Blood Bond

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes. For the first time in my life I truly do not feel like an Indian. It is very distressing to me, Brother. I want to go to the Rosebuds to see if my father is there. But I have been forbidden by him to do that. I feel like a traitor going to see the Army. But Medicine Horse ordered me to fully adopt the white side of me. So if I am to do that, I must think and act like a white man. It is very confusing.”

  They rode in silence for a time, crossing a flat and fording a small creek. As they rode up the bank, they came close to a band of Cheyenne, led by a sub-chief named Strong Bull.

  The Cheyenne braves all lifted their hands, shielding their eyes from Bodine and Two Wolves. As they drew nearer, the Cheyenne turned their ponies, refusing to look at the blood brothers. Angry, Two Wolves reined up.

  “Why do you treat me this way, Strong Bull? Have I not always been your friend? Have I not shared your food as you have shared mine. Am I not still the same person that I have always been?”

  Strong Bull waved his band forward and rode away, without saying a word.

  “Damnit!” Bodine spat the word. “They’ve left the reservation to join the Sioux.”

  “That means my father has joined Gall and the others in the Rosebuds. He is going to fight.”

  “I don’t believe that!”

  Two Wolves’ words were sad as they left his mouth. “Bodine is forgetting that Medicine Horse is still a great and powerful warrior of the Cheyenne. I knew it would come to this. My father was shamed. For years we lived in peace with the whites, on land given us by the government. To save his people, Medicine Horse agreed to be shifted to new lands, allowing humiliation to be heaped on his head. He has left the bulk of our people on the new lands, and brought only the older warriors like Strong Bull with him to the Rosebuds. Chiefs, sub-chiefs, shamans, and war chiefs. They are going to die, Bodine. That is the only way they can save face.”

  Bodine slumped in the saddle. “Then . . . there is nothing we can do.”

  “Nothing.”

  But Bodine did not like the look in Two Wolves’ eyes. “What are you thinking, Brother?”

  “Things that are of interest to me alone, Brother.” He rode past Bodine to take the lead.

  But Bodine was not to be put off that easily. He cantered to Two Wolves’ side. “You know in your heart that the Indians cannot win. Your father did the right thing by ordering you to adopt the white man’s ways. You know that the words I speak are true ones.”

  “I know only that at this moment I am confused. And your talking is an irritant I can do without.”

  “Do you want to go to the mountain, Brother?”

  Two Wolves reined up. Looked at Bodine. “Yes.”

  “Then go. I’ll be back in three or four days. Meet me at the creek where we saw Strong Bull.”

  Two Wolves stared at Bodine for a very long moment. “And if I don’t?” There was clear defiance both in the question and in his eyes.

  “What are you trying to get me to say, Brother? I meant only that I would meet you at the crossing. Nothing more.”

  “You might never see me again, Bodine. Except on the field of battle.”

  “Don’t be a damn fool!” Bodine lashed out at him. “You could no more kill a soldier than I could. So stop being so goddamned noble.”

  “Are you saying that I am doing this to be a martyr?”

  “Of course. Damnit, Brother, the ways of the wild are going and soon they will be gone. When are you going to realize that?”

  “These words are coming from the mouth of a gunfighter?” he questioned sarcastically.

  The question shocked Bodine. “Sam . . . you can go right straight to hell!”

  Bodine turned Rowdy’s head and galloped off.

  Chapter 26

  Bodine did not expect his brother to follow him, and Two Wolves did not. Bodine camped alone that night just south of Pyramid Butte. His sleep was restless, his dreams troubled ones, visionary in content: of great battles in which the Army was slaughtered, cut down by thousands of Indians. He dreamed it over and over again, until finally, long before dawn, he was up and drinking strong coffee. First light found him on the lonely and silent trail, working his way north, and at noon, he rode into the garrison.

  Lieutenant Gerry walked toward him as he was stabling Rowdy. Bodine greeted him and asked, “How’s the arm?”

  “Oh, I’m fit as a fiddle. Good to see you. What brings you this far into hostile country?”

