Edge of the Wilderness

Twenty-four


Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. . . . Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

—Luke 6:36–37

Daniel Two Stars urged his bay gelding out ahead of the squad of Dakota cavalry, tearing across the landscape, closing the distance between himself and the two Indians ahead. He finally came alongside one. While his gelding matched the Indian’s pony stride for stride, Daniel slipped his square-toed boots out of the stirrups. One leap and he and the rider both tumbled to the earth, rolling over and over. The brave got the best of Daniel and leaped up, knife in hand. Daniel spun to one side just as a rifle went off and the brave toppled over.

“Good work, Two Stars,” Captain Willets said, dismounting. He rolled the dead brave over on his back.

“Yanktonais,” Daniel said. “Probably half-breed.”

“How can you tell?” Willets asked.

“Pale skin,” Daniel said. “The beadwork on the moccasins.” He bent over to catch his breath, then rounded up his bay gelding. He was standing beside the dead warrior when Brady Jensen rode up, dragging the body of a second brave behind his horse.

Captain Willets glowered at Jensen. “I said capture them, Private,” Willets snapped, “not treat them like animals.”

Jensen shrugged. “He wanted a fight. I obliged him.” He reached behind him and pulled out a sheaf of papers loosely tied together with a piece of twine. “I’d say these are the ones that killed Fielner.” He handed the bundle to Captain Willets, who leafed through the pages, glancing at the fine drawings of plants and flowers, a half-finished sketch of a prairie chicken. Willets could almost hear the bird’s unique “boom-boom-boom” as it courted the ladies. He shook his head and tucked the notebook in his saddlebags. Darned fool. Talked his way onto the expedition so he could draw plants and flowers. They had found his body early that morning. He must have wandered out of camp alone at dawn, probably to draw the prairie chicken.

“Let’s get them back to camp,” Willets said.

Jensen climbed down and prepared to tie a second rope to his saddle horn.

“Not you,” Willets said abruptly. He waved toward Daniel. “Let Two Stars take them in.”

Jensen shrugged and walked away.

It took a while to round up the Indian ponies. When he finally had them, Daniel tied the two braves’ hands and feet together, then laid them across one of the horse’s backs, secured the bodies to the saddle, and rode off toward camp followed by the rest of the men. If he had known what General Sully would order be done, he would have refused. It took a few moments for him to realize Edward Pope wasn’t just repeating an ugly rumor. “I tell you, Daniel, he’s going to do it. Jensen volunteered.”

Daniel and some of the other scouts strode across the encampment to see for themselves. Unbelievably, it had been done. The two warriors had been beheaded and their heads mounted on high poles. Daniel turned around before he got very close and hurried away, his stomach churning.

The next morning as the troops packed up, Jensen and some of his cronies made it a point to saunter by the scouts’ campfire. “Guess that’ll send a message what they can expect if they keep killin’ whites.”

Daniel pretended not to hear. He and a few of the other scouts exchanged glances and went about their business. They were headed out of camp when Captain Willets rode up. “General says to offer you that renegade’s rifle and horse if you want them.”

“Is it a Spencer?” Daniel asked.

“Nope,” Willets said, looking down, at the rifle. He grinned. “If it was, I’d have to be asking the general to reward the scouts’ commanding officer instead of the scout.” He held the weapon out for Daniel’s inspection. “Looks pretty worn out.”

Daniel cocked the rifle and looked down the barrel. “It’s better than no rifle.” He handed it back to the captain. “Give it to Edward Pope,” he said. “I owe him for some help he gave me at Fort Ridgely.”

Willets nodded. “What about the horse?”

“The gray stallion?” Daniel asked.

“He won’t let anybody get near him this morning. Kicked Jensen in the rear twice.”

Daniel climbed into the saddle. “He just needs someone that speaks his language,” he said and headed toward the herd.



The news that General Sully had beheaded two warriors at the Little Cheyenne spread like a prairie fire through every Dakota camp from the Platte up into Canada. But instead of discouraging further bloodshed, the mutilation only convinced the Santees and Yanktonais to withdraw farther west where they ended up in a vast encampment with several other tribes in the Badlands. From camp, they sent out their own scouting parties to monitor Sully’s plodding march westward through Dakota.

The scouts found old camps, buffalo carcasses, and bones, but no Indians. And yet they knew Indians were all around them. During the day mirrors flashed in the distance as the army’s progress was signaled between bands.

At night, while the soldiers sat around their campfires smoking pipes, rolling chews of tobaccos, reliving the battles they had fought back east, burning arrows in the sky communicated their location.

Finding water was a constant challenge. More than once they marched thirty miles before finding water. Sweat soaked through their uniforms, their tongues swelled, and horses died. Some days they rose at two in the morning and marched until noon, trying to avoid the heat of the day. Once they marched along a river where the grass had been burned for ten miles all around.

One particularly awful day the men rode over a ridge and down into a creek bed only to find a narrow puddle of muddy water frill of tadpoles and lizards. In desperation, Edward Pope jumped off his mule and started digging. He became a hero when, about four feet down, he struck a vein of clear, cold water. The men threw their hats into the air, shouting and singing and making such a racket Brady Jensen, now a lieutenant, came tearing down the hill, shouting angrily, “Do you want to bring the entire Sioux nation down upon us?!”

