“My God! Injuns!” he said. “We was attacked by Injuns yesterday, me and Doyle was! He’s still up there, if he’s alive. He’s been shot, I know that.”
“Where is he?” Cody asked.
“I don’t know for sure, he’s upriver, that’s all I know. Maybe ten or twenty miles or so.”
“We’ll find him,” Falcon said.
“Ingraham, Mr. Bowman doesn’t live too far from here,” Cody said. “How about you take him home?”
“I thought I might come with you two,” Ingraham said.
“And just leave Mr. Bowman here?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess you are right.”
Bowman began shivering then, from the cold.
“Here, Mr. Bowman,” Ingraham said, taking a blanket from his saddle roll. “Wrap yourself in this, then climb on to the horse behind me. How far is it to your place?”
“Ten, maybe twelve miles,” Bowman answered through chattering teeth.
“Climb up behind me, keep the blanket wrapped around you, and hold on,” Ingraham said. “I’ll get you safely home.”
“I think we should return,” Running Elk said. “Already we have lost nearly half our number.”
“You may return if you wish,” White Bull said. “But I will stay until I have claimed coups.”
“They are but two men,” Running Elk said. “Where is the honor in killing but two men? Especially as they have already killed so many of us.”
“That is all the more reason we should kill them,” White Bull said. “There is honor in killing enemy. It matters not how many there may be.”
Although Running Elk was opposed to it, he knew that he could not abandon White Bull without violating a lifelong friendship, and he could not leave the fight without losing face, so he stayed. But now it had been two days, and the white men were well armed and well dug-in alongside the river, so, despite their many efforts, they had been unable to defeat them.
Jumping Bear and the others grew frustrated and a few suggested that perhaps White Bull was not the leader for them. White Bull challenged any other to take his place if they could, but none accepted the challenge. Running Elk felt honor-bound to defend White Bull’s position, so he let the others know that he would continue to follow White Bull. But he knew that if the fight went on for one more night and day that the other Indians would leave, and if that happened, White Bull, and by extension he as well, would be disgraced and dishonored.
White Bull began shooting toward sand dunes where the white men were. Running Elk and the others joined in the shooting.
As Falcon and Cody approached the spot in the river where Bowman told them Clayton would be, they heard shooting from ahead. The Indians, as Bowman had explained, were located on the east side of the Yellowstone, so Falcon and Cody crossed over to the west side as they continued their approach.
In this they were lucky, for there was a long, high ridge that ran along the west side of the river, shielding their approach. They rode as close as they could get, then they dismounted, and securing their horses, continued on foot. When they heard one of the bullets whizzing just overhead, they knew that they must be even with Clayton, so they crawled up to the top of the ridgeline and looked across the river.
There they saw Clayton. They saw too that he was badly wounded, and was moving with great difficulty in order to return fire. He was no longer aiming his shots, but merely shooting to let the Indians know that he was still alive.
“Clayton!” Falcon called.
Clayton looked around, as if not certain he had heard his name called.
“Clayton!” Falcon called again. “We are over here, across the river.”
“Thank God you have come!” Clayton said. He tried to get up.
“No! Stay there! We will come to you!” Falcon shouted.
Clayton got back down as instructed, and Falcon and Cody climbed over the ridge, then ran across the river to join him. The river was deeper than they thought, coming all the way up to their armpits, so it slowed them considerably, but they made it across without incident.
“Bill Cody, what are you doing here?” Clayton said. “I thought you were in New York.”
“I was,” Cody answered. “But Mr. Bowman told me you were in trouble, so I asked my friend here to come along, and here we are.”
“From New York?”
“Sure, why not?” Cody said, laughing, and trying to make Clayton feel better.
“Well, wherever you came from, I’m damn glad to see you,” Clayton said. “These Injuns have been givin’ me hell.”
“Looks to me like you gave that one hell,” Falcon said, pointing to a dead Indian who was lying over to one side.
“Yeah, he sneaked in last night,” Clayton said. “I guess he figured I was asleep and he could bash my head in.”
“There are a couple more out there,” Cody said. “I’d say you have put up a pretty good defense.”
“Yeah, well, between Bowman and me, I’m purt’ sure we’ve kilt at least four or five of ’em. Oh, that reminds me, Bowman! He’s out there somewhere.”
