Cries from the Earth (47 page)

“Ever' living bullet's gotta count—eh, Sarge?” asked Corporal Michael Curran, crouching on McCarthy's left.

“That's why I picked you six god-blaméd sorry weeds,” McCarthy groused with a smile the moment after his Springfield bucked and a pony went spilling. “If'n I'd wanted some boyos to have themselves a wee bit of target practice, I'd a'brung some of them other sad-sack ladies we left back down there, you bloody arsehole!”

“Always glad to please me first sergeant!” cried Blacksmith Albert Myers, grinning every bit as big as McCarthy was in his unkempt, fire-colored mustache that completely hid his mouth. “You heard 'im, boys! Let's make us some meat outta these red-bellies!”

*   *   *

Ad Chapman and the rest of the volunteers had covered no more than twenty-some yards in their frantic retreat before the left of Theller's line began to roll up and turn back on itself too, slowly withdrawing up the slope right in front of the civilians racing headlong for their protection. F Company had had themselves enough of the unremitting pressure from the warriors well concealed in the brush along the creek bank.

With the precipitous withdrawal of Shearer's volunteers, along with Theller's soldiers turning away and no longer keeping any pressure to hold the enemy back, the Nez Perce burst from the trees and willows to brazenly start dogging the retreat.

Like a nest of hornets Chapman would disturb beneath the eaves of his house, more than a half-dozen warriors sprinted right into the midst of Shearer's civilians as they mounted up and scrambled off in panic. They had no more than started away when Theodore Swarts was hit and, a heartbeat later, his horse was struck—a smack as loud as a bare hand on wet window putty.

Chapman looked back over his shoulder to see the horse lunge sideways, almost going down before it got its legs back under it. Ad didn't know how, but somehow Theodore Swarts hung on, his arms locked around the animal's neck as the handful of screaming warriors closed in. One of the Indians suddenly lunged up right in front of the civilian as Swarts continued to close on him. The Nez Perce had no more than raised his rifle when the frightened white man jabbed his boots into this horse and it leaped at the warrior.

Ducking aside and dropping to his knees, the Indian lost hold of his rifle as Swarts's horse sailed over the warrior. In an instant, the wounded volunteer was in the clear, racing right past Chapman and Faxon riding double on that last horse out of certain disaster.

“Damn,” Chapman whispered when he reached the end of Theller's F Company with the wounded civilian barely clinging to him. “If we wasn't just 'bout boiled in the soup there.”

*   *   *

He was helpless without a trumpet.

David Perry angrily slammed a fist into the other palm, struggling for an answer as he brooded: a cavalry command without a trumpet on a battlefield was like a ship without a helm!

With all the gunsmoke hanging in the damp air, his company commanders would never be able to see him if he attempted to signal them with his arms. And with all the incessant noise of gunfire and the cries of men in battle, no one but the man next to him would ever hear his orders. Cavalry needed to maneuver. Infantry could entrench and hold out. But horse soldiers were meant to be mobile, even as dismounted skirmishers.

So the question begged itself of an answer—how to move cavalry without a trumpet?

Forced to start left for Theller's F, where he could deliver his orders in person, Perry suddenly noticed how Shearer's civilians had turned out of the fight and were retreating pell-mell against Theller's far left flank, with the warriors slipping out of the creekside brush to make things hot right behind them. In fact, by the time Perry now turned his attention to that side of his line, the Nez Perce had already gained the knoll the volunteers had recently abandoned. From there the enemy was just beginning to lay down a troublesome fire that was falling among the far end of F Company.

“Lieutenant Theller!” Perry hollered above the din as he reined up beside the mounted officer. “Start passing the word, man-to-man if you have to! They're to make a slow, strategic retreat to the right and the rear.”

“Right and rear—yes, sir!”

“That's right!” the captain yelled, twisting slightly in the saddle to point at the shallow swale behind them where the horse-holders were already occupied in firing at another bunch of warriors inching closer and closer to them through a shallow ravine that angled up from the creekside brush. “Get your men pushing back toward Trimble's H! Get them to the back side of the knoll where your horses are being held before those animals are driven off.”

