Little Wolf sat silently watching the sun settle into the distant hills on the horizon. Soon it would suddenly disappear and the light would be gone from the plains, replaced by a darkness so deep that objects a stone’s throw away would melt into the blackness, becoming all but invisible to the untrained eye. He turned to glance at the encampment in the basin behind and below him. The cook fires were already burning outside the tipis. Soon, when the darkness came, they would glow like a blanket of stars on the prairie floor. This was Black Kettle’s village, almost one hundred tipis. Little Wolf felt at ease with the darkness. He welcomed it. He liked to look at the encampment below him where he could see the figures moving about the fires and know they were his people and they felt secure knowing that he was on sentry duty.
He was not the only sentry, of course. There were eight others. Red Shirt always did things in nines. There were always nine sentries posted at night. Whenever scouting parties were sent out under his leadership, it was always nine. Red Shirt believed the number nine held a special power for him. When he was a young man, while fasting and purifying his body in quest of his power, he had a vision. In the vision he had seen nine hawks attack and devour nine sparrows. It was an unmistakable message for him.
Red Shirt was highly respected among the council members and his primary responsibility was the safety of the camp. When there was no immediate threat of danger, he would often use the young men of the Kit-fox Society as lookouts around the perimeter of the village. Little Wolf was proud to be a member of the Kit-foxes. His friend Black Feather was Red Shirt’s son and the two of them were looked upon as the leaders of the Kit-fox Society. In recognition of their standing in the young warrior society, Little Wolf and Black Feather had been permitted to go on several scouting parties with the older warriors of the village. These were training sessions for the two young boys in preparation for the time when they would take their places beside the veteran warriors of the tribe. The scouting parties they were delegated to were usually for food for the people of the village, tracking the buffalo herds or following the elk to find their summer ranges.
The more important scouting parties were usually the exclusive responsibility of the Dog Society, a group of older men, men who had proven themselves in battle or had done some other brave deed, like saving the life of one of their fellow tribesmen. They were charged with the responsibility of knowing the whereabouts of the white soldiers and were the village’s first line of defense. Someday, Little Wolf thought, he would be invited to be a member of the Dog Society. But for now, watching over the village was an important responsibility and only those members of the Kit-foxes like himself and Black Feather were deemed brave enough and mature enough to be awarded that assignment.
The low, throaty call of a night bird caught his attention and he immediately brought his concentration to bear on it. It was still not dark although the sharp outline of the distant mountains was already softened into gray. Soon they would blend into the night and become lost in the darkness. He was confident the sound he had heard was indeed a bird and not a signal from an enemy raider. Still, his responsibility was to be alert in the event it was the latter. He smiled and silently congratulated himself when his sharp eyes finally spotted the bird perched in a laurel scrub.
He relaxed and let his mind wander back to the summer just passed. The birdcall reminded him of the signals used by the men of his tribe to communicate with each other during the great buffalo hunts. He loved the hunts. There would be medicine dances for several nights before the hunt and, when the scouts had located the herd, all the men in the village participated in the killing. Little Wolf remembered the first hunt he had participated in. The men had circled around to come upon the buffalo from downwind. Before the herd was in sight he could smell them. It was a strange pungent odor, one that would be unmistakable from that first time forever after. It was fully another half hour after first picking up their scent until the animals were actually seen.
The hunters slowly worked their way up to a ridge in the rolling hills. Beyond the crest, in a broad grassy basin, Little Wolf saw buffalo for the first time. There were hundreds of animals, filling the basin with a solid sea of dark brown and black shapes. Their movement caused the prairie to take on the appearance of a boiling body of muddy water. The men broke up into smaller groups of five or six and began to work their way down to the head of the basin where it funneled into a narrow pass. This was to be the killing site. Far to the south, at the mouth of the basin, a group of hunters on horseback, led by Black Feather’s father, came into position to stampede the animals toward the waiting hunters.
