Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (7 page)

“By God, this is it!” Cody shouted.

“Let's hope it's nothing more than a good scrap!”

“Aye, Irishman! Nothing like a good scrap!”

At a hundred yards the order was given.
“Fire!”

The warriors reined in, confusion electrifying their ranks. A few ponies cried out as the white man's bullets slapped among them. Only two went down, their riders swept up behind other warriors as the Cheyenne turned, parted, and two waves dashed up the parting slopes of two hills.

“Don't wait, Lieutenant!” Grover advised, dashing up to Schenofsky.

“By the devil, we won't!” Schenofsky whirled, arm waving. “Mount up! Hurry, boys—mount up!”

“Got 'em on the run now,” Tom Alderdice cheered.

The soldiers and civilians both hollered as they sorted through the horse holders for their mounts and swung into the saddle.

“By fours!” Schenofsky ordered his men as they quickly formed. “Civilians—take the east trail. I'll follow the west. Cody, you and Donegan come with me!”

The two groups kept within sight of one another through the rest of the afternoon, chasing the dust cloud that always managed to stay just out of reach, over the next hill, in the next valley, until the light began to fail and Grover advised giving up the chase until sunrise.

“We'll wait here for Carr to come up,” Schenofsky said.

“Good a place as any for a camp,” Cody agreed.

Darkness descended on the command as the men gathered greasewood and started their fires. Royall led an advance into camp, dispatched by Carr at a gallop to bolster Schenofsky's skimpy command. Instead of a fight, Major Royall found beans, coffee and hardtack. The moon had come up by the time Carr brought in the rest of the regiment. Their fires twinkled along the Little Beaver.

“I'll be glad we get a chance to do some hunting,” Cody grumped as he took his plate of beans and a steaming tin of coffee from the mess sergeant.

“That's just what's lacking in your education, Bill,” said Donegan. “Had you fought in the war back East, you'd be one to appreciate the finer varieties of beans.”

“Ain't nothing finer than these white beans,” Grover hissed. “Make a man mighty gassy.”

“White beans and corn dodgers. Mmm, mmm,” Donegan replied. “Food for an army on the march.”

“Time was, Cody—we'd both killed for white beans like these. Even some moldy hardtack like this here,” Grover said, clanging his hard bread on the side of his tin plate.

“Your kind is always complaining, Abner,” Seamus said, then chuckled as he shoved a spoonful of the beans in his mouth. “You want fresh game, when you had some of the finest horseflesh to dine on west of the Republican!”

“Horse or mule—I don't care. Just give me some meat!” Alderdice said.

The surrounding hills suddenly erupted with sporadic riflefire.

In panic, soldiers and civilians scattered back from the fires, bullets whizzing into camp, zinging tin plates and cups, exploding into the fires with firefly flares. The horses whinnied in the dark. Men shouted. A few crawled on their bellies toward the low bluff rising nearby. Above them the bright muzzle-flashes could be seen against the prairie night sky.

After half an hour of troublesome sniping, the bright orange flares of light tapered off and the night grew quiet once more.

“You think they're done with us for the night?” someone asked.

“No way of telling,” Grover answered the voice from the dark. “They could be back.”

“I'll gladly give 'em my beans!” Cody hollered.

The camp erupted in laughter.

“Call 'em in, Cody!” suggested someone.

“Yeah, tell 'em we got good food here we'll trade for some of their dried buffler meat!”

“Ah, that's the right of it,” Donegan said. “Trade these white beans for some good belly food—buffalo. And while we're at it—we'll throw in some hardtack to boot.”

“Just don't throw it my way!” yelled a soldier.

“That's right—I don't want to get hit with those damned hard crackers!” cried another.

“You'll all be wishing you had those beans to eat come morning, when you'll be in the saddle before breakfast,” Schenofsky said, crawling up, staying out of the firelight.

“Why no breakfast, Lieutenant?” Grover asked.

“Carr wants us out early.”

“To find the village?” asked Cody.

“Right.”

