Cry of the Hawk

38

Early October, 1867

AT A RAILSIDE eating house in North Platte, Nebraska, the formal exchange of the prisoners took place. Three young women, two aged nineteen and one girl seventeen years old, along with six-year-old twin boys and an infant.

The Cheyenne boy of ten summers was returned to his joyous people, who promptly renamed him Pawnee in commemoration of his capture by North’s scouts. In the end, Turkey Leg’s aged mother walked slowly from that eating house in North Platte, gripping her son’s arm, tears dampening both of their winter-seamed faces.

That exchange was the only productive thing to come of three days of haggling between the chiefs and the peace commissioners. As Jonah Hook and the other army scouts listened, the white men had again expressed that the Indians would be required to remain on their reservations south of the Arkansas River or north of the Platte, where the bands would be expected to settle down and become farmers, every bit as much as those white settlers moving onto the plains with their plows and spotted buffalo.

In turn, the chiefs listened attentively, but refused to budge from their trust in the old life as lived by their people for as long as any old man’s memory—season by season following the migration of the buffalo.

But the problem was, said the chiefs, the white man was crossing the buffalo ground with the iron tracks for his smoking wagons. And the buffalo would no longer cross those tracks. Instead, the great herds that once roamed the extent of the central plains were now kept far to the south, while another herd stayed far to the north.

“Our people will starve if we cannot hunt the buffalo,” Spotted Tail told the peace commissioners.

“We will go where the buffalo are,” said Cut Nose.

“Even if the buffalo graze where the white man settles, cutting at the earth and raising his spotted buffalo,” Whistler added.

“No, you must stay far away from the white man and his settlements,” General Alfred Terry warned.

“Any time your young warriors steal or kill, the soldiers will follow,” said General William Tecumseh Sherman. “We will chase your villages and find them, wherever you hide.”

“You make life hard on us,” said Cold Face.

“Yes,” agreed Turkey Leg. “We must go where we can feed our families. Doesn’t the white man understand that? Doesn’t the white man now go where he goes to settle on this buffalo ground so that he can feed his family?”

“If our two peoples stay away from one another,” General John B. Sanborn said calmly, “we will not have reason to fight.”

Standing Elk took the speaking fan from Turkey Leg. It was his turn to add words so the peace-talkers might understand before war once more erupted. “All things are good for the white man. But our people were here first. You are not wanted here in our land. Go away, and all things will be better once more.”

“We will not be leaving,” Sherman sputtered. “You will have to make room for all the white families yet to come from the east. They are as plentiful as the stars in the sky. And if you do not move aside and allow them room, the army will round you up and put you on the reservations, where you will be forced to raise your crops—or starve. There will be no more buffalo when the white man finishes pacifying this land.”

Young Man Afraid rose, taking the speaking fan made from the wing of a golden eagle. It carried not only great power, but responsibility as well for the man who spoke while holding it. “We have never been like you white men. Ever since I was born, I have eaten wild meat. Not one bite have I taken of your spotted buffalo.”

“You will grow to like it, I am sure,” said General William S. Harney, smiling benevolently.

“I think not,” Young Man Afraid continued, his face taut as a hand drum at the white soldier’s rude interruption. “My father and his father, and his father before him all ate wild meat. It is not for me to change our way of life now. It was good for my ancestors. It is good for my children, and their children, and the children to come after them.”

“Times are changing,” Sanborn said. “We must all realize progress is coming to this new land.”

“I know nothing of this progress,” Young Man Afraid said. “All I know is the taste of buffalo in my mouth, the sweetness of cold water on my tongue, and the way the clouds touch the earth as I look far away at everything the Grandfather Above has placed here for his children. No! Listen and heed me—it will not be my generation that will give up to the greedy white man all that has been given us by the Grandfather Above!”

The discussions, debate, and heated exchanges droned on and on for most of three days in that tent on the outskirts of North Platte. In the end, the commissioners said they were calling an end to the inconclusive hearings, but were asking the bands to attend another treaty talk, scheduled for later that same month, near the end of the Falling Leaf Moon.

“There we can come to agreement on the terms of our new peace treaty,” explained General Terry as he disbanded the conference.

“You put too much hope in things changing between now and the next time we come together,” Turkey Leg said as the white men rose from their chairs behind the tables.

“I put a lot of hope in each of you tribal leaders doing what is best for your people,” General Harney said.

“That is for us to decide,” Pawnee Killer growled. “Not you white soldiers and peace-talkers.”

