Wolf Mountain Moon (33 page)
Read Wolf Mountain Moon Online
Authors: Terry C. Johnston
“Yes,” she croaked. How she wanted to believe.
The baby fussed, and she bounced him some more, blinking as the swirl of people and candlelight became fuzzy again.
“He'll be home soon, Sam,” Elizabeth Burt said softly at her side. “He promised you before, and he kept his promise. Remember that. Seamus Donegan will move heaven and earthâand even hell itselfâto keep his promise to you, Sam. You just remember that.”
“Yes ⦠I'll t-try.”
“I'll bring you some cider, and then we'll gather with Lieutenant Bingham's wife at the piano. She does play so well, doesn't she?” Elizabeth asked. “And singing will brighten your spirits, won't it, now?”
Sam watched Mrs. Burt rise and move off into the knots of well-wishers and joyful celebrants that Christmas morning.
Swallowing down her fear the way she blinked back her tears, Samantha Donegan resolutely told herself that she would have to trust in God to bring Seamus back alive.
She would simply trust in God.
*
The Fetterman Massacre at Fort Phil Kearny, as told in
Sioux Dawn,
vol. 1, The Plainsmen Series.
â
Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory.
#
Fort C. F. Smith on the Bighorn River in Montana Territory.
*
Mackenzie's raid, 23 October 1876,
A Cold Day in Hell,
vol. 11, The Plainsmen Series.
Chapter 2026-29 December 1876
BY TELEGRAPH
Discredited Rumor of an Indian Massacre
Sitting Bull Driven Across the Missouri
New Plan for the Management of Indians
Sitting Bull Heard From.
ST. PAUL, December 21.âThe following was received at headquarters department of Dakota to-day:
FORT PECK, M.T., December 8.âYesterday, with a force of 100 men of the Fifth infantry, I followed and drove Sitting Bull's camp of 190 lodges south across the Missouri river, near the mouth of Bark creek. He resisted my crossing for a short time, and then retreated to the bad lands. Sitting Bull is in camp on Bark creek with over 5,000 warriors.
[signed]. FRANK D. BALDWIN
Lieut. Fifth Infantry, Com'dg.   Â
A New Idea.
WASHINGTON, December 21.âAt a meeting of the house committee on Indian Affairs to-day, Seelye submitted a proposition which embraces an entire revolution in the management of Indian affairs. It makes provisions for extending the laws of the United States over every Indian, giving to him the same status in the courts, conferring upon him the same rights and exacting from him the same duties as belong to any citizen or subject of the United States; abolishing the office of commissioner of Indian affairs, and transferring the entire functions of the Indian bureau to an Indian board or trust, constituted somewhat after the manner of great charitable and educational corporations.⦠It is the opinion of the committee that some change in the management of Indians affairs is indispensible, and that the transfer of the Indian bureau to the war department would be no improvement on the present management.
“D
amn their red hides!” Nelson Miles bellowed again when the soldier huffed into the office to report a third raid on the cantonment's beef herd in the last two days. “Don't the Sioux understand they're cutting their own throats?”
“You can't blame them, General,” Luther Kelly responded, then looked quickly over to the tall Irishman. “A few days ago the Crazy Horse bands came riding in here under a flag of truce to talk peace with youâand then your Crow scouts went and convinced the Lakota that your word was simply no good.”
“No good!” Miles shrieked. “A day after the murders I sent two of my Yankton scouts up the Tongue with presents to find the villages. As a peace offering, they took twelve of the Crow horses, some sugar, and tobacco tooâalong with my letter of apology to tell them no white man had a hand in the Crow treachery.”
“But those Yanktons came back in here five days ago, unable to locate the hostiles,” Kelly declared.
Seamus asked both men, “Do you really think those Yanktons of yours made a full-hearted effort to find the Crazy Horse camp?”
Kelly shook his head. “Absolutely not, Donegan. I'll bet they laid low a little south of here until they figured they could come back in here with their story about not finding the hostile village anywhere close.”
“Considering the foul mood the Crazy Horse people must be in,” Miles explained, “I suppose I can't blame those Yankton couriers for not making much of an effort. But since they didn't succeed in getting my message and presents to the chiefs, Crazy Horse and the others have no way of knowing that those murders weren't the fault of this army. So now the Sioux are raiding and stealing again simply because they don't think my word is any good?”
Donegan pushed himself away from the log wall and said, “They've got nothing else to believe, General.”
“Don't you think their spies would know that I've stripped near all the Crow of their weapons and ponies and sent even the innocent ones back to their agency with their tails tucked between their legs?”
This matter of the Crow ambush was still clearly a sore point with Miles. A day after the murders, the colonel sent a courier to the Crow agency with word that he demanded the arrest of those guilty, then requested the return of at least seventy-five of the innocent Crow warriors to serve as scouts.
“All the Crazy Horse camp knows is that they had five of their chiefs killed,” Kelly repeated. “Which means they're going to do everything they can to avenge those deaths.”
“If they don't see fit to trust me,” Miles fumed, “thenâby Godâthey'll taste my steel until they're good and ready to surrender!”
“I don't think surrender's what they have in mind, General,” Donegan observed.
Miles's eyes narrowed on the Irishman; then as quickly the furrow in his brow softened, and he replied, “So be it. I'll be happy to oblige Crazy Horse ⦠and give him the fight he wants.”
Beginning early the day before on Christmas morning,
soldiers and scouts had started celebrating with what spirits the post sutler and a pair of whiskey traders could provide: some potato beer, a peach brandy, a heady apple cider, and a little cheap corn mash. By midafternoon the guardhouse was so overcrowded that Miles issued an order forbidding the sale of any more liquor on the post. The sutler and those two savvy entrepreneurs had only to pack up boards, barrels, and tent, then move their saloons a few hundred yards to put themselves beyond the army's reachâjust outside the boundaries of the military reservation.
With what little hard money he had left in his pocket, Seamus had joined Kelly and the old plainsman, John Johnston, for a few drinks. While most of the conversations among the soldiers were consumed with topics of the East and the hotly disputed presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, Seamus and other civilians talked more of hearth and home, of loved ones far, far away from this snowy, frozen land where the Sioux hunted buffalo and scalps.