In the months that followed Tom’s startling discovery on the sandy banks of the Little Missouri River, he began to almost doubt the incident had happened at all. The shock of Squint Peterson’s revelation, that the savage he had sworn to kill was none other than his own lost brother, shook him more than the actual face-off with the murderous Cheyenne war chief. He had not thought about his brother for years. Their family was hardly a close one. For that exact reason he had escaped as soon as he was old enough. In fact, he considered himself lucky there was a war to give him a reason to go into the army.
When he left, he left for good. There was no contact with his mother or his sisters, and his father drank himself to death before Tom was fifteen. And now this. It was still inconceivable to him that his brother could be the notorious Little Wolf and he was not really sure how he felt about the turn of events. There was some degree of curiosity, he had to admit. The man was his brother after all. Still, he was, in fact, his enemy. Tom sought any information he could on the whereabouts of Little Wolf, but no one was able to supply any. None of the Indian scouts could offer any clue. It was as if the man had vanished from the earth. It became like a dream in his mind as winter set in, restricting troop movements for the most part.
Winter that year was a hard one and many of the scattered tribes wandered into the reservations to keep from starving to death. But Little Wolf was not among them. In fact, Little Wolf seemed to have vanished into the mountains, according to reports from Shoshone scouts friendly to the army. Sitting Bull’s Sioux were not among those Indians retreating to the reservation. His winter camp near the Yellowstone was home to a great many Cheyenne but Little Wolf was not one of them. From information provided by the Shoshone scouts, Tom was able to find out that Little Wolf had not returned to the village after their encounter on the Little Missouri. No one there knew where he was. It was common belief that he was still grieving over the death of his wife and had chosen to become one with the spirits and live in solitary communion somewhere in the mountains. In his absence, one of the members of his band of Cheyenne warriors, Bloody Claw, had replaced him as war chief.
Gradually, as winter loosened its grip and spring reluctantly arrived, Tom’s mind was less absorbed with the sudden appearance of a forgotten brother. The initial shock of it had been severe enough. But to be told that his brother was the same renegade who had killed and pillaged all over the territory was almost too much for the young lieutenant to accept. He became dismayed that fate had played such an ironic trick on him. As the days passed, Tom began to look at the situation with a somewhat more callous eye. At first, he had questioned Squint extensively about Little Wolf, seeking to learn everything he could about his brother. Little Wolf was his enemy but at least he could understand the man’s motives. Squint never failed to stress that his brother was legitimate in his Indian leanings. Little Wolf was raised as a Cheyenne. But as the months passed and Tom moved farther away from that confrontation on the Little Missouri, compassion for his Cheyenne brother waned.
The army certainly harbored no feelings of lenience for the man they knew as a renegade white turned Indian. There was a price on his head and Custer in particular wanted him brought in. The colonel found it hard to believe an Indian, or any man, for that matter, could walk right into an army fort and bust two prisoners out of jail. The man’s audacity infuriated Custer and he was determined to make an example of the renegade. When the weather permitted a more frequent routine of patrols, they still searched for information on the whereabouts of Little Wolf but to no avail. In truth, Little Wolf had vanished from the earth. In time, the subject of his brother receded to the back of Tom’s thoughts and as weeks, months and finally years passed with no word of the hostile, Little Wolf became little more than a ghost in his memory. Even Custer conceded that he had most likely perished in that brutal winter three years past.
Custer had other projects on his mind, opportunities to further his image as a military leader, that pushed the desire to punish one renegade white Indian to the bottom of his list of priorities. In the summer of 1874 he persuaded his superiors to authorize a great expedition into the Black Hills. The purpose of this expedition was, supposedly, to explore the territory, make maps of the area, study geological formations, catalog the existence of different species of wildlife—things of a peaceful nature. Of course the presence of a couple of gold miners on the mission might have caused some folks to become a little suspicious. The fact of the matter was that there were dozens of prospectors camping in the Black Hills already, in spite of the fact there was a treaty with the Sioux that guaranteed no white man was to enter these hunting grounds. As far as Squint Peterson was concerned, the handwriting was on the wall. If there was gold in the Black Hills, there was no way to keep the prospectors out, treaty or no treaty. It wouldn’t be the first time the government backed out of a treaty when they found something of the Indians’ that they wanted. Custer had no business in that territory, peaceful or not, so Squint decided to sit this campaign out. He didn’t like riding with Custer anyway. The man was obviously too fond of himself to suit Squint so he decided this would be a good time to take a little vacation.
