Ashes of Heaven (40 page)

Long Knife and the tall one returned from speaking to the Bear Coat, declaring it was time for them to move out in advance of the soldiers. While Brave Wolf and a young half-breed rode through the spotty brush half-way down the hillside, White Bull led the others higher up, tracking just below the skyline so they wouldn't chance being spotted by distant eyes. After all, they were following a village of those who had once been old friends. Not just Lakota, but
Ohmeseheso
too. Those who had joined the
Mnikowoju
chief, Lame Deer, those refusing to go either north or south to surrender. Following this close on the enemy's back-trail, White Bull was sure Lame Deer would have wolves out in the hills, watching for the soldiers whom he had dared to catch his people unprepared.

At first White Bull grew furious with the Lakota chief for enticing the Shahiyela deserters to join his warrior band, for offering them a hollow, empty promise. Eventually, as the morning wore on, he grew saddened for those among his people who hadn't gone south with Little Wolf and Morning Star, for those who hadn't come north to surrender to the Bear Coat. He found his heart filled with a deep ache for those who once again had joined their hopes with another ill-fated leader.

Like those who had believed Last Bull in the valley of the Red Fork, assured the old way would live on, believing that the People would survive in glory and greatness, unable to realize their day was passing, unable to admit that the sun was setting on the magnificence and majesty that was the
Ohmeseheso—

For a long moment White Bull wasn't sure what it was. Although not nearly close enough to smell Lame Deer's camp, the holy man drank a deep breath of air becoming drier already this morning. He glanced at the sun just then touching his left shoulder, rising in the brilliant blue sky. Yes, the air was nowhere near as damp as it had been yesterday and last night. Smoke might well rise rather than be weighed down, heavy and wet.

Turning to look downhill at Brave Wolf, he could tell his friend was just then spotting the faraway smudge against the hills himself. Brave Wolf gazed up at White Bull, pointing quickly.

He nodded at Brave Wolf, waving his friend up the slope as he halted. The young half-breed from the north country kicked his heels into his horse and followed Brave Wolf up the side of the hill, clucking at the animal as it struggled, lunging over the broken, brushy ground.

“Long Knife, do you see the smoke?” White Bull asked the squawman when he came up to join the rest.

Rowland said something to the white man and they both took what seemed to be a long time to study the distant hills.

“I cannot see the smoke,” the squawman admitted. “Where do you see this smoke?”

Urging his pony closer to Rowland's, White Bull brought his left arm up and laid it against the squawman's right cheek, pointing to the faraway horizon. Then Rowland rubbed his eyes and muttered something to the gray-eyed
ve-ho-e.
The tall one said something to the two half-breeds. But both of them squinted, then shook their heads.

“Can't see it, White Bull,” Rowland confessed. “How far away?”

He took but a moment to calculate the distance to the village as the red-tailed hawk would fly from where they sat atop their horses. Perhaps a long day's ride across broken country, without pushing one's animal too harshly—but a lot of climbing and descending. That, or winding along the tortuous curves of the Roseberry itself. If a hawk flew straight from here—

“Not quite a full day's ride,” he concluded thoughtfully. “Not a half-day's ride either.” Then in a swift gesture he tomahawked the edge of his flat right hand down upon the open palm of his left hand. “Half the afternoon.”

When Long Knife turned to say something to the gray-eyed
ve-ho-e,
a smile was spawned across that tall man's face.

Chapter 33

6 May 1877

“Culbertson,” Donegan called, waving the young half-breed closer. “Dig out them field glasses of yours.”

While Joe Culbertson inched his horse closer to the Irishman, he twisted round in the saddle and yanked at the pair of buckles securing the flap to his off-hand saddlebag. All around them, the Indian trackers were talking quietly among themselves, a few pointing to the south, others gazing off left and right to study the nearby heights or glancing back to the north to assure themselves of the column's advance.

“Couple of the Cheyenne must've got themselves spooked,” Seamus said as Culbertson held out the field glasses to him.
Want to make sure the army is close at hand, what with just spotting the enemy—

“Donegan,” Rowland interrupted him as Robert Jackson dragged out his pair of field glasses and brought them to his eyes, “Brave Wolf just said both him and White Bull can see ponies grazing on the hills yonder.”

