Heart of the Sandhills Read online

  “I know you are.” He brushed his lips across her forehead before hugging her fiercely. “Let’s walk.”

  They exited the tiny adobe cabin Gen would call home for the next few weeks and headed for the foothills in the distance, walking past a collection of tepees inhabited by friendly Indians called “loafers,” natives who never left their camping places around the fort. Loafers, Gen had learned that day, were looked down upon by the whites as lazy and by their own people as too accepting of white handouts. Making their way toward the river, Daniel and Gen sat down beneath a fringe of low brush in full view of the water.

  “I read from Philippians this morning,” Gen said abruptly. She recited, “For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” She paused. “You wouldn’t think abundance would require learning anything about contentment. But when I was in New York at Leighton Hall, I had to work on it. I wasn’t truly happy, but I felt God wanted me there.” She wrapped her arms around her knees and gazed toward the other side of the river. “Then I got what I wanted and came home to you. It wasn’t the way we expected it to be at the Grants. But I was learning to be content.”

  “Even if we didn’t own the land?” Daniel asked.

  Gen shrugged. “That never mattered to me. We had what we needed.” She swallowed. “And now, I know He is still with us. But—” she sighed and shook her head. “I’m not content.” She hid her face against her knees and talked into her skirt. “I don’t want to be in this place without you.” She raised her head and looked up at her husband.

  He put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her over to rest against him. “I’m sorry, little wife. This isn’t the life I wanted to give you.”

  Gen put her hand over his. “Don’t apologize. You’re doing what God gave you to do. If it means we have to be apart for a while, I should be content and concentrate on the blessings. But I can’t seem to get to that place.” She laughed sadly. “I’m such a hypocrite.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “This morning while you were out with the horses, Mrs. Beaumont came to camp. She said she thought it was wonderful the way I was trusting the Lord.”

  “She seems nice,” Daniel offered.

  “She is.” Gen sighed. “How amazing that God provided a Christian sister for me all the way out here.” After a pause, Gen said, “But, Daniel, she said she admires how well I’m taking your leaving.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Gen shook her head. “The only reason she admires the way I’m handling this is because I’m a very good hypocrite. I manage to hide the crumbling walls inside.”

  “I don’t think being content means you don’t feel anything. Doesn’t that verse say Paul learned it? That means he wasn’t always content, either.”

  They were quiet for a while. Finally, Gen spoke up again. “I won’t believe God is letting this happen without a purpose. I’m thinking there’s something I can only learn by staying behind. But I don’t want to learn it. Not this way.”

  “There is a plan, Blue Eyes. We just can’t see it.”

  “All right. So then the question is, how can this be made good for you and me? If God causes all things to work together for good, then how is this expedition and your going up to Fort Phil Kearney going to work for good?”

  “If we knew that, little wife, we probably wouldn’t have to go through it. We’d be onto the next lesson.”

  “You mean we’d still be back in Minnesota enjoying our little cabin and our friends?”

  Daniel smiled sadly. “Maybe.”

  “Ooh,” Gen balled her hands up into fists and pounded her head. “Why do I have to be so dense? Why does God have to make the lessons so hard?”

  “I love you, little wife.” Daniel pulled her close.

  “I’m a terrible student and a rebellious child. I’m mad at God. And when I tell you all that … that makes you say you love me?”

  He kissed her cheek. “Of course. If you are a terrible student and a rebellious child … and just a little bit angry at God, then it brings us closer together, because I am all of those things and worse.” He grew serious. “I’m not looking forward to going up that river into hostile territory, Blue Eyes.”

  She pushed away from him. “Daniel Two Stars … are you admitting you’re afraid?!”

