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

And down there at the timber, the soldiers went back to work. Some stood to aim at that retreating target. Others knelt, locking an elbow into the crook of a knee to steady their weapons. The rest plopped to their bellies in the frozen, icy snow, attempting to keep that front blade on a distant bobbing target.

Almost reaching the hillside … when the rescuer threw out his arms, his head pitching back as he twisted off the rear flank of the pony. The warrior he had rescued bounced along upon the horse’s withers for a few more yards before tumbling off as well, cartwheeling along a skiff of wind-crusted snow.

“Two of the bastards!” a corporal muttered with a grim satisfaction. “Two for the price of one, I’d say!”

“Their medicine was bad today,” Wheeler corrected. “That’s all it was. Just a bad day for their medicine.”

Then the lieutenant closed his eyes a moment.

And I pray mine will be stronger.

In that first hour of the battle the fighting had been hot and furious as the Ohmeseheso contested control of their village, countering the charges of the cavalry—hastily setting up an ambush here and there as they covered the retreat of their women and children.

But now that the sun had fully risen over that frozen valley to dispel the slinking mists from every last one of the cold places, dazzling the eyes with its painful brilliance reflecting off the snow, the battle was slowly becoming no more than a painful standoff.

The army had possession of the valley in a jagged line running from the twin buttes west of Mackenzie’s observation point on the north, across and through the village to the southwest, where the Pawnee and Shoshone were ensconced up the slopes and at the top of the high ridges where they could fire down on the enemy. Any Cheyenne now left behind that blue line lay dead in the village abandoned by all to the dogs. Out of the cold shadows slunk the wild-eyed curs, creeping so low their bellies nearly brushed the snow, ears back and noses wary as each one went to sniff the freezing horse carcasses, the motionless bodies of the Cheyenne who hadn’t broken from their lodges quickly enough.

A sniff, then a lick. Dead, yes. But not yet dead long enough to become carrion to these half-feral beasts.

On they loped, those wild dogs picking up the scent of the next odor. Then the next. And the next. The stench of death hung heavy over what had been their village.

Brave Wolf shivered. Not so much from cold as from fear. Down there in the village remained his sacred Thunder Bow. Last spring, when he had taken the vow of a Contrary, the bow had been blessed by the old shamans—never to be used in hunting, only in battle to protect the People. And it was never to go inside a lodge. So Brave Wolf always hung it outside his door, in the branches of a nearby tree. Where the Wolf People scouts now would find it, perhaps burn it when they destroyed the camp.

Worse yet: they would steal its magic from him!

Oh, how he felt hollow and cold, as if a shaft of frozen winter ice had been driven through the center of his chest. So sad, yet so afraid, he could not cry. At least not while they were fighting their way out of the west end of the village, each man scurrying from tree to tree, dodging from rock to rock, then working his way into the ravines and across the valley to the far side where he could huddle among the rocks on the northern slopes.

The soldiers were not all that lucky trying to pin down the warriors who used every cleft and shadow to their advantage in staying out of sight, where they could snipe at the ve-ho-e in the valley.

Below Brave Wolf some of the young men were talking excitedly, pointing, planning how they were going to sneak back in among the pony herd that was already captured—to steal it back from the soldiers and their Indian scouts. As he watched, the first two went to their bellies among the thick, leafless willow that stood taller than a man and crawled out of sight, like snakes making their creep upon an unwary prey.

“Help me, brother.”

Brave Wolf turned at the sudden address from a clump of brush, thinking he recognized the voice. “Is that you, Braided Locks?”

“Here is my hand, brother,” the wounded warrior said. “Pull me in there with you.”

As he dragged his friend by the arm, Brave Wolf could see all the blood smeared across Braided Locks’s belly. As the wounded warrior twisted over, he saw the exit wound in the small of the back.

“You are dying?” he asked, laying his friend in his lap.

Braided Locks rested his head upon Brave Wolf’s thigh, his eyes clenched in pain, his breath short and ragged until his breathing came easier. “No. No, I am not dying, brother. This hurts too much to be dying.”

“How long have you been shot?”