Ashes of Heaven

by Terry C. Johnston

  The following day eighty-one more men comprising G and H companies of the Twenty-second departed the cantonment under command of Captain DeWitt C. Poole to catch up with the slower train marching south.

  It wasn’t until sunup on the morning of 1 May that the balance of the command marched away from the Tongue River post. Under the command of Captain Charles J. Dickey, four companies of the Twenty-second and two companies of the Fifth, along with the cavalry, moved out to rendezvous with Poole’s outfit already on the trail. Miles and his staff—First Lieutenant George W. Baird, adjutant, and Lieutenant Oscar F. Long, engineering officer—did not get underway until 1:00 p.m. that Tuesday. When the entire command had rejoined two days later, counting both Indian and civilian scouts as well as teamsters, the colonel had put a force of more than twenty-one officers and 450 men in the field to finish the Great Sioux War.

  The afternoon before Seamus started south with Cusick’s supply train, Johnny Bruguier had returned to Tongue River from his fruitless errand. Upon surrendering at the post, White Bull’s Cheyenne had informed Miles that there was a growing band of Lakota holdouts intending to hunt throughout the spring somewhere up the Tongue. The colonel sent the half-breed off to find that camp under a flag of truce, giving them one last chance to come in or turn south for the agencies. Instead, Johnny found the mixed camp of Cheyenne and Lakota defiant, their chief declaring he would have scouts and guards out, daring the Bear Coat to catch them unawares. Many of the young warriors had sneered at the half-breed, begging permission of the chief to take Bruguier’s scalp.

  Again, Johnny had escaped with his life.

  Off to Donegan’s right now one of the Cheyenne trackers was waving to him from down at the wide cleft at the bottom of a grassy swale. On the slope above the Indian, pockets of old snow lay back in the shadows. Seamus tore the big brimmed hat from his head and signalled in turn the head of the column, indicating the direction he was going before he gave heels to his claybank and disappeared off the brow of the hill.

  At the bottom, two more of the Cheyenne quickly joined the first, and a moment later Bill Rowland broke from the trees. None of the Indians offered to speak as the Irishman came up and dismounted. It appeared they preferred to wait until the squawman reached them. Donegan knelt beside the clutter of hoof- and footprints left in what had recently been sodden ground. Pulling the leather glove from his right hand, he gently brushed the edge of a hoofprint with a fingertip. Then he turned to the impression of a moccasin track. Small enough; it had to belong to a woman, maybe a young boy. He stood and worked his tense, aching back muscles as Rowland came up and dismounted, one of the Cheyenne speaking low to the squawman.

  “White Bull says he’s found the Lakotas’ trail,” the older white man explained as he handed off his reins to one of the young trackers.

  Looking over at the Cheyenne warrior who had discovered this trail, Seamus nodded and smiled. White Bull returned with a grin of his own. Back at Tongue River Rowland had explained just how keen these scouts were to go after the last of the Sioux. Seemed White Bull and the others were angry as spit-on hens at the hold-outs, fearing what trouble the Lakota were likely to stir up might well be blamed on the Cheyenne, thundering depredations down upon the Cheyenne, just as it had twice before on the Powder and later on the Red Fork. When those nose-thumbing Lakota stirred up trouble, the soldiers would come looking for the Cheyenne village, finding their women and children.

  As a means of protecting their own families, the Cheyenne had eagerly volunteered to serve as trackers, as scouts, as men-at-arms to fight these last of the Lakota.

  When Crook and Miles turned Indian against Indian, friend against friend, they had begun to write the last pages of the great warrior bands.

  Seamus liked White Bull’s smile—open, genuine. “I’ll say he’s found their trail, Bill. I think you ought to go on back yourself and tell the general that we’ve crossed a pretty fresh trail here.”

  The squawman nodded, reaching for the reins to his horse. “Moving west, ain’t they?”

  He watched Rowland clamber into the saddle, then peered into the hills that rolled upward toward the divide separating the waters of the Tongue from those of the Rosebud. Seamus said, “But from the looks of it, this bunch ain’t running.”

