A Cold Day in Hell

by Terry C. Johnston

  But what crushed Morning Star’s spirit was to hear his own tongue spoken by some of the scouts. Tse-Tsehese! Cheyenne had come here to help the white man destroy this camp where both the four Sacred Arrows and the Sacred Buffalo Hat rested in peace and plenty. Aiyeee!

  Past him and the other chiefs who stood protectively at the edge of camp flooded the last of the People now—most of them naked, bolting from their beds without robes and blankets, the men taking little but their weapons and cartridge belts, and the women dragging only their children into the cold and the snow. Many of these had slashed their way out of their lodges, plunging the blades of long knives through the backs of the frost-stiffened lodge skins or canvas lodge covers, frantically shoving their barefoot families out of the long slits into the bloody terror of that day-coming.

  “Run! Run to the hills! Lie behind the rocks!” mothers cried at their little ones, men and women screamed at their aged relatives.

  There in the breastworks the children were to stay until the parents could come to find them, until the strong could gather up the sick and the old—only then to continue their escape over the mountains to safety.

  One group of five young women, including Buffalo Calf Woman—whose younger brother was blind—hurried clumsily past Morning Star, stumbling, collapsing together in a heap because they were all still tied together, just as they had been at the all-night dance of the Kit Foxes. Together they pulled one another to their feet, screaming in panic, starting away before the Old-Man Chief grabbed the last one in that line, jerking them all to a stop with one hand as his other snatched his dull-bladed knife from his belt. Quickly he raked the weapon against each thong binding the young women, one by one pushing them away toward the mouth of that narrow canyon running northwesterly from the edge of camp.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

  As he watched after them for that brief moment, he caught sight of his childhood friend, Little Wolf, standing there like a beacon fire a man would ignite atop a high and faraway point of land. Waving on the fleeing girls.

  Just as the legends said Little Wolf had done last winter when the soldiers had attached Old Bear’s camp on the Powder, the Sweet Medicine Chief of the Ohmeseheso again courageously stood his ground at the mouth of that maze of ravines which pocked the ground west of their camp, urging everyone past him to hurry in their flight, hollering his orders, urging speed as the men, women, and children darted from this direction and that into the deepening canyon where they would be safe from all but a full-scale assault.

  It brought a mist to Morning Star’s eyes as he looked upon Little Wolf, his old friend of many, many winters—standing there beneath the onslaught of the weapons fired by those Wolf People scouts penetrating the lower end of the village, standing his ground while the bullets fell about him, putting his flesh between those soldier guns and the lives of the People.

  A chief’s first responsibility.

  Once the children and wrinkled ones were out of the village and on their way out of that network of ravines at the upper end of camp and into the deep and narrow canyon where the soldier bullets could not reach them, many of the women made their climb up the wall of that deep ravine and began to gather rocks at the lip of the canyon, erecting breastworks where they and their men would defend themselves to the death. For now the women sang their strong-heart songs as they worked, their voices rising like a prayer to give its power to their husbands and fathers, their brothers and uncles.

  With their families out of camp, most of the warriors turned back to take up positions across the hillsides or at the crest of the knolls, where they flopped to their bellies on the snow and frozen ground, to fire down upon the advancing pony soldiers.

  While none of the warriors at the lower end of the village had time to snatch up anything but their weapons as they urged their families to flee—some of those men choosing to make their stand there and then, dying on the bloodstained snow among the lodges—the men on the upper end of camp had enough frantic moments to catch up their horses, perhaps load a blanket or robe aboard them, and drive those ponies into the hills among that broken ground west of the village.

  A few even whirled their ponies around and galloped back across the stream, singing out their war songs and exhorting one another to have courage once they spotted the first white soldiers approaching from the east at the foot of the hills along the north side of the valley. Although they had no hope of stemming the blue tide with their small numbers, nonetheless these young warriors raced toward those attackers, screaming and firing their weapons—if only to give the families a few more heartbeats to flee by laying down their own lives.

