by Clay Fisher
As of the moment he let the flaps fall behind him to start toward the sun-drowsing Spotted Eagle, he was “Chief of Scouts, District of the Yellowstone, Colonel Nelson A. Miles Commanding.”
Kelly’s impromptu commission as head of Miles’ scout corps brought to a head his whole life on the northwest frontier. In four short months, his storied career reached its strange climax. In sixteen brief weeks his own unreported personal tragedy played itself out against a backdrop of officially documented military triumph. In a hundred and twenty dark winter days of relentless army pursuit, the proud Sioux Nation was forever driven apart and destroyed.
In all of this, Luther Kelly played the paramount guiding role for the long delayed forces of white frontier retribution.
The part cost him, in the end, more than its fleeting fitful day upon the stage of public acclaim could hope to repay him in a lifetime of such empty applause. Yet, easing up on the dozing Nez Percé pony that baking hot afternoon in the woodlands south of the Yellowstone, he had no least inkling of what lay ahead. His only thought was that now, at last, he had found the means and method, brutal as they might prove to be, of running down and cornering Sitting Bull’s Sioux. And, trapping with them, of course, Gall and Crow Girl.
How, in that final moment when the Hunkpapa war chief turned at bay, he, Kelly, proposed to deprive him of Crow Girl, could not at present be predicted. But a way would show itself. That was as sure as the good Lord was watching from above. When that way did show itself, Luther Kelly would be ready.
34
Luther Kelly’s days upon the northwest frontier were now numbered. Within the first twenty-four hours of his arrival at Bear Coat’s camp, they began to telescope with confusing speed. Nelson A. Miles was at work.
The very next morning, the General was up with the last of the starlight. He did not go to the woodcutting site but instead sent an orderly for Kelly. It was still dark when the sleepy soldier tapped the scout’s blanketed shoulder and told him, “Beg pardon, Mr. Kelly, but the General would like to see you right away. He says to come along up to his tent and have breakfast with him.”
Kelly reported as requested, to find Miles waiting for him politely.
“Sit down, sir,” he greeted him, waving to the camp chair opposite his, across the field ambulance tailgate which had been nailed to a sawlog stump to provide the General’s mess table. “You will find the accommodations severe but the food superb.”
Kelly thanked him and sat down. For all of Miles’ quiet courtesy, it was not a comfortable moment.
The General was one of the most impressive men Kelly had ever seen. He was an absolute soldier’s soldier; tall, broad-shouldered, strong, flat-bellied, erect, bold-faced. In the prime of middle life, he had about him that unmistakable “look of eagles” which the Prussian militarists so proudly ascribe to those rarest of war’s aristocrats, the born field commanders. Seated within three feet of him, while four orderlies served the fried blacktail tenderloins, sourdough flapjacks, dried apple pie, and black coffee which were his standard morning fare, the embarrassed scout found it impossible to think of himself as “Yellowstone” Kelly, Chief of Scouts, District of the same name. A man just couldn’t make the thought come, sitting that close under the ice-blue eyes and haughty, highbred nose of a full colonel and brevet major general. Not, at least, and (plague it all!) with three years in the regular army showing in his own service record.
Thus, feeling exactly like Corporal L. S. Kelly, late of Company G, 10th Infantry, and nothing at all like the reputed “best Indian scout west of Fort Lincoln,” he kept his head down awkwardly, his ears open alertly, while Colonel Nelson A. Miles talked on.
Surprisingly, he was kept in that attitude quite a spell.
The General had fooled him with his informal brevity of yesterday. That had been an occasion of purely social pleasure; this was a matter of strictly military business.
“Now then, Kelly,” he nodded, easing back and waving in an orderly with more coffee, “let me bring you up to date. Afterward, I shall be glad to hear from you, and I am satisfied you will be able to provide several worthwhile advices. Meanwhile, I have found the quickest method of communicating a military situation is for chief to talk while staff listens.”
