by Charles King
CHAPTER X.
A JUNE SUNDAY.
It is a cloudless Sunday morning, the longest Sunday in that month oflongest days, warm, balmy, rose-bearing June. Only a few hours' high isthe blazing god of day, but his beams beat fiercely down on a landscapewellnigh as arid as the Arizona our troopers knew so well. Not a breathof air is stirring. Down in the shallow valley to the right, where thecottonwoods are blistering beside the sandy stream-bed, a faint columnof smoke rises straight as the stem of a pine-tree until it melts intoindistinguishable air. The sandy waste goes twisting and turning in itsfringe of timber southeastward along a broad depression in the face ofthe land, until twenty odd miles away it seems brought up standing by abarrier of rugged hills that dip into the bare surface at the south, andgo rising and falling, rolling and tumbling, higher and raggeder, to thenorth. All the intervening stretches are bare, tawny, sun-scorched,except those fringing cottonwoods. All those tumbling heights are darkand frowning through their beards of gloomy larch and pine. Black theystand against the eastern sky, from the jagged summits at the south towhere the northernmost peak,--the Inyan Kara,--the Heengha-Kaaga of theSioux, stands sentinel over the sisterhood slumbering at her feet. Theseare the Black Hills of Dakota, as we see them from the breaks of theMini Pusa, a long day's march to the west. Here to our right,southeastward, rolls the powdery flood of the South Cheyenne, whenearlier in the season the melting snows go trickling down thehill-sides. But to-day only in dry and waving ripples of sand can wetrace its course. If you would see the water, dig beneath the surface.Here behind us rolls another sandy stream, dry as its Dakota nameimplies,--Mini Pusa: Dry Water,--and to our right and rear is theirsandy confluence. Southward, almost to the very horizon, in waves androlls and ridges, bare of trees, void of color, the earth unfolds beforethe eye, while, as though to relieve the strain of gazing over theexpanse so illimitable in its monotony, a blue line of cliffs and cragsstretches across the sky line for many degrees. Beyond that, out ofsight to the southeast, lies the sheltered, fertile valley of the upperWhite Earth River; and there are the legal homes of thousands of the"nation's wards," the bands of the Dakotas--Ogallalla and Brule, led byRed Cloud and Spotted Tail. There, too, are clothed and fed and caredfor a thousand odd Cheyennes. Just over that ridge at its western end,where it seems to blend into the general surface of upland prairie, afaint blue peak leaps up into the heated air,--"Old Rawhide,"--thelandmark of the region. Farther off, southwestward, still another peakrises blue and pale against the burning distance. 'Tis far across thePlatte, a good hundred miles away. Plainsmen to this day call it Larmiein that iconoclastic slaughter of every poetic title that is their proudcharacteristic. All over our grand continent it is the same. The names,musical, sonorous, or descriptive, handed down as the heritage of theFrench missionaries, the Spanish explorers, or the aboriginal owners,are all giving way to that democratic intolerance of foreign title whichis the birthright of the free-born American. What name more grandlydescriptive could discoverer have given to the rounded, gloomy crest inthe southern sierras, bald at the crown, fringed with its circlingpines,--what better name than Monte San Mateo--Saint Matthew,--he of theshaven poll?
Over a century the title held. Adaptive Indian, Catholic Mexican,acceptive dragoon, one and all respected and believed in it. But thencame the miner and the cowboy, and with them the new vocabulary. MonteSan Mateo slinks in unmerited shame to hide its heralded deformity asBaldhead Butte. What devilish inspiration impelled the Forty-Niners todamn Monte San Pablo to go down to eternity as Bill Williams' Mountain?Who but an iconoclast would rend the sensitive ear with such barbaritiesas the _Loss Angglees_ of to-day for the deep-vowelled Los Angeles ofthe last century? Who but a Yankee would swap the murky "Purgatoire" forPicketwire, and make Zumbro River of the Riviere des Ombres of brave oldPere Marquette? And so, too, it goes through all the broad Northwest.Indian names, beautiful in themselves even though at timesuntranslatable, are tossed contemptuously aside to be replaced by thehomeliest of every-day appellations, until the modern geography ofWyoming, Dakota, Montana, and Idaho bristles with innumerable Sage,Boxelder, Horse, and Pine Creeks.