* * *
“You shore you don’t want to come along on this here party?”
Squint turned in his saddle to face a smiling Andy Coulter as he reined up beside him. “I reckon not. Reckon you can find your way to the Black Hills without me?”
Andy laughed. “Well, if I can’t, I reckon I’ll have help a’plenty. Ole Longhair is taking about thirty scouts, most of ’em Crows.” He sent a stream of brown tobacco juice into the dust of the parade ground. Gesturing with his outstretched arm, he expounded, “Did you ever see a party as big as this one? Look at them supply wagons.”
“No, I never,” Squint allowed. “I just been setting here looking at all this fuss. There must be nigh to a hundred supply wagons lined up out there.”
“Closer to a hundred and fifty,” Andy corrected. “Hell, there’s four columns of men. Ole Longhair ain’t taking no chances.” He pulled his battered campaign hat from his head and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Already hot and the sun just barely up. Sorry you ain’t goin’ along for the fun. Where you goin’ anyway?”
Squint shrugged off the question. “Oh, I don’t know, up in the hills a piece. I been workin’ an idea in my mind for a while and I just got curious enough to go check it out. I don’t know. I might just lay up somewhere for a while, do some huntin’ and fishin’, a little trappin’ maybe. I ain’t sure.”
Andy studied his friend for a moment. Squint obviously had a burr under his saddle about something but he didn’t particularly want to talk about it, so Andy didn’t pursue the subject. “Well, I reckon I better git on down there. I wouldn’t want them to leave without me. I’ll see you when we git back. You mind yourself up in them mountains. You’d look kind of silly without no hair.” He gave Squint a little salute, wheeled his horse and headed for the front of the column.
Squint sat there a while longer and watched the expedition pull out. Custer was at the forefront, riding his big Morgan that he was so fond of, returning the sentries’ salutes as he passed through the gates of Fort Lincoln. Benteen’s battalion passed and Tom Allred nodded to Squint. Squint touched his forefinger to the brim of his hat as a form of salute. As he looked back along the column, he estimated that there must have been about a thousand cavalry, and at least that many more on foot. A multitude of wagons, driven by six-mule teams were followed by a herd of two or three hundred beef cattle. He was amazed by the size of the expedition. “Ole Sittin’ Bull is really gonna love this,” he thought out loud. Joe snorted in reply and Squint figured his horse was telling him it was time to go. He dug his heels in gently and Joe started for the mountains. The mule, Sadie, followed obediently behind. Squint didn’t bother to tie a line on Sadie. The mule would follow Joe wherever he went.
* * *
The sun was warm on his shoulders and he pulled his shirt off to let the rays soak into his skin. Every once in a while he felt the need to absorb the sun into his body just as he felt the need to occasionally seek solitude. This was one of those times. He had stayed on at Fort Lincoln longer than he had imagined he could when he rode in almost four years ago. It wasn’t usual for him to stay in one place that long. Were it not for the fact that he liked Andy Coulter and young Tom Allred, he would have been gone long before. Scouting for the army wasn’t bad. It gave him grub and a place to sleep and a little bit of money for tobacco. But Fort Lincoln was getting too big and busy to suit him, and he was getting just a bit tired of being around the army anyway. Whatever the reasons, he needed to get away for a while, get back to the mountains in a place where he could have enough room to get acquainted with his own soul again. For him, that was Wind River country, so deep in the mountains that even the Indians couldn’t find him.
He had something else on his mind this morning. For the past several days he had been thinking about the scrawny young boy he had patched up that winter long ago. He had developed a genuine fondness for the boy that winter and sincerely regretted the boy’s decision to return to his Indian upbringing. His thoughts went back to the jailbreak of Kroll and Moody and how stunned he was when he found out that the Indian he was chasing was his onetime friend, Little Wolf. At the time he was glad they were unable to catch up with him. Kroll and Moody sure as hell deserved killing if anybody did and, more than likely, Little Wolf had a prior claim on that privilege.
