rewarming of what both sides had had to say the day before. Try as he might, Miles could not find a better way to tell Sitting Bull that his people would have to come in to surrender, or bring suffering down upon their heads.
The Hunkpapa would never go in to Standing Rock. This was their country and here they would stay. What the white man could do to repay the Lakota for running off the buffalo would be to build a trading post closer to these hunting grounds.
“Tell Sitting Bull that his people can come in to the trading post we will have at Tongue River,” Miles declared.
Bruguier replied, “The chief says his people will go to Fort Peck to trade, as they always do.”
Inside, Nelson burned with resentment. Why, he had even offered to trade with this red-skinned criminal…. Maybe it was true what a lot of the old frontiersmen believed—like that scout Luther Kelly had hired to come along. The one named John Johnston. Old weathered plainsmen the likes of him believed the only thing an Injun understood was force. Nothing more than sheer might, and blood.
Just as they had done yesterday, warriors came and went while the discussion dragged on. But this time Nelson was prepared for their nerve-racking shenanigans. His orders called for a soldier to step up from the forward lines every time one of the Sioux advanced. When that warrior moved back, the soldier was to withdraw in kind. Hour by hour the numbers around the council waxed and waned, constantly shifting—more warriors and soldiers on the periphery, then fewer once more.
It was a time of unmitigated tension during which Nelson realized that the accidental discharge of a weapon on either side might well spell disaster for all in confusion between the two lines.
As the morning grew old, it became abundantly clear to Miles that instead of softening his position, Sitting Bull was growing more adamant in his refusal to budge in the slightest. Just as clear was the fact that a few of the other chiefs appeared ready to bend to reason, especially the Miniconjou chiefs Bull Eagle and Red Skirt. Even John Sans Arc provisionally agreed to give himself over to the soldiers as a hostage as a means of guaranteeing his band’s good-faith compliance in returning to the agency. But it was just their bending which seemed to put all the more steel in Sitting Bull’s backbone that cold autumn day.
Bruguier waited patiently, listening as Sitting Bull talked a long time, nodding occasionally to show he understood the Hunkpapa’s words, then finally sought to translate all that had been dropped into his lap.
“The chief says that the whites hate Indians. And the Indian hates the white man. This is Indian country, so the Hunkpapa will not leave it. They mean to stay here for all time and live upon the buffalo—the way the Lakota people have lived from the time Wakan Tanka put them here, way before the white man ever came. Wakan Tanka gave the Lakota these buffalo plains to wander.”
After a moment of reflection, Nelson replied, “Tell Sitting Bull he would be foolish to refuse to go in to his agency when to refuse will mean that the army will harry and harass his people, and many of them will die. There will be no time for the hunt this winter. My scouts will find your villages. My soldiers will attack those villages. Tell Sitting Bull that he must go in to Standing Rock or his people will be whipped.”
As the half-blood interpreted, Nelson could see how his words stung the Hunkpapa leader. Fire glistened in the defiant chief’s eyes as he glared stoically at Miles.
Finally Bruguier turned to say, “Sitting Bull says if you mean to make war on him, then make your war now. He does not want to live like those who hang around the forts waiting for the white man’s handouts. Spotted Tail and even Red Cloud. Red Cloud!” and the translator laughed. “The war chief who drove the soldiers from the Bozeman Road! Now he is nothing but another old-woman chief who does not have teeth enough to eat buffalo meat. Only the white man’s pig meat.”
Miles wagged his head, saying, “Sitting Bull would rather his people die in war than live in peace at their agency?”
Nodding, the interpreter explained, “Sitting Bull says it is better for him and his people to fight and die than to be trapped at the agency and starve as those agency bands are starving.”
Good Lord, Nelson thought. But try he must—as an officer and a civilized gentleman—if only this one last time. No one would ever fault Nelson Miles for not putting his back into every task. Long ago in his youth when he had decided he would become a professional soldier, no one had ever warned him he would also have to practice diplomacy.
“Tell Sitting Bull that it is unfair of him to answer for the old ones, the little children in that camp, and those who are too sick to last out the cold of this coming winter as the soldiers chase them down.”
When Miles’s words were translated, Sitting Bull’s jaw jutted resolutely, cords of muscle throbbing in his thick neck.
“The chief says the white man is a liar and not to be trusted,” Bruguier translated. “The white man has made many, many treaties with the Lakota … and the white man has turned around and broken every one of them. It’s the only thing the white man can be counted on doing.”
“I will give you
The half-blood interrupted with a snarl, “In the treaty with Red Cloud, the Black Hills were given to the Lakota for all time, but now the white man comes to take them back.”
Lord knows he had tried, Nelson ruminated as he sat there—stung with having his own personal honor questioned—watching how some of the other dark faces showed disappointment, some showed fear, while Sitting Bull’s remained a plate of cold anger.
“So be it,” Miles finally said when Bruguier was done with Sitting Bull’s long harangue. “You tell the chief that he has fifteen minutes to decide if he will accept my terms for unconditional surrender … or prepare for battle. And if it’s a fight he wants—the whites will keep bringing more and more soldiers into this country until the Sioux are no more.”
The half-breed’s eyes flinched at that, quickly flicking toward the soldiers’ positions, yet he turned and attempted to translate this concept of war beginning in a quarter of an hour—something unfathomable to the Hunkpapa mind.
His thin lips a pressed, colorless line, Sitting Bull exploded to his feet, jerking his buffalo robe about himself as he spat out his words. “So—the Bear Coat has me trapped? You bring me here, an honorable warrior—and tell me you make war on me
Miles looked back and forth between Sitting Bull and the translator as the chief pointed to the dirty white flag that one of his men held at the end of a long coup stick.
For the chief, Bruguier interpreted, “This is the flag an honorable warrior respects. I believed we were safe with this flag over our heads when we come to talk today. You said your soldiers would not fire on us.”
“We will not fire on you,” Miles snapped.
“Those will be the first of your words I pray I can believe,” Sitting Bull growled. He shot Miles one last glare and turned on his heel.
As Miles watched Sitting Bull hurry off, the chief began signaling to the horsemen, shouting his warning to the numerous clusters of armed warriors scattered across the hillsides. They burst into motion, waving, crying out, singing their songs at the top of their lungs.
In the silence the other chiefs watched the Hunkpapa mystic descend the far side of the knoll before they too slowly rose, murmuring among themselves, some shaking their heads, eyes filled with dread.
Nelson flushed with resolve. There was no turning back now. Before him was the man who had crushed Custer. This was the moment. This was his place.
“Mr. Bailey!” Miles turned slightly to call out to his aide-decamp as he rose from that one stiffened knee. “Prepare the units for battle!”
Chapter 11
21 October 1876
Tears came to Samantha’s eyes as she watched how her husband’s big, roughened hands became such soft and gentle things he would slip beneath the sleeping child, raising the boy into his huge arms where he held the infant against his chest one last time here before Seamus would have to go.
