CHAPTER 1
The Scout
* * *
April 30, 1876
Dan Murphy and Sam Streeter of Company A, Seventh Cavalry,were a half mile ahead of their squad that was scouting for twodeserters from Fort Abraham Lincoln. Dan didn't know thedeserters that well—Hogan and Snively from C Troop. Best guesswas they were heading for the Black Hills, gold fever being whatit was.
Reaching the crest of a long rise, they saw ten Sioux downbelow. The Indians were heading northwest at a slow walk, movinglike they still owned this part of the country. Hell, they'd given itup back in '68.
Dan was quite aware that stumbling across renegades wouldcomplicate the scout. Worse yet, it messed up a peaceful afternoonwhen a gentle wind bore the new grass smell of spring and the sunwarmed a man's bones after a hard winter stretched out by Marchblizzards. There was no choice now but to determine what theIndians were doing this far north.
Wiping the alkali dust off his face, Dan handed the field glassesto the eagle-eyed rookie from Massachusetts.
"I make out four braves," Dan said. "That right?"
"Three braves and one old man," Sam replied. "Four squawsdragging a travois, two boys."
"And one extra pony with a travois?"
"Yes," Sam said. He turned toward Dan. "We're going to stopthem, right?"
"Damn it! You spooked 'em."
Below, the lead brave pulled up and pointed at them, warnedwhen the glasses swung the sun's reflection past him. The othersdrew abreast and sat their horses facing the two cavalrymen, theuneasy quiet broken by the metallic clicks of cartridges being leveredinto the Indians' Winchesters. Meanwhile the two Indian boysgalloped their ponies up the little hill on the far side of them.
"Go tell Jim and get Charley up here quick!" Dan said.
"We're going to stop them, aren't we?"
"Just get Charley quick."
Studying the renegades, Dan squinted, the old lines deepeningabove his half-bent nose as he watched the two boys disappear overthe ridge. The sun disappeared behind a cloud.
"There's dust over that rise," Charley Smrka said when he cameup.
Dan said, "Two boys went over there when they saw us."
"More people too."
"You think so?"
"Five travois. That's two, maybe three lodges."
The two boys reappeared with four mounted braves. Onecarried a lance with strips of red cloth and eagle feathers tied to it.The other three had Springfields—two carbines and a rifle.
Three minutes later Sergeant Jim Lawton reached the crest withthe rest of the squad. Corporal Bull Judd and Jubal Tinker had beenwith Company A since '72. The other three were rookies who hadenlisted six months before: Jake Picard was from Chicago, ErnstAlbrecht from Germany, and Elvin Crane from Troy, New York.
At Jim's command the squad formed a line along the crest, ninecavalrymen on coal-black horses, carbines loaded and in hand. TheIndians stared back, unmoved by the show of force.
"What're they doing this far north?" Jim asked Charley.
"Don't know," Charley replied.
Sam said, "We've got them outgunned, Sergeant!"
Jim ignored him, watching as the women, the old man, andthe boys started northwest again. The seven braves remained still,staring up at the troopers. The one in the middle looked to beforty and well over six feet. He was a strong-looking man with hishead cocked back, not so much to look up the hill but to challengeanyone put off by the angry scar running from his left eye to hischin, narrowly missing the proud nose but cutting straight acrossthe lips. He rode a chestnut of fifteen hands—no pony, that.
"They ain't in no hurry," Jim said. "Charley, see what you canfind out."
Charley handed his carbine to Dan before starting down theslope. He dismounted a few yards from the leader and begantalking in a mix of halting Lakota and English. The Indian repliedwith a rapid-fire string of words until Charley cut him off with agesture and said something. Whatever it was, it brought a lopsidedsmile to the man's face, and he slowed down considerably. The twoconversed for a few minutes, and then Charley swung himself upinto the saddle and returned up the hill. When he reached thetop and turned, the Indian leader raised his rifle over his headand launched into a lengthy harangue. Finally finished, he turnedslowly and the seven braves started northwest again. It looked likeall of them were chuckling.
"They're Hunkpapa Sioux," Charley said.
"What'd he say?" Jim asked.
"Said there's buffalo three days west of here. After the huntthey'll go back to Standing Rock. "
"You believe him?"
"The buffalo part, not the rest. They'll prob'ly go on to PowderRiver an' find Sitting Bull."
"Okay. He say anythin' about the boys we're lookin' for?" Jimasked.
"Said they ain't seen 'em, but them two carbines say otherwise,"Charley said.
"Yeah. What was he spoutin' at the end?"
"The speech? Somethin' about they're real strong an' we ain't."
"Sure and he was taunting us," Dan said. He removed his hatand ran a hand over his balding pate.
Two more boys came over the rise and remained there, staringat the cavalrymen. They couldn't have been older than twelve. Jimstared back, and then he glanced over at the line of troopers—straightenough for parade. When he turned back, the boys wereangling down the slope to fall in behind the braves. Within minutesthe party gained enough distance so you couldn't tell one riderfrom another. Meanwhile, the dust cloud behind the hill moved,paralleling the Indians' course.
