Black Sun: The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (The Plainsmen Series) Page 5

  “Looks like it’s come time we’re gonna find out what this Major Carr is made of,” Seamus said, slapping his big hand into Stillwell’s. “See you come evening camp, Jack.”

  * * *

  Retracing Major Royall’s inbound steps, Carr marched his Fifth Cavalry and Pepoon’s scouts north to Prairie Dog Creek in two days. There, on the morning of 25 October, Captain Jules Schenofsky’s M Company and Seamus Donegan joined the civilian scouts to form the advance guard for the day’s march north by west to Little Beaver Creek. With flankers out, the Irishman joined the point riders carefully picking their way along, searching the country for fresh sign as they ascended a hill.

  “Little Beaver should be over this rise,” Sharp Grover said, pointing.

  “You got any idea what would be kicking up that much of a cloud off over there?” Donegan asked, the only one looking in that direction.

  A dozen heads turned to the west, only then noticing the fine film of dust rising up the valley of the Little Beaver.

  “Ain’t no whirlwind, that’s for sure,” Grover said with a growl. He brought his horse about, hammering it with his heels. “Lieutenant!”

  Schenofsky galloped to the top of the next rise to join the point riders. The tree-lined Little Beaver meandered through the wide, grassy valley just below. And off to their left ambled the tail end of a Cheyenne village on the move.

  “They know we’re here?” Schenofsky asked.

  “They do now,” Grover replied, pointing at the rear of the procession.

  Half a hundred warriors streamed past the rear of their march, bursting through the milling squaws and children, barking dogs and travois ponies.

  “How many you figure in that village, boys?” Schenofsky inquired after he had dispatched a rider to dash back across the miles, carrying word to Major Carr.

  “Four hundred,” said scout Tom Alderdice.

  “Closer to five hundred, I’d say,” Grover replied.

  “You’re probably right,” Alderdice agreed. “That makes at least a hundred warriors.”

  Schenofsky regarded the scouts a moment before speaking. “That makes us almost equal in manpower, gentlemen.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Grover agreed, a big smile crossing his tanned face. “We have one of two choices: stand here and take their charge, or we can take the fight to them.”

  “I’m all for taking it to ’em!” Alderdice shouted.

  “Hit ’em hard and make ’em reel!” Donegan said.

  “Let’s fight ’em on the run!” Schenofsky hollered above the clamor. “Skirmish formation—flankers in!”

  The columns quickly rattled into formation at the top of the hill, sending that old shiver of anticipation down Donegan’s spine as the restless horses snorted and pranced, sensing the coming of battle through their riders.

  “Right flank loaded!”

  “Left flank report!”

  “Left flank loaded and ready, sir!”

  “Forward at a walk—to gallop on my command!” Schenofsky shouted above the squeak of dry leather and the rattle of bit-chain, the noisy thunk of bolt and the mumbled curse of a green rookie worried of soiling his pants.

  “Forward!”

  “Jesus God!” grumbled someone to Donegan’s left as more warriors broke from the trees like maddened wasps, splashing across the shallow, late summer flow of the Little Beaver.

  “Weapons ready!” bawled Schenofsky as the line of soldiers loped down the slope into the valley.

  It was the last order Donegan heard clearly, for in the next heartbeat there arose a resounding clamor up and down the line as they began to take the first fire from the warriors. With a wild whoop the skirmish line broke into a ragged gallop.

  At two hundred yards the warriors turned, racing down the line of soldiers. Dropping from the side of their ponies, they fired beneath the animals’ straining necks as soldier bullets whined harmlessly over their heads.

  “Aim for the ponies—their ponies, goddammit!”

  Frustrated, many of Forsyth’s veterans hollered at the green troopers, knowing from firsthand experience that a man must shoot the target presented him by the enemy.

  “Drop the horses, by damn!”

  A few of the ponies spilled, pitching their riders into the grassy sand. Some held up a hand for rescue, others crouched, awaiting riders in the midst of the powder smoke and swirling dust.

