Blood in the Snow

Late April, 1876

After two days, the raiding party reached the Powder. Here on a small hill covered with cedars, they watched campfires of the whites burning far to the south. Bear Cub counted nine fires, enough to have soldiers along.

Breaking camp early the next morning, they followed the river north. When their bellies ached late in the day, they stopped in the leeward side of a low bluff. Through bare cottonwoods silhouetted against the setting sun, a couple of ponies turned their heads to the familiar odor of campfires. The Sioux rode quietly to the base of the bluff and dismounted. Bear Cub and two other young boys held the ponies while the men climbed to the summit.

Below, a small Crow village spread through trees along the river bank. Two dogs rummaged for food and several small children played near the water's edge. Women stood in the shelter of the trees and the Sioux warriors could hear their laughter on the breeze. An old man sat by a fire, mending arrows. There were no braves in sight, but nine ponies grazed through packed snow north of the camp. The Powder was wide and shallow here. The Crows had camped by a ford, a decision that would cost them dearly.

Two brothers, Little Eagle and Shouts-As-He-Runs, led the war party. Both were veterans of innumerable forays against the Crow, Shoshone and Arapahoe, and their courage was unquestioned. For years the Sioux had been at war with these tribes, slowly forcing them west as the once vast Sioux hunting grounds became the dominion of encroaching whites.

Shouts-As-He-Runs was the first to leave the crest and make his way back to the ponies. Others soon followed, and an animated discussion began. Older braves wanted to skirt the village, surround the small pony herd and head immediately for home. Some of the younger men felt they should at least get to ride through the village, seeing as they had come this far. It was an old argument. Young men needed the opportunity to demonstrate their bravery and daring, to enhance their stature in the tribe. This was, after all, a war party. Older, wiser heads saw only a need to protect and embellish the tribe's resources, especially now that the buffalo herds were thin and pressure on other game was higher than it had ever been. They needed to add to the pony herd, and keep the brash youngsters alive.

Little Eagle proposed a compromise. The party would split in two. One group would ride northwest and begin driving the ponies home, while the other would raid the village. Bear Cub grabbed the reins of his pony and followed Little Eagle and several young braves up the bluff. They stopped just shy of the summit and watched as Shouts-As-He-Runs and four older men rounded up the Crow ponies and headed north. To Bear Cub, it seemed to take a very long time. Blood pounded in his ears like the beat of a war chant, and despite the coolness of the evening, his palms were wet. But excitement masked his fear. All the games of his youth were about to become reality. He was finally going to face the enemy and take his place among the warriors.

Without a sound, Little Eagle kicked his pony into a lope and turned its head toward the village. The younger men fell in behind him. To Bear Cub's right, Two Stones reached for an Army rifle strapped across his back. He was an unmarried brave in his mid-twenties, with a sour disposition and a fiery temper - both traits rare among the Sioux. Two Stones was a veteran of several war parties and had survived skirmishes with both the Crows and the Army, as well as several brushes with settlers on the Holy Road. He was as courageous as he was taciturn, but somewhat unreliable. He followed his own star and paid little heed to the elders. Some of the women whispered that he had been fathered by the white agent in Fort Laramie: if he had, this in no way tempered his hatred of the settlers. He did, however, admire one aspect of the invaders' culture - their optical technology. Around his neck, on a rawhide string, he wore a short brass telescope, which he had recovered from a burning wagon on the Bozeman Trail. This, his rivals said, was the main reason for his prowess as a hunter. Two Stones only laughed. He knew that the glass revealed prey at great distances, but only centuries of habit could reduce those distances to the range of a bow.

On Bear Cub's left, an untried boy of fifteen stared straight ahead and grasped the reins tightly. This was Lark's first engagement, and he was terrified. A gentle soul by nature, he feared bringing harm to others more than he worried about his own hide. He and Bear Cub had grown up together, but Lark had never shared his friend's thirst for glory. Lark lived with his grandmother, a woman skilled in ancient remedies and the lore of her tribe. His parents had both succumbed to diseases brought west by whites - soldiers from Fort Dodge, or perhaps river traders plying their wares out of St. Louis. His grandmother's medicine had failed her own daughter, but after a lifetime of service she was still held in high regard by the elders.

