by Judd Cole
“Why not pet the white man’s dog?” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling said to Little Horse. His furtive eyes flashed constantly back and forth between them. “At the council you spoke up for him against your own Cheyenne brother.”
Swift Canoe stared coldly at Matthew. Clearly he was not worried about the tribe’s dilemma. Instead, he was angry that the new emergency had arrived before his enemy could be condemned for the death of his brother.
Before Little Horse could reply to Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s taunt, Yellow Bear’s voice silenced all talk. “Brothers! Hear the words I tell you. Then pick them up and hold them close to your breast. A medicine dream has told me I will not live to see the next greening of the grass. Perhaps my death is now at hand. But while I have light in my eyes, I serve my people.
“Warriors! Make ready your battle rigs. Now Yellow Bear’s people will turn to their new war chief.”
He crossed to where Black Elk stood surrounded by his followers. “Black Elk is younger than I was when I first counted coup against the Crow at Crazy Woman Fork. But he is the fiercest, bravest warrior among us. Now he will lead his people in this terrible trial.”
Black Elk’s eyes were fierce with proud triumph. “Brothers!” he said. “Hear me well. We have lost many, and the fight will be hard. We are trapped here, surrounded. We will fight, and when we fall it will be on our enemies. Their blood will flow with ours, and so long as one Cheyenne buck breathes, the fight will not be over.”
His words were brave, and the few warriors still left raised a shout of approval. But Matthew watched Yellow Bear and Arrow Keeper exchange long, deeply troubled looks. Black Elk’s he-bear talk did not fool them, he realized. Only a miracle could save the tribe from doom.
Black Elk issued instructions for fortifying the camp and making ready for the war dance. Normally a Cheyenne buck would have at least sixteen winters behind him before he was required to do battle. But that night, all the males over twelve would join the blooded warriors in praying to the arrows.
In the battle to come, there could be no such thing as a running battle, Black Elk warned the men. The escape routes were cut off, there was no place to run. It would be a fight to the death.
Matthew’s blood chilled when two old Cheyenne squaws began keening in grief. More sadness so soon after the bloody Powder River massacre was too cruel for them to bear. They mourned not for their own tired old bones, but for the children and the young people who were the future of the tribe.
Troubled, Matthew watched Little Horse and the others hurry to make ready their equipment. He wanted to ask Arrow Keeper about a weapon he too could use in battle. But the medicine man was busy conferring with Yellow Bear and the headmen.
Matthew walked down to the river and sat in silence for a long time, listening to the laughing current and thinking many worrisome thoughts. But one thought loomed larger than all the others: Yellow Bear’s people, Matthew included, would soon be food for buzzards unless a miracle could be worked.
When the plan came to Matthew, it came all at once. He didn’t waste time debating it. His mouth set straight and tight with determination, Matthew slipped back to the tipi he shared with Arrow Keeper. The medicine man still had not returned. The youth rummaged under Arrow Keeper’s buffalo robes until he found the bone-handle knife the old man had used to pick the buckshot out of Matthew’s back. Placing the knife in his legging sash along with pemmican and dried plums, he slipped back down to the river.
He didn’t bother stopping at the pony corral. It would be difficult enough to escape the Pawnee circle on foot, much less on horseback. His plan was to evade the Pawnee, then work his way downriver south toward the Sioux village at Elbow Bend. There he would obtain a horse and make his way to Bighorn Falls.
The thought of returning to his home made a tight lump fill his throat. But he knew his plan was the only chance the tribe had of surviving. If he could make it in time—and if he could avoid the hidden enemy all around him—Yellow Bear’s people might not be destroyed.
Matthew reached the fast-streaming water and cautiously scanned the opposite bank for spies before he stepped out into the open. A few moments of searching turned up a good-sized log. He dragged it out from its matted cover of leaves, then rolled it into the water and slipped in behind it. His plan was to hang on and stay hidden in the water. But as he was about to launch the log out into the middle of the current, a voice called out from shore and stopped him.
