SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

Ptearing All Before Us Steve Ruthenbeck

A sun so hot it might have been the devil’s eye fried Grant’s face. Sweat turned his blue uniform black, and the yellow gloves tucked into his belt flopped with each step of his horse. Grant couldn’t tell which smelled worse, him or his mount.

Grant tried to take his mind off his discomfort by reading a newspaper. Headlines included: Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for an invention called a telephone; Dakota farmer discovers a dinosaur skeleton in wheat field; Morgan Bulkeley elected President of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs…

Success stories everywhere, so why couldn’t it happen to him?

Envy raised Grant’s temperature further. He removed his hat to mop perspiration from his brow, swallowed the last gulp of tepid water from his canteen and turned back to see how the rest of the party was doing.

Breckenridge slept in his saddle. Stubble covered his cheeks, and dust turned his sunburned skin to the ashen tone of a corpse.

Webster rode behind Breckenridge. Webster had been overweight when he joined the Third Cavalry, but two years of living mainly on beans and hardtack so tough it could double for bricks, if a mason was desperate enough, had turned him into a wisp.

Paulson scanned the horizon for threats. He didn’t bother with surveying the immediate area. If Indians were within killing range, a person wouldn’t see them until the bullets started flying.

Bringing up the rear, a roan stallion plodded along with something like supplication in its manner. It saddle was empty.

“Whoa,” Grant stopped his horse. He tucked the newspaper under his saddle and waved a swarm of buffalo gnats away from his face before their bites could swell his eyelids.

“What is it?” Breckenridge jerked awake. “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Jack?” Grant asked.

Jack was short for Jackrabbit Otter, an Indian scout who helped the white men due to a longstanding feud with the Cheyenne. Grant once saw the man divine the nature of an Indian party from the position of the urine puddles left by their horses (war parties seldom used mares). Such skills were unnecessary in this campaign, however. The Indian trails they had come across were over half a mile wide. The ground looked like a plowed field from all the lodge poles dragged across it. Area wildlife was also stirred up by the multitudes passing through. Grant and his party had come across a mountain lion even though the Bighorn Mountains were fifty miles away. These sights compelled Jackrabbit Otter to sing Amazing Grace, which he had adapted as his new death song.

“He was here a minute ago,” Paulson answered Grant.

Guns came up and eyes scanned tall grass — a high-stakes Indian Button Game. In the Button Game, one team watched another team pass, or pretend to pass, a button back and forth. If they guessed the man who held the button when the passing was finished, they won. Now the button was potential targets and guessing was guns.

Grant calculated. If they were in the middle of an ambush, Jack was as good as dead, and they were next in line. However, if Jack had succumbed to heat exhaustion and fell off his horse, he’d disappear in the tall grass, and they’d have to backtrack to find him.

Breckenridge revealed he was thinking the same thing. “Jack wouldn’t have gotten sunstroke. He was Sioux.”

“What’s on his doggy?” Webster slid his hand along the shoulder of Jack’s horse as it sidled past him. His palm came away red with blood.

“Ride!” Grant shouted.

Grant spurred his horse before the order fully escaped his lips. The wind of passage dried the sweat of his brow. Hooves beating against the soft soil of the Montana plain sounded like fists pummeling a man to death. Grant knew he didn’t dare push the animal long. It’d burn out in this heat — all their horses would — and they’d be overtaken. He figured they were midway between the Tongue and Powder Rivers, which would intersect with the Yellowstone thirty miles ahead. That’s where they hoped to rendezvous with old ‘Hard Ass’ himself. In the meantime, the terrain left little options: nothing but grass to the north, too many Indians to the west and what looked like a rock formation to the east.

“Come on, Cerberus!” Grant urged his horse toward the rock formation, swatting its rump with the flat side of his saber for that extra motivation. Grant turned back to make sure the others followed. They did, riding low in their saddles. Blisters burst on Grant’s thighs as he faced front once more. They had been pushing hard since coming out of Fort Fetterman and harder still since the Indians turned back the rest of the Third at Rosebud Creek. Grant volunteered for leading the detail to warn the Seventh Cavalry. The Seventh had to know that General Crook would no longer be coming up from the south to support them.

Cerberus began to flag. Grant cherished the horse, once punching a man in the jaw for trying to ride him without permission, but he gave the animal no quarter in this race. Cerberus was a fine mount, and the Indians would surely keep him if they killed his master. Hence, Cerberus could rest once they reached their destination.

