By the time the expedition had reached Reno Cantonment, many of the Indian scouts had sorted out for themselves who were some of the more powerful soldiers. Clearly Crook, Mackenzie, and Dodge, along with those men nominally placed over the auxiliaries … but to the warriors’ way of thinking, one of the soldier chiefs with the biggest medicine was Lieutenant Charles Rockwell, commissary officer for the Fourth Cavalry. After all, it was he who had unquestioned authority and control over such immense stores of the coveted bacon, sugar, and coffee! But try as they might to get Rockwell to trade items of clothing and beadwork for heaps of rations, the young lieutenant remained steadfast in his duty and played no favorites as he and his men kept a lock on the valuable foodstuffs.
With the arrival of the paymaster that night, a spontaneous celebration erupted among the cold men as there was at least a cramped log trading store close by the cantonment where the soldiers could fritter away their meager month’s wages on the sutler’s crude whiskey.
Dawn of the nineteenth found the sky lowering and a new storm approaching out of the west over the mountains. As soon as the wind quartered out of the north, the temperature seemed to fall ever farther. While most men continued throwing away their pay on wild debauchery, a few in each outfit pooled their money and purchased tinned tomatoes, potatoes, and other delicacies, making for a brief change in their drab and monotonous diet. For miles up and down the Powder River, infantry soldiers and cavalry troopers, teamsters, packers, and scouts caroused noisily.
“If Crazy Horse had any doubt the army’s coming after him,” John Bourke said as half a hundred men hurried to watch a fistfight broken out a few yards away, “that red bastard will be able to hear this bunch all the way to the slopes of the Big Horns!”
Seamus chuckled, sipping at his steaming coffee. He was content and relaxed, lounging on his saddle blanket, his back against a downed cottonwood trunk, feet to the fire. “I know for damned certain this isn’t where the devil was born, but from the sounds of it, Johnny—this seems like the place the devil was sure as hell raised up!”
The lieutenant stood, tossing the last dregs of his coffee onto the snowy ground as dusty flakes tumbled all about them. “You’re coming over to the council?”
“Is it that time already?”
Stuffing his big turnip watch back inside his wool vest, Bourke replied, “Soon enough. I should try to be there before the warrior groups show up.”
After taking another drink of his coffee, Donegan asked, “This council really has to do with the Sioux complaining to Crook?”
Nodding, the lieutenant said, “When the general had Three Bears come to his tent last night to enlist some warriors to go scout the foot of the mountains—the Sioux war chief seized the opportunity to complain to Crook that the Pawnee hadn’t been treating them all that kindly.”
“Kindly!” Donegan shrieked. “Mother of God, but they’re blood enemies—by the saints! Back to their grandfather’s grandfather!”
“C’mon, Irishman—this ought to prove interesting to watch.”
Seamus stood, bringing his pint tin of coffee steaming in his hand. “How right you are, Johnny. Here I been thinking Crook was making himself a reputation as an Injin-fighter … and now he’s got to go and play diplomat between his own bleeming Injins!”
Crook’s primary purpose in holding this council with the leaders of his four hundred Indian auxiliaries was to have them eventually come to understand his ground rules for the fight that was sure to come.
While the Sioux had come to complain they were being snubbed by their traditional enemies, for the general there were clearly bigger fish to fry. Yet as the Pawnee showed up arrayed in their full uniforms, and the Shoshone arrived wearing their native dress mixed with some white man’s clothing garnered over the decades of friendly relations, the Sioux and their allies came to the meeting in their war paint and scalp shirts. Frank North and Tom Cosgrove hurried to call the open provocation to the general’s attention. John Bourke watched as Crook quickly dispensed with this matter of Indian dress by waving it off with a hand and going to seat himself near the center of the great crescent gathered just outside Captain Pollock’s tiny quarters at Reno Cantonment.
