On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

While speaking upon the subject of horse-meat, let me tell one of the incidents vividly imprinted upon memory. Bubb’s butcher was one of the least poetical men ever met in my journey through life; all he cared for was to know just what animals were to be slaughtered, and presto! the bloody work was done, and a carcass gleamed in the evening air. Many and many a pony had he killed, although he let it be known to a couple of the officers whom he took into his confidence that he had been raised a gentleman, and had never before slaughtered anything but cows and pigs and sheep. One evening, he killed a mare whose daughter and granddaughter were standing by her side, the daughter nursing from the mother and the granddaughter from the daughter. On another occasion he was approached by one of Stanton’s scouts—I really have not preserved his name, but it was the dark Mexican who several weeks after killed, and was killed by, Carey, his best friend. After being paid off, they got into some kind of a drunken row in a gambling saloon, in Deadwood, and shot each other to death. Well, this man drew near the butcher and began making complaint that the latter, without sufficient necessity, had cut up a pony which the guide was anxious to save for his own use. The discussion lasted for several minutes and terminated without satisfaction to the scout, who then turned to mount his pony and ride away; no pony was to be seen; he certainly had ridden one down, but it had vanished into vapor; he could see the saddle and bridle upon the ground, but of the animal not a trace; while he had been arguing with the butcher, the assistants of the latter had quickly unsaddled the mount and slaughtered and divided it, and the quarters were then on their way over to one of the battalions. It was a piece of rapid work worthy of the best skill of Chicago, but it confirmed one man in a tendency to profanity and cynicism.

Our maps led us into a very serious error: from them it appeared that the South Fork of Owl Creek was not more than twenty or twenty-five miles from the Belle Fourche, towards which we were trudging so wearily, the rain still beating down without pity. The foot soldiers, eager to make the march which was to end their troubles and lead them to food and rest, were ready for the trail by three on the morning of the 12th of September, and all of them strung out before four. As soon as it was light enough we saw that a portion of the trail had set off towards the east, and Major Upham was sent with one hundred and fifty men from the Fifth Cavalry to find out all about it. It proved to be moving in the direction of Bear Lodge Butte, and the intention evidently was to annoy the settlements in the Hills; one of Upham’s men went off without permission, after antelope, and was killed and cut to pieces by the prowling bands watching the column. The clouds lifted once or twice during the march of the 12th and disclosed the outline of Bear Butte, a great satisfaction to us, as it proved that we were going in the right direction for Deadwood. The country was evenly divided between cactus and grass, in patches of from one to six miles in breadth; the mud was so tenacious that every time foot or hoof touched it there would be a great mass of “gumbo” adhering to render progress distressingly tiresome and slow. Our clothing was in rags of the flimsiest kind, shoes in patches, and the rations captured at the village exhausted. Mules and horses were black to the houghs with the accretions of a passage through slimy ooze which pulled off their shoes.

Crook’s orders to the men in advance were to keep a sharp lookout for anything in the shape of timber, as the column was to halt and bivouac the moment we struck anything that would do to make a fire. On we trudged, mile succeeding mile, and still no sign of the fringe of cottonwood, willow, and elder which we had been taught to believe represented the line of the stream of which we were in search. The rain poured down, clothes dripped with moisture, horses reeled and staggered, and were one by one left to follow or remain as they pleased, while the men, all of whom were dismounted and leading their animals, fell out singly, in couples, in squads, in solid platoons. It was half-past ten o’clock that never-to-be-forgotten night, when the last foot soldier had completed his forty miles, and many did not pretend to do it before the next morning, but lay outside, in rear of the column, on the muddy ground, as insensible to danger and pain as if dead drunk.

We did not reach the Belle Fourche that night, but a tributary called Willow Creek which answered every purpose, as it had an abundance of box-elder, willow, ash, and plum bushes, which before many minutes crackled and sprang skyward in a joyous flame; we piled high the dry wood wherever found, thinking to stimulate comrades who were weary with marching and sleeping without the cheerful consolation of a sparkling camp-fire. There wasn’t a thing to eat in the whole camp but pony-meat, slices of which were sizzling upon the coals, but the poor fellows who did not get in killed their played-out horses and ate the meat raw. If any of my readers imagines that the march from the head of Heart River down to the Belle Fourche was a picnic, let him examine the roster of the command and tell off the scores and scores of men, then hearty and rugged, who now fill premature graves or drag out an existence with constitutions wrecked and enfeebled by such privations and vicissitudes. There may still be people who give credence to the old superstitions about the relative endurance of horses of different colors, and believe that white is the weakest color. For their information I wish to say that the company of cavalry which had the smallest loss of horses during this exhausting march was the white horse troop of the Fifth, commanded by Captain Robert H. Montgomery; I cannot place my fingers upon the note referring to it, but I will state from recollection that not one of them was left behind.