“Way I've got it figured,” Cody said, “that bunch will keep moving most of the night. Might stop for a few hours for the old ones and the children. But them bucks and squaws—they can keep on running for days, they have to.”

“Cody's right,” Grover agreed. “We have our work cut out for us catching that village once they've got the jump on us.”

“Well, boys,” Cody said, slapping a thigh as he got to his feet in the darkness, punching a black hole out of the starry sky. “Let's just do everything we can, come false-dawn, to eat up some of that ground they've put between them and us.”

Chapter 4

October 1868

Only one of Carr's cavalrymen was wounded in the daylong fight. And from what his officers reported after the confusion of the battle, the major dispassionately listed thirty warriors killed in his official report.

Beginning early that next morning, 26 October, the advance guard had several brief skirmishes with the warriors protecting the flight of their village. They lasted until dark, when the soldiers finally gave up the chase and went into camp on the North Fork of the Solomon. Throughout the following day the closest Cody's scouts got to the warriors was to follow the distant dust cloud raised by the many horses and travois.

During that late morning and into the afternoon, Donegan noticed not only that the cloud was becoming thinner, but that the dust billowing over the fleeing Indians appeared to be widening. That could mean but one thing.

“They're scattering, Bill,” Seamus said, offering his canteen to Cody as they sat atop a low rise in the endless swell and fall of land, allowing their horses to blow.

“No doubt of it now.”

Behind them in the distance plodded Carr's cavalry, with Pepoon's civilians out as flankers to protect the unit from any surprise hit-and-run attacks by the warriors who might double back on the soldier column.

“You take one trail, I take another?”

“Not yet, we don't,” Cody replied. “They're bound to be heading same place we need to be.” He gave the canteen back. “Water.”

“Where they going?”

“My guess is the headwaters of the Beaver.”

“Been across it meself.”

“With Forsyth?”

He nodded. “You want me go back and tell Carr what's on your mind?”

Cody shook his head. “No, not just yet. We've got two jobs now, Irishman. Staying with the Indian trail—and being sure these soldiers have water.”

“You ask me, I'll tell you how important water is to a sojur!”

They laughed easily as the canteen strap went back over the saddlehorn and Cody led off. Both kept their eyes on the shimmering distance where the dust cloud dispersed across the hazy, shimmering horizon.

Three hours later the pair stopped on another low rise, where they dismounted, loosening the cinches for a few minutes while they waited until the rear column came in sight once more. Four riders loped into sight. Two of the group waved their hats when it appeared the two scouts had spotted them. Cody took his floppy slouch hat and signaled with it.

“Carr and Royall?” Cody asked as they waited for the four riders.

“I doubt Royall's with him. The old man probably left Royall in charge of the column while he rode up here to have a chat with us, Bill.”

They waited, Cody more irritated than impatient for the delay caused by the soldiers.

“Glad to see you boys held up,” Carr said as he reined up with three junior officers, each of them sweating in their wool tunics although it was a cool autumn day on the high plains.

“We figure we'll have to split up soon, Major,” Cody announced.

“The village breaking up?” Carr asked, his face showing that he already knew the answer. “Stay with the biggest trail, Cody.”

“We'll do the best we can.”

Carr inched closer, his voice softer. “Cody, one of Pepoon's scouts says he figures today's march to water is a lot longer than the twenty-five miles you told me it would be when we broke camp this morning.”

Cody glared at the major. “One of Pepoon's boys want to be your chief of scouts, eh?”

“Don't go getting testy on me, Cody.”

“You're right, Major. No right of me doing that—”

“What Bill's trying to say is—we got a choice of trails right now,” Donegan interrupted. “But the Injins are going to water just like us.”

“That's another thing Pepoon's men tell me. They say we won't find any water where you're leading us, Cody.”

The young scout squinted his eyes and shifted the hat on his head, grinding his teeth angrily. “Who the hell you want guiding you, Major? Me? Or this other fella?”

“Which one is it, Major?” Donegan asked.

“You know them, don't you?” Carr inquired, studying the Irishman.

“Most. Which one tell you Cody's steering you wrong?”

“Name's Alderdice.”