He wasn’t sure about Tom Allred’s feelings toward the brother he never knew. Tom was hot to find him when he found out who Little Wolf really was, but Squint wasn’t certain what Tom’s reaction might be if he ever came face to face with Little Wolf again. Tom was army through and through. He had worn the uniform too long by now to be anything else. Tom might view Little Wolf more as an enemy of the army than as his own flesh and blood. At any rate, he was relieved when Little Wolf seemed to simply disappear. Squint was not ordinarily a sentimental man, but he was fond of both brothers and he didn’t want to see one of them dead at the hands of the other. Maybe Little Wolf was already dead, he wasn’t sure. But if Little Wolf had only decided to live a solitary life, Squint had a notion as to where he might have holed up. And that was where he was heading as he struck out west, across the Little Missouri and into the plains.
Since he had no desire to run into any Indians, he kept to the north of Sitting Bull’s usual hunting grounds, crossing the Powder well above the fork of the Crazy Woman, one of the chief’s favorite camps. There was no apprehension on his part at being in the midst of hostile territory. Squint was confident in his ability to take care of himself. He traveled cautiously, being in no particular hurry, keeping a watchful eye about him as he rode, and he chose his campsites carefully.
He crossed the Tongue River, keeping the Big Horns to the south, and then down across the Big Horn basin toward the Rockies. During the entire journey, he saw no other human being, but twice he crossed trails left by large bands of Indians on the move. From their direction, Squint guessed they were probably Cheyenne going to join up with the Sioux spiritual chief, Sitting Bull. Ever since the number of white prospectors had increased in the Black Hills, there had been more and more reports of Indians leaving the reservations and joining the Sioux. Even Southern Cheyennes from down around the Oklahoma territory were leaving the reservation and traveling north to fight the white invasion. In light of all this, Squint could guess what effect Custer’s massive expedition into the Black Hills would have on the situation. “Probably about like throwing kerosene on a fire,” he mumbled to Joe.
Two more days’ riding brought him to the Wind River Mountains. He had forgotten how beautiful the mountains were in this part of the wilderness. It had been several years since he had trapped beaver in most of the streams that etched their way through the valleys and basins but, as he looked around him, it seemed that he had never been away. The only thing that’ll never change, he thought, the high mountains. The rolling plains and the foothills might someday be chewed up into little patches by the settlers and opportunists but the mountains were too rugged to be changed. The mountains would always belong to the grizzlies, the sheep and the Indians.
He climbed high up into the pines and traversed a long rocky ridge before descending into a narrow valley, green with summer grass. Sign was everywhere; deer, elk, even bear. The thought struck his mind that a man was a fool for ever leaving an Eden such as this. He pushed on across the valley and crossed another short ridge until he came to the stream. Joe snorted as if he remembered the place and picked up his pace without encouragement from Squint. He followed the stream for about a quarter of a mile until he came upon an outcropping of rock that overhung the busy water. He couldn’t help but notice the accelerated beating of his heart as he approached his old secret camp. He dismounted and tied the animals to a tree. It would be wiser to go on foot from here. He was sure Joe knew where he was, and even the mule was showing signs of skittishness. It wouldn’t do for them to start making noise to warn whoever might have taken over his camp.
After quietly making his way over the rocks at the base of the mountain, he stopped for a moment to listen and look around him. Far off in the distance, a hawk called out to his mate. A gentle breeze softly whispered through the needles of the fir trees. There was no other sound. He looked toward the base of the rock wall, trying to find the opening to the camp. The trees and brush had grown considerably since he had last been there, and he didn’t remember right away which trees flanked the opening through the rock. There was no sign that anyone had approached the wall of the cliff but still he was cautious. He made his way through the pines, being careful not to break any branches or bend any twigs that might give away the hidden entrance. When he stood before the opening through the stone wall, he stopped and listened. There was nothing. He made his way slowly through the opening, keeping an eye on the rock ledge above the entrance. As soon as he emerged onto the grassy floor of the enclosure, he knew his hunch was right—someone was using the camp. A gentle snort caused him to spin to his right, his rifle ready to fire. He saw the Appaloosa he and Andy had tracked from Fort Lincoln, tethered behind the clump of laurel that he used to tie Joe and Sadie behind. Another horse was hobbled beside the Appaloosa, a white Indian pony with dark markings around his head and ears. White men called them War Bonnets. Most Indians called them Medicine Hat ponies. Satisfied that there was no one in the camp, Squint backed slowly out of the entrance in the wall, placing each foot carefully so as not to break a stick or make a sound. He had a feeling the owner of the horses would not be far away.