Seamus blinked his eyes, rubbed at them, then blinked some more, before he put Culbertson's field glasses against the bridge of his nose.
These damned Injins seen smoke, and now a pony herd off where I don't see nothing but those hills brushing the sky.

As he slowly twisted the inner wheel, the far horizon ground into focus—right there where the green of those distant heights met the flawless blue sky.
Maybeso
 … He gradually inched the field glasses down, there—a bit of a smudge against the ridges—down across the countryside at the base of the bluffs. But for the life of him, he couldn't make out the horse herd.

“Can't see no ponies,” he grumbled, tearing the field glasses from his eyes and blinking them from the strain of trying so damned hard.

Young Jackson looked over at him and instructed, “Look for some worms crawling on the eastern hills.” Then the half-breed put his field glasses back against his eyes.

“Let Rowland have himself a look, Bob,” Seamus requested as he positioned the field glasses for another look.

Worms, they said. Crawling on the hills. Worms.

He sighed, staring, concentrating again. When out hunting, a man had to look for something that didn't fit. Something out of place—only then would he spot his quarry: the deer, elk, or antelope. Something that didn't quite fit.

Worms! By the bloody saints—it looked like a small cluster of bleeming worms!

“I see 'em, old man,” he breathlessly declared to Rowland without taking his eyes off the distant sight.

He had yet to spot any lodges, but hell, it didn't matter! They saw the smoke, and there was the pony herd! Not a big one, but no other band was going to be out hunting in this country.

Rowland asked with a grim countenance, “So you see their herd?”

“I saw the worms, yeah,” Donegan replied as he took the glasses from his face and smiled at the squawman.

“Smoke too?”

“Damn right. That too.”

Rowland handed the field glasses back to Jackson, quickly glancing at the position of the sun as it neared midsky. “Smoke means they ain't moving for the day, Donegan. And they got them ponies out to graze.”

“They're still in camp,” Seamus agreed. “Means they'll be in camp 'least till morning—”

“
If
Miles can get this army anywhere close to that village by sunup,” Rowland interrupted with a doubtful wag of his head. “We got some ground to cover afore then.”

“I'll lay my month's wages this bunch'll do it,” Donegan declared. “Just like Mackenzie done it.”

For a moment Rowland chewed on his chapped upper lip. “But you 'member: Mackenzie had more men along when he come to jump that camp, Irishman. Even then, we rode in after sunup and got ourselves pinned down all day—”

“Miles is gonna get the job done, Bill,” he shut off the squawman.

“Leastways,” Rowland sighed deeply, “this time my wife don't have no family in there.”

Reading the struggle there on the squawman's face, Seamus laid a hand on Rowland's shoulder. “Just remember, there can't be much of a fight come sunup. Only enough for them sojurs to capture the village and run off the herd.”

“Said you'd bet your month's wages on it, eh?”

Asked to show his cards, Donegan swallowed. “Yeah, I will.” And he held out his hand to shake hands with the grinning squawman. “Now, what say we get back down to tell Miles what his Cheyenne found?”

When Donegan announced the news, the colonel was beside himself, galloping on ahead of the column for that spot where the other scouts were waiting so he could confirm the presence of the enemy village for himself.

“By Jupiter, all I can claim to see is a fine mist, or cloud, against those hills,” Miles admitted as he squinted into the distance. Holding out his hand to his adjutant, he took the field glasses from Lieutenant Baird.

Everyone waited breathlessly while the colonel studied the countryside.

“That's smoke all right!” he eventually cheered, clearly exuberant at this discovery. “And there! I see the herd! Their ponies!”

“Rowland and me, we figure they're laying in camp today,” Donegan explained.

“Then we'll approach under cover of darkness,” Miles declared. He looked through the glasses again, finally bringing them away from his face to say, “Four or five of you, I want to slip up on the village and learn what you can of their strengths, how the camp is laid out, where the herd is in relation to the tipis. Every intelligence you can bring back to me.”

