The soldiers all nodded, then got into position and each of them picked out a target.
“You take the one on the left, I have the one on the right,” Falcon said.
“What about Mean to His Horses?” Coletrain asked.
“He’s sitting up on his horse, thinking he is in command,” Falcon said. “But I’m shooting a Winchester, and as soon as we kill the two who are holding Depro, I’ll re-chamber a round and kill Mean to His Horses.”
Coletrain chuckled. “Damn if it ain’t worth gettin’ shot a couple of times, just so’s I can see the expression on ol’ Mean to His Horses’s face when he realizes what’s happened.”
“Take aim,” Falcon said, raising the rifle to his shoulder. “I’ll count to three.”
“Get ready, men,” Coletrain called to the others, as he raised the carbine to his shoulder.
“One, two, three, fire,” Falcon said.
Falcon and Coletrain fired at the same time, their shots followed almost immediately by the rest of the soldiers. The two Indians who were holding Depro fell, as did at least six more Indians. Mean to His Horses was totally shocked, and for just a second, he looked on in disbelief. Then, quickly, he realized what happened and he turned his horse to gallop away, but it was too late. As a coda to the previous volley, one more shot rang out, and Mean to His Horses fell from his saddle.
Depro was as shocked as Mean to His Horses had been, and he was still standing in place.
“Depro, run!” Coletrain said. “Come over here to us!”
Depro started across the water toward the island, and as he did so, the remaining men of Coletrain’s platoon fired a second volley to keep the Indians back. As Depro reached the island, Schuler reached up and pulled him down to safety.
“Thank you,” Depro said. “Thank you. I thought I was a goner for sure.”
“What were you doing with them, Sergeant Depro?” Coletrain said. “I thought you were back at Fort Keogh.”
“I had to go back,” Depro said. “I couldn’t leave the wagon.”
“You couldn’t leave the wagon? What wagon? Leave it where?”
“Sarge! Someone is comin’!” Schuler yelled.
“Get ready men,” Coletrain said.
Once again, the men got into position to repel an attack, then as the body of men grew closer they could be seen riding in column of twos. Also, they saw the red and white guideon fluttering at the head of the column.
“It’s Lieutenant Bond and our men!” Schuler shouted excitedly, and all the men stood then, and began cheering and waving.
“It looks like you men had quite a battle here,” Cody said, taking in all the dead Indians.
“It kept us from getting bored,” Falcon said.
“Damn, I went with the wrong group,” Ingraham said. “I should have been here, where the battle was.”
Cody chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Prentiss. I’m sure a man with your fertile imagination will be able to compensate.”
Ingraham squinted his eyes for a moment, then suddenly saw the possibility in what Cody said, and he laughed out loud.
“You know, Colonel Cody. I do believe you are right,” he said.
DeMaris Springs bivouac
The wounded and dead were brought back to the Ninth Cavalry bivouac area. One of the wounded, Private Travis Jackson, had died before they could get him back. The remaining wounded were treated by Dr. Urban, who was brought from town by Benteen, just for that cause.
“Did you have a surgeon in the field with you?” Dr. Urban asked as he looked at Sergeant Major Coletrain’s wounds.
“No, sir,” Coletrain said.
The doctor examined the wounds closely. “Well, someone took the bullet out.”
“Yes, sir, that would be Colonel MacCallister.”
Dr. Urban clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Is there nothing that man can’t do? He did as good a job as any surgeon I know.”
Coletrain smiled. “Yes, sir, seemed like he sort of know’d what he was a’ doin’, all right.”
“Sergeant Major Coletrain?” Schuler said, as Coletrain began packing his shirttail back in.
“Yes, Schuler, what is it?”
“I think maybe you had better take a look at the guns.”
“What guns?”
“The guns we picked from back at the island,” Schuler said. “The guns the Injuns was usin’.”
“What about ’em?”
“I think you had better take a look at ’em,” Schuler said.
Benteen was in his command tent having coffee with Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham, when Coletrain stood outside and asked if he could enter.
“Of course you can come in, Sergeant Major,” Benteen replied. “Grab a stool and join us. We’re having coffee and a discussion about you.”
“About me, sir?”
“I’m putting you in for the Medal of Honor,” Benteen said.
Coletrain smiled broadly. “Well, sir,” he said. “Well, now. Yes, sir, that would be quite an honor. Especially since I don’t feel I did anything to earn it.”
“Colonel MacCallister does,” Benteen said. “And I set quite a store in what he has to say.”
“Colonel, I appreciate the kind words,” Coletrain said.
Benteen’s orderly handed a cup of coffee to Coletrain, and he thanked him, then took a swallow.
“Now then, Sergeant Major, you wanted to see me?”
“Yes, sir,” Coletrain said. “Sir, after the fight, several of the men went out onto the battlefield and began gathering up the guns the Indians was usin’. I thought they was all armed awfully well, and now I know why.”
“Why?”
“Here are the serial numbers of three of the rifles.”
