CHAPTER 28
Little Wolf sat astride the Medicine Hat, his feet tied under the pony’s belly, his hands bound tightly together. He had not spoken a single word in English since his capture. The bandage around his head had fallen off and no one was concerned enough to replace it or even see if the wound was healing. He watched sullenly now as Tom Allred rode toward him. Tom did not speak to him at all, preferring to give instructions to his guards and ignoring the tall savage. Little Wolf understood this. Tom was a soldier. He was his enemy. As far as Little Wolf was concerned, the slate was clean between the two brothers. He looked for no compassion from Tom. Surprising to him, however, was Squint’s attitude. Listening to his guards’ conversation, he learned that Squint was the one who insisted that his life be spared. Little Wolf was not especially appreciative for the gesture. Death in battle was an honorable way to die. He much preferred it to spending the rest of his life in a white man’s prison. And if he was to be hung, as the guards said, he would still be robbed of a warrior’s death.
Squint stayed completely away from him. This disappointed him, for he and Squint had parted as friends when they left the Wind River camp. Reflecting on the matter, he decided he couldn’t blame Squint for looking out for his own hide. It wouldn’t sit well for Squint if the army thought he might be soft in his attitude toward Indians. But it was ironic that he would not be in this predicament had he not hesitated to pull the trigger when he ambushed Squint and Tom. It was only at that instant that he realized who the two men were. He was ready to fire when he recognized Squint, but he just could not pull the trigger. Neither could Squint when he realized it was Little Wolf. But, he reminded himself, Tom did not hesitate. He would remember that if the opportunity came for escape. It was a long ride to Fort Lincoln—he was constantly guarded but someone might get careless along the way.
A trooper galloped back to Tom. “Sir, Captain Benteen’s compliments. He wants to see you right away.”
Tom dropped out of the column and rode after the trooper. He found Benteen waiting in the shade of a cottonwood tree where he had been in conference with Major Reno and two staff officers from General Terry’s command.
“How’s the arm?” he said in greeting when he saw Tom grimace a little when he dismounted.
“It’s all right. Sore as hell, but nothing I can’t live with.”
“Tom, I’m sending you back to Lincoln.” He held up his hand to silence Tom. “I know you want to stay with the battalion on this campaign but I’m sending you back with our celebrity back there.”
“Sir,” Tom pleaded, “is it necessary to send a line officer to escort a prisoner? A damn Cheyenne prisoner at that? I’d be of more use to you with the battalion.”
It was obvious the matter was not up for discussion. Benteen’s manner was one of impatience. “Like I said, this one’s a celebrity. He rates an officer. Besides, that arm could use a little time to heal.”
Tom could see there was little use in arguing. “Yessir. Can I take Peterson with me as scout?”
Benteen had to think this over for a moment. He trusted Squint and he felt more comfortable when he was with the battalion. “All right,” he finally decided, “take him with you.” He paused. “Take three men with you. That ought to be enough to guard one Indian, don’t you think? That will give you extra men to split up sentry duty when you camp.”
Tom offered a halfhearted salute and returned to his company. So, he thought, he was not to participate in the campaign against the Sioux. It was going to be a major operation. Already they had joined with troops from Fort Fetterman and additional units from the Montana territory. Washington had already authorized the marching orders of thousands more. The massacre of Custer’s Seventh Cavalry had sent massive repercussions throughout the government. The Sioux and Cheyenne were to be finished once and for all. And, at least for the initial campaign, he was to sit it out.
The orders suited Squint just fine. He allowed as how he had had enough Indian fighting for a while. In addition, he wasn’t fond of mop-up type operations anyway. He was getting sick of fighting in general and was spending more thoughts lately on the Oregon territory. The sight of Little Wolf tied to his horse was not especially pleasant for him but, other than that, he was in good spirits when their small party broke off from the main body early the next morning and headed east.
