Canaan

by Donald McCaig

  THEY MADE TWELVE MILES that first afternoon. Whenever a mule pack slipped, that mule was left behind with two troopers: one to repack it, the other to stand nervous guard. The regiment straggled into bivouac beside the Rosebud: a shallow alkaline stream the horses didn’t like to drink.

  As campfires flickered into life and soldiers scooped bitter water into their cook pots, the officers, chief of scouts, and interpreter waited outside the Commander’s tent waving away smoke from a fire his orderly had built from green wood. Firelight, shadows, and smoke illuminated and obscured their faces.

  The Commander had spewed energy like a lightning storm, sucking ordinary mortals into the rush of his passage. He had never, not in anyone’s memory, consulted his officers.

  Tonight an ordinary, slight, balding, sunburned man sat on a camp stool staring into the fire. He said, “I’ve always been fortunate with my officers. You’ve always done more than my bidding, more than I ever dared to hope. No one has ever had braver companions. Gentlemen, I am counting on you.”

  Captain Keogh shifted from one foot to the other. Captain Benteen may have sighed.

  Henceforth the pack mules would travel at the rear. There’d be no more bugle calls. “I expect to meet fifteen hundred indians. If the Seventh can’t whip them”—this slight man shrugged—“who can?”

  He was silent for so long, Lieutenant Sturgis knelt and poked the fire into a sturdier blaze.

  “Brisbin wanted to give me four more companies.” The Commander chuckled. “Can you imagine the jealousies . . . ?”

  “Jealousies”: that word whirled away in the smoke.

  He shrugged. “Four more companies wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.”

  An officer coughed. Captain Benteen took a cigar from his case and inspected it thoughtfully.

  When the Commander rose, he peered around brightly as a curious swallow. “We’ll follow them wherever they go. All the way to Nebraska, if need be. By God, gentlemen, we may be eating horseflesh before this is over!”

  When the wind shifted, he turned his back to the smoke. So softly they strained to hear, he said, “I’d appreciate any suggestions you gentlemen might have. Any suggestions at all.”

  After some time the officers understood he was finished and they dispersed. Captain Keogh crossed himself.

  At three A.M., pickets shook sleepers awake and by daybreak the long column of men, horses, and mules were toiling up the Rosebud.

  Just past noon, the lead scouts struck the tremendous lodge trail Reno had discovered.

  The Commander told Shillaber Major Reno had missed his chance. Reno could have hit the Lakota village six days ago.

  Shillaber said, “We’re soldiers, sir. They’re warriors. Let a warrior get close enough to grab hold of you, and he’ll tear your arms off and beat you to death with them.”

  The Commander smiled distantly. “Like you rebels did?”

  Tiny wild roses blossomed beside the sparkling bitter river.

  The column halted three times to let the mule train catch up while the restless Commander rode ahead with Shillaber and the scouts. The regiment traveled more than thirty rough country miles that day and the last bands of a spectacular western sunset were fading when they called it quits. Their bivouac had been grazed bare by the indian ponies they were following. Some troopers gave their horses handfuls of dried corn, others jerked their saddles off and lay down to sleep. No fires. The night was lit by the brilliant arc of the Milky Way.

  Kellogg whispered, “You asleep, Top?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ever wonder if anyone lives up there, if there’s other earths? Maybe they’re lookin’ down at us wonderin’ like I’m wonderin’.”

  “This is Dakota, Kellogg. Dakota’ll answer all your damn questions.”

  “I’ll be so happy to see my daughters again.”

  “Shut up.”

  THE NEXT DAY they rode twenty-five miles. Fresher trails merged with and swelled the trail they were following. When they bivouacked that night the troopers didn’t unpack the mules and most didn’t feed or unsaddle their horses.

  The tireless Shillaber and his indian scouts went on ahead.

  Just before midnight Shillaber returned to wake the Commander. The indian trail crossed the divide into the valley of the Little Bighorn. The trail was fresh.

  The Commander looked at Shillaber blank-eyed for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “Wake my officers.”