The rock formation was approximately twenty-five yards in circumference. Its western side was taller than the rest, with sheer walls nearly fifteen feet high. If the four of them could get to the top, they could hold off a large number of Indians. All they’d have to worry about was running out of ammunition, which shouldn’t be a problem. Indians typically didn’t lay siege, and each man carried a Spencer rifle with one hundred and forty rounds and a Colt revolver with thirty.

Grant pulled back on the reins as Cerberus reached the rocks. He flipped his leg over the stallion’s neck, grabbed his rifle and supplies (which were rolled up in a blanket) and clambered up onto the formation. He found cover in a shallow crevasse and aimed his Spencer back along the way he had come. Paulson, Breckenridge and Webster weren’t far behind. They jumped off the horses, gave them slaps on the hindquarters to get them out of the line of fire and joined Grant on the rocks.

“Webster, cover north side!” Grant ordered. “Paulson, east! I’ll watch south! Breckenridge, get up top!”

Grant surveyed the southern expanse through gun sights. No Indians pursued. The grass swayed with the wind, and clouds moved across the sky. A thin haze of alkaline dust made the horizon appear indistinct. The only thing that moved was Grant’s newspaper, which had fallen from his saddle and drifted on a breeze to nowhere.

Maybe they were in the clear, but Grant didn’t believe it. His sweat-soaked clothes felt clammy despite the day’s heat. The feeling in his gut was something he had never experienced before, even though uneasiness was the state of being for a cavalryman. Forty miles a day on beans and hay, wishing one would never come across an Indian, yet half-hoping one would, have it done with and go home.

“Oh hell!” Breckenridge cried from atop the rock formation. His bass voice sounded on the verge of cracking into a tenor.

“What is it?” Grant pressed.

“It’s Jack!”

Grant squinted to the limits of his southern view, trying to make out a distant rider. “Where? Is he being chased?”

“Not out there! Up here! Jack’s up here!”

Confusion replaced Grant’s unease. Jack couldn’t be on top of the rock formation. Wherever Jack was, he was without a horse, and he couldn’t have outraced the four of them at the pace they had set. Grant didn’t doubt Breckenridge saw someone on top of the rock formation, however. Maybe it was a trick; maybe Jack turned turncoat; or maybe another Indian was up there in disguise, playing possum, waiting for Breckenridge to get closer so he could pop up, screaming and swinging his tomahawk…

“Watch my side!” Grant ordered Webster and scrambled up a cleft to the top of the rocks. Grant pulled himself onto the formation’s summit, which was flat as a plate and as wide as two chuck wagons. When he saw what was up there, what felt like a shot of whiskey came up from his stomach, and he forced it back down. Grant had seen bad sights before: men bristling with so many arrows they looked like pin cushions and men mutilated because the Indians believed they’d enter the afterlife maimed. But this was the worst case of such brutality yet. This victim wasn’t just missing eyes or organs. He didn’t have his tendons cut or muscles split. His body was strewn.

“It’s Jack,” Breckenridge said helplessly.

“How can you tell?” Grant asked.

Breckenridge kicked a head out from behind a rock.

“Holy—” Grant averted his gaze upward. He saw a low-flying bird — a heron, perhaps — with puffy clouds high above it. Then the bird disappeared, and Grant closed his eyes, thinking he was close to passing out if he was hallucinating birds like a punch-drunk boxer.

“What’s going on up there?” Paulson called.

Grant bit down on his composure. This excursion was his chance to shine, after all. If successful, an officer’s commission was sure to follow. “You and Webster get up here!” Grant managed.

While looking away from the mess, something else caught Grant’s eye — petroglyphs carved into the rock formation. Indians must have used the site as a camp during their hunting trips, or while passing through on their annual migrations. Many of the tribes were nomadic, only stopping in semi-permanent camps during the winter. This was a huge disadvantage in their fight against the white men because they had no industrial base to support a war. In effect, the Indians retreated even when they won because their supplies were exhausted. Furthermore, the military forces rooting them out knew this and ruthlessly attacked the Indians’ winter encampments, destroying whatever surplus they managed to squirrel away and leaving the Indians weaker with each passing year.