  He looked down into her eyes. “I am.” When she nestled against him again, he said, “You have been concentrating on a verse about learning to be content. The one I have been thinking about talks about ‘momentary light affliction.’ It talks about how these things are nothing compared to the ‘eternal weight of glory’ we will enjoy someday. Those two phrases keep pounding in my head. But no matter how often I tell myself this is momentary and light …”

  “It doesn’t feel momentary or light at all.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Again, there was silence, until Daniel began to pray. “My Father. We have come out here to help our friend Elliot on his mission for the government. Thank You for giving me this work. But, Father, we are afraid. I don’t want to leave Blue Eyes alone at this fort. I want to be with her forever and always. But I have to go. And when I come back, Father, where will we go then? We don’t know. We can’t return to Minnesota. Must we go to the reservation in Nebraska? When I think about all these things, and about Aaron being a soldier and all the other troubles in our lives, Lord, I am afraid. Blue Eyes says she is not content. And we do not feel that all of this trouble is momentary or light. I don’t know anything to say, Lord, except that we are Your children and we want to do what is right. Show us the way. And when You have shown us, give us the courage to walk it.”

  “You take this.” Daniel pulled the small leather money bag he wore around his neck and put it over her head. “Buy that red calico at the sutler’s store and make a new dress to wear when I come home.” He touched her chin and kissed her lightly before whispering, “Not too many buttons, though.”

  She followed him outside, barely managing to help Edward pack up the camp kitchen while she tried to see everything Daniel did. She watched him as much as possible, trying to memorize him. Once, she caught Captain Willets watching her. He smiled and nodded. It made her blush and feel self-conscious to think he had been watching her watch Daniel.

  Aaron and Elliot joined them for the last breakfast, served just as the sky was blushing pink at dawn. They talked about nothing and everything, filling the air with words just to keep the silence from accenting everyone’s nervousness. When at last the bugle sounded “boots and saddles,” there was a certain amount of relief in the call to duty. Big Amos and Robert gave Gen letters to send down the trail to Santee with the next mail stage. Aaron and Elliot had already posted letters home. They said their good-byes and went to mount up, leaving Daniel and Gen a moment to themselves.

  Daniel’s white stallion bobbed his head up and down and danced sideways.

  “He’s ready to go,” Gen said nervously. She looked up. “I guess you are, too. You don’t have to kiss me … the men are watching.”

  “Are they?” Daniel said, staring down at her. “Good.” He pulled her close and enjoyed a long, slow kiss, ignoring the stallion’s impatient whicker until the animal head-butted them apart.

  “Well,” Gen said breathlessly.

  “Yes,” Daniel said, cupping her face in his hands. “You,” he said, “are the best thing that ever happened to me.” Gen stepped away. When he jumped astride the horse without using the stirrups, she teased him about showing off.

  “If you think that’s showing off, just wait until I get back.” He leaned down to brush his finger along her jawline. “Don’t forget. A red dress.”

  “And not too many buttons,” she answered back.

  “I love you, best beloved,�
�� he said.

  “And I, you.” She smiled up at him, intent on being brave. Almost, she succeeded. Until she caught a glimpse of the tears welling up in his dark eyes. Swallowing hard, she backed away. He urged the white horse forward and joined the men. She bent over and picked up the bundle he’d left behind and stood watching the men file out of the now-deserted camp. As the last horse disappeared in the distance, a white horse came thundering back along the column. Just barely, she saw him stand up in the stirrups and lift his hand. She waved back. In a moment, he wheeled the stallion around and was gone.

  Mrs. Beaumont found her, sitting on the bundle that represented everything she owned in the world and nothing that mattered, sobbing as if her heart would break.

  “Oh my dear, my dear girl,” a voice was saying.

  Gen swiped at her cheeks and stood up. Bending over, she grabbed a strap and hoisted the bundle off the ground. “I’m all right,” she said.

  “Of course you are,” Mrs. Beaumont said. “And I’m the Queen of England. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Will you come to tea?”

  Gen looked up at the woman uncertainly.

  “If it makes any difference,” she said gently, “I felt the same way the first time Dr. Beaumont left me alone at a fort.” She tucked a wisp of gray hair behind her ear.

  “And it gets easier?” Gen said hopefully.