Mini Pusa--Dry Water--have the Dakotas called for ages the sandy streamthat twists and turns and glares in the hot sunshine down here in thevale behind us. "Muggins's Fork," some stockman said he heard it calleda month ago. Far over there to the east--almost under the black shadowof the hills--we see another slender thread of questionable green;cottonwoods again, no doubt, for nothing but cottonwoods or sage-brushor grease-wood--worse yet--will grow down in the alkaline wastes of thisWyoming valley; and that thread or fringe betokens the existence of astream in the spring-time,--one that the Sioux have ever called theBeaver, after the amphibious rodent who dammed its waters, and therebyrescued them from a like fate at the hands of modern residents. Far tothe southeast, miles and miles away, dim and hazy through the heatwavesof the atmosphere one can almost see another twisting string of shade,the cottonwoods on the banks of the winding War Bonnet; at least so theSioux named it, after their gorgeous crown of eagle feathers, but 'twastoo polysyllabic, too poetic for the blunt-spoken frontiersman, who longsince compromised on Hat Creek. We are in the heart of the Indiancountry, but the wild romance has fled. We are on dangerous ground, forthere, straight away before our eyes, broad, beaten as a race-course,prominent as any public highway, descending the slope until lost in thetimber of the South Cheyenne, then reappearing beyond, until far in thesoutheast it dwindles in perspective to a mere thread, and so dips intothe valley of the War Bonnet and Indian Creek,--there lies the broadroad from the reservations to the war-path. It is the trail over whichfor years the "Wards of the Nation" have borne the paid-up prices oftheir good behavior to sustain their brethren renegados in the PowderRiver Country far up here to the northwest. Over this road all winterlong, all the spring-tide, and to this very week in June, arms,ammunition, ponies, bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, clothing, and warriorshave been speeding to the hosts of Sitting Bull. The United States issending to-day three or four thousand men at arms, equipped and suppliedby the Department of War, to try conclusions with about twice thatnumber of trained warriors similarly provided for by the Department ofthe Interior. It is odd, but it is a fact. Camping along the banks ofthe Rawhide, the first stream on the Indian side of the Platte, theofficer in command of the advance-guard of the --th was surprised to seea train of wagons and without apparent escort. Galloping down to theirfires, he accosted the wagon-master, who smilingly assured him that heand his train were in no danger from the Indians,--they were bringingthem supplies. What supplies? Why, metallic cartridges, of course,Winchester and Henry, for their magazine-rifles, don't you know? Oh,yes. He understood well enough that they were all going out on thewar-path, but he couldn't help _that_. He was paid so much a month tohaul supplies from Sidney to Red Cloud agency, and if it happened to bepowder and lead, 'tweren't none o' his business. How much had he? Oh,three or four hundred thousand rounds, he reckoned. To whom consigned?Why, the trader,--the Indian store at Red Cloud, of course,--Mr. ----'s.In speechless indignation the officer rides off and reports the matterto the colonel, and the colonel goes down and interviews theimperturbable "boss" with similar result, and more; for he comes backwith a shrug of the shoulders and some honest blasphemy, for which mayHeaven forgive him. (The fine inflicted by army regulations has not yetbeen collected.) "We can do nothing," he says. "That fellow has hispapers straight from the Interior Department. He has been haulingcartridges all spring." And now, here is the advance-guard of the --thagain far up on the Mini Pusa, just arrived, and that slender column ofsmoke rising from among the cottonwoods tells of a tiny fire where themen are boiling their coffee, while, miles away to the southwest, therising dust-clouds proclaim the coming of the regiment itself. Out onthe distant heights, on either side, other smokes are rising. Indiansignals, that say to lurking warriors far and near, "Be on your guard;soldiers coming;" and so, here on the breaks of the Mini Pusa on thisscorching Sabbath morn, the vanguard of the --th has
reached and tappedthe broad highway of Indian commerce. The laws of the nation they aresworn to defend prohibit their interfering with the distribution ofammunition by that same nation to the foes they are ordered to meet. Thenation is impartial: it provides friend and foe alike. The War Officesends its cartridges to the --th through the ordnance officer,Lieutenant X. The Indian Bureau looks after its wards through Mr. ----atRed Cloud. And now the --th is ordered to stop those cartridges fromgetting to Sitting Bull up on the Rosebud. That is what brings them hereto the Mini Pusa, and we see them now riding down in long dusty columninto the valley, heedless of the dust they make, for the Indians havehovered on their flanks, out of sight, out of range, but _seeing_, eversince they crossed the Platte; and here they are, "old Stannard" andBillings with the advance, lying prone on their stomachs and searchingthrough their field-glasses