Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past

by Pamela Sargent

  “That wouldn’t do you any good at all.”

  “I know.” Green sighed. “These redskins—they don’t fight like redskins. They don’t fight the way they should. I’ve been thinking of that ever since we surrendered. Never thought I’d see something like those shooting rockets used by Indians. I have to wonder how they got them—they wouldn’t have come up with that idea by themselves.”

  Lemuel said nothing as he sat down. He was here to find out what he could, not to give anything away. He glanced outside and saw that White Eagle and another man were watching the tent from a distance, rifles in their hands.

  “The Indians who fought you expected to be fighting more men,” Lemuel said.

  Green sat down across from him. The other two men did not speak.

  “The Lakota chiefs want to know why there weren’t more men at Fort Fetterman,” Lemuel continued. Already he was trying to figure out how he could help these men. Touch-the-Clouds could not let them go as long as the Lakota were fighting without losing the element of surprise; Green would surely report to his superiors about the new tactics and weapons the Indians had used against him. The best Lemuel could do was to try to convince Touch-the-Clouds to keep them as captives. It would not work, he told himself. Touch-the-Clouds would not waste food on captives, or keep men near them to guard them.

  “You told one of the warriors here,” Lemuel said, “that soldiers were taken from your command and sent to other posts.”

  “You must be talking about the one who knows English,” Green said. “That redskin asked me why there weren’t more men here. I told him they’d been posted somewhere else. Can’t see as those Indians need to know anything more than that.”

  “Why were more men ordered away from here?” Lemuel asked.

  “I don’t see why I should tell you anything to pass along to those savages.”

  “They don’t want to fight,” Lemuel said. “If you had given up Fort Fetterman when they first arrived, they would have let you go. They don’t want any more battles. All they want is a promise that they’ll be left at peace in the lands given to them by treaty.”

  “And what if they don’t get that kind of promise?”

  “Then they will keep on fighting until they get it.”

  Green said, “They can’t win.”

  “They can do a lot of damage, kill a lot of soldiers and settlers. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll have to keep fighting. They’ll have no choice. They’d rather die fighting than live scratching out a living on a reservation.”

  Green glanced back at the two men sitting in the back of the tent. Lemuel could not see much of their faces in the shadows, but they looked young, hardly more than boys. One of them had a wispy mustache, the kind of mustache a very young man might try to grow.

  “Whatever we say,” the young man without a mustache said, “they’re going to kill us anyway, aren’t they.” There was an Irish lilt in his voice. Lemuel suddenly felt sorry for him, coming all the way across the ocean only to end up here.

  “That depends on what you tell me,” Lemuel said. “I can help you. Give me something to tell the Lakota chiefs that will convince them to let you go.”

  “Tell him,” the other lieutenant muttered, “tell him we aren’t the only fort that had men ordered away. If they don’t know that already, they’ll find out the next time another scout deserts and goes back to their side.”

  Green looked angry for a moment, and then his face sagged. “Sheridan’s been ordered to pull men out,” he said softly, “and send them south. Johnny Reb’s getting rebellious again. There was some fighting in Florida, some in Mississippi. Not much, but can’t tell how far it might go. Heard tell that they might even have to set up some defenses around Washington again. There won’t be all that many soldiers posted along the frontier this winter.”

  Something leaped inside Lemuel. This was what the Lakota needed, an insurrection and rebellion that would force the government and the army to remove soldiers from these forts and station them elsewhere. It was also, he realized, a way to save the lives of Green and his men. Killing them was useless if Touch-the-Clouds could get what he wanted without more fighting. But he also felt sorrow and weariness at the news; perhaps he had fought in a war that would only have to be fought again.

  “It’s good you told me this,” Lemuel said. “It means that both the United States and the Lakota can have a truce.”

  “A truce?” The young man with the mustache was speaking. “Seems to me they’d have more reason to attack if they know they won’t be facing as many men.”

