Free Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 by Terry C. Johnston

Colonel. I’ll be ready to go at first light.”
    â€œNo, Jack. I want you to leave immediately. I’m afraid this can’t wait. Lieutenant Phisterer, fetch me some writing materials quickly.”
    As Carrington turned away he did not notice the look exchanged between his two scouts.
    Twilight had deepened into summer’s darkness, with a host of stars sprinkled overhead by the time the colonel finished the message Jack Stead would carry to the Northern Cheyenne.
    To Black Horse, Greatest of Cheyenne Chiefs: Friend:
    A young Frenchman has come to tell me you want to talk with me. This is good, to talk I would be happy to have you come talk with me and tell me what is in your heart. Come when the sun is overhead in the sky after two sleeps.
    The Great Father in Washington is not alone in wanting peace with his red children. All the soldiers who come with me want peace. I speak for peace above all things.
    I will allow no soldier to steal from the Indians who want peace. I will allow no soldier to kill the Indians who want peace. The white men who march on the road will not steal nor kill the Indians who want peace.
    Be assured when you come to talk with me, no one will harm you. And when you have spoken to me and told me what rests in your heart, you may go and be assured no harm will come to you or the chiefs you bring with you to talk with me. I will tell my chiefs and my soldiers that Black Horse and his warriors are my friends. No harm will come to you.
    Come talk with me when the sun stands in the sky, two sleeps from now.
    A soldier and your friend,
    Henry B. Carrington
    Colonel,
    Eighteenth U.S. Infantry
    Commander, Mountain District
    Shadows quickly swallowed Jack Stead and the French teamster as their army mounts carried them down the side of the plateau, riding north into the night and the land of the hostiles.

Chapter 5
    â€œI see by the stripe on your gray britches and that side-arm you’re packing that you were in the cavalry during the recent rebellion in the south, Mr. Donegan.”
    With his bony cheeks heaving like a blacksmith’s bellows, the Right Reverend David White sucked the flame from a twig into his pipebowl with a succession of loud hisses, waiting for the Irishman to answer.
    â€œNever meant to hide a thing, Reverend.”
    White tossed the twig into the fire. “No offense meant, sir. Just getting to know one another.” Acknowledging the Irishman’s friendly gesture, the reverend smiled at the two others seated round the smoky fire. A gray haze rose from the twigs and was caught in the yellow streamers of sunlight that poured through the cottonwood branches overhead. “Myself, I served with Stephen Watts Kearney down in the Mexican Provinces twenty years ago. I can well understand any man’s reluctance to talk about the recent war, Mr. Donegan. I grew too old far too fast following Kearny across that brick-oven of a desert, chasing greasers and watching good men die for it.”
    â€œNever been a good war, sir.” Donegan tossed down the last of the coffee in his cup. “Only men who put their good lives on the line for someone else’s idea of a cause.”
    â€œWell put, Mr. Donegan.” White leaned back against a saddle. “To my way of thinking, we’re fortunate that we travel as civilians now. None of us here as a part of an army chasing Indians across these trackless wastes. Ex-soldiers all,” he cheered, offering a toast with his coffee cup.
    â€œYou fought in the rebellion, too, Mr. Glover?” Sam Marr gazed through smoky fingers of light at the young photographer.
    Glover bobbed his head of short-cropped wheat-straw hair self-consciously before answering. “Yes. Fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers.” His wide, expressive eyes jumped from man to man as if ready to tell more. Then they hugged the ground, refusing to rise, like small, scared things in search of safe haven.
    â€œThen you saw action at