  Some—rather than charging with the others—even dismounted and slapped their ponies on the rear to drive them off, each young warrior disappearing among the thick brush and undergrowth, from there to snipe at the white men as they came hurtling into the valley.

  Morning Star’s chest went cold as river ice with terror. He felt as if his heart had stopped—suddenly realizing one of his sons had pitched his family’s lodge at the lower end of camp, where the enemy was thickest.

  In the murky, misty darkness of that dawn, all Morning Star could see among the lodges and the trees were the startlingly bright muzzle flashes of the guns, hear only the crack-crack-crack of the weapons. A fierce fight was taking place … and the old chief knew, as any father would, that his child was offering up his life so that others might live another day.

  The gunfire grew deafening on the far side of the village now. Bullets slapped the frozen lodge skins like hailstones, splintering the lodgepoles above his head. Morning Star’s stomach rose into his throat: soldier scouts, Wolf People, were among the lodges on the south, seizing control of the village!

  While those first soldiers appeared out of the north along the low plateau across the stream from the village, more than three-times-ten half-dressed warriors hurried on foot into the mouth of the deep ravine, all of them sprinting north at the bottom of the wide scar where the warriors would lie in wait to ambush some of the mounted soldiers if they came to attack the hills where the families fled for safety. At the same time a handful of warriors turned aside, dashing directly north across the open, rolling ground toward one of the pony herds.

  The white man must not capture those horses!

  The ponies were their wealth—what made waging war possible! What would allow the People to escape, to rebuild, to fight on!

  Morning Star realized they must counterattack … about the time a group of soldiers against the north hills kicked their gray horses into a gallop and made a charge toward the low hill where Yellow Nose, who as a boy had been captured from the Black People,* commanded the many others who lay on their bellies firing their weapons at the Indian attackers pushing into the village.

  Just as he was about to turn from the camp, he watched Yellow Eagle, Little Hawk, Strange Owl, Bobtail Horse, White Frog, Little Shield, and even Bull Hump)—Morning Star’s own son—as well as all the rest crouched in readiness … waiting … then suddenly spring out of the bowels of that ravine like hares popping out of their burrows, their rifles spitting fire and destruction into the faces of those charging soldiers—spilling horses, men crying out in shock and pain and death, some of the white men crawling, pleading for help, others not moving at all as the warriors unleashed a second volley, then a third into the backs of the confused, milling, retreating soldiers. Three warriors clambered up the steep wall of the ravine, onto the plain, shrieking as they leaped upon the ve-ho-e bodies to be the first to strike the dead enemy, then take the soldier weapons and cartridge belts.

  Morning Star watched his son give the third strike to a soldier leader with the muzzle of his rifle. Then Bull Hump knelt beside the soldier’s horse, cutting free the fat pouch tied behind the saddle. He raised it in triumph and screeched a victory cry.

  “It is filled with many, many bullets!”

  But then more soldiers were coming. Bull Hump and the others must have hea
rd the hooves, the soldier guns, for they lunged back to the ravine … but instead of leaping to safety, Morning Star’s son skidded to a stop, sliding to his knees in the trampled snow as he scooped up a revolver, crawling on all fours to pick another off the icy ground. Jamming both of them into his belt, he hobbled on to the lip of the ravine and pitched over as more soldiers charged up.

  Shrill voices rang out behind Morning Star, filled with challenge.

  Below him at the upper end of the village, the last of Little Wolf’s warriors now gathered to taunt the soldier scouts who had seized the ridge above the south side of the village—flinging their voices at the Snake, those ancient enemies: boasting to the scouts that only days before they had wiped out a Shoshone village, every man, woman, and child falling victim.

  In the midst of that hail of bullets, Little Wolf and the others screamed their challenge to the Shoshone and boasted that in a time to come they would take revenge for this day’s attack.

  As soon as the left flank of those reinforcements began dismounting in a flurry among McKinney’s survivors, Seamus got himself a good look at an insignia here and there.

  This was the Fifth Cavalry. H Troop. As battle hardened a bunch as there ever was

  “Thank God,” he whispered, his eyes turning heavenward.

