Cry of the Hawk

“Some think so, Jonah. But not for me. Early last winter, I left family with Black Kettle’s village down south in Colorado Territory. I come north to Denver to find work with General Connor. Learned he’d moved his headquarters—was up at Laramie, so I rode north a ways farther. When I got to Laramie, Connor told me it was up to Jim Bridger to hire me or not. So while I waited for Bridger to come in last winter, I got word that some Colorado volunteers had nearly wiped out Black Kettle’s camp on the Little Dried River.” He hung his head as he told it, snorting back the sour taste in his throat.

“I rode south fast as my mare could carry me, Jonah. Found what was left of Black Kettle’s band camped on Cherry Creek—along with a bunch of Arapaho and Sioux. They was all itchy for making war, even on me. But that old man Black Kettle come up, with Toote at his side. Wasn’t a happier man than I was right then. Once Black Kettle decided not to have a hand in the fighting the other bands wanted to do, and started off for the south to the Territories with my family along—I turned back to skedaddle north to Laramie. A week later I was passing through Denver City and stopped at a opera house in the town. Hate towns, I do, Jonah. And in that opera house, I watched the crowd cheer some of the proud heroes of that Sand Creek fight as they showed off their battle trophies.”

“Cheyenne scalps.”

“No. Hair cut from the privates of the squaws they had raped and butchered.”

“From what we been told—the Cheyenne and Sioux been doing their share of raping and butchering as well.”

“That’s the shame of it. There damned well ain’t no end to it once the wolf is let out to howl.”

“We gonna put an end to it this summer, ain’t we, Shad?”

“No, Jonah. What’s set fire to this country out here is gonna take many, many a winter to put out.”

There came some renewed activity among the soldiers as gray light spread across the small open compound of Platte Bridge Station, enough noise to yank Hook from his brooding reverie.

“Lieutenant Collins!” a voice called out across the way.

“Here. Who wants me?”

“Major Anderson, Lieutenant.”

The slightly built young officer strode into the dark shadows of the station commander’s office, lit only by smudges of yellow lamplight.

For the first time since arriving in darkness at two A.M., Jonah could look about and see the makeup of this Platte Bridge Station with the coming of dawn’s light. The telegraph station itself stood flanked by warehouses on one side, troop quarters on the other. In addition, there were rooms for the few officers, a modest stable, a blacksmith shop, and a small mess hall behind the fourteen-foot-high pine walls and iron-mounted gates.

“Look at that, will you?” a fellow soldier asked as he nudged Hook. “Something, ain’t it?”

The morning mist was steaming off the river as the air began to warm, showing for the first time the full thousand-foot span of the magnificent bridge crossing the North Platte. Huge peeled cottonwood stanchions sat atop monstrous handmade cribs of stone.

“I hear there’s nothing like it this side of the Mississippi River.”

“Wish we was on that old muddy river now,” Jonah said. “And not out here waiting for Injuns to cut our nuts off.”

What early light there was showed a few hundred warriors bristling the tops of the far hills across the Platte, some on foot, others mounted. None moving. All of them waiting.

Less than a half hour later, the twenty-year-old Caspar Collins reappeared. He started to put the cap back on his head, then stopped at the edge of the open compound. For a moment he stared down at the hat. Collins turned and handed it to a friend of his serving with the Eleventh Ohio.

“Came up here with a mail escort. And now I don’t like what I’ve been ordered to do, Captain Lybe,” Collins explained to the fellow officer.

“Can’t Captain Bretney countermand the order? You’re not part of Major Anderson’s command here.”

“Bretney tried, sir. Anderson won’t hear of it—wants me to go bring that wagon train in. Something says I won’t be coming back. So there’s no need for those warriors out there to get this new hat I just bought at Laramie.”

“You’ll be coming back, Lieutenant. Just going out to bring that wagon train of Custard’s in, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Collins sighed.

“Keep the hat, Caspar. They won’t get it from you,” Lybe said.

“Something’s out there—got a bad feeling. You keep the hat for me, Captain. Bretney gave me his pistols.” Collins pointed to the two weapons he had stuffed into the tops of his boots.

Lybe shuddered. “Gives me the creeps, Caspar—you doing this.”

“Keep it.”

Collins turned away, resplendent in his new full-dress uniform recently purchased at Laramie. He strode over to his platoon, where he quietly ordered the twenty-five men to saddle up for their ride.

“I don’t like the idea of that boy riding out into them warriors on that skittish gelding the lieutenant’s got him,” Shad said quietly.

“Spooky gray animal, ain’t it?”