“Yes, sir,” grinned Kelly stiffly, pleasantly surprised at being considered “staff.” “As my Sioux friends say, General, ‘my ears are uncovered.’”
Miles only bobbed his head again, not returning the smile. Kelly froze his own expression, deciding quickly enough that his new employer was not the smiling type. He was not, either, the beloved thoughtful father to his endlessly marched but seldom engaged men that Crook was. Nor the disliked, tooth-flashing, glad-handing politico that Custer was to his cynical, hard fought command. Nor, again, was he one of the foot-dragging, wait-for-explicit-orders-in-triplicate book followers that Gibbon and Terry were. Miles was a man of but one passion—professional soldiering.
“It has been contemplated by my superiors,” he told the uncomfortable scout, “that my troops should build a cantonment here with a permanent fort to follow, but not that they should do more than occupy this country until next spring, when it is expected that they and this base should form the springboard for another season of summer campaigning.
“Now, sir, this does not suit my purposes at all, even though the orders are Sherman’s own. Still, I have my problems past Sherman.
“He promised me fifteen hundred troops, including a full regiment of cavalry. You can see my cavalry. We have procured, I think, something like thirty spare horses. As for the actual number of effectives I have here now, they are less than five hundred. All infantry, of course.
“I have determined the main enemy to be two thousand strong, composed of five tribal elements in the main; the Hunkpapa under Sitting Bull and Gall, the Oglala under Crazy Horse and American Horse, the Northern Cheyenne under Dull Knife and Two Moon, the Miniconjou and Sans Arc Sioux under their various leaders.
“Now, as to Sherman’s plan for another summer operation, we are coming to you and to my need for you.”
Kelly quit fooling with his empty coffee cup, looked up quickly. Miles was waiting for him. He caught his eye and held it.
“Judging from my experience of winter campaigning down in the southwest Indian Territory, I am satisfied that the winter is the best time for subjugating these northern Indians as well. At that period it is commonly regarded as utterly impossible for white men to live in this country and endure the extreme cold outside the protection of well-prepared shelters. But I am satisfied that if the Indians can live out there, the white man can also, if properly equipped with all the advantages we can give them, which are certainly superior to those obtainable by the Indians.” An expression of quick annoyance crossed Miles’ handsome face. “I remarked to General Terry that if given these proper supplies and a reasonable force, I could clear the Indians out of this country before spring. Do you know what he said, sir? Of course! The same weary old story. That it was impossible to campaign in this country in the winter and that I could not possibly contend against the elements.
“I have had no doubts of my own contrary opinion, you understand, Kelly. But up to this moment I have been handicapped and held up in my plans by the lack of proper eyes and ears. I have, of course, employed the usual agency spies. Those people proved invaluable to me down south. They go constantly between the agency and the wild camps, and their morals are as cheaply bought as a lame pony or the services of a sick squaw. I have found them to mean more to the astute troop commander than perhaps a regiment of promised cavalry, shall we say.
“But, their limitations are critical. You can only guess at the accuracy of their information, evaluating it and correlating it with your own hard facts. You cannot, in any case, put implicit faith in it or base a troop movement blindly upon it. However, what I have lacked for, and what I now trust I have found, is a person who knows th
is northern country, the Indians in it, the trails through it, the campsites the hostile bands will most likely inhabit in hard winter, and the most direct, feasible routes by which white troops on foot may press these sites when the time comes.
“Now, what I want to know from you, is this:
“One; do you know this country as well as you are reputed to? Two; can you find the main hostile encampments for me? Three; can you guide me to them in any weather?”
He stopped abruptly, his pale eyes fastened on his new chief of scouts.
“Yes,” was all the latter said.
“Good. When do you think we should start after them?”
“Not until the weather turns off dead mean. They’ll keep moving till the drifts get too deep to pass a travois.”
“What about meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile, use every minute scouting them and nailing down their whereabouts; that is to say the exact whereabouts of the big winter camps of the main bands.”
