The Red Hills Page 5

  'How will I know whether you need me and my relief force... Sir?' asked Crow, exposing yet another gap in the planning.

  'What?' Crow opened his mouth to repeat what he said but Menges sat up and waved an irritable finger at him. 'I heard you, Mister. I'm not deaf. If you get word from me to come then you come. I'll send you a galloper. Otherwise stay where you are and prepare to cover us if we need to move out fast and hard. Clear?'

  'I'm not to follow you in unless you send me word?'

  'You read me good, Mister Crow. Glad about that. Good to know you're fightin' keen to get at the Sioux. Even though I'm sure you'd be happier back with my wife at the camp.'

  With that parting shot he dismissed them, the Sergeant walking off with Crow, barely able to contain his anger, stalking stiff-legged like a puma looking for a fight.

  'Why didn't you bust the son of a bitch in the mouth, Sir?' he asked, as soon as they were out of earshot of Menges. 'I'd have backed your word. Or simply gunned him down. Nobody would have spoken against you, except maybe some of the ass-lickers like Simpson. We could have settled with him at the same time.'

  Crow shook his head. 'I heard someone say lately about there bein' a time to love and a time to kill. Somethin' like that. I'm a patient man, Sergeant.'

  'Seems to me that it goes beyond patience...' said McLaglen, turning his back deliberately.

  Crow didn't raise his voice. 'You act like that with me, Sergeant, and when the time comes, and it will, then you'll be up there for an accountin' like the Captain.'

  McLaglen turned again, hand dropping to his pistol in its covered holster. 'I don't take to that kind of threat, Sir.'

  The Sergeant didn't see quite how it happened but there was a blur of movement and the sawn-down scatter-gun was in Crow's right hand, the hammers clicking back.

  Both barrels gaping at him like twin railroad tunnels.

  The veteran had faced death a few times in his long career in the Cavalry. A drunk had sliced through his neck with a broken bottle back in Fort Reno, just missing the pulsing arteries under the ear. There had been a Shoshone war-lance back in 'fifty-four. A whore in Dallas who'd shot him in the top of the leg with an over-and-under derringer, aiming at his groin and just missing him. Lots of brushes with the wings of the angel of death.

  But he knew that this was about as close as he'd ever stood to having the toes of his boots hanging over the edge of his grave. He felt very cold in the afternoon heat.

  'Jesus, Crow,' he breathed, letting his fingers move from the butt of his own gun. 'I didn't mean nothin' by it...'

  Crow shook his head, eyes chips of obsidian in the hollows of his face. 'There's cemeteries all across this land peopled by men who didn't mean nothin' by it,' he said, thumbing back on the hammers, sliding the gun back into the greased holster.

  The column rode on a few minutes later, leaving Crow with Stotter and Baxter. And two other Troopers, call Cantwell and Clynes. Sitting their mounts and watching the dust move on across the grasslands, heading north to where Menges said he'd seen the camp of the Indians. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. Crow ordered the men to dismount and then personally checked all of their rifles and pistols, getting Clynes and Stotter to clean their handguns while they sat in the shade of some bushes.

  Waiting.

  A thousand feet above them there was a dot circling in the sky. Crow lay back, feeling the warmth of the grass striking through the clammy cold of his damp shirt, deciding that the bird was an eagle, flying southwards from the Canadian winter. He watched it as it rose and fell, great wings stretched out, riding a current of warm air.

  Crow envied it the freedom, wondering whether maybe life in the Cavalry wasn't the answer to the problems that tore at his mind, creeping into his waking hours and sliding unbidden into his sleep. There had to be a solution to what he should do with his life. For years it had been Crow's thought that the Cavalry was the best way of using his strange skills and murderous moods. Channeling them into a kind of usefulness.

  But lately it hadn't felt that way anymore. The angers rose in him, despite his attempts to deny them. It would only be a matter of time before it all happened again.

  And it would start.

  The running.

  Hiding.

  Killing.

  No friends.

  No enemies.

  Alive.

  They heard the first sound of shooting some seventy minutes after Menges and the sixteen men with him had vanished out of sight over the heat-shimmering horizon.

