First Lieutenant Tom Allred sat stiffly in the saddle, hunched against the biting cold of the November wind sweeping across the rolling prairie. The wound in his back had long since healed but the cold weather made it throb like a toothache. He had been lucky that day that Andy Coulter had been there to pull him out of the river. He missed Andy. When he was sent back to the hospital at Fort Laramie, Andy had remained with his old troop, which had gone on to Fort Lincoln after Fort Phil Kearny was abandoned to the Sioux. Now Tom wasn’t sure he liked his new unit. He was back in the Seventh Cavalry, led by the flamboyant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Tom’s immediate superior was Captain Stewart Payne, a man who had seen service under Custer during the war between the states. Captain Payne’s troop had joined other forces at Fort Dodge which were being assembled to mount an expedition against the hostiles believed to be camped in the Antelope Hills in Oklahoma territory.
He still felt like an outsider in his new regiment, though it didn’t bother him unduly. It was a natural thing. Most of these men had been together for a couple of years, even before Custer assumed command. Payne seemed a fair enough officer, Tom had no complaints there. And, thank goodness, he had very little contact with Colonel Custer, or Longhair, as the Indians called him. From what he could see at long range, Custer was a mite too impressed with himself for Tom’s taste. But as long as he didn’t have to report directly to him, Tom didn’t care how eccentric the man was. His thoughts were interrupted by a trooper galloping back toward him.
“Captain’s compliments, sir. The captain says to walk ’em a spell.”
Tom turned to the sergeant beside him. “You heard the man,” he said.
“Yessir,” the sergeant replied dryly and gave the order to dismount.
Tom welcomed the order; much longer in the saddle and he feared he would be frozen in that position. It felt like thousands of needles were pricking his feet as he took each step. Gradually some feeling returned to his toes as the blood began to circulate once more. He glanced down at the snow he was slogging through. No more than half a foot deep, it was trampled and dirty from the horses and men ahead of him. Damn! he thought. It’s too damn cold to be stomping around out here in the middle of nowhere. Veterans of the Western campaign told him that in the old days, they only fought in the summertime. When the snows came, there was very little activity on either side, the army or the Indians. Tom could guess with a great deal of assurance why that was no longer the case. The army had had their rumps kicked too many times trying to fight the Plains Indians on the Indians’ terms. The Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and the Sioux warriors on their fleet ponies could strike and disappear before the blue coats could regroup and pursue them. Then the Indians seemed to simply dissipate into the rocks and hills when the army searched for them. The generals had finally concluded that the only way to defeat the Red Man was to attack his villages when the tribes went into their winter camps. Tom didn’t care much for this kind of warfare because more times than not it involved wanton massacre of women and children. Annihilation seemed to be the order of the day and this man Custer seemed to want to exterminate the Indian all by himself.
When they left Fort Supply, a temporary camp only recently set up, they had marched out into a howling snowstorm. Custer himself led the march. Their orders were simple; look for Indians and kill them, since all Indians not on the reservation were considered hostile. The column marched southwest along Wolf Creek before turning further south toward the Antelope Hills. When the storm let up, a scouting party was sent out ahead to look for sign. About midday the scouts returned with the news they had found an Indian trail across the prairie toward the Washita River. This was the news Custer was waiting for and soon Tom heard the bugle sound officers’ call.
While the column stood down for the noon meal, all officers assembled in a tent hastily set up in a grove of cottonwoods. In the center of a circle of his subordinates stood Colonel Custer. A man of average height, he appeared taller than he actually was because of his thin, chisled features. His face was clean-shaven except for a mustache that tapered to a fine point on either side of his chin. He wore a broad-brimmed campaign hat, cocked to one side, from under which his long tresses hung down to his shoulders. He remained silent for a long moment but, as he gazed around his circle of officers, his clear blue eyes almost sparkled. It was as if he knew a secret that no one else knew. He was by no means a handsome man but Tom had to admit he was impressive. When he was satisfied that he had every man’s undivided attention, he spoke.
