Cry of the Hawk

12

Fall, 1865

“SOME OF THOSE men offered me five dollars for a single tack,” Jonah Hook said in wonder to Shad Sweete. “Even up at Rock Island where most of us was rotting away—never saw a man in that bad a shape.”

“More’n just hunger, Jonah. That bunch of raggedy beggars was lucky to get out of Injun country with their hair.”

“All had to walk out—some of ’em in boots falling apart.”

“Never knew a boot anywhere as good as a Cheyenne moccasin, son.”

For days before the Pawnee scouts had finally discovered the location of the desperate columns, the Walker and Cole battalions had been under a constant state of siege, able to move very little on foot, able to do nothing more than hold back the thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors by judicious use of their mountain howitzers.

“Injuns hate those big wagon-guns,” Shad had explained. “They call them the guns that shoot twice: once when they are fired and a second time when the shell explodes.”

Once he had the demoralized, ragged remnants of the two lost wings rejoined with his own command, General Patrick Connor had turned his force south and returned to Fort Connor on the Powder River to recuperate the men, arriving the last week of September. But the second day of that much-needed recuperation brought an early end to the Powder River Expedition.

“Connor’s madder’n a wet hornet.” Bridger settled in the riverbank shade where Sweete and Hook had been watching the lazy ripples of the murky river.

“Why’s that redheaded Irishman mad now?”

“Got dispatches up from Laramie, Shad.” Bridger sighed. “You remember hearing that wolf-howl days back.”

Hook watched the two old mountain men exchange a mysterious, knowing look.

“Howl like that always means some bad medicine coming, Gabe. Sure didn’t think it’d hit this soon.”

“What’s this you two are saying about a wolf-howl means bad medicine?” Jonah asked.

Sweete looked at Bridger. “We aren’t exactly talking about a real wolf-howl, Jonah.”

“Go ’head and tell the lad,” Bridger prodded.

“It’s downright ghosty, Jonah. A cry of a wolf like what me and Gabe heard few nights back—means only one thing. Spirits. Bad medicine. And a man in his right mind best be getting clear of these parts. Something fearsome always happens after a man hears that ghosty howl. Always has. Always will.”

“Whoa, Shad. You saying that wolf call you two heard some time back meant to tell you those soldiers were starving?”

Sweete shook his head. “I can’t say. Just that as long as we been out here in these mountains and plains, both Gabe and me learned to trust to what the critters tell us. Animal spirits can smell a lot more’n what any of us can.”

“That wolf smelled something bad coming?”

“Like death on the wind,” Sweete replied matter-of-factly. He turned back to Bridger to ask, “What’s doing with Connor?”

The old trapper sighed. “The stiff-necks back in Washington City putting an end to all Injun fighting for a while.”

They both sat upright, but Sweete spoke first. “The devil, you say? What’s the army supposed to do—sit on its thumbs? Dumb idjits, expecting they can talk peace to these war-loving, free-roaming bucks.”

“None of them back east understands the one simple rul—that the only thing a warrior understands is blood and brute force.” Bridger shrugged. “Connor says that bunch of politicians back east is cutting the army down to size now that the war back east is done with.”

“’Bout time, it is too,” grumbled Hook. “Cut it down far enough for this boy to go on back home to his family and farm.”

“Shame of it is, Connor’s been relieved of command and this expedition is done,” Bridger confided. “General’s heading back to Utah.”

“Utah?” Hook asked. “Ain’t that where all the Mormons went to settle?”

Sweete nodded. “Some of these boys marching with Connor been serving out to Camp Douglas in Utah. Hell, the general himself served as military commander out there till the army called him up for this expedition.”

That enviable western post, Camp Douglas, stood on a bluff above the City of the Saints in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. A paradise duty is what the soldiers called the place, for well-groomed plots of grass and flower beds surrounded the huge parade of packed, stream-washed gravel taken from the mountain stream diverted for irrigating the post’s own fields. Connor himself had seen the post raised as his first duty upon arriving in the land of Brigham Young back in October 1862.

While the general publicly told Young and his elders that the post was being built to protect the Overland Stage route and the Pacific Telegraph line from Indian depredations, the Mormon suspicion was that the army had been sent into the heart of their State of Deseret to keep an eye on them. Because most Mormons rankled at the recent bevy of laws Congress had been passing to outlaw polygamy in the states and its territories, Utah declared itself neutral once hostilities broke out between North and South in 1861.

“As far as Patrick E. Connor was concerned, in the Civil War, if you weren’t with him, you were against him,” Bridger went on. “The general took a special interest in keeping a close watch on the Mormons. And the dealings of that Mormon chief, the one called Brigham Young.”

