Winter Rain (29 page)

“I take exception with these two, General Carr,” Frank North broke in. “What’s to guarantee that village is moving toward the Platte? No, General—I say if you don’t follow all three of those trails, you’ll lose everything this campaign was sent out here to do.”

Carr contemplated his dilemma, looking from Sweete to Cody, then to North, and finally peered over his men and animals behind him, that long, dark ribbon stretched out across the fawn-colored terrain, sweltering beneath the same sun that he had hoped would bring him the destruction of Tall Bull’s Dog Soldiers.

“All right—Cody’s and Sweete’s advice to the contrary, I’ve decided to divide the command into three wings here. Captain, you and your brother will take Captain Cushing along with most of your Pawnee to scout the middle trail heading due north. Major Royall?”

William B. Royall saluted smartly. “General?”

“Major—you will command half our unit. Companies E, G, and H. Take Cody along with some of North’s Pawnee to scout the right-hand trail leading off to the northeast. There, onto that open land yonder.”

Royall nodded, clearly showing his happiness at being freed for the chase with half the regiment. “I assume, General, that you’re going to lead the third wing yourself?”

“I am. Direct command of companies A, C, and D. Mr. Sweete, you’ll ride with me. Sergeant Wallace will follow with four of the companies. In addition, six of the Pawnee are to be assigned to Mr. Sweete here. If for nothing else, the trackers can now serve to communicate between our separate wings. I’ll hold M Company in reserve, to remain some distance to the rear with the supply train.”

By the time the sun rose blood-red on that day, portending even greater heat than in days already suffered, Major Eugene Carr had completed his division of nearly three hundred officers and soldiers, including civilian and Pawnee scouts.

Less than an hour later, after traveling at as fast a clip as the weary mounts could stand, Carr had to admit that the trail sign was irrefutable.

“I can see now that the Cheyenne are moving toward the river,” Carr said quietly to the old plainsman beside him. “Just as you and Cody said they were.”

“You can still flank ’em if you push now, General,” Shad replied.

Carr nodded. Then stood for a few moments in the stirrups, squinting into the distance. “If my command can flank them from the northeast—getting the entire outfit between them and the river—then we will have them bottled up.”

“Then it won’t make no matter if you find Tall Bull in camp, or on the move already this morning.”

“Which would you prefer, Mr. Sweete?”

“On the move, General.”

“Why?”

“You surprise those Dog Soldiers in camp—the men gonna fight like hornets while the women and old ones skedaddle in retreat. Your men will get no quarter from that bunch if you catch ’em hunkered down in camp.”

“But if we surprise them on the march?”

“The whole bunch will be at a gallop from the first shot—covered by the warriors just long enough to make an escape, scattering as they go.”

“If choices are mine to make, Mr. Sweete—I choose to make a fight of it: like Custer had for himself on the Washita. For these men who have obeyed my orders and endured such hardship in the last few days—I want my chance to make a fight of it for the glory of the Fifth.” Carr’s eyes narrowed on the gray-headed scout. “By damn—we
must
catch Tall Bull in camp.”

At the edge of the earth, the sun had gone from blood-red to orange, then bubbled to a pale yellow before it now hung ash-white against the immense pale-blue dome overhead. Already the air in Shad’s face carried all the heat of a blacksmith’s bellows.

“If you figure your boys are ready and got some fight left in ’em, General,” Shad said, swiping his big black bandanna across his dripping face, “then let’s go seize this day!”

“Y
OUR FACE IS
masked with the worry of an old man, my friend,” Porcupine said.

“This camping place—I do not like it,” High-Backed Bull grumbled. With a hand he swept a gesture across their village in the narrow valley beside the springs.

Their next march would take Tall Bull’s camp of Dog Soldiers to the Buffalo Dropping River itself, that river which the white men called the Platte. From there they would cross and turn directly north for the high plains where the white man’s Medicine Road had cut deep ruts in the flesh of the earth. Beyond those plains only a matter of but a few days’ marches stood their sacred Bear Butte. There Tall Bull and White Horse and Porcupine would renew the flagging spirits of their warriors. They would refresh their vows and perhaps hold a sun dance. Once there, the fighting bands would have little worry of being followed by the soldier columns.

