A Cold Day in Hell (37 page)

“You have discovered what the tracks mean?” Morning Star asked as the crowd hushed.

“Soldiers,” Young Two Moon answered.

The talk around them grew louder, like a rumble of a mighty river beneath a thick layer of ice.

“What of these soldiers?” Little Wolf asked. “Where are they going?”

“They could be going anywhere!” Last Bull interrupted. “They could be searching for Crazy Horse! They cannot know we are hidden here inside these mountains!”

“Perhaps you are right,” Morning Star said, his face grave, as if he wanted to believe.

“No,” young Crow Necklace said recklessly, challenging his elders, stunning the crowd by his disagreement with the powerful war chief of the Kit Fox Society, Last Bull. “They will be coming here.”

Last Bull whirled on the young scout, stepping right up to his pony and glaring at Crow Necklace. “How are you so sure?” he snarled.

“Only what we saw,” was the answer.

“And what we heard,” said Young Two Moon, feeling desperate to protect Crow Necklace.

“What you heard?” Little Wolf asked, moving up beside the ponies.

“In that soldier camp we saw many, many Indians,” Young Two Moon explained.

“No!” many of the people protested in disbelief.

“Captives?” asked Morning Star.

“No,” the young scout answered. “They were soldiers. Four different tongues did we hear in that camp while we stole ponies and ate their food.”

“What enemies of ours are these that come to help the soldiers in our own country?” Little Wolf demanded, his eyes narrowing.

Perhaps the old chief was remembering how the soldiers had attacked that sleeping camp on the Powder River last winter,
Young Two Moon thought as he began to answer, “Pawnee, Shoshone, yes—our old enemies. But … but Arapaho … and … and
Tse-Tsehese
too.”

“Cheyenne!”

“Yes,” Young Two Moon said. “If those soldiers and all their Indians reach our camp … I think there will be a big fight here.”

“W
ho was this California Joe you talk about, Lute?” Seamus asked the younger North brother.

“A scout and guide for many a year on the central and southern plains. He knew a friend of yours—Bill Hickok. Joe scouted with Jim Bridger too.”

“I met Bridger myself a long time ago, up in this country—at Fort Phil Kearny,” Seamus replied.
*
“And now Hickok’s dead.”

“Few weeks back when I saw Joe in Nebraska, he told me he was in Deadwood at the time Hickok was killed.”

“Murdered,” Donegan snorted angrily.

“Joe said he and some others in the Black Hills made it clear what they thought of that gang of gamblers they figured put up that young’un to shoot Wild Bill in the back of the head.”

“And now you say Joe’s been shot too?” Seamus asked.

Frank nodded.

Then Luther added, “A soldier caught up with us at Laramie and told us Joe was shot in the back.”

“Ambushed,” Frank growled.

“Out in this country, you go and make somebody mad,” Seamus replied quietly as they rubbed their hands together and stomped their feet to stimulate circulation as the surgeon’s thermometer
hovered close to thirty-five below at that coldest hour of the day, “you best be watching your back and sleeping with only one eye closed.”

This morning Mackenzie allowed none of the command the luxury of a small greasewood fire where they could heat coffee in the darkness before dawn, expected to eat their rations of salt pork and hardtack cold, washing it down with nothing warmer than the mineral-laced water in their canteens.

They had marched some twelve miles up the Crazy Woman yesterday afternoon, not stopping until they reached the mouth of Beaver Creek, a small tributary that flowed in from the south. The ground had been soggy earlier in the day but began to re-freeze as soon as the sun tumbled from the sky. What firewood the men could scare up simply didn’t go around, so most of the soldiers had turned to hunting for sage and buffalo chips. At least there was plenty of water and some good patches of windblown grass for grazing the mounts.

Lieutenant Lawton’s work detail had pushed themselves to the limit, straining with pick and ax to prepare the frozen ground at every creek crossing for the main command that had followed in their wake. Progress had been slow, this patch of country slashed with many ravines, coulees, and sharp-sided washes that, come spring, winter would fill with spring’s foaming torrent. The sides of every crevice had to be chipped away so the horses and mules could pick their way down, then claw back up again.

Before picketing his bay last night, Seamus had carefully inspected each hoof and leg, smearing tallow and liniment into the scrapes and wounds caused by the icy crust on the snow. Next he had followed his nightly campaign ritual. With his cold, cramped hands Donegan ripped what he could of the brittle, frozen bunchgrass from the hard, flaky ground before he pulled back the single army blanket he kept over the horse’s back, from withers to tail root. After he brushed the animal carefully with the clumps of bunchgrass, the Irishman replaced the blanket so the animal could retain as much of its own warmth as possible. A horse soldier always cared for his mount as if it were his best friend on the campaign trail—for a horse soldier never knew when his life might truly depend upon the care he had given to that best friend.

How he wished again this morning that Teddy Egan were along for this cold winter’s attack—remembering the singular
courage the captain showed one and all when they had charged into the enemy village beside the frozen Powder River.
*
Thinking on old comrades now that they were within striking distance of the enemy.

So tightly strung were every man’s nerves that when one of the pickets thrown out during the afternoon stop came loping back across the sage, hollering out his warning, everyone went into position to meet the enemy attack.

“They’re coming! The Injuns is coming!”

