Summer of the Sioux Read online

  It was a second-floor room with an iron bedstead, washstand, and window that overlooked the street. There was little else but a straight-backed chair and a peg for my clothes. The thin wooden walls screened only against prying eyes; they admitted every noise from the adjoining rooms and hall. And there was plenty of noise to be heard.

  After checking in, I went to look over the town. My first stop was a barber shop and bath house a block from the hotel. After a shave, haircut, and a good soaking in one of their wooden tubs, I felt like a new man. It was four-thirty when I emerged on the sidewalk, ready for an early supper.

  Cheyenne looked as if it had been set down at random in the middle of nowhere. The wind blew unchecked off the treeless plains. Even though the air was fairly warm now in the late afternoon sun, the streets were a quagmire from the recent spring rains. Only about half the buildings were painted; the rest had weathered to a dull gray. Many of them had the usual false front.

  As I clomped along the boardwalk, searching for something that resembled a restaurant, I thought that uninviting as this place appeared now, it must be doubly dreary during the long winter months.

  Finally I ducked into a surprisingly large, clean eating place. The supper crowd had not yet arrived, and I ordered a big steak with potatoes. The buffalo meat was delicious, and well worth the rather steep price.

  When I stepped out onto the sidewalk again, toothpick in hand, I noticed several soldiers going in and out the batwing doors of a saloon about a block away on the opposite side of the street. Just what I needed to settle my dinner, I thought—a beer.

  I had to push my way into the Eagle Saloon. The place was only one average-sized room, hardly big enough to accommodate the amount of business it was getting. Yet for a frontier town, the Eagle Saloon had some pretensions to elegance, with a huge, ornate mirror behind the mahogany bar, stacks of glittering glasses, two heavy, oil-lamp chandeliers suspended from the tall ceiling, and even a piano player keeping up a steady pounding over the general din.

  As I eased up to the bar and ordered a beer, I noted the crowded room was made up of about half civilians, half soldiers. The balding bartender drew off my draft, and before I could even get the foamy mug to my lips, a familiar voice at my shoulder startled me.

  "So we meet again sooner than expected, Mr. Tierney."

  I turned quickly and found myself staring into the bronzed, clean-shaven face of Curtis Wilder.

  "Well, hello, Captain. Didn't expect to see you here. Figured you'd be with your troops tonight. Aren't you camped just north of town?"

  "Just had to report in. Then I was free for now. And I wouldn't miss a chance to get one of these good steaks Murphy fries up. Best in Cheyenne, if I do say so. Have you eaten?"

  "Just finished."

  "Too bad. Maybe tomorrow."

  He jerked his head toward one of the tables. "C'mon over and meet a couple of your messmates."

  "You gentlemen are liable to be making your last trip if you're going out after the Sioux," a voice interrupted.

  The eavesdropper standing in front of me straightened up from leaning heavily on the bar. When he looked up with bloodshot eyes, I saw a man who appeared to be in his late twenties. Under the wide hat brim, his handsome, youthful face was flushed. "But, I suppose one time or place is as good as another for dying."

  Inebriated as he was, he interpreted my look of curiosity correctly. "Wiley Jenkins is the name, sir, at your service." He attempted an elaborate bow. "Late of Kentucky. And I would be there now instead of swilling in this godforsaken hole on the edge of the world if it were not for the fact that I have become 'persona non grata' in that land of bluegrass and smooth bourbon due to some unfortunate marital and uh . . . financial affairs. A soldier, or rather civilian, of fortune, you might say."

  Wilder nudged me and motioned to get away and head toward his table. Without a word, I turned away, but Jenkins caught my arm.

  "You may think I'm drunk, sir, and you wouldn't be far wrong. But I'm not trying to cadge the price of a drink from you. You're not in the military. I don't know if you're working for them in some civilian capacity, but if you are, heed my advice—there are safer and more enjoyable ways of making a living in this part of the country. You'd better think twice about it, if you're not tired of living. Those Sioux are mad as hornets, especially since all those gold hunters invaded their sacred Black Hills."

