SIXTY-FOUR
September 1877
The Tongue River Cantonment was little more than a rude collection of earthen-roofed huts, made of cottonwood logs stuck in the ground picket-style and chinked with mud. Built in a loose rectangle, they stood on the west bank of the Tongue River, where it emptied into the Yellowstone. From these rude huts Colonel Nelson A. Miles had pursued the Sioux all winter, defeated Crazy Horse, pushed Sitting Bull and his 4,000 followers into Canada, and forced thousands to surrender by destroying their villages and food supplies. Miles had accomplished in a few short months what no American general had been able to do in ten years, and he took enormous satisfaction in that fact.
Miles stood watching a lone rider descend the clay bluffs on the far side of the Yellowstone. At six feet and 200 pounds, with steel blue eyes and a walrus mustache, Miles was a bulldog of a man. Not yet 40, he’d enlisted in the Civil War at 22, been in dozens of battles, suffered four wounds, earned plaudits enough to gain the rank of Major General by the age of 26. Still he’d had to beg for a position after the war, when the volunteer army disbanded. The West Point graduates got the plum jobs; he was lucky to make colonel. The West Point boys always took care of their own, whether they could fight or not. Well, Nelson Miles could fight, that he had proven.
He met the cavalryman at the ferry, returned his salute, accepted the envelope the man offered him. It was from General Howard. Joseph had escaped the trap he and Sturgis had set, it said. “The Indians are reported going down Clark’s Fork and straight toward the Musselshell. They will in all probability cross the Yellowstone near the mouth of Clark’s Fork and make all haste to join a band of hostile Sioux. I earnestly request you to make every effort in your power to prevent the escape of this hostile band, and at least to hold them in check until I can overtake them.”
Miles had a soft spot for Howard; he had served as aide-de-camp to the general for a year during Mr. Lincoln’s war. But the man had become a national joke. And Sturgis—well, he’d never had the sharpest sword in the army. Miles folded the note and placed it back in the envelope. “Thank you, Private. You’ve had a hard ride.” He signaled to Lieutenant Baldwin, his aide-de-camp. “Find someone to care for Private Sullivan’s horse, Lieutenant, and get him some supper and a bunk. Ask Lieutenant Baird to see me immediately.”
Miles turned on his heel and strode back toward his three-room house. The men had enlarged it since his wife and daughter arrived in July, though the floor was still swept dirt and the roof still leaked mud in a good rain.
Moments later Baird appeared, and Miles relayed the contents of Howard’s message and told the lieutenant which units he wanted prepared for departure. “Send a message to Fort Buford; ask them to send as many rations and as much grain as they can spare up the Missouri by steamer, for Howard and Sturgis. As for our supply train, prepare thirty-six wagons, two ambulances, one Hotchkiss gun, and one Napoleon cannon, with the requisite ammunition. I want two hundred rounds per man, fifty to be carried and a hundred and fifty in the wagons. We’ll need mule teams, pack mules, as many horses as we’ve got.”
Baird scribbled as fast as he could in his tiny notebook.
“This is the moment we’ve been waiting for, Lieutenant. No one has been more successful against these savages than we have, and this time we’re going to prove it for good. What did Crook ever do to make general? He had twenty-two hundred men on the Powder River last winter, and he gave up on the Cheyennes because it got too cold!”
Baird was staring at him, notebook poised, awaiting the next order.
“I want all the men, supplies, wagons, and horses across the river by dawn.”
Baird’s eyes widened. “Dawn, sir?”
“You heard me. Spread the orders. Tell the men to get to work.”
“But sir, if you’re marching in the morning, they’ll need sleep.”
“They can sleep later! We are in a race against Joseph and his Nez Perce, and I intend to win!”
Baird swallowed his words, saluted, and turned on his heel. Tomorrow these men would learn what a real march was, Miles thought. There would be no meeting between Joseph and Sitting Bull, no insurrection on the plains. The Nez Perce were now up against the best goddamn Indian fighter in the entire U.S. Army. When he caught them, no desk commander would dare deny him a general’s star.