Little Eagle spurred his pony to a gallop. The other braves spread out behind him, each vying for the lead. Though they were still well shy of the village, some of the younger men showed their lack of experience and began to yell. The din of thundering hooves and ear-splitting battle cries carried ahead of them to the closest lodges. Flaps were brushed aside and people began to appear throughout the village. As expected, they were mostly women, children and old men.

Bear Cub and Lark rode on the edge of the charge, with Lark to the outside. They were moving so fast that the ponies beneath them seemed to flow across the prairie. For them, the sound of hooves was muted, their cries whipped away by the wind. Ahead, a large teepee loomed up right on the edge of the stream. The boys began to veer away from it when the flap opened and several Crow warriors appeared. One had a rifle, an Army issue Colt. Even as he understood the danger, Bear Cub knew there were nine enemies before him. There had been nine horses grazing in the snow north of the village.

Lark reacted quickly, dragging his pony's head to the left and entering the stream at a gallop. He swung around the teepee and regained the bank beyond it, climbing up behind the enemy braves and out of their line of sight. Bear Cub felt the power of the bullet when it hit, but there was no pain. The club in his left hand was made of willow, with a large round rock tied into a fork at the top, bound by rawhide. Swinging the club, he rode straight at the man with the gun, who was trying to reload. At the last second Bear Cub pulled to the right, exposing his target. Just like the ears of maize he had practiced on, he brought the rock crashing down on the man's head. There was a soft, crushing sound - not the harsh crack he was used to when the club hit a tree trunk - and the warrior dropped to his knees. One of the Crows screamed and grabbed for the pony, but Bear Cub was moving too fast. He cleared the teepee and almost collided with Lark on the other side. They both kicked their mounts to a full gallop and made a wide arc around the village. They crossed the Powder at the ford, both praying that their ponies wouldn't lose footing at this speed on the rocky riverbed.

As he rode, Bear Cub knew that something was wrong.

They passed the spot where the Crow ponies had been grazing and followed tracks in the snow that brought them north along the edge of the stream. Within minutes, they rejoined the main party. Shouts-As-He-Runs was driving the Crow mounts at an easy lope. He looked over his shoulder as the boys approached, staring at Bear Cub for several seconds. Then his gaze switched to Two Stones and he nodded once in the boys' direction. Two Stones fell in beside Bear Cub, never saying a word. The party continued north along the Powder until the evening faded and a full moon lit their path across the snow. They crossed the Powder at a ford just north of Buffalo Creek and headed straight west, looking for the Tongue. Two Stones watched the ground below their hooves, where every few minutes a red drop fell from Bear Cub's blanket and colored the snow.

They made camp that night some miles shy of the Tongue and once again watched white travelers' fires in the distance. Lark looked at Bear Cub's wound. The bullet had gone clean through his shoulder, missing the bone, but the cold night air and lost blood were taking their toll. Bear Cub was feeling light-headed. Lark wrapped him in several blankets and brought hot soup. He cleaned the wound and wrapped it tightly, to staunch the bleeding. Through the night, he kept a small fire burning close to Bear Cub, and pulled the blankets back over him whenever the young brave kicked them aside in his dreams.

The next morning, Bear Cub had a slight fever and his wound was bleeding again. His head had cleared but he was obviously exhausted and in no condition to ride hard. Shouts-As-He-Runs was eager to get started early, fearing the return of the Crow warriors from their hunt. He wanted to build a travois and haul Bear Cub along, but Lark insisted that it would be best to let the boy be. When Shouts-As-He-Runs ignored him, Lark volunteered to stay behind and look after the injured brave. Even this seemed unreasonable to Shouts-As-He-Runs, until Two Stones spoke up. He, too, would stay behind. He would watch for pursuit, keep the boys hidden during the days, and only let them travel under the waning moon.

Lark had always thought of the fierce warrior as almost an enemy. This gift took him by surprise, but he was quick-witted enough to support the notion and Shouts-As-He-Runs was finally persuaded.

