Nathan Stark, Army Scout Read online

  “They’re dead.” Nathan interrupted that time. “That’s why they’re not shooting, Lieutenant. The Sioux have picked them off.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Sounds to me like all of the redskins have Winchesters. Not many bows and arrows or trade muskets among ’em.”

  Anger put a little color back into Pryor’s strained pallor. “I suppose I deserve that, Stark, but I don’t appreciate it. You warned me, and I’ll mention that fact in my report when we get back to the fort.” He glanced at Red Buffalo. “You both warned me. I acknowledge that, but it doesn’t get us out of here.”

  Nathan said, “Like Red Buffalo told you, we’re not getting out of here. We’re pinned down. The only way we’ll make it is by holding on until Colonel Ledbetter gets here. If he gets here.”

  Pryor stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “You’re right. I don’t suppose there’s any possibility one of you could slip out and try to find the colonel, maybe hurry him along . . .”

  “We may not have much of a chance, Lieutenant,” Red Buffalo said, “but I don’t think I want to throw away what little of my life may be left.”

  Nathan didn’t even bother responding to the lieutenant’s suggestion.

  Pryor backed away on his belly and resumed his previous position behind a boulder with a jagged top. Sergeant McCall was a few yards away from him. The sergeant had a smear of blood on the right side of his face from a wound where a bullet had nicked him. McCall would have a scar there much like the one on Nathan’s forehead from their battle over Delia Blaine... assuming that McCall survived, which was pretty unlikely.

  That thought conjured up an image of Delia in Nathan’s mind. He wondered if she would cry when she found out he was dead. She probably would shed a tear or two, he decided. After all, she had known him longer than she’d known anyone else at Fort Randall.

  Somehow, the idea of Delia mourning him didn’t make him feel the least bit better.

  More time went by. His tongue was so swollen it seemed like it completely filled his mouth. He let his thoughts drift to a cold, clear mountain lake, and he could imagine plunging his head into it and gulping down swallow after swallow of the life-giving water . . .

  “The Sioux are tired of waiting!” Red Buffalo exclaimed, breaking into the pleasant reverie that filled Nathan’s brain. “Here they come!”

  CHAPTER 20

  The Sioux attacked from both directions. If that wasn’t bad enough, the ones atop the mesa were mounted on their nimble, fast-moving ponies as they charged down the slope at the soldiers forted up in the rocks.

  “Bring down those horses!” Nathan shouted as he twisted around and opened fire in that direction. If anybody questioned the idea of a scout giving orders, no one brought it up at that moment, not even Lieutenant Pryor.

  The embattled soldiers banged away with their Springfields while Nathan and Red Buffalo sprayed bullets across the slope with their Winchesters. Four horses went down. Mortally wounded, they rolled on down the hill with legs flailing wildly. Nathan hated to see that, but he would hate to die even more. Since some of the ponies threw their riders and then rolled on them, breaking bones and crushing flesh, there was that to consider, too.

  He couldn’t neglect the Indians attacking from below. He rolled over again, dropped his empty rifle, and came up with the Colt in his fist. Earlier, he had slid a cartridge into the normally empty chamber where he carried the hammer, so the revolver had a full six rounds in it as he knelt and fired past the boulder at the onrushing warriors.

  A Sioux’s head jerked back as Nathan’s first shot left a red-rimmed hole above his nose. The slug drilled on through the man’s brain and left him stumbling, dead on his feet, before momentum toppled him forward. The two men right behind him leaped over his body and ran smack into Nathan’s second and third bullets. The slugs punched into their chests and drove them backwards. Those three deaths in a pair of heartbeats slowed the charge.

  That hesitation gave Red Buffalo the chance to drill two more men with his Winchester. The four who were left dived to the ground, suddenly eager to avoid the deadly hail of lead from the two scouts.

  Nathan and Red Buffalo had blunted the attack from below, but the Sioux charging down from above continued their assault even though several men and ponies were down. A couple warriors leaped their mounts right into the cluster of rocks and opened fire at close range. One of the soldiers screamed as bullets tore into him.