Daytime Smoke shivered. He could smell winter on the damp wind that blew down from the northwest. Big gray clouds moved rapidly through the sky, their shadows sweeping the rolling plain. His buckskin leggings and shirt were tattered and thin, and he rode with a buffalo robe pulled close around him. His ankle ached, and in the cold air his back, knees, and hips complained as well.
They had been riding since dawn, and Smoke had fallen behind. After the bluecoats almost caught them north of the Swift Water, ten suns earlier, Lean Elk had driven the people hard, from dawn until dark, with only enough rest during the middle of the day for a meal. He was a good leader, and Smoke was confident they would outrun the bluecoats to the Medicine Line. Yesterday they had traveled until well after dark to reach a place with good water. Many of the horses had developed open sores that would not heal. Others had tender feet or sore backs from too much riding. Smoke was on his last pony that was not broken down, but it too had begun to limp. Many of the people were walking their horses part of the day.
As the sun peeked out once again his horse stopped. He whipped its rear end with his quirt, but it just stood. He knew exactly how it felt.
“Go ahead,” he said to Widow Bird, Little Fire, and Yellow Hair, who had stayed with him. “My horse is done. Just leave us here.”
“If you stay here, I stay here,” Yellow Hair said. This was a game they had come to play almost every day.
“Your grandfather can barely walk,” he said. “He cannot work; he is just another mouth to feed.”
“Grandfather, I will get you another horse.” She looked at her mother, who nodded her permission, then nudged her horse and loped forward.
Smoke sat his horse between Widow Bird and Little Fire and said nothing. He released the reins, so the horse could graze, but buffalo had passed this way not long ago and the grass was cropped short. The ground was littered with drying buffalo pies—a good thing, since there was seldom wood for fires.
After a time they saw Yellow Hair returning. Next to her rode Thunder Rising, leading another horse.
Though Thunder Rising was not a war chief, Smoke admired him more than Looking Glass or White Bird or Sound of Striking Timber. While other headmen sat around smoking and giving orders, Thunder Rising moved quietly through the camp, tending to people’s needs. Children who needed to be fed, old people who needed blankets, wounds that needed to be treated—whatever it was, he found a way to help. His wives fed a dozen children who had lost their parents, and Thunder Rising never rested at night until all the people were secure in their robes.
“I’ve told them they should leave me behind,” Smoke said as his friend drew near. “But I have raised disobedient children.”
Thunder Rising smiled. It was not often that he did so these days, and Smoke was glad to see it.
General Howard had the men line up for inspection while breakfast was being prepared. They were about to enter the Judith Gap, a ten-mile-wide corridor between the Little Belt and Big Snowy Mountains. A cold wind blew from the northwest, tugging at Howard’s empty sleeve. Howard walked down the line, gazed at the worn boots, the feet wrapped in rags, the bony faces. The men were spent, and most of their horses were afflicted with a disease of the hoof. He himself had lost 30 pounds. He could see disdain on some of the faces, blank weariness on others. He was aware that most of his men disliked him. They thought inspections like this a waste of time, out here on the plains. They resented Howard’s drive, his refusal to give up. And they despised the prayers he required them to recite each morning. He desired their admiration, but he was unwilling to give up his morning prayers. If they could not ask the Almighty for help, how cou
ld they ever hope for victory—even if it took another army, under Colonel Miles, to run the last lap?
When the inspections and prayers were complete, Howard returned to camp, gratefully accepted a tin cup full of coffee and a plate of flapjacks. “I’ve been thinking about what you said back on the Musselshell,” he said to Sturgis as they descended onto their camp stools. “The faster we chase Joseph, the faster he goes.”
Sturgis shook his head in disbelief. “The day after we caught ’em at Canyon Creek we did thirty-seven miles. The next another twenty-five, with nothing to eat but our horses. And we still couldn’t get close.”
“The scouts say they always stay forty miles ahead.”
“You have to admire them.”
“Joseph is a military genius. If I followed my heart—and did not value my reputation—I might say we should let him get to Canada.”
