Finerty interrupted. “One good battle and things would suit me, John. But I fear the last shot of the campaign has already been fired.”
“We’re going to take on supplies and resume the march—”
“No,” Finerty interrupted again, shaking his head. “Supplies aren’t what we need. We need to leave the green infantry behind so they won’t slow us up. Just the hardened foot soldiers who can keep up with the cavalry. Beyond that, what we need most from the army is horses for the cavalry that aren’t ready for the glue factory!”
Bourke bristled visibly as he said, “The mark of a good soldier is always doing the best he can do with what he’s been given.”
Finerty tried out a weak grin. “Listen, John—don’t take my criticism personally. I just think the circumstances have turned this expedition into nothing but a theatrical campaign.”
“Theatrical?”
“Exactly—just like a Chinese stage battle I once saw in Chicago: the combatants constantly rushing about in an excited manner, chasing after unseen enemies they can’t ever catch. What was amusing, though—the enemies seem to find and harass their pursuers.”
“Chinese stage play, eh?” Bourke grumbled. “That’s what you think of Crook’s summer campaign?”
“Perhaps—”
“Sounds as if you’ve been listening to the likes of Reuben Davenport and his cowards’ school of back stabbing!”
“Back stabbing? Who?”
“You, and that Davenport. Why, we even found out Davenport offered a hundred dollars to a courier Crook hired to carry his dispatches, if the courier would deliver Davenport’s stories first and delay Crook’s dispatches by at least twelve hours!”
“I’d never do a thing like that, John!”
“Nonetheless, it sure sounds like you have worn out your welcome, John Finerty,” Bourke snapped with a flourish of indignation. “Perhaps you’ll be better served by returning to Chicago. Good day!”
He whirled away from the newsman without allowing Finerty another word to his face.
“John! Come back!”
Bourke kept on walking, shouting back at the reporter, “Perhaps you would be more comfortable in one of the cushy bunks on the steamboat—or eating in the dining room of some hotel back in Chicago rather than sleeping in the cold mud and eating raw bacon with the rest of us!”
“I’m not leaving!” Finerty yelled at the lieutenant’s back. “Don’t think you’re going to get rid of me this easily, John Bourke. Anything you soldiers can take—John Finerty can take!”
Indian Rumors of an Engagement— Terry Victorious.
CHICAGO, August 10—The Times Fort D. Sully special says: Indians from hostile camp have arrived with the report that Terry’s command had encountered the hostiles, and the latter had been flanked by Gen. Gibbon and badly beaten. The Indians acknowledged one hundred wounded, and said that Sitting Bull had been shot through both thighs. They are quiet on the subject of the number killed. An Indian can travel by a direct route from Sitting Bull to the agencies sooner by several days than a courier could reach Bismarck from Terry. The report is generally believed here.
“You promise me you’ll write. Tell me when the baby comes,” Bill Cody asked in dawn’s chill light as a mist hung over the mouth of the Powder River.
After a dry Sunday and Monday, during which time Lieutenant Colonel Carr drilled his cavalry, Tuesday saw a renewal of wind-driven rain. And there had been no letup on Wednesday. But this morning the wind refused to put in an appearance as the skies continued to drizzle morosely.
“Promise me,” Cody repeated, squeezing harder.
Seamus felt Bill’s hand tighten on his, refusing to let go for the longest time. “Yes.”
“You have the address in Rochester I gave you?”
The Irishman could only nod. All he thought of was that farewell he had bid Cody back in November of sixtynine—after Bill had saved his life, shooting the huge mulatto who was about to slit open Donegan’s throat.*
“No matter where the troupe is appearing, I’1l always get your letters through Lulu. Just be sure you write—or have Samantha write if you want.”
“Yes. Samantha.”
Cody pulled Donegan close, and they embraced there in the damp and the cold, pounding one another on the back again, this time in sadness at their parting. As he held the Irishman against him, Cody whispered in Donegan’s ear, “Be sure you let me know if it’s a boy or not.”
“Sam says it will be.”
“Write me.”
Donegan backed away, holding Cody at arm’s length. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again, Bill.”
Cody blinked and tried out that grand smile of his. “We damn well will, Irishman! You can count on that! And if ever you decide you want to come east—I’ll find work for you.”
“I already told you I couldn’t live back—”
“But you haven’t given it enough thought, or talked it over with Samantha. Remember, there’ll always be a place for you at my table, Seamus Donegan. A place for you and yours.”
Dragging his hand under his nose, Seamus tried to smile bravely. This was the second time he was saying farewell to a good, good friend. And—dammit—it just never got any easier.
Reluctantly Cody turned to go and moved off through a throng of well-wishers toward the gangplank that would lead him up to the lower deck of the Carroll where the captain waited, his lantern-jawed pilot leaning out from the window on the wheelhouse above. That Thursday daybreak a thousand soldiers tore off their hats, cheering, those gathered on the fringe of the gauntlet slapping Cody on the back if they could reach him as he walked through their midst. Already Buffalo Chips had Bill’s big buckskin lashed in among some bales of hay on deck. White stopped, shook hands; then the two scouts hugged before Bill shooed his friend down the steamer’s gangplank.
The pilot yanked hard at the whistle cord, giving it three short, steamy squeals over that Powder River depot. Soldiers on shore began releasing the thick hawser ropes, heaving them toward a trio of civilian stevedores at the deck rail. Bill leaped up the steps to the wheelhouse, where he leaned from the window and removed his big sombrero, waving it to the wildly whistling, stamping mob on shore as the pilot worked his wheel hard to port preparing to back into the shallow rapids of the Powder River to make his turn, yelling down the pipe to the engine room, bellowing at his boilermen to stoke the fire to her.
Donegan stood on the bank that morning of the twenty-fourth day of August, trying to blink away the sting of tears as he watched Cody look directly at him, his mouth moving. For all the clamor and cheering, the belching of those greasy stacks and the throbbing hammer of the steam pistons—Seamus could not be sure. Again he carefully watched as Cody said something from up there in the wheelhouse as the Carroll lurched out into the current, ready to put about at the mouth of the Powder.
“Take care of your family, Seamus!”
Donegan smiled and nodded. Then he yelled back, “By God—I will always do that!” Then he joined the rest in giving the famous scout and showman a rousing send-off.
“With God’s help,” Seamus quietly repeated minutes later as he watched the black smoke belching from the twin stacks disappearing around the far sandstone bluff, “I will always take care of my family.”
He didn’t know how long he stood there as the soldiers drifted away, looking downriver. Long after smoke from the steamer’s twin stacks faded from the sky beyond the river bluffs.
Now Cody was gone. Along with the Shoshone and Ute and Bannock as well. What few Crow remained behind were divided between the two columns. The surgeons had loaded eighty-four sick and disabled aboard the Carroll soldiers on their way back to the East, returning home to loved ones. Along with most of the correspondents.