WORK IN PROGRESS: Isaiah Dorman

 Chapter One

Southern Montana

June 24, 1876

4:15 a.m.

The half-dozen men lie sprawled on the ground in the relaxed posture peculiar to the dead. Only the twitch of a leg, a trembling hand, an abrupt gasp ending in a troubled sigh reveal they are only sleeping. A curl of smoke rises from the remains of a campfire.

A few paces away, their picketed ponies stand in the semi-darkness as the sky glows bronze ahead of the not-yet-risen sun. The nervous pawing of a hoof against the hard earth, the sudden shake of a head indicate they have caught the contagion of unease from their riders.

On the edge of the group, a short, weather-scarred man, Mitch Bouyer, sits in the dust, a rifle cradled in his lap, his clothes a disquieting mix of plains tribe, mountain man and cavalry trooper. On the other side of the circle of sleeping men stands another, simply Le Forge, dressed in similar fashion, distilled by hard life to little more than muscle and bone, burned to the color of the earth by years in the sun.

Bouyer, LeForge—their surnames suggest descent from the French trappers who roamed this land decades earlier, often marrying into the Crow, the Shoshone, the Arapaho or the Lakota bands of Hunkpapa, Oglala, Sans Arc, known to whites, along with their Dakota brethren to the east, as the Sioux.

Both men gaze out over the dry rolling hills that stretch to the horizon, gray in the early light, the land as silent as the day before Creation but for the wind that runs ahead of the sun just before dawn, stirring dust devils that roam across the hills like portents. Strange vibrations rise on the currents, beginning like the buzzing of a wasp, rising to the discordant murmuring—somehow like the chants sung by the plains tribes—before descending into a barely audible rustling.

These are the men who lie on the ground:

Billy Gilliland – At eighteen, the youngest in the group, son of a Crow mother and an Irish father.

Lonesome Charley Reynolds – A small, quiet man with wispy blond hair and sad eyes, dressed with odd formality in a white shirt and a frock coat to show he was once a gentleman.

Bloody Knife – A member of the Arikara tribe. Short, barrel-chested, hardened by years of war. Acknowledged leader of this group. Secure in his unmatched knowledge of the world in which he lives.

Stab – Also an Arikara. Tall and powerfully built, distrustful, consumed by a hatred toward the Sioux even stronger than his hatred of the whites, the wasichu, "the fat, greedy ones.”

Curley – A Crow and, like the Arikara, blood enemy of the Sioux. Nearly as young as Billy Gilliland, he is close to Bloody Knife. Uncertain of himself and unsure he belongs.

Isaiah Dorman – In hue, the darkest of them all. A former slave, tall and sinewy, quiet to the point of diffidence. By nature a peaceful, even gentle man, though life has afforded him little opportunity to show these qualities. More than anyone else, this is his story.

His bedroll twisted around him, Isaiah stirs in troubled sleep, groans, gropes unconsciously for the rifle at his side. A fleeting grimace crosses his face. The sigh of the wind brings a trembling to his lips.

In his dream the wind rises, whipping and howling. He struggles blindly in the darkness through the wind and the deep, drifting snow, leading his horse, stamping and near panic. He stumbles, falling into a deep windblown drift. Exhausted, he thrashes against the snow but cannot get to his feet. The snow falls over him like a gathering shroud. The wind rises to a scream.

With a loud cry, Isaiah wakes from his nightmare, sits bolt upright, panting. Blinking in confusion, he looks around him, his breath returning to normal as he slowly pieces together where he is and what he is doing there. When he has, he slumps in despair.

LeForge and Bouyer glance at him incuriously, then return to their watch. This isn’t the first time they have seen him like this.

 The others begin to stir, rolling up their bedrolls, taking some dried meat and fruit from their saddlebags, pouring themselves cold coffee from a pot set on a stone at the edge of the dormant fire.

The grating of the pot against the stone, the creak of a saddle as it’s cinched tight, a boot scuffing the dry earth, all ring with surreal clarity into a silence so profound it fills the ears and then the mind.

A column of dust rises against the horizon, like another dust devil except that it doesn’t quickly fade. It advances steadily, heading toward the men.

One by one, the men stop in their work and look toward the rising cloud of dust.

Bouyer and LeForge edge in the direction of the disturbance, holding their rifles muzzle-down, but each levering a round into the chamber. The others pick up their weapons with a casual manner belied by the tension in their eyes.

The drumming of pounding hooves drifts on the quiet air, the oncoming riders hidden behind a fold in the hills.

The picketed horses raise their heads toward the sound, stamp in nervousness and nicker softly.

Two riders top the rise, advancing quickly, one holding a swallowtail cavalry guidon snapping in the wind.

In their makeshift camp the men shift to a lesser level of unease but they do not relax.

The two troopers, a young lieutenant and an even younger private, slow as they approach the motley group armed men. The lieutenant, in full uniform but for the startling incongruity of a cheap straw hat, reins in his horse and rises in his stirrups, as if he needs a stronger position before addressing the men on the ground.

“General’s compliments,” he says.

A couple of the men snicker.

The lieutenant reddens and puts on a stern voice that elicits further snickering.

“The General orders—” He stops, dropping his authoritative manner. “Why do you men camp way the hell out here and I have to come get you? You should be with the rest of the scouts in camp.”

“Better company here,” Bloody Knife deadpans. “And, tell me, what are you doing riding way the hell out here to bother us?”

Curley laughs.