By the following evening, Bear Cub was well enough to travel. His fever was gone and the wound had finally clotted. He was still very tired, so they decided to ride until the moon set and then make camp. There had been no signs of pursuit. Perhaps the melting snow and the crossing of the Powder had made them harder to track, or maybe the main body of Crow men hadn't returned to their village yet and discovered the theft.

On the second night, they came across heavy tracks - hundreds of shod horses riding in formation. Now they had to watch for the Army, too. There had been rumors that Yellow Hair and his cavalry were on the warpath, and that his troops had split up and were roaming the prairie in search of the people. Two Stones didn't believe it. Yellow Hair would never divide his force in Sioux country. After a decade on the plains, he knew better. It was also said that the young general often left his command and, accompanied only by his dogs, rode vast distances across the land looking for game. While Two Stones knew that Crazy Horse had similar habits, he couldn't believe a white man could love this land enough to take such risks. Despite the vastness of the prairies, it was almost impossible to go unnoticed very long out here. Fires could be seen for miles and trails across the delicate grasslands took months, even years to heal. The only safety out here was distance, the vastness itself.

He doubted that the Crows, even if they had a good trail to follow, would bother riding for days upon end just to recover a few ponies. If they had recognized the perpetrators, they might organize a war party later, perhaps when the trees wore yellow and winter began to bite again. Not now, though. Not so soon.

On the sixth night after Shouts-As-He-Runs had left them near the Tongue, they crested a rise and looked down on the fires of their people.

June 25, 1876

It was good to be home.
On a broad, lazy prairie hill, Bear Cub watched as endless miles of grass flowed in the wind. To the south and west, snow covered peaks in the Bighorns caught the morning sun. And below, sparkling as it wandered through the cottonwoods, the Little Big Horn ran between rocks like a child at play. Bear Cub had never seen so many people gathered in one place before. There were Northern and Southern Cheyenne, Brule, Oglala, Hunkpapa - so many Sioux he didn't even recognize the tribes any more. Some three thousand of the people had come together here, spread for miles along the river in a gathering that was reminiscent of earlier ones each spring and fall, in the shadow of Bear Butte. But the Pa Sapa gatherings were just family affairs. This was a meeting of the nations.

Ten years ago, Red Cloud of the Oglala Sioux had taken to the warpath in an effort to stop whites traveling the Bozeman Trail. For three summers he fought the soldiers from Fort Phil Kearney and after this war, the Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull led the people in their defense of the Powder River country. Now scouts had discovered that there were three columns of cavalry in the field and a council had been called to decide what to do. Some wanted to sue for peace, while most of the leaders gathered here were determined to drive the whites from the Powder.

Smoke rose from a thousand camp fires, dawdling upward into the early morning sky. High atop his hill, Bear Cub wondered how far away it could be seen. His shoulder had recovered nicely and he had been rewarded for his courage and strength in fighting the Crows and the injury. With respect came responsibility. He was a lookout, a sentry. The safety of his people was in his hands. He had already gathered enough brush for a warning fire and kindling to light it. Sioux and Cheyenne riders were chasing in and out of the camp, bearing news of the approach of Yellow Hair and his columns. The cavalry was being led here by Crow scouts and because of that, the council knew exactly where the general was and what he would do. They knew how the Crows fought. Bear Cub's task was to watch for other enemies, in blue suits or blankets, who might have skirted the camp with the intention of approaching from an unexpected direction.

As the sun moved directly overhead and the heat of the day wore on him, Bear Cub stared south. Dust was being raised by a large party of horsemen. He struggled to see through the heat haze and the rippling air, not knowing if the riders were friend or foe. On the hill to his east, Lark sat up abruptly, his eyes glued to the south. And then, riding down the valley between the hills, Bear Cub saw to his relief that Two Stones and a small party of warriors were rushing toward his position. On a rawhide string around his neck, Two Stones wore his looking glass.

