creek.
“Where will it take us?” Mills asked.
The half-breed turned on the captain, grinning, “Why—to Crook City. Crawford said once we get here, it can’t be more’n a handful of miles now. And Deadwood’s only ten miles beyond it.”
A couple of hours after dark they reached Crook City, a ragged column of miserable men on captured Sioux ponies. Except for the disciplined order Mills kept in his ranks as they plodded slowly down the center of that stinking, mud-daubed mining settlement, the patrol would have looked like any band of brigands, freebooters, or borderland raiders. One by one and in small knots, miners and bummers pressed against the grimy windowpanes to peer at the column passing by, or poured from the doorways of saloons and watering holes, from the clapboard and falsefronted shops and hotels, pushing aside tent flaps and stepping out into the rainy night to take themselves a good, long gander at what had just marched out of the Dakota wilderness.
“Who the hell are you fellas?” someone asked from a shadow as the captain halted his rough lot of men in a cordon on both sides of the rutted thoroughfare and prepared to dismount.
“Colonel Anson Mills, Third U.S. Cavalry. Attached to the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition under Brigadier General George C. Crook. I’ve brought the general’s commissary officer with me to secure provisions for his troops.”
Another voice from the far side of the street demanded, “Where’s Crook?”
“Yeah,” someone said, stepping into dim lamplight. “Crook hisself with ya?”
“No. Forty miles, maybe less behind us now,” Mills replied, exhaustion written on every word. “Two thousand men with him. We’ve been eating horse and mule for two weeks now.”
“Well, now,” a new voice called out, and a large, rotund man stepped out of the shadows of an awning and clomped through the mud to reach the captain’s side. “I figure you’ve come to the right place, Colonel Mills. This here town is named after the general. And we’re pleased as hell to have the army’s protection, we are.”
Then the first one of them bellowed out a cheer. And suddenly from both sides of the street the civilians pressed in, tearing their hats from their heads, throwing them into the air, shouting, screaming, whistling, and hooting in sheer joy. The Indian ponies fought their bits, and some attempted to rear, but the crowds latched on to them and held them in the center of that muddy, rutted street while everyone shook hands and laughed, and many of the soldiers couldn’t help but cry.
Finally Seamus thought to ask those who stood as close to him as ticks on a buffalo’s hide, “Does any man here know where I might get myself a good beefsteak? And a baked potato? And a bottle of whiskey what won’t soap my tonsils when I pour it down?”
The Irishman was finishing his fifth cup of steaming coffee and was just about ready to pour his first double shot of whiskey when Anson Mills came up and settled in the rickety chair at Donegan’s table in a saloon still fragrant with freshly-sawed lumber. The captain put his hand over the top of the shot glass.
“I’ll leave you to have off at one drink, Irishman.”
“Why, Colonel—I’ve waited a long time to drink my fill. Ever since Fetterman, it’s been.”
“I know you have. But you’ve filled your belly with just what it should have for the work at hand: warm food, good food, and strong, rich coffee too. So, now, before you drink any more than that one glass I’ll leave you have—I want you to remember I’ve still got men out there. Soldiers in that wilderness.”
“Lieutenant Chase,” Donegan replied, suddenly realizing as he stared at the whiskey in the glass held underneath the captain’s open palm.
“I fear they might have been chewed up by some war party, Irishman.”
Donegan nodded, then licked his lips and let his eyes climb up to the officer’s face. “My one drink of this blessed piss-hole whiskey, Captain?”
Reluctantly, Mills removed his hand, gently pushing the glass toward the scout. “Surely. If that’s what you choose to do is drink the rest of the night while I and Lieutenant Bubb procure Crook’s supplies—I can’t stop you. We’ve all been under extreme privation … so I will try to understand.”
Sweeping the two sides of his unkempt, bushy mustache aside with a grimy finger, Donegan licked his lips, staring at the delicate amber color in the smoky glass. Then as he closed his eyes, he gently poured the whiskey on his tongue and slowly tilted his head back, savoring the sweet sting it brought to his throat as the whiskey coursed its warm track all the way down his gullet.
Then he lowered his chin and opened his eyes, licking the last drops of whiskey from his lips and mustache. Rising from the table, he swept his shapeless sombrero from the empty chair beside him and planted it on his head, snugging up the wind-string below his beard.
Gazing down at the captain, Seamus pulled on his heavy coat, still damp. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cigar, would you, Colonel?”
“Why … no, I wouldn’t.”
“Here, mister,” said a civilian who rushed forward with a half dozen clutched in his hand. “Take what you want and I’ll put it on your tab.”
Seizing the long, fragrant, rum-soaked cheroots, each one as thick as his own thumb, Donegan replied, “Thank you, sir. You do that.”
Gently inserting the precious smokes within the security of an inside pocket, Donegan dragged his leather gloves from the coat’s pockets and turned back to Mills, saying, “If you’ll be good enough to pay the six bits I owe the proprietor here, Colonel—and whatever else he’s gonna charge for these cigars, I’d be grateful, I.surely would. You see”—he leaned forward and whispered then—“I’m a little short for the moment.”
“S-short?”
Grinning, he pulled on his gloves and said, “It’s been some months since the army’s paid me, which means I ain’t had me any army scrip in my pocket for quite some time. So, Colonel—I’ll let you pay for the meal, my cigars, and that one drink of whiskey. It appears I’ve still got some more scouting to do for you tonight.”
Long after Robert Strahorn left with Mills that morning, the fog remained so thick the captain repeatedly put his compass to use, keeping Grouard leading them a little west of south.
Near late morning they stumbled across a trail of lodgepoles and pony tracks in the mud so fresh that Donegan and the half-breed found horse droppings still steaming in the frosty air. At once Mills grew alarmed.
“Lieutenant Chase,” the captain called. “You’re to divide off half the men.”
“Separate, sir?”
“Yes,” Mills replied, looking off into the murky distance where the enemy’s muddy trail led. “I want to be sure some of us reach the mining towns—someone brings supplies back to the column.”
Chase straightened in the saddle. “Where do you want me to go, Colonel?”
“You’re going to be my ace in the hole, Mr. Chase. I want you to take half of the men with you and ride south by east, ready to keep on moving around the foot of the Black Hills if I’m attacked and can’t complete my mission.”
“East of the Black Hills,” Chase repeated. “And then where?”
“On to Camp Robinson. Get word there that … that the rest of us have been overwhelmed by the Sioux.”
In minutes Mills had his men split in half and Chase was on his way, accompanied by scout Jack Crawford and Denver’s Rocky Mountain
Chase led them away from Mills late that morning, and by dark his patrol had nowhere better than the lee of some rocks to take shelter in for the long, miserable night.
The following morning they were up and moving before dawn, crossing many small trails of bands headed in to the agencies. That second afternoon dragged on as the compass led Chase and thirty men through the rainy mist that lifted only when dusk began to settle upon the endless prairie. A quarter mile behind them a suckling colt gamely followed a brood mare one of the troopers was riding. Even when darkness fell quickly, the lieutenant refused to give up the march until the night became so black that they could no longer use the compass and landmarks, much less any stars in the overcast sky above. Finally running across a secluded stand of trees nestled at the base of a hill, with a nearby patch of grass, where they picketed their horses to graze, Chase relented to the complaints of his shivering and hungry men—allowing them to build a small fire they kindled at the bottom of a shallow pit.
As the soldiers chewed on a few scanty strips of dried pony meat they had packed along in their saddlebags