“Gentlemen, our scouts report a sizable hostile trail heading toward the Washita. It’s my guess we’ll find Black Kettle camped at the end of that trail. Our scouting reports indicate he is wintering somewhere in this area.” He paused to gaze around the circle again, obviously looking for excitement in their faces. “We may have them catnapping!” Again he paused to test the reaction to this news. When some of the more astute of his staff realized that he was looking for a positive response, they displayed some emotion, even if it was less than genuine. This pleased their commander and he continued, “If we press on we can be upon them before they know we’re even in the area.”
“Sir,” one of the officers pointed out, “the Washita is almost a day’s ride from here.”
“That is correct, Mr. Raintree. But if we leave our supply wagons here, we can cover the distance in a night march and be ready to attack the village at dawn.”
Inwardly, Tom groaned. A night march meant a long, cold, sleepless night in the saddle. And there was the possibility that there was no village at the end of the Indian trail.
“Mr. Allred.”
Tom jerked his head up in surprise to hear his name singled out.
“It may be of some interest to you to know there may be a certain Cheyenne war chief visiting in Black Kettle’s camp. One of my scouts is almost certain that the renegade Little Wolf is with Black Kettle.” He smiled as he added, “I believe you had a little run-in with that gentleman, didn’t you?”
This captured Tom’s attention straightaway. “Little Wolf!” he blurted, then, “Yessir, I have met the gentleman.” Without thinking, he reached up and rubbed his chest where the bullet had lodged after entering his back.
“Then I know you’ll be keen to proceed after the bastard as soon as possible.” Still smiling, he went on to outline the order of march and dismissed his officers to see to their men.
The colonel had suceeded in striking a deeper chord inside Lieutenant Tom Allred than he had imagined. In spite of Andy Coulter’s argument that Tom was not to blame for leading his men into a crossfire in the middle of that river, Tom still felt responsible for the lives lost on that bleak afternoon. Little Wolf had set that trap and Tom had spent many a restless night at Little Wolf’s expense. Now, far south of that river near Fort Reno, he was to cross paths with the Cheyenne war chief again. Tom could feel his heart pounding in the scar in his back. This time it would be different.
They marched straight through the night, following the trail across the snow-covered prairie. There had been no more than a few flurries of snow after the noon meal with a gradual clearing of the sky. By nightfall the puffy clouds had drifted away, leaving a deep starlit night. There was no moon but the stark white prairie reflected the starlight, giving the long dark column of soldiers a ghostly quality. There was very little conversation, just the soft plodding of the horses’ hooves and an occasional clink of metal against the constant creaking of saddle leather. Sometime after midnight, the column halted at the foot of a low line of hills and the order to dismount was quietly passed along the line of cavalry. On the other side of the hills an Indian village lay in a bend of the Washita River. In the darkness, Custer deployed his troops before the unsuspecting village and waited for the dawn.
* * *
Little Wolf, awakened from a sound sleep, started to speak but a hand was gently placed across his lips and a voice whispered softly, “Shhh . . . Do not wake the others.”
He blinked hard, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes. “Morning Sky?” he whispered, his still-sleepy brain trying to grasp the situation.
“Yes. Come, follow me. Do not wake the others.”
“What is it? What is wrong?” he asked as he raised up on one elbow.
“Nothing is wrong. Just follow me. I must talk to you.” She turned and moved silently past her sleeping uncle and his wife. Puzzled, he followed, taking up his buffalo robe to protect against the cold night outside. He glanced briefly at the sleeping lump next to him that was Black Feather to see if he too was awake, but there was no sign of life under the heavy skins.
Outside the tipi he found Morning Sky waiting for him. Before he could speak, she motioned to him to follow and then turned and walked briskly toward the river. The woman has gone crazy, he thought, but followed after her. The night sky was dark. There was no moon and the stars were so bright that they appeared to be just beyond the tops of the cottonwoods that lined the banks of the river. The air was cold and crisp when he breathed deeply to fill his lungs in an effort to awaken his senses. Just ahead of him, Morning Sky continued her brisk pace, taking a path she used every day to fetch water. Just before she came to the edge of the river, she turned and walked along the bank. When she reached a thicket of small trees and scrub, she paused briefly to make sure he was following then, bending low, she made her way into the middle of the thicket. He followed.
