18. Ghosts of Garryowen
The rumor about the campfire was that Miles had not intended Sitting Bull be killed but it had happened nonetheless, the fabled Indian Chief who'd presided over Custer's destruction dead two weeks before at Standing Rock. Whether murder by the Sioux Indian police or a lucky 'incident', an impediment to the Army's pacification of the west had been removed. It had not had the anticipated effect.
Throughout the summer of 1890 tensions between the white settlers and Indians had been running high across the new Dakotas, inflamed by a medicine man with a vision. A year before the Paiute shaman named Wovoka had taken to teaching what he called the Ghost Dance not just to his own but many native peoples across the West. Consisting of singing, prayer, dancing, prayer and even more dancing, the ceremony was supposed to rid the continent of whites, restore the buffalo and last in that blizzard of improbabilities raise the Indian dead. Amongst the desperate and starving tribes who had been forced onto reservation land after decades of worthless treaties, the teaching had spread like wildfire. Sitting Bull's death had done little to calm the sentiment.
At the time I was nearly seventeen, freshly joined to the Army and fabled Seventh Cavalry at Fort Riley with barely a hair upon my chin. In my recruitment Sergeant Vessey had accepted my age without question, for I was a strapping young lad with a hard temperament sprouted from a rearing on the plains. Though some of the men with keener eyes and less incentive to fill quotas had raised an eyebrow at my induction, I had nonetheless donned the blue as a Private. Word had come late that fall of this unrest up north, followed by pleas from the Agent at Pine Ridge for immediate Army intervention. As the fire danced and crackled orange before us, we'd been at the Agency for a month...and Wounded Knee Post Office for but a handful of hours.
"So now that Whitside's nabbed Big Foot, how soon you think we'll be heading back to Rushville?" I asked, wondering how these matters resolved themselves for cavalrymen afield. From the scuttlebutt in camp Indian uprisings were seldom short and often ended violently, but the ragged band who'd ridden in last night hadn't seemed to have much fight in them. Unlike some of the other men I wasn't itching for a one...particularly of the Custer variety.
"Not for a spell, and by that lousy journey up from Riley, hopefully never. I'd rather head all the way up over to Rapid City and catch the long train from there than head south again on that Union Pacific claptrap." Sergeant Slate grumbled, glancing to the East and the myriad glimmering lights of the old Chieftain's Miniconjou camp. Unlike me, Slate was no new face to the Cavalry. Sporting a goatee beard, broad mustache and heavy shock of black hair, he seemed to exemplify the Seventh on the frontier, with a stern gaze and rugged build, skin pale as the winter bleached hills we camped along. Holding his stick amid the circling flame until its point glowed, he continued with it held at a cant toward the Indian encampment. "Besides, unless he and his band hand over them weapons in the morrow, there's gonna be a brew. I sure hope they don't have fight in 'em."
"That's always the sticker, ain't it?" One of the Corporals said, a man named Denver. "All fine an good until you ask 'em to hand over the guns. Then it's always a fight."
"How would you figure if some'un asked you to surrender your most valuable property?" Slate responded. "The thing that kept you and your kin alive? They don't hunt for sport, you know...they hunt to feed their families an' with the Buffalo hunted out, that's slim pickings."
"Don't the Agency give them cattle and rations and blankets?" I asked, having myself distributed the latter to the hungry refugees but hours before. Of my own slim slice of beef the fire had almost had its way.
"They do." Slate answered, pulling his own sizzled portion from the crackling blaze. "When we rode them 18 miles up from Nebraska a month ago, you remember that shootin'?" I nodded, hearing again in my mind the eastern gunfire that had so put our squadron on edge. "Injuns killed them cattle just as soon as they got 'em from the government. Didn't have the good sense to let 'em breed an make more meat...just shot 'em dead right there and cut 'em up."
"Maybe they'd starving mouths to feed." I answered, remembering my own hungry winters down south. "Awfully cold here and the Farmer's said its gonna be a hard season." About the fire everyone looked at me and not in a sympathetic way.