  “I’ve got to see Colonel Travers.”

  “I’m sure he’ll see you immediately. You heard about Tom Thomas and Terri?”

  “Yes. And about what they’re doing along the Yellowstone.”

  “They didn’t escape from our custody, thank God. U.S. Marshals had picked them up and were transporting them to Nebraska to stand trial when Walker and some other men hit the wagon.”

  “They’re definitely at the settlement on the Yellowstone?”

  They talked as they walked to the CO’s office.

  “Yes. But it’s a civilian matter, Bodine. We can become involved only if the territorial governor requests our assistance.”

  “I’m not faulting, Gerry. You don’t have the men to go looking for outlaws.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way. There are many who don’t. Here we are. Let’s see if the colonel is busy.”

  Travers waved Bodine in and to a chair. “You stay, Lieutenant.” He sat down behind his desk and looked at Bodine. “What’s on your mind, Bodine?”

  Bodine could detect something in the colonel’s eyes and tone of voice that gave him a precognition about the outcome of this meeting. The colonel probably knew that a major push was being planned over at Fort Abe Lincoln, Dakota Territory, and he wasn’t going to be very receptive to anything Bodine said about the Indians.

  “Not going to be a friendly meeting, huh, Colonel?”

  “We’ll talk about the pleasant weather, Bodine. I’ll ask how your herds look and the health of your family and so on and so forth. We’ll keep it light.”

  “I didn’t ride three days for chit-chat, Colonel.”

  Travers leaned back in his chair. He lit a cigar and smoked it for a moment, keeping his eyes on Bodine all the while. “All right, Bodine. But I cannot discuss military matters with you.”

  Bodine smiled. “Why not? The Indians already know that Custer and the Seventh Cavalry are leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln in mid-May to lead an assault against them on their hunting grounds in the Rosebuds.”

  Travers almost jumped out of his boots. His cigar fell out of his suddenly-opened mouth and he frantically brushed sparks from his tunic. “Goddamnit!” he roared, slamming his hand down on his desk. “That was one of the best-kept secrets of this entire campaign!”

  Lieutenant Gerry looked awfully uncomfortable under the colonel’s outburst.

  Bodine simply shrugged his shoulders. “Not anymore, it isn’t.”

  “I demand to know where you got that information, Bodine!”

  “I got it from an Indian who goes by the name of Mohk sta wo ums’ts.” Which was Northern Cheyenne for Starving Elk. Bodine also knew that the colonel did not know a word of the nearly incomprehensible-to-the-white man Cheyenne language and would have no idea whether Bodine was lying or not.

  Travers picked up a pen and dipped it into an inkwell. “How do you spell that?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Bodine told him honestly.

  Travers sighed and put down his pen. “All right, all right, Bodine. But you better keep your mouth shut about this upcoming campaign. And that is not a threat from me, by the way. Just a friendly piece of advice.”

  “I’ll take it as such. Stay out of the Rosebuds, Colonel. And that is not a threat from me. Just a friendly piece of advice that might save your life.”

  “What do you know that I need to know, Bodine?”

  “The Army is going to lose.”

  Travers stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. He wound down to a chuckle and then too
k a linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Thanks, Bodine. I needed a good laugh.” He pointed a finger at Bodine. “Now you listen to me, young man: the Army is not going to lose. Custer is probably the best Indian fighter on the frontier. Now tell me, why do you think we’re going to lose?”

  Here goes nothing, Bodine thought. “Visions, Colonel. Visions in the minds of many people, all of them the same. Including a vision of mine.”

  Gerry laughed and so did Travers. Bodine had expected that reaction and maintained a straight face.

  “Indian hoo-doo, Bodine. Do you actually expect me to act on your dreams?”

  “No. But I had to tell you. My conscience is clear. I tried.”

  Travers waved that away, signaling the topic was concluded. “Where is Two Wolves?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you said everything you came here to say, Bodine?”

  “I suppose.”

  Travers stood up. The meeting was over.