“Wolf Who Hunts Smiling spoke the straight word,” Little Horse said, his old muzzle-loader pointed at Matthew. “You are a spy—or a white-livered coward who runs to save himself while his people die.”
“I am no spy,” Matthew said, “and I am not running away. I have a plan to save Yellow Bear’s people.”
“What is this plan?” Little Horse said coldly, clearly not believing him.
“There is no time now to explain. I must leave before it is too late.”
“Lies! And I spoke for you in front of the headmen and warriors. I said you were one of us, that your heart was strong and true. Never will they believe me again.”
Anger warmed his blood, but Matthew held his face expressionless in the Indian fashion. He started to push the log out again. Little Horse raised his rifle menacingly.
“Stop!” he said. “I will kill you before I let you go.”
Matthew watched his Cheyenne brother for a long moment. Despite his youth and small size, Little Horse was impressive in his compact strength and the determined set of his face.
“Perhaps you will shoot me,” Matthew said finally. “But if you do, you will surely kill our tribe’s only chance for survival.”
The words were spoken sincerely and had a clear impact on Little Horse. Doubt flickered in his intense dark eyes even as he aimed his rifle.
“Look at me!” Matthew said. “Have you ever known me as a liar? Have I ever played the coward?”
Little Horse was a long time answering. His sense of fair play was starting to win out over anger.
“You have made mistakes, surely,” he finally said, “as an untaught child will. But you have always spoken one way and never shown the white feather.”
“Then, will you let me go if I give my word to return now?”
Little Horse debated a while before saying, “Your scalp will end up on a Pawnee coup stick.”
“Perhaps. But it surely will if I do nothing.”
“You speak the truth,” Little Horse said, and then he surprised Matthew by adding, “but if you are a spy, I cannot let you out of my sight. If you speak straight arrow, I cannot stop you. Therefore, I am going with you.”
Little Horse slung his rifle high on his back. Then he waded into the river. “Now quickly, speak of this plan.”
By the time the sun was casting long shadows, Yellow Bear’s Cheyenne were all working with a grim sense of purpose. Careful probing by scouts had verified Red Pony’s story. They were indeed surrounded.
The women gathered to make bullets in the lodge where they usually sewed and made jewelry. Boys not old enough to pray to the arrows dug rifle pits beyond the first circle of tipis. Behind the pits, facing the only line of attack from the north, they erected log breastworks.
That night, the clay pipes would stay lit all night. So two old squaws sat in front of a tipi mixing tobacco with dried bark. By nightfall a huge fire blazed in the middle of the camp. The blooded warriors showed up carrying their decorated shields and wearing their crow-feather bonnets, which would have to be blessed with the correct medicine.
Arrow Keeper solemnly watched the warriors and young bucks assemble. His heart was sad and troubled. Except briefly, earlier in the day, he had not seen Matthew. But the youth’s absence was the least of his worries. Hurrying the Medicine Arrow ceremony was wrong. War was serious business, and Arrow Keeper wished he could first have spoken with the water spirits at Medicine Lake.
He wore a special calico shirt painted with magic symbols. His face was greased as the warriors’
would be against the attack—his forehead yellow, his nose red, his chin black. His single-horned headdress contained forty feathers in its tail.
Honey Eater and a young girl from the Crooked Lance Clan served as maids of honor at the ceremony. It was their job to keep time with stone-filled gourds while the warriors danced with their knees kicking high. Beaded buckskins glinted in the firelight as the men chanted their war cry over and over in a rhythm that soon lulled the observers into a trance.
During the ceremony, Arrow Keeper would make his most powerful medicine so the Pawnee bullets could not find his people. From that night until the attack, the braves would fast. Hunger would make them weak and lightheaded, but it would also purify them and give them the ability to endure battle better.
Despite his great concern for the tribe, Matthew’s absence nagged at him. Had the dream at Medicine Lake been a false omen. Had the youth he believed to be a great warrior turned out to be a coward after all? If that was true, the tribe was doomed. They were low on warriors, rifles, and ammunition. They would never survive a battle against the well-armed and numerous Pawnee.