Slate took a bite on the blade of his knife. "Could be so. You're DeWitt, ain't you?"
"Yes, Sergeant. I said, uneasy at being called out amongst the troop. "Private DeWitt."
"What is that, German or French?"
"Don't rightly know, Sergeant." I answered, remembering nothing said about the matter by either my father or mother. They'd been hard people, shy on emotion and weathered by the difficult life they'd chosen. "My family been on the Kansas for a couple dozen years, north before that."
"Up here, eh?"
"You mean in the Dakota?" I asked, uncertain as to his intent. A breeze caught the flame, blowing it toward the man.
Slate smirked maliciously as he drew back, rows ivory pristine beneath that bush. "When Vessey inducted you this summer down at Riley, he said you came from a bunch of trappers...folk that worked the Missouri for years until it went empty and stuck you on the farm near Riley. You got kin here?"
My teeth clenched as anger set into my bones. If I were a bettin' man, I'd guess your family tree shelters a teepee or two, doesn't it, son? Vessey had joked. "No, Sir. I do not. Least not no more." I answered sternly. Now as then, there was plenty of chuckling at my expense. Men's faces looked from back from the campfire ring.
"It's the cheekbones, you know...makes a man think. But those blue eyes..." Slate continued. "Makes me wonder whether they was your mother's...or your father's."
As he continued his impeachment of my pedigree a soldier named Berry wandered in from adjacent campfire, either calamity or mischief in his eyes. "Sergeant Slate..." He said breathlessly as two men followed from the windswept darkness. "Corporal Phillips says that some of his boys went off to grab Big Foot out of his tent and show him a lesson."
Slate glanced upward and finished his chunk of charred beef. "That would be highly inadvisable. Were they caught, I doubt Big Foot's bucks would take too kindly to it. Call 'em off."
"Sergeant, they've already set to it." Berry answered nervously. By his reaction to Slate's response, I wondered if he'd in actuality been looking for more conspirators.
"Then get 'em back here pronto." Having finished his meal, Slate rose and brushed his leggings. "And the rest of you, to your watch or tents. Tomorrow's an early rise and there's liable to be trouble, so get what sleep you can."
With the campfire's warmth now uncomfortable I headed back to our tent, careful to avoid the numerous stakes and taut rope lines amid the starless high plains night. The wind caught the tent flap wide as I entered, revealing Del Lamar's tired face quartered amid a tightly drawn bed roll.
"Shut the damned flap, jackass." Del cursed half-consciously as the biting wind found its way inside. Unsteadily my hands gained hold of the tent's fabric and pulled its rope tie shut.
"Sorry, Del." I said quietly, accidentally kicking the butt of his Springfield with the clumsy placement of my boot. Deftly I caught it in hand before it clattered to the ground or, Heaven forbid, went off. I arrayed mine beside it. Finding our mutual lantern hung amid the tent's height with the sweep of my hand, I turned the flame up, seeing in its flicker my breathe heavy in the air.
With Del quiet once more I looked to my own bedding and shed my boots. It was nearly as cold inside the canvas as out, but at least the wind was broke. Undoing my navy overcoat, I found even the still air bracing. Against its sting I hung it and my shirt upon a tent hook, followed by powder blue breeches. Clad only in my flannels and pair of clammy socks, I crawled into the scant warmth of my blankets.
I lay eyes wide then, shivering, before turning the light down to an amicable darkness. Outside the wind sang eerily through the ropes and my edgy ears strained, wondering if it were just the stays or the distant song of dancing braves. My back and muscles ached against the day's riding and labor. The frozen ground did little to ease my pains.
"You best not let 'em get to you, boy." Del mumbled in the resumed dark. "They get their jollies when they rile you."
"Rile me?" I asked after a moment, still brooding over the slight.
"I he'erd 'em talkin' out there. 'Bout you're parentage."
"You think I'm 'n Injun, too?" I huffed.
