Ashes of Heaven (35 page)

For far too long game had been scarce. To many of the hunters returned to the evening camps with empty hands. Once again his people were being tested. Once again only the strong would survive this surrender march. Only those who could endure under these destitute conditions would reach the agency. Only those who—

“Little Wolf! Little Wolf!”

He blinked and realized he had been dreaming; his spirit had flown away to that world between this and the next, neither seeing nor hearing, nor sensing much of this world as they plodded toward that band of striated bluffs topped by pines which signalled they were nearing the agency.

A pair of riders came hollering, whipping their ponies back toward the head of the march. Even as the young men brought the snorting animals to a halt, Little Wolf could see how the two smiled.

“You have seen it?”

“The log lodges!” one of the riders gasped, then gulped, almost as breathless as his winded pony.

The other nodded and blurted, “We saw them from that ridge!”

“So we are close,” Little Wolf sighed, feeling the flutter of apprehension fire his veins.

Never in battle had he been as concerned as he was at this moment. To fight as a leader of the People, to die in battle if he was to give up his life—that caused him no real, tangible fear. But this—to face this unknown future?

Turning on the bare back of his pony, the Sweet Medicine Chief called the other leaders forward, “Old Bear! American Horse! Turkey Leg! Black Wolf!”

And he called forward all the rest of the chiefs, summoning them from the ranks of those who had hurried away from Morning Star who would follow with the wounded and the rest of the village. Without a murmur, those chiefs spread themselves out, flowing to either side of Little Wolf where they waited quietly. There could be no mistake why their Old Man Chief had called them forward at this point in their march.

They were about to enter the reservation. They were about to surrender to the
ve-ho-e.
They were about to turn their lives over to the soldiers at the White Rock Agency.

None of them knew anything of tomorrow, or the day after, or the coming seasons. But together they would look the future in the eye.

In anticipation of this crucial event, each chief and warrior took those precious few minutes to don what few articles of good clothing he might still own after the soldier fires in the Red Fork Valley. Quietly the rituals began, chants softly emerging from the throats of a few of the older men as they altered themselves into young warriors once more with these battle raiments. Proud people were these who had followed Little Wolf here to surrender. Yet what these older men sang were not war songs, nor those of battle. Instead they sang their pipe songs, the songs of peace.

“Elkhorn Scrapers!” Little Wolf now called to those warrior society headmen, waving his right arm and pointing behind the wide line formed by the chiefs.

“Crazy Dogs!” Little Wolf cried next, pointing with his left arm behind the chiefs.

When these headmen were in place both left and right behind the old chiefs, he announced in a bold voice, “All you fighting men—protect the flanks of our march! Ride now to protect the lives of our women and children with your own lives!”

He waited while the young men stripped covers from their shields and pulled leather cases from their rifles, spreading up and down both sides of the procession, then Little Wolf rode to the rear of the column where he raised his commanding voice again.

“Tangle Hair!”

“I am here, Sweet Medicine Chief!” the war leader responded, raising an old lance.

“Your men will guard our back as always, Tangle Hair!”

“No enemy will dare slip around to attack us from behind!” the chief bellowed proudly as the handful of his men stretched themselves left and right at the back of the wide column. “We offer our lives to save the helpless ones!”

It has always been that way,
Little Wolf thought to himself. As far back as any of them could remember, the Dog Men always brought up the rear of any march, always protected the village in retreat, always were the last to leave a field of battle, these men who pulled the bodies of relations and friends away from the enemy … and gave of their own blood to protect those who could not defend themselves.

There weren't many Dog Men left these days.

Little Wolf's eyes quickly counted the six who separated themselves into thin lines on either side of Tangle Hair. Thin but as strong as a rawhide bowstring.

At that very moment an old man and woman emerged on foot from that mass of nervous, snorting ponies and quiet, restive people anxious for this march to resume. Some dogs snarled as the peace songs continued, and a pony whinnied close by. But for the singing, the People were respectfully quiet as Little Wolf waited for that old man and woman to reach the horsemen arrayed at the front of the column.

