Long Winter Gone sotp-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  “They guard the chastity of their women with the same vengeance they use when they go to war!” young Rabbit Way exclaimed.

  “I am glad it was a good hunt for you,” Lone Wolf said. “To bring back so many fine Ute ponies without the loss of a friend—it was a good journey. I am happy you did not have to leave your hair along the way! Our village can celebrate when you have given the horses away. Do you think the Utes will follow the wide trail all these new Kiowa ponies made in your travel across the snowy land?”

  “No, Uncle,” Sees Red answered. “The Utes did not follow us after the fourth day of hard riding. They turned back like frightened women, afraid to reclaim their ponies. But we did see a very large trail that worries us both.”

  “Yes?” The older man looked back and forth between the two young horse thieves. “Tell me of this trail.”

  Rabbit Way answered: “A trail far wider and deeper than all our new ponies together would cut in the snow.”

  “There is more you must tell?”

  “Yes, Uncle,” Sees Red added. “The trail spoke to us of horses wearing the white man’s iron on their hooves.”

  “Pony soldiers?”

  “Perhaps,” Rabbit Way admitted. “Any man could read the wide, deep trail, seeing many hundreds of iron-shod horses that cut deep into the crust of the old snow near the Antelope Hills. They drag the big wagons behind them—pointing their noses into the land of the south winds.”

  “Did you tell the Cheyenne of your discovery when you stopped in their camp?” Lone Wolf asked, growing uneasy.

  “We told them of the trail of hundreds,” Sees Red answered. “But they talked only of our new ponies. They were not interested in hearing our stories of pony soldiers—only our ponies!”

  “That is the Cheyenne for you!” Rabbit Way stopped laughing as soon as he saw Lone Wolf staring off to the west, toward the Cheyenne camp of his old friend, Black Kettle.

  “Did you tell their camp police of the great iron-shod trail?”

  “Yes, Uncle. We told Medicine Elk Pipe of the horses and wagons. But he and the others just laughed at the idea of pony soldiers coming to fight us in the cold of winter. They claim the soldiers are harmless sun-birds, chasing warriors around the countryside only after the shortgrass comes in spring.”

  “So I reminded Medicine Elk Pipe about the great sadness of Sand Creek four winters gone,” Sees Red added. “He grew angry with me, saying I was no more than a boy wetting my cradleboard when his people escaped from the Sand Creek soldiers. Another man, Red Shin, laughed and claimed we three children got lost and double backed onto our own trail.”

  Lone Wolf shivered with something more than the deepening cold. “You did not get lost and double back on your own trail, did you?”

  “No, Uncle,” Rabbit Way answered. “We saw iron shoes on those hundreds of hundreds of pony tracks. Saw deep cuts carved in the snow and mud near the foot of the Antelope Hills—meaning but one thing—the white soldier wagons.”

  “Near the foot of the Antelope Hills?”

  “Yes, Lone Wolf. On the north side of the hills.”

  “Perhaps it will be all right,” the chief said.

  “Do you want me to warn the other villages?” Sees Red asked.

  “No, Nephew. The tracks reach only as far as the Antelope Hills. The sky grows dark. It will be very cold this night. If there are any pony soldiers near the Antelope Hills, they will not move far from their own fires now. No, you have been on the trail for forty-three suns already. Go, get something warm in your bellies and put these many fine ponies in our great herd.”

  “You believe us, Uncle?” Rabbit Way asked.

  “Yes,” Lone Wolf answered. “I will go at first light to convince my old Cheyenne friend that he too should be on the alert for soldiers. Black Kettle will believe me.”

  Out of the inky twilight loomed three shadows: horsemen. Scout Jack Corbin first recognized the young standard bearer who carried Custer’s personal banner. To the right rode Myles Moylan, Custer’s adjutant. Between them, Custer himself.

  “Major Elliott sends his compliments, sir!” Corbin announced as the trio halted before him.

  “Jack! Elliott has some news for me?”

  “Good news, General.”

  “We can use it.”

  “Them Osages of Pepoon’s found you a trail.”

  “How big?”

  “Best news of all. Better than a hundred ponies.”

