A Cold Day in Hell: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

“First thing: I asked him if he remembered his orders to stay with Lieutenant Bubb. He looked sheepish at that, but all he said was he had dispatches to get through for the New York Herald.”

“That when you left him behind?” Donegan asked.

“Yep, but not before I told him he was no longer a army scout—from the moment he abandoned the column and disobeyed orders. I kept on with that German’s horse, reaching Custer City twenty minutes before three o’clock that day.”

Donegan whistled, looking around the table. “How far is that? Anyone know?”

Bourke shook his head and shrugged like the rest, while Wessels answered, “Just over a hundred miles.”

“In four hours and ten minutes?” Bourke exclaimed, his voice rising in surprise. “You bloody well did ride those horses into the ground, Grouard!”

“Damn near did my own self in too,” Frank added. “Had to be taken off that last horse when I reached Custer City. Couldn’t get off on my own.”

Burt asked, “What become of Crawford after you left him behind?”

“He limped on in on that crippled-up horse,” Frank said. “Found me having my supper that evening. We come to an understanding that we’d start the race again the next morning.”

“You figured you could trust him?” Bourke asked. “What with Davenport wagging all that money out in front of his nose?”

A wry smile came across Grouard’s face. “You think I figured to let that son of a bitch burn me twice, Lieutenant? Hell no, I didn’t believe a word of his song. But he didn’t trust me neither. Fact was, he come to my room that night—checking to see if I’d gone and got the sneak on him after dark.”

Donegan squinted one eye in appraising the half-breed. “Listen, you goddamned half-blood—I know you good enough to know you wasn’t about to eat supper and lay your head down in no bed if there was a chance Crawford was about to get the jump on you through the night. So what’d you do?”

Smiling, Grouard replied, “To make sure of him not running off on me again—I sat tight and finished my supper before I went down the street to find me a good man there in town I could trust to carry a note to Captain Egan—”

“Teddy Egan?” Donegan asked.

Grouard nodded. “The same what led your charge on that village in the Powder River last winter. Told Egan that I needed one of his men to get the dispatches on through, and then had that fella ride off with ’em on a fresh horse down to Egan’s camp at Red Canyon—a good forty miles off. Sent Crook’s note on with the man too. Then I wrote me a letter to Crook, telling him what all I’d done before I went off to find me a empty bed. After Crawford come and shook me up, I didn’t wake up for the next three days.”

“Three days?” Wessels exclaimed. “What became of Crawford?”

With a shrug Grouard said, “I hear he got up and pulled out at nine the next morning. Seeing how I slept in, he likely figured he had the jump on me. Got to Red Canyon midafternoon, where Egan broke the bad news to him. Told Crawford he just as well ought to spend the night because he wasn’t about to overtake those couriers by that time.”

“That was the fifteenth—which means he didn’t reach Laramie ahead of Egan’s courier,” Bourke declared.

“So how was it that Davenport’s dispatch got on the wire before Crook’s?” Schuyler asked.

“Crawford got to the key shack at Hat Creek about eight o’clock the night of the fifteenth,” Burt replied, “but the line was down.”

“Line was still down when I went through there,” Frank disclosed.

Bourke shook his head, beginning to ask, “If the line was down—”

Burt interrupted, saying, “When Crawford came through there, the operator told him that the wire should be back up by the next morning. Now, I’ve heard enough of the story to know that Captain Jack had him a second copy of Davenport’s story that he left right there with the key operator, with instructions to put the story on the line as soon as there was current.”

“Where the devil’d he get that second copy?” Donegan asked.

The table fell silent. Slowly, man by man, Grouard felt all the eyes turn on him, expecting an answer. “He got it from me,” he groaned.

“From you?” Bourke roared.

“I was so damned angry with him there in Custer City that I handed him that copy of Davenport’s story that son of a bitch Davenport give me back at the Belle Fourche and told him I wasn’t carrying it no more.”

“So when the line was repaired, that’s how Davenport’s dispatch got on the wire before Egan’s courier could reach here,” Wessels said. “And in the meantime, Crawford himself kept on pushing for Laramie. The next key shack was up at Sage Creek, just forty-eight miles beyond Hat Creek, and that’s where Crawford must’ve found out the line was up and working by that time. The operator there told him Davenport’s story was already on the wire ahead of all the others.”

Donegan sat his mug down with a clunk, wagging his head. “Damn the bloody hell of it—so that’s how Davenport’s story got out ahead of Crook’s dispatches to Sheridan.”

“But only part of Davenport’s story,” said Andy Burt.