A Cold Day in Hell: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

Chapter 23

24 November 1876

“Who 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.

“Yes, go on.”

Box Elder continued. “As I sat staring at that holiest of directions, I saw a mighty vision of soldiers and their Indian scouts riding toward our camp, moving out of the rising sun into this valley.”

Morning Star swallowed, hesitating to ask for any more revelations from so powerful a mystic. “These soldiers—*

“The soldiers and the Indian scouts charged through our camp and killed many of our people.”

He could see that Box Elder’s rheumy old eyes were tearing now.

The ancient one said, “Now I must go and find my son, Medicine Top, who will call for the camp crier.”

“Yes,” Morning Star agreed, rising beside the old visionary. “Bring the crier to me so that I can tell him to alert the families that this camp will be attacked early tomorrow morning.”

Quickly the chief bent to sweep up one of his warmest blankets before he reached the lodge door, where Box Elder cried out, his face lifted slightly toward the smoke flaps, his cloudy eyes unable to see anything but his fateful vision.

“You must have the women and children go to the ridges and bluffs, into the high cliffs surrounding our camp,” Box Elder explained. “There they must raise up breastworks. There they should stay in hiding. Then they will be saved. See that our people do this—or we will all die.”

By the time the sun had poked its head over the eastern rim of the valley that morning, the camp crier had spread the word and the village pulsated with activity. Ponies were being brought in, the first lodges were being unpinned, stakes torn from the frozen ground, buffalo robes rolled up around important family treasures that would be loaded upon the travois.

While this was happening, Brave Wolf and a handful of other older warriors had gone into the sloping crevices of the ground west and north of the village to locate some places where the women and children could pile up rocks for breastworks—just as Box Elder’s vision had commanded of them. The People could abandon the village for the night and stay in the surrounding hills, where they would be safe.

“You must leave your lodges standing!” the camp crier instructed the People when he learned that the village was being dismantled. “Do not take down your lodges! The soldiers must believe we are still in our beds when they come! Leave your lodges standing!”

The plan might work, Morning Star believed. If the soldiers believed the village deserted, they might not go in search of the women and children in the hills. But if they did, then the warriors could then fight a holding action while their families fled.

Now the camp’s attention turned instead to taking warm clothing, robes, and blankets with them into the hills. There were many newborns, infants, and young children. They would need to be protected from the painful, life-robbing cold that night as they waited for the white man to come sneaking in upon them.

But before any of the women could herd their children into the hills, the Kit Fox Society crier loped through camp, shrilly calling out that Last Bull’s warriors would prevent anyone from leaving the village—just as the angry war chief had commanded yesterday.

“Forget what the old chiefs have told you,” the crier announced. “The Kit Foxes will protect you and drive the soldiers away after our great victory is won! Look around you: our warriors now control camp—not those old men who have grown as frightened as old women! No one will be allowed to leave. It is the decree of Last Bull!”

Some families waited for the crier to pass them by, then resumed their preparations to flee into the hills. But the rider came through camp a second time, shouting that anyone who disobeyed Last Bull’s orders to stay put would be punished. Suddenly there was the Kit Fox chief himself, darting through the sprawling village on his war pony, brandishing a long rawhide and elk-antler quirt he swore to use on anyone he caught attempting to leave. Beside him rode Wrapped Hair, second chief of the Kit Fox Society.

Together they waded into a small group of those who were throwing robes onto their ponies.

“Cut their cinches!” Last Bull demanded.

From the crowd around them burst half a dozen warriors tearing their knives from their belts. Boldly they hurled the men and women aside, slashing at the cinches holding travois to the ponies’ backs, cutting saddles from the ponies’ girths, freeing rawhide strips tying up blankets and buffalo robes.

“No one will leave!” Last Bull screamed, his lips flecked with spittle, his eyes spiderwebbed with red.

Wrapped Hair echoed his shrill defiance of the village chiefs. “Tonight all the People will dance to celebrate our victory over the Snake—and tomorrow at dawn we will have our victory over the soldiers!”

* Sioux Dawn, Vol. 1, The Plainsmen Series.

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