“There’s a feeder trail, Cody,” Sheridan explained days ago, hunched over the map table where Carr and many of the Fifth’s officers had circled in tight-lipped conference.
“A trail that I imagine goes right from here, and over here,” Bill had replied that fourteenth day of June, jabbing a finger at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, then dragging the finger dramatically across the sepia- toned paper, “all the way north to the hostiles raising hell in the Powder River and Rosebud country, right there.”
“General Carr,” Sheridan said, using the lieutenant colonel’s brevet rank awarded for bravery in battle during the civil war, as he straightened, “I’m wanting to use your Fifth to block that trail north.”
Carr appeared dismayed, asking, “But you’re not sending us north to unite with General Crook?”
“No. Jordan down at Red Cloud has been hammering out reports to me every day on his situation there. I want to use your force to block this trail to the Powder River country. I’ve already sent Crook a dispatch detailing my plans to use you to the east of him. You are, after all, the commander of an entirely new district in my department, the District of the Black Hills.”
“Yes,” Carr replied.
In recent days Sheridan had indeed carved out a new military district for Carr and the Fifth Cavalry: embracing portions of western Nebraska and Dakota, along with a slice of eastern Wyoming Territory that ran up to but did not include Fort Fetterman. Carr’s primary task would be protection of the settlers pouring into the Black Hills townships now that the government was seriously going about the business of reclaiming the sacred Paha Sapa from the Sioux and Cheyenne.
“Schuyler?”
“Yes, General?” said Walter S. Schuyler.
Sheridan stood even taller that afternoon days ago, still the shortest man there in that assembly of officers. “Read General Carr my orders.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied, opening up the folded orders pulled from a thin leather valise he carried over one shoulder. Turning to Carr, Schuyler read, “The lieutenant general commanding directs you to proceed, with the eight companies of the Fifth Cavalry, on the road from Fort Laramie to Custer City until you reach the crossing of the main Powder River trail leading from the vicinity of Red Cloud Agency westward to Powder and Yellowstone rivers. Arriving at that point, you will follow the trail westward, proceeding such distances as your judgment and the amount of supplies which you carry will warrant. As little is known about the country over which you will operate, the lieutenant general … does not wish to hamper you with any official instructions, but will leave you to operate in accordance with your best judgment.”
As Schuyler refolded the orders and presented them to Carr, Sheridan asked, “You have any questions, General?”
“None, sir.”
“You understand I don’t want to tie your hands with the letter of these orders.”
“Understood, sir.”
“I want you and Cody to figure out where the hell the hostiles are and strike them—just like the two of you did in sixty-nine.”
For a moment Carr glanced at his civilian scout before turning back to the commander of the entire division that was erupting into full-scale war. “Make no mistake, General. We will accomplish our objective.”
“Very well,” Sheridan replied. “Let’s cut off Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse from all hope of reinforcements.”
Outfitted with rations for thirty-seven days, Carr’s column had pulled away from its huge camp pitched a mile east of Fort Laramie on 22 June. In their ten days at the post, trader John S. Collins did a land-office business with those reinforcements about to push off to war. Cody pulled up the corner of the long bandanna he had loosely knotted around his neck and swiped at his forehead, dragging it across his eyes, then blinked into the shimmering distance once more.
Recalling that first day after riding up from Cheyenne with Lieutenant King, striding over to the post trader’s to see if Collins had some little something he could not live without.
The hushed but excited voices trailed the buckskinned scout across the parade.
“That’s Bill Cody!” was one not-so-muffled whisper. “Buffalo Bill?”
“That’s him!”
“I heard he’s here to guide for the Fifth!”
Inside the cool shadows of the sutler’s store, Bill had busied himself studying the cases of all things essential here on frontier duty as the hubbub grew behind him, more and more people squeezing through the door to take a look for themselves, young children forced to crowd through adult legs to take a peek and gawk at him for themselves.
“Mr. Cody?”
He straightened and turned immediately at the soft, feminine song to the voice, sweeping his broad-brimmed hat from his head gallantly, his eyes as quickly sweeping across the woman’s beautiful face, the doelike eyes, those high cheekbones brushed with a natural blush, her full lips exposing but a hint of straight teeth, all atop that long, white neck. Bill felt the natural pull that for but an instant gave him desire to flirt with this beauty. That is, until his eyes dropped from the neck, past the rounded bosom, and he saw the expanse of her belly.
“M-ma’am?” he stuttered. “It is ma’am, isn’t it?”
She held out her hand. “Yes.”
Good, he thought. After all, the woman was with child. An officer’s wife, sitting out her pregnancy in this frontier post. He congratulated himself for suffering Lulu through only one of her three pregnancies at Fort McPherson.
“You are William F. Cody?”
“I am.”
“You are the scout who served with the Fifth Cavalry during the summer of sixty-nine when you discovered Tall Bull’s village of Dog Soldiers at Summit Springs in Colorado Territory?”
His eyes narrowed a bit as the hushed room inched closer about them both, anxious to overhear every bit of conversation. “Yes?”
“Then you are the scout who rescued one of the two women held captive by that rogue band of warriors.”
Swallowing, Bill could think of nothing more to do but nod, then again answered, “Y-yes?”
She suddenly smiled, those teeth and those eyes lighting up that tiny, shady trading post, re-presenting him her hand.
He took it, held it, mystified at it all, until she explained.
“I am so very pleased to meet you, Mr. Cody. My husband has told me so very much about his time with you—chasing horse thieves all the way north to the Elephant Corral in Denver City. When we ourselves visited Denver last fall, he showed me that very same place and explained how you got the jump on the criminals.”
“E-elephant Corral … he was with me?”
“All the way through for the Summit Springs fight.”
“Your name … I’m afraid I didn’t catch it, ma’am.”
“Oh, dear. Now it’s my turn to apologize,” she said, removing her hand from his and holding it flat against her bosom. “It’s only that I suppose I felt I know you already, sir—why, the way Seamus has talked and talked and talked about you so.”
“S-seamus?”
“I’m Samantha Donegan.”
“S-samantha … Seamus Donegan?” he gasped. “You’re … he’s … don’t tell me he … gone and got married, has he?”
“Last summer,” she replied, then patted her swollen belly. “And now this. With Seamus gone north to scout for General Crook—”
Cody roared. “Ain’t that just like an Irishman now? To marry as beautiful a woman as there ever was on the plains … then go galloping off to the Indian wars once he’s got her with child!”
*The Plainsmen Series, Vol. 4,
