Whisper of the Wolf by Terry C. Johnston

Author:Terry C. Johnston [Johnston, Terry C.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Gophers and deer mice.

Sitting Bull had boasted that as long as he had them to eat, he would not return. Yet even he could not escape what had gone on around him last winter.

"For myself, my hand will never shake the hand of an American. But any who would go back to the agencies can go."

He had freed his people to return. Perhaps they would find enough to eat on the reservations. Surely, many argued, it could be no worse than their life had been in the north. No longer would Sitting Bull try to hold them here in the land of the Grandmother.

By the last nibbled moon of April, almost a fourth of his combined camps had headed south, each small band carrying a letter from the Mounted Police that would help should they bump into any roving detachments of the Bear Coat's soldiers.

For those who had suffered through that harsh winter. Major Walsh and his men could do little. The Canadians had ceased throwing away their scraps, even bones with the promise of life-sustaining marrow. The major himself turned his head when a few of his old veterans took to sharing their personal rations among the neediest bands of Sioux. He could not bring himself to punish any man for wanting to help, for seeking to stretch what the queen had put on their table. What the white men brought was not much, yet enough of something to carry to the stinking camps filled with sickness and death, something to put in the kettles of those still alive and not gone south.

Even the Quebecois trader who had himself founded the settlement at Wood Mountain had run out of supplies. With small hope of repayment from the queen's coffers, Jean-Louis Legare had emptied his shelves for Sitting Bull's Sioux through that terrible winter. Many of the Lakotas felt a bond with the trader for it. But as the spring trading season began, Legare had nothing to offer. It did not matter much. The Lakotas did not have much to trade.

"I will be the last to go, I think," Sitting Bull repeated, some of the spirit lost from his words. "The Americans will kill me when I go south, I think. I do not want to die like Crazy Horse. Let me die like a warrior."

Walsh listened respectfully that nineteenth day of May when the great Hunkpapa chief and eight others grumbled of their shrinking hopes. In so undramatic a way. Sitting Bull shocked White Forehead when he finally came around to saying he was ready to end his war with the Americans.

"Will White Forehead talk to the Bear Coat and One Star Terry for my people?" Sitting Bull asked, his hands kneading one another, not accustomed to pleading. "I beg you to see the White Father of the United States. See that the conditions of my surrender will be carried out by faithful men."

Walsh recognized the inner struggle apparent in the great chiefs eyes, knowing how difficult it was for so proud a man to admit so great a need.

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