Action at Beecher Island: A Novel Read online

  By noon the country was so level that there was little need for advance scouts or outriders. No rain had fallen there recently, and to avoid trailing in each other’s dust, Forsyth ordered the company formed in a line front.

  Martin Burke found himself riding between Schlesinger and Dick Gantt, one of the men who had been in the Confederate Army. Late in the afternoon as they rode steadily southward over the monotonous plain, Burke and Gantt were passing the time in light banter. Suddenly they noticed Beecher galloping forward ahead of the line.

  “I reckon he’s spotted something over that little rise ahead,” Gantt drawled. A few moments later the scouts were far enough up the slope to see a camp of haymakers along a small stream off to the right. At the same time a shot echoed above the rumble of hoofbeats, and then a puff of smoke appeared above one of the haymakers’ wagons. Beecher swung his mount about and came galloping back. From the camp behind him, twenty or more horsemen dashed into view, charging straight toward the scouts.

  “Hostiles!” Gantt yelled, reaching for his carbine.

  “Hold your fire!” Beecher was shouting. “They’re not Indians. But they think we are!”

  A single piercing yell broke over the noise of pounding hoofs, a wild “Haaa-ay-yooch,” drawn out until its volume faded.

  “That’s a Rebel yell!” Gantt cried. He slung his carbine, megaphoned his hands and returned the call. In a minute the speed of the oncoming riders slackened; they approached in a slow trot, grinning at the scouts. “What in nation kind of outfit is this?” one of the haymakers demanded. “We took you for a bunch of Cheyenne raiders.”

  “Why, it’s old Charley Christy,” Gantt said.

  There was a hasty reunion, most of the men recognizing old friends among the haymakers, but Major Forsyth cut it short. “Sun’s near setting. Mount ’em up, Sergeant McCall, or we’ll never make it to Fort Wallace by dark.”

  When they rode into the fort, lights were glowing in the barracks. A whiff of frying bacon made Martin Burke’s mouth water, and he was thinking of food when a swinging lantern blocked the horseman ahead of him.

  “Forsyth’s Scouts?” somebody asked.

  As Lieutenant Beecher answered the question affirmatively, two silhouettes came into view. “It’s Dr. Mooers,” Schlesinger said. “And Sharp Grover.”

  7

  Abner (Sharp) Grover

  September 6–10

  THE MORNING AFTER THE scouts rode into Fort Wallace, Sharp Grover walked down to the corral with Lieutenant Beecher to help select twenty pack mules for the expedition. “Tell you the truth, Fred,” he said, “there’re some mighty good riding mules in this string. If it was up to me I’d leave most of them mangy army cayuses your men rode in on and take mules instead.”

  “Agreed,” Beecher replied. “We’ll talk to the major about it. But you know how some of our wild young jaspers feel about riding mules. Hurts their pride.”

  Grover snorted. “Them as can’t supply their own mounts will take what the Army gives ’em and like it.” He squinted northward across the dry plain and made a vague gesture with one hand. “Out there, I’d feel a lot better forking a tough old mule than a spavined horse.”

  As soon as the quartermaster’s herdsmen had driven the last of the twenty pack mules through a chute into a shed yard, Beecher glanced at the sun. “I’m overdue at headquarters. Would you mind going by the quartermaster warehouse? Make sure that my successor over there issues proper ropes, straps and rations to Sergeant McCall?”

  “My pleasure.”

  They turned in opposite directions, Grover heading for one of the limestone buildings erected the year before under Beecher’s supervision. When he reached the high front platform, the scout leaped nimbly upon it, and felt a sharp twinge in his shoulder muscles. He winced at the painful reminder of his unhealed bullet wound.

  In the contrasting shadow of the warehouse interior, Grover saw Sergeant McCall with two young men, seated at a rough board table. They were sorting ammunition into mounds of forty rounds each. Behind them was a heap of pack saddles, leather straps, and coils or rope.

  “Morning, Mr. Grover,” McCall greeted him.

  Sharp grunted a reply, and explained: “The lieutenant sent me by to inspect equipment.” He turned the saddles over, examining them carefully, and tossed two or three to one side. “Rope’s new,” he said. “But most of these straps’re too short for our big mules. Where do they keep the quantics, Sergeant?”

