CHAPTER TWO
Watching the medicine-making ceremony at the other side of the camp, the dozen or so Sioux between the Texans and the wagons realized their danger a full fifteen seconds too late. They heard the drumming of the hooves and the wild yells and turned to face three hard-riding white men each handling a lead-spitting weapon with deadly accuracy. Taken by surprise, with three of their number down in the first seconds of the rush, the braves scattered and the Texans passed through them unscathed. Cavalry-trained, van Druten’s horse ran at Dusty’s side and followed the small Texan through the gap into the wagon circle. Even as the three Texans joined the soldiers, a hideous roar rose from the remainder of the Sioux and another attack began.
‘Here they come!’ whooped the Kid, jerking a box of bullets from his saddle-pouch and sprinting after Dusty.
Faced by the awe-inspiring charge, the recruits showed signs of panic. Even the Ysabel Kid, who usually claimed that only Comanche and Apache were real
bad
Indians, conceded that the attacking Hunkpapa Sioux looked tolerable mean
hombres
and right likely to make things lively in a fight.
Leaping from his saddle, Dusty glared at a young corporal who seemed as panic-stricken as the rest of the men.
‘Corporal!’ Dusty roared, just as the young non-com prepared to bolt for safety. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
His voice stiffened the men. It might hold a Texas drawl but through it ran the cold hardness of a tough officer who spoke and expected immediate obedience, the sort of man who was obeyed instantly—or else, somebody wished he had been. The corporal threw a scared look over his shoulder, took in Dusty’s uniform and did not doubt for a minute that their new commanding officer, Captain Marcus van Druten, stood behind him.
‘We was try—’
‘Then don’t!’ barked Dusty. ‘Are your men loaded?’
The corporal clearly did not know but Dusty knew he would have no time to check. He could only hope that the sergeant-major gave the order to reload before taking lead.
‘Take aim!’ he ordered and the rifles lined. ‘Line carefully and make every shot count. Fire!’
The resulting volley was ragged and Dusty roared out an order which sent hands to working the trap-door breeches of the Springfield carbines, then shoving home another round as the empty cases flew out. Three Sioux had gone down before the volley but from either end of the line came the whip-like cracking of Mark and the Kid’s rifles. Neither of them needed any telling what they must do and acted fast. The rapid fire cut among the Indians, emptying the backs of racing ponies or tumbling the animals.
A scared young recruit twisted around towards Dusty and the small Texan hurled forward. This was no time for gentle words or actions. One hint of weakness would allow the men time to let their fear over-ride the discipline drove into them since joining the army. Dusty sent the sabre point into the ground, then his right hand came around, the back of it driving into the soldier’s face and spinning him around into the wagon.
‘The next man who looks away from the Sioux will be shot!’ Dusty warned. ‘Fire at random. Keep firing!’
Under the hail of fire the Sioux attack broke, splitting and carrying on around the oblong of wagons. Dusty watched. The flanks, not being faced with the solid awe-inspiring rush, handled themselves well, keeping up a fire which held the Sioux back. Now and then a brave or small group, would try a rush at the wagons. They came fast and were the worst danger of all. Let them get inside the circle and the rest would take heart, pressing home their attack so superior weight of numbers must crush down the soldiers.
Dusty seemed to be everywhere at once, racing from point to point, always when needed, stiffening and directing the defence. He bore a charmed life for he had become the prime target of the Sioux. Their medicine had been made on the assumption that the solider-coats were leaderless. Now a new leader had come in and led the defence.
In the hectic moments following the charge, Dusty made a complete circle of the wagon area. He did not have time to speak with the sergeant-major in passing, for the man lay by a wagon, his tunic ripped open and his shoulder bandaged. The medical orderly looked up at Dusty, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and darted to where a soldier lay on the ground with an arrow buried flight deep in his chest.
On reaching the side where the first rush came Dusty saw it could safely be left to Mark and the Kid. They knew how to control men and their repeating rifles gave the eight soldiers heart to fight.
Then it was over. The Sioux pulled back in disorder, leaving a number of their braves dead on the ground. The Kid watched them draw back until they lined the slopes surrounding the wagons. He walked towards Mark, thumbing bullets through the loading slot of his Winchester.
‘That’ll hold them for a spell, likely until nightfall and they don’t make war in the dark. At most they won’t more than once today.’
‘Which same could be enough,’ Mark replied. ‘Ole Dusty sure pulled these blue bellies together, didn’t he?’
‘He sure did,’ grinned the Kid. ‘Just look at them bunch who took the main rush. They’re all puffed up with themselves like they’d whupped the whole Sioux nation.’
The change in the men showed plain. No longer did they look scared. Instead all were grinning broadly, even though the faces might be a greyish tinge under the newly gained tan. They’d stood up to an attack, beat it off and could claim to be fighting men at last.
