Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past

by Pamela Sargent

  As for the army’s Indian scouts, those who had been too slow to return to their own people had suffered for it. The Apaches in particular had visited the same cruel tortures on traitors as they had on the unfortunate settlers they had attacked earlier. Any Indian who scouted for the white man now would be shown no mercy if ever he were captured. Lemuel had heard of a few former scouts who had volunteered to fight the recalcitrant rebels in the South rather than remain near the Plains and risk capture by their own people. It was said that almost all of those scouts had died in the worst of the fighting, that some had seemed to rush to their deaths. There had been little for them to lose.

  That was one circumstance that made the game that Lemuel was playing now especially dangerous. He had to trust that Rubalev would somehow be able to assure Touch-the-Clouds that, whatever he might hear about the Orphan later on, Lemuel’s loyalties still lay with the Lakota. He had no reason to doubt Rubalev, but memories still sometimes came to him, usually in the night after he woke from a restless sleep, of Rubalev dancing with the dead scout’s scalp or standing by the bodies of the executed Blue Coats at Fort Fetterman. Rubalev, he knew now, would discard him quickly if he found it necessary.

  Crook, whatever respect he had for his red foes, must have sued for peace with them only with great reluctance. Sheridan had probably sent him the order to withdraw, and Lemuel knew enough about General Sheridan to know how much he must have hated giving such a order.

  “So you are telling me,” Lemuel said, “that you do not need my services.”

  Crook sighed. “You are wrong there. What I learned fighting Apaches isn’t going to help me on the Plains against the Sioux. I need whatever information you can give me. What you can tell me about the Sioux, their movements, their chiefs, their past battles—any such information might be useful to me later.”

  Lemuel had come to Omaha knowing that Crook might well have no use for him as a scout. In a way, he was relieved; the important thing was to keep Three Star from learning too much, and Lemuel could perhaps accomplish that more easily with misinformation than by trying to mislead Crook’s scouts. He wondered now what he should tell the man, what kinds of tales might keep the general from considering an incursion into Lakota territory.

  Perhaps nothing he could say would make any difference. If the situation in the East worsened, Crook would lack the means to attack, might even be ordered to a command elsewhere. But if the rebellions were put down for good, the recent treaty would soon be forgotten, as so many others had been. And there was still the chance that conflict and hard times in the eastern states would drive more people to seek their fortunes elsewhere, perhaps in the Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana territories. The only way to protect those settlers and open the land up to Eastern investment—looting might be a better term for it—would be to force the Lakota onto reservations once more.

  “I don’t suppose,” Crook continued, “that you know anything, or have heard any rumors, of what might have happened to the companies of the Seventh Cavalry led by George Armstrong Custer.”

  Lemuel hesitated. He had expected the question, and had been prepared to tell Crook the same story he had told to Jeremiah Clarke.

  “His wife has been pressing hard,” Crook went on. “She has written letters to several officers demanding an investigation.” The Gray Wolf regarded him steadily with his pale eyes. This man would not be convinced by the story Clarke had heard. He would certainly not believe it coming from a man who had claimed only a few moments ago to be a friend of some of the Lakota chiefs, and thus presumably privy to some information about Custer’s fate.

  “He was on an expedition,” Crook said. “He was to explore the Black Hills territory, but not to go after any Indians or attack them—so I was informed, at any rate. But Custer was always impetuous.”

  Another story was suggesting itself to Lemuel, one that would be closer to the truth and thus have a hope of convincing the general. “I do not know what happened to Custer,” he said carefully, “but I can make a guess.”

  Crook folded his hands.

  “There were rumors in the camp where I was staying about an attack on one encampment, one which supposedly claimed the lives of several women and children as well as men. Several of the young warriors grew angry and rode out to find out if this was true. The Sioux were on the move then, following the buffalo as they always do during the summer, and soon a great many encampments were gathering south of the Belle Fourche River, near the Black Hills, where Custer and his men had apparently been sighted.”

  Crook drew his brows together.

  “There might have been as many as two thousand Sioux and Cheyenne warriors in that one place, perhaps more. I can’t be certain, since the Lakota with whom I was traveling were riding well behind the others, making certain that their women and children were safe, and did not reach their comrades until the fighting was over. Custer divided his forces and sent some of his men to attack, but they were driven back. At least that is what I was told.”

  Crook looked as though he believed him for the moment. Lemuel thought of Custer’s exploits during the War Between the States, how he charged into the thick of things, heedless of his safety or that of his men. Custer’s Luck, they had called his good fortune, his way of surviving the most reckless of charges. Crook would find it easy enough to believe that he would do something as ill-considered as rushing to fight an Indian force that outnumbered his own.

  “He had scouts with him,” Crook said. “He couldn’t have been employing them very well if he did anything that foolish. Of course, with Custer—” He shrugged and fell silent.

  “One cannot fault General Custer’s courage,” Lemuel said.

  “No, one cannot fault that.” Crook sighed. “Go on with your story, Rowland.”

