Follow me—on the double!”
At once the entire line of his skirmishers were hustling out of the trees back to the trampled Fort Buford Road, trudging, stomping, stumbling upriver through the snow. As he neared the mouth of Bark Creek, the lieutenant halted his men, watching the village scurrying into the bare timber on the far side of the frozen Missouri.
“Culbertson,” he instructed, “I want you to take these two men—make a crossing and see what you can find out about the enemy’s position on the south bank.”
He watched the scout motion to the pair of mounted infantrymen, then move down to the trampled crossing.
Baldwin said to his officers, “Tell your men they may fall out and fix breakfast while we’re waiting for our scouts to return.”
Chapter 8
7 December 1876
As the soldiers began to snap dry branches off the bare Cottonwood, the lieutenant turned to watch the three horsemen cautiously pick their way across the ice. Minutes passed as Culbertson followed in the wake of the Hunkpapa village. Then, just as the trio neared the south bank, rifle fire erupted from the far trees. Orange flames spewed from the Sioux guns as the three riders fought to control their horses, wheeling and whipping them back across the frozen river.
Frank Baldwin was back up the north bank himself, yelling among the men clambering to their feet, scooping up their weapons. “Companies form up, goddammit! Volley fire by platoon! First squads into position—
As soon as the initial dozen soldiers from G and I dropped to their knees, threw those long Springfields to their shoulders, and pulled the trigger on command, the rest of the two companies spread out in a ragged skirmish formation, prepared to move forward and fire their volleys.
“H Company!” Baldwin hollered. “Lieutenant Hinkle!”
“Sir?” the officer came huffing up.
“Bring your men up through the lines and advance across the river at all possible haste. Smith—I want you with them!”
Hinkle glanced at the civilian scout, then at the south side of the Missouri, before turning back to gaze at Baldwin. “Charge the far bank, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, by God! Drive those goddamned redskins from the timber over there!”
The constant crack of the lighter carbines was growing now, broken by the intermittent boom of the infantry Long Toms—heavy .45-caliber weapons that could shove a lead bullet across a good distance, and with impact.
“Very good, sir!” Hinkle replied, turning and wheeling away. “H Company—form up!”
“Keep at them, boys!” Frank bellowed as he wrenched the horse around, kicking it back up the bank toward the other two companies, who formed a disorderly line of foot soldiers clustered in the cottonwoods. “Pin those bastards down until H can cross the river!”
North and south the firing continued as the other officers barked their orders and the men shuffled back and forth along the skirmish line on their frozen feet. Frank Hinkle’s H Company pushed through them on the right, moving onto the ice, double-timing it across the Missouri, still wobbly on cold, unforgiving legs, muttering their curses or their thanks to be moving again. For whatever reason it was, they were sure to be warm again real soon.
The timber on the south bank exploded with even more fire as H Company advanced, returning fire. Then slowed to a walk now as they ejected one shell and slammed home another. Slowing more, reloading, inching forward as they reloaded. Then, as Frank Baldwin watched, Hinkle’s men were scrambling up the south bank.
By damn, they must have driven the warriors off!
At that moment Baldwin became certain his battalion could overwhelm this rear guard and have those warriors routed. That accomplished, it would only be a matter of chasing after the fleeing village scattering in those hills yonder. A footrace … just him and Sitting Bull.
More confident now, Baldwin brought I Company together to his right and G to act as reserve for H Company in the thick of things.
The minutes passed, and the firing grew hotter. Then the better part of a half hour slipped by before he suddenly heard a massive amount of rifle fire erupt from the far bank. Within moments he saw the first of Hinkle’s men appearing again out of the timber, slowly being forced back to the river again. From the sheer number of muzzle flashes, it was easy to tell that the rear-guard warriors had been reinforced—now that the women and children were safely on their way.
“Pull back!” he hollered across the Missouri.
But he didn’t have to give that order to the men of H Company. They had been in the timber and against the hillsides, close to the enemy. Baldwin didn’t need to tell them this was their one and only chance to pull back or be swallowed up whole.
Hell—with as many warriors as there were swarming down the ridges toward the river crossing, streaming out of the timber after Hinkle’s men, Baldwin felt his stomach pinch with genuine apprehension.
From the looks of it, at that moment the Sioux had him outnumbered four, maybe as many as five, to one. And they had his men on the run.
Baldwin was in among I and G, ordering the rest of his men to fire over the heads of H Company to try holding back the countercharging Hunkpapa. Screaming warriors. Screeching red devils. Yelping as they drove the soldiers across the ice. The first few of Hinkle’s company were getting close enough that Baldwin could see the fear on their faces.
“They laid a trap for us!”
The panic was quick to spread through the battalion.
“Trap us like they done to Custer!”
In the gray light of predawn the shadows of the enemy horsemen and those warriors fighting afoot on the frozen river seemed ghostlike and ethereal to Baldwin: unreal, with a quality of everywhere at once as the bullets from their weapons smacked through the snow-laden branches of the cottonwood and yellow pine.
More and more of that red rear guard exploded off the far bank, lining themselves along the shore as they advanced, returning shot for shot in a brisk firing that bogged down Baldwin’s battalion for the rest of that morning near the mouth of Bark Creek. Not getting to chase Sitting Bull nettled Frank like an itch he couldn’t scratch. His stomach churned in fury just listening to that rifle fire from the enemy on the far bank. Winchesters, Henrys … government-supplied rifles, firing government-supplied ammunition.
Hour by hour, ever so steadily, that pressure from the Sioux continued to mount. All along his front Baldwin listened to the reports of his officers as the skirmishing heated up. The Sioux were too strong. As simple as that. And now in the gray light of early morning he could see that the enemy was intent on crossing over, upriver and down, slinking past his battalion on both flanks.
“Sir!”
Baldwin wheeled on his heel.
The soldier reported, “Sir, the Yanktonais—they just showed up at our rear!”
“They’re shooting at us?”
“N-no, sir. No shooting yet.”
“Damn,” Baldwin muttered. “Tell Lieutenant Rousseau to turn his men around and hold those Yanktonais where they are. Let there be no doubt that he will fire on the Yanktonais if they do not withdraw immediately. I repeat: if they make any trouble—shoot. Understood?”
