Stamping Ground Read Online Free Page A

Swede, naked except for a nightshirt, the latter stained where he had been disemboweled with some sharp instrument the moment he stepped out of his bedroom.
    Further investigation revealed that there was not a scrap of food left in the house. Missing also was the dead man’s only weapon, a pre-Civil War Colt pistol which he was known to have kept next to his bed. That he had beencarrying it when he went out to investigate the strange noises in the other room seemed a reasonable assumption. His buggy horse was gone as well. The hasp on the barn door had been forced with great difficulty and the animal removed by a man wearing moccasins—as shown by the tracks left in the soft earth inside. The considerable effort that had gone into breaking the hasp was borne out by the shattered half of a bayonet blade found in the grass beside the door.
    The discovery sparked panic among settlers throughout the territory. The commanding officer at Fort Ransom issued a hasty statement to the press declaring the evidence inconclusive, but as no other explanation was forthcoming his words went unheeded. Washington was bombarded with telegrams demanding protection from the Antichrist in the settlers’ midst. Congress, still involved with its investigation into the more interesting legacies of the Grant Administration, sent a terse directive to the General of the Army: Either deal with Ghost Shirt once and for all or learn to get along without allocations from next year’s budget. Sherman’s immediate reaction to this ultimatum went unrecorded, as this time no reporters were present. Nevertheless the laborious process of reassigning men who were already enroute to their new posts was begun.
    The turnaround was too slow. In mid-April, while the troop strength at Fort Ransom was still at low ebb, Ghost Shirt, accompanied by twenty renegades believed to have been recruited from among the disgruntled Sioux south of the Red River Valley, raided the post armory and made off with a wagonload of rifles and ammunition, enough to equip a force five times as large. They struck while the troopers were busy fighting a fire the braves had set at the north wall, and, in a bloodless battle—the first such since the trouble had begun—shot their way out through the gate, wagon, horses, and all. The weapons stolen were part of a new shipment of unissued .56-caliber Spencer repeating rifles, which made the outlaw braves among the best-armed Indians in the West. The average cavalryman was stillcarrying the single-shot Springfield that had helped lose the Civil War for the Confederates. A pursuit patrol dispatched within minutes of the raid came upon the wagon half a mile west of the fort, its bed a jumble of empty crates. After that the fates appeared to be on Ghost Shirt’s side, as at that moment one of those sudden downpours for which the region surrounding the Red River of the North was notorious opened up and washed out all traces of the Indians’ escape route.
    Nothing more was heard of the renegades or their activities after that. Repeated forays by the U.S. Cavalry between the Black Hills and the Minnesota border failed to turn up the slightest hint as to their whereabouts. This time, however, no one was optimistic enough to advance any theories regarding the death of Ghost Shirt. It was believed that he was busy raising a brand new army with which he would launch a series of massacres that would make those in the hills pale by comparison. If the current land boom was any indication, Easterners were confident of the Indians’ imminent capture or destruction, but as far as those already in residence were concerned, the entire territory was a powder charge primed and ready to blow as soon as Ghost Shirt lit the fuse.
    I was aware of all this, but as it gave me time to study the angles, I let Judge Flood prattle on until his thunderous voice grew raspy at the edges. Then I broke in.
    â€œWhat’s Fargo got to do with