From what William could see, there were English letters put together to make English words on that scrap of white cloth no bigger than a bandanna.
“What’s it say, Colonel?” Lieutenant Smith asked. “Is it meant to be a message for us?”
“It most certainly is meant for me,” Otis replied gruffly, snapping out the cloth he held in his gloves. “Here, you read it aloud to the rest.”
Smith took the cloth, then said:
“YELLOWSTONE.
I want to know what you are doing traveling on this road. You scare all the buffalo away. I want to hunt on the place. I want you to turn back from here. If you don’t I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have got here, and turn back from here.
I am your friend,
SITTING BULL.
I mean all the rations you have got and some powder. Wish you would write as soon as you can.”
“By gonnies!” Lieutenant William Kell exclaimed. “We’ve been fighting Sitting Bull!”
“Yes,” Otis sighed, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he regarded the distant hill in their front, then gazing again at the stoic, motionless Indians on their left flank. “The same bastard who wiped out Custer’s men.”
Lieutenant Smith cleared his throat and asked, “Are we going to leave the son of a bitch powder and rations—like he asked for?”
“No, Mr. Smith,” Otis replied acidly. “The only thing I’ll leave him is the bullets we’ll use to kill more of his warriors if he stands between us and Tongue River here on out.”
At that point the lieutenant colonel took the cloth back from his adjutant and stuffed it inside the front of his coat. “Jackson,” he said, looking at Robert once more, “I want you to ride back up there. Show them you have some word from me to deliver to Sitting Bull—and get it across to him in no uncertain terms that I’m taking this train on through to the Tongue River. Tell him that if they wish to stand in our way, I will be most pleased to accommodate them with a fight. In fact, I’ll bloody well fight them for every goddamned foot if I have to. You understand all that?”
“Perfectly,” Robert answered, his eyes darting to William before he reined his horse about and kicked it away, moving at a lope back to the far hill.
Otis turned in the saddle, looking down at the other officers who were without horses and said, “Let’s get the word passed back: we’re back on the march, gentlemen.”
They pressed on as Jackson delivered the soldiers’ reply to a single Lakota scout, then turned and galloped back to the wagon train. It became plain that the soldiers were not turning back. The warrior horsemen had not liked Otis’s response to their demand: they were massing for another assault on the column.
But the attack didn’t come until much later, when the van of the train reached Bad Route Creek and went about gathering deadfall and squaw wood the men shoved into the possum bellies beneath every one of the wagons. Too, the soldiers allowed the thirsty mules to drink their fill as the stream bottom was churned by hundred of hooves in the slow crossing protected by outflung skirmishers who held back the warriors swirling here, then there, probing for some weakness in the lines.
In little more than an hour the last wagons had crossed Bad Route Creek and the column was again on its way, despite the long-range sniping from the surrounding hillsides. They had covered little more than seven miles since leaving last night’s camp.
“Looks like they want to talk to us again,” Lieutenant Smith called out, pointing to the south.
From the direction of the Yellowstone appeared two horsemen. While one wore a white bandanna tied over his black braids, the other carried a white flag tied to a short staff he held high for all to see. Having appeared out of the southwest, the pair halted about halfway between the mounted warriors and the soldier escort.
“Shall we bring them on in, Colonel?” William Jackson inquired.
“By all means—let’s see what else Sitting Bull has on his mind.”
William walked on foot some two hundred yards before he stopped, signaling that it was safe for the horsemen to come on into range of the soldiers’ big guns. As the two came to a halt before him, Jackson could see they were Lakota, all right. But upon talking in sign, he was surprised to learn they were not emissaries from Sitting Bull’s roamers.
Telling the pair to follow him, that they would be safe even though there had been skirmishing all morning long, Jackson led the two horsemen back to see Otis.
“Colonel,” he said as the riders came to a halt behind him among the headquarters group at the van of the train, “this is Long Feather and Bear’s Face.”
“They bring word from Sitting Bull?”
“No, not exactly. They come from the Hunkpapa bands at Standing Rock. But they came through Sitting Bull’s camp this morning—before coming on through the warrior lines to get word to you.”
“They’re from Standing Rock Agency?” repeated Lieutenant Smith.
Jackson nodded. “Agent down that way sent them out to look up Sitting Bull—try convincing him to surrender and come on in for his people’s good.”
“Before we kill ’em all is what he should tell ’em,” grumbled Lieutenant William Conway.
“They’re carrying written messages for you too,” Jackson added, signaling the pair.
“Hand them over, by all means,” Otis replied with no small excitement.
The dispatches were from Lieutenant Colonel William P. Carlin, commandant at the Standing Rock Reservation, requesting Sitting Bull to surrender and move his people back to the agency.
When Otis looked up from the handwritten letters, William Jackson said, “They do have a message from Sitting Bull for you, Colonel.”
“What’s the Custer-killer want to tell me now?”
“Sitting Bull wants to meet with you,” Jackson explained. “But only outside the lines.”
“I won’t even consider it,” Otis replied hastily. “I will meet with Sitting Bull inside soldier lines. Nothing more shall I grant them.”
Jackson translated and made sign with his hands, then sent the two Hunkpapa off with the soldier chief’s gruff reply while Otis gave the order for the wagons to resume their march.
In less than an hour the two Standing Rock messengers were spotted coming back, joined this time by three more mounted warriors. With most of the headquarters group, Otis advanced a short distance, going out to meet them as the column continued its slow, relentless march toward Tongue River.
Anxiously the lieutenant colonel asked as the horsemen came to a stop before the soldiers, “Is one of those Sitting Bull?”
Jackson studied them all, especially the one with the stern face who held back behind the others, dressed in the shabby clothes of mourning. Then he wagged his head in resignation, saying, “I’m not sure—don’t think so. Maybe he didn’t trust coming here himself.”
Grinding his teeth on that disappointment, Otis finally said, “Find out what news they bring from the son of a bitch anyway.
“They have nothing new to tell you, Colonel,” William said after a few minutes, translating what the two of the new horsemen had to say to Otis’s previous counterproposal. “This one called No Neck still wants to know why we are in this country, scaring off their buffalo.”
“Is that the whole caboodle, Jackson?” Otis snapped. “Sitting Bull shows no willingness to come in and parley with us himself?”
For some reason Jackson was again compelled to study the stone-faced warrior who stayed in the rear, then finally answered, “Seems he don’t want to show, Colonel. The Lakota keep saying they want you to stop killing and running off their game. For the trouble you’ve caused ’em—they tell me they want us to give them bullets and food.”