Trumpet on the Land (48 page)

“Mr. Cody!”

They both turned to find one of Terry's staff hailing them, hurrying their way. Bill flung the lukewarm dregs of his coffee at the fire. “Looks like they're ready to give me a ride on that goddamned boat.”

“Watch out, Bill. See for yourself all the bullet scars in that iron they riveted up around the pilothouse.”

Cody held out his hand and shook the Irishman's. “I didn't come back out here to scout for the army just to be killed while taking a lark of a ride on some goddamned riverboat. I intend to make it back home to Lulu and the children.”

“Sounds like you've made up your mind to cash in your chips and go back east.”

Pulling on his fringed gloves, Cody said, “Just as soon as this ride on the river is damned well over.”

S
T
. P
AUL
, August 7—A Bismarck special to-day to the
Pioneer Press
and
Tribune
, says the steamer
Carroll
arrived this morning from General Terry's camp, having on board General Forsythe and twenty sick and wounded soldiers. The
Carroll
on her way up, when near the mouth of the Powder river, found the Indians on both sides of the river, and for two and a half hours they kept up a running fire upon the boat, only wounding one soldier slightly. The steamer
Far West
, after leaving Fort Buford for Terry's camp found her load too heavy and discharged part of her cargo, principally grain. At this same point the Indians attacked the
Far West
… The Indians stood on both banks of the river and with oaths dared Col. Moore with his troops to leave the boat and land. A few shells were fired from a twelve-pounder which scattered the Indians and they disappeared from the south bank.

Dave Campbell, pilot of the
Far West
with two Ree scouts, then landed and went out to reconnoiter, but finding the Indians were endeavoring to cut them off, they turned and started as fast as was possible for the boat. Seven Sioux had circled as to intercept them, and it became a race for life. The horse of one of the scouts began to fall behind and was soon shot, when the rider started on foot, but it was no use. The same Sioux who had killed the horse soon reached him and put a bullet through his lungs. Dave Campbell heard the shot. Looking behind and seeing the wounded scout laying on the ground, he said to the other scout, “We must go back and get that man.”

Although it was as much as their lives were worth, they turned, and as they did so they saw the
Sioux dismounted from his pony, fired, and the Indian fell with his scalping knife in his hand. Dave and the Ree then scalped the Sioux and started with the wounded man for the steamer. During this time Col. Moore, although with three companies, sent no one to the relief of these three men. Finally Grant Marsh, captain of the
Far West
called for one hundred volunteers, and fifteen soldiers immediately offered their services, but Col. Moore ordered them not to leave the boat. However, eight of them, contrary to orders, went with Capt. Marsh and brought in Campbell and the two scouts. Colonel Moore threatened to courtmartial these eight men then and there, and the steamboat men don't hesitate to pronounce Col. Moore's conduct cowardly in the extreme.

Terry has fallen back eighty miles from his camp on the Big Horn, and is now camped near the mouth of Rosebud. A scout from Gen. Crook reached Gen. Terry July 22, barefooted and almost destitute of clothing. Crook was but seventy-five miles from General Terry's command and trying to reach him. The Indians, however, kept picking off his men, driving in his scouts, and stealing his stock, so that his advance was very much retarded, only being about six miles a day. The men in both commands are reported very much disheartened.

On the afternoon of the eighteenth Seamus sat on the south bank of the Yellowstone and watched as a Bozeman City trader floated downriver in his Mackinaw boat, hailing the soldiers.

“Homemade ale and dry goods!” the peddler bellowed as he rose to his knees in his rickety craft. “Come and get what's left of my homemade ale!”

As he came in sight of the army's encampment, the civilian proclaimed that he had sold half his wares to the
soldiers left to garrison the depot at the mouth of the Rosebud and wished to sell the rest of his heady beer and dry goods before pushing back upriver for home.

Like a flock of goslings swarming around a farmwife's ankles as she scatters corn, officers and enlisted alike nearly swamped the poor man's little boat as they rushed into the water to be the first to have call on his ale, as well as his other goods.

“Yeah, I've got a frying pan,” he answered one officer's request.

“How about a coffeepot?”

“Yes, one of them too.”

“You have any canned fruit?”

“A little. Got more of tinned vegetables.”

“Shirts? You got any?”

“A few hickory shirts left. And some canvas britches too.”

“Give me one of each!”

“Save a pair of them pants for me!”

The bearded, sunburned men huddled round that trader's boat, exchanging what little money they had for what the Bozeman merchant sold at exorbitant prices, men forced to buy with their own funds clothing that the army hadn't seen fit to provide its ragged, nearly naked soldiers.

While they waited for Cody and the
Far West
to return from his scout downriver to the mouth of Glendive Creek, Crook and Terry held a curious correspondence, discussing just how ready Crook really was to resume his chase, since he steadfastly repeated that he still required a full fifteen days of rations and forage. The latter was proving to be the most crucial—plainly there wasn't enough grain to recruit Crook's broken-down horses.