  Officers rubbed their eyes and yawned as they got their orders. The regiment would be at the divide before dawn and attack the village in the morning. “Mr. Shillaber, you will ride ahead and find them. Questions, gentlemen?”

  “How the hell . . .” Benteen shook his head and shut his mouth.

  A thin slice of moon rose while troopers collected their horses and brand-new mule skinners untied hobbles. It was an hour before the column was moving again.

  The trail climbed sharply, zigzagging across a narrow creek that tumbled from ledge to ledge. The troopers walked single file, leading their horses and mules. The lead horses’ dust obliterated the scant moon and the trail under their feet. Troopers clung to the tail of the horse ahead. Others followed the tink, tink tink of noncoms banging tin cups against their saddle brass. When a trooper misstepped, he and his mount slid off the bank into the creek. Mules brayed. Men said, “God Damn it to hell!” and “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”

  Riding well ahead of the dust, the Commander asked Top, “You lived with them, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “My wife, she was a—”

  The Commander’s hand abruptly dismissed the subject. “No matter. That’s your affair. You have seen lodge trails before. What is their strength?”

  “Twenty, twenty-five hundred warriors. Maybe more.”

  When the Commander stopped, behind him Martino stopped too, as did the next man and the next, and curses rose from the dust cloud. “Two thousand? That’s impossible. We haven’t been following that many lodges.”

  “So. You reckon this is their only trail?”

  The Commander grunted and spurred Vic up a stretch of gravelly scree. On the level again, he waited for Top to catch up “You have a soldier’s bearing.”

  Top ran his tongue over his cracked lips. “Just another hincty nigger.”

  The Commander waited for more. Absent satisfaction, he resumed the climb. A sweat stripe divided the back of his buckskin shirt.

  Daybreak found the regiment, after ten miles of stumbling progress, on a dusty plateau short of the summit. When the halt was finally called, nobody unsaddled and some didn’t bother to loosen their girth straps. Those horses and mules led to the creek wouldn’t drink from it.

  Waiting with his scouts in an indian lookout on the summit, Shillaber watched the smoke rise from the regiment’s cookfires. “Yellow Hair must think the Lakota are blind.”

  Bloody Knife grunted. “Deaf too.”

  The vista at their feet was partly timbered rocky slopes descending into a broad valley, perhaps thirty miles long. At the far end of the valley they could see something. Was it fog? Smoke?

  At the base of the fog/smoke they thought they saw a faint shimmer, a shimmer like ten thousand maggots on a four-day-old corpse, a shimmer like maybe the biggest pony herd on earth.

  Unlike the grown-ups, Tazoo hadn’t danced half the night, so she was up early the next morning. She pulled on her dress and went outside, barefoot. Behind the lodge, she squatted to pee.

  An old Big Belly hobbled down the street. When he felt Tazoo’s eyes on him, he straightened and pretended he was still young. Tazoo giggled as she wiped herself with a handful of grass.

  Ever since she could remember she’d lived at the Agency among indian children whose parents were scouts or interpreters for the Washitu. Yesterday evening, when Tazoo and her mother passed through the villages, Tazoo saw some indians she knew from the Agency, but they looked different here: as if
they’d been sick but now they were well.

  Tazoo did not make friends easily but thought that here, where there were so many girls her age, she might make friends.

  Fires were smoldering outside the sweat lodges and glistening, naked men emerged from the low wickiups to dive into the chilly river.

  Tazoo’s mother was so sad. Tazoo did everything her mother asked and was as cheerful as a girl could be, but her mother’s sorrow never lifted.

  Others were stirring. Thick smoke exited smoke flaps and settled to the ground. Tazoo’s eyes watered and she wiped her nose on her sleeve. She shaded her eyes against the rising sun. Joking hunters started for the pony herd to catch their mounts. Three women were stretching a blackhorn hide on a fletching frame. The youngest was big with child. She said, “Little girl, where is your lodge? Who is your mother?”

  Tazoo pointed. The woman groaned and put her hand in the small of her back and bent backward and gave no more thought to Tazoo.

