Little Wolf fired again and again until his rifle jammed and he was forced to put it aside and use his bow. By this time, the troopers had managed to withdraw and fall back to a low bluff on the far side of the river where they established a defensive position. From there they returned fire and, after the initial minutes of the battle, effected a stand-off with the combined Indian forces. There were many soldiers and they attempted to re-form and advance upon the Indians. But on this day, the Indians were as great in number as their enemy, and each advance was met with such resistance that the army was finally forced to fall back along the way they had come in order to regroup.
When the soldiers pulled back, Crazy Horse again stood up on the top of the ridge and raised his war whoop. This time his cry was followed by the yells and whoops of his excited warriors and they shouted insults after the retreating troopers. Even though neither side had conquered the other, this day was clearly won by the Cheyenne and the Sioux. They had stopped the invasion of the troops from Fort Fetterman. Feeling victorious, they returned to their villages on the Little Big Horn. There would be singing and dancing that night.
CHAPTER 25
Little Wolf did not want to insult his close friend but he did not want to face Sleeps Standing’s sister-in-law when they returned from the battle at the Rosebud. He tried to explain that which he could not. He was confused in his mind whenever he tried to examine his feelings about Rain Song. It was useless to try to explain his confusion to Sleeps Standing. His friend was not burdened with deep emotional and complicated thinking. The issue was very simple to him—Little Wolf had no wife and Rain Song would make a fine wife. That to him was all that need be considered. He could not understand Little Wolf’s reluctance to take a wife. So it was with a great deal of disappointment that Sleeps Standing finally shrugged his shoulders in a sign of exasperation and bade his friend good-bye as Little Wolf gathered his belongings from the tipi.
“So, you will not even stay the night?”
Little Wolf avoided the soulful eyes of his friend and busied himself with his horse. “No, there is no time. I have promised Two Moon that I will leave to scout the soldiers right away.” When there was no response, he hastened to add, “It is important that we know where the soldiers have retreated to.”
Sleeps Standing was not convinced. “The soldiers have run away. Why do we care where they run to? They would be fools to try to attack this camp. We are too many.”
Little Wolf would not be swayed. “I promised Two Moon,” he stated. He did not lie to his friend. Two Moon agreed that it might be helpful to keep an eye on the soldiers, but it was Little Wolf who volunteered to go. He would not admit to Sleeps Standing that the real reason he was leaving was to avoid Rain Song. The night of passion they had shared had happened because he was in a dream state, and it was not meant to be. Now he had to escape, to be with his own thoughts and to ask Morning Sky’s forgiveness.
“You will not even stay for the dancing and feasting in honor of our victory?”
“No.” Little Wolf’s answer was curt as he began to be irritated by Sleeps Standing’s insistence. Lark and Rain Song were busy helping the other women of the camp prepare the food for the celebration and he wished to get his belongings and leave before they returned. When he and Sleeps Standing had returned from the Rosebud, it was all he could do to avoid Rain Song’s glances.
“Very well,” Sleeps Standing said and stood aside, giving his friend room to pass. “I wish you success on your journey and welcome you to my tipi on your return.”
“Thank you, my friend,” Little Wolf responded and walked past him to his horse. He did not look directly into Sleeps Standing’s eyes for he was afraid he would see the hurt there. Sleeps Standing might be a simple man, but he was not a stupid man.
He climbed upon the Medicine Hat and walked the pony slowly toward the edge of the camp. Already there was a great deal of activity in the Cheyenne camp on the northern end of the Sioux village. The victory over the troops at the Rosebud had strengthened the resolve of the Cheyenne and fortified their confidence that they could fight the army and beat them. For a reason unknown to him, Little Wolf could not experience the feeling of jubilation his Cheyenne brothers felt. Instead, there came to reside in him a feeling of melancholy, almost a dreading of the future, and he realized that he had never before given a thought toward the future. For him there was no future, just as he felt there was no future for the Cheyenne, or the mighty Sioux for that matter. He wasn’t sure why he felt this way. Perhaps it was something Squint had said when they had wintered together near the Wind River, that the white man would keep coming and the soldiers would multiply until they would strangle the Indians. Maybe he had known it from the time he was a boy, when Lige Talbot talked about the thousands of settlers that would make their way west. Whatever the reason, he would just greet each morning sun and do what must be done on that day and never worry if it would be his last. But now, Rain Song had thrust herself into his life. If he allowed himself to have thoughts of her, then he would be forced to think about the future, a future for her and for their sons. And he did not want to have those thoughts. Thoughts like those could make a man hesitate in battle, and he had sworn to seek revenge against the army and especially Longhair. He could permit no thoughts of a woman to enter his mind.
He walked his pony slowly around the outer row of tipis, skirting the bustling camp, and headed down through the long grass that bordered the river. So deep in thought was he that he didn’t notice the slight figure standing by a twisted tree trunk near the water’s edge. He was directly beside her when she stepped from the shadows. His pony stopped and took a nervous step backward. She took the bridle in her hand and quieted the startled animal, her voice soft and calming. Little Wolf felt as if his heart had stopped beating.
