free of all black dye during the past few weeks of campaigning in the wilderness.
“We’re in pretty hard luck of it,” Sibley continued, his voice even. “But damn them—we’ll show those red scoundrels just how white men can fight and die, if necessary.”
“We’ll take all we can with us,” vowed Corporal Warren.
“That’s right,” Sibley continued. “We have a good position here among these rocks. Let every shot you make count for an Indian.”
Seamus watched the men silently go about the inspection of their weapons and ammunition, reminded how men of a certain kind hunker down and go strangely quiet when confronted with the prospect of certain and sudden death. Reminded how some men grow loudmouthed and boisterous, strutting like fluffed-up cocks, while other men go crazed and cowardly … but those who never really think of themselves as particularly courageous just don’t say a goddamned thing—because they’re dealing with it inside. Men grow quiet, thinking on loved ones left behind at home. Worrying more about those they would be leaving behind than about their own desperate situation.
It always was the quiet ones who struck Seamus as the bravest of all.
Looking around him, he felt sure they could make a stand of it right there in those rocks, even if they were outnumbered, three, maybe even four, to one. On their left, not far off to the north in the direction where they had come that day, there lay a steep precipice that overhung the stream where they had just quenched their thirsts. Off to their front the woods thinned out on the eastern slopes of the knoll. To the south there wasn’t much cover at all across the rolling hillsides. Still, to their rear they were well protected by an irregular line of boulders of all sizes. To the south, on their right—that was the only direction the enemy horsemen could make a charge out of it.
For the next hour the scouts, soldiers, and civilians watched the war party cross leisurely from left to right, eventually heading onto the heaving plain cut into turkey tracks by the jagged flow of those many feeders of the Tongue River.
Behind Donegan, Pourier got to his feet in the lengthening shadows of afternoon. “Time we should go, Lieutenant.”
Sibley looked over his men one more time. “I think we should rest awhile more.”
“Already had a rest,” Grouard said, stiffly shifting from one sore buttock to the other.
The lieutenant sighed. “I ought to give the men a little more rest.”
Seamus looked them over himself. Their eyes had filled with growing despair, sagging in weariness, the skin on their faces gone haggard with fatigue. Nothing but water for over a day. Finally the Irishman gazed at the sky, calculating the sun’s fall. He turned to Grouard, then to Pourier. They both nodded weakly.
“All right, Lieutenant. Suppose we sit tight right here for a while. Maybe till the sun goes down.”
“Yes,” Sibley replied in a voice that registered no victory, much of the verve gone out of his speech. “Till the sun goes down.”
Chapter 15
8-9 July 1876
“Time to get your men up and moving,” Seamus said as darkness sank down on the Tongue River. He turned from the lieutenant to watch the men wake one another slowly, most every one of them moving in that painful manner of men gone too long without something in their bellies.
Kneeling by Grouard, the Irishman said, “Let’s go, Frank.”
“Don’t know that I can,” the half-breed complained, shifting from one buttock to the other. “Why’n’t you just leave me to come along later?”
“C’mon now, I ain’t leaving you,” Seamus said. Shifting his rifle to the left hand, he reached down to cup his right under Grouard’s arm.
“I ain’t leaving you neither,” Pourier said, although reluctantly. “You got yourself in this fix with your pecker always wanting to bury itself in any woman you can find, Frank. But I s’pose I’ll lend a hand getting you out of trouble this one last time.”
Grouard twisted, trying to thrust off their hands as they struggled to pull him up. “Just leave me be!”
“You’re coming,” Seamus said as they yanked Grouard to his feet, and he shrugged them off at last, stepping away from both. “You’re coming if I gotta drag you in a litter my own self.”
“No man’s ever gonna drag me into Crook’s camp!” the half-breed spat at Donegan. “If you’re so dead set on me going back with you—I damn well gonna go back on my own two feet.”
They plodded away like men will who have gone too long without sustenance, men who have continued to demand of themselves the ultimate in sacrifice without replenishing their abused bodies with what was needed to keep them going. With any luck at all, Seamus figured, by this time tomorrow they would be eating their fill of everything Camp Cloud Peak had to offer.
Even half-boiled beans, along with some greasy salt pork and that damned hard bread. Anything, anything at all sounded like a feast fit for royalty right now. He sucked on his tongue, figuring he could try fooling his stomach for one more day. Convince it he was eating something, chewing something, swallowing something. If only his tongue. For just one more bleeming day.
“No, Donegan. W-we can’t.”
The Irishman turned and stopped, finding the lieutenant halted five yards behind him. Back ahead of Seamus now, Pourier stopped beside Grouard. Arrayed to either side of Sibley in a ragged crescent were his soldiers. Off to one side stood the rail-thin packer and a gaunt, wild-eyed John Finerty.
Seamus wasn’t able to figure out what was happening just then. “What’d you say, Lieutenant?”
The officer squinted against that first light of sunset. He looked as if he were fighting to find the words. Just the right ones. “I’ve got to think of the men, Donegan. You must understand.”
He wagged his head. Nothing came clear. “I don’t.”
“We’re not going that way anymore.” Sibley pointed off to the foothills, the way the scouts were taking them.
“Where we going, then, Lieutenant—if not back to Crook’s camp?”
“That way,” the officer answered, jabbing a finger at the air. “Take us where the going is easier.”
For a moment Donegan too searched for the right words, how best to explain it to these men who had just reached the end of their string. “You said you was thinking of the men—well, so am I. We head down there where you want to go, chances are we’ll bump right into that war party we saw moving east onto the plains a while back. If not them, we’ll run into some other hunting or raiding party. Damn right—I agree—you best think of the men.”
Sergeant Charles W. Day stepped forward, leaning on his short carbine to say, “We ain’t none of us going with you, Irishman. Staying with the lieutenant. He’s gonna lead us back to Crook down that way—where the going’s easier.”
Seamus looked at the courageous lieutenant, sensing that Sibley had rallied his men all that he could. The officer had done everything good order and the honor of his rank demanded of him. A proud man, he still stood erect, as straight as he must have on that parade at West Point. His chin jutted determinedly. Donegan couldn’t help admiring the man. Couldn’t help but remembering other lieutenants who had led his company in mad charges against J.E.B. Stuart and others. Men who would always do things much more bravely than they did things smart.
But there would never be any faulting them for their courage.
“All right, Lieutenant,” Donegan said quietly, knowing he had already given in. “Suppose you tell me how you figure to lead these men back to Crook, when you don’t know the way.”
Sibley swallowed, licking his cracked, sunburned lips. After he stared off into the distance a moment, he said, “I’ll get them there. I’ll keep heading south along the foothills. And I’ll get them there.” Then for just a moment his eyes softened. They seemed to plead for understanding. “I … I’ve got to try, Donegan. By God, at least I’ve got to try.”
