Heart of the Sandhills (21 page)

“Then do a man’s job and go for reinforcements,” Daniel shot back. “Be a hero.”

Aaron had climbed aboard his pony, only partially mollified. Now, as he sat with the morning sun on his back watching the mules graze, he grew more and more resentful of being sent away from where the real fighting would take place.

Suddenly a mounted party of braves swept down to stampede the herd of mules. At the same time, Aaron heard shots from the direction of the wood train a mile away. Hostiles were attacking two fronts at once.

Daniel heard the shots in the distance. He saw smoke rise from the direction of the woodcutters’ camp. Yelling at Robert and Big Amos, he ran for his horse. Without bothering to saddle up, he mounted the white stallion and headed off toward the herd, nearly burying his face in the stallion’s mane to keep himself low.

Up on the hillside above the action, Hawk watched the stallion streak across the earth, nodding with satisfaction. When the horse entered the fray, Hawk waited for the rider to fall, but no one managed to kill him. Instead, Hawk saw the horse brought alongside a soldier on a gray pony. He saw the two racing away together toward the fort.

But then, to Hawk’s delight, the white horse wheeled around. While the soldier on the gray pony headed for the fort, the white stallion tore back across the plain toward the fighting. He mounted his pony and, raising his coup stick in the air, headed down the mountainside in the direction of the white stallion.

While war whoops filled the air a short distance away, the thirty-two men inside the wagon-box corral prepared for battle. Supplies stored in the only two complete wagons were broken into, and when all the arms were passed out, each man had at least two rifles at his disposal.

“If you aren’t a good shot,” the word was passed, “then just reload for a man who is. Make every shot count.”

Powell had taken some men and gone out to deflect the charge from the woodcutters’ camp. While he was gone, while the men were passing out ammunition and getting ready, Aaron Dane came charging up on his gray pony. He pulled the animal to a sliding stop, dismounted, and found Picotte, who grabbed him and dove into a wagon.

“Where’s Daniel?” Aaron asked, raising up to look around.

“Get your head down, boy, if you mean to keep it.” He ignored the question about Daniel, concentrating instead on getting ready for battle. “Cover up,” Picotte ordered, throwing a blanket at him. Aaron obeyed without question. “A good blanket can stop an arrow. I got away from a war party once wrapped in a blanket. When I finally got free and pulled it off, there was a dozen arrows in it. Blanket saved my hide.”

Aaron nodded. His hands were shaking so badly he wondered if he would be able to help Picotte at all. He peered through the porthole before him. What he saw made his blood run cold. In all his dreams of battle, this was never what he envisioned.

“Have you seen Daniel?” he whispered.

“I saw him streak out toward the herd. Haven’t seen him since. I assume he came after you. Looks like he got ya.” Picotte studied Aaron for a moment. “Look at me, son.” When Aaron obliged, the older man said, “Just fight. Worry later.”

Aaron swallowed hard and peered through the hole drilled in the wagon. “How many are there?” he whispered.

“Enough,” Picotte said. “You know how to eat an elephant, son?”

Aaron looked at him, puzzled.

“One bite at a time.” He grinned. “It’s the same way here. One at a time. We make every shot count.”

“No one fires until I give the order,” Powell said, just loud enough for his men to hear.

Big Amos and Robert exchanged glances. “I’m glad Captain Leighton didn’t ride out with us,” Big Amos said. “He was a good soldier, but only one hand is not enough for a day like today.”

Robert nodded. “Did you see Daniel come back?”

Big Amos shook his head.

The two men stared toward the enemy coming slowly across the plain, mounted on beautiful war ponies, painted for war, bedecked with feathers, intent on annihilation.

“Hold,” the commander ordered. “No one fires until I give the order.”

The Sioux quickened their pace, raised their lances, and gave the war cry designed to unnerve the enemy.

“Hold,” Powell shouted, never taking his eyes off the advancing warriors.

One hundred yards, then ninety, then eight, and still Powell told his men to hold. Not until his men could see the designs painted on the breasts of the horses did he finally allow them to fire, but when they did, a continual stream of bullets poured out of the little corral.

The advance divided and swept around the corral, ringing the men with fire. Later it was reported that the battle raged so close that sometimes two enemies were killed with one bullet. Finally the Indians retreated, leaving in their wake scores of the dead and dying on the ground around the wagons.

Inside the corral, one private and one officer lay dead.

Picotte nodded at Aaron who had pressed himself against the corner of the wagon box and was trying his best not to vomit. “You did good, boy,” Picotte said. “Now get yourself collected. They’ll be back.”

“H-h-ow many are there?”