But almost as quickly the older hands at the front of the column realized the danger was minimal from that handful of Indian scouts who backtracked at near a gallop to rejoin Mackenzie’s cavalry. The five brought the exciting news that they had located the village. Two of the seven, they explained—Red Shirt and Jackass—had volunteered to remain behind in the icy rocks above the village through the cold of the coming night, watching the Cheyenne camp while their companions returned to hurry the soldiers along the trail. Already the temperature was continuing to plummet.

“How many lodges?” Mackenzie wanted to know from his translators as soon as one of his aides was sent down the column to explain that they were not under attack.

“Not sure. Say there’s heap ponies, though. I figure from all they tell me about the size of the herd—maybe two hundred lodges at the outside.”

Seamus watched the Indian fighter’s eyes narrow in that way Mackenzie appeared to calculate the odds.

“With at least three warriors of fighting age for every lodge,” the colonel replied, “I’ve got them right where I want them.” He pointed west, toward the brow of a wide ridge. “We’ll go into hiding there, beneath that overhanging ledge of rocks where the men and animals can rest … then push on as soon as the sun has fallen—as soon as we can be assured no spies know we’re coming. Tell the troop commanders to use that time to fix up their companies for the night march we’re going to make of this. I plan on attacking at dawn.”

   “We must break camp at once!” Black Hairy Dog had cried when the four young scouts brought their report of soldiers marching in their direction.

While the Keeper of
Maahotse
spoke of his fear, everyone remained quiet, respectful, reverent—for he was Sweet Medicine’s successor. As the chosen protector of the Sacred Arrows, Black Hairy Dog was one of the two men who owned the People, who held the People in the palm of his right hand.

Morning Star thought, if any man here has the right to speak for
all
of us at a crucial time such as this, it is Black Hairy Dog.

There arose murmuring assent among Coal Bear, Keeper of the Sacred Buffalo Hat, Morning Star, and the other Old-Man Chiefs. It looked as if all four would agree to put the village on the move out of this valley before the soldiers and their Indian scouts could find them there.

Since it was a meeting of the chiefs of the Council of Forty-four, no warrior-society headmen were allowed to speak. Only during the grave emergency during the Fat Horse Moon, when the soldiers marched down upon the great Lakota encampment beside the Greasy Grass, had the war chiefs been permitted to speak among the council chiefs. Unless the Old-Man Chiefs again gave such permission, the warrior-society headmen were to obey protocol and keep their opinions to themselves.

But instead—

“No!” Last Bull shouted, shoving some of the older warriors aside to thrust his heavy body into the small ring of those six older men who were deciding upon the fate of the village.

Many of those men and all of the women who had gathered that afternoon to hear these important deliberations clapped their hands over their mouths in astonishment.

Last Bull, leader of the Kit Fox Warrior Society, stomped about haughtily, his red face a chiseled portrait of anger. “We will stay here and fight!”

The Sacred Arrow Priest said, “You have no right to speak—”

The war chief whirled on Black Hairy Dog, his fury barely contained. The older Keeper of the Arrows inched back a step, cowed by the bulk, the fury, of Last Bull.

“These soldiers have chased the People since last winter!”

From the fringes of the crowd arose the first excited response from the chief’s warrior society—yipping like kit foxes with the smell of prey in their nostrils. That approval brought a smile of immense satisfaction to the war chief’s face as he continued.

“Fighting alongside the Lakota, we have defeated the
ve-ho-e
soldiers once,” Last Bull continued haranguing the crowd now, ignoring the six older chiefs who sat around the small circle where he stood, gesturing wildly. “Despite that defeat—the white man has proved how stupid he is in continuing to haunt the backtrail of our village, to harass and harry our people!”

As Morning Star watched the edges of the crowd, it seemed more and more of the Kit Foxes stepped to the fore, made bold by the strong words of their leader.

Last Bull growled, “We must not allow the white soldiers to chase us from place to place to place! No more!”

Now the young warriors were becoming worked up. Some were humming their war songs, some chanting rhythmically, others outwardly shrieking like snarling wolves in battle.

“If we do not fight them here,” Last Bull shouted, “then we will have to fight them somewhere.”

Lowering his head, Morning Star peered furtively at the other five chiefs, each of them as saddened, as chastened, as he. His eyes drooped to his lap.

“We will fight them here!” Last Bull screamed, trembling with emotion. “My warriors—to you falls the duty of assuring that no one leaves this village!”

Shocked by that, the old chiefs gazed up, their faces carved with terror. Struck silent were they—perhaps more scared of Last Bull and his warriors than they were of the soldiers advancing on their village.

“Yes! Be sure to stop anyone who attempts to flee. Cut their cinches! Slash their lodges! Break their poles and smash their kettles! Some of you, begin to bring in wood—much, much wood. We will build us a big, big fire and bring out the drum we captured from our enemy for a dance tomorrow night.”

Last Bull threw out his chest like a puffing sage cock, his face drawn into a sneer.

“And the rest of you, now go among the People and collect the young girls who we will hold prisoner to keep the families here while we dance! To keep everyone here while the soldiers march down into our trap!”

The following day at sunrise Box Elder sought out Morning Star. The old man had seen more than eighty winters come and go, and was now all but blind. Yet no man would doubt the sacred power of Box Elder’s visions.

“This morning, as always, I sat facing the east, my face feeling
the first warmth of the sun’s rising,” the old man explained after Morning Star had assisted him inside the chief’s lodge and seated him beside the warm fire.