“Yes, sir.”
“These are horse warriors. Nothing against the Apache, but those renegade Chiricahua could move faster on foot in those rugged mountains of theirs than a man on horseback.”
“How well I remember.”
“Yes, of course you do,” Carr replied, glancing at King’s shoulder. “But these Sioux and Cheyenne, Lieutenant—never underestimate them when they climb on the back of a pony. Watch yourself.”
King slipped the big curb bit back into his horse’s mouth. “I will, General.”
“See that Keyes doesn’t get rattled, either.”
“No, sir.”
“And by all means—keep the company together. If these horse warriors get the troops scattered in a running fight of it—they’ll eat you alive.”
Swallowing hard, the lieutenant saluted. “I’ll remember, sir.”
“Have at them, Mr. King. Have at them.”
Two hours later, having crossed one wide valley after another in that unforgiving country, reaching ridge after naked ridge, Baptiste Garnier finally signaled to halt the column of forty men. King, Stanton, and Keyes came forward on foot to see what the scout had discovered.
“That’s the first war trail of the campaign,” Thaddeus Stanton cheered, pulling his hat from his head to swipe a damp bandanna across his broad forehead.
“Lead on, Mr. Garnier,” Keyes ordered as the group got to their feet there above the troubled, flaky earth where more than a hundred unshod ponies had crossed the bare ground.
The tracks led straight down the valley. Heading north for the Mini Pusa, the Cheyenne River. C Troop rode on into the afternoon’s waning light. Every hour it seemed more and more small groups of Indian ponies joined up, uniting with the main band as it continued north.
While the sun settled off to their left, the lone company noticed a single column of signal smoke climbing into the clear summer sky far to the north in the direction of Pumpkin Buttes. In less than ten minutes another signal column rose off to the west.
“If that ain’t the damnedest luck,” Stanton growled. “Looks like they know we’re coming.”
“I don’t think it will do them a bit of good to try hitting us, Major,” King advised. He pointed off into the distance. “We’re in open country. Not a tree or bush to hide them sneaking in on us.”
“You’re right, Lieutenant,” the old workhorse replied. “Absolutely right. Besides—we’re not stopping until we’re at the Cheyenne, fellas.”
In the lengthening, indigo shadows of twilight, as the breezes stiffened and cooled, King caught sight of Little Bat five hundred yards in the lead, circling his horse to the left.
“Mr. King,” Stanton said, “go see what he’s found this time.”
Charles knelt alongside the scout over the newer tracks—even more warriors crossing the wide valley, their trail disappearing to the northwest. “How many more?” he asked.
“Maybe this many,” Garnier said, opening and closing both hands five times. “Going the shortcut to the Big Horns.”
King stared off to the north. “How far till we reach the Cheyenne?”
Little Bat shrugged. “Two. No, three hours, maybe.”
“You keep on, Little Bat,” the lieutenant said. “I’m going back to the column so they can put out flankers.”
“Tell every one of them keep his eyes open,” Garnier advised before he turned away and was gone.
Stanton and Keyes quickly dispatched outriders to cover the side and rear flanks of the company—choosing old soldiers who were veterans to this country, and to this sort of Indian chasing. On and on the company column moved as quickly as their jaded horses allowed them, shadows creeping longer and longer until the whole land was eventually swallowed up by dusk and the first stars began to wink into sight overhead.
At last in the distance King saw Little Bat loping his mount back toward them. As he came up, the scout shouted.
“Over that ridge! We done it. Mini Pusa over that ridge!”
“You heard him, fellas,” Stanton rasped, his throat sounding as dry as a file drawn across rusty iron. “We made it to the Cheyenne River. And that’s where Sheridan figures we’ll make contact with the red sons of a buck.”
At twilight atop the ridge Garnier pointed out the darker line of trees and willows and thick vegetation that indicated the banks of the Cheyenne below them, meandering its way across a wide valley where the troopers found water only in scanty pools trapped among the smooth rocks in the streambed. They paused only long enough to fill their canteens, then let the horses drink, the iron shoes clattering and scraping the rounded stones. This sorely parched country hadn’t received the blessing of rain for more than a month.
A mile beyond the Cheyenne, at the base of some low bluffs to the north, King and Garnier found a basin where enough grass grew to please the animals they picketed and hobbled for the night. There was ample wood for the coffee fires they buried in the ground as these veteran horse soldiers stretched their legs and lit their pipes in this stolen moment of relaxation in a horse soldier’s day. Keyes deployed a dozen men as pickets to surround the camp, assigning a rotation throughout the moonlit night. As darkness squeezed on down upon the Cheyenne River patrol, in the distance they couldn’t help but see the faraway glow of signal fires at five different points.
“They’re talking about us, aren’t they, Major?” King asked Stanton.
“Damn right they are. And those red-bellies’d jump us if they had the nerve.”
“They won’t: we’ve got pickets out,” Keyes said.
“It’s not us they’re afraid of particularly, Lieutenant,” Stanton replied. “Trust me—them sonsabitches know Carr and the rest aren’t far behind us. No sense in making the jump on us since they figure we can hold ’em off till the rest of the boys make it up.”
The lieutenant’s eyes began to droop, what with a bellyful of coffee, hardtack, and fried bacon, as well as his aching muscles screaming for rest after the long day’s march. A grin cracked his bristling, dust-caked face as his head sank back onto his McClellan, tugged the saddle blanket over his shoulders, and listened to the quiet, rinsedcrystal-clear tenor of one of the cavalrymen singing nearby at one of the tiny fires.
“The ring of a bridle, the stamp of a hoof,
Stars above and the wind in the tree;
A bush for a billet, a rock for a roof,
Outpost duty’s the duty for me.
Listen! A stir in the valley below—
The valley below is with riflemen crammed,
Cov’ring the column and watching the foe;
Trumpet-Major! Sound and be damned!”
King was just sliding down into that warm place where the exhausted can flee when the nearby gunshot cracked his sleeping shell.
In a heartbeat the entire bivouac came alive, men thrashing out of their blankets, others kicking sprays of dirt into the deep fire pits, some scurrying toward the patch of grass where they had their horses picketed. Above the rumble of curses and warnings, Keyes and Stanton barked orders and hollered their anxious questions at the perplexed sergeant of the guard.
Down in a crouch the old file halted halfway between bivouac and his outlying pickets, grumbling loudly from his hands and knees. “What chucklehead fired that goddamned shot?”
“I-I did sir,” piped the youthful answer from the darkness.
The sergeant asked, “That you, Sullivan?”
“Yes … yes,…. sir.”
