Wolf Mountain Moon

by Terry C. Johnston

  Following a grueling struggle, the little party finally reached the headwaters at the east fork of Suicide Creek. From there they trudged through the icy, crusty snow until they reached the divide and looked down on the valley of the Tongue. Far away, where they had expected they would find the village, they saw no lodges. But there was smoke rising from the distant trees, farther down the Tongue.

  “I do not believe our people would move their camp such a short distance downriver,” Big Horse warned from atop his pony. “It could be soldiers come looking for camps in the snow again.” For a moment his eyes gazed at the boy, Black Horse. “Go on down this creek—but be careful, and watchful. I will go see whose smoke that is in the distance and return for you.”

  Old Wool Woman and young Black Horse watched the warrior move off into the wind and snow that swirled along the ground. In moments he was gone among the cold fog and clumps of cedar.

  Sighing, she set off again at the head of the march, breaking snow for the rest of those who followed. The boy waited for the rest to pass, then protectively took up the rear of their march. Although this was her fifty-fourth winter, Old Wool Woman was nonetheless as strong as Fingers Woman and even Twin Woman, the widow of Lame White Man, who had been killed in the fight beside the Little Sheep River.*

  Both of them were still young enough to be strong in body, but their will had never been tested the way Old Wool Woman had been tested in her life.

  She remembered the taste of this wind—like laying her tongue on a piece of the ve-ho-e’s steel when the temperature plummeted. So sharp the metallic taste. So cold, it was hard to pull her tongue from the barrel of a pistol or the blade of the knife. So cold and so hard that her tongue kept the taste of that steel on it for a long time afterward. It had been that way when Black White Man had first come to live with the Ohmeseheso—when she and he were both children.

  Many, many winters ago.

  Almost as cold then as it was this day. So long ago that it was a time of few ve-ho-e, very few. What white men there were came to trap the flat-tails in the streams, or trade furs from the wandering bands of the northern plains. It was a time before those light-eyed creatures from the east pushed hard against the land and the herds and the migrating bands.

  She was called Sweet Taste Woman back then. When the men came back from trading buffalo robes and fine furs to the ve-ho-e, often they brought small pouches of the white grains that were so sweet on her tongue, they made her mouth tickle, made Sweet Taste Woman giggle. She was so young then, less than eight winters—now remembering how on one journey the warriors had brought back not just iron kettles and bolts of cloth, not just powder and lead and sugar … but in front of one of the war chiefs sat a strange creature. The whole village came out to gawk and whisper, some daring to inch close enough to touch the creature once the war chief dropped to the ground with the little dark person still wriggling in his arms.

  How wide and filled with fear were the child’s eyes back then as he looked around at all the Ohmeseheso who crowded about him. Finally one old man licked a finger and rubbed it hard across the creature’s cheek. But the child’s black paint would not wipe off!

  “We stole him,” the war chief announced. “I saw him at the log lodges where we went to trade. There was a grown-tall person with skin as black as this. But I wanted this little one for my adopted son.”

  He was thin and gangly, with strange pink palms and pink on the soles of his bare feet, but he learned quickly how to speak the People’s tongue, quickly adopting the People’s ways. And before long he went on his first pony raid. Then off for scalps against the Ooetaneo-o.*

  Moons and seasons and winters passed, and soon this boy they had been calling Little Black White Man was called only Black White Man.

  He had come of age, and grown all the more handsome to the eyes and heart of Sweet Taste Woman. She had hoped the look in her eyes would tell him how much she wished him to come to her parents’ lodge with his blanket after dark that late spring night she would always remember.

  Spring ran into summer, and still he did not show … then finally one night she sat there beside the fire with her father and mother, with her younger sisters and brothers—and they all heard the flute. She remembered now as they struggled through gusts of cold breath from Winter Man’s nostrils how she had closed her eyes and prayed that it would be Black White Man who was playing the flute for her outside their lodge door.

