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

The autumn sun hadn’t fallen far from midsky when three of the lieutenants loped to the head of the column and presented their case to an increasingly anxious Captain Miner.

“There’s more of ’em than we can handle come dark, Captain,” Lieutenant Nickerson said.

Miner growled, “How many do you figure we’re facing?”

After glancing at the others, Lieutenant William Conway replied, “Five, maybe as many as six hundred warriors, sir.”

The captain seemed to shudder at that, then stoically said, “Their numbers won’t make much difference come dark. I’m certain they’ll break off their attack by dusk.”

“Even so, Captain—we may not have enough of the mules left by morning to push on for Tongue River,” Smith observed.

“Then what?” Miner growled, turning on the lieutenant.

“I figure we’ll be forced to fort up and take ’em on till General Miles figures out we aren’t coming.”

“How long could that be, gentlemen?” Miner asked. “Worst case, that is.”

They muttered and chewed on it. Then Smith broke the stalemate.

“Longer than we have ammunition, sir.”

Miner was nettled, the crow’s-feet at his eyes deeper than normal. “What are you proposing, then?”

“Turn about and countermarch, sir,” Lieutenant Kell suggested.

“Back for Glendive?”

“Yes, Captain,” Smith agreed. “I suggest we do it while we’ve got ammunition to make that countermarch. We get bogged down by forting up—they’ll keep us holed up till we run out of ammunition. I say let’s get back to Glendive while we can.”

“But we’re expected at Tongue River with these supplies,” Miner grumbled within his five-day-old beard. “Those supplies don’t get there—”

“Sir, begging your pardon for the interruption,” Smith pressed on. “We fort up, run out of ammunition, and get overrun, we lose these supplies to them Sioux … meaning they’ll never get to the Tongue River troops anyway. But if we break off here and skedaddle back to our cantonment, I figure we can convince Colonel Otis to beef up our escort and make another go of it.”

“How much of the stock have we lost?” the captain demanded gruffly.

Benjamin Lockwood answered, “They’ve run off with more than sixty-some mules already … and wounded that many more, sir.”

Miner cogitated on that for some time as his officers stood in silence. All around them the noncoms kept the men firing by squads—for the most part able to keep the swarming warriors at a safe distance from the column. The Sioux were clearly showing a healthy respect for those Long Toms, darting in here and there, but scampering out of range just in time as a squad came forward, dropped to a knee to aim, and fired. On one side then the other, at their front then at their rear, the enemy horsemen were making things more than ticklish for Miner’s escort. The situation was growing downright scary.

“We get bogged down here, we’re pretty well cut off here, wouldn’t you say, gentlemen?” the captain asked.

“Yes, sir,” Smith agreed. “So what’s it to be, Captain?”

He slapped his glove against his dusty sky-blue pants and straightened. “Give the order, men—we’re turning about for Glendive. And, for God’s sake: let’s try not to let those red bastards kill any more of these blessed mules!”

Gazing into the face of her sleeping child, Samantha hadn’t believed anything could be quite so beautiful.

Four days old he was. Despite the sleeplessness, despite the tenderness and outright pain in her breasts, the hot shards of torment she felt down below where she had torn giving birth—no matter any of it now. She was completely in awe at the miracle of that baby.

What she and Seamus had created together. Truly a gift from God.

It was so hard to believe, still so much like a dream: the long, agonizing labor; the explosive delivery; the joy in seeing the tears streak her husband’s face; the sheer and utter happiness in holding the squalling child for the first time, listening to his little cry of protest.

Oh, how he had taken to her breast that cold morning as Elizabeth Burt had shooed Seamus from the room.

“You go off now and get yourself a whiskey and a cigar. And buy one for my captain, too, won’t you?”

Then Elizabeth set about instructing Sam on the art of breast-feeding—how to hold the child just so, place the nipple against his lips and cheek to excite the sucking reflex, and then to relax. Just relax and enjoy such exquisite closeness. Oh, how the little one took to that! Surely, she had thought so many times since as the babe suckled, this was his father’s child! So in love with a woman’s bountiful anatomy were they both.

The babe lay beside her on the bed this late afternoon. The sun would soon set beyond Old Bedlam and the evening gun would roar down on the parade. She was weary from the trips up and down the steps, laundering the diapering cloths. Never had she believed it possible that such disgusting stuff could come out of so beautiful a creature!