  McCall stopped his counting. “Schlesinger brought them out.” He glanced at a slender youth in faded brown jeans. “Where did you find the quantics, Schlesinger?”

  “What’s a quantic?” Schlesinger asked.

  Grover almost smiled. He held up a length of rawhide. “Pack straps, boy.”

  Schlesinger arose from the bench. “They’re back behind the rifle boxes, sir.”

  “Let’s go have a look.” Grover patted the boy on the shoulder. “You working for quartermaster?”

  “No, sir,” Schlesinger replied proudly. “I’m one of Forsyth’s Scouts.”

  This time Grover had to choke back a guffaw. He started to say that when he caught little fish he threw them back in the stream, but thought better of it and held his tongue. If Fred Beecher had passed the lad in, then he must have spunk.

  He followed the boy back to an old packing box beneath a dusty window. “Here they are, sir,” Schlesinger said, and then added quickly: “I’m pretty green at scouting, Mr. Grover.”

  “I figgered so.”

  “But I’m willing to learn.”

  Grover pulled several straps from the box, measuring the lengths with his eye, feeling the leather. “Now, here’s one, boy, long enough for a wide-backed mule. Feel how softlike it is. A good quantic has to be soaked in salt water to make it limber for pack tying. You match this one to about three dozen like it—make certain they all got hickory rollers in the wide ends, and bring ’em out front. I got to go back and tell that commissary lieutenant to pack ten days of rations.”

  Schlesinger’s dark eyes blinked at him. “Thank you, Mr. Grover.”

  “Nothing, boy.”

  Grover met Beecher again at noon mess, and didn’t like the news the lieutenant brought with him. “Sandy Forsyth’s fit to be tied,” Beecher began. “Telegram came into headquarters this morning asking for the scouts to march out to Bison Basin. Cheyennes raided the settlers’ livestock, and they want their animals recovered and the Indians punished.”

  “Be a wild goose chase,” Grover commented.

  “Doubtless. But the governor of Kansas signed his name to that telegram, and even Sandy Forsyth couldn’t tell him that. When the major politely replied that he was preparing an expedition to search out the Cheyennes’ main camps, the governor suggested he split his command.”

  Grover almost choked on a chunk of beef stew. “Twenty-five men each way? Thunderation, Fred, we ought to have more’n the whole fifty if we should run into Roman Nose or Two Crows’ bunch. What does Colonel Bankhead have to say?”

  Beecher shook his head. “He’s leaving it up to General Sheridan. It’s my opinion that Little Phil isn’t likely to turn down the governor’s request.”

  “Confounded! If we don’t pick up that trail again in another day or so, we’ll be too late.”

  Beecher nodded dismally, and sifted a few grains of sugar into his tea. “The major wants the men notified that we won’t be marching out in the morning. General Sheridan isn’t due back at Fort Hays until late tomorrow, and Forsyth won’t move until he hears from him.”

  For another forty-eight hours Forsyth held his scouts at Fort Wallace, and then at last orders came from Department headquarters to march to the relief of the Bison Basin settlers. Departure time was set for the next morning.

  A few minutes before five o’clock on the morning of September 10, Sharp Grover strode into post headquarters where Forsyth and Beecher were meeting with Colonel Bankhead. They greeted him with “good mornings,” but his only reply was
a surly grunt.

  Forsyth glanced at him. “We don’t feel any happier about this than you do, Sharp. But orders are orders.”

  “I signed on to your outfit,” Grover replied, “to find the hostiles’ hideouts, not to round up settlers’ livestock.”

  Bankhead frowned at him, then said: “You might pick up a good trail in the Basin.”

  “Mighty cold trail by the time we get there, Colonel, and just a bunch of wild bucks roaming, most likely. That trail the major was following on the Solomon included squaws and papooses. It would lead us to a big village for sure.”

  “That’s out of the question now,” Forsyth said.

  A knock sounded on the door, and the headquarters sergeant held up a telegram. “Urgent, sir.”

  “Read it,” Bankhead answered.

  “ ‘Indians attacking freighters’ train west of here. Send soldiers quick.’ It’s signed by the station master at Sheridan City.”

  Bankhead whistled. “That close?”

