Cry of the Hawk

A dozen horsemen followed the Oglalla war chief plunging into the river, streaming up the south bank, yelling, screeching as the soldiers put heels to their mounts in a mad race to reach the walls of the post before they were cut off. At the same time, another group of cavalry bolted from the yawning gates, hurrying to the aid of those five soldiers about to be surrounded on the riverbank by the thirteen blood-eyed warriors.

In a matter of heartbeats, Crazy Horse, He Dog, and the others were among the frightened five horsemen, touching with bow and staff, striking with the flat of tomahawk blades, whipping the soldiers with their quirts—laughing at the great sport of this coup-counting while galloping right for the other soldiers riding to the rescue.

Ahead at the walls of the fort, several soldiers appeared. These knelt, shoving their long-barreled rifles against their shoulders. They were about to fire into the faces of the screeching red horsemen.

High-Back Wolf called out in his loudest voice for the rest to follow him to the wall. In that wild race he struck first one, then another of the soldiers with his quirt. Roaring in laughter, for he possessed a powerful medicine that made the white man’s guns shoot only air.

Bullets screamed among the warriors. Crazy Horse turned at the grunt from a nearby horseman.

High-Back Wolf, the powerful Cheyenne war chief, spun from his pony. Three others wheeled away from the skirmish in a spray of sand, a pair of them swooping low to try recovering the warrior’s body.

But the soldier bullets were barking and snapping too quickly now. Even for Crazy Horse. His mount spilled him as it went down, a leg seeping blood. As quickly, the war chief was out of the dirt and back atop the frightened animal shuddering on the riverbank. The Horse was much too close to the soldier stockade now.

With growing rage Crazy Horse and the rest of the decoys retreated and turned, watching the soldiers escape toward the wood walls of their fort, knowing his warriors could not attempt to rescue the body of High-Back Wolf without risking more deaths.

He reined up atop the hills on the north side of the river, quickly looking over the wound his pony had suffered along a foreleg. A grazing only—no doubt a painful wound, but one that would heal. Then he looked up, his attention captured by the eerie keening.

And found the Old Cheyenne chief, Blind Wolf, wailing for his dead son, left below near the walls of the soldier fort.

“I will go at darkness to help you, Blind Wolf,” Crazy Horse declared in sign as he led his pony to the old man’s side.

“You will help me regain my son’s body?”

“I will not ride from this place in shame—knowing High-Back Wolf lies in the shadow of that fort, knowing I did not bring his body out.”

For the rest of that day, the soldiers stayed hidden within their tree-trunk walls, not venturing out. At times the soldiers fired random shots at the warriors racing back and forth along the north bank of the Platte, without success. In return, the Shahiyena and Sioux shouted back at the soldiers, who were not brave enough to come out and fight on open ground.

“They stay burrowed like field mice, away from the claws of the badger!” Crazy Horse shouted in frustration to his friends.

“But even the badger will have his day,” promised Young Man Afraid.

Beneath the first streaks of gray presaging the very next dawn, Crazy Horse joined the old Cheyenne chief in slipping silently across the waters of the North Platte, padding quietly to within feet of the soldier walls, to reclaim the body of High-Back Wolf.

Platte Bridge Station did not appear in any danger of being overrun after one full day of fighting. At least from what Jonah Hook could see as Captain Lybe’s command arrived shortly after two A.M. on the morning of 26 July.

Surrounded by a pine-and-cottonwood stockade standing fourteen feet high, 120 soldiers of the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry were busy molding bullets or watchful at the walls when Lybe’s soldiers showed up out of the summer darkness.

“You’re damned lucky, Captain,” announced Major Martin Anderson, Platte Station commander, “running the gauntlet of those three thousand warriors roaming those hills.”

“Didn’t see a sign of hostiles, Major. My scout, named Sweete, got us through in one piece. But there’s five wagons and a handful of soldiers under a Sergeant Custard still out there,” Lybe explained as he saluted the post commander.

“Why the devil didn’t you bring them in with you, Captain?”

“Custard’s a cocky one. Said he knew best for his men, staying the night at Willow Spring.”

Anderson shook his head as Jonah led his weary horse toward one of the fires that tiny knots of soldiers ringed on what there was of a parade at Platte Bridge Station.

“Damned fool—always has been, that Custard,” growled Anderson. “He’s been a pain in my ass ever since we came out to this godforsaken land. He’ll be wolf bait by sunup … if he ain’t already.”

5

July 26, 1865