Little Wolf was in a group with his friend, Black Feather, and three older men of the village. One of them, a short bull of a man called Owl Speaks, was wearing a buffalo robe with the head attached. The disguise seemed a cumbersome burden to Little Wolf but Owl Speaks was strong enough to manage it. It allowed him to slip in closer to the herd. Little Wolf thought it a useless attempt when the whole herd was stampeding toward the head of the narrow basin anyway. But Owl Speaks always wore it in the hunt. Spotted Pony laughed when Little Wolf told him about it, saying that Owl Speaks was such a poor shot with a bow that he had to get close. He couldn’t hit a buffalo with his bow if the animal was in the tipi with him, Spotted Pony joked. Little Wolf found out later that day that Owl Speaks could account for himself as well as any of the other hunters at the close range they fired from. Little Wolf himself shot all his arrows in the span of no more than a few minutes’ time. Caught up in the excitement of the massive flow of buffalo, amid the dust and the excited shouts of the hunters and the pounding hoofs, he felt he was a part of a mighty storm. The rolling tempest ended almost as suddenly as it had started as the last of the herd thundered through the draw and up through the hills beyond.
Afterwards, as the dust settled, there was much whooping and laughter as the hunters darted from carcass to carcass to finish off the dying animals with their knives. There was a lot of joking and bragging about who killed the most as the hunters identified their arrows in the carcasses. There were often as many as four arrows in the same animal, resulting in a loud good-natured argument over which shot had been the lethal one.
Within minutes after the killing was finished, the women appeared to begin the skinning. They chattered gaily among themselves, bragging about the performance of their respective husbands and sons. Buffalo Woman was particularly pleased to find Little Wolf’s arrows in six carcasses, one more than his friend, Black Feather, had killed.
Little Wolf marveled at the efficiency with which the women prepared the meat and hides from the day’s kill. They cut the meat from the carcasses in large thin strips and hung it over pole racks to dry. Everyone, hunters and women, ate as they worked, for the organs of the animal were considered great delicacies and were devoured immediately. The women worked hard for they had to prepare as much meat as possible to feed the village during the long cold winter. Once the meat was properly dried, it would be stored in secret caches, protected and hidden from predators as well as from enemies. Some of the meat would be pounded and ground with berries and mixed with hot tallow. It was called pemmican and would keep for a long, long time. Thinking back on that first hunt, Little Wolf could not remember a time when he had been happier.
Little Wolf called his thoughts back to the endless stretch of prairie before him and scanned the horizon for any irregular shape that might indicate something out of the ordinary. He knew every hill and gully around his section of patrol and he wanted to make sure everything looked as it should while there was still enough light to see. All looked peaceful. None of the elders of the village expected attack from the soldiers. There had been none sighted by the scouts for many days. Still, they thought it prudent to be alert even though the word received from other villages was that the soldiers had their hands full trying to combat raids from the Dakotas to the north and the Southern Cheyenne to the south.
The thought of battle with the soldiers brought on deeper thoughts. It had been several summers since Little Wolf came to his first summer encampment. Those years had been happy ones for him. He had grown to love and respect his Indian father, Spotted Pony, and a deep affection had developed for Buffalo Woman. In fact, he barely thought of his white parents anymore. It was a totally new experience, not only to be accepted, but wanted by his new family and Little Wolf had thrived in his adopted lifestyle.
At first it was fun to think of himself as an Indian boy. It was like playing make-believe with his friends back in St. Louis. Before very long it became a natural way of life for him and he didn’t think of his former childhood. The language was easy to learn. It was almost as if he wasn’t aware he was learning the tongue when, suddenly, he realized that he spoke fluently. Also, just as suddenly, he began to grow. Already he was as tall as most of the grown men in the village and he was still growing. Buffalo Woman laughed when she saw how his feet hung over the sleeping platform she had made for him when he was younger. Spotted Pony joked that if he kept growing, he would make an excellent lodge pole for the council tipi.
“Ahhh . . . I think I have found a dead Arapaho. Maybe I’ll take his scalp and hang it from my lance.”
Little Wolf was startled but he checked himself before showing any emotion, taking great care to conceal his surprise. Without bothering to look around, he answered, “Even a dead Arapaho could hear the plodding feet of Black Feather. I was waiting to see if a herd of buffalo were coming but I see it is only you.”
In truth, Little Wolf had not heard Black Feather until he spoke but he would never admit this to his friend. No one in the village, not even any of the Dog Soldiers, could move as silently as Black Feather. It was a talent Little Wolf envied. He had seen his friend creep right up to a prairie hen and simply reach down and catch it in his hands.
“I just wanted to make sure you were not asleep,” Black Feather joked as he knelt down beside his friend. He would only visit for a few minutes before getting back to his post. He took a piece of dried buffalo jerky from a pouch and offered it to Little Wolf. Little Wolf took it and bit off a chunk, then returned it. Black Feather tore off a bite with his teeth and the two of them chewed the tough leathery meat in silence for a few moments. When the jerky had softened enough to allow room for speech, Black Feather asked, “Is all well?” It was nothing more than polite conversation for he knew, if all had not been well, he would have heard a signal from Little Wolf.