  Crow sat up and took out the gold hunter, flicking open the gleaming case and checking the time.

  'Hour and ten,' he said quietly. 'Mount up, men and let's get ready to move out.'

  'Didn't the Captain say we was to wait for a galloper, Sir?' asked Baxter.

  'Yes. But the man who lives is the one who covers the chances, best he can. If n the Oglala come over that nearest rise there at the charge, we got about eighty, ninety seconds to get movin' and keep them off. Man could waste half that and more just getting up in the damned saddle. You understand me, Trooper?'

  The question was gently put, but Baxter flinched as if he'd been slapped.

  'Sorry, Sir.'

  'Some folks'd say "forget it", Trooper. I'm not one of those folks. I say remember it. Make sure your brain's done the work before you set your mouth flappin'.'

  The five men sat quietly, listening to the distant crackle of rifle fire. It didn't sound very much like volleys of shooting from the Springfield rifles of their comrades. Crow was able, even at that distance, to pick out the sound of an occasional Winchester, and even the heavier noise of old muzzle-loaders. It was well-known that few of the Plains Indians had firearms. Perhaps as few as one in fifty.

  But the more warlike the tribe, the more guns they had.

  The local Oglala, under Crazy Horse, were very warlike indeed and it was reasonable to assume that they would have plenty of guns.

  It was difficult to know what to do. If Crow stayed where he was it was quite possible that Menges and his whole command might be wiped out over the brow of the distant hill. With four men there wouldn't be a lot he could do.

  But he had to try.

  Cursing Menges under his breath for leaving him with such vague and useless orders, Crow stood in the stirrups.

  The ridge ahead of him was about six hundred yards away, sloping gently upwards. From their position it was impossible to see over it. Somewhere beyond Menges and the rest of the small command were trapped. Crow didn't doubt that for a moment. He knew enough about the tactics of the Sioux to be sure that Crazy Horse or one of his lieutenants had set this one up and the Captain had gone blundering into it.

  'Forward, ho!' he yelled heeling the stallion onwards, waving to the four Troopers to spread out on either side of him. 'Draw your pistols! Don't fire until I tell you!' The Cavalry holsters were clumsy and often stiff to open. In this sort of terrain the Indians could be on top of you and feathering half a dozen arrows into your body before you even drew your pistol. The shooting was still continuing ahead of them. That meant a sizable Sioux attack.

  Crow wondered whether the Indians would be aware that he was around with his relief party, small though it was. He guessed that probably they would know.

  Crow guessed right.

  As they neared the top of the ridge, the Sioux appeared over the top. Crow's quick count made it around twenty of them. He didn't have much choice, drawing his scattergun.

  'Charge!!!!'

  Chapter Six

  'Fire at will!' Crow yelled, spurring his horse on towards the waiting Sioux. And they were mainly Sioux. Oglala. Crazy Horse's people. Painted and dressed for war, greeting the appearance of the tiny handful of pony soldiers galloping towards them with whoops and yelps of delight, scenting easy pickings.

  'Get through 'em! Don't stop! Empty those guns and then draw your sabers! At 'em!!!'

  It was rare for the soldiers to have to actually fight while still mounted. N
ormally they would slip from the saddles and every fourth man would be detailed to take charge of four horses while his comrades poured in a withering fire.

  But this was not the case for Crow and his men. There were enough Oglala warriors to sweep right over them if they tried to dismount.

  Seeing that they outnumbered the whites by four or five to one, the Indians didn't hesitate, racing towards them in a loose band, bunching up behind their leader. Crow's lips peeled back from his teeth in a mirthless grin at the sight.

  One of the greatest strengths of the Sioux and the rest of the Plains Indians was their courage and their desire for the honor of striking the first blow against their most bitterly hated enemies. Yet it was also one of their greatest weaknesses.

  In their wish to count coup by touching the whites, the braves frequently got in each other's way, making themselves easier targets for the Cavalry and rendering their own fire-power much less effective.

  And that was what was happening.

