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

In a matter of moments he would be mounting up with the Indian scouts and they would be pointing their noses a little west of north. As soon as he had wolfed down his breakfast, washing it all down with some more of that scalding coffee.

He could hear the sound of horses being brought close. It could be Three Bears and some of his men—the ones who would accompany him half the way to the Yellowstone. At least to the mouth of the Little Powder.

So at least I have something to do from day to day. Able to saddle up and ride out rather than hang about camp here with the soldiers, playing cards with no money, fighting, sleeping, and otherwise getting on one another’s backs. I’d rather be out on the back of a good, strong horse that doesn’t talk back. Where it’s quiet enough to hear my own thoughts.

Where I can think about you. And our boy.

I promised you I’d return soon, back to your arms. And once I’m back at your side, I promised I would be ready to name our first born. In the weeks since we parted, I have given thought to this matter, weighing my choices from your family and mine. And while I haven’t yet decided, I am near to making a decision.

Just as I promised you—our son will have a name by the time I return to you both.

Shall we have him christened at that time? There with the chaplain at the Laramie post? I am certain that is what we should do as soon as we have given him his Christian name. To stand at your side, holding him in my arms as he is blessed, and we are blessed with him.

The cook just stuck his head in and told me my breakfast was out of the kettle and on the plate. It will freeze soon if I don’t eat it right away. And I’m ready for another cup of his dreadful coffee. It will be light soon and time to go to work for the army. For Crook and Mackenzie and the Powder River Expedition. To mount up and ride out.

It gives my mind a lot of time to think, and my heart a lot of time to ache, Sam. Missing you both more than I ever dreamed I could miss anything or anyone. But we both know I have a job to do while I’m here. There aren’t many things I have the talent to do. I am a simple man with big, clumsy hands and a half-slow brain, but I can do army work. If this is how God wills me to put the food on my family’s table, to put the clothes on your backs and a roof over your heads, then so be it.

I will always do what God sets before me, to the best of my ability—for there are those who are counting on me to see my way through all trouble and travail thrown down in my path, for there are those who are counting on me to make my way back home to them. Soon.

Know that I will do all that is within my power to be back beside you by Christmas, our son’s first. If for some reason the army keeps me here in this far north country longer than that—I vow to do all I can to be home shortly after the coming of the new year.

Keep me in your prayers, Sam. Hold our son close morning and night for me too. Oh, that I could wrap you both in my arms right now, it is so cold here. So very, very cold here. For the love of God, please pray for me—pray that God will hold me in his hand and deliver me to you soon.

And remember what I’ve always told you. That God watches over drunks, and fools, and poor army wretches like me. I’m coming home soon, Sam. Watch the skyline to the north. One day I’ll be there, big as life, come home to hold you both again.

Until then, hug yourselves for me. And tell my son that his father loves him more than breath itself. Know that I love and cherish you more, much, much more than I do my own life.

Seamus

* Just above the site of present-day Ashland, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.

† Present-day Beaver Creek.

Afterword

As promised in the afterword of Trumpet on the Land, at the very beginning of A Cold Day in Hell I’ve taken the luxury of moseying back in time a bit toward the story we covered at the end of that earlier novel, by having Frank Grouard relate his little-known private horse race with the poet scout, “Captain” Jack Crawford who had likewise accompanied George Crook’s army through Wyoming, Montana, and Dakota Territory.

I was able to draw this exciting and ofttimes silly tale not only from the memoirs left by Frank Grouard and Jack Crawford themselves, but from Captain Andrew S. Burt as well. From his account we learn that James Gordon Bennett, wealthy publisher of the New York Herald, not only paid Crawford the $500 promised him by the grouchy news correspondent Reuben Davenport, but another $225—in payment for “horses killed and expenses.”