But until then Bull would worry. The soldiers were back there. Coming slowly, slowly. But coming all the same.

“Why here?” Bull asked Porcupine. “Why did Tall Bull have us stop here beside this spring?”

Porcupine shrugged. “This is the place our people have camped across many summers. At least once each year—so we know this country well. Besides, the water is good here.”

“But why stop for so long?”

“The old ones gave their approval. They told Tall Bull it was safe to camp here, safe to rest the village.”

“The rattle-talkers see no need of caution?” Bull asked, incredulous. “No need to keep on moving with the pony soldiers coming behind us?”

“No. They consulted their medicine and recommended some rest for the village. It is not so bad, Bull—not with the way we have had to drive the animals and people for far too many suns. They deserve a chance to rest, to make repairs, before we are pushed on again.”

“We will be pushed, Porcupine—the pony soldiers will push us!”

The older warrior tried a halfhearted chuckle. “You worry so for a young man. Leave that to the old ones.”

“Leave the worry to the old ones, who talk only to their stuffed owls and dried badger entrails?” Bull suddenly stood, staring down in the new sunlight at Porcupine. “It seems I can trust only to one thing anymore. To my weapons, to the sharpness of my scalping knife—to the quickness of my pony and the strength of my arms to continue making war on the white man.”

“You must relax, young one,” Porcupine answered soothingly. “I think you see the one who fathered you in the face of every white man. He—”

“I know he comes soon.
He
leads pony soldiers. For many winters he has betrayed my mother’s people by
leading soldiers to the camps of the innocent. I know he comes, soon.”

“He is old now, Bull. Gone are his days of fighting—”

“We must move on!” Bull interrupted. Then a light crossed his face, his eyes growing wide in abrupt, exquisite excitement. “Or—we can lay a trap for the white men. To draw their soldiers in and destroy them.” He lunged for Porcupine, gripping the bewildered war chief’s shoulders. “Say yes—that we can lure the white men into a trap!”

Porcupine shook his head. “This is a place of rest, decided upon by the chiefs.”

Bull yanked his hands from the older warrior, feeling sickened to his stomach, doubt rattling around inside his belly the way stream-washed pebbles clattered around inside a stiffened buffalo-scrotum rattle. “You have gone soft on me while I was not looking, Porcupine.”

“The medicine men have said—”

“What they say does not change a thing. The soldiers are still behind us.”

“We are far ahead of them—and they have been moving so slowly. You saw for yourself when we have attacked—”

“This bunch of pony soldiers—they will not stop. They will keep coming, and coming. They want Tall Bull’s woman back. They want the other one too. These soldiers will not stop until they have destroyed us. Those women that Tall Bull and White Horse will not release, they will be our undoing.”

Porcupine put an arm around Bull’s shoulders, attempting to calm his young friend in some way. “The soldiers are too far behind us to attack. But if they do find us before we have crossed the river, Tall Bull has made a vow that will please your heart.”

“What is this vow of his?”

“Tall Bull has sworn that if the soldiers come—he will see that his white concubine is the first to die.”

•  •  •

“We must be
damned close if you and your trackers have spotted Tall Bull’s pony herd,” Major Carr said evenly to the old plainsman, who had just brought him the momentous news, although the major’s eyes had become animated as they peered into the distance. Then he dragged the steamy wool slouch hat from his brow and wiped a damp kerchief across his retreating hairline.

“I figure it’s time we brought in them other two wings, Major,” Shad Sweete advised.

He nodded. “Very good. Go ahead and get one of your trackers over to Major Royall’s unit. Bring Cody back. I want him to take these six Pawnee and ride ahead to find out if that is the herd … if they can see the village—or some sign of just where I’ll contact the enemy.”

Cody rode in, received his orders, then immediately pointed his big buckskin northwest, leading six Pawnee off among the hills in the direction he believed he would find the camp.

Time dragged itself out in the steamy heat of the plains as the horses and mules grew restless, deprived of water, restive for grazing. For what seemed like hours in the growing heat beneath the rising sun, they waited. Then—

“There!” Carr called out, pointing.

Sweete twisted in the saddle to find Cody headed back in at an easy lope. He wore his characteristic irrepressible grin.

“By damn—you found something, didn’t you, son?”