“It’s a wonder you have kept your hair as long as you have.”
The voice came from behind him. He whirled, his rifle raised, to face the tall menacing figure of a Cheyenne warrior, painted for war. Even though he recognized Little Wolf, he was still shaken by the figure before him.
“Gawdamn!” Squint exclaimed. “You scared the bejesus outta me!” He lowered his rifle and drew a breath. “I knowed you’d be up here! I knowed it!”
Little Wolf remained expressionless, soberly eyeing the huge mountain man as if he was seeing him for the first time. “Why have you come here?” His voice was cool and even.
For a moment, Squint thought his onetime friend did not recognize him. “Little Wolf, it’s me, Squint Peterson. Don’t you know me?”
“I know you. If I didn’t, you’d be dead right now. Why have you come here?”
“Why, to find you, dammit!” Squint was beginning to get a little exasperated. He had expected a somewhat warmer reception from the boy he had doctored back to health and wintered with. He searched Little Wolf’s stony countenance for some sign of softening, but there was none. It was plain to see that there was little, if any, of the boy left in the lean and powerful figure before him. The years had hardened the man and dissolved all remnants of the boy, Robert Allred.
“So, you have found me.”
“Yeah, reckon I have.” Squint was perturbed. Now that he had found the man, he wondered if it was worth the bother. “I reckon I just wanted to see for myself if you was holed up here in my old camp.” Little Wolf made no reply. “I wanted to see if you really did go wild like folks say you have. A lot of folks think you’re dead.” He stared into the unblinking gaze that continued to capture his own. Then, as if just then remembering. “How the hell did you sneak up behind me anyway?”
This brought a faint trace of a smile to Little Wolf’s hardened face. “I watched you come across the basin and the ridge. I saw you tie your horse and mule in the trees and try to sneak into my camp. A herd of buffalo would not have been more obvious.”
“Huh!” Squint snorted. “I wasn’t of a mind to surprise you. I thought I was just coming for a little visit.” It was a lie and he knew Little Wolf knew it was too, but he would never admit that his friend had gotten the jump on him. They looked at each other for a few moments longer in silence before Squint decided they had sized each other up long enough. “Well, I can see one thing. Your manners ain’t improved any since you went plumb wild. You ain’t invited me to your campfire for something to eat and I’m plumb starved. You got any fresh meat?” He didn’t give Little Wolf time to answer. “I got some coffee in my pack. I bet you ain’t had no coffee for a spell.”
Little Wolf’s expression softened a little. If he had intended to remain indifferent toward his guest, it was apparent Squint was not going to give him the option. “Son, you got any fresh meat?” he persisted.
“Yes.” Little Wolf smiled.
“Well, git it then. I’m ’bout to starve to death. I’m goin’ to get my animals.” He turned and walked through the opening in the wall.
* * *
Squint could see that Little Wolf was not exactly comfortable sitting across the campfire from a white man, even if it was Squint Peterson. But before long, he relaxed some of the stiffness he had endeavored to maintain. Squint was confident that he would. There was something medicinal about coffee. It was just impossible to sit down and drink a cup of hot black coffee with an enemy. The high walls of their mountain camp soon blocked the rays of the afternoon sun and the warm July day cooled toward early evening, making the coffee even more cordial. By the time they had emptied the pot and eaten the last strips of meat, Little Wolf had apparently lowered his guard and appeared to be at ease with his old friend.
“Why did you come to this place? It’s foolish for a white man to come here.”
Squint licked the last of the thin grease from his fingers and wiped them on his shirt. Sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, he leaned over to one side to release a fart. Feeling more comfortable, he began, “Well, to tell you the truth, I was kind of curious to see you, for one thing. You know, you’ve got a pretty big reputation with the army for being a bad renegade.” Little Wolf registered some surprise at this but said nothing. Squint went on, “I guess I wanted to see if the Cheyenne Little Wolf was the same Little Wolf I wintered with in this same camp. Word is you left Sitting Bull’s camp and turned into a loner. I thought you might have took yourself a wife by now.” He saw at once that this struck a nerve.