A buffalo, deer, fish, thunderbird, rabbit and wolf — Grant ticked off the animal drawings that made up the petroglyphs. He considered the Indians savages, but he respected their ability to live off the land and hunt the animals that shared the territory with them. The Indians used wildlife for everything from food, shelter and clothing, to boats, tools and, in the case of buffalo chips, fuel for their fires. Grant admired the practicality of it, to get rich off what one could pluck from the earth. Too bad it wasn’t that easy in white-man world. Money and reality were all that counted there. That’s how Grant knew the Indians were doomed. They still believed in birds so large their wings could create thunder. But how could that compete against people who believed in the bottom line?

“Holy Jesus!” Webster exclaimed when he got to the top.

Paulson followed and went white, despite his leather-like tan.

Webster considered the parts of Jack that remained recognizable as human. “But how? The Indians would have had to grab Jack, throw him on a horse and ride over here… all without us seeing.”

“Then that’s what happened.” Grant saw little point in questioning the horsemanship of the Indians. Ever since the Spanish introduced the animals to North America, the Indians had taken advantage of their benefits, which changed their whole culture. Horses enabled Indians to trade with tribes hundreds of miles away, uproot entire camps and hunt with greater efficiency. Grant had seen cavalrymen ride their own horses to death trying to keep up with Indians who didn’t want to be kept up with. “We don’t need to worry about how they did it,” Grant said. “We need to worry about whether or not they’re still out there. We’ll stay here for the night. If any Indians are still around, they’ll have a hard time getting to us.”

“We should keep moving,” Breckenridge disagreed. “We’re just four men, and the Indians got bigger fish to fry with more blue coats coming in from the east and west. The ones that hit us are probably happy they got Jack and already hightailed it out of here.”

“You sure about that?” Grant asked. “What if they get a bee in their bonnet about us? We aren’t going to outride any Indians the shape we’re in.”

“If we stay, more might come,” Breckenridge argued.

“I’m with Breckenridge,” Webster chimed in. “You’ve seen the trails, Grant. Too many redskins around for my taste. We need to link up with the Seventh as soon as we can.”

“Who’s in charge here?” Grant reminded them.

“Jesus wept,” Webster shook his head. “What do you think, Paulson?”

Paulson stood with his back to the group, staring off into the distance. “I think you should stop taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

“And what’ll you do if I don’t?” Webster challenged.

Paulson turned. “Ask you again.”

Webster grinned despite the tension.

Grant watched their easy camaraderie with irritation. He could never find his niche among his fellow soldiers, even though they were an eclectic bunch: book keepers, farm boys, dentists, blacksmiths, salesmen ruined by drink, ivory carvers, Bowery toughs, some out to escape women and some in the army to learn to read and write. Grant knew there had to be others like him, who joined up to get famous, but he never came across them in his travels. Grant had visions of single-handedly defeating a superior force, coming across a mother lode of gold while chasing Indians through mountain passes or rescuing the grateful daughters of homesteaders snatched by raiding parties. Something. Anything. Then he would ride the results to fortune and fame. Instead, all he got was riding here and riding there under the summer sun and winter sky. Plenty of Indians died, to be sure, but what was that worth? Even the market for scalps had dried up. Sadly, promotion had become the best option. Grant figured if he could achieve a high enough rank, maybe he could acquire the status to join a stage show as a trick shooter. Entertainment was the ticket these days.

“You want to know what I think,” Paulson said. “I think we’re worn out, and I think the horses are worn out. We’re in enemy territory, but we’re in a defensible position in enemy territory with the bulk of the Indians to the east and heading north by all signs. We have two days to link up with the Seventh at a location that’s a day’s ride away. I think we should take an hour or two to collect ourselves. Then we can reevaluate riding on at dusk.” He turned to Grant, his face inscrutable. “What do you think?”

Grant knew Paulson was finding a middle ground to keep the peace. Still, it wouldn’t do to weaken one’s authority by acknowledging it.

“We need to round up the horses,” Grant ordered. The animals had wandered a short distance away to graze on wild alfalfa. Grant knew if he sent Breckenridge and Webster to wrangle their mounts, they’d talk about him behind his back. “Paulson and Breckenridge, you got the duty. Webster and I will take care of Jack and keep a lookout.”

“Fair enough.” Paulson led Breckenridge down the rocks.

Grant set about tossing pieces of Jack over the side. The summit wouldn’t be so bad if they could get rid of the larger chunks. The blood would quickly dry up in the heat. Grant knew Webster watched him and measured him, so he showed no ill effects even as his stomach churned. He tried to think of the parts as nothing more than firewood. That helped a little. He pointed out a leg.

“You want to get that, Webster?”

