A Cold Day in Hell (18 page)
Read A Cold Day in Hell Online
Authors: Terry C. Johnston
Walter S. Schuyler broke in, asking, “Had to be them goddamned Johnny Rebs stirring up the trouble—right, Seamus?”
“Those sentiments go back a long time now, Lieutenant,” Donegan replied to General Crook’s aide. “It’s been many a year since I faced reb guns. All in the past now.”
Trader Collins cleared his throat to resnag everyone’s attention and proceeded with his reading of the news story plastered across the front page of Denver’s Rocky Mountain
News
.
“… The democrats carried a large force from the city to every meeting, who irritated the republicans by their violent denunciation of their leaders and their party. The meeting at the brick church was called by the republicans … many of them being suspicious of the democrats carried such guns as each man had at his home—muskets—but no militia men went there with state arms and ammunition, as the democrats claim; and the best evidence of that fact is that all the dead were shot with buckshot and not with rifle balls.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Bourke roared. “You mean the democrats and republicans are shooting at each other down there in the South now?”
“Bound to happen,” declared Captain Wirt Davis, a Virginia-born officer who had nonetheless thrown in with the Union in 1861. He wagged his head with grim resignation.
Captain John Lee, another officer in Mackenzie’s Fourth, agreed. “Like my friend Wirt, here—I am a Tennessee man who loathes the sort of coward who hides behind a bedsheet bringing terror and lynching to my native land. But sooner or later this sort of trouble was bound to happen down there somewhere.”
Collins bent over his paper and pressed on with the story.
“When the colored republicans arrived at the place of meeting, their leading men told them that they were violating the agreement by coming armed, and that they must deposit their arms at some place away from the grounds. The colored men complied with the request … and some guns … were placed in an old dilapidated building some fifty yards from the stand … About one hundred and fifty democrats accompanied their speakers from the city, and soon appeared at the meeting. Soon after W. J. McKennely, colored, commenced, a commotion was observed … next to the dilapidated building and McKennely jumped off the stand and said: ‘There are white men in that house; they have the guns, and are going to shoot.’ The colored men raised a shout, ‘The democrats have seized our guns!’ and made a rush for the other guns. The white men who had secretly slipped into the house and seized the guns then fired, and the first shot killed an old colored man about seventy years old.…
“The colored men returned with their guns very soon and attacked the party. They commenced a general fire on the democrats, who were generally armed with pistols…. Six white men were killed and one colored. Several whites were wounded … and it is not known how many negroes were hurt.”
“Begging Captain Lee’s pardon—but it sounds to me like they’re still fighting that war down there,” Schuyler observed.
“Maybe that’s as good a reason as any to be out here,” John Lee replied as he set his steaming cup of coffee down with a clunk upon the table. “Eh, Mr. Donegan?”
With a wag of his head, Seamus replied, “All this hoopla and upset and bloodshed. I’m bloody well beginning to wonder if there really is anyplace safe for a man to raise his family in peace—or if the whole bleeming country’s gone crazy!”
“Irishman!”
Donegan turned toward the doorway as the old sergeant burst in, his caped wool coat a’swirl with some of the snow falling outside. It seemed the soldier brought all of that wilderness cold in with him.
“Sergeant?”
“Cap’n Wirt,” the sergeant said, coming to an abrupt halt and saluting. “Cap’n Lee, sir. Didn’t know you was here.”
Wirt asked, “What is it, Sergeant Forsyth?”
“The general, Cap’n. He sent me to fetch up the Irishman here.”
“We’re heading back to Camp Robinson already?” Lee asked.
“Yes, sir, Cap’n.”
Outside on the parade, a bugle rasped through the wintry notes of “Boots and Saddles.” As its stirring call faded over Fort Laramie, First Sergeant Thomas H. Forsyth leaned close to Donegan and whispered, “Best get a move on and say your good-byes to the missus.”
Rising slowly, Seamus watched the two cavalry captains hurry out the door as he moved toward the frosted windowpane to gaze out at the bustle of activity on the parade ground. “Sheridan and Crook must really be in a hurry to get their hands on those Sioux guns and ponies, eh?”
“Mackenzie said to tell you you’ve got a quarter of an hour,” the bearded veteran replied with a wink as he turned away, a knowing smile gleaming above his faded chevrons. “Use every minute wisely.”