  Sweet Taste Woman’s father barely lifted the door flap and peeked out. Then he quietly let the door flap back down and went back to looking at the fire without saying a word. Only the crackle of the flames along the dry-split cottonwood in that quiet lodge … and the sound of that flute.

  Finally her father looked at Sweet Taste Woman and spoke.

  “I think there is a young man outside our door, playing his song for you. He is a good man and will make a fine husband for you. Go see if he truly wants to make you his wife.”

  For a moment she wanted to cry out, to ask who it was before she went out and made a fool of herself before the wrong young man. Instead she bit her lip and felt the tremble grow inside her until she could not move.

  “Go ahead,” she remembered her father saying gruffly, though his eyes twinkled with merriment. “He is a brave young man. I do not think he is a very rich young man with many fine ponies to bring us, but I am certain that one is brave enough to stand and play his flute all night long if you do not go out now to be with him, Sweet Taste Woman. Yes, I think he is bull-headed enough to stay until he gets what he wants. Go see to him so he will stop playing, because you know how I don’t like to have my sleep disturbed. Go, daughter.”

  Sweet Taste Woman turned quickly now as she heard one of the young girls whimper behind her on the side of the hill where there was little shelter from the harsh wind. She motioned the child, Crane Woman, to her side, where Old Wool Woman put the girl beneath her arm, wrapping her there beneath the edge of her old blanket—so they could share their warmth. In that way they walked on, seeking the Crazy Horse camp where their relatives were staying this winter after the terrible battle with Three Finger’s soldiers in the Red Fork Canyon.

  Her thoughts drifted back to that warm summer night … how she had bitten her tongue, held her breath, and moved through the door. She stood in the darkness, waiting, so scared she dared not look for the flute player at first, looking instead at the other lodges lit up like lanterns aglow, the cool night wind brushing her skin. When a part of the night moved toward her, she jumped back a step. Then Sweet Taste Woman saw his eyes shimmering like stars in that face so much like the summer night itself. Saw his teeth when he smiled as he took his flute from his lips.

  Black White Man held out his blanket, and she came within his arms. They stood there that spring night beside the door to her parents’ lodge, talking, feeling the warmth of each other’s closeness, listening to and sensing the gentle throb of each other’s hearts. Knowing that they would never be apart from that night on. How happy he had made her; he had given her many children and had become a strong and respected warrior of the Ohmeseheso.

  A warrior protecting what was most dear to him.

  So it was that despite his many winters, Black White Man had been one of the first to cut his way out of the frozen lodges when Three Finger’s soldiers attacked, sweeping up only his rifle and cartridge belt, turning quickly to lay his lips on hers before he gently ran his fingers down her wrinkled cheek where the tears were already spilling. Outside, the shouts of the enemy were drawing closer; already the gunshots echoed from the canyon walls.

  “I must go,” he whispered, his eyes crinkling.

  Sensing that this was to be their last parting, she had said nothing, knowing her heart clogged her throat—but held him quickly before she turned and stabbed her butcher knife into the stiffened hides at the back of the lodge, cutting a slash that she forced all the way to the ground. He took one finger and touched his lips, then laid it on her left breast, there ove
r her pounding heart.

  She closed her eyes, wondering how she would ever tell him what he had meant to her in their many seasons together—

  In a whirl Black White Man was gone through that slash she had cut in the buffalo hides of their home. The home where they had coupled, where they had given birth to their babes and raised their children, laughed and cried, and now were alone—just the two of them.

  Following his sturdy figure out through the slit in their lodge that morning, Sweet Taste Woman felt even more alone as she raced with the others up the coulee to the ridgetop where the women and children laid up rock upon rock for breastworks while the soldier trumpets blared far away across the snowy valley.

  Down below them a band of valiant warriors ran crouched and half-naked in the teeth of that cruel wind, scurrying into the mouth of a ravine until they stopped halfway to the side of the canyon. Turned. And waited. Then rose up and fired point-blank into the faces of the charging pony soldiers.

  When the surprise ambush at the ravine was over that terrible morning, there were many warriors who did not rise from the bloodied snow.