Fully a mile away, the young riders were gathering along the hilltops, watching Shad Sweete and the rest of his party approach along the meandering path of the creek bottom. From what the old mountain man could tell, the horsemen were mostly young boys, very likely carrying bows and quivers of arrows. No sign yet of older warriors brandishing rifles as they watched the small group of white men ride toward their village nestled among the cottonwoods and plum brush.

Sweete wondered … then caught himself hoping. It would be too great a gift, he figured, to find his half-breed son among those young men dippled along the hilltops, swirling away one by one on the off side of the knolls where the tall grass waved in the wind. Was he here? Shad wondered. Or was he still out with the Dog Soldiers of Tall Bull and White Horse, roaming and riding and raiding?

The old scout glanced at Jonah Hook riding beside him, finding the younger man most attentive to the distant spectacle, his eyes squinting into the bright autumn light this Indian summer day as the dried cottonwood leaves rattled in golden splendor, birds calling out in warning as the horsemen approached. Overhead a cloudless blue sky stretched everlasting to the far horizon in all directions. Sweete was adrift, as were these dark-skinned nomads he had come to visit, here on an inland sea of rolling, grass-covered surf.

More like paying homage, this visit was. To beg the attendance of the mighty Cheyenne of the central plains.

After the old mountain man had arranged the prisoner exchange at North Platte, General Phil Sheridan himself, that banty Irishman who commanded this part of the frontier, had personally asked Shad Sweete to lead this effort to assure that Turkey Leg and his headmen would come to Medicine Lodge Creek when the new moon had grown to half its full size. That’s when the white peace-talkers would once more assemble with the chiefs, to forge some kind of lasting agreement with the bands roaming Kansas and Nebraska—where the white man was pushing harder than ever, bringing his plow and raising sod houses and laying his iron rails.

Shad knew exactly how the bands felt. When the stench of human offal and waste in their camps grew too much to take, the bands simply took down their lodges and moved to a new campsite. Once more allowing the land and the wind and the rolling rhythm of the seasons to cleanse the breast of the mother of all things.

Such beauty, simplicity, he thought. So simple that its beauty continued to escape the white man. For only the white man squatted and never moved on. Continuing to live where he took a shit. A quarter century ago as a nomadic fur trapper, Shad had learned a better way. Man truly was not meant to live long in one place. Better that he took his shit, and moved on. Like the buffalo.

Dogs barking among the horses’ hooves announced the coming of the four white men—civilians all.

Women rose from their work at new buffalo hides that had been taken in the weeks before the village was required to move for its safety away from the white man and his Pawnee trackers. Each woman, young and old, holding an elk-handled scraper, with only the power of their resolve and muscle slowly working the flesh from the great white-and-red hides staked out like huge squares demarcating the outskirts of Turkey Leg’s village.

Old men rose from their places in the warm sun that afternoon. They had been talking of days gone by when the meat was good and fleet were the ponies a man could steal from the Pawnee or Crow or Ute. Then the young horsemen were among the lodges, making a show of themselves, more weapons in evidence now. Bows, yes—but many more rifles than Shad had expected he would see.

“This bunch been raiding to get them guns?” asked Hook from the side of his mouth as the four white men entered the outskirts of the lodge circle.

The air was strong with smoked hides and grease, pungent with wood smoke and boiling meat. Fragrant with the incense of white sage. Far better were those perfumes than any meal of boiled potatoes and red whiskey and a cigar smoked after a man had himself a full belly. Shad thought of Shell Woman, then worried for their son.

With warriors and headmen spread out from him like the sides of an arrow point, Turkey Leg waited for the white men to approach, halt, and dismount. The old chief motioned forward some young boys, who took the reins to the four horses and led the animals away.

“It is always good to see you, my friend,” Shad said, smiling at the old chief.

Turkey Leg smiled in return. “How is life for you, Indian-talker?”

“Some things could be better, I suppose. But, what life is worth living if it is not filled with lessons to be learned?”

“You always pose questions that this old man cannot easily answer.” The chief motioned for the other three white men to follow, taking Sweete by the arm as he turned toward his lodge erected at the center of the camp crescent. “Come. We will eat. Then smoke. And only then will we hear why you have journeyed here. I suppose you want me to go listen to words of the peace-talkers once more.”

“My belly talks now,” Shad said, grinning. “It is so empty. Yes—we will eat, then with the pipe speak of the peace-talkers.”