“That trick he pulled on me,” Sturgis said, “they ought to study that at West Point.”
“But even a genius can be fooled, Colonel. Have you heard of jujitsu?”
Sturgis frowned and shook his head.
“It’s a form of combat from Japan, in which an opponent’s strength is used against him.”
Sturgis peered at him, dubious.
“I found in Yellowstone Park that they always knew where we were. And the slower we chased them, the slower they went.”
Sturgis’s eyebrows rose.
“You and I both know we don’t have the rations or horses to catch them. But Miles does. Their scouts are always out, keeping an eye on us. If we slow our march, they’ll slow as well.”
“There’s just one problem, General. If Miles catches them, he’ll claim all the credit.”
“Colonel Miles was my aide-de-camp for a year during the war, Colonel. I’m sure he won’t mind sharing credit with his old general.”
“When was the last time you saw him face to face?”
“It’s been years.”
“Might I speak in confidence, sir?”
“Of course. Say what’s on your mind.”
“He wants general so bad he’d run over his mother for it.”
“Surely you exaggerate.”
“When he was pursuing Crazy Horse last winter, in temperatures of forty below, he damn near got his entire command killed. When they ran out of rations he attacked a larger force just to get at their food stores. It’s just luck he didn’t end up like Custer.”
“I take it he’s not your favorite officer.”
“If the man were starving, General, I wouldn’t give him one pinch of owl dung.”
Howard chuckled and stroked his beard. “Nelson Miles has one saving grace, Colonel: he never shrinks from the attack. He is our only realistic hope.”
“Just be careful he doesn’t write you right out of the story.”
SIXTY-FIVE
September 1877
Miles had a double stroke of luck when they hit the Missouri. He had sent Lieutenant Maus forward to reconnoiter, and when Maus reached the river the steamboat Fontenelle had been almost upon him. He’d flagged it down and the captain had agreed to ferry the men across. Miles had moved the Second Cavalry to the north side, the rest west across the Musselshell, still on the south side of the Missouri. He planned to march west, along the south bank, to intercept the Nez Perce before they crossed.
Now Sergeant McHugh was pointing upriver. In the distance, under the tortured sandstone bluffs of the Missouri Breaks, Miles spotted something. He lifted his field glasses, focused, swept the muddy waters. It was a wooden rowboat, one man at the oars, the other in the stern.
Miles slapped at one of the small, songless mosquitoes that had been preying on them all morning: “Motion them over, Sergeant. Fire if you have to, but bring them in.”
McHugh fired a shot and waved the strangers over, and Miles lifted the glasses again. The tiny boat quartered across the current and headed straight at him. In the middle of the broad river, it pitched and bobbed.
The man in the stern, tall and dressed in a rough woolen suit, had his left arm in a sling. Sergeant McHugh pulled the nose of the rowboat up onto the bank and extended a hand to help them out, one after the other. “Gentlemen, say hello to Colonel Nelson A. Miles, commander of the Yellowstone Department, U.S. Army.”
“You after them Injuns?” the shorter man asked.
“Nez Perce.”
“They hit Cow Island day before yesterday. Winged us both. Come across peaceful-like, camped two miles downriver. Dumbass lieutenant wouldn’t give ’em no food, so they took what they wanted, burned the rest.”
“You say they crossed the Missouri on the twenty-third?”
“Yes, sir.
“When did they leave?”
“Can’t rightly say, Colonel. When they burned the supply depot me and the big fella lit out.”
“But they’re well supplied?”
“They took pork, rice, flour, blankets, ammunition, you name it.”
“How far have you come from Cow Island?”
The short one glanced at his silent partner and shrugged. “Maybe sixty miles.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. You have no idea how important this information is.” Miles turned to the sergeant: “Get that steamboat back here, on the double!”
“Sir?”
“The captain was planning to take on firewood a mile downriver. Fire the Napoleon gun. Three times.”