  Two boys were playing a game with a basket hoop and rabbit arrows. One would roll the hoop while the other shot through it. An older boy addressed Tazoo. He said he was Bird in the Ground and Tazoo told him her name. Bird in the Ground was a Sans Arc. He told her the Sans Arc got their name many years ago when a powerful wican dreamed they could conquer the Rees if they left their bows behind. The Rees slaughtered them and that was how they got their name. Tazoo said she had never known a Sans Arc before. Bird in the Ground had known many Oglala.

  “I am Santee,” she corrected him sharply. “White Bull is my uncle.”

  When Tazoo’s belly growled, she pretended she hadn’t heard. When Bird in the Ground patted her stomach where it had growled, both children giggled.

  When Tazoo returned to White Bull’s lodge, he and Rattling Blanket Woman were still asleep, but her mother reached out to her and took her into her arms.

  THE COMMANDER SAID, “I’ve got as good eyes as anyone and I don’t see any village, indians, or anything else.”

  “Well, General,” Shillaber said, “if you don’t find more indians in that village than you ever saw together, you can hang me.”

  Snapping his spyglass closed, the Commander said, “It would do a damned sight of good to hang you, wouldn’t it?”

  By ten-thirty when Captain Benteen’s lead company crossed the divide, the sun was well up. It was going to be a scorcher.

  The scouts thought the Lakota must have spotted their smoke. A trooper who’d lost his coat backtracked their trail and found indians digging through a discarded pack.

  The Commander said they would press on lest the main body escape.

  Autie Reed and Boston Custer trotted past Top. Young Autie was wondering if the Commander might take them on his triumphal tour after he whipped the redskins.

  “You bet, ” the older youth assured him. “Who’s gonna guard his prisoners? Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are slicker’n grease. They’ll want plenty of watching.”

  Top’s gut was hollow as a drum. Why should he warn these boys? Who were they to him?

  Unexpected relief, cool and blissful, washed over him and he straightened in his saddle. Maybe from here on out, old Top wouldn’t give a good God Damn.

  The Commander made swift depositions. Major Reno would command three companies, Captain MacDougall and one company would stay with the pack train. Captain Benteen would lead three companies to investigate the bluffs across the valley.

  Five companies and most of the scouts would accompany the Commander. When Keogh asked Benteen where he was going, the burly captain shrugged. “I’m going to drive everything before me.”

  The sun was just past midway in the sky when our scouts galloped into the village. Village criers ran down the streets shouting, “Many Seizers are coming. They are not coming to talk. They are not carrying white flags. They are coming to attack us.”

  Tazoo and Rattling Blanket Woman were on the riverbank digging camas root.

  When Rattling Blanket Woman heard the criers, she dropped her digging stick and the roots she had dug. Tazoo bent for them, but her hand was jerked and then she was running faster than she ever had in her life, her feet only sometimes touching the ground.

  Some warriors ran for their war ponies, others for the council lodge. Warriors galloped down the street dismounting on the fly, tossing their reins to anyone while they armed themselves.

  All was confusion. Nobody seemed to know where to go or what to do. Tazoo felt as if her arm were being pulled out of its socket. “Auntie, Auntie!” she sobbed.

  Nobody was at White Bull’s lodge. Rattling Blanket Woman let go of Tazoo’s hand. As if sharing a secret, Rattling Blanket Woman whispered, “The Seizers are coming to kill us.”

  IT MIGHT HAVE been any hot, dirty afternoon. As they came off the divide, dust whitened their horses’ manes and blackened the sweat streaks on the horses’ necks, pasterns, and rumps. Weary men thought stupid thoughts.

  Beside his chief of scouts and interpreter, the Commander led the straggling column. The mule train was miles behind.

  They trotted down jack-pine lined slopes into a green valley beside a clear creek, but they didn’t stop to water their horses. Thirsty troopers jerked their horses’ bits savagely when they tried to drink.

  Twelve miles on, they found a Lakota burial lodge, all buttoned up. When a trooper opened the flap, he backed out, gagging. “Jesus. Oh, Jesus!”

  Holding his nose, Autie Reed darted inside for the dead man’s beaded moccasins, but outside again he hurled the stinking things as far as he could. Tom Custer grinned at the red-faced youth. “Bet you thought indian fighting was glorious?”

