eight years old. How are the three of us going to move a hundred head of cows?”
“That ain’t my problem, mister. It is your problem,” Davis said.
“And if I ain’t off tomorrow?” Frank asked.
“You’ll be off tomorrow,” Davis said, resolutely.
“That’s tomorrow,” Frank said. “For now, I still own this property, and I’m ordering you off.”
Regret laughed. “What do you think, Davis? He ordered us off.”
“Now,” Frank said. Turning, he walked toward the house without looking around one time.
“Are you hungry?” Ann asked when Frank stepped in through the kitchen door. “Dinner’s ready, have a seat and I’ll bring you a plate.”
Frank didn’t say a word to his wife. Instead he got the double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun down, broke it open, slid two shells into the chamber, then snapped it shut.
“Frank, what is it?” Ann asked when she saw him load the gun. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“Stay inside,” Frank said.
Davis knew that Barlow would come back, and he expected him to be armed.
“Get off my land you thieving sons of bitches!” Frank shouted, raising the shotgun to his shoulder.
The shotgun never reached his shoulder. Both Davis and Regret already had their pistols drawn, and they fired as one. The shotgun discharged with a roar, but the gun was pointing down so there was no effect from the double load of buckshot.
“Frank!” a woman screamed. Running out of the house she knelt beside her husband who was already dead. “Frank!” she cried again. She looked up at the two men who were still holding the smoking guns in their hands.
“You killed him!”
Davis pulled the trigger, hitting the woman in the side of her head. Blood, brain, and bits of bone tissue erupted from the entry wound.
“Ma! Pa!” Davey shouted as he ran out of the house. He started toward his parents, but didn’t make it. He was shot down even before he stepped off the stoop.
The sound of the shots echoed back from nearby Jim Mountain.
“I didn’t think that paper we had printed up would work,” Regret said.
“Just ’cause it didn’t work this time, don’t mean it won’t work next time we try to use it,” Davis said. He dismounted and drew his knife. “You want the woman or the kid?” he asked.
“Don’t make me no never mind,” Regret said, as he pulled his own knife and started toward the young boy.
The first U.S. Army post at this site was established in 1863 as the Standing Rock Cantonment with the purpose of overseeing the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet bands. Though many still referred to it as Standing Rock, its name was changed in 1878 to honor Captain George Yates who was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, and it was here that Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham came to meet with Sitting Bull.
After the defeat of Custer, public reaction demanded revenge against the Indians, and over the next year thousands of additional military were sent into the area. There, they relentlessly pursued the tribes who had been a part of the battle: the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. But the Indians were no longer massed as they had been during the battle, and were now split up.
Because the Indian nations had separated, they were unable to withstand the military pressure brought against them, and the military subdued them rather quickly. The other Indian leaders surrendered, but Sitting Bull did not; and in May of 1877, Sitting Bull led his band of Lakota across the border into Canada. When General Terry traveled north to offer him a pardon in exchange for settling on a reservation, Sitting Bull sent him away.
He was unable to continue in Canada though, because unlike the United States, Canada provided no beef or provisions of any kind. And, with the buffalo nearly extinct, Sitting Bull was unable to feed his people. He had no option remaining except to come south to surrender, and this he did on July 19, 1881, whereupon he was sent to Fort Yates.
In 1885 Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Exhibition. However he was very uncomfortable in white society, so he left the show after only four months. During that time, though, he did shake hands with President Grover Cleveland, which, in his mind, meant that he was still regarded as an important leader of the Sioux.
“Why do you wish to see Sitting Bull?” James McLaughlin asked. McLaughlin was the Indian agent at Fort Yates.
“Because General Miles asked us to,” Falcon replied.
“You can understand why I ask, I’m sure,” McLaughlin said. “People from all over come here to see Sitting Bull, Senators, Congressmen, Cabinet Members, even foreign royalty.”
Cody chuckled. “Yes, he wasn’t with my show for very long, but he was immensely popular while he was there.”
“It’s not good for him to be so uppity,” McLaughlin said. “He has the idea that he is still a chief, and the other Indians on the reservation look up to him, even though he can do nothing for them. I am the one in charge. Sitting Bull can do nothing.”
“That isn’t quite right,” Falcon said.
“What do you mean, it isn’t quite right?” McLaughlin demanded.
