Whether it was in marching away from Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg or down the length of Virginia’s Shenandoah—those field hospitals all smelled the same. Long ago Donegan realized he never would cleanse his memory of that rank odor of blood and cauterized flesh, the sight and smell of those unattached arms and legs, bloodied hands and feet all piled obscenely high. Those wartime surgeons with their gum ponchos tied at their necks and around their waists—grim, humorless men splattered with the blood of more than a thousand soldiers, each one now become something less as men. Splattered with the blood of those they could save.
“Yeah,” Seamus answered the courier before anyone else spoke up. “We’ll go keep them Cheyenne from making it any tougher’n it has to be for your surgeons. Right, Frank?”
For a flicker of a moment the older North studied the Irishman’s eyes, then looked at the young orderly. “Yeah. Go tell the general he can consider it done.”
“I’m coming too, Frank,” Luther said as he tugged his collar up around his ears.
“No, Lute—I got something for you and one of our boys to do while the rest of us are working our way up on those snipers,” Frank explained.
Luther licked his cracked lips, the bottom one oozing blood that froze as it seeped into the dark whiskers bristling below his lower lip. “It damn well better be as much fun as you two are gonna have.”
Frank winked at Donegan. “You can be sure of that, little brother. Take one man—your pick—and … you see them Cheyenne ponies yonder?”
“I sure as hell do,” Luther answered as they all turned their attention to the herd still grazing beyond the northwest end of the deep ravine, some two or three hundred yards from the Cheyenne breastworks. “Must be a hundred or more of ’em.”
“You remember when we was boys, Lute? How you was always the one to raise more hell than me?”
“Damn if I didn’t.”
“Well, it’s time you went and raised some hell,” Frank declared, clamping a hand on Luther’s shoulder.
“Now, you and me both know some of them Arapaho scouts tried to run them horses off a while back and they couldn’t get close enough. Then a bit later, some of Cosgrove’s Shoshone boys tried too—but they had the same poor luck.”
“And one of ’em was shot for all his trying,” Donegan added, the beginnings of a grin wrinkling the corners of his red-flecked eyes. “Besides, your friend, Three Bears, and some of his boys gave it a shot too before they failed.”
The elder North nodded, saying, “But none of them had the Irishman and me working with ’em at the same time.”
Luther cocked his head slightly. “I’d like to give it a try, brother.”
“No fry,” Frank replied stiffly. “If our boys try it, I’ll expect them to bring in those horses—right?”
“What you got in mind, Frank?”
“I want you to take them ponies away from the Cheyenne. Just you and one more.”
Luther shrugged. “Only two of us, eh? Tell me what your thinking is.”
“All right—the two of you head down east, hugging the timber,” Frank replied. “And when you hear the signal—Seamus and me firing steady-like right under them rocks—you go ride out across that open ground where those snipers been laying their shots all morning. Get over yonder fast as you can, whooping and hollering and waving your hat … and you wrangle them horses back this direction.”
“Whoooeee!” Luther exclaimed, pounding the side of his fist against his big brother’s chest. “Does sound like a fine chiveree of it!”
“And while you’re having yourself a good time and drawing the attention of them snipers, little brother,” Frank continued, “this big dumb Irish Mick and me are gonna take us a handful of our Pawnee—and we’re gonna silence them guns once and for all.”
“Well, shit, Frank—now I don’t know just who’s gonna have the most fun!”
“Get on with you,” Frank declared. “Go pick a man and get yourselves ready.”
“I know who I’ll pick, brother—Boy Chief.”
Donegan asked, “Wasn’t he with us when we took Tall Bull’s village in sixty-nine?”*
Luther nodded. “Pe-isk-le-shar. But a few years back he took the white man name of Pete Headman.” Then Luther turned away, heading toward the saddled horses.
The older North took up the short reed pipe he carried around his neck and blew on it. The shrill call of that whistle orought up more than twenty of the Pawnee. From them he quickly picked five to accompany him and Donegan. When Frank had informed them of their mission, the five turned away to begin stripping for battle. Each one of them took off all they had left of army clothing, changing from boots to moccasins, but were sure to tie bandannas around their heads to look as unlike the Cheyenne as possible, since they would be plunging into that no-man’s-land and thereby coming under the muzzles of half a thousand soldier guns.
Only an hour or so before, Frank North had ordered some thirty of his scouts to climb the far slope at the upper end of the : amp in hopes of getting around and behind those Cheyenne fleeing into the breastworks. But to the cold, battle-jarred troopers, North’s men looked too much like Cheyenne against the Snowy heights. When the soldiers began firing into his Pawnee, the scouts had to retreat under cover, rock to rock, back to the Village while Frank and Luther raged at some of Mackenzie’s officers for their stupidity.
A half hour later as Seamus and the rest had circled east from the camp, Frank whispered, “Here’s where I figure we’ve got to be right under ’em.”
From the captured village he and Donegan had led the five Pawnee through the leafless thickets bordering the valley floor, heading east into the thickest of the willow bog on horseback, finally tying the animals at the bottom of that long, low plateau that jutted from the northern heights. From there the seven had crept on foot from rock to rock, ever so slowly, keeping an eye On both the distant snipers across the valley floor and on those snipers up above them in the rocks with the big guns trained on the field hospital.
“Lute oughtta be chomping at the bit by now,” North said after he signaled the Pawnee to check their weapons and be ready to open fire.
“If you’re ready—let’s open the dance!” Donegan bawled.
Frank rolled out to his left, and the Irishman to his right, plopping onto their bellies to fire almost simultaneously. To one side or the other the Pawnee scouts darted, hoping to cause the most surprise and confusion in the Cheyenne marksmen. Hoping for a little fear as well.
The steady staccato of gunshots booming from that northern rim of the valley was Luther North’s signal. With a whoop and a war yelp from the Pawnee sergeant, the pair kicked their heels into their horses and sprinted into the open—immediately drawing the fire of the warriors still on the rounded knoll, along with a few shots from those Cheyenne above Frank and Seamus.
As the handful of Pawnee pumped their bullets into that hole in the rocks where the enemy marksmen had set up shop, North and Donegan scrambled up onto their feet and hurried into another patch of scrub timber. Yard by yard they climbed the steep slope, ice and talus spilling away beneath their boots, making the footing treacherous.
A shadow crossed the snow in front of the Irishman.
One of the marksmen suddenly pitched out of a crack between two large rocks and slid twenty feet down the snowy slope, lying as still as the old snow where he was sprawled.
In that twenty-below-zero cold, bullets whistled past their heads, slapping the bare branches of the brush around them as the Cheyenne and the Pawnee traded war songs and hurled taunts at one another. A second Cheyenne was hit, pitching backward out of sight to the angry wails of his companions.