Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (36 page)

Royall sent back a trio of riders to inform Major Crittenden of the pursuit, with orders to continue on the north side of the river until they struck the trail. The column and its supply train was to follow their trail north, wherever it led, with Royall's promise to remain in daily contact with his support.

In a big, graceful curve, Pawnee Killer's band looped northward toward the South Platte, crossing the river halfway between Forts Sedgwick and McPherson. It was near the time the Fifth made their crossing that Major Frank North rode out from O'Fallon's Station to rejoin his Pawnee Battalion after taking a short leave.

In all, Royall had to abandon ten exhausted and played-out horses in the drive his troops made coming north from Frenchman's Fork to the South Platte. He would lose another seven between there and the Niobrara River close by the Dakotas.

“This grueling chase is taking the same toll on the hostiles, goddammit,” Royall cursed late one evening as his staff assessed their situation. “Forty-two Sioux ponies captured.”

“We didn't capture them,” Frank North reminded. “The Sioux abandoned them because they were too poor to walk.”

Royall fumed a moment, then sighed. “For us the choices are more difficult, gentlemen. Appears we're not making any ground on Pawnee Killer's bunch.”

“Looks like they're running north to join Red Cloud's Bad Faces for the winter,” Donegan said.

“You agree, Cody?” asked the major.

“That's the safest place for them and those Cheyenne Dog Soldiers we scattered in July. With the whole Bozeman country shut off from army or civilian travel—they know it'll be a safe winter.”

“What's your choices, Major?” asked Frank North.

“We're down to eating boot-leather, men. And I can tell you a lot of these men don't like the prospect of that, what with two fruitless campaigns already under their belts.”

“We're in bad shape as it is—not having anything to eat on the march back to McPherson—unless we bump into some game or buffalo,” North said.

Cody watched Royall wag his head. “Major, there's no other choice I can suggest than to let Pawnee Killer go this time. We can point our noses west to Fort Robinson … resupply there with what they can spare. Then we can limp this outfit back to our home station.”

Royall stood, holding his hands over the fire. Once more it was that season on the plains. Hot enough to broil a man's brains in his hat during the day—cold enough to smite him with frostbite once the sun went down.

“All right, gentlemen. Pass the word—we'll break out at four and be on the march by five. No sense getting the men up any earlier than that: we don't have coffee left to brew.”

*   *   *

Jack O'Neill shivered under the same cloudless sky that sucked every bit of heat out of the exhausted land.

He threw some more greasewood on the flames. He had built the small fire in a hole scooped out of the ground so that the firelight would not be so readily spotted by the night eyes of any Cheyenne or Sioux roaming this land northeast of Fort Sedgwick.

The mulatto had reached the squalid post on the South Platte only to find that the entire seven companies of the Fifth Cavalry had moved out on campaign. Word at Reuben Wood's saloon had it that the soldiers were off chasing Pawnee Killer's Sioux northward to the Niobrara.

“That's a piece of country,” trader Wood told O'Neill as he leaned over the bar in his place, lazily watching the big mulatto suck at a warm beer. “Wouldn't recommend any man riding in there alone. You riding alone, mister?”

O'Neill nodded, enjoying the caress of the ale on his tongue and the back of his throat, parched as it was.

“That bunch coming back here when they're done?”

“Not if they can help it.” Wood laughed. A few others down the bar laughed with him, then went back to their own drinks. “They'll head home, likely.”

“Home,” he said quietly. “Where is that?”

“McPherson, of course.”

“Yes, McPherson. The best way I'd get there?”

“Just stay on the South Platte—all the way,” Wood answered. “You won't miss it.”

“They'll be going back there, you say?”

Wood smiled genuinely. “Got to now. Colonel and lieutenant colonel of the whole damned regiment showed up there, from what I've heard. If nothing else, them boys'll come in to reoutfit and rotate units.”

“Their scouts too?”

“Yeah, I suppose the scouts come back in with the unit,” Wood replied. “You fixing on hiring on?”

He regarded his beer. “Might do that. Who's the leader of the bunch?”

