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

How could the world have got so crazy that a man would turn his back on his own and join with the enemy?

Throughout the morning’s battle several warriors came to Morning Star reporting that they had seen Old Crow and others—some relatives of the squaw man Rowland—all from the White River Agency, among the Tse-Tsehese scouts fighting on the side of the soldiers. This was so hard to believe!

But that afternoon Morning Star saw for himself.

A solitary horseman rode out from the enemy’s side of the valley and approached the bluffs where the warriors continued to put up a strong fight and Black Hairy Dog was working his medicine with the Sacred Arrows. As the lone rider drew closer to the rocky hillside, Morning Star recognized his friend, despite the white man’s heavy blue coat and the canvas britches.

“Old Crow!”

“It is me!” the soldier scout cried out.

“You best not come closer!”

The rider reined up. “I am here to tell you something.”

A warrior in the rocks near Morning Star angrily hurled his voice at the horseman. “Tell us nothing but that you are coming to fight beside us against the soldiers.”

“I must fight against you,” Old Crow sadly admitted from the back of his skittish pony.

“Then perhaps we should kill you as we will kill the soldiers!”

Other warriors in the rocks shouted in derision too, but no one fired a shot at Old Crow. Killing one of their own would be so hard a thing to do.

Morning Star’s voice rose above the others. “You have come here for a reason, my friend. Tell us.”

The horseman patted the pockets of the dark wool coat he wore. “Although I am forced to fight against you—I am leaving a lot of ammunition for your guns on this hillside.”

They watched him ease out of the saddle, lead his pony to a rocky outcrop, then quickly empty his pockets. Then the Council Chief leaped back into the saddle, tightened his grip on the reins, and called out in parting.

“The old days are gone, Morning Star! We are watching the sun set on the old ways. Do not let the soldiers kill any more of your relatives. Bring them to the agency where we can live out the rest of our days together in peace, smoking the white man’s tobacco.”

Jamming the heels of his winter moccasins into the flanks of that pony, Old Crow reined about in a cascade of snow and bolted away, turning his back broad and inviting to the warriors among the rocks.

But no man fired his weapon at Old Crow. It simply would not be an honorable thing to raise a weapon against one’s own people.

Even if that man no longer acted like one of the Ohmeseheso, but acted instead more like a white man … the hated ve-ho-e who brought destruction wherever his boot left a track.

* Red Cloud Agency, Nebraska.

* “Warbonnet Creek—17 July 1876.

† The South Fork of the Cheyenne River.

Chapter 38

Big Freezing Moon 1876

Every throb of that drum was like a tiny stab at his heart—making pain for him in each of his six wounds. Little Wolf knew the Snake Indians would beat it right on through the bitterly cold night.

But for the tiny fires they had kindled here and there in the breastworks and among the rocky crags that shadowed the valley, it was very dark. The stars had been blotted out not long after the sun had turned the clouds a deep reddish purple. And then it began to snow.

The clouds hovered just over their heads, shrouding the tops of the mountains, as the chiefs and headmen of the People gathered in council to discuss what course they should take.

There wasn’t much arguing—for their choice seemed clear. While there were those who spoke on behalf of the wounded, the sick, the old, and the little ones, who whimpered with the intense cold and their empty bellies, still no one chose to surrender to the soldiers in the valley. There was but one course to take, and that was for them to start away from the valley that very night, abandoning the camp where everything they owned had been destroyed.

How proud Little Wolf was that his people were still fierce and as full of fight as ever despite their devastating loss.

“I will remain behind, even if no others stay with me,” Young Two Moon volunteered. “Tonight I will sneak down close to the village under the cloak of darkness and wait for the soldiers to leave tomorrow when I can go down to what piles of rubble and ash are left—to see what I can find for us to use.”

“This is good,” Little Wolf replied. “And we need others to follow the soldiers’ trail as they leave the valley. To see where they are going now that we journey north.”

“We must travel through the mountains for a long distance,” advised Walking Whirlwind. “If we go onto the plains too quickly, the soldiers will find us there and we will never reach the Crazy Horse people.”

Just as Old Bear’s small band of Tse-Tsehese had done last winter following the fight on the Powder River in the Sore-Eye Moon, they would again seek out the Hunkpatila Oglalla band of Crazy Horse, said to be camped for the winter along the Tongue River.