Coal Bear and his wife, Sacred Hat Woman.

She limped painfully a few paces ahead of the old man. By tradition the woman was allowed to ride a horse only in the event of an emergency. All but crippled after this horrendous wilderness ordeal, the footsore Sacred Hat Woman had walked every step of the three-hundred-mile journey. Across her back she carried the bundle. Inside rested
Esevone,
the Sacred Buffalo Hat.

As he trudged past Little Wolf, Coal Bear glanced up and nodded. To symbolize his respect for the old priest, the Sweet Medicine Chief removed the pipebowl from the satchel at his waist, fitted it onto the long stem of his pipe, and rested this sacred object across his left elbow while the couple limped by. Moments before both of these old people had painted their faces and hands with the sacred red ocher. That flesh they exposed to the Creator.

When the holy couple were well ahead of the procession on the jagged prairie, leading them toward those distant, pine-covered ridges, Little Wolf finally spoke, his words carried on the spring breeze.

“Come, Northern People! Be proud! We ride into the future!”

Somehow they kept their nervous ponies at a slow walk, allowing the old couple to set their own pace as Little Wolf's band crossed this last distance between the
Ohmeseheso
and the unknown. They were not surrendering as the
ve-ho-e
understood surrender. No, these were a proud people who simply found themselves unable to maintain any more resistance against the winter, against the hunger, against the overwhelming white tide.

They were not surrendering to those who had vanquished them. Instead, these
Tse-tsehese
came here so that they would survive.

Slowly, slowly now the Northern People marched toward the White Rock Agency, singing their peace songs. Before them rode Little Wolf and his headmen.

In front of those chiefs walked the holy priest, painted in that most sacred of colors.

But ahead of them all went the old woman carrying
Esevone
—that most powerful symbol of the Creator's power and life blessing—leading Her people into seasons yet unborn.

*   *   *

When Box Elder brought his people to the Elk River fort, the old man told White Bull that the power of the
Ohmeseheso
had been splintered, perhaps never to be repaired again. To the four winds they had scattered, perhaps never to reunite.

Little Wolf and Morning Star led their people south to the White River Agency.

Big Horse and Spotted Elk had hurried along the base of the White Mountains
*
to rejoin their relatives among the Southern People in Indian Territory.

A third band marched southwest, intending to settle among the
Sosone-oe-o
†
on the Wind River Agency.

And now the people of Two Moon, Crazy Head, and Old Crow had turned themselves over to the soldiers who promised they would teach the People to become farmers, to grow their food instead of chasing the buffalo.

Had he done the right thing? White Bull brooded as the tempo of preparations accelerated around him. Perhaps he should have stayed out as a few of the
Ohmeseheso
had done, some lodges going this way, a few heading off in that.

Yet again and again he came back to the same conclusion: it would still be no more than a matter of time before they would be captured, or killed. This enemy from the east was not only powerful in numbers, but powerful in their war medicine.

The Bear Coat had made sure that Long Knife Rowland explained everything he wanted to say to the Shahiyela leaders. One morning the soldier chief and interpreter had taken White Bull and the others out among the white man's spotted buffalo. Standing there in the middle of that peaceful, grazing herd, the Bear Coat explained that his soldiers were going to sell the ponies the Shahiyela had turned in, and with the money they would purchase many of these spotted buffalo for White Bull's people. The holy man understood making a trade, but he did not understand the rest of the soldier chief's talk about the virtues of raising these slow-witted, docile animals for meat so the warrior bands would not have to depend upon the hunt.

Perhaps acquiring these dumb brutes was a good thing, White Bull decided. If a man of the People could not hunt the wild buffalo with a rifle from horseback, then he would have to depend upon a docile animal that never ran off, an animal that stayed close by chewing its grass contentedly, not aware of its eventual fate.