  With no more than a nod, Rowland reined completely around and set off at a lope.

  Turning to the Cheyenne warrior, Seamus made sign. “Good work, White Bull. You find this trail—good job.”

  He rubbed an eye and with a heavy accent repeated the white man words, “Good work.” Then added, “Yes, White Bull do good.”

  By the time Miles trotted up with his staff and inspected the trail for himself, the sun was already sliding off midsky. The colonel ordered a brief stop for the rear units as they caught up with the head of the march. Falling out to one side or another the soldiers dropped their rifles and flung off their haversacks before collapsing onto the knee-high grass. They began digging into their packs for a square of hard-bread or perhaps some chewing tobacco while they rested.

  Seamus was relieving himself in the bushes when he heard Adjutant Baird’s distant call, as the lieutenant rode through the noontime bivouac making his announcement without the brassy blare of a bugle.

  “Officers’ call! Officers’ call!” he cried, pointing up the gentle slope of the hill. “Under the general’s flag! Officers’ call!”

  Jabbing the buttons through their holes in his canvas britches and adjusting the braces across his shoulders, the Irishman stepped from the brush and started back for the spot where Rowland and the Cheyenne were spread across the ground.

  “C’mon, Bill,” he said, wagging his hand. “Let’s see what’s about to shake out now that Miles has his trail.”

  They waited among the officers, both infantry and cavalry, until Lieutenant Baird gave the colonel word that all were present and accounted for.

  “I’m told by our engineer that we’ve come a little more than sixty-one miles,” the commander began. “And I imagine it’s no mystery that we’ve found us a hot trail,” he continued, flinging his arm up the slope where a wide swath had been carved through the trampled grass between the stunted trees, where crusts of dirty snow still clung. “The enemy should be no more than a matter of a day, surely no more than three, from where we stand.”

  For a long moment, the colonel continued to stare up the slope, almost as if seeking to divine just how far ahead the hostile camp really was. Then he suddenly turned back to Baird and the officers.

  “Lieutenant, do you have the time?” he asked in a gush. Watching Baird fumble at his vest, Miles impatiently asked the others. “One of you—any one—what is the time?”

  “Just past 1:30, General,” answered Captain Charles W. Miner, the big turnip watch filling the palm of his hand.

  “Very good,” Miles sighed with satisfaction as he gazed at that veteran of October’s skirmishes with Gall’s warriors.* “We’ll take an hour to make final preparations, then form up our attack battalions and be off by 230.”

  Baird stepped up beside Miles, dabbing the stub of his pencil on his tongue, prepared to write down the disposition of the troops in his small ledger.

  Briefly the colonel peered over his company commanders, then began, “I’m leaving the wagons with companies B and H of the Fifth. I’ll also leave G Company of the Twenty-second. That’s you, Captain Miner. These bulls and mules are simply too slow to keep up with the rest of us now that we have a hot trail to follow.”

  “General,” Captain Dickey said, “are we going to take a pack-train from here?”

  “Exactly,” Miles replied. “See to it that two mules are fitted out for each company departing with me and the scouts. You will take along enough rations for six days, and sufficient ammunition for your outfits.”

  “One hundred rounds, General?” asked Captain Poole.

  “Yes. And for their pistols, the cavalry will carry an additional twenty-four rounds. I plan to have the Second
lead the way, followed by Lieutenant Casey’s mounted infantry. Companies E, F, and H of the Twenty-second will protect the rear of our march.”

  Lieutenant Cusick moved forward a step and asked, “Sir, do you want me to bring the supply train along your back-trail?”

  “By all means, Mr. Cusick,” Miles answered. “I understand you will not be able to move with the same dispatch as our attack column, but I do want you to follow our trail across to the Rosebud, where the enemy trail leads. I expect you will be a day or so behind us, but within striking distance should we have need of resupply.”

  “Very well, General,” and Cusick saluted. “We’ll be able to communicate with you by courier.”