"No, boy..." Lamar exhaled heavily in the nearby gloom. "But not everyone know Sioux."
"I don't know no Sioux." I responded after a windswept pause.
"Then how you talk to them boys earlier tonight tossin' out them feedbags, eh? Seemed they had a might startled look when you went to yappin'."
Having not realized he'd heard my discourse with Two Branches and his mates, I found myself for a moment at a loss for words. "I just repeated what I heard Wells sayin'."
"Awful good repeatin'." Lamar said and rolled over. I lay there afterward, listening to the wind and remembering my Grandfather's words. He was gone now, passed away near a decade before. Unlike my Father he'd taken a shine to me, and for that I'd loved him as no other. Alone he'd told me my story and that of his father's people, proud that somehow a sliver of them might continue through me. I'd only begun to realize too late that others considered that striking man something lesser...and by association considered me something lesser.
#
Reveille woke us before daybreak, echoing across the frosted grass of the hillocks and ravine that led north to Wounded Knee Creek. Lamar and I were slow to rise, spurred by Slate's call moments later. Following a quick dress, made hastier by the bone chill that permeated that tent, we emerged to muster northeast of our camp about welcome fires. We were still warming ourselves and hoping for breakfast when Slate came by and marshaled us into line.
I'd been thinking he'd have us off for the horses back at the camp, but it was obvious from the Sergeant's orders that wasn't the plan. Growling stomachs now denied, the murmurs of my fellow troops were broken only by the trot of the Lieutenant's passing horse. A bugle called now a second time, this one for the Indians. I gripped my weapon tightly in my hands. Across the encampment men's breath rose steadily into the crisp morning air.
During the night another hundred or so troops had ridden in, rounding our number out to near five hundred, and as the sun rose slowly to the east beneath a bracing blue sky, I could see their number. We were near the Council, a meeting place set up between our camp and the Indians, while mounted troops to the east, south and west blocked any escape for Big Foot's band. Behind us to our right upon an overlooking northwestern hilltop a contingent manned four Hotchkiss repeating cannon, barrels trained ominously upon the Sioux encampment. About a quarter mile west the creek ran south to north, shrouded here and there by clumps of brush and the occasional sad tree.
At the Post Office, Wounded Knee Road took a hard bend south, splitting from its northeastern spur that led on up to Porcupine miles distant. Along that southern trace the Seventh and Sioux had set our camps, just to the east of what the men called the 'Agency Road,' a path that sat in the shadow of the now cannon-dotted hillock. Just south of our encampment where another road joined from the west, Bigfoot's people had set up camp, teepees which still issued smoke. Unlike the rest of the Seventh, which now fenced the shallow valley in dark blue lines, the Indians were slow in rising.
"Here they come." Del muttered beneath his breath, words clouding the air before him. From Big Foot's camp I saw one or two heads at first, then a dozen. Curious at our noise they approached the council site, and as they did so I could see their surly and sullen faces. Wells called out to them to join his party but instead, having now seen the armed ranks arrayed about them, they retired to their camp.
"Where are they going, blast it!?" Forsyth shouted from beside the fires, grey mustache and goatee turned against a great brown fur coat.
Wells looked to him. "Sir, it appears back to their camp."
"Well, tell them to get back here. Tell them that this is not voluntary." Wells shouted as such, yet the Indians continued their retreat. Del and I were looking to one another, as were most of the men in our line. Like me many were hardly more than boys.
After a half hour of ignored orders and pleas, Forsyth finally went to Big Foot's himself. A tent had been pitched near the intended Council between our two camps for the Old' Chief's comfort and treatment, and when he was brought forth, I saw why. He was in dire shape, thin and ill, once red skin pale. I couldn't help but think about the man who'd come to the fire the night before, and if their intended hijinks might have contributed to his sorry state. It was cruel to bring the poor old Chief out like that, but it had the desired effect. Having kept a wary eye upon us, the Sioux men were slowly drawn northward across the road into the Council. Still they paid little attention as Wells spoke, talking amongst themselves, not listening to the purpose of the meet. Seeing little was happening, for a second time many turned to return to the village. Forsyth was having none of it and set his troopers on them.