When all had fallen quiet, the general told the Indians, “A new day has come to this land. You, as well as ourselves, are servants of the Great Father in Washington, and we all ought to dress in the uniform of the soldier, and for the time being we all ought to be brothers.”
He waited while the first translations were begun, then continued. “I am here to tell you that your peoples must put aside differences from the past and remain friends with the other bands. We have a job to do, and I hired you to do it. It is most important that when an army goes into battle, we are all in that battle side by side, united in action. So—if you want to fight among yourselves—then you have no place with me. Decide now if you are here to be part of this army.”
He let the many translations finish, the babble of at least eight different tongues rumbling around the crescent where the leaders sat and smoked in their blankets, considering the words of Three Stars. Then Crook continued.
“If, however, it is more important for you to complain and to attack your neighbor, I will take your guns and send you home on foot. You will not have a weapon, you will not have a pony. And you will be every bit as poor as I am going to make the followers of Crazy Horse.”
Firelit copper faces set hard when those words went round that council, words so harsh that Crook wanted to be certain there was no misunderstanding. “I will ask it again—is there any among you who want to complain about the others? Any among you who want to give up your weapons and ponies right now and turn back for your homes?”
This time many of the scout leaders were quicker to speak, rising to their feet to address Crook and the assembly. All turned to the general to announce that they understood the reason for his remarks, promising that they would put aside their petty differences and remain friends with the others for the sake of the war that was to come. It was particularly moving when Three Bears arose, signaled one of his young warriors to follow him, bringing along a prized pony. The two Lakota walked directly to stand before the Pawnee delegation.
He held his hand out to Li-Heris-oo-la-shar, one of the Pawnee sergeants, who was also known as Frank White. They shook, then Three Bears spoke, telling his old enemy and that council, “Brother, we want to be friends—and as a sign of my sincerity I give you this warhorse. From this day on, your fight is my fight.”
White stood, unbuckling his prized revolver from his waist and handed it to the Sioux war chief. “I too wish to bury the past. We are friends now. We are both warriors, with a job to do. I will fight by your side. Your enemies will be my enemies, and my lodge will be your lodge.”
As much as John Bourke had been around Indians in Crook’s Arizona campaigns against Cochise, wherein the general had enticed one band of Apache to track down another band of Apache, the young lieutenant had never in his wildest dreams believed he would truly see these ancient enemies forging a lasting partnership to fight the last of the hostiles. Although the council took on a dreamlike air of friendly festivity, Crook was clearly pleased with how things had turned out.
After more speeches professing friendship were traded among the Pawnee, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, as well as that scattering of Nez Perce, Bannock, and Ute warriors who had come over from the Wind River with Cosgrove’s Shoshone, the general continued, waxing in a most uncustomary eloquence.
“All these vast plains, all these mountains and valleys will soon be filled with a pushing, hardworking population. The game will soon be exterminated. Domestic cattle will take its place. The Indian must make up his mind, and make it up now, to live like the white man and be at peace with him—or be wiped off the face of the earth. Peace is what the white man wants. But war is what the white man is prepared for.”
Every few words, Crook halted briefly while the translators caught up in their many tong
ues.
“I want to impress upon you that rule by law is not tyranny. You will come to learn that people who obey the laws of their land are those who in turn have the greatest liberty. It is not the white man, but the Indian, who is afraid when he goes to sleep at night, afraid that he and his family might be murdered before morning by some prowling enemy.”
John Bourke watched the way so many of the dark eyes furtively glanced at the other bands.
“You are receiving good pay as soldiers,” Crook reminded them, “and so long as you behave yourselves, and so long as I can find work for you to do, you shall be my soldiers. But you must never spend your pay foolishly. Save every cent of it that you can to buy cows and broodmares. While you are sleeping, the calves and the colts will be growing—and someday you’ll awake and find yourself a rich man. Then you’ll be ashamed to call upon the Great Father for help. When you capture the enemy’s herds in the coming fight, they will be divided among your peoples. They will be yours to keep. Use those captured horses wisely—not for war, but to make a living for your families.”
