Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 (7 page)

By glory! These Cheyenne will not soon forget the name of George Armstrong Custer!

His old bones began to warm at last. For so long now, Black Kettle had sensed the coming of this winter’s cold. Each night it took longer to chase the icy knots from his chest. Age had made a prison of his body. No more could he deny that it had.

Still, he had felt this eerie chill clamp its icy fingers around his heart but once before. As it took hold of him, he suffered the painful visions of long ago: the brittle white of winter snows littered with death, blood oozing to fill Sand Creek until the stream overflowed its banks and washed away his little band … as the flag of the Indian commissioner fluttered overhead in an angry wind.

He filled his belly with none of the big meal his wife had prepared for his guests. Instead, the old Cheyenne slewed his eyes around the warm lodge, touching each of the tribal chiefs and counselors he had called to join him here this night. They had finished their supper and the pipe had completed its solemn rounds when Black Kettle remembered that many of his friends frequently called him Sour Apple because he rarely smiled anymore.

Ever since Sand Creek and all those people gone. A long winter. And all his people gone.

With the pipe still in hand after he had emptied the burnt tobacco and willow bark into the fire pit, Black Kettle began his hushed story in words so quiet that the guests had
to lean forward to hear of the lonely ride their chief had just made from his council at Fort Cobb with the pony soldier chief Hazen.

Medicine Woman Later finished passing out cups to their guests, each brimming with the scalding sugared coffee her husband had brought back from the fort as a gift from Hazen. She nodded farewell after she pulled a robe over her shoulders, then slipped out the door.

“What could be so important for the soldier chief to bring you a hundred miles to Fort Cobb?” Black White Man demanded in his own characteristically brusque manner that always drove right to the heart of a matter.

“Hazen says there are pony soldiers roaming about the country this winter,” the chief answered with a flat voice, his eyes staring at the faint ghost trails of steam rising from his coffee.

“Pony soldiers?” Heap of Birds squeaked, his warm belly suddenly grown cold.

“The white chief wants to have a joke with you, Black Kettle?” asked Slim Face.

“He did not smile while I was three days at Fort Cobb.”

“Then surely you are the one who is the fool for listening to his words,” Red Shin growled.

Red Shin had never been much of an ally to Black Kettle. It was even common knowledge that while the old chief did much to promote peaceful coexistence with the white man, young Red Shin led war party after war party north to the white settlements of Kansas, killing, stealing, carrying off the captives who were at this very hour scattered among the other camps along the Washita.

Black Kettle’s old rheumy eyes climbed over the lip of
his tin cup. “A fool is one who will not listen to what the insistent winds bid him.”

“Hah! A fool is one who listens to Hazen!”

Immediate agreement with Red Shin’s words rumbled through the lodge. Black Kettle patiently waited for quiet before he spoke again.

“When has Hazen told us something not the truth?” he said.

Red Shin spat contemptuously into the fire. “He is a pony soldier, old man! A white pony soldier who sits in his little fort, robe season after robe season, and knows nothing of the life lived as our grandfathers hunted these plains.”

“It would be a mistake for us to stop believing in his counsel.”

“The only mistake we have made, old man, is that we listened to your counsel … coming to winter on the Washita with you.”

“You say that? While our brothers and cousins—Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho—spend the winter here in this valley with our people?”

Several of the older chiefs and warriors grunted their approval of Black Kettle’s point.

“Foolish old women too!” Red Shin rocked back on his haunches, glaring at his chief. “Still, a few of their brave warriors ride north with me to attack those white settlements that spread like dung fouling our ancient buffalo lands. A few young men with brave hearts beating beneath their breasts.”

“Black Kettle is not an old woman!” Medicine Elk Pipe howled in protest across the fire.

“You agree that we must believe in the word of a soldier
chief?” Red Shin demanded of the man who many times had accompanied him on his early scalp and pony raids.

“I do not often agree with Black Kettle. Yet I, Medicine Elk Pipe, agree that Hazen has done nothing to harm the Cheyenne people.”

“Hah!” Red Shin roared. “Because we have never given him the chance!”

