Beneath a Dakota Cross (5 page)

“If we find some rich diggin's, we can pull up a cabin come fall,” Brazos said.

“Sure, and maybe we'll find enough gold by November so that we'll need an army escort across the plains!” Grass draped his socks over his bare toes, then roasted them over the campfire. “It would help if the government would open this land up, and keep the Sioux back out in the badlands.”

Brazos circled the rim of his blue, enameled tin cup with his bare fingers. “They open this reservation land up and there'll be ten thousand bummers rushin' up and down every gulch in these hills. We got here at the right time, if there's anything to get.”

“There are still some new ones movin' in,” Grass added. “There was four sets of tracks around the message tree. I didn't recognize the prints. They looked like big, old Montana horses.”

“Shod or unshod?”

“They wasn't Indian ponies, if that's what you mean.”

“Where did they trail to?”

“North towards the pass,” Grass said.

“There aren't any more decent claims left open up there,” Brazos reported. “You figure they just rode by us in the night?”

“I reckon it was near daylight. There wasn't much snow in their tracks,” Grass Edwards reported.

“Probably in a hurry to find their spot. Maybe they're going to open a new district. Everybody seems to have a secret location only they know about,” Brazos said.

“Like Hook and his fool map?”

“Yep.”

Grass Edwards leaned across the fire and whispered, “Don't tell the others, but I'm beginnin' to doubt Hook's story. If there's a big strike somewhere's under a Dakota cross, what in the world are we doin' camped out in the snow right here?”

“I figure it's like havin' an ace up your sleeve. You don't want to cash it in until you're sure it will win the pot,” Brazos pondered.

“Well, Hook ain't talked much about his treasure map in the past few weeks.”

Although the clouds above hung low and heavy, the snow ceased and the fire began to draw steam out of Fortune's damp, denim trousers. “He hasn't talked much at all about anything for days.”

Grass Edwards leaned close and again spoke softly. “Hook ain't lookin' so good. You reckon he's gettin' dysentery or ague?”

“I don't know what he's got,” Brazos admitted. “Ever'day he seems to be worse. I sure wish he would've gone down to Utah in July like he said. Maybe those hot, dry days would suit him better.” Brazos finished his coffee and plopped his tin cup on a rock. “I'll stir up some fry bread. You tell Big River and Hook about the miners' meeting. Maybe we ought to ride on down to the stockade after the meeting and see if some supplies have come in. We're runnin' low.”

“I'll wake 'em.” Edwards tugged on his boots, then folded the paper and crammed it back into his coat pocket. “But don't you tell them about my Jamie Sue.”

A small patch of blue sky broke through the heavy, gray clouds as Brazos Fortune, Big River Frank, and Grass Edwards plodded horseback along the trail down Lightning Creek. Thirty- to forty-foot Ponderosa pines were scattered ten to fifteen feet apart along the trail. As they serpentined around each claim, other prospectors joined in their descent, making it look like a miners' parade.

Yapper Jim rode his swayback pinto mare beside Fortune. His neatly trimmed sideburns swung down to his chin and blended with the whiskers on his chin, from a distance resembling a circus clown's painted smile. “Brazos, how's Hook this mornin'? He didn't die on us, did he?”

Fortune allowed the wooden forearm of his Sharps carbine to rest on the saddle horn. “Nope, he's not dead, but he's got the chills this mornin', so we wrapped him in mostly dry blankets and left him in camp.”

“I once had a friend in Bannock who was as healthy as a horse, took a chill one night and by sunrise he was deader than a New England camp meeting.” Yapper Jim pulled a plug of unwrapped tobacco out of his vest pocket and bit off a sizable chew.

The dirty cotton shirt rubbed under Brazos's suspenders. “I reckon he'll pull through. Hook's a tough man.”

“Ain't that the truth? Last fall, me and Hook was sitting in a card room down in Tucson, when Doc Kabyo and that bunch starts a ruckus right there at the poker table. Before the gunsmoke cleared, Hook had taken two bullets in the shoulder, and I had one in my foot. But you should have seen Kabyo hightail it out of there . . . now stop me if I told you this one before . . . why even though he carried two bullets, Hook was . . .”

