Trumpet on the Land (37 page)

And for his special customers—those who had a bit more money jangling down in the pockets of their wool britches—the peddler even let the grapevine know that he had a couple of women who wouldn't mind servicing the inhabitants of Crook's cavalry camp—for a small fee, of course.

That pair who came all the way north from Fetterman disguised as teamsters went right to work lying down on the job to earn their wages the very next day, the fourteenth
of July. Problem was, there didn't seem to be that many soldiers who could afford the trader's pricey whiskey, much less his more seductive wares.

At Camp Cloud Peak was one soldier who did have just enough money to get himself into a fine mess—Captain Alexander Sutorious.

A good man he was, Seamus believed, thinking back now to that Monday, the seventeenth, when Crook finally discovered what had been going on behind his back all the while the general was coming and going, in and out of camp on his hunting trips into the hills. When Crook got wind of the shenanigans—his pale, mottled face turned a pure crimson.

Having ordered the peddler arrested, as well as seizing the civilian's whiskey barrels and taking the two working girls into custody, Crook had no more than settled down to a cup of coffee that afternoon when Lieutenant Bourke had shown up with news of the most unsettling kind.

Faced with the undeniable evidence, the general had no other choice but to place Captain Sutorious under arrest—charged with being drunk on duty. He had failed to place his pickets correctly for that evening's watch. The following day court was held, and Sutorious was found guilty in the field and relieved of his command. The captain, as well as the three civilians, would remain with the expedition until he could be sent south to Fetterman, then on to Fort Laramie for incarceration until Sutorious would be separated from the service.

“I think the sentence was too damned severe,” John Finerty complained to Donegan that night after the trial.

Seamus wagged his head. “Can't agree with you more, Johnny. But that was the decision of the man's fellow officers.”

“But if they thought they could get away with getting drunk and poking one of those ugly wenches—the rest of 'em would've done the same damned thing!”

Donegan had to agree. Sutorious was just the unlucky one to get caught. Or the one who suffered a lapse in good
sense that compelled him to drink just before he had to go on picket duty.

“I just don't understand those officers punishing one of their own that way,” Seamus continued. “The captain's sergeants ain't no shavetails. So what's the rub when Sutorious got a little too much barleycorn under the gills? His sergeants know how to post and rotate the guard.”

“Seeing what damage that whiskey peddler's caused,” Finerty replied, “I wish the field court had the jurisdiction over that civilian.”

Seamus asked, “If it did—what do you think should happen?”

“Understand that I really liked Sutorious,” the newsman answered. “I think he's a damned fine soldier. So I'd like to see the son of a bitch flogged before the whole camp, whipped within an inch of his goddamned life!”

After the disgraced Sutorious was shipped south with the next escort and Crook impounded the whiskey, putting it under the control of the surgeons for the rest of the campaign, the momentary excitement was over, and things settled back into the same dull routine.

Waiting for the Fifth Cavalry to arrive. Fishing. And waiting. Hunting. And more waiting. Reading again and again the old newspapers that told them that five commissioners had been appointed to negotiate with the Sioux for the Black Hills; news that Rutherford B. Hayes, who had commanded a brigade under Crook in West Virginia during the Civil War, had been nominated by the Republicans for President.

And still more waiting.

On the nineteenth four Crow warriors rode into camp with dispatches for Crook from the Limping Chief—Colonel John Gibbon—on the Yellowstone. However, there proved to be nothing new in those messages: after waiting for many days for the return of the three white couriers General Terry had sent south, Gibbon had feared the worst and merely copied Terry's letter to Crook before sending it off with a quartet of his own Montana-column scouts.

The success of those Crow couriers encouraged Crook to urge civilian packer Richard Kelly to give it one more try pushing north with letters destined for Terry. In just the past week Kelly had made two attempts, so just before dawn on the twentieth, the mule skinner slipped out of camp, hoping this third journey would be the charm.

That day, as they did early every morning, Washakie dispatched his warriors into the surrounding hills to gather what information they could on the movements of the Sioux. It wasn't long before the savvy old chief was able to advise Three Stars that his soldiers were facing as many as three Lakota warriors to every one of Crook's men. And to add the insult of salt rubbed in Crook's brooding wound, nearly every night brought another of those frightening, lightning-fast, but ineffective raids on the herds that succeeded in accomplishing nothing but raising the gorge of every man who wanted to be done with the endless waiting so they could march north to find Sitting Bull and his savages.

With every raid one thing was becoming abundantly clear: the enemy sure wasn't abandoning the country, and they sure weren't acting at all intimidated by Crook's army.

One scouting party led by Washakie's son discovered that the great camp was breaking up slowly—many of the smaller bands moseying unhurried and unpressed to the northeast, in the direction of the Powder. But, reported another party of the Shoshone who had just returned from the headwaters of the Little Bighorn, perhaps the Sioux camps were breaking up because they were apparently growing hungry. In one abandoned village Washakie's scouts found hundreds of dog and pony bones.

Before this campaign was out, the Indians wouldn't be the only ones to survive by eating their animals.

