A Cold Day in Hell

by Terry C. Johnston

  Up here where the smoke hung just beneath the clouds there clung the stench of death and destruction. Everything gone to ash and smoke. Those lodges of each warrior society exquisitely decorated with regalia, painted to record the exploits of their members, their finest deeds: a retelling of men and soldiers and horses pitched together in struggles from the past. A glorious past.

  Each man’s most important clothing was gone in the smoke. Beautifully tanned hides, quilled and beaded—a warrior’s holy clothes that he would wear into battle. Scalp locks and the medicine drawings on each shirt, the leggings, his fighting moccasins. The great spray and tumble of war eagle feathers worn by some, or the great provocation of the horned headdresses that adorned others.

  But with the attack yesterday morning, there was no time to dress and paint while one said his prayers. Only a few at the upper end of camp had a moment to sweep up a sacred bonnet or a special amulet to give them strength in the coming fight. Their sacred war medicines, prayer bundles, all of it—everything except Maahotse and Esevone—was gone. What hadn’t been burned had been carried off by the enemy’s Indians.

  Even the Sacred Corn, given by the Grandmother Earth to Sweet Medicine to feed his people at the beginning of time. How it had stabbed Morning Star’s heart to watch the soldiers throw the last few ears of their Sacred Corn into the fire. No more would the People know freedom from want with it gone. Now—he knew—they would always be hungry.

  The Ohmeseheso were running again.

  So Morning Star wondered if it would not have been better to die the death of a warrior in yesterday’s battle, along with his two sons and those grandchildren … better that than to watch his people’s greatness die at the bottom of those bloody footprints scattering up the silent, mourning mountainside.

  In addition to the twenty-four soldiers and Indian scouts wounded in the battle, Lieutenant Homer Wheeler’s detail was attending to one of the Shoshone who had suffered a terrible abdominal wound. Because of the poor prognosis for a man shot through the intestines, the army surgeons didn’t hold out much hope for the scout named Anzi to survive long enough to reach the wagon camp. Since he was marked for death, the course of treatment was simply to make the patient as comfortable as possible and administer as much painkiller as was necessary.

  For Anzi, Dr. LaGarde prescribed laudanum, a morphine derivative, and approved all the whiskey the Shoshone wanted. With such a combination coursing through his system, the warrior had somehow survived the night, lasting into the next morning while Mackenzie’s cavalry prepared to leave the Cheyenne village behind.

  But rather than slipping away, as the surgeons had predicted, the warrior instead began to insist upon more and more whiskey from his attendants through the long, cold night.

  “Oh, John!” he would call out to one or another of the hospital stewards or Wheeler’s escort detail. It mattered little what the soldiers’ names were, because Anzi preferred to use that common expression many of the Shoshone gave when addressing any white man.

  “What you want now, Anzi?” a soldier would ask.

  “Oh, John! Heap sick! Whiskey! Whiskey!”

  So all through that night and into the gray of dawn Wheeler’s troopers poured whiskey down the mortally wounded scout, as well as sharing some with a few of the other critically injured soldiers like Private Alexander McFarland, who lapsed in and out of consciousness. But by midmorning, as the cavalry was preparing to embark, Wheeler had been forced to kneel at Anzi’s side, explaining that there was no more whiskey for him, no officers’ brandy, either.

  “No whiskey, John?”

  “No whiskey. No more. None.”

  Grim-lipped and resolute, the Shoshone slowly rolled to his side as if he were about to give up the ghost, when he dragged his legs beneath him and rose unsteadily between a pair of his fellow Shoshone, there at his side in a deathwatch.

  “Where are you going?” Wheeler demanded, stunned as he called out to the Shoshone’s back.

  Over his shoulder the wounded scout replied, “Anzi go ride. Warrior always ride.”

  As tired as he was, Seamus Donegan nonetheless preferred to be one of the last out of the valley that Sunday afternoon. He hadn’t snatched a bit of sleep for two nights now, what with the march of the twenty-fourth, then with the way the Shoshone scouts caterwauled all last night after the battle, mourning their tribesmen, women, and children recently killed by the Cheyenne of this very village.

