door. He looked at Simon. “You will see no one, but you will know what to do.”
Simon nodded. When Ironheart had gone, the two men sat talking for a long while.
“If these people were the warriors who had started this whole mess, I wouldn’t give them any quarter,” Elliot said. “I’d be the loudest advocate of the most overwhelming force. But standing by and watching defenseless and innocent people die sickens me.” He stopped abruptly. “One question,” he raised his eyebrows and looked at Simon. “What happens after we get to the Redwood?”
“You and I keep going. All the way home.”
“You mean back to St. Anthony?”
Simon nodded. “If the weather allows it. We’ll get another supply train together and do our best to get back to the reservation as quickly in the spring as possible. We’ll organize a letter-writing campaign to Washington.” He stood up and began to pace back and forth across the tiny room. “I want to see Finley gone. He’s nearly heartless. The idea of Sibley being allowed to take troops away from here is ridiculous.” He pounded his open palm with his fist. “Someone has to get them to listen. Someone.”
Elliot went to Simon and put his hand on his shoulder. “Someone will,” he said resolutely.
Simon looked up at him. “Are you telling me that you are willing to be that someone?”
“Perhaps I am,” Elliot mumbled. He lifted his left arm and slapped his prosthesis. “It is one thing this wouldn’t interfere with. In fact, if I were to don my old uniform, I suspect I could get through a few closed doors in Washington.”
Simon slapped him on the back. “Thanks be to God, Elliot. Thanks be to God.”
“Don’t be too premature on the thankfulness,” Elliot warned. “I haven’t done anything yet. And we still have to keep from getting frozen or killed in the next two weeks.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I am doing this. It’s insane.”
Twenty
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords. . . . He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger.
—Deuteronomy 10:17–19
With the release of the white stallion, something inside Daniel Two Stars had broken free. The same longings were still there deep inside him, and yet when he indulged in a cursory look at the old journal he realized that bitterness had mellowed into regret. Gradually he was able to channel his restless energy into a need to help as many wanderers as he could.
More than a hundred scouts were left in Minnesota to help the army stand against the hostile Sioux on the frontier. While Daniel, Robert, and Big Amos stayed at Fort Ridgely, the rest were sent out to make nearly a dozen separate camps all along the frontier at places like Cheyenne River, Twin Lakes, and Bone Hill, so named because of a three-foot ring of buffalo bones found atop a hill. All through the winter of 1863 and into 1864, these scouts chased hostile Sioux and rounded up peaceful wanderers. By early in 1864, they had killed a few hostiles and collected more than a hundred innocents who were taken to Fort Snelling until arrangements could be made in the spring to transfer them to Crow Creek Reservation.
And so it was that Daniel, Robert, and Big Amos were about to break up their camp on the banks of Lake Hanaska one frozen morning early in 1864 when movement along the snow-dusted horizon caught Daniel’s attention. He did not stand up, but motioned silently to his two friends, who turned around and faced the horizon, squinting to make out what it might be. Before long, Big Amos, whose eyesight was sharper than his friends’, grunted and said under his breath, “Six ponies. Travois.” All three men relaxed. Warriors did not travel with such encumbrances.
Daniel and Big Amos stayed behind to guard the campsite while Robert crept noiselessly across the landscape to learn what he could about the travelers.
While Robert was gone, Daniel and Big Amos rounded up their horses and led them behind a row of evergreen trees.
Robert’s voice was charged with emotion when he came back. “They ran away from Crow Creek,” he said. “I don’t know how they made it this far. They have been surviving on the roots they could dig out of the frozen ground.” He paused, choking back tears. “These are the worst we’ve found so far.”
“How