The Indian Ring

by Don Bendell

  Joshua said, “Just because a few bears have hurt me or hurt people I know or killed some, I cannot live my life afraid of them. I just have to be careful, that’s all.”

  He thought about his words as Lila grinned at him.

  She said, “You loved Belle with all your heart. You wanted to marry her and to have little children. You wanted to spend your nights with her under your buffalo robe and your days with her at your side.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Lila went on, “But she was stolen from you by the Evil One. Her life was snatched away like that,” as she snapped her fingers.

  The beauty went on, “Your heart was ripped from your chest and you looked to the Great Mystery and cried out, ‘Why?’”

  Joshua got choked up.

  His cousin continued, “So, now you are not afraid of the mighty bear whose claws and teeth tore your flesh, but you are afraid of love, which has no teeth. It has no claws. I always thought that the mighty Wanji Wambli feared nothing.”

  Her words hit Joshua like a punch in the stomach, and he wanted to vomit.

  He headed for the darkness, saying over his shoulder, “I have to go pass my water, Lila.”

  Deep in the trees, Strongheart started sobbing and pounded the cottonwood tree before him. He wept and wept like he had never wept before. He looked skyward and wept even more, but these were cleansing tears. His beautiful cousin he had taught so many things to had just given him the answer that had been eating away at his heart. He dried his tears and washed his face in the stream and dried it.

  Then, he returned to their campsite. Lila was sitting by the fire drinking coffee. She poured him a fresh cup, and he nodded, sipping on the hot brew. He loved the taste.

  Finally, Joshua spoke, “Sweet Lila, my cousin, I told you of our great storyteller William Shakespeare. He also said, ‘A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ I thought I knew how to handle Belle’s death, but I did not until you gave me words of wisdom. Shakespeare also said, ‘Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.’”

  He sipped his coffee thoughtfully and said, “What that means is me acting like a true warrior, a true man, is more important than death itself. I can no longer run from loving again, because then I would not be Joshua Strongheart. I would no longer be Wanji Wambli, One Eagle. I should then be named One Rabbit.”

  Lila took a long sip of coffee and said, “I love you, Joshua.”

  He said, “I love you, too, Lila and you must understand, I desire you very much, too, but our love can never be.”

  “Why?” she said, tears flooding her eyes, “I do not care that you are my cousin. I cannot look at other men. I only think of you and see them as little boys standing behind you, waiting for your shadow to fall on them.”

  Strongheart said, “Lila, I am red and white. I love to hunt the wapiti with my bow, and sit around a good fire telling stories and making trades, but I also love to read Shakespeare and go to cities, eat in restaurants, and more. I love my job very much. I will not live in the red world the rest of my life, and you would not be happy living as a white woman would. My father was right when he left my mother. It is hard when you have a heart that is red and a heart that is white, but if you lived in the world of the wasicun, it would be even harder for you. You gave me words of great wisdom. Now, we must use that same wisdom to think on this matter, and in your heart you know I am right.”

  She started sobbing, and Strongheart moved over to her and embraced her, letting her lay her face on his large chest and cry. He stroked her hair softly and thought about doing that so often with Belle. He held her for a good half hour, until she was done crying. She looked up into his dark eyes.

  “Joshua,” she said, “Kiss me one last time as Lila, not as your cousin, so I can always remember it.”

  Without hesitation, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her, longing for more, but not allowing himself to give way to the passion. He kissed her the way he knew he must for this would be the last such kiss. Their lips parted, and she smiled at his handsome face, but her bosom was heaving up and down like a runner after a long race.

  “Yes, in my heart, I know,” she said simply.

  Lila moved back to the log where she had been sitting and poured more coffee, drinking it and smiling bravely. She had processed it in her mind and heart that quickly. She then got up and walked to her parfleche, where she retrieved a large rolled-up piece of dried leather. Strongheart was curious but quiet while he poured her and himself more coffee, as she unrolled the leather piece.

