A Cold Day in Hell (28 page)

“Easy, Seamus!” Bourke hushed, holding up both his hands in front of him as if he expected Donegan to make a grab for him at any moment. “I’m … I’m sorry!”

“Damn well you should be,” the Irishman grumped, then drank down the last of his lukewarm coffee. “I’m as American as any man of ye now. Lived here in this country longer’n I lived in Eire, I have. So go and stuff that up your ballot box, John Bourke.”

“Someone has been stuffing the ballot boxes, Seamus,” Bourke said. “Both Tilden and Hayes are claiming victory in the swing states of Florida, Louisiana, and the Carolinas.”

“How can they both claim victory? Ain’t it a democratic election?”

With a slight shrug Bourke said, “I suppose the count is so close. This morning on the wire, word had it that General Augur—who commands the Department of the Gulf—is taking infantry and artillery units with him to Florida because of all the threats of bloodshed.”

“I damn well thought we already fought one war of American against American!” Seamus howled.

“Things aren’t settled down South—won’t be for a long time,” Bourke replied. “The news that our troops are being sent in is about as bad as news of hostilities with a foreign nation. This could be even worse, because internecine wars always have a rich infusion of religious fanaticism to them.”

“Mind what I say, Johnny: more men been put to the sword in the name of one religion over the other, than for all the bleeming politics in the world,” Seamus declared solemnly.

“Aye, Seamus,” Bourke said. “Severe as our coming experiences in the Indian country may be, they will be more welcome that a campaign in the sunny lands of the South having to fight against our own misguided people.”

“Is the coffee burned yet?” a voice called out behind them.

Seamus turned to look over his shoulder at the civilian entering Fetterman’s mess hall, dusting the flakes of frozen snow from his fur hat.

“It ain’t bad for beggars like us, Frank. They just brewed me a fresh pot. Come—have you a cup.”

“Lieutenant Bourke,” Frank North acknowledged the officer as he came to the table, “the general asked me to fetch you up. Says he’s wanting you to bring up one of the Sioux leaders from the scouts’ camp down across the river. To have a chat with him about all the complaining the Sioux have been doing.”

An hour later Seamus and Bourke had returned with Three Bears and a few other ranking warriors eager to have an audience with Three Stars Crook. As the Sioux settled onto the floor in the tiny, drafty office, Crook dragged a chair around the side of the desk and set it directly in front of his guests. Then he glanced at his interpreters and asked, “What’s Three Bears got on his mind?”

The general’s question was translated. Getting to his feet and readjusting his blanket about his shoulders, the Sioux leader began to speak slowly, pausing now and then while the interpreters hurried to catch up.

“Before leaving Red Cloud Agency, I told the agent I wanted him to give our people their regular allowance of rations while we were gone on this scout. I am talking now for all our families left back to Red Cloud Agency. I want the beeves turned out the same as they ever were while we are away.

“I have three things to say and that’s all. When that delegation gets back from the Indian Territory, I want it to wait for me and not go to Washington until we can start together. I don’t want them to start before that time. As soon as we get through with this business out here, we can work together, and that’s the reason I want them to wait for me. Sometimes I may want to ask for something, and whenever I do, I want Three Stars to agree to it. When we travel together, we ought to work together as one.

“A great many of our men back at the agency have guns but
no ammunition. I want to have a message sent to both those stores at the agency to have them sell ammunition for a couple of days, because the hostile Indians will come down there and raise trouble with our people while we are away. I want you to write this letter right away about my words, because if my young people don’t cry for food while I am away, I’ll like you all the better when I go back.

“The Pawnees have a great herd of horses here; we want half to drive along.”

“Is that all?” Crook replied, his eyes moving from Three Bears to the interpreter, then back to the Sioux.

“Yes,” answered the translator.

“All right. There’ll be a fair division made of the horses.”

Jutting his chin, acceptance brightening his face, Three Bears continued, “I want you to put in your letter we got one half of those horses back. And when you send us out on a scout, we want to work our own way.”

The general nodded. “That’s it, exactly.”

“If a man wants to live in this world, he has got to do right and keep his ears straight,” Three Bears continued. “Then he gets along without trouble. We are going to listen to you after this and do what you tell us. If we get any money for our country that you want us to sell back to you, we don’t want it taken away from us. I want the Great Father to hear me when I call for oxen, wagons, and sheep—and when they are given to me, I don’t want the agent to keep them for me in his corrals. I can keep them myself.”

“I have no problem with that,” Crook replied. “I’ll see that it is done.”

“It is good that we can work together, Three Stars,” the Sioux leader said as he motioned the other warriors to rise.

“Yes, it is good,” Crook replied. “Now, what say we go see about catching Crazy Horse?”

When the Indians had filed from the room, crossing the parade to follow the wide wagon road that would take them down the bluffs to the mouth of La Prele Creek, where they would cross on the ferry to the cavalry camp on the north bank, Crook watched them disappear in the swirls of ground snow.