  Instead of being presented with a strung-out line of Indians, able to surround and swamp his own small command, Crow faced a helter-skelter mob, screaming and waving bows. One man nearly went down in the jostle, his pony stepping into a prairie dog's hole and lurching sideways sending the charge into even worse confusion.

  Crow rarely permitted himself the luxury of opening the pages of the past but when he considered the group fights that he'd been involved in, it was always surprising how they became a fragmented mass of memories. It was as if the mirror of the scene had been shattered and all the myriad shards collected together in a jumble, each with a tiny piece of the truth imprinted on it, yet with no way of regaining a clear picture of what happened.

  So it was with that skirmish in the Dakota Territory in the spring of eighteen seventy-six.

  The Sioux warrior who had heeled his pony to the front was flanked by two other young braves. All three of them painted with streaks of colors, wearing fringed shirts and with feathers in their long, flowing black hair. And immediately behind them came another four or five, followed by a second, larger bunch, about thirty yards behind.

  It was in this sort of situation that Crow's peculiar choice of a weapon was fully justified. Doc Holliday carried a sawn-down ten-gauge Meteor scatter-gun that he sometimes called his street howitzer. He used it in 'eighty one at the O.K. Corral There are those who say that the Doc copied this from the gun carried by the notorious Mormon Avenger, Porter Rockwell.

  Others say that he learned it from a chance meeting with a tall man dressed in black years earlier.

  The Purdey was drawn and cocked and Crow didn't wait to get within range for maximum accuracy. The charge that crammed the scatter-gun would burst out like a lethal star. In this kind of battle it was more important to take out several of the Indians, even if they weren't killed, rather than pick off just one man. The Sioux were like other tribes in that the killing of their war-chief would often send them fleeing from the field, demoralized and dispirited, to go back and talk in their groups to select another leader. In this the akicitos, or warriors' societies, were paramount among the Sioux. Like Masonic gatherings there would be several in each tribe and they would provide the men of authority.

  Crow knew all of this. But he also knew that there would not be a chief among such a small party. If Crazy Horse led the Oglala in the region, he would be up with the main body of Indians, attacking Menges. The fact that he could send twenty braves as a diversionary party was an indication of how many there were likely to be in the band that had ambushed the sixteen men with the Captain.

  Crow knew Crazy Horse.

  Had met him.

  Talked with him.

  It had been some time back and Crow had been a different man to the soldier he had become. But he knew Crazy Horse and respected him as a great and brave warrior and cunning leader.

  One day he felt he would see the chief again. Perhaps soon. But he was not among this group of young men anxious to establish their reputations for courage. Crazy Horse had made himself conspicuous among his people by his modesty. Not for him the bright colors and warbonnets of eagles' feathers.

  Crazy Horse wore only breech-cloth and leggings. In his long hair, lighter than any Indian Crow had ever met or seen, there would be the single feather of a hawk, and before riding out to fight or hunt he would throw dust over himself and his pony. His faith in the medicine of the Oglala extended to a lucky stone he wore beneath one ear with another, a gift from his friend Chips, under the left arm.

  And that was all.

  From everything that Crow knew about the Sioux leader he would not have permitted his men to charge in such a wild manner, even facing such small odds. But there was enough time in the seconds before the two sides clashed to see that the make-up of the Indian party was typical of those that had been giving the settlers, miners and soldiers such a bad time in the Dakotas and over into Montana and Wyoming.

  He recognized Oglala, Cheyenne, Arapahoes, Sans, Arcs, Brules and Miniconjous. A mixed band of tribes that had been attracted towards the leadership of Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Young Man Whose Enemies Are Even Afraid Of His Horses. Building up toward the greatest concentration of Indians ever known in the history of America. It was to be a great ending before the decline into darkness.

  'Bastards,' said Crow quietly, keeping an iron hand on his own fighting madness.

  Squeezing both triggers of the shotgun.

  From then on it was all fragments of the mirror, whirling in a wild impression of fire and screaming and blood and death.

  'Aim high and you hit the head or you miss. Aim low and you hit the chest or the guts. Safe shot's the best.'