White Bull did not want to think about his fate, about next winter. Or the following spring when the lure of the old ways would run hot in the veins of the young men. This was a hard road to walk, but walk it he would.

Through Long Knife Rowland, the Bear Coat had explained that come warmer weather, men like White Bull could begin to tend their own garden plots at the outskirts of the fort grounds. Most of the Shahiyela had never been to the agency where the hang-abouts there planted and harvested their food.

“Tell the Bear Coat I want to raise my favorite food,” White Bull declared that morning among the spotted buffalo.

The soldier chief asked, “What food is your favorite?”

“Raisins!” the holy man gushed. “I have tasted the white man's raisins and that is the best food I have been able to find among your people—so I want to plant raisins in the ground.”

The Bear Coat laughed with the other white men, saying, “I will do what I can to see that you grow raisins!”

Then the soldier chief explained how the soldiers would cut at the ground with their horses and plows to prepare it for the
Ohmeseheso
to plant their seeds once the snows had receded and the air warmed without fear of frost.

Ever since he had elected to stay, and had raised his arm to swear his allegiance to the Bear Coat, White Bull had enjoyed the daily performances by the soldier band. How they blew on their bright, brass horns and thumped on their rattling drums, while marching in step around the fort grounds! And after every song ended the other soldiers clapped and whistled and called out lustily, hooting for more. Naturally, White Bull learned to clap and yell at the musicians after each song too. He quickly came to like their soldier music, especially diverting during those long, cold days while he waited for his people to reach the fort.

When they finally arrived they were issued tents and stoves, blankets and kettles. The families who had stubs of lodgepoles and scorched lodgeskins still used them, while the unmarried men put the canvas tents to good use, erecting them with the soldiers' help, right among that crescent of poor lodges.

But in that first, happy blush of reunion, many of the women had begun to wail and moan, asking Old Wool Woman to lead them to the grave where the soldiers had buried Crooked Nose Woman near the fort. Such sadness heaped upon sadness …

Then two days ago an acrobatic troupe stopped for a short visit to the fort and gave two performances. How the Shahiyela laughed and laughed at their antics. It was truly amazing how those white people bounced and jumped and balanced themselves in all sorts of contorted positions! These
ve-ho-e
were amazing creatures.

More than once Rowland and his tall, gray-eyed friend, who stayed at Long Knife's elbow, showed White Bull and the other leaders complex drawings that adorned the pages of the white man's books and magazines, some of which Long Knife explained came from far across a distant ocean, wider than any water the Shahiyela had ever seen.

White Bull wondered how many
ve-ho-e
there were beyond that ocean. And why they had ever come here to this land. Why didn't the white man just go back to where they came from so everything could return to the way it had been before?

But he knew it could not be the way it had been before. Too much had happened. Too many were dead, and too many were orphaned and widowed.

He would have to walk this white road. But the journey down that road would not be easy, for the Bear Coat was readying his soldiers and scouts to go after the Lakota reportedly camped on the Roseberry River.

Now the Shahiyela were told to hunt down the Lakota. Once again, old friends would face one another on the battlefield.

Chapter 29

1 May 1877

The tides of destiny wait on no man, but man must abide by the whims of fortune.

How Seamus grinned now as Tongue River Cantonment became a blur of man and mule, bull and wagon, preparing to launch into the wilderness once more after the wildest of the holdouts.

For the better part of half-a-year Nelson A. Miles and his Fifth Infantry had survived here on the Yellowstone without a resupply from downriver. Once the Missouri froze last fall, the Quartermaster Corps wasn't moving a thing north to the high plains. While the men supplemented their meager diet with occasional game and fowl, their animals suffered the worst of it. What with the way winter battered this country, it was a wonder Miles and his men had been able to find any forage for the horses, mules, and the once-hardy oxen they steadfastly nursed through the winter on what scant grass they could find, as well as all the cottonwood bark the men could peel. The Fifth Infantry's beasts sure were a gaunt, winter-poor lot, and not in the least fit for the trail.