His heart as heavy as a stone, Arrow Keeper unwrapped the coyote-fur pouch that contained the four sacred Medicine Arrows. He lay them on a stump near the fire. One by one, all the males of twelve winters or more, except the white-haired elders, lined up behind the arrows. Arrow Keeper prayed out loud in a singsong chant to the Great Spirit, beseeching courage for the upcoming battle. Then each male took turns filing by and making an offering to the arrows.
The men and boys knelt to leave bright beads, twists of rich tobacco, a twelve-feathered eagle tail, a tanned buffalo robe, a pair of leggings, a blanket, a knife, a dressed deerskin, a beaver pelt. When all of them had filed by, Black Elk spoke up above the rhythm of the gourds. “Where are Woman Face and Little Horse?”
Swift Canoe and Wolf Who Hunts Smiling were sent to scour the camp. They returned without the missing youths. “Like rabbits they run away from danger!” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling cried.
Black Elk, who had hardly taken his eyes off Honey Eater since she arrived, watched her with a triumphant gleam in his eyes. For her part, she could barely restrain hot, bitter tears of disappointment at Matthew’s apparent desertion. He had run away and left the tribe to die!
“It is better this way,” said Black Elk so all could hear his mocking tone. “The great warrior would only end up killing his own pony!”
The other warriors murmured their agreement and scorn, but old Arrow Keeper wisely kept silent, his painted and weather-lined face as impassive as a leather mask.
Chapter Fifteen
While Yellow Bear’s Cheyenne prepared for battle, Matthew and Little Horse were desperately fighting to avoid death along the river. Since War Thunder knew that any escape attempt would probably be by water, Pawnee sentries had been stationed at intervals along the Tongue. The two Cheyenne slipped past the first without incident, clinging to the far side of their log and staying low in the water.
But trouble threatened the youths when they reached the second sentry. The Pawnee was waiting at a bend in the river where a large tree stood caught in the river, its branches sawing back and forth with the water. The outspread branches of the sawyer had trapped a swirling mass of debris, and the youths’ log was heading straight for it. Spotting the imminent danger in the nick of time, they began kicking their legs mightily underwater, straining their lean upper bodies to force the log around.
For a moment, they were snared by the debris, and all forward motion stopped. Matthew and Little Horse heaved, and with a slow, rolling movement sideways, the log eased around the sawyer and past the sentry.
The victory left both boys elated. But the effort also reminded Matthew that he was dangerously near exhaustion. The night before had been spent raiding the Pawnee camp, and he had not slept one wink since. As a result, his head felt light, just as it had during the day-long ordeal in the sun at Medicine Lake. But thinking of Medicine Lake also reminded him that Arrow Keeper had made him endure that pain to prove that he could. Having succeeded once in the face of terrible adversity he was determined to succeed again.
Matthew was all the more willing to risk his life because Little Horse was helping him. Little Horse had listened to his daring plan in silence, offering no words of approval. Although he appeared to believe they stood little chance, he had not turned back. As desperate as the plan seemed, Little Horse must have realized it was the tribe’s only chance, and he would do anything to save his people. But even that slim hope appeared doomed when they spotted another sentry.
Armed with a U.S. Cavalry carbine, the Pawnee waited at the brisk rapids just before the juncture at Beaver Creek. The juncture was an excellent defensive position because the huge underwater boulders would block canoes or rafts and force anyone swimming underwater to break surface. Fortunately, Black Elk’s training had emphasized the art of decoying and diverting an enemy, and the two youths quickly formed a plan to sneak around their enemy. First they swam against the current until they were well upstream from the sentry. Then they swam to the bank and tugged the log ashore. The steady roar of the rapids easily covered the sound of their movements as they worked their way well back into the dense thickets behind the sentry’s position.
Matthew gathered dry leaves and twigs for kindling while Little Horse used a handful of grass to dry the breech of his musket, which had taken in some water despite his caution. When the flintlock mechanism was dry, he made sure there was no charge in the pan. Then he held the breech down close to the kindling and cocked and pulled the trigger.