“I ain’t touching it.”

“Afraid you’ll get kicked?”

The lines of Webster’s face grew taut as the indignation of having his manhood insulted outweighed his disgust. He picked up Jack’s leg and threw it over the side. He wiped his hands on the seat of his pants while he watched flies pursue the discarded limb.

“It looks like the back of a hospital tent up here,” Webster spat.

Grant found the comparison apt. Doctors loved their amputations. Amputations for frost-bite; amputations for gunshot wounds; amputations for fractures; and amputations for dislocations. Grant remembered one man getting shot in the hip during a skirmish. The company had to transport him one hundred miles back to civilization. In agony, the man begged to be killed the whole way, only to end up getting his wish when the surgeon, unsurprisingly, treated him with an amputation.

Webster’s next observation came out toneless and sudden.“Breckenridge is gone.”

Grant straightened up. “What are you talking about?”

Webster pointed at the grass below. There, Paulson — and nobody but Paulson — led the horses to the base of the stones.

“Where’s Breckenridge?” Grant yelled.

“Behind—” Paulson turned and stopped when he saw that he was alone. He drew his pistol and tried to look everywhere at once.

Grant’s bad feeling returned. “Get those horses squared away!” Without their mounts, their position would become even more precarious. Grant rushed down from the summit. The east end of the rock formation ended in a pincher shape. There, Grant waited for Paulson to lead the horses into this natural corral and secure their reins to outcroppings.

Webster joined them. “Breckenridge!” he called.

“Quiet!” Grant snapped. “Can’t you see the man’s gone?”

“If we wouldn’t have stopped, he wouldn’t be gone!” Webster glared, the line of his shoulders bull-like.

“Get down, both of you!” Paulson growled. “I’m going to fire into the grass. If anything pops up, you guys hit it. Ready?”

Grant and Webster gave grudging assent.

Paulson’s gunshots blasted across the prairie. The horses perked up at the noise but were too used to gunfire to panic. No Indians revealed themselves. The grass continued to sway. Cloud shadows chased each other across distant hills, and sweat dripped from the brows of the three men, the only precipitation the rocks had seen in sometime. The silence became as stifling as a muddy sheet. The Indians wouldn’t have to speak, Grant knew. Despite the many different tribes of the plains, all of them shared a common sign language. Plus, Grant heard tales of how much Indians valued silence anyway. If Cheyenne babies cried once their needs were met, the mothers would hang them on a bush, alone, until they cried themselves out. The babies quickly learned that excess noise accomplished nothing.

Webster shouted, “What are you waiting for, you chicken shits?” His eyes roved over the grass like drops of water across a hot skillet.

Paulson pulled fresh cartridges from a pouch and pushed them into his rifle. “They’re waiting for us to crack, which you’re doing.”

Webster’s tongue stopped flapping, but his cheeks started twitching.

“They can’t get to us without crossing open ground,” Paulson reminded him. “If there were enough to take us in a stand-up fight, they would have charged already. Understand?”

Webster nodded, controlling his nerves with a shaky breath.

“I want you up top,” Paulson said. “Gary Owen, right?”

A rueful smirk crossed Webster’s features at the mention of the cavalry’s anthem. “We are the boys who take delight, in smashing limerick lamps at night, and through the streets like sportsters fight, tearing all before us,” Webster recited a verse. He rose to his feet and headed for the summit in a crouch. “Just don’t leave without me…”

Grant admired Paulson’s tact even as he resented Paulson for usurping his command. Now was not the time to seek retribution, however. To everything there was a season, and Grant could practice tact, as well. “Why haven’t the Indians shot at us? You think they don’t have guns?”

“They all have guns,” Paulson said. His jaw muscles tightened and released. “We take their hunting grounds, and the Indian Bureau gives them guns so they can better hunt the land they got left. Then we take that land, too, and they kill us with the guns we gave them.”

“You sound like a sympathizer.”

Paulson shook his head. “The Indians get cheated on what they’re promised, and traders and political hacks make profits. Accepting the fact they fight back isn’t sympathy. It’s recognizing human nature.”

“Some say Indians aren’t human.”

“Hell,” Paulson scoffed. “A man’s a man.”

Above, Webster continued to sing Gary Owen to himself.

“Instead of spa, we’ll drink brown ale, and pay the reckoning on the nail, no man for debt shall go to jail—”

The song broke off into a scream.

“Webster!” Paulson scrambled for the rock formation’s summit.

