“After he visited their camp?”
“Yes, sir. Jackson delivered your message to Iron Bull, who granted them a pass only as long as it took them to get out of camp. Once they left the camp, Iron Bull sent Indians after them. According to Dog Runner, Jackson killed one of them in the chase.
“Then, Jackson came here to report to you, that he had failed. And while he was here, talking to you, Whips His Horses went to Jackson’s cabin. There, he killed Jackson’s wife and child.”
“My God!” Major Clinton said with a gasp. “My God, that means I’m to be blamed! I’m not only to be blamed for Jackson’s wife and child being killed, I’m also to be blamed for the attack on the wagons.”
“Why would you say that, Major?”
“Because I am the one who sent them there!”
“I don’t think there is anyone who actually blames you, Major.”
“I don’t care whether anyone else blames me or not,” Major Clinton said. “I blame myself . . . not only for what he is doing now . . . but for what happened to precipitate this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
[Warrior societies were an important aspect of the life of the Plains Indians. The tribes’ fighting men were divided into distinct units which provided their members with prestige. They fell under two categories, graded and ungraded, and though the warrior societies of the Apsáalooke (Crow) were, theoretically, ungraded, there was, by recognition, a definite graduation among the three societies of the tribe. Those three societies were the Lumpwood, the Fox, and the Big Dog. There was a fierce rivalry between them and, in battle, each society strove to strike the first coup.
There were, in addition, ranks within the individual societies which, while they conferred great honor, also demanded a personal sacrifice or commitment from the warrior upon whom the rank had been bestowed.
The Big Dog Warrior Society gradually emerged as the most prestigious. Members of this society would wear a belt of bearskin, complete with claws. They also daubed their bodies with mud, and rolled their hair into tight balls, imitating bear’s ears. They made a commitment to walk upright straight toward the enemy, never to retreat, and to come to the aid of any tribesman in danger.—ED.]
In the village of Iron Bull
Stone Eagle wore two vertical stripes on his right cheek, one red and one black. The stripes ran from the bottom of his eye to the top of his lip, and they denoted his rank as chief of the warrior society known as the Big Dog Warrior Society. He had asked for a meeting of the council and now all were gathered before the council fire.
Stone Eagle pointed to Whips His Horses, and spoke derisively of him.
“Whips His Horses boasts of his feats,” Stone Eagle said. “But what has he done? He has killed women and children. He has killed men who are not warriors. He has done this while Liver Eater continues to go free, to kill our braves.”
“And what have you done?” Whips His Horses replied, angrily. “You have done nothing!”
“Liver Eater is but one man. I have thought, until now, that one brave warrior would be his equal, but ten have tried, and ten have died. And you,” Stone Eagle said, pointing to Whips His Horses, “you have not even tried. You are afraid to fight Liver Eater, so you fight those who cannot fight back.”
“Whips His Horses has asked a question that must be answered,” Iron Bull said. “What have you done?”
“I have done nothing,” Stone Eagle admitted. “But now I am ready to lead the Big Dog Warriors to find and kill this man who has killed so many of our own.”
“How many will you take?” Iron Bull asked.
“He has killed ten. We will be two for every one that he has killed. We will be twenty.”
“I will be one of the twenty,” Whips His Horses said.
“You are not a member of the Big Dog Society,” Stone Eagle replied.
“Then I will be a member.”
“If you become a member, you must follow me. Do you agree to that?”
“I will also be a leader,” Whips His Horses said. He pointed to his chest. “I am chief of the Fox Society.”
“To be a Big Dog Warrior you must leave the Fox and become a Big Dog. You can be a member, but you will not be a leader,” Stone Eagle insisted.
“I ask the council!” Whips His Horses said. “Hear me. I am chief of the Fox Warrior Society. Is it not fair that if I join the Big Dog Warrior Society that I shall be a chief, equal in authority to Stone Eagle?”
The members of the council discussed it among themselves, then Iron Bull spoke.
