Winter Rain

21

Moon of Cherries Blackening 1869

“YOUR 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.

“Sergeant Major: move out at a trot!”

Joseph H. Maynard turned in the saddle to bellow his command. “Center-guide! Column of fours—at a trot. For-rad!”

Prancing away with the rest, Sweete noticed that the dry, hot wind had picked up suddenly, blowing out of the west, born out of the front range of the Rockies far, far away. With a glance toward the high mountains, how he wished he were there among its beckoning blue spruce and quaky. Then he found his thoughts yanked brutally back as the clatter of those hooves and the squeak of leather, the rattle of bit chains, went unheard in that unsuspecting village of Dog Soldiers. In a matter of heartbeats, the three flying lance points had closed to a thousand yards … and still no sign they had been discovered by the Cheyenne.

In the next moment there appeared ahead of Shad a young horseman atop a white pony, standing guard among the distant herd grazing lazily on the grassy bench. As if shot, the Indian reined about abruptly, racing headlong for the village, hair flying, down the long slope into the valley.

Sweete turned his head, trying to listen to the loud voices swirling around Carr and Cody at the point of the charge, hearing only shouts and curses—unable to understand anything for the noisy charge of the three hundred. One thing was certain as sun to the old plainsman: the soldiers intended to reach the village before that lone herder could warn those in camp.

Carr hollered out again, near standing in the stirrups, flinging his command behind him at his bugler.

John Uhlman jammed the scuffed and dented trumpet to his parched lips as the entire command loped onward toward the village. But no call came forth.

Up and down the front men began hollering, adding to the confusion, as bugler Uhlman tried again to blow his charge. Then Quartermaster Edward M. Hayes shot up beside Uhlman and yanked the horn from the bugler’s hand as their mounts jostled.

Hayes brought the bugle to his mouth and blew the soul-stirring notes of Carr’s charge.

Up and down the entire line throats burst enthusiastically, raising their raucous cheer as hundreds of Spencer carbines came up and the jaded horses were ordered to the gallop. Although they had been driven far beyond endurance and the call of duty across the last four days, those gallant animals answered the brass-mounted spurs for this one last dash.

Without thinking, Quartermaster Hayes flung the bugle to the ground and pulled his pistol free.

Shad watched a clearly dismayed John Uhlman glance behind him at that trampled tin horn lying discarded among the grass and cactus. Then he too was swept along by something now out of control.

Sweete felt no different: caught up in this, swept up and charging down on a camp of his wife’s own people. Snared in something that was no longer in his control. Something he no longer understood. Perhaps, he thought, he was every bit as bewildered and as frightened as the young bugler.

Not knowing where this day would find him. And at what cost.

“People are coming!”

At the distant warning cry, High-Backed Bull shaded his eyes with one hand against the sun risen now to its zenith. Others in the camp stood or came to stop what they were doing, right where they were standing. Children still played, a few dogs barked. No one seemed particularly alarmed.

Two nights before, they had camped beside the upper reaches of a stream the Shahiyena called Cherry Creek. Yesterday afternoon Tail Bull and White Horse had led them to this place of the springs that gurgled forth from beneath the White Butte.

Five summers gone Big Wolf and his family had been killed by soldiers a stone’s throw from this spot.

Bull turned and looked across White Butte Creek, which ran through camp in a southeasterly direction. He found Tall Bull and Two Crows standing beside the chief’s lodge, peering into the distance without apparent alarm. They wanted the village to wait and rest here for two days before crossing the river and heading north to the rock formation where years before, at the foot of what the white man called Court House Rock, they had starved the Shaved-Heads they met there in battle.

This was no cause for excitement—perhaps. Nearby, others were saying there should be no alarm. After all, hunters were out in the countryside looking for buffalo. Others had gone in search of antelope. Surely no enemy could surprise this village of proven warriors.

“There! On the hills!”

Many were the ones now bursting from their lodges in curiosity. Even the children were pointing at the distant figures loping back and forth on far slopes: horsemen with long hair waving on the hot, dry wind, brandishing rifles aloft. A sign of greeting.

Visitors?

“Perhaps these are Pawnee Killer’s Lakotas,” someone suggested.

“Yes,” another agreed loudly. “So much shooting—they must have been successful in their hunt!”

Bull squinted into the bright light once more, attempting to make sense out of the throbbing forms on horseback coming out of the north.

Then his mouth went dry and his heart went cold. The first bullets whined into camp, striking meat racks, splintering lodgepoles, crying overhead in warning.

The Shaved-Heads had come—returned to savor the sweet taste of victory in their mouths!

As two wide phalanxes of dust-shrouded pony soldiers broke over the top of the hills, Bull whirled.

Porcupine was running toward him shouting, “Aiyeee! Pony soldiers come behind the Pawnee!”

Some of the Shahiyena already lay bleeding underfoot of the others who scattered in panic, sweeping up children, gathering an armload of possessions before fleeing in the wake of the white soldiers. Hearing the smack of lead against flesh like the slap of his hand against wet rawhide, Bull saw one woman’s lower jaw disappear in a blinding corona of crimson. She sank to the ground, gurgling for but a moment until her chest heaved no more.

Now they were surrounded on three sides, coming in from the east and west as well as the north, the hooves of their iron-shod horses hammering the baked, sere earth.

“There!” he shouted, pointing to the south, immediately joined by other young warriors who had also taken up their arms.

They yanked, pulled, prodded, dragged the old and young, growled at the rest to hurry them along. To the south! It was the only direction of escape left them.

In that frightening confusion a few ponies reared, and some went down screaming as bullets smacked into them. A few women struggled to control what animals were in camp. Because most horses were out grazing with the herd, those Shahiyena who fled the carnage did so on foot—clutching a young one beneath an arm, perhaps snatching up a weapon or a blanket before darting through the hellish smoke and dust, heading for places of safety and hiding in the sandy bluffs hard by the river.

The old shamans had spelled doom for the band! Trusting as they did to the blood congealing at the bottom of a badger carcass! Yet—in the end it was Tall Bull who had decided to believe the old medicine men.

Porcupine was already hollering for the warriors to follow him into the teeth of the charge, there to make a stand only as long as it would take to clear the camp. Then they would escape.

Until then, their weapons and their brown bodies were all that stood between the white pony soldiers and this camp of fleeing women, children, and old ones.

A streak of blond hair and a swirl of greasy, smoke-stained cloth swept past the young warrior. It meant one of the white women had escaped and was fleeing toward the soldiers.

Bull wanted to find Tall Bull—to see where he himself had run to escape this destruction he and the old ones had brought down on this warrior band. Angrily Bull rubbed the grit from his eyes and strained into the yellow dust that stung his mouth and nose. Then he found the war chief beside his lodge, the white woman suspended at the end of his brown arm by her blond hair. Her hands gripped his wrist, her face turned upward, imploring Tall Bull. Raised in his other hand was a silver-bladed tomahawk.

Her mouth opened, a huge black hole in her face, as the woman screamed inhumanly.

“Kill her!” Bull screamed at the chief through the din of rifle fire and war cries. “Kill the white woman!”

Without hesitation Tall Bull hurled the tomahawk downward into the woman’s face.

“Yes! Yes!” cried the young warrior as he watched the blood and gore splatter the war chief.

Her body convulsed, falling to the side, where it trembled for a moment. Then Tall Bull was gone.

He left unaware that the young warrior came to stand over the woman’s splattered body. To sure down at her, stare at that crimson and gore, feeling the flush of overwhelming triumph wash through him.