Winter Rain jh-2

by Terry C. Johnston

  Tiny voices whispering in Bull’s head told him to stay put. To watch.

  That his time was coming.

  Another brassy bray from that deserter’s army bugle raised the hair on the back of Bull’s neck.

  Its echo floated downstream toward the island. Looking now at the trees near the mouth of that ravine at the great bend in the riverbed, he found he could not see anything to give him the faintest clue what Roman Nose and the other chiefs were doing with the hundreds of horsemen who had disappeared from view what seemed like a long, long time ago.

  From the corner of his eye, Bull caught the movement against the pale sky and turned to see a handful of feathered war chiefs crowning a nearby hill, all of them gazing at the sandbar, as if studying the defenders on the island. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, they too slipped out of sight.

  “I think they want to see how many of these white men can still hold a rifle,” he told no one but himself.

  Something would spring loose soon, he prayed, now that Roman Nose had come. Then his heart sank. Of all the emotions Bull felt at that moment in the brush beside the island—anger, desperation, hate, even some fear—it was sadness that most filled his heart as his thoughts hung on Roman Nose, the way his legging fringe would catch on brambles, or snag on cockleburs. Sadness that Roman Nose had finally come to lead these warriors—when it meant his own death.

  A part of him grappled with that—not wanting to believe, as Roman Nose believed, in the power of an old Lakota woman’s iron fork. Surely the might of Roman Nose would prove stronger!

  Yet if the war chief’s water spirits had told him—it must be.

  Bull’s heart sank again as his eyes peered across the riverbed to the far side. On both sides the banks rose slightly higher than the sandy island itself, giving the Lakota and Shahiyena snipers an ideal field of fire. All morning long they had forced the white men to stay hidden for the most part, down in their pits and low behind the bodies of their dead animals.

  “That place where the white men burrow like mice will soon reek of rotting horses,” he said to himself in what little shade he had found in the brush as the sun rose directly overhead. And in saying it, he hoped the white men would all be killed long before the big carcasses began to bloat and stink.

  He saw a few of the whites momentarily poke their heads from their rifle pits, staring upstream beneath shading hands flat against their brows. At almost the same moment, Bull felt it beneath him—sensed it in his legs: the electrifying pulsations trembling up from the ground into his own body. He felt them coming before he had even heard them.

  The thunder of more than two thousand hooves.

  He heard them scant heartbeats before he saw them.

  Slowly rising to his feet there in the brush, Bull found the sight hard to believe, felt more joy than he sensed his heart could hold. Of all the pony raids, and scalp hunts, and revenge raids they had made on the frontier settlements … still nothing had prepared the young warrior for what it was that galloped around the far bend in the wide riverbed.

  From bank to bank the front row of horsemen stretched some sixty warriors strong. Directly behind them came row upon galloping row of riders. Eagle feathers fluttered on the hot breeze. Scalp locks of many hues, tied to rifle muzzles, caught the morning’s wind. Their loose and braided and roached hair was plastered with grease, some standing as a provocative challenge to any would-be scalp-taker, all danced with the rhythm of the charge.

  Even at this great distance Bull could see every pony had been painted with potent symbols. Still more many-colored scalp locks hung pendant from lower jaws, every tail was snubbed—tied up for war in red ribbon or trade cloth. Their bows, along with old Springfield muzzle loaders and a scattering of repeaters, were all brandished aloft as the horsemen came on in a splashy cavalcade, held in check by the only man on the northern plains who could hold these warriors in such an orderly, massed charge.

  “Roman Nose!” Bull whispered in awe as his eyes found the tall war chief at the center of that front row.

  He knew him instantly, not only by the horned headdress and the brilliant scarlet silk sash tied at the waist, but by the great gobs of red paint the war chief had used to encircle that summer’s pale pucker-scars fresh from the sun dance held on the banks of the Beaver River. On his face he had painted the patterns prescribed by the spirit helpers in the war chief’s visions: great streaks of ox blood across his eyes, yellow-ocher brushed across his cheeks, a black smear painted down his chin. Bright, unmistakable colors he had worn into so many battles. And this was to be his last.