“That would be the five groups I mentioned.”
“Not quite, General.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m going to speak out, General. I understand that’s the way you would want it.”
“You understand exactly right, sir. Go ahead.”
“You can forget the Miniconjou and Sans Arc. I have just come from eight weeks in the field trailing the Hunkpapa for personal reasons. I have found out a few things. The Sans Arc and Miniconjou are pretty well out of it. Oh, you will always find a few strays of any band in the camp of any other band. But as tribes they’ve largely backed off into the Black Hills, or so I heard.”
“Yes, I had heard as much myself from the agency Sioux, without being able to confirm it. Anything else?”
“Yes, I think you can forget the northern Cheyenne too. The Indian rumor is that Two Moons and Dull Knife are tired of war and will come in next spring if unmolested this winter.”
“That,” Miles shook his head sharply, “I will not believe. What else?”
“Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are at odds. Some say Crazy Horse will follow the Cheyenne in or even beat them to it.”
“And Sitting Bull?”
“He will never come in. They say he will go to the Land of the Grandmother first. That’s Canada, sir.”
“We’ll see about that. All done, sir?”
“That depends, General.”
“On what?” Miles stiffened perceptibly, and Kelly did not miss it.
“Whether I get to make straight-out suggestions.”
“I did not hire you to make any other kind, sir.” The ramrod was still shoved up the back of the rebuke. “If you have a specific recommendation, out with it.”
“All right. In my opinion, General, your main troublemaker is Sitting Bull. Get him, and Crazy Horse will come in. If Crazy Horse comes in, the Cheyenne will follow. But to get Sitting Bull, you don’t go after Sitting Bull, you go after Gall.”
“Gall?”
“Yes, sir. Cut him out and corner him, and you’ve got Sitting Bull.”
Miles frowned quickly.
“Well, sir, I should like to cut him out and corner him, for he has been killing my couriers to Fort Buford and burning my wagon trains from Camp Glendive. But I am afraid I do not follow your logic. I had not imagined Gall was more than another petty chief; certainly not to be compared with Sitting Bull as a prime mover of the Sioux rebellion.”
Kelly shook his head, trying hard to say the right thing, knowing well the difficulty he faced in convincing Miles of his point.
“Sitting Bull is a medicine man, General. He is a prophet, a dreamer, a politician, a speechmaker, if you will. But Gall is the man who fights for him. He is his strong right arm, as surely as Crazy Horse used to be his savage left. Now, amputate the right and you have him helpless, for the left has already begun to wither and fall away. Get Gall, and the entire Sioux tribal complex will start to come apart. You may well say that Sitting Bull is the hostile arch, but you must know that Gall is the keystone of that arch. Pull him out, and you will have brought down the whole red building.”
Miles let him finish. He looked at him searchingly and steadily. At last he shook his head, the refusal inviting no further rebuttals.
“I’m sorry, Kelly. It’s still Sitting Bull I want. After him we will take the others as we are able to come up to them. But first I want the man who killed George Custer.”
He paused, chopping the words out from under his campaign-faded mustache, his light blue eyes showing their cold fire, his back as stiffly braced as an angry dog’s. “There’s only one Indian who answers that description, Kelly. And you have been hired to do just one single solitary thing in regard to that Indian. Find him.”
35
Kelly did not know if Miles’ biting charge had been meant for a dismissal or not. But he sat still.
Torn between his honest belief that Gall was the logical primary military objective, and his knowledge that Crow Girl’s presence with the Hunkpapa war chief might easily be contaminating that belief, he hesitated, confused by Miles’ continuing silence and his own reluctance to push a questionable conviction.
Of the two concerns, the aloof, aristocratic officer came first.
Miles was an enigma to many men. But Kelly had to assay him and assay him fast, or miss his chance to make his difficult point, perhaps for good.