  “You’re wrong,” Lemuel said. “It means they can come to a truce and then prepare for the winter. There’s no need for more fighting as long as the truce is kept.” But again he was wondering if a lasting peace was what Touch-the-Clouds truly wanted.

  “And what about us?” the Irishman asked.

  “I will speak to the chiefs. I promise to do what I can to free you. I’ll tell them that they can show their good faith by letting you go.”

  Green’s mouth twisted. “Good faith,’’ he muttered. “May the good Lord preserve us. I don’t expect those savages to show us anything like that.”

  Lemuel found Touch-the-Clouds with a group of men sorting through jackets, sabers, rifles, and personal belongings that had belonged to the dead defenders of Fort Fetterman. They would leave most of the loot for the women who were trailing the warriors to sort through while the men rode on to Fort Laramie.

  “I have something to tell you,” Lemuel said to Touch-the-Clouds in English.

  “Say it.”

  “Perhaps we can walk by the river,” Lemuel muttered.

  Touch-the-Clouds stood up and handed the saber he was holding to another man. The blue jacket of a captain was draped over his shoulders, and a rosary hung around his neck with other beads and ornaments. “Did the Blue Coats answer your questions?”

  “Yes.” Lemuel jerked his head toward the river. He wanted to speak to the Lakota chief alone, because he did not know how Touch-the-Clouds would react to what he was told. Better for him to show his anger only to Lemuel and then have time to compose himself before he held council with the other chiefs.

  They left the other men and walked toward the Platte. “What did their chief tell you?” Touch-the-Clouds asked in Lakota.

  “That the chiefs in Washington are withdrawing soldiers from the west and sending them south, that they may need more men to defend Washington. It means that they won’t have as many here to fight you. You can have a treaty and be safe for the winter—the Wasichu will have to keep it, at least for a while. Maybe for a long time, if another war starts.” Lemuel felt a pang of sorrow as he considered that prospect.

  “Then we have a better chance,” Touch-the-Clouds said, “of taking Fort Laramie.”

  “You are still going to attack there?” Lemuel asked.

  “Yes, and we will have to do it soon, before the end of the Drying Grass Moon.”

  “But you don’t need to strike at Laramie now,” Lemuel said. “Even with fewer soldiers there, you could lose many men trying to take it. My friend, I ask you to heed my words. Send a messenger to Fort Laramie under a flag of truce with this message—that you are willing to stop fighting. Offer to live at peace with the Wasichu as long as the Lakota and the Cheyenne and all of the people of the Plains are left the territories they were promised by treaty. Then hand over your captives, put your mark on the white man’s talking paper, and ride with your men to your winter camps. The Blue Coats will not have the soldiers to come after you. They will need many of the men who might have come as settlers to these territories to serve in their armies if things get worse in the South.”

  Touch-the-Clouds halted on the bluff overlooking the river. The Platte was low; some of the trees had begun to shed their leaves.

  “I think there’s a good chance things will get worse for the Wasichu,” Lemuel continued. “The English in Canada, the Grandmother Victoria’s people, may see
a chance to reclaim some of the land that was once theirs. If they do, the United States may have to fight in both the north and the south.”

  The Lakota chief was silent.

  “You don’t have to risk men trying to take Fort Laramie.”

  “My men are hungry for more battle honors. I have not given them enough.” Touch-the-Clouds turned to face him, and Lemuel saw the fury in his face. “They want to count coup, they want their share of glory. We have our peace with the Kiowa and the Comanche and the Arikara and Crow, and with others we once fought. Once, we stole their horses and increased our wealth, we counted coup on their bodies. Now they are our allies, so the young men must win their honors against the Wasichu.”

  Touch-the-Clouds was admitting that he might not be able to hold his warriors back. “You are their chief,” Lemuel said. “They will listen to you if you tell them the fighting is over for now. You would have to stop fighting now anyway, to prepare for the winter.”

  “After another victory.”

  “You will only lose men in a battle you don’t have to fight.”

