A Cold Day in Hell

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Big Leggings,” he said, his eyes boring into the half-breed’s, “tell the Bear Coat that my people do not intend to surrender. We will never go to the agency. I am born a free Indian and will die a free Indian. The soldiers will never change that. I will use my last breath to see that my people continue hunting buffalo and antelope in this country. You tell this soldier chief that we will continue to trade at the forts when we want to trade with the white man. Otherwise, the Hunkpapa want nothing to do with the white people. And you tell this soldier that we want his word of honor that he will take all the soldiers from our country—never to return!”

  Licking his lips nervously, Bruguier began his translation, seeking the words that would show the fire of Sitting Bull’s oration, but not so much heat that it would be like slap across the soldier chief’s face. Even though the Hunkpapa chief might want that, there still existed a very real chance for tragedy and treachery in this small council held in the middle of this great buffalo prairie.

  In the end Johnny translated as best he could the full force of Sitting Bull’s declaration, the full impact of Sitting Bull’s deadly warning.

  Miles stiffened only slightly with the rebuke, his face becoming set like stone as he listened to Johnny haltingly translate all the thoughts in the chief’s stern oration. Then the colonel considered his reply a few minutes before saying, “If Sitting Bull wants to continue hunting for this final season—to put meat up for this last winter his people are to hunt buffalo—I can understand. But in return for my allowing the Hunkpapa to continue their last hunt, Sitting Bull must leave these three men with me as hostages.”

  “H-hostages?” Johnny repeated, scrambling to figure out what he was going to say to the chiefs as a lone warrior dismounted behind the council, shifted his blanket tightly about himself, and moved toward the ring of men squatted on the prairie.

  “That’s what I said,” Miles snapped, watching the approach of that lone warrior. “These hostages will guarantee me that Sitting Bull will keep his word.”

  The dark, chertlike eyes of all the Lakota leaders glowed with sudden hatred when Johnny translated the soldier chief’s demand.

  “No,” Bruguier said when Miles repeated his demand for hostages.

  “Sitting Bull says no?”

  From the corner of his eye Bruguier saw the lone warrior kneel behind Sitting Bull, carefully parting his blanket so that he could slip a rifle from it. He slid the weapon beneath the buffalo robe the Hunkpapa chief had pulled about him, then rose slowly and moved back to rejoin the other horsemen as they continued to mill about, inching their ponies closer and closer.

  Johnny declared, “The chief says he will never turn over his friends to the soldiers to keep while his people hunt. This is their land. These are their buffalo. You and your soldiers are not welcome here.”

  “Those warriors!” Miles suddenly growled, rising from his knee and stuffing his hand inside the flaps of his coat. “Tell them to get back—Now!”

  Eyes wide with apprehension, Bruguier translated the soldier chief’s warning as more and more of the chiefs began to chatter excitedly as soon as Miles got to his feet. Almost as one, the rest of the soldiers all put their hands beneath their coats.

  Furious, Miles said, “You send all these warriors away. Only the chiefs can stay. Only the men who were here when we began the talk. Tell them that! Tell them right now before there is bloodshed!”

  Sitting Bull remained cross-legged on the ground, his face refusing to register the tensions simmering around him. Yet in his eyes smoldered the anger Johnny could not fail to recognize.

  The chief said, “Tell the Bear Coat soldier that these are my people and I will not send them away. I want the soldiers to leave my country now, leave it for all time.”

  As he listened to Bruguier’s translation, Miles shifted his hat on his head nervously. Then, pulling his hand from inside his coat, he slapped his gloved hands down on his thighs and replied stiffly, “That’s just about it, then.” He slowly turned rubbing his knees from having sat so long on the cold ground.

  “Where is the white chief going?” Bruguier asked, confused.

  “Clearly—there is no more use in our talking,” Miles replied over his shoulder as the other soldiers began to move off with him, all very wary and watchful. “We’ve been at this for many hours. Back and forth, with no good result. You tell Sitting Bull that we can continue our talk tomorrow.”