Grant didn’t want to expose himself, but if the Indians were up top, he was as good as dead. Fighting offered the best chance to survive whether he liked it or not. He followed Paulson. Webster’s screams, meanwhile, took on an odd dwindling quality. Grant started up the cleft, pebbles from Paulson’s assent bouncing off his hat. He kept his finger off his rifle’s trigger so he didn’t accidentally shoot himself. That wouldn’t improve his odds any. Grant reached the summit at Paulson’s heels.

The top of the rock formation stood deserted.

Webster may as well have disappeared into thin air.

“Where the hell is he?” Incredulous, Grant rushed to the edge of the rock formation and peeked over the side. He had the sudden impression of an Indian lurking below with an arrow notched and pointed straight up, ready to perforate his skull from chin to crown.

“Anything?” Paulson asked.

“Nothing,” Grant replied. The imagined Indian was gone, a mirage born of anxiety. Only bits of Jack lay below, now black with flies. Grant turned to Paulson. “How could they have gotten up these walls? They’re sheer. And how’d they get Webster down so fast?”

Paulson’s face creased in thought, drawing his mouth into a grimace. “I don’t know, but it’ll be dark soon. We stay up here, back-to-back.”

The sun set; the stain of night spread across the sky, and a quarter moon rose to hold sway over all. The prairie took on an eldritch cast. It might have been a sea and the rock formation an island. Stars glittered indifferently overhead. Despite the heat of the day, the night took on a surprising chill that pushed comfort just beyond reach. The men knew cold. On some winter campaigns, they’d awake frozen to the ground. That didn’t make this night any more bearable, however. Cold always had teeth.

Grant and Paulson sat cross-legged, wrapped in Grant’s blanket. They held their rifles across their knees and their pistols in their hands. Grant wondered if the Indians would start lobbing arrows at them, but such a thing did not occur. They saw nothing moving in the dim moonlight, and the only sound was the wind.

Grant thought about Jack’s remains. Had Breckenridge and Webster been reduced to the same? One minute men, the next minute parts…

Grant grew thirstier and regretted finishing his canteen earlier that day. Remembering the sensation of gulping it empty increased his craving. One wasn’t supposed to gulp water, of course. A cavalry health pamphlet recommended swishing and spitting only. Apparently, one could die from drinking too much on the trail. Grant didn’t believe it, however. He had seen men follow that advice, taking along only a little water to stave off temptation, and ending up opening veins in their own arms to wet parched lips. Grant wasn’t to that point yet, but the desire to go down to the horses and grab a canteen was maddening. Such a thing would be foolhardy, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about that itch in the back of his throat. He tried to concentrate on something else, but the only other thing that filled his thoughts was finding Jack.

“If the afterlife’s real,” Grant asked, trying to keep his tone light. “You think Jack went into it cut up?”

“People have perfect bodies in heaven,” Paulson said. “But even if people did go to heaven maimed, that’s still better than hell.”

Granted shrugged. “I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I believe this is all there is, so you better get while you can.”

“There’s a Bible verse for that outlook. ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul?’”

Grant waved a dismissive hand.

“You can be wrong a long time, and God will give you chances to wise up,” Paulson said. “It’s not smart to let those chances run out.”

“Neither is believing in things that aren’t real—”

“Quiet!” Paulson cut Grant off. “You hear that?”

Before Grant could respond, Paulson crawled to the edge of the rock formation. Suddenly sweating, Grant followed with his heart thudding in his ears. If he believed in anything, he might have prayed to keep hearing it thud. He crept up beside Paulson and looked out into the murk. Now, stealthy sound reached his ears as a shape moved through the taller grass thirty yards away. Neither Grant nor Paulson could make out details, but the shape appeared to be of human height.

Paulson counted to three, and flames flashed from their Spencers. The shape collapsed as gun blasts dwindled to echoes.

“We got him!” Grant exclaimed.

An ungodly cry split the night, and the noise raised the hair on the back of Grant’s neck. He recognized the sound but couldn’t immediately place it. Surely, it was too inhuman to come from a man, and then Grant realized what the cry was and why it was familiar. Back at Fort Fetterman, two soldiers decided to have a horse race the month before. They took off outside the camp in a burst of hoof beats. A short distance later, one of the horses stepped in a gopher hole and broke its leg…

“It’s Jack’s horse!” Paulson beat Grant to the realization. The animal must have continued to plod along after the rest of them took off for the rock formation. It took all day to cover the distance, perhaps stopping to graze, but now it had finally caught up to them.

