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

The morning after Gall, Red Skirt, and the others had crossed to the south side of the Elk River, Sitting Bull sent Johnny back to learn what would become of them once the soldiers pressed their advantage. By luck Bruguier had happened onto a dozen of the village’s young men who themselves had recrossed the river to keep an eye on the soldiers: to see if the Bear Coat Chief would cross the river with his men, or simply retreat west to his post at the Tongue River. But in a run of more bad luck, the scouting party was spotted by a group of the Corn Indians,* who were the eyes and ears for Bear Coat’s soldiers. They and many of the white scouts immediately gave chase after Johnny’s group, making for a noisy running fight of it. On their escape back to the Yellowstone ford, a handful of the Lakota horsemen spotted a lone herder gone out to kill some of the stray Hunkpapa ponies unable to keep up with the fleeing herd. It was a funny thing to watch the squat, bearded white man clamber bareback atop his mule and flog it back toward the soldier lines, yelping and screeching at the top of his lungs as the young warriors closed in on him.

Within moments some of the walk-a-heaps came bustling out to the rescue, and soon more of the soldiers made that long-reaching big gun talk—throwing one of its charges so that it exploded right in front of the Hunkpapa horsemen chasing the solitary herder. It wasn’t hard for Johnny to convince them it was time to turn back for the river and make their escape.

Not one of those young warriors liked turning his back on the rescue detail, hoping as they were for some spoils if not to count coup. But it was plain that they were clearly outnumbered—every bit as plain was the fact that the Bear Coat was intent on following the wounded village. With the others Johnny forded the Elk River, intent on warning Gall and the others, and to learn what he could for Sitting Bull.

Such a sad thing to carry in one’s heart, Johnny had thought: to know that the white man had once again succeeded in dividing Indian against Indian.

In the last seven suns the walk-a-heap wagon soldiers had succeeded in so much more: they had all but broken Sitting Bull’s reputation as the only Indian strong enough to hold together a powerful confederation; twice they had beaten the finest Hunkpapa warriors Gall had rallied to harass the wagon road between the soldier posts on Elk River; in the end they denied the entire body of those fractured Lakota bands the robes, blankets, and meat vital to survival with the imminent approach of another high-plains winter.

And through his use of a little talk coupled with a headlong pursuit, now the Bear Coat had succeeded in splintering even more those confederated tribes clustered around the mystic visionary who brought about the utter and complete destruction of the soldiers at the Greasy Grass.

Then the wavering chiefs had had another parley with the soldier named Miles yesterday afternoon on the south side of the river. Johnny had been called to interpret the demands of Gall, Red Skirt, Bull Eagle, Small Bear, and the rest; the soldiers must leave the Indians alone, for the bands promised they would go into the agency after hunting buffalo for meat enough to see them through the winter. As well the soldiers must return to the Tongue River post and not cross to the north of the Yellowstone anymore, because they would disturb the buffalo the Lakota depended upon. Was it not plain enough to see that many of the people were destitute and in need of both food and blankets—made poor by the soldiers’ capricious attack on their village at Cedar Creek?

“The U.S. Army will go wherever it wants to go,” the Bear Coat replied to Gall’s long list of demands. “If your young men take offense at that—then we will be happy to oblige them with a fight. Otherwise, you headmen are to make sure your people comply with the orders of the government to go into your agencies and stay there.”

Bull Eagle held firm on the needs of his people, saying, “We must hunt the buffalo so that our people will have something to eat when the Cold Maker comes, when the snow is deep, when our men cannot hunt.”

“Yes,” Small Bear agreed. “But we are not the only ones who will go hungry, soldier chief. If your walk-a-heaps continue to chase our villages, come the cold and the snow, your soldiers will not have hunted the meat you need to last the winter.”

With some difficulty Bear Coat tried to explain, “My soldiers do not need to hunt the buffalo to survive. You must explain this to the chiefs, half-breed,” Miles told Bruguier. “Explain to these men that our supplies for the winter have already reached my Glendive depot. Tell them I have provisions enough to chase their villages right on through the winter if need be … a long, hard winter while their young men are unable to hunt, and their children’s bellies cry out in hunger.”

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