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

Early on it was clear the Pawnee and soldiers had failed to uncover small kegs and cans of powder among the provisions tossed upon the flames. In consequence, from time to time the valley rocked with that occasional throb of explosion, men shouting out warnings with each booming bark of sudden thunder, spewing a cascade of showering sparks that never failed to scatter the nearby soldiers as burning lodgepoles rained down like jackstraws until the roiling flames once again diminished from their spectacular, fiery heights.

Near the edges of each warming bonfire, soldiers and scouts clustered, some slowly feeding themselves and the flames from the same hide satchels, ordered this night to burn what they could not eat of the Cheyennes’ winter meat. With muted pop, crackle, and sizzle—the victors laid tons of buffalo meat to waste as a hungry people watched from the hills.

Empty bellies, Seamus knew, seemed always to fill hearts with hate.

“These are funeral pyres,” Bourke declared proudly. “Great, scalding, ruinous funeral pyres of what was once Cheyenne glory.”

“Johnny, I’m sure you remember what Reynolds destroyed, and what he left behind in that Cheyenne village beside the Powder River last winter.”

“I damn well do. Because of that vivid memory, I’ve reminded General Mackenzie that here the destruction must be complete,” Bourke explained as the two walked on. “We know firsthand from our experience with these hostiles what can become of them if we don’t completely destroy everything the enemy possesses.”

Into the piles of plunder or the great, leaping bonfires went the clatter of bottles filled with the white man’s strychnine used to poison wolves.

Joining unimaginable amounts of fixed ammunition and loose—bullet molds, cartridge cases, and black powder.

Then an angry voice pricked Donegan’s attention.

“I don’t figger I oughtta pay for that saddle, Lieutenant!”

Close at hand a soldier stood his ground against young Homer Wheeler, commanding G Troop of the Fifth Cavalry.

“Easy, Private! As you were before you’ll be disciplined! You know as well as the next man that a soldier loses his saddle and bridle—he’s docked the pay!” Wheeler argued.

“But, sir! I had that goddamned horse shot out from under me,” Private Kline declared. “You know your own self I was carrying a dispatch for the general, right across that open ground yonder—and the horse went down under me. The way them bullets were smacking all around, I wasn’t about to hang on until I could somehow get that saddle off my own dead horse!”

“Very well,” Wheeler replied in exasperation, looking up to see Bourke and Donegan approaching. “I’ll make a note of it here in my memorandum book so you’ll not be charged for lost equipment assigned you.”

Kline stood rigid, snapped a salute, and said, “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Report over there to our company at the foot of the hill and get yourself some food, soldier.”

“Yes, sir!”

Wheeler watched the private go, then turned to Bourke and Donegan. “Lieutenant Bourke—good to see you. Why, you can’t believe what we’ve been finding among the belongings pulled from the redskins’ lodges.”

Donegan followed the two lieutenants over to a pile of plunder lit by the last rose glow of the falling sun and by the leaping yellow flames nearby. Wheeler knelt, barely touching the human hair, then looked up at Donegan.

“Doesn’t take a scout like you, mister,” Wheeler said, “to see that these here scalps belonged to a pair of young girls—neither one of them older than ten years, I’d imagine. One blond. The fellow with Cosgrove, one named Eckles, he said the other’s likely Shoshone.”

“Cosgrove’s bunch been down from the heights?” Donegan inquired, gazing for a moment at the high ridge south of camp.

With a nod Wheeler answered, “I’ll say. And when they went among the lodges, a few of his boys found some Cheyenne souvenirs of a battle they fought with a band of Shoshone not long back.”

The lieutenant went on to tell about what grisly trophies had been pulled from the lodges slated for destruction: a buckskin bag containing the right hands of twelve Shoshone babies; several of Tom Cosgrove’s auxiliaries readily recognized the scalp of one of their herders killed at the outset of the Battle of the Rosebud, easily identifiable by the ornaments the departed youngster had worn in his hair; besides, there were at least thirty Shoshone scalps taken in a recent battle; in addition, the Pawnee had come across a large pouch containing the right arm and hand of a Shoshone woman.

Something caught the Irishman’s eye. “I’ll be damned,” Seamus said as he examined a cartridge belt he picked up from one of the blankets spread upon the snowy ground. “Look here, Johnny.”

Bourke took the belt, studying a shiny silver plate that served as its buckle. “Little Wolf.”

“You suppose it belongs to the Cheyenne war chief?”