Massacre of Eagles

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Bismarck

As Ebersole had suspected, Billy Taylor had overheard the conversation that told him that Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill were going to the Standing Rock Agency to talk to Sitting Bull.

“Talk to Sitting Bull? What the hell do they want to talk to that Redskin for?” Ebersole asked.

“I don’t know,” Taylor replied. “I never heard the why of it, just the doin’ of it.”

“Then we need to get there,” Ebersole said.

“How we goin’ to do that?” Dewey asked. “We didn’t get no money at all from the train holdup.”

“We was holdin’ up the wrong thing,” Ebersole said. “What we need to do is hold us up a bank.”

“A bank? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Ebersole said. “Banks have more money, and they don’t move.”

“Have you took a good look at the bank here?” Hawkins asked. “It’s damn near like a fort.”

“We ain’t goin’ to hold up the bank here,” Ebersole said. “We’re goin’ to hold up the bank in Tyson.”

“Tyson? Where the hell is that? I ain’t never even heard of it.”

“It’s a little town ’bout thirty miles south of the railroad track.”

Ebersole and the others rode into Tyson just after dark. The town consisted of a single street lined on both sides by squat, unpainted small houses. High above the little town stars winked brightly, while over a distant mesa the waxing moon hung like a large, silver wheel.

“What do you say we get a drink?” Ebersole suggested.

Tying off their horses, the five men went into the only building in town that was showing any light. There were two small windows and a door that was open onto the night. There was no sign suggesting that it was a saloon, but because of the light and the sound and the smell of whiskey and beer, they knew what it was.

There were only two tables in the saloon, and the bar. Four men were sitting at one of the tables, playing a game of cards. Nobody was at the other table, nor was anyone at the bar except for the bartender. Everyone looked up as the five men came in, because they more than doubled the number of customers in the place.

The barkeep slid down the bar toward them.

“What can I get you gents?”

“Whiskey,” Ebersole said. “Leave the bottle.”

“What kind?”

“The cheapest. We want to get drunk, not give a party.”

The bartender took a bottle from beneath the counter. There was no label on the bottle and the color was dingy and cloudy. He put five glasses alongside the bottle, then pulled the cork for them.

“There it is,” he said.

Ebersole poured himself a glass, then took a swallow. He immediately had a coughing fit, and almost gagged. He spit it out and frowned at his glass.

“Damn!” he said. “This tastes like horse piss.”

“We just put in a little for flavor,” the bartender said with a smile.

“What?” Ebersole shouted angrily.

“Take it easy, friend, I was just foolin’ with you. You said you wanted the cheapest whiskey, and that’s what you got. There ain’t no horse piss in it. That’s pure stuff. I don’t even use a rusty nail for color and flavor.”

Taylor took a smaller swallow. He grimaced, but he got it down. Dewey had no problem with it at all.

“How the hell can you drink that?” Ebersole asked.

“It’s all in the way you drink it,” Dewey explained. “This here whiskey can’t be drunk down real fast. You got to sort of sip it.”

Ebersole tried again, and this time he, too, managed to keep it down.

“You boys just passin’ through?” the bartender asked.

“Ain’t none of your business what we’re doin’,” Ebersole said. “Only thing you got to do is serve us whiskey when we ask.”

“I was just tryin’ to be friendly,” the bartender replied.

Ebersole took in the other four men with him, with a gesture of his hand. “I got all the friends I need,” he said.

“I see that you do,” the bartender said, somewhat chagrined by the surly response.

After a few more drinks—they were limited by the amount of money they had—Ebersole and the others left the saloon. Without being too obvious, they checked out the bank, then rode on out of town to find a place to camp out for the night.

It was nearly noon of the next day when the five men rode back into town. Even though it was mid-day, the town was quiet, and festering under the sun. A few people were sitting or standing in the shade of the porch overhangs. A game of checkers was being played by two old men, and half a dozen onlookers were following the game intently. One or two looked up as Ebersole and the others rode by, their horses’ hooves clumping hollowly on the hard-packed earth of the street.

A shopkeeper came through the front door of his shop and began sweeping vigorously with a straw broom. The broom raised a lot of dust and pushed a sleeping dog off the porch, but even before the man went back inside, the dog had reclaimed its position in the shade, curled comfortably around itself, and was asleep again.

Peters and Taylor stayed outside the bank, holding the reins of the horses, as Ebersole, Hawkins, and Dewey went inside. There were no customers in the bank; just one teller. He looked up at them with a smile as they came in, then, realizing that he didn’t know any of them, instinctively knew that this wasn’t going to be good.

“You know what we are here for, don’t you, Mister?” Ebersole asked.

The bank teller nodded.

“Let’s have all the money you’ve got.”

“We don’t have much,” the teller said. “This is a very small town and a very small bank.”

“How much do you have?”

“One thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six dollars,” the teller said.

Ebersole smiled. “Well ain’t that just fine, now, because that’s just exactly how much money we wanted,” he said.

As the bank teller was handing the money over to Ebersole, two men came into the bank.

“I told Joe, ‘son, you’ve just learned a lesson. Never kick a horse apple on a hot day,’” one of them was saying.

The other man laughed, then both of them stopped, realizing what they had walked in on.

“What the hell is going on here?” the first man asked.

