Ashes of Heaven (44 page)

He was a holy man of the People. He had been given a gift, and that gift was to share what he could see, especially when it was something others could not see.

Sometimes, White Bull knew, a man put his feet on that trail where the Spirits directed, no matter what others might say.

“What? What idea do you have?” Rowland demanded, perturbed at the interruption now as the cavalry was forming up for its charge.

“I think I know a way we can get these soldiers in close enough to surround the village before the Lakota know the soldiers are there.”

Long Knife wagged his head. “How are you going to do that?”

“When I was on the rocks yesterday at sunset, counting the lodges and making those marks in your little book,” White Bull began to explain to the interpreter, “I saw two little streams coming into Fat Horse Creek from the hills. One reached Fat Horse Creek in the camp, and the other just below it. On that hill across from me—on the far side of the Lakota camp—there are many pines.”

“To the east?” asked Long Knife.

“Yes. Tell the Bear Coat I know a way I can lead the soldiers up to that first creek I saw, slip all the way up that stream and over the divide, coming down to the other creek where the cavalry can be waiting to attack. His walking soldiers can charge up the main valley into the camp—”

“Why would the Bear Coat want his cavalry to be up there on the side of that hill?” the squawman interrupted.

“To prevent Lame Deer's people from running away,” he explained.

Aghast at that, Long Knife shook his head violently and snarled, “No! I remember the Red Fork Valley fight! Here too we must let those poor people have a chance to get away!”

“Why?” White Bull demanded. “If we surround them and they have nowhere to run, they will have to surrender—warriors and the rest—and we will get them all.”

“No! I will not tell the Bear Coat anything of what you've said,” Long Knife whispered angrily. “You've brought these soldiers to the village. That's all you needed to do—now stay out of this and let the soldiers finish their job!”

*   *   *

“General Miles!”

He turned at the call from Captain Tyler. Several others in the broad front that was forming up were beginning to point at that hillside closest to the village.

There, he saw: one of the hostiles … on horseback.

“Has he seen us?” Nelson demanded as he lunged up to the front of the formation, watching that solitary rider make his way toward the tipis with no apparent haste.

“Sure as the stars in heaven,” Seamus Donegan growled. “No way he could miss seeing your sojurs from where he was riding there on the side of the hill.”

“A camp guard?”

“Maybe,” Johnny Bruguier answered.

“For the life of me I can't figure out why he ain't running for the village,” Donegan added.

Miles glanced at the east, saw how the light was growing beneath that swollen rumble of the previous night's rain-clouds. He turned on his heel suddenly and continued repeating the disposition of his troops to Adjutant Baird.

“Private Shrenger,” the colonel called to his orderly, handing the soldier his big cream-colored hat. “Bring me my bandanna.”

In a moment the young private was back with a huge white bandanna, which Miles folded in half, laid over his head, and knotted in the back. Stepping before the ranks of cavalry now, the colonel proudly explained to the cavalry commanders, “This white bandanna I've tied on my head will show your soldiers that I'm going into the fight with them.”

Battalion commander Ball snapped a salute. “The Second Cavalry is proud to have you lead us into the coming fight, General!”

Private Shrenger started to move toward Miles with the colonel's big chestnut as Nelson felt the sour ball of sentiment choke him.

“General—you may want to see this,” the Irishman called out.

When Miles stepped close, he looked where Donegan pointed at the edge of the village, and saw that solitary rider had been joined by a few other forms—all of them quickly loading up their horses with bundles. In a matter of moments the small group was on the back of their ponies and hurrying out of camp, heading back toward the hills where the lone rider had first been spotted only minutes before.

“I'm not going to worry about that handful slipping away, especially since they didn't raise an alarm in the camp,” Miles told those around him, turning back to his cavalry officers and tucking in the knot on that white bandanna he wore. “Now we have the rest of these fish to fry.”

*   *   *

Johnny had never done anything remotely like this.

