Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866

by Terry C. Johnston

  When his lips wandered down her neck, into the crevice of her rigid flesh, Seamus heard Abigail gasp once, then a second time. Perhaps for how he excited her now. Perhaps as she felt him grow in the midst of her pleading hands.

  Grow he did. For with each breath he took in the heated, moist musk of her rising to his nostrils.

  And when his tongue found a rigid, milk-damp nipple, Donegan heard the groan rumble from the back of the woman’s throat. Like some untamed beast. At once her body grew rigid. He worried that he should not touch that flesh. After all, he sensed immediately, perhaps Abigail believed her breasts belonged to her infant daughter alone. He pulled back, licking his lips damp from the brief taste of her warm, sweet milk.

  Surprised was he when she suddenly relaxed, putting her fingers in his curly hair, pulling his head down to her once more. Nuzzling his face in the warm, moist, milk-fragrance of one breast. She wanted him there. Donegan licked the droplets oozing from her motherhood. Gently taking the nipple in his mouth. Sucking hungrily at her breast. Everytime he drew her more insistently between his lips, Abigail pressed him against her with a greater need.

  Until she could wait no more and one hand again found his rigid flesh, guiding it within her.

  Abigail arched her back, throwing herself against him frantically as he began to rock above her. She clawed at him, crying out in her own way at this flushing of her overpowering grief. Lunging at him, fighting the Irishman moving atop her, within her. Lunging to exorcise the devils of loneliness and despair.

  Until they both found together what Abigail had wanted. That release of the poison for three long days building at the core of her being. Finding this private healing that would allow her the strength and dignity to carry on, if only for her child. Rather than collapsing into a hideous, grieving, incomprehensible mass unable to stand the test of this great wilderness.

  As Seamus cradled the tiny woman against him like some small, crippled birdlike creature, he realized it was not love she had made with him. But a mutual rending of what had been her love for Frank Noone. Needing tonight a man to possess her. To drive away her loneliness and loss. Her way of cleansing this wilderness from her.

  With the stove’s red light aglow on her shoulders, Abigail fell quickly asleep. The first she had enjoyed in three long days. Sweeping some black hair from her cheek, Donegan knew that Abigail Noone had needed his body to lash back at the wilderness that loomed outside these log walls. There above them, on the Peno Head and Sullivant Hills. The cold, unforgiving wilderness that waited just beyond the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge.

  An empty wildness that had ripped Frank Noone from her.

  The same savage, horrendous maw waiting to swallow them all.

  Chapter 29

  In those first days of the third week in the Moon of Deer Shedding Horns, hundreds upon hundreds left their families behind in the villages huddled along the headwaters of the Tongue River. Only warriors would journey in this severe cold-time. From Oglalla, Miniconjou, Hunkpapa and Sans Arc camps they came. Northern Cheyenne, Arapaho and Big Belly. Red Cloud’s Bad Faces, ready to stare down the white soldiers in one big fight.

  Over the past few days the cold had grown even more intense. In all his winters, Curly had never seen his people so desperate. A second winter of starving. And still the white man wanted to steal the road and the game and eventually the hills themselves. While his people starved. But no more!

  Behind him rode the pick of the Oglalla. Hand-chosen to lead the attack on the white wagons. Specially selected by Curly to join him in seducing the soldiers into the trap.

  Hunkering beneath buffalo robes with the thick fur turned in or wearing blanket capotes, most of the Oglalla had traded brain-tanned buckskin for the warmer, wool-blanket leggings. Around their feet each man had lashed knee-high buffalo fur moccasins after wrapping scraps of wool round and round like stockings.

  When an opportunity arose, small groups drifted off the southbound trail to hunt for elk or deer or a rare chance at a snowbound buffalo. But Curly would eat the pemmican his aunt had packed in a skin bag. Nothing would turn him from this medicine call. Instead, he would eat atop his pony and not allow himself to tarry on this war-trail. Curly pointed his ponies toward the Peno country. And Lodge Trail Ridge.

