Free Cry of the Hawk by Terry C. Johnston

arm—ordering his men forward sternly. For a beat of his heart, Crazy Horse admired this soldier who courageously led his men away from the bridge and safety.
    A moment later, as the soldiers turned in their saddles, shouting among themselves with a clanging of hardware and weapons, Hump and Red Cloud gave their own signal. The Oglalla burst from the riverbank, adding their voices to the war songs reverberating from the nearby bluffs.
    Crazy Horse kept his eye on the soldier chief leading his men. Long ago he had learned that the white man fought very differently from a warrior. While Lakota and Shahiyena went into battle as individuals, taking orders from no man once the fighting began—the white soldiers took their commands from one or two of their number, acting in concert.
    The Oglalla warrior was not disappointed this morning. The soldier chief signaled, shouting into the noisy confusion of his own men while the warriors shrieked up and down the riverbanks on both sides of the bridge. Waving with one arm that held a pistol, the soldier struggled with his horse—a tall, beautiful gray animal that pranced, spun, and reared repeatedly.
    It is good, Crazy Horse thought. The soldier’s horse is wide-eyed and frightened, smelling death come so near.
    With no real form to their charge, the soldiers bolted into a gallop, heading up the road, toward the hills and away from the Lakota breaking from riverbank.
    But more Sioux warriors appeared at their front. The horsemen skidded to a ragged halt, then began firing their guns.
    The Lakota swept forward, shouting, “Coup! Coup!” and shooting what few rifles they had, no more than one for every hundred warriors. Most released arrows in a short arc toward the cluster of white soldiers.
    There came a momentary lull in the flight of the arrows as the Lakota surged closer still, more warriors sweeping down the slope on horseback. The soldiers seized that break in the assault, whirling their mounts and surging back toward the bridge in ragtag fashion.
    A soldier grabbed the rein of a warrior who drew close enough, pounding the Lakota in the face with the barrel of his pistol as they struggled, racing along beside one another in a rising dust cloud.
    Lakota warrior, White Bull, drove his pony into the fray, waving a soldier saber captured in a recent battle. With it he took off the top of a white man’s head as they neared the north end of the bridge. The spray of bright crimson in the dawn light drove him blood crazy.
    And for a moment, a gust of wind dissipated the swirling dust, parting the horsemen so Crazy Horse could catch a glimpse of that brave soldier chief who had reached the bridge, just as the Shahiyena came up to swallow the soldiers whole.
    The soldier wavered in the saddle—an arrow fluttering just above his eyes, deeply embedded in his skull.
    He was shouting at the warriors in Lakota—saying he was a friend.
    Like a cold stone, the shrill sound of that voice struck the heart of Crazy Horse. He knew that soldier. Caspar. His friend.
    Already many of the Lakota were drawing back as the soldier hollered at them atop his frightened mount.
    “Go back, Cas-Par! Go back now!”
    “It is our friend—Cas-Par!” hollered an Oglalla.
    “Let him pass! Let the soldier chief onto the bridge!” yelled another.
    Hump and Crazy Horse and several other war chiefs were shouting now, ordering their warriors back once they recognized their friend. Through that widening gauntlet, even as the Shahiyena bore down on the soldiers, the white horsemen began to retreat in panic, clattering across the bridge.
    Seven white men lay dead or dying on the north bank, each one surrounded by a growing knot of enraged Shahiyena warriors, each warrior with blood hot at yesterday’s killing of High-Back Wolf.
    The fighting with the rest of the soldiers grew so close that few of the Shahiyena used the guns they had captured in the southern country. Instead, they were like a pack of water