Maddie wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw tears in Toby’s old eyes. “He slung me over his shoulder and carried me. I told him it weren’t no use, that I was already dead, but he didn’t listen to me. No, he carried me and did his yellin’ just the same.”
Toby gave a noisy sniff. “Anyway, he got all the men in a circle in the ground. There weren’t no cover, but there was this hole, like.”
“A depression?”
“Yeah, that’s what it was. He made ever’body keep down and he wouldn’t let nobody panic. He said that help was on its way and that they’d be out of it soon.”
“Was help on its way?”
“Hell no! Oh, pardon, ma’am. The soldiers at the fort thought we was out gettin’ wood, wasn’t nobody gonna help us do that.”
“And you knew this at the time?”
“I did, and the boy did, but them farmers didn’t. They wanted to believe the boy, I guess, so they did. The boy wouldn’t let ’em shoot unless they thought they could kill somebody.”
Toby grinned. “You shoulda seen him. He was cool as you please, givin’ shootin’ lessons to the men. You woulda thought we was target practicin’ instead of bein’ attacked by a couple hundred Cheyenne. And them Cheyenne, they took their time. I think they was enjoyin’ the sport.”
“As much as the settlers enjoyed killing the Cheyenne?” Maddie asked.
“Just about the same, I’d imagine. We stayed there all day and all night. We was about to run out of water, and the men started quarrelin’ over the water.”
“What did ’Ring do?”
“Kept it all himself and doled it out a swallow at a time. We didn’t know if we was gonna die from thirst or the Cheyennes was gonna get us.”
“Why didn’t he send for help?”
“Who was he gonna send? I was shot too bad, and if the boy left them men, they’d go crazy and they was all too scared and too dumb to know how to get past the Injuns. There wasn’t nothin’ we could do but wait and pray.”
“So how did you get out?”
Toby laughed. “If there’s one thing you can count on in the army, it’s confusion. Back at Fort Breck, the CO, that’s army talk for commandin’ officer, was a drunken old sod and the men got sick of him—they always did about ever’ six weeks—and they decided to desert, that is, after they’d taken a couple barrels of his whiskey.”
Toby closed his eyes in memory. “Here we was, layin’ in this hole, dyin’ of thirst, fightin’ for our lives, and along comes a whole passel of drunken soldiers desertin’ from the army. I don’t think the Injuns knew quite what was goin’ on, so they stopped shootin’ at us for about ten seconds and the boy made his move.”
“What did ’Ring do?”
“I was kinda in a daze then, so I don’t really know for sure, but the boy got the men in the hole up and runnin’ and they jumped up on the horses with the drunks and ever’body started yellin’ and kickin’ them poor horses and got the hell out of there.”
“And you?”
Toby looked away for a moment. “He carried me all the way. I told him not to, but he’s one hardheaded so-and-so.”
“That he is. Won’t listen to reason.”
“No, he don’t.”
“So, you all got back to the fort safely.”
“There was a few men that didn’t make it, but not many.” Toby chuckled. “The boy told the army people that the deserters were concerned when we didn’t come back from the wood-choppin’ foray and that they was out lookin’ for us. The CO had been too drunk to notice that we hadn’t come back so he wasn’t gonna call the boy a liar. The CO was smart enough to see the advantages of the whole thing. He made the boy an officer—although he said he didn’t wanta be—and gave him a medal and he got pieces of paper for the rest of the men.”
“Commendations?”
“Right, that’s it. We all got us a piece of paper sayin’ we was minor heroes instead of just a bunch of wood-choppin’ drunks.”
Maddie smiled at him. The whole story sounded like the ’Ring she’d come to know.
Toby stood up. “I reckon I better leave you now, ma’am,” he said as he walked to the tent entrance, and Maddie nodded.