  “Less than fifteen miles from here!” Forsyth cried.

  “Telegraph the station master that help is on the way, Sergeant,” the colonel ordered. As the door closed, he added: “But who can I send? I’ve only a depleted squad of cavalry left here to protect the post and perform courier duties.”

  Forsyth turned quickly. “How about my scouts?”

  Leaning back in his chair, the colonel smiled faintly. “Mr. Grover wants a warm trail. All right, Sandy, saddle up your scouts, and let’s see where this bunch of hostiles runs for cover.”

  “We’re on our way,” the major replied, and started for the door.

  Bankhead called after him: “If the raiders’ trail should go by the Basin, see what you can do to soothe those indignant settlers.”

  As Grover and Beecher fell in behind Forsyth, the lieutenant asked: “You feel better now, Sharp?”

  “Some,” the scout answered.

  In less than two hours, Forsyth’s Scouts were trotting their mounts alongside a scene of indescribable confusion. Overturned wagons, spilled packing boxes, dead mules and oxen were scattered along both sides of the wide road. A harassed band of drivers was attempting to restore order. The Denver-bound wagons had loaded at the Sheridan City railhead, and had not been in motion half an hour before the raiders struck. The Indians swept away most of the extra mules and had even stolen two ox-wagons after killing the drivers.

  The dead men lay beside the road, and Sharp Grover took time to dismount and pay his respects. Both men were Mexicans; he recognized neither of them, but felt a sudden rage against the Indians who had done the scalping. It’s high time the Army put a stop to these things, he thought. We’ve got to stop the raiders before they attack, root them out of their protected villages.

  Surgeon Mooers and the young lad, Schlesinger, who had helped him with the quantics both came alongside. “Not a pretty sight, boy,” Grover said.

  “No, sir. But if I’m to be a scout I must learn to look death in the face.”

  “You never get used to it,” Dr. Mooers said.

  Grover mounted quickly, and rode over to the scene of the attack. He made a wide swing to count the hoofprints of unshod Indian ponies; the tracks showed clearly in the marshy ground. In a minute or so, Major Forsyth joined him. “How many were there, Sharp?”

  “I figger between twenty and twenty-five. They headed back north.”

  “Start tracking them. Lieutenant Beecher will maintain communication between you and the column.”

  Half an hour later, Grover sighted the stolen ox-wagons, overturned in a dry run. He urged his horse to a trot, and as he came nearer could see the partly butchered oxen beside the wagons. At the sudden sound of drumming hoofs, he brought up his rifle and with a quick jerk of his body swung around in his saddle. “I must be getting edgy,” he said aloud. The approaching rider was Fred Beecher.

  8

  Lieutenant Frederick Beecher

  September 10–11

  THE SCOUTS HELD TO the steady pace set by Sharp Grover, and before sundown they covered twenty miles of the Cheyennes’ trail. As dusk thickened, Lieutenant Beecher overtook Grover again and informed him that Major Forsyth was willing to keep moving as long as tracking was possible.

  “Daylight’s about run out,” Grover said. “I been looking out for a camp site.” He motioned toward a darkening line of brush and trees off to the west. “Water’s there, and we’ll be screened by the woods.”

  They waited until Forsyth came up with the column, and then swung leftward to the strip of timber. A small creek was running in a shallow ravine, with another grove of trees beyond. Beecher pulled his horse in beside the major’s; they dismounted and began unsaddling beneath a tree. “Good camp site,” Forsyth said. “I could use some hot coffee, but I suppose fires are out of the question.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it, sir. The Indians probably stopped for the night on Beaver Creek, two or three hours’ north.”

  “You think they know we’re following them?”

  “They’ve been moving pretty fast. They’ll probably begin worrying about pursuers when their horses slow down tomorrow.”

  McCall was coming up the ravine slope. “All present and accounted for, sir.”

  “We’ll build no fires here, Sergeant. Warn the men against making unnecessary noises, and have the guard kept within the woods line. We don’t want to be seen or heard.”

  Beecher tried to ignore the dull pain in his legs. He stretched, yawned, and reached for his blanket roll. A minute later he was on his back, completely relaxed, looking up at the pale stars already showing in a cloudless sky.