  Wilder was already weaving through the tables, but I hesitated, my reporter's curiosity aroused. "Everyone else I've heard talking in town seems to believe just the opposite," I countered. "They're saying the army won't have much trouble running the Indians out of the Black Hills country and holding them out long enough for the miners and settlers to move back in and get established. In fact, the talk is, their resistance will be broken and they'll all be back on the reservations by winter."

  "The army may be able to keep 'em on the run for a while, but they can't keep it up indefinitely. The Sioux and northern Cheyenne won't stand and fight any pitched battles. That's not their style. It's hit and run with them all the time. The army'll never catch up with 'em in the field."

  I leaned on the bar and regarded his elegant figure in the scrollwork of the mirror.

  "How come you pretend to know so much about this? Thought you said you were new to this part of the country."

  "You mistake my meaning, sir. I said I was lately from Kentucky—not that I'd never been here before. I just find it convenient to come here when it's necessary to absent myself from my native state for a period of time, and I don't care to have anyone know where I am." He paused to toss off a small jigger of whiskey and pour himself another one before he continued.

  "My father, God bless his larcenous soul, is a mining engineer and a major partner in the New Hope Mining and Milling Company. You've heard of it, perhaps? It was organized about ten years ago at Cincinnati, and he's been traveling all over the West ever since, testing and investing in mining properties for them. Since he's the mineral expert, the company directors invariably act on his recommendations. Naturally, his services come high." He laughed harshly. "And, as if he needed more money, he's also busily engaged in helping his partners fleece the stockholders of the New Hope." He turned around, leaned his back against the bar, brushing cigar ashes from his camel-colored vest, and hooked a booted heel over the brass rail.

  "But the point of all this is, I've traveled a good deal, some of it with my father, but mostly on my own, so I'm no stranger to this part of the country or what's been going on here. In fact, my father's here in town someplace now with my sister, just waiting to head for Deadwood on the heels of this expedition to look into grabbing up some o' that gold-strewn real estate for himself and the New Hope Company. He was up there earlier, but the government ordered the army to run 'em out last year. Guess the government has now changed its policy to 'if you can't whip 'em, join 'em' in regard to keeping whites out of the hills. But I can tell you there's going to be hell to pay before it's settled. The Indians are not going to take the breaking of this latest treaty with the traditional savage stoicism."

  "If you think the Black Hills are all that dangerous for whites right now, may I ask what your sister's doing traveling with your father—whatever her age?"

  "Oh, Cathy?" He turned toward me, removed his hat and placed it on the bar, wiping the beaded perspiration from his forehead; "To tell you the truth, I'd almost quit thinking of her as a girl. She's twenty now—a woman by chronological age—but she's been a tomboy all her life. Never took to dresses and frills. Can ride and shoot better than most men. She's been making these sojourns with Dad for years."

  I noticed Wilder looking in my direction from a back table. As I waved an acknowledgement, one of the saloon girls sidled up to Jenkins from the opposite side.

  "Buy me a drink, honey?" She flashed him a pretty smile, as her dark eyes flickered from his wavy brown hair to his tailor-made suit to the half-eagle he had just laid down to pay for his drinks.

  "Sure." He s
wept the bottle up by the neck, encircled the girl's waist with the other arm, and lurched away, without so much as a backward glance in my direction. I ordered a fresh beer and quickly joined Wilder at his table.

  "Was that drunk trying to bend your ear or your pocketbook?" Wilder greeted me.

  "My ear, mostly." I grinned without elaborating. But my reporter's instinct told me there was something more to Wiley Jenkins than just another loquacious drunk, and I filed away the chance meeting in the back of my mind for possible later use.

  "Matthew Tierney, I'd like you to meet Lieutenant Ludwig Von Bramer."

  I hooked a chair up with one foot and sat down, reaching across the table to shake hands with a man of sallow complexion and rather sunken cheeks, whose hooked nose was counterbalanced by a huge, blond mustache.

  "Lieutenant."

  "Goot to know you," he greeted me without removing a curved pipe from his mouth. "Velcome to da 3rd Cavalry."

  "And this is Lieutenant Brad Shanahan, Matt." "How do you do, Mr. Tierney."