Early on the evening of the eighteenth, Terry wrote to Crook, saying:

This correspondence presented a most unusual circumstance—to find the cautious Terry suddenly impatient to be at the chase once more; and to discover that the tenacious Crook had begun to find excuses to delay.

But as far as Seamus Donegan was concerned, the wily George Crook was merely maneuvering so that once he had what he considered enough supplies, he was going to break free of his superior, Alfred Terry.

Exactly as the survivors of the Seventh Cavalry said Custer had talked of doing before they left Gibbon and Terry behind at the mouth of the Rosebud and marched south for their rendezvous with destiny.

That was enough to give a brave man pause.

Donegan prayed Crook was not about to march his Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition into the very same maw of hell that had devoured Custer and five companies of cavalry beside the Little Bighorn.

Chapter 30
19-26 August 1876

S
T
. P
AUL
, August 7—In consequence of low water in the Yellowstone and the inability of troops at this time to afford protection to building parties, the order for the construction of new forts on the Yellowstone has been countermanded.

N
EW
Y
ORK
, August 7—A correspondent telegraphs that Gen. Terry hopes to be able to begin his march by the 9th inst. Under date of July 31st, the correspondent says: “We have just met the Steamer Far
West
, on her way down to bring the supplies left at Powder river, which we found in possession of the Indians. Capt. Thompson, of the Second cavalry, committed suicide just before the troops left the Big Horn river.”

L
ate in the morning of the nineteenth, Bill Cody surprised everyone by riding in alone on his buckskin instead of returning on the
Far West
, having made the dangerous trip upriver on horseback so that he could more closely study any sign he might come across along the south bank of the Yellowstone.

After receiving the scout's unproductive report, Terry sought out Crook, finding the general seated on a rock at the edge of the river, scrubbing his only pair of longhandles in the muddy water.

“I've decided to send the boat upriver to fetch forage and supplies for you at the Rosebud,” Terry told him. “And the shoes Chambers requested.”

“Once I'm reprovisioned, I'll set out at once,” Crook vowed.

A few hours later the
Far West
reappeared, chugging beneath afternoon skies to tie up against the north bank. Even from the vantage point of the steamer's wheelhouse, Louie Reshaw hadn't spotted any sign that the hostiles had crossed the Yellowstone. Terry ordered Captain Grant Marsh and pilot Dave Campbell to leave at once for, the mouth of the Rosebud, where they were to take on all the supplies previously left in depot there before returning to the Powder. That evening many of the newspapermen went along to enjoy the moonlit trip upriver.

“It was beautiful,” John Finerty gushed as he strode up to Lieutenant Bourke's fire at Crook's headquarters the next morning. “Nearly a full moon—”

“I don't have time to listen to stories about your riverboat ride right now,” Bourke interrupted snappishly, watching how his words brought the newsman up short.

“What—”

“Things aren't good right now: Washakie just told Crook that he's leaving.”

“All of them?” Finerty turned this way and that, saying, “The Shoshone? They're leaving?”

“Back to their reservation at Wind River.”

“Whatever for?”

John shrugged. “Shit, my only guess is they really don't want to fight the Sioux as bad as Crook does.”

“No, John. There's something more to it than that,” Finerty pressed, grabbing hold of Bourke's arm. “Tell me what Washakie said to the general when he broke the news.”

Bourke didn't want to tell him, didn't want any newsman to know, really. But with the way the general was going to be butchered by Davenport when the correspondent reported this setback, John felt there should be at least one other newsman who could put enough slant on things to counterbalance Davenport's nasty, anti-Crook point of view. It could only be Finerty.

John sighed and looked at the correspondent. “The Shoshone don't think we're going to catch the Sioux.”

“Hell! Truth is, I don't think we're going to, either! So what else did he tell Crook?”

“They didn't like Tom Moore's slow-moving mule train.”

“Those can't be the only reasons. Why, most of Washakie's warriors rode with that ‘slow-moving mule train' all the way to the Rosebud earlier this summer!”

“All I can say is they don't like it now, Finerty. Besides, like Crook says—there just seems to be no stopping them because it's getting close to annuity time.”

“Annuity?”

Bourke answered, “The provisions they get from the government agent there at Wind River. Washakie wants to be there when his people come in to receive their goods.”

“Well, we've still got Cody and Grouard and the rest.”

The lieutenant shook his head. “That's some more bad news: Cody resigned this morning. I just heard about it myself. I haven't even told the general yet because he's been in a dither about the Snakes … and now Cody's calling it quits.”

“Cody? Why, in God's name?”

“He told General Terry about the same thing Washakie did: that it appeared the soldiers did not want to
fight, that he had worn himself out chasing Indians who had cleared out of the country a long time ago. He really let Terry have it, telling the general all about his scouting ability, how he took that Cheyenne's scalp at the Warbonnet— but that Crook and Terry didn't want to listen to him when he pointed out fresh trails that needed to be followed.”