Coletrain pulled a little piece of paper from his pocket, then began reading from it. “410543, 410275, 410221.” He stopped reading and looked up at Benteen. “The fact is, Major, every weapon we picked up started with the numbers four one zero. I just read these three because privates Wright, Dunaway, and Karnes recognized them. They are same carbines they were carryin’ before we got the new issue, and was told to turn them in. And seein’ as I made out all the inventories, I remember that all the carbines started with the numbers four one zero.”
“What are you saying, Sergeant Major? Are you suggesting that, somehow, the Indians managed to get their hands on our old weapons?”
“Not, just somehow,” Coletrain said. “I know how they got them.”
“Depro?”
“Yes, sir.”
Benteen nodded, then got up from his stool and walked over to the door. The three soldiers Coletrain had mentioned were standing there, in case they were needed to validate the weapons as having belonged to them. Benteen believed Coletrain, and thus needed no validation. But he did need them for something else.
“Soldiers, find Sergeant Depro and bring him here.”
“Yes, sir,” Dunaway said.
“Under arrest,” Benteen added.
The three soldiers, who had no love lost as to Depro, smiled in anticipation of the assignment.
“In shackles,” Major Benteen added.
“I should have listened to you in the beginning, Sergeant Major,” Benteen said. “You suspected he had stolen the weapons when they disappeared from the arms room, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir, but all it was, was me thinkin’ it. I didn’t have any proof.”
“Well, we do now,” Benteen said.
At that moment, Private Dunaway returned.
“He ain’t nowhere around, sir,” Dunaway said. “Someone said they seen him leave, goin’ toward town.”
“Gentlemen,” Benteen said to Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham. “Would you like to go into town with me?”
Falcon and the others rode into town for the express purpose of finding and placing under arrest Sergeant Lucas Depro, but when they got the town, the reaction of the townspeople was such that they put Depro aside. The town was in a major celebration mode, with the vo
lunteer firemen’s band playing, fireworks exploding, and a general attitude of giddiness.
“What is going on?” Benteen asked someone who was standing on the side of the street, watching all the proceedings
“Ain’t you heard? The Injuns has been whupped.”
“Are they talking about your fight at the island?” Benteen asked Falcon. “How did they find out so fast?”
“Paper! Paper! Get your paper here!” a paperboy was yelling from the corner. “Extra, read all about it! Injun village wiped out!”
“Indian village?” Falcon asked. He shook his head. “Somehow I don’t think they are talking about the island fight.”
Ingraham dismounted, then went over to the paperboy and bought four papers, one for each of them.
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
BIG INDIAN BATTLE!
Marvelous Victory!
MANY INDIANS KILLED
TO BUT THREE MILITIA MEN KILLED
Our own brave militia conducted a surprise raid against the Crow Village on the Meeteetsee River last night. The results of the attack were so successful that your humble publisher has seen fit to print this, an extra issue, in order to place all the glorious details of the battle before the eyes of the public.
The attack was carried out by the Wyoming Civilian Militia, organized just for this purpose. In a brilliantly conceived tactical operation, Colonel Pierre Bellefontaine led but twenty men in an attack against three hundred or more armed and wily heathens. Striking in the night, the Wyoming Civilian Militia brought terror into the hearts of the selfsame savages who had but so recently brought terror into the hearts of the hapless white people whom they have so cruelly ravaged in their numerous debaucheries against innocent farmers, ranchers, and homesteaders.
Unwilling to surrender, the savages put up a fierce fight. Bullets were whistling through the night air in their deadly transit as they sought their targets. For hours the battle raged, with the Indians’ terrible screams and war cries renting the air as if the howls came from all the banshees of hell. But through it all, our brave militia men stood their ground, often fighting hand to hand against numbers far superior to their own. Finally, as dawn broke, the village stood quiet and empty, its inhabitants having either fled or now lying dead on the ground.
Huzzahs for Colonel Bellefontaine and his brave militiamen, and plans are now underway to hold a town dance in their honor. All are invited where, we are told, souvenirs and booty taken from the village will be on display.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Crow village on the Meeteetsee
Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham picked their way through the bodies and residue of the Indian encampment. There were many more women and children than there were warriors. Like the warriors, the women and children had been scalped and mutilated. They found one pregnant woman with her stomach sliced open, with the dead baby half in and half out of her womb.
Cody had been a guest here in this very camp many times, so he knew several of the Indians and identified them for the others, at least those who had not been so badly mutilated that they could not be identified.
“That is Gray Antelope,” he said, pointing to a warrior. “And that is Howling Wolf.”
He saw a young woman with the top of her head gone. There were two children lying beside her, and the children had also been scalped. “That is White Deer and her children,” Cody said. Then, seeing one of the Indians wrapped in an American flag, he pointed.
“And that is High Hawk. Five years ago I introduced him to President Chester Arthur, who gave him that flag.”
“I can’t believe the people of DeMaris Springs actually regard this as a great victory,” Ingraham said. “Why, this was nothing more than a slaughter.”
“They know only what they read in the newspaper,” Cody said.
“Someone should tell the true story,” Ingraham said.
“Well, there is only one of us who is an experienced writer,” Falcon suggested.
