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

Snow lay drifted against the sides of the tents when the sun finally peeked over the ridges to the east on Tuesday morning, the twenty-first of November. Mackenzie had his cavalry battalions up early, breaking camp and saddling up to move another mile downstream so the horses could find more grazing where the wind had blown patches of ground clear. Seamus hung back with the packers near the teamsters’ camp. To him, all that packing up and moving no more than a mile seemed work for work’s sake. Just like the army way of things. And that made it something the Irishman loathed.

“Seamus! Seamus!”

Donegan turned to find old Dick Closter lumbering up from the latrines dug north of camp. “What’s up, mule skinner?”

“They’re back!”

“Who’s back?”

Closter turned, his white beard brilliant against his smoke-tanned face. “Them Injun scouts Crook sent out! They’re back!”

“Good to hear,” Donegan grumbled, and tucked the muffler higher around his ears. “Maybe now the general will find out where we need to go—”

“I’ll lay you ten to one the general’s Injuns know where to find Crazy Horse!”

That got the Irishman’s attention. He bolted to his feet. “Where’s those scouts now, by damned?”

“Yonder,” Closter said, pointing. “They was heading for Crook’s camp, taking their prisoner to show him off to the general.”

* Big Horn Mountains.

* Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory—autumn, 1866.

† Big Horn River.

Chapter 21

Freezing Moon 1876

Snow fell off and on throughout the first three days Young Two Moon and the others pushed southeast toward the course of the Powder River. From time to time the clouds parted and they would see patches of startling blue, but the broken sky did not last for long. Again and again the heavens darkened, lowered, then spat sharp, icy flakes in a swirl around the scouts and their ponies.

They shivered as they rode ever onward. They shivered each night they made camp and lit their small fire, sat around the low flames, talking in quiet voices, and one by one tried to sleep while the ponies stood nearby, rump-tucked to the north wind. The four grew colder as the journey grew longer.

The third day they pushed past Warbonnet Ridge—which they named because the three trees that grew upon it made the prominence resemble a warrior’s feathered bonnet from a distance—then on to House Ridge, which they named because at its top sat a large boulder that resembled a white man’s house. It was there the four turned their faces into the cold wind, urging their ponies north by east toward the Powder River at last. Once they neared the divide that would take them into the Powder River Valley, the young scouts put more distance between themselves, spreading apart in a broad front, moving slowly, slowly, studying the frozen ground, the icy mud in every coulee, the tracked-up snow in every bottom, searching for tracks.

By the time the sun set that third day, the Cheyenne warriors reached a wagon road that appeared to take them down to the river itself. The storm had returned on the back of a ferocious wind, making it difficult to see left or right, up or down in the dark.

Hail stopped them on the road after a short distance. “Now I believe we can take this road and follow it down across Powder River, until it reaches the top of those three bald buttes, and stay there till morning; from there in the daylight we can see much country.”

With only nods of agreement, the other three followed Hail, the oldest among them. Upon reaching the buttes, they moved in the lee of the tallest, halted, and let the ponies blow. After some time Hail spoke again.

“With this storm it is useless to climb this hill until it is near daylight.”

Young Two Moon said, “You are right. We won’t see anything, not even a fire’s light in this weather.”

High Wolf added, “Let’s just stay down here out of the wind and try to keep warm until there is enough light to see come morning.”

Together the four walked their ponies into the crevice between the tall butte and one next to it, keeping their ponies close at hand for the warmth the weary animals put off. Young Two Moon dozed fitfully, unable to really sleep, each time awaking with his muscles cramped from the cold ground. His belly growled for food, but he did not really hunger for the dried meat they had brought along in the small parfleches. The cold and the hunger were merely trials that an honorable young man had to suffer for what good his people expected of him.

He was nudged and only then realized he had finally fallen asleep near first light.

Hail said, “Now we must climb this hill and be ready when day comes to look over the ridge up and down Powder River Valley.”