A Cold Day in Hell (12 page)

W
illiam Jackson stirred restlessly within his blankets before first light. It was the coldest time of the day, and he could tell the fire at their feet had all but gone out. With the buffalo robe pulled over his head, he half listened as the muffled sounds told him Robert had kicked his way out of his bedroll and was stomping around, stirring embers and punching life back into the tiny pit fire. William finally stuck his head out and peered into the coming of dawn, blinking at his brother.

The eldest said, “Tomorrow—you start the morning fire.”

He was nodding to Robert … at the very moment the first gunshot awakened the rest of the camp. All around them officers bawled orders and men scurried cold and stiff-legged toward the perimeter pickets. Swearing and stomping life into their feet, teamsters rolled out from under the wagons and scrambled for their weapons. But in those scant few moments it became plain to see the camp was not being attacked by waves of horsemen. Instead, the threat proved to be nothing more than a few distant warriors gathered atop the far hills pitching long-range shots at the soldiers in the gray light of that autumn dawn.

Otis got them moving about with the morning routine as he rotated the guard one last time, bringing in the last watch to have their cold breakfast of salt pork and hard bread, washed down with what they had taken on yesterday afternoon in crossing Clear Creek. Watering the mules cost the men a good piece of that early morning, dipping the oiled-canvas nose bags into the kegs, forced to laboriously water each of the hundreds of animals one at a time. Just past seven
A.M
. Otis formed them up, putting the wagons in four long columns that would rumble along between the infantry escort, then slowly marched away from that scorched campsite.

Across the next anxious hour the Lakota kept their distance in the van of the wagon train, and far on either flank—watching. Sitting atop their restive ponies in the early cold. Watching. Occasionally firing a random shot at the soldiers now and then. Always watching as the wagons jostled and creaked, heading west along the Tongue River Road.

“Maybe they’ve learned their lesson,” Otis thought to boast to the men around him after they had been on the trail for more than two hours.

“Perhaps, Colonel,” agreed Lieutenant Oskaloosa M. Smith. “We unhorsed our share yesterday.”

“Maybe they want to talk instead of fighting,” William suggested, pointing into the gray distance.

Around him the soldiers grew quiet. Upon suddenly spotting the lone, far rider who reined up atop the low rise in their front, Otis threw up his arm. Down the column went the order to halt as everyone grew all the more wary. On either side of them sat hundreds of warriors. But in their front, only the lone horseman.

As William watched, the warrior slipped from his pony, dropping the single rein to the ground. At the end of one arm he waved what looked to be a white cloth back and forth over his head, then knelt, taking a long wooden stake from the belt that held the blanket around his waist. It appeared as if the warrior hammered the stake into the ground, then tied the white cloth to it before taking up his rein again and vaulting back atop his pony. There on the crest of the hill, the Indian circled three times, then kicked the pony into a gallop, disappearing on the far side of the slope.

“What you make of that, Jackson?” Otis asked, turning to his scout.

“Like I said: I think they want to talk.”

The lieutenant colonel straightened, squinted at that hilltop where the white flag fluttered from that tall stake, then said, “All right. Have your brother go up there. Let’s just see what Sitting Bull has to say for himself.”

As much as he had wanted to go fetch that message himself, William realized Robert was Otis’s scout. Sitting there with the rest of the headquarters group as his brother trotted forward, alone and wary, William studied either flank, back and forth, for some sign of betrayal. Something to confirm his unspoken fear that this was some kind of trap. In the distance he watched as Robert reached the crest of the far hill, circled the stake twice as he peered this way and that into the far valley of Cedar Creek, then leaned off the side of his horse to rip the stake out of the ground.

After untying the white cloth from the stake, Robert sat motionless for a moment, then hammered heels into the horse’s flanks and set off at a gallop on the return trip. He skidded up before the lieutenant colonel, handing over the message.

From what William could see, there were English letters put together to make English words on that scrap of white cloth no bigger than a bandanna.

“What’s it say, Colonel?” Lieutenant Smith asked. “Is it meant to be a message for us?”

