A Cold Day in Hell: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

“Take your men and drive a wedge between those sonsabitches running on foot for those ponies yonder. Drive them off, keep them from getting the herd. Then turn your attention on those bastards setting up shop along the top of the knoll there,” Mackenzie said, grinding his teeth in frustration at possibly losing that herd to the enemy. “When you’ve got those warriors tied down on the knoll, take some of your men to wrangle that herd the enemy is attempting to recapture and get them headed back this way! Do you understand your orders?”

“Yes, sir—I think I do.”

“I’ve given you a handful, Lieutenant,” the colonel repeated with the affection he felt for McKinney evident.

“Yes, General!”

He watched the officer start to turn his horse away, then yell at McKinney’s back, “Lieutenant!” The officer reined up suddenly and turned, his face eager, expectant, a great smile cut across its lower half. “Lieutenant McKinney—this is your day to shine!”

“Yes, General!” McKinney cried out loudly. “Thank you! Thank you, sir!”

“For a goddamned brevet!” Mackenzie reminded with a flourish and a smile, flinging his fist in the air as the officer wheeled about to dash back to his men.

“Yes, sir!”

“Carpe diem, Lieutenant! Seize the day, by God! Seize the day!”

* * *

Box Elder and Coal Bear walked a respectful distance behind the Buffalo Hat Woman, while Medicine Bear rode behind them all on a skittish pony, holding aloft Nimhoyoh, waving the thick hide of the Sacred Turner and its long black buffalo tails back and forth to ward off the enemy’s bullets that kicked up snow and dirt from the ground at their feet, sticks and splinters from the trees all about them.

“We have a long way to go,” young Medicine Bear called out, his voice filled with strain.

Distance mattered little to Box Elder. He could not see near nor far anyway. “We will get there. The powerful medicine in the Sacred Wheel I hold has made us invisible to the enemy—and the power in Nimhoyoh you carry turns away all the bullets flying around us. Do not be afraid!”

But the young man’s words were true: they did have a long way to go. Barely out of the village, the party was progressing all too slowly. From off to their right arose the thunder of many, many hoofbeats. Only iron-shod American horses made such noise on frozen ground.

“I see a dry creekbed—not far!” Coal Bear announced, his voice raspy with apprehension.

“We will make it there safely,” Box Elder replied confidently.

After reaching the mouth of the shallow ravine, the Buffalo Hat Woman led them up its twisting course as the ravine became deeper, until it intersected with the narrow canyon west of the village. Far up the sides of the canyon the women and children were climbing to the top, where the first arrivals were already digging rocks out of the side of the slope to stack one upon the other, forming breastworks for what they knew was coming: an all-out siege.

“Father!” a man’s voice called out from among the noisy din of many crying, wailing, cursing women.

“Is it you, Medicine Top?”

“Yes, father,” and the middle-aged warrior was at his father’s side, touching Box Elder’s arm.

“Your wife and daughter?”

“I brought them here,” Medicine Top answered. “They are safe. Now I return to the village to fight.”

A new voice called out, “Medicine Top!”

“Spotted Blackbird!” the son sang out. “Is your family safe?”

“My mother and sisters are all here now. Come with me back into the village to fight these Wolf People.”*

“Wait,” Box Elder said to restrain them, turning his face out of the sharp wind that stung his wrinkled cheeks as it fiercely drove the particles of old snow against his bare flesh. “Look back toward the village, into the valley. Is there a low hill where I might go to look down upon all that takes place?”

For a moment the old man waited on Medicine Top; then the young man answered.

“Yes. I see it. A rounded hill.”

He gripped his son’s arm tightly. “How far?”

“Not far.”

“Take me there,” his voice pleaded at the same time it demanded.

Spotted Blackbird protested. “We should be fighting the soldiers and their scouts in the village before they destroy all that we have!”

“No,” Medicine Top argued, laying a hand atop the old man’s. “I will stay with my father for now.”

“Spotted Blackbird—you both will take me to the hill,” Box Elder said. “From there I will show you how our medicine fights the soldiers just as powerfully as our bullets and guns.”

“Irishman!”

“General!” Seamus called out in reply as he reined up near Mackenzie and his aides.

“You’ve been to the village?”

“Barely. Fighting off snipers.”

“How goes the fight?”

“The Pawnee are having a time of it, what with the struggle the Cheyenne are making of it—determined to hold on to their village,” Donegan huffed, twisting in the saddle to point behind him at the high ridge to the south of the camp. “But up there Cosgrove and Schuyler have the Snakes laying down a pretty heavy fire among those lodges. Making things hot for what warriors are still in there.”