The sergeant mounted up and raced downriver, and Miles sent the two wounded civilians to find Major Tilton, the surgeon. Five minutes later Miles heard the big gun boom. He mounted his horse and climbed the bluff behind him to get a better view downriver. The gun boomed twice more, and ten minutes later the Fontenelle rounded the bend.
All day long they ferried men and horses across the Missouri. The Canadian border was only 90 miles away, and the Nez Perce had two days’ head start. Miles would have to race north, staying east of the Little Rockies to keep from being seen, then angle northwest to cut them off. But if he drove his men hard—and Joseph dallied at all—he could do it. He knew how to use scouts the way the savages did, how to hide his troops behind ridges, how to go without fires, how to move even faster than Indians. Even more important, he knew how to deliver a crushing blow.
Early in the evening, he led the cavalry out of camp. The men grumbled, but they obeyed. The wagon masters cracked their whips and the oxen strained against their yokes, the Fontenelle’s whistle shrieking behind them. As they climbed up through the Breaks, the setting sun bathed the land in subtle shades of red and pink. It was the strangest landscape Miles had ever witnessed, as if some drunken giant had folded the pale earth into thousands of fantastic shapes, its sudden hills like white spires dropped from the sky.
He loved it.
Thunder Rising talked with Lean Elk as they rode, the wind whipping white clouds through a wide blue sky. They were troubled by the soldiers who had appeared just before midday, a day’s ride north of the Troubled Water. Fortunately, there had only been 40 of them, and they had seemed afraid to attack. Lean Elk’s warriors had easily pinned them down in the ravines and kept them away as the people departed. But where had they come from? Only a few wore blue coats. Were they settlers from this region? Thunder Rising doubted there were that many Soyappos who had settled anywhere close to the bad lands along the Troubled Water. Had they come down the river on a boat? The scouts said Cut-Off Arm was far behind, but they had reported nothing of these soldiers. It was unsettling. Lean Elk had sent scouts out far and wide.
They turned in their saddles at the sound of a rider approaching. It was Looking Glass, loping after them. “This would be a good spot to camp,” he said when he pulled up. “There’s water and wood.”
They were moving north, through wooded hills between the Bear’s Paw Mountains and the Little Rockies. “We have plenty of light left,” Lean Elk said.
Looking Glass gazed ahead at the dry prairie that lay ahead, wind sweeping through the waist-high grass like ripples on water. “Yo
u won’t find timber ahead.”
“Buffalo chips will do.”
Looking Glass glared at Lean Elk, disdain in his eyes. “Why push so hard? People need rest.”
“They have had rest. We traveled only half of yesterday, and we departed at midday today.”
“They need more rest. General Day-and-a-Half-Behind will not catch us.”
A slight smile crossed Lean Elk’s weathered face. “It is not General Day-and-a-Half-Behind I am concerned about.”
“You worry like an old woman. It is time you returned to your place, Lean Elk. You have done well, but it is time for a Nimíipuu to lead.”
Lean Elk surveyed him, his head cocked back slightly. “If you are not happy with my leadership, call a council.”
“As soon as we make camp.”
“We make camp when I say.”
The sun was low in the sky when Lean Elk finally called a halt, beside a small, muddy waterhole. The People were in better spirits after two days of lighter travel. Thunder Rising could see their smiles and hear their laughter as he strolled through the camp, calling out one child’s name after another, collecting them for supper. The food they had taken at the Troubled Water had been an enormous help—they were well fed for the first time since the Place of Ground Squirrels. And their horses were beginning to recover.
After their meal, he walked through camp distributing the blankets they had taken from a Soyappo wagon they had come across that morning. Only when he was sure no one needed anything more did he head for the council. He was tired of all the arguments; it felt like they had been arguing about what to do forever.
Looking Glass was speaking when he reached Lean Elk’s fire: “Our horses can recover here, and our hunters can find buffalo. We can build our stocks of dried meat and buffalo robes. Snow could come at any time, and it is better to do as much of this as we can before it grows deep.” A chorus of “ah-hehs” greeted his words, and Many Wounds and Bird Alighting pulled their blankets over their shoulders, to signal that their feelings had been well expressed.
The Coming Page 45