  Nathan spun. He still had three rounds in the Colt and triggered them all in a deadly burst of muzzle flame. One bullet caught a Sioux under the chin and flipped him backwards off his pony. Another shattered the second man’s shoulder, and the third slug went through his yelling mouth and exploded out the back of his head in a grisly pink spray.

  “The red devils are pullin’ back!” Sergeant McCall shouted.

  Nathan hated to agree with the sergeant about anything, but he had referred to Indians as red devils many times himself. McCall was right about the Sioux retreating, too. They hurried back up the slope toward the top of the mesa, firing over their shoulders as they fled.

  Nathan hunkered down and reloaded the Colt and the Winchester, his fingers moving swiftly and efficiently without conscious thought, carrying out a ritual of sorts he had performed thousands of times over the years. Echoes of battle rolled away across the hills, but other than that an eerie silence had fallen over the scene. Everyone on both sides was lying low again, waiting for the next outbreak of killing.

  When the Colt had a full wheel, Nathan pouched the iron and looked around. Three of the soldiers who had taken cover near him lay bloody and motionless on the hot ground. A couple others were wounded, and their comrades were tying makeshift bandages around arms and legs to try to stop the bleeding. Lieutenant Pryor was still unwounded somehow, and Sergeant McCall had only the minor gash on the side of his face.

  Neither Nathan nor Red Buffalo had been hit in the latest skirmish. Both knew that luck wouldn’t continue to hold.

  Movement caught Nathan’s eye and he turned his head to see Pryor starting to get to his feet. Nathan lunged at the lieutenant, grabbed his shoulder, and pulled him back down just as a rifle cracked somewhere up the slope.

  “Damn it, Lieutenant! Are you trying to get your head blown off?”

  “I... I thought it would be safe to look around. To assess our situation.”

  “Our situation is that we’re still in a damn mess,” Nathan said.

  “But we fought them off. We made them retreat. And they suffered heavier casualties than we did. I’m sure of it.”

  “They had more men than we did to start with,” Red Buffalo said. “And they hold the high ground.”

  “And the low road, too,” Nathan added dryly. “They may think twice before attacking us head-on again, but that’s the only way we’re any better off now than we were before. Our only chance is still for the colonel to show up while some of us are still alive.”

  Pryor swallowed so hard it was practically a gulp, and Nathan had a pretty good idea why the lieutenant reacted that way.

  Their lives were in the hands of Colonel Wesley Stuart Ledbetter—and that was not a good place to be.

  * * *

  Things settled back down to desultory sniping at the rocks by the Sioux, with the trapped soldiers returning the fire now and then.

  Nathan would have killed for a drink of cold water. He had sucked on a pebble at times during the long, dry afternoon, and that helped some, but not enough. The soldiers were in even worse shape, the wounded men moaning and calling out for water even though there was none to be had.

  Red Buffalo’s hatchet face remained expressionless. Nathan had heard people talk about how Indians never displayed emotion, a belief worth every bit as much as a steaming pile of mule droppings. Indians displayed plenty of emotion—usually savage glee as they were killing some innocent white person. Red Buffalo seemed determined not to show how he felt, probably because of the company he was in. He wouldn’t want to give Natha
n the satisfaction of seeing that he was scared.

  Nathan knew that. He felt the same way about Red Buffalo. He’d be damned if he was going to display any weakness in front of the Crow.

  As the sun dipped closer to the western horizon, Red Buffalo said quietly, “You know that once night falls, everything changes, Stark.”

  “Damned right I know,” Nathan responded. “We won’t be able to see the sons of bitches anymore. They’ll sneak in on us and be among us before we know what’s happening. Before anybody except you and I know, that is. And that won’t be enough to save us.”

  “Ah, well. It was a good fight. We killed many of them. I wish I knew for sure that Hanging Dog was the leader of this war party.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “A man should know who is responsible for ending his life.”

  “That doesn’t make him any less dead.”

  “No,” Red Buffalo agreed. “His spirit is still unshackled from his body either way. His soul journeys on to what waits beyond.”