“Tom Alderdice,” Seamus repeated. “He's a Kansas boy all right. But I'll still put my money on Bill here.”

Carr appeared to reckon with that a few moments, then measured Cody once more. “Will we find water by nightfall?”

The scout peered into the northwest. “Before slap-dark, Major.”

“How far, Cody?”

“Eight … maybe nine miles.”

“What's there—a spring?”

“Beaver dams, on a small creek.”

Carr sighed, glancing at his junior officers, then swiped a kerchief over his face. “All right, Cody. I'm going back to hurry the column along. Take us to this water of yours.”

Cody spoke before Carr could rein about. “You believe me, don't you, Major?”

He finally nodded. “Looks like I've got one of two choices, and you're the best game in town right now, Cody. You lead the way.”

Some three hours later Cody and Donegan ascended a low rise of land to look down on the valley of a small stream that would feed Beaver Creek several miles farther north.

“It's there—just like you said, Cody,” Seamus cheered.

“Sounds like you doubted it yourself.”

He smiled. “I'll admit there was a time or two the last few hours I had me doubts.” He reached over as Cody reined up alongside him, slapping the young scout on the back.

“I'll teach that Major Carr to believe in me yet.”

Both waited atop the rise for the flankers to come in, including Alderdice, about the time the advance guard hoved into view. Cody and Donegan waved them on.

“I've got to hand it to you,” Carr said, beaming. “The water's where to said it would be, and what you said we'd find.” His eyes ran up and down the narrow, green valley, its entire length dotted with small beaver dams that pooled the trickle of water at this late season of the year.

“This settle things for you, Major?”

Carr nodded. “Yes. I won't doubt you again. Only, tell me what the devil this creek is named.”

Cody shrugged. “Far as I know, doesn't have a name. But—you might go check with them scouts of Pepoon's. One of them might know.”

“No need of that,” Carr replied, grinning in his dark beard. “We'll name it ourselves, here and now—for the record. The military record, that is. Adjutant, note that this creek where we spent the night of twenty-seven October is to be called
Cody's
Creek.”

Donegan laughed, then gave the young scout a hearty slap on the back. “That's the kiss of fame, me boy! A creek named for Bill Cody!”

*   *   *

That next morning the sun was barely awaking over the eastern rim of the prairie when the column was put on the march, moving north by west toward a creek known as the Beaver to some, the Sappa to others.

Cody enjoyed riding out ahead of the scouts at times, and this morning it suited him just fine. The crisp air of late autumn, with no sound to clutter the morning save for the wind soughing through the dried buffalo-grass, the rhythmic crunch of hooves as his horse picked its way, added to the occasional, faint call of the great long-necks sweeping overhead in great vees against the blue canopy, moving south once more.

He twisted in the saddle, assuring himself that Donegan and some of the others on point could see him far to the rear across the softly undulating land, then urged his mount down into the valley of the Beaver. Before the column came up, Cody had to find a suitable ford for crossing the men, animals and bulky wagons.

Dropping to his belly, his hands supporting his weight as he extended himself out over the water, he drank of its cool refreshment alongside his noisy mount. Cody soaked his bandanna in the creek, wrung it out then retied it around his neck before crawling back into the saddle. He nudged the horse downstream, his eyes on the creek all the time as he worked in and out of the trees, searching for a suitable ford.

As the gurgling creek slowly swept around a gentle bend, a loud crack rang out.

The horse stumbled backward a few halting steps, then keeled to its knees sideways as Cody leaped out of the saddle, his heart racing. A rapid spread of crimson just behind the animal's foreleg bubbled with froth.

Cody wasn't quick enough getting out of the way.

The animal tried rising for an instant, heaving against the scout, throwing him off balance. Cody was pitched straight down into the grass on the creekbank while the horse settled with a loud, humanlike scream on one of Cody's legs. A second, then a third shot whistled overhead as he struggled to heft the dying animal from his trapped foot. It flashed vividly in his mind—those days he had made a living running trap-lines along creeks just like this one. His prey being caught, a foot held in the jaws of an iron trap.