Summer of the Sioux Page 4

  When we rode through more gullies and finally joined the high wagon road again, we could see in a valley far below us the rows of white tents blossoming like even rows of mushrooms all over the plain on this side of the river opposite the fort. That, and the swarms of cavalry horses and mules, told us that the column from Medicine Bow had already arrived and gone into camp. From where we sat we could also make out a cloud of dust and the flash of sun here and there on a carbine barrel, as the first of our own column entered the camp nearly four miles ahead of us. I was having trouble getting accustomed to being able to see objects at such vast distances in the clear air of Wyoming. It threw my depth perception off. I had to keep reminding myself that a vast herd of horses several miles away in a valley was not, as it appeared to the naked eye, a swarm of insects a few feet away on the ground.

  "Some 'shortcut'," I remarked to Wilder.

  He grinned. "A rough ride helps to let off steam." I wondered why he needed to let off steam but made no comment.

  The teamsters whipped their animals to a trot downhill, and a half-hour later we were on the valley floor and into the camp. If possible, the sight of Fort Fetterman was even more bleak and desolate close up than it had been from a distance. Except for a few cottonwoods and willows along the banks of the river, there was not a tree in sight. The painted, one-story adobe buildings were set on a bluff, commanding a view of the river but also exposed to the merciless sun, wind, and blizzard. It looked to me like Sergeant Killard's succinct description was probably accurate.

  "I just got word the ferry's out, Matt," McPherson greeted me, as I emerged from Wilder's tent with a packetful of papers.

  "What? But I've got to get across to get these dispatches sent."

  "I know the feeling. My paper would like to know what I've been doing to earn my salary lately."

  "Let's walk down and take a look."

  At this point the normally placid Platte, swollen by upstream spring rains, was running bank-full and muddy, the swift current spinning huge whirlpools into the murky surface.

  "I wouldn't advise tryin' to swim it," the leathery, laconic Sergeant Killard remarked, as he walked his horse up and saw us staring at the disabled ferry where several men were working. “They ain’t but damn few men and no horses atall thet'd be that dumb. Ferryman told me that a wagon driver, a sergeant, and two privates tried swimmin’ their horses across a few days ago. All of them drowned."

  While we discussed our next move, a cheer went up from the crowd around the ferry.

  "Looks like they've got'er patched up. Let's get aboard while we've got the chance."

  Mac and I clambered on, along with a group of men who had been waiting.

  "Whoa! That's enough. That's all I can take at a time. Wait your turn." The burly ferryman cut off the flow of eager customers. Then he and two of his assistants began pulling on a rope that passed through a set of pulleys overhead of the flat-bottomed wooden craft.

  We lurched out into the river, and the current helped push us at an angle downstream toward the far bank. Just as we neared the opposite shore, the frayed rope suddenly parted and the ferry swung broadside at the mercy of the current. There was immediately a lot of shouting and waving of arms from the shore, but no one did anything as we were swept off downstream.

  "Look, Matt!" McPherson shouted in my ear. I turned and saw the head and shoulders of Sergeant Killard and his horse lunging out into the river from the shore behind.

  As the straining horse swam alongside, eyes wide and nostrils flaring, someone heaved out a short length of thin cable from the ferry. It was a perfect shot that fell just in front of Killard and behind the horse's neck. The sergeant grabbed it and we could see him taking a turn around the pommel of his saddle underwater. The horse never broke his swimming stride as he pulled straight ahead for shore. It was almost as if it were an act that had been rehearsed. The slack was taken out of the cable; the ferry swung slowly back on course. Killard slid out of the saddle to ease the burden of weight his horse was now struggling with. But it was only about twenty yards to shore, and a few seconds later the horse stumbled as his feet struck bottom and he lunged up the muddy bank, streaming water, with Killard clinging to the saddle. He unwound the cable and threw it to some waiting men, amid the cheers.