Around that crescent many of the Indians grunted their approval.
Then Sharp Nose, leader of the Arapaho scouts, stood to speak. “I have waited a long time to meet all these people and make peace. We have been living a long time with the white man and have followed the white man’s road and do what he says. I hope these other bands will do the same. We have all met here today to make peace, and I hope we’ll remain at peace. And I hope that General Crook will take pity on us and help us…. I hold my hand up to the Great Spirit and swear I’ll stick with General Crook as long as I’m with him. When this war is over and I get home, I want to live like a white man and have implements to work with. We have made peace with these people here today, and we’d like to have a letter sent home to let our people know about it.”
More of the war chiefs and their leaders grunted in agreement or raised their voices to signal they were one with the soldier chief.
Frank White stood proudly in his dark-blue uniform, his face and shaved head savagely painted, large brass rings hung from the edges of his ears, feathers tied to his small, circular scalp lock tossing on the cold wind. Gesturing to Crook, the Pawnee scout said, “This is our head chief talking to us and asking us to be brothers. I hope the Great Spirit will smile on us.…The Pawnee have lived with the white men a long time and know how strong they are. Brothers, I don’t think there is one of you can come out here today and say you have ever heard of the Pawnee killing a white man … I suppose you know the Pawnee are civilized. We plow, farm, and work the ground like white people.”
He then turned to Crook, saying, “Father, it is so what the Arapaho said. We have all gone on this expedition to help you and hope it may be a successful one…. This is all I have to say. I am glad you have told us what you want done about the captured stock. The horses taken will help us to work our land.”
At last Crook stood before them, bringing the assembly to silence as he collected his thoughts, scratching at a cheek, and finally said, “To bring this council to an end, I want you all to hear my words clearly. When we come upon a village of hostiles, you must make sure your men do not kill women and children. Any man of you who kills a woman or a child will be punished severely by my hand.”
Bourke knew the general was laying down his order not so much out of some Anglo-American cultural trait as out of a carefully considered military strategy.
“When we do not kill the women and children—instead we capture them—we can use those women and children as hostages to lure in the men. The fighters. The warriors. It is not the Great Father’s desire to kill the Indians if they will obey the laws of this land. On the other hand, we want to find the villages of our enemies, to force them to give up their ponies and guns so that in the future they will behave themselves.”
After supper late that evening, Bourke sat with others at the fire outside Crook’s headquarters tent. He said, “The war’s over already.”
“What makes you say so?” Donegan asked.
“Because the Indians we’ve been fighting are now our friends, and they’re even friends with the Indians who have always been our friends.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” the Irishman replied as he stared into the flames of that welcome fire as the temperature dropped like lead shot in a bucket of water. “What Crook accomplished today without firing a shot, what he did last month in capturing the ponies and the weapons—was more than we accomplished on the Powder River last March. Or on the Rosebud in June.* Or beneath the Slim Buttes last September.”
Then Donegan held up his coffee tin. “More than a toast, I make this my prayer: that this goddamned war is as you say it is, Johnny. May our bloody little war truly be all but over.”
* Reap the Whirlwind, Vol. 9, The Plainsmen Series.
Chapter 20
Freezing Moon 1876
A sliver of the old moon still hung in the sky this morning before the sun crept from its bed in the east. With sixty-eight winters behind him, an old man like Morning Star was up and stirring, out to relieve his bladder. It seemed the older he got, the more urgent was this morning mission.
