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

Then Sharp Nose, leader of the Arapaho scouts, stood to speak. “I have waited a long time to meet all these people and make peace. We have been living a long time with the white man and have followed the white man’s road and do what he says. I hope these other bands will do the same. We have all met here today to make peace, and I hope we’ll remain at peace. And I hope that General Crook will take pity on us and help us…. I hold my hand up to the Great Spirit and swear I’ll stick with General Crook as long as I’m with him. When this war is over and I get home, I want to live like a white man and have implements to work with. We have made peace with these people here today, and we’d like to have a letter sent home to let our people know about it.”

More of the war chiefs and their leaders grunted in agreement or raised their voices to signal they were one with the soldier chief.

Frank White stood proudly in his dark-blue uniform, his face and shaved head savagely painted, large brass rings hung from the edges of his ears, feathers tied to his small, circular scalp lock tossing on the cold wind. Gesturing to Crook, the Pawnee scout said, “This is our head chief talking to us and asking us to be brothers. I hope the Great Spirit will smile on us.…The Pawnee have lived with the white men a long time and know how strong they are. Brothers, I don’t think there is one of you can come out here today and say you have ever heard of the Pawnee killing a white man … I suppose you know the Pawnee are civilized. We plow, farm, and work the ground like white people.”

He then turned to Crook, saying, “Father, it is so what the Arapaho said. We have all gone on this expedition to help you and hope it may be a successful one…. This is all I have to say. I am glad you have told us what you want done about the captured stock. The horses taken will help us to work our land.”

At last Crook stood before them, bringing the assembly to silence as he collected his thoughts, scratching at a cheek, and finally said, “To bring this council to an end, I want you all to hear my words clearly. When we come upon a village of hostiles, you must make sure your men do not kill women and children. Any man of you who kills a woman or a child will be punished severely by my hand.”

Bourke knew the general was laying down his order not so much out of some Anglo-American cultural trait as out of a carefully considered military strategy.

“When we do not kill the women and children—instead we capture them—we can use those women and children as hostages to lure in the men. The fighters. The warriors. It is not the Great Father’s desire to kill the Indians if they will obey the laws of this land. On the other hand, we want to find the villages of our enemies, to force them to give up their ponies and guns so that in the future they will behave themselves.”

After supper late that evening, Bourke sat with others at the fire outside Crook’s headquarters tent. He said, “The war’s over already.”

“What makes you say so?” Donegan asked.

“Because the Indians we’ve been fighting are now our friends, and they’re even friends with the Indians who have always been our friends.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” the Irishman replied as he stared into the flames of that welcome fire as the temperature dropped like lead shot in a bucket of water. “What Crook accomplished today without firing a shot, what he did last month in capturing the ponies and the weapons—was more than we accomplished on the Powder River last March. Or on the Rosebud in June.* Or beneath the Slim Buttes last September.”

Then Donegan held up his coffee tin. “More than a toast, I make this my prayer: that this goddamned war is as you say it is, Johnny. May our bloody little war truly be all but over.”

* Reap the Whirlwind, Vol. 9, The Plainsmen Series.

Chapter 20

Freezing Moon 1876

A sliver of the old moon still hung in the sky this morning before the sun crept from its bed in the east. With sixty-eight winters behind him, an old man like Morning Star was up and stirring, out to relieve his bladder. It seemed the older he got, the more urgent was this morning mission.