  Each of these first warriors to leave the Tongue River villages plowed south through the frozen drifts, urging the pack animals they rode between every heaving lunge. Behind him each warrior pulled more pack animals struggling beneath burdens of food and lodge. Curly’s Oglallas would not ride their favorite war-ponies. Yet. Fleet-footed, barrel-chested mustangs, every one. Saved for the coming fight.

  In a sheltered valley behind the Peno Head, the first arrivals under Curly made camp, awaiting the many hundreds who would follow in two suns. No man could say how many would make the ride, wanting to join the big fight. Among the Lakota the biggest number counted was ten-times-ten. Yet many of Curly’s young Oglalla grew astonished as the camps filled. By the setting of that second sun, Man-Afraid strolled through the three camp circles: Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho. In awe, he counted more than fifteen of the ten-times-ten.

  As the allied chiefs held councils and argued battle plans, Oglalla scouts came and went from camp through shrinking daylight hours. Along the ridges and ribs jutting into the valley of the fort, the young warriors flashed their mirrors and waved their blankets in signal. But there would be no more raids until they had decided all the details of the coming fight. For almost two weeks they had ignored the soldiers and woodcutters, leaving the wagons to scurry between the Pine Woods and the fort without a care.

  For the first time in their history, the Sioux and Cheyenne had decided on a new tactic. Instead of attacking small parties of whitemen and wagons along the wood-road, the warriors would now lure a large force of soldiers to their deaths. Enticing them with a decoy while the rest waited in ambush along the bottomland at the forks of the Peno. Halfway between the soldier fort and their great warrior encampment.

  A trap, ready to spring.

  One morning, cold and clear as looking glass, every man young and old alike journeyed to that bottomland, each warrior marking his place of hiding in the brush along both sides of a narrow spur jutting north from the Lodge Trail. On this frozen ground they would rehearse their plan, sending Curly’s decoy party up the ridge.

  Here lay the stroke of Red Cloud’s genius that proved this Oglalla chief’s powerful vision alone. The strength of his leadership dictated that he convince his warriors they must no longer fight the white soldiers as they had for years past. This recent, forceful penetration of the soldiers to the very heart of Sioux hunting ground required a new, bold strategy. And if that new strategy were to succeed, Red Cloud knew his warriors would require practice.

  Among the Indians of the northern plains, the berdache remained a creature of powerful medicine. A person born half man/half woman with a special mission. So it was only natural that to a Miniconjou berdache Red Cloud gave the honor of announcing the coming of the soldiers to those warriors laying in wait. Again and again the bands practiced, the young man/woman racing back from the top of the ridge repeatedly, each time announcing an ever-growing number of soldiers approaching—marching into their trap. It was a ride rehearsed until every warrior hidden in the brush understood they were not to spring on the few.

  Instead, they were to wait for the many.

  Though winter man continued to crush the land beneath his icy, white grip—they realized this would be a time for all Lakota to remember. For time beyond would the People remember how the Oglalla lured the soldiers into their trap. Long would the Sioux remember the young warrior who lured so many to their deaths. In those winters yet uncounted, across the years yet to come, the bands would tell the whites how for the first time they had come together. How for the first time the bands had rehearsed their roles in this bloody drama. For the first time. But not the last.

  He jerked awake, sweating in the cold, dark lodge. Nearby la
y the crimson coals of a dying fire. His breath froze before his face. Still, his copper skin was moist to his touch. He tingled with excitement.

  “Uncle,” he called out, tapping the warrior who slept to his right. “You are awake?”

  “Yes,” Man-Afraid answered. “I listened to you fighting the dream-maker.”

  “I did not fight the dream-maker, Uncle,” the young Oglalla replied. “Instead, I have seen a new medicine-helper.”

  “Aiiyeee!” Man-Afraid whispered loudly.

  “What is it!” Yellow Knife rose to one elbow. “Can’t a man get his——”

  “Hush!” Man-Afraid commanded, watching the others in the war-lodge rise from their robes and blankets. He threw some pieces of dry wood on the coals. In a moment tiny flames brightened the frosty lodge. “Silence, all of you. We must hear of a new medicine-helper.”

  When Man-Afraid nodded for him to continue, the young warrior swallowed hard, his heart pounding, his breath shallow and ragged. The vision no less clear than it had been in his dream.