  Shortly past eleven A.M. Mackenzie gave the order, and the scouts began driving more than seven hundred captured ponies ahead of them through the bogs and the willow thickets, heading downstream.

  Minutes later the men swung into position by columns of fours where possible, pointing their noses south by east toward the gap they had entered in the cold, gray-belly light of dawn the day before. Seamus wondered if he had become more accustomed to the deep cold, or if the temperature might be moderating, actually allowing it to snow gently once more on the dark, serpentine column snaking its way across the pristine white that bordered the Red Fork of the Powder River.

  As he and those who closed the file on the column entered the boggy willow thickets, Donegan turned in the saddle one last time to look back on what had been the Cheyenne camp. Among the wispy sheets of the wind-whipped, billowy snow, he thought he caught sight of three Cheyenne warriors reentering the village.

  He reined up, curious. Alone now as the sounds of the column inched away from him, the Irishman watched the trio of warriors move slowly from one pile of ash and rubble to another until they finally collapsed as if all the spirit had been sucked right out of them. As he nudged his heels into the bay’s flanks and moved out once more, Seamus listened to the distant, sodden wails of grief from those three warriors who sat in the ruins of their village, crying out in despair and utter pain, wailing with implacable grief.

  Up ahead of him the men cursed and yelled, packers and soldiers alike, as they struggled with their mules and horses. The animals slipped and slid crossing every precipitous slope—skidding onto their haunches and braying in protest.

  Meanwhile, Lieutenant Wheeler and his escort of two companies of the Third Cavalry quickly discovered it best to lower the travois with their wounded still attached by several ropes rather than careen down each treacherous hillside. The most dangerous slopes were the long ones, which required the soldiers to tie their lariats together as they had to lower each wounded man down more than two hundred feet, one at a time to men and mules waiting below. Once the ropes were untied from the travois, they were drawn back up the hill and another travois lashed in and lowered.

  As the progress of the column was slowed, Seamus repeatedly caught up with Wheeler’s escort. Each time he lent a hand where he could, joking with some of the wounded, touching the shoulder of others who were clearly in great pain. Always offering what comfort he might give.

  “Aye, and that last drop was a daisy, Irishman,” one old private snorted as his travois was tied up and made ready for another trip down the snowy slopes. “Why—I’ll have you know I ain’t had sech a pucker of a toboggan ride since I was in knee britches!”

  For the journey two men were assigned to each of the mules carrying the dead, to make certain the cantankerous animals did not break away and possibly disfigure their departed comrades by colliding against rocks and deadfall. Four men were positioned around each of the wounded: one to lead the mule, two to dismount and heft the travois around difficult terrain, and a fourth to lead the four cavalry mounts. At every stream crossing, the soldiers and packers were forced to dismount and unhitch the travois—carrying the wounded across the icy, slippery rocks by hand and on foot. To assure that the wounded troopers were given the finest of attention, Wheeler had assigned one noncommissioned officer for every five travois.

  Because of such care only one accident happened that entire first afternoon. At one of the many repeated crossings of the Red Fork the mule jerked the travois out of the hands of the litter handlers and dragged
the wounded soldier on through the shallow creek. But because of the length of the poles and the inclined position of the soldier upon them, he wasn’t soaked—only splashed by the skittish mule’s hooves.

  Yet it wasn’t only those steep and narrow parts of the trail that made the day’s journey so treacherous.

  Late that afternoon Seamus had gone ahead to reach that smooth, undulating ground the Lakota and Cheyenne scouts had christened “Race Horse Canyon.” To the rear arose yelps and curses, the clatter of hooves and squeak of leather. A wild-eyed mule careened its way with travois bounding and bouncing across the sage flats. Wheeling the bay quickly, the Irishman raced to catch up the runaway animal, slowing it until it turned with him and stopped—when Donegan immediately dismounted to lunge back to the wounded trooper still strapped in.

