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

“What you make of that, Jackson?” Otis asked, turning to his scout.

“Like I said: I think they want to talk.”

The lieutenant colonel straightened, squinted at that hilltop where the white flag fluttered from that tall stake, then said, “All right. Have your brother go up there. Let’s just see what Sitting Bull has to say for himself.”

As much as he had wanted to go fetch that message himself, William realized Robert was Otis’s scout. Sitting there with the rest of the headquarters group as his brother trotted forward, alone and wary, William studied either flank, back and forth, for some sign of betrayal. Something to confirm his unspoken fear that this was some kind of trap. In the distance he watched as Robert reached the crest of the far hill, circled the stake twice as he peered this way and that into the far valley of Cedar Creek, then leaned off the side of his horse to rip the stake out of the ground.

After untying the white cloth from the stake, Robert sat motionless for a moment, then hammered heels into the horse’s flanks and set off at a gallop on the return trip. He skidded up before the lieutenant colonel, handing over the message.

From what William could see, there were English letters put together to make English words on that scrap of white cloth no bigger than a bandanna.

“What’s it say, Colonel?” Lieutenant Smith asked. “Is it meant to be a message for us?”

“It most certainly is meant for me,” Otis replied gruffly, snapping out the cloth he held in his gloves. “Here, you read it aloud to the rest.”

Smith took the cloth, then said:

“YELLOWSTONE.

I want to know what you are doing traveling on this road. You scare all the buffalo away. I want to hunt on the place. I want you to turn back from here. If you don’t I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have got here, and turn back from here.

I am your friend,

SITTING BULL.

I mean all the rations you have got and some powder. Wish you would write as soon as you can.”

“By gonnies!” Lieutenant William Kell exclaimed. “We’ve been fighting Sitting Bull!”

“Yes,” Otis sighed, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he regarded the distant hill in their front, then gazing again at the stoic, motionless Indians on their left flank. “The same bastard who wiped out Custer’s men.”

Lieutenant Smith cleared his throat and asked, “Are we going to leave the son of a bitch powder and rations—like he asked for?”

“No, Mr. Smith,” Otis replied acidly. “The only thing I’ll leave him is the bullets we’ll use to kill more of his warriors if he stands between us and Tongue River here on out.”

At that point the lieutenant colonel took the cloth back from his adjutant and stuffed it inside the front of his coat. “Jackson,” he said, looking at Robert once more, “I want you to ride back up there. Show them you have some word from me to deliver to Sitting Bull—and get it across to him in no uncertain terms that I’m taking this train on through to the Tongue River. Tell him that if they wish to stand in our way, I will be most pleased to accommodate them with a fight. In fact, I’ll bloody well fight them for every goddamned foot if I have to. You understand all that?”

“Perfectly,” Robert answered, his eyes darting to William before he reined his horse about and kicked it away, moving at a lope back to the far hill.

Otis turned in the saddle, looking down at the other officers who were without horses and said, “Let’s get the word passed back: we’re back on the march, gentlemen.”

They pressed on as Jackson delivered the soldiers’ reply to a single Lakota scout, then turned and galloped back to the wagon train. It became plain that the soldiers were not turning back. The warrior horsemen had not liked Otis’s response to their demand: they were massing for another assault on the column.

But the attack didn’t come until much later, when the van of the train reached Bad Route Creek and went about gathering deadfall and squaw wood the men shoved into the possum bellies beneath every one of the wagons. Too, the soldiers allowed the thirsty mules to drink their fill as the stream bottom was churned by hundred of hooves in the slow crossing protected by outflung skirmishers who held back the warriors swirling here, then there, probing for some weakness in the lines.

In little more than an hour the last wagons had crossed Bad Route Creek and the column was again on its way, despite the long-range sniping from the surrounding hillsides. They had covered little more than seven miles since leaving last night’s camp.

“Looks like they want to talk to us again,” Lieutenant Smith called out, pointing to the south.

From the direction of the Yellowstone appeared two horsemen. While one wore a white bandanna tied over his black braids, the other carried a white flag tied to a short staff he held high for all to see. Having appeared out of the southwest, the pair halted about halfway between the mounted warriors and the soldier escort.

“Shall we bring them on in, Colonel?” William Jackson inquired.