taut, white faces. Hawk and stone alike smacked with a wet thud again and again and again as the wounded were toppled.
Soldiers scattered like so much chaff in the wind along the southern tip of their last ridge.
Hump killed the flag-bearer himself. At first he fired his Henry into the young man’s chest. The private slumped to his knees near Calhoun. He was no more than a boy, really—barely eighteen and struggling to keep from falling any farther.
He gripped the shaky guidon pole as if it were life itself. Stars-and-stripes guidon—Company L. Calhoun’s gallant men who stayed behind to cover the general’s retreat.
Lieutenant Calhoun kept hollering at his standard-bearer there in the last moments, spitting up blood with every order.
But Hump rode right over the boy, yanking the pole from the youth’s hands as the pony trampled the boy’s body into the yellow dust already slick with other men’s blood.
A wild Miniconjou war cry leapt from his throat as Hump heard the wet thrump of his pony’s hoofs slash downward, crushing that young soldier’s body.
All round the flag-bearer the last of the troopers went down as well. The smack of lead into flesh like a war song gone mad of its own.
At long last—they would teach the soldiers not to attack villages of women and children.
Near the north end of Calhoun’s Hill there were still a few, just a handful who rose on cue and dashed off to the north, heading for Keogh and his I Company.
Kill Eagle, a Blackfoot Sioux, freed a primeval cry from his throat, pointing at the escaping few.
After them screamed the feathered hawks like predators swooping after fleeing field mice. Soldiers hoping to make it those few hundred yards … each one blinded by tears stinging his eyes from the hot wind, the dust— perhaps the pain of seeing your deepest, most fervent prayers go unanswered.
Then the warriors swooped down on these too from the back of their swift ponies—clubbing, slashing, gouging with their gore-soaked lances. When there were no more, the Sioux turned back to the hill where Calhoun’s men had made their stand. Turned back to that bloody ground looking for more of the hated enemy to kill.
But here on Calhoun’s Hill, there were no more. Only the hot breeze remained to whisper through the tall, wet grass. No one left to cry out now.
There were no more.
CHAPTER 24
DOWN in the Cheyenne village, Monaseetah came back from the prairie. She had fled to safety in the hills with the others when news of the attack raced like wildfire through the villages. Now she joined those who warily returned to their camps.
Twice before in her life soldiers had ridden down on her tribe’s camp circle. Once she had escaped. The last time she’d been taken prisoner.
With the first shouts of warning that soldiers had attacked the Hunkpapa camp circle, Monaseetah remembered the terrifying image of the Little Dried River and how death had come charging into Black Kettle’s winter village. She remembered how women and children had died beneath the slashing sabers and smoking guns, trampled beneath the bloody hooves that knew no difference between warrior and woman, young or old, in that dim light of a gray-winter dawn.
Thirteen summers old, she had been.
And four robe seasons later, Black Kettle’s village on the Washita again awoke to the same horror of blood- numbing cold and death. Women and children and the old ones were trampled beneath the big horses of the soldiers once more. Another winter dawn long ago.
Suspiciously now the Cheyenne women and old ones came back to their villages in guarded joy. The warriors said they had whipped the soldiers in the valley and sent them fleeing in disorderly retreat up the bluffs far to the south. Now the big fight was pressed against the pony soldiers who had dared to cross into the Shahiyena village itself … to slash through the lodges, killing women and children once more.
But they too had been turned back!
Anxiously she reentered her village, dashing across the camp circle to those cottonwoods that lined the riverbank. A boy under each arm, she watched the pony soldiers spread out along the top of the grassy ridge, some on horseback, others kneeling or lying down to fire their rifles at the warriors who kept up their never-ending pressure.
Minutes later the bugles called out with notes familiar from that long-ago winter far to the south.
Stirred to her soul by the brass horns, Monaseetah remembered those trumpet calls.
She sang, mimicking the quick, staccato notes along with the trumpets, much to the wide-eyed wonder of her sons. Their chins dropped to hear the high, clear, crystalline notes lift from her throat. Sweeter compared to the brassy blare of the army bugles far up the noisy slope.
She remembered too the meaning of that war song. Officers coming together.
Another song—orders to mount. And another song calling the men to assemble so Yellow Hair could talk to all his pony soldiers. Mighty Yellow Hair.
She remembered.
Of a sudden her heart burned for him again … just to touch his pale face once more … to look into those eyes like a mountain pool of cold blue water. Water so cold it would set her teeth on edge to drink—
Then she saw the guidon.
Yellow Hair’s personal flag—the flag he had allowed her to touch and hold so many, many times during their long winter together. She above all others should know that banner.
She lunged forward a step, stumbling as the boys clung to her.
“Hiestzi!” The word flew from her lips more strongly, more hopefully than she had sung the bugle notes.
At her side both boys grew tense with apprehension. Was this Yellow Hair? Is that not what their mother had shouted? Who was this Yellow Hair? The one she spoke of so often?
Suddenly Monaseetah whirled, her eyes searching the throng of spectators. They came to rest on an old woman, Northern Cheyenne, whose father’s relatives remained imprisoned on a reservation far to the south in the Territories.
“Talks-to-the-Moon!” Monaseetah shouted, dragging the two boys with her as she scuffed through the cotton-wood grove.
“Little mother!” the old woman gasped.
“Please—watch the children for me!” Her eyes pleaded. How could her old friend refuse?
“It is not safe yet,” the old one said. “The killing has only started. See? There are too many soldiers fighting still. It will not be long now. Wait here.”
“Watch the boys!” Monaseetah shouted, shaking her head sharply to shut the old woman off. “I must see these soldiers myself.”
As Monaseetah turned to study the hill, more of the army horses stampeded, frightened away from the soldiers by youths fluttering blankets and robes. More thirsty animals bolted and clattered off toward the river, carrying their precious loads of ammunition far from the jamming carbines.
“I go look for a soldier! To see his face!” she admitted to the old woman. “He comes for me at last. Like a prayer, he comes for me!”
Talks-to-the-Moon found her mouth hanging open in surprise as the young mother darted away, racing down the sharp bank into the river, where she splashed across the water, soaking her cloth dress above the waist. One plodding, slippery step after another, lumbering forward a foot at a time.
