The Trooper

(Under an Ash White Sky, 1878)

Part One of Two

The Trooper

(Prologue :) The battle had ended, and he was one, if not the only trooper left, of a regiment, part of the horse soldiers, of Troop G, no one knew if he simply escaped from the valley, wondered off before the massacre, or after, or during; no one knew much except his name, rank, and where they found his dead body, so all I can do is tell you the end of the story…as close as I can, and give you as much detail as anyone could, some parts are conjecture, for upon his death bed he moaned them out…!

The heat was so intense it could not hide beyond the clouds; it soaked right through them, over the head of Corporal Armstrong Bridger, a cavalryman. The air had grown soapy and salty, gray to black, depending on where you stood in the valley or above it. He sweltered as the ash white sky sank lower, he had not reached the edge of the bluffs, skeptical he looked about, he was but one soldier left out of Troop G., maybe out of the regiment? It was all questionable in his mind. Everyone he knew and rode with—soldier to soldier, shoulder to shoulder, was dead. It had seemed to him, he had been on the plains for weeks, with the general and the major, and then just the major and his assigned troops, riding to and fro, looking for Indians. His eyesight now was poor, but he saw no Indians, thereabouts, below the bluffs, some phonies, ‘Yes, phonies’ he told himself, ‘just regular phonies, strays perhaps,’ but no Indians. In the far distance, he saw smoke, lodge smoke, thus he knew they were there, but far-off.
The battle had been over a few days prior to this—so he calculated, but wasn’t sure of anything. He was riding bareback, and somewhere along the plains he had tossed off his saddle, and cloths, other than the blue uniform he wore, now raggedy and spotted with blood; had you asked him where he tossed those items, his best recollection would have been: the ravine.
It was near noon now; he was too weary to go any further. Too spent, he believed the phonies were part of a larger herd now, and felt it was unnecessary to hide any longer; the foe had vanished back to where they came from, thank goodness. Therefore, with what little grub he had, he lunched (he had caught a prairie squirrel). What he didn’t know, or see was that the phonies he saw belonged to a few restless Indians, and they, like him, had been resting and feasting after the great battle, in the valley, and allowed the phonies to roam the ravine unattended. And in the process, they spotted the saddle and cloths of the trooper.

The ash dark sky burnt white with heat, vertical heat which soaked into every living thing, near there. Consequently, the young corporal found loose branches, and leaves, pulled some other ones off of the surrounding trees, and built a shelter from the heat, like a tent of sorts. There he fell to sleep, as a heat haze descended, tinged with ash-blues.


“All right, all right!” he mumbled aloud in his semi sleep mode, “I’ll get up!”
The voice spoke in a different tongue, but he understood it.
“Take your time,” the voice said now, in simple English, as if it had adjusted quickly to his mother tongue.
“There are enough ahead of you.” the voice remarked.
The area was treeless not like it had been when he fell to sleep, taken shelter, and he thought on this a moment. His buckskin boots were off. Then some voice, the same voice as before, sounded, “Make room for Armstrong Bridger, left into the line!” At which time a long line of men standing, opened up, spread out, moved forward.
Meanwhile, the trooper was getting back up, onto his feet, at the same time looking at the line, looking over his shoulder, hearing Indian voices, there were three squabbling Indians—it appeared they were having a power struggle over who would get this and that, and he was the package they were fighting over, and one held his scalp in his hands.
Then he heard that so called familiar voice again, say—above the roar of the men in line— men with murky high voices, screeching like souls in torment, “Make room for the trooper!”

No: 470 (9-19-2009)



Part Two of Two

Firing Line
(Based on actual events)

There had been a moment in the forward thrust of the troops; one unhappy trooper swiftly went forward on his mount into obscurity, never to be seen again. Major Reno paid little attention to the soldier, but he was noticed nonetheless, he was from G Troop, his Springfield (rifle) lay across his saddle—he had acted as if he was tired of it all, weeks and weeks in the plains, without killing Indians, but now Indians had been spotted and he rode into the nest of them, fearless, or stupid.
The other troops were being surrounded thereafter, on the plains, although there were a few large trees for safety, nonetheless, the Sioux Indians where shooting bullets everywhichway—mounted on ponies, crisscrossing, sweeping through the bushes and foliage, thereabouts; also Indians had attacked the nearby ravine, the river, and were on the cliffs looking down into the valley, and some were in the valley, four-thousand of them were mounting a deadly war, and this was the onset…

No: 472 (9-20-2009)