“True, my friend,” Medicine Elk Pipe said calmly. “We must never give him the chance to hurt our people. Yet what harm comes in listening to what he now warns us?”

“Has your heart grown old and—”

Red Shin’s head drooped. He could not bear to look at the powerful warrior who had for years been his respected mentor. He looked at this man now as a coward.

“My brother
Tsistsistas.
—” Medicine Elk Pipe filled the silence in Black Kettle’s lodge, “Red Shin is young but you know he does not lack courage. Long have I been proud to have it known that Red Shin learned his courage in battle from Medicine Elk Pipe. But what Red Shin failed to learn is the danger that comes from words too quickly spoken. I know Red Shin is sorry and wishes the council to know this.”

From most of the council arose quiet assent, for this above all else was a great thing for Medicine Elk Pipe to do. Instead of lashing out to challenge the youth who had all but called him a coward, Medicine Elk Pipe had jumped to the young man’s defense, seeking to explain Red Shin’s emotional outburst.

“So it must be in Red Shin’s heart as it is in mine to wonder what General Hazen seeks to accomplish by warning Black Kettle of the pony soldiers marching in Cheyenne country this very night.”

Every head in the lodge turned from Medicine Elk Pipe to the old chief.

“Perhaps Hazen does not wish to have the coming war carried to his doorstep,” Black Kettle responded. “If he warned us of the soldiers heading our way, and we were able to avoid conflict, matters for him would be all the more peaceful.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Medicine Elk Pipe replied.

“But if there are soldiers in our country, who is it they look for?” Little Rock inquired. He sat at the chiefs left hand, a place of honor as the second in command and one in charge of tribal matters during Black Kettle’s frequent absences from camp. No man among them could forget that Little Rock had lost his wife at Sand Creek.

“They are looking for the warriors who raid north of the Arkansas,” Medicine Elk Pipe admitted when everyone else remained dumb, slow to accuse. “Those who have killed whites along Walnut Creek and Pawnee Fork, north into the settlements that daily sprout up along the Saline and Solomon rivers. Soldiers look for Kiowas who took scalps and burned the settlers’ wooden lodges. They look for Kiowas and our own Cheyenncs who rode with them these last six moons of blood-spilling!”

Medicine Elk Pipe looked at Red Shin, waited until the young man’s eyes met his across the leaping flames of Black Kettle’s lodge fire. “These soldiers who come, they are looking for Kiowas and Cheyennes—are they not, little brother?”

Red Shin nodded once, unable to meet the accusing eyes of all about him.

“Did you not ask Hazen for safety from these soldiers?” Little Rock asked Black Kettle.

“Yes, my friend. It was the first thing I thought to ask of
him. Because our band is so small, I asked the soldier chief if we could camp near the walls of Fort Cobb, to winter there in safety.”

“What did he say?” the ancient one, Heap of Birds, asked.

“Hazen, my old friend and counselor, said he could not give us sanctuary at the fort.”

“Why not?”

“He told me if he protected us in the shadow of his walls, his chief would take him away because he had helped us. You see, if he allowed us to come to the fort, he would have to allow Satanta and his many Kiowas. Hazen does not trust Satanta.”

“We cannot rely on the help of a soldier chief,” Medicine Elk Pipe said. “What we do from here on out, we do because we are
Tsistsistas.”

“Long have I thought on it during the journey home,” Black Kettle explained. “I cannot instruct any of you what to think in your minds, what to feel in your hearts. All I can do as chief is ask that each man sees that none of our young men leaves camp during the next few weeks while pony soldiers search for our winter villages. We must give the soldiers no reason to follow a war party back here.”

“And what of the others?” Little Rock snapped. “What if the other tribes along the river draw us into trouble?”

“We will talk to the elders of these other tribes with the coming of the new sun,” Black Kettle suggested.

“Surely we can do more than talk!” Bark Face squeaked in dismay. “We are not strong. We must move closer to the others downstream!”

“Perhaps even better,” Little Rock said, “is to send out
a party to find these soldiers. We should parley with them. Tell the soldiers we are not at war with them.”

Black Kettle chewed on that for a moment, his eyes studying the somber faces of his friends. “There is agreement on this matter. It is a good idea, Little Rock.”