  Touch-the-Clouds took a step toward him, then halted. Lemuel kept his gaze fixed on the other man. “You did not want me to attack Long Hair Custer and his men,” the Lakota man said. “You thought we could not win.”

  “I thought that, even if you won, your victory could be turned into a defeat. If soldiers weren’t being ordered away from the forts to other places now, if the Departments of the Platte and Dakota didn’t have other things to worry about, they would be already sending more cavalrymen after Custer. They have to be wondering why nothing has been heard from him. They must already have scouts following his trail in order to find out. There will be many who will want revenge for what happened to him.”

  Touch-the-Clouds was glowering at him. “Long Hair broke the treaty when he came into Paha Sapa.”

  “That is true.”

  “Exactly what do you advise, Orphan from the East?”

  “I told you before—ask for peace. The Blue Coats won’t have enough men to send any against your people and your allies this winter. If you are lucky, the trouble among the Wasichu will keep them busy for some time. You will be able to secure your territory and build up your strength with new alliances. If another battle comes later, you will be more ready to fight it.”

  “And the Blue Coats who surrendered to us?”

  “Let them go after you have treated with the Wasichu.”

  “They were promised death if they did not surrender in the beginning.”

  “They gave themselves up in the end.”

  Touch-the-Clouds moved to the edge of the bluff and stared down at the river. “There is something to what you have told me,” he said at last. “I will have to take counsel with the other chiefs.”

  “They will listen to you,” Lemuel said. “They will be ready to stop fighting this season.”

  “And do you have any more advice?” Touch-the-Clouds asked, with a sharper edge to his voice.

  “No, except that I am willing to be one of the men you send to Fort Laramie.”

  “I will consider what you have told me,” the Lakota said, and Lemuel knew then that Touch-the-Clouds would accept his advice. “We will have to make graves for the dead, and put them under the ground as the Wasichu do. We will have to keep their talking papers and their personal medicine and holy things and give those things to the Wasichu who come to treat with us. I will tell them that their comrades refused to surrender and chose to fight us, but that we honored them in death. I will not have the Wasichu see me as a savage, an animal.”

  “Good,” Lemuel said.

  “But I won’t have you go to Fort Laramie. I will send you north with Glorious Spirit and Victorious Spirit, since we won’t need their rocket-arrows now. I think perhaps it would be well for you and the two brothers to pass the winter in the East, among the Wasichu. You can find out more about the Wasichu troubles for me, and the brothers can find other men of their kind to make more rocket-arrows and weapons for us.”

  Touch-the-Clouds turned away from the river. “You will leave tomorrow,’’ he finished, and then walked back to his men.

  The two Chinese men had learned to ride horses during their time among the Lakota, but had remained poor riders. Their uneasiness in the saddle and the necessity to haul what was left of their rocket-arrows in pony drags behind them made for a slow ride. Not, Lemuel told himself, that it mattered, since Touch-the-Clouds did not want them to ride too far, lest their weapons be needed again. They were to wait two days’ ride up the Platte for a message about the results of the talks with the Wasichu.

  Virgil Warrick rode at Lemuel’s side. The black man had seemed relieved after being told that he could leave with Lemuel and the two brothers. Obviously Touch-the-Clouds did not want any negotiators to see that he had close comrades who were not Indians.

  Virgil glanced back at the Chen brothers, then said, “I got a bad feeling about all this.”

  “About what?” Lemuel asked.

  “Everything. See, here’s how it is. I got to hope that things gets bad enough that more soldiers get sent south instead of west. That way, I’m safe. But if the South makes more trouble, it means more trouble for other darkies. Things could get a lot harder for them.”

  Lemuel could not deny that. He had spoken to Colonel Green before riding out, to tell him that he and his men would soon be free. Green had chuckled at that. “Free,” he said, “we’ll be free, all right, free to get orders to go fighting Rebs or go after niggers acting up.” Green did not know very much of what was going on in the East, but the colonel had learned that some black men in the South had taken up arms, presumably to defend themselves. They would be convenient scapegoats for both the North and the South, hated in the North by men desperate for work who saw free Negroes as a threat, and in the South by those who wanted to return them to their former state as slaves. All that turmoil would serve the purposes of Touch-the-Clouds and his people, but it wouldn’t help the blacks.