The horse continued to scream.

“Damn it!” Grant cursed. He put his rifle back to his shoulder and could just make out the patch of thrashing grass in the moonlight. He emptied the rest of his rounds into the area, and the horse fell silent.

Both men dozed off sometime after the incident with Jack’s mount.

Grant dreamed of the Button Game. He played by himself within a cloud. Every time he opened his hand it contained a wooden button with a petroglyph animal carved into it: a buffalo, a deer, a fish, a thunderbird, a rabbit, and a wolf. Grant placed them into groups, but he kept rearranging them because the groups didn’t fit together. The buffalo, deer, rabbit, and wolf seemed to match because they all had four legs, but that left the fish and the thunderbird by themselves. The fish lived in the sea. The thunderbird wasn’t real. Grant tried again. He put the deer, fish and rabbit together because they weren’t a danger to man, but that left the buffalo and wolf together and the thunderbird alone once more. Grant found himself growing frustrated with the strange logic of dreams. The carvings had to fit together. Next, he put the buffalo, deer, fish, rabbit and wolf together. That felt right at least. Shrugging, Grant put the thunderbird with them, which felt exactly right. It wasn’t a satisfying feeling, however. It frightened him.

When Grant awoke, the sun was an hour into the sky. He rubbed his face and grimaced at the gummy slime that had collected at the corners of his mouth. Thirst burned in his throat and turning around to check on Paulson awoke a deep ache in his back.

Paulson was gone.

Grant wobbled to his feet, his pistol drawn and his hand on his saber.

“Relax. I’m over here.”

Grant spun on newborn-colt legs. Paulson sat with his feet dangling into the cleft that descended from the rock formation’s summit.

“I was waiting for you to wake up,” Paulson said. “I’m going down to get food and water. You all right to cover me?”

Grant tried to speak, but his throat was too dry. He nodded instead.

“Back in a minute.” Paulson lowered himself out of sight.

Grant holstered his pistol. His mouth started to water at the thought of food, which loosened his shriveled tongue. He willed Paulson to be quick. The idea of gulping from a canteen was joy, peace and celestial choirs. He scanned the surrounding area and saw no signs of danger. The sun’s morning light was tranquil rather than torture. The horses still stood in their makeshift corral, waiting. The whole world stood there, waiting.

It’s going to be all right, Grant told himself.

They could reach the Yellowstone by dusk, and if they made it through the night, they could make it through the day. Below, Paulson reached the horses. He moved with quick, furtive movements, grabbed his canteen and food pouch and heading back the way he had come.

Grant kept his eyes peeled for the enemy, and movement arrested his attention. It took him a moment to realize what he saw — thirty yards away, black feathers flitted above the surface of the grass.

Feathers! Headdresses! Indians!

Grant raised his rifle and stopped himself from pulling the trigger.

It wasn’t Indians. Rather, buzzards fed on Jack’s horse. Faint sounds of tearing flesh reached Grant’s ears. A familiar dizziness spiraled up from the base of Grant’s skull, like when they discovered Jack, and he looked up into the sky and saw a bird disappear…

A buzzard hopped out of the tallest grass. Its legs, bald head and beady eyes appeared more reptilian than avian. It ruffled its feathers and shook a piece of dangling meat from its beak. It cocked its head, as if hearing something. A moment later it exploded into the air with a squawk that sounded afraid. Five of its mates followed.

Just like that, gone.

Jack gone…Breckenridge gone…Webster gone…

Torn meat on a beak…

Jack was torn apart…

Compelled by instinct, a subconscious urge and the fear of the buzzards, Grant looked up and realized why the thunderbird button of his dream belonged with the “real” animals. The bird he had seen flying through the air when they discovered Jack was no hallucination. It only appeared to fly low due to its huge size. The bird was actually high enough to fly behind the clouds, making it look like it disappeared.

Now the thunderbird dove for Grant, a creature with a wingspan of at least twenty-five feet — white, leathery and with a tail. A horn grew out of the back of the creature’s skull. The wind whistled over its wings as they pivoted at muscular shoulder joints, and an overpowering smell of carrion and snake brought tears to Grant’s eyes.

“Paulson—!”

The thunderbird snatched Grant’s arm in a reptilian talon, lifting him airborne. The sun shone through its wings, revealing bony structures. A broken-off arrow stuck out of the creature’s ribs, showing it had been a man eater for some time. The bird cocked its head and measured Grant with a slit-pupil gaze. Its beak clicked open and shut hungrily.