“I see you are leaving,” Rain Song said softly, still rubbing the horse’s forelock. “You do not stay to celebrate your great victory.”
“Rain Song,” he blurted. “Ah, no, I must go.” He stumbled weakly over his words. He could feel the blood rising in his face and neck.
Rain Song continued to stroke the pony’s forelock and neck. “I love your pony. He is so strong and swift.” Without pausing, she changed the subject. “Your eyes have avoided me since your return from the battle. And now you are leaving our tipi.”
“I must go to scout the soldiers,” he interrupted.
“So you say. This may be so but I think you are running away because you do not want to see me.”
“Rain Song . . .” he started but she would not let him finish.
“No. Let me speak. I only want to tell you that you do not have to run. I will not bind you to me. I came to your bed because I wanted to. Do not fear that I want to be your wife.” Not waiting for his reply, she turned and ran back toward the camp, leaving a startled and dejected young man.
He had never known a feeling like this before, like he had tortured an innocent and harmless animal. He tried to analyze his emotions but he had nothing to compare them to. He simply felt miserable and he could not erase the vision of the fragile Cheyenne girl seeming small and helpless as he looked down at her. He did not know what to do other than spur his pony into a gallop and ride away from there.
He rode hard, hoping the wind would blow the worrisome thoughts of Rain Song from his brain. It was not to be, however, for with every motion of his pony’s gallop, he seemed to feel the rhythm of her name. He tried to focus his mind on Morning Sky’s face but found that he could not remember it in detail. Instead, the plaintive countenance of the fragile little Cheyenne girl in Sleeps Standing’s tipi met his mind’s eye. He forced himself to look for signs that might have been made by the enemy, reminding himself that he had come to scout the area. He could alert his senses for a time and then, before he realized it, he would find himself thinking about her. Exasperated, he moaned his frustration aloud and cursed the day he had accepted Sleeps Standing’s invitation to come to his tipi. In time he must forge
t her. This he told himself for he had made a promise to himself that he would hold no other woman in his heart but Morning Sky.
When night came, he made his bed under a canopy of oak trees near the scene of the battle at the Rosebud. There were no soldiers anywhere about, nor did he expect to find any. He would have made a fire, but he felt no desire to eat. He only wanted to meditate and seek a vision if possible, and visions came more easily in a fasting state. Maybe the answer to his misery would come to him in a dream.
He slept and he dreamed. But no answers came to him. Instead, they were dreams of Rain Song’s slender body pressed warmly against his and the fire that consumed them that night. He awoke the next morning in more of a quandry than he had been in the previous day. Breaking camp, he went on to the Rosebud. He ate nothing.
The trail left by the retreating army was easily read. Whatever their intent, it was obvious their leaders had decided to withdraw and return along the route they had traveled up the Tongue River. He knew this information was of no particular value to Two Moon, but he had promised to scout the territory to make sure the soldiers had not doubled back, so he followed their trail for several miles before giving up the mission. No longer concerned with the army force that had confronted them, he decided to continue to scout in the country around the Rosebud for a while longer. The real reason was to search his soul for answers, and to stay away from the Cheyenne camp long enough to clear Rain Song from his thoughts.
He had still not eaten anything on the fourth day out from the village and he could feel the strength being sapped from his body as each hour passed. When the sun settled low in the western sky, he made his bed under a lone pine that stood like a sentinel over a bend of the river. He laid there, waiting for sleep, his eyes open toward the sky where Man Above resided. The sky gradually darkened as the last reluctant rays of light withdrew from the day until, finally, he was gazing at the stars before sleep claimed him.
He dreamed but, when he awoke the next morning, the dream was not clear to him. There were many of his friends and family in the dream, but there seemed to be no particular message that he could discern. The one thing that stood out in his mind was that Morning Sky and Rain Song had appeared in his dream and they were working together, cleaning a buffalo hide. He lay there for a long time, considering the signficance of this, wondering if it meant that he should take Rain Song as his wife. What else could it mean? They were working together on the same hide. As he thought about it, he realized that this was the way he wanted to intrepret the dream, for he had been unable to rid his thoughts of Sleeps Standing’s young sister-in-law. But was this the real meaning of the dream? His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a soft scratching sound on the bark of the pine tree behind him. He turned to discover a large squirrel, halfway down the trunk of the huge tree, staring at him in open curiosity. Little Wolf knew at once that this was a sign. He had received his vision. Morning Sky was telling him that she wanted him to take Rain Song to wed, as the dream seemed to indicate, for she had sent him food to end his fast. In one lightning-fast motion, his knife flashed through the air, pinning the squirrel to the tree.
He thanked Man Above and began his journey back to the village on the Little Big Horn. Sleeps Standing would be very pleased to know that his friend would soon be planning to visit the Crow country to the north. Little Wolf had paid nothing for Morning Sky. Her family had all been massacred by the army. There was no one to buy her from. He did not intend to ask for Rain Song empty-handed. The Crows had always been his enemy. He would steal horses from them to pay Sleeps Standing.