  “No. It never gets easier. Not if you love them.” Mrs. Doc sighed. “But, you learn to bear it.”

  “Without making a public spectacle of yourself?” Gen looked around her, hoping the cluster of women standing by sutler’s had just arrived.

  “Oh, I can’t promise that. But there’s something about a man and wife who love each other that makes an impression on the world, my dear. Too many marriages are built on convenience. Too many are loveless. I like to think God can use those of us who know His love to woo onlookers into the kingdom.” She patted Gen’s arm.

  The women started off together, but when Gen headed toward the parade ground, Mrs. Beaumont stopped. “Are you going somewhere, my dear?”

  “Just to my room. Captain Willets arranged for a room over on laundress row.”

  Mrs. Doctor smiled. “Is that what they told you?”

  Gen frowned. “You mean I don’t have a room?”

  “Why, of course you have a room. Your husband made the arrangements last week. And I am delighted. You shouldn’t be so secretive about yourself, my dear.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about,” Gen said.

  “We have a little school for the native children,” Mrs. Beaumont explained.

  “Yes,” Gen replied. “I knew about that.”

  “Your husband told us about your background. At Miss Bartlett’s in New York?”

  Gen nodded. “But I don’t see what that has to do with—”

  “We need a teacher, Mrs. Two Stars. I can’t keep up. We can’t pay you, but Dr. Beaumont and I would be honored if you’d accept our hospitality for as long as you are here.”

  “Daniel … did this? For me?”

  “Now, now, you’re going to start crying again,” Mrs. Beaumont said. “Let’s get you home,” and she took Gen by the arm and guided her toward the lovely, two-story white frame doctor’s residence. As they walked, she maintained a one-sided conversation on the trials of army life, the goodness of God, and the weather.

  By the end of the week, Gen had settled into a routine.

  By the second week, she had learned Mrs. Beaumont’s life story.

  And by Monday of the third week, Mrs. Beaumont had become Libby, Gen’s good friend and personal prayer warrior.

  Twenty-One

  For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counselors there is safety.

  –Proverbs 24:6

  “Just remember: where you don’t see any Indians, that’s where they’re thickest.”

  Zephyr Picotte packed his pipe with tobacco and lit it before settling back against a tree. Aaron considered his advice, looking from Daniel to the other scouts. When he saw them nod and smile, he, too, nodded. Captain Willets joined their campfire. It was three days since they left Fort Laramie, and other than a long-since-abandoned camp and occasional smoke signals, they had seen no signs of Indians, either hostile or friendly. Each night they pitched three tents; first, a large square one with a flap that created a shaded “porch” for Captain Willets; then two Sibley tents, accommodating seventeen men each; and lastly a small tent for Edward Pope and the scouts. They ate in the open air around their campfires and could set up or take down camp in a matter of minutes.

  By their fourth day in the field, Elliot was beginning to think he was wasting his own time and the U.S. government’s money. Picotte was inclined to disagree, and said so. “Remember what I said the other day. We don’t see ‘em, but you can be sure they see us.” Picotte’s advice proved true the next morning when it was discovered that several horses had been run off, right from beneath the picket guards’ noses.

  They traveled over hills covered with blooming flowers of all colors. Once, after they had crossed a particularly beautiful spot, Daniel dropped back behind the main party just long enough to pull his Bible from his saddlebags and tuck a few blossoms between the pages. She will know I was thinking of her. He paused long enough to appreciate the beauty and to envision a little cabin just up on the hillside. But then he saw smoke signals rising from a bluff in the distance. Slipping the Bible back into his saddlebag, he mounted up and galloped back to the column.

  Each night they camped by crystal-clear streams filled with fish. The men gorged on freshly caught fish and when they tired of fish they hunted, dining on elk, deer, antelope, or jack rabbit. Aaron declared fresh antelope the finest meat on earth and made it his daily goal to acquire a bearskin “for Miss Whitrock’s Christmas gift.” Although they saw bears every day—one so large Aaron mistook it for a buffalo—he did not succeed in taking one down until Big Amos and Robert Lawrence determined to help. The three brought in a fine specimen and Aaron had his bearskin.

