Given the reactions of travelers Doc and Butler had met, the fighting on the Plains had degenerated into a war of mutual extermination.
They came on Doc by surprise. Though exactly who surprised whom might be up for grabs. Indians on ponies traveled with much greater stealth than Yankee cavalry. The first Doc knew of their presence was the whispering of tall grass under the unshod hooves of the small party of Cheyenne riders.
He looked up as they appeared from around a bend in the grassy drainage. The mule on its picket let out one of its screeching brays. Doc slowly stood from where he’d piled kindling inside a ring of stone left by previous travelers.
The Indians made not a sound, the first four split, two to the left and two to the right, as they circled him and the wagon. A fifth, leading a horse pulling a travois, stopped short.
One by one, Doc inspected them, seeing young men, perhaps in their twenties and early thirties. Thick black hair was greased, hanging long down their backs. Buffalo-hide shields were hung over their shoulders, along with bows and quivers. Their only clothing consisted of breechcloths and tall moccasins—though most had beaded and feathered arm and ankle bands. Their skin had been burned dark, the color of an old penny. All but the one to Doc’s right who looked seasoned-oak brown. In addition he had wavy brown-tinted hair and the kind of straight nose that hinted of a white father.
They had fixed their unforgiving black eyes on his, no change of expressions on their faces. Each held a carbine at the ready, or propped on his leg. If the stories were true, no mercy was being given on either side.
“Hello,” Doc greeted, glancing back to where the fifth rider had pulled up. The horse pulling the travois had stopped and was cropping the grass, the long poles extended over the horse’s withers in an X.
“I’m Dr. Philip Hancock. I’m just passing through and mean you no harm.”
One of the Cheyenne said something in what sounded to Doc’s ignorant ear like chittering, and half-swallowed vowels.
The others laughed.
The tall young one kneed his horse forward and reached out with a quirt to slap Doc across the shoulders, then he yipped in triumph.
“What the hell!” Doc cried. “I said I was no harm to you!”
“Just the same, white man,” the oak-brown one said as he rode his horse forward, “you are in wrong place, wrong time.” Then he rattled off a quick smattering of Cheyenne to the others. They all laughed again—the sort of amused laugh an executioner gave to the condemned just before he cut off his head.
“Attenshun!” Butler’s voice rang out from the top of the draw. He stood skylined above the drainage, calling out orders. “Company, form up. Sergeant Kershaw, order your men to cap their weapons. Private Johnson, advance at the oblique and prepare to engage. Corporal Pettigrew, by the right flank. Prepare to fire from the enfilade. Forward!” Butler raised his hand, signaling as if it held a sword.
The Cheyenne were wheeling their horses, staring at him as if in disbelief. The oak-skinned warrior called out, pointing this way and that, as if looking for Butler’s soldiers and telling his companions where to anticipate attack. Each had his carbine raised, cocked, ready to fire.
“No!” Doc cried. “They’re not real!” He ran in front of the oak-skinned warrior, raising his hands and shouting, “They are ghosts! Do you understand?” God, what was that word Paw used to tell at the dinner table when he was going on about Indians in the west? “Heyoka!” But he wasn’t sure that was the right word. “Do you understand? He’s crazy. Not right in the head.”
The Cheyenne on their sidestepping horses were staring over the sights, two of them fixed on Butler. They looked anything but relaxed as Butler continued to call out orders, gesturing this way and that.
“You know heyoka?” the oak-skinned warrior asked.
“Crazy, yes. Uh … possessed of the spirits. He calls orders to dead soldiers. They live in his head. My brother doesn’t mean any harm. The soldiers he commands are … I mean, they’re ghosts! God, what are the words? Wakan? Is that right? Don’t hurt him!”
The oak-skinned warrior called a soft order. The Cheyenne, wary and nervous, circled their horses, black eyes flicking this way and that.
“I am a doctor. What you call a medicine man. I’m trying to heal my brother.”
Oak Skin called to the apparent leader, the sharp-faced, slightly older man leading the travois. Seven eagle feathers—each cut in a different fashion—hung from his thick tangle of hair.
Butler, meanwhile, called, “Hold your positions! At the ready!”
The leader spoke to the oak-skinned warrior. The latter replied and stared down from his horse at Doc. “You are heseeotse?” He pointed at Butler. “He is Ma’hta’sooma Notakhe?”
“I don’t know your words.”
“You doctor. Him spirit warrior.”
“Yes. That’s as good a description as any.”
Oak Skin stared speculatively at the wagon, then called to the leader and pointed back at the travois. The leader said something in reply.
“You tell Ma’hta’sooma Notakhe to call off his spirits and come down. Tell him to call back his spirits. Then you doctor our warrior, yes?”
“Yes,” Doc agreed. He cupped hands to his mouth and called, “Butler? Tell the men to stand down. The Cheyenne don’t want to fight them. It’s all right here.”
Butler stared uncertainly. “Are you sure? Philip, the stories we’ve heard from everyone we’ve passed on the trail are that Indians are at war after that Sand Creek massacre in Colorado.”
“You know Sand Creek?” Oak Skin asked, his expression harder if anything.
“We heard it was bad,” Doc said.
There didn’t seem to be any give in the man’s hard eyes.
“If it makes any difference,