For the first time in quite a some time Little Wolf was in a light-hearted mood as he guided the Medicine Hat along the bank of the Rosebud. He had ridden north for half a day before turning back toward the camp. Now the sun had already disappeared below the ridge in front of him and it would soon be dark. Suddenly he stopped, hearing something on the wind. He sat stone still for a long time, listening. There it was again and this time he could identify it. It was the whinny of a horse, answered shortly after by another. The sounds came from the far side of the ridge. It could be a hunting party, possibly. It could not be the soldiers they had turned back several days before, and were far to the south. He thought it probably was a band of Sitting Bull’s Sioux, returning from a raid. He decided to find out. If it was a hunting party, they might have meat to share. The squirrel was only a memory to his stomach by then.
He made his way around the far side of the ridge to approach with the setting sun behind him. There was no need to take a chance on their seeing him first, whoever it was. There was always the possibility that a Crow raiding party had ventured this close to the Sioux camp. The thought crossed his mind that this might not be a bad thing—maybe he wouldn’t have to travel north to find the horses he sought for Sleeps Standing. He tied his horse to a dead cottonwood that had fallen into the edge of the stream and went the rest of the way on foot. Little Wolf thought it strange that there was no smoke from campfires. This made him even more cautious. Whoever it was thought it necessary to make a cold camp. He continued in a half trot until he was up under the crown of the ridge. Then he dropped to all fours and crawled toward the top. He knew they were soldiers before reaching the crest of the ridge because he could hear their conversation on the wind. He pulled himself up behind a low bush where he could see into the encampment.
They were soldiers all right. From the size of the camp, he estimated several hundred, maybe more. They were not the soldiers he had fought nine days before on the Rosebud. These were all horse soldiers, no infantry. He worked his way around the perimeter of the camp, moving silently, like he had learned to move when he was a boy, when he and his friend Black Feather competed to see who could stalk a deer with nothing more than a knife. He took special care to locate the sentries. There were two on this side of the camp and he waited until they had moved apart. There should be pickets also, soldiers on horseback patroling the outer edges of the camp. The sun slid below the horizon and now the ridge was bathed in twilight. He lay flat behind a dead tree while a picket rode slowly by. Then he jumped up and made his way quickly to a large boulder. From there he could see the entire camp. Scanning the area in the fading light, his gaze stopped on a figure in knee-high officer’s boots who was giving orders to two other soldiers. He felt the bile slowly rising inside him. There was no mistaking the thin face with the sharp nose and long hair touching the shoulders of his white shirt. Custer!
He fought to hold his emotions in check. His initial impulse was to charge into the camp and attack this hated enemy, kill him where he stood, in the midst of his soldiers. A second and calmer thought told him that would be a foolish sacrifice of his life. Also, he had an obligation to ride to Sitting Bull’s village with the news of Custer’s soldiers so close to them. There was no choice. Slowly and carefully, he withdrew from the edge of the camp and made his way back to the stream and his horse. Once out of range of the ridge, he urged the Medicine Hat into a gallop.
CHAPTER 26
“What’s ailing you, Squint? You look sadder’n a gelding in a pasture full of mares.” Andy Coulter came over to squat beside the small fire Squint had built to boil some coffee. He watched as Squint poked the ashes up around the small tin pail he was using for a coffeepot. When Squint did not answer right away, he went on, “Now that I think on it, you been kind of quiet for the last two days.”
Squint’s only response was a grunt; his attention was entirely on his coffee and he stared at it until it started to boil. When the first bubbles began to stir in the inky black liquid, he quickly removed the pail from the ashes. Only then did he speak, “If you want some of this, you’d best find you some kind of cup.”
“How ’bout this’un?” Andy laughed and produced a tin cup from the pocket of his coat. “I knew you couldn’t start your day without you had your coffee.” He watched intently as Squint swished the dark liquid around a few times to mix it a little before pouring some of it into his cup. “I re
ckon you just forgot the general ordered a cold camp,” he teased as he settled back to let the coffee cool a bit before risking his mouth on the hot tin cup.
“Horse turds,” Squint replied with a measure of disgust. “You know as well as I do that ain’t nobody gonna see this little fire. Last night might have been different but in the morning light it don’t make sense to go without hot coffee.” He paused to sip cautiously from the tin pail. “Besides, every redskin in the territory knows we’re here already, except maybe the deaf and dumb ones.”
Andy just smiled knowingly. “I expect so,” he said after a moment. “You still ain’t told me what’s ailing you.”
Squint was hesitant to answer. He looked around him at the sprawling bivouac, at the troopers looking after their gear in preparation for orders to mount and proceed with the march. “I don’t know, Andy. I just got a bad feeling in my craw about this whole campaign.”
Andy didn’t understand. He knew Squint wasn’t afraid of a fight. At least he never had been as long as he had known him. “Bad feeling about what?” he asked. “Hell, we got six hundred seasoned troopers here.”
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