  Custer whistled low with approval. “Good-sized war party.”

  “Nary a one of ’em wearing shoes.”

  “What direction?”

  “South, by east.”

  Custer slapped his thigh. “By jove! Just where we counted on them gathering all along!”

  “Wintering on the Washita, General!” Moylan agreed. “How old’s the trail?” Custer inquired.

  “Less’n a day now.”

  “Beautiful! That means they can’t be far ahead now. How long till we join with Elliott’s detail?”

  “Twelve, maybe fourteen miles. What with all the snow—”

  “Fine job, Corbin!” Custer cut him off, appraising the young man atop a strong gray charger. From beneath Corbin’s worn mackinaw coat poked a pair of revolvers. And across his left arm rested a Sharps carbine—short-barreled and easily handled by a man on horseback.

  “Moylan. Ride back and inform the command. Give them my apologies—there will be no sleep for us tonight.”

  Myles realized the moon had been up for more than an hour already. “We’ve been driving them hard already, sir.”

  “Lieutenant, I’ve got a trail to follow. I want to be sitting right there on the Washita before dawn so I can awaken that village myself.”

  “As you wish, General.” Moylan reined away, his mount kicking up rooster tails of new snow.

  “You bring me good news, Jack. Four days out of Camp Supply now. Some of the men beginning to grumble with the cold—and the rations. But it reminds me of the sacred meaning of this special day.”

  “Special day, General?”

  “Yes, Jack. November twenty-sixth—Thanksgiving! And we have much to be thankful for now. Lead on, Mr. Corbin. Troops forward! Ho!”

  A glorious day! Custer cheered himself.

  Twenty-four hours ago they had crossed Wolf Creek itself, climbed into snow-capped ridges, then descended into the valley of the Canadian River. After beating their way through quicksands and floating ice snared along the river, the regiment had crawled around the five towering embattlements of the Antelope Hills, each piled deep with new snow.

  But Custer’s Luck has returned in spades!

  They had tried to strip him of his dignity, his rank and office. But he had shown them he could take the drumming, like some bitter medicine he was forced to drink. With the courage he had shown in the face of court-martial, Custer let them know who alone the brass could count on in all the West. Now he would give the hostiles a taste of cavalry steel.

  By glory! These Cheyenne will not soon forget the name of George Armstrong Custer!

  His old bones began to warm at last. For so long now, Black Kettle had sensed the coming of this winter’s cold. Each night it took longer to chase the icy knots from his chest. Age had made a prison of his body. No more could he deny that it had.

  Still, he had felt this eerie chill clamp its icy fingers around his heart but once before. As it took hold of him, he suffered the painful visions of long ago: the brittle white of winter snows littered with death, blood oozing to fill Sand Creek until the stream overflowed its banks and washed away his little band … as the flag of the Indian commissioner fluttered overhead in an angry wind.

  He filled his belly with none of the big meal his wife had prepared for his guests. Instead, the old Cheyenne slewed his eyes around the warm lodge, touching each of the tribal chiefs and counselors he had called to join him here this night. They had finished their supper and the pipe had completed its solemn rounds when Black Kettle remembered that m
any of his friends frequently called him Sour Apple because he rarely smiled anymore.

  Ever since Sand Creek and all those people gone. A long winter. And all his people gone.

  With the pipe still in hand after he had emptied the burnt tobacco and willow bark into the fire pit, Black Kettle began his hushed story in words so quiet that the guests had to lean forward to hear of the lonely ride their chief had just made from his council at Fort Cobb with the pony soldier chief Hazen.

  Medicine Woman Later finished passing out cups to their guests, each brimming with the scalding sugared coffee her husband had brought back from the fort as a gift from Hazen. She nodded farewell after she pulled a robe over her shoulders, then slipped out the door.

  “What could be so important for the soldier chief to bring you a hundred miles to Fort Cobb?” Black White Man demanded in his own characteristically brusque manner that always drove right to the heart of a matter.

  “Hazen says there are pony soldiers roaming about the country this winter,” the chief answered with a flat voice, his eyes staring at the faint ghost trails of steam rising from his coffee.