“Stone Eagle, would you agree to a test with Whips His Horses to determine if he should be a chief?”
“Yes, I will agree to a test,” Stone Eagle replied.
“Whips His Horses, will you agree to a test?” Iron Bull asked.
Whips His Horses looked at Stone Eagle with an expression of hatred on his face.
“If we are to test, then let it be a final test. Let us fight until the death,” Whips His Horses said.
“Stone Eagle, you have been challenged,” Iron Bull said. “You cannot deny the challenge and remain chief of the Big Dog Warrior Society. What is your answer?”
“I accept the challenge,” Stone Eagle said.
Iron Bull held up both his arms and called out loudly so that all in the village could hear what he had to say.
“Hear me!” he called. “A challenge has been issued, and accepted. Whips His Horses and Stone Eagle are to fight. The fight must be until the death of one. The winner of the fight will be chief of the Big Dog Warrior Society.”
A circle was drawn and the two warriors entered the circle, each armed with a knife. Facing each other warily, they held their arms crossed in front of them, the palm of their left hand open, while grasping the knife in their right hand. They moved around in the circle, first one, and then the other, leaning forward to make, mostly futile, downward stabbing motions with the knife.
On one of his thrusts, Whips His Horses made a slashing cut on Stone Eagle’s arm. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it did bring blood. A moment later Stone Eagle opened a cut on Whips His Horses’ shoulder and now both men were bloodied as they faced each other.
Whips His Horses made another thrust but Stone Eagle stepped aside, then stuck out his foot, tripping Whips His Horses. Whips His Horses fell facedown and dropped his knife. Stone Eagle reached down and grabbed it, quickly, before Whips His Horses could recover. Now, with both knives, he reached down and laid the flat of the blade on the back of Whips His Horses’ neck.
“I claim coup,” he shouted, and turning his back to Whips His Horses’ prone form, he held both his arms up over his head, his knife in one hand and Whips His Horses’ knife in the other. “I have won!” he claimed, triumphantly.
Whips His Horses got to his feet quickly, then reaching out of the circle, grabbed a lance from one of the warriors who had been watching. With a shout of triumph, he rushed across the circle and thrust the lance into Stone Eagle’s back, doing so with such force that the bloody point came through Stone Eagle’s stomach.
Stone Eagle looked down in surprise, grabbed the lance point, then fell dead.
“Ayiee! It is I who have won!” Whips His Horses shouted.
There was some discussion among the elders of the council, but it was pointed out that the requirement was a fight to the death. And it was obvious that Whips His Horses had met that requirement. He was now the new head of the Big Dog Warrior Society.
“Will you now do as Stone Eagle would have done?” Iron Bull asked. “Will you take twenty warriors to kill Liver Eater?”
“I will do this,” Whips His Horses said.
“Send runners to all the villages,” Iron Bull declared. “Let the word go out to the Gros Ventre, the Piegan, the Lakota, and the Blackfeet, that twenty Big Dog Warriors of the Apsáalooke village of Iron Bull will avenge the death of our brothers!”
Fort Shaw
“What would you have me do about it?” Major Clinton asked the two civilian re
presentatives from Helena. “Wage a full-scale war?”
“But don’t you understand? The Indians attacked three wagons of whites. That is already an act of war,” Babcock, one of the two civilians, said.
“From all that I’ve been able to learn, it was no more than a few renegade Indians,” Major Clinton said. “It wasn’t a full-blown war party. I have four companies of infantry here. And I stress that we are infantry, not cavalry. We are not a mobile force. I can detach one company of infantry and assign them to protect the town of Helena, but I don’t really think the town of Helena is in any danger. Do you?”
“I don’t know,” Babcock said. “Is it true that what has gotten them all riled up is some crazy mountain man who has turned cannibal? He’s actually eating the bodies?”
“From what I’ve heard, he’s only eating their livers,” Major Clinton said.
