Reap the Whirlwind by Terry C. Johnston Page A

grinning.
    “Ready?” Grouard asked Pourier.
    “Lead on,” Bat replied.
    Strahorn slapped Grouard on the shoulder as thescouts came to the open doorway. Lamplight backdropped them, inky darkness lay ahead.
    The newsman said, “You boys just won’t leave fighting to the army, will y—”
    A percussion cap flashed, streaking the blackness beyond the doorway with a spurt of flame inches from Frank’s eyes. He was blinded for a moment by the flare, ducking backward against the two men at his shoulders. Someone shoved him roughly to the side as the air filled with oaths and running feet. There were two shots fired as Grouard’s eyes finally adjusted to the darkness and he could again see. His pistols already filled his hands.
    Strahorn crouched beside him there at the wall. Inside the room Hastings was cursing the army scouts for causing this trouble, for bringing their quarrel with Louie Reshaw to Red Cloud Agency. Out of the darkness loomed Pourier, his pistol hung at the end of his long arm, a wisp of smoke still curling from its muzzle into the cool night breeze.
    “Party’s over, Mr. Agent,” Big Bat snarled.
    Hastings came to the doorway, glaring. “You kill anyone, you son of a bitch?”
    Pourier shrugged, looking at Grouard. “Don’t know. Maybe not. They’re lucky tonight, Mr. Agent. Me and Frank, we’ll finish ’em next time.”
    Hastings’s voice rose an octave. “You hit anyone?”
    Pourier smiled. “Just said I didn’t kill no one. Found something that looked and tasted like blood along the wall of that near building.” He turned to Grouard. “Think I winged one of the bastards for you, Frank.”
    “That’s good enough. We’ll call it even for now.”
    Pourier asked, “You not hurt?”
    “Only my pride. When I saw that cap flash, I ducked instead of drawing.”
    “Likely it saved your life,” Pourier replied. “They might’ve gotten off a second shot at you.”
    “And had a good cap under the hammer that second time,” Strahorn replied.
    Frank looked up at the reporter from the Rocky Mountain
News
who had accompanied Reynolds’s column to the enemy village on the Powder last March, a newsman who had even charged down on the enemy with Teddy Egan’s KCompany of Second Cavalry. The young, handsome Strahorn was not altogether a city fella who didn’t know the ways of hard men and firearms.
    “Likely you’re right, newspaperman,” Frank said quietly, his eyes flashing like dark flints at the agent he detested, although he had known the government man less than a day.
    “C’mon. Let’s get some sleep, Frank,” Pourier suggested. “Crook wants to be on the road back to Laramie by sunup.”
    “Yeah,” Strahorn agreed. “The general’s got himself a war he wants to fight.”
    “And got his enemy to catch,” Grouard said, pulling his slouch hat down on his shoulder-length hair. “Like Crook, I know all about enemies.”

Late May 1876
    “B y the stars—of course, I remember you!” Thomas Moore
declared as he held out his hand to the tall Irishman before him.
    They shook. “Was hoping you would,” Seamus replied to the man who had been in charge of George Crook’s mule trains since the days of the first Apache campaigns down in Arizona.
    “Hell yes, Donegan! You was all Cap’n Mills and Teddy Egan talked about for some time after we jined back up with you fellas couple days following your fight on the Powder.”
    Seamus had begun to feel a bit sheepish, standing there as some of the other packers wandered up, drawn to the conversation between the long-maned plainsman and their grizzled boss.
    “If that don’t beat all!”
    Donegan turned at the exclamation, finding the gray head of Richard Closter shoving his way through the ring of packers.
    “Uncle Dick!” Seamus called out, lapping his arms around the old mule skinner, clapping him on the back with the hand not clutching the Henry repeater the Irishmanhad carried ever since his first ride onto the plains of the