Cody nodded at Sweete, then turned to Carr. “It’s just like I told you, General. So I left the trackers there to keep an eye on things till your men can come on up.”

Carr smiled approvingly. “I take it they have no idea we’re about to ride them down?”

“You caught ’em in camp—and they ain’t running yet.”

“No camp pickets out?” Carr asked anxiously. When Cody shook his head, the major responded enthusiastically, “By Jupiter—I’ll have them this time!”

“If I can advise you on your approach to the village, General,” Cody said. “I’ve spotted a way in—a small detour. Take your command around and through these low hills yonder… keeping off to the right. We’ll keep wide of the village and come in from the north where the river lies. From there you can start your charge.”

“Without detection?”

Cody nodded. “We stay hidden behind those hills, that bunch won’t have a clue until you’re riding down on top of them.”

Carr issued his orders to have his command reunited, and in a matter of minutes the entire column was pushing forward once more, just about the time Sweete noticed the plodding wagon train pulling into sight at their rear. The wagon master’s teamsters and mules had been having their time of it slogging the overburdened wagons through the spongy soil and the clinging sand of the Platte Bluffs.

By keeping to the ravines and following the scouts as they blazed their trail behind the low hills, no man allowed to break the skyline, Sweete and Cody led the soldiers within sight of the village, then turned and galloped back to the head of the column.

Cody held up his hand to signal the troops to halt. “You’ve got less than fifteen hundred yards to cross until you make contact with the outlying lodges, General.”

“They haven’t spotted you?” Carr asked nervously.

“You’ve caught them napping. Warm day like this—most of their war ponies are still out grazing in the herd. Men relaxed back in the shade of the lodges. Children playing at the springs.”

“A total surprise?” asked the major as he squinted into the summer blue of the sky, finding the few lazy
spirals of smoke caught on the hot summer breezes in the near distance.

“There’s good, flat ground for your cavalry to cross getting into the village,” Shad said.

Cody agreed. “Tailor-made for a cavalry charge, General.”

“This is our day, boys!” Carr cheered before he returned to the head of his column to break out his attack squadrons.

As the major issued marching orders down through the cavalry command, North’s Pawnee scouts were already at their toilet, preparing for the coming fight. After stripping saddles from their horses and stowing them in the freight wagons, the trackers bound up the tails of their ponies in anticipation of action. That done, the scouts then tied their own long hair back and mixed earth-paint with due ceremony. Weapons were polished while here and there small knots of the brownskins smoked a bowl of tobacco together before mounting up. Many of them now pulled from their bedrolls a blue army blouse, the better to be recognized in the dust, confusion, and fear of battle by the young, untried white soldiers of the Fifth Cavalry.

Carr assigned H Company under Captain Leicester Walker to charge in on the left flank while Lieutenant George Price and A Company would make the dash on the right.

“You are to turn the hostiles’ flanks if they attempt escape,” Carr instructed his battalion leaders. “Their backs will be to the river. That must be their only path of escape. Once you have secured the village from escaping on the flanks, ride to the rear of the village and seize the pony herd.”

“General, I figure them Pawnee will jump that Cheyenne pony herd before any of your boys can get there,” Sweete said.

Carr turned to Frank North. “Major—you’ll be sure
to have control of your trackers and see that they do not interfere with my attack.”

North nodded once. “They’ll run for the ponies, General. But you can be sure I’ll keep ’em out of the way for you.”

“All right. Captain Sumner with D Company, and Captain Maley leading C Company, you both will take the front of our charge. Major Crittenden will ride in command of this center squadron. Major Royall, your squadron of companies E and G remain in reserve immediately in my rear. Ready your units for the attack, gentlemen.”

As the company commanders passed orders down the line, Major Frank North boldly placed his Pawnee battalion on the far left flank, in plain sight of the village, awaiting the order to charge. When Lieutenant Price with A Company had moved off about five hundred yards to the right and signaled that he was ready, Major Carr finally rose in the stirrups. Since Lieutenant Price’s company had the farthest distance to cover before reaching the village, the charge would be guided on it. Like the power of a passing thunderstorm to raise the hair on his neck and arms, Sweete sensed the electrifying tension crackle through the entire outfit as Carr issued the first order of the coming attack.