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

Wheeler explained, “One of Wessel’s men took it off a dead Indian he killed on the far side of the valley. The sergeant said it was hand-to-hand, over at the head of that deep ravine.”

“You can believe him, Lieutenant,” Seamus said. “On my dear mither’s grave: that was some of the toughest fighting I’ve ever dragged myself out of.”

Wheeler studied the Irishman’s face a moment, then asked, “From the looks of that belt and buckle—you figure we got one of the chiefs, eh?”

Bourke wagged his head. “Could be—I know Little Wolf was one of the leaders who went back east to Washington City here lately.”

Donegan said, “Mayhap he got this as a present from the President, Johnny.”

Bourke wagged his head, “Or from some kindhearted official in the Indian Bureau.” Throwing the belt down onto the blanket, the lieutenant grumbled. “The red bastard sure showed his gratitude in a strange way, didn’t he?”

“Come with me,” Wheeler suggested, leading the two away. “I’ve got a lot more to show you.”

He stopped beside another pile of plunder.

“Was that a guidon?” Bourke asked, bending to feel the cloth.

“Damn right it was,” Wheeler replied. “You can see who it once belonged to.”

From that bloody silk swallowtail guidon of the Seventh Cavalry some industrious woman had fashioned herself a pillow stuffed with prairie grass and sage.

“You figure these belonged to a white man?” Bourke asked as he rose holding a crude, grisly necklace at the end of his outstretched arm.

“Badly mortified,” Wheeler replied, “but—yes—looks like the fingers of many different white men to me.”

Bourke asked, “Mind if I keep this?”

Wheeler shrugged, saying, “It was going into the fire anyway, Lieutenant.”

“I know just where I can send this back east where folks will get a chance to see it in the museum,” Bourke added as he toed aside some saddle blankets as if searching for something to put the finger necklace in for safekeeping. Suddenly he leaped back. “What the goddamned hell is that?”

Seamus bent to look at it, nudged with his toe, turning the object over and over. “Looks to me like it was once some man’s ball-bag, Johnny.”

Bourke shuddered at the thought, swallowing hard. “As much as I try my best to understand these people, they never cease to surprise me with their penchant for supreme savagery. I suppose I’d better take that for the museum too.”

Donegan asked, “Not for your collection, Johnny?”

“Hell no, Irishman. I’ve got one of my own,” and he cupped a hand beneath his own scrotum when he answered. “I’ll keep it all with me until I can ship them back east.”

Donegan snorted, saying, “Good idea. Having a reminder like that around just might help you take better care of your own balls.”

From pile to pile Wheeler went on to lead the lieutenant and the scout, showing them many of the other remarkable souvenirs pulled from the Cheyenne lodges.

That taffeta-lined buckskin jacket recognized as having belonged to Tom Custer.

A hat bearing inside the headband the name of Sergeant William Allen, I Troop, Third U.S. Cavalry—killed at June’s Battle of the Rosebud and buried in the creekbed with the other casualties.

“Did you know him, Johnny?” Donegan asked quietly.

“Not that well, but I could have picked him out of a crowd nonetheless,” Bourke replied sourly as he carefully set the hat back atop a greasy blanket where other items lay for the viewing of all.

There were currycombs marked with troop initials and the Seventh Cavalry brand, as well as hairbrushes, some with men’s initials crudely scratched into the wood.

Donegan leafed through a notebook that listed the best marksmen at every target practice held by Lieutenant Donald Mcintosh, killed in Reno’s retreat across the Little Bighorn and up to the heights.

Next he carefully thumbed page by page through a memorandum book. Its one-time owner, a Seventh Cavalry sergeant, had penciled in his last entry: “Left Rosebud June 25th.” That page and many of the rest were embellished with drawings by an unknown Cheyenne warrior to illustrate his battle exploits and coups—one showing him lancing a cavalryman who clearly wore sergeant major’s chevrons, on another page the warrior was seen killing a teamster, on the following page the Cheyenne was shown killing a wretched miner somewhere in the Black Hills, and across two facing pages of the book he adorned an illustration of himself escaping from Reno’s barricade on the hill—represented by a round line of rifle fire, with saddled horses lying down inside—amid a hurricane of bullets. On other pages the Cheyenne represented himself as having been wounded once and his horse shot four times in that battle beside the Little Bighorn.

Bourke examined an officer’s blue mackintosh cape for signs of ownership, but no name was found.

Likewise, a gold pencil case and a silver watch provided no clues as to who had been their previous owners.

On another Indian blanket the troopers had collected China plates, cups, and saucers.