Reap the Whirlwind (63 page)

“I’d heard you white men aren’t supposed to like water!” Frank roared, grinning as Big Bat came to a halt beside him. They both squatted on their heels there beside Goose Creek.

Seamus Donegan sat in a quiet pool where the sluggish waters eddied about him up to his armpits. “Feels good. You two ought to think about it. Way I see it, you both’re beginning to smell no better than those mules out yonder.”

The half-breeds lounged quietly for a long time watching the Irishman loll about in the creek, turning and splashing, taking a few strokes in this direction, then turning his white rump about to swim a few strokes heading upstream. Bat passed Grouard a dark plug of tobacco. From it Frank carved a long sliver, which he broke up between his thumb and fingers, dropping the fragrant leaf into the bowl of his pipe. When Pourier produced a lucifer, Frank set fire to the tobacco, then without much ceremony blew the first six short puffs to the four winds, to father sky and mother earth.

Old habits were hard to break, even had a man wanted to.

“Way me and Bat see it,” Grouard began without preliminaries,
lifting his chin to blow a stream of smoke into the leafy branches right over his head, “the general needs to find out what’s going on north of here.”

“See what the village is doing?” Donegan asked, slowly padding closer to the bank now, his interest piqued. He swept the long, wet hair back over his shoulder.

“Maybeso, yes. And see what the other soldier columns up to,” Pourier answered.

“I don’t think Crook would mind at all knowing what Terry or Gibbon are doing wandering around up on the Yellowstone,” Donegan replied. “But I imagine it’s going to be some dangerous work.”

Tapping the chewed stem of his pipe against his lower teeth, Grouard grew thoughtful a moment before he spoke again. “One man—maybe two—could slip through that country, Irishman.”

Donegan almost choked, spitting water as he growled, “Through that goddamned bunch of hostiles with Crazy Horse? Are you serious?”

Grouard grinned slightly. “That mean you’re wanting to stay here with Reshaw?”

The Irishman’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two half-breeds. “You boys have it all figured out, do you?”

Grouard only nodded, drawing again on his pipe.

Pourier spit a stream of tobacco juice into the creek, making a pretty, graceful arc in the steamy summer air. “Frank’s going—ain’t no talking him out of it.”

“You still got something to settle with that Crazy Horse bunch, don’t you, Grouard?” Donegan asked.

His only reply was a slight shrug with one shoulder.

“So if Frank goes,” Bat said, “we all know Crook won’t let me go with him.”

The Irishman asked, “Why not?”

“Because the general don’t wanna be left behind with Reshaw as his only guide.”

“Why won’t Crook take Reshaw?”

Now Grouard savagely yanked the pipe from his lips and grumbled, sour as green meat, “Because the general don’t really trust the little black-hearted bastard.”

The Irishman wagged his head. “You fellas come down here to talk me into going with you, Grouard?”

Frank stared off across the stream. “You wanna go—you’re welcome to come. Up to you. I ain’t begging. It’s gonna be one of the most dangerous rides you ever took in your life, white man.”

“Well, now—I’ve had me some pretty exciting rides in my lifetime—”

“Nothing like what’s waiting out there,” Grouard interrupted, jabbing at the afternoon air with the stem of his pipe. “A hundred miles and more of nothing but Lakota and Shahiyena warriors wanting nothing like they want my scalp on their lodgepole.”

“’Cause you went and led Crook’s soldiers down on ’em twice now,” the Irishman added.

Grouard leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You decide to go with me, you better be damned sure it’s what you wanna do.”

“You got that right,” Donegan grumbled, cupping his hand in the cool water and bringing it to his lips.

“So if you don’t go, Frank goes on his own,” Pourier declared. “But Crook needs to know who’s going—needs to know tonight.”

Back and forth between them the Irishman looked, first at one, then at the other, back and forth as if considering something. Hefting the weightiness of it. Then for a long, long moment Donegan stared off to the south, as if gazing far, far away. When he finally brought his eyes back to Grouard, he had a sad smile on his face.

“Tell me when you’re figuring on us slipping out of camp, Frank.”

“Tonight.”