  Two dozen warriors suddenly swept back on the end of Schenofsky’s column, effectively bringing the charge to a halt as the horses wheeled back on themselves. With the white men stopped in the open, the warriors began to circle back and forth, firing into the confused soldiers.

  “They’re gonna get chewed up down there!” Grover shouted from the hilltop where the civilians had watched the soldiers charge into the fray.

  Stillwell nodded. “We’ve got to help.”

  “Look there, boys,” Cody said, pointing west. “The village is getting away.”

  “That’s what this is all about,” Grover replied. “Them bastards are covering the escape.”

  “I’m for going after the village!” Alderdice shouted. Several others hollered their agreement. “Those soldiers can take care of themselves.”

  “Don’t think so,” Donegan said. “Those men will be butter if we don’t get down there now.”

  “The Irishman’s right,” Cody shouted. “Time enough to chase squaws and travois!”

  “Let’s ride!” Grover bawled.

  It was a mad dash made by the whooping civilians as they tore down on Schenofsky’s command, splitting at the last minute to race past the pinned-down soldiers, racing among the ring of warriors. The Cheyenne scattered, regrouped and tore off for the west, where once more they would cover the retreat of their village.

  It took some time to regroup the commands. Schenofsky had to get his soldiers back into the saddle, and Grover had to regroup Pepoon’s civilians before they were off again, trailing after the disappearing village. North by west, the fleeing Cheyenne hurried toward Shuter Creek, and crossed late that afternoon. Rarely did the warriors turn to fight the rest of the day, more often choosing to snipe at the outriders as the white men came on like troublesome gnats.

  Only once, when the women and old ones were forced to slow their escape due to a narrowing of a canyon, did the warriors wheel and stand their ground, before breaking into a gallop with wild screeches climbing into the afternoon sky.

  Shaking their rifles and bows, lances and war-clubs, the hundred charged back on their pursuers, like swallows turning about and swooping down on the nighthawk.

  “Halt!” the order thundered up and down the line.

  Horses were reined up in a swirl of dust.

  “Dismount! Horse holders to the rear!”

  “By God, this is it!” Cody shouted.

  “Let’s hope it’s nothing more than a good scrap!”

  “Aye, Irishman! Nothing like a good scrap!”

  At a hundred yards the order was given. “Fire!”

  The warriors reined in, confusion electrifying their ranks. A few ponies cried out as the white man’s bullets slapped among them. Only two went down, their riders swept up behind other warriors as the Cheyenne turned, parted, and two waves dashed up the parting slopes of two hills.

  “Don’t wait, Lieutenant!” Grover advised, dashing up to Schenofsky.

  “By the devil, we won’t!” Schenofsky whirled, arm waving. “Mount up! Hurry, boys—mount up!”

  “Got ’em on the run now,” Tom Alderdice cheered.

  The soldiers and civilians both hollered as they sorted through the horse holders for their mounts and swung into the saddle.

  “By fours!” Schenofsky ordered his men as they quickly formed. “Civilians—take the east trail. I’ll follow the west. Cody, you and Donegan come with me!”

  The two groups kept within sight of one another through the rest of the afternoon, chasing the dust cloud that always managed to stay just out of reach, over the nex
t hill, in the next valley, until the light began to fail and Grover advised giving up the chase until sunrise.

  “We’ll wait here for Carr to come up,” Schenofsky said.

  “Good a place as any for a camp,” Cody agreed.

  Darkness descended on the command as the men gathered greasewood and started their fires. Royall led an advance into camp, dispatched by Carr at a gallop to bolster Schenofsky’s skimpy command. Instead of a fight, Major Royall found beans, coffee and hardtack. The moon had come up by the time Carr brought in the rest of the regiment. Their fires twinkled along the Little Beaver.

  “I’ll be glad we get a chance to do some hunting,” Cody grumped as he took his plate of beans and a steaming tin of coffee from the mess sergeant.

  “That’s just what’s lacking in your education, Bill,” said Donegan. “Had you fought in the war back East, you’d be one to appreciate the finer varieties of beans.”

