then he’d best be getting used to this unearthly cold right here and now.”
For a moment he studied the fiery intensity in her big, bold eyes and decided he was not about to talk her out of venturing onto the porch or the parade with the rest of the wives. “All right, then—cover him up best you can. The wind’s kicked up this morning, Sam.” Then, as she pulled the layers of swaddling and blankets over the infant’s face, Seamus tugged at her shawl, bringing the long folds up on her head, tucking it all beneath her chin in a fat knot.
“There, now,” she whispered up to him, her cheeks already rouged with the cold blustering in through the open door, “don’t we two look a sight?”
“Never been a prettier mother.”
“Perhaps your own, Seamus,” she replied quietly as she took his elbow, the babe cradled across her right arm.
He stopped just outside the doorway as officers barked their commands, sergeants bawled out their orders, mules brayed, and horses strained at their wagon hitches, rattling trace chains with the strident squeak of cold axles and hubs.
Gazing down into her face, he felt his eyes begin to mist. “My mother would have loved to meet you, Samantha Donegan.”
Gazing at the carefully wrapped child, Sam said, “And to hold her grandson too.”
Swiftly he brought her into him, yet gently, ever so gently, as he clutched them both to his bosom, the babe there between them, sheltered in their warmth from the wind and the brutal cold, sensing the tears spill down his cheeks.
Cherishing this last moment between them, the last time he might hold these precious pieces of his heart for weeks to come. No more than a few weeks, he had promised her in the last days together—pained each time he remembered just how often he had been forced to break that very same vow.
Stirrups groaned as weight came down upon them. Saddles squeaked and horses snorted. The entire parade a fog of cold frost.
“You must go,” she whispered, her voice muffled against the bulk of his blanket and canvas coat.
Blinking his eyes, Seamus looked over the parade, seeing how Dodge already had his infantry well away on their march, followed by the artillery caissons and all those wagons rumbling two by two down to the big iron bridge that would carry them across the North Platte. Only now were the cavalry wheeling about into column, company, by company, by company. Always were they the last in the line of march, and the first into the action. By the luck of the march, horse soldiers were the ones chosen to eat every other man’s dust—and the first thrown against the enemy, the first to spill their blood.
Somewhere miles ahead already were Crook and his headquarters group, likely following the North brothers and their Pawnee trackers. It suited Seamus just fine that he would ride back here with Mackenzie’s Fourth and the rest of the scouts, most of them Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, some of whom were beating on hand drums, all singing in their own tongue to the cold dawn sky.
Prayers.
Dear Father in Heaven, did he ever feel like praying right then.
She pulled her damp face from his coat slightly, looking up at his bearded chin. “You’ll do nothing foolish this time out, Seamus Donegan.”
“I’ve done nothing so foolish in my youth that got me killed—”
She grabbed some curls resting upon his shoulder, whispering, “Though many’s tried to raise that beautiful hair of yours.”
“But now that I’ve grown older, I find I’m one to do less and less that’s so daring and foolish.”
That too might be a vow hard for him to keep.
“It’s just two days to Fetterman, Seamus. Promise you’ll write us from there.”
“As I always do.”
“But this time write a letter to your son.”
“And you will read it to him for me?”
“Over and over again, I’ll read it to him,” Sam answered, pressing her face back into the mass of him when the wind kicked up a skiff of old snow across the icy porch. People were cheering, crying out, young children leaping across the parade as they banged away on pots and pans while the cavalry strung itself out at long last and the rear guard was finally in motion. She sobbed, “I will read it … like his father was singing a lullaby to him every night.”
With one finger he pushed back the shawl’s hood slightly and smelled deeply of her hair this last time. The tears coming freely now, he could almost feel them freezing on his cheeks, in the burr of his beard. He wanted so to remember this scent of her across all those cold days and freezing nights yet to come.
“This will be swift and sure—I’ll be home soon.”
“And when you do, Seamus—you promised to bring home a name for your son.”
“Aye,” he whispered, his lips against her ear now. “We’ll name him when I return from … from—”
“From Hell.”
“I’ll be home soon, Sam”—he barely got the words out. “Soon …”
Then he gently parted the blanket and gazed one last moment at the infant, bending slightly so that he could softly plant a kiss on the boy’s forehead. In the next moment Seamus raised his face to her, laid his mouth against her full lips moistened with the gush of her tears, then suddenly, brutally, tore himself away from them.
From family. From what clutched most tightly at his heart.
Gone to plunge back into the maw of Hell once more.
*
*
Chapter 16
Freezing Moon 1876
The Official Report.
CHICAGO, October 26—The following telegram was received at the military headquarters to-day:
STANDING ROCK, October 25.—