  Behind him, Lemuel heard one of the Chen brothers mutter a few words in his own language. He looked back. “Stop now,” the Chinese man said, kicking the sides of his horse with his heels. “We stop now.” Lemuel still could not tell whether Glorious Spirit or Victorious Spirit was the speaker.

  “Why?” Lemuel asked.

  “Backside much hurt.” The man mumbled something else and then dismounted awkwardly from his horse. Lemuel did not feel like arguing with a man valued so highly by Touch-the-Clouds. The mystery was why the two brothers had decided to throw in their lot with the Lakota.

  Glorious Spirit and Victorious Spirit went through a series of stretches and bends, extending their arms and flexing their legs, then sat down near the pony drags. The horses nibbled at the grass. One of the Chen brothers opened his pack and took out a piece of dried meat.

  “Ain’t noontime yet,” Virgil said to the Chinese man.

  “Hungry now.” The man gnawed at the meat. “Say we go to town,” he continued. “Tall chief tell us that. He give us plenty gold for that.” Maybe their decision to serve the Lakota was not so mysterious after all.

  Even after finishing their food, the brothers did not seem anxious to leave. Lemuel unhitched the horses from the drags and led them down the steep slope to the river to drink. By the time he had rejoined the others, it was noontime and a wind was picking up.

  Virgil was the first to spot the rider trotting toward them over the flatter land to the north. “Someone’s coming,” he said. “Ain’t no Indian, neither.”

  The rider was Rubalev. His yellow hair streamed down from under his hat. He was alone, moving at a trot. He had ridden with the Lakota who were to attack Fort Fetterman, but like Lemuel and the others who were not Plains Indians, had been told to keep to the rear.

  Lemuel started to walk in Rubalev’s direction. Rubalev’s horse slowed; when the blond man was closer, he lifted a hand in greeting. Lemuel did not move. Rubalev rode up to him, reined in his horse
, and stared down at him from the saddle.

  “You might look happier, Rowland,” Rubalev said at last. “I am told that we have won another victory.”

  “Why are you here?” Lemuel managed to say.

  “Touch-the-Clouds sent for me. He sent a rider to me with a message two days ago.”

  Touch-the-Clouds had asked Lemuel for advice and would consult with the other chiefs. There was no reason for him not to seek counsel from Rubalev as well. Perhaps the Alaskan man had regained the Lakota chief’s confidence. Lemuel recalled how Rubalev had looked, dancing with the scalp of the Seventh’s dead scout.

  “The Lakota are going to seek a peace now,” Lemuel said. “Touch-the-Clouds doesn’t have to strike at another fort, or raid any settlements, because he can probably have the treaty he wants. The commanding officer at Fort Fetterman told me that the army is withdrawing men from the western forts and sending them south. He sounded as though he expects things to get worse for Washington.”

  “I was hoping for such events.” Rubalev lifted a brow and regarded Lemuel for a moment. “I am of course sorry that they are also likely to cause more misery to some whom I once called friends.” He dismounted and fed his horse a few oats from his saddlebags. He was riding a black horse, one of the Seventh’s horses, not an Indian pony. The horse already looked ill-fed; Lemuel wondered how long the animal would last without grain, grazing on grass. Virgil watched Rubalev from a few paces away, saying nothing. The Chen brothers had finished eating and were playing some sort of game with dice.

  Rubalev remounted his horse. “I must ride on,” he said. He lashed his horse’s neck lightly with his reins and rode away.

  By evening, Lemuel estimated that they had traveled little more than twenty miles from Fort Fetterman. The Chen brothers had insisted on stopping to rest at frequent intervals, complaining first of sore backsides and aching muscles, and then about having to drag the rocket-arrows along in pony drags instead of in a wagon.