Page 1 of At Love’s Command

Prologue

WOUNDED KNEE CREEK, SOUTH DAKOTA

PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION

DECEMBER 29, 1890

According to the Good Book, there was a time for war and a time for peace. Captain Matthew Hanger of the 7th Cavalry prayed this was a time for peace even as he fit his finger to the trigger of his Remington Army revolver and took aim at a Lakota Sioux warrior on the other side of the ravine. Matt was sick of war. Sick of training men only to watch them fall on the battlefield. Sick of politicians proclaiming policy without concern for the men sent to enforce it. Sick of right and wrong blurring into a muddy, indecipherable mess until he no longer knew on which side he stood.

He supposed he should be thankful to still be alive after thirteen years of Indian fighting, but he hadn’t felt alive since the day he found his parents and baby sister murdered by a Comanche war party. He’d been five, too young to fight back yet old enough to have his soul hollowed out like the family farmhouse, scorched from within until only a husk remained.

“You think they’ll surrender their weapons, Cap?” The low voice of Corporal Luke Davenport cut through the cold winter air.

“I pray they do.” Matt’s gaze never wandered from the warrior in his sights. Three companies of dismounted soldiers had entered the Lakota camp and were in the process of surrounding Chief Big Foot’s warriors—a contingent that looked to be about a hundred and twenty men, many wrapped in blankets due to the snowy conditions. Matt’s company, still mounted, had been ordered to the ridge south of the camp to guard against any attempt by the Lakota to escape. “These new Ghost Dancing rituals have the men on edge.”

The words had barely left his tongue when a medicine man started chanting. As the troopers searched the camp for weapons, the Sioux holy man wove among the younger warriors. Chanting. Dancing. Subtle moves at first, almost imperceptible, but he grew bolder, his motions more defined.

Matt clenched his jaw. Exactly what they didn’t need. The Lakota had been docile enough yesterday when Matt’s company had rounded them up near Porcupine Butte. Big Foot had been compliant. But this holy man . . . he was stirring up defiance. Matt could feel it as sure as he could feel the winter wind against his neck.

“Steady, boys,” Matt murmured to the men closest to him, trusting them to pass the message down the line. They were good men, but many were young. Inexperienced.

And nervous.

“Got a verse for me, Preach?” Matt asked.

Corporal Davenport had been with him for nearly a decade. They’d come up through the ranks together. Luke was deadly in hand-to-hand combat—the best swordsman Matt had ever seen—yet Matt had come to rely on him for more than having his back. Luke was a walking repository of Scripture. Always had a verse at the ready. And those verses kept Matt grounded.

If ever there was a time for grounding, it was now.

“‘For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle,’” the corporal murmured, “‘thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.’ Psalm 18:39.”

Matt let the words sink in. He’d heard Luke quote that one before. It was good for putting a military man in a confident frame of mind before charging an enemy, but less than reassuring when one hoped for peaceful compliance. It lent an ominous tension to the knot already twisting in Matt’s gut.

Colonel Forsyth ordered the Lakota to turn over their rifles, his men moving among the warriors and effectively separating them out from the camp where the women and children remained. The older men complied, but the younger braves clung to their blankets as if they had nothing to turn over, their faces stoic masks that brought the hair up on the back of Matt’s neck.

The medicine man kept chanting. Kept weaving among the young warriors. Taunting. Inciting.

Matt sat higher in the saddle. His knees tightened around Phineas. His blood bay gelding’s ears pricked, and his head lowered in readiness. Matt scanned the entire party of Lakota. No visible weapons among them. Yet the troopers searching the camp had only turned up a handful of rifles.

Something was off.

Movement below sharpened Matt’s focus. A Lakota dropped his blanket. Sun glinted off metal. A shot cracked.

Purgatory erupted.

“Charge!”

Matt voiced the shout, then signaled Mark Wallace, his trumpeter, to sound the advance. The bugle called. Horses surged forward. Guns blazed.

More than a dozen troopers in the camp already lay fallen. Twice as many Lakota sprawled unmoving in the snow beside them.

The cavalry’s sentinels and scouts sprinted for the protection of the mounted line. Matt urged Phineas forward, his only thought to protect their men. He laid down cover fire, taking down an armed brave running for the ravine and another who had stopped to take aim at a retreating trooper.

Behind him, the Hotchkiss artillery boomed. The force of the blasts from the four light mountain guns reverberated through Matt’s torso. He leaned low in the saddle, decreasing his target size so as not to fall victim to the crossfire.

Catching a glimpse of a familiar face, Matt steered Phineas to intercept a retreating trooper. Jonah Brooks, a buffalo soldier with the 10th Cavalry, had served with Matt on numerous reconnaissance missions when stealth had been required. He had a talent for making himself invisible and could hit a dime dead-center from five hundred yards. Too valuable an asset to lose in this mess. Plus, he was a friend.

Matt holstered his Remington and yanked his left boot from the stirrup. Slowing Phineas just enough to make a clean snatch, he leaned sideways and offered his arm. “Jonah! Grab hold!”