Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (4 page)

“Out at Fort Hays Bill got himself a bunk and slept for five hours before saddling a fresh mount.”

“On the way to Fort Dodge I stopped at a road ranch down at Coon Creek for another hour of shuteye,” Bill said, warming to the story of it. “Rode off on a new mount borrowed from a troop of cavalry bivouacked there … reached Fort Dodge without seeing nary a feather or war-paint.”

“But that still wasn't the end of it for you,” Sharp said, smiling as he poured more whiskey in their glasses. “Bill grabbed himself a few hours sleep then carried dispatches from the commander of Fort Dodge, bound for General Hazen at Fort Larned.”

“How'd you end up back here at Hays?” Seamus asked before throwing his whiskey back. It had ceased to burn his tongue.

“Hazen wanted Sheridan to have the latest word in from his scouts—the Kiowa villages all running south of the Arkansas.”

Grover nodded, smiling widely. “Ain't that just like Sheridan now? The general's a man who wants to know exactly where the Injuns are every minute.”

“Damn funny it seems … especially after Sheridan and the rest of them didn't have an idea where Roman Nose and his bunch was when we bumped into 'em last month on the Arikaree, eh?”

Grover swallowed hard on his whiskey, sputtering slightly as he watched the sour grin fade from the Irishman's face. “I figure the army learned a hard lesson there.”

“Ever the army learns a lesson—it's for sure the poor sojur be the one to pay.” Seamus poured more whiskey in his own glass, offering some to the blond-haired youth across from him. “And you, Bill—have you had your fill of riding for the army?”

“No. Pay's good. Seventy-five a month and found. Better that than scratching out hardscrabble for the coming winter.”

“How 'bout you, Donegan?” Sharp Grover turned fully toward the Irishman. “You got shet of what's eating you and ready to ride again?”

“With you?”

“With Pepoon and me, Seamus. We're heading down into Indian Territory with George—by God—Custer.”

His beetled eyebrows twitched. “That would be something, wouldn't it now? Me riding scout for the man what stole me stripes back in the Shenandoah?” He hung his head, brooding on it, staring into the dancing ripples of his amber whiskey. “No. I'd better not tempt the fates again with Custer.”

“Then Seamus Donegan will ride with me, by damn!” the youngster said.

He looked up at the scout's hard, gray-blue eyes again, seeing there some strength he had not taken the time to notice before. “Ride with you? Just where in hell would we be riding?”

“With the Fifth Cavalry.”

“And what the divil would you be having to say about me riding with the Fifth?”

He gazed back at the Irishman steady and long. “I suppose I'd have everything to say about it. Sheridan's commissioned me chief of scouts for the Fifth.”

Seamus nodded approvingly, then raised his glass in toast. “To the chief of scouts.” Seamus tossed it back, then licked his lips. “So … tell me just where this Fifth Cavalry of yours is heading.”

The young man leaned close over the table, drawing the other men in as he whispered in husky tones. “We're going south and west … then turning east toward The Territories.”

“You're going to Injun country same time as Custer?” Grover asked.

He nodded eagerly, the ready smile cutting his young face. “We're serving as beaters to drive the villages and war-parties toward the Seventh Cavalry.”

“Sounds like a winter's work,” Donegan said.

“You damned right,” Bill answered. “We'll likely face a blizzard or two, and freeze your balls to deer droppings before we're done. If you're not up to riding into the jaws of winter itself, I'll understand, Irishman.”

Seamus sat back, smiling as he sloshed some more amber into his glass. He held it up again in toast. “All right—you've got yourself a scout for the winter. Here's to riding with you, Bill … Bill—what's your last name?”

He grinned widely, thrusting his big hand across the table at the Irishman. They shook.

“Bill Cody, Seamus. My name's Bill Cody.”

Chapter 1

October 1868

Marching west, the Fifth Cavalry halted at Fort Hays only long enough to pick up its new chief of scouts along with orders from General Philip H. Sheridan, Department Commander. Cody and Donegan crawled into their saddles that mid-autumn morning as the sun blinked a bloody eyelid over the far rim of the earth. Both suffered a hangover of the worst variety: all liquor and no breakfast.

