Cry of the Hawk

The Horse stood, his young frame and light unbound hair etched in firelight. “Southeast of the fort the white man calls Laramie, the soldiers tried to attack us as we crossed the North Platte with our families and herds. There were only two hundred Blue Coats sent against us—a powerful force of Lakota and Shahiyena more than one thousand warriors strong!”

“We pushed the soldiers aside like they were troublesome buffalo gnats!” added Young Man Afraid to the laughter of the Oglalla.

“The next day the soldier chief brought more soldiers riding from the fort, but this time we attacked him,” Crazy Horse continued. “The Blue Coats forted up inside a ring of their wagons and made it hard in a day-long fight to steal any of their American horses. We lost no warriors in either of those battles before moving north once more into the Sand Hills, on farther to the Paha Sapa.”

“This march made in the teeth of winter,” Young Man Afraid reminded the assembly.

“I think that is why Spotted Tail left us and returned to Fort Laramie to join the Loafers,” said Crazy Horse. “The Arapaho went their way as well.”

“But now with two full moons of the young grass in the bellies of our ponies, we are ready once more to ride after the buffalo and lay in the meat our warriors will need for the war trail,” Young Man Afraid said. “Then once we hold our sun dance, we can march south to drive the white man out of our hunting land, for all time.”

“Man’s gotta be careful sitting alone out here,” Shad Sweete said quietly as he came up out of the dark behind the young soldier sitting at the edge of the hill not far from the camp fires, but far enough that only the old plainsman’s experienced eye could make out the dark shape blotting out a piece of the spring nightsky.

The soldier turned to the scout with a withering look. “Didn’t hear nobody make you my nursemaid, old man. Why don’t you go on back with them others and let a fella have some peace to himself out here.”

Shad stood there, staring down at the soldier he took for half his age, measuring the size of the chip the man carried on his shoulder. The scout tried to place the inflection to the stranger’s voice. It had been so many years. He settled down a few feet from the soldier.

“You from Kentucky, ain’t you?” Sweete asked.

Again the soldier regarded him like he was meat gone bad. “No, old man. Virginia—for all it matters to you.”

He pulled at some sage, rolled it between his palms, then drank deep of it into his nostrils. “Don’t matter, I suppose. Just come from southern Ohio myself. So long ago I figure it don’t really matter after all.”

“I could’ve told you.”

He held out his hand to the stranger. “Shadrach Sweete. I didn’t catch yours.”

“Didn’t give it.”

Shad withdrew the hand. “I figure someone foolish as you sitting alone out here in the middle of Injun country ought to have himself some company.”

“I ain’t alone—not now,” the stranger replied, and threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Got all the company I can stand back there.”

“Oh, you best understand you are damned well alone out here, son.”

The stranger snorted a quick, humorless laugh. “What—some Injun going to come pluck my hair off here in sight of those fires yonder?”

“Possible.”

“You been out here under the sun and straining at them mountains for too long, old man. We ain’t seen a feather one on this march from Laramie.”

“That’s when you best be watching for brownskins.”

“No, old man—that’s what you’re being paid to do. I’m just here ’cause I gotta put in my time till I can go home to my family.”

Sweete sighed and leaned back on his elbows, watching the dusting of stars overhead, counting two shooting stars before he spoke again to the young soldier.

“Why you come out here anyway, son?”

“You gotta be a fool, you know? I came here to get myself out of that stinking prison where men was dying every day.”

“Anything to get out, that it?”

“Closer to home.”

“Where’s that, son?”

“You’re sure a nosy old woman, ain’t you now?”

“Figure a man what sits alone by hisself out in the dark needs at least one good friend.”

Sweete watched the stranger regard him carefully, then went back to staring at the dark canopy overhead. In the east the big egg yolk of a yellow moon was rising off the horizon.

“Missouri.”

“What’s that?”

“I said—I come from Missouri.”

“Thought you said you was from Virginia.”

“Original. Moved few years back with my wife and oldest child to southern Missouri.”

“That where you got caught up in all this, I’ll bet.”

The soldier hung his head between his propped knees. “Yeah.”

“You wanna go home so bad you taste it, don’t you?”

“I don’t figure I’m any different from any of the rest of them back there in camp.”

“No, I bet you ain’t,” Sweete replied quietly. “But you’re here now. And if you don’t take a notion to watching out for your hair—you’ll never get home to see that family of yours again.”

“What’s it matter to you, old man?”