“I believe they’re robbin’ the bank,” the second said.

“You ain’t gettin’ my money!” the first man said, going for his gun.

Dewey, Taylor, and Hawkins turned their pistols on the two men and began shooting. Both of the customers went down before they could even clear leather.

“You shot Mr. Simmons!” the bank teller shouted.

“And we’re goin’ to shoot you if you don’t hurry up,” Ebersole said with a growl.

With his hands shaking so that he could barely control them, the teller dropped the rest of the money into the sack Ebersole was holding.

“That’s it,” he said. “That’s all the money we’ve got.”

Peters was holding the horses for them out front when the robbers left the bank.

“What happened? What was the shootin’?”

“Don’t worry about it, let’s just get out of here,” Ebersole said.

As they started down the street at a full gallop, the bank teller came out the front door.

“Bank holdup!” he shouted. He pointed at the galloping riders. “They kilt Mr. Abbott and Mr. Nash!”

A storekeeper ran out onto the front porch of his store and fired a shotgun at them, but missed. Ebersole returned fire and also missed, but his bullet crashed through a window and killed a young girl who was inside the store.

They made it out of town without any further incident, and because the town was too small for a marshal, there was no posse formed to pursue them. Also, because the town was not serviced by telegraph wires, they knew that they would be able to be well in the clear before any news of the robbery got out.

At Fort Yates they learned that Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody had gone on to Miles City, Montana Territory. Now, with enough money to buy train tickets, they put their horses on a special stock car, and went on to Miles City.

“And who did you say you was?” the sergeant at the gate of Fort Keogh asked when Ebersole and the four men with him showed up.

“The name is Brown,” Ebersole lied. “Jim Brown. And we have a message for Falcon MacCallister. It’s real important we get it to him.”

“Mr. MacCallister and the party with him have already left,” the gate sergeant said. “They took the Queen of the West south on the Tongue River. I expect they’re near ’bout to Sheridan by now.”

“Sheridan? Where is that?”

“That’s a settlement in the north part of Wyoming. Fact is, it is damn near the only settlement in north Wyoming.”

“How do we get there?” Ebersole asked.

“Same way MacCallister got there, I reckon,” the sergeant said. “You are goin’ to have to take a boat.”

“Yes, sir, we have two boats plying the river,” the agent at the Montana and Wyoming Steamboat Navigation Company said. “They are fast, light-draft boats, especially built for operating on the Tongue River.”

“You got ’ny idea when the next boat will go?”

“We got two boats makin’ the run, takes two weeks to make the run so they’re leavin’ about a week apart. The Queen of the West is headin’ south now, and I reckon tomorrow or the next day it will meet up with the North Mist that’ll be comin’ back.”

“So when can we get on that North Mist goin’ south?” Ebersole asked.

“I expect it’ll be here around Monday, so it’ll probably leave on Tuesday,” the agent said.

“What about our horses? Can it take our horses?”

The agent shook his head. “Afraid not. It’ll take your saddles and tack, but not the horses.”

“What good will our saddles be without horses?” Ebersole asked.

“You can board your horses here for twenty-five cents a day. Or, you can sell ’em to the army back at the fort.”

“The army will buy horses?”

“Oh, yes sir, as long as they are sound. The army always needs horses. They pay top dollar for them, too.”

“I don’t want to sell my horse,” Dewey said.

“You got two choices, Dewey,” Ebersole said. “You can sell your horse and come with us, or you can keep your horse and stay here.”

“We brought our horses here on the train,” Dewey said. “How come we can’t take ’em with us on the boat?”

“Because there are no facilities for horses on the boat,” the ticket agent said.

“What will it be, Dewey?” Hawkins asked.

“I’ll sell my horse,” Dewey agreed.

Renegade camp of Mean to His Horses

“You are Crow,” Mean to His Horses said, the expression in his voice showing his utter contempt for anyone of the Crow nation. “You were with Custer in the fight at Greasy Grass.”

“We weren’t with Custer. We were too young,” Running Elk said.

“And now we want to join our brothers, the Cheyenne, to fight against the white man,” White Bull said.

“Why do you turn now against your masters?” Mean to His Horses asked.

“They are not my masters,” White Bull said emphatically.

“Nor are they mine,” Running Elk said. “They have killed our people, for no reason.”

“And now your blood runs hot and you want to kill them,” Mean to His Horses responded. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“Yes,” White Bull said.

“Why should I trust the Crow?”

“Have you not talked with the spirits?” Running Elk asked. “Have they not told you that we are all brothers? Have they not told you that the white man will be driven away, and the land that they took will be ours?”

Mean to His Horses stared at the two young Crow Indians before him for a long moment, then he nodded.

“You may stay,” he said.

“Eiiiee yah, yah, yah!” White Bull shouted in excitement.

Although Mean to His Horses had accepted Running Elk and White Bull into his camp, when he went out on his first raid after their arrival, he ordered them to stay behind.

White Bull and Running Elk watched the raiding party ride off, angry that they had not been included.

“Why should we be left behind?” White Bull asked.

“Perhaps we must earn his trust,” Running Elk said.

“Or perhaps we should prove ourselves to him.”

“How can we prove ourselves if we are not allowed to go with him?”

“I will find a way. You will see.”