Dusty did not get a chance to speak with his two friends as he walked around the defences once more. He wanted to speak with the sergeant-major, get the uniform off and return to wearing his own clothes. A bullet fired at long range hissed by his head but he ignored it. Then Dusty saw something which roused his anger. One of the soldiers had rested his rifle against the wheel of a wagon and was looking around him without regard to the watching Sioux.
‘Do I look like an Indian!’ Dusty roared, almost leaping forward.
The soldier found himself confronted by an angry officer, a man with hard, cold and savage eyes. He stiffened into a brace, his mouth suddenly felt dry and he knew better than try any flip answers with this officer who came so dramatically to their rescue.
‘No—no—no, cap’n sir,’ he gasped.
‘Then why in hell’s name are you looking at me?’ demanded Dusty, his voice throbbing with anger. ‘Keep your full attention on the Sioux or I’ll have you lashed to an outside wagon wheel where you can see them properly!’
From the tone of Dusty’s voice the young soldier did not for a moment doubt the threat would be carried out, nor did any of the others who heard. Not one of them took their eyes from the surrounding line of braves but one called:
‘They’re shooting at us, cap’n, sir.’
‘That’s all right. They’re not on our side so they’re allowed to.’
As a joke it wouldn’t have made Eddie Foy fear for his act but it served to bring a chuckle from the men. Dusty knew better than keep riding them and now they were all attending to duty could relax slightly.
Dusty walked to where the wounded sergeant-major lay. The man was tall, wide shouldered and burly, clearly an old soldier, a man who had seen plenty of action in his time. The bullet had grazed his shoulder badly, spun him into the side of a wagon and his head struck as he went down, knocking him unconscious. He had regained consciousness now and tried to stiffen into a brace as Dusty dropped to his knees by the wounded man’s side.
‘Hogan, sir,’ said the non-com. ‘Sergeant-major. We’ve been three days at the rendezvous, sir, waiting for you.’
In the voice Dusty detected a faint hint of disapproval. His eyes narrowed a trifle for he was not a man to allow his rank to be flouted. Then he realized the sergeant-major took him to be the dead officer. Dusty’s eyes could detect nothing in Hogan’s face, certainly not a thing to indicate Hogan might be an officer-hater who hid behind the limits of the
Manual of Field Regulations
to deride and belittle his superiors. Hogan struck Dusty as being a good man with a legitimate grievance against the dead captain.
‘I got your orders at Fort Bannard, sir,’ Hogan went on. ‘You’d left before I could see you and taken the only scout available. The regiment pulled out the day we left, sir, they’ve been ordered to the south and needed all their scouts. I came by map and formed a circle to wait for you.’
‘Mister,’ drawled Dusty quietly, so that none but Hogan might hear his words. ‘The officer you expected won’t be coming. He’s back there a piece with no top to his head. Him and the scout both are dead.’
For a moment Hogan did not reply. He looked as if he could not believe the evidence of his ears. His eyes went to the uniform, the way it fitted Dusty and the general look of the small Texan.
‘But you—I saw the way you came in and took over.’
‘Somebody had to, friend. You were down and those green recruits likely to spook on the next attack. I knew they wouldn’t take orders from a civilian, not fast enough to do any good. The Sioux had stripped your captain and we brought his clothes along with us, in case we run across soldiers, or found a fort to leave them with. Knew the army’d want to know what happened to him and figured his kin’d like to have his belongings. So when I saw how things stood I put the uniform on and got in here.’
Hogan still stared at Dusty. In twenty-eight years of army service he’d learned to recognize the real thing when it came before him. No matter what this small Texan said nothing would convince Hogan that he did not look at a real tough, all-army, officer. The way the men shook into shape at the Texan’s command gave full proof of that.
‘You’ve got to carry on doing it c—mister,’ Hogan said, just biting off the formal ‘captain, sir’ as he spoke. ‘I’m not steady enough to hold them together and the Sioux’ll come back again. You’ll do it, won’t you?’
‘There’s no other way,’ Dusty replied. ‘What’s the strength of the command?’
‘Thirty recruits for Fort Tucker, sir, one medical orderly, six wagons with supplies, two men in each wagon. We’d lost two men before I fell, sir.’
Strangely Hogan did not feel anything unusual about saying ‘sir’ to Dusty. He could not shake off the feeling that he addressed an officer, a very efficient officer of at least captain’s rank.
‘Rest easy,’ Dusty drawled. ‘I’ll take over.’
He came to his feet and looked around. The horses, picketed on lines across the open, seemed safe enough. He wanted to see the men, have them before him and form an impression of their state to carry on the fight.
