“If there’s no wars to fight. And no gold to dig up neither,” Seamus said with a casual shrug. “What else you ’spect a fella with my talents to find himself to d—”
“Well, I’ll be gol-danged,” Grouard suddenly grumbled, rolling onto his belly and jerking the field glasses to his eyes.
“Look at that, will you?” Donegan gazed onto the open plain with the rest, seeing the big warrior come prancing out of hiding atop the pretty gray horse.
For a moment something sour caught in his throat, just with that remembrance of the General—the beautiful animal he had taken from a Confederate officer in the Shenandoah Valley during those last battles of the war, the very same horse he brought west to Fort Phil Kearny in sixty-six, then made their last ride together on the plains of eastern Colorado in that scorching September of sixty-eight. Remembering now with a cold clutch at his heart how that big, gallant horse carried him to the sandy island in the middle of a nameless river with fifty other white scouts as more than seven hundred Cheyenne Dog Soldiers came charging down on them at dawn.*
Except for the black blaze on that war pony’s face and a pair of white front stockings, this horse looked mighty similar.
“What you figure he’s fixing to do?” a soldier hollered nearby.
“He’s come to ask you to dance,” Seamus answered even more loudly.
More than two dozen scouts and soldiers laughed. A few went about adjusting sights, screwing elbows down into the snow for a firmer rest, lying there over their rifle barrels calculating distance and wind and just how much lead to give that daring rider.
“You don’t reckon he’s fixing to lead the rest of ’em on a charge, do you?”
Donegan turned to the young soldier who had asked the question, saying, “No. That one’s on his own. My money says he’s out to prove he’s got balls all by hisself.”
“Five dollars to the man who empties that saddle!” a lieutenant yelled to the Irishman’s left.
“Five dollars!” several men echoed in unison.
“And I’ll put up another five dollars!” piped in another officer on the right.
“Ten dollars, boys!”
“Did you hear that? Ten do—”
The rest of the chatter was drowned out as the whole line unloaded with a deafening racket, boom and whistle. In amazement Seamus watched the contest lying there between Grouard and Pourier as army bullets sailed across the flat, kicking up spouts of snow around and beyond the horse’s hooves. Despite the closeness of the rounds, the warrior kept his animal under control as it pranced first to one side, then back to the other. In the wind the Cheyenne’s buffalo-horned warbonnet danced, each feather fluttering all the way down the long trailer that draped along one of his bare legs, ending just past his moccasins.
At his right elbow the warrior had strapped a large war shield painted with a starburst and adorned with scalp locks. In his left hand he clutched some sort of a club, at the end of which were two long elk-antler tines which he held over his head, waving the weapon as he yelled out to his enemy.
“You figure he’s calling out a challenge—have one of us come out and fight him?” Donegan asked.
“If he’s fool enough,” Big Bat replied.
“Damn, but he’s pretty,” Seamus replied, enjoying the sheer spectacle of it—
—and in the next heartbeat watched the buffalo-horn headdress tip forward as the warrior pitched backward onto the flanks of the big horse. No longer under strict control, the animal suddenly reared and the warrior tumbled off, the club and shield still in his grip as he spilled into the snow.
Off tore the horse, making for the safety of the hill—its single rein flapping in the cold wind. The long, thick buffalo-hair lariat knotted around its neck played out in spastic jerks across the icy ground yard by yard until the warrior’s body suddenly tumbled sideways, quickly straightened out, yanked across the ground as the pony dragged its owner bouncing back behind the Cheyenne lines.
“Shoot the horse!” an officer cried. “Shoot that goddamned sonofabitching horse!”
The entire line unloaded again almost as one, a great, ear-shattering volley. A few more considered shots followed.
No matter. The pony completed this last mission for its master. Horse and warrior gone from sight.
“I’m almost glad that horse got away with that Injin,” Seamus said with no little admiration.
Nearby some of the soldiers turned and gave him the hardest looks before they went back to reloading.
“Looks to me there can’t be no more real fighting,” Grouard stated. “Not up close, no ways.”
“That’s right,” Big Bat agreed. “Scary thing now is them warriors that’s left are gonna do all they can to prove their bravery one way or t’other.”
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before a pair of half-naked Cheyenne warriors emerged from behind the rocks not more than fifty paces away, carrying no weapons to speak of. Instead, the two held buffalo skulls high over their heads as they advanced on the soldier lines, chanting, singing, crying out their medicine songs in discordant notes as the soldiers tried their best to drop the two.
Daring to get as close as twenty paces from the white man’s position, the pair split apart, one wheeling left, the other right, both riders moving parallel to the side of the bluff where the soldiers continued to curse and reload and fire again and again at the two daring horsemen. Then the pair turned around slowly, moving back to rejoin one another and eventually retreating toward the knoll where the Cheyenne hung on with stoic desperation.
“Looks like we’ve just been cursed by them two, don’t you think, Frank?” Bat asked.
“Wouldn’t put it past ’em,” Grouard replied. “Not one bit.”
“Wait a minute!” Donegan cried. “Curse? What sort of curse you figure they put on us?”
“Don’t know Cheyenne very good,” Pourier said, shaking his head.
“Too far to hear good anyway,” Grouard added.
Then Big Bat continued, “Way I seen Injuns do before—them two likely prayed for their spirits to take away our homes and families from us. Same as we done to them.”
The duty of an Old-Man Chief was to protect his people, at all costs.
So Little Wolf would have stood against the soldiers and their Indian scouts alone if he’d had to. But that cold day other brave men had chosen to stand at his shoulder against the enemy. Together they suffered. But together they held back those who had come to harm their families hiding in the narrow ravine.
Were it not for the rifles and cartridges they had captured from the soldiers at the Little Sheep River,* Little Wolf’s courageous band likely would have been crushed. Instead, time and again they humiliated the soldiers and their scouts with their daring—fighting out in the open against the enemy, who took cover behind every tree and rock, bush and boulder. With every advance attempted by the enemy, Little Wolf and his men drove back those who would make war on women and children.
Throughout that long morning, Bull Hump, one of Morning Star’s sons, remained beside with the Sweet Medicine Chief.
Also steadfast was Walking Whirlwind, Little Wolf’s own son-in-law … until the warrior was hit by a soldier bullet and never regained consciousness, dying at Little Wolf’s feet while the sun continued its climb to midsky.
High Bull—a hero of the fighting at the Little Sheep River, who had captured one of the pony-soldier chief’s roster books during that great fight—also died defending the mouth of the narrow canyon.
Burns Red in the Sun. Walking Calf. Hawk’s Visit. Four Sacred Spirits. Old Bull. Antelope. All gave their lives that morning, falling around their Sweet Medicine Chief like the brave men that they were. With the death of each old friend, Little Wolf’s eyes clouded all the more with tears—still, he shot straight that day, and not once did he cower from the fight despite the desperate odds against them.
Instead he fought and sang—reloading his rifle as he prayed. Each time he asked for the Everywhere Spirit to make every one of his bullets find a target, asked
Nearly every one of those who were not killed at the ravine mouth that terrible morning were wounded. Scabby, one of Little Wolf’s old friends from the Southern Country, fell as several bullets pierced his body, and he had to be dragged back to where the women could care for him. So too was Curly wounded. Bald-Faced Bull, although he was hit with three bullets, continued to fight as long as he could hold a rifle. Buffalo Chief was hit twice, and—although he spat up blood from his chest wound—refused to retreat as long as his eyes could see and he could point his gun at the enemy.