Down the line I heard the Lieutenant barking something at Slate, who then yelped out commands to bring us forward. Along with K Troop he deployed us just north of westbound road, between the village and the Council, weapons at the ready. Soon it was our turn with the bucks.
They approached with angry eyes, breath misting the cold air. Though we stood in close order with weapons at the ready, a handful of them tried to breach us, one of them Two Branches. As he approached Kellum to my right I shook my head and told him to stay back, that we couldn't let them pass. He turned to look at me then spat. One of his mates came face to face with Lamar, stopped only by Del's hard look. Scuffles ensued as the braves tried to pass.
"I have been ordered by higher authority to secure your arms!" Forsyth shouted in English, Wells faithfully reiterating his words in Lakota. "But I assure you that the government of the United States will deal fairly and kindly with your people!" The bucks, if they'd even paid attention, scorned him.
Speaking as I did their tongue, I could hear the warriors' bitter pronouncements...their heated words. How could they expect them to survive without their hunting rifles? The winter was cold and going to get worse. It was always that same, said Two Branches to the face of a blue-eyed trooper who hadn't a clue as to what he was saying. Take what they want and leave the People with nothing. As he pushed, Kellum blocked his passage with a sideways rifle, and in doing so I noticed Two Branches' apparel. Beneath his heavy blanket he wore an odd shirt, needle worked buckskin that though thin he seemed to have utmost confidence in for his protection. As he talked to his fellows, I realized that they somehow believed that by these shirts they would elude our bullets.
Until then I thought Lamar and I had been lucky, ending up close enough to hear Forsyth and see the action. Big Foot spoke. "Go to the camp and bring weapons for the White's Chief." At his pronouncement the bucks nearest him turned back in astonishment. Soon a handful, obviously against their will, marched back to the encampment with the eyes of their women and children looking on. Minutes later a few broken and worthless guns were brought north from the village.
Forsyth was not pleased.
"Chief Big Foot, you know that this is not the sum of your weapons! I have been ordered by my superiors to disarm your band, and in this matter I have no choice. Tell your braves to fetch the remainder of the firearms in your camp and hand them over. Then we shall be finished!"
Big Foot wheezed against the deep cough emanating from his chest, eyes barely open. "Colonel Forsyth..." He replied. "My people have no more guns. Your bluecoats burned them when we were upon the Cheyenne River a month ago. How can we give you that which we do not have?"
By now Forsyth was livid, for I saw his silver mustache twitching...always a bad sign. He had a right to be...upon Whitside's interception the day before, the Indians had all been seen armed to the teeth. "Major Whitside!" He shouted.
"Sir." With a drawn face and mustache, the cavalry officer turned.
"Have the village searched for serviceable arms! Engage Captains Varnum and Wallace to ensure the detail done!"
Whitside saluted sharply. "Yes, sir! Captain Varnum, Captain Wallace...prepare B and K Troops to move on the Indian camp."
Varnum, my commander, had halted from his patrol of the line just to my right. With a salute he turned to his Lieutenant and Sergeants. "B Troop, prepare to advance in twos into the village and search each teepee and structure for concealed arms. Leave no stone unturned!" Downline Slate repeated the order, and in pairs we moved out on foot, weapons at the carry. The plan was for us to hit the village's northwestern flank and meet Wallace's troops at the center. As we entered the teepees amid hostile eyes, it was obvious that the Indians had expected this search.
Rummaging through several teepees upon the camp flanks with meager results, I eventually noticed a squaw sitting upon the ground with her clothes spread out more than usual. She would not get up when I asked her to stand, instead giving us a hateful stare that both angered me and cut me to the core. Palmer and Rudds had to take the woman by the arms to dislodge her. Now upon her feet but still squirming, her absence enlightened us to two guns that had been secreted beneath canvas. After our find, I caught Palmer's eyes eating into me and realized I'd spoken to the woman without thinking...again in Sioux.