  She remembered how she had wanted to die in that valley with him. How so many times during the day she had wanted to leave the breastworks and go in search of her husband—so she could leave her body beside his. But as the sun fell on her people, the other women pulled her on up the side of the mountain, wrapped her in a shred of old blanket, and forced her to walk with them that long, horrid night when babies died and many of the old, sick ones asked to be left behind, left beside the bloody footprints they tracked in the snow.

  “You must be brave now—brave enough for both of us,” his eyes had told her that morning before he had gone through the back of the frozen lodge skins. They were the same words his voice kept saying in her ear that first long night without him. Oh, how his voice came to speak to her each day of their march until they found the Crazy Horse people, his words making her brave enough to keep going one more step. One more step.

  Yes, she had always been brave. But she was alone now. No longer was she Sweet Taste Woman, for she was no longer the wife of Black White Man. Others began to call her Old Wool Woman because of that shred of blanket she clutched around her shoulders, sheltering the children beneath it with her on that long march to the Hunkpatila camp.

  Old Wool Woman was she now.

  Stopping suddenly, she looked up, blinking her red-rimmed eyes into the icy lancets of blowing snow and wind that shoved her thin, frail body this way and that. Hoofbeats.

  Perhaps that meant they were close to the village now … oh, where was Big Horse? She did not know how long the little ones could take this weather. Rain, and icy hail, and more snow—

  Riders in front of them!

  Not warriors.

  “Aiyeee!” she croaked, trying to turn so quickly that little Crane Woman fell beside her, crying out.

  Old Wool Woman spotted young Black Horse lunging up through the deep snow, a warrior’s resolve chisled on his boyish face. Her throat tasting like bile, she managed to shriek, “Ve-ho-e! Run!”

  Suddenly there were horsemen on either side of them. And there was no place to run. She looked around her and realized that young Black Horse, the boy, was not there bringing up the rear. It was good! He or Big Horse would eventually find the village. One of them would tell their relatives they had been captured by the soldiers’ scouts.

  Then the Crazy Horse warriors and the Ohmeseheso men would come to rescue them.

  *The Belle Fourche River.

  †The Sacred Mountain of Bear Butte.

  *The Little Bighorn River.

  *Crow or Apsaalooke people.

  Chapter 26

  Hoop and Stick Moon 1877

  Big Horse became afraid as soon as he saw the first outlying pickets, then some of the wagons, and finally all those white soldiers in their camp. Not afraid for himself, but afraid for Old Wool Woman and the others. If there were soldiers in this country, then they would have their scouts prowling about.

  In going to see what the firesmoke was all about, Big Horse ended up wandering down in a maze of coulees, which caused him to go too far by the time he’d worked his way out to the high ground with the exhausted pony. Urging the animal back up to that high divide to the east of the Tongue River Valley, the Ohmeseheso warrior came to the skyline, then immediately dropped to his belly.

  Down below in all that snow lay a camp of soldiers.

  Now he slid backward, his heart in his throat. Big Horse remounted and stayed as hidden as he could, racing the pony back toward the place where he had left the women to continue on their own while he went to investigate the smoke. Too many heartbeats later he crossed their trail of footprints. Getting down, Big Horse looked closely. The tracks were theirs, both big and small, along with the two ponies with their drags, the whole party trudging ahead through the deep, crusty snow. He wheeled the pony to the right and hurried along their trail.

  But Big Horse hadn’t gone far—no more than two short ridges—before he reined up suddenly. Down the slope, three arrow-flights away, he spotted the women and children as they were surrounded by horsemen. Some of them looked to be Ooetaneoo-o, the Crow People, but not all. The way they moved, walked about, most of the riders had to be ve-ho-e scouts for the army. One of them waved his arms, and Big Horse saw Old Wool Woman tuck one of the children beside her and start walking away through the midst of the scouts. Knocked down into the snow by the enemy, young Black Horse scrambled to his feet, stood rooted defiantly a moment, then turned and moved off behind the others.

  Moving downriver toward the soldier camp!