“Yes.”
“Do you think the soldiers will come?” The thought excited Black Feather for he was anxious to prove himself in battle. Not waiting for an answer, he added, “I don’t think the elders expect it. If they really thought the soldiers would come, the Dog Society would be guarding the village tonight instead of us.”
“I don’t know,” Little Wolf replied thoughtfully. “Spotted Pony says that the soldiers know that Black Kettle wants peace.”
Black Feather looked worried. “I know. There has been much talk that Black Kettle will lead the whole village to the white man’s fort instead of separating into our winter camps. If he does, I don’t think I will follow him.” His voice lifted in his excitement. “Red Shirt will never follow him. There is no honorable peace with the white man. They just want us to be their slaves.” A long silence followed while both boys thought about the possibility of the tribe splitting up. When there was no response from his friend, Black Feather asked, “If it comes to fighting the soldiers, are you going to fight the whites?”
Little Wolf thought for a long moment before answering. This question had worried his mind many times before. This summer had been a troubled one for the Cheyenne. More and more wagon trains were rolling through the land of the Indian, land that had been guaranteed to be theirs exclusively, and there had been many raids by the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers to punish these trespassers. Then there had been more talks and treaties with the white man, resulting in an uneasy peace. The white governor of the Colorado territory, a man named John Evans, met with Black Kettle in Denver. White Antelope and Bull Bear made the journey with the chief and they informed the governor that the Cheyenne only wanted to be left in peace to hunt and live as they had always lived. The chief of the soldiers in Denver, Colonel John Chivington, was there also and he told Black Kettle that if he brought his people to Fort Lyons, they would be safe there. Black Kettle believed the white men to be sincere but not all the men agreed with their chief. Some, like Spotted Pony and Red Shirt, were talking about making their own winter camp as they had always done.
Black Feather pressed for an answer to his question. “You will fight. I know you will. You are a Cheyenne warrior!”
“Arapaho,” Little Wolf corrected.
Black Feather laughed. “I know, Arapaho, but you will fight with your Cheyenne brothers.”
Little Wolf paused. “I have thought about it and thought about it. You know I would love to fight beside you but I’m not sure I can kill whites. I will go with Spotted Pony. He is my father.” Little Wolf had embraced the Indian way of his adopted father wholeheartedly. But could he go so far as to draw his bow on white men? It had only been a few years since he was Robert Allred. Life as a white child was still alive in his memory even though each passing month pushed that memory further and further from his conscious thought.
Black Feather was disappointed but this was not the first time they had discussed the matter. He shrugged. “I understand. Maybe you will change your mind.”
“Maybe.”
* * *
Living as an Indian for the past several years, there was no way he could keep up with the months. The Cheyenne noted the passing of a year by the moons. They knew nothing of months. Little Wolf knew that his birthday was September twenty-eighth. There was no way he could know when it was September or October but, when the women took down the tipis for the summer camp, the days were already getting chilly with some mornings greeting the tribe with frost. So he was sure he had passed his sixteenth birthday.
In spite of the talk in the council lodge that summer about going to the reservation, no decision was made to do so. There were too many of the village’s leaders, like Red Shirt, who were against giving in to the white soldiers’ demands. When the tribe broke up into the customary small bands to move to winter quarters, Black Kettle still talked of saving the peace and urged the leaders of the individual bands to meditate and seek wisdom from the spirits on the matter. He reminded them that the buffalo had not been as plentiful that summer as before and the white chiefs had promised to feed his people if they respected the treaties.
Little Wolf said his good-byes to Black Feather and his family just as he had done the summer before. But for some reason he could not explain, this summer he was a little more reluctant to see his friend leave. There was so much talk of troubled times on the horizon that he could not escape the nagging feeling that this might be the last he would see of Black Feather. Black Feather must have sensed the same reluctance although he attempted to maintain the air of confident casualness that had come to be his trademark.
“Don’t let the coyotes eat you this winter,” he tossed at his friend in an effort to make light of the parting.
“The coyote makes water on himself when he faces the power of the grizzly,” Little Wolf yelled back and laughed as he walked away.
“Take care of yourself,” Black Feather called out. “I’ll see you in the summer.”