  “Ain’t nothing finer than these white beans,” Grover hissed. “Make a man mighty gassy.”

  “White beans and corn dodgers. Mmm, mmm,” Donegan replied. “Food for an army on the march.”

  “Time was, Cody—we’d both killed for white beans like these. Even some moldy hardtack like this here,” Grover said, clanging his hard bread on the side of his tin plate.

  “Your kind is always complaining, Abner,” Seamus said, then chuckled as he shoved a spoonful of the beans in his mouth. “You want fresh game, when you had some of the finest horseflesh to dine on west of the Republican!”

  “Horse or mule—I don’t care. Just give me some meat!” Alderdice said.

  The surrounding hills suddenly erupted with sporadic riflefire.

  In panic, soldiers and civilians scattered back from the fires, bullets whizzing into camp, zinging tin plates and cups, exploding into the fires with firefly flares. The horses whinnied in the dark. Men shouted. A few crawled on their bellies toward the low bluff rising nearby. Above them the bright muzzle-flashes could be seen against the prairie night sky.

  After half an hour of troublesome sniping, the bright orange flares of light tapered off and the night grew quiet once more.

  “You think they’re done with us for the night?” someone asked.

  “No way of telling,” Grover answered the voice from the dark. “They could be back.”

  “I’ll gladly give ’em my beans!” Cody hollered.

  The camp erupted in laughter.

  “Call ’em in, Cody!” suggested someone.

  “Yeah, tell ’em we got good food here we’ll trade for some of their dried buffler meat!”

  “Ah, that’s the right of it,” Donegan said. “Trade these white beans for some good belly food—buffalo. And while we’re at it—we’ll throw in some hardtack to boot.”

  “Just don’t throw it my way!” yelled a soldier.

  “That’s right—I don’t want to get hit with those damned hard crackers!” cried another.

  “You’ll all be wishing you had those beans to eat come morning, when you’ll be in the saddle before breakfast,” Schenofsky said, crawling up, staying out of the firelight.

  “Why no breakfast, Lieutenant?” Grover asked.

  “Carr wants us out early.”

  “To find the village?” asked Cody.

  “Right.”

  “Way I’ve got it figured,” Cody said, “that bunch will keep moving most of the night. Might stop for a few hours for the old ones and the children. But them bucks and squaws—they can keep on running for days, they have to.”

  “Cody’s right,” Grover agreed. “We have our work cut out for us catching that village once they’ve got the jump on us.”

  “Well, boys,” Cody said, slapping a thigh as he got to his feet in the darkness, punching a black hole out of the starry sky. “Let’s just do everything we can, come false-dawn, to eat up some of that ground they’ve put between them and us.”

  Chapter 4

  October 1868

  Only one of Carr’s cavalrymen was wounded in the daylong fight. And from what his officers reported after the confusion of the battle, the major dispassionately listed thirty warriors killed in his official report.

  Beginning early that next morning, 26 October, the advance guard had several brief skirmishes with the warriors protecting the flight of their village. They lasted until dark, when the soldiers finally gave up the chase and went into camp on the North Fork of the Solomon. Throughout the following day the closest Cody’s scouts got to the warriors was to follow the distant dust cloud raised by the many horses and travois.

  During that late morning and into the afternoon, Donegan noticed not only that the cloud was becoming thinner, but that the dust billowing over the fleeing Indians appeared to be widening. That could mean but one thing.

  “They’re scattering, Bill,” Seamus said, offering his canteen to Cody as they sat atop a low rise in the endless swell and fall of land, allowing their horses to blow.

  “No doubt of it now.”

  Behind them in the distance plodded Carr’s cavalry, with Pepoon’s civilians out as flankers to protect the unit from any surprise hit-and-run attacks by the warriors who might double back on the soldier column.

  “You take one trail, I take another?”

  “Not yet, we don’t,” Cody replied. “They’re bound to be heading same place we need to be.” He gave the canteen back. “Water.”

  “Where they going?”

  “My guess is the headwaters of the Beaver.”

  “Been across it meself.”

  “With Forsyth?”