“Yes, but after what the newspaper published in an extra declaring this to be a great victory, the editor may not be interested in publishing what I would write.”
“It depends upon what the owner of the newspaper tells him to publish,” Cody said.
“What are you saying? That the newspaper editor doesn’t own the paper?”
“He does in a way,” Cody said. “I loaned him the money to start the newspaper, with the idea that when my town is built, he would move the paper to Cody. He is one year in arrears in repayment of the loan. I believe that if I would mark the loan as paid in full, he would be most amenable to publishing the truth.”
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
Raid on Crow Village Re-evaulated
NOW CONSIDERED A MASSACRE
Two years previous High Hawk, a sub chief of the Crow, was the guest of Buffalo Bill Cody in New York City. There, High Hawk met the cream of American society, winning many over by his friendly demeanor and native intelligence. He was also taken to Washington and presented to many high officials of our government, and he met President Chester Arthur. He so impressed Mr. Arthur that the President of the United States honored him with a flag that had flown over the White House itself.
The Crow nation, long friends and allies with white America, have fought many battles at the side of our soldiers, including that most devastating of battles, the one in which Custer and all his gallant men fell. The Crow were among those who fell on that fateful day, including Bloody Knife, High Hawk’s own brother.
But Buffalo Bill Cody, Falcon MacCallister, and Prentiss Ingraham, the writer of this article, have just returned from the Crow Village, where we discovered the truth of the so-called victory of the Wyoming Civilian Militia. While there, we saw High Hawk lying dead in the dirt, wrapped in the same flag given him by President Arthur. From a view of the site firsthand, the evidence is clear that it was not battle between equal belligerents meeting on a field of honor. Instead, it was a massacre of the peaceful Indians at the Crow Village. Since returning from those terrible scenes, Buffalo Bill, Falcon MacCallister, and your humble scribe were approached by a member of Bellefontaine’s Wyoming Civilian Militia who, sickened by what he witnessed, has willingly agreed to tell the truth.
Contrary to the report previously published in this newspaper, the recent event cannot be described as a victorious battle, or even as a battle. Our witness tells us that Bellefontaine approached the village in the middle of the night, thus ensuring that all the occupants would be asleep. Then, with no warning, and without offering the Indians a chance to surrender, Bellefontaine ordered his troops to open fire.
The Indians, believing that they were at peace with the white man, watched in surprise as rifle and pistol balls flew through their village. Many of the hapless Indians had gathered under the American flag fluttering above High Hawk’s tipi, thinking this would afford them protection. High Hawk drew down the Stars and Stripes and then, wrapping himself in it, raised a white surrender flag on the same pole. Some of the militiamen, seeing the white flag raised, ceased firing, but Bellefontaine ordered them to ignore the surrender flag.
The militiamen used every weapon at their disposal as they continued to slaughter the unfortunate villagers—rifles, pistols and even sabers which they employed with devastating efficiency against the women and children. The Indians ran in horror, but there was no place to hide. The soldiers herded the women and children into groups and murdered them in cold blood.
In one instance a six-year-old girl clutching a white flag was brought down in a hail of bullets—dead before she hit the ground. Babies’ brains were dashed out against trees. The Bellefontaine men then performed outrageous depravities to the corpses. Bodies were scalped and ripped open with knives. The final grisly toll was 118 women and children, and forty-six warriors, including Chief High Hawk.
Buffalo Bill and Falcon MacCallister are filing a formal complaint with the United States Marshal’s office, as well as the United States Army, charging Pierre Bellefontaine and tho
se who accompanied him with murder. And knowing those two stalwart gentlemen as I do, the readers of this newspaper may rest assured that Bellefontaine and his minions will be brought to justice.
In the same issue there was another story, telling of the real heroes of the recent Indian engagements.
Mean To His Horses Defeated: To Buffalo Soldiers Goes the Glory
While the white man must face the disgrace of the shameful massacre of High Hawk and the innocent and peaceful residents of the Crow Village, we can celebrate the victory of elements of the Ninth Cavalry. But six days previous, Major Benteen dispatched two platoons of his battalion on a reconnaissance in force, one platoon proceeding northeast along the Stinking Water River in the direction of the Big Horn River, and the other proceeding northeast along the Graybull River with the same objective.
The northern platoon was under the command of Sergeant Major Moses Coletrain, he, as are all the brave soldiers of the Ninth, being a Negro. On the second day of their deployment, Sergeant Major Coletrain, with Falcon MacCallister acting as a scout, encountered a large body of Indians. It was suspected that the Indians were renegades led by Mean to His Horses. When the leader of the Indians came under closer observation, the hideous paint of his face, one side red and the other white, bore out the suspicion.
A charge was made by the mounted Indians, but it was most nobly and bravely repulsed. Many of the attacking Indians were killed, falling from their horses, some less than one rod from the defenders. But the soldiers also suffered killed and wounded.
A second charge was made by the Indians, but once more they were prevented from taking their objective. During the darkness, there was a cessation of hostilities, and Sergeant Major Coletrain thought to use the cover of night to dispatch two couriers, but they were discovered by the heathens and forced to turn back.
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