  “Aiyeee-yi-yi-yi!” Bull cried at the advancing front of copper-skinned bodies, choking on the sentiment he felt for the valiant war chief.

  More so he raised his voice in salute to the one who rode to his death. Proudly. Bravely. A leader of his people to the last. A man who had refused to take a wife, to have his own family—believing instead that the entire tribe was his own to watch over and protect.

  A sworn enemy of the white man.

  And in that moment Bull felt the certainty of it reach the very marrow of him: come the death of Roman Nose, that powerful spirit, that all-consuming hatred of the whiteskins would come to seize control of High-Backed Bull.

  Rifle fire suddenly crackled from the creekbanks, increasing to a fiery intensity. It was plain to Bull as he ducked back into the plum brush that the snipers intended to force the white men to keep their heads down under a deadly barrage of lead hail. Still, that roar of the guns could not drown out the growing crescendo of pounding hooves bearing down on that narrow, unprotected mound of river sand and summer-washed gravel in a riverbed the white man called the Arikaree.

  Then as suddenly as the rattle of rifle fire from the banks had resumed, it withered away into a frightening, stone-cold silence. No more than a breath later arose the first of the wild cries bursting from the women and old ones gathered on the surrounding hilltops. Another breath and their eerie, keening blood-songs rose in volume, rose to become a swelling death chorus enough to chill the blood of any white man still alive on that island.

  Swallowing hard, his mouth gone dry at the mere sight of the oncoming charge, Bull looked back to the oncoming horsemen. Lazy, oily smoke drifting from the silenced Indian rifles wisped in dark clots across the steamy riverbed as row upon row of horsemen followed Roman Nose downstream toward his appointed moment with destiny.

  Something told Bull as he watched that advancing phalanx of brown-skinned cavalry that he was seeing history made. Not just the fact that Roman Nose would ride directly into the teeth of those white-man guns … but that no man, white nor red, had ever before seen Dog Soldiers execute an orderly, massed charge. Like the white man’s own yellow-leg cavalry!

  They would talk of this day, speak of this moment for generations to come among the Shahiyena.

  Then a flicker of movement at the end of the island caught his attention. One of the white men dressed in soldier-blue rose slightly, as if in pain, his pistol in his hand. Turning, he gazed over those huddled in the rifle pits dug in a rough oval along the length of the narrow sandbar.

  The white war chief, this one, Bull decided.

  He stood above his half-a-hundred and bellowed his order above the thundering approach of the two thousand hooves.

  “Now!”

  With that command, some forty guns exploded on the island, their muzzles spewing brilliant tongues of yellow and orange-tinted fire.

  Their first volley unhorsed but two riders.

  On came the rest with even more resolve, racing into the face of those forty guns. Kicking their ponies into a full gallop without slowing for the two who had fallen.

  Roman Nose spat back at the white man’s rifle fire with an unearthly war cry, popping his hand against his mouth as he arched his head back, flinging his death curse at the heavens.

  In no more than a pounding heartbeat that blood-crazed cry was taken up by the five hundred who rode with him. Above the riverbe
d charge the hilltops reverberated as the renewed chant thundered from the throats of the women and old ones.

  “Again!” the white chief screamed.

  A second volley roared from the sandbar. The smoke from all those weapons hung in tatters in the still, breathless air above the white riflemen, staining the pale sky an oily, murky, smutty gray.

  “Fire, by damned!” And another white man in soldier-blue had risen to holler his order to the others.

  More horsemen spilled this second volley, their riderless ponies coming on with the mass flanks of the rest. The whole of them charged without slowing, heeding not the rifles nor their own fallen. Those throaty cries for blood redoubled now as gaps were ripped open in their ranks—yet every bit as quickly those holes filled anew with warriors surging up from behind. The copper phalanx quickly made solid once more.