Swept up, powerless, hurtled along with these soldiers racing right on the hooves of Casey's Shahiyela scouts, Bruguier found the noise of it deafening. Watching these mounted foot soldiers shout and bellow, unable himself to hear much for all the thunder of hooves, the screams of alarm and shock from the camp, the war cries of the Lakota men … then he realized he was shouting too; bawling and shrieking at any of the blurry forms that leaped into view as the charge swept this way and that past the lodges.

His throat hurt already—bellowing to these Lame Deer people that they must surrender to save their lives, give up to save the lives of their women and children.

“Do not fight the soldiers! Give yourselves up!” he cried as his horse raced past the rain-soaked lodges, skirting the north side of the encampment. “Do not throw your lives away!”

Despite his futile efforts, the women and children and those few old ones in camp were already on their way with no intention of surrendering.

Within heartbeats Johnny was glad these soldiers were such bad shots firing from the backs of their big horses. All this shooting, all that lead buzzing through the air, and it did nothing more than to hurry the escapees along.

Up ahead, more than half a mile beyond the village, he could now see how Lame Deer's people had put their ponies out to graze farther down the creek. While there were a few favorite animals tethered in among the lodges or grazing close at hand, the hundreds waited downstream. The Bear Coat ordered those ponies driven across the stream and away from the village.

But suddenly, looking close up at the tight, winding path of the creek, Bruguier realized how sharp and high were its banks. He doubted these soldiers would be able to make their charge across the stream in that same wide front the way they were sweeping past the lodges.

Off to Johnny's right, a pony soldier jerked spastically as he was struck with a bullet. Wheeling to the side, the man slid off his horse in a tumbling heap as the rest of the disordered formation hammered past.

One dead man already. Likely to be more … if this charge got bottled up driving the herd across the creek.

Breathless, Bruguier twisted in the saddle, looking right, then left, finally spotting one of the white men whom Miles had ordered to lead his soldiers in this charge. The soldier rode close as he crossed behind Bruguier.

Since he didn't know what rank any of the bars or stripes meant on the uniforms, Johnny shouted, “Soldier chief!”

Against the racket of screams and gunfire and panic, the officer turned his head, his eyes finding the half-breed at the very moment Johnny heard the onrushing snarl of a bullet. As he watched, the side of the officer's jaw opened up in a deep red furrow slashed from chin to earlobe. Slapping one hand against the wound, the officer reacted by yanking back on his reins with the other.

Already the first of the Lakota ponies were leaping from the steep banks into the creek, lunging across.

In his next breath the half-breed was reining to a halt beside the soldier called Jerome. “You can ride?”

At first all he could see of the man's face were those angry eyes above the glove he had fiercely clamped across his cheek. Then the soldier nodded. In a muffled voice he growled, “I can … ride.”

“The creek!” Johnny started to explain as he pointed, yelling above the shouts and hoofbeats, the cries of fury and the gunshots. “The bank's too high! Slow down! Slow the soldiers down!”

At that point it took but a moment for Jerome to look for himself where the ponies were being funneled together—slowing, rearing as they were forced off the steep bank into the narrow creekbed. Down in the churning water some were already stumbling across the slippery rocks as more animals were shoved into the air to come crashing down into the stream where they slammed against those before them.

“I see!” Jerome yelled, ripping the bloody glove from the deep furrow along his jaw, crimson glistening his lips and tongue. Already he was turning to the others, shouting wet words at them about a file.

Johnny didn't understand what those orders were as the others began to draw back on their reins, slowing, pulling aside in two wide arcs, left and right. Just ahead of the soldiers the Shahiyela were forcing their ponies off the bank, into the air in leg-thrashing arcs, plunging down to the water, every man of them shrieking with joy at capturing the enemy herd.

In the next moment Bruguier was at the bank himself, yanking savagely on his own rein as the horse skidded to a halt just before it no longer had any more ground beneath its hooves. The pony sailed through the air, legs flailing, and plunged into the creek on its back two legs with a jolt, churning its two front legs at the water, raising a blinding spray of water as it side-stepped, snorting in fear.

