A Cold Day in Hell (76 page)

Long will I be in their debt.

Being on private land, where this fourth generation of a ranching family works at making a living the same way as those
who came here in the years immediately following the battle,
I
get an immense amount of pride just from knowing folks like these. Hardworking, straight-talking, God-fearing, and life-loving people who possess what all too few today don’t—a genuine love for the land, and a love for what that land has always meant to those who passed this way to share in God’s bounty.

So again to Ken, Cheri, and Mike, I say thanks for welcoming me into your hearts and your homes, and for teaching me all that I needed to know so I could write the book that would tell not only an accurate story, but the
authentic
story of what happened here among these tall red mountains that terribly cold day in hell, 25 November, 1876.

T
ERRY
C. J
OHNSTON
           
Dull Knife Battlefield
           
Red Fork Ranch, Wyoming
  
25 November 1994
             

*
Long Winter Gone
, Vol. 1, Son of the Plains Trilogy.

*
Blood Song
, Vol. 8, The Plainsmen Series.

*
Reap the Whirlwind
, Vol. 9, The Plainsmen Series.

T
ERRY
C. J
OHNSTON
was born on the plains of Kansas and has immersed himself in the history of the early West. His first novel,
Carry the Wind
, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books, among them
Cry of the Hawk, Dream Catcher, Buffalo Palace, Crack in the Sky
, and the Son of the Plains trilogy, have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. Terry C. Johnston lives and writes in Big Sky country near Billings, Montana.

Little Wolf and Morning Star (Courtesy National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution)

General Crook’s Headquarters. Fort Fetterman (Courtesy Wyoming State Museum Archives)

Powder River Expedition Crossing the Platte River, November 14,1876 (Courtesy Wyoming State Museum Archives)

Old Fort Reno—Supply Depot for Powder River Expedition (Courtesy Wyoming State Museum Archives)

A COLD DAY IN HELL

A Bantam Book / February 1996

All rights reserved
.
Copyright
©
1996 by Terry C. Johnston
.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher
.
For information address: Bantam Books
.

eISBN: 978-0-307-75578-0

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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