“It most certainly is meant for me,” Otis replied gruffly,
snapping out the cloth he held in his gloves. “Here, you read it aloud to the rest.”

Smith took the cloth, then said:

“By gonnies!” Lieutenant William Kell exclaimed. “We’ve been fighting Sitting Bull!”

“Yes,” Otis sighed, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he regarded the distant hill in their front, then gazing again at the stoic, motionless Indians on their left flank. “The same bastard who wiped out Custer’s men.”

Lieutenant Smith cleared his throat and asked, “Are we going to leave the son of a bitch powder and rations—like he asked for?”

“No, Mr. Smith,” Otis replied acidly. “The only thing I’ll leave him is the bullets we’ll use to kill more of his warriors if he stands between us and Tongue River here on out.”

At that point the lieutenant colonel took the cloth back from his adjutant and stuffed it inside the front of his coat. “Jackson,” he said, looking at Robert once more, “I want you to ride back up there. Show them you have some word from me to deliver to Sitting Bull—and get it across to him in no uncertain terms that I’m taking this train on through to the Tongue River. Tell him that if they wish to stand in our way, I will be most pleased to accommodate them with a fight. In fact, I’ll bloody well fight them for every goddamned foot if I have to. You understand all that?”

“Perfectly,” Robert answered, his eyes darting to William before he reined his horse about and kicked it away, moving at a lope back to the far hill.

Otis turned in the saddle, looking down at the other officers who were without horses and said, “Let’s get the word passed back: we’re back on the march, gentlemen.”

They pressed on as Jackson delivered the soldiers’ reply to a single Lakota scout, then turned and galloped back to the wagon train. It became plain that the soldiers were not turning back. The warrior horsemen had not liked Otis’s response to their demand: they were massing for another assault on the column.

But the attack didn’t come until much later, when the van of the train reached Bad Route Creek and went about gathering deadfall and squaw wood the men shoved into the possum bellies beneath every one of the wagons. Too, the soldiers allowed the thirsty mules to drink their fill as the stream bottom was churned by hundred of hooves in the slow crossing protected by outflung skirmishers who held back the warriors swirling here, then there, probing for some weakness in the lines.

In little more than an hour the last wagons had crossed Bad Route Creek and the column was again on its way, despite the long-range sniping from the surrounding hillsides. They had covered little more than seven miles since leaving last night’s camp.

“Looks like they want to talk to us again,” Lieutenant Smith called out, pointing to the south.

From the direction of the Yellowstone appeared two horsemen. While one wore a white bandanna tied over his black braids, the other carried a white flag tied to a short staff he held high for all to see. Having appeared out of the southwest, the pair halted about halfway between the mounted warriors and the soldier escort.

“Shall we bring them on in, Colonel?” William Jackson inquired.

“By all means—let’s see what else Sitting Bull has on his mind.”

William walked on foot some two hundred yards before he stopped, signaling that it was safe for the horsemen to come on into range of the soldiers’ big guns. As the two came to a halt before him, Jackson could see they were Lakota, all right. But upon talking in sign, he was surprised to learn they were not emissaries from Sitting Bull’s roamers.

Telling the pair to follow him, that they would be safe even though there had been skirmishing all morning long, Jackson led the two horsemen back to see Otis.

“Colonel,” he said as the riders came to a halt behind him among the headquarters group at the van of the train, “this is Long Feather and Bear’s Face.”

“They bring word from Sitting Bull?”

“No, not exactly. They come from the Hunkpapa bands at Standing Rock. But they came through Sitting Bull’s camp this morning—before coming on through the warrior lines to get word to you.”

“They’re from Standing Rock Agency?” repeated Lieutenant Smith.

Jackson nodded. “Agent down that way sent them out to look up Sitting Bull—try convincing him to surrender and come on in for his people’s good.”

“Before we kill ’em all is what he should tell ’em,” grumbled Lieutenant William Conway.

“They’re carrying written messages for you too,” Jackson added, signaling the pair.

“Hand them over, by all means,” Otis replied with no small excitement.