  He remembered nothing more until he felt McCall’s hand touch his head. “Dawn’s breaking,” the sergeant said.

  “So soon?” Beecher grumbled. His bad knee was throbbing and so stiff he could hardly make it to his saddlebag. He managed to swallow a piece of cold bacon, then took a pinch of tea leaves from a small canister and held it in his mouth until he could taste the bitter flavor.

  A few minutes later he rode out with Grover. The sun’s rim was on the horizon when they picked up the Cheyenne trail again and started north, with the head of the column fifty yards behind them. For the first half hour the trail was easy to follow; then they struck hard ground and the hoofmarks were almost indiscernible. Grover reined in his horse, and at about the same instant Beecher saw what the scout had seen. Two of the Cheyennes had turned off to the west.

  Both men dismounted, following the curving tracks for a few yards, and then returned to their horses. “They doubled back, all right,” Beecher said.

  Less than half a mile farther on, he saw lying beside the trail a discarded bolt of cloth, stolen from the Denver-bound wagons. The hoofprints were more scattered now, indicating that the Cheyennes had been pushing their ponies faster. More trade-goods had been scuttled along the way—a tin of spices, a small keg of nails.

  “They must’ve sighted our dust late yesterday,” Beecher said.

  Grover motioned toward a strip of willows just ahead, and signaled Beecher to scout to the left. They spread out, and by the time the column came up they had found signs of the Cheyennes’ night camp.

  Forsyth, still in his saddle, was frowning over his map. “Is this Beaver Creek?”

  “No, sir,” Beecher answered. “Only a small tributary.”

  “The Cheyennes were rather careless, camping no more than an hour from us.”

  “They had scouts in their rear. They didn’t camp until they knew we were bedded down.”

  Forsyth shook his head in disgust. “I had hoped they wouldn’t suspect our presence until we were closer to their village.”

  Grover was poking at a wooden box which had been broken open and its contents discarded as worthless by a disappointed Cheyenne. Metal lamp shades lay around it. “You can bet they’ll try to give us the slip today, Major,” he said.

  Rising in his stirrups, Forsyth shouted back to McCall. “Let the men wet their horses’ muzzles, Sergeant. Fi
ve minutes, no more.” He turned back to Beecher and Grover. “You two do the best you can.”

  “We could use outriders now, sir,” Beecher replied. “Four on each flank, at hundred-yard intervals.”

  He and Grover mounted and trotted their horses across the narrow sheet of water.

  During the next hour the trail thinned gradually. Wherever the grass was poor and the earth hard-packed, Beecher became alert for tracks turning out. Singly and in pairs, the Cheyennes were dropping away from the main party. Occasionally one of the flankers would signal that he had picked up divergent hooftracks, but Beecher always waved the man ahead.

  As they neared Beaver Creek the ground became sandy with many buffalo and antelope tracks. Although the Indian trail was fresh, it was difficult to follow. Beecher swung closer to Grover. “How many do you count left in the party, Sharp?”

  “No more than a dozen. Maybe ten.”

  Patches of woods lay on either side, but the main ford of Beaver Creek was flat and open. They crossed it without wetting their stirrups, both men leaning forward to study the damp sandy bank beyond.

  Sharp grunted, slid off his horse, peering carefully at the markings, sniffing the air. “They didn’t cross,” he said.

  “Followed the stream,” Beecher agreed.

  He turned and rode back to meet Forsyth, informing him of the Cheyennes’ ruse to throw them off the trail, and asking for six men to help search both banks of the creek. A mile upstream, a sharp-eyed scout named Jack Donovan found fresh tracks of eight horses leaving the creek. The Indians’ deception had cost the scouts almost an hour, but Beecher and Grover doggedly resumed their tracking.

  Again, singly and by twos the Cheyennes began dropping out. Along a rocky outcropping the tracks vanished altogether, and the two men dismounted. They were still searching vainly for sign when Forsyth arrived with the column. Beecher turned toward him, shrugging. “Disappeared,” he explained.

  “Dismount the men, Sergeant,” Forsyth ordered, “and come forward.”

  The major sat down on a flat bench of rock. Beecher and Grover joined him and the three stared silently across the rolling country. An artist, Beecher thought, would need only green and brown to paint this landscape.