“’Specially when it comes to his own scalp,” Pourier added.
Over the following minutes the screech of war cries and death songs grew as the warriors emerged from the boulders and began to work their way down the hillside toward the soldiers, firing as they came through the timber. Working to the left and right through the standing trees to close in on the white men lying among their breastworks, the Indians eased into rifle range, starting to pour a concerted fire upon their enemy.
“See that fancy son of a bitch?” Seamus asked the two half-breeds, indicating a warrior who appeared to be directing the others: a chief dressed in moon-white buckskins and wearing a long, flowing war bonnet. “Either one of you ever see him before?”
When Pourier shrugged, Grouard said, “Reminds me of a fella called White Antelope.”
Big Bat squinted, looking closer, then replied, “But he’s Shahiyena.”
“And a mean one to boot,” Grouard added.
“Cheyenne, eh?” Donegan asked. “So they’re mixed in with them Lakota what wiped those soldiers out on the Greasy Grass?”
Frank nodded. “Likely are. All blood cousins.”
“Blood is right,” Seamus murmured.
A soldier yelled off to their left, “Here they come!.”
Twisting about behind the bulwark of the deadfall, Seamus saw the big warrior in the white buckskins waving the rest to follow behind him.
“They’re charging!” Sibley shouted.
“Make every shot count!” bellowed Sergeant Oscar Cornwall.
Sergeant Charles W. Day reminded them, “Shoot low! Shoot low!”
“Aim for White Antelope!” Grouard instructed his two companions.
“Damn right,” Pourier replied. “I’ll do everything I can to drop that bastard!”
On came the first concerted charge of the afternoon, led by that war chief in the showy buckskins bright with quillwork sewn down the leggings. Beside White Antelope rode another warrior, bare-chested and wearing a buffalo-fur headdress, one horn protruding from the center of the warrior’s forehead.
Seamus held high, leading that horseman beside White Antelope with too much of the big buffalo gun’s front blade. The gun shoved backward into his shoulder violently, once again reminding the Irishman of the weapon’s great power. Quickly he jerked down on the lever, dropping the rifle’s breech as it flung empty brass out of the smoking chamber. Gun smoke curled up in a gray wisp—a reassuring fragrance to a veteran frontiersman, as sweet smelling as would be water to a thirsty mule.
As Donegan stuffed the hot, empty cartridge into his left pocket, the war cries crashed on his ears, louder still in a growing crescendo. The pounding of two hundred or more hooves thundered through the trees, reverberated from the boulders beyond them. From the right pocket of his canvas mackinaw, Seamus pulled another long golden bullet and shoved it into the rifle, ripping back the lever to close the breech, and resighted on the charging warrior.
This time as he laid his finger on the back trigger, he held even higher and did not lead the buffalo-horned horseman as the warrior’s pony crossed from left to right along the front of the soldier line. Another inch higher, he calculated, as he set the back trigger. He felt his way to the front trigger with the same finger-pad and held his breath, squeezing.
In the puff of smoke that drifted the way of the soft breeze there in that stand of evergreen, Seamus watched the warrior pitch sideways, his single-horn headdress spilling in the opposite direction.
“Got him!” Pourier hollered at that exact moment.
“I dropped White Antelope!” Grouard protested.
“It was my damned bullet!” growled Bat.
“That makes two of ’em—we got more saddles to empty, God-bless-it!” Seamus bellowed at them both.
The soldiers flung their wool coats from their arms, shedding the heavy garments in the shafts of hot sunlight that streamed through the forest canopy overhead with a shimmering radiance. For the better part of a half hour the warriors kept up a hot fire, inching down the slope. Then with some yelling among them, the gunfire slackened. A voice called out from the trees up the hill.
“What’s he saying?” Donegan asked.
Pourier wagged his head, his shoulders sagging, then finally replied, “They know I’m here.”
“Only a lucky guess,” Seamus replied. “What’d he tell You?”
“Said,
“They was just guessing you was with the soldiers,” Grouard said, shifting uncomfortably on the hard ground, his face a canvas to his pain.
“Maybe they see me,” Bat grumbled sadly. “They’re calling out for the trader’s son.”
Donegan asked, “Trader’s son?”
“That’s me,” Pourier responded. “Shahiyena know me. My papa was a trader to the Indians.”
“Like Reshaw’s?”
Bat nodded. “Yeah, like Louie.”
The taunts and luring words that emerged from those midafternoon shadows in the woods continued. A while later Grouard straightened a bit, cocking his head, then declared, “Now they’re calling for me.”
Pourier grinned haplessly. “Yeah, Irishman. They calling for the Grabber. That means there’s Lakota up there too. Next—they gonna holler out for you.”
“You stupid idiot,” Seamus growled with a wide grin. “Ain’t none of them know me.”
Scratching a dirty cheek, Bat said, “Maybeso they don’t before. But they will now.”
As the sun fell on toward the cathedral peaks towering above them, the firing from the warriors rose and fell, fortunately to no effect but to frighten and wound the horses, and to make a lot of noise as the bullets slapped tree trunks and whistled through the snapping branches. At times there was so much lead flying over their heads that it reminded Donegan of hailstones rattling on a clapboard roof that summer he had spent at Fort McPherson, scouting for the Fifth Cavalry—a remembrance that made him think on Cody, made him wonder if Bill really did enjoy that life he had chosen, a career that had taken Donegan’s old friend far from the prairie, far from the freedom of a nomadic horseman.
If they made it out of this, Seamus vowed, he’d learn of the showman’s whereabouts—perhaps even to take Samantha to see one of his plays back east. Sam deserved to visit the East. To be draped in fancy evening dresses and driven in a fancy carriage to the theater where Cody’s play would entertain the crowds of eastern greenhorns clamoring for some of that vicarious adventure on the high plains. Perhaps even to Boston Towne. He hadn’t been back since he had gone marching off to war. And that was an eternity ago.
But he vowed Samantha would one day have her fancy gowns and her own goddamned carriage too.
“How far you make us from Goose Creek, Bat?” Sibley asked, interrupting Donegan’s dreamy reverie.
“Forty miles.”
Grouard shook his head, saying, “Closer to fifty miles.”
“No matter,” Pourier replied, turning back to the officer. “We sit here much longer, Lieutenant—them Lakota gonna have time to bring enough warriors here to rush in and wipe us out in one big charge.”
The green-eyed Sibley chewed on an end of his long mustache. “I take it you’re suggesting we try to make a dash for it?”
Donegan shrugged, the first to respond for them all. “We can sit here and wait for them to come in and chew us up. Or—we can do what we can to make a run for it.”
Eventually the lieutenant said, “Take our chances, eh?”
“We can take chances here—or on the run,” Pourier reminded.
Grouard laughed with a throaty snort.
“What’s so funny?” Sibley demanded, bristling.
“Not you, Lieutenant,” Frank replied. “Just heard voice of an old friend of mine. Warrior named Standing Bear—hollered for me.”
Seamus asked, “What’d he say?”
“He saw me get off my horse, walking sore with my legs far apart.”
“That’s just the way you been walking,” Seamus declared.
With a nod Grouard continued. “Standing Bear said I moved like I had the bad-disease walk the pony soldiers