  They sat by the fire, and looked at the crude map of the Little Big Horn River valley and the giant encampment of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Circles of simple depictions of teepees were all along the river, each representing a tribe or clan. Green paint showed him trees, mainly along the river, and there were arrows and places where soldiers in blue coats lay, apparently dead.

  Lila explained, “The elders were going to send a chief to speak with you, but I asked them many times to send me,”

  Joshua was growing alarmed and wanted to understand.

  Lila said, “Long Hair Custer is dead and all his men.”

  Joshua was in shock and immediately thought of his friend and Chief of Scouts Chris Colt.

  “My friend Chris Colt?” he asked simply.

  “He lives,” she replied with a big smile.

  “All the wasicun are now speaking about the Battle of the Greasy Grass, but they call it the Battle of the Little Big Horn,” she said. “But Sitting Bull wanted you to know the true story from the red men who were there, because Long Hair wanted to be the great White Father in Washington, and Sitting Bull knows the hearts of men. Some who want him to be chief will say Long Hair was a great warrior, and others will say he was a bad man with a badger in his heart. What I tell you comes from the mouth of Sitting Bull. He has packed up the lodges and the people head toward Canada, because the bluecoats will now be very angry.”

  Joshua was still in a bit of shock but not really surprised.

  Lila said, “Sitting Bull said that Long Hair made a very big mistake. When the long knives would attack our lodges before, the chiefs would take the men and flee because our warriors are so few. We had to think about the war, not one battle. This time though, our people were like the bees in a hive. When they attacked the big village, the wasicun kept getting stung and could hide nowhere from the angry bees, our people. First, your friend Colt had become friends with Crazy Horse. He tried to come to the big village before the battle to speak with Crazy Horse and stop the battle. Crazy Horse had him tied and bound and held in the camp during the attack, because Colt would not give his word that he would not warn Custer.”

  Joshua started chuckling and shook his head while he poured them both more coffee. Lila took a break and went to the stream and washed her face. He stared at her bent over the stream, and grinned at himself. He was a man, and white or red, she was indeed one of the most beautiful women he had ever known. He wondered why he could not be more like other men and satisfy his natural impulses instead of trying to do what was right. She walked back and sat down, smiling softly, and sipped her coffee.

  Lila went on. “Long Hair Custer was one of the first people shot in the battle.”

  “He was?” Strongheart said.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Our people did not know Long Hair was there. Sitting Bull learned that Long Hair’s wife had a dream, a bad dream, and she saw a Lakota warrior holding Long Hair’s bloody scalp high in the air. He had to promise his wife to cut off all his hair. So he was riding one of his big red horses.”

  Strongheart remembered seeing the two magnificent chestnut Thoroughbreds and interjected, “Vic and Dandy.”

  “They just knew this man was a chief, and he wore buckskins like Long Hair, but they did not know it was him unti
l the battle ended,” she went on. “He led one force down Medicine Tail Coulee, right here”—she pointed on the map—“and tried to attack the big village. Sitting Bull’s nephew, Yellow Bull, and two other old men were behind some dirt along the Greasy Grass.”

  Strongheart interjected, “I met Yellow Bull when I was there for the sun dance.”

  “He was the one who shot Long Hair, as he ran across the river,” she said. “He was hit in the chest, and they stopped the attack. Two men jumped down and helped him back on his horse. He was with his brother’s group of men. They ran up the hill on the ridge with many Lakota and Cheyenne all around them shooting many bullets and arrows. Wasicun were dying very fast. Only one horse lived. Custer was almost dead, and up on the hill where they made their stand, he pulled out his pistol and shot himself here.” Lila pointed at her temple.

  “Custer had three, uh, tribes, bands, uh, I do not know the word.” she said.

  Joshua smiled, saying, “You probably mean companies or battalions.”