  "It's Matt."

  I gripped the hand of the youthful third officer at the table as I looked into a friendly, intelligent face. He wore the stylish mustache and goatee. His hair was black and contrasted with the kind of pink-white skin that flushes easily.

  "Has your regiment got the route for the front yet?" I inquired of the group.

  "Some of it," Von Bramer replied first, pushing his chair back and crossing his legs, revealing the huge dragoon boots he wore. He seemed to move with a nervous energy. "Our battalion should have it already, but 'tis alvays da vay! Got tamn da luck! Ve ought to have moved a veek ago. Dey’re alvays slighting da 3rd Cavalry at headquarters." Heavy clouds of smoke billowed from his pipe as he fidgeted with his beer mug and recrossed his legs.

  "Well, maybe it won't be long now, Lieutenant," I ventured. "I saw General Buck in Omaha and he said he'd he at Fetterman by the fifteenth."

  "You don't zay zo? Den ve get off. Vell, dat is goot." Just then Wilder broke in as he caught sight of someone in the crowd nearby. -

  ."Colonel! Colonel Wellsey. Over here!"

  A slightly built soldier worked his way over to our table.

  "Colonel, there's someone here I'd like you to meet."

  I stood as Wilder introduced me to Colonel Guy Wellsey, a battalion commander of the 3rd Cavalry. He was a somewhat pale, but pleasant-looking officer. A sweeping trooper's mustache was topped by a straight nose and gray eyes that had just a trace of shadowed circles under them.

  The colonel drew up a chair at Wilder's invitation and joined the conversation.

  "Any news about the campaign, Colonel?" Shanahan inquired.

  "Nothing official yet. But I have it on sufficiently good authority that we'll march from the railroad here in two columns. One will form at Medicine Bow, ninety miles or so west of here, and will cross the North Platte at Fort Fetterman." He nodded gratefully as Wilder slid a whiskey and water in front of him. "The other will march from Fort Russell to Fort Laramie, cross the North Platte there, and march by the left bank so as to join the other column in front of Fetterman. From Fetterman we'll march north until we strike the Indians. In brief, that's about the program."

  "By the way, I'm in need of a horse. Anyone know of a good place to buy one?" I inquired.

  "Yes," Colonel Wellsey replied. "I've got a friend in the business. I can see that you get fixed up with a good mount."

  "Might see if you can get a bay to match the horses in my troop as long as you're riding with us," Wilder said, tilting back on his chair and reaching for his pipe.

  Crash!

  A tray of drinks went flying across the table behind us as Wilder bumped into a saloon girl who was just passing behind his chair. Even before the glass stopped shattering, there was a clatter of chair legs scraping and voices cursing. Wilder's chair came forward with a thump. A bulky figure shoved the frightened girl aside and leaped over to grab the back of Wilder's collar.

  "Wilder, you stupid, clumsy bastard!" the voice rasped.

  He yanked Wilder over backward and swung his free hand in a wild punch at the side of Wilder's head. The punch missed and the big man lost his balance, and the two went down in a crash of breaking chairs and tables. About half the room jumped to its feet, anticipating a fight. But the men at the two tables quickly dragged the two apart and pinned the big man's arms. His face was livid and the front of his shirt was splattered with beer and liquor.

  "No, Major, no! It was an accident!" one of the men yelled urgently. "C'mon. Forget it. Let's get outa here."

  I had hold of one of Wilder's arms, and I could feel him relax slightly. Just as I started to let go, he lunged and broke loose, diving for his assailant with something like a growl. Von Bramer, Shanahan, and I grabbed him again. The four men, two of them in cavalry uniforms, who held the other man, were hustling him toward the door, knocking people out of the way as they went.

  "It's okay, Murph," Colonel Wellsey said as the bartender came up with a shotgun in hand. "Just a little accident. We'll take care of the damages."

  The bartender retreated and we picked up the chairs and sat back down at our table.

  "That damn Zimmer. Drunk again," Wilder gritted, brushing off his uniform. “Sorry, Colonel, but I wish I could’ve gotten in just one good punch,” Wilder said.