Picotte shrugged. “Lots more’n there is of us.” He looked at Aaron. Presently he picked up a Colt revolver, inserted a bullet, and spun the chamber. He held the revolver out to Aaron. “You listen to me, boy. You pay attention to what’s happenin’. If we lose this here fight and you’re not dead yet, you put this to your head and pull the trigger. You hear me?”

Aaron’s eyes widened in horror.

“I mean it,” Picotte snapped. “You do not, I repeat, you do not want to know what they will do to you if they take you alive.” His voice softened. “It probably won’t come to that, son. I’ll take care of it for you—if I live long enough. But you promise me if I mess up and don’t get the job done in time, you’ll do what I say. You hear?” Picotte grabbed Aaron’s shirt and shook him. “Listen to me. That Injun mama of yours is going to need the comfort of knowing you didn’t suffer. So you do it for her, even if you can’t do it for yourself.” He shook Aaron again.

Aaron nodded. ‘All right,” he croaked. “I will.” He moistened his lips. “I will.” Then, he leaned over the edge of the wagon box and vomited.

In the next wave, unadorned warriors crept forward along the ground, using every depression in the earth as protection. Once near the corral, they let loose a volley of bullets and arrows. The defenders ignored them. Zephyr’s insistence that Aaron stay covered with a woolen blanket paid off, as an arrow struck, but failed to penetrate the blanket just above his left shoulder blade. Bullets crashed against the wagon boxes until it sounded like they were inside a tin-roofed building in a hailstorm. Still, the soldiers resisted useless firing.

When only silence emerged from the corral, the main body of Indians mounted another attack. Once again a great semicircle of warriors advanced slowly, filling the air with war songs. Artists would one day try to capture the terrible beauty of streaming war-bonnets, buffalo-hide shields, painted faces, and war ponies, all advancing beneath the majestic mountain backdrop. But Aaron Dane was not an artist and he saw no beauty in the scene. He felt the Colt revolver against his side, he wondered about Daniel, and a horrific sensation of fear crept inside him.

In the end, the Springfield rifles made the difference. The attacking warriors circled the corral waiting for the pause when the enemy would have to reload. That pause would be the end of the battle, for they would easily overwhelm the soldiers then. But the pause never came. Instead, the enemy kept firing almost constantly. With modified Springfields, the soldiers could eject empty cartridges and slap new ones on, almost without even needing to take their eyes off their targets. Constant gunfire was causing too many Sioux to fall on the battlefield.

After a brief retreat and war council, a final attack on foot was launched. Screaming warriors streamed out of a ravine just north of the corral. Some fired guns, others sent flaming arrows into the hay piles in the middle of the oval.

“Get the canteen!” Picotte screamed at Aaron over the din. “Keep the barrels cool!” He snatched up another rifle while Aaron obeyed, one hand on the canteen, one on the Colt revolver in his belt.

In an instant, in a lifetime, the warriors broke and retreated, carrying what dead and wounded they could off the battlefield with them. Unnatural silence descended. Momentarily bugles sounded in the distance. Help was coming.

Across the open plain, the Sioux chiefs ordered their men to break off. They had had a good fight, captured a great many horses and mules, and killed a few whites. It was a good day to die.

“Always loved a good bugle serenade,” Zephyr Picotte said, smiling at Aaron, who peered through his porthole and closed his eyes to keep tears of relief from running down his cheeks. It was the most beautiful thing he had seen in a long time, Aaron thought; a long column of men dressed in blue, flags flying, rifles blasting, pounding across the earth to the rescue. They divided in half and swept around the corral. The men inside the corral raised up as one and cheered as the regiment swept by in pursuit of the fleeing enemy.

Within the hour, the gates of Fort Phil Kearney opened to admit the twenty-eight survivors of what was to be called the Wagon Box fight. Among the wounded were two scouts named Robert Lawrence and Big Amos. Their wounds were slight and would keep them from their usual duties for only a short while. Their wounds concerned no one, least of all Aaron Dane and Elliot Leighton. Not because Aaron and Elliot didn’t care about their friends, but because when the fight was over, when the casualties were collected, Daniel Two Stars and his white stallion were missing.

Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings towards the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?

—Job 39:26–27

Running. They were always running these days, it seemed. But running didn’t always keep bad things from happening. Nowhere was there a safe place. Even the hunting grounds near the mountains were being invaded by whites. And all the while they spoke of treaties and what the
Lakota
should do to keep the peace. Two Moons giggled madly to herself. What the people could do, she thought, was die. They were doing that well, she thought. Certainly her husband High Hand and their child had done it well. High Hand had raised a white flag and an American flag over their tepee and told her not to worry. He was standing under those flags when a soldier thrust a long sword through his heart. Two Moons had covered her arms with cuts trying to cause enough pain that she would forget the look in High Hands’s eyes when he fell to his knees. But although she slashed her arms repeatedly, she did not forget.

