“Clearly—there is no more use in our talking,” Miles replied over his shoulder as the other soldiers began to move off with him, all very wary and watchful. “We’ve been at this for many hours. Back and forth, with no good result. You tell Sitting Bull that we can continue our talk tomorrow.”
After asking the Hunkpapa chief for a response, Johnny said, “Sitting Bull says he will talk with you tomorrow.”
“Good,” Miles declared with a gush of finality. “I think it would be wise of you to tell Sitting Bull to consider his remarks overnight. Best for him to think on the sad consequences if he chooses to continue making war.”
By this time the sun had fallen halfway to the horizon from midsky. The day was rapidly growing old as Sitting Bull and the rest got to their feet, took up their blankets and robes, and turned away while Mile’s escort strode back to the soldier lines. When the soldiers turned about and began to march west, back toward Cedar Creek, most of those mounted warriors who had remained close during the parley chose to follow the soldiers at a distance. Along the crest of the nearby ridges the horsemen slowly shadowed the blue column, flanking the soldiers as they countermarched nearly five miles and eventually went into camp for the night.
“Are the soldiers leaving us be?” asked Black Eagle that night as all the Lakota leaders held an angry council.
“No,” declared Rising Sun. “They marched away in that direction so they could be in a better position to charge us when we move north, following the buffalo on our way to Fort Peck.”
“Yes,” Sitting Bull agreed as the council fell quiet. “My heart cannot believe the soldiers are leaving our country as we told them to do. They are not to be trusted.”
“Perhaps we should consider going in to the agency when this hunt is over,” suggested Small Bear.
“The reservation holds nothing for me,” Sitting Bull said. “Only unhappiness and empty bellies. Here … here in the buffalo country is where our men hunt and our women cure the hides that shelter us. We can never do that living at the white man’s agency.”
For a long time that night the leaders argued back and forth on what to do until one of the camp police, the akicita, came in to report that a few of their ponies had broken away, and in going after them some of the young men had discovered that their camp was being watched by many soldiers who had secreted themselves in the surrounding hills and bluffs.
“We must attack those soldiers at early light!” screamed an infuriated Standing Bear.
Other voices took up the call. “These soldiers mean to make war on us!”
Still more urged caution, restraint—reminding the council that their camp no longer possessed the great numbers that had overwhelmed and crushed the soldiers at the Greasy Grass back in the summer moon.
Suddenly Gall arose and waited while the assembly fell to a hush. He looked at Sitting Bull a moment, then said, “If we do not attack first, as Crazy Horse did to Three Stars on the Rosebud, then we can expect the soldiers to attack us.”
Johnny Bruguier turned to watch Sitting Bull’s face. The great Hunkpapa visionary nodded once, nodded slowly, his hand signaling his war chief to continue.
“If we can count on the white man to do anything, we can depend upon him to do what is most dishonorable,” Gall explained. “When the soldier chief says he has come to talk of peace, it is only to make our senses dull, so that we roll over with our bellies to the sky.”
Now Gall’s voice rose an octave, sending a chill down the half-breed’s spine as this barrel-chested, iron-eyed man who had lost so many loved ones to soldiers at the Greasy Grass now laid down his warning to the leaders of that great village.
“Come tomorrow,” he barely whispered in the awful hush of that huge council lodge, “when the soldiers come to attack our women and children … it will be their blood left to soak into this ground.”
“Remember the Rosebud!” one of the younger warriors suddenly cried out from the fringe of the crowd.
“Remember the Greasy Grass!” Gall shrieked, his face contorted in rage, flecks of spittle on his lips.
“Remember the Greasy Grass!”
* Fort Buford, Dakota Territory.
Chapter 10
21 October 1876
An Official Report on South
Carolina Troubles.
Why and How the Colored
Troops Fought Nobly
South Carolina
A History of the Late Troubles Near
Charleston.
“You fellas got to listen to this!” exclaimed trader Collins that chilly morning inside his store at Fort Laramie. “There’s been a heap of trouble down in the South.”
Seamus watched Collins smooth out the newspaper with both hands atop the counter cluttered with a shipment of soaps and lilac water directly up from Denver by way of Cheyenne City.
“What’s it say?” asked John Bourke.
“This here’s the official report of R. M. Wallace, United States marshal for South Carolina, addressed to Attorney General Taft—a letter read in the meeting of Grant’s cabinet a couple days back. He writes
‘SIR: I have delayed giving you a report of the recent unfortunate political riot at a place near the town of Clinsey, near this city, until I could get a correct statement of facts. It’s one of the legitimate results of the intimidation policy on the Mississippi plan adopted by the democratic party in opening their campaign for the purpose of breaking down the majority in this state. The first meeting in this country at which the democrats put their shot gun policy in practice, took place over a month ago, on Cooper River … The republicans had called a meeting and the democrats of this city chartered a steamboat and took one hundred and fifty well armed men to the meeting … and demanded that they should have the time for their speeches. The republicans did not relish this kind of peaceful political discussion, but the request was backed up by one hundred and fifty Winchester repeating rifles in the hands of men who know how to use them.’”
Walter S. Schuyler broke in, asking, “Had to be them goddamned Johnny Rebs stirring up the trouble—right, Seamus?”
“Those sentiments go back a long time now, Lieutenant,” Donegan replied to General Crook’s aide. “It’s been many a year since I faced reb guns. All in the past now.”
Trader Collins cleared his throat to resnag everyone’s attention and proceeded with his reading of the news story plastered across the front page of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News.
“… The democrats carried a large force from the city to every meeting, who irritated the republicans by their violent denunciation of their leaders and their party. The meeting at the brick church was called by the republicans … many of them being suspicious of the democrats carried such guns as each man had at his home—muskets—but no militia men went there with state arms and ammunition, as the democrats claim; and the best evidence of that fact is that all the dead were shot with buckshot and not with rifle balls.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Bourke roared. “You mean the democrats and republicans are shooting at each other down there in the South now?”
“Bound to happen,” declared Captain Wirt Davis, a Virginia-born officer who had nonetheless thrown in with the Union in 1861. He wagged his head with grim resignation.