“I've heard it.”

“You have?”

“A dozen times,” Brazos said.

“You don't say? That story does get around.”

“Hook never mentions Kabyo,” Brazos informed. “You told it to me.”

“All twelve times?”

“Yep.”

“You want to hear it again?” Yapper Jim pressed.

“Nope.”

Yapper Jim studied Brazos's face. “You know, that reminds me of the time I was in the Bulldog Saloon in Wichita when J. B. Hickok told me that I'd better . . .”

“I heard that one, too, Yapper Jim.”

“But you ain't heard it as often.”

Brazos studied the heavy, dark clouds that had held back their moisture since daybreak.

“Am I right?” Yapper Jim insisted. “You ain't heard the Hickok story as often as you heard the Doc Kabyo one?”

Fortune didn't answer but spurred his dark brown horse to catch up with Big River Frank.

Yapper Jim trotted up alongside of him. “You ain't much of a talker, are you, Brazos?”

“Sorry, Yapper Jim, I'm worried about Hook,” Fortune reported. “If you want to gab, ride up there with Grass Edwards and ask him about the
spartina pectinata
.”

“The what?”

“Cordgrass.”

“Shoot, all he talks about is them blasted weeds. I've heard all of them stories a hundred times before. A man is lucky to slide one or two words between the cracks.”

“Don't rate yourself so low, Yapper. I figure you can talk circles around Grass Edwards.”

A wide grin broke across the big man's lips and yellow teeth. “You're right about that. I am a mighty good talker. See you at the meetin', Brazos.”

Fortune tipped his hat to Yapper Jim and watched him ride up the trail. Big River Frank, whose boots covered his trousers almost up to his knees, waited astride his lanky black horse for Brazos to catch up.

“You figured out this meetin' yet?” Big River asked.

“I'm guessin' another bunch is pullin' out of the hills and wants a few more guns to keep them company across the plains,” Brazos speculated.

“If that's all it is, they shouldn't have called a meetin'. We could be workin' our diggin's a few hours without it rainin' or snowin'.”

“We haven't had a meetin' in three weeks,” Brazos added.

“And we didn't need a meetin' that time, neither . . . they was done scalped before we got to them.”

“Maybe it won't be wasted. If someone brought in supplies to Gordon's Stockade, we'll ride on down there.”

For the first time all morning, Big River's face lit up. “Wouldn't that be nice? What if they have some sugar?”

“Might as well hope for the best,” Fortune said.

The Discovery claim on Lightning Creek was about two miles above its confluence with French Creek. A wide meadow stretched along the stream, providing a much more open landscape than the narrow gulch along Texas Camp, as Fortune's claim was called by the other miners. At the Discovery claim, the only log building in the Lightning Creek Mining District had been erected. It was a ten-by-fifteen-foot log house occupied by Ernie Sidwell, Beartooth Adair, and Old Dan Blackwell. On occasion, they brought supplies up from the stockade and it served as an extremely informal business establishment.

During storms, all mining district meetings were held inside Sidwell's cabin. If the weather was tolerable, the men met outside around the fire pit. When Brazos, Grass Edwards, Big River Frank, and the others reached the cabin, most of the prospectors were already gathered around the bonfire located only steps away from the uncovered front porch of the cabin.

About two dozen men were present by the time they loosened the girths and turned the horses out into the crude corral. There were only a half dozen animals in the pen. Most of the men had hiked to the meeting.

Brazos studied the tired eyes, and dirty, unkept faces of the men who warmed their bones and dried their clothing around the fire. They came in different shapes and sizes, but each one displayed worry on his face and a weapon in his hand.

It was the district president, Ernie Sidwell, who climbed up on the stump and quieted them.

“Have we got us a hostile war party comin' this way, Ernie?” Yapper Jim shouted.

“Let your guns rest easy, boys. I don't think we're in for a fight just yet. I know we ain't had five days' notification of this meetin', and therefore we won't be changing any laws or doin' any votin'. But I decided these matters wouldn't wait.”