“Then I think if you can do nothing about the Indians, you should do something about this crazy mountain man,” Jones said. Jones was the other civilian from Helena.
“Do something about the mountain man?” Major Clinton replied. “Do what? What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you find him and kill him,” Jones said.
“Definitely not!” Major Clinton said. “I’m appalled that you would even suggest such a thing!”
“It seems like a pretty good bargain to me,” Jones said. “One crazy white cannibal against the lives of how many more whites will the Indians kill?”
“I’m going to ask you two men to leave this post, now,” Major Clinton said, angrily.
“You’ve got no right to order us off this post,” Babcock insisted. “We have come to seek army protection.”
“You have two choices,” Major Clinton said. “You can leave of your own volition, or I will have you escorted off this post under armed guard.”
“All right, all right, we’re going,” Babcock said. “But I intend to write a letter to the War Department protesting your refusal to protect us.”
“Sergeant Major?” Major Clinton called.
“Yes, sir?” Sergeant Major Porter replied, stepping into Major Clinton’s office.
“See that these”—Major Clinton paused, setting the next word apart from the sentence to show his disdain—“gentlemen . . . are shown safely off this post.”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Major Porter said. “This way, gentlemen.”
Major Clinton walked to the front of the headquarters building and stood in the doorway as he watched the two civilians cross the quadrangle toward the gate. Lieutenant Philbin approached him with a salute.
“Do you know what those two men wanted?” Major Clinton asked.
“No, sir, not exactly. I know they were concerned about the people who were killed at their wagons.”
“They wanted me to send the army out to kill Mr. Jackson. The very idea.”
“Yes, sir, well, it might all be beyond our hands anyway,” Lieutenant Philbin said.
“Why? What do you mean?”
“My Indians tell me that Iron Bull is sending twenty of his Big Dog Warriors out to find and kill Jackson.”
“Do you think we should warn Jackson?”
Philbin chuckled. “In the first place, I’m damn sure Jackson already knows that he is the enemy of the Crow right now. In fact, I’m pretty sure he welcomes it. Major, he brought this war on himself, you know.”
“No, he didn’t,” Major Clinton said. “I did, when I sent him and his wife to meet with Iron Bull.”
“If he had just killed the ones who killed his wife and child, that would have been the end of it,” Philbin said. “But he didn’t stop there. He has made a personal war on all the Crow. And, don’t forget, he is eating their livers. That is a slap in the face of every Crow alive.”
“We don’t know that he is actually eating their livers.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he is or not, now,” Philbin said. “The Crow believe that he is, and that’s enough.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
[One of the mysteries of the last century is how quickly information could spread from place to place. In a time before telephones were commonplace, before radio, and even when newspapers were few and far between, there was something referred to as the “underground telegraph.” John Jackson’s activities were limited to Montana, but word of his unique and very personal battle with the Indians spread quickly, from Montana through Wyoming, into Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, and even down into Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.—ED.]
Buford, Colorado
The Pair of Tens Saloon in Buford, Colorado Territory, was already filled with customers, even though it was no later than three o’clock in the afternoon. A clean-shaven man whose eyes were enlarged by the thick lenses of the glasses he wore, was plinking away on a piano in the corner of the room while a glass of warm beer, its head gone, sat beside him. Two cowboys who were standing at the bar, were engaged in a vociferous discussion.
“They say the reason the Injuns attacked and kilt them folks in the wagons, is ’cause this feller, whoever it is, is a-killin’ Injuns, then he’s carvin’ out their gizzards and eatin’ ’em.”
He put an exclamation mark to his statement by spitting out a large quid of tobacco into a nearby spittoon, making it ring with the impact. A soiled dove, whose profession had already caused dissipation beyond her years, had stopped making her rounds of the tables, just to listen in on the discussion the two cowboys were having.
“You don’t mean he’s actual eatin’ human beings, do you, Pete?” she asked.
