or have Samantha write if you want.”
“Yes. Samantha.”
Cody pulled Donegan close, and they embraced there in the damp and the cold, pounding one another on the back again, this time in sadness at their parting. As he held the Irishman against him, Cody whispered in Donegan’s ear, “Be sure you let me know if it’s a boy or not.”
“Sam says it will be.”
“Write me.”
Donegan backed away, holding Cody at arm’s length. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again, Bill.”
Cody blinked and tried out that grand smile of his. “We damn well will, Irishman! You can count on that! And if ever you decide you want to come east—I’ll find work for you.”
“I already told you I couldn’t live back—”
“But you haven’t given it enough thought, or talked it over with Samantha. Remember, there’ll always be a place for you at my table, Seamus Donegan. A place for you and yours.”
Dragging his hand under his nose, Seamus tried to smile bravely. This was the second time he was saying farewell to a good, good friend. And—dammit—it just never got any easier.
Reluctantly Cody turned to go and moved off through a throng of well-wishers toward the gangplank that would lead him up to the lower deck of the
The pilot yanked hard at the whistle cord, giving it three short, steamy squeals over that Powder River depot. Soldiers on shore began releasing the thick hawser ropes, heaving them toward a trio of civilian stevedores at the deck rail. Bill leaped up the steps to the wheelhouse, where he leaned from the window and removed his big sombrero, waving it to the wildly whistling, stamping mob on shore as the pilot worked his wheel hard to port preparing to back into the shallow rapids of the Powder River to make his turn, yelling down the pipe to the engine room, bellowing at his boilermen to stoke the fire to her.
Donegan stood on the bank that morning of the twenty-fourth day of August, trying to blink away the sting of tears as he watched Cody look directly at him, his mouth moving. For all the clamor and cheering, the belching of those greasy stacks and the throbbing hammer of the steam pistons—Seamus could not be sure. Again he carefully watched as Cody said something from up there in the wheelhouse as the
“Take care of your family, Seamus!”
Donegan smiled and nodded. Then he yelled back, “By God—I will always do that!” Then he joined the rest in giving the famous scout and showman a rousing send-off.
“With God’s help,” Seamus quietly repeated minutes later as he watched the black smoke belching from the twin stacks disappearing around the far sandstone bluff, “I will always take care of my family.”
He didn’t know how long he stood there as the soldiers drifted away, looking downriver. Long after smoke from the steamer’s twin stacks faded from the sky beyond the river bluffs.
Now Cody was gone. Along with the Shoshone and Ute and Bannock as well. What few Crow remained behind were divided between the two columns. The surgeons had loaded eighty-four sick and disabled aboard the
All that remained were the men who would see things through to the bitter end.
At seven that morning bugles blew above Crook’s camp at the mouth of the Powder River, calling out the clear, clarion notes of “Boots and Saddles.” Minutes later “The General” was sounded. There were no tents to come down—only blankets to be rolled up as the last boxes of rations and ammunition were lashed onto the sawbucks cinched to the hardy backs of Tom Moore’s trail-hardened mules. Forage-poor horses whinnied and the mules hawed in protest, not at all ready to plunge back into that wilderness scorched by the enemy. Perhaps those weary, ribgaunt beasts foresaw the ruin yet to come.
“You going with us?”
Donegan turned to find Frank Grouard looking down at him from horseback. The half-breed handed Seamus the reins to the Irishman’s horse.
“Thanks, Frank.”
“Glad you’re staying on, Donegan. Hope I got everything of yours packed.”
Looking over his bedroll and lariat, quickly glancing in the two small saddlebags, Seamus looked up and said, “Ain’t much for a man to look after, is it?”
“If you don’t have it, I figure you can’t loose it,” Grouard said, reining his horse around. “C’mon. Crook wants to cover ground today.”
Swinging into the saddle, Donegan said, “I don’t blame him—what with having us lollygag around here for five days.”
Into the hills the first of Chambers’s infantry followed the headquarters flag recently fashioned for Crook by Captain George M. Randall and Lieutenant Walter S. Schuyler. Although primitively constructed under the crudest of field conditions, it was nonetheless impressive as the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition got about its stern chase of the hostiles: in the general shape of a large guidon, equally divided between a white band on top—a towel contributed by Major Thaddeus Stanton—and a red band below—a gift of Schuyler’s own red underwear—with a large blue star affixed in the center—cut from Randall’s old, faded army blouse. With a drawknife, pack-chief Moore had one of his litter poles carved down to the diameter of a flagpole, and ferrules were made from a pair of copper Springfield .45/70 cases.
That flag was to lead them east, on the trail of the warriors who had slaughtered Custer’s men.
After fleeing Terry for eleven miles up the Powder River, Crook finally dispatched a courier with a note to explain that he had left, intent on pursuing the hostiles who likewise were making their escape. It wasn’t long after that courier had left with the general’s belated farewell that scout Muggins Taylor rode into that muddy midday bivouac with a letter from Terry.
I came up on the boat to see you, but found you had gone. The boat brought up your additional rations, but of course will not land them. I can send your supplies, forage, and subsistence to the mouth of the Powder River, if you wish it; but if you could send your pack train to the landing, it would be better, for the boat is very busy.
A few hours later a second courier from Terry caught up with the escaping leader of the Wyoming column, marching farther up the Powder.
Your note crossed one from me to you. I sent Lt. Schofield out to find you, supposing you were within four or five miles, and intended to go out and meet you if you were near. My note has explained fully all that I wished to say.
I still intend to leave at six in the morning. I hope your march will not be so long as to prevent my overtaking you.
In no way did George Crook want Alfred Terry to overtake him.
After suffering terribly through another night of incessant drizzle, Crook had his command up at dawn, huddling close around smoky fires to chew on bacon and hard bread, drinking steamy coffee to drive away the damp chill that pierced a man to his core. Through mud and the sort of sticky gumbo that balled up on the horses’ hooves, the column crossed and recrossed the Powder throughout a tiring thirteen-mile march and made camp at the mouth of Locate Creek beneath sullen clouds that evening. It wasn’t long before the wind came up and the rain boiled out of the heavens with a vengeance.
All day Donegan had been brooding on the expedition’s plight, unable to shake off his misgivings and his confusion that for some unexplained reason Crook had relented and allowed his expedition to lie in at the Powder River depot for five days, awaiting supplies. Then suddenly, before they had taken on their full fifteen days’ compliment of rations and forage, the general ordered his men to strike camp and depart without giving Terry any word that he was departing.
There could be one and only one reason for this precipitous and unwise act: Crook wanted to shed himself of