  “I watched the soldiers follow me … like bees after a boy who steals honey. They followed, until I led them to the foot of the ridge. They were trapped. As they circled among themselves, scared—like cornered snowshoe hares—we swept down on them from all sides. Then I watched a young warrior ride among the soldiers … racing in and out among them, swinging an axe in one hand, a club in the other. Back and forth he rode while others cried out that he must be foolish … that he must be crazy … that he courted death riding among the soldiers.”

  He swiped a hand across his dry lips, sweat beading his upper lip. Sensing the silence in the war-lodge as if it were a tangible gift laid before him, in respect and awe.

  “The others called him crazy … yet it was his horse I looked at next. Streaked with lightning bolts of white clay … spotted with hailstones of oxblood red. The horse carried its master back and forth through the soldiers … until there were few left standing. They ran among some rocks to hide. But the young warrior dashed after them. Alone. Into the rocks his wild steed carried him—slashing, hacking at the last of the soldiers. Until no soldier lived.”

  “This will happen?” Yellow Horse asked, gazing at Man-Afraid.

  The chief scowled. “Do you doubt the power of this vision, Yellow Horse?”

  Before the war-chief could answer, the young dreamer continued.

  “As the warrior atop his horse cut down the last soldier, all warriors swept ’round him—chanting, shouting, singing his praises for his bravery in battle. They danced round and round him—calling out his name: ‘Crazy Horse!’ ‘Crazy Horse!’ ‘Crazy Horse!’”

  Man-Afraid leaped to his feet, pulling the young Oglalla up with him. “This will come to pass! Brothers! No longer do we look upon the young warrior called Curly … behold, before you stands the powerful medicine of … Crazy Horse!”

  * * *

  “Captain Powell!”

  “I see it, Colonel!”

  Powell waited at the bottom of the crude steps as Carrington half tripped, half slid down from his watchtower. On Pilot Hill the picket frantically waved his flag in the morning air, signaling an attack on the wood train.

  “You’ll lead the relief,” Carrington thumped, out of breath.

  “Sir? Fetterman’s the senior——”

  “Captain! You will lead this relief!”

  “Yessir!” His eyes darted over to the stables where soldiers tightened cinches, shoved bits back into horses’ mouths and snugged caps down on their heads. He turned to Metzger, who stood nearby blowing Boots and Saddles.

  “Bugler! Enough!”

  “Captain?” Adolph asked.

  “Get to your horse!”

  “I can go with—Yes, sir!”

  As Powell slipped a foot into the hooded stirrup and swung atop his saddle in one movement, Carrington rushed to his side.

  “Heed my orders, Captain.” He looked up at Powell, more imploring than ordering. “Remember the costly lessons of the sixth. Do not pursue the Indians across the Lodge Trail.”

  He nodded, lips pressed in a thin line as he pulled his sorrel round. “Lieutenant Grummond!”

  “All present and accounted for, sir!”

  “Let’s ride!”

  Powell and Metzger led out. Immediately behind them, Eli Garrett bellowed commands at C Company, cavalry. “Troop forward at a trot! Guide—center. HO!”

  Bringing up the rear, Grummond flung his arm forward, leading his mounted infantry through the gates. “Keep it tight, boys! We’re gonna make Red Cloud pay today!”

  … through a cheering forest of soldiers and civilians thronging to watch the rescue dash down the slope onto the wood road toward the Sullivant Hills … through the first bare knuckles where the wind had scoured the snow into an icy rind blanketing a gray land … riding face on into a stiff westerly breeze.

  Enough to make Powell’s cheeks ache like burnished rawhide. Every bit as stiff and hard as the knitting-kit on his belt where the ammunition for his Springfield rattled. He prayed the rifles would work today. As cold as it was. So many badly in need of repair.

  Overhead the sun hung like a pale yellow glob of butter atop cream in the churn back home. So cold the air sparkled in those rare glimmers of sunlight, alive and moving. They’re running off!

  “Sergeant!”

  “Captain?” Garrett answered.

  “You’ll stay with me today. Understood?”

  “What if the warriors divide when we give chase?”

  “You have your orders, Sergeant!”

