Winged Arrow's Medicine; Or, The Massacre at Fort Phil Kearney

by Harry Castlemon

"Those people must have wood pretty soon or they will freeze and starve to death," said Reuben. "Are you going out when the time comes?"

"I must. I must make the Indians believe that I am with them heart and soul. But there is one thing about it, Rube: I shall think that every soldier has some medicine about him, and not any of them will fall by my bullets."

"That is the way I shall do also. I really wish that this matter could be settled without a war. But every time we get a reservation fixed out to suit us, you will see some white man that wants some of it. Why can't they go away and let us alone?"

"That is not the white man's way of doing business. He wants to raise cattle, or he wants to dig for gold, or he wants some place to put his family, and the first thing we know he has the whole country. If Red Cloud should fail in his movement, and it looks to me now as though he were going to, it will be all up with us. You and I belong to a doomed race. The Indian will not survive the buffalo, and when he goes it is good-by to us."

"I am afraid that is so," said Reuben, getting upon his feet, "and I cannot find it in my heart to fight those white people either. All we have we owe to them. I remember what hard work I had to write a composition in English. Do you remember it?"

"I believe I do, and with what labor I tried to put my words in English, so that some one would not laugh at me. I shall always remember John Turner for that. He stood by me and helped me whenever I failed, and that is one thing that makes me as good an English scholar as I am to-day."

Reuben had evidently no more to say on the subject. Following an Indian's way, he turned and left John without uttering another word and went into his tepee, while John sat there on the ground occupied with his own thoughts. The hours flew by and yet he sat there without moving, and when at last the streaks of dawn appeared in the East he saw three Indians silently leave their lodges and take their way out over the prairie. These were the lookouts who had been appointed the night before to go and watch the soldiers and see that none of them left the Fort. On the summit of the nearest swell one of them sat down, drew his blanket over his head and the other two kept on out of sight.

"Those poor fellows do not know that every move they make is known here in camp," said Winged Arrow, slowly rising to an upright position. "As long as they stay there inside their stockade, they are all right; but the moment they organize a train to come out and get wood, that will be the last of some of them."

Winged Arrow, as we shall continue to call him, did not forget one practice he had learned among the whites, and that was to wash his hands and face. He always felt better for that, and he could not imagine why the Indians neglected it. This done, a pocket comb which he drew from some receptacle about him was brought into play, and before the Medicine Man appeared at his door, Winged Arrow was ready for anything that was to be done.

One who had seen the Medicine Man as he appeared before Winged Arrow at that moment would have wondered at his claiming that man for his father. Winged Arrow was an ideal Indian. His frank and open face, always destitute of paint, was one which could not be seen without a desire to take two looks at it, and he was tall and as athletic as if he had been to a training school all his life; but the man who opened the door of his tepee and stepped out was exactly his reverse in these respects. He was tall, as the majority of Indians were, but he was bent almost half over, as if he were suffering from that Indian complaint, rheumatism, and his face, that had been daubed with paint the night before, was fearful to look upon. But for all that, he seemed to think a good deal of Winged Arrow, and his commands went far and were studiously obeyed by all the members of the tribe. Giving Winged Arrow his letter as medicine was proof of his popularity with the tribe. A grunt by way of greeting was all that passed between them. The Medicine Man kept on his way, and Winged Arrow went into the tepee to get his breakfast.