Their baby died, too. Two Moons had run into the tepee and grabbed up the cradle board before lifting the side of the tepee away from where the soldiers were and slipping away. She was at the edge of the camp when the sound of galloping made her turn – just in time to have the cradle board ripped from her arms. What happened next made her scream. At least she thought she probably screamed. She wasn’t sure. She must have screamed . . . but then she fainted, and the blood from the baby splattered across her face so that they must have thought her dead because they left her alone.

She woke in the night and crept away, certain a soldier would catch her—and not really caring if one did. But by some act of the spirits that ruled time, she was not noticed and she got away on a pony so ancient the soldiers had not bothered to round it up with the herd. She had been wandering for weeks, she thought, although she wasn’t sure. Whenever the pain became too much, she would stop and pick up a sharp rock and slash her arms again. Now, as she staggered up the narrow canyon toward winter camp, she wondered if that had changed, too. Maybe her people would not be able to spend the cold moons in their usual valley.

Two Moons paused and looked about her. Up above, the birds were circling. She knew what that meant, and she decided to lie down and wait for death to come. Two Moons swooned in the heat. She dropped her pony’s lead, and the creature ambled away slurping noisily from the river.

When no birds came to her, Two Moons opened her eyes. She did not rise from the earth. Still, lying as she was, she could see the birds were beginning to drop from the sky . . . after something that must lay on the canyon floor just out of sight. No matter, she thought. If she stayed here, she would be a meal for them soon enough. She slept.

At some time in the night, a mountain lion screamed high above her, and Two Moons awoke. She shivered with fear and sat up, clutching her arms to her sides. When things were quiet, she bent down to take a drink from the river. Her pony was there, swaying as it stood half asleep by the water’s edge. Presently, Two Moons plunged her hands into the water and brought some of it to her face. The coolness of it was pleasant, and before long she had slipped out of her dress and moccasins and into the river, sighing with pleasure as the water flowed gently over her. Once she closed her eyes and sank beneath the current, but she could not will herself to remain and popped up, sputtering and coughing, looking around foolishly as if she expected someone to scold her.

She emerged from the water clean and feeling ashamed. She remembered that her own mother had lost a young lover to the Crow and lived long enough to send several children into the spirit land. She was being weak, Two Moons scolded herself. Pulling her dress back over her head, she put her worn moccasins back on and sat, watching the shadows on the canyon wall. Her stomach growled. Again, she drank. Again, she slept.

When the canyon walls were gray with morning light, Two Moons woke and sat up. She picked up a rock and pressed it against her arm as had been her custom every morning for the past few weeks. But this morning she did not cut herself. She was distracted by the birds again, and as the canyon began to glow with morning light, she caught the old pony and ventured to the place just out of sight that seemed to be attracting them.

Expecting to find the carcass of some animal, Two Moons caught her breath when she saw a dead horse and the body of a soldier. At the sight of him, all the evil came back. She crouched down and grasped a huge rock, hesitating long enough to relish what was coming. She would do to him what had been done to her child, and it would help. Revenge always helped. She lifted the rock overhead and ran toward the dead soldier, raising her voice as she did so in an unearthly wail that echoed from the canyon walls and came back to her even as she came down with

Barely, just barely, she missed him. The rock landed with a thud beside the man’s head and she knelt down, trembling with the realization of what she had nearly done to a brother. Even if he was dead, he was Indian. A scout, she realized, and her mouth curled up in derision. One of those who helped the white army locate and kill. She despised him. Still, her mother had taught her healing ways and made her promise never to willfully harm what the great Wakan had created. Two Moons sighed—so she would not dash out his brains. But she would not bury him. Let the birds have him and the white pony that lay nearby, its neck twisted at an odd angle.

She stepped over the dead Indian and hurried to the horse. Working quickly, she removed the blanket and the bags tied behind the saddle. She could not get the one that was beneath the animal out from under him. But she opened the one that was available to her and grunted when she found nothing of value, only some kind of book, its pages stained with bits of pale blue dried flowers tucked inside. Two Moons put the book back inside the bag, more of an object of curiosity than of value. She finally managed to drag the other bag from beneath the horse. She removed the bridle and every other piece of equipment that might be of use. There was a water holder and a gun and bullets, although she wasn’t certain how to load the gun. Still, she lay these things in the blanket and made a bundle to tie on her pony’s back.

She was just getting ready to continue her journey toward winter camp when she thought she heard something. Her heart racing, she backed against the canyon wall, expecting at any moment to see a column of soldiers coming toward her. But the sound had been too slight to warn of coming soldiers. When she heard it again, she frowned and stepped toward the horse.