First off, a man could see that the famed Comanche fighter actually did not like to talk. Accordingly, when he had to, as with Kelly now, he liked to get it done in uninterrupted bursts. This suggested that his ordinary modus operandi was action. Quite clearly he suffered neither from Crook’s fussy infatuation with delaying logistics, nor Custer’s fatal mania for blowing Garry Owen before his support came up. His military philosophy was apparently quite simple; seek, find, destroy. But before putting this philosophy into active effect, to judge from Kelly’s short contact with him, he was a man who would want to make sure his men understood the dangers ahead.
This line led you to what the Indians thought of him.
The Sioux, of course, feared him because of the word which had come up to them from the south plains via the Southern Cheyenne; that Bear Coat wanted to fight first and talk afterward. Kelly realized that, literally, this was not true. What the Indians meant was that once the talk was over, once both sides had been given equal opportunity to express their viewpoints, that was the end of the discussion. To the red men, who felt a fight was no fight at all unless it started and stopped at least a dozen times for oral argument, Miles’ policy of refusing to treat once the action was joined amounted to what they feared in him and accused him of—all fight and no talk.
Sneaking an eye-corner glance at him now, Kelly still could not determine whether his own talk with him was over or not. He decided in quiet desperation to risk reopening it along the lines of defending his opinion of Sitting Bull and hence his possible last chance at rescuing Crow Girl.
“But, General—” he plunged back into the awkward silence, “I know full well I’m right about Sitting Bull! Did you know it was he, sir, who saved Reno after Custer was gone?”
“No, nor does anyone else to my knowledge,” said Miles.
“I do!” averred Kelly, plowing recklessly ahead. “I got the story from some Crows who got it straight from old Paints Brown, who was within ten feet of Yellowhair when the end came. The old man swears that Sitting Bull went to the warriors who were cutting Reno to pieces the following day and told them to stop. It was just before noon of the twenty-sixth when he came up shouting, ‘That’s enough. Let them go. Let them live; they are trying to live. They came against us, and we killed a few. If we kill them all, a bigger army will be sent against us.’
“Now that was Sitting Bull, sir. But do you know what Gall said? He raged like a wounded grizzly and said to kill them all, that the big army would come anyway. �
�Let nothing live!’ he cried. ‘Not a man, not a horse, not a mule!’ That was Gall, sir. He is your real white-hater and your real war leader. Sitting Bull may stir it up, but Gall is the one who carries it out. If the Sioux had listened to him rather than Sitting Bull, sir, there would, indeed, have been no survivors up there on the Little Horn. But for this old medicine man you say must come first, Major Reno for sure and most likely Captain Benteen with him would have gone under the day after their CO did!”
Miles rewarded the impassioned plea with a shrug.
“It makes an interesting story, Kelly. Perhaps even a plausible projection of the tactical situation. But it is scarcely admissible as military evidence. Anything else?”
“Yes,” said Kelly.
He knew his Irish temper was beginning to fray under this typical display of ironclad army opinion, but put out his jaw and went ahead quietly.
“Why is it that the army will never consider the Indian viewpoint? Will never listen to the way they see things? I am giving you the results of two months’ intensive scouting of the Hunkpapa, divided by the sum of eight years’ experience with all the northern plains hostiles, multiplied by personal acquaintanceships with both Sitting Bull and Gall. And all you are ready to say is that it makes an interesting story or a plausible projection. I submit it’s a little more than that, sir!”
“And I, sir, submit that it is nothing more than that.” Miles’ rejection was unheated, but his pale eyes darkened with intensity as he went on. “If you want to speak in mathematical paraphrases, you are forgetting that we have a common denominator here which cancels out all ordinary rules of red arithmetic. You are forgetting Custer, sir!”
“No sir, General, I am not!” denied Kelly. “But Custer was a fool, sir. You know that. Even General Grant said so!”
“Yes,” said Miles softly, his fierce eyes far away. “But Grant had not been to Fort Lincoln this summer. Nor, for that matter, have you, sir.”
