“You tell your Crow to stay back from these people. Got that?”
“Stay back?” Leforge growled. “That may be hard. Maybeso those women are relatives of warriors who killed these boys’ relations in battle or raids—”
“I don’t give a damn!” Kelly snapped. “They’re women and children.”
“You heard him,” Donegan added. “Just keep them Crow back, and there won’t neither of ’em need to get hurt. I’ll just make you responsible.”
“Me?”
“One of them prisoners gets cut, gets shot—same’ll happen to you and your Crow,” Seamus snarled. “Count on it, Leforge. Count on it till your dying day.”
Leforge’s eyes followed the Irishman’s mitten as Seamus’s hand went to rest on the butt of one of the big pistols in the civilian’s belt. “What’s a few women to you, anyway? You planning on making one of ’em your blanket warmer tonight?”
“G’won now!” Kelly ordered with an emphatic gesture of his arm. “Get up there and tell your Crow to stay back and not harm these—”
“Don’t see why you two are so all-fired mad about nothing what’s happened,” Leforge said, shaking his head.
Kelly urged his horse forward until it was directly opposite the squaw man’s. He planted a mitten on Leforge’s arm and kept it there while he said, “I just remember that it was your Crow who killed those five Sioux right there at the post. That’s what I call murder.”
“Them two better not touch no women and children today,” Donegan warned, turning to let his glare rest on the Crow scouts. “Or I’ll see to it all three of you don’t make it back to where Miles has raised his camp.”
For a moment Leforge didn’t budge in the saddle, didn’t utter a word; then Kelly suddenly turned his horse, wheeling away. He whispered instructions to Donegan and to Johnston as they split up. Kelly went forward while the other two went left and right. Behind Donegan and Johnston rode James Parker and George Johnson, along with the two Crow scouts, while Leforge followed Buffalo Horn at the rear of the procession.
As soon as Kelly moved toward the women, Donegan could see he began to gesture to the prisoners, making sign.
“They’re Cheyenne,” Kelly declared now that the squaws and children had stopped, clustering together with their two ponies the way a covey of quail would cower, looking all about them, seeing the ring of horsemen slowly coming in.
“Keep them Crow back!” Donegan warned Leforge.
Kelly turned to find Half Yellow Face urging his pony into a lope toward the Cheyenne women. Whirling his horse, Luther kicked it into a gallop, heading on a collision course for the Crow tracker, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. A scant ten feet from the chief of scouts, Half Yellow Face reined up sharply, holding aloft his yard-long coup-stick, shouting and cursing the white man in his own tongue.
“I’ll drop this son of a bitch if he tries me again like that,” Kelly said.
“He’s just wanting to count coup on them Cheyenne,” Leforge explained sheepishly. “Not do ’em no harm.”
Donegan patted the butt of his pistol, saying, “Just keep them back and there’ll be no trouble.”
“I don’t think you understand Injuns,” Leforge spat at Donegan.
“I understand enough to tell you that there’ll be three Crow widows singing their mourning songs tonight if either of these boys hurt one of our prisoners.”
By the time Kelly got turned around again so he could talk with the women, they were crying out in fear, the children wailing pitifully. Slowly the scouts continued to tighten the wide ring around their prisoners until they halted their horses just feet from the captives. This close to the Cheyenne, Old Bear leaned forward, stretching as far as he could, and slapped one of the younger women on the back of the head with his stick, singing out joyfully as he sang his war song.
“Keep an eye on both of ’em for me, Seamus,” Kelly ordered.
“I’ll drop the first one of ’em hurts a woman or so much as looks cross-eyed at one of them young’uns,” Seamus growled, mad enough now that he pulled his pistol and cocked it—just as Half Yellow Face whacked his coup-stick on the shoulder of the old woman who had been leading them all across the snowy prairieland.
None of the scouts could speak Cheyenne, but they did get the old woman and the rest started off down the coulee toward the river. Kelly motioned Buffalo Horn up to the front of the march with the old woman, where the Bannock made the prisoner understand they were being taken to the soldier camp. Once there, they would be fed and have a fire for warmth, and have no reason not to feel secure.
Donegan glared at Leforge’s Crow as he asked the Bannock, “Buffalo Horn—you tell them they’ll be safe with us?”
“Yes. I tell.”
“Good. If these Crow do anything to hurt our prisoners—I’ll let you have the first Crow scalp we’ll lift.”
Morning Star was sure they were under attack the moment the first shouts were raised late in the afternoon. But as it turned out, the alarm was only a lone rider, racing a weary, lathered pony through the snow up from the bank into the outskirts of the village.*
The horseman was howling like a wolf—that eerie warning cry. Four times he stopped, pointing his tired pony to the four winds to greet the Sacred Persons dwelling in each of the cardinal directions, and each time he howled at the top of his lungs. When he got close enough, he started to yell.
“The soldiers are coming!”
Women began to scream—both Lakota and Shahiyela. Children darted for their mothers. Then several of the war leaders hollered above the tumult for calm. No guns were being fired nearby. The camp guards had not raised an alarm of attack. Nothing more than a solitary rider come across the river.
Men began to gather about the lone horseman, helping him as he pitched off his pony, all of them asking questions of the man at once. Then Little Wolf and White Bull, Crazy Horse and Black Moccasin, were there with Morning Star to confront the rider.
Morning Star asked, “You are Big Horse?”
“Yes,” the man gasped. “I am of Two Moon’s people.”
The chief held out his personal pipe and said to Big Horse, “Touch my pipe, and on its honor swear that you will tell me the truth.”
The exhausted warrior wrapped his fingers around the long stem of the pipe and said, “I swear that I will tell you the truth of what my eyes have seen.”
Then Crazy Horse shoved his way into the group, anxious, asking, “Where are these soldiers you are yelling at us about?”
Big Horse pointed, licking his cracked lips. “Down the river less than a half day’s ride.”
“The Bear Coat,” Crazy Horse snarled, making it sound like a curse. “But he is coming slower than I had hoped.”
Then Big Horse lunged for Morning Star. “They have taken prisoners!”
Morning Star gripped Big Horse’s wrists. “P-prisoners?”
“Our people!” Big Horse replied, and that started the women and children wailing all the more around that circle of men. “Lame White Man’s widow. And Old Wool Woman. Children are with them—”
“The women gone to Tangle Hair’s camp at the base of the Sacred Mountain?” Little Wolf asked, his voice rising.
“Yes,” Big Horse said, nodding. “The soldier scouts captured them. I saw the scouts taking them to the soldier camp.”
“Who are these scouts?”
Big Horse turned to He Dog to answer. “Some are Crow People, but most are
“It does not matter,” Little Wolf snarled.
A loud roar erupted from the crowd.
“I call for a war council!” Morning Star shouted.