  “I was told that the Seventh sustained heavy casualties, and that Custer finally surrendered. Given that he had violated the treaty with the Lakota chiefs by coming into the Black Hills, and had also attacked an Indian camp, one could argue that the Lakota would have been justified in killing him. Apparently they settled for making a captive of him instead. If he’s still alive, he would have no way of letting his wife know what happened. He can only hope that she’ll wait for him.”

  Crook was looking doubtful again. “And would they also have made captives of the hundreds of men with him? I am assuming that most of them or a goodly portion of them survived, even after the fighting. The Sioux couldn’t have killed them all.”

  Lemuel nodded. “From what some of the Lakota men told me afterwards, many took the opportunity to desert. Some apparently went west—exactly where, I do not know. It was after this that the Indians decided to attack Fort Fetterman. Once they had their victory there and had secured what they wanted by treaty, there was no reason for me to remain among them. I returned to St. Joseph and reported to Colonel Clarke there.”

  “There was also no cause for you to remain in the West.” Crook’s pale eyes seemed almost too piercing. “I know something of your past, Rowland. You might have gone back to live among your own people in Tonawanda. You might have gone to New York and taken advantage of some of Ely Parker’s connections. He has done well for himself since his disgrace in Washington. I hear that he is even involving himself again in politics these days.”

  “So I have heard.” Lemuel knew only a little about Donehogawa’s political activities. The martyred Lincoln, the prematurely dead President Grant—they had become the symbols of those Republicans who were hoping for reform. The problem was that the more corrupt wing of the party, the one that clung to President Colfax and had rallied around James G. Blaine, the Speaker of the House, could also claim a connection to them. And the two wings of the party were still bound together in these troubled times. It was known that some in the South hoped that a Democratic president might be more sympathetic to the rebels, and that disunity among Republicans might give the presidency to a Democrat.

  “To put it another way,” Crook said, “I fail to unde
rstand why you thought of coming to me. I know what you would risk if you go scouting in Indian territory and the Sioux find out that I sent you, which makes me wonder why you offer to do so. I fail to see why you are so willing to help in preparing me for war against the Sioux.”

  “I am not interested in preparing you for war,” Lemuel said, “but for peace.”

  The general frowned.

  “If the Union is preserved,” Lemuel continued, “the men who have been filling the pockets of many in Washington will look to the West again. They’ll want to build more railroads and more settlements. They will be more able and willing to send more soldiers to serve under your command. They may try to bargain with the Sioux for their lands first, but the Sioux won’t be willing to give them up now, and that would mean war. Their territory would have to be taken by force. I don’t have to tell you how long and bloody a battle that would be, with so many alliances among the Sioux and other red men. The army wouldn’t just be fighting here, but along the southern Plains as well.”

  Crook’s expression was grim.

  “The army would win in the end, of course. The Sioux are greatly outnumbered and the army could be supplied with better weapons than any the Indians could hope to get. You would break the power of the Sioux chiefs. The hoped-for Northern Pacific Railroad could finally be completed.’’

  Lemuel caught a glint of anger in Crook’s eyes; he had sensed that the general might already be repulsed by the thought of preparing the way for more greedy adventurers. “It would be better not to fight such a war,” Lemuel concluded.

  “Of course it would be better not to fight it,” Crook said. “I’m in agreement with you there. But if I am ordered to fight, I will do so, even if it means breaking the treaty. The Lakota won’t remain at peace with us forever. If they cannot fight their old red enemies, they will have to find new enemies. They are warriors, Rowland. You have lived among them—you know that even better than I. It would not surprise me if they broke the treaty first.” The general was silent for a moment. “I am curious as to why, now that you have left their territory, you are still so concerned about them.”

  “Perhaps it is because when I left them, I brought a Sioux wife with me. If her people are forced to fight a war, I would rather it were over quickly, with as few deaths as possible.”

  “I see.” Crook got to his feet, and Lemuel knew that their meeting was over. “I may have a use for you later, Rowland, but you would be a wiser man if you went back to your own tribe and lands with your wife. Your people learned how to live as civilized men, the Cherokee and the other civilized tribes have learned that, and the Sioux will eventually have to learn it as well or risk extermination.” But again the general sounded as though he hoped that war would not come.

  Lemuel was about to enter the hotel room he was sharing with Katia when the door suddenly opened. Katia stood there, in a plain blue cotton dress, her lips pressed together in a straight line.

  “I saw Grouard,” she said, and then drew him inside before closing the door behind him.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Frank Grouard, Sitting With Upraised Hands. He is here, in Omaha. When you left to go to the headquarters of Three Star Crook, I followed you.”

  She let go of him and sat down in a chair near a small round table in the corner. An oil lamp flickered on the table, casting a pattern of light and shadow on her face.

  “Tell me this again,” Lemuel said, “and slowly,” and then seated himself on the small sofa near her.

  “I followed you. I was thinking that, if anything happened, if General Crook grew suspicious and kept you there, I might see what I could do to help you, to get word to Grisha if need be.”

  Only a fortnight ago, he might have laughed at the notion of Katia getting him out of any kind of trouble, but something had changed in her after their meeting with Rubalev in Kansas City. She had gone out the next morning and returned with food for them, and then she had taken some of their gold to Rubalev to trade for more greenbacks. Her timidity and nervousness had seemingly vanished.