A sergeant and two privates were picked to guard Little Wolf. Tom passed along his orders to them, addressing the sergeant. “Sergeant Spanner, I want you men to keep a sharp eye on him. I intend to see this Indian gets delivered to Fort Lincoln to hang and I don’t want anybody to get careless.”
Squint watched from a few yards’ distance. Little Wolf tried to catch his gaze but Squint avoided eye contact. Instead, he turned his horse, the Appaloosa given him by Little Wolf, and rode out ahead.
On the second day out, they crossed the Rosebud and followed it north to intercept the Yellowstone. Tom figured it would take seven days of hard riding to make Fort Lincoln so he didn’t permit the detail to linger. They rode each day until after dark before making camp, rising before sunup the next morning to start out again. Tied hand and foot, it was a hard ride for Little Wolf but he did not complain. The soldiers, on the other hand, were grumbling about the long hours in the saddle whenever Tom was out of earshot.
The fading light of the setting sun on the fourth day out found them trailing single file along a narrow path that hugged a steep bank of the Yellowstone, where the river forced its way through a narrow gorge. Heavy rains two days before had caused the river to swell as it rushed through the gorge. Some twenty feet below them, the swift current of the muddy water swirled past boulders and dead trees that had snagged upon them. Squint signaled a stop and dismounted. He walked back to talk to Tom. Sergeant Spanner joined them a few moments later.
“This might not have been a good idea,” Squint said, scratching his head, looking first at the narrow ledge that served as a trail and then at the rushing water below them.
Spanner offered his comments. “Hell, I wondered why we didn’t go around this bend of the river anyway. It wouldn’t of took two hours more.” His expression hinted that he questioned Squint’s judgment as a guide.
Squint went on, “It’da been all right if we had got here before the sun went down. I didn’t remember this trail being this skinny. We could have swung around and missed this piece of the river, I reckon, but this way is quicker. If we’re real careful and don’t get in too much of a hurry, we can camp about a quarter of a mile from here in a nice little clearing.”
Tom listened attentively. “All right then.” He turned to the men behind him. “You men hear that?” When he received murmurs of “Yessir,” he turned back to Squint. “You might want to check on the prisoner’s ropes. Make sure his feet are tied to that damn horse.”
“Yessir, Lieutenant,” Squint replied and walked back along the trail to the Indian pony.
Sergeant Spanner stepped up in the saddle again and looked toward the sky. “We best make time. When that there sun dips below the prairie, it’s gonna be like somebody blew out the candle.”
No one noticed that Squint had pushed his skinning knife up the sleeve of his buckskin shirt. He approached the prisoner and looked up into the eyes glaring back at him. He couldn’t help but smile as he loudly remarked, “We want to make shore you’re nice and comfortable, Mr. Little Wolf.” He reached up and took Little Wolf’s hands and pretended to be checking the knots. As an astonished Little Wolf stared in disbelief, the knife slid down from Squint’s sleeve and he quickly cut the through the ropes until they were held by little more than a thread. “They ought to hold,” he announced and then bent down and repeated the motions on the ropes holding the prisoner’s feet. When he straightened up again, he whispered, “I hope you can swim.” Back on his horse, Squint called out, “All right, let’s go,” and the single file of soldiers and prisoner continued cautiously along the narrow path.
They had gone about fifty yar
ds further when Squint pulled aside and waited for the others to catch up. It was rapidly getting darker. When Tom caught up to him, Squint cautioned him. “Sir, this here’s a real narrow place. Looks like a rock slide took out part of the trail. One slip and you could find your ass in the river. Good place to camp right around the next bend.”
Tom pulled his horse over beside Squint’s and waited for the rest of the detail to catch up. When the Medicine Hat filed by. Tom reached out and took the bridle and pulled the horse aside on the trail. “Sergeant Spanner, you and the other two cross over by that washout. When you get on the other side, get ready to take the prisoner when he crosses. We’ll hold him here and send him over when you get ready. I don’t want to take any chances in this place.”
