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

As he and those who closed the file on the column entered the boggy willow thickets, Donegan turned in the saddle one last time to look back on what had been the Cheyenne camp. Among the wispy sheets of the wind-whipped, billowy snow, he thought he caught sight of three Cheyenne warriors reentering the village.

He reined up, curious. Alone now as the sounds of the column inched away from him, the Irishman watched the trio of warriors move slowly from one pile of ash and rubble to another until they finally collapsed as if all the spirit had been sucked right out of them. As he nudged his heels into the bay’s flanks and moved out once more, Seamus listened to the distant, sodden wails of grief from those three warriors who sat in the ruins of their village, crying out in despair and utter pain, wailing with implacable grief.

Up ahead of him the men cursed and yelled, packers and soldiers alike, as they struggled with their mules and horses. The animals slipped and slid crossing every precipitous slope—skidding onto their haunches and braying in protest.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Wheeler and his escort of two companies of the Third Cavalry quickly discovered it best to lower the travois with their wounded still attached by several ropes rather than careen down each treacherous hillside. The most dangerous slopes were the long ones, which required the soldiers to tie their lariats together as they had to lower each wounded man down more than two hundred feet, one at a time to men and mules waiting below. Once the ropes were untied from the travois, they were drawn back up the hill and another travois lashed in and lowered.

As the progress of the column was slowed, Seamus repeatedly caught up with Wheeler’s escort. Each time he lent a hand where he could, joking with some of the wounded, touching the shoulder of others who were clearly in great pain. Always offering what comfort he might give.

“Aye, and that last drop was a daisy, Irishman,” one old private snorted as his travois was tied up and made ready for another trip down the snowy slopes. “Why—I’ll have you know I ain’t had sech a pucker of a toboggan ride since I was in knee britches!”

For the journey two men were assigned to each of the mules carrying the dead, to make certain the cantankerous animals did not break away and possibly disfigure their departed comrades by colliding against rocks and deadfall. Four men were positioned around each of the wounded: one to lead the mule, two to dismount and heft the travois around difficult terrain, and a fourth to lead the four cavalry mounts. At every stream crossing, the soldiers and packers were forced to dismount and unhitch the travois—carrying the wounded across the icy, slippery rocks by hand and on foot. To assure that the wounded troopers were given the finest of attention, Wheeler had assigned one noncommissioned officer for every five travois.

Because of such care only one accident happened that entire first afternoon. At one of the many repeated crossings of the Red Fork the mule jerked the travois out of the hands of the litter handlers and dragged the wounded soldier on through the shallow creek. But because of the length of the poles and the inclined position of the soldier upon them, he wasn’t soaked—only splashed by the skittish mule’s hooves.

Yet it wasn’t only those steep and narrow parts of the trail that made the day’s journey so treacherous.

Late that afternoon Seamus had gone ahead to reach that smooth, undulating ground the Lakota and Cheyenne scouts had christened “Race Horse Canyon.” To the rear arose yelps and curses, the clatter of hooves and squeak of leather. A wild-eyed mule careened its way with travois bounding and bouncing across the sage flats. Wheeling the bay quickly, the Irishman raced to catch up the runaway animal, slowing it until it turned with him and stopped—when Donegan immediately dismounted to lunge back to the wounded trooper still strapped in.

Breathlessly the Irishman asked, “You … you all right, sojur?

The hapless passenger caught his breath, blinking his eyes, then grinned gamely as he gazed up at Donegan to say, “Let her go, by damn! Whoooeee! If I had me some bells jingling, I’d think I was taking a sleigh ride back home!”

“Where are you wounded?”

“Hip, sir.”

“You want me fetch up a surgeon to come see to you?” The soldier shook his head bravely; then, as he shifted himself, his face clearly etched with pain, he said, “There’s others hurt worse off’n me, mister. I’ll fair up in a minute or two. Just let me catch my breath, will you? And you can put this gol-danged mule back in line with the other boys.”

Donegan readjusted the thin blankets over the wounded man, tucking them in beneath the soldier’s chin.

“All right, Private,” he said quietly, feeling his eyes mist. “Let’s you and me head for home.”

Chapter 40

26–27 November 1876