Cry of the Hawk

No chief could hold together such a great gathering. It was time to prepare for another buffalo hunt, perhaps follow some of the antelope herds. After all, it was a time of celebration that had begun that very night as they danced over the scalps Roman Nose’s Shahiyena had taken near the white man’s fort. Many of the dancers wore the fine blue tunics with brass buttons taken off the soldier dead.

By now the young Oglalla war chief had become a shirt wearer among his people. To put on the white, brain-tanned shirt that reached his knees meant Crazy Horse pledged his life to his people. For their safety he would die. His was a sacred vow, much respected, and with it coming much medicine power.

“H’gun! H’gun!” the old ones had shouted out the Lakota courage-word as he took his oath as shirt wearer.

This brave one who thought so little of himself, who had offered his body as a decoy time and again to lure the white walking soldiers into traps.

Yet in this rich season, Crazy Horse sensed the stab of something intrude upon the celebration of his life—like the piercing pain of a lance point. Runners had come, bringing word from those bands who had stayed close to the Holy Road and the fort called Laramie.

It was there, the young scouts reported, that the soldiers were growing in number, every week more numerous, like puffballs sprouting on the prairie following a spring thunderstorm. Only then they had struck their camp of tents at the fort—marching north as quickly as their mules and wagons would allow once they had crossed the North Platte.

“Who is this man bellowing that all Lakota and Shahiyena males over twelve summers will be killed by his soldiers?” Crazy Horse demanded as the scouts told their story to the war-band leaders: Red Cloud, Young Man Afraid, and High Backbone.

“He is the one who leads his army toward our hunting ground.”

“We must show this soldier chief that we will not stand for his army shoving its fist down the throats of our people,” Crazy Horse vowed, eyes narrowing. “Instead, we will make this soldier chief choke on his own blood!”

“H’gun!” howled Young Man Afraid. “First the soldier chief must find us—and that is not going to be easy.”

But the young scouts had sobering news to tell the warrior chiefs. The soldiers were guided by Indian trackers.

“Tell us of these trackers,” Red Cloud demanded.

“Scalped-heads,” the scout leader replied. Pawnees. “Ten-times-ten. And some mud Indians from the great mud river.” Omaha and Winnebago. “They lead the soldiers into our hunting ground.”

“Our ponies are strong,” Crazy Horse said as the others fell silent. “They have their bellies full of summer grass, and the winds are cooling in their nostrils. We can ride circles around the soldiers and their scouts—and poke our heads up where the white man will not expect us to be. Let us go drive the white man from our hunting ground this one last time. Let us go make the white man bleed!”

“They’re paying you how much?” Jonah asked, disbelieving.

“Five dollars a day,” Shad Sweete answered. “Bridger’s getting ten. He’s chief of scouts.”

“I never seen that kind of money in my life.”

“Scouting pays well. Bad thing about it, you got to eat army food.”

“Why can’t we hunt?”

“You wander off to hunt, likely it will be your scalp hanging from some brownskin’s lodgepole.”

“I think your brain’s been boiled by the sun, Shad. We ain’t seen a feather since we left Laramie,” Jonah said.

“Don’t you ever doubt it, son. They’ve been watching us ever since we crossed the North Platte.”

“Connor ready for ’em?”

“Damn right, he is. That little redheaded Irishman is taking the war right to the Sioux and Cheyenne up there in the Powder River country.”

“He sure as hell is a fighting man, for a Yankee,” Jonah agreed.

“You liked the way he formed his outfit back at Laramie when Walker’s men refused to march, eh? Connor gave them sunshine soldiers five minutes to fight or get walking.”

“That was some show when those guns and field pieces were turned on Walker’s men.”

“This bunch with Connor all think this trip is a lark for ’em,” Shad grumbled as they rode along, the entire column of cavalry, infantry, and 187 wagons strung out for more than two and a half miles. “Some of these greenhorn soldiers lay eyes on antelope or buffalo and go off running their horses to death, like this was some Sunday social.”

Jonah said, “Every Injun in fifty miles knows this column’s coming, don’t they? The way that platoon set fire to the grass day before last. Smoke cloud that high had to tell them we was coming.”