Crawford from the Black Hills.”
“You want me to start back when I rode off from the command?” Grouard asked.
“Yes. Back to when the general gave you his dispatches he wanted put on the wire to Sheridan,” Burt added.
Clearing his throat, Grouard stared at the low ceiling a moment to recapture the chronology of that contest of wills and stamina he had waged against young Jack Crawford. “I was with Colonel Mills when that run for it started.”
“In Whitewood City, right?” Wessels asked.
“Right. Gone there with Lieutenant Bubb of Commissary for supplies while the general brung up the rest to the Belle Fourche. Folks in Whitewood treated us good when we got there that night way after dark. With dawn Mills would start out to buy up near every bite those hungry soldiers could eat. Before I went off to find a place to sleep, I told Crawford for him to be on hand come daylight—so he could go with Bubb to help out loading supplies and hauling it all back to Crook’s men. ‘You’re to stay with the command,’ I told him. ‘What’re you off to do?’ Jack asked me. ‘I’ve got the general’s telegrams to get through,’ I says.”
“Did you know he was buffaloing you then?” Donegan asked, then turned anxiously on his bench as a pair of soldiers bolted into the saloon and hurried to the bar.
“No,” Frank answered. “But I had my suspicions: just the way he was acting—trying to go off on his own two times when we was in Whitewood Canyon. But, damn, if Colonel Mills wouldn’t let him slip away from us! Then after we got down to Crook City, Captain Jack said he was going off to sleep at a friend’s camp. Made sense to me—I didn’t suspect a thing. Crawford’s been around the Hills for a long time, so I thought nothing more of it when he told me that he’d be back come the break of day.”
“But you didn’t see him in Whitewood that morning, did you?” Bourke inquired.
With a shrug Grouard replied, “At the time it didn’t make no never-mind if I didn’t see him. Wasn’t looking for him, I s’pose. All I done was splash some water on my face afore I headed out to find some breakfast. Only one thing on my mind back then: getting to Deadwood with the general’s dispatches.” He patted the front of his shirt.
“Were you carrying news for any of them correspondents?” Schuyler asked.
“Three of ’em.”
Bourke said, “Bet them three each paid you good to get their stories on the wire before any of the rest, right?”
With a sly grin the swarthy half-breed answered, “Let’s just say those fellas agreed to make a hard ride well worth my while.”
Laughter rose all around that table, then Burt said, “So, I suppose you’re buying tonight, eh, Frank?”
As the rest laughed again, Wessels asked, “I know that road as good as any man outside of Teddy Egan. So tell me: where’d you finally find out Crawford was gone on ahead?”
“Down at Deadwood, it was,” Grouard answered. “I had them reporters’ money to trade in my broke-down army horse and get me a good mount when I reached a livery at Deadwood. So when I went in the stable, what you s’pose I saw?”
Andy Burt replied, “I heard tell you spotted Crawford’s mule tied up there!”
“Damn right I did,” Frank said with a scowl. “Asked the stable man where it come from, who brung it there.”
“He tell you?” Bourke asked.
“Not at first. Looked right suspicious about it—like he’d been warned to lie through his teeth, most-like. Finally he owned up to that mule coming in about five that morning. So I asked him where the man was come riding that mule into town.”
“But he’d left already, hadn’t he?” Bourke asked.
Frank nodded. “On a goddamned horse the livery man sold him. Making tracks for Custer City without so much as a minute’s wait.”
“That was the first idea you had Crawford was carrying dispatches for Davenport?” Donegan asked as he set his mug down on the table.
“By that time I was getting real angry, so the livery man owned up to that too. Jack been bragging high and low how he got his five hunnert dollars to get Davenport’s story on the wire ahead of Crook’s official report.”
Bourke said, “And here you had just galloped off from Crook thinking you had all the dispatches from every reporter with the column.”
“Including that snake-oil drummer Davenport,” Grouard replied. “What that son of a bitch had done to make out like everything was on the up and up, he give me a copy of what he already sneaked over to Crawford—when he give Captain Jack orders to get his story to the telegraph twelve hours before Crook’s official report.”
“That son of a bitch wanted an exclusive,” Bourke growled. “Damn his copper-backed hide! Davenport’s made it plain all summer long that he’s had a big bone to pick with the general—but to go behind Crook’s back the way he did like this!”
“Army business, that’s what Crawford was fooling with!” Burt exclaimed angrily.
Grouard held up his hands for silence, quieting the rest. “In the end, Davenport got his due, fellas.”
“That’s right,” Donegan added, glancing at those around the table. “We heard tell he’s down in Cheyenne City this very night, sicker’n a dog.”
Wessels roared, “Served Davenport right—that puffed-up son of a bitch. Glad you whipped Crawford in the race!”
“Didn’t look like it was going to come out that way at first,” Frank explained dramatically. “General’s plan was for me to hire another man in Deadwood to get Crook’s dispatches through. But when I found out Crawford had the jump on Crook the way he did—there was only one thing for me to do.”
“You gotta hand it to Crawford, Frank,” Donegan said with no little admiration. “He took off through some rugged country thick with Injins in the blackest part of night—them Sioux been raiding all around there.”
Schuyler agreed eagerly. “Just two days before, we heard a war party had jumped a fella no more’n two hundred yards from the main street in Crook City itself!”
Bourke leaned in, eager expectation lighting his face. “But if anyone was going to overtake Captain Jack, it could only be you, Grouard!”
“I told that liveryman to lemme have the best horse he had—but he said his best horse went with Crawford. So I grabbed up that bastard by the front of his coat and told him he better bring up the next-best horse or he’d be bleeding out of more holes than he figured possible.”
“You get yourself a good horse?” Burt asked.
“Yep. I ended up riding that horse into the ground too,” Frank replied. “But before I left, I told the stable man to get that animal bellied up on oats and saddled. I’d be back, just as soon as I had a local fella, Mart Gibbens, take me over to the bank and fetch me five hunnert dollars on the general’s authorization order.” He patted his breast pocket, then leaned back in his chair as he took another swig on his beer.
Wessels asked, “You got your money, right?”
With a nod Grouard continued. “Climbed into the saddle, tugged my hat down tight, and asked Gibbens what time it was. He told me it was ten-thirty. I didn’t say another word. Instead I leaned down low against that horse’s ear, whispering to him that I wanted all the bottom he had—then whipped that son of a big buck right down Deadwood’s main street to beat the band that bright morning. Figuring then and there it was going to be one ugly ride to reach the telegraph at Fort Laramie—two hunnert miles off as the crow flies.”
Grouard went on to enthrall his listeners as he worked into his story as a man would work up a thick, soapy lather conditioning his saddle or bridle. Explaining that Crawford already had a good jump on him—what with leaving Crook City that evening of 12 September while Grouard slept—Frank said he soon realized there should be soldiers at two places on the Black Hills Road between Deadwood and Laramie. One place or the other he figured he might convince an officer to send a fresh courier on with Crook’s messages.
“So how far that first horse get you?” Donegan asked.
“Figure it was something on the order of twenty-five miles,” Frank said as Bourke gathered up the empty mugs with a clatter after setting down some full ones. “Damn if he didn’t give out about five hunnert yards from a road ranch. Packed my saddle and all in by foot from there.”
“So did you buy a horse from the ranchkeeper?” Bourke inquired.