Things were quiet. She decided to inspect the soldier for anything she could use and began by putting his hat on her own head. Regretting the size of his boots, she decided to take them anyway. When she began to pull and tug on the boot, he groaned. The sound sent her scurrying away in terror. But when he did not move, she told herself she was a fool to be hearing a dead man protest the taking of his boots and she returned to the task. But this time, when she moved the foot, the man yelped with pain. She went to his head, leaned down to his face. His breath was shallow and fast, but he was indeed breathing.

“Who are you?” she said.

He opened his eyes, but there was nothing there but pain.

“I am Two Moons,” she said. “I thought you were dead.” When it appeared he didn’t understand her, she looked him over. There was no blood except for a few clotted scratches. Reaching for the knife in his belt, she cut away the cloth above the boot she had tried to remove, revealing a sight that sickened her—a ghastly wound that would likely kill him. The tip of a bone was sticking up out of a hole in the man’s leg. She would need to get it back inside where it belonged . . . preferably close enough to the other bone that the two could meet and grow together again. But she knew from watching her mother that someone would have to hold him down when she tried that. It would leave an even bigger hole and cause more bleeding, though—he would likely die from the black sickness she had seen spread over a man’s leg in the past.

He coughed and barked out in pain, lifting one hand to his chest. Those bones must be broken, too. Two Moons looked above her. He must have come over the edge up there. She shuddered to think of what else might be wrong inside his broken body. It was no wonder his eyes stared blankly when she asked questions. He might never be able to answer questions. She remembered a brave who had taken a fall on a buffalo hunt and never been the same. Sometimes, he clutched his head and roared with pain. At others, he would wobble through the village laughing at nothing. No one knew how to help him. One night, he disappeared without a trace.

A noise brought Two Moons back to the present. The man raised a trembling hand to his forehead. The effort made tiny beads of sweat break out on his skin. He grimaced and whispered something. He licked his cracked lips. She went to the river, filled his water bottle, brought it back, and then dribbled the tiniest bit of water into his mouth. He swallowed, opening his mouth like a bird, begging for more. Against her instincts, she gave it but he became sick. Agonizing pain caused by the vomiting made him pass out.

Two Moons was glad. His being unconscious made it easier to clean him up. She opened the collar of his shirt and, using the part of his pant leg she had cut off, bathed him, carrying water back and forth from the river until she had done what she could.

I should let him die,
Two Moons argued with herself. He had been a scout helping the army. A symbol woven into the beaded necklace she’d found when she unbuttoned his shirt indicated he was Dakota. Everyone knew the Dakota were cowards or they would never have let the army drive them out of their lands in the east. Now they were all on some reservation being treated like animals. Word had traveled among the camps years ago of what had happened to those Dakota who helped whites against their own brothers.

This Dakota was beautiful, though, and not old. The thin gold ring on his small finger signified that he was married. Two Moons wondered if he had children. It was the thought of children that finally decided her course of action. Enough children had lost their fathers. She fingered the scars along her arms while she thought. Maybe what she had heard about the Dakota wasn’t true of them all. Certainly people thought things about her people that were wrong. And her mother had made her promise to use the healing ways whenever she could. Two Moons looked up at the canyon walls around her. Surely the Great Wakan must think well of this man to have brought her here.

Overhead, the cry of a bird caught her attention. An eagle landed on a precipice and looked down upon them. Presently the great bird soared lower and lower until it came to rest along the river opposite them. It looked at her boldly for a moment before rising again to the blue skies and disappearing.

Yes,
Two Moons thought.
That must be it. The Great Wakan has brought me here and sent the bird as a sign.
Her mother had taught her to use the healing ways to help any who came her way. Even an enemy.

The man opened his eyes.

“I should let you die,” she signed. “You work for the soldiers.”

Whether it was because he was beautiful, or because of the eagle, or because when she said she might let him die there was no sign of fear in his eyes, Two Moons worked the rest of the day fashioning a rickety travois from the crooked trunks of a few straggly trees growing along the river. She used the horse’s bridle and the cinch from the saddle and some other pieces of leather to lash them together. She doubted her ancient mare could pull the injured man very far on the contraption, but she would do what she could. Every mile she managed was a mile closer to winter camp.

She had relished the idea of sending a rock through his skull when she thought him already dead.
Whatever I am
, Two Moons thought,
I will not kill a wounded man. Perhaps this was a test from the Great Wakan,
she thought,
to see if I would still live by the rule of kindness to the helpless that has reigned among the People since the day they were born from Mother Earth.

Yes
, Two Moons thought.
That must be it.
And even if she was wrong and the Great Wakan was not testing her, at the least it appeared that he had provided her with another man. Perhaps this one was actually fleeing the army when the horse fell over the cliff.
If he was fleeing the army, and if he does not die . . . well,
Two Moons thought as she pulled the travois bearing the wounded soldier along the canyon floor,
then we will see.