Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877

warrior formation, then to the other. Exactly as he had done in the battle against Three Finger Kenzie’s pony soldiers. What he held in his hands at this moment was the sort of power that made the Tse- Tsehese a great people!

Power to turn soldier bullets away from the warriors who would sweep around behind the ve- ho-e camp, rescue the prisoners, then gallop over the last of the Bear Coat’s soldiers.

Snarling wasps began to strike the ground all around him and the others at the front—soldier bullets. On through the middle of that hail charged the warriors who would protect the Ohmeseheso!

Suddenly Medicine Bear heard the smack of a bullet striking flesh and cracking bone. A warrior at his left hand pitched backward.

This could not be!

With his heart rising in his throat, Medicine Bear feared he had not done all he could to protect these fighting men. Back and forth more violently he waved the Turner.

Another horseman whirled off the back of his pony. And a third—barely hanging on, wavering atop his frightened animal.

All around him the once-mighty charge started to falter, men twisting to look at Medicine Bear, looking too at Long Jaw riding beside Nimhoyoh.

“Ride over them, Medicine Bear!” the older warrior shouted, his words without fear. “Ride right over the soldiers!”

“We have the power!” Brave Wolf hollered at his other elbow.

With renewed strength the warriors screamed their war cries. Those who had rifles, mostly soldier weapons captured at the Little Sheep River last summer, fired them. Those with bows had to wait to draw closer before they could shoot—close enough to see the fear on the faces of those soldiers hiding behind the chunks of red shale in their burrows.

But the closer they raced toward the ve-ho-e, the more bullets fell among the Ohmeseheso. Another man was struck. He cried out. Faces once filled with confidence, eyes once filled with complete trust—now they turned to see if they had been abandoned by Nimhoyoh, if Medicine Bear had deserted them.

Worse than bullets, confusion and doubt struck them all. The Sacred Turner was still there above them, yet the soldier bullets were not turned to air. Ponies and men cried out each time one of them was struck with bullets that were supposed to become harmless.

Again the big wagon gun across the river belched its mighty roar. A whistle drew closer, and closer, and closer—and suddenly Medicine Bear knew it was coming for him.

Closer and closer! Falling right out of the sky …

He was turning his pony savagely to the right when the ball struck the animal on the left rear flank.

Pitched off as the pony careened to the side, Medicine Bear landed among the feet of other milling, frightened animals. Scrambling to his hands and knees, he crawled forward to snatch up Nimhoyoh again. Then turned, finding his pony struggling back onto its legs, by some miracle managing to shake off the great blow as a dog would shake water from its back.

Leaping to his feet among the confusion as the warriors turned back on themselves, Medicine Bear lunged for the single rawhide rein, caught it, and brought the animal close, cooing into its ear to calm it as bullets snarled past.

Only a few old veterans pressed on with the charge against the hillside now.

Another shot might come from the wagon gun at any moment. Better to withdraw—some were shouting— better to cross the river and join the others on the ridgetops.

Gently he ran his hand over the wound on the pony’s flank: the hair rubbed cleanly off in a path as wide as his outstretched fingers and palm, from the top of the flank down the animal’s thigh. The flesh had turned raw and angry, but as smooth as if Medicine Bear had shaved it with a sharp knife.

Closing his eyes, he tried hard to remember Coal Bear’s prayer that freezing day in the Red Fork Valley. He must give thanks to the Powers because Nimhoyoh had just saved him and the pony. The powerful ball from the white man’s wagon gun had not exploded.

Yet the warriors were retreating. They were not staying with Medicine Bear to defeat this band of soldiers, to sweep on across the river and around behind the Bear Coat’s wagon camp.

Then Medicine Bear realized he had been spared. For some reason the Powers had spared his life. And he knew he must follow the rest of the warriors across the Tongue, carrying the power of Nimhoyoh into the fight on the far side of the river. And if need be—give his own life to protect the Ohmeseheso.

Closing his eyes, he suddenly remembered Coal Bear’s prayer, uttered that freezing day in the Red Fork Valley as the greatness of the People went up in oily smoke.

Now it would become Medicine Bear’s prayer. The life of one man mattered little when the life of the Ohmeseheso was at stake. Today was the day on which the People turned. If they failed in battle this day, then the Ohmeseheso were finished as a great people.

Crying aloud as the soldier bullets landed harmlessly all around him and the pony, Medicine Bear repeated Coal Bear’s prayer: “Hear me, Ma-heo-o! Save my people! If you must take someone— take me, I pray you! But save my people!”

^*The Dull Knife Battle, A Cold Day in Hell, vol. 11, The Plainsmen Series.

† The North brothers’ battalion of Pawnee scouts.

Chapter 34

8 January 1877

With every shot he took at the Indian, Donegan grew more certain that war chief up there led a most charmed life.

The way he danced and cavorted on the hilltop, what with all the bullets kicking up skiffs of snow, lead smacking off the rocky ledges behind him, sprays of dirt and sandstone puffing into the stiff breeze—and not one soldier able to drop the red son of a bitch.

He had seen bravery like this only a few times before in his decade in the far west—as recent as Mackenzie’s fight with the Dull Knife Cheyenne. Twice warriors had come out of hiding, each dressed in their finest bonnets as they steered their ponies back and forth in front of the soldier lines: taunting, teasing, making the soldiers look the fools with their poor shooting. Nevertheless, on that cold day in hell some soldier or one of the scouts had done in the first daring warrior. And eventually the second toppled as well.

Still, for a time there back on that November day, Seamus d wondered if there truly was something to this thing of a warrior’s magic. Exactly the way he was beginning to feel again down in the gnawing pit of his all but empty belly. What little hard biscuit and half-cooked bacon he had shoved down before the shooting began did him little good now after all the exertion and strain of slogging through knee-deep snow in heavy winter clothing.

Up and down the loose skirmish line formed by Butler’s men the soldiers hollered to one another, exhorting their comrades to take their best shot at the prancing, preening, strutting cock-of-the-walk who leered at them from above, daring them all to shoot him.

But none of them could.

The first seconds and those first volleys were long-ago history now. It wasn’t only that war chief in his big bonnet, but several others who jumped up and down on either side of him across the top of the same hill—showing themselves only long enough to take a shot at the soldiers advancing no faster than a snail’s crawl. Then the