“You said you know this country pretty good, Frank?”
Grouard nodded. “Lakota come to this ground to hunt last few years, yes.”
“Where you figure they’re going to be camped?”
“Maybe on up there, I suppose. Yes. On Pass Creek. Maybe down to the mouth of Twin Creek on what some call the Big Flat.”
Donegan sighed, troubled. “Then if you know that much about the ground between us and them, you’re gonna keep us as far away from them h’athens as you can— right?”
“Wrong, Irishman.”
“Wrong?” he squeaked, his throat constricting, remembering that slaughterhouse along the bluff above the Little Bighorn.
“We gotta get close enough to figure out for sure what they’re gonna do, where they’re headed for certain. Crook’ll wanna know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Crook’ll wanna know. Blessed Mither of God, Grouard. I come along thinking this was going to be an Injin scout. Not a God-blame-ed Injin fight!”
“No fighting to do if you stick with me, Irishman.”
“I’ll remember you said that,” Seamus growled. Then he eventually smiled. “And if there’s fighting to do—by God, I’ll make you eat your words, you half-breed son of a bitch.”
Grouard grinned as he led off. Seamus could do nothing more than shake his head, and follow.
Now there were Indians between them and Crook’s camp at Goose Creek. Enough Indians to slaughter more than two hundred pony soldiers back there on that ridge above the Greasy Grass.
More than enough to take care of two army scouts.
Chapter 8
27-28 June 1876
“You can’t be serious about going over there to talk with that old man!” Seamus squealed, his throat cords constricting in surprise.
Grouard nodded, not even looking at the Irishman. Instead he continued to peer through the thick brush at the ancient Indian, who at that moment was driving some ponies from the fringe of a crowded lodge circle down to Twin Creek for water that early morning. “This is the first Lakota camp we come on. Maybe I can find out where they’re heading—something.”
“You’re crazier’n I ever thought, Grouard.”
“I figure that’s got to be a compliment, coming from you, Irishman.” He grinned. “Just make yourself small here till I get back.”
“I’m gonna make myself real small, you half-witted son of a bitch. Damned small—what with you walking into the biggest goddamned Injin camp ever there was.”
“Ain’t walking in there,” Grouard whispered back raspily. “Just gonna go dust off my Lakota some with that ol’ man.”
Unlashing his bedroll behind his saddle, Grouard pulled his old red blanket from its gum poncho and draped it over his head and shoulders, holding it together with one hand, while beneath the blanket he concealed the pistol he slipped from its holster. Through the thick brush and out onto a flat, it wasn’t long before the half-breed caught up to the ponies that shied at first with the intruder’s appearance, then settled and moseyed on toward the creekbank behind the lead horse.
Donegan couldn’t make out either of the voices as Grouard hailed the old man, but he did hear a dog howl, then others bark, somewhere in that nearest Indian camp. After bumping into those four-legged predators on that battle ridge last night, just the sound of those Sioux canines was enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck, to make him shudder as he sat there in that thick brush drenched by the cold gray light of dawn in this valley of the Greasy Grass.
Seamus had turned, warily watching for any signs of movement off to his right in the direction of the first camp circle, when he heard the old Indian’s frightened squawk. By the time Donegan jerked around to look, Grouard’s blanket was off his head and shoulders, gathered in a clump under one arm as he sprinted back toward Donegan, yelling. The half-breed’s voice was drowned out by the old man’s continued warning cry as the Indian herder fled in the opposite direction from Grouard—down the creekbank and across the water toward the village.
“Get the goddamned horses!”
By the time he finally made out what Grouard was yelling, Donegan was up and moving himself. “You bet I’ll get the bleeming horses!”
Yanking the animals out of the brush toward Grouard just as Frank came huffing up, Seamus vaulted onto the horse’s back using only the saddle’s big horn. The halfbreed flung the red blanket at Donegan as he swept up the reins to the big black he rode.
“Where?” Donegan asked in a panic, gathering the old blanket across the saddle in front of him. “Which way?”
Sawing his mount’s head around in a tight circle, Grouard answered, “Anywhere there ain’t Injuns, you idiot!”
In the rosy hint of dawn together they kicked muscled flanks and dashed up Twin Creek, making for the western foothills lit with the first pale pink of the sun’s rising, foothills that promised about the only cover available for their escape south, back to the Tongue River.
After two miles at a punishing gallop, Seamus finally asked, “What the hell you do to that old man?”
Grouard shrugged. “Just asked him some questions.”
“Looks like you asked him the wrong questions,” he growled.
“Wasn’t that. Trouble started when he asked who I was and what camp I come from—then I told him my name.”
“Jesus and Mary!” Seamus exclaimed, wagging his head. “You didn’t tell him you were the Grabber, did you?”
Like a contrite, apologetic child, the half-breed answered, “Only thing I could think of was my Lakota name.”
“By the saints! You’re an idiot, Grouard! The whole Lakota nation knows Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull both want the Grabber real bad because they figure you betrayed them—and you go and tell him just who the hell you are!”
“Just ride, goddammit. No talk, Irishman. Just ride!”
On they raced another half-dozen miles, twisting in the saddle from time to time to look over their backtrail, before Donegan spotted any pursuers. By then the sun had come up, splashing not only the grassy slopes with summer’s most golden radiance, but the lower valley as well. Hunters and hunted alike stood out on the rolling tumble of hill and coulee.
With each rise and fall of the land, Seamus measured the gait of the hard-muscled animal beneath him, sensing what he could of its every weakness as the horse slid down a slope, every imperceptible falter as the animal clambered back up the far side, then rolled again into a ground-eating gallop. He had to know if the mount was going to weaken, or slow, or just plain give out. If that was going to be the way of things, then he needed to know soon enough to choose a good place to make his stand, some spot with plenty of trees and rocks around. Somewhere he would make it hard on his hunters. A piece of ground where he could take as many of them as he could before they got to him.
But as the sun climbed higher into that cornflowerblue sky and he began to sweat like the heaving, lathered animal beneath him, Seamus began to allow himself the luxury of thinking they just might make it. As strong and well fed as those Sioux ponies were, they still weren’t making up for the jump the two scouts had on their pursuers. At long last the sun fell from midsky and began to tumble ever so slowly into the western quadrant. Then, near dusk, Donegan finally recognized the land that stretched for miles ahead of them. Familiar ground.
He turned around in the saddle, finding that the hunters were still coming. They hadn’t given up after a long day’s chase over rugged, broken country.