  * * *

  Two Wolves was not at the crossing when Bodine arrived at the creek, nor was there any sign he had been there. Bodine rested for a time at the creek, allowing Rowdy to drink and graze. He stood for a time, looking toward the west. The Rosebuds were a half a day’s ride away, but Bodine knew better than to ride there. He had been warned, and warned fairly, to stay out.

  He built a small fire and made coffee, then rolled a cigarette and thought about his options. He had done his duty as an American citizen by trying to warn Colonel Travers at the fort. He could do no more than that. What he should do, he knew, was go on back to his spread and forget it. Let what he was sure in his mind was going to take place in the Rosebuds happen.

  But he didn’t want to return home; he was too restless for that. Bodine had four very capable hands working for him, so the ranch was in good shape. It was just a little early to start pushing the cattle up onto new graze.

  However, he knew very well that he was behaving foolishly by staying out here by himself. If the Ghost Dancing had begun, the blood might become so hot among the braves that they could easily kill him before they knew who he was.

  And who he was just might not make any difference anymore.

  His thoughts turned to Two Wolves. Just how far did his responsibility toward his brother go? Two Wolves was a grown man, not a child. If he had made up his mind to disobey his father and return to the Indian way . . . so be it. Bodine had no right to interfere.

  With a sigh, Bodine carefully put out his small fire and saddled up. He would go home. He had done all that he could do.

  * * *

  March drifted into April, and April moved with warm days and cool to sometimes downright cold nights into early May. Bodine had neither seen nor heard from Two Wolves. He had stayed close to his ranch, making sure all the work was caught up.

  Bodine was getting very restless toward the middle of the month. Rowdy was about to tear down the barn with his antics, telling Bodine he was tired of all this lollygagging about. The big stallion was ready to once more hit the trail, and it’d better be damn soon.

  On May 16th, 1876, Bodine saddled Rowdy, stopped by to tell his parents he’d see them when he got back, and headed for the spirit mountain.

  On May 17, 1876, on a foggy dawn some 425 miles east of the Rosebuds, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer took his position at the head of the column just as the Army band struck up Custer’s favorite battle tune: the stirring “Garryowen.” As the column pulled out, the band slipped into the emotionally touching “The Girl I Left Behind Me” as the wives and girlfriends stood in doorways and waved goodbye to the men.

  Some twenty-six of the women were seeing their husbands for the last time; Elizabeth Custer, who would accompany her husband and the two-mile-long column during the first day of the march, was uneasy. She felt she was seeing her husband for the last time. As the sun’s new dawning played over the long column, she felt she was witnessing a mirage of specter-like mounted horsemen, ghost-riders moving upward into the sky.

  At that same moment, far to the west, Sitting Bull, leader and medicine man of seven bands of Lakota Sioux, was experiencing the same vision he had seen months before—that of many soldiers falling upside down into an Indian camp.

  “Yellow Hair comes,” Sitting Bull announced.

  * * *

  Bodine sat up in his blankets, shaking and drenched with sweat from his terrible dreams. He had witnessed in his mind a bloody, terrible massacre; a wholesale slaughter of Army troops.

  Bodine stripped and jumped naked into a creek, the shockingly cold water cleansing his body and calming his mind. He dressed and made coffee, then cooked a breakfast of bacon and potatoes. But his mind would not erase the horrible dreams he had experienced.

  Something monumental was taking place this day. But what? Then it came to him. It had to be: Custer had left Fort Abe Lincoln over in the Dakotas with his cavalry regiment, his infantry, and his artillery.

  Bodine relaxed a bit as he ate his breakfast. It would take Custer a good thirty to forty hard days to complete the march to the Rosebuds. He had plenty of time to find Two Wolves and talk some sense into him. Or knock some sense in him, whichever the case might call for.

  Bodine sopped up the grease in the pan with a hunk of bread, ate that, then drank the last of the pot of coffee. He saddled up and continued his searching for his blood brother.

  He would go first to the spirit mountain; but he had a hunch his brother had left the mountain. To where, Bodine had not a clue. But he would find him. He had time. That’s what he kept telling himself.

