Reap the Whirlwind (26 page)

“Look, ho!” Yellow Eagle called. He strode up, clumsily, carrying a large wooden box across his arms. Its lid had already been pried open several inches.

“What did you find?”

“Maybe some bullets!” Yellow Eagle cheered as he started to lower the crate to the ground.

Crooked Nose pushed up and said, “Perhaps some powder.”

When the box tumbled from Yellow Eagle’s arms, the lid sprung, the top popped up, and some packets wrapped in waxed paper spilled across the ground at their feet. Each of them scrambled to claim one, tore at the smooth, silky paper, and found inside the army’s hard bread, softened by yesterday’s rain.

It was nothing to compare with the feast they could have enjoyed back in that great encampment of lodges and celebration. But that meal of the white man’s spotted buffalo and his hard crackers nevertheless filled their bellies this cold, misting morning. It wasn’t long before they packed away what they could of the hard bread and resumed tracking the soldiers down Crow Creek, northwestward over the low divide to the valley of the Tongue.

Late in the afternoon they saw the soldier encampment again.

Once more the eleven retreated up the river and at dusk prepared to make a crossing. Swollen with snowmelt and more than a day of rain, the Tongue lapped high and cold along its banks. Stripping off all their clothing, the young warriors tied everything in tight bundles lashed high upon their shoulders as they urged their frightened ponies into the freezing current. Upon reaching the west bank they immediately dressed, wrapped themselves in their blankets, and fell to the cold ground, where they slept until the dawn breezes awakened them to continue trailing the soldiers.

At first light, as the young warriors peered down on the enemy camp from a tall cliff, they bickered in hushed tones about what they could do that would bring them fame when they rode back to the Rosebud. Should they steal some of the big American horses? How else to count some sort of coup on the soldiers, to take something of value back to show the older warriors that they had been among the white man’s camp?

Perhaps as important as anything else, they needed something that would impress the young girls. Wooden Leg wanted to see how their eyes would brighten when he brought in some of those big horses, a gun, an army blanket!

When the soldiers appeared to be preparing to move out, mucking about in the mud and boggy bottomland, Wooden Leg suggested, “I think it is time for us to take our news back to our camp on the Rosebud.”

“I will stay behind,” Little Hawk said.

“Why?” asked Crooked Nose.

“To watch what the soldiers do,” Little Hawk answered. “To follow some more until we know just where they are going. Who else will stay with me?”

“I will,” said Little Shield.

In the end three more elected to stay with Little Hawk, and five chose to ride back to the Sundance camp on the Rosebud with Wooden Leg. The two groups made their hasty farewells at the top of that cliff, unseen by the soldier column that was forming up in the valley below.

Wooden Leg pointed them north by west, counting on the village still camping along the Rosebud. If the headmen had moved the great gathering because of their constant need of new pasture, then, Wooden Leg surmised, it would be farther upriver. Not downstream toward the Elk River, not toward that place where the Lakota had spotted the Raven People scouting for another band of soldiers.

That day two of the five who had stayed behind with Little Hawk instead turned around, hurrying to rejoin Wooden Leg’s party. At twilight they killed a buffalo cow, butchering it for the liver, tongue, and the tenderest fleece that always lay along the hump. Just after dark that night they camped on one of the upper reaches of Rosebud Creek, daring to light a fire in hopes of warming from their bones the chill that had pierced them to their core these last few days. They sliced the warm liver and ate it raw while the tongue and slabs of hump rib sizzled over the fire.

All of them were excited about spotting the large army of white soldiers, even a little jumpy, especially two of the youngest. Most grew anxious that the soldiers would discover their tracks and follow their backtrail to the Rosebud. What great news to carry back to the village! Should they live to tell of it. Every few moments one of them would bolt to his feet and dash off into the dark, thinking he had heard a noise in the distance, fearing they had been followed. Once assured they had not been discovered, the warrior would return to throw more of the tender red meat down his throat and marvel again at the size of that immense soldier camp.

In the middle of their meal, well after moonrise, Little Hawk, Yellow Eagle, and Little Shield rode in, calling out from the darkness before they emerged into the firelight. Now all eleven were reunited.

“Are you sure?” Wooden Leg asked Little Shield.