  “You claim to be a Christian. You reckon you’re going to Heaven, Red Buffalo? You think St. Peter will let you in?”

  “Nothing in the Bible says a red man cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.”

  “Guess it’s been too long since I read it,” Nathan said. “I disremember what it says about redskinned heathens.”

  Red Buffalo shook his head. “Why are you trying to annoy me in the last hours of our lives, Stark? Do you hate me that much? Do you hate all Indians that much? Even the ones who have never done anything to harm you?”

  “Like I always say, if it’s not me some savage comes after, sooner or later it’ll be some other innocent.”

  “As innocent as the women and children in Black Kettle’s camp on the Washita? You were there, weren’t you, Stark? How many did you kill that day?”

  Nathan bristled at that. “I didn’t kill anybody who wasn’t trying to kill me. Every warrior I shot had a weapon in his hand.”

  “Has it always been that way?”

  Nathan thought back to the encounter with the Creeks down in Indian Territory. It was hard to worry about whether he had done the right thing by leaving the young man called Black Sun alive when he was surrounded by Sioux warriors who wanted to kill him. He shoved that aside. “You didn’t answer my question. You reckon you’re going to Heaven when the Sioux get through with us?”

  “I hope so,” Red Buffalo replied. “But I would say the chances are better that you will go to Hell.”

  “I’ll see you there. You won’t be hearing Gabriel blow his trumpet—”

  “Stark!”

  “What?” Nathan tensed. “You want to fight me now? You don’t reckon we can just leave it to Hanging Dog and his bastards?”

  “Listen,” Red Buffalo said.

  Nathan frowned and tilted his head a little to one side. He didn’t hear anything except the wind sighing over the prairie and the hills, and then . . .

  “Son of a bitch,” he breathed as he heard the blaring notes of a brass instrument. “Gabriel?”

  “That’s not an angel’s trumpet,” Red Buffalo said. “That’s an army bugle.”

  The notes were very faint, but clear enough to realize that Red Buffalo was right. Somewhere in the distance, a mile away or maybe more, a bugler was blowing.

  Nathan had heard that tinny sound often enough in the past fifteen years that it was unmistakable. “Colonel Ledbetter. It has to be.”

  “You told the lieutenant that if the messenger rode his horse to death and the colonel came on immediately, it was possible. That is the only explanation.”

  The bugle was getting louder, which meant the party from the fort was coming closer. Nathan knew that if he and Red Buffalo could hear it, so could the Sioux who were lower down on the slope. Their numbers were already depleted. The odds of them wanting to wait around and face a larger force from Fort Randall were small.

  “Lieutenant,” Nathan said. “You hear that?”

  Pryor was sitting with his back against a rock, his head drooping forward. He wasn’t asleep, but clearly he was so filled with despair and dread that he could barely stir himself. He lifted his head slowly and asked in a vague voice, “What? What are you talking about, Stark?”

  No more Captain, Nathan thought. He and Pryor had clashed too often, and the lieutenant was sunk too deeply in the grim prospect of his impending death to care about anything else. Nathan supposed he couldn’t blame the young officer for that.

  “Lieutenant, listen. Somebody’s blowing a bugle. It has to be Colonel Ledbetter and the rest of the troops from the fort.”

  Pryor’s eyes widened in the twilight. “The colonel?” he said in a tone of hushed disbelief. “It can’t be—”

  “It is, Lieutenant!” Sergeant McCall said. “I hear it, too, now!”

  Excitement swept over the men. In a second, they had gone from almost certain death to at least a chance for survival.

  “Check your guns!” Red Buffalo said sharply. “The Sioux above us on the mesa will hear the bugle, too, and they won’t want to be trapped up there. They’ll try to break out—”

  A sudden rumble of hoofbeats drowned out Red Buffalo’s words. Several dozen ponies had been left up on the mesa when their owners climbed down into the gorge to flank the patrol. Those animals were stampeding down the slope toward the rocks, driven by yipping and shouting mounted warriors.

  “Stop them!” Lieutenant Pryor cried as he twisted around and aimed his pistol over the rock he had been leaning against a moment earlier. “Don’t let them get away!”

