all he heard, save for the wind tumbling across the icy crust of the snow. That, and the thoughts tumbling through his head.
So quiet was it out here that he could dwell on Sam and the boy. Out here where the mind had far too much time to think, and the heart had far too much time to ache.
He was a man being paid well to do a dangerous job, Seamus reminded himself, and yanked the wolf-hide hat down against the stiffening wind. No doubt that he had made sure his little family was taken care of with army scrip … whether or not he returned to them from this lonely journey. This was simply a job too good for a husband, a father, a family man to pass up.
Just the sort of man the army might look for when it needed a fool to set off on a fool’s errand.
Fool or not … Seamus loved Sam and their boy more than he loved life itself.
*The Yellowstone River.
†Devil’s Tower
Chapter 1
26 October-3 November 1876
Sitting Bull had given him the slip again.
There wasn’t much that could gall Nelson A. Miles the way that did.
After he had managed to stay right behind the warrior bands he’d flushed and fought at Cedar Creek,* nearly all the Sioux leaders had given up their flight—some even turning themselves over to the soldier chief as hostages in good faith that their followers would return to their reservations. The arrival of supply wagons on Thursday, 26 October, ultimately convinced chiefs like Pretty Bear and Lame Red Skirt, Bull Eagle and Small Bear, even White Bull and Foolish Thunder, to give up rather than cause their people to suffer the continued harassment of the Bear Coat’s “walk-a-heaps.”
But not Sitting Bull.
The irascible Hunkpapa had managed once again to elude his white nemesis when he splintered off from the other Lakota leaders, taking no more than thirty lodges with him across Bad Route Creek to sneak away, slipping down the north bank of the Yellowstone while the soldiers were in hot pursuit of the greater part of that village continuing to flee south from Miles’s Fifth Infantry.
At first, however, despite the walk-a-heaps’ harassment, the bands remained committed to their traditional philosophy of fighting and fleeing, which enabled them to hunt buffalo and live their lives in the manner of their grandfathers. The best Miles could manage was to get them to say they would talk a bit.
Which suited the colonel just fine … for the moment. In the meantime he had ordered his train of empty wagons on east those twenty-four miles to the Glendive Cantonment for supplies.
By the time that supply train returned, carrying enough rations to permit the Fifth Infantry to continue its chase another twenty days, Miles’s hunch had paid off in a big way: those wagons had indeed proved to be the straw that broke the will of the Northern Sioux to resist.
When they came to the army’s camp to talk terms of surrender, Lame Red Skirt and the other Miniconjou chiefs repeated their assertions that their people lacked clothing for a long winter’s march; besides, their horses were far too poor to make the journey—yet they vowed their intention of going in to the agencies.
“Look upon my wagons,” Miles explained to the headmen through his interpreters. “With my supplies I can follow you wherever you attempt to go.”
The dark eyes of those Lakota seated in council with Miles regarded the wagons filled to the gunwales with boxes and barrels and kegs of supplies. They could see for themselves that the soldiers were dressed warmly around their fires, their bellies full while the fragrance of frying pork perfumed the winter air … at the same time their people cried out in hunger, suffered with the cold as the season advanced and the creekbanks began to rime with ice.
Miles had them just where he wanted them. But now that they were ready to surrender, he damn well couldn’t take the massive village back to Tongue River Cantonment with him. There simply wasn’t enough to supply his troops and all these Sioux in hopes of lasting out the coming winter, until the river ice broke up and the first steamer arrived from down the Missouri.
Nor could he dare take the time needed to escort this bunch of Sioux all the way over to the Cheyenne River Agency, a decision that would take his men right out of any chance of catching up to Sitting Bull.
The Bear Coat ended up proposing that the chiefs give him their solemn promise to turn themselves in to their agents at Cheyenne River. In addition, Miles declared that five of their number must volunteer to stay behind with him, those men to be delivered to an army prison in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a means of guaranteeing the eventual surrender of their people at their agency.
Lame Red Skirt and the other Miniconjou chiefs repeated their assertions that their people lacked clothing for a long winter’s march and their horses were far too poor to make the journey.
Fuming with indignation, Miles stormed to his feet before the chiefs seated on their robes, which were spread over a thin layer of crusted snow. Clearly impatient to be after the big prize, he slapped one of his thick gauntlets against the side of his leg and said, “This is my final offer: I will see that your people have rations to make the trek to your reservation. And I will allow your bands thirty-five days to make the trip. In addition, I agree to give your people five additional days to stay right where they are now so your men can hunt buffalo for meat and hides.”
For a long time the chiefs huddled, talking among themselves. Finally Lame Red Skirt stood, dour-faced.
“I will go with the Bear Coat, to show the goodwill of my people.”
One by one the other leaders rose in turn from their robes to be counted among those who would fight no more. The older White Bull, a Miniconjou and father of Small Bear. Foolish Thunder, Black Eagle, and Sun Rise, all three Sans Arc. Then, too, Bull Eagle and Small Bear vowed they would be responsible for getting their people to the reservation in the days Bear Coat had allowed them. In that timely journey, more of the headmen vowed they would not fail the soldier chief: Tall Bull, Yellow Eagle, Two Elk, Foolish Bear, Spotted Elk, and Poor Bear.
As each leader stood to make his surrender, Nelson Miles felt his heart leap anew. Better than twenty-five hundred Miniconjou, Sans Arc, and Hunkpapa—accounting for more than three hundred lodges—had surrendered without the Fifth Infantry firing another shot.
Maybe now he had a chance to get his hands on the old, elusive Sitting Bull himself.
Maybe tonight Miles would sleep better than he had in a long, long time. Perhaps even a far better sleep than he had experienced since he had come to these northern plains last summer to find both Crook and Terry unable or unwilling to get the job done.* At the least Miles could boast that the rigors of campaigning and the chase after his archnemesis had caused him to shed a few pounds since leaving Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
What he felt ready to accomplish here in the north would perhaps be even more important than what he had accomplished on the southern plains.† Miles was looking in the eye of what might well be the greatest test of his military career. Simply put: the commander who defeated Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse, the man who corralled and herded the great war chiefs back to the reservations—why, that man would have his general’s stars handed to him on a silver platter. And there might even be a special place in Washington City carved out for him too.
Although he knew it would never be easy for foot soldiers to catch the elusive warrior villages, Miles remained steadfast in his belief that his Fighting Fifth could whip the Sioux horsemen every time the enemy was engaged.
After writing his wife of his success securing the chiefs’ surrender, as well as carefully phrasing some correspondence with Mary’s uncle, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Miles penned a dispatch to General Alfred H. Terry in St. Paul:
I consider this the beginning of the end. [The Indians] are very suspicious, and of course [are] afraid that some terrible punishment will be inflicted upon them [should they go in to their agencies]…. While we have fought