  “Yes, I think,” she went on. “One had a chief named Reno and the other had a chief named Benteen. They were down the Greasy Grass to the south of Long Hair on the big ridge that ran along the river. You know the black scout?”

  Strongheart said, “Yes, I do. Isaiah Dorman. He was with Benteen or Reno as I recall, scouting.”

  “Yes,” Lila replied. “He was dying and Sitting Bill stopped people from killing him. They were friends. Sitting Bull gave him a drink from his water bag and held him and talked to him until he died. Another wasicun scout, Lonesome Charley Reynolds, gave away everything he owned to friends before they left for the big camp. He knew Custer was going to get his men killed. When it started, two more of Sitting Bull’s nephews were out getting stray horses, Deeds and Brown Back, and they met up with another boy named Drags-the-Rope. Some Long Knives saw Deeds and one of them shot him in the chest. Brown Back and Drags-the-Rope hid in the bushes and made their way back to the big circle and started the alarm that the wasicun were coming. That is how it started.”

  “Wow!” Joshua said.

  She went on, “After Deeds was killed, Sitting Bull had scouts following the Pony Soldiers. He thinks Custer found this out and decided to attack the village. We knew he was going to attack it at night until he found out our warriors followed him.”

  In actuality, one small band of Cheyenne was headed toward the encampment and although there were less than forty warriors in the band, they followed the column. Scouts who later found their tracks alerted Custer, and he did indeed decide to make the daylight attack. Benteen’s battalion was in reinforcement and Reno’s battalion were not given the opportunity to get into position. Both battalions ended up under attack themselves, cut off from Custer’s column. She explained these attacks to Joshua.

  Joshua went to his saddlebags and pulled out some bacon and some hardtack biscuits he already had. He put the pan on the fire and shaved off some slices of bacon. Lila made more coffee.

  They sat down to eat, and she gave him more details of the battle.

  “Up here on this ridge overlooking Medicine Tail Coulee and a little bit north of it, in the tall grass, was where Long Hair and his brother Tom died. Chief Rain-in-the-Face kept his word, too. He once told Tom Custer someday he would cut his heart from his chest and eat it. He did that while many warriors watched and yelled, ‘Hokahey!’ The women and villagers would not scalp or cut up Custer’s body because he killed himself. But one woman, Monasetah, found him, and he had made her a baby with him a long time ago. She hated him, but he made her make a baby with him, his baby. She took her sewing awl and poked it into each ear.

  “She yelled, ‘Can you hear me now? I hate you!’

  “They would not strip his clothing because he died a coward.”

  To the Lakota it was a disgrace to kill yourself in battle to save yourself from torture.

  She went on, “Long Hair’s brother Tom was very brave fighting and many warriors wanted to count coup on him.”

  Tom Custer had indeed been awarded the Medal of Honor, twice, in the Civil War.

  His citations read:

  The President of the United States in the name of the Congress takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to CUSTER, THOMAS WARD, Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, Company B, 6th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At Namozine Church, Va., 10 May 1863. Entered service at: Monroe, Mich. Birth: New Rumley, Ohio, 25 June 1845. Date of issue: 3 May 1865.

  Citation: Capture of flag on 10 May 1863.

  His second citation read:

  The President of the United States in the name of the Congress takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor, Second Award, to CUSTER, THOMAS WARD, Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, Company B, 6th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At Sailor Creek, Va., 6 April 1865. Entered service at: Monroe, Mich. Birth: New Rumley, Ohio, 25 June 1845. Date of issue: 26 May 1865.

  Citation: 2d Lt. Custer leaped his horse over the enemy’s works and captured 2 stands of colors, having his horse shot from under him and receiving a severe wound.

  Rain-in-the-Face had been Tom Custer’s prisoner when he made his famous boast that he would someday kill Captain Custer and eat his heart. It did indeed happen according to many warriors there, but instead of being a defiling act, it was actually a great show of respect for Custer’s brother Tom who fought very bravely and courageously. He commanded the company that Lieutenant Colonel George Custer was with when he died, and eating the man’s heart made Rain-in-the-Face feel he was not only exacting revenge but acquiring some of this warrior’s powerful medicine or power.

