Cry of the Hawk

In the time it takes the sun to move from one lodgepole to the next, the Arapaho were driven from their village, into the rough, brushy country upstream along Wolf Creek. For ten miles Connor and his men pursued the fleeing band. Yet with every mile more and more of the soldiers were forced to drop out and turn back, their horses exhausted from the forced march of the past two days.

“General!”

Connor finally turned, clearly surprised to find only Sweete, Bridger, and Hook—along with no more than a dozen soldiers still capable of maintaining the chase. He threw up an arm and ordered a halt.

“Bridger! My God—where’s the rest of my command?”

“You damned well outrun ’em, General.”

“What man among you has paper and pencil?” Connor inquired. A corporal raised his hand, patting his tunic. “Good, soldier. Take the names of every trooper here who was capable of keeping up with the chase. I want a commendation written for each man.”

“You ain’t got time to take names and hand out your congratulations!” Sweete warned in a blistering tone.

Connor twisted in the saddle. He and the rest of the soldiers saw them coming.

It hadn’t taken the Arapaho long to realize the soldiers had slowed their pursuit. The warriors doubled back on the trail and found the soldiers greatly outnumbered. In a screeching, angry mass, like a disturbed nest of hornets, the warriors swarmed back down the creekbank in a rattle of rifle fire and the hiss of stinging arrows.

“Let’s get—”

A soldier yelped in pain as an arrow caught him in the leg.

Jonah felt his horse jerk, then wheel suddenly, around and around in a wild circle. It collapsed on its front legs as he dismounted to keep from falling, yanking free the carbine from its shoulder sling.

“Up here, son!”

He turned. The old mountain man held out a hand. In a fluid leap, Jonah was atop the big Morgan mare behind Sweete, who whirled the horse about as the last of the soldiers lit out.

As they raced downstream, Connor picked up more and more of the soldiers who had been forced to turn back. Slowly, by adding small groups of troopers here and there along the way, the white men were able to hold off the counterattacking Arapaho.

By the time they reached the mouth of Wolf Creek where the rest of the general’s men were mopping up the defenders, the Arapaho held back from pushing their attack. Instead of pursuing into the village, the warriors fought from long-distance, and when they didn’t fire at the soldiers, they flung their curses and rage at the white men preparing to put the village to the torch.

“Burn it—all!” Connor ordered.

Lodges, blankets, buffalo robes, clothing, abandoned weapons, kitchen goods, and a winter’s supply of dried meat—all of it sputtered into fitful flames, eventually rising twenty feet and more into the sky, puffs of oily black smoke climbing heavily into the hot summer haze.

“I s’pose we all have to admit it when we’re wrong, Gabe,” Shad said as Bridger wagged his head beside him. “You had no way of knowing this bunch was Arapaho—or that they’d been raiding down on the Platte with the Sioux.”

“Come out on the lucky end of the deal of these cards, didn’t we, Shad?”

“Since these soldiers found some greenbacks and other plunder stole off the ranches and the Holy Road—I’d have to say this bunch of Black Bear’s needs taught a lesson.”

“Lucky for me, nigger,” Bridger growled. “I don’t like killing Injuns just for the sake of killing Injuns. Gawd-damned, Shad—you and me is married to Injuns!” The old trapper turned and shuffled off, muttering to himself.

“The Pawnee having themselves a grand time of it over there, Jonah,” Shad explained, pointing to the far side of the camp. “The Arapaho warriors know they haven’t a chance of getting anything from the village now—but, by damn, they sure do want their ponies back.”

“The Pawnee good fighters?”

He squinted in thought. “I never had much use for ’em. Neither did Gabe. Pawnee didn’t turn friendly toward white men till they saw the writing on the wall. Besides, I think they figured out they could get more plunder by raiding enemy camps with the soldiers behind ’em instead of fighting the Sioux and Cheyenne in the old way—on their own.”

By middle of the afternoon, Connor’s officers had convinced the general it was time to cash in their chips and make good their escape. As for casualties, the general’s own orderly and bugler had been seriously wounded in the first charge on the village. A lieutenant and a sergeant with one company had been wounded in the thick of it. A young soldier had been hollering at his comrades, goading them on into the village when an arrow had entered his open mouth and pierced the back of his tongue. For the longest time his friends debated cutting the soldier’s tongue off to free it, until an old-line sergeant came along and held the tongue down, slowly slicing away at the red meat until the glistening iron arrow tip was freed.