  Breathlessly the Irishman asked, “You … you all right, sojur?

  The hapless passenger caught his breath, blinking his eyes, then grinned gamely as he gazed up at Donegan to say, “Let her go, by damn! Whoooeee! If I had me some bells jingling, I’d think I was taking a sleigh ride back home!”

  “Where are you wounded?”

  “Hip, sir.”

  “You want me fetch up a surgeon to come see to you?” The soldier shook his head bravely; then, as he shifted himself, his face clearly etched with pain, he said, “There’s others hurt worse off’n me, mister. I’ll fair up in a minute or two. Just let me catch my breath, will you? And you can put this gol-danged mule back in line with the other boys.”

  Donegan readjusted the thin blankets over the wounded man, tucking them in beneath the soldier’s chin.

  “All right, Private,” he said quietly, feeling his eyes mist. “Let’s you and me head for home.”

  Chapter 40

  26–27 November 1876

  Throughout their march away from the Cheyenne village that Sunday afternoon, Mackenzie’s men came across the horse tack, clothing, and superfluous equipage the cavalry had cast aside in its hurried, cold-night march to reach the canyon of the Red Fork, abandoned litter that spoke eloquently of a trooper’s privations and sacrifices in service to his unit.

  Which only made Seamus dwell all the more on those men who had suffered through the night with their wounds, given whiskey and laudanum and kept as warm as possible. On their shoulders more than any other the weight of battle had been borne.

  At least Mackenzie’s sawbones could give them something to ease their goddamned pain, Donegan thought as the procession wound in and around to the east. Too damned many good men fated to die were all too often forced to die in pain.

  He squeezed his eyes shut to stop the spill of tears and took a deep, shocking breath of that cold wind. Thinking on Samantha to ease some of the private torment in his heart, thinking on the wee boy who would soon have a name.

  Late in the afternoon of that first day’s countermarch, a cadre of Shoshone and Pawnee scouts rejoined the column after making a reconnaissance to learn more of the Cheyennes’ intentions. Back on the twenty-third they had departed Crook’s camp on the Crazy Woman Fork, sent north toward the Bighorns. As it turned out, the fourteen scouts brought in a few head of ponies, and a report of their own skirmish with the enemy.

  “Seems they ran across what the Cheyenne have left of a pony herd,” Frank North explained to Donegan as the two marched along with the slow column. “No more’n two hundred head at the most.”

  “But our scouts cut out almost half of them before the Cheyenne herders discovered what they were up to,” Luther jumped into the conversation.

  “And for their enthusiasm our boys nearly got themselves chewed up by those Cheyenne licking their battle wounds,” Frank declared. “If the snow clouds hadn’t rolled over about that time, our Pawnee and Cosgrove’s Snakes would not be here to tell the story.”

  “They have any guess how many Cheyenne they saw?” Seamus asked.

  Frank replied, “Could be as many as twelve hundred, maybe more.”

  Luther said, “But the good news is—from what our boys could see, the Cheyenne really are badly cut up, all but naked, without moccasins, blankets, or ammunition … dragging all their wounded through the mountains toward the headwaters of the Crazy Woman.”

  “They’re headed for the Crazy Horse people,” Seamus replied. “Just like they did after the Reynolds’s debacle in March.”

  Frank stated, “That was right about the time the warrior bands started coming together for the spring and summer hunting seasons.”

  For the rest of the day rumors ran through the anxious command because of that nearby contact with the fleeing Cheyenne. Fears arose that Morning Star’s warriors would be waiting to ambush the column somewhere along the trail. So frightened were some of the wounded that the colonel ordered his Indian scouts to the head of the command, where they stayed for the rest of the day in the event of a surprise attack. Indian would again be the first to bear the brunt of any ambush by Indian.

  Just past sunset Mackenzie ordered a halt for the night on the far side of Willow Creek, which would lead them out of the mountains and back to the plains, where they could rendezvous with Crook and Dodge on the Crazy Woman Fork. The weary, cold cavalry had put twelve miles behind them by the time they kindled their fires and settled in among the snowdrifts for the long winter’s night.

