CHAPTER XVI. After the Massacre
The night that followed the massacre was passed by those who took part in it in a very different manner. The dead had all been brought in and were laid out in three several rooms until the time of their burial, covered by all the flags that the Fort could raise, and sentries were keeping guard over them. Colonel Carrington had been in once to see them, but the sight was almost too much for him. He left hastily bathed in tears, and everybody who had business with him that night took note of the fact that he was a very different man from what he had seemed to be before he ordered out the re-enforcements. He continually said to Major Powell, who stayed with him almost all night:—
"I don't care one cent what the authorities say to me. If some of them had been here, they would have done just the same as I did. But sending out all these men who have obeyed my every order for so long a time is what grieves me. I wish I had been out there with them."
In the Sioux camp there was a big pow-wow held by those who had been in the massacre, if we except Winged Arrow and his friend. They sat a little apart from the others and watched the scalp dance, but took no part in it. Their feelings went out to the mourners who were gathered in their lodges and were sending up loud wails of grief over the sons and brothers whose medicine had not been strong enough to protect them from the bullets of the doomed soldiers. Winged Arrow and Reuben said not a word to each other, and when they grew tired of watching the scalp dance, they went to bed; but slumber was something that would not come at call. All night long the yells and whoops of the triumphant Indians rang in their ears, but they were not thinking of them.
"All this amounts to nothing," was what Winged Arrow kept saying to himself. "They are making a big noise over the death of one hundred soldiers, but they do not take into consideration the thirty-six millions that are to come after them. Where they kill one now, ten will spring up to take their place. As soon as this gets to Washington, the enemy will send re-enforcements here that the Sioux never dreamed of. We are doomed; I can see that plainly enough."
To go back to the Fort again—there was Cyrus, the scout, lying on his bunk, sadly shaken up by this day's work. He glanced at the empty cracker boxes on which Tony and Mike had sat the evening before. They were laid out with the others, and to-morrow would see them covered by the earth over which they had often trod full of health and strength. How long would it be before such would be his fate? But Cyrus did not stop to think of that. His companions had fallen by the Sioux, and there was nothing for him to do but to avenge them. From that day Cyrus resolved that no Sioux should cross his trail and live to tell of it. No matter what treaties the government entered into with them, there would be always one who did not sign it.
"Cyrus, the Colonel wants to see you," said an Orderly, breaking in on his meditations.
"That's me," said Cyrus, getting up and putting on his moccasins, which he had thrown off on lying down. "If anybody asks you to-morrow where Cyrus is, tell him that you don't know. I will either get those dispatches through, or I will be in the same boat with Tony and Mike."
"Are you going to try them again?" asked the Orderly.
"Yes, sir. And I am going through with them. Do you understand?"
Cyrus followed the Orderly, who led the way to the Colonel's quarters and found him in his shirt sleeves pacing up and down his narrow room. He could not be easy unless he was in motion, and even then he would stop occasionally, take his hands from his pockets and rumple up his hair as though he did not know what he was doing with himself. Major Powell was there, seated on a camp chair, with his head resting on his hands. The Major could not get over the massacre. Every time he tried to talk about it, he was obliged to stop, for his sobs broke his utterance.
"Sit down, Cyrus," said the Colonel in a husky voice. "Are you all ready to start now?"
"As ready as I ever shall be, Kurn," replied Cyrus. "But I don't want to sit down."
"Then there are your dispatches. I don't need to tell you——"
"You don't need to tell me anything, Kurn. I know just what you want to say. Those dispatches shall go through, or you will never see Cyrus again. Tony and Mike are killed, and I don't see that there is anything left for me."
"Be careful that you don't get yourself into trouble, while you are avenging them," said the Major, lifting his head for a moment from his hands. "We cannot afford to spare you."
"I shall take good care of myself, Major. Whenever you hear that I am gone, you may know that two Indians have gone with me."
Cyrus took the papers that the Colonel handed him and proceeded to look them over. The first one he came to was Winged Arrow's letter. This one he laid on the table. The next one was the "bogus dispatch," and this one he placed by the side of the first. The third was the dispatch which the Colonel was so anxious to have go through, and that he put into his pocket.
"Cyrus, you mean to see the commanding officer of Fort Robinson before you see us again, don't you?" said the Colonel, who had watched the scout's movements. "You don't mean to fall into the hands of the Sioux again."
"No, sir, I don't. I will leave that first paper here and I will trouble you to place it in the hands of the owner when he comes. This war is not yet over."
The post commander seated himself in the nearest chair, while the Major raised his head and looked hard at Cyrus.
"Do you think we are going to have another massacre?" was the question that arose to the lips of both of them.
"I don't know about that; but you know that the Sioux won't be satisfied with one killing. If Guy happens to fall into their hands, he will need something to bring him out. Good-by, I may not see you again, but you may bet your bottom dollar that I will get through, if I am alive."
