“Hey—Donegan,” the soldier said. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
Bat growled, “Tell him to leave me be, Irishman!”
Turning to Donegan for help, Day explained, “I told him we shouldn’t kindle a fire.”
Seamus strained to make sense out of it in his numbness—weary, hungry as he was. “Why no fires?”
“Lieutenant’s orders.”
For a moment Donegan stared down at the first feeble flames Pourier had coaxed out of some dry pine needles he found blown back under the rocky outcrop. “He’s probably right, Bat. Fire here at night—”
“Go away, Donegan. Just leave me be.”
“Injins below can spot the light from a long way off—”
Pourier whirled on Seamus, snarling, “I rather be killed by a Injun’s bullet tonight, than I wanna freeze to death. Now you tell this goddamned sergeant to get out of my sight, or I just might gut him myself.”
Donegan was relieved when the sergeant began to back away.
Day grumbled, “You ain’t gonna listen to me, half-breed—then I’m gonna roust the lieutenant and make my report that you was breaking his orders.”
“Go ahead, for all I care!” Pourier snapped. “Don’t make no difference, ’cause I’m gonna have my fire.”
After watching the sergeant shamble off, Donegan thought about going back where he had been. But he promised himself he would do it later. Right now it seemed that such a crawl would take too much effort.
So he asked Pourier, “Mind if I stay right here with you?”
Bat shook his head. “No problem with sharing my fire with you. Every man in this bunch is against lighting a fire, until he can see just how good the warmth feels.”
Turning at the sound of movement nearby, Seamus saw Sibley hobble up on sore feet and sink to the ground.
“Bat—I can’t let you have a fire if I’ve ordered the rest of the men not to start them.”
“Keep your boys warm, it would.”
“But you ought to know better than any of us how dangerous a fire is up here—”
“No more dangerous than anything we done today. No man can see the fire, not with this rock above us, that timber down there.”
“We can be spotted from down there on the side of the mountain—”
“They ain’t following us up here, Lieutenant. Besides, the way I built this little fire, no one gonna see the flames. I’m cold—so I’m gonna warm myself. No matter what you say.”
Sibley shook his head. “I’ll have to put you on report.”
“I don’t give a damn no more. Report me to Crook. Report me to Crazy Horse too!”
In those few minutes Seamus had watched most of the color return to Sibley’s face as he sat so close to the cheery flames.
“All right, Bat—you can keep your fire if you think we’re in no danger.”
“Nope, none.”
The lieutenant seemed to apologize as he shivered uncontrollably a moment. “I am awfully cold myself.”
“You sit right here with us,” Donegan suggested. Sibley only nodded, spreading his hands over the low flames. “Soak up some warmth while you can. It can make a body feel so much better.”
As the minutes crawled by, most of the men inched over to encircle that small fire, drawing not only warmth from it, but what seemed to be hope as well. Just beyond the spill of that dancing light, a soupy mix of snowy rain swirled and jigged in the black and gloomy darkness.
In wide-eyed wonder Sibley watched one of the men in particular as the soldier crawled up to the circle of warmth and comradeship. “Private Hasson—where are your boots?”
Without raising his head to look at the lieutenant, the soldier replied weakly, “Don’t know, sir.”
“You have them here with you?”
He shrugged. “Said I don’t know.”
“Hasson—where’s your boots?”
Shrugging, he whispered, “Lost ’em sometime through the day, Lieutenant.”
“Lost them?”
“Took ’em off to cross one of them creeks,” he said, his dark, sunken eyes never leaving the fire, refusing to look at anyone else.
With a simple gesture of his hands, Donegan made it known to Sibley that it would likely be useless to rant and bellow, much less to punish the man for his careless stupidity.
Moving over beside the lieutenant sometime later, Seamus whispered, “There’s nothing you could ever do gonna punish him worse’n what he’s gonna put himself through tomorrow—being without his boots for all those miles still staring us in the face.”
“I think you’re right, Irishman,” Sibley replied quietly. “I suppose we should all be grateful we escaped with our lives. No matter how little they might be worth at this moment.”
One by one the men curled up where they were, or fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep sitting around Pourier’s small fire.
“You’re wrong, Lieutenant,” Donegan said. “Our lives must be important. Damned important. Seems God Himself has spared us for some reason.”
The lieutenant looked over at Seamus, his eyes brimming with gratitude. “Right again, Mr. Donegan. Every one of these men is someone’s son. Some woman’s husband. Some child’s father. Yes. The life of every man here is worth more than that man can ever imagine. And thank God for reminding us of that.”
The wind rose and fell, howling off the granite peaks above their pitiful shelter. As the rest began to snore with the deep rhythm of slumber, Donegan felt an immense weariness settle over him. Beyond them in the wilderness awaited the demons of hunger, cold, and sudden, bloody death. But, for this night, those demons were held at bay by the flames of that tiny fire.
Seamus prayed. Thanking God, for now he truly believed he would make it back to Samantha. To be there at her side when the babe chose its time to come.
Thanking God for sparing his life, just one more time.
That night the distant flares of lightning streaked with fingers of green phosphorescent light out over the eastern plains, reminding Seamus of a barrage of distant artillery, softening up the enemy’s position before the cavalry was ordered in. He did not want to remember much of what he had seen fighting with the Army of the Potomac, struggled not to recall most of what he experienced riding with Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah. How they had laid waste to the lives of all, not just the Confederate soldiers.
It was that way against the Indians. Total war, Sherman and Sheridan called it. Deprive the enemy of his food supply. Destroy the enemy’s homes. Capture and kill the enemy’s families. And ultimately you’ll bring your enemy to his knees.
Into the chill gray of that first streak of light smearing the east, the scouts had Sibley’s men up and moving out. For no more than three or four hours those weary soldiers had sparred with sleep, shivering within their wool shirts and britches still damp from the day’s exertions and the night’s onslaught of rain and hail. From the site of the ambush they had carried only a Springfield carbine and what ammunition they could stuff into their pockets and belt kits.
Some had been so weary that cold dawn that Sibley allowed them to leave behind 10 cartridges each, 250 in all, which the lieutenant buried beneath a rock before he, Donegan, and Pourier started prodding them to their feet.
“You walk,” Sibley tried cheering them as he put the soldiers into motion behind Big Bat, “you’ll get warm.”
“Damn right. Better’n sitting on the cold ground any longer’n I have to,” grumbled Private George Rhode.
“We’ll be warm already by the time the sun comes up,” the lieutenant cheered.
“If we only had something to eat,” whimpered Private George Watts. “I’d feel so much better.”
Soon, Seamus thought. Soon. “C’mon, Frank,” he said, pulling at Grouard’s arm.
The half-breed tugged his arm loose. “I think maybe I stay here some more. Don’t feel like walking too much today.”
“You ain’t staying here,” Seamus said, looking after the last of the others. A soldier turned around and stared