  Powell watched Garrett swallow his curse in the midst of that blond beard.

  “You bet I do … sir.”

  Garrett dropped back along the column of twos, just as the Sioux disappeared over the hill. Breaking off their attack on the wagons. Those soldiers and civilians hunkered behind mules and wagons stood cheering, wagging their rifles over their heads. Delivered once more.

  Powell swept his horse soldiers past the wagons without losing a step. Over a low brow at the western end of the Sullivant Hills the warriors enticed their pursuers.

  Along the pine-covered slope of Peno Head signal mirrors glittered in the pale sky. Immediately the Sioux split, a dozen climbing the Head into the valley of Peno Creek. Another dozen or so tearing off to the right, whooping and hollering, beckoning the soldiers on and on. Up the hard, barren, windswept slope of Lodge Trail Ridge.

  Powell watched the mirrors glitter atop the ridge. The signals disappeared as suddenly as the fleeing warriors.

  “Captain!”

  Powell turned, watching Grummond straining, beating his mount to catch up with the head of the columns.

  “Captain! Request permission to break off … chase those devils running——”

  “Permission denied, Lieutenant!” he flung his words into the wind. “You’ll ride with me all the way!”

  “But, sir, you don’t need all these … my mounted infan——”

  “Get back with your men, Lieutenant!” Powell barked. “You follow orders today!”

  He liked Grummond. Really admired the bright, energetic officer. But Carrington had told Powell how Grummond had galloped off on his own. Only to scamper back minutes later, running for his life.

  As soon as his troops reached the western rim of Lodge Trail Ridge, Powell raised his left arm. “Sergeant Garrett! Halt the command!”

  Back along the columns soldiers ground to a halt, their horses spraddle-legged from the mad scramble up the slope, ribby sides heaving, heads down and steaming into the frosty air.

  Grummond skidded to Powell’s side. Garrett not far behind.

  “Captain!” Grummond pointed down the slope toward Peno Creek. “You can damn well see them!”

  He growled, “I damn well can, mister!”

  “Request permission to pursue——”

  “No, Lieutenant!”

  “What?” Garrett shrieked. “Lemme take twenty cavalry, sir! Show ’em some steel!”

>   “I said no, Sergeant!”

  “Begging pardon, Captain.” Garrett wore that smirk of his. “But the captain doesn’t know a damn about cavalry work. Perhaps I can show ’im——”

  “Get back with your men, Garrett!” he barked. “I’ll call you when I have need of your … your insolent help!”

  Below in the valley two dozen warriors shouted and gestured obscenely, taunting the soldiers, begging for the chase.

  “Let me take some men, Captain. We can show——”

  “No, Lieutenant. I have my orders from Colonel——”

  “Carrington be damned!” Grummond screamed. “He’s a goddamned coward——won’t fight. See! Look down there! War is all those bastards understand. Fighting. Blood! Let me draw some blood, Captain!”

  Powell waited a moment while Grummond spent himself like a spring-wound toy running down.

  “Lieutenant,” Powell sighed, sniffling the cold dribble back from the end of his nose, “any soldier rides down there ain’t never coming back.”

  Chapter 30

  He had scarcely stirred through the better part of two days. Huddled here beside Judge Kinney’s stove, warming a ladder-backed chair and drinking round after round of whiskey tempered with black coffee.

  Yesterday, Donegan had moved twice. Once to relieve his bladder at the slip-trench. A second time to watch Powell’s troops march back through the gate. Not a single casualty, he had brooded, sipping at his steamy elixir. Captain remembered that it takes more than just a brave sojur to win a war … takes a smart sojur most of all.

  Amid the groans, jeers, and angry mutterings of his troops, Powell had turned back to the fort. The warriors faded away. Crisis averted. Both Fetterman and Brown, who had not marched with Powell, rebuked Carrington again for his order against pursuit beyond Lodge Trail Ridge. Waiting on the porch in front of his office for Powell’s return, the colonel reminded the soldiers that he intended to continue his long-held policy of utmost caution until Cooke’s promised reinforcements arrived. In the meantime, he explained, work to complete the fort would continue with the highest priority.