  Bull’s heart swelled at the sight, burned with pride at the fearless oncoming despite the wavering of their snorting ponies. A few animals stumbled on the uneven river bottom and tumbled into others. But ever onward the slashing hooves pounded, new horsemen and mounts come to take the place of those who went by the wayside. Glittering diamondlike river spray and mica-fine rooster tails of gold dust cascaded heavenward in the high sunlight of this momentous day.

  “Now!”

  The first soldier chief’s command had barely escaped his lips before the sandbar ignited for the third volley into the face of the five hundred.

  The phalanx surged even closer now. Bull judged it to be something less than two arrow-shots from the end of the island. Certainly killing range for the white man’s big guns. With every one of the white man’s bullets, surely the horsemen had to fall.

  In what little Bull could see through that thickening, murky haze of yellow sunlight slanting through the musty powder smoke, the naked, painted warriors began to spill over one another with that third volley. Ponies pitched into the riverbed too, collapsing as if their cords had been cut in bloody, tumbling, spinning heaps.

  Piles of blood and sand and bodies and carcasses built up, a sight that brought shrieks from the hillsides as the women and old ones watched the slaughter of their chosen. Yet, with as much damage as the white man was doing to the horsemen, still Bull saw the horde coming, felt the unmistakable thunder vibrating up through the hard surface of the ground beneath his moccasins, heard the reassuring reverberation of their charge still ringing from the hills. And the closer they came, it seemed the more furious they drove their ponies, the louder rose their war cries.

  “Fire!”

  With that fourth volley the warriors ceased their mighty screeching, having drawn deathly close beneath the guns’ fire-spewing muzzles. Most not already hollering in pain and frustration now rode on grim-lipped toward death’s call on the sandbar. Bravely, without question, they came on, as if possessed—following their chosen leader still a’horse at the center of that front line. Every rider of them weaving back and forth, making it hard for the white man to take a bead on a copper-skinned target.

  Brazenly racing on into the face of his own death, Roman Nose raised his arm, exhorting the hundreds come behind him across the sandy riverbed, splattering water and grit and gravel in a huge, stinging curtain as they charged down on the half-a-hundred.

  “Now!”

  A fifth volley cleaved the air like summer thunder.

  Smoke of a dirty gauze obscured the island as Bull plopped down at the edge of the plum brush, bringing the Springfield carbine to his shoulder. If he had a chance at this range, he would pick off one of the white men.

  If only to do what one mortal could to turn the day, what he could to change the fate of Roman Nose.

  12

  Moon of Black Calves 1868

  THREE HEARTBEATS FROM the sandbar, Roman Nose ceased weaving.

  His eyes locked on the great war chief from the riverbank willows where he crouched, High-Backed Bull watched Roman Nose clamp his legs tightly round his faltering pony. Dark splatters dotted the animal’s chest, each hole streaked with crimson.

  With one breath Bull prayed the pony would not stumble and fall, pitching its rider into the sand, directly into the path of the row upon row, the hundreds rushing on the heels of Roman Nose.

  And then he knew the hand of the Great Everywhere guided the war chief’s animal in this fateful charge—there was no faltering in the dying pony’s gait. Perhaps it was driven on by the sheer will of its rider, into the gaping jaws of the white man’s guns that continued to spew great tongues of fire at the onrushing ranks.

  A flurry of movement at the far end of the island caught Bull’s eye. Turning, he saw a handful of the white men crabbing about in their rifle pits while the rest ducked back into their rabbit holes like tortoises. One of the brave chose to rise, emerging slowly from the dense, yellow-gray powder smoke, to stand and meet the charge every bit as bravely as those courageous Shahiyena warriors called “wanting to die.”

  Roman Nose had seen the white man too.

  Bull wanted to yell—scream—shriek—anything to distract the white man.

  But before he could utter a sound, both men fired—their guns exploding at the same moment, the blast of their weapons swallowed by the roar of other gunfire, the cries of horses, and the screams of men going down in a spray of blood and sand and river water, all swallowed by the smack of lead against bone and sinew and flesh.