The riders were cavalry, Major Reno's command. Custer had split his army into four groups - an artillery train to the rear, Reno to the south, and Captain Fred Benteen to Reno's west, to create a left flank. Both Reno and Benteen commanded three troups of cavalry apiece. Custer himself, with five troops, had swung around to the north behind Bear Cub, out of sight of the bluffs. Crazy Horse knew exactly where Custer and Benteen were, but Reno was a surprise. However, the veteran major did a very strange thing now, right before Bear Cub's eyes. With a long, level open field in front of him and orders to charge the camp, Reno ordered his troops to dismount and fire on the people from a great distance - almost out of range.

Two Stones watched in disbelief through his looking glass, then smiled at Bear Cub, jumped on his pony and headed back down into the camp at a full gallop. The others followed and once again, Bear Cub was alone. Some minutes later, he turned at a small sound and discovered Lark behind him. The two friends lay in the grass, watching the cavalry troops in the distance being driven back along the river. To their right, they could see Crazy Horse approach the defenders, speak with several of them, and then turn his horse's head north and kick it into a gallop. Their eyes followed him until he disappeared from sight behind a bluff.

Within minutes, the sounds of a great battle could be heard. The two boys were too far away to see what was happening, but the cavalry never entered the camp, so they assumed that the people were holding their own against the blue coats. Sometime later, as the sun began to drop into the prairie north of the Bighorns, the noise of battle subsided. Below them, the camp was filling with warriors, each one looking for his family. Unknown to the boys, the battle had devolved into a series of skirmishes washing over the plains for miles around. Custer had retreated up a bluff to their north, where he and several hundred of his men were fighting overwhelming odds. The soldiers had been scattered.

Bear Cub and Lark ran down the hill, following the path Two Stones had taken earlier in the afternoon. From what they had seen, they sensed that their people had won the day. Laughing in sheer joy as they dodged around the sage in the draw, the boys knew that, for a while at least, the whites would retreat.

A large boulder blocked the end of the draw and they split up to skirt it, Lark taking the easier path on the left while Bear Cub climbed to the right. The soldier behind the rock was wounded. The right leg of his uniform trousers was covered in blood. Another patch covered his stomach, and it was this which had driven him to hide in the draw. He had lost his rifle and stood now in the shadow, armed only with a short knife. He heard someone coming and, in panic and pain, he slashed viscously at Bear Cub as the boy dropped to the ground beside him. The blade grazed the boy's chest and he jumped back just before a second wild lunge would have connected. Now Lark descended quietly from the other side of the boulder. Before him, Bear Cub was flattened against the wall of the draw and the soldier's back was exposed.

Bear Cub's eyes never left the soldier's: he didn't want to alert the enemy to Lark's presence. The soldier, realizing that he faced a boy and not a full-grown Sioux warrior, knew that he had the initiative here. He slowly advanced on Bear Cub, jabbing and slicing with the knife, until he was so close that the next assault could hardly fail. Bear Cub, keeping the soldier's gaze, couldn't really see what Lark was doing. He knew his friend was unarmed. Would he have enough presence of mind to pick up a rock? Or would he try to attack bare-handed?

Lark stood frozen. He had no personal fear for his own safety, but he could not bring himself to attack the man. Every sinew of his being screamed at him to help his friend, but something held him back. He could not strike. His legs shook with emotion and he reached for the boulder to steady himself. Now the soldier knew. Sensing his presence, he turned quickly and drove the knife as far and as fast as he could, plunging it into Lark's belly. He lunged toward the boy, grabbed the knife with both hands and forced it up, up until it locked in the boy's rib cage. He twisted it quickly and withdrew the blade, kicking his enemy violently with his good leg, then turned back to face the second foe.

Bear Cub hadn't moved. He stared in disbelief, a mirror of Lark's incredulity, as his friend looked down at the wound, closed his hands over it, and sank to his knees. The soldier saw his chance. He took one final step toward Bear Cub, raised the knife high and an arrow struck him in the right cheek. Two more followed, then Two Stones was there, falling upon the soldier before Bear Cub's instincts took over. As the warrior and soldier went to the ground, Bear Cub rushed to his friend. Still on his knees, Lark's eyes had lost their light. His dull, glazed glare never saw the ground approach.

Bear Cub tried to catch him.