  He thought of their last night in Kansas City, before they had left on a riverboat for Omaha. He had asked her again if she would become his wife in truth.

  “I will be your wife, Lemuel,” she had told him in Lakota, staring directly into his eyes before he lowered his head, embarrassed. “But I do not need a Wasichu medicine man to chant of Jesus, or to draw my mark on a talking paper in order to make me your wife.” She had taken him by the hand then, and led him to her room.

  There had been little joy in it for her. He had felt that as he held her, that she was only enduring him as a prostitute might, as the soiled doves he had sought out from time to time during the war had endured him. His distaste for the weakness in himself had grown so great after war’s end that he had sworn never to go to a woman in that way again, and he had nearly withdrawn from Katia when he felt her hands gently touch his back and the nape of his neck. She had whispered his name, and he had felt that some love for him might at last be flowering inside her.

  “I waited outside, in the street,” Katia went on, her voice trembling. There was fear in her face, but also concern for him. “I saw Grouard with some other men, all of them talking and laughing. I could not hear what they were saying, but Grouard looked as though he belonged there, as though he knew them well.”

  How long had Grouard been in Omaha? Lemuel struggled to quell the turmoil in his mind as he considered the possibilities. Grouard might have come on his own, to gather intelligence for his good friend and sworn brother Sitting Bull. He might have decided to leave the Sioux and throw in his lot with the Wasichu, possibly for personal gain; the rumor was that Frank Grouard had resented not being able to do some mining of his own in the Black Hills. He might have had a falling out with Sitting Bull. Rubalev, who had become friendlier with Grouard, might have sent him to General Crook, but that would mean that the Alaskan did not entirely trust Lemuel.

  “Grisha might have sent him,” Katia said. She might almost have been reading his mind, but then he saw the tautness in her face and realized that she was only trying to reassure herself.

  “No,” Lemuel said, “I don’t believe it. Rubalev knows one thing about me. Once I give my word, my loyalty if you will, I keep it. When I promised to be a friend and ally of the Lakota people, he knew that I would keep that promise, even if there are times when I wish that I hadn’t made such a pledge.” Rubalev had seen that in him after the battle in the Black Hills, after the attack on Fort Fetterman. He had seen that Lemuel would not go back on his promise even if what his allies did was abhorrent to him. It had been the same for him during the war to preserve the Union. He had given his promise to fight for the Union and had kept it, even during the worst of the slaughter, even when he had come to doubt that any Union was worth such bloodshed. It was what whites called honorable, living in such a way, keeping one’s promises, even when so many of the Wasichu failed to live that way themselves.

  “Lemuel,” Katia said softly, and then fell silent.

  “No,” he continued, “Rubalev couldn’t have sent him. I wish I could believe that he had, but I can’t. If Grouard has been here for some time, Rubalev would have told me that he was here, might have told me to contact him. It would have been foolish for him to send us both here and have us being suspicious of each other. If he sent him after I decided to come to Omaha, then Grouard may seek me out. It should be easy for me to find out how long he has been here if he does.”

  Katia looked away from him. “I think it has been for a while,” she said. “He talked to those men as if he was very familiar with them. You came among the Lakota willingly. Grouard was taken as a captive. However close he might have grown to some of the men, perhaps that was always in the back of his mind, that one day he would be free and would have his revenge on the Lakota for his captivity.”

  Grouard might have been at Crook’s headquarters on the same mission as Lemuel, to offer his services as
a scout. He might be enlisted as an army scout already; perhaps that was another reason the general had sent Lemuel away. There were other possibilities; Grouard could have told Crook much about the movements of the Lakota, the councils of the chiefs, the presence of gold in the Black Hills, Custer’s defeat, even about the Chen brothers and their rocket-arrows. Lemuel wondered how much Grouard might already have told him.

  Katia said, “Grouard may know almost as much as you do.”

  “And he can guess at anything he doesn’t know.” Maybe the half-breed had come here only to find out what he could before carrying the knowledge back to the Lakota, but Lemuel’s instincts were warning him against accepting that comforting possibility. Until he knew for certain why Grouard had come to Omaha, he had to regard him as a danger and a possible enemy.

  Lemuel might have sent word to Rubalev, or sent Katia to join her former guardian in Kansas City. The Alaskan had said that he would be in Kansas City for much of the summer before leaving for Chicago and the East. Instead, Lemuel moved around Omaha, making himself as inconspicuous as possible, trying to find out what he could about Frank Grouard’s presence here. He would send Katia away once he learned more about Grouard.

  Within three days, he had found out that Grouard had come there last winter and had gone to General Crook to volunteer as a scout. Grouard had been drawing army pay ever since.

  Lemuel considered what to do as he walked back along the tree-lined street that led to his hotel. There had been no trees here before the settlers came, but the people of Omaha had begun to plant them in every available space, as if to shield themselves from the flat windswept land that lay beyond the city.

  Katia was in their room, resting on the bed. She had been keeping to their room ever since she had sighted Grouard. She sat up as he closed the door. “Are you ill?” he asked, concerned for her.