Staring at a mess-tin filled with fried salt-pork swimming in some greasy gravy and two slabs of hardtack was not the sort of thing to inspire a man's appetite after a hard night punishing the bottle.

William F. Cody was a hard-drinker of a youngster but, more than that, he was a hard-worker as well.

“I was born in Scott County, Iowa,” Bill explained to the Irishman as they rode ahead of the cavalry column. “Not long afterward, my folks moved to Kansas Territory. I grew into a lanky, muscular youth who earned his pay not only as a wagon-master and a herder for freight outfits, but as a rider for the Pony Express, racing mail between Missouri and California.”

“I've heard some about that time out here,” Donegan replied. “Dangerous work, it was?”

Cody smiled the youthful smile that belied his early honing of survival skills. “Man watched himself on the circuit, he didn't have no truck with the Injuns. But some riders, it seemed, always had themselves trouble on certain parts of the trail.”

“You?”

The smile faded somewhat as he rubbed at some gummy sleep in a red eye. “Yeah. Time or two I had some trouble myself. But the express was over before it really got fun, Seamus. The coming of the telegraph put us off that road.”

“You're on a different trail now. Still be fun.”

The smile was back. “Damn right, Irishman! Except this time—instead of trying to run away from the Indians—my job is to find 'em for the army.”

“What'd you do when you quit riding for the express?”

“Not long after, news come to Kansas that some prospectors made strikes in the Colorado Rockies, so I made my way into the mountains.”

“Two years back, was myself heading up the Montana Road to Alder Gulch.”

“Didn't make it, Seamus?”

He wagged his head. “Maybe someday I'll quit this roaming and decide to go back to scratching at the ground for them yellow rocks make a man crazy.”

“They will make you crazy. I lost my poke, and a sutler's grubstake as well … digging at the goddamned ground, moving sand at the bottom of four streams. None of it worked.”

“You came on back to Kansas?”

He nodded. “It's all I knew—what with the war going on back East.”

“Good you didn't have no part in that madness, Bill.”

“While you were busy killing Johnnies and waving that big saber of yours around, I was living day to day, running two trap-lines.”

“It feed you?”

“Enough. Sold my furs to buy coffee and flour, some ammunition and an extra blanket when needed. Whiskey when there was a little something left over.”

“You're the kind I figure made sure he had something left over for whiskey most of the time.”

They laughed together, but briefly. It was too painful for their throbbing heads.

“Man after my own heart, Seamus Donegan.”

“Then why the divil you talk me into going along with you on this campaign, Bill Cody? We sure as hell aren't marching toward any whiskey taverns with these sojurs. I figure it's that major's job back there to keep us and his boys in blue as far away from whiskey as he can for the next few weeks.”

“It is. This first day's the worst for me, Seamus. You know what it's like since you been in the saddle on campaign before—with Sharp Grover and Forsyth's men.”

“Sun pulls the whiskey right out of a man, it does. Be some time before we get a chance to soak in it again, though. So, tell me, how'd you get started with the army?”

“Come the spring of 1867, I'd grown tired of the hand-to-mouth of it, and figured there was better money to be made doing what I could do best for the railroad pushing rails through Kansas.”

“What do you do best?”

“Kill buffalo.”

“Good shot?”

“Good enough that I got me a contract with the K.P. to feed their workers in western Kansas.”

“How much the Kansas Pacific pay you?”

“Five hundred.”

“A month?” he asked, his voice rising in wonder.

“Yes,” he answered, his head bobbing. “Good pay—'cause I was good at bringing in the meat.”

“How old were you when you started?”

“Let's see…” he replied, tapping a fingertip against the blond bantam-tuft of hair hung from his lower lip. “Started just a year ago—when I was twenty-one.”

“You're just a child, Bill Cody!”

“You're claiming to be an old man yourself, Seamus Donegan?”

“Aye,” he sighed. “Time enough left for two lads like us to get into all kinds of trouble, don't you think?”

“Always time enough, Irishman.”

