The Indians began emptying the packs until they had taken all the rifles.
“Can you get more guns?” Cut Nose asked.
“I don’t know, it isn’t easy.”
“I need many, many guns,” Cut Nose said.
One of the other Indians said something, and Cut Nose nodded.
“I want gun that shoots many times,” Cut Nose said.
“These are all repeating rifles, every one of them,” Harris said. “They all shoot many times.”
“No. Big gun, many barrels, shoot very fast, many times.” Cut Nose made the motion of turning a crank.
“Damn!” Harris said. “A Gatling gun? Are you talking about a Gatling gun?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know, Cut Nose. Something like that is going to be very hard to get. And if I can get it, I would have to charge you a lot of money.”
“Many Indians are coming together at the place of Greasy Grass,” Cut Nose said. “We have left the place, the reservation, where the white men say we must stay. The long knives do not like that we have left and soon, I think, they will come to tell us we must go back. But we will not go back. When they come, we will fight them. Gun that shoots many times very fast will give us much medicine. I think the Long Knives will not be able to make us go back to the place where they say we must stay.”
“Yeah, a Gatling gun will give you a lot of medicine all right,” Harris said.
“You get for me?” Cut Nose asked.
“You have more money?”
“We have much money,” Cut Nose said.
Smiling, Harris nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get a Gatling gun for you.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Colonel, you cut quite a fine figure in army blue,” Major Adrian Brisbane said. Brisbane was Falcon’s executive officer.
“The last uniform I wore was gray,” Falcon answered.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, Colonel. Eventually, everyone sees the error of their ways,” Brisbane, who had served in the Union Army, replied with a laugh.
“I don’t denounce my service with the Confederacy, Major,” Falcon replied. “Nor do I hold any animosity for those who served for the North. My brother wore blue.”
“There were good men in blue and gray,” Brisbane said. “I just thank God that the madness is over.”
Falcon picked up some papers that were on the desk and glanced through them.
“What is this about missing rifles?” Falcon asked. “Do we have weapons missing from our arsenal?”
“Well, if you mean have we had rifles disappear from our armory, the answer is no,” Brisbane replied. “But they are missing, in that they were supposedly shipped to us, but have never arrived.”
“What have you done to locate them?”
“We’ve telegraphed messages back to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, asking for an accounting of them. According to Jefferson Barracks, the rifles were sent out in early January. We also have a report that they passed through Ft. Leavenworth, but we have not been able to track them beyond that.”
There was a knock on the door and when Falcon looked up, he saw the Regimental Sergeant Major.
Falcon had asked Sean O’Leary to act as his sergeant major. O’Leary, who was old enough to be Falcon’s father, was one of the first to settle in MacCallister Valley in 1845, having come to America from Ireland to escape the Great Potato Famine.
“Yes, Sergeant Major O’Leary, what is it?” Falcon asked.
“Sure an’ the mail just come in, Colonel, m’ lad,” the sergeant major said. “And there is a letter for you from himself the governor.”
“Thanks,” Falcon said, taking the proffered envelope. Inside, there were two pages. The first page was from the governor.
Falcon put that letter aside, then looked at the second page.