“Well now, I reckon that all depends on whether or not you call Crow Injuns human bein’s. They’s some that say that Crow ain’t nothin’ but heathens, through ’n through, ’n the words ‘human bein” don’t quite fit with them. You take Ned, here. He don’t hold much truck for Crow, do you, Ned?”
“I don’t want nothin’ to do with no Crows,” Ned said. “Are you sayin’ Crows is the only ones this here fella is killin’ an’ eatin’?”
Before the first cowboy could answer the question, two men slapped the batwings open, stepped into the saloon, and crossed over to the bar. Everyone in the place paused and stared at the pair as they made their way across the room. They looked like before and after pictures of what life in the mountains would do to anyone crazy enough, or antisocial enough, to endure it. The older of the two had fought in the Battle of New Orleans as a fourteen-year-old boy. That was close to sixty years ago, and he showed the effects of strenuous living for all that time. The younger of the two was a boy during the Civil War, which had been over now for seven years. They were both dressed in buckskins; the old one had a full beard and long hair that hung down almost to his shoulders, the beard and hair white as snow. The younger of the two was clean shaven, with neatly trimmed hair.
Mountain men weren’t all that rare in this part of the Colorado Territory, but these two men did capture the attention of all who were in the saloon. They were both armed, as if they were about to go to war. The older of the two was carrying a Sharps Big Fifty cradled in his arms, and a Navy Colt .36, not in a holster, but stuck down in his belt. The younger of the two had a Colt .44 tied low on his thigh in a right-hand rig. A matching Colt was butt-forward in a high holster on his left hip, and a twelve-inch-long Bowie knife rested in a scabbard in the middle of his back. He was also carrying a rifle, in this case a Henry repeating rifle.
When the older man sat his rifle down and they both leaned on the bar, all the rest of the saloon customers went back to what they’d been doing, ignoring the two newcomers.
“Seems to me like you two fellas stopped by here not much more ’n a week or so ago, didn’t you?” the bartender said as he slid down to wait on them. “You’re Preacher, and you’re the one they call Smoke.”
“You got a good memory, pilgrim,” Preacher said.
“Yeah, maybe, but it ain’t good enough for me to ’member just exactly what it was you two fellers are likin’ to drink.”
“We’ll both have beer,” Smoke said.
“Two beers comin’ up.”
The two cowboys, after no more than a cursory glance at the two mountain men, resumed their conversation.
“They say the feller doin’ all the killin’ and the gizzard eatin’ is doin’ it ’cause the Injuns kilt his wife ’n kid,” Pete said, continuing to impart the information as he had heard it.
“But they don’t nobody know his name?” Ned asked.
“Nope. Don’t nobody know nothin’ a-tall about him. Onliest thing is, they say he’s one of them mountain men. Up in Montana, he is.”
“Hey, let’s ask them two,” Ned suggested. “They look like they’re mountain men. Leastwise, the older feller looks like that.”
“I wouldn’t be gettin’ them two men riled up if I was you,” the bartender said. “Don’t you boys know who they are?”
“Nope, ain’t never seen neither one of ’em,” Pete said. “They ever been in here before?”
“Oh, yeah, they been in here before. They stopped in here a week or so ago on their way to Big Rock. The young one has him a ranch there. The other ’n is pure mountain man, lives in the High Lonesome all by his ownself.”
“That means you know them then, so who are they?” Pete asked.
“Well, sir, the young one there is Smoke Jensen,” the bartender said.
“Smoke Jensen? Wait a minute! Are you talkin’ about the gunfighter Smoke Jensen? The one that kilt Fast Lennie Moore a month or so back?” Pete asked.
“Yeah, that’s who I’m talkin’ about.”
“Fast Lennie was supposed to be the fastest there was, couldn’t nobody hold a candle to him, they said. But from what I heard, Fast Lennie started his draw first, and Smoke still beat him.”
“That’s true,” the bartender said.
“But you just said he has a ranch near Big Rock,” Ned said.
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