“I did,” Little Wolf said softly. “I had a wife. She is dead.” After some prodding from Squint, he told him about Morning Sky and how she had been killed by the two buffalo hunters.
“I had a suspicion that might have happened,” Squint said, after offering his condolences over the loss of Morning Sky. “I figured it had to be somethin’ like that to make a man go to all the trouble to bust them two out of jail. When I seen them two where you left ’em, one of ’em with his balls pinned to the ground, I figured as much.” Squint’s face took on a frown. “I should’a kilt them two when I had the chance instead of just puttin’ that nick in Kroll’s ear. If I had, you wouldn’t have been at Fort Lincoln and we wouldn’t of been chasing you.”
“It was you then? You were with the other two who came after me? The soldier and the other scout?”
“Yeah, it was me. Only I didn’t have no idea it was you we was chasin’ at the time.” He paused to stir up the fire a little. “That’s another reason I come up here. That soldier—you could have killed him but you didn’t. How come?” Squint knew the reason because Tom had told him, but he wanted to hear Little Wolf’s version of the story.
Little Wolf shrugged, an expression of boredom on his face as if to imply the incident was of no real importance. “It was a debt. That day on the Washita when Longhair came riding into the camp like a cowardly coyote, the soldier could have killed Morning Sky, and he could have killed me. But he didn’t, so I spared his life. The debt is paid.”
Squint studied his friend carefully as he asked, “Anything about that particular lieutenant that struck you as odd, or familiar?”
“No. Why should it?”
“God, or Man Above if you druther, must have been lookin’ out for you that day when you decided not to kill that soldier.”
Little Wolf was puzzled. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, you wouldn’t cotton to killin’ your own brother, would you?”
Little Wolf was still confused. He didn’t understand what Squint was telling him. He made no reply, waiting for Squint to explain. Squint, enjoying the opportunity to enlighten, let Little Wolf puzzle over it for a few moments longer before continuing. “That there soldier’s name is Lieutenant Tom Allred . . . your brother.”
If Little Wolf reacted to this shocking bit of news, he gave no outward sign of it. His face remained as stony as before. Squint could not know that the news had actually stunned the young warrior to his core. Little Wolf had not heard that name for so long that he had forgotten the existence of his white brother. And now, to have it suddenly thrust upon him, he did not know what to think or even how to feel. I have no brother,” he mumbled softly, the words dropping from his lips with no thought behind them.
“The hell you don’t. That feller’s name is shore as hell Tom Allred and he shore as hell comes from St. Louis, and he shore as hell had a little brother named Robert that went off with a mule skinner when he was no more’n a tad.”
Again there was a long silence while Little Wolf tried to sort out his feelings. He remembered his older brother vaguely. They had not been especially close, but there was never any trouble between them. Finally, he reminded himself that there was no past before the time Spotted Pony found him. “I have no brother,” he repeated. This time it was a definitive statement.
“If you say so. It ain’t for me to say but I just figured it was my place to let you know about that soldier you run into.”
Little Wolf nodded his head and held up his hand, signaling an end to that topic of conversation. Squint knew that whatever the young warrior felt about the situation, he was not going to share it with him. He moved on to another topic.
“If you’ve done turned into a loner, living up here all by yourself, how come you’re wearing that paint on your face?”
“It is true that I wish to live in solitude but I must end my solitude to help my brothers in our fight to keep the white soldiers out of our sacred hunting grounds. Many, many Cheyenne braves are already in the camp of Sitting Bull. The white men are infesting the Black Hills and the Yellowstone like fleas on a dog. Sitting Bull has called for all warriors to come to the aid of the Sioux. We must stop the white man now. I go to fight beside my brothers.”
“Agin’ your own kind?”
“No,” Little Wolf replied sternly, “with my brothers, against the people who killed my father and mother and my wife.”
There was no uncertainty in Little Wolf’s tone. Squint realized that if he had come to find him a few days later than he did, Little Wolf would probably have been gone from this camp. It was obvious that he was not going to dissuade his young friend from joining the hordes of hostiles now flocking to the valleys of the Yellowstone. He thought of the huge expedition he had watched leaving Fort Lincoln some days before and what repercussions they would cause. At once he felt sad for his idealistic young friend. That he would die or be captured and sent to prison was almost a certainty, and he didn’t like the thought of such a free spirit shackled to a jail cell. Little Wolf was a wanted man but, in his mind, he had done no wrong, at least nothing any self-respecting Cheyenne warrior would not have done. And he was a true Cheyenne, no matter the color of his skin.