  A few seconds later McPherson and I and the rest of the passengers stepped off, dry and safe. Killard was trying to disengage himself gracefully from the crowd that was slapping his back and pumping his hand. His hat was gone and his hair was plastered down and his boots squished water every time he took a step.

  "Hey, Sarge!" He glanced up sharply at my yell. "What was that you said about damn few men and no horses being dumb enough to swim that river?"

  Under the stubble of beard and the tan, his face flushed a deep red. I grinned, and Mac and I headed up to the fort.

  We found General Buck in the commandant's quarters, a square building with a wooden porch running around all four sides. He was dressed in a tan canvas field outfit, still not in uniform. He laughed at our dirty, unshaven appearance and our sunburned, peeling noses, as the officers and reporters crowded into the room.

  "That was a pretty rough road we just came over, General," McPherson said, coughing slightly.

  "Only a prelude, gentlemen," he replied, rubbing his hands together briskly, his blue eyes twinkling. "There are many rougher roads in Wyoming, and I'm sure we'll have to travel some of them before it’s over and we bring those damned Indians to heel. We have to…”

  A back door slammed open and a commotion interrupted him. We all turned to see the sentry struggling to hold someone out.

  "What is it, Private?" General Buck's voice cracked like a shot. The sentry snapped to attention, dropping his hold on a lone Indian who stood still in the open doorway. "Friendly Cheyenne, sir. He don't speak no English. But he's tryin' to get in here for some reason."

  "Anyone here speak Cheyenne?" One of the half-breed scouts stepped forward. "Ask him what he wants,” the general ordered.

  The scout spoke in the Indian's native tongue, using some sign language to help.

  The Indian replied in a deep, slow voice, apparently pausing for dramatic effect, even though we didn't know a word he was saying. He punctuated his speech with emphatic gestures and signs. Finally he stopped and the scout hesitated, trying to get his translation straight. "He says the great Sioux chief, Crazy Horse, sends a message to the white chief, Buck, not to bring his pony soldiers north of the Tongue River."

  "Or what?" the general demanded.

  "War," the scout replied, simply.

  "Well, that insolent. . ." The general stopped and collected himself.

  I looked toward the Indian, but he was gone. He had delivered his warning and then slipped quietly out the open door. The general's expansive mood was gone, and he dismissed the civilians with a brusque word or two and called his officers aside for a briefing.

  Mac and I went out through the compound. The parade ground of the garrison was bare and dusty and devoid of any kind of shade and most grass.

  "What's that thing, Mac?"

  "Where?"

  "In the corner over there."

  "Looks like a big box or chest of some kind. Maybe they keep rifles or gunpowder in it. It's padlocked and they have a guard on it."

  "Not likely they'd keep arms or ammunition outside in the weather like that. A wooden box would leak rain. Anyway, that stone building is the magazine."

  "But it's got tin over most of it."

  "Say, Private, what's in the box, there?"

  The blue-uniformed soldier came to attention, perspiration trickling down his face from under his cap. "A sweatbox, sir. Got a man in there."

  "A man? That thing's only about three feet high and four wide."

  "Yessir."

  "What did he do?"

  "Drunk on duty and insubordinate, sir."

  "A man could die in there in this heat."

  "Possible, sir." The private stared straight ahead, never
changing expression.

  "Damnedest thing I ever saw," Mac said, shaking his head as we walked away. "I thought we were out to subdue the savages; didn't know we had become the savages."

  We had our dispatches telegrammed to our respective newspapers, and as we emerged onto the parade ground again, General Walsh's briefing had apparently just ended and we saw Captain Wilder wave as he came toward us in the dusty sunshine.

  "Going over to the Sutler's store; Care to join me?" We did. On the way we mentioned having seen the sweatbox.

  "Another hallowed army tradition," Wilder said bitterly. "Only one of many along this line. Just before we came across the river, I saw a couple of soldiers from the Medicine Bow command marching around camp, carrying knapsacks full of rocks."

  "What for?"

  "Fighting. The theory is that if they have extra energy to burn off, they can march until they drop from exhaustion. This is supposed to take the fight out of them."

