By midafternoon that Thursday, the spearhead of Crook’s winter campaign was ready.
“Stand to horse!”
In the cold blue air lying low in the valley of the Crazy Woman, officers called out the order to the anxious troopers. Company noncoms had made sure every man had two blankets, one of which he draped over the back of his horse to protect the animal from the intense cold. The other was to be rolled behind the saddle.
“Prepare to mount!”
Sergeants echoed the command up and down the company rows of tents and picket lines.
“Mount!”
Those horse soldiers settling down upon those God-uncomfortable McClellan saddles would not be taking their tents and Sibley stoves along from here on out. Only those two thin blankets, along with a shelter half or the protection of each man’s heavy wool coat, would have to do until they rejoined the wagon train. To dispense with some of the other baggage, Mackenzie ordered his officers to mess with their companies.
Eleven hundred men—as many as a third of which were Indian scouts—trudged away into the growing gloom of that winter afternoon carrying three days’ rations in their packs and another seven on the mules bringing up the rear. Each man had on his person twenty-four rounds of pistol ammunition and in his saddle packs one hundred rounds for his seven-pound, forty-one inch, .45/70 Springfield carbine.
Mackenzie loped to the lead and set the pace himself out in front of the guidons and his colorful regimental standard, the top of the pole bearing the battle ribbons his own Fourth Cavalry had won in a legion of contests against the Kickapoo, Lipan, Kiowa, and Comanche across the southern plains.
Here at the age of thirty-six, Ranald Slidell would at last pit himself against the best of the northern tribes.
It was to be Three Finger Kenzie’s last Indian fight.
The village migrated while Young Two Moon and the other wolves had been out discovering what all those tracks on Powder River meant.
By the time the four returned, the People had moved to a beautiful canyon at the southern end of the Big Horn Mountains, rimmed with high, striated red-rock walls, through the heart of which flowed a branch of the Powder River itself. The Ohmeseheso had entered the valley by the southern trail, one of only three or four narrow entrances to this canyon that afforded good protection from the cold arctic blasts known to batter the plains at this season. In addition, a small spring near the southern end of the canyon by and large kept the stream free of ice even at the coldest of temperatures. For the most part the valley lay flat, but near the southwest corner the floor became snarled by rounded knolls, upvaulted escarpments of brick-red rock, scarred by deep ravines, hidden cutbanks, and jagged cliffs. On either side of the stream grew a profusion of willow and box elder, and only a scattering of the sheltering, leafless cottonwood. It was here along the Red Fork of the Powder that the People raised their lodges, each spiral of poles lifting a gray streamer of smoke to the cold heavens of that morning as the four scouts gazed down upon the valley from the heights.
“We have time to save our village,” Crow Necklace gasped in the cold air, relieved to find all still peaceful.
“Let’s hurry down to give the warning!” High Wolf said, then wheeled his pony about and led the other scouts down the narrow game trail toward the end of the valley.
The four howled like wolves as they approached the camp. Instantly men, women, and children burst from the lodges, quietly murmuring as the scouts slowly led them through the long, narrow campsite to the lodges of the Sacred Powers. There the four Old-Man Chiefs awaited their return, standing silently as the sun finally made its way over the eastern rim of the high valley.
“You have discovered what the tracks mean?” Morning Star asked as the crowd hushed.
“Soldiers,” Young Two Moon answered.
The talk around them grew louder, like a rumble of a mighty river beneath a thick layer of ice.
“What of these soldiers?” Little Wolf asked. “Where are they going?”
“They could be going anywhere!” Last Bull interrupted. “They could be searching for Crazy Horse! They cannot know we are hidden here inside these mountains!”
“Perhaps you are right,” Morning Star said, his face grave, as if he wanted to believe.
“No,” young Crow Necklace said recklessly, challenging his elders, stunning the crowd by his disagreement with the powerful war chief of the Kit Fox Society, Last Bull. “They will be coming here.”
Last Bull whirled on the young scout, stepping right up to his pony and glaring at Crow Necklace. “How are you so sure?” he snarled.
“Only what we saw,” was the answer.
“And what we heard,” said Young Two Moon, feeling desperate to protect Crow Necklace.
“What you heard?” Little Wolf asked, moving up beside the ponies.
“In that soldier camp we saw many, many Indians,” Young Two Moon explained.
“No!” many of the people protested in disbelief.
“Captives?” asked Morning Star.
“No,” the young scout answered. “They were soldiers. Four different tongues did we hear in that camp while we stole ponies and ate their food.”
“What enemies of ours are these that come to help the soldiers in our own country?” Little Wolf demanded, his eyes narrowing.
Perhaps the old chief was remembering how the soldiers had attacked that sleeping camp on the Powder River last winter, Young Two Moon thought as he began to answer, “Pawnee, Shoshone, yes—our old enemies. But … but Arapaho … and … and Tse-Tsehese too.”
“Cheyenne!”
“Yes,” Young Two Moon said. “If those soldiers and all their Indians reach our camp … I think there will be a big fight here.”
Chapter 23
24 November 1876
“Who was this California Joe you talk about, Lute?” Seamus asked the younger North brother.
“A scout and guide for many a year on the central and southern plains. He knew a friend of yours—Bill Hickok. Joe scouted with Jim Bridger too.”
“I met Bridger myself a long time ago, up in this country—at Fort Phil Kearny,” Seamus replied.* “And now Hickok’s dead.”
“Few weeks back when I saw Joe in Nebraska, he told me he was in Deadwood at the time Hickok was killed.”
“Murdered,” Donegan snorted angrily.
“Joe said he and some others in the Black Hills made it clear what they thought of that gang of gamblers they figured put up that young’un to shoot Wild Bill in the back of the head.”
“And now you say Joe’s been shot too?” Seamus asked.
Frank nodded.
Then Luther added, “A soldier caught up with us at Laramie and told us Joe was shot in the back.”
“Ambushed,” Frank growled.
“Out in this country, you go and make somebody mad,” Seamus replied quietly as they rubbed their hands together and stomped their feet to stimulate circulation as the surgeon’s thermometer hovered close to thirty-five below at that coldest hour of the day, “you best be watching your back and sleeping with only one eye closed.”
This morning Mackenzie allowed none of the command the luxury of a small greasewood fire where they could heat coffee in the darkness before dawn, expected to eat their rations of salt pork and hardtack cold, washing it down with nothing warmer than the mineral-laced water in their canteens.
They had marched some twelve miles up the Crazy Woman yesterday afternoon, not stopping until they reached the mouth of Beaver Creek, a small tributary that flowed in from the south. The ground had been soggy earlier in the day but began to re-freeze as soon as the sun tumbled from the sky. What firewood the men could scare up simply didn’t go around, so most of the soldiers had turned to hunting for sage and buffalo chips. At least there was plenty of water and some good patches of windblown grass for grazing the mounts.