for any signs of Indian coming from thereservations, while with the column itself, in their battered slouchhats and rough flannel and buckskin, bristling with cartridges and uglybeards, burned and blistered and parched with scorching sun and windstempered only with alkali dust, ride our Arizona friends,--many of themat least. Old Bucketts with his green goggles; Turner with hismelancholy face and placid ways; Raymond, stern and swart; Canker,querulous and "nagging" with his men, but eager for any service;Stafford, who won his troop _vice_ the noble-hearted Tanner whom we lostamong the Apaches; Wayne, who is loquacity itself whenever he can find alistener, and who talks his patient subaltern almost deaf through thelong day marches; and Crane and Wilkins, who are a good deal together atevery halt, and consort more with Canker than other captains; and thenthere is the jolly element that ever clusters around Blake, whosespirits defy adversity, and whose merry quips and jests and boundlessdistortions of fact or fancy are the joy of the regiment. With Blakeone always finds Merrill and Freeman and some of the jovial juniorcaptains, and, of course, the boys,--Hunter, Dana, Briggs; and here theyare on this blessed Sabbath of the Centennial June, sent up to stop Mr.----'s cartridges, _after_ they have become the property of "Mr. Lo;"and once a cartridge becomes Indian property, there is only one way ofstopping it. The wealth of France is inadequate to purchase of AlfredKrupp a single gun from his shops at Essen, because his love forFatherland will not let him place a power in the hands of the hereditaryenemy. It takes enlightened England and free America to supply friendsand foes alike with the means to kill.
Stannard closes his glass with a grunt of dissatisfaction, and turns toBillings. "None of those cartridges get through here _this_ day anyhow;but how many do you suppose Mr. ---- has sent up there already?" And hepoints as he speaks to the far northwest.
Under that blue dome, cloudless, glaring; under the sentinel peaks ofthe Big Horn shimmering there in the distance, over the rolling dividein that glorious upland that heaves and rolls and tosses between theRosebud and the swirling stream in the broad valley farther west,another regiment--that of which we spoke, whose leader is famed in songand story--is riding rapidly this still Sunday morning in search of Mr.----'s cartridges. Some say the tall, blue-eyed, blond-bearded captainwho leads that beautiful troop of bays is Mr. ----'s brother. Odd! yethow can the Indian Bureau know that Crazy Horse and Two Bears andKicking Mule want to buy Mr. ----'s bullets to kill his brother with?How, indeed, should Mr. ---- know? Army officers, 'tis true, havewarned them time and again; but when were army officers' statements everpotent in the Interior Department against the unendorsed assertion ofCrazy Horse or Kicking Mule that he only wanted to kill buffalo? Indeed,is not Mr. ---- himself eager to go bail for the purchaser, since hisprofits are so high? Over the divide, hot on the broad, beaten trailgoes the long column. How different are they from our sombre friends ofthe --th, who, miles and marches away to the southeast, are dismountingand unsaddling under the cottonwoods! Years in Arizona have robbed thelatter of all the old love for the pomp and panoply of war. There is nota bit of finery in the command, there is hardly a vestige of uniform;but look here, look here at the brilliance of the Seventh. Brightguidons flutter at the head of every troop; bright chevrons, stripes,and buttons gleam on the dress of many an officer and man; the steeds,though worn and jaded with an almost ceaseless trot of thirty-six hours,are spirited and beautiful; some are gayly decked. Foremost rides theirtried leader, clad from head to foot in beaded buckskin. "The Long Hair"the Sioux still call him, though now the long hair waves not on thebreeze, and an auburn beard conceals the handsome outline of the faceall troopers know so well. Near him rides his adjutant, dressed likehimself in their favorite buckskin, so too are others among theofficers, though many wear the jaunty fatigue uniform of the cavalry,and the rank and file are all, or nearly all, in blue. But a short wayback they have come upon the scaffolding sepulchre of Indian warriorslately slain in battle; but a few miles ahead they see a broad valleyfrom which, far from south to north, a vast dust-cloud is rising, andfor this there can be but one explanation,--thousands of Indian poniesin excited motion. Ay, scouts in advance already sight indications ofthe near presence of a great Indian community, and the column resolvesitself into three, trotting in parallel lines across the treeless uplanda mile or so apart. With the northernmost, the largest, rides now theleader of all, while between them gallop couriers carrying rapid orders.Every face sets eagerly westward. Every heart beats high with the thrillof coming battle. Some there are who note the immensity of thedust-cloud, who reason silently that for miles and miles the valleybefore them is covered by the scurrying herds; ten thousand ponies atleast must there be to stir up such a volume; then, how many warriorsare there to meet these seven hundred? No matter what one thinks, not aman falters.
