Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876

Turning slightly, Bat reached back into the brush and took the hand of the old woman. Even though her face registered her immense fear, she was the first to walk toward Pourier. Then the young girl, and at last the young woman came forward at a crouch, as terrified as a snow-shoe hare surrounded by prairie wolves.

“This cannot be Three Stars,” the old woman said to the half-breed. “The soldier chief?”

For a moment Pourier looked at Crook, then understood the woman’s confusion. The general wore no finery. In fact he had nothing on to indicate any rank at all. His boots were as muddy as any soldier’s, his long caped wool coat as ragged as those worn by the Montana Volunteers, and his nondescript hat was shabby protection from the rain that dribbled through his beard.

Pointing at Crook, he told her, “Yes, this is Three Stars.”

Almost immediately the old woman’s face drained of fear, and her expression reverted to one of relief when she realized she was under the care of the soldier chief. When she lunged forward to grasp Crook’s hand in a flurry, nearby soldiers jumped in, seizing her, scared for the general’s safety: But the old squaw only petted Three Stars’s hand, gripping it for her life, murmuring quietly at the soldier chiefs side.

When Crook motioned his soldiers back, Bat said, “She says they are from Spotted Tail, General.”

“The agency?”

“Yes. Says they was going in to get food.”

Crook blinked a moment, then asked, “I suppose we’re all hungry, aren’t we?”

Assured of safety now, the young woman went to stand on the other side of the general. From the folds of her blanket she took an infant whom she had hidden through the entire tense ordeal with Baptiste at the bottom of the ravine. Hardly half a year old, the baby’s face was a picture of pain—yet the stoic child, surrounded by so many hairy faces, did not cry as its mother brought it into the light and the cold. She gripped one of the child’s ankles in a crimson-drenched hand, -attempting to stop the flow of blood. There was no foot below that hand: shot off by one of the soldier bullets.

“How many more are in there?” Crook asked in a quiet voice, his eyes registering his own pain as he looked over his four new captives.

Bat wagged his head. “Don’t know for sure.”

“Then tell the others, talk to them in their language— and convince them that these will be cared for. Convince them that all will be safe if they just surrender now.”

Singly and in pairs nine more women and four more children soon emerged, seeing for themselves that the soldiers did not immediately shoot their prisoners as they had expected. In all, seventeen surrendered, crowding in a circle about the red-bearded soldier chief. One of the young women, shot through the hand and bleeding on the muddy ground, paid no attention to her wound, but instead huddled close so she could understand all Bat’s assurances— when three shots cracked the discussion, bullets whining overhead. The soldiers and Sioux captives all scurried for cover like an overturned nest of field crickets.

“Looks like the rest ain’t gonna give up,” Pourier declared to the general.

“Then I’ll just have to convince them that they have to surrender,” Crook said, “or die.”

After his prisoners were taken back to safety into the village, Crook ordered his officers to bring a concentration of fire from both his infantry and cavalry on the mouth of the ravine. For close to an hour Bat watched the soldiers pour more than three thousand rounds into the brush. As clouds of gunsmoke hung above the whole scene in the sodden air, the general called again for the assault to stop.

“Tell them again that I will grant them my mercy,” Crook told Baptiste. “But they must come out now.”

Once more Pourier crawled to the mouth of the coulee with Grouard, and they called out to the Sioux warriors. For close to an hour they appealed to the warriors, and just when it seemed all efforts were about to fail, one of the squaws rejoined Crook on the hillside, asking for the chance to talk to the warriors. In moments she joined the half-breeds at the ravine opening, calling out to the men barricaded within. It wasn’t very long before one young warrior came out, holding a carbine across his chest.

“This one, her husband,” Bat explained.

Crook accepted the man’s rifle and took his hand, shaking it before he directed the warrior to stand beside him and call out to the others. A strong voice answered from the ravine.

“They will come out,” Baptiste translated, “if their lives will be spared.”

The general asked, “Who is that in there?”

“The chief—one what wants to come out,” Grouard explained.

“Tell him I want no more killing today,” Crook replied.