Movements on the Missouri
St. PAUL, October 20.—A
Pioneer Press
Bismarck special says that General Sturgis with eight companies of cavalry and three of infantry and a section of artillery moved south to-day on the east side of the Missouri, and General Terry with four companies moved south on the west side. Nobody knows where they are going. Whitney and others have arrived from the Black Hills bringing the body of Mr. Dodge, killed by Indians in April. Major Smith has arrived from Tongue River and says the Indians killed the herd of government animals near Glendive.
* * *
Just past dawn on 21 October, William Jackson moved out of the Fifth Infantry’s bivouac with Luther Kelly and most of the other scouts, ordered to probe north along Cedar Creek, throwing outriders along both flanks as the soldiers formed up and began their march that chilly Saturday. At the rear, D Company was assigned to escort the regiment’s supply train.
Miles intended to have his men out in front of the hostiles, blocking their way if Sitting Bull decided to make a sudden dash for the Canadian border.
It was nearing midmorning beneath a cold autumn sun when Jackson and Kelly cautiously reached the crest of a hill on their bellies in advance of the soldiers, scanning the distance for sign of the Sioux.
“They’re making a run for it,” Kelly said with some grim resignation.
“Just like Miles figured they would,” Jackson replied as they both watched the distant village dismantling and setting out—the first of the laden travois and their vast pony herd protectively encircled by a great ring of hundreds of warriors. Horsemen milled about through the bare tripods as throngs of people went about their work like it was a fevered anthill.
Then Jackson added, “But, look. Instead of heading north—I’ll be damned if they’re going south by east.”
“What strikes me is that the village is a lot bigger than we thought at first,” Yellowstone Kelly observed.
“What do you make it? Three, maybe four thousand of em?
The white chief of scouts nodded behind his field glasses. “Could be as many as a thousand warriors.”
“Want me to go tell Miles?” William asked.
Luther Kelly pulled the field glasses from his face as he twisted around to look over his shoulder. “Yeah, you head out. I’ll be along straightaway.”
Jackson started to slide backward on his belly when Kelly put out his arm and stopped him there in that tail, dead, brittle grass rising out of the cold, cold ground as a nervous wind came up.
“See that ground, yonder there?” Kelly declared, pointing. “Tell the general they’re headed into the next valley. Tell him I figure we can catch them if he comes up quick—on the double. Most of the village is still tearing down.”
Terry After the Indians.
WASHINGTON, October 20.—Advices have been received at the war department that General Terry will immediately leave Fort Abraham Lincoln in pursuit of the hostile savages.
About the time his scouts came tearing back to tell him that the village was fleeing to the southeast, Miles spotted a dozen warriors dippling the crest of a ridge far in their front.
“They’ll cover the retreat of their village, General!” Captain James S. Casey said.
“Damn right they will, Major,” Miles replied, using Casey’s brevet rank. “Let’s get ready for action! Battle front, by companies! Bring up that goddamned train and alert Lieutenant McDonald that his D Company may soon have his hands full protecting it on the rear! Now, by bloody damn! I don’t want Sitting Bull slipping out of my hands!”
Ten companies of infantry moved out of column and formed up in a matter of moments, their Long Toms, formerly carried at port, now carried at the ready as their sergeants bawled orders and moved them toward the rising ground in their front—where more horsemen appeared against the cold pale-blue skyline. Four of the companies marched along each side of the trail that Nelson A. Miles blazed for them, leading them forward into action. While D Company brought up the rear behind the supply wagons, Captain Simon Snyder and his F Company provided support for the Rodman gun.
They covered no more than three miles when the colonel reached a spot where the ground continued to rise toward that rough country where Cedar Creek flows to the south off the divide separating the Yellowstone drainage from that of the Missouri River. Here he almost gasped at the savage beauty of the ground that lay before him—a tapestry of sharp escarpments and rounded knolls, hills, and wind-sculpted buttes stretching away to the north, east, and south as far as his eye could reach.
There in the foreground Nelson Miles saw more Indians than he had ever witnessed in one gathering—far, far more than he had laid eyes on even the day before.
“Got you, Sitting Bull,” he whispered as he reined his horse
about in position and signaled his adjutant. “I knew you couldn’t get away from me.”