  Roman Nose had not fallen. Like a war club he swung his own rifle from the muzzle as his wounded pony clawed its way up from the riverbed onto the edge of the sandbar. It faltered, pitching forward onto its front knees, then struggled back up unevenly, back into a ragged gallop right into the teeth of those first white guns. Sand coated its bloody chest where uncountable wounds stained its coat.

  The solitary white man still waited, rifle at his shoulder, firing at the war chief as he leapt past.

  When one of those bullets finally struck Roman Nose, it was as if Bull himself felt the course of its hot lead into his own body.

  Could it be that this terrible event had occurred right before his eyes?

  The sudden change in the pitch of those wailing cries from the nearby hilltops told Bull he had not been the only one to see it happen. The women, old men and children too … they had watched the fall of Roman Nose.

  Through tears Bull saw the war chief grip his pony’s mane as the animal careened sideways off the sandbar, losing the last of its strength now as it crossed the shallow riverbed and plunged into the willow on the far side. Roman Nose wavered unsteadily, his head wagging as if connected to his shoulders by nothing more than loose strings.

  Bull whirled from the plum brush, sprinting downstream along the north bank, refusing to believe what he had seen. The hot breeze stung his face, making him unaware of the tears that spilled across the furred earth-paint on his cheeks as he reached the sharp cutbank opposite the far end of the island. There he hurled himself off, lunging into the shallow water, and splashed across while the terror of that fateful charge played itself out. By the time Bull clawed his way up the south bank and into the willow, the white men had broken Roman Nose’s greatest charge. Wounded ponies and bloodied men parted like water flowing past a great boulder, clearing both sides of the island, cleft before a sure and sudden death in the face of the white man’s weapons.

  Seven terrible volleys had torn into their brown ranks: spilling warriors, turning row upon row of the naked horsemen to the side, like waves crashing against a rocky coast. Sweating, gleaming, crimson-smeared bodies tumbled onto the pale sand, bobbed in the shallow, churned waters beaten to a red froth by two thousand thundering hooves.

  Bull cried in utter despair as the white man’s pistols began to bark, firing into the backs of the retreating warriors. As his heart came into his throat, he watched the half-a-hundred finish off those wounded horsemen who had fallen close enough to the sandbar’s rifle pits.

  In anger, fury, and rage, Bull turned away, eyes smarting.

  And heard the snuffle of the pony
.

  He found the animal, found Roman Nose nearby—his strong legs now useless. Pushing back the gall rising in his throat, the young warrior knelt to find the great war chief unable to move. Only his arms could he move. Eyes stinging in anger, vowing revenge for the murder of Roman Nose, Bull pulled his war chief from the willows where Roman Nose had dragged himself with one agonizing pull of his arms after another. There were many bloody pucker-holes in his back, more wounds than Bull took time to count.

  Away from the bank, where he rolled Roman Nose to face the sky, Bull saw by the throbbing of the huge, muscular neck cords that the war chief experienced wracking spasms of great pain.

  “I … have lost my legs,” Roman Nose whispered, his eyes half-lidded in pain.

  “I will go for help.”

  “No—do not go,” he began. Then attempted a smile. “Yes. Go for help, High-Backed Bull. You see, I cannot ride.” He coughed. “No more will I ever ride.”

  Turning away for a moment to hide his own grief, Bull felt overcome. This tragic end for a man whose very name had struck such fear into white hearts, turning them to water across many raiding seasons. He nodded, unable to speak around the sour lump in his throat, then hurried away. Bull cried as he caught up his horse and rode upriver for help.

  Now as the sun began to sink in the west with a rose-brown crack of light, after a long afternoon wherein he never left the war chief’s side while the gentle hands of women turned Roman Nose and bathed him, cooling the war chief in the shade of a leafy arbor, Roman Nose smiled up at Bull.

  “How I have missed never taking a woman now,” Roman Nose said quietly, looking at the young warrior as a cool rag was brushed across his chest. “I miss never coupling. I never married. You must, my young friend.” Then the chief’s eyes fluttered to Porcupine. “See that High-Backed Bull finds a woman—one to enjoy his life with.”