Underneath nearly every squaw and child afterward we found some sort of weapon, but I was preoccupied. Despite my discovery, my own people had taken to looking at me like I was some enemy and continued to do so. Wasn't I wearing the same coat as they? Despite our discovery the number of knives, war clubs and guns taken from the village still was less than expected.
After our reassembly at the Council circle, Colonel Forsyth looked at the still meager findings. "Chief Big Foot...we can all see here that you have not been telling the truth, and as we all saw yesterday upon your arrival your braves were all well-armed! You must comply with the orders of the United States government to surrender your arms completely!"
"Colonel Forsyth..." Big Foot coughed. "I have told you we have few arms. They were taken from us and destroyed upon the Cheyenne."
Having given the old man the benefit of the doubt earlier, Forsyth was doing so no more. By now every place had been searched except the persons of the bucks. "Major Whiside, take B and K to form a cordon between here and the village!"
Whitside turned, commanded Varnum and Wallace to move us. Slate turned. "C'mon boys, let's light a fire!" Soon we were in position as Forsyth commanded...between the bucks and their families. It was about half past nine o'clock in the morning, when Forsythe gave the order to have the Indians return to their village by passing through us. Tensions had been rising…tempers flaring. The Medicine Man of their band near Forsyth had embarked upon an almost continuous song as we'd moved into cordon. Now, however, his tone changed. With the search imminent he'd begun to incite his fellows, declaring to them that he'd lived long enough, meaning in the Sioux that he would fight until he died.
Turning to the young warriors who were squatted together, he shouted, "Do not fear! Let your hearts be strong! Many soldiers are about us and have many bullets, but I am assured their bullets cannot penetrate us! The prairie is large, and their bullets will fly over the prairies and will not come toward us. If they do come toward us, they will float away...like dust in the air!"
He'd spoken in Sioux, so it was to most of the Army men it was gibberish, but beside an uneasy Forsyth, Wells apparently had caught the gist...and the danger. "He's trying to get them to fight!" He said with some concern to the Colonel, whose normally unflappable expression for a moment turned dire.
"Well, tell him to sit and be silent, and do it now!" Forsyth commanded.
To my right Del had grown nervous. "Watch out." I whispered. "There's gonna be a problem here."
"What is it?" Del asked, eyeing both me and the fantastically painted medicine man in equally dubious fashion.
"Feathers over there is tellin' em to fight." By then the medicine man had finally completed his circle and sat, though with venomous eyes. A Catholic priest from the agency, whose name I'd not heard, had also understood the man's words. Going between the Indians, he tried again and again to calm them, to dispense with the fury rising in their hearts.
"Wells..." Forsyth commanded.
"Sir?" The interpreter asked.
"Have the Indians return to their huts through our lines."
"Yes, Sir." He wheeled about and shouted in Sioux. "You are to move to your homes now. You will be searched!"
Half a dozen of the older Indians passed reluctantly through our gauntlet first and we began to pat them down, searching beneath their blankets. Down the line I heard Slate exclaim, 'There goes an Indian with a gun under his blanket!'
With a stern face Forsyth spun. "Well, then disarm the bastard!"
As two troopers wrestled him for the weapon, the kid shouted in Lakota that 'he'd paid a lot for it and wasn't about to hand it over!'
Whether Wells told Forsyth that detail, I don't know, for things got fast and furious then. In frustration, Whitside shouted to Wells, 'Tell the Indians it is necessary that they be searched one at a time!'
My eyes had been upon Feathers, who reached down to the ground and shouted, "Ha Ha!" with a cast of dust into the air. All at once five or six young bucks cast off their blankets and brandished guns in the air. Captain Varnum, though some distance away, shouted, "Look out! They've broken!" A shot went off into our line. Suddenly orders were being shouted and we were firing point blank into one another.
