“ALL I EVER KNEW about that fight was what I heard from Pleasant and some of the others,” Dane said. He lifted one of his braids and showed me a scar behind his ear. “You might not think a scratch like that could put a man into the Darkening Land. Maybe I would still be there if Red Bird Woman had not brought me back to the land of the living.”
“That old medicine man, Two Crows, he brought you back,” Red Bird Woman insisted. “Two Crows kept shaking his deer-hoof sticks and a piece of buffalo tail over you till your eyes opened.”
“When I opened my eyes,” Dane said, “your mouth was on my wound sucking the blood out.”
“Two Crows told me I must do that.”
Red Bird Woman glanced at me, the white stranger, a flash of shyness in her eyes that made her face seem suddenly young again. “That was terrible day,” she said. “When we first heard guns firing we ran to edge of willow thicket. I could see smoke of guns and then my sorrel mare come galloping to me with Dane flopping across its withers like dead man. The horse stopped running when it smelled me and walked right up to me. I pulled Dane out of saddle, but his hands would not turn loose of mane, like they was frozen there. Dane’s legs hung loose and his face was pressed against sorrel’s neck, and I had to pull each of his fingers loose from mane hairs.
“But that was not worst of that day. Worst was when they brought Lean Bear’s bloodied body to me and told me he was dead.” She turned to face me, her shyness gone now, her full wide mouth remembering a long-ago sadness, her fingers touching thin white lines across her unwrinkled forehead. “I too am scarred from that day. I gashed my forehead for Lean Bear, letting blood run into my eyes. If a high cliff had been near Hinta Nagi, I might of gone and jumped. I was Lean Bear’s woman.”
We all sat silent for a minute or more, and then Dane dropped a chunk of wood into the fireplace, making sparks fly and crackle. “By late afternoon,” he said, “I felt strong enough to help in building scaffolds for the dead. Lean Bear, Porcupine, and four others. We left the dead Bluecoats where they fell. Because they acted so cowardly, no one wanted to take their scalps, but some of the women went out and cut the brass buttons off their coats. Most of our young men had not returned from chasing the soldiers, and we were all uneasy about what might have happened to them. The women and children were ready to start north, but it was long after dark before the Dog Soldiers and the other warriors came in. When they told us what had happened we knew we could not leave that night.
“Pleasant told me about it first. He and Rising Fawn stayed in the dry wash until the soldiers went back to the fort about sundown. The warriors came together then, intending to search for any who might be wounded or dead. Only Little Cloud and Spotted Shield were missing, and some of the Dog Soldiers told Pleasant they had seen the Bluecoats trap the young boys. They shot their ponies, but instead of killing the boys they tied them with ropes, and two men with stripes on their sleeves started off with them toward Fort Starke. Pleasant wanted to go at once and storm the fort, but the others told him they would all be killed by the big guns mounted on the walls.”
Red Bird Woman made a soft sound in her throat. “Spotted Shield,” she broke in, “was near to a son as I ever had. That night when they told me Bluecoats had made prisoner of Spotted Shield, I said it was just as well Lean Bear went to Land of Spirits. Lean Bear wanted a son but I could not give him one, and so he looked upon his nephew Spotted Shield like a son. Yes, he and Pleasant might of stormed that fort by themselves and both would been killed.”
“We talked through the night,” Dane continued. “Bear Woman and some others had found enough old lodgepoles to make a tipi frame, covering it with blankets and robes and pieces of clothing so the chief would have a proper place for councils. We sat there in the tipi—Big Star, Swift Eagle, Pleasant, Yellow Hawk, Spotted Shield’s father and brothers, several of the women. My wound hurt and bled a little, but the medicine man told me it would heal quick if I did not cover it. Pleasant’s anger had cooled by then and he knew as well as we that the Cheyennes could not recover the boys by attacking the fort. The Bluecoats would kill us all. None of us could guess why they wanted the young boys. ‘Perhaps they want to trade them or sell them,’ Big Star said. ‘I have heard that the Veheos do these things.’
“ ‘Trade them for what?’ Pleasant asked.
“ ‘Perhaps for the big gun they left when they ran away,’ Big Star said.
“Pleasant thought this was a possibility. Big Star then told Yellow Hawk to go and call out his Fox Soldier brothers and roll the big gun into the Hinta Nagi so that we would have it in our possession if the Bluecoats wanted to trade the boys for it.
“I sat there most of the night listening to the others and wondering about Little Cloud and worrying about Sweet Medicine Woman, who I knew must be awake waiting for us to come as I had promised. Then I said to Big Star that the only thing to be done was for me to go to Fort Starke under a truce flag and find out what the Bluecoats might want in ransom for our boys.
“ ‘This would be a dangerous thing for you to do, Sanaki,’ Big Star replied.
“ ‘That is so,’ Pleasant agreed. ‘Colonel Belcourt marked you that day he came to the trading post. He hates your dark Indian skin. If anyone goes to the fort, it shall be Pleasant McAlpin with my white man’s pallor and blue eyes.’
