Pursuit by Dean Urdahl

Author:Dean Urdahl [Urdahl, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dakota Indians, Minnesota, Sioux Uprising, 1862, Dakota Uprising, Dean Urdahl
ISBN: 9780878394814
Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
Published: 2011-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

32

Solomon Foot rode alongside Gabriel Renville at the head of Sibley’s column as they left camp on the morning of July 1. The northwestern sky was still draped in black and dotted with sparkling specks of white light. Behind them the bright hues of morning crept over the eastern horizon.

“It’s a big country, Gabe,” Solomon observed.

“Many places to hide. Many places to look,” Renville replied.

“And your Uncle Joe is leading us on the search.” Foot pointed a few riders ahead where Joseph Brown led the column.

“Gabe, your father, Joe, was a trader. Your mother was a Santee, right?”

“A Sisseton Santee,” Renville corrected.

“And your half-sister is Susan, Joe Brown’s wife, held captive by Little Crow. You didn’t join in the war, but you were livin’ as an Indian. How’d you decide?”

“Most Sisseton and Wahpeton stayed out of the war. I was raised Indian, not white. I stood with Little Paul, Red Iron, and Standing Buffalo. Little Crow brought ruin to our people. When word came to us of the murders at the agency, we knew that the end of our ways was near. It’s because of Little Crow that we’ve lost all we had. He must die for what he’s done. My heart will be full of joy when we find him.”

“Frankly, it’s Pawn I want to get my hands on. He kills without reason.”

“Solomon, they all have reasons. You just don’t understand them or can’t justify them. Some, you might just call murderers, but even they may reason with you by saying that the whites are invaders. If invaders bring their families with them, then all suffer the consequences.”

“You’re right, Gabe. I can’t justify killing women and children.”

“You’re not Dakota, Solomon. Many feel that whites killed Indian children by withholding food when the people were starving. But I won’t justify the killing, either. The war was wrong because of what it’s done to my people, and Little Crow knew what the outcome would be.”

The rising sun lifted the curtain on the vast baked plain before them. Open wagons rolled along the flanks of the column as soldiers stuck their bayonets through thin eight-to ten-inch rounds and slid the dry, skewered discs off their weapons and into the wagons.

Solomon looked back at the fuel gatherers and at the vast splotches of buffalo chips littering the ground everywhere. “I read that there were once sixty million buffalo on the Great Plains.”

Gabriel sighed. “In Minnesota, too, and now there are none to be found there. Soon they will be gone from here, too. White people will kill them or drive them away. We use all of Tatanka,” he added sadly. “Your people kill for sport, leave the carcass to rot.”

The waste of the buffalo, the chips, had become the fuel of the expedition. The scarcity of wood was expected, and the dried leavings of millions of buffalo were scattered all over the plains. Each night the chips provided cook fires for the entire command of soldiers and civilian workers.

A few miles behind the scouts, Sibley rode disconsolately, his shoulders slumping forward in the saddle.

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