“Shad’s told me about how he sent his private army out to get you of a time, Gabe.”

Bridger grinned, but with a coldness that made a drop of sweat slip down Hook’s spine.

“That’s right. One of these days, Jim Bridger would like to have him a chance to look that puffed-up prairie cock eye to eye and see just what he’s made of without standing behind his hired killers.”

“You never will, Gabe,” said Shad. “Young’s the kind who’ll never be a big enough man to stand on his own.”

Both he and Sweete chuckled when they went on to tell Hook how Connor marched into the land of the Mormons and never once worried about ruffling Mormon feathers. He was the chief political and military officer representing his government in the territory, and as such he took his job serious.

“From the first day his men started building that post up on the bluff, Connor ordered a cannon pointed down the hill at Brigham’s pride and joy—his tabernacle.”

From the walls of Camp Douglas, soldiers could look down not only on the lake itself, but the neatly platted streets and outlying farms of the Mormons where crops flourished and livestock abounded in the narrow valley. In excess of twenty thousand Latter-day Saints called it home, with more arriving every year.

“When the general started to replace his wooden buildings with stone from nearby quarries, just like the stone the Mormons had used for their own tabernacle, Brigham howled!” Sweete continued. “He came stomping up to the camp to protest to Connor that his fort was looking a mite too permanent for his liking, that the soldiers were harassing honest, God-fearing citizens, and that the army’s horses and mules were fouling the city’s water supply.”

“After the way he’s now been treated by the politicians and peace-loving turncoats back east, I’ll bet Connor will damn well welcome getting back to the land of the Saints,” Bridger said.

“Sounds like you got a chip on your shoulder for them Mormons,” Hook said. “Not that I blame you, I s’pose.”

“Me? I ain’t got a problem with a Mormon—if he keeps to himself and doesn’t stomp on what’s mine. It’s when a thieving, yellow-backed bastard like Young sends out a hundred of his Angels to burn my fort and steal my stock, murdering my hired help in the bargain—yeah, that’s when you might say I get a mighty big chip on my shoulder, young’un.”

“It ain’t the Mormons, Jonah,” Sweete went on to explain. “It’s the goddamned leaders they follow, eyes closed, swallowing all that cock and bull about every threat made to their beloved Zion.”

“What’s Zion?”

“What the Mormons call Utah,” Sweete answered.

Bridger scowled. “Zion is what the Mormons call the place that God give ’em special. ’Cause they’re special people. Like Brigham tells it—the rest of us is supposed to stay out of Mormon country.”

Boothog’s cheek burned with the fires of hell where Jubilee Usher had slapped his huge flat hand across it.

“Let that be a warning to you, Major Wiser.” Usher’s voice rocked the limestone cave in the forest where they had taken refuge from a pursuing detachment of soldiers for the past week. The rain fell noisily outside the musty cave. “I never want to catch you talking to the woman again.”

Boothog glanced quickly at the fair-haired woman, her own lips swollen, bruised, and bloody—knowing Jubilee had battered her too. Behind the purple bruises and swollen lids, her eyes were like some frightened animal’s—almost willing to take a chance in trusting the handsome Boothog, to trust anyone and anything rather than continue with the daily abuse she endured from Jubilee.

“If you give me the girl, Colonel,” Wiser declared, using the honorary title Brigham Young had awarded Usher among Young’s Danites.

Usher stared incredulous at his second in command. “You are a crude animal, Major. Here for so long I had considered you above the level of these others. It is they I must watch to be sure the girl remains a virgin until the time we return to the City of the Saints.”

His breath still shallow, the burn at his cheek slowly fading. “You have what you want, Jubilee—gimme the girl. Why’s she so special to make it back there a virgin?”

Usher took one sudden step forward, instantly shutting Wiser up. “She’ll fetch a much handsomer price from a wealthy man looking for a new, young wife.” The big man turned toward the woman and began stroking her long, disheveled hair. She tried to push his hand away at first, but he caught her wrists and held them in one big paw while he went back to stroking her golden curls.

“Besides, Major Wiser. There are plenty of opportunities for you to find yourself a suitable traveling partner. The girl is just that—a girl—and I won’t stand for you copulating with her like some evil, bestial tool of the devil.”

He wanted to scream out that Usher himself was a hypocrite—but Wiser didn’t have the nerve. He could cower any of the rest of their sizable band of freebooters, either with his fists or with his quickness at the handgun he kept resting just forward of his left hip. But try Jubilee Usher? Wiser was a far smarter man than that.

Boothog swallowed his words, mumbling as the damp, fetid smell of this place invaded his nostrils once more.