19 June 1876

Camp at the Forks of
  Goose Creek

Wyo. Terr.

My dearest Samantha,

Woman of my heart and mind, of my very soul.

How many times I’ve taken your lace kerchief from my shirt pocket, pulled back the waxed paper, now much wrinkled. We were both so hopeful that by wrapping this keepsake in just this way I could carry with me the smell of you. With sad regret I find your fragrance fading from this scrap of cloth.

Yet my love for you has never been stronger.

Never doubt in that. I will continue to carry the kerchief in my breast pocket, there—over my heart, where you are always with me. Even into the throes of battle, you rode with me, my love. Never once did you leave my side.

Oh, how I am blessed by your love. Blessed by
your steadfastness. Never have I had such fidelity. Never before have I wanted to pledge my fidelity to another.

Hear again my vow, Samantha. Feel it course through you as it truly courses through me now as I sit down to take this pencil in my hand, poise it over these sheets of paper I have begged off one of the newspaper correspondents come on this trip north to Indian country. Another unredeemed Irishman, I’m afraid. Like that Bob Strahorn you heard me speak of so often after our return from the Powder River in March. This one, by the name of John Finerty, I would never trust near you, Sam.

He’s far too much the rascal, and a handsome rounder to boot. I’m dead certain he could cause any lady’s heart to swoon—even yours, my dear. So I am most relieved that for the time being he is here with George Crook’s army and not at your unescorted elbow there at Fort Laramie.

I truly don’t know what to ask you, to properly inquire of your condition. Not being accustomed to genteel company, I am not sure what is proper etiquette when one addresses a mother-to-be, asking about the changes she is undergoing as that new life grows within her. You see, I’ve never been a father before. How would I know what to ask?

Before I left for Fetterman, you were so worried, tears wetting your eyes, anxious that I would not recognize you when I returned. So afraid, you finally admitted to me, that I would not find you attractive—would not desire you—when you became “as big as a cow.”

Do you remember what I told you then?

“Samantha—you will never be as big as a cow. Maybe a horse. But never a cow!”

What a thrashing you gave me, dear heart! What a joyful thrashing! One I admit I knew I would deserve even before the words had fallen from my lips.

Just as I took you in my arms when you had finished thrashing me, and held you while we laughed until we cried. Then I realized you really were crying. How I’ve always hated to see tears cloud those eyes of yours. But especially then—to find tears of sadness, regret, of longing already there as I raised your chin so that I could look into your sweet, sweet face.

Oh, how I wish I had you here now in my arms. So empty are they. So empty they ache. A cold, real ache.

To look now into your face, to see if there are the smallest of changes wrought of your condition. But all I have is this tiny chromo we had done of you in Denver City early last autumn. I trust you will hold as tightly to the one you wanted done of me. This image of my true love in no way does you justice, yet it must do until I finally embrace you in my hands. Touch your cheeks and wipe the tears from them. To feel your skin beneath my touch as I hold you close through the long, long nights.

It’s then that I find this longing for you the hardest to bear. Like tonight, just now as the sun is falling behind the Bighorn Mountains. Where I sit is but a matter of miles north of Fort Phil Kearny, where I spent what one might call my coming of age here on the frontier. Ten years gone beneath my wandering boots, like the flowing of one of these mountain streams.

I suppose I was brought to you, nudged in your direction in one way or another in just that way, Sam.

If I hadn’t found you, if you hadn’t saved me—there’s no telling what might have become of my life.

How I always tempted the fates. How I still tempt Dame Fortune, a fickle strumpet that she is, not much given to casting a favored eye on me.

But you—you, Sam have been my good fortune, my blessing above all others. How I do cherish
you, and that new life we together have created.

By now you will have received some word from me, the barest of messages we are allowed to have sent on to you from Fetterman. Most of the officers who have wives stationed at Russell or Laramie will send their loved ones these brief notices that they have survived the fight we had with the Sioux and Cheyenne two days ago. I have no idea how long it will take you to get my message that I am safe. I can only hope that you get that news at the same time Fort Laramie is receiving the news of Crook’s battle on the Rosebud.

