Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (9 page)

White began to chuckle, running his bony fingers through the long gray strands. Though they were hands most accustomed to holding a bible or wagging a warning finger at a congregation, White's hands nonetheless showed they were no stranger to hard work. With thick-knuckled fingers he patted the baby-pink scalp taut across the full length of his head.

Captain Marr laughed even louder. He pulled his wide-brimmed hat from his own silver head, showing White that he too had a patch of valuable, pink scalp to lose. The Missourian's long, silver curls spilled well past his collar, where his sagging neck skin had begun to wrinkle.

“No Sioux warrior gonna want our two hoary old scalps, Reverend!”

White guffawed loudly, his laughter merry and genuine. Pointing a skinny twig of a finger at Seamus, the minister roared, “Let's just pray the sight of Mr. Donegan's fine head of long, curly hair will not lead the Sioux nation into temptation!”

Chapter 6

“Colonel. Sergeant of the guard reports his sentries signaling the approach of Indians.”

Carrington looked up from his detailed drawings and plans of the fort. He let only his eyes touch each officer gathered round the long table he had readied in the huge hospital tent for this very occasion. Bridger found the colonel gazing at him.

“Jim, I'll want you and Jack by my side.”

“Best you bring Jack along,” the old scout replied. “He talks Cheyenne better'n I do.”

“But, Jim Bridger knows Indians better than any man alive,” Carrington replied, straightening his shoulders, smoothing the bright red sash at his waist. He had ordered his officers into full-dress uniform at morning assembly. This would be the day—he had told them—the day the Cheyennes would come to call. “I'll want you both at my side. Have Jack ride out to escort Black Horse into camp. He must reassure the chief that he's welcome here. Among friends.”

Bridger nodded, glancing at the sentry atop Pilot Hill waving his bright semaphore in the wind and riding in a circle, the signal to alert the fort of the approach of Indians. A moment later Jim recognized the bright pennons of Cheyenne warriors marching up an ages-old path crossing Lodge Trail Ridge, bright fragments of color fluttering against the brilliant blue of the midsummer sky.

This's gonna be something to see, Jim thought, knocking the dead ash from his old pipe.

Standing with the hundreds of soldiers and civilians, including officers' wives clutching bright parasols and children scampering in and out of the waiting throng, Bridger felt the warm sun high overhead beating on the leathery skin at the back of his neck.

Old Black Horse done it right. Coming here when the sun rides high.

Something down in that private place Bridger hid from other men tugged at him as he watched the grand procession work its way into the valley, heading for the white soldiers' camp on the plateau. Try as he might, Bridger still found himself a man who often felt things deeper and with more hurt than most. Right from his very first year in the mountains. A boy barely seventeen who got bamboozled into leaving Hugh Glass behind. Left behind without his rifle or so much as a knife. And old Hugh chewed up bad by that sow grizz. Abandoned by him and Fitzgerald beside a shallow grave scratched in the sand along that nameless creek.

A salty sting of moisture tapped Jim's eyes. He blinked. Thinking on all those winters since 1822.

Never did leave another man behind again … after ol' Hugh come looking for me that first winter. It was his right to kill me, the way I left him barely breathing beside his own empty grave.

Bridger snorted and glanced at the bright sun overhead once more. Remembering.

But ol' Glass said I was just a young pup and didn't know no better. So, for the rest of them forty-odd years … well, no man ever found Jim Bridger leaving a friend behind to the critters of the wilds. Or, even worse—Ol' Gabe Bridger never left a man behind for the Injuns to have a cutting spree with.

He swiped at his nose and focused on the procession worming its way across the valley. The tail end of the caravan had made the crossing of the Big Piney.

Damn, but didn't Black Horse bring 'em all with him. Every nit, prick and stillbirth sonofabitch come along to meet Carrington and his soldiers.

“Quite an impressive sight, wouldn't you say, Jim?”

Bridger watched Carrington stride up beside him.

“That ain't no ragtag bunch of dust-tailed Injuns, Colonel.” Jim almost felt sorry for the old warrior.

Black Horse almost as old as me, I'd suppose. He's seen the glory days come and go. A time few white men will ever know. Most of them ol' boys gone now too. What ones ain't gone under, they've packed up and moved on to Oregon country.