Far to the south the snow peaks glisten over the pine-crested range ofthe Big Horn. Nearer at hand deep, dark canons burrow in towards thebowels of the mountains. Then from their bases leap the rollingfoot-hills, brown and bare but for the dense growth of the sun-curedbuffalo-grass. Westward, open and undulating sweeps the broad expanse ofalmost level valley beyond the bluffs, close under which is curling thefatal stream,--the "Greasy Grass" of the Dakotas. Far to the north inthe same endless waves the prairie rolls to the horizon, beyond whichlies the shallow river where the transports are toiling up-stream withcomrade soldiery. Behind the column, eastward, dip the sheltered valleysof the Rosebud and the breaks of the Tongue among the CheetishMountains; and there, not fifty miles away as the crow flies, thesoldiers of the Gray Fox, over two thousand strong, are camped, awaitingreinforcements before renewing the attempt to advance upon these lurkingbands of Sitting Bull. Not two days' march away, on both flanks, arefour times his numbers in friends and allies; not two miles away, in hisfront, are ten times his force in foemen, savage, but skilled; yet allalone and unsupported, the Long Hair rides dauntlessly to the attack,even though he and his well know it must be battle to the death, forIndian warfare knows no mercy.
There be those who say the assault was rash; the speed unauthorized; thewhole effort mad as Lucan's launch of the Light Brigade at Balaclava;but once there in view of the fatal valley, the sight is one to fire thebrain of any trooper. Galloping to a little mound to the right front,the broad expanse lies before the leader's eyes, and far as he can see,out to the west and northwest, the dust-cloud rises heavily over theprairie; here and there, nearer at hand, are the scurrying ponies and,close down by the stream, excited bands of Indians tearing down lodgeafter lodge and preparing for rapid flight. But one conclusion can hedraw. They are panic-stricken, stampeded. They are "on the run" already,and unless attacked at once can never be overhauled. They will scatterover the face of the wild Northwest in an hour's time. He cannot seewhat we know so well to-day: that only the northern limits of the greatvillages are open to his gaze; that the sheltering bluffs hide from himall the crowded lodges of the bands farthest to the south, and thatwhile squaws and children are indeed being hurried off to the west,hundreds, thousands of exultant young warriors are galloping in from thewestern prairies, herding the war-ponies before them. He cannot see thescores that, rifle in hand, are rushing into the willows and c
ottonwoodsalong the stream, eager and ready to welcome his coming; he sendshurried orders to the leaders of the little columns on his left: "Pushahead; cross the stream; gallop northward when you reach the westernbank, and attack that end of the village while I strike from the east."He never dreams that behind that solid curtain of bluff Ogallalla, SansArc, Uncapapa, and Blackfoot lurk in myriads. "The biggest Indianvillage on the continent!" they say, he shouts to the nearest column;but only the northern limits of it could he see. Far, far away in theEast the church-bells are ringing out their glad welcome to theGod-given day of rest. Mothers, sisters, wives, lift up a prayer for theloved ones on the savage frontier. Aloft the sun in cloudless splendorlooks down on all. Westward press the comrade columns, until, reachingthe head of a shallow ravine that leads northwestward towards thestream, the Long Hair spurs to the front,--Oh, those beautiful Kentuckysorrels! Oh, those gallant, loyal hearts!--and the eager, bearded faces,the erect, athletic forms, the fluttering guidons, one by one are lostto view as they wind away down the coulee; one by one they disappearfrom sight, from hearing, of the comrades now trotting down the bluffsto the west. Take the last look upon them, fellows,--five fatedcompanies. Obedient to their leader's order, loyal, steadfast,unmurmuring to the bitter end, they vanish once and for all from lovingeyes. Only as gashed, lifeless, mutilated forms will we ever see themagain.