  After asking the Hunkpapa chief for a response, Johnny said, “Sitting Bull says he will talk with you tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Miles declared with a gush of finality. “I think it would be wise of you to tell Sitting Bull to consider his remarks overnight. Best for him to think on the sad consequences if he chooses to continue making war.”

  By this time the sun had fallen halfway to the horizon from midsky. The day was rapidly growing old as Sitting Bull and the rest got to their feet, took up their blankets and robes, and turned away while Mile’s escort strode back to the soldier lines. When the soldiers turned about and began to march west, back toward Cedar Creek, most of those mounted warriors who had remained close during the parley chose to follow the soldiers at a distance. Along the crest of the nearby ridges the horsemen slowly shadowed the blue column, flanking the soldiers as they countermarched nearly five miles and eventually went into camp for the night.

  “Are the soldiers leaving us be?” asked Black Eagle that night as all the Lakota leaders held an angry council.

  “No,” declared Rising Sun. “They marched away in that direction so they could be in a better position to charge us when we move north, following the buffalo on our way to Fort Peck.”

  “Yes,” Sitting Bull agreed as the council fell quiet. “My heart cannot believe the soldiers are leaving our country as we told them to do. They are not to be trusted.”

  “Perhaps we should consider going in to the agency when this hunt is over,” suggested Small Bear.

  “The reservation holds nothing for me,” Sitting Bull said. “Only unhappiness and empty bellies. Here … here in the buffalo country is where our men hunt and our women cure the hides that shelter us. We can never do that living at the white man’s agency.”

  For a long time that night the leaders argued back and forth on what to do until one of the camp police, the akicita, came in to report that a few of their ponies had broken away, and in going after them some of the young men had discovered that their camp was being watched by many soldiers who had secreted themselves in the surrounding hills and bluffs.

  “We must attack those soldiers at early light!” screamed an infuriated Standing Bear.

  Other voices took up the call. “These soldiers mean to make war on us!”

  Still more urged caution, restraint—reminding the council that their camp no longer possessed the great numbers that had overwhelmed and crushed the soldiers at the Greasy Grass back in the summer moon.

  Suddenly Gall arose and waited while the assembly fell to a hush. He looked at Sitting Bull a moment, then said, “If we do not attack first, as Crazy Horse did to Three Stars on the Rosebud, then we can expect the soldiers to attack us.”

  Johnny Bruguier turned to watch Sitting Bull’s face. The great Hunkpapa visionary nodded once, nodded slowly, his hand signaling his war chief to continue.

  “If we can count on the white man to do anything, we can depend upon him to do what is most dishonorable,” Gall explained. “When the soldier chief says he has come to talk of peace, it is only to make our senses dull, so that we roll over with our bellies to the sky.”

  Now Gall’s voice rose an octave, sending a chill down the half-breed’s spine as this barrel-chested, iron-eyed man who had lost so many loved ones to soldiers at the Greasy Grass now laid down his warning to the leaders of that great village.

  “Come tomorrow,” he barely whispered in the awful hush of that huge council lodge, “when the soldiers come to attack our women and children … it will be their blood left to soak into this gr
ound.”

  “Remember the Rosebud!” one of the younger warriors suddenly cried out from the fringe of the crowd.

  “Remember the Greasy Grass!” Gall shrieked, his face contorted in rage, flecks of spittle on his lips.

  “Remember the Greasy Grass!”

  * Fort Buford, Dakota Territory.

  Chapter 10

  21 October 1876

  An Official Report on South

  Carolina Troubles.

  Why and How the Colored

  Troops Fought Nobly

  South Carolina

  A History of the Late Troubles Near

  Charleston.

  “You fellas got to listen to this!” exclaimed trader Collins that chilly morning inside his store at Fort Laramie. “There’s been a heap of trouble down in the South.”