Sergeant Spanner paused for a moment as if uncertain whether to proceed or not. Tom motioned for him to pass and he urged his horse forward, the two privates following, carefully guiding their horses over the treacherous piece of trail. What happened in the next instant was over before anyone had time to react. Squint pulled out his big army revolver and fired it three times at the horses’ hoofs. At the same time he kicked the Appaloosa hard into the Medicine Hat. The combination of the sudden explosion under the startled horses plus the impact of the Appaloosa on the Medicine Hat caused both horses and their riders to go over the side and plunge twenty feet into the muddy water.
In the following seconds, Tom backed his horse until he had room to turn around. His pistol was out immediately and he fired six quick shots at the rapidly disappearing figures floundering in the swift current. One of the three troopers made his way back down the trail in time to get off several shots at the dark lumps now fading into the evening dusk.
“You got him!” Tom shouted at the startled and confused trooper. “Nice shooting, soldier! You got him!”
The trooper was totally at a loss. “What about Squint, sir?” In the confusion of the moment, he had forgotten that one of the objects in the river was the scout.
Tom was quick to reassure the poor man. “Private, don’t trouble your mind about it. You are a soldier. You are trained to react and react you did. As far as I’m concerned, you just saved the government a hanging. The incident is closed. No one has to know you shot Squint. It couldn’t be helped anyway. The light was bad and I’m not sure you even hit Squint. But you damn sure got the Indian, right between the shoulder blades.”
“Oh my God, sir, I couldn’t hardly see what I was shooting at. I didn’t think. When I saw you shooting, I just naturally reacted.”
“Don’t go blaming yourself for this. This is just one of those things that happen sometimes in war. Like I said, I’m not sure you hit Squint. If he doesn’t show up in a day or two, we’ll just assume he drowned. The main thing is that the Indian is dead for sure. My report will show that the prisoner was shot while attempting to escape. It will also show that you acted courageously and professionally.” He turned the poor man around and pushed him back toward the other two. “By the way, you might be called upon to tell what happened. It’s a good thing you saw the Indian go under.”
“Yessir,” the bewildered young man replied, “I saw the whole thing.” No one thought to ask why Squint had fired his pistol in the first place.
* * *
“Make for that bank over there!” Squint shouted as the two men struggled to stay with their horses. They had drifted at least a mile, keeping the horses’ heads turned into the center of the river so they would swim with the current. Both horses naturally wanted to make for the shore right away so Squint and Little Wolf had to keep pulling their heads back toward the middle. Now, far enough downstream, they let the animals swim to shore. Once the horses felt sand under their hooves, they scrambled up the bank snorting and shaking. Squint and Little Wolf staggered up behind them.
“We made it, partner! That there was quite a ride!” He laughed and whooped, jumping around on one foot in an effort to jar the water out of his ears. “Yessir, that was quite a ride.” Little Wolf was staring at him in disbelief, still not sure what to make of his sudden liberation. When Squint stopped laughing and bouncing long enough to notice puzzlement on his friend’s face, he calmed down and said, “You didn’t think ole Squint was gonna let anybody hang you, did you?”
Little Wolf spoke for the first time since they had plunged into the river. “We must leave here. The soldiers will be looking for us.” He was happy to be free but he was still confused by the way it happened.
“Relax, ain’t nobody gonna be lookin’ for us. Hell, we’re dead as far as the army is concerned. Tom’ll see to that.”
“Tom? But he shot at us.”
Squint laughed. “Tom’s a better shot than that.” Then he went on to explain how the two of them, Tom and himself, had cooked up the whole scheme. That was the reason they had taken the trail by the river in the first place. When they plunged off the bank into the river, Tom pretended to shoot at them and he would tell the troopers with him that he killed them.
“What if they don’t believe him?”
“I ain’t worried about that. Neither is Tom. He’ll handle it.”
Little Wolf was amazed. “I thought he wanted me dead.”
“He did for a while but I had a little talk with him and he began to see that you was as much Cheyenne as he is soldier. And looking at it from your side of the fire, you weren’t doing nothing but fighting to save your people.”