Who has not read the story of the Little Horn? Why repeat it here? Whothat was there will ever forget the sight that burst upon the astonishedeyes of Reno's men when, breaking through the willows along the streamand reaching the level bench, they saw, not five miles away to thenorth, as was the first idea, but here in their very front, only longrifle-shot away, the southern outskirts of the great Indian metropolisthat stretched away for miles to the north. God of battles! was this aposition, was this a force to be assailed by one regiment? Why lingerover it?--the half-hearted advance of the dismounted skirmish line; thehesitating rally; then the volley from the willows; the flankingwarriors on the west; the sudden consciousness of their pitiful numbersas against the hordes now swarming upon them; the mad rush for thebluffs, with the yelling Indians dragging the rearmost from their steedsand butchering them as they rode; the Henrys and Winchesters pumpingtheir bullets into the fleeing mass; the plunge into the seethingwaters; the panting scramble up the steep and slippery banks; thebreathless halt at the crest, and then, then the backward glance at thefield and the fallen. Who will forget McIntosh, striving to rally therearmost, dragged from the saddle and hacked to death upon the sward?Who will forget Benny Hodgson's brave young face,--the pet, the pride ofthe whole regiment? Even the daring and devotion of his men could notsave him from the hissing lead of those savage marksmen. Then thestrained suspense, the half-hour's listening to the fierce, the awfulvolleying to the north that told of a fearful struggle. The flutter ofhope that it might be the stronger battalion fighting its way through tothe relief of theirs, the weak one; the blank faces that gazed one intoanother with awe-stricken inquiry as trumpet blare and rallying shoutand rattling volley receded, not approached; died away, not thunderedanew in coming triumph; the pall of certainty that fell on every manwhen silence so soon reigned in the distance, and pandemonium broke outafresh around them. Back from their bloody work, drunk with blood andvictory, came by thousands the savage warriors to swell the forces thathad driven the white soldiers to cover. Up, thank God! not an instanttoo soon, came the comrades from the distant left, and Benteen andMacDougall riding in with four full companies and the needed ammunitiongave them strength to hold out. Through the hours of fierce battle thatfollowed, through that dread "running the gauntlet" for water that thewounded craved, through the stern suspense and strain of the day andnight that intervened before the rescuing forces of Terry camecautiously up the valley, and the Sioux melted away before them, ah! howmany a time was the question asked, "What can have become of Custer?"
Far, far to the east this still Sabbath afternoon, seeking shelter fromthe glare of the same blazing sun, seeking sympathy from each other'swords, seeking hope and comfort from Him who alone can aid, a littlegroup of women gather at the frontier fort on the banks of the Missouri.They are the wives of the officers who that morning ride "into theValley of Death" with their soldier leader. Fair young matrons andmothers, whose thoughts have little room for the glad jubilee in thestill more distant East, whose world is with that charging column. Onlya few days since there came to them the evil news that the Indians hadforced back the soldiers of the southern Department,--that meant harderwork, fiercer fighting for their own. And this dread anxiety it is thatclusters them here, lifting up sweet voices in their hymn of praise tothe Heavenly Throne, pleading, pleading for the life and safety of thosewho are their all in all. Oh, God! there is prophecy in the very wordsof their mournful song, though they know it not. Pitying Father, listen,and be merciful.
"E'en though it be a Cross That raiseth me."
Vain the trembling hope, vain the tearful pleading. Far out on theslopes of the Little Horn those for whom these prayers are lifted havefought their last battle. God has, indeed, asked of these women thathenceforth "they walk on in the shadow and alone."
