Cry of the Hawk

As they started across the bridge to help Collins’s harried troops, Lybe’s men had to bunch together more than Hook liked it. This was not the way to have to come face-to-face with those screaming warriors less than a thousand yards away, across the river, at the other end of this long bridge.

By now Collins was plainly hit, his mount whirling wildly. The rest of his outfit were breaking and racing for the north end of the bridge. The first army mount clattered onto the cottonwood planks.

“Prepare to fire!” Lybe shouted. “Make it good boys—empty some ponies now …. Fire!”

The fourteen rifles spurted orange, engulfing the Volunteers in stinging smoke as the single mounted soldier surged into their midst, burst through them to the safety of the fort. Another horseman clattered onto the bridge. And a third, pounding the hollow-sounding planks as Hook rammed the ball home onto the powder. He thumbed a cap onto the nipple and brought the big hammer back to full cock as the wide, smooth buttplate slipped into the groove of his shoulder.

By damn, this is what he was out here to do, if he was going to be out here at all—and that was to kill Injuns.

Lybe was barking now, his pistol busy. “Fire your weapons at will—reload and fire at will!”

Jonah squeezed back on the trigger. The gun roared. Through the smoke he thought he saw a warrior reel and grip his pony’s withers, loping out of the scramble of men and animals. But with all the confusion, Jonah could not be sure if it was his kill.

In a matter of ragged seconds, every one of Caspar Collins’s squad who was going to make it out of that horde of warriors had reached the bridge—frantic in their flight, tearing through Lybe’s Volunteers in panic.

“Where’s Collins?” demanded the captain as each one of the troopers shot past.

One slowed, then stopped, his horse prancing when Lybe snagged the bridle.

“Don’t know where the lieutenant is!” His face was ashen with fear. He turned back, pointing, the horse trying to rip itself from Lybe’s firm grip. “He went back to help one of the … one of the men what was down. Lemme go, Captain!”

Lybe freed his grip and slapped the mount, before he turned to see Captain Bretney emerge from the gate at the lead of another twenty foot soldiers, coming on at double time. They too were ordered to spread out in a wide skirmish line that halted at the riverbank, where they commenced firing.

Lybe shouted into the noise of the gunfire, “Reload and follow me.”

“We going on across, Cap’n?” Hook asked.

“By damn we’re going to find out what happened to Collins.”

Jonah read the determination turning the man’s jawline to stone, and admired the Yankee officer for it. He was on Lybe’s heels, glancing behind him once as some of the rest slammed home their ramrods and joined the captain.

Bretney signaled his men on the south bank to form again. The captain led his squad, following Lybe across as the first howitzer round whined overhead. It exploded just above the ground, spraying shot and ball into the air, kicking up dirt and brush.

With wild shrieks, the Indians retreated up the sides of the hills and atop the bluffs, leaving their victims lying stark and white as fish bellies against the summer-cured grass. Lybe stopped at the north end of the bridge, watching Bretney’s squad come up to join him as the warriors jeered and slapped their bare asses at the soldiers. Taunting, leering, luring the white men on.

“No chance to make it to that wagon train now, Captain,” Lybe shouted as Bretney came up with his patrol.

Bretney squinted to the northwest and pointed. “There’s the lieutenant’s horse.”

They all watched the big gray animal being led away, into the hills by a warrior using a buffalo-hair lariat.

“He might be … one of these,” Lybe said, visibly choking down the bile.

“Damn that Anderson!” Bretney roared, whirling to shake his fist at the Platte Bridge Station on the far side of the river. “I’ll have your oak leaves for this, Anderson!”

“He may have your bars for that—”

Bretney whipped around on Lybe. “Colonel Collins will likely think I’m responsible for his son’s death—because I didn’t get Anderson to countermand his own order sending the boy out. Goddamn you, Anderson!”

“The colonel can’t hold you responsible, Henry. Calm yourself before you’re up on court-martial before Anderson’s charges!”

Lybe ordered the regulars and his Volunteers to stay behind for the moment and cover the bodies of Collins’s men while he escorted Bretney back to the post. In minutes a squad of soldiers came through the gate, leading a double-hitch team pulling a wagon. Into its empty bed the mutilated and scalped corpses were unceremoniously thrown.

Jonah stood, transfixed over one body. He had seen the bodies of his dead comrades, torn by grapeshot or dismembered by exploding canister. But nothing like this. He suddenly thanked God that there was nothing left in his stomach to heave up.