The flint in the hammer hit the metal strike plate and threw off a spark. After several attempts, a spark finally caught and fanned into a bright orange tongue of flame. The youths heaped dead sticks and branches over the kindling, then hurried back to the river to wait.
The sentry was downwind of the fire, but before long a curling wisp of smoke alerted him. When he ran into the forest to investigate, Matthew and Little Horse rolled their log back into the river.
They raced alongside the bank past the rapids, watching the log bang and bounce from boulder to boulder as it tumbled through. Then they leaped back into the water and met the log as it shot out of the churning white rapids.
Once past the third Pawnee, they spotted no more sentries. But the Sioux village at Elbow Bend, where they hoped to secure ponies for the trip to Bighorn Falls, was still far away, and Matthew worried that it might be too late for his plan to work. The tribe’s move from Powder River to the Tongue had brought them nearer to his old home. Still, there was very little time. One piece of bad luck, and his plan would fail.
The need for caution did not end when they finally left the river at Elbow Bend. For Matthew and Little Horse soon spotted fresh Pawnee moccasin prints and knew their enemies were in the area. Again they applied their training and took cover where there didn’t seem to be any, by sticking to cut banks, depressions, and marshes between hills and ridges.
The sun had reached the tops of the trees by the time they sighted the Sioux camp. It was a small village whose people were led by a peace chief named Short Buffalo. The war-weary chief had signed a powerful talking paper called a treaty by white men. According to the treaty, the Great Father in Washington declared that Short Buffalo could not arm his braves against any tribe. But the Sioux leader took pity on his young Cheyenne cousins and gave them two swift ponies.
Sitting astride their new ponies, the youths set out on a straight, fast ride across the plains of the Northern Wyoming Territory to Bighorn Falls. Carefully they avoided the white man’s wagon tracks. Only once, at the juncture of Stony Creek and the Shoshone River, did they slow their pace when curiosity got the better of them.
A huge trading post had been built there. Empty whiskey bottles dotted the prairie in every direction. Outside the post, drunk Indians slept everywhere. Others were fighting, gambling, whooping, or shooting guns into the air.
“These red men too have
signed the talking paper,” said Little Horse with contempt. “Now they no longer live as warriors, but as white men’s dogs. They have traded their manhood for strong water.”
A ponderous flatboat was moored at a dock outside the trading post. It was three or four feet deep with a plank cabin amidships. The sloping sides formed a pen for several horses and mules. But most of the deck was taken up by wooden crates of whiskey.
Before nightfall, the youths also passed several fortifications the white men called stations, which dotted the plains. To those stations, the outlying settlers would scurry when the red nations were on the warpath. The defensive structures were made up of several hewn-pine buildings surrounded by tall stockades of pointed, loopholed logs. Tall blockhouses rose at opposite corners of each.
Such signs of the white man’s growing invasion of Indian country troubled Little Horse, while they made Matthew feel a bit homesick for his old world. Keeping their thoughts to themselves, they rode through the rest of the night, stopping only to rest and water the horses. Finally, near dawn, they hobbled the ponies in a good patch of graze. Then, taking turns at watch, they each slept briefly in a cottonwood copse until the sun was newly risen in the eastern sky, then rode on.
Two hours later, trapped on a stretch of flat plain with no place to hide, they rode into serious danger in the form of a large patrol of white men. Riding with their rifles propped across their saddletrees, the whites wore a ragtag mix of military uniforms and civilian clothing.
Matthew recognized them as the Territorial Militia and felt his stomach knot like a fist. For the Territorial Militia was an illegal brigade formed by zealous Indian haters, who were dedicated to the total extermination of the red man.
The militiamen raised a whoop and gave chase the moment the two Cheyenne youths veered left toward the sandstone cliffs overlooking the Powder. Matthew and Little Horse knew they would not stand a chance on the open flats. But with surefooted Indian ponies, they could attempt a daring trick they had practiced while training in the Bighorns.