The dispatches were from Lieutenant Colonel William P. Carlin, commandant at the Standing Rock Reservation, requesting Sitting Bull to surrender and move his people back to the agency.

When Otis looked up from the handwritten letters, William Jackson said, “They do have a message from Sitting Bull for you, Colonel.”

“What’s the Custer-killer want to tell me now?”

“Sitting Bull wants to meet with you,” Jackson explained. “But only outside the lines.”

“I won’t even consider it,” Otis replied hastily. “I will meet with Sitting Bull inside soldier lines. Nothing more shall I grant them.”

Jackson translated and made sign with his hands, then sent the two Hunkpapa off with the soldier chief’s gruff reply while Otis gave the order for the wagons to resume their march.

In less than an hour the two Standing Rock messengers were spotted coming back, joined this time by three more mounted warriors. With most of the headquarters group, Otis advanced a short distance, going out to meet them as the column continued its slow, relentless march toward Tongue River.

Anxiously the lieutenant colonel asked as the horsemen came to a stop before the soldiers, “Is one of those Sitting Bull?”

Jackson studied them all, especially the one with the stern face who held back behind the others, dressed in the shabby clothes of mourning. Then he wagged his head in resignation,
saying, “I’m not sure—don’t think so. Maybe he didn’t trust coming here himself.”

Grinding his teeth on that disappointment, Otis finally said, “Find out what news they bring from the son of a bitch anyway.

“They have nothing new to tell you, Colonel,” William said after a few minutes, translating what the two of the new horsemen had to say to Otis’s previous counterproposal. “This one called No Neck still wants to know why we are in this country, scaring off their buffalo.”

“Is that the whole caboodle, Jackson?” Otis snapped. “Sitting Bull shows no willingness to come in and parley with us himself?”

For some reason Jackson was again compelled to study the stone-faced warrior who stayed in the rear, then finally answered, “Seems he don’t want to show, Colonel. The Lakota keep saying they want you to stop killing and running off their game. For the trouble you’ve caused ’em—they tell me they want us to give them bullets and food.”

“The only bullets they’ll get—”

Jackson threw up a hand to interrupt Otis, “No Neck and Red Skirt say they’re all weary of fighting. Ever since last spring—all they’ve been doing is fighting the soldiers.”

Lieutenant Smith cheered, “By God—if they’re tired, we’ve all but got them about whipped!”

Otis placed a hand on the lieutenant’s arm, angrily saying, “Jackson—you tell these red bastards they won’t get any powder and lead from me: tell them they’ve wasted enough ammunition shooting at us the last two days to last them a long damned time.”

“Listen, they’re tired and they want peace,” Jackson emphasized, feeling a sense of weariness come over him, too, as he looked once more at the older warrior in the shabby buckskins who had not added a word to the parley.

“Peace, is it?” Otis scoffed haughtily. “When they go into the agencies, then we’ll all have peace.”

“You want me to tell them what your terms are?” Jackson asked.

Thinking better of it, Otis shook his head. “No. Just tell them I don’t have the authority to negotiate with them on peace. I can’t offer, nor can I accept, terms of surrender. On the other hand, they should follow us to Tongue River, where they can talk with Colonel Miles. He’s the one who can negotiate with them.”

When Jackson had translated, the emissaries’ faces became grave. “Colonel, they don’t think much of the idea of going to Tongue River with us. They don’t figure they’ll be safe there, or on the way.”

“Assure them that nothing untoward will occur to jeopardize their safety.”

In reply, Sitting Bull’s messengers told Otis they would stay with their original plans to go north to the Missouri, where they would trade at Fort Peck—then journey back to talk to the Bear Coat at Tongue River. For a few minutes the trio sat quiet, watching the white men in silence.

Jackson finally said, “They want something of a sign from you, Colonel.”

“A sign?”

“Some show of good faith,” William explained.

“Yes. Of course,” the officer replied, then turned to Smith. “Lieutenant, see that some food is placed over there on that slope for the warriors to see as a sign of my good faith.”