“You’re a wanted man, partner. I guess you know that.” Squint’s voice was low and deadly serious. “If they catch you, they’re gonna hang you shore as hell. There ain’t gonna be no prison for you.”
Little Wolf looked surprised. “Why? Why do they want me any more than any other Cheyenne or Dakota?”
“’cause you’re white. You’re a renegade, a white man turned Injun. They’re gonna want to make an example outta you.”
“Cause you’re white,” he repeated. “The army don’t take kindly to white men that turns agin’ their own kind.”
Little Wolf was immediately indignant. “I am Cheyenne. Before that I was Arapaho. Before that, there was nothing. I fight the enemies of my people. I have killed no women or children, only soldiers.”
“Hell, I know that. But the army don’t look at it that way. They figure if you look like a wolf and you run with a pack of wolves, chances are you’re a wolf too. Anyway, don’t get riled up at me. I’m just telling you what’s what so’s maybe you’ll be a little more careful. Maybe even think a while before running off to join up with Sitting Bull’s bunch.”
“I must do what my heart tells me to do.”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Squint answered, resigned to the inevitability of it. If he had hoped to persuade his young friend to reconsider his future, he now knew that it was useless to try. There was too much bitterness in the young man, rage that had to be tempered with revenge. They sat in silence for several minutes. Finally Squint spoke again, “Well, I’ll never think of you as an enemy of mine. I hope you feel the same.”
Little Wolf smiled and laid his hand on Squint’s shoulder. “You will always be my friend. Just don’t ride against Sitting Bull and you have nothing to fear from my bow.”
“Hell, what would keep us from packin’ up right now and headin’ for Oregon? Whaddaya say? Ain’t you had enough killin’ for one lifetime? I know I ain’t got nothin’ I got to git back to Fort Lincoln for. Why, I hear tell that a man can make a livin’ off one acre of ground out there, there’s so much game. We can just hunt and trap and fish till we git so old we can’t pull a trigger no more. Whaddaya say?”
Little Wolf did not answer but his smile was enough to tell Squint that the die was already cast. The war paint that formed two distinct vees of red and white from the bridge of his nose down across both cheeks could not merely be wiped off. They signified a commitment to a people, a commitment that ran deeper than the skin upon which they were painted. If he could have seen inside Little Wolf’s heart, he would have realized the pain that had been suffered at the hands of the army. And the one image that had come to symbolize that pain was the image of the Cheyenne’s hated enemy, Longhair. As long as Custer lived, there would be no peace in Little Wolf’s heart.
“Well, it was just a thought,” Squint sighed and reached over to stir up the fire. After a moment, he said, “It shore would be something to see that Oregon territory though.”
They talked until the fire died out and both were too sleepy to get more wood, eventually falling asleep beside the glowing coals. When Squint awoke the next morning, Little Wolf was gone. The Appaloosa was tied next to Joe and Sadie. There had been no mention of it in their conversation the night before but Squint knew the horse was left in payment for the little mare, Britches, that he had given Little Wolf when they parted company years before in the Shoshone village.
“Won’t be beholden to nobody,” Squint muttered as he stretched and scratched. He looked around the empty camp. “Don’t owe your brother nothin’. Don’t owe me nothin’. Just owe them damn Injuns.” He shook his head, exasperated. “We could have made a good life in Oregon.” He got up to see to his horses and inspect his gift. “Dang, Joe, why didn’t you warn me when he left in the middle of the night?” The thought that Little Wolf could get up and steal out of the camp without waking him bothered him more than a little. “I’m gittin’ too damn old for this life.” He looked at the Appaloosa, his white-spotted coat shimmering in the first fingers of sunlight filtering through the trees. “Boy, you shore paid off with interest. That little mare weren’t half the horse you are.” He took one last look at his favorite of all campsites, the perfect spot. Reluctantly, he climbed up on Joe. Leading the Appaloosa and Sadie, he headed back to Fort Lincoln and the army.