  "And does it?"

  "Well, commandants of these remote forts and posts have a tough discipline problem. There's just not enough for the men to do. And not only in time of peace. Even in wartime, these soldiers see relatively little action. And it's usually over quickly. Boredom is the main enemy. Routine drill and housekeeping chores don't begin to use up all their waking hours. There are usually only a limited number of books to read, and gambling is discouraged. The officers sometimes have their wives and families with them for a little civilized society. But most enlisted men can’t even afford wives, and no quarters are provided for dependents, anyway. Add to that the fact that quite a few of these recruits are tough kids from the streets of New York and Boston who enlisted to escape the police, and you can see the officers in charge of a fort like Fetterman have their work cut out for them. Especially if any alcohol is available."

  "Speaking of alcohol, what's this Hog Ranch some of the soldiers were talking about?"

  "It's a saloon, dance hail, restaurant, and hotel just a half-mile north of here, across the river. Caters primarily to the enlisted men. The place is notorious for shootings, stabbings, bad whiskey, and worse women. There are the usual blowouts around payday, and then it's the guardhouse and boredom again until the next time. I've actually seen men jump up and cheer when told they were going into action against the enemy. It's just a matter of having something positive to direct their energy toward. Seldom have any trouble with men on the march."

  "Yes, but don't you think that some of the punishments like that sweatbox are a little extreme?" I asked.

  "Of course," Wilder replied, giving me an odd look, while he added a half-dozen bars of soap to the writing paper and tobacco he had selected from the sutler's stock. "What's more--and very much off the record, Matt—it's strictly against regulations. There are a lot of rotten things in the army, but it's common practice, and the regulations are ignored. In fact, for relatively light offenses, I've seen bucking and gagging, men spread-eagled, dunked repeatedly in a stream, and hung by their wrists or thumbs. A friend of mine, Captain Albert Barnitz, told me about an incident back in sixty-seven when he was serving under Custer at Fort Hays, Kansas. Two enlisted men went out of camp without permission to the post a half-mile away to buy a can of pears from the sutler because of so much scurvy in the camp. They were gone only forty-five minutes, missed no musters or duties, but Custer ordered that half of each man's head be shaved and they be paraded all over the camp to humiliate them before they were confined in the guardhouse."

  "No wonder nearly a third of all enlisted men desert," McPherson said.

  "That figure, if it's anywhere near right, probably includes all the 'snowbirds' who enlist for the winter months just to have food and shelter and then hightail it to get good-paying jobs in the mines or on the railroads in the warm weather."

  "All of 'em should be shot for desertion," a voice snorted behind us.

  The three of us glanced up at the big man who had interrupted. He was a heavyset officer of florid complexion. The thinning, ginger-colored hair on top and the bushy, muttonchop side whiskers made his head appear unusually wide. He wore a major's bars on the impeccably neat blue uniform coat. The insolent blue eyes were slightly bloodshot, and as he leaned heavily on the counter near me, I caught a faint, sweetish odor of bourbon. His face was vaguely familiar; then I suddenly connected it with the scuffle in the Cheyenne saloon.

  I glanced back at Wilder. His face had gone white, and his eyes narrowed slightly. There was a long silence before he spoke. "This is a private conversation, Major," he finally said, coldly and with considerable restraint.

  "In my opinion, the army needs more discipline—not less," the man continued, ignoring Wilder. "Damn shame some officers are going soft on discipline," he said pointedly, looking straight at Wilder. "First thing you know, the troops will be taking a vote on what they want to do."

  "Pardon us, Major Zimmer, but we were just on our way to supper." Wilder turned and pulled out some bills to pay for his purchases. He accepted his change and then led us through a door into the adjoining restaurant, where the sutler also had a reputation of setting a pretty good table.

  “Looked like he knocked a few sparks off you,” I remarked when we were seated.