“I will.” Little Wolf hurried to catch up with Spotted Pony. As he broke into a comfortable trot, he began to feel the void left by the departure of his friend. He stopped and turned back toward Black Feather. “I’ll come to visit you after Spotted Pony has made our camp. We’ll hunt together.”
Black Feather’s face lit up with a smile. “I’ll look for you.” He couldn’t resist adding a tease. “Are you sure you can find our camp? Maybe I should come to lead you.”
Little Wolf laughed and waved good-bye to his friend.
* * *
After splitting off from Black Kettle’s band on the second day of the trek, Spotted Pony led his small group of followers west and north. One more day’s journey found them in the foothills of the great mountains and Little Wolf and another boy his age, Sleeps Standing, were sent on ahead of the main party to scout out possible winter campsites. There were favorite campsites that were often used but never in consecutive winters for that would soon kill off the available game in the area. This year, Spotted Pony had decided to winter further south than the year before. Little Wolf guessed that the reason was partly to be closer to the other segments of the tribe in case there would be a reason to unite. After scouting for the greater part of three days, a site was selected that offered water as well as some protection from the cold winds that swept through the mountains. They sighted no animals in the valley they had chosen but there were plenty of signs to indicate that meat was available. Little Wolf and Sleeps Standing agreed that it was a good place so they rode back to the main party to get Spotted Pony. Spotted Pony looked over the area thoroughly, riding up into the hills all around the valley, surveying it from every vantage point. His concern was not only food and protection from the weather, but also the defense of the camp. When he was satisfied with his inspection, he complimented the two boys on their selection and the band settled in for the winter.
The weeks that followed were busy ones for Little Wolf. Each day was spent hunting the elk and deer that could still be found in the valleys and high meadows. Sometimes he went with a larger hunting party of eight or ten men, which was most of the men in the little winter village. Other days he went out alone, or with one other, usually Sleeps Standing. These were the hunts he enjoyed most. He had become quite skillful in stalking his prey. The long hours spent at Spotted Pony’s side had not been wasted on Little Wolf. When he hunted alone, he disciplined himself to be patient, taking hours sometimes to steal up to his prey so that one shot from his sinew-backed ashwood bow was all that was needed to ensure a kill. Sometimes, when it was not mandatory that he return to the village with some form of food, he played a game of stalking. The object was to get close enough to his prey, usually an antelope or small deer, to kill it with his knife. He had never accomplished it but the more he practiced the game, and the more he perfected his patience, the closer he came. His dedication to the perfection of this skill stood him in good stead with the older men of the village and he was always a welcome member of any hunting party. He, in turn, was very proud of his reputation as a tracker and was recognized as second only in this skill to his friend Black Feather in the entire tribe. Spotted Pony often pointed out that Little Wolf was a good bit taller than Black Feather which actually presented a disadvantage to his son. He maintained that if Little Wolf was as small as Black Feather he might be an even better tracker than his friend. For his part, Little Wolf genuinely liked Black Feather and felt no sense of competition with him. In fact, he was glad to have the opportunity to learn from his friend whenever possible. This, and the fact that he missed his friendship, were the prime reasons he decided one chilly morning to visit his friend.
* * *
A light dusting of snow had settled over the village during the night, leaving a thin, pale blanket on the ground. Little Wolf knew it would all be gone by midday and the weather would be quite comfortable for his journey. Spotted Pony had studied the sky the night before and predicted the snowfall but assured Little Wolf that the sky would be clear in the morning. Spotted Pony was seldom wrong about the weather so Little Wolf was not surprised at all when the sun rose the next day to reveal a cloudless sky.
The air was crisp and cold when he walked to the edge of camp to relieve himself and, just for a second, he wished that Indians wore long underwear like he remembered wearing as a child in St. Louis. He had adjusted to Indian winters but he still felt the chill in the mornings. The men in his tribe never wore shirts except in special ceremonies, preferring to remain bare from the waist up. Warmth was provided by heavy robes of buffalo hides, the fur turned inward. They wore leggings of buffalo or deer hides up to the groin, covered by a breechcloth.
He said good-bye to Spotted Pony and Buffalo Woman and climbed up on the little pinto his father had given him. Making sure his hide parfleche of food was secure, he arranged his bearskin robe around him and nudged the pinto across the tiny stream and down toward the river. His only essentials for his trip, in addition to the small packet of jerky, were his bow, ten arrows, his knife, his war club and a fire drill. This was all he would need, no matter how long his journey might prove to be.
