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

“The chief says the white man is a liar and not to be trusted,” Bruguier translated. “The white man has made many, many treaties with the Lakota … and the white man has turned around and broken every one of them. It’s the only thing the white man can be counted on doing.”

“I will give you my word—”

The half-blood interrupted with a snarl, “In the treaty with Red Cloud, the Black Hills were given to the Lakota for all time, but now the white man comes to take them back.”

Lord knows he had tried, Nelson ruminated as he sat there—stung with having his own personal honor questioned—watching how some of the other dark faces showed disappointment, some showed fear, while Sitting Bull’s remained a plate of cold anger.

“So be it,” Miles finally said when Bruguier was done with Sitting Bull’s long harangue. “You tell the chief that he has fifteen minutes to decide if he will accept my terms for unconditional surrender … or prepare for battle. And if it’s a fight he wants—the whites will keep bringing more and more soldiers into this country until the Sioux are no more.”

The half-breed’s eyes flinched at that, quickly flicking toward the soldiers’ positions, yet he turned and attempted to translate this concept of war beginning in a quarter of an hour—something unfathomable to the Hunkpapa mind.

His thin lips a pressed, colorless line, Sitting Bull exploded to his feet, jerking his buffalo robe about himself as he spat out his words. “So—the Bear Coat has me trapped? You bring me here, an honorable warrior—and tell me you make war on me now?”

Miles looked back and forth between Sitting Bull and the translator as the chief pointed to the dirty white flag that one of his men held at the end of a long coup stick.

For the chief, Bruguier interpreted, “This is the flag an honorable warrior respects. I believed we were safe with this flag over our heads when we come to talk today. You said your soldiers would not fire on us.”

“We will not fire on you,” Miles snapped.

“Those will be the first of your words I pray I can believe,” Sitting Bull growled. He shot Miles one last glare and turned on his heel.

As Miles watched Sitting Bull hurry off, the chief began signaling to the horsemen, shouting his warning to the numerous clusters of armed warriors scattered across the hillsides. They burst into motion, waving, crying out, singing their songs at the top of their lungs.

In the silence the other chiefs watched the Hunkpapa mystic descend the far side of the knoll before they too slowly rose, murmuring among themselves, some shaking their heads, eyes filled with dread.

Nelson flushed with resolve. There was no turning back now. Before him was the man who had crushed Custer. This was the moment. This was his place.

“Mr. Bailey!” Miles turned slightly to call out to his aide-decamp as he rose from that one stiffened knee. “Prepare the units for battle!”

Chapter 11

21 October 1876

Tears came to Samantha’s eyes as she watched how her husband’s big, roughened hands became such soft and gentle things he would slip beneath the sleeping child, raising the boy into his huge arms where he held the infant against his chest one last time here before Seamus would have to go.

Days ago Elizabeth Burt had come up with a crate from somewhere—likely due to her pull with the post quartermaster, Sam figured—and it was that crate she had padded with scraps of shawls and old blankets, fashioning a crude crib where the fitful newborn slept.

Elizabeth said it was colic. Nothing to worry one’s self about, Sam was assured. And then Martha Luhn showed her all she knew about ridding the little one’s gastric system of those awful bubbles that tied a newborn up in knots and made the babe cry out in such fitful pain. How to roll the child back and forth on his mother’s knee to work the fit out of his system.

But for now the babe was sleeping as Seamus held the boy, gazed down into that tiny face in the midst of all that wrap of swaddling. Her husband placed one callused finger along the boy’s cheek, stroking it softly, then nudged back that unruly lock of fine hair that swept down the child’s brow.

The bugle cried again from the parade. And it made Sam’s heart lurch with sudden fear.

He somehow seemed to know of her apprehension. Seamus always seemed to know.

This time he turned to her as the last notes floated off in the cold air of that morning. And came to sit on the side of the bed, nestling the babe down in her arms. Then he brushed her cheek as he had done the boy’s. Smearing her tears, pulling her chin up so that she had to look into his face.

“I’ll be back in a few days, sweet one,” he said softly as the racket of more than three dozen men about to march became all the louder outside. Downstairs, voices rose, boot heels clattered on the landing, the door banged open, and it seemed as if a regiment of men were stomping off the porch, having themselves a gay time of it as they bid farewell to those who were to be left behind.