Early on it was clear the Pawnee and soldiers had failed to uncover small kegs and cans of powder among the provisions tossed upon the flames. In consequence, from time to time the valley rocked with that occasional throb of explosion, men shouting out warnings with each booming bark of sudden thunder, spewing a cascade of showering sparks that never failed to scatter the nearby soldiers as burning lodgepoles rained down like jackstraws until the roiling flames once again diminished from their spectacular, fiery heights.
Near the edges of each warming bonfire, soldiers and scouts clustered, some slowly feeding themselves and the flames from the same hide satchels, ordered this night to burn what they could not eat of the Cheyennes’ winter meat. With muted pop, crackle, and sizzle—the victors laid tons of buffalo meat to waste as a hungry people watched from the hills.
Empty bellies, Seamus knew, seemed always to fill hearts with hate.
“These are funeral pyres,” Bourke declared proudly. “Great, scalding, ruinous funeral pyres of what was once Cheyenne glory.”
“Johnny, I’m sure you remember what Reynolds destroyed, and what he left behind in that Cheyenne village beside the Powder River last winter.”
“I damn well do. Because of that vivid memory, I’ve reminded General Mackenzie that here the destruction must be complete,” Bourke explained as the two walked on. “We know firsthand from our experience with these hostiles what can become of them if we don’t completely destroy everything the enemy possesses.”
Into the piles of plunder or the great, leaping bonfires went the clatter of bottles filled with the white man’s strychnine used to poison wolves.
Joining unimaginable amounts of fixed ammunition and loose—bullet molds, cartridge cases, and black powder.
Then an angry voice pricked Donegan’s attention.
“I don’t figger I oughtta pay for that saddle, Lieutenant!”
Close at hand a soldier stood his ground against young Homer Wheeler, commanding G Troop of the Fifth Cavalry.
“Easy, Private! As you were before you’ll be disciplined! You know as well as the next man that a soldier loses his saddle and bridle—he’s docked the pay!” Wheeler argued.
“But, sir! I had that goddamned horse shot out from under me,” Private Kline declared. “You know your own self I was carrying a dispatch for the general, right across that open ground yonder—and the horse went down under me. The way them bullets were smacking all around, I wasn’t about to hang on until I could somehow get that saddle off my own dead horse!”
“Very well,” Wheeler replied in exasperation, looking up to see Bourke and Donegan approaching. “I’ll make a note of it here in my memorandum book so you’ll not be charged for lost equipment assigned you.”
Kline stood rigid, snapped a salute, and said, “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Report over there to our company at the foot of the hill and get yourself some food, soldier.”
“Yes, sir!”
Wheeler watched the private go, then turned to Bourke and Donegan. “Lieutenant Bourke—good to see you. Why, you can’t believe what we’ve been finding among the belongings pulled from the redskins’ lodges.”
Donegan followed the two lieutenants over to a pile of plunder lit by the last rose glow of the falling sun and by the leaping yellow flames nearby. Wheeler knelt, barely touching the human hair, then looked up at Donegan.
“Doesn’t take a scout like you, mister,” Wheeler said, “to see that these here scalps belonged to a pair of young girls—neither one of them older than ten years, I’d imagine. One blond. The fellow with Cosgrove, one named Eckles, he said the other’s likely Shoshone.”
“Cosgrove’s bunch been down from the heights?” Donegan inquired, gazing for a moment at the high ridge south of camp.
With a nod Wheeler answered, “I’ll say. And when they went among the lodges, a few of his boys found some Cheyenne souvenirs of a battle they fought with a band of Shoshone not long back.”
The lieutenant went on to tell about what grisly trophies had been pulled from the lodges slated for destruction: a buckskin bag containing the right hands of twelve Shoshone babies; several of Tom Cosgrove’s auxiliaries readily recognized the scalp of one of their herders killed at the outset of the Battle of the Rosebud, easily identifiable by the ornaments the departed youngster had worn in his hair; besides, there were at least thirty Shoshone scalps taken in a recent battle; in addition, the Pawnee had come across a large pouch containing the right arm and hand of a Shoshone woman.
Something caught the Irishman’s eye. “I’ll be damned,” Seamus said as he examined a cartridge belt he picked up from one of the blankets spread upon the snowy ground. “Look here, Johnny.”
Bourke took the belt, studying a shiny silver plate that served as its buckle. “Little Wolf.”
“You suppose it belongs to the Cheyenne war chief?”
Wheeler explained, “One of Wessel’s men took it off a dead Indian he killed on the far side of the valley. The sergeant said it was hand-to-hand, over at the head of that deep ravine.”
“You can believe him, Lieutenant,” Seamus said. “On my dear mither’s grave: that was some of the toughest fighting I’ve ever dragged myself out of.”
Wheeler studied the Irishman’s face a moment, then asked, “From the looks of that belt and buckle—you figure we got one of the chiefs, eh?”
Bourke wagged his head. “Could be—I know Little Wolf was one of the leaders who went back east to Washington City here lately.”
Donegan said, “Mayhap he got this as a present from the President, Johnny.”
Bourke wagged his head, “Or from some kindhearted official in the Indian Bureau.” Throwing the belt down onto the blanket, the lieutenant grumbled. “The red bastard sure showed his gratitude in a strange way, didn’t he?”
“Come with me,” Wheeler suggested, leading the two away. “I’ve got a lot more to show you.”
He stopped beside another pile of plunder.
“Was that a guidon?” Bourke asked, bending to feel the cloth.
“Damn right it was,” Wheeler replied. “You can see who it once belonged to.”
From that bloody silk swallowtail guidon of the Seventh Cavalry some industrious woman had fashioned herself a pillow stuffed with prairie grass and sage.
“You figure these belonged to a white man?” Bourke asked as he rose holding a crude, grisly necklace at the end of his outstretched arm.
“Badly mortified,” Wheeler replied, “but—yes—looks like the fingers of many different white men to me.”
Bourke asked, “Mind if I keep this?”
Wheeler shrugged, saying, “It was going into the fire anyway, Lieutenant.”
“I know just where I can send this back east where folks will get a chance to see it in the museum,” Bourke added as he toed aside some saddle blankets as if searching for something to put the finger necklace in for safekeeping. Suddenly he leaped back. “What the goddamned hell is that?”
Seamus bent to look at it, nudged with his toe, turning the object over and over. “Looks to me like it was once some man’s ball-bag, Johnny.”
Bourke shuddered at the thought, swallowing hard. “As much as I try my best to understand these people, they never cease to surprise me with their penchant for supreme savagery. I suppose I’d better take that for the museum too.”
Donegan asked, “Not for your collection, Johnny?”
“Hell no, Irishman. I’ve got one of my own,” and he cupped a hand beneath his own scrotum when he answered. “I’ll keep it all with me until I can ship them back east.”