  The scouts were setting the lodge afire.

  “Cooked his goose.” Tom Custer laughed.

  Just ahead, Shillaber was standing in his stirrups and waving his hat. He pointed at a retreating dust cloud: thirty indians, forty maybe.

  “Decoys?” Top suggested.

  “They’ll warn the village,” the Commander said.

  The Seventh Cavalry broke into a gallop, Reno and his companies on one side of the brook, the Commander, his companies, and his family on the other.

  Top’s sweat-sticky leather saddle clung to his pants on the rise and slammed his spine on the fall.

  Horses foundered. A corporal rode his collapsing steed to the ground, rolled free, and crawled around the animal, screaming at it.

  The Commander’s courier splashed across to Major Reno. “The indians are two and a half miles ahead. Follow them and we will support you.”

  While Reno’s command charged down the valley, his indian scouts rode far ahead, hoping to steal a few ponies before the fighting began.

  The Commander’s detachment turned to the right and climbed the steep bluffs which overlooked the valley. It was a little after two in the afternoon, June the twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and seventy-six.

  I looked everywhere for Tazoo. Warriors, women, and children appeared and disappeared in the choking dust. Crying, “Hoka hey,” warriors flung themselves onto their horses. I ran toward the firing. When wind dispersed the dust cloud, I saw three Ariskas—Seizer scouts—shooting into Chief Gall’s lodge. Chief Gall’s enraged roar was louder than their gunshots.

  In a line Seizers rode down the valley toward our village. Their buttons flashed. Dust billowed from their horses’ hooves. They were shooting as they rode.

  Warriors came forth to meet them. All at once the Seizers stopped and dismounted, except two who couldn’t hold their horses and galloped into the Hunkpapas. One passed by me. He had voided himself in his fear and his stench lingered after hands pulled him from his horse and ended his fear.

  A boy ran from the pony herd toward us and bullets pocked all around him as the Seizers tried to bring him down.

  Eagle-bone war whistles trilled.

  Where was my Tazoo? Where was Rattling Blanket Woman?

  Chief Gall was so big his feet almost touched the ground under his pony. The Seizers’ scouts had killed his wife and two c
hildren and his heart was bad. Gall led warriors around the dismounted Seizers’ flank.

  In the Oglala village, Crazy Horse was painting a blood-purple hand on his horse’s left hip. After he prepared himself, Crazy Horse would be ready to die.

  The Seizers jumped back on their horses and fled into the timber. Whipping his warriors with his quirt, Chief Gall tried to overtake them. The Seizers stayed in the timber only a little while before they fled again. The riverbank was high, but the Seizers jumped down the bank anyway. Gall and his warriors pulled many Seizers off their horses and killed them. The Seizers who escaped Gall scurried up the bluffs on the far bank like frightened mice.

  A Seizer’s blue cap floated down the river and hung up on a snag. A Brulé boy called Brown Leggings waded out for it.

  A few minutes later, Brown Leggings’s uncle brought a pony and rifle for the boy. When the boy got on the pony, his mother grabbed his arm and dragged him off. “You are too young to be a warrior,” she sobbed. “It is not your day to die.”

  THE COMMANDER’S STAFF paused on a rise behind the bluffs which dropped away steeply to the river. The troopers dismounted. The horses hung their heads, too weary to graze.

  The Commander waved his hat and cried, “Courage, boys. We will get them.”

  But nobody was looking at him.

  Kellogg whispered, “Jesus Christ. Will you get a look at that.”

  The indian village stretched for miles. It was bigger than Duluth, bigger than Bismarck, bigger than any white city in the Dakotas. “Mercy,” Top said.

  Tom Custer sent a courier to fetch Benteen.

  Below them, indian women and children were scattering like alarmed prairie hens.

  Bright bugle calls announced Major Reno’s attack as cavalrymen charged down the valley. Up here, their gunfire sounded like firecrackers.

  A dust cloud rose from the village, obscuring lodges, horses, and indians.

  “Reno’s kicked up a hornet’s nest.” Top’s observation earned Tom Custer’s frown.