  He nodded. “You want me go back and tell Carr what’s on your mind?”

  Cody shook his head. “No, not just yet. We’ve got two jobs now, Irishman. Staying with the Indian trail—and being sure these soldiers have water.”

  “You ask me, I’ll tell you how important water is to a sojur!”

  They laughed easily as the canteen strap went back over the saddlehorn and Cody led off. Both kept their eyes on the shimmering distance where the dust cloud dispersed across the hazy, shimmering horizon.

  Three hours later the pair stopped on another low rise, where they dismounted, loosening the cinches for a few minutes while they waited until the rear column came in sight once more. Four riders loped into sight. Two of the group waved their hats when it appeared the two scouts had spotted them. Cody took his floppy slouch hat and signaled with it.

  “Carr and Royall?” Cody asked as they waited for the four riders.

  “I doubt Royall’s with him. The old man probably left Royall in charge of the column while he rode up here to have a chat with us, Bill.”

  They waited, Cody more irritated than impatient for the delay caused by the soldiers.

  “Glad to see you boys held up,” Carr said as he reined up with three junior officers, each of them sweating in their wool tunics although it was a cool autumn day on the high plains.

  “We figure we’ll have to split up soon, Major,” Cody announced.

  “The village breaking up?” Carr asked, his face showing that he already knew the answer. “Stay with the biggest trail, Cody.”

  “We’ll do the best we can.”

  Carr inched closer, his voice softer. “Cody, one of Pepoon’s scouts says he figures today’s march to water is a lot longer than the twenty-five miles you told me it would be when we broke camp this morning.”

  Cody glared at the major. “One of Pepoon’s boys want to be your chief of scouts, eh?”

  “Don’t go getting testy on me, Cody.”

  “You’re right, Major. No right of me doing that—”

  “What Bill’s trying to say is—we got a choice of trails right now,” Donegan interrupted. “But the Injins are going to water just like us.”

  “That’s another thing Pepoon’s men tell me. They say we won’t find any water where you’re leading us, Cody.”

  The young scout squinted his eyes and shifted the hat on his head, grinding his teeth angrily. “Who th
e hell you want guiding you, Major? Me? Or this other fella?”

  “Which one is it, Major?” Donegan asked.

  “You know them, don’t you?” Carr inquired, studying the Irishman.

  “Most. Which one tell you Cody’s steering you wrong?”

  “Name’s Alderdice.”

  “Tom Alderdice,” Seamus repeated. “He’s a Kansas boy all right. But I’ll still put my money on Bill here.”

  Carr appeared to reckon with that a few moments, then measured Cody once more. “Will we find water by nightfall?”

  The scout peered into the northwest. “Before slap-dark, Major.”

  “How far, Cody?”

  “Eight … maybe nine miles.”

  “What’s there—a spring?”

  “Beaver dams, on a small creek.”

  Carr sighed, glancing at his junior officers, then swiped a kerchief over his face. “All right, Cody. I’m going back to hurry the column along. Take us to this water of yours.”

  Cody spoke before Carr could rein about. “You believe me, don’t you, Major?”

  He finally nodded. “Looks like I’ve got one of two choices, and you’re the best game in town right now, Cody. You lead the way.”

  Some three hours later Cody and Donegan ascended a low rise of land to look down on the valley of a small stream that would feed Beaver Creek several miles farther north.

  “It’s there—just like you said, Cody,” Seamus cheered.

  “Sounds like you doubted it yourself.”

  He smiled. “I’ll admit there was a time or two the last few hours I had me doubts.” He reached over as Cody reined up alongside him, slapping the young scout on the back.

  “I’ll teach that Major Carr to believe in me yet.”

  Both waited atop the rise for the flankers to come in, including Alderdice, about the time the advance guard hoved into view. Cody and Donegan waved them on.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you,” Carr said, beaming. “The water’s where to said it would be, and what you said we’d find.” His eyes ran up and down the narrow, green valley, its entire length dotted with small beaver dams that pooled the trickle of water at this late season of the year.

  “This settle things for you, Major?”