“It is decided?” Medicine Elk Pipe inquired.

“Yes, young friend,” Black Kettle affirmed. “In the morning I will send runners to the other camps, inviting their chiefs to come with the falling of the sun and council with us about these soldiers who hunger for a fight. More runners will go out to find these pony soldiers—to tell them we wish to parley and want no trouble. We are on land the Grandfather far away said we could keep as long as the buffalo roamed it. We will be safe here, my brothers.”

“I am sure Red Shin will volunteer,” Medicine Elk Pipe said. “As I myself volunteer to go parley with the soldiers.”

“Red Shin?” Black Kettle turned his tired eyes toward the young warrior.

“Yes. I will go, with Medicine Elk Pipe. His council has never brought any man harm that I know of.”

“It is good.” Black Kettle spread out his arms, signaling an end to the council. “You each must send one of your young men to my lodge when the sun rises one hand out of the east. Some I will send to the other camps with news of a council tomorrow night. The rest will ride under the leadership of my wise and thoughtful friend, Medicine Elk Pipe.”

Through the doorway the leaders filed into the night. Small, frozen flakes lanced out of the sky. Black Kettle watched his wife shuffling along between the lodges, coming back home to their warm robes. She would have
spent an evening with friends, singing at the dance and gabbing of woman matters.

It was good she did not have to worry about the concerns of men. Still, she alone was able to cheer his gloom when the burden of leadership grew too great. Black Kettle sucked at the cold air, wishing he had pulled a blanket around his shoulders as he waited for Medicine Woman Later.

Tomorrow the riders would find the soldiers and his tribe’s safety could be assured. After all, his old friend Red Cloud of the Sioux had recently touched the pen on another treaty with the white Grandfather. After a long and bloody conflict, the plains both north and south could be at peace.

Peace would burst across the prairie as surely as the spring grasses rose to flower after the hard, dark days of winter. Pony soldiers would come no more.

“You are tired, my husband?”

“Yes,” Black Kettle answered as his wife ducked back inside the warm lodge. “Tonight I can once again sleep the sleep of peace.”

And dream of the great birds flying south.

I
T
was close to nine o’clock, long since dark, before the regiment finally rendezvoused with Elliott’s scouting detail.

Adjutant Moylan nudged his mount close to Custer. “Sir?”

“Pass the word. From here the troopers will take only what they need for battle. And Myles, that means only what a man can strap behind his saddle.”

“I’ll pass the word, General.”

Moylan loped back into the freezing darkness to give the details of the order: Every trooper was to carry a hundred rounds of carbine ammunition and twenty-four loads for his pistol. In addition, each soldier was to be rationed some coffee and hardtack, along with an equally scanty bit of forage for his mount.

From here on out their buffalo coats would have to do. Blankets and tents would be left behind with the wagons. Not knowing the exact location of the hostile village, the men must be ready for battle at any moment. Word had it
that at least five hundred warriors awaited them on the Washita. Earlier that evening the scouts had run across a “small” war party of over a hundred braves moving south with the smell of home fires in their nostrils.

For a few minutes the men slid from their saddles after better than fourteen straight hours in leather. A short break to rub some semblance of life back into their numb, cold rumps. One hour and no longer to chew on the crackerlike hardtack, to sip at the scalding coffee Custer allowed them to brew over small fires built beneath the overhang of creek banks.

A good site had been chosen by Elliott’s chief scout. He had worn the same droopy sombrero for years, a bushy mustache and dirty beard spilling across his chest. Christened Moses Embree Milner, the scout came to call himself Joseph, and later took the nickname California Joe during his gold rush days. A Kentuckian by birth, Milner had escaped his farming home to end up scouting for Kearny’s forces during the Mexican War. After peace had been gained in the southwest, Joe had moseyed to the California gold fields. Until Nancy Emma Watts came along to temper some of his wanderlust. She was all of thirteen but every bit a woman when he met her; she would bear him four children before Joe figured out domestic life really was a scratchy suit. Milner owned up to what he was—a wanderer—taking Nancy Emma and their children north to the ranch of some friends in Oregon.