“As certain as I am sitting here by this warm fire,” he answered, holding his hands over the flames, rubbing them on his bare thighs to warm them as well.

“The soldiers are marching north,
aiyeee!
” cried Crooked Nose.

“Do not fear!” Wooden Leg snapped. “This is great
news to learn they are coming. Even though so many soldiers march against us—still our village is much stronger.”

Around the fire, most of the heads nodded, and grim expressions slowly rose to smiles, their dark eyes widening to reflect the dance of the merry flames.

When all had eaten their fill, Wooden Leg and Crooked Nose agreed that for the sake of safety they should move on to find a place to sleep where they had not cooked their meal. They came across a place where their ponies could graze on the new grass beside the gurgling Rosebud. That night all slept soundly beneath a cold and clearing sky.

Even before the sun raised its head the next morning, the young warriors were up and moving out, riding down the Rosebud—anxious to make it back with their announcement. As soon as they spotted the first firesmoke above the outlying lodges, recognizing them for the Shahiyena of Charcoal Bear, the eleven eagerly kicked their little ponies into a gallop.

Tearing through the village, scattering people and causing the dogs to bark at the hooves of their ponies, the young warriors wolf-howled as they raced back and forth, hollering their announcement. Even some Sioux like White Cow Bull, an old friend of He Dog and Crazy Horse, were visiting camp that morning and were in a hurry to carry the news downstream to their Hunkpatila camp.

“We have seen many, many soldiers!” Wooden Leg gushed at White Cow Bull, who latched on to the single rein of the Shahiyena’s pony as it pranced in a circle, wide-eyed with the noise and clamor and barking dogs.

“How many soldiers?” White Cow Bull asked.

“At least a hundred for every one of my fingers!” he told the Hunkpatila warrior.

White Cow Bull grinned, slapping young Wooden Leg’s pony on the rump in exuberance. “The great mystery be praised! Sitting Bull’s vision is come to the Rosebud!”

“What vision is this?” Wooden Leg demanded.

“You were not here when Sitting Bull was shown Wakan Tanka’s gift?”

“No,” he answered, dumbfounded. “We went hunting for buffalo, and found soldiers instead.”

“So you know nothing of the great vision?”

“No! What vision?”

“Those soldiers you found, Wooden Leg!” White Cow Bull shouted exuberantly as he turned to hurry away. “They are a gift to us: soldiers falling into camp!”

“Damn you, Closter! You won again!”

As Seamus Donegan watched, one of the other packers bolted to his feet near Uncle Dick and stomped off grumbling. The old man had proved himself to be the expedition’s best at whist.

Richard Closter turned to Donegan. “You play, Irishman?”

Seamus peered over the edge of his coffee tin at the white-haired packer. “If I did, I sure as hell know better than to play you, Dick.”

“We bet thousands of dollars, you know,” Closter said. “But just a few cents changes hands. C’mon.”

“Believe I’ll head over to take my bunkie John Bourke up on a game of checkers.”

“You watch out for the lieutenant, now—he’s good at that game!”

As planned, Donegan had led Captain Noyes’s scouting detail into Crook’s camp the morning of the seventh as the expedition was preparing to embark for the day. Taking the Irishman’s advice with a curt grain of salt that he should head overland, Crook nonetheless instructed Seamus to lead them on down to the mouth of the Prairie Dog. The general rode off with Bourke, Nickerson, and a handful of others to sport after some buffalo while Donegan dragged the command another seventeen miles across the broken country to the banks of the Tongue River.

The best bottomland in that narrow valley lay beneath some impressive red-and-yellow-hued bluffs on the north bank of the Tongue, a restriction that required the expedition to string itself out for thousands of yards along the meandering bed of the Prairie Dog to assure proper grazing for the horses, pack-mules, and beef herd. A rumor begun by an officer attached to headquarters staff made its rounds of camp that evening with supper.

“Here’s where they say Crook is planning to put his
base camp,” Dick Closter announced as he stirred the kettle of white beans for the dozen packers in his mess.

“Here?” Donegan shrieked in shock. Then in disgust he threw down the oiled rag he had been using to clean and oil the Henry repeater.

“Why’s that put a burr under your saddle, Irishman?” asked Tom Moore.