“No!” Grant shrieked, imagining that beak picking him apart the way it had Jack, Breckenridge and Webster.

Gunshots crashed from below, and Grant felt the thunderbird shudder as bullets slammed into its flesh.

Earth and sky switched places.

Grant’s stomach flip-flopped.

Sight became a spinning blur.

Crashing impact.

Bouncing off rubbery flesh.

Bitter mouthful of grass.

Crawling.

Paulson ran toward Grant and drew his revolver.

Wounded and grounded, the thunderbird still continued the hunt. It folded its wings and scurried after Grant. Six-inch talons perforated the soil. A cross between a roar and a squawk emitted from its throat, and its beak went before it like a knight’s lance.

“Look out!” Paulson cried and fired his Colt.

Blood burst from the thunderbird’s breast, and a third nostril appeared in its beak.

Grant tried to run, but his feet entangled. He screamed as the thunderbird lunged toward him like an egret going after a fish.

Paulson grabbed Grant by his collar and yanked.

The thunderbird stabbed the ground between Grant’s legs. Its beak clacked like a pair of two-by-fours slammed together.

Gun empty, Paulson drew the saber from Grant’s belt.

Giant chicken feet stomped on either side of Grant’s face. His vision was blocked as the bird clambered over him, and vile skin rubbed against his face. Amid the madness and the muffling, the creature screeched and went limp. Grant became soaked as the creature’s bowels let go.

Shrieking, Grant wrestled out from underneath the acrid wet and stink. Free, he snatched up handfuls of grass and rubbed his eyes and nose clear. He peeled off his jacket and flung it far from him.

The thunderbird was dead, Grant saw, and Paulson would soon be joining it. Paulson had managed to stab the saber through the creature’s throat, but it had put its beak through his chest. It stuck out of Paulson’s back, red with blood. Paulson’s eyes were half-lidded with the pain.

Grant saw there was nothing he could do for the man, so his gaze slid to the thunderbird. Part of him refused to accept it, but seeing was believing. He did one better than the farmer in the newspaper, and if he was a college professor, he’d be wiping egg from his face. To think, what academics called extinct, Indians called by name.

And then it fell into place for Grant. His opportunity for fame and fortune had finally, literally, dropped out of the sky.

What would a university pay for such a specimen? Better yet, what would regular people pay to see such a thing?

A vision of a signboard swam into Grant’s skull.

See Jonathon Grant’s Terrifying Thunderbird! $1!

Even the best stageshow couldn’t compete with that…

“You’ll never be able to carry it whole,” Paulson whispered. “Slow you down too much. Not good in this territory.”

Grant was taken aback at how Paulson had divined his thoughts.

“I’ll take my chances,” Grant said.

Paulson coughed, and blood wet his lips. “No, I don’t think you will…” Then he slumped forward, silent.

Grant grabbed Paulson’s canteen. The man would not need it anymore. He drank until his thirst was slacked. Then Grant grabbed the saber sticking out of the Thunderbird.

He had a lot of work to do…

Grant rode all day with the carcass of the thunderbird split among the horses of Paulson, Webster and Breckenridge. He pushed the animals as hard as he could, sometimes seeing ominous dust clouds on the horizon and crossing too many fresh Indian trails. It wouldn’t do to get killed now, not when he was on his way into the history books. Buttons cascaded through Grant’s mind. No petroglyph animals this time, just dollar signs.

Paulson’s words came back to Grant.

What does it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul?

Grant rubbed his arm where the Thunderbird had snatched him. The flesh had turned an ugly purple. If one looked into the bruise long enough, it almost looked like it contained an answer to that question. Grant looked away before he could make it out. Maybe such questions would be relevant in the future, but not for a long, long time.

Eventually, Grant topped a hill and spotted sanctuary. The column of horse soldiers was long and formidable. Plus, such troopers were an eclectic bunch. Surely, a taxidermist was among their number…

Smiling, Grant sang a verse of his own from Gary Owen.

“In the fighting Seventh’s the place for me; it’s the cream of the cavalry; no other regiment can ever claim; its pride, honor, glory and undying fame…”

Finishing the song, Grant kicked his spurs, and Cerberus carried him into the midst of the Seventh Cavalry — as General George Armstrong Custer led them all toward Little Bighorn…