Ashes of Heaven (15 page)

Winter had devastated the People every bit as much as war had. Both were vicious, evil enemies that preyed not on the strong and bold of the tribe. Instead, winter and war alike preyed on the weak, the very young and the very old, preyed on those who could least defend themselves.

As White Bull looked across at those shivering within their blankets and buffalo robes at the edge of the firelight, those listening to the long harangues on war versus surrender, he heard nothing but the endless voices of those prideful, strutting prairie cocks who made war out to be a man's destiny.

Yet here in this winter of despair, what White Bull saw so vividly was that war did not make the warriors its victims … but rather the old, the young, and the women.

By the time the moon had set, all but one of the Elkhorn Scrapers had spoken in favor of continuing the war. The society stood foursquare against the Kit Foxes' desire to surrender at the Bear Coat's Elk River Fort. The only Elkhorn yet to speak was White Bull.

Outside the lodge in that deep cold, pricked with the distant shimmer of countless stars, outside that council lodge where nothing stirred but the frosty breath of the onlookers, the crowd now fell completely silent. Inside, the leaders of the three warrior societies remained respectful and hushed as this great and revered holy man of the
Ohmeseheso
cleared his throat after nearly a day of disuse.

“It is very, very late and we have heard so much talk already today,” White Bull said to the startled throng. “My heart is very, very heavy with all that has been said. I yearn to say what weighs heavily on my mind. But because all of you must be tired, because what I have to say speaks directly to the hearts of those who are surely the most weary … tomorrow we will gather here in this place when the sun has risen two hands above the horizon. It is then that I will speak my heart on this matter of war or surrender for our people.”

Chapter 12

Mid-February 1877

Johnny Bruguier walked to the large council tent with Old Wool Woman that winter morning as the crowd began to gather. Since dawn, the sky had been hinting that the heavy cloud cover would blow on over, freeing the sun to shine at last. But for now, as a half-dozen women started the fire in the big council lodge, the sun was nothing more than a hazy pewter button climbing toward midsky.

For the past two days the half-breed had been brooding on just how smart he'd been to let himself get talked into helping the soldier chief at the Yellowstone. More than once Johnny had convinced himself that he had stepped right in it by putting himself within reach of, and at risk from, these Shahiyela warriors and their mourning women. During those long hours he spent by himself in the lodge Old Wool Woman had explained was sacred, Bruguier had time to worry, lots of time to grow increasingly more scared of just what might happen if the chiefs decided to continue to make war on the army—starting with that half-breed courier from the Bear Coat.

Although he figured the chances were slim that the young, angry warriors would actually break a taboo by entering the Sacred Hat Lodge to snatch him, Johnny nonetheless sensed no real welcome as he sat in the old priest's home. Coal Bear and his woman never spoke to Bruguier, rarely even glanced at their visitor as they came and went about their business; they ate, slept, prepared meals, smoked the pipe, received visitors, and, when the rest of the village gathered at the nearby council lodge, departed without a word.

As hard as he tried through those first two days, pressing his ear right against the scraped buffalo hides of the sacred lodge, Johnny still could not make out what the various voices said when they grew loud with impassioned argument. About all he could be certain of was that he was listening to a lot of anger. Hour after hour that second day he grew more consumed with worry that such fury might well boil over and engulf him.

After all, he was alone there in the sacred lodge, jumpy and startled each time the doorflap was pulled back, especially when the one called Antelope Woman ducked inside late the night after a long, long day of arguing among the Shahiyela. He had breathed a little easier when a second woman came in to stand by the first.

“You remember my friend?” Old Wool Woman asked in her slow-spoken Lakota, so he could understand.

Nodding to the young woman, Johnny then looked into Old Wool Woman's eyes. “What is going on with the surrender talks?”

As he watched, Bruguier saw some of the skin sag around her eyes again.

Old Wool Woman answered, “There are many who say they will go south to the White River Agency once the weather warms and the ponies are stronger.”