Daniel looked up at him, laughing, “With all respect, Lieutenant, I assure you the entire Sioux nation knows exactly where we are.” He scooped a hatful of water and poured it over his head, “They don’t want to fight, Lieutenant. They are hoping the Great Father’s soldiers will get tired and go home and leave them in peace.”

“They will discover,” Jensen said harshly, “that the Great Father’s arm is very long when his children have been murdered.”

For all the army’s talk of glory, little happened throughout the weeks of July other than the loss of a few stragglers, picked off by small roving bands of warriors. They moved at a pace so slow the scouts wondered if they would find any Indians at all before winter set in. Several bridges had to be built to get mule trains across creeks. Broken wagon tongues, locked wheels, and the ever present search for water plagued the days, while the nights were one long battle with mosquitoes, oppressive heat, and poisonous snakes.

One night Daniel joined Edward Pope at his campfire. Edward looked up at the starlit sky and said, “You know what I think, Two Stars? I think when God Almighty created the world, He just didn’t have time to come out here, so He just left the original chaos.” He slapped the back of his neck and flicked a dead mosquito away. “I should have stayed at Fort Ridgely.”

Dust enveloped the entire column as they marched. One day they found several scaffolds erected, a warrior buried atop each one. Daniel and the scouts stood quietly, looking down at a circle cut in the ground with five buffalo heads set around it, the noses pointed toward the center.

That night Daniel saw Brady Jensen showing off a medicine bag beautifully worked with an intricate bead design.

“Where’d you get that?” Captain Willets asked sharply. “Don’t tell me you desecrated those burial scaffolds.”

“Now Cap’n,” Jensen said. “That warrior didn’t say a thing when I climbed up and ripped open his buffalo robe.” He snickered and took another swig from a flask being passed around.

“That was holy ground,” Willets snapped. “And I’d better not hear of you doing a fool thing like that again. You can bet the men signaling our progress with those mirrors saw what happened. And you can bet they won’t forget.”

Jensen sobered up a little. Shrugging, he mumbled, “Didn’t mean anything by it. Didn’t think it’d matter.”

“Would it matter if it was your papa’s grave somebody tore open?” Willets asked.

Jensen shrugged. “All right, Cap’n. I get your point.” He tucked the medicine bag inside his shirt.

On the twenty-seventh of July, the troops marched forty-seven miles through the broiling countryside. They stumbled into camp that night, their tongues swollen with thirst, only to be told several thousand Sioux were camped only a few miles away up against Tahakouty Mountain.

“Uncpapas, Sans Arcs, Blackfeet, Minneconjous, Santee, and Yanktonais,” the scouts reported.

“Thicker than fiddlers in hell,” one of the soldiers said.

General Sully would later estimate that his two thousand men engaged more than five thousand Indians in the Battle of Kildeer Mountain. As an old man, Daniel Two Stars would read Sully’s report and laugh. “That proves one thing,” he would say, “two thousand warriors riding out ready to fight look like many more—even to a very brave white man.”

Daniel did his best to stay out of the fight. He had no stomach for chasing women and children into the ravines and the hills, for destroying everything in their camp, for burning tepees and ruining stored food.

The night after the battle, a few Indians crept close enough to camp to let a few arrows find their mark. One of them was Brady Jensen, who was standing up leaning against a wagon when an arrow sliced into his abdomen. The doctor cut it out, but by morning Jensen realized he was going to die. He sent for Daniel.

“I don’t want to meet my Maker with this on my conscience,” he gasped, and held the medicine bag out to Daniel. “I give the arrow that killed me to Edward Pope. I got a sister down in Nebraska Territory. Brownsville. Name Polly. Polly Jensen. Edward said he’d see she gets it.” He shuddered and gasped. Then, his eyes, two black slits in his face, he muttered, “That feller I killed at the fort. Your friend. That wasn’t right. I shouldn’ta done it. It wasn’t a fair fight.” He grasped Daniel’s arm, clutching so hard his filthy nails broke the skin. He swallowed. “Cap’n says you’re a Christian. Reckon you got to forgive me fer what I done.” He died clutching Daniel’s arm.

With the Indians scattered and their camp destroyed, Sully turned his troop and headed back down the Missouri. Daniel and the other few dozen scouts spread out across the frontier. Some went to Crow Creek, hoping to find remnants of their families. Daniel turned east. Crossing the James River, he spent a few weeks at the newly constructed Fort Wadsworth. Ever restless, he moved south toward the other camps scattered north to south along the frontier between Minnesota and Dakota.



Mother Friend and Standing Tall bent low in Marjorie Grant’s huge garden, filling an empty grain sack with greens beans as they moved down row after row of plants. The garden was nearly weedless and had been a great success, thanks to Jeb’s having had time to rig an irrigation system. Up at the house Marjorie sat beneath the shade of her new porch, sewing for all she was worth on a new treadle sewing machine. It was the first one in the area, and had caused quite a stir when Jeb hauled it out from New Ulm. Marjorie was beginning to think she might earn extra money if she offered to sew for the officers’ wives at Fort Ridgely, just up the road.

To the east of the house and up on the ridge near the ruins of Daniel Two Stars’s old house, Ironheart and Jeb had filled Jeb’s wagon half full of corn and just stopped to get a drink of water when a man mounted on a gray stallion trotted up the road from Fort Ridgely.

Daniel Two Stars had come home.