  Seamus watched Collins smooth out the newspaper with both hands atop the counter cluttered with a shipment of soaps and lilac water directly up from Denver by way of Cheyenne City.

  “What’s it say?” asked John Bourke.

  “This here’s the official report of R. M. Wallace, United States marshal for South Carolina, addressed to Attorney General Taft—a letter read in the meeting of Grant’s cabinet a couple days back. He writes

  ‘SIR: I have delayed giving you a report of the recent unfortunate political riot at a place near the town of Clinsey, near this city, until I could get a correct statement of facts. It’s one of the legitimate results of the intimidation policy on the Mississippi plan adopted by the democratic party in opening their campaign for the purpose of breaking down the majority in this state. The first meeting in this country at which the democrats put their shot gun policy in practice, took place over a month ago, on Cooper River … The republicans had called a meeting and the democrats of this city chartered a steamboat and took one hundred and fifty well armed men to the meeting … and demanded that they should have the time for their speeches. The republicans did not relish this kind of peaceful political discussion, but the request was backed up by one hundred and fifty Winchester repeating rifles in the hands of men who know how to use them.’”

  Walter S. Schuyler broke in, asking, “Had to be them goddamned Johnny Rebs stirring up the trouble—right, Seamus?”

  “Those sentiments go back a long time now, Lieutenant,” Donegan replied to General Crook’s aide. “It’s been many a year since I faced reb guns. All in the past now.”

  Trader Collins cleared his throat to resnag everyone’s attention and proceeded with his reading of the news story plastered across the front page of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News.

  “… The democrats carried a large force from the city to every meeting, who irritated the republicans by their violent denunciation of their leaders and their party. The meeting at the brick church was called by the republicans … many of them being suspicious of the democrats carried such guns as each man had at his home—muskets—but no militia men went there with state arms and ammunition, as the democrats claim; and the best evidence of that fact is that all the dead were shot with buckshot and not with rifle balls.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Bourke roared. “You mean the democrats and republicans are shooting at each other down there in the South now?”

  “Bound to happen,” declared Captain Wirt Davis, a Virginia-born officer who had nonetheless thrown in with the Union in 1861. He wagged his head with grim resignation.

  Captain John Lee, another officer in Mackenzie’s Fourth, agreed. “Like my friend Wirt, here—I am a Tennessee man who loathes the sort of coward who hides behind a bedsheet bringing terror and lynching to my native land. But sooner or later this sort of trouble was bound to happen down there somewhere.”

  Collins bent over his paper and pressed on with the story.

  “When the colored republicans arrived at the place of meeting, their leading men told them that they were violating the agreement by coming armed, and that they must deposit their arms at some place away from the grounds. The colored men complied with the request … and some guns … were placed in an old dilapidated building some fifty yards from the stand … About one hundred and fifty democrats accompanied their speakers from the city, and soon appeared at the meeting. Soon after W. J. McKennely, colored, commenced, a commotion was observed … next to the dilapidated building and McKennely jumped off the stand and said: ‘There are white men in that house; they have the guns, and are going to shoot.’ The colored men raised a shout, ‘The democrats have seized our guns!’ and made a rush for the other guns. The white men who had secretly slipped into the house and seized the guns then fired, and the first shot killed an old colored man about seventy years old.…

  “The colored men returned with their guns very soon and attacked the party. They commenced a general fire on the democrats, who were generally armed with pistols…. Six white men were killed and one colored. Several whites were wounded … and it is not known how many negroes were hurt.”

  “Begging Captain Lee’s pardon—but it sounds to me like they’re still fighting that war down there,” Schuyler observed.

  “Maybe that’s as good a reason as any to be out here,” John Lee replied as he set his steaming cup of coffee down with a clunk upon the table. “Eh, Mr. Donegan?”