*   *   *

The Department Commander's orders for the Fifth Cavalry were to proceed north from the Kansas Pacific tracks, to make their way in the direction of Prairie Dog Creek where, reports from Major George Forsyth's civilian scouts had it, the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers who'd been causing havoc among the settlements were to be found. The ground they crossed was tracked with the sign of several large encampments, all more than a month old. But recent buffalo sign lay anywhere a man cared to look, or take a step.

That first night out of Hays on the Saline River, the Virginia-born junior major for the regiment, William B. Royall, ordered Cody out to do what he did best.

“All right, Major. I'll get your men some buffalo. Why don't you send along a wagon or two with me to bring in the meat.”

Royall, who had served in the Mexican War, snorted at the youth. “Surely you jest, son! I'm not in the habit of sending out my wagons until I know there is something to be hauled in, Cody.” He waved his hand, dismissing the scout. “Go kill yourself some buffalo first—then I'll dispatch the wagons.”

Cody turned away, head wagging as he fumed, yet he did as he was told. That afternoon he dropped six buffalo before he returned to request the wagons.

At the next day's camp, one march north to the South Fork of the Solomon River and very much in the midst of buffalo country, Major Royall again requested Cody bring in some meat for the soldiers.

“I learned my lesson last time, Major. I won't ask for use of your precious wagons,” Cody replied, winking at Donegan as if he had something up his buckskin sleeve.

The pair of scouts loped over the hills, leaving the bustling encampment of soldiers to build their fires and boil their evening coffee.

“There,” Seamus said minutes later, pointing ahead at a herd of black-humped beasts.

“Good,” Cody replied with a grin. “Now we'll take a half-dozen back for the major.”

Donegan began to drag the big Henry rifle from the saddle scabbard under his right leg when Cody's hand reached out and stopped him.

“Hold it right there, Seamus. We won't need the guns just yet.”

“Won't? What the divil—”

“We're gonna run 'em back.”

“Run 'em?”

“That major's so damned proud of his wagons,” Cody snarled. “I figure I'll take these buffalo right to the sonuvabitch. We're gonna run 'em!”

Bursting from a stand of trees, Cody left Donegan at the base of the hill when he put heels to his horse. Whooping lustily, every bit as loud as Cody, the Irishman hammered his horse into a gallop. Side by side they raced into the midst of the small herd, scattering the buffalo until Cody pointed his Spencer carbine at a small bunch.

“There!” Cody shouted. “We got 'em headed in the right direction.”

“Camp?”

“Right on their doorstep!”

With all the bluster of a prairie thunderstorm, the two scouts kept the seven buffalo lumbering before them, retracing their steps back to outskirts of the camp of the Fifth Cavalry. Only then did Cody bring his carbine up, drawing alongside a young bull. He dropped the animal on the edge of the wagon-yard as the teamsters and troopers began hollering, some laughing as those in the path dove for cover. Horses and mules snorted, tearing panic-filled at their picket-pins, wide-eyed and screeching.

Donegan dropped a cow at the picket-line where the civilian herders and teamsters had just started their fires.

Cody brought the next one down, near the first company camp. The huge beast tumbled hide over horns into the captain's wall-tent, tearing up its stakes and flattening the poles into kindling wood.

One by one the rest of the seven went down in quick succession, until the camp was a swirl of dust and cursing men, screaming horses and mad confusion. Cody and Donegan reined up, bringing their mounts around just as Major Royall appeared out of the haze of dust, the low sun slanting through it like a golden window curtain.

He was sputtering, gesturing wildly, standing there potbellied in his yellow-striped britches held up by galluses over his sweat-stained gray pullover. “What's the meaning of this, Irishman?”

“It wasn't his idea, Major,” Cody said, looking at Donegan. “Donegan just come along 'cause I needed another good shot.”

“Your idea—making a mess of our camp like this?”

He looked around, both wrists crossed casually atop his horn. “Didn't mean to make a mess of things. Thought we'd just as well not cause you any problem with the wagons. Seems you don't like sending wagons with me when I go out to hunt. So, I figured it might be a good idea to have these buffalo provide their own transportation back to your camp, Major Royall.”