“C-c-cap’n Miner here?” one of the trio huffed breathlessly in a thick, half-breed English.
“Yes, he’s with us,” Otis replied. “I’m Colonel Otis. Who the hell are you?”
“Otis? You the soldier chief from Glendive?” the swarthy man gasped, glancing at the other two with him. “We come from Miles.” He pointed to the other two, both of them clearly Indians, then put his two hands to his head to make wolf ears—the plains sign for scout. “His scouts. Miles send us find Miner and wagons.”
“This is it, mister.”
The scout looked over his shoulder at the swirling Sioux. “Miles, he want us find wagons. We ain’t seen wagons for so long.”
“Yes, goddammit,” Otis growled. “I understand we are overdue. But, by Jehovah, we’re getting there. When did the three of you leave Tongue River?”
The dark-skinned scout watched momentarily as Robert Jackson came up beside Otis. “Four of us come from Tongue River. Hello, big brother,” he called out, stepping forward with his arms held wide.
“Brother?” Otis asked, dismayed as the two embraced. “Is this your brother, Jackson?”
The two brown-skinned men embraced, pounding one another on the back; then Robert turned back to Otis and said, “This is my little brother, William. Miles send me to help you, and keep William to help him.”
“You have water, brother?” asked William Jackson with a pasty tongue.
“Get these men some water,” Otis ordered, then turned back to the two half-breeds and the Indian scouts. “You were saying you started off from the Tongue with four of you. And tell me how you came to be afoot.”
“We started off with four horses from Miles to look for this train. Miner late with wagons—Miles start to worry days ago. Near sundown yesterday we run onto a big war party. Made a running fight of it. One of my Rees—White Antelope—he was knocked from his horse while we run from the war party. But Bear Plume here was able to get him on the back of his own horse, to protect his body from the enemy. We get White Antelope into cover down by the river, yonder.”
“Down west of here?” Robert Jackson asked, pointing toward the distant Yellowstone.
“Yes” William replied. “We hide in the willow back a good ways. All our horses killed or wounded in holding the Lakota back. At sun going down yesterday we set the two wounded horses free to fool the enemy—and then after dark we make off toward the mouth of Clear Creek. The Lakota never found us all night we stay back in the brush. We hear shooting last night, off to the east.”
“You must mean when some of these bastards tried to jump our picket lines,” Sharpe said.
“We stick to the brush all night. We wait,” Jackson continued. “Your fight start today, we hear the guns. Still we wait till we see soldiers.”
“So you got a man dead?” Otis asked.
William Jackson nodded gravely, “Bleed a lot and die yesterday. Gone now.”
“Where’d you leave his body? The Sioux get him?”
“No,” William said, turning to point as he answered, “Carried him all the way down in the brush, beside that tall cottonwood.” Some sadness crossed his face as he turned back to the lieutenant colonel and added, “Bear Plume wants to bury their friend.”
“By all means,” Otis replied knowingly, his eyes shifting to watch the long-range scrap between his men and the swirling horsemen.
True to his word, the colonel ordered Sharpe’s H Company to push on toward the far copse of trees along the Yellowstone where Otis stopped the wagon train, set out skirmishers, and effectively held the Sioux at bay while he had a detail bury the dead Arikara scout before pressing on.
“Let’s get this wagon train to Tongue River!” he finally cried, setting Sharpe’s company out in the advance once more.
Hour after hour the rolling fight raged on as Otis kept his civilian and soldier teamsters grinding along, whipping mules ahead of their heavy wagons. In and out, back and forth the Sioux swarmed, shrieking, screeching —never drawing close enough to use their bows but firing their rifles instead, showing a healthy respect for those long-range guns of the infantry. Minute by minute it seemed the enemy horsemen were reinforced—new warriors arriving at the scene until there was an estimated force of some seven to eight hundred Sioux facing the beleaguered, outnumbered soldier column.
Desperate to punch his way through, Otis used every trick up his sleeve: with every Sioux charge, he ordered a countercharge by one company or another while the wagons continued on at a slow but steady pace. One after another he ordered out the various squads and companies, each unit skirmishing with the enemy horsemen before being recalled while another company was dispatched into the fray at a different position along the line of march.
As steady as was their progress, by two o’clock that afternoon Otis’s column had made no more than six miles since morning, virtually fighting tooth and nail for every yard beneath the high autumn sun that caused the men to sweat despite the season.
“Looks like they don’t intend to budge from that bluff to our front, Colonel,” Sharpe cried out to Otis.
For a long moment the train commander appraised their situation. Just ahead of him lay the narrow valley of Clear Creek, the stream having cut itself to the bottom of a narrow gorge some two hundred feet deep. On the far side of the rocky ravine at least two hundred Sioux held a commanding position—awaiting the soldiers. The wagon train came to a clattering halt.
“We can’t make that crossing,” Lieutenant Kell complained.
“We must, sir,” Sharpe argued, turning to study Otis’s face—hoping to find some resolve there. “We must make the crossing, Colonel.”
“Or?”
“Or we’ve been defeated and we’ll never resupply Tongue River again.”
Otis turned on Sharpe, bellowing loudly, “Absolutely correct, Mr. Sharpe! Gentlemen—those fiends will not turn us back. It’s up to you. Do you understand?”
Sharpe saluted smartly and said, “Requesting that you position one of the Gatlings to lay down a covering fire for my men, Colonel.”
“Dandy idea, Lieutenant!”
Within minutes the field piece was rolled into position and a crew set to rake the far side of the valley where the Indians waited while Sharpe quickly formed up his men and led them off on the double, rushing to secure the crossing. Just as they reached Clear Creek, with the bullets kicking up spouts of dirt around them, Sharpe’s sergeant Hathaway grunted, falling to his knees beside the lieutenant.
“I’m hit, sir!” and he threw a hand to his breast as he collapsed to the ground.
In that moment Sharpe watched the sergeant pull his hand away and inspect himself. There was no blood, no bullet hole, but there at his knee lay the spent bullet that had whacked him on the chest. Yet in the space of that few heartbeats, the warriors on the far side of the stream got their range and began to lay in a galling fire on the gallant men of H Company.
“Into the stream! Now, men—be lively!” Sharpe called out, knowing if he did not keep them moving now, they would waver, fall back, and they would never secure the crossing.
Waving his service revolver in the air with one arm, he tugged his sergeant back to his feet; then together they raced to the creekbank, leading the soldiers through the skimpy brush and into the shallow water. To the far side they splashed, shooting and bellowing as the warriors on the far bluff yelped and screeched in dismay.
“Fire by volleys!” Sharpe ordered on the far bank. “First squad! Forrard …” waiting for them to kneel, then, “aim—fire!”
The first six slogged forward, drenched above their knees, shivering in the cold autumn wind that knifed down the sharp ravine, immediately went to their knees, and fired on command.
“Second squad!”
A second set of six moved through the ranks of the first.
“Aim!”
Kneeling immediately, throwing their long rifles against their shoulders, cheeks to the stocks, eyes along the barrels.
“Fire!”
One after another Sharpe had the rifle squads leapfrogging forward, slowly purchasing a few more yards of ground on that far bank with each volley, inching their way up the slope to the rocks where the warriors held on,