“To surrender at the Lakota agency?”

“Yes, we are close to the Little Star People there,” she nodded. “But … there are many voices who have strong talk against surrendering at all.”

Johnny had waited a few moments, expecting Old Wool Woman to go on. When she didn't, he asked, “Are any of your people going to surrender to Miles at his fort?”

Gazing down at the small fire, she replied, “Only the Kit Fox Warriors speak of surrender to the Bear Coat.”

Something in the way she said it, in the way she refused to look him in the eye, convinced Johnny that what should be welcome news might not be all that much a blessing.

“What could be wrong if the Kit Fox Warriors speak in favor of surrender?”

“Last Bull, their leader, has been shamed.”

“How?”

“Because of him, because of his warriors not allowing our camp to retreat,” she said, finally fixing her gaze on him, “my people lost everything to Three Finger Kenzie's soldiers.”

He recalled hearing Miles's officers talk about reports of that fight. How the soldiers figured the refugees from the destroyed village had fled into the wilderness to search for Crazy Horse. So when the Bear Coat's soldiers went marching up the Tongue they had found Shahiyela warriors fighting alongside the Lakota men. If they now blamed the Kit Fox Warrior society, as well as the soldiers, for the complete destruction of their culture, then it stood to reason that most of them would now refuse to heed the arguments made by any of the Kit Fox leaders.

Bruguier scratched at his bearded cheek, worried anew that he might not make it out of this village to ride north to the Yellowstone. “Those who speak against surrender to Miles, are they truly stronger than the Kit Fox Warriors?”

“Yes,” Old Wool Woman said. “Ever since the destruction of our village in the mountains because of Last Bull and the Kit Foxes, the Elkhorn Scrapers have grown stronger.”

“All of the Elkhorns are against going north to surrender at the soldier fort?” he asked.

“All but one has spoken,” Old Wool Woman answered. “It is so late now. So many are tired and cold from the long day of long talks.”

“This last Elkhorn Scraper, he will speak against surrender when he talks tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she replied. “White Bull—a powerful holy man who is a strong healer—he will be first to speak in the morning.”

Johnny didn't sleep all that well after hearing Old Wool Woman's dire reading of the odds for getting her people to surrender to Miles. Back and forth he tossed beneath his blankets and a buffalo robe until the sky grayed where the poles were tied together above his bed in the Sacred Hat Lodge.

Not that he could blame these Shahiyela for refusing to give up. Never before had he seen deep snow such as these people had endured. Never in all his years had Johnny experienced such cold as this. It was plain to see that this village had survived on horseflesh until they chanced to stumble upon enough buffalo to feed the tight bellies, to sew together more lodgeskins. Everyone in this camp was cramped together, two or more families in each new lodge, so only this Sacred Hat Lodge remained a quiet refuge from those who had somehow outlasted this terrible winter. Such deep, deep suffering.

More than once he had stared in the bundle hanging from its tripod in that place of prominence at the back of this lodge.

How these people had sacrificed, even unto their lives, to protect that sacred object. Some small voice of warning inside him said that a people as stoic and strong as they would not consider surrender unless no other path was open to them. And if that powerful holy man named White Bull offered these people strength, goaded them into believing that their best opportunity rested in turning south to the Lakota agency on White River … then Johnny would certainly fail.

Old Wool Woman had come for him that morning after the sun came up, bringing Bruguier some meat in a kettle she set to boiling on the fire in the Sacred Hat Lodge. The four of them ate in all but total silence, except when Old Wool Woman would talk with Coal Bear or Sacred Hat Woman in their Shahiyela tongue, which Johnny struggled to follow. At times the old woman might translate something into her fractured Lakota, but most of that morning the four of them sat in silence, eating, or thinking, or tending the fire … and waiting.

Coal Bear finally stood, said something to the two women, and gathered up his old robe, which he flung about his shoulders before leaving the lodge. Bruguier watched Coal Bear's woman set a few more pieces of wood on the fire, then she too departed beneath the protection of a blanket.