  CHAPTER 21

  Nathan came up on one knee and brought the Winchester to his shoulder. With a full fifteen rounds in the repeater, he fired at the onrushing Sioux, aiming over the heads of the stampeding ponies in an effort to pick off some of the warriors driving the horses downhill. Not far away, Moses Red Buffalo did likewise, emptying his Winchester at the charge.

  When both rifles ran dry, the scouts leaped to their feet and yanked out their revolvers. Nathan darted aside to avoid being trampled as the first of the riderless ponies reached the rocks. He lifted the Colt and triggered it at one of the warriors. The man slewed to the side and clutched at his arm where Nathan’s bullet had struck him. He lost his grip with his knees and slid off the pony. When he hit the ground, he tried to struggle to his feet but Nathan shot him again, that time in the head.

  “Stark, look out!” The warning shout came from Red Buffalo.

  Nathan twisted to his left and saw a Sioux aiming a rifle at him from horseback. Muzzle flame spurted from the repeater. Nathan felt the flat whap! of the bullet passing within inches of his ear as he fired the Colt and saw the Indian pitch the rifle into the air as he threw his arms up. He fell off the horse as it galloped on by.

  Nathan fired again and again as the Sioux ponies swarmed around him. More than once, he narrowly avoided getting trampled. Then the charge was past and his gun was empty. Two or three Sioux warriors were still on horseback. They were going to get away and there was nothing he could do about it. That knowledge made a bitter taste form under his tongue. He would have liked to kill them all.

  A groan made him look around. Red Buffalo lay on the ground, struggling to get up. Nathan figured the Crow had been shot, but when he looked closer, he didn’t see any blood on the scout.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked as he stepped closer.

  “One of those ponies hit me and knocked me down.” Red Buffalo held his left shoulder with his right hand. “I don’t believe any bones are broken, but it hurts like blazes.”

  Nathan holstered his Colt and stuck his hand out. “Well, here. You helped me before, and you yelled that warning just now, so I reckon I can help you up.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just kick me while I’m down?”

  “Don’t tempt me, redskin. Now, are you gonna let me give you a hand or not?”

  Red Buffalo let go of his injured shoulder and reached up. H
e clasped Nathan’s wrist while Nathan took hold of his. With a grunt, Nathan hauled the Crow to his feet.

  “I am obliged to you.”

  “Don’t worry about me trying to collect,” Nathan said. “Where’s the lieutenant?”

  He heard swearing from elsewhere in the cluster of rocks and turned to see what it was about. His jaw tightened as he spotted Sergeant McCall on one knee next to a motionless figure on the ground.

  “Hell,” Nathan said. “Is that—?”

  “Aye. One of those bullets flyin’ around caught him right in the head.” McCall sounded more annoyed than sorry that Lieutenant Pryor was dead.

  The young officer lay on his back, his eyes wide open and a surprised look on his face. Judging by that, he might have had just enough time before life fled to realize that he’d been killed. Blood had trickled from the hole in his head above his right ear, but not much.

  McCall stood up. “I reckon that leaves me in command—”

  “Someone is coming,” Red Buffalo interrupted. “Just one rider.”

  Nathan looked around. The sun was below the horizon, but there was plenty of light left for him to make out the rounded shape of the derby shoved down on the approaching rider’s head. “That’s Bucher.”

  “One of the other scouts?” Red Buffalo asked with a frown.

  “Yeah. I don’t guess you’ve met him yet, since you weren’t at the fort very long before the colonel sent you out on this patrol.” Nathan frowned. “I wonder what the hell he’s doing here.”

  While Bucher was riding toward them, Nathan scanned the countryside to the south, toward the river. He could no longer see any of the Sioux—not the ones who had escaped on horseback nor the ones on foot who had climbed down into the gorge to flank the patrol and get behind the soldiers. All of the hostiles had faded away into the dusk.

  Nathan, Red Buffalo, Sergeant McCall, and the rest of the soldiers who could stand were on their feet when Bucher rode up and reined in.