attention and see the creeks and streams flowing west, instead of east.”
“Don’t say,” muttered the fellow beside Jonah. He smiled at Hook and went back to licking coffee off his finger.
“We won’t be alone though.”
“Hell, no. We’ll have all kinds of redskin company I bet.”
Lybe laughed easily at that. “No, boys. The Eleventh Ohio is out there, waiting for us to come on west.”
“Ohio boys?”
“Yes. I hear they’ve already got a few galvanized Rebs of their own on their rosters. Mostly Kentuckians who served under General John Morgan.”
“Kentucky boys are all right,” Jonah said. His voice carried loudly in the sudden stillness.
“Yes, soldier. I think Kentucky boys are all right. Just like the rest of you: Mississippi and Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee.”
“Don’t forget Ala-by-God-bama!” shouted one of them.
The rest hooted, singing out their home states.
Jonah watched Lybe drag a fist under his nose, not knowing if the man was touched by the homey kinship of these Southerners suddenly getting used to the ill-fitting blue uniforms and these far-flung, wide-open plains dotted with high purple mountains, or if the captain might truly be worried for what he was leading them into.
3
WHEN CRAZY HORSE and Little Big Man rode in at the van of the long procession leading many fine horses swaybacked under all that fine plunder taken in the raids along the Platte River, the eyes of the Bad Face Oglalla warriors grew big as Cheyenne conchos.
By the Moon of First Eggs, Old Man Afraid could no longer talk his people into staying out of the way of the white man. Instead, both Red Cloud and the Old Man’s son were convincing more and more of the Oglalla that the time had come to make war on the white man. Raiding the Holy Road had never been so profitable, nor so easy— what with so few soldiers strung out along the road and the talking wire hung above those deep ruts pointing toward the setting sun.
Beneath the spring moon, Young Man Afraid of His Horses and Red Cloud called for an all-out effort to drive the white man and his soldiers from the North Platte by midsummer. Until then, small raiding parties would strike here and there along the Holy Road, feeling out the strength of the enemy, keeping the soldiers in a turmoil like a wasps’ nest stirred with a stick, and forcing the army to dart here, then there, with what strength the bluecoats could muster.
“These soldiers do not fight like men,” Young Man Afraid told the great assembly of more than fifteen hundred warriors. “We marched north from our raids along the Holy Road. Tell them, Crazy Horse—what happened to those soldiers sent against us.”
The Horse stood, his young frame and light unbound hair etched in firelight. “Southeast of the fort the white man calls Laramie, the soldiers tried to attack us as we crossed the North Platte with our families and herds. There were only two hundred Blue Coats sent against us—a powerful force of Lakota and Shahiyena more than one thousand warriors strong!”
“We pushed the soldiers aside like they were troublesome buffalo gnats!” added Young Man Afraid to the laughter of the Oglalla.
“The next day the soldier chief brought more soldiers riding from the fort, but this time we attacked him,” Crazy Horse continued. “The Blue Coats forted up inside a ring of their wagons and made it hard in a day-long fight to steal any of their American horses. We lost no warriors in either of those battles before moving north once more into the Sand Hills, on farther to the Paha Sapa.”
“This march made in the teeth of winter,” Young Man Afraid reminded the assembly.
“I think that is why Spotted Tail left us and returned to Fort Laramie to join the Loafers,” said Crazy Horse. “The Arapaho went their way as well.”
“But now with two full moons of the young grass in the bellies of our ponies, we are ready once more to ride after the buffalo and lay in the meat our warriors will need for the war trail,” Young Man Afraid said. “Then once we hold our sun dance, we can march south to drive the white man out of our hunting land, for all time.”
The soldier turned to the scout with a withering look. “Didn’t hear nobody make you my nursemaid, old man. Why don’t you go on back with them others and let a fella have some peace to himself out here.”
Shad stood there, staring down at the soldier he took for half his age, measuring the size of the chip the man carried on his shoulder. The scout tried to place the inflection to the stranger’s voice. It had been so many years. He settled down a few feet from the soldier.
“You from Kentucky, ain’t you?” Sweete asked.
Again the soldier regarded him like he was meat gone bad. “No, old man. Virginia—for all it matters to you.”
He pulled at some sage, rolled it between his palms, then drank deep of it into his nostrils. “Don’t matter, I suppose. Just come from southern Ohio myself. So long ago I figure it don’t really matter after all.”
“I could’ve told you.”
He held out his hand to the stranger. “Shadrach Sweete. I didn’t catch yours.”
“Didn’t give it.”
Shad withdrew the hand. “I figure someone foolish as you sitting alone out here in the middle of Injun country ought to have himself some company.”
“I ain’t alone—not now,” the stranger replied, and threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Got all the company I can stand back there.”
“Oh, you best understand you are damned well alone out here, son.”
The stranger snorted a quick, humorless laugh. “What—some Injun going to come pluck my hair off here in sight of those fires yonder?”
“Possible.”
“You been out here under the sun and straining at them mountains for too long, old man. We ain’t seen a feather one on this march from Laramie.”
“That’s when you best be watching for brownskins.”
“No, old man—that’s what you’re being paid to do. I’m just here ’cause I gotta put in my time till I can go home to my family.”
Sweete sighed and leaned back on his elbows, watching the dusting of stars overhead, counting two shooting stars before he spoke again to the young soldier.
“Why you come out here anyway, son?”
“You gotta be a fool, you know? I came here to get myself out of that stinking prison where men was dying every day.”
“Anything to get out, that it?”
“Closer to home.”
“Where’s that, son?”
“You’re sure a nosy old woman, ain’t you now?”
“Figure a man what sits alone by hisself out in the dark needs at least one good friend.”
Sweete watched the stranger regard him carefully, then went back to staring at the dark canopy overhead. In the east the big egg yolk of a yellow moon was rising off the horizon.
“Missouri.”