“Chief of scouts is a fella named Cody. Rides a fast horse and likes to wager on it.”

“Gimme another,” the mulatto said, pushing his chipped mug toward the barkeeper. When Wood brought the mug back and set it in front of O'Neill, Jack asked, “You ever run into a tall, gray-eyed man riding with this Cody's bunch?”

Wood stood back and with a smile winked at some of the other patrons. “Run into him? I'll say. That's the drinkenest, hell-roaringest Irish sonuvabitch I'll ever know!”

“Irish?”

“And his brogue gets thicker the more he's in the cups!” Wood cheered.

“This Irishman have a name, mister?”

“Surely do, and one I'll not soon forget. Donegan, it is. Seamus Donegan is that lucky bastard's name.”

Chapter 31

August–September 1869

“Listen to this, Seamus,” Bill Cody said as he loped up, coming across the Fort McPherson parade, a flimsy paper in one hand, an envelope in the other.

“You got mail?”

“It's from Lulu,” he replied, excited, a vision of her shimmering before him. Cody self-consciously scratched at his bantam tuft of chin whiskers. “She … never really liked my beard, Seamus.”

Donegan cocked his head this way, then cocked it that. “It looks awful good to me, Bill.”

“You'd say that—because you got one just like it.” He pressed the letter into the Irishman's hands. “Tell me what you think of it … smell it, by damn!”

It was late on the afternoon of 22 August. Major William Royall was reporting to regimental commander Colonel William H. Emory. The companies just in from the field had quickly handed their weary mounts over to the livery sergeant then turned out for mail-call. There was as much excitement as there was relief in the air. The regiment had not been back to their duty station for many weeks.

Seamus took the small page and envelope between his fingers. It had been a long, long time since feeling such fine paper.

“I said smell it.”

Donegan did, drinking in the perfume long and deep. “My, but your Mrs. Cody uses a memorable fragrance, Bill.”

“That's enough smelling now,” he said, grabbing for the letter.

“What's she say?”

Cody studied the tall man's gray eyes a moment. “I … I'm sorry, Seamus. Damn, it was thoughtless of me to do that—showing you this letter, and you didn't get any mail.”

“No one really to write to me. Not like you with Louisa and your daughter—”

“I apologize for making you feel bad,” Cody said, touching the Irishman's arm.

Seamus smiled. “Let me share the letter with you. Pretend that she's writing it to me as well.”

“She knows of you.”

“How?”

“I told her of you last spring when I was east, you addle-brain idjit.”

“You didn't tell her everything, did you?”

“About our beer heist with Hickok? God, no! Louisa is one straight-lace. Comes from quite the stiff-necked family.”

“And you—Bill Cody, you just like to have fun.”

He smiled back at Seamus. “Damn right.” Some of the smile disappeared. “Glory, but I don't know how to feel: wanting her to be out here to share this place with me. The other part of me not wanting her to come out here with her disapproving gaze and the way she punishes me for misbehaving.”

“Sounds like Louisa knows you well enough, Cody.”

He finally snorted a chuckle. “Yeah, Lulu knows me. Damn, but I do miss her—trouble or no trouble that she causes me.”

“When she coming out?”

“She wrote this more than two weeks back. Today being the twenty-second … means she and Arta are already on their way.”

“Coming here? To McPherson?”

“Yes!”

“Where is she going to stay?”

His brow knitted up, his eyes darting like hummingbirds looking for a roost. “The cabin Emory's building for me isn't ready yet, Seamus.” He was suddenly frantic. “What am I going to do?”

“Wait, hold on—we'll think of something.”

“I can't have her sleeping on the goddamned ground, Seamus—she's … she's not made like that.”

“Hold it—what about your friend, the sutler?”

“Bill McDonald?”

“Yes—doesn't he have a room he can let you use for a few weeks.”

“Yes! Until the cabin's finished for us. They've started putting it up nearby McDonald's place … just past the last of the post buildings, down by his store. Splendid idea, Irishman!”

“Now that you have your mail—suppose we see about getting Donegan his whiskey. At least some ale, what say?”