But this here's Cheyenne land much as the Sioux's. Black Horse watched his lodges rise against this very sky. He's felt the same breeze sweep down off that snow on them peaks way yonder. Down where Carrington's men cut down their first timber for the stockade, them Cheyenne found shelter against many a winter storm, I'd reckon. Sad to think—the white man's here to stay. Not like it was so many summers ago. Goddamn the settlements! Here we was the first to plant a moccasin. But where first the white man comes, next come the women and preachers.

Jim felt all the sadder for Black Horse. And the end to an ancient way of life they had shared.

“Them's Northern Cheyenne,” he explained to Carrington. “Proud as peacocks. I figure Black Horse wants you to know he ain't come to beg at your feet. He's come to show the soldier chief that he's a proud warrior—that's one Injun who won't come lapping up your scraps, the way Spotted Tail does down to Laramie.”

Carrington nervously straightened his tunic, freshly pressed and resplendent with brass buttons, gold braid and epaulets above the crimson sash and tinkling saber chains. “We'll welcome him as a friend.”

Bridger studied the side of the colonel's face. “It's a far sight better to have that ol' warrior as your friend.”

The procession reached the base of the plateau. Without a pause, Black Horse and some forty of his warriors began their slow ascent to the soldier camp. The colonel signaled Bandmaster Samuel Curry. With a wave of his baton, Curry set his forty-piece regimental band to pumping out the strains of Carrington's musical welcome.

With the blare of those first brassy notes, half the warrior ponies reared and twisted in fright. A sudden and strange medicine to these Cheyenne. Undeterred, Black Horse pressed on—his own pony prancing sideways yet under control, its nostrils wide, eyes muling in fright. Riding beside Jack Stead, he was the first to reach the top of the plateau. Lieutenant Adair greeted the Cheyenne chief with a salute and a wave of his elegant full-dress shako.

Jim turned, finding Carrington fussing like a society hostess over the details of the hospital tent, smoothing the huge American flag draped ceremonially over the surgeon's operating table. Above the excited yells of children and the soldiers' laughter, Bridger overheard snatches of an argument between Carrington and Captain Brown, their shrill voices erupting from the tent.

“… dressing us like monkeys before these savages!”

“… to the Indian mind, ceremony is their life breath itself.”

“… hold the bastards ransom!”

“… I've given personal guarantee … we command less than four hundred men, including civilians.”

“… show them the strength of our hand—a march right through their camps!”

“… will not be marred by your eagerness to flaunt that clenched fist of yours, Captain!”

Bridger turned when the murmuring of the crowd grew louder. The warriors halted, dismounted, allowing their ponies to be attended by young soldiers. Warily, the Cheyenne followed Stead and Adair on foot to the hospital tent.

“… be damned if I'll give them presents, Colonel. Rifles, indeed!”

“… bring my requisition here immediately. Dismissed.”

Down through the long blue gauntlet of soldiers and civilians alike strode the anxious warriors, some aware of their vulnerability as they hid hands beneath their blankets and warshirts. Jim kept his eyes moving from one to another.
Likely got a pistol hiding there.
Yet most walked on confidently. Trusting in the faith Black Horse held in the soldier chief.

Black Horse wrapped himself in a dressed buffalo robe, the fur against his body, the hide painted with primitive pictographs of his exploits in war and pony-stealing. Just behind him walked Dull Knife, younger but proven war-chief of the Northern Cheyenne. Well did he know the effect his costume would have on these troopers, for he wore a captured soldier-blue tunic, brass buttons and all. Beside him walked The-Wolf-That-Lies-Down, resplendent in brain-tanned warshirt, scalplocks dangling from shoulder seams and down both arms. Round his neck hung a ceremonial grizzly necklace, the huge claws separated by tufts of blond-tipped fur. Pretty Bear walked alone, strutting proud as any peacock, wearing nothing but moccasins and his breechclout, sporting a gay parasol at his shoulder. Undoubtedly traded from French Pete himself.