  “I’m sure I’m prejudiced, but his type of officer perpetuates the kind of horsehit I was just telling you about. He’s ambitious. Would walk over anybody for higher rank and command. Like Miles. Probably overheard my remark about Custer and resented it. Two of a kind, in my opinion. Colonel Wellsey must have the patience of a saint to put up with his arrogance. Wellsey isn't the type to pull rank unless he's forced to, but even he has had to call Zimmer down once or twice—most recently for that little episode in Cheyenne."

  "It sounded like he was actually trying to goad you into a fight."

  "Not a fight. He was trying to get me to do something like slug him so he could bring charges against me for insubordination."

  "I think he'd had a few."

  "Yeh. He hits it pretty heavy when he's off duty. Probably helps bolster his opinion of himself. He probably started drinking as soon as we hit the fort. And I imagine he's nursing a grudge because of the reprimand Wellsey gave him on my account."

  Chapter Five

  The warning from Crazy Horse had just the opposite of the desired effect on General Buck. He was so eager for action that he hardly gave us time to get our clothes washed and dried before he started us north up the old Bozeman Trail at noon on May 29. As the columns filed past Hog Ranch, dance-hall girls with waving handkerchiefs and bartenders in their white aprons came out to wave good-bye to the troopers.

  Five companies of the 5th and 9th Infantry had been added to our expedition as escort for the slower wagon train. Not only were our numbers multiplying, but so were the commanding officers. And all the officers had aides and adjutants, who all had orderlies. I even had a soldier—a Corporal Schmidt—to take care of my horse and wait on me as if I were an officer. In fact, I found this treatment a little embarrassing at first since I had not asked for it and wasn't used to having what amounted to a servant. I didn't know if he had volunteered for this personal service or if Wilder, Lieutenant Shanahan, or one of the officers appointed him. But he certainly went about it cheerfully. When I told him it wasn't necessary for him to do all this, he just grinned. "Don't mind at all, Mr. Tierney. Besides, you're no raw recruit. You’ve seen action during the war. And any friend of Captain Wilder’s is a friend of mine. And, if I wasn’t doing it for you, I’d be doing it for one of the officers.” Schmidt said this with a finality that demolished any and all of my arguments to the contrary. He told me he was a native-born German but spoke English with no trace of an accent since his parents had immigrated when he was only a child.

  "Well, I'm afraid all this is going to spoil me," I told him the first night when we were camped about fourteen miles north of Fetterman at Sage Creek. "Except for all the riding, this has been like a big summer picnic so far."

  Corporal Schmidt became serious
immediately, as he paused in currying my horse. "Don't let this peace and quiet fool you, sir. Those Indians are out there, all right. I've been on a couple of these campaigns before. When they want us to know where they are, we'll know. Until then, you'd swear there wasn't a redskin in the whole territory." He shrugged and went back to his currying.

  I went back toward the fire and a supper of steak, potatoes, corn, biscuits, and stewed apples.

  "Damn you to everlasting hell, you son of a . . .”

  I was jarred out of a sound sleep by an enthusiastic packer the next morning. I came awake to the sounds of braying mules, shouts, curses, the general din of creaking wagons and harnesses, the rattling of gear, all of which was only slightly muffled by the white canvas of the tent. It was full daylight. I fumbled for my watch in my jacket pocket. It was six-ten.

  When Colonel Peterman had charge of our column, he had us up and on the trail by five-thirty or six. Now that General Buck was in command, he had the infantry and wagons move out at six and the faster moving cavalry at seven-thirty. This, Wilder explained, was to give the horses more rest for when they were really needed and would have to be pushed hard. The bugler must have been farther away than usual, or else I was extra-tired, I decided, as I pulled on my pants. I had slept through reveille and my tentmates, including McPherson, were already up and out.

  I went outside and took some hot bacon from Lieutenant Shanahan, whose turn it was to cook for our mess, put the meat on some hardtack, and poured myself a tin cupful of coffee. Since we had plenty of time before we marched, I walked down the line, eating my breakfast, toward the mule packers who had awakened me.