  With a wag of his head, Seamus replied, “All this hoopla and upset and bloodshed. I’m bloody well beginning to wonder if there really is anyplace safe for a man to raise his family in peace—or if the whole bleeming country’s gone crazy!”

  “Irishman!”

  Donegan turned toward the doorway as the old sergeant burst in, his caped wool coat a’swirl with some of the snow falling outside. It seemed the soldier brought all of that wilderness cold in with him.

  “Sergeant?”

  “Cap’n Wirt,” the sergeant said, coming to an abrupt halt and saluting. “Cap’n Lee, sir. Didn’t know you was here.”

  Wirt asked, “What is it, Sergeant Forsyth?”

  “The general, Cap’n. He sent me to fetch up the Irishman here.”

  “We’re heading back to Camp Robinson already?” Lee asked.

  “Yes, sir, Cap’n.”

  Outside on the parade, a bugle rasped through the wintry notes of “Boots and Saddles.” As its stirring call faded over Fort Laramie, First Sergeant Thomas H. Forsyth leaned close to Donegan and whispered, “Best get a move on and say your good-byes to the missus.”

  Rising slowly, Seamus watched the two cavalry captains hurry out the door as he moved toward the frosted windowpane to gaze out at the bustle of activity on the parade ground. “Sheridan and Crook must really be in a hurry to get their hands on those Sioux guns and ponies, eh?”

  “Mackenzie said to tell you you’ve got a quarter of an hour,” the bearded veteran replied with a wink as he turned away, a knowing smile gleaming above his faded chevrons. “Use every minute wisely.”

  THE INDIANS

  Movements on the Missouri

  St. PAUL, October 20.—A Pioneer Press Bismarck special says that General Sturgis with eight companies of cavalry and three of infantry and a section of artillery moved south to-day on the east side of the Missouri, and General Terry with four companies moved south on the west side. Nobody knows where they are going. Whitney and others have arrived from the Black Hills bringing the body of Mr. Dodge, killed by Indians in April. Major Smith has arrived from Tongue River and says the Indians killed the herd of government animals near Glendive.

  * * *

  Just past dawn on 21 October, William Jackson moved out of the Fifth Infantry’s bivouac with Luther Kelly and most of the other scouts, ordered to probe north along Cedar Creek, throwing outriders along both flanks as the soldiers formed up and began their march that chilly Saturday. At the rear, D Company was assigned to escort the regiment’s supply train.

  Miles intended to have his men out in front of the hostiles, blocking their way if Sitting Bull decided to make a sudden dash for the Canadian border.

  It was nearing midmorning beneath a cold autu
mn sun when Jackson and Kelly cautiously reached the crest of a hill on their bellies in advance of the soldiers, scanning the distance for sign of the Sioux.

  “They’re making a run for it,” Kelly said with some grim resignation.

  “Just like Miles figured they would,” Jackson replied as they both watched the distant village dismantling and setting out—the first of the laden travois and their vast pony herd protectively encircled by a great ring of hundreds of warriors. Horsemen milled about through the bare tripods as throngs of people went about their work like it was a fevered anthill.

  Then Jackson added, “But, look. Instead of heading north—I’ll be damned if they’re going south by east.”

  “What strikes me is that the village is a lot bigger than we thought at first,” Yellowstone Kelly observed.

  “What do you make it? Three, maybe four thousand of em?

  The white chief of scouts nodded behind his field glasses. “Could be as many as a thousand warriors.”

  “Want me to go tell Miles?” William asked.

  Luther Kelly pulled the field glasses from his face as he twisted around to look over his shoulder. “Yeah, you head out. I’ll be along straightaway.”

  Jackson started to slide backward on his belly when Kelly put out his arm and stopped him there in that tail, dead, brittle grass rising out of the cold, cold ground as a nervous wind came up.

  “See that ground, yonder there?” Kelly declared, pointing. “Tell the general they’re headed into the next valley. Tell him I figure we can catch them if he comes up quick—on the double. Most of the village is still tearing down.”