  More bullets were again whistling among them. Those sharpshooters atop that knoll were spraying a galling fire into the horsemen arriving at the edge of that twenty-foot-deep ravine where the fallen horses and McKinney’s men lay scattered upon the crusted snow.

  “Halt!” came the shrill command behind Donegan and the wounded lieutenant’s decimated troop.

  There arose a cold clatter of metal and whining leather, scraping hooves and muttered oaths, as the entire command in battle front skidded to a stop.

  Then an officer bawled, “Dissss-mount!”

  The troopers leaped to the ground, yanking hard on their reins to turn horses about.

  As Captain John M. Hamilton whirled toward the enemy, pistol held high, sergeants took up the cry, “Horse-holders to the rear!”

  In a flurry every fourth soldier snatched the reins of three other horses, locking on the twenty-eight-inch throatlatches before wheeling about on his heel to drag his horses to the rear while the rest pushed forward on foot.

  “Time’s come you young’uns make sure you’re loaded!” suggested an old file off to Donegan’s right.

  “L-loaded, sir, Sergeant!” some high voice squeaked.

  Then Hamilton’s boys were thrust into the thick of it.

  Turning for one last look behind him at the plateau where he had galloped off from Mackenzie’s group, Seamus spotted another company coming up on the double, dismounting right among H Troop’s horse-holders, who were struggling away with their frightened, rearing mounts.

  Now, with these numbers, at least they might just have a chance to cut their way out of things, Donegan thought as he dropped on one knee to take a steady shot—then immediately levered another cartridge into the breech and fired again as quickly as he could make that cold action work.

  In the next instant he was back on his feet among the others, at least half of the soldiers advancing in a foragers’ charge while the rest of Hamilton’s company threw open the big trapdoors on their Springfield carbines and rammed home another of the fat, shiny sausages. Step by step, yard by yard, Hamilton expertly leapfrogged his men in two squads until Captain Wirt Davis’s F Troop, Fourth Cavalry, reached the back of H Troop’s line and infiltrated the skirmishing. Now both troops advanced together in a massed front as the Cheyenne on the tall bluff beyond the ravine laid their hottest fire in among the soldiers.

  As the broad blue front inched forward across the bloodied snow, Seamus heard one man, then a second, cry out immediately as they were hit, both of them sprawling backward in the snow. The first went down noisily, thrashing and smearing the white, icy ground with a crimson stain, then lay still. The other collapsed to his knees, slowly settling backward as if he were merely sitting down to Sunday dinner without a complaint while his mouth moved soundlessly to form the word “Mother” and his blank eyes implored the cold blue sky above him

  As the soldiers neared the edge of the ravine, the sun suddenly snapped over the ridge behind them, immediately flooding the snowy valley in an eye-stinging brilliance.

  “By God,” Donegan murmured under his breath as he jammed another half-dozen cartridges into the Winchester’s receiver, his numb, clumsy fingers spilling a shell on the snow, “—the bastards have the sun in their eyes now!”

  Some men grumbled curses all around him as they drew close to the enemy. A few men shouted commands as most struggled to reload with clumsy gloves and frozen hands—none of the platoons firing in ordered volleys now.

  More warriors now at the edge of the ravine.

  They were almost within spitting distance of the enemy. Still advancing on the Cheyenne. Foot by bloody foot. Another soldier cried out, and two men on either side of him knelt to grab the wounded one, turned and dragged him to the rear as he flailed his legs and screamed for immortal mercy, the front of his belly slicked with a dark stain.

  “Damned gut wound,” the Irishman whispered under his breath. A horrible way to die. A slow journey, one filled with teethgrinding agony.

  So it was he suddenly remembered American Horse, how bravely the chief had died that night within the smoking ruin of his village at Slim Buttes.* Would this madness ever end?

  But as quickly Seamus knew it would not. Could not. Not until the Indian was back on each miserable patch of ground the government laid out for him and called a reservation. Not until these brave men had all been stripped of weapons and ponies—stripped of their warriorhood.

