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

When Jackson had translated, the emissaries’ faces became grave. “Colonel, they don’t think much of the idea of going to Tongue River with us. They don’t figure they’ll be safe there, or on the way.”

“Assure them that nothing untoward will occur to jeopardize their safety.”

In reply, Sitting Bull’s messengers told Otis they would stay with their original plans to go north to the Missouri, where they would trade at Fort Peck—then journey back to talk to the Bear Coat at Tongue River. For a few minutes the trio sat quiet, watching the white men in silence.

Jackson finally said, “They want something of a sign from you, Colonel.”

“A sign?”

“Some show of good faith,” William explained.

“Yes. Of course,” the officer replied, then turned to Smith. “Lieutenant, see that some food is placed over there on that slope for the warriors to see as a sign of my good faith.”

“Food, colonel?”

“Certainly. Two sides of bacon and three boxes of that hard bread.”

“Three boxes—yes, sir.”

“I think one hundred fifty pounds of hardtack is sufficient,” Otis replied, looking back at Jackson. “Lieutenant Kell, let’s get this wagon train moving to Tongue River!”

William watched the Standing Rock Hunkpapa step aside with Sitting Bull’s trio of lieutenants as the wagon train jangled back into motion, leaving the five sullen warriors behind with their gifts of bacon and hard bread.

As a disgusted Elwell S. Otis pulled his wagon train away, the masses of Sioux horsemen hung farther and farther to the rear of the slow-moving column, then eventually disappeared altogether. Throughout the rest of that Monday afternoon, the sixteenth, the column sighted increasing numbers of buffalo and small herds of antelope north of their line of march. With every new mile they put behind them before sundown, William Jackson came to understand all the more why the Lakota were willing to fight to hold on to the rich bounty of these high Montana plains.

By nightfall he knew with a bedrock certainty that Otis’s officers were fooling themselves.

Not for a moment did he believe Sitting Bull would give up so easily—backing off, perhaps eventually coming in to talk with Miles at Tongue River.

Not for a moment did Jackson think Sitting Bull would stop anywhere short of driving the Bear Coat’s soldiers right out of the Yellowstone country.

Chapter 7

17 October 1876

FOREIGN

The War in Servia

LONDON, October 16.—The Times publishes the text of the note in which Turkey offered the six months’ armistice … Times’ Paris correspondent points to the fact that this is the first time Russia has clearly sided with Servia and Montenegro, and advising them to reject the propositions.

“See there, Seamus Donegan,” post trader Collins retorted, stabbing a bony finger against the front page of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News with a rustle of newsprint. “We aren’t the only ones with war falling down about our heads, now are we?”

The gray-eyed Irishman dragged the pipe from his mouth, regarding it as he blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, then took a sip of Collins’s heady coffee the sutler kept hot in a shiny pot atop that iron stove warming his trading post there at Fort Laramie.

“But don’t you see? At least there’s talk of peace in the world’s other wars,” Donegan reminded those men gathered there this early-winter morning.

They could only agree with him grudgingly.

Outside the air sparkled with hoar frost. Almost too cold to snow. But in there, squatting around the stove with their pipes and their tins of steaming coffee, these men—civilian and soldier alike—basked in the glow of male fellowship and camaraderie. This was exactly what Seamus had been seeking when he’d crept from the tiny upstairs room at the peep o’ day—leaving behind Sam and their son, both of them asleep: Sam’s head deep within the valley of a goose-down pillow, the babe still latched on to mother’s breast. It had been a long haul of it—both worried, frazzled mother and bawling child up and down for most all the night. Then as the first gray fingers of dawn began to creep out of the east, they both fell asleep at long last. And Seamus crept out, quietly pulled the door to, and creaked down the noisy stairs into the cold of that mid-October morning.

“I’ll bet their war is a big’un,” Collins continued enthusiastically as he pried open the stove door and tossed in some more split kindling. “All cannon and cavalry!”

Donegan gazed out the window frosted with the pattern of the coming cold, caressing the new Winchester repeater he had just purchased from Collins with an oiled rag. “Aye, and in the bloody meantime, trader—right here ours is just a nasty little war, ain’t it all? Nothing more’n a man here … a poor sojur there.”

THE INDIANS

News from Standing Rock.