The smell of spring returned as the clouds moved on and thesun began warming Dan again, as if nothing had gone on downbelow. He wondered how many warriors were behind that hill.
Charley admired how the Hunkpapas used the rolling countryto half-hide the size of their party, and he was damn sure the twodeserters were dead. The carbines clinched that. The only thingin doubt was how many more braves were on the other side of thehill, but the answer wasn't important. Their orders were to find thedeserters and get back to Fort Lincoln.
Jim said, "Best thing is to follow them Indians' trail back. Prob'lywe'll find them poor boys south, southeast of here."
With that the squad started down the slope in a column of twosbehind Jim. Dan and Sam were first, followed by Bull Judd andElvin Crane, Jubal Tinker and Ernst Albrecht, and then Charleyand Jake Picard.
Jake figured he was lucky to have Charley showing him theropes. He was an old hand who was in the cavalry during TheWar, and he knew the ways of the Sioux, which was rare in thecompany.
"Them carbines, they got 'em off the deserters—you think?"Jake asked.
"Yeah," Charley said.
"How come you so sure?"
Charley pointed to a knoll three miles ahead. Four black speckswere circling high above it.
Sam had been watching the birds for five minutes when thesergeant motioned him forward and ordered him to follow at atrot. They dismounted on top of the next rise. Jim handed over theglasses and told him to scan the area under the vultures.
Sam took a quick look, stiffened, and lowered them instantlyto wipe the lenses clean. He took his time focusing carefully. Ascattering of shapeless scraps and two whitish objects littered theground. Maybe a couple of Yorkshire hogs stretched out sleeping, hethought, but that didn't make sense out here. He wiped his eyes.
"What do you see?" Sergeant Lawton's question had a bite.
Heart pounding, Sam refocused, hoping they were pigs butknowing they were cavalrymen.
"Two men. White. Stripped." His mind leaped back two years,picturing the bodies they'd found after the Williamsburg flood.Digging debris out of mud-filled cellars, they found corpsesunderneath it all. Most of them were people he'd known: Old ManPerkins, crushed beneath a floor beam; Sarah Pelky and her twolittle girls, pulled half-naked from the sucking mud; twelve-year-oldJohn Dickinson, his flaxen curls in a mud-stuck tangle; AltheaJenner, her dead eyes open like she was still staring at that wall ofwater, knowing she was done for.
"Thought so," Jim said. "No sign of life?"
"No."
"Check all around, far as you can see. Anything?"
"Nothing except for a kind of wide trail. Probably from theSioux we ran into."
"What you think happened?" Jake asked Sam when the squadpulled up a hundred yards from the dead men.
Unable to tear his eyes away from the corpses, Sam couldn'tanswer. He swallowed, trying to concentrate on his horse. Blasterwas tossing his head, snorting, dancing lightly until trainingoverrode instinctual skittishness triggered by the smell of death,a smell not yet sensed by humans yet obvious to the horse. Oddly,Sam's mind had kept on insisting they were hogs that had wanderedoff from a careless emigrant, but at a hundred yards, he surrendered.They were men—men with sun-browned necks and wrists and skinthe color of fine, white ash. They looked pallid, lifeless, stained withblood baked red-brown, like life-size rag dolls cast aside by a feeblemindedgiant or God himself, a leg bent under the wrong way, aneck strangely twisted too far to the side, the skull caved in. Samwent blind. Without conscious decision, the lids shut everythingout, only to spring open again as Blaster settled between Dan andJake, shuddering the way horses do as he took his solemn place inthe shallow arc of mounted men studying the remains of fools whoguessed wrong.
"Sure, and there they are," Dan said.
"Yeah, it's them," Jim said. His men sat motionless, their mountsnot entirely easy.
Blaster half-heartedly tossed his head once more, and then likethe others he let it fall to browse on wisps of grass, while testingSam's intentions through the tension on the reins.
Jim nodded to Charley, who dismounted and began to surveythe stuff scattered on the ground. He covered the area carefullyto get a sense of how the men were attacked and killed. Horsesand all they held were gone, as were blouses, trousers, and boots,along with saddlebags, blankets, and canteens. The men's begrimedshirts and drawers were tossed aside. A picket pin was half-hiddenunder a discarded feedbag next to one of the corpses. One spentcartridge lay near the other. Parallel sets of pony tracks bisected thepowdery earth. Hogan's body (the shorter of the two), lay directlyin their path.
Snively's corpse lay on its back. A shallow groove in the dirtshowed where the head dragged when a scavenger pulled the man'sboots. The skull showed blood-streaked white where the scalp wasripped off. The right leg crossed the left at the ankle, ludicrouslysuggesting a carefree attitude. An arm stretched haphazardlytoward the slope rising twenty paces away. A thick streak of driedblood extended downward from a puncture wound in the upperchest. The dirt under the right thigh was thoroughly stained withblood. There were two jagged lance wounds, either one fatal—onethe heart, the other split the leg's big artery. Snively was not anunhandsome man, but now the chiseled features sagged into flatnessunder a four-day stubble. An expression of surprise remained inthe set of his mouth, thin lips slightly ajar. Unseeing eyes staredinto nothingness, the blue in them already flat. The man's genitalsrested half-deflated in the hairy crotch, already melding into thewhole. Of no more use as carnal appendage, the limp penis layunmolested.
