right to be more than a little anxious as they started down the long, low slope into the broad, yawning valley of the North Platte, where more than ten thousand of their most inveterate enemies awaited their arrival. Because they had the shortest distance to travel, the Cheyenne, along with bands of the Oglalla and Brule Sioux, had been camping here for close to a month, since the end of August. In addition, a large camp of Titus Bass’s most implacable foes—the Arapaho—had come in to join the talks.
Two days back, when the Crow delegation had been nearing Fort Laramie, Meldrum sent Fitzpatrick’s couriers on ahead to learn where they were to camp. No chance for a big council to be taking place anywhere near the post—they found the entire countryside deserted. As the small party from the northern mountains drew closer, two of the half-bloods came galloping out from the adobe walls.
“They move the camp,” one of the men shouted as he reined up in front of Meldrum and Bass. He pointed to the east. “Over to Horse Creek.”*
“How far are they?” Meldrum growled testily. He was fighting some raw saddle galls on his rump, a trader unused to spending so many weeks nonstop in the saddle.
The half-breed squinted his eyes as he calculated it. “Less than two days.”
“Maybeso we ought’n stay the night right here,” Bass had suggested. “Close to the walls.”
Rising slightly in the stirrups, Meldrum agreed, “Let’s get down out of these saddles soon as we can, Scratch. Let the others make camp while we go have us a look around the fort.”
Throwing up a hand in protest, Titus said, “Naw, I left enough bad blood here years ago. I’ll just hang back with the family and these chiefs. You go have yourself a look an’ tell me ’bout it when you get back to camp.”
“Where you suggest we throw down our bedrolls?” Meldrum had asked.
Titus tugged down on the wide brim of his hat to make a little more shade for his eyes and peered across the 180 degrees of the compass. “If we’re headed east at sunrise to-morry—I’d say we might as well camp yonder in them trees, far side of the stockade. We’ll have water and a little grass for the animals.”
“Good idee,” Meldrum said as he started to rein aside. “You tell the chiefs that we still got a two-day ride.”
“Just you ’member you don’t tell any of them bastards Titus Bass is in shootin’ distance,” Scratch said with a grin.
Meldrum tipped his hat, saying, “I’ll meet you in camp soon as I get my how-do’s said to them booshways over at the fort.”
Later that evening after supper, when the trader arrived back at the Crow camp, Meldrum brought with him some of the company’s headmen and a young soldier. Since that spring of 1825, when he had run into three dragoons at the oft-abandoned Fort Osage, Scratch had seen only one other bunch of soldiers in all his travels— some of General Kearney’s men spotted along the road outside Taos back in the early winter of 1846. First to come had been preachers with their Bibles and whiny cant, then their white wives reminding a man of all the thou-shalt- nots he had tried to escape … and eventually came those wagons loaded with plows and milkers.
“With so many of our citizens emigrating to Oregon along this central road,” explained the fresh-faced officer, “the government determined it was best to bring all the warrior groups to a peace council. That way we could not only assure safe passage along the Oregon Trail, but do our level best to see the tribes made peace with one another too.”
“You figger the Sioux and Cheyennes gonna treat these Crow or the Snake any better just because you had your peace meetin’ with ’em?” Titus asked at the fire, where most of the delegation from the Yellowstone country stood with grave interest, waiting for translation of the white men’s words.
“Yes,” said the officer. “Like Superintendent Mitchell and the others who came west to make this conference a success, I believe the lion can lay down with the lamb.”
Titus asked, “How many dragoons come out here to watch over things at this peace parley?”
“Just under two hundred, sir,” the soldier replied. “Officers and enlisted both.”
Meldrum gave Bass a knowing look before Scratch said, “Your army thinks that’s enough guns to keep all them Injuns off the Crow an’ Shoshone when them Sioux an’ Cheyenne take a notion to cut through their old enemies?”
“Mitchell has already made it clear that there will be no bloodshed between the tribes,” declared the officer with certainty.