  Tom Cosgrove waved the Irishman over to his fire. “Come. Sit. Have yourself a cup of my terrible coffee, you no-good, sonofabitchin’ blue-belly.”

  Seamus took the tin from Yancy Eckles at their cheery fire. He asked the two, “You mind if I bunk in with you here?”

  “Sure you don’t mind the noise?” the short squaw man Eckles asked, throwing his thumb back to indicate the loud, uproarious scalp dance the Shoshone were holding nearby.

  “No,” Donegan said all too quietly. “The noise won’t bother me near as much as the quiet would tonight.”

  “Sit yourself down, then,” Cosgrove replied, stretching out his long frame. “My home is your home!”

  “Truth be—I don’t want to stay down there with the others where I was,” Donegan replied, then sipped at the scalding coffee.

  Eckles inquired, “With Wheeler’s wounded train?”

  Wagging his head, Seamus said, “It ain’t the wounded. It’s them dead ones.”

  With a snort Cosgrove threw a fist at Donegan’s shoulder. “That’s a pretty one! With all the dead men you’ve seen in all your goddamned wars—now you’ve gone and got yourself funny feelings about a few dead soldiers?”

  For a moment Seamus stared into the fire. “They’re frozen.”

  “We all are,” Cosgrove replied casually.

  “No. I mean really frozen, Tom,” Donegan argued. “They froze near solid on the ride here this afternoon.”

  His eyes narrowing, Eckles asked. “Hanging over the backs of them mules?”

  Nodding, Donegan said, “And when Wheeler’s men took the bodies off the mules, they just set each dead man up to stand all on his own, bent over in a half hoop, posted on hands and boots.”

  Cosgrove trembled involuntarily. “Like they was bowed up?”

  As the war cries and songs of the Shoshone reached another crescendo, Donegan only nodded, his cracked, bloody lips warming at the rim of the coffee tin and didn’t say another word.

  Finally Cosgrove stated quietly, “Sure, Irishman. We’ll always make room for you here.”

  They drank their coffee in silence for some time, each of them listening to the noisy Shoshone celebration, until Eckles spoke.

  “You figure Grouard got to Crook already?”

  “Yeah,” Seamus replied. “I’ll wager the infantry’re headed this way already.”

  “General?”

  George Crook sat upright at the sound of the orderly’s voice, rubbing at his gritty eyes. Damn, but it was dark. “Yes! Yes! What is it?”

  He could see it was not yet light. Nothing more than the first seep of gray from outside, a gray that streamed through the canvas shelter half he had str
etched out from the sidewall of one of Furey’s freight wagons to keep the snow off his bed. Crook shifted on his mattress of blankets and sagebrush, hurriedly grabbing for the first boot in the dark.

  “It’s a courier, General.”

  His heart rose to his throat. “From Mackenzie?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And?” he snapped, bursting to his feet and bolting out of the shelter half with one boot on and the other in his hand, both braids of his long red beard flung back over his shoulders.

  The orderly fell back two steps, surprised by the general’s sudden appearance. “Th-th-there’s been a f-fight, sir.”

  “By Jove! That’s exquisite news!” Then he noticed the courier at the fire, having just filled his cup. “So you’re the one who rode in with this splendid report, Frank?”

  The half-breed Grouard nodded, taking his first sip at the coffee sending curls of steam into the frosty light of predawn. “Cold as hell out there, General.”

  Dammit, he wanted answers—now. “Mackenzie … he won?”

  Nodding, Grouard replied in that easy, slow way of his. “Not like Reynolds last winter. Not like that at all.”

  Crook did a quick little stamp with his feet, something on the order of a Phil Sheridan Irish jig, only then realizing he hadn’t put his second boot on as he stomped down on the pounded snow with his thin stocking. “A victory, Frank?”

  “Damn right, it’s a victory, General. But the Tse-Tsehese are up in the rocks around their camp and the carbines can’t bring ’em down. Mackenzie said to tell you he needs the Long Toms.”