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

“He says you gotta order your men to fight one by one. Not like soldiers anymore. Not like them what got killed with Custer—they hung together like soldiers. Officers kept ’em bunched up like sheep. You gotta tell your men to fight the Indians one on one, like these here Cheyenne are gonna do to us.”

Mackenzie turned quickly to the Sioux chief. “Is that how these Cheyenne are going to fight me now, Three Bears?”

The Indian nodded, not requiring any translation.

“From bush to bush, is it? Fighting from rock to rock, man to man, eh?” Mackenzie asked. “I don’t think so, gentlemen. In fact, you will soon see my battle plan prevail.” Then he turned his back on Three Bears and Garnett as if dismissing them both, placing the field glasses to his eyes as he slowly perused the terrain below him.

“How do things look, General?” asked Major George Gordon, still seeming a bit anxious. “Do the Cheyenne have us surrounded, like they did Custer’s outfit?”

“The day is won, gentlemen,” Mackenzie reassured them as they all watched the bullets begin to kick up tiny cascades of snow around that lone horseman, Dorst, sprinting across that open ground below. “But we still have much to do before this victory is complete.”

“Will we destroy the village and its contents, General?” asked Lieutenant Henry W. Lawton.

“Damn right I will,” the colonel replied, then—noticing the dour expression on the two civilians’ faces—Mackenzie asked, “Don’t you two think we should wipe the earth clear of all that this band of renegade Cheyenne ever owned?”

“I suppose that’s what you’re needing to do,” Donegan said. “It’s just that I can’t shake the memory of what Reynolds did all too quickly last winter farther north on the Powder.”

Mackenzie visibly bristled, his eyes glowering. “Damn you, Irishman! I’m no pompous desk straddler like Reynolds! And I’ve never been accused of an error in judgment. Now, you yourself were with me at the Palo Duro* when we impoverished the Kwahadi of Quanah Parker, then slaughtered their wealth in ponies. It was a total success. So that’s exactly what we’ll do here.”

“As long as your men ain’t freezing and you ask ’em to march on empty bellies,” Grouard commented.

His eyes became cold fires as he glared at the half-breed. “Never have I asked more of any man than I was willing to sacrifice myself. I have my orders. General Crook expects me to finish the job here.”

Donegan said, “That’s right, General. Just like Reynolds was told to finish the job on the Powder.”

“Listen, you son of a bitch,” Mackenzie snapped with uncharacteristic alarm. “I don’t know what’s come over you, but maybe you don’t remember just who the hell asked you to join in on this expedition.”

“Hold on, General,” Seamus began to apologize, his tone becoming softer. “Perhaps I was a bit out of the barracks with that talk about Reynolds. Sorry that what I said nettled you the way it did. No offense meant toward you. Damn, if I don’t find myself running loose in the tongue department when I oughtta be keeping this bleeding mouth shut.”

“It’s all right,” Mackenzie said, his face softening as well, the anger passed.

Donegan explained, “General, I for one should damn well know you’re not the kind to go off and do something stupid … leaving your men without food or protection against the weather. I’m sorry, for I plainly spoke out of line.”

“Apology accepted, Mr. Donegan.” Then Mackenzie’s smile was gone as he rose in the stirrups and brought the field glasses to his eyes. “Looks like Mr. Dorst is at the end of a pretty ride, gentlemen.”

Seamus squinted across the dazzling shimmer reflecting off the snow. Dorst was nearing the end of his race across the open no-man’s-land hard to their left.

No longer was it a close and dirty scrap, hand-to-hand and mean. Now Mackenzie had himself what was shaping up to be a day-long battle to fight.

And the sun had barely lifted off the ridges to the east.

In their front at the center of the open ground, troopers under Hamilton and Hemphill were hunkered down, all but under the guns of the Cheyenne who had taken up protected positions among the rocks dippling the nearby heights.

Off to the far right at the northern spread of the valley, Wessels and Russell of the Third were holding their own far up at the head of that deadly ravine where McKinney’s men had charged into the jaws of Hell.

And some minutes earlier Captain Alfred B. Taylor’s battalion of L and G troops, Fifth U.S. Cavalry, had just set up a dismounted skirmish line where they began a long-range duel with those dogged and persistent warriors atop the low knoll on the far side of the deep ravine. That skirmishing began at the completion of a gallant charge into the lower end of the Cheyenne camp, where they slashed their way lengthwise through the long, narrow horseshoe crescent of lodges—driving before them the last snipers who burst from the far end of the camp.

Killing every warrior who would not be driven before them.