“If you soldiers aren’t right, an’ you can’t keep a lid on the Cheyenne an’ Sioux,” Scratch responded, “there’ll be more blood shed at this here peace parley than you ever thought to see in your life.”
Even though Meldrum told Titus that the hated Bordeau had been relieved of control at Fort Laramie when the army bought the post back in ’49, Scratch never had been one to take unnecessary chances. Might well be some old friends of those employees Bass and Sweete had killed were still hangers-on, living a half-blood, squaw-man existence. Someone might just recognize that old gray-headed trapper who wore a distinctive bandanna, not to mention that long scar that traced itself down from the outside corner of his left eye. * That night, and the next as they made their way east for the broad valley said to lie at the mouth of Horse Creek, Titus slept loose, restless, half aware of every noise in the night—whether the snort of a pony, the howl of a prairie wolf, or the booming rattle of Meldrum’s snore. That second morning east of the fort, the Crow had acted more nervous than they had since the day they put Fort Alexander and the Yellowstone country at their backs.
“They know there is great danger waiting for them in that camp of their enemies,” Waits-by-the-Water quietly explained as she rolled up the last of their bedding after breakfast.
“The Crow been outnumbered before,” he responded. “But never nothing like this.”
“Maybe you should tell them the thoughts in your heart, Ti-tuzz,” she suggested.
For a long time he had regarded the thirty-eight warriors and chiefs, who went about their special toilet, painting their faces and brushing their hair, tying on feathers, stuffed birds, and spiritual amulets, dressing in their very finest—then removed the covers from their shields and weapons with great ceremony. Although they had been riding through the heart of their enemy’s land for many, many days, by this afternoon these delegates would be entering what they believed might well prove to be the valley of their death. Surrounded by enemies many times stronger than their few numbers, the Crow began to sing their brave-heart songs as they tied up their ponies’ tails, rubbed their animals with dust, and made ready for one last fight.
“My friends and fellow fighting men,” Scratch had addressed them in their native tongue, then waited as they fell silent and stepped close to hear his words.
“No man here can doubt that I have fought the enemies of Apsaluuke. I have been a brother warrior to the great chief with the sore belly, and my father-in-law too. I held my wife’s brother in my arms as he died after we had pursued those Blackfoot into the mountains. So measure my words carefully, friends. They come from a fellow warrior.”
Flea came up to stand beside his father. Scratch put his arm around the taller fourteen-year-old’s shoulder and continued. “Pull the old loads from the barrels of your weapons and charge them with fresh powder. While there are not many of us, nowhere near as many as there will be of our enemies as we ride down into their gaping jaws, remember that we have far, far more medicine irons than do the Sioux, the Cheyenne, or the Arapaho. Your trade with the white man, with trusted men like Round Iron, who has married into your tribe like me, has assured that your men have always had more firearms, powder, and lead to protect your people and the land of Absaroka too.”
The first of the younger chiefs growled with agreement, a few of them yipping in excitement as his words worked up their martial feelings.
“We have more guns, my friends,” he reminded them again. “So do not be afraid. But—even more than the guns we can use to fight these enemies, who we will soon see face-to-face—know that the Apsaluuke have stronger hearts than these enemies, who will tremble when they finally see, for the first time, you warriors and fighting men who carry the scars of many battles against the mighty Blackfoot!”
Beside him Flea shouted with the older men, all of whom raised their muskets and flintlock rifles, shook their powerful war totems, and pounded on their shields, invoking their magic and the mystery of the spirits who watched over those who rode into battle, those men who put their bodies between those of their people and the weapons of their enemies. Gooseflesh rose along Bass’s arms, and the hair stood at the back of his neck as the three dozen surged forward as one, sharing this brotherhood one last moment before they rode on down this trail into the unknown.
Below them now at the bottom of that wide, verdant valley where Horse Creek flowed from the south into the
