And, in his youthful ignorance as well as exuberant zeal, promptly made the mistake of joining the regular army instead of the New York volunteers.
Before he knew it, he had taken his oath to the Tenth U.S. Infantry for a three-year hitch.
After some duty guarding Confederate prisoners, Kelly’s unit was finally ordered to Fort Ripley on the upper reaches of the Mississippi River. After a few months his company was sent on to Fort Wadsworth, near Big Stone Lake in the Dakota Territory. By the spring of sixty-seven Kelly’s company was ordered to establish Fort Ransome —a small station at the forks of the Cheyenne River, near Bear’s Den Hill, far to the north near the Canadian line. It was the first time Luther had ever seen a buffalo.
“How ’bout it, Kelly?” his sergeant prodded him one of those last nights before his hitch would draw to a close. “You game to sign up for another?”
The handsome Luther smiled, showing his big, bright teeth. “No, sir, Sergeant. Now, don’t misunderstand me, sir: there’s nothing finer for a young fellow than a three-year term in the United States Army, for it teaches him method, manliness, physical welfare, and obedience to authority. But, in all truthfulness, Sergeant—one enlistment is quite enough—”
“Quite enough?” roared the old file.
“Yes, sir,” Kelly replied steadfastly, “unless that man has decided to make soldiering his profession.”
The sergeant looked upon the young man gravely. “And you won’t?”
With a gesture Luther had waved an arm out there to the prairies and the mountains that fine spring day in 1868. “No, sir—I’ll be saying good-bye to soldier life. There’s too damn much I want to see right out there as a free man.”
Back in St. Paul briefly to cash his last pay voucher, Luther quickly turned his face once more to the west, pointing his nose for the Canadian settlement of Fort Garry on his way toward the wild, open country that lay at the headwaters of the Missouri River. By the time he’d reached the Canadian settlements along the Red River, Kelly had run onto several miners escaping north out of Montana. Despite their warnings about roaming war parties on the American side of the line, Luther journeyed on—youth’s bravado running hot in his veins.
At the crossing of the Assiniboine River he ran into some metis with their Red River carts, making their way to the buffalo country. He accepted their invitation to throw in with them. It wasn’t long before he adopted much of their colorful dress, including the hooded capote constructed from a thick blue Hudson’s Bay blanket. With a red sash to hold it closed about him, Kelly felt all the more the part of a high prairie prince.
While moseying south and west with the half-breed traders, he had a chance meeting with a band of Hunkpapa warriors led by Sitting Bull. When the haughty Lakota inquired who the lone white man was among them, the metis said he was their American friend—therefore under their protection. Although they stomped about a bit and made a fierce show of it, Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa soon departed.
In those weeks before he parted ways with the half-breed metis, Luther hunted buffalo, helping the men shoot and skin their kills, watching the women dry strips of the meat, which they eventually put up into rawhide sacks as pemmican they would use in trade at the many wilderness posts dotting that formidable land. Then came the day the old man led him to a nearby rise and pointed into the beckoning distance.
“This is where your adventure continues,” the wrinkled metis said, pointing.
“That means we are to part” Kelly replied sadly.
“There lies the country you seek. Look out for the Sioux, boy.”
Moving south, Kelly reached Fort Berthold, where he met the Gerard brothers who were the post traders. The story went that the Gerards had acquired their initial capital after a party of Montana miners, descending the river in a small bateau with their gold, was attacked by a war party and killed. Having no knowledge of gold, the Indians had emptied the sacks into the boat, which they set adrift, later to be discovered downstream by the fortunate brothers. From Fred Gerard, Lather had purchased a Henry carbine and a supply of cartridges. Just this past summer Fred had been employed as an interpreter and tracker with Custer’s column, assigned to Reno’s battalion when the Lakota had badly mauled the Seventh Cavalry.
From Berthold, Luther trekked upriver on foot, hungry for adventure. Along the way he bumped into a party of wandering Mandan, out to hunt buffalo. From them he learned how to prepare
By the time Luther’s hair had grown to his shoulders and his mustache had become all the shaggier, he had killed his first Lakota: two warriors intent on lifting his white scalp and robbing him of his Henry. Around Fort Peck, indeed all along the Upper Missouri, the story of that fateful encounter was told and retold by his friend Bloody Knife and other Arikara scouts who found work from time to time for the army.
It was while Kelly made some occasional money as a woodhawk, supplying the few upriver steamboats with fuel, that he was asked to guide for Colonel George A. Forsyth, come to map and explore the Yellowstone as a member of General Sheridan’s Chicago staff on Captain Grant Marsh’s
In the Judith basin he had been following wolf sign among the tracks of a small migrating buffalo herd, for those winter-thick pelts brought five dollars American at the nearby posts. From there Luther moseyed farther south toward the Yellowstone that summer, picking the wild strawberries as they came into season until he reached the country near Pompey’s Pillar. Upon those spectacular heights he looked down into the far river valley and caught sight of the white tents of an army camp lining a green bottomland near a bend in the sparkling river. From there to the mouth of the Bighorn, Kelly was rarely ever out of sight of soldiers or supply trains as General Terry prepared to pursue Sitting Bull and General Crook made ready to pursue Crazy Horse into the Black Hills.
Too many folks, Luther had groaned. Seemed the army was destined to stir up more trouble for itself. Kelly turned away to make his way up the river when he soon ran onto some Montana miners who were easing down the Yellowstone, having heard of the army’s preparations to pursue the Indians who had massacred Custer. It was the following day when he was out hunting that he found himself confronted by a large cinnamon bear he dropped with his needle gun. Because the hide was very poor at that late-summer season, Kelly took only some back fat to use as gun oil, along with one of the big forepaws and all the claws.
On down the north bank of the Yellowstone, Kelly tramped with the mining party until they reached a sprawling military camp erected about a mile above the mouth of the Tongue River. There they crossed to the south side on a crude ferry the soldiers operated, finding the camp nearly deserted. Quartermaster Randall explained that most of the men were either out working the timber in the hills for their huts, or they were out on routine patrols of the nearby country.
“By the Land of Goshen!” Randall gushed as his eyes suddenly locked on that dark object suspended from the horn of Kelly’s saddle and stepped forward to have himself a better look. “What in God’s name is that?”
Luther untied the rawhide whangs from the saddle horn and handed it over to the captain. “Just the paw of a cinnamon I killed the other day.”
“Never have I seen anything so huge!” Randall said admiringly of the paw over a foot long without the claws. “You shot this by yourself?”
“I did,” Kelly replied. “But it wasn’t my first. I’ve been out here for nearly eight years already—”
Randall interrupted eagerly, “You know this country, do you?”
“A good deal of it, yes.”
The captain hefted the heavy bear’s paw and declared, “The general will want to see you.”
“The general?” Kelly asked. “Who’s the general?”
“Why, Nelson A. Miles. He’s curious to learn all that he can about this country.”
At that moment the mischievous thought had struck Luther. He instructed the quartermaster, “There, Captain—take that paw to General Miles for me. Tell him it is my calling card.”
In the next few moments Randall had the paw in the hands of his own orderly, on its way to the tent of Colonel Nelson A. Miles, commander of the Fifth U.S. Infantry, whose job it was to erect winter quarters there at