He found her kneeling on her heavy robe, which she had spread over the snow between the laurels. She motioned for him to sit down. “Morning Sky . . .” he started, but she stopped his question by placing her hand gently on his lips.
“Let me talk,” she whispered softly. “I know that you leave when the sun comes again.” She hesitated a moment, forming her thoughts. “I cannot bear the thought of seeing you leave me again.” Amazed, he started to speak again. Again she silenced him. “Let me say this. I have been thinking about what I want to say ever since you returned.” He settled back, dumbfounded, and heard her out. “I love you, Little Wolf. I have loved you for as long as I can remember, and in my heart, I have been your wife ever since we were together at Sand Creek. I think if you will listen to your heart, it will tell you that you love me too.” She paused to let him speak.
His mind was reeling. He didn’t know what to say. His brain was being bombarded with so many different emotions that he was unable to sort out his confusion. She had taken him so much by surprise that he had not had time to build a facade to maintain a sense of dignity. Instead, he fairly stammered, “Morning Sky, I . . .”
“You do love me?” she interrupted, seeing that he might never be able to finish his statement.
“What?” he stammered. “Morning Sky, you shouldn’t ask me that. Have you no shame?”
“Don’t talk to me about shame. I don’t care about shame. You say you are going away again. I must know what your heart tells you. Do you love me or not?”
“Yes,” he blurted, then, “I mean, no . . . I don’t know.” The girl’s boldness mesmerized him.
“Then you do love me. Good. I knew you did if you would only listen to your heart.”
“I didn’t say I loved you.” He didn’t know why he was arguing the point. He had thought about her ever since he had returned. Still, her aggressiveness unnerved him and the fact that the matter was being handled backwards left him feeling defensive. After all, he reasoned, if he wanted to marry her, he should be the aggessive one and go to her uncle with gifts and horses—and it wouldn’t be in the middle of the night when a man was half asleep.
“Then you don’t love me?” she demanded and settled back on her heels, waiting for an answer.
He didn’t know what to say. He looked at her, exasperated. He could no longer deny his feelings for her. He sighed and said, “Yes, I love you.”
Again, her response confounded him. Instead of joy, she exhibited anger as she demanded, “Then why haven’t you come to my uncle to ask for me?”
Again he was on the defensive. He didn’t answer at first because he didn’t know for sure that he loved her until this moment. “I could not take a wife with me. My warriors and I have been living like the wolf and the bear in the mountains, fighting the soldiers. It was no place for a woman. It is too dangerous. Besides, I did not own enough horses to offer your uncle.”
She did not answer at once. When she spoke, it was with a tenderness he had not seen before. “I am your wife, Little Wolf, no matter if you give not even one horse for me.”
He didn’t know what to say. It didn’t matter because she did not wait for his response. She reached up, taking his hands in hers, and pulled him down to her. “I was meant to be your wife. If you leave me in the morning, I want you to leave me with child. If the soldiers kill you, at least I will have part of you.” Her lips were almost touching his as she whispered softly, “Come, we will marry each other tonight.”
He had no choice but to yield to the overpowering desire for her that suddenly engulfed him. It was dark in the thicket but the starlight sprinkled enough light to catch tantalizing glimpses of her firm, rounded breast as she lay back upon the outspread robe. She shivered slightly when his hand sought the smooth curve of her hips. As quickly as he could, he slipped out of his buckskins and pulled his robe over the two of them, making a warm tent for them. At first he was overanxious, fumbling to feel her breasts and thighs and in between her thighs, such was his inexperience. “Wait,” she calmed him and guided his entry into her, slowly and tenderly, letting him feel the warmth of her body, loving him patiently until he could hold himself no longer. Then she rose to his passionate thrusts and met his with her own and they became one.
