A Cold Day in Hell: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

For a few long moments the gunfire from above fell silent … then some loose talus pitched down the slope toward the white men with a clatter.

Donegan dared stick out his head for a better look, finding at least six warriors fleeing up and across the slope toward the west.

“Lookee there! Those war dogs’re skedaddling!” Frank cried out.

“By the saints if they’re not!” Donegan cheered. “Whaaahooo!”

North took up the reed whistle and blew on it, a different call this time. As the handful of Pawnee turned their attention to their leader—Frank silently signaled them to pursue the Cheyenne.

“Just for good measure,” North growled. “Make sure they’re on the run, all the way home.”

“Them Cheyenne can’t go home,” Donegan replied dolefully, looking out across the valley at the village. “Mackenzie’s fixing to put the whole damn thing to the torch.”

Frank sighed, watching the Pawnee scrambling up the talus and around the scrub brush after the warriors for a few moments. Then he blew on the whistle a last time, recalling his scouts. At first they seemed reluctant to return when they stopped, talking among themselves, arguing, perhaps—then ultimately turned back donwslope.

Down below on the valley floor Luther North and Boy Chief rode along the fringe of the captured herd, driving them along with yelps and grunts, waving saddle blankets in the air as shots rang out and bullets hissed over their heads. First one of the Cheyenne ponies dropped. Then a second pitched headlong into the snow. Finally a third and forth horse dropped before the two whooping wranglers raced the stolen ponies out of rifle range and across the creek into the village.

To the young warrior named Dog, Crow Split Nose was an uncle who had helped raise him, the sort of man each boy needed to teach him the ways of man and honor in battle. Chief of the Himo-we-yuhk-is, the Crooked Lances, Crow Split Nose had been an undisputed hero during the fight with the soldiers at Little Sheep River.*

As glorious as that summer battle had been, for Crow Split Nose today must surely have been a better day to die.

Camped at the upper end of the village, Dog had sought out his mentor when the first shots and shouts rang out in the valley. During those frantic heartbeats as the People poured from the lodges and warriors began to organize the retreat of their women and children, throwing up their solid line of defense squarely in the middle of the village where they would make their stand and give no ground—Dog found Crow Split Nose in the heart of the fighting.

Not only were the soldiers’ scouts attacking from the eastern edge of the village, and the soldiers themselves riding in from the north rim of the valley, but there were some of the enemy firing from the edge of the ridge just to the south of the lodges. In those frightening moments Crow Split Nose’s gallant band of warriors were holding ground against an enemy pouring bullets at them from three directions.

When the last of the little and old ones had been hurried to the west, Crow Split Nose turned to his fellow warriors and ordered that they begin their retreat at last, lodge by lodge, until they could find safety among the ravines at the upper end of camp. He declared he would be the last to withdraw from the enemy, then ordered the rest of his warrior society to fall back.

For his bravery, Crow Split Nose fell beneath at least two Snake bullets fired from the ridge over their heads.

Dog watched it happen, sensing almost as much pain as if the bullet had torn through his own gut. When he started back for Crow Split Nose, two older warriors had to drag Dog from the field into the mouth of a narrow, twisting ravine.

“We must get his body!” Dog had yelled at them. “We are Crooked Lances!”

Eventually he convinced them, although they would be coming under the same murderous fire that had just killed the chief of the Himo-we-yuhk-is.

When Dog and some of the others dashed in to attempt the rescue, the enemy’s fire was hot all about them. So concentrated was it that when they attempted to drag the body away, three of them were wounded and they had to give up. For the moment Dog had to content himself by covering his uncle with a burial blanket.

“Those Indians will scalp him and butcher his body,” Dog growled once he and the others had reached the safety of the ravine. “We cannot leave our chief to the enemy!”

“It is no use,” one of the voices protested.

“For you, perhaps,” Dog protested, no longer a young man—feeling the power of his People this terrible day. “For me, I must die trying. As I would die trying to rescue any one of you, my brother Crooked Lances.” He scooted forward, picking up a flat red stone.

“I will come,” said one as he crabbed forward to join the youthful warrior.

Another inched up on hands and knees, crouching by Dog. “I will come too.”