Spotted Pony and Buffalo Woman stood and watched until he could no longer be seen through the pines. Buffalo Woman sensed a feeling of foreboding as she watched her son leave. For some reason, she wished that he had not gone, but she would never ask him to cancel his visit. If her son felt he should go to visit the village of Red Shirt, then it was for him to decide. She said nothing of her concern to her husband. He would mock her for acting like an old prairie hen over her young. In these times she could not be certain they would ever see Little Wolf again. Sometimes she could feel impending danger hanging over her people like a great invisible mist and she didn’t feel secure when those closest to her were away.
Little Wolf guided the pinto up through the mountains, through tall green trees and grassy meadows strewn with small boulders and scattered deadwood left in the path of countless storms. He would intercept the winding river on the other side of the mountain range and follow it until he found Red Shirt’s camp. The climb was hard on the pinto so Little Wolf walked most of the way. He could have elected to follow the river from his village, around the mountains, until it intersected the river Red Shirt was camped on. But that would have taken longer. Also, in the high country, he was not as likely to be spotted by an army patrol, should one happen by, or a raiding party of Shoshones out to steal horses. He knew Red Shirt would be camped somewhere on the river, but how far he could only guess. But he was confident that he would find his friend, Black Feather.
After climbing for most of the morning, he finally crested a small ridge and started down the far side. Halfway through a stand of aspen, he detected a movement out of the corner of his eye. Immediately alert, he froze, scanning the brush below and to his side. For a moment there was nothing and then he saw it again. It was a deer, a large doe. She had evidently sighted Little Wolf at the same moment the boy had seen her. For a long moment the boy and the deer stood transfixed, staring at each other. Then the animal bounded off into the brush. Little Wolf smiled and, at the same time, reprimanded himself for carelessly stumbling down the mountainside, his senses numb. “Good thing it was a deer and not a Crow scalping party,” he muttered. “Too bad I wasn’t close enough to get a shot at it. It would have been nice to ride into Red Shirt’s camp with a fat doe across my saddle.”
Nightfall found him at the river. He hobbled his horse and made a camp under a large pine within sight of the river but far enough up the ridge to be hidden from anyone traveling the water. He judged his cover adequate to allow a small campfire so he bundled up in his bearskin, close to the fire, and was soon asleep. The night passed without incident and he continued his journey downriver the next morning.
Another day’s journey carried him far down the river with still no sign of his friend’s village. In some places the terrain was too rugged to continue along the bank and he would detour for long distances before working his way back to the river again. After another night camp and another day’s journey, he began to have some doubts. Maybe he was following the wrong river. True, he had not known for sure how far Red Shirt’s camp was from his own. But he had expected it to be no more than two or three days’ journey. He had no fear of being lost. He was more concerned with the embarrassment it would cause him if he had taken the wrong fork and couldn’t find the camp. Black Feather would never let him live it down if such was the case. Still, he had to believe he was on the right path so he decided to continue until he found the camp or until the river ran out, even if it was a hundred miles. As it turned out, he was closer than he thought.
Warm and comfortable in his bearskin, Little Wolf urged the little pinto along. It was another chilly morning and the horse seemed reluctant to get started. Little Wolf suspected the animal had not been ridden enough lately and was starting to protest the daily journeys. As the pinto struggled up a steep creek bank, Little Wolf noticed the horse’s ears flicking as if he heard something. Thinking that it could possibly be other horses the pinto heard, which would mean the village might be close, Little Wolf pulled the horse to a stop, pushed the bearskin back from his ears and listened. At first he heard nothing but the sound of the water rippling over the stones in the creek bed. Then, faintly, he made out a distant cracking sound. He strained to listen. There was no mistaking it. It was gunfire. That could mean only one thing, he thought. Black Feather’s village was under attack! It could be soldiers or a war party from some raiding tribe, but it had to be Black Feather’s village.
He kicked the pinto into a gallop and followed the sound of the gunfire down the river, stopping every few minutes to listen to make sure he was going in the right direction. After a short while, it was no longer necessary to stop to hear the sound of the rifles. It was getting louder and louder and, from the sound of it, it had to be an all-out attack by soldiers. There was too much gunfire to be anything else. Red Shirt probably had no more than one or two old muzzle loaders in his whole camp. The shooting was almost without pause and so loud now that the pinto began to balk when he urged him forward. Little Wolf had to rein him hard and kick him repeatedly to keep him from stopping.