Hogan's body was on its side, grotesquely skewed. One arm wastwisted around along the torso's side, hand wrong way out. Brokenjust above the elbow, the long bone's shattered end poked throughskin torn jagged. The other arm lay outstretched, a sweat-stainedbandanna still clutched in its hand. Bone-white occipital shardsand flinders peppered the lucent gray of brain behind and belowthe skull's clotted crown. The left thighbone was shattered, the legthen bent under the torso at an improbable angle.
Two short arrows slanted upward from each cadaver, featherguides trimmed precisely, their markings identical. Jim picturedtwo ten-year-old boys sending the arrows home after the bodieshad been stripped—a deed for boasting next time they saw theircousins.
The vultures circled lazily overhead, waiting for the squad tomove on and leave the feast below. Off to the south, a lone, spottedeagle soared two hundred feet further up, intent on some otherprey.
Jubal eased himself forward in the saddle to smooth out anirksome fold in his trousers while waiting for orders. He wasn't oneto get worked up over dead men, especially these two. Only foolswould pull foot and head off through Sioux country, especiallywhen Sitting Bull had his folks all lathered up. Beside him Ernsttilted his head back, eyes following the eagle riding the currentsabove. A picture of contentment, Jubal thought. No matter what,Jubal felt the oversized German with a boy's face always seemed tofind something in life to enjoy.
"What you starin' at?" Jubal asked him.
"The eagle."
"I knowed thet much. What're you seein'?""He soars."
"Uh huh," Jubal sighed. "So what about him?"
"The country he sees entire up high. From here to the Indianswe come to before." He paused, his eyes following the raptor'ssoaring flight. "Up there to soar I wish that. It is good. You wishthat also?"
"Not without wings an' a whole lot of 'sperience."
"What experience?"
"'Sperience usin' them wings."
CHAPTER 2
Burying the Deserters
* * *
Jim Lawton watched Jake Picard swivel in the saddle, probablywondering if there were more Sioux around. Jake then started todismount, as if to join Charley, but he stopped, probably recallingbeing dressed down early in the morning for getting down to pickup a coin he'd spied on the ground. Jim smiled, rememberinghow he had shouted, "Picard, don't you never dismount 'fore I tellyou!"
One thing was for sure, death didn't bother Jake. He'd seenplenty of it in Chicago from sickness, stabbings, gunfire, wintercold, and plain bad luck. He said that after the Chicago fire in '71its stench persisted for days, so death was part of life for him. Jakeshifted in the saddle again but not from nervousness—his ass wassore.
"Jubal, you git up that hill there an' spy it out four ways," Jimordered. "Here, take the glasses. Dan, see if there's any personalswe oughtta take back." Jim turned to Bull Judd, the stocky, flatfacedcorporal. "Bull, take Crane and find a ditch or somethin',maybe over where the hill drops off sudden, bottom of the slope.Work some clods an' dirt loose to cover them boys three feet deepor more. Albrecht, you take the horses. Link 'em up an' take 'emup the hill. Set the picket line downwind of that flat spot. Don'twant 'em gittin' skitterish, so take 'em around this here field. Youunderstand?"
"Ja, Sergeant," Albrecht said.
"Picard, you and Streeter drag the corpses over to Bull. Use yergum blankets. Soon's you git done, police the whole area. I don'twant no sign of cav'lry left—not a cartridge, not a shod hoof print.Can't have no Injuns findin' the graves, hear?"
Neither man moved.
"Git a move on, fer Chrissake!" Jim shouted.
The two men nodded. Jake dismounted and started to untie hisgum blanket from the saddle. Sam sat, still frozen, until Albrechtcame over and took Blaster by the bridle. He then dismounted butremained still, without purpose.
Dan stood next to Hogan's corpse.
Jim called over, "Ain't stiffened up, is he?"
The Irishman pushed hard at the dead weight with his boot,finally flopping it onto its back. The head rolled, then settled.Sightless eyes stared at a distant universe. A red scar traversed theleft cheekbone.
"Not much yet. This one is Hogan. Got that slash back inJanuary," Dan said.
"Uh huh. Well, let's git 'er done, then," Jim said. He sat absentlyfor a few seconds, his mind pushing aside the image of a mule hispa put down when he was a tyke. It was the first time he'd lookedinto eyes that couldn't see.
Sam stood like a statue in the town square, immobile, frozen.He wouldn't admit it, but death frightened, angered, and numbedhim. His eyes darted from one grotesque corpse to the other andback again, taking in every tiny detail, as if memorizing them, butthe images wouldn't stick. Something far back in his mind kept hiseyes moving past them.
