By doing that, Reno had immediately reduced the strength of his force by one fourth. And the soldiers remaining, no more than about eighty, could stand no closer than about ten feet apart.
Falcon dismounted with the others, and stood alongside Dorman as they waited.
“I don’t think we should’a stopped,” Dorman said.
“No, we shouldn’t have,” Falcon agreed. “We’re on the defensive now. A cavalry unit should never be on the defensive.”
Some of the soldiers began firing, even though the Indians were too far out of range for the shooting to be effective.
“Stop shooting!” some of the sergeants yelled. “You’re just wasting ammunition!”
Hundreds of Indians started rushing toward the little thin line of defenders, the roar of their weapons interspersed with their war whoops and shouts. The soldiers were returning fire as rapidly as possible, but as they were using single-shot weapons, they had to extract the empty shell casings and replace them with new cartridges between each shot. To facilitate this, most were holding extra rounds in their hands, and sometimes as they tried to load, they would drop the shells, then have to bend over to search frantically for them on the ground. A few were clawing desperately to extract the empty shell casings from the chambers.
Reno shouted over to Falcon. “What do you think of this?”
“I suggest we get into those trees,” Falcon said, pointing to a thicket about sixty feet to their left.
“I agree,” Reno called back. He was about to give the order to mount, when a bullet hit Bloody Knife right between the eyes. Blood, and a bit of Bloody Knife’s brain detritus, flew into Reno’s face, and because his mouth was open preparatory to giving the command, some of it went into his mouth.
“Ahhh!” Reno shouted in revulsion. He began spitting. “Mount!” he shouted.
The order to mount was spread down the line, and the horse holders brought up the horses.
“Dismount!” Reno ordered, even as he was mounting his own horse.
Some of the soldiers were mounting in response to his first order; then some began to dismount in response to his second order.
“Reno is panicked,” Dorman said. “He needs to—uhnn!”
Dorman was hit in the stomach and he fell to the ground. Falcon knelt beside him.
“Get out of here, Falcon!” Dorman said.
“I’m not going to leave you here,” Falcon said.
“Retreat!” Reno shouted, spurring his horse back toward the river. The others galloped after him.
“Go!” Dorman said. “Get out of here!”
“If I get you on your horse, do you think you can hold on?” Falcon asked.
By now the bullets were whistling by as the Indians continued to advance. They were now within one hundred yards.
“I can try,” Dorman said.
There was only one horse left, but Falcon managed to grab its reins, and he lifted Dorman into the saddle, then slapped the horse on its rump. The horse started toward the river, but got no more than about ten feet when Dorman was hit a second time. Dorman stayed in the saddle for another fifty feet or so, then fell. The horse, riderless now, continued to gallop away, leaving Dorman on the ground and Falcon afoot.
As the Indians swooped down on Falcon, he pulled his pistol and shot two of them. The others swerved around him and continued on toward the retreating soldiers.
Falcon’s first thought was to run toward the river, but he knew that in order to do so, he would have to run right through the middle of the attacking Indians. That left him no choice but to run into the little thicket that had anchored the left side of Reno’s original skirmish line.
“MacCallister, over here!” someone called, and running to the sound of the voice, Falcon jumped down into a shallow depression. There, he saw Lieutenant DeRudio and one of the sergeants.
“Is Dorman dead?” DeRudio asked.
“I don’t know,” MacCallister admitted. “But right now it’s too hot out there to check it out.”
“Colonel MacCallister, I’ve never met you, I’m Sergeant Tom O’Neil,” the sergeant said, sticking out his hand.
Falcon chuckled as he took the sergeant’s hand.
“What’s so funny?” DeRudio asked.
“I don’t know. Here we are, the sergeant and I, shaking hands like we were just meeting on a downtown street in Denver,” Falcon replied. “It just strikes me as funny.”
O’Neil laughed as well. “Yeah,” he said. “I see what you mean.”
The sound of gunfire continued to come from the river, rolling back across the half mile or so of flat ground between Falcon and the river.
Falcon could see the Indians riding back and forth on the bank, pouring fire into the retreating soldiers. Benny Hodgson’s horse was shot from under him, and the young lieutenant leaped into the water. One of the soldiers came back and extended the stirrup of his horse to Hodgson and, by holding onto the stirrup, Hodgson was pulled quickly across the stream.
“Good man,” Falcon said, talking about the trooper who had come back for Hodgson. But when they reached the other side and Hodgson let go of the stirrup and tried to climb up out of the creek, he was shot.