Brass armbands and beaded pipebags. Finger-rings and dentalium shells all the way from the Oregon coast hung from earlobes. Medicine pouches, quilled knife scabbards, and huge silver medals suspended on ribbon from a few necks. The-Rabbit-That-Jumps, Two Moon and Red Arm, and finally The-Man-That-Stands-Alone-On-The-Ground. Each warrior made his grand entrance through the open flaps of the tent and took his assigned seat upon the blankets spread across the ground according to his rank among the tribe. Just beyond the flaps the rest of the warriors took their places upon the grass.

Better than thirty minutes passed while the pipe made its rounds of chiefs and officers alike. A nonsmoker, Carrington attempted a brave smile as he gagged on the stem. During the long wait, most of the soldiers and spectators crowded forward, whispering at this close-up view of savage warriors. In that radiant warmth of midday, Adjutant Phisterer continued scribbling across his long sheets of foolscap, recording the proceedings. Round him the various captains and lieutenants stirred restlessly, hot in their full-dress uniforms. A few dozed. Others pinched their delicate noses, unfamiliar with the smell of the plains Indian.

Black Horse stirred, fluttered his eyes from a dreamy slumber and raised his chin from his chest. In rising, the chief allowed the buffalo robe to slip from his shoulders so that it fell round his waist, where it hung over his quilled leggings from a wide belt. White scars of many sun-dances dotted his chest. High near one shoulder he had circled the white pucker of an old bullet wound with vermilion paint.

The chief stopped halfway between his seated warriors and the table where Carrington stirred, anxious to get his conference under way.

A pink tongue darted out to lick his wrinkled lips. Only then did his hands begin to sign as he spoke, his eyes dancing between the soldier chief at the center of the table and Jack Stead, the interpreter close by Carrington's left arm.

“He speaks for 176 lodges,” Jack whispered, his head turned so that he spoke into Carrington's ear while his eyes remained locked on the old chief. “In their hunt along Goose Creek, they ran into many of Red Cloud's Sioux. Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses's warriors. Proud of their raids on the white soldiers.”

Carrington sensed an angry stir among his officers. Black Horse, too, sensed that strained uneasiness as he went on.

“We are a brave people, but will be stronger still when 125 of our young men return from the Arkansas far to the south. They have gone with Bob-Tail to hunt and make war on our enemies in the warm country. The Cheyenne in Old Bear's band camp this summer in the shadow of the Black Hills. Our cousins in the south distrust the whites who are crawling onto the plains beside the path of the iron horse that spits smoke.”

Bridger waited for a pause in Jack's interpretation. “He means the Southern Cheyenne, Colonel. South of the Republican. Along the railroad tracks they're laying.”

“Red Cloud tells Black Horse that the soldier chief came to Laramie with his soldiers while the white treaty-talkers were wanting the Sioux to sell the road through Indian land. Red Cloud says the soldiers come now to take the land from us, even before our chiefs can say yes. Or no.”

Carrington turned to Stead. “Ask Black Horse why the Sioux and Cheyenne claim this land when it belongs to the Crow.”

The chief nodded. “It is good to answer so that you will understand why we are here … why the Crow live far to the west now. Many winters ago, the Cheyenne were driven here. Along the great waters to the east, the white man already grows crowded. He pushed us here. We needed this hunting ground. Mountainsides filled with the bear and elk. Valleys thick with deer and buffalo. Birds blanketed the ponds and marshes. We saw that it was good. Because the Cheyenne alone could not take it from the Crow, we asked the Sioux to help us. The Lakota share this land with the Cheyenne. Now Red Cloud asks us to help the Sioux hold this land against the white man.”

“Who is the great chief of the Cheyenne people?”

“Black Horse.”

“And who is the great chief of the Sioux?”

“Red Cloud,” he answered, his fingertip slashing his throat in the ancient sign for the Sioux. “Man-Afraid is a powerful war chief, holding many warriors in his hand.”

“Does Black Horse come to tell us he will join the Sioux in making war on the soldiers sent to protect this road?”

Black Horse shook his head. “I come to tell you these words of Red Cloud: If the soldier chief wants peace, he must go back to the mud fort he has at the Powder River. The Sioux promise not to bring trouble to the soldiers there. But Red Cloud will not allow soldiers to travel over the road he has never given to the whites. And he will not allow you to build this fort.”