What the hell was that out there coming down to the ford on the north side of the river?
With his bare hand he quickly swiped the fog and frost from inside the windowpane. Tom blinked, squinting, trying to focus across the distance in those first terrifying moments of a winter blizzard settling upon the land.
A lone horseman!
Leforge watched him dismount stiffly and wave. And when he hadn’t gotten the attention of the soldiers operating the ferry in the cold and the dark, the stranger pulled out his pistol and fired. The muzzle flash was bright as a falling star in that darkness. He fired again—then things began to happen. A trio of soldiers yanked and pulled, getting their ferry over to the north bank, where the horseman stepped on, then pulled his reluctant horse on behind him. The soldiers turned right around and started pulling for the south bank of the Yellowstone.
Over his shoulder Leforge called out, “Coffee, soldier.”
“What’s that?” asked the man with a three-day growth of beard.
“Get me another mug of your rotten coffee.”
“Rotten, you say?”
Tom drained the last of his and slammed down the tin on the plank table behind him. Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he held out his other hand to receive the steaming cup the unkempt soldier had just poured. “Damn right it’s rotten. But your coffee might just be what that rider out there needs right about now.”
The horseman caused no little stir with his surprising arrival late that cold night as the blizzard thundered down upon the Yellowstone country. Soldiers bundled in their long coats, or with wool blankets pulled over their shoulders and heads, appeared here and there at the doors to the log barracks, some holding aloft candle lanterns and Betty lamps whipped in the sharp wind.
Then the rider’s voice croaked from the darkness, “Word from Captain Snyder!”
“Snyder? Same Snyder out with General Miles?”
The horse and rider came closer. “The same, soldier.”
Then an officer pushed into the flickering light to demand, “Who carries this word?”
“Kelly.”
A moment more and the rider stepped into the light of lamps and a single sputtering torch wavering in the icy wind. Shards of frozen snow blew sideways. No longer was it coming down. It was snowing sideways.
Funny, Tom thought now. All along he had it figured for Yellowstone Kelly. Wasn’t many a man who had the bottom and the grit to tackle a prairie blizzard. The horseman’s entire face was a layer of ghostly frost, pale as a civilized-folks’ bed-sheet—eyebrows and eyelashes frozen solid. That huge bearskin hat of his was pulled down about as far as he could get it. Only the chertlike eyes were visible above the frost-caked beard until the horseman pulled away the length of muffler wrapped from chin to nose.
“Here—you could use this, Kelly.” Tom stepped through the others, holding up the coffee tin, a wispy banner of steam trailing off the dark, glittering surface of the liquid.
Dropping his reins, Kelly accepted the tin, cupping it in both his horsehide gauntlets. Blowing the steam off quickly, he brought it to his lips as the snowstorm grew in intensity around them and the soldier fiddle-footed in the cold, anxious to know what was news with Miles and his bunch. The steam went a long way to melting the frost on his mustache, turning it from white to auburn, drops of water forming on the whiskers, then spilling into his cup.
“B-bless you, Leforge,” Yellowstone said. He sighed, his eyes half closing. “Ahhh, m-my kingdom for some c- coffee.”
“A mite cold out, ain’t it?” Leforge asked.
Kelly blew across the surface of his cup. “Just a mite. Is it true what I heard from the general?”
“What’s that?”
“You were to bring in some Crow.”
“I’m that man,” and Leforge smiled.
Sipping at more of the coffee, Kelly asked, “How many you bring with you?”
“Enough to go chasing a war party or two of them Sitting Bull Injuns.”
“When’d you get here?”
“Almost two weeks ago, the soldiers tell me.”
“Hasn’t been busy around here, has it, Leforge?”
“If you call picking soldier lice out’n my clothes keeping busy—we ain’t been real busy at all.”
Kelly smiled and kicked his right leg to the left, dropping out of the saddle, still cradling the coffee cup with both hands. “See to my horse, will you, soldier?”
The young private leaped at the opportunity. “Glad to, Mr. Kelly.”
Now the scout stopped, turned to pat the animal’s neck with one glove. “Grain him down good, for he deserves the best of care. I was afraid he wouldn’t make it all the way in here with me.”
“I’ll treat him right, Mr. Kelly!”
They watched the soldier lead the snow-crusted animal away; then Tom pointed, and the two of them turned toward the low-roofed mess hall with a small gaggle of others. Leforge asked, “How far you come to get here so long after dark—and in this storm?”
“Been riding for two nights and a day,” Kelly replied with a weary shudder. “Snyder’s battalion needs forage in a bad way, so I came riding. Wasn’t all that terrible most of the way. This blizzard just hit a few miles back.”
Quickly they all retreated into the sudden warmth of that log hut, where Kelly tore the bearskin hat from his head and shook out his long hair, ice crystals showering like spun sugar.
Leforge settled on the closest half-log bench, saying, “Listen, Kelly—you tell me just where we can find them soldiers, I’ll send some of my Crow out with that grain for Snyder.”
Waiting until he had forced down the last of the hot liquid, Kelly declared, “Bless you, Leforge. And your Crow boys too. For that would be a curse of a ride for any man to face on a turnabout.”
Leforge leaned over to slap the white scout on the back. “You sit, eat, and warm yourself. We’ll get these Paddy soldiers up and about getting Snyder’s grain ready. Then my boys can ride out at first light.”
An older officer appeared at the doorway and stomped into the mess hall, pulling a sealskin cap from his head. “Heard you was back, Kelly. All this hubbub you stirred up.”
“Colonel Whistler,” Kelly replied, standing to accept the lieutenant colonel’s hand. They shook.
Whistler dragged a hand over his face to sweep some of the icy snow from it and said, “We’ll have your battalion’s feed ready shortly. Say, are you a voting man by any chance?”
Luther Kelly looked up from his coffee. “What’s to vote for, Colonel?”
“Not no copperhead, are you?” the officer asked, one eye squinting suspiciously.
Kelly held up his cup in his red, trembling hands as the grizzled soldier filled it with more coffee. “Blue through and through, that’s me. I fought for the Union cause and would fight again if the call came out from my president.”
“Then you’ll likely be mad as me,” Whistler grumbled. “Word just in from downriver has it the Democrats put Tilden in the White House.”
“Tilden?” squeaked a soldier rubbing his bottom by the fireplace.
“Samuel J., soldier,” continued Whistler, who turned to the squaw man. “Those boys you send out to find Snyder, you make sure to tell him about Tilden when they carry that grain out come morning, Leforge.”
“Why tell Snyder that?” Kelly asked.
“Because he’s a mossback like me, and I’d love to be there to see the look of disgust on his face when he hears another Democrat is going to rule in the White House!”
The soldiers had forced his village of 190 lodges to the south side of the river in those first blustery moments of the blizzard. Perhaps that was a good thing, Sitting Bull wanted to think. Maybe if he could keep them moving south, they would get themselves out of the storm, escape its fury.
Here in the Midwinter Moon he was sure all these terrible happenings were part of
But they did not listen—and so time and again, ever since the Lakota had been forced to run for their lives