Cody quickly stuffed the letter in the envelope, and it inside his shirt, nodding. “Yes, by God. We have much to celebrate.”

“Home station at last, Cody. Where we won't have to worry about any bleeming Injins lifting our hair.”

*   *   *

“You know any of 'em, Seamus?”

“It's been four years—the whole outfit's changed,” Donegan answered as two companies of the Second Cavalry on detached service filed into parade formation. “Even Duncan's changed outfits. He was breveted brigadier general of the Second at the end of the war—and now in the Indian-fighting army, he's lieutenant colonel of the Fifth.”

“Everything's different these days,” Cody said, scratching his beard.

“I learned that lesson the hard way during the war,” Seamus said. “You don't count too hard on anything or anybody—you won't get let down.”

“C'mon, now—you sound like a sour apple, Irishman.”

“You got room to talk, Cody.” He looked over at Louisa and Arta standing across the parade, waving their handkerchiefs in farewell at Bill. “There's people who are here to see you go—folks who can't wait for you to get back.”

“The leaving's hard enough, Seamus. Nothing or nobody can make it easy,” he said.

In shutting off all further discussion on the subject, Cody signaled his handful of civilian scouts to fall in behind Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Duncan's four companies of the Fifth and three companies of the Second. Major Frank North's Pawnee trackers would bring up the rear of this march moving out of Fort McPherson, 15 September. Like old times, brother Luther rode along as well. Frank had talked young Lute into signing another commission with the battalion for this foray against the Sioux. With the Cheyenne all but driven from the central plains by their defeat at Summit Springs, Phil Sheridan's army had turned its attention on the Lakota bands still roaming south of the Black Hills of Dakota.

The first morning out from McPherson, Duncan strolled up to the civilians with his adjutant and orderly in tow. He saluted smartly and came to a halt, presenting his hand.

“I don't recall if we've been properly introduced or not, Mr. Cody.”

“We haven't, General. This tall fella look familiar to you?” Bill asked, seeing Donegan's eyes suddenly narrow.

Duncan looked the Irishman over carefully but quickly. “Don't recall—”

“He served with you in the war, General.”

Duncan regarded Donegan even more closely. Which made Seamus feel like apologizing for Cody's bluntness.

“Lots of fellas rode with General Duncan, Bill,” Seamus said quietly.

“What outfit, mister?”

He held out his hand and they shook. “Donegan. Seamus Donegan. Rode with the Second Cavalry.”

Duncan smiled. “Ah, now there were some riding sonsabitches from Hell.”

Cody glanced at Seamus, finding him smiling just as big as Duncan.

The lieutenant colonel stepped closer. “Have you joined the Grand Army yet?”

“Beg pardon, General?”

“The G.A.R.—Grand Army of the Republic. Chapters are being chartered everywhere among Union veterans. Surely you'll join our group when we return to McPherson, Mr. Donegan.”

He nodded. “I'll give it some thought, General. Don't know—”

“It'll give us a chance to talk about those campaigns against the butternut boys, Irishman.” His eyes went lidded suddenly. “Why are you in this attire as a civilian? Haven't you joined regular army in all this time?”

“No, sir. I haven't—”

“Seamus here fought up the Bozeman at Fort Phil Kearny
*
and the next summer at C. F. Smith in the hayfield.
†
A year ago he was riding with Forsyth's rangers.”

Duncan's scowl disappeared, replaced by a cheerful countenance. He landed a chubby hand on the Irishman's shoulder. “Seems you've still got the knack, Donegan.”

“Knack, sir?”

“Just like us in the Shenandoah—remember? Always where the action was the hottest. And you, despite these worn and patched rags you wear instead of army blue—still have the knack for being in the right place at just the right time.”

“Seamus might disagree with you about that, General.”

“What say we get to know one another better before we put this unit on the march, gentlemen. I came over here this morning with the idea of challenging the great Buffalo Bill Cody to a shooting match.”

“A shooting match?” Cody asked.

“And not only do I have the renowned Buffalo Bill, but I've got this veteran of my old outfit here to shoot against as well. What say you, Irishman?”