Chapter 16
Things get much worse
We heard the roar of hundreds of snowmobiles long before we could see them. Night had already come on, so all we saw were their headlights bouncing up and down as they hit rough spots in the snow. When they finally pulled into the village they filled almost all the spaces between the houses. Even before the last of the engines was shut off, the sound of women wailing was obvious to all of them, and the men went looking for answers. A few elders came out of the school, as did Marc, and they told the story again and again until all the men learned what had happened here.
The men had their own story, but it was not a good one. They had lain in the snow and under the snow for hours and eventually it had just been too much. Too cold, too wet, too long. They had gotten restless and had risen up from their hiding places when several angry men finally came up the river. While the Sioux tried to get hidden fast, they had not hidden fast enough. They had been spotted. The angry men opened fire. Two hundred rifles had fired in response and three of the men were killed instantly, but the fourth had moved fast enough and been lucky enough to get away. Was he wounded? Probably. But probably not so wounded he couldn’t get back to the other village. A couple men gave chase, but by the time they had their snowmobiles out from under their camouflage and out onto the river, the angry man had a large head start. They chased him for a while, but then gave up.
With three men dead on the ice, that still left twelve back in the village. They would be warned now. There would be no other ambush opportunity. The next fight would take place in the village itself, with all that meant. The ambush group was already pretty upset with how their day had gone. They were even more upset when they learned of the losses back home. Anger was overflowing. It was a good thing Foster was out of sight in the school library. Murder was a real possibility.
A plan was needed and the men gathered to make one, but deMille was absent as he underwent purification, and the elder who had been killed needed mourning. In the end, the consensus was to eat, sleep, send out several scouts, and make a plan in the morning.
Unfortunately, that idea led to disaster. Four men volunteered to be scouts, but they were tired, cold, and unprepared. Two hours down the river the tables were turned on them and all four were killed by ambush. The angry men left their bodies to lie where they fell. It was the next afternoon before another group of volunteer scouts found them. Frozen in the positions they had as they fell, their faces black from frost, it was like coming up on scarecrows, only these scarecrows had been friends. The new group immediately charged toward the village, but once again the angry men were waiting, and once again the scouts were shot down. It would be another day before the entire tragedy was known. When men came back with the first of the bodies, there was frenzy in the village. It took Marc and every elder to hold them back from an immediate attack that most likely would have been one more massacre.
A day passed, somehow without a useless attack, and deMille finished his cleansing. That night there was a gathering in the gym. All were given the chance to speak. The immediate words were for revenge. That was to be expected. Many spoke that way, but revenge is not a strategy, not a plan. But hours passed as men shouted and screamed at what had been done and what should be done, and the elders let them. The shouts gradually eased, and the talk became more practical. There would be no surprising the angry men. There might even be more ambushes waiting. Movement would need to be careful, slow. The angry men had good cover. Sioux losses would be heavy. Good men were going to die killing bad men.
It was at this point that I had my first useful idea. Heat. They were in the school because it was warm, just as we were. What if it was not warm? I was sitting with Marc so he could translate for me, and I mentioned the idea to him. He liked it and immediately stood to speak. But when he was given the chance, he pulled me up by the arm and asked me to present my idea. I had never spoken to the group before, so I was not very comfortable, but I explained my idea. The best way to attack the angry men is to do it outside. We could do that if we cut off their heat. It would mean damaging the furnace or cutting the fuel supply, but without heat, they might leave. If they left, they would be vulnerable.
And that became the plan. The attack would be on the fuel tank. Without heat, there would be substantial damage to the plumbing in the building, but that could be repaired in the spring. Eventually the angry men would be frozen out, and once out, they could be killed.
Our first step was to understand the heating system. All the schools used similar systems and had been built around the same time, so we started by studying the system in our own school. We needed to see where it could be shut off, and how it could be shut off invisibly and permanently. It was the last part that was a challenge. There was a safety value that cut off the fuel oil, but as quickly as we could shut it off, they could turn it right back on. Basically we would have a running gun battle over the value. What we needed was a way to shut it and have it stay shut. We also needed to make sure we didn’t cause any leaks that might start a fire and burn down the school.
We spent two hours on alternatives. Weld it in place? Maybe, but the heat might ignite the fuel in the pipe and explode. Lock it in place? Maybe, but the lock could be cut off. Finally someone brought in a motorcycle wheel lock. It was tempered steel, would take hours to cut, and seemed to be the perfect size to fit over the pipe. Once in place, it could hold the value shut, and anyone who set out to cut the lock would be vulnerable to rifle fire while doing the cutting. It would be suicide. So, we had a plan.
Executing the plan would be far more complicated. First would be the problem of getting to the village, knowing that the angry men were now setting ambushes. The first move was to avoid the river route. The second step was to leave at about 3 am. It was simply too cold to sit out at night, so by traveling before dawn, the hope was to arrive before the angry men had set up any perimeter defenses. It made sense, but of course that was no guarantee the plan would work.
With the basic outlines established, each elder worked with the men of his village on the details, and then the dancing began. I decided I would rather have some sleep, so I walked back to Marc’s house. Marc’s sister and mother were alone in the house. They were in the kitchen packing food for the attack. I sat at the table with them for a short while, but they had little to say as they worked. I wondered if Marc’s sister would talk about shooting the two men, but I wasn’t about to ask her about it. I noticed there were now two rifles standing near the door, but they said nothing and I asked nothing. How do you start a conversation about such a thing? Eventually I wandered off to my couch and dropped off to sleep, confident that the sound of two hundred snowmobiles would wake me in time to join the men.