More than two hours passed in that lodge filled with white man and red alike. Eating first the jerked meat passed among the circle while the main course came to a boil. After every man had licked his fingers clean and finished his coffee flavored with generous heapings of sugar, the pipe was lit. It was the first time, Sweete knew, that Jonah had been witness to such a conference, held at the leisurely pace of the plains Indian, with no artificial timetable to be satisfied. Only the dictates of the old men themselves.

Turkey Leg cleared his throat. “Black Kettle comes to this talk planned for Medicine Lodge Creek?”

“Yes, he and Medicine Arrow.”

The chief nodded, looking at the faces of his headmen. “The one who was once called Rock Forehead. He is a powerful chief.”

“Three from the Southern Cheyenne will come. Those two and Little Robe as well.”

“And of the Kiowa?”

“We believe White Bear and Lone Wolf will attend with their warriors to talk of making peace on this part of the plains,” Sweete answered.

For a long time the pipe passed among those seated in a grand circle in that lodge. No man talking, only the noise of the pipe as air was drawn down through the bowl, only the music of camp life outside the lodge. Children playing, dogs barking, and ponies coming and going through the browned cones raised against the autumn sky.

“We are going south with the coming of winter,” Turkey Leg began after a long, considered silence. “It is there that winter will not arrive as soon, nor will it last as long. Yes, perhaps we can raise our lodges beside Medicine Lodge Creek with the others who will speak with the peace-talkers.”

“You will be there by the time the moon is half-full?” Shad asked the old chief.

Turkey Leg looked about the lodge at his headmen. No man spoke, no man gave signal that he disapproved. “We will come talk this one last time to the white soldier chiefs. Perhaps we will hear something that is good in their words.”

“They want all the bands to live in peace with the white settlers.”

“But the white man fails to understand that we do not want to live in peace with his people. We do not want to live with the white man at all.” Turkey Leg sighed.

The expression on the old chief’s face spoke something to Sweete, as if Turkey Leg understood more of what was in the scout’s heart than what the white scout had ever spoken.

“There are some among us who believe we can live near your people,” the chief went on. “Yet there are a few among us who will never hold anything but a bad heart for the white man.”

“It is the same among my people,” Shad replied. “While some want to put an end to your way of life forever, there are still many who would try to find a way for both white man and red man to live side by side, each in his own way.”

“In some men,” Turkey Leg came to the point, “there are both bloods at war.”

Shad saw the meaning more clear in the old man’s eyes than in his words. “You would mean a young warrior who has in his veins the blood of our two peoples?”

Turkey Leg nodded. A few of the older men grunted their assent. “You have been among our people for many winters. You came among us when there were few white men. Now I am told the numbers of white men in the east are greater than the stars at night.”

Shad smiled. “Sometimes I think there are more white men than there are buffalo chips on this great prairie.”

Most of the old men chuckled at the analogy. Shad felt the lightening of the mood within the lodge as the sun fell headlong into the west.

“Where is it I might find word of High-Backed Bull?” he asked bluntly.

“You worry about your son, don’t you?”

“As any father would, Turkey Leg.”

“This is good. A son must protect his parents. And a man must care for his children.”

“Your mother?”

“She is well. Thank you again.”

“We speak the same heart when we talk of family, Turkey Leg. There is nothing more important than family.”

The old chief knocked into his palm what ash was left in the pipe bowl after its fourth circuit of the lodge. The burnt residue he tossed into the fire pit at his feet before he removed the red stone bowl from the ash stem. Only then did he seek to fill the silence in that lodge.

“Your son, he has cursed his white blood. You must know this before you go searching to find him.”

“He curses the blood I gave him?”

“Yes. He swears his desire for vengeance on any white man—even if that white man is his father.”

Shad swallowed hard, as if the news were something foul. “My son, where would I find him?”

“He rides with the young warriors of Porcupine.”

“This Porcupine,” Shad began, careful not to sound too anxious, “he is war leader in your village?”

“He is of this band. But Porcupine is gone from us for now. He rode north to join the Dog Soldiers of Roman Nose.”

Sweete glanced at Hook, who was fervently trying to follow the sense of the discussion, even if he could not understand the words being spoken.

“I know of that one.”

“Yes. Many white men have heard of the Nose. But no white man has ever set eyes on this great warrior—and lived to tell of that meeting.”

“Tell me, Turkey Leg—where would I find Roman Nose?”

“Where one would find Tall Bull and White Horse—the Dog Soldier bands. That is where a man could find Roman Nose.”