This brought Little Wolf’s thoughts back to his village. “Squint, where are my people now? Do you know?”
“Well, I do know that after the fight at the Little Big Horn, most of your people figured there was gonna be hell to pay for the lickin’ they put on the army, so the tribes scattered. I heard that Two Moon took his Cheyennes back into the mountains.” He studied his friend’s expression for a long time, waiting for Little Wolf’s reaction to this news. When he was met with nothing but a long thoughtful silence, he prodded. “What do you aim to do? Go find ’em?”
“I have to. There is something I must do.”
“Ah, horseshit! I done risked my neck to save you from hanging and you ain’t had enough playin’ Injun yet? Hell, I’m tard of fightin. I’m headin’ out to see that Oregon territory. I swear, I thought you’d be ready to go with me. Can’t you see there ain’t no future left for the Cheyenne or the Sioux now? They ain’t stoppin’ this time till they wipe ’em out or put ’em on a reservation.”
Little Wolf couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease his old friend. “Why would I want to go anywhere with you after the way you treated me since I was captured? I thought you were supposed to be my friend.”
“Damn your hide,” Squint roared. “I had to play like I wasn’t no friend, me and Tom both, else you’d more’n likely be headed to Fort Lincoln with somebody else right now, if they hadn’t already shot you.”
Little Wolf laughed and gave his friend a big bear hug. “You are right. I am tired of fighting. Now that Longhair is dead, I am ready to go to Oregon with you.”
“Hot damn, you mean it? Let’s git going then!”
“First I must find Two Moon. There is something I must do.”
* * *
Even with Little Wolf, Squint couldn’t help but be a little nervous as they approached the small circle of tipis tucked up under the cover of a steep ridge. Trigger fingers were certain to be itchy after the Little Big Horn. Little Wolf stopped and studied the forest around them before making his way down the valley to the stream. Squint stayed close behind, leading the horses. Little Wolf could tell they were part of Two Moon’s band by the markings on the lodges. There was no sound of alarm as they rode out of the trees and splashed through the stream. As they approached the camp, several braves emerged from the tipis to greet them. The first, a young brave with a wide grin on his face, ran to grasp Little Wolfs arm.
“Little Wolf! I knew you would return. They said you were taken by the soldiers but I told them you would return.”
Little Wolf dismounted and hugged Sl
eeps Standing. “I was afraid you had been killed. When I last looked for you, you were not there.”
The two friends laughed and pounded each other on the back as a small crowd gathered around them. The men clapped Little Wolf on the back and expressed their joy in seeing him alive. After a while, Sleeps Standing paused and nodded toward Squint, still in the saddle and more than a little nervous.
“I see you have brought a friend with you.” He looked around Squint at the string of eight ponies. “The signs on those ponies look like Crow markings. Are they his?”
“No, my friend.” Little Wolf smiled. “One pony is his to use as a packhorse. One of them is for Rain Song to ride to the far mountains with me. The other six are for you in exchange for Rain Song as my wife.”
Sleeps Standing threw his head back and whooped. He pounded his friend on the back again. “How do you know I will trade her for six measly Crow ponies?” he teased, then laughed good-naturedly. “I will give her to you for five of the ponies. You will need a packhorse too if you are going to the far country.”
Rain Song had seen Little Wolf and Squint ride into camp. Although her heart leaped with joy at the sight of the man she loved, a man she had feared dead, she did not run to greet him. Instead, she remained in the open entrance of the tipi, where she had been grinding seed for a bread paste. He could not see her but she could hear the men talking. She had thought a great deal about the night when she went to Little Wolf’s bed. Sleeps Standing had encouraged her to do it, but she knew afterward that it had not been fair to Little Wolf. She had tried to tell herself that she must forget him, but she found it impossible to do. When Sleeps Standing returned from the fighting and told Lark that they must take up the tipi and leave at once, Rain Song did not want to leave before Little Wolf returned. But Sleeps Standing told her that several of the warriors had seen Little Wolf shot and captured by two soldiers.
Wind River Page 39