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

As the broad blue front inched forward across the bloodied snow, Seamus heard one man, then a second, cry out immediately as they were hit, both of them sprawling backward in the snow. The first went down noisily, thrashing and smearing the white, icy ground with a crimson stain, then lay still. The other collapsed to his knees, slowly settling backward as if he were merely sitting down to Sunday dinner without a complaint while his mouth moved soundlessly to form the word “Mother” and his blank eyes implored the cold blue sky above him

As the soldiers neared the edge of the ravine, the sun suddenly snapped over the ridge behind them, immediately flooding the snowy valley in an eye-stinging brilliance.

“By God,” Donegan murmured under his breath as he jammed another half-dozen cartridges into the Winchester’s receiver, his numb, clumsy fingers spilling a shell on the snow, “—the bastards have the sun in their eyes now!”

Some men grumbled curses all around him as they drew close to the enemy. A few men shouted commands as most struggled to reload with clumsy gloves and frozen hands—none of the platoons firing in ordered volleys now.

More warriors now at the edge of the ravine.

They were almost within spitting distance of the enemy. Still advancing on the Cheyenne. Foot by bloody foot. Another soldier cried out, and two men on either side of him knelt to grab the wounded one, turned and dragged him to the rear as he flailed his legs and screamed for immortal mercy, the front of his belly slicked with a dark stain.

“Damned gut wound,” the Irishman whispered under his breath. A horrible way to die. A slow journey, one filled with teethgrinding agony.

So it was he suddenly remembered American Horse, how bravely the chief had died that night within the smoking ruin of his village at Slim Buttes.* Would this madness ever end?

But as quickly Seamus knew it would not. Could not. Not until the Indian was back on each miserable patch of ground the government laid out for him and called a reservation. Not until these brave men had all been stripped of weapons and ponies—stripped of their warriorhood.

It was plain that these at the ravine had chosen to die standing up, fighting to the end as they protected family and home. Such a man fought savagely, Seamus recalled. Because he had so much to lose … and at the same time had nothing more to lose.

Such an enemy fought much, much harder than any soldier far away from home would ever fight.

Off to the right and at the center of the line the soldiers made the first close-quarters contact with the Cheyenne in a sudden clash of shock and noise and voices, grunts and screams. Then as quickly the rest of them were in the maw of that hand-to-hand struggle. Suddenly so close the troopers could smell last night’s supper on the breath of the warriors who flung their bodies against the two troops, close enough to smell the frozen grease on their hair. Close enough to smell the fear seeping from a man’s pores.

He smelled no fear from the Cheyenne this day.

Just in front of Seamus one of McKinney’s men flopped down onto his back, both his empty hands locked around the wrist of a warrior as the half-naked Cheyenne leaped onto him, a huge bear-jaw knife poised over his head. It was McKinney’s sergeant, Thomas H. Forsyth.

Seamus turned at the hip, aimed at the warrior’s head, point-blank, and squeezed the Winchester’s trigger. Watched the Cheyenne’s head snap away to the side in a bright spray of blood. Some of the crimson splattered upon that well-tanned face, which showed instant gratitude to him before the sergeant rolled out of the bloody snow.

Forsyth and another, Private Thomas Ryan, knelt over the body of their lieutenant, protecting McKinney as more warriors swarmed out of the deep ravine. Cartridge by cartridge they slammed beneath the trapdoors of their Springfields, daring to hold back the horde that screeched defiance and death.

“Deploy, goddammit!” the old sergeant bellowed again above the lieutenant’s body. “Don’t let them overrun us! Deploy as skirmishers! And stand!”

Then Donegan himself bawled a command above the clamor as he levered another cartridge into the breech and turned to meet the red onslaught, “Look the bastards in the eye, goddammit! Stand and look ’em in the eye!”

In the next breath Sergeant Frank Murray and Corporal William J. Linn were beside Ryan and Forsyth over the officer’s body, standing, waving, hollering, rallying others who were still some twenty yards behind—exhorting every man of them to make a stand over their fallen comrades.

Lieutenant Otis darted here, then there, moving among the rest of the men as they knelt and went about their bloody, dirty work of it, ordering his soldiers of M Troop to lay down fire to cover the four who were protecting their commanding officer.