“I'll take White Bull and Brave Wolf,” Seamus suggested, turning at the sound of some hooves clattering up the hillside toward them. It was Bruguier. ‘I'll take Johnny too. Jackson here, and those two scouts. That should be enough to spy on them, bring you a count of the lodges so we can figure their fighting strength.”

A clearly anxious Miles gazed through his field glasses a moment more, then said, “I can't emphasize enough that you must not be spotted, that you cannot alert the village.”

“We won't, General,” Donegan promised.

The colonel sighed and straightened. “Very well. I'll continue on upstream a few miles with the column, closing some of the gap on the village before we go into camp by the middle of the afternoon to await your return.”

Nodding at Bruguier, waving at the rest, Donegan sawed his reins to the left. “C'mon, fellas. Let's go have ourselves a look at Lame Deer's camp.”

*   *   *

Johnny Bruguier turned slightly in the saddle to listen to the squawman named Rowland talk with the Shahiyela holy man named White Bull, able to understand only some of what the two said as their words fell so fast about him.

“White Bull says this here is called Fat Horse Creek,” Rowland explained. “What his people call it. Got its name because it's a favorite camping spot in the spring. Grass grows tall, ponies grow fat.”

“This creek flows into the Rosebud?” Donegan asked.

“On down from the village a little ways,” Rowland stated.

The seven of them lay on their bellies atop the lip of a ridge northeast of the camp, concealed in shadow and stunted cedar.

Then the Irishman said, “Bill—have your Cheyenne split up and go get as close to the camp as they can. Have 'em find out where the ponies are put out to graze. And tell 'em to count the lodges.”

As Rowland turned to the Shahiyela, Johnny bellied over beside Donegan. “You want me stay here with you?”

“Yeah. We'll wait till them others come back.”

Laying there with the Irishman and the two young half-breeds, Bruguier found himself watching the sun fall off mid-sky and slip rapidly for the west, hoping the others would get back before dark.

“I think the whites call this Big Muddy Creek,” he declared out of the clear blue.

“Big Muddy?”

“Some white folks call it just the Muddy. If this is the one I heard tell about when I was in the Hills,” Bruguier continued, “Goes into the Rosebud down there where the valley gets a little wider.”

“But the Rosebud's a clear stream,” Donegan said.

Johnny nodded, grinning. “Soon we know if this is the Big Muddy, eh?”

“Yeah, we'll know soon enough.”

For a long time none of them talked, not uttering another word while they waited for the Cheyenne to return. The sun had set by the time the warriors slipped back up the ridge through a brush-covered draw to slip in among the white men and half-breeds lying there in the tall grass. White Bull spoke in hushed tones to Rowland as the air cooled and the last of day's light slanted off the chiseled, reddish sandstone bluffs.

“White Bull says he only counted thirty-eight lodges,” the squawman explained.

“There's more than that in there,” Donegan whispered harshly.

“Maybe he didn't see 'em all,” Rowland defended. Then he turned to White Bull to talk again in the warrior's tongue. “He allows that maybe he didn't see 'em all—but what he did see, he counted.”

“There's gotta be nearly twice that many,” the Irishman said. “What with all them ponies too.”

White Bull was talking to Rowland, motioning here and there with his arm, stabbing a palm with one finger on his other hand.

“He says there's two bands of horses,” the squawman translated. “Small herd on this side of the creek. But it must've been the bunch we seen this morning what's on the other side. Farther away from the camp.”

“East?” Donegan asked.

After Rowland spoke quietly with White Bull, the white man confirmed, “East. Upstream a ways.” He started scooting backwards beside the holy man.

“Where you going?” Donegan asked.

The squawman said, “I think I'll take White Bull and go have myself a real close look at that village.”

*   *   *

Near the Painted Rocks
*
White Bull led Long Knife out of the brush and waded across the Roseberry, quickly disappearing again in the thick vegetation of a coulee that took them up the heights where the pines would hide them again. From twilight's shadows, the holy man gazed back downstream at the tall spires of those sacred rocks where ancient ones had carved their history. This was a place of great power, great mystery to both the
Ohmeseheso
and Lakota who visited the valley every summer.