  "I know, but you'd have regretted it later," the colonel replied, coolly smoothing the ends of his mustache. “I’ll take care of this back at the fort.”

  He nodded to us, got up and left.

  "Who in the hell was that?" I asked, since everyone else seemed to know.

  "Major George Zimmer, second-in-command of the 3rd Cavalry, hard drinker, and self-styled ladies' man," Wilder replied sardonically.

  No one seemed too surprised by the incident. Shanahan had signaled to a girl for a fresh round of drinks, and Von Bramer was calmly refilling his pipe.

  "He's your superior officer?"

  Wilder nodded.

  "Well, nothing like serving under a real officer and gentleman. He was certainly way out of line. Has he got something particular against you?"

  Wilder nodded reluctantly. "I guess he's still steamed up over a clash we had awhile back. About two months ago we really got into it when I refused to sign a falsified report he drew up on one of my sergeants."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah." Again he hesitated, then shrugged. "For some reason he liked this sergeant—a man named Cooney—and wanted to get him promoted, based on his action at our fight in March. Cooney exposed himself foolishly to enemy fire against my orders, but Zimmer chose to interpret it as bravery. Cooney was a dullard, in my opinion. Don't know how the man ever got beyond Private. He certainly wasn't officer material. Anyway, Zimmer was furious when I wouldn't sign this glowing report he wrote. But, as it turned out, Cooney was invalided out of the service with a stomach disorder in April. Defused the issue, but Zimmer hasn't forgotten."

  Over his pipe Von Bramer remarked, "It iss bad enough dat a zuperior offizer iss foolish. Bud it iss even more foolish to point it out, my friend."

  Wilder looked uncomfortable. "I can't stand the man," he muttered.

  "Yah. Vell, nobody can. And dere's lots of odder tings ve can't stand neither. But ve do, no?"

  Wilder swallowed his drink. "Let's order some food," he said.

  I got the distinct feeling they had said something to one another that had passed right over my head.

  Chapter Three

  "Message for you, Mr. Tierney." The desk clerk reached into the pigeonhole and handed me a slip of paper, as I approached the desk in the lobby of the Savoy Hotel to pick up my key three days later. I unfolded it and read:

  Matt—

  The command is under orders. Better check out and meet me at Fort Russell as soon as possible. We'll probably be moving out soon.

  Curtis W.

  I stuffed the note into my pocket and headed up to my room to pack. Word had passed through town yesterday that General Buck had arrived at
Fort Russell, but this morning I heard that he and his staff had already left for Fort Laramie to the north.

  I'd spent my time getting acquainted with Cheyenne and buying my arms and gear. I had gone with Wilder while he bought food and supplies for our mess, and I had picked up a good poncho for myself. In the matter of arms, I'd taken a little more time. I had left my twelve-year-old Henry rifle at home, and I'd finally selected a new, 1873-model Winchester with a blued metal receiver and octagonal barrel. As a side arm, I'd bought an 1872-model single-action Colt revolver, holster, and cartridge belt. The heft and balance of these two weapons was superb. And they had one great advantage over the many other models—both used the same .44-40 cartridge. So I stocked up with about a thousand rounds of this ammunition.

  I also invested in a good, used McClellan saddle that was just comfortably broken in.

  I rented a spring wagon to haul my stuff, and a newly made friend named Duffy, a burly, red-faced Irishman who operated a bookstore in Cheyenne, insisted on driving the wagon out to the fort for me that afternoon while I rode alongside on the strong, deep-chested bay Colonel Wellsey had helped me find. I had met Duffy while browsing through his bookstore. When he found out that I had been born in Ireland, even though my parents had brought me to the United States in 1851 when I was only eight, he embraced me like a long-lost son. He himself had fled the old country during the great hunger of the forties.

  Just as we entered the fort parade grounds, something startled the team and they bolted wildly. The wagon lurched, throwing Duffy out. He sailed through the air in an arc, landing squarely on the top of his head. The only thing that saved him a broken neck or concussion was the high-crowned Stetson he was wearing. He staggered to his feet, cursing and puffing, as I rode up.