“It ain’t luck saved this scalp all these gol-danged years,” Johnston replied with a snort, tugging the side of his fur cap back down over the oozy wound. “I’ve had slim escapes afore … but that there was a close’un.”
Suddenly Kelly hollered, “Buffalo Horn! Get in here!”
They all turned from Johnston, seeing that the Bannock had not retreated all the way back with Kelly. Instead, Buffalo Horn had slid into a narrow crevice where spring runoff had eroded away enough of the sandstone that he could lie down within the gap. There he could fire his rifle while remaining hidden from the Sioux until they were all but on top of him.
“Goddamn, if that Injun don’t have some
“Give ’em hell, Buffalo Horn!” cheered John Johnston. “Give them bastards bloody hell!”
They had been pinned down for the better part of two hours, Luther Kelly calculated, noticing the fall of the dim globe behind the thick clouds. For better than half of that time they could only hear what must have been a stiff fight of it taking place across the river, on the west bank of the Tongue.
From the looks of things, Miles had eventually ordered up some troops to rescue the white scouts. Captain James S. Casey had crossed the frozen river with his A Company and the Rodman gun that Casey’s men had used with such success against Sitting Bull’s village of Hunkpapa during the Battle of Cedar Creek back in October.*
In addition, through the bare skeletal cottonwoods, Kelly could make out what he believed was Lieutenant Charles E. Hargous’s detachment of mounted infantry coming up to support Casey’s men as dismounted skirmishers. They had been in the process of advancing toward a point opposite where the white scouts were pinned down on the east bank when Casey’s relief was suddenly confronted with a bold show of force from more than 150 mounted warriors charging up the west bank of the river.
Kelly watched as Casey ordered a halt. Then Hargous’s men rolled out of the saddle and deployed in a long skirmish line among Casey’s men as the captain’s tried-and-tested gun crew rolled the field piece into position and prepared to fire rounds of deadly solid shot into the hard-charging horsemen.
The sun sank from the twilit sky by the time the first round belched out of the muzzle of the Rodman, spewing jets of fire and a thousand sparks that lit up the snow with an eerie orange glow. The charge landed among the horsemen—scattering some, pushing most back in confusion.
Kelly, Donegan, and the rest immediately joined Casey’s men in a cheer as the gun crew reloaded and quickly adjusted the altitude on the Rodman’s carriage. A second charge whistled into the darkening mist forming off the frozen river. It too exploded in a great burst of noise as earth and snow erupted where it exploded in the midst of the enemy horsemen.
More ponies cried and warriors yelled, scattering in three directions.
Again the skirmish line of soldiers cheered as Casey advanced them another twenty yards toward the enemy.
Back and forth the two sides skirmished for the better part of another half hour: the stalwart warriors gathering themselves up and charging in after each shell from the Rodman had exploded, taking advantage of the lull it took to reload. Against each screaming flurry from the Sioux, Casey’s and Hargous’s men valiantly held their line—firing back into the teeth of each charge, giving the gun crew time to adjust the limber, reposition the altitude, draw the windage, and ignite each round of shot they sent whistling, whining, spewing fire into the dusk of that coming night.
“Damn, if that ain’t a fine sight!” James Parker observed within that rocky hollow.
Kelly and the rest roared their approval each time Casey inched his skirmishers forward another few yards.
Then suddenly the white scouts and Buffalo Horn turtled their necks into their shoulders as a round whistled low right over their heads and slammed into the open ground just beyond their position.
Warriors who had been creeping up through the shrinking light and oakbrush shrieked in surprise and pain as the icy snow and earth came showering down around them in hard clumps. Those not hurt began to gather up the wounded and the dead, pulling them away in retreat.
A second round whined low over the scouts’ heads, exploding a little farther away from the rocky hollow, once again scattering the warriors and sending shards of sandstone and red earth into the deepening purple hues of twilight.
Now the Indians were moving back in full force on the east side of the river, yelling out to one another, carrying those who could not retreat on their own, some mounting horses but most trudging away from the battlefield on foot—retreating from the persistent and accurate shooting of the white scouts. As far away as possible from the soldiers’ big gun that fired its shells from across the river.
On Casey and Hargous’s skirmish line gunfire began to wither, tapering off until it grew quiet. Even deathly quiet, as night crept over the ridges to the east of the Tongue.
“I think we’re done for the day, fellas,” Kelly declared, warily getting to his knees and waving Buffalo Horn in from his crevice.
“They’ll be back,” John Johnston groaned. “And when they do, there’ll be more of ’em than ticks on a strop hawg’s back.”
“Amen to that,” Donegan said as he dusted the snow from the elbows of his canvas mackinaw and slapped the knees of his thick buffalo leggings. “Get what sleep you can tonight, boys. I figger tomorrow’s fight’s gonna start early … and last just as long as Miles can hold ’em off.”
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Chapter 28
8 January 1877
Just how did a man sleep when he knew that dawn would bring him battle with Crazy Horse?
It was a restless camp that cold night beside the Tongue River as patches of stars appeared between the snow-laden clouds. Fires burned every few yards throughout the bivouac, sleepless soldiers huddled around the flames in their blankets, every man taking his turn at the double guard Miles had put out on the picket line. Because of the extreme cold, a soldier could stand no more than an hour of running guard duty out there in the darkness, where every clump of sage and oakbrush was sure to conceal a skulking warrior sneaking in for a scalp.
Certain that Tom Leforge lay dead somewhere on the battlefield, Kelly gave the order to fall back to the soldier camp when the Sioux and Cheyenne retreated at dusk. But try as he and the others did, they weren’t able to convince Buffalo Horn to retreat with them. The Bannock wanted the chance to pick off a stray Sioux or two as the enemy turned its tail. One way or the other, Seamus figured, there was no man who could question the courage of that Indian.
About an hour after dark Leforge slipped in, shuddering from his hours of lying in the snow somewhere between the Indians and the scouts on the battlefield. He hadn’t dared to show himself, so close to the warriors was he. The squaw man gulped down his supper and coffee, then immediately rolled up in his blankets and fell fast asleep, back in the bosom of the soldiers.
Buffalo Horn himself finally showed up at the scouts’ fire later that night, long after it had become fully dark.
“You shot two more?” Donegan said, asking in sign as well.