  He searched the mountain, finding signs of where his brother had camped; finding a crude spirit lodge Two Wolves had built, where he had fasted, seeking guidance in visions. Two Wolves had shifted locations many times over the months, always staying on the mountain. But Bodine could find no recent sign of him.

  Bodine stayed on the mountain for five days, until he was nearly out of supplies and he had convinced his mind that Two Wolves was gone.

  Bodine left the mountain and headed north, working his way toward the Yellowstone.

  He stopped at a newly-founded little four-building town on the Rosebud River. The people in the town would be gone in less than a year, all traces of the buildings gone in a few more years.

  Bodine resupplied and was just lifting a glass of beer to his mouth when he heard the horses coming. He noticed the quick fear that jumped into the store owner’s eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” Bodine asked.

  “They come for their due,” the man told him.

  “Due? What are you talking about, man. Who’s coming here?”

  “Don’t say nothin’, mister,” he warned Bodine. “Them’s mighty mean people. That’s some of Tom Thomas’s bunch. They collect fees from us ever’ month for protection from the Injuns.”

  “And you pay them?”

  “Got to pay ’em, mister. Them that don’t gets burnt out or worse. Wimmin has been taken off. Ain’t never seen ’em since. You just don’t say nothin’. I’m tellin’ you, keep your mouth shut and live.”

  Bodine set the glass of beer down on the rough counter and dropped his hands to his Colts. “You tell them that you just sold this place to me, mister. That you’re working for me now. You do that.”

  “You’re crazy, man! They’d kill you. That bunch is meaner than a sack full of snakes.”

  Bodine met the scared eyes. “You want to get clear of this bunch?”

  “Hell, yes!”

  “Then you do what I tell you to do. And when the shooting starts, you hit the floor.”

  “I don’t need to be told that twice, mister. I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll read over your grave personal. Even if you are a crazy man. You got a favorite passage from the Good Book?”

  When Bodine did not reply, the man asked, “You got a name, mister?”

  “Bodine.”

  “Oh, Lordy!” the man moaned, just as the door was pushed open.

&
nbsp; Chapter 27

  Bodine had seen six men ride into town. If the other four were as ugly as the two who stepped into the store, they could all make a living haunting old houses.

  One of the two glared at Bodine. He jerked a thumb toward the door. “You—out!”

  Bodine told him where he could put his order—five words plus a very ugly comment concerning the man’s ancestry.

  The extortionist looked at Bodine, disbelief in his eyes. “What the hell did you say, cowboy?”

  Bodine repeated his original suggestion.

  The ugly man spread his boot on the rough plank floor and dropped his hands to his sides. “Nobody calls me that and lives.”

  “I just called you that and I’m still alive,” Bodine told him.

  “Not for long, you ain’t!” The man grabbed for iron.

  Bodine put two holes in the man’s chest before ugly’s hands even touched the butts of his guns. The second man was just clearing leather as Bodine’s slugs tore into his body, knocking him backward out the warped door and into the muddy street.

  Without looking back, Bodine ran out the back of the general store to where he had tied Rowdy and jerked his Winchester from the saddle boot, levering a round into the chamber. He ran up to the end of the four-building town and peeked around the corner of the last building. A man with both hands full of guns and a face full of pure ugly was walking up the boardwalk.

  Bodine stepped out and shot him in the belly with the rifle, the .44 slug doubling him over and dropping him to his knees.

  A slug from the only building on the other side of the street, the barn, knocked a chunk of pine from the facing and sent splinters into Bodine’s face. Bodine ran back to the rear of the buildings and ducked into the back door of a home. The lady of the house was standing by a slant-backed bathtub in the kitchen, full of hot water. She didn’t have a stitch on. She didn’t exactly brighten Bodine’s day, either. He couldn’t remember ever seeing so many ugly people in one place.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, doffing his hat with his left hand and running on through the house, stopping in the parlor.

  “Come back anytime!” she called after him.