The lieutenant scowls and tells him to show respect for an officer.

Curley’s swallows his smile and ducks his head.

Bloody Knife tells the lieutenant, “Leave the boy alone.”

“I didn’t . . .” Rattled by the scouts’ insubordination, the lieutenant forgets what he didn’t and tries to recover. “The General orders his scouts to report to his tent at once.”

Rifle in hand, Bloody Knife takes a step toward the lieutenant. “What’s that fool want us for, Mr. Boy Soldier? We looking for General Terry’s column today? That would be smart.”

Aggravated by Bloody Knife’s manner, but aware that the graying scout is one of the General’s favorites precisely because the Arikara’s chronic insubordination amuses him, the officer puts on a theatric frown no more convincing than his stern voice.

“I’m told the General will order you to scout further toward the Greasy Grass. He doesn’t want to wait for General Terry.”

Bloody Knife spits on the ground. “I told that man yesterday . . .” But he knows it’s pointless. He shrugs and turns his back on the two soldiers.

A long silence hangs on the air.

The lieutenant moves his lips, apparently wishing he could think of something that would make this bunch treat him with the respect he has been trained to expect. Unable to muster up any words that might work, he abruptly nods at the private and wheels his horse around. The private gives the scouts a disdainful snort before following the lieutenant off in the direction from which they came.

For a long time, the scouts, silent under the weight of their dread, watch the receding figures.

When the two messengers again become nothing more than a wisp of dust on the horizon, they return to breaking camp.

Lonesome Charley shrugs into his frock coat, puts on his bowler hat and pours the last of the coffee into a tin cup. He stares into it as if reading his future, and doesn’t like what he finds. With a violent swing of his arm, he tosses the coffee away and mounts up, leaving only Billy Gilliland standing alone. Billy looks at the other scouts with a defiant pose that quickly falters. Unable to bear their gaze, he shakes his head and says, more to himself than to anyone present, “Unh-unh. Won’t do it.”

He grabs his reins, but his horse dances away from him, pulling Billy around like a toy.

Lonesome Charley looks at Bloody Knife and grins.

Stab laughs out loud. “He should let the horse ride him!”

With a grunt of frustration, Billy brings his horse under control and mounts up. For a long time he doesn’t move, looking out across the hills. When he touches his heels to the horse’s flanks, he reins it away from the others and without a backward glance slowly begins to ride away.

Stab kicks his horse forward and shouts something in Arikara. When Billy doesn’t respond he taunts the boy in English. “A coward, like all you Rees!” When Billy doesn’t stop, Stab yells, “Your mother whored with wasichu!” No reaction. Stab shouts, “You’re not so good you can’t die with the rest of us!”

When Billy makes no sign he has heard any of it, Stab whips his rifle from its beaded scabbard, levers it, and aims at Billy’s retreating back.

In the same instant that he pulls the trigger, a coup stick strikes the barrel of his rifle and his shot goes wild. Enraged—the coup stick is used as an act of bravado to strike enemies, alive or dead, and its use against him is a grave insult—Stab turns on the man who dared do this to him. He finds Bloody Knife.

“Let the boy go,” he tells Stab.

Trembling with rage, Stab lowers his rifle. When he looks away he sees Isaiah, his revolver drawn aimed at his chest. The Arikara adjusts the scarf he always wears around his neck and laughs to cover his retreat, and says to Isaiah, “You and me, we’ll settle our score. Not yet. Not here. But the day will come.”

Isaiah nods with exquisite politeness. “I’m looking forward to it.”

The band of unhappy warriors rides in the direction of the departed lieutenant, toward the General’s headquarters.

Chapter Two

5:45 a.m.

The scouts ride into the soldiers’ camp, set among cottonwoods near a small stream. The air is thick with breakfast fires. White army tents snake across the ground in untidy lines. Many of the soldiers dress half in uniform, half in civilian clothes, giving them an unsettling air of amateurism. Some appear startlingly young. Others, older, look as tough and weathered as the scouts. A large number wear the same kind of cheap straw hat as the lieutenant who brought the General’s message.

Most of the soldiers stop what they’re doing and watch the scouts ride down the crooked lane formed by the rows of tents. A few of the younger troopers whoop and joke about an Indian attack. Grandly oblivious, disdainful of soldiers who ride in rows and obey orders, the party of scouts ignore them, enjoying the stir they create.

They rein up in front of a large tent flanked by two flags, one dotted with the thirty-seven stars of the republic, the other is the headquarters pennant of the Seventh United States Cavalry.

At the approach of these exotic aliens, a trooper, standing sentry in front of the tent eyes them guardedly and, not comfortable turning his back on these riders, who look eerily like the enemy they’re seeking, leans his head toward the open tent flap and says something to those inside.

A moment later a slim, weather-worn man in buckskins steps out of the tent holding a floppy wide-brimmed hat and followed by two junior officers. The man appears closer to fifty than to his actual thirty-six years, though everything about him—his step, his eyes, his very posture—reveal a dynamism that knows no age. Only the silver oak leaves sewn into the shoulders of his buckskin coat mark George Custer as a soldier, though his commanding air lends him an authority that needs no insignia of rank. His mustache is trim and his fair hair has been cropped near the scalp, partly because of the heat and partly to obscure the fact that this vain man is going bald. Though he holds only the rank of lieutenant colonel, his to men address him as General in honor of his rank during the Civil War.

Despite his legendary hubris and the air of confidence he likes to project, he appears worried and subdued.