  Lila continued, “The man who owned the horse who lived was also a very brave fighter, and he was the very last man with Long Hair who was killed. He rose up on one knee and kept shooting while many warriors cut him down.”

  Strongheart would later learn that it was Captain Myles Keogh, the owner of Comanche, the battle’s lone survivor.

  Lila explained in more detail about the battle, told him that his friend Chris Colt had gone off looking for the woman he loved, who had been kidnapped by a brute of a man named Will Sawyer. Joshua also did not know at the time but would later learn that the woman was Belle’s first cousin. She also owned a restaurant but hers was in Bismarck. She also told Joshua that Benteen and Reno suffered losses, and Reno’s command was even cut off from water and ended up drinking their own urine before the siege ended, but Sitting Bull and the other chiefs were more interested in moving the big encampment and leaving that country.

  Strongheart and Lila finally went to sleep lying near each other close to the fire. He did not know, but she stared at him sleeping for over an hour, dreaming about what might have been. He dreamed about Belle, but in his dream she rode off smiling on a large white horse, and he was smiling, too. He had finally, through the help of his cousin, learned how to let go of Belle.

  12

  GOING EAST

  They both awakened early and gave each other farewell hugs. He was headed back to Denver to catch a train east, and she was heading north.

  Joshua started to leave but stopped and said, “Come with me, cousin.”

  She was nervous as he led her into Denver and headed straight for the trainyards. Within an hour, Lila and her pony and pack pony had their own freight car with hay and bedding straw. Strongheart explained the entire situation to the brakeman and told her to only leave the train when that man told her to. Riding the train would save her many days’ travel north, and it turned out to be one of her most memorable experiences ever. She would leave the train far to the north in Montana territory and would be amazed at how much time was saved by the rail travel.

  He, too, was full of anxiety, as he sat down in his passenger car, Eagle safely loaded in a stock car. The Pinkerton had been to Chicago but never all the way back east. What new adventures lay ahead of him? he wondered.

  The drumm
er sat down next to Joshua Strongheart and the detective knew immediately he was going to be in a long conversation.

  The man wore a derby hat and a brown pin-striped suit. He stuck out his hand with a friendly smile.

  “Howdy, chief,” he said cheerfully. “The name is Lawrence Vosen.”

  Strongheart said, “I am not a chief. Why would you call me that?”

  The man stammered and said, “Well, uh, ahem, uh, I don’t know. I was just trying to be friendly and did not know what to say, sir.”

  Strongheart smiled and stuck out his hand saying, “My name is Joshua Strongheart. I know you were trying to be friendly, but many white men call red men chief like that and do not realize it is an insult.”

  Selders said, “You certainly speak English very well for a red man. I meant nothing by it.”

  Joshua said, “I know. I am half white and my mother made sure I got an education. I did not mean to be impolite, sir. Are you in sales of some sort?”

  “Yes, yes, I am,” Vosen answered enthusiastically. “I represent several furniture concerns back in North Carolina. I travel out west to make deals with large stores that can ship our furniture west on the rails to places like Denver and other large cities. Then, from there, they are transported by freight wagons all over the frontier.”

  Joshua said, “That is interesting. How long have you been doing that?”

  “Ever since the Civil War ended. I make my home in North Carolina and have a wife and three fine children there. How about you? Where do you work? You have a family?”

  Strongheart lied, “I work as a consultant on Indian affairs and am traveling back to Washington from Denver for a meeting. No, I have never been married.”

  “Are you all right, Mr. Strongheart?” the drummer asked, as he saw the Pinkerton agent suddenly staring out the window.

  Joshua gave a start and said, “Oh yeah, sorry. I just saw those thousands of buffalo skeletons out there all along both sides of the railway. It saddens me greatly.”