“Those six Alabama boys ain't here yet,” someone called out. “Maybe we ought to wait for them.”

Sidwell pulled off his mud-splattered, black felt hat, revealing a tangled mass of gray hair and a bald spot on top his head. “They ain't goin' to be here. We got word from the stockade that two freight wagons left Fort Laramie and were headed this way. The Alabama men went all the way down to Cheyenne Crossing to help 'em ford the river. But Black Bear and his band attacked the wagons just as they was in the water and ever' last man, includin' our Alabama boys, was killed. One of 'em lived jist long enough to give us a report.”

A roar crested in the crowd like a tidal wave at sea.

“Are we goin' after them?” someone shouted.

“That was six days ago. No tellin' where Black Bear is now. We surely ain't goin' out on the plains after that bunch. That would be like chasin' Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch.”

“We need the army to move in here and protect us,” someone else shouted.

Sidwell tried to quiet the crowd. “The army's not going to protect us as long as the map calls this Sioux Reservation. We all knew that when we moved in.”

“You reckon we'll get more supplies before winter?” a tall, Arkansas man asked.

Big River Frank climbed up on the woodpile, where he towered above the others. “If you had a load of freight sittin' in Cheyenne City and heard about a massacre just south of the hills, would you come up here?”

Grass Edwards pulled out Jamie Sue's faded notice from his pocket, then shoved it back. “Maybe we should send a contingency to Cheyenne to buy our own supplies. I, for one, would volunteer.”

“Good. Now we just need a hundred more guns to make it safe,” a fat man shouted from the back of the crowd.

“We've got to get some flour, salt, and coffee,” Quiet Jim mumbled.

“We need more mercury,” Eggs Martin shouted. “I cain't separate my gold if I don't get more mercury. Any of you got any to sell?”

“If we don't find more color, we'll have plenty of mercury to sell,” someone shouted from the cabin steps.

Sidwell waved his arms. “Boys, do your barterin' and jawin' later. Here's the important news. We was brought a handbill that I will post on the cabin, but you better hear it right now. It comes from Brigadier General George Crook, who is camped with his troops somewhere up near Bear Butte. I'll read it to you word for word.”

Proclamation!

Whereas the President of the United States has directed that no miners, or other unauthorized citizens, be allowed to remain in the Indian reservation of the Black Hills, or in the unceded territory to the west, until some new treaty arrangements have been made with the Indians:

And whereas, by the same authority, the undersigned is directed to occupy said reservation and territory with troops, and to remove all miners and other unauthorized citizens, who may now, or may hereafter come into this country in violation of the treaty obligations:—

Therefore, the undersigned hereby requires every miner and other unauthorized citizen to leave the territory known as the Black Hills, the Powder River, and Big Horn country by and before the 15th day of August next.

“Are they kickin' us out?” Yapper Jim yelled.

Sidwell stared down his long, hawkish nose like a schoolteacher on the first day of class. “Let me finish.”

He hopes that the good sense and law-abiding disposition of the miners will prompt them to obey this order without compelling a resort to force.

It is suggested that the miners, now in the hills, assemble at the military post about to be established at Camp Harney, near the stockade on French Creek, on or before the 10th day of August.

That they then and there hold a meeting, and take such steps as may seem best to them, by organization and drafting of proper resolutions, to secure to each, when this country shall have been opened, the benefit of his discoveries and the labor he has expended.

George Crook, Brigadier General, U.S.A.

Company G, Department of the Platte

July 29, 1875

After a moment of mumbling, everyone seemed to shout at once.

“They're kickin' us out!”

“I ain't goin'.”

“Is them army boys going to escort us to Fort Laramie or all the way to Cheyenne City?”

“They can't do that. I'm goin' to hit it big any day now.”

“We all knew we was in here illegal.”

“But it's unoccupied land. There ain't no hostiles livin' up here.”

Sidwell held his Winchester '73 above his head as if to fire it, but the crowd silenced before he pulled the trigger. “There are worse things than havin' the army lead us out to safety.”

“They're takin' away our claims. What fate could be worse than that?” Yapper Jim shouted.