‘Fall in here!’ he barked. ‘Lon, Mark, watch the Sioux.’
‘Yo!’ came Mark’s cavalry reply.
‘They’ve pulled back to, make more medicine,’ called the Kid.
This was always the Sioux way of fighting. Once an attack failed the braves gathered and made fresh medicine, trying to decide why the old batch failed them and whether it would be advisable to make another attack. They never realized that by so doing they gave their enemy a chance to reorganize and prepare for further defence.
The order brought men running to form up before Dusty in double file, standing at attention and giving Dusty a chance to look them over in the manner of a new officer studying his men for the first time. With the men standing in line, backs to the wagons, the Sioux might have taken a chance at easy coups but they were at their medicine and the Kid stood with his rifle ready to prevent any easy coups being made.
With cold eyes Dusty studied the men before him, walking along the front rank until he came to halt before the corporal.
‘I’ve seen worse but I’m damned if I know where,’ Dusty said coldly. ‘Account for your ammunition, corporal.’
The corporal gulped nervously. ‘I—I don’t know for sure.’
Out shot Dusty’s right hand, gripping the stripes and ripping them from the corporal’s sleeve. His eyes never left the startled soldier’s face, daring him to as much as breathe in protest. The corporal kept rigid at his brace, lips tight together, for one thing a man learned early in the army was to keep his mouth shut at such a moment.
‘Account for your ammunition,’ Dusty said to the private soldier next to the now stripeless corporal.
‘Ten rounds for my carbine and twelve combustible cartridges for my revolver, plus the six loads in the Colt.’
‘Take rank as corporal,’ said Dusty. ‘Move out here, man. Check every man’s supply of ammunition, then resupply those who need it.’
‘Yo!’ snapped the soldier and moved from the line.
‘Divide the troop equally for defence of the four sides,’ Dusty went on. ‘Four men to attend to the horses.’
Recruit or not the young soldier went into action fast. From the way he took command he could go far in the army. Dusty stood back and watched his orders obeyed, then made arrangements for the men to be fed. He sent sentries to each side allowing Mark and the Kid to attend to their three horses, for not one of the big stallions would take kindly to strangers handling them and the Kid’s big white could be very dangerous to any who tried.
Finally, when all in the camp satisfied him, Dusty returned to the big sergeant-major who had propped himself up against the wagon wheel, the better to see how things went and to lend Dusty moral and verbal support if needed. A grin split Hogan’s face as Dusty came to his side.
‘You’re not trying to tell a man twenty-eight years in the army that you’ve never before held officer’s rank?’ he asked, as Dusty bent to check the bandage. ‘Sure and I’d never believe that.’
‘Wouldn’t huh?’
‘I wouldn’t. There’s army in everything you do and say. Who are you?’
‘I rode in the Texas Light Cavalry in the War,’ Dusty replied.
Hogan nodded. ‘A good fighting outfit, even if they were volunteers. Sure they handled them—’ The words died away and he stared at Dusty. ‘The Saints preserve us. You’re him.’
‘Who?’
‘Captain Dusty Fog. Sure and I should have seen it from the first. There’s devil of a few men who could or would’ve done what you did.’
Dusty felt a glow of pleasure and some pride as he saw the admiring look in the eyes of the hard-bitten sergeant-major. They rode on opposite sides in the war yet Hogan could still retain a true soldier’s admiration for a brave and gallant enemy.
‘And Dandy van Druten’s dead, is he,’ Hogan went on. ‘May the devil ride on his pillow. I looked to have hell under him at Fort Tucker, it’ll be a restive command I’ve got for all of that, no commanding officer and under three shavetail lieutenants for nearly a month. Sure and it’ll be a firm hand that’s needed to quieten down the buckos at the Fort.’
Mark and the Kid came towards the two men and were introduced to Hogan. The Kid wasted no time in small talk but pointed to the slope where most of the Sioux had gathered once more.
‘Taking a tolerable time to make their medicine,’ he said. ‘Like I figured out there,’ he waved a hand to where they’d been watching the fight from the rim, ‘the old medicine-man made his play on their downing you, friend. Only Dusty coming busting in like that spoiled it for them. Now he’s calling down on the war gods and making his mind up whether to hit us again afore dark, leave it until dawn for a big rush, or call off the fight and ride out.’
‘Which’ll it be?’ asked Dusty.
‘I don’t know, one or the other of them for sure. I allow he’s got but one more losing attack afore they claim his medicine’s gone real sour and want to pull out of it.’
Suddenly the man on sentry at the side through which Dusty and the other two made their appearance, let out a yell, pointing. Dusty and his two friends went racing forward as, from the same dry wash they used, a rider burst into sight. He came fast, riding with death as a spur, for he came alone and towards some twenty Sioux.