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

“The second of you must not leave the head of this shallow ravine until the first has made it all the way to the back of that hill—where you will all be safe. From there you can make it into the canyon and up to the breastworks, where the others are singing the strong-heart songs to our warriors.”

A small, frail woman pushed herself up between two younger women and clutched at the warrior’s hand, gazing up into his face with watery, rheumy eyes. “I have no husband, and now my son is dead this day. But I will be the first to run as you say, Yellow Eagle. And when I reach the breastworks—I will sing the strong-heart songs for you!”

So it was that he took her bony hand and led her to the head of the ravine, and there helped her to the top.

“Now—run! Run like the rabbit!” he hollered at her as she took off in a lumbering gait, all too slow. “Run like the wolf was after you!”

Then the soldier guns exploded. He jerked around to look at the distant ravine, seeing the gray powder smoke lifting above the blue-clad soldiers. They had fired in volley—with a roar so loud, it made a sound like a riverbank caving in come the torrent of a spring runoff.

Holding his breath, he watched her reach the other shallow ravine behind the knoll, where she disappeared over the side. For a heartbeat he worried, ready to send the second person—this time a child, but keeping the youngster until …

There! He saw the ancient one wave back at them. And knew she was safe.

One by one by one he lifted them up the slick, icy side of the ravine, raising their frozen, bare feet as he heaved them onto the snowy prairie, where they began their dash to safety. Time and again the soldier guns exploded as a woman or a child zigzagged the way he told them, all the way to the shallow ravine where the ancient woman stood waving them on. Calling out for them to be brave in her frail, reedy voice.

Four of them fell, wounded by soldier bullets. But every one of them rose again as quickly, dragging a bleeding leg, or clutching a bloody arm that dripped a telltale path on the snow. Three times ten he helped out of that ravine. Three times ten would now live on.

The last one had reached the distant coulee, and Yellow Eagle had turned to find Little Wolf and one of the other Old-Man Chiefs … when he heard a high, wispy voice lift itself over that corner of their battlefield.

She had reached the breastworks. The ancient one with no men to sing for that day. No man, except for Yellow Eagle.

It was for him that now she sang the strong-heart songs.

Hoka hey!

If this was to be Yellow Eagle’s day … then it was a fine day to die!

With Medicine Top on one arm and Spotted Blackbird clutching the other, Box Elder made it to the slope of the low hill.

“Take me up, almost to the top, then both of you must turn back,” the shaman instructed them.

“You will climb the rest of the way by yourself?”

“I must,” Box Elder told them.

The last struggle was his alone in his darkness, knowing he had reached the top only when he felt the wind on his face once more and the ground falling away from beneath his moccasins on the far side.

Setting his feet, Box Elder spread his arms out for a moment—so good was it to feel the sun’s coming warmth as it bathed the valley. Then he sat and pulled his small pipe and some tobacco from the pouch that he had carried away from his lodge and fit the bowl to stem. Packing pinches of tobacco into the bowl, he sang loud enough that his voice encircled the knoll for all the others to hear above the noise of the battle.

When he had the pipe ready, Box Elder got to his knees, raising the pipe overhead while he bowed—offering the pipe to Ma-heo-O, the All Spirit, and to the Sacred Persons … asking for their blessing on his people this terrible, bloody day.

Startled, he felt the pipe bowl grow warm in his hand, and he smelled pipe smoke on the wind.

Bringing the stem to his lips, the old man sucked—surprised to find that it was burning.

“Blessings, Ma-heo-?!” he sang out in a high, thin voice. “You have lit the pipe for me! Thank you!”

As he completed his fourth puff from the pipe, the first soldier bullet landed near his knee, striking one of the red sandstone rocks with a splatter of lead.

Box Elder next blew smoke toward the heavens.

Several more bullets whined past his head or collided with the ground at his knees.

The old shaman calmly blew his last puff at the earth—the mother of them all.

Now the soldier bullets were coming so close and with such frequency that he knew the white man must have spotted him atop this knoll.

Yet again he held the pipe up to the heavens at the end of his arms and prayed for his people’s safety, not thinking about the soldier bullets at all.

Even though he had left the Sacred Wheel Lance below with his son and was no longer invisible, Box Elder knew no bullets would touch a holy man.

He kept on praying.

Already some of the soldier scouts were pounding victoriously on that big drum in the center of camp.