Miles deployed his forces for their attack—or for the very-real possibility that those warriors down there, who would be protecting their families, their homes, would attack first.
To that knoll where he sat atop his horse at the extreme right flank of his troops, Miles ordered the gun crew under Captain Snyder to establish an emplacement for their field piece. At the same time he sent Captain James S. Casey and A Company off to the far left flank, to temporarily hold the ground at the foot of the high ridges where more horsemen were beginning to swirl.
There in his front appeared more than two dozen riders emerging from the bristling mass of horsemen. One of the twelve held a white flag overhead. The party continued to advance toward Miles and his headquarters group as if the soldiers presented no danger, until the two sides were intermingled.
“The chief doesn’t like that gun staring down on their women and children,” William Jackson explained as the dozen came to a halt before Miles and the tension tangibly rose.
Miles recognized Sitting Bull among the group but was surprised to see that this morning the chief hung back, his buffalo robe draped over his head so that his face was hardly visible.
“Tell the chief I positioned my artillery there because I don’t trust his warriors,” Nelson replied. “It’s there to protect my men. And you tell him: if he speaks honorably, he and his people have nothing to fear from our cannon.”
Jackson started to interpret as best he could with sign when the half-breed translator from the day before came loping up on horseback. He came to a halt beside the chief. Only now did Sitting Bull allow the buffalo robe to slip back from his head, clutching it around his shoulders. Again this day he refused to wear feathers or adornment, and definitely none of the war regalia displayed by the others who moved about on the soldiers’ front.
“Sitting Bull wants to talk with you again,” the half-breed announced as his small pony pranced between the two leaders.
“You’re the one who did all the talking for the chief yesterday,” Miles said sourly. “You’re named Bur-gaire?”
“Bruguier. Johnny’s my first name.”
“And you’d be a half-blood?”
The swarthy interpreter smiled. “How’d you guess, soldier chief?”
Leaning back stiffly, Miles replied, “So what’s Sitting Bull got to say for the fact that we were supposed to talk this morning, but instead—I find him running off.”
The half-breed shrugged. “This village moves all the time.”
“Not when we agreed we would talk this morning,” Nelson answered, his eyes flicking back and forth across the faces of those chiefs nearest him. As well he kept an eye on the movements of the village and the warriors swarming across the open ground between the soldiers and the Hunkpapa camp. They held their weapons high, screamed out oaths, and kicked their ponies savagely into short sprints, giving the animals their second wind.
“Sitting Bull says you did not keep your word, soldier,” Bruguier declared. “Your soldiers sneaked around our village last night. And you made your camp where you would be right on our trail when we started marching north.”
“That’s why Sitting Bull is heading south now?”
When the half-breed had listened to the chief’s answer, he said, “Your soldiers scare away all the buffalo up that way. So he will take his people to hunt buffalo somewhere else.”
“I think it wise for Sitting Bull to talk with me some more.”
It was a few moments before the half-breed turned away from the Hunkpapa chief, addressing Miles. “The chief says maybeso it is a good idea to talk some more with you. He says you did not hear him too good yesterday.”
“Maybe we will both hear each other good today,” Nelson responded, his eyes moving past the nearby warriors, down the sloping ground of the dry ravines in their front, back up the far side. “There,” he said, pointing. “That knoll right up there. Tell Sitting Bull we’ll meet there to talk.”
At the crest of that flat-topped promontory minutes later, Nelson waited with several of his officers and a few scouts while Sitting Bull and some twelve Sioux briefly conferred, then walked abreast up to the conference site in a broad line. Accompanying the chief today was White Bull, as well as many new faces who had not taken part in yesterday’s long and protracted discussions: Black Eagle, Gall, John Sans Arc, Rising Sun, Small Bear, Red Skirt, the Miniconjou chief Bull Eagle, Standing Bear, Spotted Elk, Pretty Bear, and Yellow Eagle. As the delegation reached the top of the knoll, Miles signaled his adjutant and a color bearer to bring forward a pair of buffalo robes the soldiers quickly spread on the ground. It pleased the colonel to read the look of surprise that crossed Sitting Bull’s face as Nelson seized the initiative in these subtleties of diplomacy.