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

For the longest time that afternoon the Tse-Tsehese leaders sat with Crazy Horse and the other Hunkpatila headmen, discussing Three Stars’s attack on their Red Fork village—talking over the why, and considering just what the Oglalla could do for their close cousins, the Ohmeseheso. Just as the two bands had done last winter in the cold moons before deciding to go in search of Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa.

But this time there was a different sound in the throat of Crazy Horse. This time he did not speak with the same voice as he had when the pony soldiers had attacked Old Bear’s village beside the Powder last winter.

This time there was a hardness on the face of Crazy Horse. Nothing soft in the eyes of the Oglalla war chief.

“We have little,” the Lakota leader explained icily to his people as well as the Tse-Tsehese. “After the soldiers chased us from camp to camp to camp since summer—forcing us to keep moving all the time—we do not have many hides to give you to replace your lodges. And we do not have enough meat to feed your people.”

For a long time Morning Star was stunned into silence. Then he finally asked, “What can you give us?”

Wagging his head coldly, Crazy Horse said, “I do not have enough to feed my own people and you as well.”

“What would you have us do?” Little Wolf asked angrily.

Drawing himself up, Crazy Horse said to his old comrades in war, “I will give you what my people can spare … for three days. But no more.”

“Where will we find Sitting Bull?” Morning Star inquired.

“Yes,” Little Wolf said, his face showing his cheer. “Sitting Bull will help us again. Tell us where we can find him!”

As the Oglalla leader’s eyes crimped into resolute slits, he replied, “Sitting Bull is no longer in this country.”

Morning Star asked, “Where can we find him?”

“You will not,” the Lakota mystic answered. “For he is long gone from here.”

“Where?” Little Wolf demanded sharply.

“North of the Elk River—and he is running away from the soldiers too … racing for the land of the Grandmother.”

THE INDIANS

General Crook’s Splendid Campaign.

BUFFALO SPRINGS, WYOMING, December 3.—General Crook’s whole force left Fort Reno this forenoon, his intention being to move down the Little Powder to its junction with the Powder, and there, forming a supply camp, operate against the hostiles as circumstances dictate. This point will be convenient for operations to Tongue River, Little Missouri or Bell Fourche. The latest information is that Sitting Bull has about 400 lodges and Crazy Horse about seventy, equivalent to a fighting force of 1,500 to 2,000. The command is rationed to about January 1st. Grouard, chief scout, is of the opinion that unless surprised the hostiles will not make a stand. The wounded of McKenzie’s fight leave here to-morrow for Fetterman. General Crook’s plan is to feed the Indians on powder.

Valley of the Belle Fourche

Wyoming Terr.

My Dearest Heart—

He got that much written on a small sheet of paper with the lead pencil he had borrowed from Bourke, then sat there in the darkness of that early morning. A Sunday. The tenth of December.

Outside the lieutenant’s tent a few men stirred, mess cooks mostly, those already building up the fires to boil coffee and beginning to wrassle up breakfast for the various companies. But for the most part the troopers and their horses were quiet in the cold of this last hour before sunrise.

It looks to be we’ll be here awhile. Crook’s waiting for supplies to come up from Fetterman. We were supposed to have them before now, but someone else ended up with them. So here the army sits. At least until the supplies come and Crook and Mackenzie can go off on the march again.

He sipped at the coffee going cold in the tin cup at his elbow, then flung the lukewarm dregs at the foot of the canvas tent flap where it would soon turn to ice.

How was he going to keep from telling her, without lying to her?

But there wasn’t a damn bit of good sense in telling her what he would soon be about, where he was going, and what he would be facing. No good sense at all. But, he reminded himself, how to keep from saying anything without it being less than the truth?

It promised to fair off this day. To warm above zero. And the wind had yet to come up. Perhaps it was a good omen, this day starting off so fair. They were about due, he thought. What with all those cold days in hell they’d suffered already.

Don’t fear that I’ll grow bored here, Sam. Crook and Mackenzie will see to that. They’ve got scouts going out in this direction or the other all the time. Coming and going. And they plan on having me out too. While we are waiting here for rations and grain for the horses, the generals want to know what the Indians are doing. Where Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are camped, or moving. So the Indian scouts are being sent north toward the Yellowstone, into the Powder River country. It’s there the Indian scouts say Crazy Horse and his warriors have gone.