Bones of the Earth.
Bones of a large prehistoric beast were uncovered at Como Bluff, Wyoming, in 1877. Othniel Charles Marsh, a noted professor of paleontology at Yale University, organizes an expedition to recover the artifacts, which prove to be the remains of Apatosaurus, the first giant sauropod unearthed. Sergeant Dalton Rawlings, U.S. Cavalry, is the leader of a detachment assigned to babysit the Easterners’ band of tenderfoot novices.
The Indian Wars
Crazy Horse is still on the warpath. Sitting Bull has led his people north to Canada but may return at any time. The country is still in an uproar over the death of Colonel George Custer at Little Bighorn. Dull Knife of the Northern Cheyenne still resists being confined to a reservation.
The Bone War
Edward Drinker Cope, O. C. Marsh’s chief competitor, has hired crews to excavate fossils and will use any trick, including hiring spies to mislead Marsh’s expedition.
Unscrupulous fossil hunters, paid saboteurs, and Indian Wars—Dalton Rawlings has his hands full trying to prevent all sides from starting another war, a Bone War on the frontier. And since Congress failed to pass a bill for military appropriations before adjourning, he has to manage the task without being paid!
Sergeant Dalton Rawlings took a sip from his canteen. It was an unusually warm spring day, and he would rather be anywhere but atop the hard-mouthed, cantankerous Cavalry mount he rode. Como Bluff was part of an east and west ridge between Medicine Bow and Rock Creek. North of the Union Pacific railroad, he could see the bluff in the distance. As he surveyed the horizon, he cursed the Army, Lieutenant Billings, and all the politicians in Washington.
The Great White Fathers, far removed from the land of the Lakota, were good at making promises. Eloquent words were used to cloak the fact the treaties they made were of little value and easily discarded. Red Cloud and his people weren’t very happy. Rawlings couldn’t say he blamed them. Sergeant Rawlings was more than a little put out with Washington. After the election in ’76, Democrats in the House of Representatives cut the military to 17,000, down from the 39,000 members in ’69. After June 30, 1877, neither he nor any other soldier would receive a dime of pay because the damn politicians had adjourned before voting on appropriations. Morosely, he wondered if Red Cloud paid better.
The train had already left the depot by the time Rawlings arrived in Medicine Bow. The empty platform told him everything he needed to know. No passengers had disembarked. No crates of supplies had arrived for his troops. Somewhere down the tracks, the train whistle moaned a long goodbye. Idly, Rawlings thought about asking the ticket agent what it cost for passage to Sacramento. Immediately, he quashed the notion. Whatever it cost, he couldn’t afford it. "I’ll be a damn fool if I re-enlist," he muttered.
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