  Despairing of any chance to talk to Indians, Elliot decided to make scientific observations and began sketching, trusting Zephyr Picotte to supply the names of plants and wildlife. “I can tell you what the Cheyenne call that,” he said once, when Elliot pointed to a blue wildflower. “But I got no idea beyond that.”

  Six days out of Fort Laramie, the expedition crossed Clear Creek, skirted Lake De Smet, and struck the Bozeman Trail. Soon, they were approaching the plateau where Fort Phil Kearney stood above a broad stretch of fertile, grassy meadows and clear mountain creeks. It was impossible to imagine a more ideal location for a military fort.

  Intended to house one thousand men, the six-hundred by eight-hundred-foot rectangular fort was enclosed by a pine stockade standing eight feet high. Blockhouses with portholes for cannon at diagonal corners were complemented by flaring loopholes at every fourth log along the entire length of the stockade. All the gates were massive and constructed of double planks with substantial bars and locks. Inside this main stockade were an impressive parade ground and the usual complement of log or lumber buildings including hospital and chapel, bakery and laundry, cavalry yard and stables, officers quarters and battery. The commanding officer’s quarters was a two-story building topped by a watchtower. East of the fort proper, a rough palisade of cottonwoods enclosed the mechanics shops and the teamsters’ mess, more stables, the hay yard, and the wood yard. From this stockade, the “water gates” opened, providing access to the nearby Little Piney Creek.

  For natural beauty, Fort Phil Kearney had few equals. To the West rose the Panther Mountains, to the south the Big Horn range, and far to the east, the Black Hills. Only a few hundred yards from the fort rose Pilot Hill, whose conical summit provided a natural watchtower from which the picket guard could signal danger by waving a flag—and, the men heard later, the flag had been waved much too frequently since the Fetterman disaster last December.

  Once the
company had been welcomed inside, Captain Willets met with the post commander who explained, “The plan seems to be to harass us constantly. They run off the stock. They try to entice my men away from the stockade in hopes of cutting them off. It’s all minor, and there haven’t been any serious battles recently, but hardly a day goes by without some engagement or, at the very least, a threat in the form of smoke signals or war whoops from the hills.” He scratched his beard and shook his head. “We’re spread too thin, Captain.” He looked at Elliot. “You write that to Washington, sir. If they expect us to hold the Bozeman trail, they’ve got to send more men. We’re supposed to house a thousand. I’ve fewer than four hundred.”

  The first night, Aaron could not sleep for the chorus of howling wolves outside the stockade. “They come up after the leavins’ in the slaughter yard by Little Piney,” Picotte explained the next morning. “Last year the Injuns caught on to that and came in after sundown under wolfskins.” He pointed up to the wall where a guard was walking toward one of the blockhouses. “Shot a sentry right off that wall before anyone guessed they weren’t all wolves out there.” Picotte paused. “You hear any wolves, Aaron Dane, you listen for the echo. I learned it from Jim Bridger himself. The howl of a real wolf don’t echo in these hills. You hear an echo, you get ready to shoot, ‘cause those wolves got braids and bows under their fur.”

  The commander dashed any hopes Elliot had of traveling still further north to Fort C. F. Smith. “There’s not a Sioux chief in this country interested in talking peace, Captain Leighton.” He looked at Willets. “I’m sorry, Captain, but even if there were some men here foolish enough to head off with you under a white flag, I couldn’t spare them. My main concern right now has to be protecting the woodcutters down on Piney Island. We’ve got to get more wood in if we’re to survive the winter.”

  “May I offer my men to support you?” Willets said.

  “What you ought to do is pack up and take yourselves back down the trail to Fort Laramie.”

  “You said you didn’t have enough men to hold the fort. We aren’t many, but my men are hard fighters.”