On the 13th we remained in camp until noon to let men have a rest and give stragglers a chance to catch up with the command. Our cook made a most tempting ragout out of some pony-meat, a fragment of antelope liver, a couple of handfuls of wild onions, and the shin-bone of an ox killed by the Sioux or Cheyennes, and which was to us almost as interesting as the fragments of weeds to the sailors of Columbus. This had been simmering all night, and when morning came there was enough of it to supply many of our comrades with a hot platterful. At noon we crossed to the Belle Fourche, six miles to the south, the dangerous approaches of Willow Creek being corduroyed and placed in good order by a party under Lieutenant Charles King, who had been assigned by General Merritt to the work.

The Belle Fourche appealed to our fancies as in every sense deserving of its flattering title: it was not less than one hundred feet wide, three deep, with a good flow of water, and a current of something like four miles an hour. The bottom was clay and sandstone drift, and even if the water was a trifle muddy, it tasted delicious after our late tribulations. Wells dug in the banks afforded even better quality for drinking or cooking. The dark clouds still hung threateningly overhead, but what of that? all eyes were strained in the direction of Deadwood, for word had come from Mills and Bubb that they had been successful, and that we were soon to catch a glimpse of the wagons laden with food for our starving command. A murmur rippled through camp; in a second it had swelled into a roar, and broken into a wild cry, half yell, half cheer. Down the hill-sides as fast as brawny men could drive them ran fifty head of beef cattle, and not more than a mile in the rear wagon sheets marked out the slower-moving train with the supplies of the commissariat.

As if to manifest sympathy with our feelings, the sun unveiled himself, and for one good long hour shone down through scattering clouds—the first fair look we had had at his face for ten dreary days. Since our departure from Furey and the wagon-train, it had rained twenty-two days, most of the storms being of phenomenal severity, and it would need a very strong mind not to cherish the delusion that the elements were in league with the red men to preserve the hunting lands of their fathers from the grasp of the rapacious whites. When the supplies arrived the great aim of every one seemed to be to carry out the old command: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die.” The busy hum of cheerful conversation succeeded to the querulous discontent of the past week, and laughter raised the spirits of the most tired and despondent; we had won the race and saved the Black Hills with their thousands of unprotected citizens, four hundred of whom had been murdered since the summer began. The first preacher venturing out to Deadwood paid the penalty of his rashness with his life, and yielded his scalp to the Cheyennes. It was the most ordinary thing in the world to have it reported that one, or two, or three bodies more were to be found in such and such a gulch; they were buried by people in no desire to remain near the scene of horror, and as the Hills were filling up with restless spirits from all corners of the world, and no one knew his neighbor, it is doubtful if all the murdered ones were ever reported to the proper authorities. When the whites succeeded in killing an Indian, which happened at extremely rare intervals, Deadwood would go crazy with delight; the skull and scalp were paraded and sold at public auction to the highest bidder.

CHAPTER XXII.

TO AND THROUGH THE BLACK HILLS—HOW DEADWOOD LOOKED IN 1876—THE DEADWOOD “ACADEMY OF MUSIC”—THE SECOND WINTER CAMPAIGN—THE NAMES OF THE INDIAN SCOUTS—WIPING OUT THE CHEYENNE VILLAGE—LIEUTENANT MCKINNEY KILLED—FOURTEEN CHEYENNE BABIES FROZEN TO DEATH IN THEIR MOTHERS’ ARMS—THE CUSTER MASSACRE AGAIN—THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF RANDALL AND THE CROW SCOUTS.

The joy of the people in the Hills knew no bounds; the towns of Deadwood, Crook City, Montana, and many others proceeded to celebrate the news of their freedom and safety by all the methods suitable to such a momentous occasion in a frontier civilization: there was much in the way of bonfires, the firing of salutes from anvils, cheering, mass-meetings, alleged music, and no small portion of hard drinking. By resolution of the Deadwood Council, a committee, consisting of the first mayor, Farnum, and councilmen Kurtz, Dawson, and Philbrick, was sent out to meet General Crook and extend to him and his officers the freedom of the city; in the same carriage with them came Mr. Wilbur Hugus, who had assisted me in burying Captain Philip Dwyer at Camp Date Creek, Arizona, four years previously. The welcome extended these representatives was none the less cordial because they had brought along with them a most acceptable present of butter, eggs, and vegetables raised in the Hills. Despatches were also received from General Sheridan, informing Crook that the understanding was that the hostiles were going to slip into the agencies, leaving out in the Big Horn country “Crazy Horse” and “Sitting Bull,” with their bands, until the next spring. To prevent a recurrence of the campaign the next year, Sheridan was determined to disarm and dismount all the new arrivals, and for that purpose had stationed a strong force at each agency, but he wished Crook to move in with his command to “Red Cloud” and “Spotted Tail” and superintend the work there instead of remaining in the Hills as Crook wished to do, and continue the campaign from there with some of the towns, either Deadwood or Custer City, as might be found best adapted to the purpose, as a base. Congress had authorized the enlistment of four hundred additional Indian scouts, and had also appropriated a liberal sum for the construction of the posts on the Yellowstone. Crook was to turn over the command to Merritt, and proceed in person, as rapidly as possible, to confer with Sheridan, who was awaiting him at Fort Laramie, with a view to designating the force to occupy the site of old Fort Reno during the winter.