A Man Called Sunday Read Free

brings you to our village?”
    Luke wasted no time in warning the old chief that a large column of soldiers was right on his heels. Old Bear assured him that his village was on its way back to the reservation and had no quarrel with the soldiers. “The soldiers think they have found Sittin’ Bull’s village and are plannin’ to attack. I’ll try to stop them, but you must prepare your people to defend themselves in case the soldiers won’t listen to me.” Old Bear was immediately alarmed, and quickly left to return to his village to warn the others. Luke hurried back to his horse. There was little time to tarry.
    Within a mile, he met Reynolds’s forward scouts, led by Frank Grouard with Bill Bogart by his side. “You need to tell the colonel that that ain’t no Sioux camp,” Luke sang out as he approached. “It’s Two Moons’s village—Cheyenne.”
    â€œHe don’t know what the hell he’s talkin’ about,” Bogart said.
    Grouard was not overly concerned one way or the other. “It don’t make no difference,” he said. “It’s too late now, even if the colonel did give a damn. He’s already split the column up to take positions in front and back of the village. He’s gonna fight ’em. Won’t make no difference if they are Cheyenne. They’re sidin’ with the Sioux, anyway.”
    â€œWell, that don’t make a helluva lot of sense,” Luke protested. “These Cheyenne ain’t headin’ toward Sittin’ Bull’s camp. They’re goin’ the other way. Two Moons ain’t lookin’ to fight the soldiers, but if the soldiers attack his village, he sure as hell will—and I expect he’ll figure he ain’t got no choice after that but to join up with Sittin’ Bull if the army ain’t got no better sense than to attack him. So you’re just gonna have that many more Indians to fight.”
    â€œLike I said,” Grouard repeated, “it’s too late to stop it now. We’re gonna end up fightin’ all of ’em, anyway, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho. Hell, they’re all hostiles.” He turned to look at the column of troopers already approaching. “These boys is primed and ready to fight after so many days freezin’ their hind ends off in the saddle.”
    Colonel Reynolds had divided his six companies into three battalions of two companies each. One battalion was sent to take positions on the ridge behind the sleeping village to cut off that avenue of escape. The second battalion was to be held in reserve, while the third was to descend the bluffs and launch the primary attack. This battalion, headed by Captain James Egan and Captain Henry Noyes, made up the column just then arriving at the edge of the bluffs. Luke could see that Grouard was right; there was no chance of stopping the ill-advised attack on the Cheyenne camp. Still, he knew he had to try.
    Leaving Grouard and Bogart, he rode back to meet Captain Egan. The captain was no more prepared to consider Luke’s assessment of the Indian camp than the two scouts had been. He was frank, in fact, to inform Luke that, since this was his first expedition with a full-scale cavalry attack, he would do well to listen to the experienced voices of Grouard and Bogart. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ve found the combined camps of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,” he said, “and now we’ll go about the business of teaching them a lesson.”
    Luke pulled his horse aside to watch as Egan led his company down the icy bluffs. Enraged by the deaf ear given to him by Egan, he felt a heavy sense of guilt for not preventing the attack on Two Moons’s camp, but he realized there was nothing more he could do. As he had predicted, the horses had a difficult time maintaining any sense of purposeful progress as they slipped and slid down the icy gullies