Now he could see smoke rising above the trees, not the wisps of breakfast fires, but the smoke that dozens of burning tipis might make. His heart was racing with the apprehension of what was probably happening in Red Shirt’s village. He thought at once of Black Feather. His friend had been so eager to fight. He wondered if he was already dead. He hoped that Black Feather had escaped and not tried to fight the army’s rifles with his bow and lance.
When he judged the smoke to be about a mile away, he began to scan the ground before him more carefully. He didn’t want to ride headlong right into an army scout. He slowed the pinto to a trot as he looked left and right. The shooting had almost subsided by the time he estimated he was less than a quarter mile away from the smoke. Only an occasional crack of a rifle could be heard now. Mopping up, he thought, and the mental image of such an operation caused the anger to rise in his throat. Not wishing to chance detection by the soldiers, he tied the pinto in a stand of aspen and made his way down through the trees on foot, his bow in hand, his stone war club in his belt.
Long before he reached the edge of the forest, he could see the carnage still underway. It was a terrible scene and one that would live in his memory for as long as he lived. At first it did not seem real. He had been correct in his initial assumption. It was the army—blue-coated troopers were everywhere, galloping back and forth through the burning village, wheeling to fire at a wounded brave, charging to cut off the escape of a fleeing woman. Little Wolf was paralyzed by the horrifying spectacle. There were bodies everywhere, brown lifeless lumps that were once his friends. For a moment, he stood transfixed by the carnage, his eyes unable to blink, his nostrils filled with the peculiar stench of death. Then he regained his senses enough to think about his own welfare. Making his way carefully to the edge of the clearing, he dropped down behind a fallen tree to survey the scene. He felt helpless at this point. There was little he could do to help his fallen friends, yet still he felt the need to do something. He decided to skirt the clearing to see if he might find some survivors who had managed to escape into the forest.
Alternately running and crawling, he managed to make his way around to the other side of the village to an outcropping of boulders. He paused for a moment to listen. He was about to move again when he caught a movement beyond the rocks, just ahead of him. He held his breath, fearing that he might be heard. Then he recognized the low whispering from the other side of the boulder as Cheyenne. Still he did not expose himself until he could see them. As he watched, a figure crept slowly from the far side of the rocks, looking in all directions before crawling toward a thicket of laurel. It was Black Feather! Little Wolf could scarcely believe his eyes. It was a miracle! He was so delighted to see his friend that he almost called out to him. He stood up. Black Feather was still unaware of his presence. He looked back toward the rocks and motioned. A girl quickly made her way up beside him. Little Wolf recognized her as Morning Sky, Black Feather’s sister.
Little Wolf raised his arm and was about to signal his friend when, suddenly, a figure rose in front of him, directly between him and his two Cheyenne friends. His whole nervous system suddenly went numb. The man had been kneeling between two small boulders no more than ten feet in front of him. Little Wolf realized that Black Feather did not see the man. He also realized that the man, an army scout by the look of his buckskin shirt and blue army-issue trousers, was not aware of Little Wolf’s presence. As he watched, the scout slowly raised his carbine and drew down on the unsuspecting boy and girl. There was no time for thought. Little Wolf, without consciously thinking about what he was about to do, pulled his stone club from his belt and brought it down across the back of the man’s skull with all the strength he could put into it.
The club made a dull sound on the man’s head, like hitting a hollow log, and the man crumpled in a heap. He uttered no cry but his finger closed on the trigger as he fell, causing the rifle to discharge, sending a bullet whistling harmlessly through the trees. The explosion of the rifle so close to him caused Black Feather to whirl around to face his attacker. Knife drawn, he stood ready to defend himself. His face, at first twisted with rage, relaxed into a mask of disbelief as he looked into the face of his closest friend.
“Little Wolf!” he exclaimed. Then he saw the fallen army scout on the ground between them and understood at once what had happened. Suddenly his broad face broke into a wide grin. “I knew you would come.” He reached out to clasp his friend’s extended arm. Immediately his mind leaped back to the danger at hand. “Come, we must leave this place!”
