Cry of the Hawk

“Little doubt of that, Tom,” Custer said to his younger brother. Then he suddenly turned to his adjutant, animated once more. “Mr. Moylan, pass along the order for our command to move off two miles and make camp.”

Jonah stood dumbfounded as the long-haired lieutenant colonel and his staff strode off, their shadows lengthening beneath the all but gone western sun. How many could look at this scene and not have his stomach turned? And not grow angry? Not be changed?

For three days after Custer had marched off to continue the hunt, General Winfield Scott Hancock debated with himself on just what to do with the captured, empty Indian village on Pawnee Fork.

Agents for both the Cheyenne and the Brule Sioux gave it their best to convince Hancock to be a gracious victor.

“The bands fled only because of their fear of your amassed might, General,” declared Edward W. Wynkoop. “They’re mortally afraid of another Sand Creek massacre.” Shad Sweete had watched as Hancock’s eyes grew steely. “I am a professional soldier, Major Wynkoop. In no way similar to that minister-turned-butcher named Chivington!”

Colonel Jesse W. Leavenworth attempted his own appeal. “General, to put that village to the torch as you have been suggesting would only add to the flames already scorching the central plains. You will make war certain by not staying your hand and showing the tribes your benevolence.”

Hancock smiled, calling out to the old scout. “Mr. Sweete—that is a good one, isn’t it? Benevolence for these warrior bands?”

Shad watched both the agents turn to look in his direction in the steamy shade provided by the canvas awning strung from the top of Hancock’s ambulance. He cleared his throat. “Truth of it is, General—these bands understand only one thing. War.”

Wynkoop bolted up. “I protest, General—”

“Give my scout a chance to finish, Major Wynkoop!” growled Hancock.

“And,” Sweete continued, “the warrior bands fear only one thing. Death.”

“There,” Hancock sighed, sinking back into his canvas campaign chair. “This man’s spent his entire adult life out here in these far western regions. No one understands these Indians the way Mr. Sweete does, gentlemen.” He tapped a finger against his fleshy lower lip, then stroked it down his chin whiskers.

“Gentlemen, I’ve decided. Satisfied that this village acted in bad faith by fleeing before we had a chance to talk of peace has proved they were a nest of conspirators. This command will burn the village before we move off toward Fort Dodge.”

The next morning, 19 April, as the bulk of his troops marched south, Hancock’s selected tarried behind to set fire to the village on Pawnee Fork: 111 Cheyenne and 140 Brule Sioux lodges, along with robes, blankets, meat, utensils, parfleches filled with clothing, and abandoned travois.

Less than a week later, the general met with a delegation of Arapaho and Kiowa chiefs who had already learned of the destruction of the villages, though their bands roamed country far south of the Arkansas River. The moccasin telegraph rapidly spread the word.

A buoyant Hancock at last delivered his war-or-peace message he had intended on delivering to the Cheyenne and Sioux.

“I don’t know if you can trust the word of that one, General,” Sweete whispered in Hancock’s ear as he and the general looked over the assembled chiefs, seated on blankets and robes before Hancock’s table.

“What’s his name?”

“Satanta.”

“Which means?”

“White Bear. He’s the slipperiest of the Kiowa headmen.”

“But you yourself just translated his most moving and eloquent speech, claiming his people would forever abandon the road to war against the white man.”

“General, you’ll come off the fool if you go believing in the word of Satanta,” Sweete said quietly as Hancock passed by him.

The general took a full-dress uniform, replete with gold braid and tassels, from the arms of his adjutant and strode over to Satanta. There, in a grand presentation, he handed the Kiowa chief that freshly brushed uniform as a symbol of the peace just made between the army and White Bear’s Kiowa.

“You see, Mr. Sweete—how he smiles. How this grand gift makes the rest of his headmen smile. We have just forged a lasting relationship with Satanta’s people.”

“General, you ain’t done nothing but give another war chief something to wear when he rides down on white settlements to burn, rape, and kill.”

27

Moon of Fattening

NEVER BEFORE HAD Pawnee Killer been so proud of his warriors.

Stripped of almost everything his people owned, his angry warriors were making a wreck of the Smoky Hill Route: burning, killing, looting, running off all stock from the road-ranches. With every new day, Pawnee Killer’s people were regaining what they had been forced to abandon in the valley of Pawnee Fork to the soldiers who had put the villages to the torch.