“What was that you said?” Usher demanded, turning from the woman.

“It just ain’t fair, Colonel.”

Usher went back to stroking the woman’s hair, caressing the side of her face with a single finger. “No one ever said earthly life was fair, Major. It’s just up to men like you and me to make things a little more even for ourselves, and our kind, don’t you see?”

“I want—”

“Find yourself a woman, Mr. Wiser!” Usher snapped, whirling on his subordinate. At his sharp words the woman jerked back, the harsh sound echoing from the low, dripping roof of the dank cave.

“I’ll do that, Jubilee.”

“And you’ll do well to stay away from both the woman and the girl, I mind you.”

“As you order, Colonel.”

“This one,” Jubilee sighed, cupping the woman’s chin in the palm of a huge hand and gripping it hard, “she is a pretty, pretty thing. A fitting gift from God, handed exclusively to one of his most trusted servants, can’t you see? It was His will and His will alone that guided us to that farm, Major. She was waiting for me there.”

Wiser wanted to tell Usher that he was crazy—but he didn’t have the nerve. While Boothog realized he would be nothing more than a common thief and murderer with a devilishly handsome face and a charm that had lifted more petticoats and unbuttoned more bodices in the last three years than most men did in a lifetime—Jubilee Usher was something else altogether.

A drop of cold cave seepage splattered on his forehead.

The big man, the “Colonel,” really believed in what he called his divine mission, believed in his continual revelations from God, believed he alone had been chosen to wage war on any and all Gentiles in the West whom he saw as a threat to his prophet, Brigham Young.

And it was Jubilee Usher’s unshakable insanity that made him the most dangerous animal Boothog Wiser had ever known.

In the last days of summer and the first days of fall, the Shahiyena told of fighting two groups of white men who had attempted to force their way into the Black Hills country and the hunting ground north and west of the sacred Bear Butte. One group corralled its wagons, then offered one of those wagons filled with coffee and sugar and flour to the warriors if the white men were allowed to pass. The Shahiyena had allowed the white men to go on their way, knowing they were heading into Lakota land, where Red Cloud and Young Man Afraid would make things hard on them.

The Bad Face band of Oglalla did make it hard on those stupid white men. And on the two groups of soldiers groping their way around on the Rosebud and the Powder, slowly starving themselves and their horses until the great snowstorm came howling out of the north and left the riverbank littered with the stinking carcasses as soon as it warmed days later, snow melting beneath the incredibly blue skies of Indian summer.

Crazy Horse had to admit he liked this time of year the best. A season of change. It was the last time he and the other young ones had to raid and ride and romp before the coming of winter that would put the high land to sleep for many moons. Not only would the mountains be shrouded in snow, but for weeks at a time, the valleys and bluffs, the ridges and coulees would be choked with it. Rivers and creeks, springs and streams would be frozen.

And he would find himself restless and agitated, prisoner in the winter lodges once more—his spirit yearning for the freedom of the high plains.

Here in the final days of the Moon of Black Calves, the Lakota scouts had returned with news that the great soldier encampment along the Powder had finally turned south and were heading back to the fort called Laramie.

“The time has come,” Crazy Horse said, having waited for his turn to speak to the great council of warriors and advisers. “The soldiers are fleeing with what horses they have left and what wagons they can pull out of our hunting ground. I agree with Man Afraid—we no longer have to keep our warriors here to protect our villages from them. These white men are going home. Let our young men go raiding on the Holy Road one last time before Winter Man seizes the land and chokes us with cold for many moons!”

“My young friend makes sense,” agreed Young Man Afraid. “Our women already have many hides to tan, and the meat is dried for the winter moons. No more do we need to hunt. Our young men itch for one last ride. I say let it be a big one!”

Slowly the wild calls for war and raiding and white blood faded away. And eventually all faces turned toward Red Cloud’s. A proven chief, his face only beginning to seam with the lines of age and wisdom, this undisputed leader of the Bad Face band of Oglalla chose his words well.

“We will wait until the soldiers are three days’ ride south of Pumpkin Buttes.”

Crazy Horse could feel the swelling of excitement growing in the huge council lodge as Red Cloud gave his pronouncement.

“Then our warriors can sweep around the tail end of the soldier column—assured they will not turn and attack our camps as they attacked the Bear’s Arapaho village.”

“They will not,” Crazy Horse declared, watching many of the dark eyes turn his way. “The soldiers are beaten—once and for all. The white man’s army will not dare attack our mighty villages as they destroyed the Arapaho camp. The Bear was not wise, my friends. It is a very careless thing for a man to embrace peace when all around him the countryside is filled with those who hunger for war!”