Bruguier was barely out of the way, his animal lunging sideways frightfully, when the first of those soldiers on his heels lunged off the bank. Then a second, and a third—all of them hurtling single file into the air to land in the middle of the stream with him. One at a time the troopers righted themselves in their saddles with a grunt, then yelled at their mounts and each other as they kicked the horses into motion, plunging through the rushing, belly-deep stream for the far bank where the animals clawed their way onto the south side of Big Muddy Creek behind the captured herd, great gushes of water sluicing from every animal.

As he erupted out of the stream with the soldiers, Johnny reined in among those who were streaming to the right while others raced to the left, both wings fanning out to seal off the Lakota ponies. No more guns fired at them. No longer did these soldiers shoot back at the Lakota. All the gunfire was back there in the village now. With much less noise, Bruguier could make out the shouts of these soldiers as they hepped and hawed at the frightened Indian ponies.

“We got 'em, by damn!” one of them cried happily as he streaked past Bruguier, waving his pistol wildly in the air.

These horses are only the start of the fight, Johnny thought as the herd streamed toward the nearby bluffs, suddenly turned back on themselves by Casey's Shahiyela.

Only the start of this damn fight.

*   *   *

White Hawk awoke at dawn, slowly sensing his woman's bare skin against his leg beneath the blanket. Lying there in the ash-gray of early morning, he kept his eyes closed, concentrating on that feel of her skin against his, gratified in the way it made his manhood grow.

As he rolled over, the Cheyenne little chief pushed back the blanket so he could look at her sleeping naked. He gazed down at the earth color of that one exposed breast, its crimson nipple set in the center of that soft mound he so loved to clutch as he rode her, afraid he might buck himself off. Dragging the blanket off her hipbone, he stared at the dark triangle nestled there between the tops of her legs. Knowing that's where he wanted to be right then.

His eyes crawled quickly back up her belly, to that breast, climbing to her neck and finally to discover that her eyes were open. She had been watching him look at her body. When their eyes locked, he realized she knew what he wanted.

The woman gazed down at his rigid manhood, and smiled.

Rolling onto her back, she spread her thighs as she reached out and took his hardened flesh in her hand.

Groaning, White Hawk rocked onto his knees and went to climb between her legs.

They had come here several suns ago. Traveling with Lame Deer had given White Hawk's people a sense of protection as they went about hunting out the last of the cold weather, into the beginning of the wet days that heralded the Fat Horse Moon when the grasses grew tall and lush. At every camp White Hawk's people chose to raise their lodges off by themselves.

Here they were close enough to that village of Lame Deer's Lakota, but White Hawk's camp was out of sight, downstream, and around a hill.
*
His people would wander with Lame Deer as long as the hunting was good, as long as they managed to stay out of the way of the soldier columns that had to be stalking the land this spring. Especially after the half-breed named Big Leggings showed up at their camp on the Tongue and told them the Bear Coat would be on his way.

Sometimes White Hawk agreed with Lame Deer's nephew, Iron Star. Chances are they should have killed Big Leggings when they had him in their camp. Now only bad could come of letting that half-breed go, riding back to tell the Bear Coat how to find their trail, to follow their camp.

Most of the men in White Hawk's camp were Elkhorn Scrapers who owed this little chief their loyalty. Young men with no families, or whose families had gone south to surrender at the White Rock Agency. But, a few were men with wives and children like White Hawk—men who chose to stay free for the sake of their loved ones.

As his woman positioned his manhood against her waiting warmth, White Hawk heard the bark of a camp dog. He lunged, barely able to contain his anticipation for her.

More dogs joined the first.

He nestled himself deeper, moving slowly to savor what he knew would be over all too quickly. Back and forth, warming her, sensing the woman grow wetter at the same time, gazing down to see how she stared up at him with those eyes half-closed in exquisite feral pleasure.

Back and forth, back and forth he rocked, both of them groaning until he was able to plant himself fully inside her. She grunted as he drove himself against her violently, quickly locking her heels over the backs of his calves—