Murder at Medicine Lodge (28 page)

The commissioner of Indian affairs was Nathaniel Taylor. Next to him was Senator John B. Henderson. Then down the line were William S. Harney, Alfred H. Terry, S. F. Tappan, J. B. Sanborn, and C. C. Augur. Across from the long table these men shared, a separation of only a few yards of open space, and seated on blankets spread over the ground, sat the chiefs of the assembled Nations. Those chiefs, hoping for so much, could have been for all intents and purposes, sitting cross-legged somewhere far away, say, on the face of the moon.

Lone Wolf maintained his silence all through the following days of the council. Having seen the indifference of the Washington men, he didn't waste words on them. Nor did he sign any treaty agreement. Only White Bear spoke for the Kiowa, and to this day, I remember every eloquent word, the fullness of his voice. And when I look out over our changed world, those words and that voice come back to me.

“I love the land and the buffalo and will not part with any of it. I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.… A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers.… These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo; when I see that, my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry.”

“Tay-bodal” novels by Mardi Oakley Medawar

Death at Rainy Mountain

Witch of the Palo Duro

Murder at Medicine Lodge

MURDER AT MEDICINE LODGE
. Copyright © 1999 by Mardi Oakley Medawar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Medawar, Mardi Oakley.

Murder at Medicine Lodge / by Mardi Oakley Medawar.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-19925-2

1. Kiowa Indians—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3563.E234M87 1999

813'.54—dc21

98-37611
CIP

First Edition: March 1999

eISBN 9781466845299

First eBook edition: April 2013