Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 by Terry C. Johnston Page A

found beans, coffee and hardtack. The moon had come up by the time Carr brought in the rest of the regiment. Their fires twinkled along the Little Beaver.
    â€œI’ll be glad we get a chance to do some hunting,” Cody grumped as he took his plate of beans and a steaming tin of coffee from the mess sergeant.
    â€œThat’s just what’s lacking in your education, Bill,” said Donegan. “Had you fought in the war back East, you’d be one to appreciate the finer varieties of beans.”
    â€œAin’t nothing finer than these white beans,” Grover hissed. “Make a man mighty gassy.”
    â€œWhite beans and corn dodgers. Mmm, mmm,” Donegan replied. “Food for an army on the march.”
    â€œTime was, Cody—we’d both killed for white beans like these. Even some moldy hardtack like this here,” Grover said, clanging his hard bread on the side of his tin plate.
    â€œYour kind is always complaining, Abner,” Seamus said, then chuckled as he shoved a spoonful of the beans in his mouth. “You want fresh game, when you had some of the finest horseflesh to dine on west of the Republican!”
    â€œHorse or mule—I don’t care. Just give me some meat!” Alderdice said.
    The surrounding hills suddenly erupted with sporadic riflefire.
    In panic, soldiers and civilians scattered back from the fires, bullets whizzing into camp, zinging tin plates and cups, exploding into the fires with firefly flares. The horses whinnied in the dark. Men shouted. A few crawled on their bellies toward the low bluff rising nearby. Above them the bright muzzle-flashes could be seen against the prairie night sky.
    After half an hour of troublesome sniping, the bright orange flares of light tapered off and the night grew quiet once more.
    â€œYou think they’re done with us for the night?” someone asked.
    â€œNo way of telling,” Grover answered the voice from the dark. “They could be back.”
    â€œI’ll gladly give ’em my beans!” Cody hollered.
    The camp erupted in laughter.
    â€œCall ’em in, Cody!” suggested someone.
    â€œYeah, tell ’em we got good food here we’ll trade for some of their dried buffler meat!”
    â€œAh, that’s the right of it,” Donegan said. “Trade these white beans for some good belly food—buffalo. And while we’re at it—we’ll throw in some hardtack to boot.”
    â€œJust don’t throw it my way!” yelled a soldier.
    â€œThat’s right—I don’t want to get hit with those damned hard crackers!” cried another.
    â€œYou’ll all be wishing you had those beans to eat come morning, when you’ll be in the saddle before breakfast,” Schenofsky said, crawling up, staying out of the firelight.
    â€œWhy no breakfast, Lieutenant?” Grover asked.
    â€œCarr wants us out early.”
    â€œTo find the village?” asked Cody.
    â€œRight.”
    â€œWay I’ve got it figured,” Cody said, “that bunch will keep moving most of the night. Might stop for a few hours for the old ones and the children. But them bucks and squaws—they can keep on running for days, they have to.”
    â€œCody’s right,” Grover agreed. “We have our work cut out for us catching that village once they’ve got the jump on us.”
    â€œWell, boys,” Cody said, slapping a thigh as he got to his feet in the darkness, punching a black hole out of the starry sky. “Let’s just do everything we can, come false-dawn, to eat up some of that ground they’ve put between them and us.”

Chapter 4
    October 1868
    Only one of Carr’s cavalrymen was wounded in the daylong fight. And from what his officers reported after the confusion of the battle, the major dispassionately listed thirty warriors killed in his official report.
    Beginning early that next morning, 26 October, the advance