When his passion was spent, he lay beside her and let the natural urge to sleep take him. Before she slept, she gazed at him for a long while and smiled to herself. My mighty warrior, she thought. Now he looks more like a little boy. She was pleased. She did not have to be told that this was his first time, just as it was hers.
* * *
A little before sunrise, a light snow began to fall. Tom pulled his hat down to keep the flakes from landing on his chin. Bored and tired of waiting and, at the same time, apprehensive about the attack that would be ordered at dawn, he looked around him at his men. Silent now, they awaited the order to attack. A few of them, most of the older veterans, had managed to catch a few minutes’ sleep and they were already covered by a thin blanket of new-fallen snow. They look like graves, he thought.
Restless, he pulled his Spencer carbine from its boot and checked it for at least the third time before slipping it back in the saddle boot. His assignment was to maintain the left flank of the assault, closing on the south side of the sleeping village, making sure there was no escape downriver. Custer had issued orders to kill all hostiles. He did not differentiate between male and female or, for that matter, adult and child. Tom was not comfortable with this. He thought of himself as a good soldier and a good soldier follows orders. But he could not see any threat coming from women and children. His was not necessarily a popular viewpoint so he kept his thoughts to himself. Still, he wished that the fighting took place on the open field of combat, not in the villages. Suddenly he shook his head as if to shake such thoughts from his mind. Orders are orders, he thought. Thinking is for the high brass.
First light in the eastern sky brought a messenger from Custer running down the line of stamping horses, their breath sending smoky clouds from their nostrils. The messenger found Tom and informed him that the colonel wished for him to arouse his troops and prepare to mount. The predawn stillness was broken by the sounds of groaning leather as the men stepped up into the saddle. Here and there a horse tried to shy away from its rider, its stamping hooves muffled by the snow, followed by the low sound of cursing from the rider. “Quiet!” someone whispered. A horse snorted and pranced as a trooper tried to hold his head down with the reins. Horses and men were ready to ride, tired of waiting in the cold, dark night. Tom instructed his sergeant.
“All right, Sergeant Porter, when you hear that bugle, I want you to wheel the troop around that bluff on the left. We’re going to maintain our formation till we cross the river. Then I want a sweep right through the village.”
“Yessir. Kill anything that moves?”
“That’s the order,” Tom replied with no emotion in his voice.
In the sleeping village, a dog barked. Soon it was joined by several others as the muffled noises of the regiment moving into position were transported on the wind. The snow stopped and the sun sent its first exploratory rays over the prairie. Custer, in the saddle and riding back and forth in front of his troops, realized the village would soon be aware of his presence so he gave the order to attack.
Tom, even though poised and waiting for the signal to charge, was startled by the blare of the bugle as it rent the cold November air. An explosion of men and horses immediately followed. His pistol raised, Tom kicked his horse into a gallop and led his troopers down the bluff, mud and snow flying from the churning hooves. The soldiers began firing into the village even before they had crossed the river, laying down a murderous rain of lead upon the hapless Cheyenne camp.
* * *
It happened so suddenly, with such impact on his sleeping brain, that Little Wolf reacted like an animal whose instinct tells it it is about to die. He tried to jump to his feet to defend himself but the heavy buffalo robe, now covered with a layer of fresh snow, caught in the branches and tripped him, making him stumble to his knees. By the time he cleared the fog of sleep from his brain and remembered where he was, the line of blue coats had already swept beyond him. The thicket where he and Morning Sky lay was too dense to gallop through, so the line of soldiers had parted and charged to either side. He looked back quickly to make sure Morning Sky was safe. She struggled to dress herself, her eyes wide with fright. The gunfire was a steady roar now; individual shots were not discernable. The terrible din of the slaughter was punctuated by the screams of the women and children.
“Black Feather!” he gasped. “I must go!” He looked again at Morning Sky. “You will be safe if you stay here.” He got up to leave.
“Little Wolf! No!” She threw her arms around his legs. “You cannot help them! It is too late!”