As I brought my rifle to block the shot of a brave, I saw Feathers come down on the interpreter with the gleaming point of a sharpened knife. Blood flew as he cut across the Wells' face, leaving him screaming with his nose nearly severed. With the flesh hanging from his face, Wells swung his rifle upward and knocked Feathers back. His gun went off, blowing a hole through Feathers' chest that left laid out stone cold dead upon the ground.
Every buck that had 'em was now firing their rifles without restraint, while the rest tried for the weapon piles or lacking arms broke for the village...which meant us. As I returned fire the armed ones amongst them continued to do the same. Behind me I heard the screams of women and children, victims of their own men's missed shots. Before the general fray I'd notice the squaws and children saddling ponies, hitching their teams and loading considerable stores in their wagons. Now they'd leapt into those wagons and were high tailing it out, taking the old road along the base of the hill on which the artillery was located. I didn't blame them.
With our line encompassed in smoke but unbroken, the remaining bucks seemed to scatter about our flanks, desperate to follow their families. Some that had been unable to reach the old road crossed a deep ravine which was the southern limit of the flat. Slate wheeled us back to the hill. Varnum, marching before us, motioned with saber toward the fleeing braves. "B Troop...stand ready to fire! FIRE!" Freshly reloaded we commenced firing, great clouds of smoke rising from the surviving men alongside me and Wallace's line too. Above on the hill the Hotchkiss guns joined in with lethal effect.
Ahead of us round after round tore into the encampment, into the grounds surrounding it, shrapnel exploding everywhere. Smoke began to rise and screams issue from the pall, the sounds of the dead and dying everywhere. With all the gunfire the camp and area of the broken council was awash with smoke and dust, making it hard to see anything but darting shadows. Looking to my side, I was shocked to sight Del clutching at his neck upon the ground, throat shot.
As the line continued to unload upon the fleeing Sioux, I dove to the cold, hard ground and his aid...but it was clear even then there was nothing to be done. He clutched at my collar, glaring at me, steam rising off the roil of life spurting from his jugular. Amid the roar of the cannons above he stilled, eyes grown glassy beneath the azure firmament. I'd never seen a man die before.
He wouldn't be my last.
For the next five minutes the gunfire continued around me, and though I was there I was not. All the while the rest of our men and the other troops had dismounted and were sharpshooting the last of the fleeing bucks. Finally, I got my wits about me and began looking for payback. Perhaps a hundred feet away I saw Forsyth now, down at Wells' side, pointing with his pistol towards an area of heavy brush down the ravine and ordering C, D, G to give pursuit. "Kill the men and capture the women and children!" He shouted. Eagerly his commanders complied, and they set off in a gallop.
"Mother of Jesus." Slate said as he emerged from the smoke looking at me and gathering the survivors of our troop about him. He stopped to look at Del Lamar's cooling corpse, eyes pausing ever too long. Finally after what seemed an hour, he spoke. "All right men, we've got orders. We are to move out and reconnoiter the Indian encampment for survivors." A gunshot went off from the murky smoke in that direction, drawing our eyes. More came from the distance. "K's Captain Wallace is dead. This is a grim spot and I want you to understand...no men are to be left alive. Colonel Forsyth's orders. Am I understood!?" We all nodded and began to march in line towards the smoke bound village.
With Del murdered I was in no mood for doing anything but, and as we crossed the remains of our former line we found our men's bodies...men like Del I'd known, my fury only rose. Not only had we been attacked, but I'd frozen in the middle of it all...something I could not forgive myself for. Palmer was beside me now, and it was clear in that unspoken language of soldiers neither of us were looking for anything other than evening the scales.
Teepees began to pass to our left and right as we marched. Amid the thick waft of burnt powder I heard a wailing, the four of us stopped before one of the few standing teepees. I circled its perimeter while the others went round the other way, the four of us converging before its entrance. Before us on the ground, body half outside of the tent flap, was an old man. A dead old man sprawled face first, his body still steaming. He'd been shot bad, and blood was still oozing from his mouth.