3 am seemed to happen about five minutes after I dropped off to sleep. But the roar of motors did wake me. By the time I was fully dressed and ready, some of the men had already left. It appeared there would be six or eight groups of men traveling separately rather than one big crowd of us. I saw one group climb up behind the village and head south, while another group went across the river going north. It appeared we would be coming at the angry men from all sides. I just sat astride my snowmobile and waited to follow Marc. He and several elders were the last to emerge from the gym. They climbed aboard snowmobiles and immediately took off with the rest of us – about thirty – following close behind.
3 am is cold and dark. I was shivering in minutes. It was somewhere between thirty and fifty below. I didn’t care to know more exactly than that. I just knew it felt like ice hitting my skin. About the only thing I had exposed beneath my face shield was my mouth, and I kept that closed to keep my tonsils from solidifying.
We traveled at a measured pace, running parallel to the river, maybe two hundred yards to its south. I noticed two riders stayed ahead of the rest of us. They varied their pace, racing ahead several hundred yards, then slowing, ve
ering left for a ways, and then right. They were staying unpredictable was my interpretation. And I guessed they were scouting for ambushes. I didn’t think there was much worry. Anyone who had sat out all night at this temperature would not likely still be alive, besides I could see no place to hide out on the open plain. But, I also have to admit I felt reassured that the scouts were out there.
We arrived sometime between six and seven. It was still dark, but it’s not like we were sneaking up on them. They must have heard us coming for miles. Everyone had switched off the headlights on their snowmobiles so we weren’t obvious targets, but still, it was not too hard to figure out where we were. The last couple hundred yards scared the hell out of me as I awaited a volley coming from the village. I could hear some shooting over the noise of our motors, but it seemed to be directed elsewhere, maybe at another group that had arrived earlier.
We stopped a couple hundred yards out from the village, but left our snowmobiles running to provide noise to mask our movements. I was glad we had kept our distance, but trying to move through the snow was nearly impossible. There was a crust that held a foot initially, but the minute I put my full weight on it, it broke through, dropping me a nearly knee high into the snow. Then I put my next foot through the crust while pulling my last food back out of the snow. It was hard work and I was sweating almost immediately. And of course I was wondering how long it would be before someone started shooting at us. The end result was I was exhausted in the first five minutes and could taste bitter adrenaline in my throat as I gasped for breath and trudged on, quickly falling behind the other men who seemed to have a much better process of stepping through this snow, or maybe they were just in much better shape.
I kept my head down and stumbled toward the village. The shooting increased in other directions, but so far nothing was coming at us. I should have been grateful, but mostly I was worried about my next step and hoping my panting was not making me an obvious target when the shooting did start. Eventually I found a better way to place my feet, and I was able to pick up my pace, which ironically just added to the pain I felt when I walked straight into the wall of a house. I bounced off and landed flat on my ass, much to the amusement of three men who were already standing alongside the building. My head hurt, and so did my pride, but I was ecstatic I had made it.
I thought I might never catch my breath, but eventually I did, by which time all the other men had moved from around the house and were already on to the next house, moving closer and closer to the school, one house at a time. I followed behind, but had barely crossed to the second house when there was the noise of several snowmobiles starting up and a crescendo of rifle fire. Two or three minutes later it was over, and the village was quiet.
We continued forward, hugging the walls of the houses, watching for movement, ready to duck rifle fire. But there was only the sound of our boots squeaking on the cold snow, until lights started going on at the school and men started shouting in Sioux. Someone nearby turned to shout in French, “Hold your fire.” I didn’t have a rifle, but I hoped the shout meant the fighting was over.
Slowly it became clear that, yes, it was over. We gathered at the front of the school, at the cluster of snowmobiles, and at the bodies. Men came from inside the school and reported that two angry men had been killed inside. The building was empty. They had come through a back door and searched. Out front there were six snowmobiles with four bodies mixed in among them. By simple count it was clear other angry men had taken off, maybe days earlier. Six had remained. Two had died in the school; the others had attempted to make a break for it.
Elders sent men to check all the houses to see if anyone was hiding in them. The rest went into the school to see what was left. Wind came in through the windows that had been shot out, and one of the classrooms was especially bad where the two men had bled out, but otherwise the damage was not too bad. The furnace shutdown had not been necessary, so the plumbing had not frozen. Men found cardboard and tape in amongst the art supplies and started closing up the windows. It appeared the building would be useable by the end of the day.
I wandered around the building, basically burning off nervous energy. I saw a few overturned desks, and garbage piled up near waste baskets, but the windows were covered fairly quickly and the furnace provided heat. Eventually I took off my hat and coat and collapsed against a wall in the gym.
There was a fair amount of traffic through the school over the next hour as men looked to see the condition of the building. The bodies were pulled out and I saw some men take cleaning supplies into that classroom. I just sat and watched. I have never felt so tired in my life.
Marc came and spoke with me after a while. The school cook had been found and she was fine. She was in her home and wanted to stay there. Stress had been building for the last several days and she said the men had been hostile to each other and to her, but no one laid a hand on her. Several men had left over the past couple days. She wasn’t sure exactly when. She was just glad it was all over.
By mid-day I could hear snowmobiles fire up and head away from the village. Things were over here, so I imagined men were heading home. I just sat. My snowmobile was out on the plain and I knew I should go out to retrieve it, but I just left it. It felt good to sit.