motionless, eerily motionless, for some reason content for the moment to watch the bottom of the bluff, where Kelly hollered out for all of them to halt.
Then Seamus added, “Take cover, dammit!”
Instantly wheeling their mounts in a corkscrew, the civilians shot back some twenty yards into a tiny grove of old Cottonwood. Among all the old deadfall Donegan was sure they could make a stand of it, once the guns started cracking and the bullets flying, until Miles sent a company of foot soldiers on the double time.
But no sooner had the scouts dismounted on the fly, sliding in the snow behind the thick cottonwood trunks that lay rotting across the grove, than the warriors on that snowy ridgetop disappeared into the snowy mist … as if they had never been there.
“You see what I saw?” Kelly asked.
Bruguier nodded. “They’re sneakin’ round on us?”
“We’ll wait,” Donegan said. “Keep your ears open.”
They did wait, but heard nothing more than the snort of their horses, their pawing at the icy ground to find something to eat. Ten minutes, twenty, then after a half hour they finally decided that the Sioux weren’t doubling back on them.
“I don’t get it,” Johnston said. “They wanted to sucker us into their trap with them damned decoys. Why didn’t they just wait a shake more when they’d have us in a corner, then rub us all out?”
“They weren’t out to do anything to us with no decoys,” Donegan claimed as they mounted up and started back to the command.
“They had us dead to rights,” Johnston protested.
“Wasn’t us they was wanting,” Kelly advised.
“That’s right,” Donegan agreed. “Not when Crazy Horse wants the whole damned outfit with one big fight.”
Buffalo Horn nodded his head, but not a word did he say. He didn’t have to; he showed how much he agreed with the big Irishman by suddenly sliding one flat mitten across the other—violently.
“That’s right, Buffalo Horn,” Donegan echoed. “Doesn’t take a smart Injin like you to know Crazy Horse will be patient enough until he can rub us all out.”
Just past four P.M., with the snowstorm still raging, Miles decided to call in his scouts, station his pickets, and go into camp on a relatively flat piece of ground just above Hanging Woman Creek. By sheer refusal to give in, the column had managed to scratch out another fifteen miles that day with the storm wailing at their backs.
As twilight closed around them, the wind came up and began to howl, bringing with it even more snow. By the time it was completely dark just past five P.M., the encampment was being battered with periods of sharp, icy hail, gusting and flying horizontally like the snow it accompanied. The men did what they could to find shelter out of the wind as the thermometer steadily dipped far below zero.
Try as he might, Seamus could not recall any such godforsaken weather in any more godforsaken camp pitched in any more godforsaken a patch of wilderness—wind, sleet, hail, and snow.
What, pray you, Sweet Virgin Mother of God, will you throw at us next?
“That’s all I can feed you tonight,” the corporal apologized. “General’s already got us on half rations.”
“I’ll be fine, sojur,” Seamus said, looking down at the soupy remains of the white beans in the cook’s blackened kettle.
The soldier looked in both directions, then said, “Maybeso I could slip you another spoonful—”
“Nawww,” Donegan interrupted self-consciously as he glanced around the camp. “There’s more of these fellas been slogging through water and ice and mud today—they need them beans lot more’n me.”
Instead of using his spoon this time, he brought the tin cup to his mouth and licked what he could of the bean juice from it, then abruptly handed it to the soldier. “You’ll have some coffee for me when I get back, Cawpril?”
“I will, Mr. Donegan. Count on that!”
“Many’s the time I’ve gone days with nothing but army coffee to eat a hole in me belly—so keep that pot steaming for me.”
“I’ll make sure to hold you some back!”
Seamus snapped a salute of respect to the old soldier with the peppered beard, then turned, slapping the front of his coat with one of his horsehide gauntlets, knocking some of the snow and ice from the thick canvas.
“How many?” Miles was asking as Donegan approached the colonel’s fire.
Leforge asked his Crow trackers again. Then Buffalo Horn agreed in his pidgin English. The squaw man nodded to Seamus as Donegan came to a stop at the fire ringed by Miles’s scouts. “They make it more than a thousand warriors, General.”
“How much more than a thousand?” asked an anxious Frank Baldwin.
Leforge said thoughtfully, “Maybe couple hundred more.”
“Twelve hundred,” Miles repeated. “That many, eh?”
“That’s got to be counting every two-legged critter with a man-sized prick big enough to handle a gun, and them who aren’t too old to stay on his feet!” Kelly snorted.
“These here Crow been following the trail and walking through those damn villages same as the rest of us,” Leforge defended his trackers, taking a step toward Kelly. “You got any better idea, go right ahead and tell the general what answer you wanna give to his question.”
“Well, Kelly?” Miles asked after a moment of hesitation. “Do you think Leforge’s Crow are far wrong on their estimation of just how many warriors we might be facing?”
It took him a moment, but Kelly finally shrugged and said, “I suppose it’s always better for us to be prepared to fight off more than we’ll likely ever encounter.”
“I’ll take a crack at it, General,” Donegan declared suddenly.
The eyes turned to him. Miles said, “All right. How many do you think we’re facing?”
Seamus said, “I don’t figure Crazy Horse has no twelve hundred warriors. But I do figure you’ll be facing at least two-to-one odds.”
Miles turned slightly to acknowledge the appearance of the civilian. “So you agree more with Leforge than you do with Kelly?”
“Not taking sides in anything,” Seamus explained. “Just speaking my mind. But like Luther said: be prepared for the worst of it. Either way, I’m only telling you what the sign tells me. That’s what you hired me for, isn’t it, General?”
“By Jupiter if it isn’t,” Miles replied. He banged his thick mittens together. “I suppose you all know by now that we might have to stretch out our rations some.”
“Half rations already,” Captain Casey added.
“Because this campaign’s running longer than I figured it would at first,” Miles explained, staring into the wind-whipped fire. “I had calculated hitting the village far north of here, exacting our punishment, then being on our way back to base. But it appears the enemy is retreating and we’re playing catch-up.”
“How long can we go, General?” asked Captain Butler.
“I’d like to tell you that we could go on till spring if need be … but that’s not the truth,” Miles admitted. “I’ll be damned if my food shortages will force a premature end to this campaign!”
“The men will understand,” said First Lieutenant Robert McDonald.
And Donegan thought, These poor soldiers have no choice, do they? They never do—because you officers always make that choice for them. If they don’t like the choice you’ve made for them, then they can march on and grumble with the rest, or try to slip off and desert. But who in hell is going to desert in this country? And in a blizzard like this?
Miles suddenly seemed cheered. “I know we can whip them, gentlemen. We can whip Crazy Horse and the rest of his henchmen, even if they’ve got us down three or four to one!”
“Just give the men something to fight on, General,” Donegan reminded. “Something, anything, in their bellies is better than an officer’s empty promises when it comes to fighting these red h’athens.”
*Run!
