doesn't he?”

Samantha nodded less than emphatically. “Seamus has talked about it with me a time or two, yes we have.”

“When he gets back this winter—you sit him down and convince the mister that it's high time for him to get back to what he intended to do ten years ago,” advised Martha.

“Yes, digging for gold and silver must be a much safer occupation for a husband and a father than riding scout for Crook or any of the rest of them,” Nettie added.

“It's really a single man's profession, Samantha—don't you see?”

“I … I never thought of it in those terms. It's just what I've come to believe he has to do—so I'll wait behind.”

“And when he gets back,” said Nettie, coming around behind Sam's chair to lay a hand on the young mother's shoulder, “don't you think it better for your child to grow up some other place where you're not in the middle of the comings and goings of Indian country?”

“It's what we both talked about …,” Sam began, feeling a little put upon by the others, who were taking far too much an interest in what Seamus should be doing with his life. That sort of thing was for a man to decide for himself.