  “Pony soldiers?” Heap of Birds squeaked, his warm belly suddenly grown cold.

  “The white chief wants to have a joke with you, Black Kettle?” asked Slim Face.

  “He did not smile while I was three days at Fort Cobb.”

  “Then surely you are the one who is the fool for listening to his words,” Red Shin growled.

  Red Shin had never been much of an ally to Black Kettle. It was even common knowledge that while the old chief did much to promote peaceful coexistence with the white man, young Red Shin led war party after war party north to the white settlements of Kansas, killing, stealing, carrying off the captives who were at this very hour scattered among the other camps along the Washita.

  Black Kettle’s old rheumy eyes climbed over the lip of his tin cup. “A fool is one who will not listen to what the insistent winds bid him.”

  “Hah! A fool is one who listens to Hazen!”

  Immediate agreement with Red Shin’s words rumbled through the lodge. Black Kettle patiently waited for quiet before he spoke again.

  “When has Hazen told us something not the truth?” he said.

  Red Shin spat contemptuously into the fire. “He is a pony soldier, old man! A white pony soldier who sits in his little fort, robe season after robe season, and knows nothing of the life lived as our grandfathers hunted these plains.”

  “It would be a mistake for us to stop believing in his counsel.”

  “The only mistake we have made, old man, is that we listened to your counsel … coming to winter on the Washita with you.”

  “You say that? While our brothers and cousins—Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho—spend the winter here in this valley with our people?”

  Several of the older chiefs and warriors grunted their approval of Black Kettle’s point.

  “Foolish old women too!” Red Shin rocked back on his haunches, glaring at his chief. “Still, a few of their brave warriors ride north with me to attack those white settlements that spread like dung fouling our ancient buffalo lands. A few young men with brave hearts beating beneath their breasts.”

  “Black Kettle is not an old woman!” Medicine Elk Pipe howled in protest across the fire.

  “You agree that we must believe in the word of a soldier chief?” Red Shin demanded of the man who many times had accompanied him on his early scalp and pony raids.

  “I do not often agree with Black Kettle. Yet I, Medicine Elk Pipe, agree that Hazen has done nothing to harm the Cheyenne people.”

  “Hah!” Red Shin roared. “Because we have never given him the chance!”

  “True, my friend,” Medicine Elk Pipe said calmly. “We must never give him the chance to hurt our people. Yet what harm comes in listening to what he now warns us?”

  “Has your heart grown old and—”

  Red Shin’s head drooped. He could not bear to look at the powerful warrior who had for years been his respected mentor. He looked at this man now as a coward.

  “My brother Tsistsistas.—” Medicine Elk Pipe filled the silence in Black Kettle’s lodge, “Red Shin is young but you know he does not lack courage. Long have I been proud to have it known that Red Shin learned his courage in battle from Medicine Elk Pipe. But what Red Shin failed to learn is the danger that comes from words too quickly spoken. I know Red Shin is sorry and wishes the council to know this.”

  From most of the council arose quiet assent, for this above all else was a great thing for Medicine Elk Pipe to do. Instead of lashing out to challenge the youth who had all but called him a coward, Medicine Elk Pipe had jumped to the young man’s defense, seeking to explain Red Shin’s emotional outburst.

  “So it must be in Red Shin’s heart as it is in mine to wonder what General Hazen seeks to accomplish by warning Black Kettle of the pony soldiers marching in Cheyenne country this very night.”

  Every head in the lodge turned from Medicine Elk Pipe to the old chief.

  “Perhaps Hazen does not wish to have the coming war carried to his doorstep,” Black Kettle responded. “If he warned us of the soldiers heading our way, and we were able to avoid conflict, matters for him would be all the more peaceful.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” Medicine Elk Pipe replied.

  “But if there are soldiers in our country, who is it they look for?” Little Rock inquired. He sat at the chiefs left hand, a place of honor as the second in command and one in charge of tribal matters during Black Kettle’s frequent absences from camp. No man among them could forget that Little Rock had lost his wife at Sand Creek.