  Wheeling the pony about again, Big Horse began to pray to the Four Sacred Persons as he took big gulps of the shockingly cold air, his heels pounding the pony’s ribs. Down the side of the ridge, up the slope of another, kicking up cascades of powdery snow, he raced the weary pony toward the Tongue River. Somewhere upstream he would find the village.

  The soldiers had camped down the Tongue.

  It was plain they had not yet reached the camp of the Crazy Horse Hunkpatila and the Ohmeseheso, wounded by unending warfare.

  Big Horse realized he must bring them word.

  The soldiers were coming!

  As they slowly encircled the women and children, Donegan realized that their prisoners had no idea they had been in any danger. Nor had these people really known where the village was located, much less that there were soldiers in the area. They had been moving along as if nothing but the horrid cold was of any concern to them.

  The first woman had her blanket pulled over her head as she helped a young child along beneath an arm. She led the rest, who stayed back with their two ponies, into the head of the coulee and started down its jagged path, a course that would eventually take her to the river. Seamus didn’t like the way the two Crow trackers were inching up on either side of the prisoners, talking privately among themselves. There was something not quite benign about the look on those trackers’ faces. He remembered how furious Miles had been after the Sioux peace delegates had been killed—

  “Leforge!” Kelly whispered sharply, waving an arm and ordering the squaw man over.

  The squaw man grumbled haughtily, “What do you want?”

  “You tell your Crow to stay back from these people. Got that?”

  “Stay back?” Leforge growled. “That may be hard. Maybeso those women are relatives of warriors who killed these boys’ relations in battle or raids—”

  “I don’t give a damn!” Kelly snapped. “They’re women and children.”

  “You heard him,” Donegan added. “Just keep them Crow back, and there won’t neither of ’em need to get hurt. I’ll just make you responsible.”

  “Me?”

  “One of them prisoners gets cut, gets shot—same’ll happen to you and your Crow,” Seamus snarled. “Count on it, Leforge. Count on it till your dying day.”

  Leforge’s eyes followed the Irishman’s mitten as Seamus’s hand w
ent to rest on the butt of one of the big pistols in the civilian’s belt. “What’s a few women to you, anyway? You planning on making one of ’em your blanket warmer tonight?”

  “G’won now!” Kelly ordered with an emphatic gesture of his arm. “Get up there and tell your Crow to stay back and not harm these—”

  “Don’t see why you two are so all-fired mad about nothing what’s happened,” Leforge said, shaking his head.

  Kelly urged his horse forward until it was directly opposite the squaw man’s. He planted a mitten on Leforge’s arm and kept it there while he said, “I just remember that it was your Crow who killed those five Sioux right there at the post. That’s what I call murder.”

  “Them two better not touch no women and children today,” Donegan warned, turning to let his glare rest on the Crow scouts. “Or I’ll see to it all three of you don’t make it back to where Miles has raised his camp.”

  For a moment Leforge didn’t budge in the saddle, didn’t utter a word; then Kelly suddenly turned his horse, wheeling away. He whispered instructions to Donegan and to Johnston as they split up. Kelly went forward while the other two went left and right. Behind Donegan and Johnston rode James Parker and George Johnson, along with the two Crow scouts, while Leforge followed Buffalo Horn at the rear of the procession.

  As soon as Kelly moved toward the women, Donegan could see he began to gesture to the prisoners, making sign.

  “They’re Cheyenne,” Kelly declared now that the squaws and children had stopped, clustering together with their two ponies the way a covey of quail would cower, looking all about them, seeing the ring of horsemen slowly coming in.

  “Keep them Crow back!” Donegan warned Leforge.

  Kelly turned to find Half Yellow Face urging his pony into a lope toward the Cheyenne women. Whirling his horse, Luther kicked it into a gallop, heading on a collision course for the Crow tracker, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. A scant ten feet from the chief of scouts, Half Yellow Face reined up sharply, holding aloft his yard-long coup-stick, shouting and cursing the white man in his own tongue.