The scout seized the Colonel's hand, and the length of time he held fast to it was all the evidence that anybody needed to show him the consideration in which he held him. The Colonel told him that he was his only hope, but Cyrus shook his head and did not say anything in reply. The Major could not say anything. He arose and shook him hastily by the hand, and then seated himself on his chair as before, and rested his head on his extended palms. Another moment and the scout was gone.
"This will kill me and I know it," said the Colonel, resuming his walk about the room. "I don't wish any harm to befall those superior in power to myself, but I wish that General could be down here for about five minutes and feel the responsibility that rests upon me. He would send some help without any asking."
That was a long night to the two officers commanding the Fort, for neither of them thought of going to bed. The Colonel paced the room, and the Major sat with his head resting on his hands. It was longer still to the lonely watcher on the picket tower, who kept close view of the prairie surrounding him, lest the Sioux should slip up and try to add to the number of victims by taking a sly shot at him or his men when they did not think there was any one around. He had appealed to his men time and time again to know if he did his full duty when posted there to pass the signals, but their assurance that his conduct could not be blamed and that any other officer placed in the same position would do the same, did not fully satisfy him. He had been up there while a hundred men were massacred almost within reach of him, and had not done a thing to prevent it. The two young officers, for whom he cherished an affection of which some brothers might have been proud were gone and why should he be left?
"Why did not one of them change places with me?" he kept constantly repeating to himself. "I would have gone readily, and now I would have been beyond the reach of the Colonel's reprimand or his frown. But there are the folks at home. What would they have said about it?"
Daylight came at last, and once more Guy leveled his binoculars on the prairie, but no signs of the Sioux could be seen. Then he looked at the Fort, and saw preparations for guard mount going on, and that a Company was ready to keep guard over them while his relief was coming out to the tower. It came at last and a sorry-looking lot of men they were. They had seen the bodies laid out in the store rooms, and they could not get over it. In reply to Guy's hurried questioning, the Lieutenant said:—
"You would have thought, if you could have seen the smiles that were on Perkins's and Brigham's faces, that they had furloughs to go home and see the friends from whom they have been so long separated. They didn't act scared a bit. But I tell you, it is just awful. Captain Brown and a few old timers must have killed themselves, for they were not mutilated in the least. The other officers were all scalped."
"Did the Colonel have anything to say about my signaling?" asked Guy. It was all he could do to ask this question, but he managed to get it out at last.
"Not a word. You did the best you could, and that is all anybody can do. You have nothing to do but to look out for the Sioux, I suppose?"
"And keep a watch on the Fort for signals," added Guy. "I hope your stay up here will be more pleasant than mine has been. Fall in, men, and we will go down to the Fort."
The Adjutant and the officer of the day met him when he came in and reported, and after saying "Very good, sir," continued in a solemn tone:—
"You saw more of that fight than we did. It is awful, is it not? The Colonel wants to see you."
"He wants to know why I made some signals, I suppose," said Guy.
"What signals?"
"Why, I told him that Fetterman needed help, when that signal was not made to me at all."
"Oh, that is all right. The Colonel will not say anything about that. You saw what a fix he was in."
Guy found the Colonel as we have seen him before, and the Major still sitting in his camp chair. They had been out to breakfast to drink a cup of coffee, and that was all.
"Sit down, Preston," said the Colonel, waving his hand toward a chair. "You saw it all, did you not?"
"The smoke would not let me see a great deal of it, sir," said Guy. "I want to say that I have got back and that I repeated every one of your signals that I saw."
"And some you did not see," put in the Colonel. "However, that was all right. I am not going to find any fault with you for that. Sit down. Now begin at the beginning and tell me all that you saw."
It did not take Guy long to do that, for, as he dwelt upon it, the scenes of the massacre came so vividly to his mind that he did not want to speak of them at all. The officers listened, the Colonel now and then making some marks on a piece of paper which he drew toward him. He took Guy's recital down as a part of the report he was going to make out for his superior officer. When Guy was through they asked him some questions in regard to the massacre which he did not see on account of the smoke, and then told him that he could go. Guy went, feeling a great deal better than he did while he was making those signals from the tower. He went in alone to view the officers and men who had fallen in the massacre of the day before, and what he saw there is beyond our power to describe. Perkins and Brigham were not scalped, and the smiles he saw on their faces reminded him of the one Arthur wore when he told Guy that he was not to ask the Colonel for anything on his part,—he was bound to go with his Company and take part in the fight, and the first fight he got into was the last. Guy did not look any further. Tears blinded his eyes and he came out and went into the mess room. But he could not stay there long either. The vacant chairs called to mind those who were gone, and he finally turned into his own room, where he tumbled into bed with his face toward the wall.
"They are all gone, and there's no telling how soon I may be in their place," he moaned.
Filled with such thoughts as these he soon fell asleep.