He hesitated for a moment while he took inventory of his situation and his ability to help his brothers. He had no weapons except the skinning knife he always wore on the buckskin tunic he had hastily slipped over his head the night before. No rifle, not even a bow—what good could he do? Still, Black Feather was in the village. He must go to his aid. Even as he thought it, he could see wave after wave of blue coats galloping through the helpless village. Sabers flashed as the morning sun caught momentary reflections of their slashing arcs. A steady din of rifle and pistol fire rumbled across the shallow river like thunder. Already, many of the lodges were blazing. The screams of the women and children pierced the din of the carnage as they fled in panic, only to be met by another line of soldiers sweeping in the opposite direction.
“Black Kettle!” he gasped when he saw the old chief and his wife scramble up on a horse and attempt to escape across the river. They made it to the center of the water before a barrage of bullets cut them both down.
Little Wolf felt helpless. This was the second time he had been forced to witness the massacre of his village while happenstance prevented him from being a part of it. His blood was hot with anger but his common sense told him once again that it was useless to offer up his own life in the hope of killing one or more of the soldiers before they killed him. Morning Sky was right. It was too late. His concern now must be to try to keep her safe and to escape this massacre.
“You are right,” he told her. “We must live to revenge our brothers for this treachery.” Although still trembling with rage, he began to think calmly, deciding what his next move should be. At the moment they were safe in the thicket but his instincts told him that as soon as the slaughter was completed, the soldiers would ferret out every conceivable hiding place along the riverbank. It would be best to escape while the shooting was still at a fever pitch.
He moved on all fours through the thicket to the edge of the river where he stopped to survey the bluffs on the far side. He desperately needed a weapon and a horse, two horses if he could find them, and his instincts told him that there was probably a rear guard of some kind behind the bluffs. The attack had come from that direction, so maybe there was a supply wagon or some form of support for the troopers there. If that was not the case, they would just have to make it on foot. “Come,” he whispered and crawled out of the bushes and down into the shallow riverbank. She followed without hesitation.
There was cover in the trees on the opposite side of the river if they could make it through the waist-deep water without being observed by the soldiers upstream. Little Wolf waded as rapidly as he could, ignoring the cold shock of the water as it cut right to the bone. Quickly, he scrambled across the opposite sand shore and dived into the underbrush. Once he was safely hidden, he turned to watch Morning Sky. She had fallen behind in the icy current and was still struggling to make the shore. Hurry! he thought and was about to go back to help her when a movement out of the corner of his eye stopped him. There, on the far side of the thicket they had just come from, a soldier, an officer by the look of his uniform, wheeled his horse as he caught sight of the Indian girl struggling to crawl to the brush on the other side of the river. The soldier stopped and drew a rifle from his saddle boot. Little Wolf’s heart seemed to stop as the drama unfolded before his eyes. The soldier was too far away. He could not reach him in time. He looked back at Morning Sky. “Run! Run!” he called out. She had no chance. The soldier could not miss from that distance. Little Wolf held his breath and waited for the shot to come. There was no shot. Little Wolf looked back at the officer. He was not moving, seeming to be in a trance. He raised the rifle halfway up to his shoulder then stopped. Slowly, he lowered the rifle, wheeled his horse and galloped off in the opposite direction, back toward the village. Little Wolf did not pause to contemplate the soldier’s actions. As soon as Morning Sky gained the protection of the trees, he motioned for her to follow and ran toward the bluffs. Their only hope was to run as far and as fast as they could.
* * *
Tom reined his horse up hard to keep from running down a bawling Indian child of perhaps three or four years of age. He then spurred his mount back toward the lodges, now engulfed in flames. This was not his idea of war, this slaughter of women and children. He wasn’t sure why he had spared the Indian woman back at the river. She was his enemy, a hostile, and she was escaping. He should have shot her. But he had found that he just didn’t have the stomach for it. There had been enough slaughter. She looked half drowned anyway, he told himself. She was not alone, he knew that. He had heard someone call to her from the trees on the far side. Still he chose to look the other way. There were enough dead already. He galloped back to join his troop.
“Lieutenant!” He turned to see Sergeant Porter charging after him. “Up on the ridge!” Tom looked in the direction pointed out.