“He sent Grouard off to find the Crow. To bring them back to the forks of Goose Creek!” Seamus exclaimed. “So Frank rode off expecting to find the command one place, but now Crook is going to plant his ass down someplace entirely different!”

“That’s all that bad?” Moore asked. “Grouard can find us.”

Closter said, “Ain’t no job at all for a handy scout like that half-breed to run onto us here, Seamus.”

“Goddammit, boys. Don’t you see? It ain’t Grouard finding us that I’m worried about. I don’t have a doubt in that man’s ability—not after he kept us on that trail in the middle of a blizzard, in the black belly of night last winter, marching over the divide to locate that village on the Powder River. If he has to, Frank Grouard can find a gnat on a buffalo’s ass a hundred miles from here.”

“There’s a lot of talk says Grouard and the others ain’t coming back,” Moore said glumly.

“I heard that palaver too,” Closter agreed. “I suppose I’m one to figure he should be back by now. Word is that his hair’s likely hanging from some Sioux belt right about now.”

“Naw!” Donegan snapped, not wanting to even believe in the possibility. “Not Frank Grouard’s!”

“Then tell me why in the hell ain’t he back by now?” Closter demanded.

“That’s a long bloody piece of trail through enemy ground he been asked to ride, Uncle Dick! If I know him, he’ll take his time, lay low when he has to—and he’ll get on back here when he can.”

“So what’s your damned worry about Grouard?” Moore growled.

“Like I said, I ain’t worried about Grouard. It’s them Crow,” Donegan admitted. “Grouard’s gone to sell them
on the idea of helping Crook’s soldiers fight their enemies, the Sioux and Cheyenne. Frank tells the Crow they can rendezvous with the soldiers at the forks of Goose Creek, about as far into Sioux country as them Crow will want to go to meet up with Crook.”

Closter’s head started bobbing. “So it’s a twist in the cat’s tail that we’re still east of there, eh?”

“Here? Why we’re right in the heart of enemy country,” Donegan continued. “Not where Grouard guaranteed the Crow. They just might bolt on him.”

“And turn back for home?”

“Then Crook will have to use Grouard and the rest of you boys to guide him to the enemy villages,” Closter declared.

“Don’t you fellas see? Crook doesn’t need the Crow to
guide
him anywhere,” Seamus declared. “Crook needs the Crow and Shoshone to join him in this fight against their enemies. The general needs those extra guns.”

With the wooden spoon dripping bean juice on his dusty boot toe, Closter stood, a line of worry carving a crease between his thick eyebrows. “Ain’t you told all this to Crook?”

“I did. He said he’d take it under advisement and let me know. But for now, appears like he’s sitting here—just to save some face for getting himself turned down the wrong bleeming creek!”

Not long after supper, heralds came through camp to inform each of the companies that a military funeral was to be held for the soldier who wounded himself while out with Captain Meinhold’s scout to old Fort Reno. Private Francis Tierney had finally died a merciful death after a week of painful suffering. While the men of Meinhold’s B Company of the Third Cavalry performed the regulation roles in the solemn ceremony and formed the van of the funeral cortege, the ranks along each side of the procession swelled with cavalry troopers, infantry soldiers, packers, and teamsters. Even Calamity Jane Cannary was allowed to attend in the company of her guards from Russell’s wagon train.

More than half the expedition stood, muted in gloom beneath a deepening, orange-lit sky, as Meinhold’s men
lowered the soldier’s body into its grave beside the Tongue, an army blanket for a shroud, while Guy V. Henry of the Third Cavalry read from his copy of the
Book of Common Prayer.
When a lone bugler finished the last mournful notes of taps, that plaintive refrain echoing and reechoing from the bluffs hemming in the river, Captain Henry knelt beside the mound of dirt and was the first to drop a handful of fresh earth upon the body at the bottom of that cold grave as seven of the private’s fellow troopers fired three volleys from the nearby slope. When the last echo faded from the nearby bluffs, Captain Charles Meinhold stepped forward, turning the first shovel of dirt into the soldier’s final resting place.

It was a quiet, thoughtful walk back to camp for more than six hundred mourners as night eased down and the stars winked into view over Indian country. It took ten of Meinhold’s men who remained behind to lower a flat boulder over the grave. By lamplight one of Tierney’s friends inscribed his name upon the face of that stone as a memorial to one of their own.