  It was plain that these at the ravine had chosen to die standing up, fighting to the end as they protected family and home. Such a man fought savagely, Seamus recalled. Because he had so much to lose … and at the same time had nothing more to lose.

  Such an enemy fought much, much harder than any soldier far away from home would ever fight.

  Off to the right and at the center of the line the soldiers made the first close-quarters contact with the Cheyenne in a sudden clash of shock and noise and voices, grunts and screams. Then as quickly the rest of them were in the maw of that hand-to-hand struggle. Suddenly so close the troopers could smell last night’s supper on the breath of the warriors who flung their bodies against the two troops, close enough to smell the frozen grease on their hair. Close enough to smell the fear seeping from a man’s pores.

  He smelled no fear from the Cheyenne this day.

  Just in front of Seamus one of McKinney’s men flopped down onto his back, both his empty hands locked around the wrist of a warrior as the half-naked Cheyenne leaped onto him, a huge bear-jaw knife poised over his head. It was McKinney’s sergeant, Thomas H. Forsyth.

  Seamus turned at the hip, aimed at the warrior’s head, point-blank, and squeezed the Winchester’s trigger. Watched the Cheyenne’s head snap away to the side in a bright spray of blood. Some of the crimson splattered upon that well-tanned face, which showed instant gratitude to him before the sergeant rolled out of the bloody snow.

  Forsyth and another, Private Thomas Ryan, knelt over the body of their lieutenant, protecting McKinney as more warriors swarmed out of the deep ravine. Cartridge by cartridge they slammed beneath the trapdoors of their Springfields, daring to hold back the horde that screeched defiance and death.

  “Deploy, goddammit!” the old sergeant bellowed again above the lieutenant’s body. “Don’t let them overrun us! Deploy as skirmishers! And stand!”

  Then Donegan himself bawled a command above the clamor as he levered another cartridge into the breech and turned to meet the red onslaught, “Look the bastards in the eye, goddammit! Stand and look ’em in the eye!”

  In the next breath Sergeant Frank Murray and Corporal William J. Linn were beside Ryan and Forsyth over the officer’s body, standing, waving, hollering, rallying others
who were still some twenty yards behind—exhorting every man of them to make a stand over their fallen comrades.

  Lieutenant Otis darted here, then there, moving among the rest of the men as they knelt and went about their bloody, dirty work of it, ordering his soldiers of M Troop to lay down fire to cover the four who were protecting their commanding officer.

  Linn pitched back, clutching at his hip, groaning as his legs thrashed in the snow and he scooted off in a bloody furrow, clawing the snow for his carbine. Another soldier knelt over him holding the wounded man down as he stretched for the Springfield.

  Forsyth suddenly twisted to the side as he was reaching out to the wounded corporal—struck along the side of the head with a bullet that knocked off his hat, opening up a bloody flesh wound.

  “We’ll keep at ’em, Sarge!” Linn hollered in a pain-ridden gasp. Then he rolled over onto his side and dragged up his carbine, coolly slamming home another copper cartridge as he went on fighting despite the disabling wound.

  Emboldened by the spirit of such brave men, Seamus inched forward, fired at a sudden appearance of more warriors breaking over the rim of the ravine, then crouched to reload. His scar prickled.

  Whirling at the same moment he heard the whistle of the war club knifing through the freezing air. At the end of the club stood a tall, sinewy warrior whose eyes glittered with the fires of hate. Seamus started to lunge aside—

  Grunting as the club’s handle smacked across his left shoulder, the Irishman collapsed into the snow. Stars shot from his eyes as he sensed the startling cold smack his cheek; then he slowly realized a shadow blotted out the brilliant sunlight.

  Pulling his ’73 Model Colt and raking back the hammer in one motion, Donegan pointed it at the wide, screeching mouth above him … as the pistol jerked in his left hand.

  He quickly rolled aside onto the wounded shoulder and fired again from his back. A second time the warrior jerked as another bullet struck him … then slowly the club pitched from his hands and he fell stiff-legged all but atop the Irishman.