  Miles cleared his throat as he scratched nervously at his chin, then said, “You men know what is expected of you. Are there any questions?”

  With that the colonel waited a moment longer, seeming to make eye contact with nearly every one of his officers, those who were departing with him, those who would follow with the pack train, and those who were staying behind with the supply wagons.

  “Very well, gentlemen. Go now to prepare your outfits for the trail. Dismissed.”

  Seamus watched the officers turn on their heels and scurry off to their commands. Then he stepped over to Miles.

  “General, not far south of here is a narrow pass in the hills,” Donegan explained.

  The colonel peered into the distance. “Something that will take us to the Rosebud?”

  “It’s where the Indian trail will lead you.”

  “We’ll catch them on the Rosebud, won’t we, Irishman?”

  “Upstream.”

  “You know that country?”

  Seamus replied, “I was through there a couple times with Crook. Likely gonna look familiar.”

  “All right, Irishman. Give your horse and your saddle sores a little rest,” Miles said with a grim look of determination creasing his face. “I want you to lead us out in an hour.”

  * * *

  The scent of the enemy was strong in his nostrils.

  Lame Deer figured that soldier chief called the Bear Coat surely had to be on his way by now.

  The chief stood staring north into the face of the winter-maker that evening as the shadows deepened and the small wingeds began to buzz at his ears. Most of them did not annoy him, but a few bit hard enough that they left red welts where his blood was drawn.

  He swatted a forearm. The soldiers had to be on their way by now—marching slow but nonetheless relentless as they always did. Still, his warriors would swat them as easily as he had swatted that annoying insect, crushing its body against his skin. The way the wasicu bodies would be crushed and bloody against the brown of the earth mother’s breast if they attempted to attack Lame Deer’s camp.

  It seemed darker this twilight, perhaps because of the dark clouds clotting along the tops of the ridges to the west. There would be rain before morning. Then another cold, dreary, bone-chilling day before the sun finally dispelled the clouds and dried up the puddles dotting the thirsty prairie.

  That morning Lame Deer sent out hunters and wolves as he had every day. Most had already returned, including those from the north and east—the directions they had to fear. No danger had been spotted.

  But the wolves he sent out to the south were late in reaching camp. Perhaps the Bear Coat had become a wily fox and was sneaking his soldiers around to the south. Perhaps the scouts would not return until they could safely slip around the Bear Coat’s men. Once more the Lakota would have the jump on the wasicu.

  Just as they had at the Rosebud when Crazy Horse led the many to confront Three Stars. And again when the Long Hair had blundered down onto the great encampment beside the Greasy Grass. While the Bear Coat brought his men up the Tongue River to strike the camp of the Crazy Horse people, the Lakota had been ready for the soldiers. Even the weather had conspired against the Bear Coat, allowing the village and the warriors to slip away in the blizzard. A blessing from the Great Mystery!

  Just then a gust of chill wind tugged at his blanket, making Lame Deer shudder with cold.

  Perhaps this last of the seven great council fires of the Lakota hadn’t yet burned itself out. Once all seven burned brightly—producing much heat, throwing out intense light in their constellation of glory. A time not so long ago when the Lakota warrior camps lived a life so sweet, so like heaven on earth. But now those other bands who hadn’t fled with Sitting Bull to the north had instead chosen to extinguish their fires and surrender at the agencies in the south. Even Crazy Horse was on his way south to his uncle’s prison.

  One by one, the great Lakota council fires had been snuffed out. Not a flame, not so much as a warm coal remained. Nothing but ash. Cold, dead ash.

  But here in this country, Lame Deer vowed, there would always be an unquenchable fire where true Lakota could warm themselves, replenishing their strength to continue this struggle against the wasicu.

  Starting back down the hill, Lame Deer looked over the many lodges nestled in the tight horseshoe of the creek, every one of them lit with warmth for the coming night.

  These people of mine, he brooded, they are the last of the brave ones—both Lakota and Shahiyela. Like the last of the leaves clinging against the late autumn winds to the branches of a tree, they are clinging to Lame Deer, the trunk of that tree. They are the last, those who will never surrender. The strong hearts have congregated around me and this last fire of the Lakota nation.