Theller had an unrestrained, wild look in his eye. “Can't stand to lose our horses, Colonel!”

“Your men don't stand a chance of fighting their way out of this without those horses,” Perry reminded him. “Protect those mounts as you pull your men back and rejoin Trimble's company!”

The lieutenant saluted and whirled away, jabbing his horse into motion as he raced to the far left end of the line where the civilians and Theller's soldiers were jamming up in retreat.

Maybe Trimble's H Company has their trumpet,
Perry thought. A horn, a horn—my kingdom for a horn!

By the time Perry got his horse turned around and was starting back along the curving crest of the battle ridge, he realized how Trimble's men were in just as poor an order as Theller's troops. Most of H Company was still mounted, but those horses unaccustomed to gunfire were rearing and bucking with every volley of the company's Springfields. The rest of Trimble's men had dismounted, all the better to take aim. Yet … those on foot were huddling at the center of the line, not daring to advance any closer to the right flank, where a solitary handful of soldiers held the Indian horsemen off from a high point of rocks above the deep ravine, nor did those men on foot dare to get any closer to the left flank, where an irregular stream of Theller's F Company were bunching up for protection.

If control wasn't seized—and now—disarray was sure to sweep over his battalion.

“Major Trimble!” Perry shouted, finding the officer starting his way from those stalwarts barricaded behind some breastworks near the ravine. “I need your trumpet!”

He saluted. “My apologies, sir. My man's lost it somewhere on the trail coming down in the dark.”

“By God's eyes … that's two of them lost last night!” Perry roared in frustration.

Gazing over Trimble's shoulder, Perry watched how word of the retreat was leaping from man to man among Theller's F Company on their left. As soon as a soldier got the word to start moving to the right and rear there was no stopping him. Now even more of Theller's right was bunching in with Trimble's left.

“Colonel, look!” Trimble cried, suddenly grabbing his post commander by the elbow to twist Perry around.

Just down the slope from them the entire left side of F Company was completely disintegrating. It was clear that those pressured, harried, frightened men had watched how the left flank of their own company started to pull back, hurrying away and thereby leaving a gap between those who were already retreating with hopes of joining up with Trimble's H Company and those being left behind.

But wholesale panic didn't break out until the wounded hell-bent-for-leather volunteers blended in with the terrified recruits scrambling to get turned around and retreat for their lives—with the warriors breaking from the brushy confines of those trees dotting the creek bank, screaming and shooting right in among the civilians at the tail end of the disintegrating line. A few warriors were even popping up right behind the held horses!

Dashing to the rear, the remnants of F Company were racing headlong for the swale where the frantic horse holders had their hands full with the mounts that were rearing, snorting, twisting, and bucking while bullets landed in among them. As Theller's men clambered to their feet, abandoning their line … a soldier dropped. Then a second, clawing at the air with both arms as he spilled into the knee-high grass.

Every five or ten yards in their retreat, another soldier spun to the ground, some of them scratching at their backs, clawing at their death wounds. Six men down in less than a minute.

No longer was there any order on the left. And what little remained on the right existed only in pockets of a few soldiers here and there where those steady veterans bravely resisted the impulse to retreat with the rest.

Just how did this happen?
Perry's mind cried out as despair seized him by the throat. How in the hell had his men outnumbered these warriors two-to-one only to have this fight turn into a full-scale retreat within the first five minutes?

As Perry twisted his horse around, doing his best to spot anyone with stripes on their sleeves—corporals or sergeants, any noncom who could hear him above the clatter of guns and the screams of the enemy—all he needed was a few good men who could help him regain control of this disintegrating command.

If he didn't … Captain David Perry understood … then this retreat would become a rout.

Chapter 37

June 17, 1877

In their mindless panic a few of Theller's F Company were throwing aside their weapons and madly dashing for their horses.

