Wolf Mountain Moon (32 page)

“They may have been powerful warriors once,” said Rising Sun. “But now they take the white man's scummy meat and his thin blankets. They even gave up their horses and their weapons to the soldiers!”
^*

Spotted Elk cried, “We will never give up, will we, Crazy Horse?”

“No, a warrior never gives up his pony. Never lays down his weapons. The old ones too frail, the little ones too small, the sick ones too weak to fight—these we must protect from the
wasicu
chief and his soldiers, who lie to us about peace.”

“You will lead us in this fight?”

“I will lead you,” he promised them.

His words were answered by an immediate and thunderous roar as both men and women screeched, shouted, trilled their tongues and cried out their praises to the blue sky above, frost lying in a wreath about every head.

“This soldier chief Bull Eagle trusted,” Crazy Horse told that great crowd of his Lakota people and the wounded Shahiyela, “the one Bull Eagle called the Bear Coat … he talks to you of peace with one hand while his other hand grips a war club that he swings at your head. I think we should convince this Bear Coat that it is time to leave Lakota country forever.”

Again the crowd roared its approval, women shaking their knives in the air, each blade coated with a frozen film of blood, the hundreds of warriors rattling guns and shields.

“Yes, it is time that we teach this Bear Coat what we taught the Hundred in the Hand, what we taught Long Hair and his soldiers at the Greasy Grass!”

“Remember the Greasy Grass!” came the echo from that great assembly.

But as he turned away, Crazy Horse knew there was no prophetic vision the likes of which Sitting Bull had experienced last summer at the Deer Medicine Rocks.

Perhaps it was only a matter of time until there were more soldiers in Lakota country than there were Lakota. One summer
soon … perhaps one winter very soon—his people would not be able to hold back the
wasicu
any longer.

But for now Crazy Horse would do as his people wanted, as they expected of a Shirt Wearer: lead them against this Bear Coat and his soldiers—cut a swath up and down the Buffalo Tongue River to avenge the deaths of the five chiefs. Perhaps even drive the soldiers from their fort on the Elk River. For now the heart of Crazy Horse beat strong once more. For now Crazy Horse would again be a war chief.

And when the time came for him to hand over his pony and his weapons … as he knew that time would come, down in the marrow of him … Crazy Horse hoped he would again have the courage to do what was best for his people.

As brave as he had been in battle, could he be just as brave in surrendering?

Perhaps, if he was fortunate, Crazy Horse decided as he led the chiefs back to his lodge—he would never have to find out.

Perhaps this would be the winter to die as a warrior, fighting the
wasicu
soldiers, defending his people to the last.

Come the winter to die as a warrior.

Samantha found her tea had gone cold the next time she sipped it.

There was so much going on around her there with the officers' wives in hand-knitted shawls, and buffalo-coated soldiers whirling in and out of the parlor, through the dining room and out into the vestibule, that she really hadn't noticed that her tea was growing cold, the cup sitting there nearby on the tiny table made from an old crate.

Samantha was simply paying all her attention to the child on her lap.

She had wrapped the boy as warmly as possible before coming downstairs just after dawn this Christmas morn. It had been near impossible to sleep last night—what for all the disappointment that had caused her to sob silently in her pillow, for all the memories of parents and home, of family and these special holidays. Remembering how her father always killed a big fat tom for National Thanksgiving Day, how he fattened a goose for Christmas dinner.

There in the cold and the dark just before dawn she had smelled it all the way up to her narrow rope-and-tick bed—those fragrances rising from the kitchen below her tiny room with the single frosted window. Someone was up early, baking already, loading kindling into the stoves, closing the iron door with a muffled clang. Samantha recalled how she and Rebecca would lie in bed side by side on Christmas morning, waiting impatiently to hear the sounds their mother would make in her kitchen. Then it was finally time to scurry
out to greet parents with hurried hugs and kisses before they would sip hot tea and eat tiny rum cakes around the tree they had decorated just the night before with tinsel and tissue and a paper star on top.

And each time Samantha had remembered those holidays of the past, she had sobbed all the harder … until she would again put her hand beneath the pillow, and her fingertips would touch the two folded sheets of paper.

They had been carried south to her from that land where he had written those words trying to explain why he would not be keeping his promise to be home by this special day—their son's first Christmas. Time and again Samantha read each word, each line, every sentence to wring from those two spare pages all that they had to tell her about the what and why of his not coming back with the rest of the Bighorn and Yellowstone Expedition that Crook was disbanding.

If the generals were sending the men back to their winter quarters, then why wasn't Seamus among them?

Each time that question tore at her heart, each time she thought about this child's first Christmas, Sam told herself that she must trust in him. Trust that her husband would always do what was right by them all. Not just what was right for country and flag … but what was right for his own family. She decided some time ago that she could do nothing less than trust in him.

As well as trust in God to bring Seamus back alive.

The child was beginning to squirm and fuss, what with all the noise from happy children and the singsong voices of those adults calling out their merry wishes to loved ones and good friends all. She probed a finger into his diaper and found that he wasn't wet. Perhaps he was getting hungry. Samantha would have to take him upstairs soon, where she would nurse him and he would fall asleep with his tummy once again filled with warm milk.

But for now she prayed he would not grow too fussy and would allow her to stay down there among the noise and the warmth and the celebrants moving in and out as they visited the houses and quarters at Fort Laramie this cold, cold Christmas Day.

It helped to keep her mind off Seamus and what he might be facing in that frigid north country. Helped her forget how
much she had counted on his being home for their son's first Christmas … and it was beginning to appear as if Seamus might not even be home a week from now—the first day of 1877.

Her eyes misted, and she fought the sour taste her sobbing made at the back of her throat—fought back vainly, bouncing the boy on her knees, turning him so he could watch the room and people and flutting candles with her, all those colors and movement as he gurgled and chewed on a knuckle.

Oh, how she remembered Seamus's big-knuckled hands … so rough and callused, then grown so gentle and soft whenever they brushed her flesh.

“Merry Christmas!” she called out as another group burst in through the front door and stomped across the entryway, scattering snow and ice from their boots, bringing in that sweet tang of bitter cold on the coats and scarves, hats and mittens, they swept off and hung on the last of a long row of iron hooks imprisoned on the nearby wall.

From pockets came the tiny packages wrapped in red-colored tissue, or perhaps nothing more than homely newspaper if one could afford nothing else. Small presents from the heart, purchased from the sutler with a particular someone in mind. There wasn't all that much out there for folks to choose from at this holiday of gift giving. But now that she had been an adult for a few years, Samantha was coming to realize at last what this holiday was truly all about.

Not the tiny presents wrapped in scraps of newspaper. Not even those rare and fine presents her parents had wrapped in delicate tissue to present to her and Rebecca back home many years ago.

Christmas was about friends and gathering close to loved ones.

Christmas was about family.

The baby fussed, perhaps sensing her disappointment as Samantha's eyes glistened and the candle- and lamplight grew soft and fuzzy. Sam blinked to clear them, frustrated when she felt the tears spill down her cheeks.

“Oh, Sam,” Martha Luhn said gently as she came up to her and knelt beside her chair, laying one hand on her arm,
the other hand on the boy's tiny legs. “It's Christmas, and we are all here together. I know how you must miss him so.”

She tried twice to say something, but the words would not come out. All she could do was swipe at her tears.

“He's safe. Trust in God, Sam,” Nettie Capron cooed. “On this day especially. Please trust in God to watch over him … wherever he is right now.”