“Big Star said he must think awhile on this undertaking, seek a vision. He was disposed to wait through one more day. Perhaps the Bluecoats would tell us what they wanted with our boys, but if they did not, the leaders must decide in council what we must do. ‘The blood of my family runs in the veins of both Spotted Shield and Little Cloud,’ Big Star said. ‘Yet if they must be sacrificed to save the seed of this Cheyenne band—the women and children—then it must be done. We can risk waiting here but one more day.’
“We did not have long to wait. Before the sun was above the rim of the earth, our lookouts called a warning. Bluecoats, only a few, were approaching from the south under a truce flag. Before they reached the flat-topped rise where the fighting had started, they began lifting the dead Bluecoats from the ground and fastening their bodies to the backs of led ponies. Then they raised the white flag higher and started toward the Timbers, walking their horses very slowly. The officer in the lead was Major Easterwood. Most of the men with him were the gunners that our warriors had chased from their cannon.
“ ‘I saw that Bluecoat chief in a dream,’ Big Star said. ‘I must dress in the dragoon uniform the Veheos gave me at Horse Creek.’ He went into the makeshift tipi, and I mounted a horse and rode out with Pleasant and some of the Dog Soldiers to meet Major Easterwood. He was surprised to see me there, but made no comment other than to say that he had come to visit our chief.
“By the time we returned to the tipi, Big Star was standing very straight in front of it, a handsome old man with his white hair reaching the shoulders of the dark blue dragoon coat. Hanging over the brass buttons was the medal with the clasped hands of the treaty signers. He also held his copy of the scarlet-ribboned treaty.
“About twenty paces from the tipi, Major Easterwood halted his men, ordering them to remain where they were while he dismounted and limped slowly toward Big Star. I could tell that Easterwood was affected by the chief’s military costume and his dignified bearing. ‘I am Major Easterwood,’ he said. ‘I come from Fort Starke, commanded by Colonel Belcourt.’
“I had to interpret the words and when I finished, the major thanked me.
“ ‘You have come here to talk about our young men,’ Big Star said.
“Easterwood looked puzzled, uncertain as to what the chief meant, and so I spoke their names, Little Cloud and Spotted Shield. ‘My son and a relative of the chief’s,’ I added. ‘Why have the soldiers made captives of them?’
“ ‘I have not come,’ Easterwood said, ‘to talk about the two young boys. My instructions from Colonel Belcourt are to recover the bodies of our dead and the mountain howitzer, and to order the chief to take his Cheyenne people back to their reservation below Sand Creek.’
“Big Star was angry when he heard these words. ‘You have the bodies of your dead,’ he said to Easterwood. ‘Take them. But you will not take the big gun until you bring our boys to us.’
“Major Easterwood was silent for a while, looking first at me and then at Big Star. ‘The two boys,’ he said then, ‘will be moved to Denver for a military trial. They are accused of ambushing wagons carrying army rifles.’
“ ‘You know this is not true,’ I shouted at him before interpreting the words for Big Star.
“His voice was almost a whisper. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But Colonel Belcourt wants it that way. The men who own Denver want it that way. There is nothing I can do.’ He gave me a strange look. ‘You have some of our rifles here. They were used against our men yesterday.’
“ ‘They were the guns in the abandoned wagon,’ I explained. ‘If we had not had the fast-shooting rifles in our hands, the cavalry and mountain howitzer would have destroyed us.’
“When Big Star understood what was to happen to Little Cloud and Spotted Shield he had a hard time controlling his anger and his words. He unrolled the treaty and showed it to Major Easterwood. ‘On this paper are the names of your soldier chiefs and agents of the Great Father,’ he said. ‘The name of Wannesahta, keeper of our sacred medicine arrows, is there for the Cheyennes. The white man’s writing promised us land from the North Platte to the Arkansas, from the Great Mountains to the fork of the Platte, for hunting and traveling over as our fathers hunted and traveled over this country before the white men came here. Now you tell us we must live in the barren land below Sand Creek where there is nothing for us to eat. We want only to go away from you, to the north, where we can live in peace. Why do you not let my people go?’
“Easterwood’s face showed the shame he felt in his heart. He shook his head. ‘I know nothing of these things,’ he said bitterly. ‘I am only a messenger, a simple soldier from the East.’ He looked at me, then quickly turned his eyes away. ‘With your permission, my men will take that howitzer over there beyond the willow brush,’ he said.
“ ‘When you give us our two young boys, you can take the big gun,’ Big Star told him.
“Easterwood drew in his breath, sighed, and spread his hands. ‘You are making a grave mistake,’ he said. ‘Colonel Belcourt…’ Without finishing what he was going to say, he turned and limped back to his horse and mounted. ‘If your people don’t start for Sand Creek,’ he called to me, ‘I fear for the lives of all of you.’ ”