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

“It’s clear to me,” John Bourke commented, “that contact with the white man has given these aboriginal people a profound taste for acquiring the finer things in life.”

“I saw a few of these earlier today,” Donegan said, holding up a wallet partially stuffed with greenbacks. He asked of Wheeler, “How many of these have you come across?”

“Enough to know that Custer’s men hadn’t had a chance to spend their pay before they were butchered—”

“Dear God,” Bourke suddenly murmured softly there by the crackle of the fire as he handed Donegan an envelope.

Seamus turned it over, immediately recognizing it as a letter addressed to a woman back east, stamped and sealed by some soldier, ready for mailing.

“Look on any of these blankets,” Wheeler commented. “You’ll find even more. We’ve come across a lot of mail once addressed to members of the Seventh Cavalry, come from relatives and loved ones.”

Among the beaded pouches and shields, the shirts and leggings adorned with quillwork, lay many faded, wrinkled chromos and cabinet photos of many a soldier’s family members: parents, wives, children, and sweethearts all far away from these men gone off to war.

These small articles of personal value lay scattered among the many McClellan saddles, canteens, and nose bags all emblazoned with 7th.

That twilight, as the sun began to sink beyond the southwestern hills, a bitter John Bourke flung a canteen down onto the blanket with a loud clatter, saying, “No man now in this valley with Mackenzie should dare think—after looking at all of this bloodied loot—that we aren’t completely justified in such extreme punishment being meted out this very day to such a band of thieves and robbers.”

“I’d daresay from the looks of it, Johnny,” Donegan added, “surely some of these warriors have fought against the army in every encounter this year.”

“By damn!” Bourke growled. “Not even a gunnysack must be spared the flames and left behind for these murderers!”

From the angry intensity of the soldiers’ work, it was clear to the Irishman that all such reminders of dead soldiers fallen in battle to this warrior band during the months of what had become known as the Great Sioux War only increased the thoroughness with which Mackenzie’s men went about destroying what had been the greatness of the Northern Cheyenne.

More than seven hundred Cheyenne ponies and horses, some of which had once belonged to the cavalry—their flanks plainly branded with US and 7—had been captured and were now in the hands of the cavalry. Close to a hundred of the finest war ponies were claimed by the Norths’ Pawnee and were already loaded with plunder hauled from the lodges by the time the first spire of oily black smoke had curled into the afternoon sky.

As an eerie background to the destruction, the Shoshone scouts continued beating on that huge drum found near the center of the horseshoe of lodges as twilight deepened into the gloom of winter’s night. That same drum captured from their people, and now back in their hands once more, throbbing with the thunder of victory that reverberated from the hills where the conquered Cheyenne faced the coming dark and frightening cold.

One hundred seventy-three lodges once stood in the valley of the Red Fork of the Powder River.

Until that day the Northern Cheyenne had been a prosperous people, by far the wealthiest of warrior bands on the northern plains.

Never had so rich a prize fallen into the hands of the frontier army.

Still, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie had paid a price for his victory: McKinney and four troopers had been killed in the battle; a fifth had been felled by the sniper with the big gun hidden among the rocks.

As the canopy of blue turned to a deep indigo over their heads, Bourke asked, “You realize how fitting it is, don’t you, Irishman?”

He turned to the lieutenant. “What’s so fitting?”

“The date.”

Turning away to regard the huge, leaping flames once more, Seamus struggled to sort it out, then replied, “I’m afraid I don’t know what the date is, Johnny.”

“It’s the twenty-fifth, Irishman,” Bourke said almost prayerfully as the darkness came down around them like an oozy wound.

Donegan’s breath caught in his chest a moment; then he said, “I … I hadn’t realized.”

“Just think of it: five months—to the day, Seamus … since these Cheyenne bastards joined Sitting Bull’s devils to wipe out Custer. Five months to the day.”

Chapter 37

25 November 1876

“You can damn well be glad it got dark before you showed up to beg a cup of coffee off us,” Luther North said to the Irishman as he handed Seamus a steaming tin.

“I suppose you’re right,” Donegan replied, dragging his gloves from his fingers and welcoming the warmth into his hands. “Coffee does taste better when it gets as cold and dark as it will tonight.”

“He didn’t mean nothing about the bloody cold,” Frank North corrected, walking up to join them.