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

By dawn all of the killed and wounded soldiers had been brought in and accounted for, since it was generally believed the Cheyenne would resume the battle as soon as there was enough light for them to see their targets. Instead, the hilltops and rocky ridges were eerily silent as night bled into that Sunday, the twenty-sixth of November.

“It’s just as well,” Mackenzie murmured over his breakfast of black coffee as the sky grayed. “Last night in officers’ conference I decided that even the infantry would pay too high a cost trying to dislodge the warriors from the rocks in these mountains. Sadly, I now realize we’ve already paid too high a price for this victory.”

For a time Smith figured his commander might be morose simply because of losing so many casualties to the enemy, while at the same time during that officers’ meeting last night Mackenzie could personally verify no more than twenty-five warriors killed from the many reports. To justify so many dead soldiers, he should have clearly killed many, many more Cheyenne.

“But those are only the bodies which fell into our hands, General,” Wirt Davis had coaxed.

“How well we all know that the Indian drags off most of his comrades,” said John Lee.

“Perhaps,” answered a perplexed and clearly agitated Mackenzie as his men went about settling on the official accounting of the enemy dead.

The Pawnee had taken six scalps. Two soldiers had taken another pair of scalps. Frank Grouard himself had lifted one scalp. While one lieutenant reported he had personally killed one warrior, Captain Davis stated his company had killed six to eight more. Then Cosgrove’s Shoshone stated they had dropped four Cheyenne warriors. A one-eyed civilian scout claimed to have killed another warrior. And the combined Sioux and Arapaho scouts tallied another dozen enemy killed.

That cold, snowy morning as Mackenzie penned his official report, gray clouds hung low along the silvery mountaintops ringing the red valley. While the men stomped their cold feet and trudged about through six inches of new snow, enjoying their coffee around the cooking fires, Mackenzie sent out some of his Cheyenne and half-breed scouts to make contact again with the enemy—perhaps now to coax them into surrendering after the awful cold of last night.

But as much as the scouts called out to the hills in their native tongue, there was no answer but their echo. Cautiously they inched up the slopes toward the breastworks at the upper end of the valley, fully ready to encounter an ambush. Instead, the snow only became deeper, nearly covering all the tracks. The Cheyenne had been gone for some time.

Returning to the valley at midmorning, the scouts reported to Mackenzie what they had discovered. The numerous black rings of long-dead fires had been drifted over with new snow. Deep trails showed how the many had struggled single file up the rugged slopes for more than five miles into the mountains. The broad scoops of old snow told of many travois used to carry the dead and wounded warriors as the defeated Cheyenne disappeared into the wilderness. And they did not forget to mention the occasional patches of blood not yet covered by snow at the tops of the mountainsides.

But what spoke most eloquently were more than a half-dozen pony carcasses found here and there along the trail. Once the tribe’s most prized possessions, those horses were now the Cheyenne’s only food.

“You say they did what with the entrails?” Mackenzie asked the scouts for a clarification.

Interpreter Billy Garnett repeated, “It’s what a Injun’ll do, General. They’ll shoot the pony and slit it open soon as it’s dropped. They pull everything right out of the belly so the old ones getting froze up can stuff their hands and feet into the gut piles to keep from dying.”

“Dear God in heaven!” Mackenzie gushed in a whisper. “How … how many of those fresh carcasses did you find?”

“At least six, General. But we turned back—likely more on over the top. We didn’t dare get up that far. They had themselves a strong rear guard forted up and ready for us.”

“The enemy’s gone—you’re sure?”

Garnett nodded, saying, “’Cept them what’s staying behind to keep a eye on your army.”

“Yes,” Mackenzie replied as if his mind were elsewhere. “Now that I have stripped them of their pony herds and destroyed everything they own … the enemy will want to know what more I’m up to. Yes, by all means: let them flee through these mountains if that’s what they want. And for now, we’ll let the forces of ‘General Winter’ deliver the final blow to the Cheyenne.”

Late the night before, while the snow had fallen as thick as cottonwood fluffs drifting down from the low-slung clouds, Young Two Moon had stealthily crept toward the camp where the soldiers continued their destruction of their village. Far from the firelight that lent an eerie, otherworldly crimson glow to the bellies of those snow clouds, the young warrior waited, and watched, as the ve-ho-e cooked and ate, talked and slept.