“It is time to go to the council lodge,” Old Wool Woman announced.

“You will return here to tell me what your people decide today?”

“No, Big Leggings,” she said as she draped her blanket over her head. “You come with me to listen for yourself.”

“They … your men will allow me to attend their council?'

“All my people will be there this morning, just as they have been there to listen since these talks began,” Old Wool Woman said. “Come now—we go together to hear what White Bull tells the other men is in his heart, what path he believes our people should take.”

*   *   *

White Bull was up before the first streaks of gray brightened the sun's rising behind patchy, snow-laden clouds.

He smoked and prayed about which direction his people were to turn. To go north to give themselves over to the Bear Coat who had come hunting for them in the snow? Or to march south toward the agency where Morning Star's people often made their home among Red Cloud's Lakota? And if they did not surrender in the north or to the south, then wasn't it still a grand folly to keep on making war against the
ve-ho-e
and his soldiers?

The more he prayed, the more White Bull became convinced he already knew his answer. Had known the answer for many, many days now. Finally, at first light, he realized the most difficult part of his decision was just how he would explain it to the others who were relying upon his prestige and power to sway those who had not yet made up their minds.

“Antelope Woman!” he called in the dim light of the small fire he was rebuilding.

His sister pulled the robe back from her face.

“I want you to bring Old Wool Woman to me,” he said as she blinked at him and rubbed her knuckles into her eyes.

“Old Wool Woman?”

“Bring her now. I must talk to her without delay.”

He waited in his tiny lodge with his wife and older children, as well as the other family who lived with them until the women sewed together enough buffalo hides to make another lodge. By the time Antelope Woman returned with her old friend, everyone was awake in White Bull's lodge, sitting very quietly, expectantly. Something in the holy man's tone convinced them of the gravity of this visit from the old woman who was once a captive of the soldiers.

“Everything you told us two days ago was true?” he demanded as she settled beside him at the fire and let her old blanket drop from her bony shoulders.

Old Wool Woman nodded. “What is it you are asking?”

“The Bear Coat did not send you here with a false message for us? Something to trick us into coming to his fort?”

Her eyes darted back and forth between his, her brow creasing. “No, the Bear Coat is not trying to trick you.”

“They still hold your niece and your daughter at the soldier fort,” he said, daring to hope that this woman could allay the last of his fears that the soldier chief would attempt some
ve-ho-e
treachery upon his people.

“Yes, Crooked Nose Woman, and Fingers Woman too.”

Laying a hand on her forearm, White Bull said, “Look into my eyes and tell me that the Bear Coat is not holding your family hostage.”

“Both of them, and the others are still prisoners—”

“But why did he release you?” White Bull demanded, cutting her off. “Why you? If he didn't want to keep the others, to kill if you didn't come here?”

“No!” she shouted.

“Yes,” he growled. “He would kill them if you did not succeed in luring us into his trap.”

The old woman's hand flew to her mouth. It trembled there, her eyes filling with dread. “No. I will not believe the Bear Coat would do that.”

“Isn't the Bear Coat the sort of man who would lie to an old woman, to convince you that you came here to deliver a message for the good of your people?” he explained. “Wouldn't the soldier chief be the sort of
ve-ho-e
who would send you to bring us to his fort or kill your family and the other prisoners?”

“He … the Bear Coat … but he never said anything about any of the others!”

“Didn't he tell you to bring us to him or he would kill the rest of your relations? Didn't he, Old Wool Woman?”

“No,” she sobbed, hiding her face in her old hands. “He does not seem to be the kind of man who would lie to me.”

As soon as she looked up from her hands, he watched her face, how her lips quivered, her eyes pooled. Tears spilled down the weathered creases of her face.

Finally, in a very quiet whisper, he asked, “What can you say to convince my heart so I can believe in this soldier the way you believe in him?”