Palmer gritted his teeth...parted the flaps to the cries of two women and a child, all bloody, their clothes and bodies shredded most likely by the now stilled Hotchkiss fire. Somehow, they were still alive. For one woman and the baby it was apparent they wouldn't be much longer. The woman, though, the one who'd been wounded and was wailing upon the buffalo skins, looked up at me and Palmer, at the other two troopers who'd followed us in.
"You goddammed bitch!" He shouted and struck her with the butt of his rifle, silencing her wails and sprawling her to the ground. Angry as I was, I was shocked, particularly when his Bowie knife came out. "You're gonna pay for what you lyin' kin done!"
"What you looking at, boy?" One of the men said from behind me in a thick German accent, a man I knew as Corporal Shroeder. Brown haired with a thin chin beard and angry gray eyes, he sidled up to me with raised pistol, even as the mortally wounded squaw struggled to shield her stilled papoose from the man's impending retribution. "Why don ya ask 'em if they got more guns? Of if they knew their menfolk were gonna bushwhack us?"
I realized then that all of them were looking at me, every living and dead eye under the roof. I was full of anger and fear and even more…hate. "Time you choose, boy." Palmer said, handing me the knife. "You with them...or us?" As I stood there contemplating the steel's sheen I heard a pained moan to my left, turned to see Palmer's wild glance back at the women. Reluctantly I took the blade in hand. It quivered before me. Palmer looked back, out into the daylight. "Hoff's comin', long with his bearers! It's now or never!"
"Do it!" This other man said, keeping watch at the entrance.
"You 'member what they done to Custer, boy. Now's your chance to show 'em what for." From the side of my face he peered at me, dissecting my very soul. "Or you rather be fornicatin' with 'em staid o' killin' 'em?'" After a moment my eyes turned from his to the metal, spying the dying woman and her sister above its length. I gripped it in hand.
And took a step forward.
#
"What...what did you do?" Elizabeth asked, the softness of her voice breaking the patter of wind upon the windows. Though I didn't realize it I'd been talking for some time. Now the only light coming in was from the handful of nearby house lamps and distant fireworks.
"I killed them. I put the knife to their throats and opened them wide. For one...for her it was a mercy. The kid was dead, and she was peppered with shot. But the other..." Still after all these years the squaw's eyes came to me, like mine improbably blue. Like Elizabeth's. "I killed her...then scalped them both."
"Booker..." She whispered, face aghast.
"You weren't...wrong about me being a monster. None of them, not even poor, dead Del, not Vessey...not since he'd humiliated me had any of them ever truly called me a comrade. It was only after I killed the women and...only after I...burnt their teepees to the ground they took me as one of their own."
"You...burned the..."
"Teepees. That one...others. At first to hide my crime, then as many as I could find whether there were people in 'em or not. We said it was because Big Foot's holdouts were shooting at us but on that one, the first, it to conceal what we'd done. What I'd one. Thing is..." I chuckled morbidly, still looking at my hand. "Palmer just wanted me to knife 'em to show I could. I thought the slit throat and scalping bit up all on my own."
For a moment there was only the wind until a distant explosion rattled the rain dotted windows. "I...don't expect you to understand." I continued, hands clasped, looking at my feet. "And I don't expect you to forgive me."
"They forced you to..." She added in a whisper.
"They forced me to do nothing." I grated through clenched teeth. I closed my eyes. "I killed them same as I shot down their men...worse than I killed their men." Upon my shoulder I felt her touch, Elizabeth's fingertips upon my sleeve. "I begged God to forgive me for years but could never forgive myself. I guess some sins can't be washed away."
Unexpectedly she took me into her arms, cheek next to mine. I opened my eyes, seeing in hers the blue of a chill Dakota morning. She looked down at her hands, hands which I now noticed were scrubbed very clean. I'd noticed her washing them earlier...again and again. "You were so young. Booker...please…."
"Please what?"
"Don't believe that. You mustn't believe that." She whispered. "For my sake."