Little Wolf looked down at the man he had just clubbed. The blow had been fatal. The pointed edge of the war club had crushed a portion of the man’s skull and it was obvious that he was no longer a threat to them. That he was probably dying seemed certain but he was still breathing at that moment. Little Wolf hesitated. The man was an Indian, probably a Pawnee, though he wore the blue uniform trousers of the army. Black Feather, seeing his friend’s apparent confusion as to what to do about the dying man, casually reached down and calmly cut the man’s throat.
“Take the rifle,” Black Feather whispered and motioned for him to follow.
Little Wolf might have gone away without the weapon had it not been for Black Feather’s presence of mind. Little Wolf quickly loosened a bandolier of ammunition from around the man’s chest, picked up the rifle and ran into the trees after his two friends. Behind him, the sounds of the troopers mopping up went on but he seemed not to hear them. A new sensation had taken hold of him now as he realized that he had killed a man. The thought numbed his brain, as did the picture of the gaping hole in the man’s throat where Black Feather sliced it open. The whole episode made him feel a bit queasy. He hoped Black Feather and his sister wouldn’t notice.
High up into the tall pines they ran, stopping only when they could no longer hear any of the chaos behind them. Finally satisfied that they had escaped, Black Feather dropped to the ground and gasped for breath. His two companions dropped beside him.
“I knew you would come,” Black Feather repeated. “I dreamed it two nights ago.” Little Wolf did not reply as he strained to catch his breath. “In my dream, a deer was being devoured by a black bear. Suddenly a great grizzly appeared and the black bear vomited the deer up and fled before the grizzly. The deer got to his feet and ran away. I knew the grizzly was you. Now I know what you were trying to tell me.”
“What happened? Why did the soldiers come?” Little Wolf asked.
“We didn’t even know they were close until they rode across the river as the sun came up. Many of the women had not even started their cook fires. They gave no warning, rode into the village shooting and killing—women, children, everyone. Some tried to fight them but our arrows were no good against their guns. Red Shirt is dead. I saw the bullets when they tore into his flesh. He did not have time to shoot more than one or two arrows before they killed him. I knew I could do nothing against them. I shot at two of the soldiers when they rode through the council tipi. I may have hit one of them, I’m not sure. I had to think of Morning Sky, had to take her to safety. There was nothing I could do.”
“You did the right thing,” Little Wolf quickly responded. “It is one thing to die in battle, but it is foolish to sacrifice your life against impossible odds.” He turned to look at Morning Sky, a shy girl of barely twelve or thirteen. “You were right. You had a responsibility to save your sister.”
“There will be other times,” Black Feather said, defiantly. “The white soldiers will pay for this.”
“Come, you and Morning Sky must come with me to Spotted Pony’s village. We’ll be safe there.”
Black Feather agreed but first he wanted to remain where they were until they were sure the soldiers had gone. Then they could go back to the village to search for survivors of the cowardly attack. Little Wolf agreed but, from what he had witnessed of the massacre, he doubted there were any left alive. Another troublesome thought entered his mind. If the army attacked Red Shirt’s camp, how many other camps were in danger of the same fate? He must return to Spotted Pony’s camp as soon as possible to warn his own people to be prepared.
As Little Wolf expected, there were no survivors to be found when they made their way back down the hillside later that afternoon. The village was in ruins. Nothing remained but charred tipi poles and smoldering lumps that were once the bodies of humans and ponies. It was not a pretty sight. Black Feather’s face was stern, frozen with grief. Morning Sky cried and moaned in her agony for her family and friends. Little Wolf saw at once there was nothing they could do there and he felt the urgency to return to his village.
They found Red Shirt’s body next to the burned out ashes of the council tipi. He had been riddled with bullet holes. His blood, already congealed, formed a dark pool around his body. His face, contorted into a mask of rage, was frozen to register his anger forever for the cowardly attack on his people.
Black Feather and Morning Sky moaned in their grief at the sight of their father. Little Wolf could feel their sorrow. Red Shirt had been such a strong image of leadership in the tribe. He had always seemed so powerful and, seeing his lifeless body before him now, Little Wolf was shocked to see how small and frail the mighty chief looked in death. He was to learn that all men shrank when death overtook them. Although impatient to leave there and warn Spotted Pony, he could not deny Black Feather’s request to help him prepare his father for his journey to the great beyond. They could not wrap him in his ceremonial shirt but Black Feather was able to arm him with a bow and lance and they used some of the lodge poles to construct a burial platform for him. When it was done, they went to the place Little Wolf had tied his horse only to find the animal gone. So they set out for Spotted Pony’s camp on foot.