  That's what the lean man who carried the razor in the pouch at the back of his neck had once told Crow.

  Good advice.

  Crow fired low. The shot boomed out from both barrels simultaneously, hiding the approaching Indians in the great cloud of powder smoke, the double recoil jarring Crow's wrist. But the gun remained steady.

  The wind of the gallop blew away the smoke and Crow was quickly able to see the horrendous effects of his shot.

  The lead charge had ripped out among the Sioux and their allies with devastating success.

  Three men blasted clean off the backs of their ponies, one with his jaw ripped away from his skull, hanging loose and flapping as he fell, tethered to the rest of his head only by threads of gristle and sinew.

  One man holding the stump of his right hand, rolling to the dirt, screaming and trying to stop the fountain of blood that jetted from the raw flesh of the wrist.

  The third one with his buckskin shirt speckled with blood as if it had been splashed, the speckles growing larger as he toppled backwards, blown off the pinto to fall directly under the hooves of the riders behind him.

  It was good enough to take out three of the leaders of the attack, but the greatest value of deliberately firing the scatter-gun low was in the effect it had on the small ponies of the Indians. The buckshot splattered out at close range directly into their faces, blinding several of them, inflicting great bloody wounds in their heads.

  Out of the leading bunch of eight or nine warriors, that single shot from Crow brought down all but one. The horses at the very front fell, and the rest toppled over them, stung by the shot, kicking and flailing, squealing like whipped girls, sending their riders down into the trampled grass and dust.

  The remainder of the Indians fanned out sideways at the sight of the devastation, and Crow was able to ride clean through them, waving the smoking gun at them.

  One aimed a blow with his spear but Crow ducked under the cut. There was time to holster the empty scatter-gun, tugging the Colt Peacemaker from the back of his belt.

  Crow didn't like using an ordinary pistol, reckoning it to be a weapon where luck played too large a role. But this was a place and the time to use it.

  He tugged up on the reins of the stallion, wheeling it on a dime, looking back on the carnage. More fragmentary impressions f
illing his eyes.

  Trooper Clynes following him on through the shattered ranks of the demoralized Indians, with an arrow sticking out through the side of his face, angled upwards through the cheekbone, the feathered end wobbling as he spurred his horse on, mouth open in a soundless scream of pain.

  From the way the point seemed to be buried under the eye, Crow immediately wrote Clynes off his strength.

  His own stallion rearing and kicking up dirt, clouding around him like a dream cloak. Clearing, and seeing Clynes slide from the back of his mount, hands grabbing at the pommel of the beechwood, leather-covered McLellan saddle, slipping from it and rolling over, the fall driving the arrow deeper into his skull, snapping off the feathered end of the shaft.

  The body rolled over twice and for a moment Crow thought that the mortally wounded Trooper was going to defy the odds and rise again to his feet. He tried. God knows he tried! Clynes made it on his hands and knees, eyes staring blankly, not seeing Crow watching him from less than ten paces off. One hand rose to the stump of wood that protruded from the dark hole in his face. There was very little blood to see. Not until his mouth sagged open and then a trickle of crimson eased from his lips, threading down from his nose. Clynes slid forwards on his face, hands reaching out and grabbing hold of a tuft of dry Dakota grass to carry with him into eternity.

  The other three seemed to have got through safely.

  First Stotter, then Cantwell and Baxter came through the broken relics of the Indian charge, all holding their pistols, faces lit with the fire of battle.

  'Hold up!!' yelled Crow, waving his own hand-gun to check them. 'Hit them again, as they turn!! Come on...!!'

  The remainder of the Sioux had just managed to halt their own attack, shaken by that single burst of lead from Crow's gun, trying to reform, looking back to see what had happened to their fallen comrades.

  Before they could realize what was happening, the soldiers were among them again.

  As they spurred their horses on past the fallen Indians, Crow and his little troop gunned down any of them showing signs of life. The lean figure of the officer was at the front, shooting one of the wounded Sioux at such close range that the discharge from the barrel scorched the Indian's skin as the bullet smashed his face apart.