this, for reasons he did not understand (and felt ashamed about), and watched as the hat and all that he symbolically associated with it surged off into the current.
Needless to say, Lieutenant Todd was discomposed by these events and blew a blast on his bugle to signal Sergeant Scoresby that it was time to come forward with his supporting battalion, which was poised for action about three-quarters of a mile away. Scoresby’s men answered the call, but to Todd’s dismay, so did the falconer. He raised the eccentric hunting horn and blew a deep, rich tone from it, more primal than symphonic—with amazing effect.
There had been no bison on Todd’s side of the rushing creek before then that he had noticed—and it is very hard to overlook a huge herd of potentially deadly mammals. But there were now. More than he had ever seen, and he had by that point seen a lot. He was hurled from his horse. He felt his intestines contract and his breathing stop, and then the cowardice of gratitude—for the flood of brutes had turned in the direction of Scoresby’s approach, as if on command, and begun to pound their way toward the advancing line of soldiers, who had yet to make visual contact with this fantastic scene but could no doubt hear the vibrations. Faster and harder the monsters picked up momentum, rumbling toward the hapless horsemen like an avalanche of muscle. My God! thought Todd in panic. They’ll be trampled!
But Scoresby and company had turned tail and begun retreating for all they were worth—for their split-second assumption was that Todd, being closer to the rampaging herd, had already been more or less obliterated. Later, a search party would be sent out to recover his mangled body. Scoresby had a very cut-and-dried approach to decision-making, with his own survival ranking very high. He rode like the proverbial wind.
Todd, meanwhile, was too unhinged to have a strategy just then (perhaps ever again). He was relieved, of course, not to have been ground into the grass, but he was also perplexed by the lack of dust in the air in the wake of such a torrent of hooves and horns. He had, as noted, never seen such large bison. And he had never seen so many bison of any size at one time. But he had most assuredly never seen so many bison of any size disappear so fast. That concerned him—for a fleeting moment, almost as much as the dawning awareness of how alone he now was. For a man used to knowing and paid to know where he was and where others should go, he was now acutely conscious that he had no idea that he could trust anymore, save that others should not go where he was just then, and that he would have been very happy to be elsewhere—anywhere else. Even Turnip.
Nevertheless, he tried to compose himself in accordance with his military training—recalling as much the words of his scoffing, colicky father as those of his remote and safe captain. He had to meet the situation, whatever presented itself, with some semblance of dignity and astuteness. He had, after all, been chosen for this post and this particular assignment. He took stock.
No horse. Comrades scattered. And … and …
If the bison that had materialized on his side of the creek were surprisingly no longer in sight, the others across the way were still very much in position. To Todd’s utter consternation, they were now sitting as if awaiting instructions. Each and every last one of them was turned to face the man with the falcon, like expectant children waiting for a storyteller to commence.
The young soldier was forced to conclude that he was in the single most awkward, irritating, and sheer shit-frightening situation he had ever been in. But he was wrong, for the next moment brought about a change of mind. A loss of mind, he feared. He had thought that the land across the water flow had been steepening, as impossible as that seemed. All too soon, however, he became convinced, because a ridge formed above and behind the man on the donkey … and others appeared. Not ridgelines. Others.
He had been prepared to see at any given moment the silhouettes of a Sioux scout party, but he was not at all prepared for the vision he was having now, still sprawled on the ground where he had fallen. The surveying and engineering training he had, his whole Turnip-raised practical