It had taken no more than a minute of their skirmishing before the war party whipped about and beat it for the crest, where Donegan watched the warriors flit over the horizon, retreating out of sight on the far side of the hill.
“We gotta ride,” Grouard whispered as he moved past Donegan at a crouch.
Seamus snorted. “So you think we’ve worn out our welcome, eh?”
“Where’s Crawford?” Frank asked suddenly.
Donegan peered into the darkness, trying to make his eyes discern something out of the night after the flare of those muzzle blasts. “Last I saw of him he was off to my left, moving back—like he was making for the horses.”
“C’mon—he’s probably gone down there ahead of us already.”
Sprinting into the timber-covered ravine where the trio had tied their mounts before building their cookfire— the first time they had dared stop all that day—Donegan called out in a loud whisper.
“Crawford!”
Grouard lumbered to a halt beside the Irishman among the horses. Both listened to the silence of the night.
The half-breed called, “Crawford—c’mon out!”
“We gotta ride,” Seamus called, watching that hillcrest.
Grouard grumbled, “Yeah. Let’s go.”
“But we can’t leave him here.”
The half-breed turned on Donegan, saying, “We got no idea what happened to him. Maybe he run off.”
“Or maybe he’s shot.”
“If he was shot,” Frank argued, “we’d found him on our way, wouldn’t we?”
“Maybeso,” Donegan agreed. “All right—let’s give a look for him. Then we can go.”
Grouard mounted up and took the lead, easing his horse on up the bottom of the coulee and calling out in his loud whisper.
“Shit!” Grouard suddenly hollered as he yanked back on his reins.
There in the middle of the coulee stood Crawford, suddenly appearing out of the brush and the darkness like a specter.
“You scared the piss out of me!” the half-breed snarled.
“Where’d you go?” Donegan asked as Crawford lunged past them to reach his own horse.
“Come down here to hide,” the poet scout replied. “Thought you boys would too. Looked like we was out numbered. Figured this’d be a good place for us to make a stand against all of them.”
“Follow me,” Grouard directed as he put his horse in motion following the upper coulee out of the creek valley and onto the prairie. “We got to find out where those warriors come from so we can take the general some good news.”
While the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition had waited out what remained of the twenty-ninth and through all of the thirtieth in bivouac above the headwaters of Beaver Creek, Grouard and what few scouts Crook had along pushed far to the east. Because of Crook’s fear that the hostiles would soon be angling toward the Black Hills settlements, the general had sent the Ree to work their way south of east while Grouard’s group eased down the Beaver for some forty miles before angling up toward the Little Missouri River, which would skirt around the east side of Lookout Butte. *
Nearing the river that afternoon of the thirtieth, Grouard had stumbled across a good-sized Indian trail that split itself on the west bank—half crossing over, clearly headed north by east for the headwaters of the Heart River.
“That could be Sitting Bull’s bunch,” Grouard had said as the three scouts had walked over the ground on the east bank of the Little Missouri.
“You’re likely right,” Donegan had agreed. “Heading around Terry and making for Canada, aren’t they?”
“So where’s this other bunch going?” Crawford had asked, pointing off south of east. “This trail that breaks off yonder?”
Donegan had gazed into the distance that dusk and said, “South, Jack. Headed right where Crook feared they would.”
At that point it had become abundantly clear they had discovered just what the general needed to know so he could plan the next leg of his chase. Turning about and pointing their noses back toward Beaver Creek, they had finally decided it safe enough to chance cooking some of the bacon from their skimpy rations, maybe even boiling some coffee in their tin cups before pushing on. After tying off their horses in the brush of a wide coulee, the trio had found a place where they figured they could build a tiny fire at the bottom of a pit they dug from the moist soil with their belt knives.
The three had no sooner wolfed down their half-fried salt pork and gulped at the muddy-tasting, alkaline-laced coffee than they were surprised by the war party’s approach.
Now as they retreated back across the rolling prairie, it wasn’t until the trio had gone more than three miles that Donegan discovered he had left his tin cup behind. Patting his saddlebag to be certain, he suffered his loss in silence. That pint cup was all Crook had allowed an individual for a mess kit. It served many purposes—and now he was without one. The Irishman hoped Quartermaster Bubb had a better supply of tinware than he did of tobacco.
Throughout that cold night they rode with the west wind hard in their faces, not approaching the headwaters of the Beaver until the light of predawn had grayed the horizon behind them. The sun itself was just about to emerge from the bowels of the earth as the trio reached Crook’s bivouac and wearily dismounted near the headquarters flag.
“The Rees came in last night at dark,” Crook declared as the trio was handed steaming cups of thick, sour-tasting coffee.
“They find anything south?” Grouard asked.
“No,” the general answered. “But for what you’ve told me, it looks like I’ll send them out this morning to work south of east.”
“Where we come from?” Crawford asked.
Crook wagged his head as he peered over a rumpled map. “No. I want them to work the country on south of the Heart. Toward the headwaters of the streams feeding the Cannonball. Those Rees are fresher, and their ponies should have been recruited overnight. We sat things out yesterday, but we’ll move on this morning. I’ll have you fellas stay with the column today.”
Donegan asked, “You going to march, General?”
“Yes, we will, Irishman. To the south I know we can find provisions.”
Lieutenant Colonel Carr asked, “In the Black Hills, General?”
“Yes. Either from Furey’s train—if he reaches the Hills in time—or from the settlements themselves. I’m sure of having a place to draw rations.”
Captain Anson Mills spoke up. “But what of Fort Lincoln, General? Wouldn’t we be closer to Lincoln than we are to the Black Hills?”
Crook stared at the ground for a long moment. “Gentlemen, I figure I’ve lost the better part of two days already waiting to find out that the hostiles have split in two. When we left the Powder, we were already sure they were east of us. Now we know Terry will have his share of them coming his way, and we’re pretty sure the rest are heading south by east. That’s the bunch I want to catch before they get to the Hüls.”
“Perhaps we can herd them in to the agencies, General,” Colonel Merritt suggested.
Crook considered that momentarily, then said, “Likely not this bunch, General. I think sooner or later we’ll have to fight them rather than follow them.”
Donegan knew Crook meant what he said. In all likelihood he wasn’t even going to consider heading northeast to reoutfit at Fort Abraham Lincoln: that would put him once more in Terry’s department.
No matter where he headed, no matter how many or how few hostiles he chased or caught, George Crook was not about to put himself at the mercy of Alfred H. Terry ever again.