“Damn!” he uttered. Up above the burning village, hundreds of hostiles were assembling. He immediately looked to his rear on the other side of the river. More hostiles were gathering. He wondered where they came from. Soon they would be surrounded and it was apparent the Indians would greatly outnumber them. As he thought it, he heard the bugler recalling the regiment.
Porter pulled up beside him. “The colonel said to form up the column and prepare to march.”
“March? March where?” As if in answer to Tom’s question, the bugle sounded officers’ call. He wheeled and made for the river where he could see Custer’s white horse among a circle of his officers. The colonel was already giving orders to withdraw to the opposite riverbank, no doubt sizing up the gathering force of hostiles and realizing that their position would soon be untenable. Custer had been caught by surprise. The Indians now moving to surround the column of soldiers were evidently from villages downstream. They showed no signs of an immediate attack, even though they already outnumbered the soldiers. It was only a matter of time, however, for they were obviously out for revenge for the atrocities committed on the Cheyenne village. Tom could see the young braves, riding wildly back and forth beyond the bluffs, their ponies painted, feathers flying in the wind. He figured the only thing that was saving the troops was the fact that evidently the hostiles were not organized. They must have been several different bands from different villages, alerted by the sound of gunfire on the Cheyenne camp.
“Gentlemen,” Custer announced, “we find ourselves surrounded and cut off from our supply wagons.” Tom could swear there was a twinkle in the colonel’s eye as he scanned the faces of his officers to test their reaction to such news. Then he grandly assured them that he would lead them out of this potential danger. “We will form up the column and march in an orderly fashion downstream. I want the hostiles to think we mean to advance upon their villages. When it is dark, we will double back and proceed to Camp Supply.”
“Sir,” Captain Payne said, “Major Elliott took a detachment after some of the hostiles escaping to the north.”
Custer seemed perturbed. “I know. I ordered him to cut off their escape.”
“Well, sir, he ain’t back yet. Hadn’t we better go look for him?”
“Captain Payne, it is my duty and responsibility to tend to the welfare of the regiment and that would deem it necessary to move the column out as soon as possible. Major Elliott is a seasoned officer. He’ll make his way back to the column before dark.” He raised his hand to indicate the conference was ended. “Let’s get moving before somebody organizes that mob of savages on the bluffs. It is imperative that we move out at once and in an orderly fashion.” He winked at Captain Payne and added, “Indians are like a pack of mongrel dogs. If they see you run, they’ll chase after you. We’ll show them our strength. They’ll think twice before charging this column.”
Tom glanced back at the burning village as the column started out downriver. The picture of that engagement, as Custer called it, would live in his mind for a long time. They had left no one alive in that camp. Bodies were strewn everywhere. The dead were left where they fell; men, women, children, horses, even dogs were not allowed to escape Custer’s scythe. Black Kettle’s band was no more. They had been annihilated. Custer would refer to that day’s encounter as a dangerous battle and a glorious victory in the war against the hostiles. As for Tom, he thought himself a good soldier but he was not proud of that day’s work. There was one disappointment for him, however. The information that the Cheyenne war chief, Little Wolf, was in the camp was evidently false. At least none of the bodies was identified as that of Little Wolf’s. When Tom asked if anyone had seen the man before, Captain Payne said no, but the scouts said that Little Wolf was really a white man raised by the Cheyenne. Tom remarked that he had seen him at a distance and he didn’t look like a white man to him.
Colonel Custer had been correct in guessing the column would not be attacked as long as they were on the march downriver. Many of the hostiles that surrounded them surmised that their villages might be the next target and departed to alert their people to the impending danger. When darkness descended, they doubled back to pick up their supply wagons in the Antelope Hills and then retreated to Camp Supply. Major Elliott’s detachment never rejoined the column. Word came back some time later that the entire detachment had been cut off and surrounded by a large force of hostiles from one of the villages downriver. The troopers were forced to take up a position in a tall grassy draw where they were eventually slaughtered. Custer dismissed the unfortunate incident as the price of war but vowed to avenge every brave soul who gave his life that day.