Captain Joel G. Trimble couldn't blame any of those untried, untested recruits for breaking and running—what with that relentless fire coming from the brush all around them: front, flanks, and now even the swale at their rear. At the very least, those frightened soldiers were only following the cowardly example of the citizen volunteers who were already whipping their horses in a mad retreat back up the canyon.

Rats abandoning the ship,
he silently mouthed the words. Cowardly rats, every last one of the militiamen boasting what they were going to do when they finally cornered the Nez Perce, the sort who had been grumbling that they wanted to be at the head of the march so they would be the first to get in their licks. And look at them now! Scampering back over the hills like scared jackrabbits!

“Major Trimble!”

Yanked back to the moment, he turned in the saddle to find Perry threading his mount through the men of H Company who were on foot and those who had remained on horseback.

“Colonel!” Trimble hollered. “I could use your help to hold these men—”

“Major, this must be an orderly retreat,” Perry gushed his interruption.

“R-retreat, Colonel?” Trimble bristled. “I respectfully request that I take H Company and make a charge against the enemy.”

“Charge?” Perry echoed, his brow knitting in disbelief.

“Yes, sir: straight through the enemy to the Salmon River—”

“That would result in our utter annihilation, Major,” Perry snapped in that way a commanding officer silenced all debate from his subordinates. “Nothing less than the death of us all. No, Major. To save what men are still alive for the moment, we must seize the upper hand and begin our retreat
now.
”

“But … Colonel.” Trimble felt exasperation well up inside him like a poisonous, festering boil about to erupt. They still had more soldiers than Nez Perce on this battlefield. He held no doubt they could still wrench victory from what was swiftly becoming a disastrous rout … but David Perry wasn't the officer to snatch victory from this naked rabble—

“Listen to me!” Perry snarled impatiently. “We must act quickly or suffer a resounding defeat. Our withdrawal must be
orderly,
Major. Two men at a time. No more than two. The rest will cover those who are falling back. An orderly retreat back to the top of the canyon where we can find a defensible position—or this ground becomes our Little Bighorn.”

“Yes, sir!” Trimble replied and saluted, feeling stirred not to lose a single man between here and safety on the Camas Prairie, despite the cowardice or ineptitude of the battalion commander. “I'll pass along the order.”

Thank the Lord he had a few veterans in H Company. Even though those old files could see how the rest of the line was falling apart, even though they could see how F Company had already been flushed like a panic-stricken band of barnyard chicks, even though everyone else around those old veterans was acting without reason … those few steady hands had refused to budge until they were ordered to.

“Sergeant Reilly!” he cried as he halted behind the closest noncom. “Start this side of the line back to the canyon! No more than two at a time while the rest cover them.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Patrick Reilly.

“Make it orderly, Sergeant,” Trimble hollered over the growing tumult around them. “Keep a firm hand!”

From there he quickly located John Conroy at the left of the ragged line H Company was still somehow holding against the daring horsemen who raced past, hanging from the far sides of their ponies, stalwartly refusing to bolt and run with Theller's escape. Farther down the slope Trimble spotted both of his steady Germans, Sergeants Isidor Schneider and Henry Arend. Likely those two were holding the men around them because their soldiers were more afraid of that pair of cast-iron-tough sergeants than they were of the screaming warriors swarming out of the creek bottom.

By the time the first of his men got turned around and started for the rear, Trimble could no longer see any of the volunteers. Disappeared up the canyon, well on their way back to Mount Idaho.

Slowly, slowly, he had his troops pulling back in some semblance of order, while F Company was no longer a company of soldiers. Theller's men had become like a band of wrens or sparrows, flitting wildly away from the fighting as if an owl or a hawk were swooping down on their tails—

Trimble instantly recognized the lieutenant far off to the right in front of him, well ahead in the retreat. Theller was hatless, trudging along wearily, the muzzle of his carbine clamped in his right hand, dragging the butt across the grassy slope. Not even making an attempt at running, no. Moving much more slowly than any of the rest of the men he no longer commanded. Weaving a bit from side to side as if … he was in shock. Not in control of himself. Perhaps even wounded.