  “They are looking for the warriors who raid north of the Arkansas,” Medicine Elk Pipe admitted when everyone else remained dumb, slow to accuse. “Those who have killed whites along Walnut Creek and Pawnee Fork, north into the settlements that daily sprout up along the Saline and Solomon rivers. Soldiers look for Kiowas who took scalps and burned the settlers’ wooden lodges. They look for Kiowas and our own Cheyenncs who rode with them these last six moons of blood-spilling!”

  Medicine Elk Pipe looked at Red Shin, waited until the young man’s eyes met his across the leaping flames of Black Kettle’s lodge fire. “These soldiers who come, they are looking for Kiowas and Cheyennes—are they not, little brother?”

  Red Shin nodded once, unable to meet the accusing eyes of all about him.

  “Did you not ask Hazen for safety from these soldiers?” Little Rock asked Black Kettle.

  “Yes, my friend. It was the first thing I thought to ask of him. Because our band is so small, I asked the soldier chief if we could camp near the walls of Fort Cobb, to winter there in safety.”

  “What did he say?” the ancient one, Heap of Birds, asked.

  “Hazen, my old friend and counselor, said he could not give us sanctuary at the fort.”

  “Why not?”

  “He told me if he protected us in the shadow of his walls, his chief would take him away because he had helped us. You see, if he allowed us to come to the fort, he would have to allow Satanta and his many Kiowas. Hazen does not trust Satanta.”

  “We cannot rely on the help of a soldier chief,” Medicine Elk Pipe said. “What we do from here on out, we do because we are Tsistsistas.”

  “Long have I thought on it during the journey home,” Black Kettle explained. “I cannot instruct any of you what to think in your minds, what to feel in your hearts. All I can do as chief is ask that each man sees that none of our young men leaves camp during the next few weeks while pony soldiers search for our winter villages. We must give the soldiers no reason to follow a war party back here.”

  “And what of the others?” Little Rock snapped. “What if the other tribes along the river draw us into trouble?”

  “We will talk to the elders of these other tribes with the coming of the new sun,” Black Kettle suggested.

  “Surely we can do more than talk!” Bark Face squeaked in dismay. �
�We are not strong. We must move closer to the others downstream!”

  “Perhaps even better,” Little Rock said, “is to send out a party to find these soldiers. We should parley with them. Tell the soldiers we are not at war with them.”

  Black Kettle chewed on that for a moment, his eyes studying the somber faces of his friends. “There is agreement on this matter. It is a good idea, Little Rock.”

  “It is decided?” Medicine Elk Pipe inquired.

  “Yes, young friend,” Black Kettle affirmed. “In the morning I will send runners to the other camps, inviting their chiefs to come with the falling of the sun and council with us about these soldiers who hunger for a fight. More runners will go out to find these pony soldiers—to tell them we wish to parley and want no trouble. We are on land the Grandfather far away said we could keep as long as the buffalo roamed it. We will be safe here, my brothers.”

  “I am sure Red Shin will volunteer,” Medicine Elk Pipe said. “As I myself volunteer to go parley with the soldiers.”

  “Red Shin?” Black Kettle turned his tired eyes toward the young warrior.

  “Yes. I will go, with Medicine Elk Pipe. His council has never brought any man harm that I know of.”

  “It is good.” Black Kettle spread out his arms, signaling an end to the council. “You each must send one of your young men to my lodge when the sun rises one hand out of the east. Some I will send to the other camps with news of a council tomorrow night. The rest will ride under the leadership of my wise and thoughtful friend, Medicine Elk Pipe.”

  Through the doorway the leaders filed into the night. Small, frozen flakes lanced out of the sky. Black Kettle watched his wife shuffling along between the lodges, coming back home to their warm robes. She would have spent an evening with friends, singing at the dance and gabbing of woman matters.

  It was good she did not have to worry about the concerns of men. Still, she alone was able to cheer his gloom when the burden of leadership grew too great. Black Kettle sucked at the cold air, wishing he had pulled a blanket around his shoulders as he waited for Medicine Woman Later.

  Tomorrow the riders would find the soldiers and his tribe’s safety could be assured. After all, his old friend Red Cloud of the Sioux had recently touched the pen on another treaty with the white Grandfather. After a long and bloody conflict, the plains both north and south could be at peace.