Cry of the Hawk

The Kansan Walker had just ordered out three pickets of his own and reached the end of the thousand-foot break of wire flopping in the breeze when the roar of a howitzer echoed over the river valley.

“That’s the major’s signal the Indians are coming, boys!” Lybe shouted to his Confederates on the knoll.

Down below, Walker’s soldiers remounted so quickly they neglected to leave behind horses for the three pickets the lieutenant had put out. The squad retreated in wild disorder.

“We can’t stay here, Cap’n!” shouted one of the fourteen Volunteers.

“Look at ’em comin’ now—we’ll get eaten alive for sure!”

“Form up! Column of twos, men—double time, march!”

At a brisk trot, Lybe led his galvanized Rebels off the hill for the fort. As he was closer to the stockade, he hoped he would reach the walls about the time Walker made it with his horsemen. As it turned out, Hook and a young Alabama boy dragged in the body of one of Walker’s wounded horsemen. Another of the lieutenant’s men slumped in his saddle, severely wounded as they poured back through the gates, the screeching of a thousand warriors loud in their ears.

“Captain!” Walker turned, his neck swollen, face red. “Respectfully, sir—you almost got our nuts cut off out there!”

Lybe shook a finger at the lieutenant. “You damned addle-brained jayhawker! Wasn’t for me—you’d been on your own out there. I volunteered these men to come cover you.”

“Why the hell didn’t you cover us then? I’ve got one dead and one dying right now.”

“Neither of us got the chance to fight today, Lieutenant. You decided to run instead!” Lybe turned away. “You’re dismissed, Walker!”

“Dismissed?” he sputtered.

“Unless you don’t understand the meaning of that order, Mr. Walker.”

The lieutenant sputtered furiously for a moment, then turned on his heel.

Lybe sighed deeply, his eyes squinting. “All right, the rest of you—Kansas, Ohio, and U.S. Volunteers—get back to digging those goddamned rifle pits. We must be ready when those red bastards come!”

“There comes the train!”

Shad Sweete turned at the call from a picket above him along the banquette.

“That’s Custard, I’ll bet,” he said to Jonah Hook.

Jonah stood, wagging his head in amazement. “I would’ve figured he’d be buzzard bait by now.”

Shad shook his head. “Not with every Injun for a hundred miles gathered up here for this shivery. Likely Custard ain’t seen a war feather till now.”

“The major better send some men out to make sure that wagon train makes it in.”

“Anderson ain’t the sort can make that decision.”

“Bretney?”

Shad grinned. “The captain with real guts is under arrest.”

He looked around for Lybe and found the captain arguing with Anderson at the far side of the open compound pocked now with rifle pits, each one like a fresh scar on the pale, foot-hammered earth.

“Lybe won’t do no good with him either, Jonah.” Shad pointed at the hills across the river. “Likely it’s all over for the sergeant’s men anyway. They just been spotted by the warriors.”

On the far hills, hundreds of warriors were leaping atop their ponies, kicking them furiously downhill toward the river. They had spotted the tops of the wagons not long after the fort had seen the incoming train, inching along the road on the Indians’ side of the North Platte.

“How many’s with Custard?” Shad inquired.

“I remember him having ten soldiers and fourteen teamsters,” Hook answered.

“Say!” shouted a picket above them. “The Injuns just cut off five of our boys from the rest of the wagon.”

“How many warriors following those five?” Shad flung his voice up the wall.

“More’n a hundred, mister.”

Hook felt helpless, knowing some of those men out there by face, if not by name. Knowing they had families back home, waiting for a husband or father or brother to come marching home. “Ain’t nothing we can do to help ’em?”

“Ain’t a damned thing now, Jonah,” Shad whispered. “Not a damned thing.”

The best Major Anderson could muster in the way of relief for Sergeant Custard’s wagon train was to fire the howitzers at the swarming horsemen heading west from the bridge.

The warriors caught the wagons in a shallow ravine some five miles west of the post. Far out of range of his artillery, and much farther than the major desired to dispatch a relief escort from his stockade. To everyone who asked, demanding action, Anderson justified sitting on his thumbs by saying he needed every man he had for the coming assault he expected from the gathering warriors.

For close to four hours the men in Platte Station kept their eyes on the distant smoke rising above the shallow ravine where they had last seen the wagon tops disappear. Then the firing grew intense for several minutes and gradually tapered off as if someone were damming an irrigation slough.

It wasn’t long before puffs of dark, oily smoke billowed into the sky from the far ravine and the faint sound of wild screeching was heard carried on the incoming breeze from upriver.