  The light from our fire will never be dimmed, never go out. My people will never be conquered. Together, he swore, these brave hearts will make their final stand.

  Here.

  This, our ancient hunting ground. This, the land where the bones of our Lakota ancestors have decayed beneath the cry of the undying winds.

  Here, where this heaven of ours will never turn to ash.

  Chapter 32

  6 May 1877

  BY TELEGRAPH

  European War News–Very Great Activity.

  The Bombardment of Kars to Begin To-day.

  Snow at Deadwood–Indian Matters–Washington News.

  Indian Affairs.

  WASHINGTON, May 5.—Brigadier General Crook had a long conference to-day with the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs, in regard to the removal of the Sioux agencies to the Missouri river, and on the Indian question generally. Secretary Schurz and Commissioner Smith entirely concur with General Crook in his view that the Indians should be compelled to work for their grub, and the conference to-day was mainly with a view to ascertain how the labor of the Indians could be utilized in the interest of both the Indians and of the government. No definite conclusion has been reached as to the precise location of the new agencies, but it seems certain the Indians will not be removed until next autumn, as during the warm season the Indians will be disposed to straggle off on hunting expeditions, but will be easily collected on the approach of cold weather.

  The colonel’s Indian trackers led them along the enemy’s trail that Saturday afternoon, through that narrow cleft in the divide west of the Tongue for some eight-and-a-half miles until they finally crossed over into the valley of Rosebud Creek near the site where General Terry’s column had bumped into General Crook’s command the August before.*

  Recognizing a few landmarks, Miles had to grin—recalling how he had managed to convince Terry that it was time for the Fifth Infantry to turn back to the Yellowstone and establish their cantonment for the winter just as Sherman and Sheridan had ordered. Had that ever been a stroke of luck! he ruminated now. Freeing myself of the dawdling, pensive, professorial department commander just the way Custer must have chafed to be free from Terry in those days before the Seventh galloped up the Rosebud and into destiny.

  “As it’s turned out, Armstrong,” he mouthed a whisper now, “I’ve driven one of your murderers into Canada and the other one is racing to reach his agency before he’ll be forced to confront me again. If only they would stand and fight me—I could
avenge your death, old friend.”

  As it was, Miles prayed this last of the warrior bands would not run. Instead, he pleaded with God to give his men a chance to drench themselves in glory with this last fight of a long and most inglorious Sioux War.

  He gave them a brief rest there along the banks of the Rosebud as the afternoon aged and the sun sank toward the west behind darkening clouds. After the horses were watered and the men got their land legs back, Miles ordered them back into the saddle. After moving upstream another three miles, the scouts had them cross the Rosebud and continue west, following another small creek into the increasing gloom that ballooned around them with the coming of night and the approach of storm clouds.

  When his weary men had urged their reluctant animals in single file up the creekbank, each man listening for the clank of a tin cup from the man ahead of him, Miles himself was ready to call a halt in the dark.

  “What time are you posting in the record, Mr. Baird?” Miles asked his adjutant as he landed on the ground and jarred his knees, both of them sore from the long, tortuous night’s ride.

  With no moon or starlight to speak of beneath the hoary clouds sluicing sheets of rain upon their column, the young lieutenant desperately tried to light one lucifer after another, until Miles himself went over to provide more of a windbreak. In one brief flare of light, the colonel was able to see the hands on the pocket watch Baird dangled from a soggy, shivering glove.

  “Just past 2:30,” Miles reported as he straightened. A gust of wind blew out the match and the darkness swallowed them once more. “You’ve kept your timepiece wound, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir, General.”

  “Then we’ve been marching for twelve hours since breaking off from our supply wagons,” the colonel replied, weighing their accomplishment in his mind. “I’d estimate we’ve covered something close to forty miles. Go now, and tell the company commanders to rest their men until it’s light enough to resume our search.”