“That son of a bitch was more savvy than savage, wasn’t he, fellas?”

“Certainly was,” Bourke agreed, coming up to stand at the window beside the general.

“Nothing wrong with keeping the welfare of his people always first,” Seamus declared as he stepped to the door.

Bourke added, “I get the feeling Three Bears is going to play his enlistment as a scout for all the political and economic ends he can get out of it.”

With his hand on the big iron hasp, Donegan asked, “You can’t blame him, can you, Johnny?”

“No, we can’t,” Crook answered emphatically. “I’ll see that he gets all he wants, just as long as he damn well sees that I get Crazy Horse.”

“M
ajor, this horse belongs to me,” Frank North addressed First Lieutenant William Philo Clark by his brevet rank as the civilian angrily wrenched the horsehair lead rope looped
around the neck of a dark bay pony from the hands of the war chief leading the Sioux auxiliaries.

“It can’t be,” Clark replied indignantly. “Isn’t this one of the horses taken from Red Cloud’s band?”

Seamus Donegan nodded in agreement as he watched the cloud pass over the face of the war chief called Three Bears, then said to Clark, “In this case, you’re both right, Clark. That’s the horse Crook told Frank he could pick out of the ponies we confiscated out of Red Cloud’s herd. Some of the Sioux scouts claim it’s supposed to be just about the fastest thing on four legs.”

“Damn well it has been,” Frank growled in admiration as he fingered the horsehair rope nervously.

Just two days after the general’s conference with Three Bears and the Sioux headmen there at Fort Fetterman, one of the Pawnee scouts had come tearing into the battalion’s camp reporting that a dozen of the Sioux mercenaries had just come riding into the herd, dropped a rope around Frank’s horse, and ridden off with it in tow. Outmanned and undergunned, the lone Pawnee horse guard had hightailed it straight to Frank North with the news. North promptly dispatched one of his riders to track down Lieutenant Clark, who, along with John Bourke, served General Crook as aide-de-camp, and demand that the young officer bring the horse to North’s bivouac.

In less than an hour Clark showed up with Three Bears, the war chief pulling the lead rope wrapped around the neck of the pony in question.

Clark’s eyes narrowed as he looked from Donegan to North, saying, “General Crook ordered that the horses captured from the Red Cloud and Red Leaf herds are to be used as a reserve. Three Bears’s pony has given out, so I told him he could select a new one—”

“So he wants this one, don’t he?” Luther North interrupted.

“He does,” Clark snapped.

“Well, you just tell Three Bears that he can’t have him,” Frank added. “He’s already called for.”

“We got seventy extra horses,” Luther attempted to explain to the perplexed lieutenant, “all of ’em given to the Pawnee as extra stock when ours give out. You can have Three Bears pick something to ride from among them.”

“But this was a Sioux horse to begin with,” Clark said after Three Bears seethed a moment in his own tongue, the Sioux leader’s dark eyes fiery as he watched more and more of his traditional
enemies, the Pawnee, gather nearby to listen in on the argument.

“Major Clark—I suggest you check with Crook before you go off half-cocked,” Seamus said.

Clark whirled on Donegan. “A civilian such as yourself has nothing to say about this—”

“I damn well do have something to say if I see a man stealing a horse from a friend of mine!” Seamus snapped.

“The horse in question belonged to Three Bears to begin with!”

“That horse hasn’t belonged to Three Bears since Mackenzie captured Red Cloud’s herd!” Frank bellowed.

Clark wagged his head adamantly, pointing to the horse and saying, “I think for the sake of relations among our scouts that you could see your way clear to choose another—”

“The hell I will!” Frank shouted.

Clark’s knuckles had turned white gripping his reins, in stark contrast to the red rising in his face. In an attempt to control the harsh anger in his voice, his words came out clipped and staccato. “If that’s the way you want it, I will see the general about this, right now.”

“You do that,” Frank replied, seething, “and I’ll be right behind you to see him too.”

As soon as Clark and Three Bears reined their horses about, Frank called out for one of his Pawnee sergeants, telling the scout to have the dark bay saddled.

Luther grabbed hold of Frank’s arm, saying, “If you’ll wait for me to get saddled up too, I’ll go with you.”

“Count me in too, Frank,” Seamus added. “I’ve got my horse saddled right over there.”

The elder North turned to gaze across the river at the naked bluff on the south side where sat the fort’s whitewashed buildings splayed against a pale winter sky. “All right. A few more minutes won’t matter—go get ready, Lute. Thanks … thanks, fellas.”

The Pawnee sent to saddle up Luther’s mount hadn’t returned when one of Tom Moore’s teamsters came plodding up atop one of the balky mules, hollering out in great excitement.

“Major North! Major North!” he bellowed as he brought his mule to a clattering halt and bolted from its bare back. “Had to come tell you.”