We tied up the roan and the sergeant bent over to examine his feet. “The shoes in back look all right. I’ll just replace the ones up front the good doctor saw fit to pull.”
“You know, the vet suggested we fill in the front hoofs and have a pad put on,” I added.
“I can read,” he growled. “Christ, it turns out everythin’ that quack looks at either needs corrective shoes or some special damn’ pad.” He selected a rasp out of another box, and spit on it. As he began to trim the hoof, the sergeant shook his head at us.
“File and shape the hoof. Build the shoe up. Huh! Probably just a damned nail abscess. You drive one in too deep or screw up the angle and you lame the horse sure as I’m standing here. Probably the last smith’s fault.”
Knowing the type of work Chango Lopez did, I doubted that was the case, but I wasn’t about to argue the point. Like Pa always said, when you wrestle with pigs, you both get dirty, but only the pig enjoys it.
“Well, just the same, I wouldn’t want to piss off the captain, not to mention the colonel,” I added, remembering the sergeant’s reaction when Mason first mentioned him.
“By the way, you know a master sergeant by the name of Freeman?” I asked. “Nathaniel.”
Emerson began pounding out a shoe on his anvil. He paused to look up at me before answering.
“Nigger sergeant from that unit what came in with the inspector? What about him?” he asked, returning to his work.
It was as if he was totally ignoring Sonora’s presence. I saw Mason’s face begin to tense as he started past me angrily; I shot my arm out sideways, palm against his chest.
“He ain’t worth it,
Sonora just stared at me. His eyes were empty and his jaw locked, but reluctantly he nodded back.
I turned to the sergeant. “Yeah, that’s the one. Know where we can find him?”
“Probably with the rest o’ his kind. They got a few tents staked out back of the fort.” He pointed his hammer to indicate the direction. “No sense letting them stay inside with the decent folk,” he added snidely.
Mason, I’d noticed, had quietly walked to the far side of the barn and was now leaning against a wooden stall post while we waited.
Sergeant Emerson hammered the last of the horseshoe nails, prying back the exposed ends till they broke off. He then smoothed the whole affair with another rasp, repeating his spitting routine.
“That oughter do ’er,” he said. “Leastwise the shoes are on and the damn’ hoof ’s padded. Oh, and don’t forget to mention that to the colonel. Don’t want him on my case for not finishing B Troop on time.”
“Oh, I’m sure the colonel will hear of it, all right,” I said. “Come on, Sonora, we’re through here.”
The sergeant was standing just behind the roan when I began to untie the harness. Mason had come up on the horse’s left side while I was replacing the bridle.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” he said unexpectedly. “We do ’preciate it. This’n here’s mah pahtnahs best friend. Ain’t that right?” Sonora’s accent had suddenly grown unusually thick. Surprised, I looked back at him dumbly. “Yes-siree, he’s a great hoss. A mite feisty, though.” With that he gave the roan a firm slap on the rump. The gelding let out a loud whinny and jumped off its rear legs, mule-kicking straight back. Those big rear legs caught the blacksmith just above the belt, knocking him at least four feet backward. Emerson was out for the count.
“Christ!” I exclaimed, trying to calm the horse down.
“
The roan’s sudden reaction had come as quite a surprise until I stopped near the object Sonora had dropped, bent over, and picked it up. What I found turned out to be a sharpened two inch long wooden splinter!
Chapter Seventeen
Although the entrance to Yuma had a manned wall around its gate, the rest of the fort was actually more like a series of several connecting buildings than a closed-in four-walled structure.
In order to get to the tented area where Sergeant Freeman’s unit was bivouacked we had to cross part of the drill field and then pass between the enlisted men’s barracks and the quartermaster’s office.
After leaving the stable, I tethered the roan to the nearest hitching post and accompanied Sonora Mason as he started out across the field in search of his friend. Off to the right a firearms instructor was drilling a platoon of new recruits.
“The standard U.S. Army cavalry issue shoulder arm is the Springfield Armory modified breechloading Trapdoor model carbine,” we overheard him lecture the men. I was already familiar with the rifle version. Although the .50–70 caliber was a strong cartridge, and even though the rifle had fairly good long-range accuracy, I was disappointed when the Army adopted it as their standard for infantry issue. The rifle was heavy, and its long bayonet worthless for Western fighting. The carbine version was an even worse choice for the cavalry.
We paused to watch the drill.
“What’s your opinion of the standard Army issue shoulder arm, Sonora?” I asked, watching the men struggle with the manual of arms.
“Some politician sure padded his nest with that one. You know damn’ well that group up north with Forsythe would never have survived the Beecher’s Island attack if they’d had these single-shot Springfields. Their Spencers was what saved their asses, and then the Army goes and trades ’em away.”
I agreed. Everyone knew the details of the battle for Beecher’s Island. Major George A. Forsythe had been detailed by General Sheridan to lead a small force of fifty men in order to draw out the Sioux and Cheyennes, who had been raiding stage and telegraph stations.
On September 16, 1868 Forsythe made camp in the valley of the Arikaree River, mistakenly believing that he had arrived undetected. At dawn the next day 600 Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos led by Roman Nose moved in to attack. Fortunately for the cavalrymen some overeager young braves tried to stampede the Army’s horses first. Their war cries alerted Forsythe who managed to drive off the raiders and withdraw his force across the river and onto a small island before the main body of Indians attacked.
Forsythe’s men brought their mounts around into a circle and tied them to bushes, forming a tight barrier. The island was an ideal defensive position, but what really saved Forsythe, who was outnumbered more than twelve to one, was the fact that every man carried a Spencer repeating rifle with 140 rounds and Colt Army revolver with another 100 or so rounds. Four Army pack mules carried another 4,000 extra shells for the rifles.
Time and time again the Indian charges were broken by volleys from the trooper’s Spencer rifles, fully loaded with six in the magazine, and one in the chamber.
Under siege for over a week the men huddled in rifle pits dug with tin plates and hunting knives. Major Forsythe was wounded on the first day, but his courage continued to inspire his men. By the fourth day he had been hit twice more and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Frederick Beecher, for whom the island was eventually named, had been killed.
Roman Nose was a fearless leader and relentlessly continued the onslaught, leading one of the largest charges himself. Since they had little time to reload, Forsythe held his fire, ordering his men to shoot in volleys. The troopers were ordered to hold fire until the redskins were a mere fifty yards away. But those Spencers held seven rounds apiece, and, when they finally cut loose, wave after wave of Indians fell to its devastating firepower.
When the fifth wave collapsed, Roman Nose managed once again to rally his braves, and charged a sixth time. With only two more rounds left, the troopers fired and Roman Nose was hit point-blank, knocking him off his horse and into the shallow waters. The charge faltered, the Indians demoralized.
By the time the Army’s relief column finally arrived, what was left of Forsythe’s men had been reduced to eating the horses that had died during the fighting.
Cavalrymen everywhere were grateful for the extra firepower offered by the Spencer rifle, but the Army, with its usual logic, decided to replace it with the single-shot Springfield.
“Ever seen what happens to a Trapdoor that’s been fired a lot?” I asked Sonora. “The barrel heats up and the
