Loved to get those pilgrims wide-eyed and gape-mouthed by telling ’em there’s a vein of coal under that lake they could set fire to, and by stirring up the oil and the alkali—make one hell of a batch of soap!”
It was here as well that they came across their first buffalo herds.
That first evening at the base of the foothills, Shad Sweete and a half dozen Pawnee trackers rode out to a nearby herd grazing near Connor’s evening camp and drove fifteen buffalo back toward the soldier’s bivouac, where the huge beasts were killed after they had been driven into a corral made of the expedition’s freight wagons.
“You still got your shooting eye, don’t you, Shad?” commented Jim Bridger as he walked up among the soldiers celebrating and butchering the shaggy buffalo.
“Bet I do, Gabe. Best you dive in now and claim one of them tongues for us—or we’ll be left with poor doings, certain,” Shad replied.
They shared a fat, juicy buffalo tongue that evening, cooked to a rosy, moist pink down in the glowing coals of a fire pit in the shadow of the Big Horn Mountains while Bridger told his old partner they would be taking some Pawnee ahead in the morning.
“Leave the Rebel behind this time, Shad.”
Sweete felt something seize up inside him. “Gabe, you and me been friends a long time.”
“We have—and that’s why I figure I can talk straight to you.”
“What stick you got to rub with Jonah?”
“Pawnee and me never did get along.”
“I don’t like ’em particular either, Gabe. What’s that got to do with Hook? Something Connor say to you?”
Bridger gazed at Sweete a moment in the firelight. “You stand by this Rebel?”
“He’ll do to ride the river with, Gabe.”
The old trapper wiped his knife across the top of his leather britches and finally smiled at Sweete. “All right. He’s your’n to worry about. I got enough to do keeping Connor’s balls out of a Lakota sling and his hair from ending up on a Cheyenne lodgepole.”
The next day as the sun rose and then fell, Shad and Bridger led Hook and a handful of the Pawnee north by west from the land of the Pineys, descending at last into the valley of the Tongue. They stopped, waiting a moment to enjoy the view of the Big Horns off to their left, waiting for Bridger and Captain Henry E. Palmer, Connor’s quartermaster, to come up.
“You see what lies along the horizon, yonder?” Sweete asked of the small gathering, his eyes resting a moment longer on the face of his old trapping partner.
While Bridger squinted his blue eyes into the hazy distance, Hook turned to glance behind them at the distant column winding its way through the broken land. Then he looked on up the Tongue, to the northeast among the Wolf Mountains, straining to make out what might be something out of the ordinary.
“Smoke. Plain as paint, Shad,” Bridger answered.
“Smoke?” Palmer asked, a touch of skepticism in his voice. “Where?”
“Look up yonder,” Bridger said. “Far off there between the cut in those hills.”
“Those far hills?” Palmer huffed, sounding incredulous. “That’s a full forty—perhaps as much as fifty miles if it’s a two-day ride for this column.”
“Agreed,” Bridger said. “There’s smoke yonder. Best sign of any we’ve run across, right Shad?”
“Aye, Gabe. A heap of brownskins for sure, Captain Palmer.”
The soldier’s eyes measured the two buckskinned scouts for a tangible moment. “You like to have your fun with me, don’t you, Jim?”
“We ain’t funning you none, Captain.”
Palmer considered it a minute more, then wagged his head. “I’ll go let the general know.”
Minutes later Palmer returned with Connor. The general gazed off to the northeast with his field glasses. After a moment, he wagged his head.
“I can’t make out anything like smoke up there, Bridger.”
Sweete prickled with disgust. “You’re doubting our eyes, General? We’ve both spent two lifetimes out here in these mountains and plains. Smoke’s smoke and Injuns is Injuns.”
Connor turned to North. “Major, take a half dozen of your best trackers and scout in that direction where these two say they spotted the smoke. Report back when you find some positive evidence of the hostiles.”
“Damned paper-collar soldiers,” Bridger grumbled as he reined his horse about angrily.
“What was that, Bridger?” Connor snapped.
Shad straightened in the saddle, angry at the arrogant soldier himself. “He said you and your bunch was nothing more’n paper-collar soldiers.”
“I can tell ’im myself!” Bridger growled at his friend.
“You can, can you, Mr. Bridger?” Connor flared with Irish temper.
“If you go and decide to stop trusting in your scouts—ain’t nothing for Shad and me to do, so we’ll just collect our pay now and be on our way.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not resigning, Bridger. I won’t have it!”
“Then you best start believing what you’re told!”
“Major North will be back in a couple days with some good news—if there’s something up there.”
Across the nearby hills, the shadows were lengthening and coyotes beginning to yip and yammer.
“North’ll find that camp—right where Shad and me say he’ll find it.”
Two days later just past dawn, a pair of the Pawnee came tearing into the soldier camp, bringing back the news Major North had sent to Connor.
A big enemy camp had been located, the trackers explained in sign. Nearby stood Bridger and Sweete, completely vindicated. But there was no apology, nor recognition of the abilities of the white scouts, forthcoming from the general.
“Ask them how many lodges?” Connor asked his chief of scouts.
Bridger wagged his hand at the Pawnee to signify asking a question. With two fingertips he formed a triangle. “Count the lodges.”
The Pawnee pinched his face in thought, then shook his head.
Bridger smiled. “These Pawnee are horse thieves, General. They only count ponies. Ain’t much interested in a count of the lodges.” He turned back to the Indian and signed, “How many ponies?”
“Big herd.”
“That’s enough for me,” Connor replied brusquely, turning to bark orders to his officers, preparing to move out on the attack. “No loud voices, no bugles from here on out. Talking at a minimum, and it must be at a whisper.”
“General, I want to go along,” Palmer requested.
“Captain, you will be in charge of the guard left with your supply train.”
“Begging your pardon, General—I respectfully ask to accompany your assault force. There are several officers who are ill this morning.”
“Ill?”
“Bad water, I suppose, sir. So one of them would gladly stay behind with the train, and I could accompany you.”
Connor wagged his head. “Very well, Palmer. Make it so.”
For the rest of that day and through a night of stumbling struggle, fighting the darkness of that yawning, broken wilderness, Bridger, Sweete, and North led Connor’s troops northeast along the Tongue River. By the first streaks of dawn, North informed the general that his troops were still some distance from the enemy’s village.
“We’ll just have to hurry the troops along,” Connor said. “In the meantime, North, take your scouts ahead and be sure the hostiles don’t bolt on us. Let me know at the first sign that they are fleeing.”
Shad rode with North and Palmer as the Pawnee spread out onto a wide front, carefully picking their way across country. The sun had risen close to midsky before the enemy camp was once more discovered by the scouts inching their way along, staying down in the safety of a streambed, their unshod pony hooves moving quietly on the pebbles beneath the clear surface.
Inexperienced and unaware of the danger, Palmer had allowed his horse to surge ahead of the rest and found himself following a game trail that emerged from a brushy ravine. Suddenly on the flat tableland, Palmer discovered