Before too long would come the Big Freezing Moon. And the hard times would begin. As the autumn aged into winter, more and more agency people wandered in to join the great village while the men hunted for the meat the women would dry over smoky fires. Game had been plentiful on the west side of the White Mountains,* but here along the east slope the hunting had become hard. The men were forced to go farther, hunting great distances out onto the plains, among the tortuous tracks of coulees and ravines, the dry washes where the deer and antelope had taken shelter from cold winds. A man of the Ohmeseheso was duty-bound to provide for his family and the village. Survival of the People was more important than earning coups in war or stealing another tribe’s ponies. As the white man tightened his noose around this great country and the game disappeared, Morning Star felt the pull on his inner spirit which all young men must also feel. Usually the snows brought elk and deer down from the high places in these mountains touched this morning with a gentle pink as the sun poked up its head.
Perhaps something else had driven the animals away.
But he did not want to think about that. Morning Star stoically remained faithful in his belief that the Powers would protect the People for all time if they would only resist the white mans seduction, the white man’s destruction.
Yes! Perhaps the Powers would truly guard the People this time, especially now that both sacred objects were here together in their great village.
Morning Star’s people had camped along a small stream at the base of the White Mountains when Black Hairy Dog arrived from the Indian Territory far to the south. There was loud and joyous celebration in the village when the old warrior who had succeeded his dead father, Stone Forehead, as keeper of the Maahotse, the Sacred Medicine Arrows, rode in. Black Hairy Dog’s wife rode on a second pony behind him, carrying the arrows in their kit-fox-skin quiver on her back—in that ancient, reverent way proscribed by Sweet Medicine.
In hurrying from that hot land to the south to reach the Powder River country, the warrior, who had seen fifty-three winters, and his wife had bumped into a wandering soldier patrol in the country off to the southeast, not long after making a wide circle around Red Cloud’s agency. When the soldiers began their chase, the couple divided the arrows and galloped off in different directions. Days later on the upper reaches of the Powder River the two found one another with great rejoicing and happy tears. With the four arrows reunited, the couple continued their journey to search for the great village in the mountains.
At long last both Great Covenants of the People rested in their sacred lodges at the center of the camp crescent, the horns of the semicircle opening, like the lodge doors, toward Noaha-vose, their Sacred Mountain. From its high places flowed endless new life for the People, invigorating both the Sacred Buffalo Hat and the Sacred Medicine Arrows. Now Morn
ing Star could dare to hope once more.
Up till now, everything else had been only prayer.
More than once he had confided to Little Wolf that the People should not associate so closely with their belligerent cousins, the Lakota. Though the scars had faded from his flesh, the deep wound to Morning Star’s pride had never healed in ten long winters. When the soldier chief Carrington had wanted to talk to the Ohmeseheso leaders at the Pine Fort,* Morning Star had joined the other headmen in visiting the soldiers. That night, back in their camp a short distance from the fort, they were surrounded by a large band of Lakota warriors led by Man Afraid of His Horses and a youngster named Crazy Horse, Lakota warriors who beat Morning Star and the others with their bows—humiliating the old Tse-Tsehese chiefs for betraying their alliance by talking to the hated white man.
Ever since, Morning Star had been wary of the Lakota in general, and Crazy Horse in particular. Even Little Wolf, a just and courageous man, tended to distrust the Lakota more with every season this conflict dragged on and on. Unlike most of their people, Little Wolf had refused to learn the Lakota tongue, only one of the increasing symptoms of tension in the tribes’ long alliance.
Morning Star turned upon hearing the shouts and cries from the far north side of camp. On his spindly old legs, the chief hurried with the others brought from their beds to see what had caused the disturbance. By the time he arrived, there were hundreds crowding in on the two Lakota riders who had been visiting the People and two days ago departed to rejoin their own people camped with Crazy Horse on the Sheep River† at the mouth of Box Elder Creek. Now the pair were telling and retelling their story as more and more men and women came up to join that excited throng.
“After sundown the day we left your village, we drew near what we thought was a camp of our people north of here. But something just did not feel right. We stopped short of the village and decided to investigate. Waiting until first light, we finally saw some people coming down to the river to swim. The closer we looked, the more we could tell it was not a Lakota camp.”
A Cold Day in Hell Page 24