If you don’t, I pray you will not suffer with anxiety for me. I pray that you will not suffer because my message is late in arriving. Army business always takes priority. Next are the messages sent out by officers to their families. Only then will they allow anything from a civilian.

So I’m asking a fellow packer who tells me tonight that he will be going south tomorrow with some dispatches and telegrams from General Crook to his commanders, likely bound for the desk of none other than General Phil Sheridan himself. I fought for Little Phil in the Shenandoah, Sam. Had some Confederate steel laid across my back for Phil Sheridan and U.S. Grant and Uncle Billy Sherman and the rest too. Took that steel and the acid the surgeons poured in that slash across the great muscles of my back, vowing that I would never shirk doing whatever I could to preserve our Union.

Me—a poor Irish boy locked on a stinking ship and bound for a foreign land called Amerikay. Me, ready time and again to lay down my life for this Union I have come to love.

The way I came to love you. Ready to lay down my life for you, should I ever be asked.

If this land is to be settled, it is here I wish to put down our roots, Sam. Here to send out our branches—those children we will raise together.
The lives of those we will create together, more than anything I do alone in this great wilderness, will be my lasting legacy. Those children and grandchildren you will gather round my knee each night to hear my stories—they will be one of the greatest blessings God has ever given an unworthy man.

Johnny Bourke tells me tonight that Crook plans on waiting right here for the reinforcements he has asked Sheridan to send up to him from Kansas and Nebraska. The general has also requested complete resupply. Although we have an ample supply of ammunition among the wagons here at our base camp, enough to withstand any full-scale assault by the warrior bands, we still do not have enough when the time comes that General Crook desires to lead us back into the bosom of the red man’s stronghold.

It is there that dangers await—enough danger to quicken the heart of even the most jaded adventurer.

I think Crook desires to link up with one of the two outfits said to be north of us on the Yellowstone. Even my old friend, Custer, is up there. You’ve not heard me tell of him before—but I am sure you will hear his name mentioned on this frontier, from Fort Abraham Lincoln down to Fort Laramie. We both fought for Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. It was there that Custer stripped me of my sergeant’s stripes. I never got them back until I had a fateful reunion with the man who wore them after me. Another old friend who was killed later with William Fetterman.

Yes, now Crook can’t help but want to link up with another outfit and together go in search of the hostile village. Now that we’ve seen their strength, sensed the measure of their will and resolve, felt the caliber of their warrior spirit. Crook is not so anxious now—not near as anxious as he once was—to strike the enemy alone. I sense that he feels need of finding out about the other units
on the Yellowstone. Communicating with them. But, alas—between us and them lies the disputed land of these noble savages.

Oh, as night comes down on this camp, I think all the more on you and my heart grows heavy in the distance between us.

Nearby some man is playing a mouth-harp, the mournful wail of some sad, sad song. And someone down in the teamsters’ camp does a merry tune on his squeeze-box. Times like this I wish I were more talented and could bring others joy by making music. Times like this, I wish you were here to dance and whirl and kick up your heels with me—spinning, spinning around and around as I lead you in our merry reel beneath the stars, your skirts flaring at your ankles, a flush come to your cheeks, a smile on your lips and in your eyes.

How I so want to dance with you!

It grows late and I must go see a friend about purchasing from him a new rifle. The one I have carried for these ten long years has suffered some damage that makes it irreparable in the field. Since I am to stay here with Crook’s army, I will be in great need of another powerful weapon. And this old packer I mentioned let me use one of his rifles during the last hours of the battle against the Sioux and Cheyenne horsemen who repeatedly charged us, although to no good purpose. So I’ll go soon and try striking a deal with the old packer for his buffalo gun. A supremely serviceable weapon that should stand the test of time just like that Henry repeater of mine.

Then I will try sleeping. Last night the nervous pickets blasted away at shadows, and I wasn’t able to fall back asleep because there were so many men in my own camp who were afraid to go back to sleep that they sat up the rest of the night talking and drinking coffee. It made it impossible for a man of my constitution and light sleeping habits
to get any rest. Tonight will be the first rest I have had in the last three days.