“Washakie says that time will take its toll on the Lakota,” John Bourke explained one evening at a fire.

“Yeah, time will have to!” Finerty grumbled. “This army's growing fat and lazy with nothing to do.”

“I remember when Crook had this bunch lean and
trail hardened,” Seamus agreed. “Back in March, and again when we headed for the Rosebud too.”

“You fellas have to look at things the way the general is,” Bourke said. “The commander who finally goes into battle against Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and all their hellions will be studied in the decades to come at the Academy. And greater still, the nation will grant that general every reward, even the presidency.”

“Like Washington?” Finerty replied. “Like Jackson and Taylor and Sam Grant himself?”

“Exactly,” Bourke said. “Because the spoils are so rich this summer—it seems to me that it's now every general for himself.”

Finerty asked, “So why is Crook relying so much on that Washakie?”

“Hold on there, John. Don't you think we should give that Shoshone chief credit?” Bourke responded. “He's recommending that the general just sit tight until all the problems of quarrels between petty chiefs, of feeding so many people, of grazing so many ponies—all those problems will mean the breakup of that huge village Custer's regiment bumped into.”

Unbeknownst to Crook, his soldiers, and his Shoshone scouts, that village had already fragmented and the splinters were wandering off to the four winds. Only the summer roamers, those warriors who fled the reservations each spring and hurried back to the agencies every autumn, remained behind to harass the soldier camp every night and set new fires in the grass each day.

The toughest of their lot, the hostile winter roamers under such chiefs as Crazy Horse, Crow King, Sitting Bull, and Gall, had abandoned the Tongue River country not long after the Sibley skirmish. Already they were heading toward the hunting grounds around the Owl River, what the white man called the Moreau. From there they would wander over to the Thick Timber River, shown on the army's maps as the Little Missouri—there to spend the rest of the long, lazy summer days hunting buffalo in peace.

Twice they had defeated the soldiers sent against them. Again and again they had stymied the soldiers sitting on their thumbs beside the Elk River.
^*
And they had realized that Three Stars Crook was clearly in no rush to leave the security of his camp in the shadows of the Big Horn Mountains.

“It will be a good summer,” the Sioux were likely telling one another.

They had yet to hear Little Phil Sheridan's trumpet on the land.

Chapter 23
23 July-2 August 1876

O
MAHA
, July 20—A message received this morning from the commanding officer at Fort Fetterman, says a private courier has just arrived from the command on the field, who left the night of the 17th. The day previous a courier was started with the mail and official matter, but has not yet arrived. All quiet and well in camp.

Captain Nickerson, aid de camp to General Crook, returned last evening from Rawlins, Wyoming, whither he went on business connected with securing the Ute Indians of the White river and Bear river regions in Colorado, to unite with General Crook in his campaign against the Sioux. Although there was a delay of about twenty days, occasioned by the obstinacy of the employed scout or agent, the Utes will nevertheless be able to reach General Crook in a few days, to take a hand in the war against the Sioux, who are their inveter
ate
enemies, and who have fought and plundered them for years at every available chance.

S
T
. P
AUL
, July 20—A
Pioneer Press and Tribune
special from Bismarck says the statement that Sitting Bull was killed in the fight with Custer is confirmed from Indian sources. Crazy Horse and Black Moon were also killed. The statement that Sitting Bull's band of Uncpapas lost one hundred and sixty killed, and that the total loss of Indians will reach nearly four hundred, is renewed.

“Y
ou can entrust your letter with me, Mrs. Donegan.”

Just then the shrill notes of “Boots and Saddles” floated over the Fort Laramie parade in the chill air of dawn.

Sam looked up into the face of the tall plainsman, his dark-brown hair spilling over his collar in curls, just the way Seamus's did. She realized again that her husband had spent nights and days, miles and seasons, boredom and terror, with this famous man. Shivering with dawn's chill, she slid the folded pages she had sealed with wax into his open hand and pulled her heavy shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

Cody asked, “Is there anything special you want me to tell him when I see him, before I hand him your letter, or after? Anything I can tell him for you in person?”

Before she could stop herself, the words tumbled out, “Tell him to hurry home.” Then her gaze fell to the ground, sorry she had said it. When she finally looked back up, she found Cody grinning softly at her.

He looked down at the folded, sealed pages in his hand. “There is no doubt in my mind, Samantha—that you are in all ways a woman who could surely bring a man home from a distant war.”

She watched the tall man stuff her letter inside his shirt before pulling his fringed gauntlets over the cuffs of his buckskin coat. Everything about him was fringed now. Gone was that theater costume of black velvet he had worn into Laramie two days before. Fort sutler Collins had provided Cody with a box in which the scout packed the scarlet-trimmed outfit before he had Collins tie it up in yellow twine and post it back to Rochester, New York.

“It's where my wife waits for me,” Cody had explained yesterday to Samantha, that one long and intensely busy day Colonel Wesley Merritt allowed his Fifth Cavalry to prepare before embarking for Fetterman, and on to the Big Horns. “So, you see? I am no greenhorn to this matter of men going off to war.”