Cry of the Hawk

“They aim to make a fight of it,” Sweete said, nodding toward the hundreds of warriors who had spread out across a broad front before the scouts and advance guard.

Feathers stirred on the chill spring breeze. The tails of every war pony had been tied up with red trade cloth or strips of rawhide. Shields clung to every arm, a bow, rifle, or carbine held at the ready by the jeering, taunting warriors who urged the white men on.

“Fat’s in the fire now, boys,” Milner said, then spit some tobacco juice into the dust. “I reckon we ought’n go on down there and palaver with ’em afore ol’ Thunderbutt gets up here to stir things with his big stick.”

“Not a bad idea, Joe,” Hickok replied. “C’mon. You and Shad come with me.”

“We showing guns?” Sweete asked.

“By damn if we ain’t,” Milner said. “It’s the only thing these red bastards understand—is gunpower.”

The trio inched off that low hillock into the rolling lowland where the long cordon of warriors waited on their restive ponies. As the white men halted midway between the two lines, a score of the young warriors grew more than verbal. They raced their ponies back and forth along the Indian line, taunting, shaking their weapons in the air.

“Damn if they don’t want war every bit as much as Hancock’s itching for it,” Hickok muttered. He straightened in the saddle. “All right, Shad. Tell their chiefs we want to parley a bit.”

Sweete handed his rifle over to California Joe, now second in command of the scouts behind Hickok. Shad then held his hands up to begin signing as he spoke in the Shahiyena tongue. The white men wanted some delegates to come forward onto neutral ground for a parley, he said. For a few moments, a half dozen of the warriors conferred among themselves a hundred yards away. Then they too inched forward, ordering the rest to remain behind.

“We don’t want no trouble,” Hickok reminded Milner as Joe shifted uneasily on his saddle after tossing the Spencer carbine back to Sweete.

“These bastards won’t mind taking our scalps,” Joe muttered. “Don’t trust ’em a bit.”

“And right you are,” Shad whispered as the chiefs drew near. “Let’s smile and act hospitable, boys. And keep your finger on your triggers.”

The warriors came to a halt twenty feet away, ponies pawing at the new grass flowering across the prairie. The breeze rustled feathers and fringe and the edges of blankets in that great silence beneath the cornflower blue sky while everyone waited for something to happen, someone to speak. A pony snorted. One of the warriors coughed.

“Shad, tell ’em what we want.”

“What is it we want?”

“Hancock wants to talk with the chiefs.”

Sweete once more spoke and signed—telling them the soldier chief wanted to talk with the mighty chiefs of the Lakota and Shahiyena bands.

One of the warriors snorted, loudly. He spit on the ground.

“Who’s that?” Hickok asked quietly.

“Think he’s called Pawnee Killer. Brule chief. Bad sonofabitch if it is.”

“Heard tell of him,” Milner added. “He’s a mean one what don’t know a lick of common sense.”

Sweete spoke after one of the half dozen had signed.

“They’re asking us something, Hickok. Why we brought along the soldiers—both walk-a-heaps and pony soldiers—if all that we mean to do is talk.”

Hickok shifted in his saddle. “I figure he’s got us there. A fair question, but I don’t know what to tell him.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the countryside behind them for sign of Hancock’s columns.

“I know what to say,” Milner growled.

“I won’t have you starting anything here, Joe,” Hickok snapped.

Sweete watched all the dark, lidded eyes concentrating on the two arguing white men. Behind the delegates, the rest of the warriors were surging, their ponies racing up and down the long line strung horizon to horizon—galloping the ponies about in short sprints to get their second wind.

“We better tell them something … and now,” Shad muttered. “Or our butts may be in the soup.”

He inched his horse forward a few yards, away from Hickok and Milner. Then he began signing.

The soldiers come for two reasons: they come to talk to the chiefs about making peace, so that the Lakota and Shahiyena make no more war on the white settlers.

Two of the delegates glanced at one another, then one moved his hands slowly.

You said the soldiers come for two reasons. You spoke of but one.

Shad straightened in the saddle, slowly moving his Spencer carbine across his lap before his hands went back to signing.

If the Lakota and Shahiyena do not want to talk of peace, then the soldiers come to make war.

The entire half dozen warriors stirred at that.