I spent what remained of that night digging into the cutbank with my puny tin cup. It snowed off and on, but the snow melted into miserable Montana gumbo. Most of us were silent, exhausted nearly to the point of derangement, in some cases. Now and then, one of the women would shriek and groan as she thought of a loved one killed in the day’s sharp fighting. Everyone would wail in sympathy, then settle down again to the business of digging.

The dirt from our excavation was packed into the barricade in front of us. Some of the dead horses found a place of honor in the breastworks, after sizeable hunks of them had been removed and added to otherwise empty pots. Deeper and deeper we dug into the cut banks and coulees, working mainly in family groups. Since Hawk and Blue Mountain Woman were of Chief Joseph’s clan, I stayed with these now-familiar faces. Hard to believe there had been a time when I couldn’t tell one Indian from another.

Off and on, the cannon roared, aiming accurately for the rifle pits rather than the individual family camps below them. The troopers and soldiers were well aware by now that the marksmen must be silenced before anything could be done about the well-defended non-combatants.

We stood in muddy water, our feet so cold that we couldn’t feel them. I took turns propping one knee and then the other against the side of the cutbank to get a foot out of the water. This was nearly as tiring as standing in the freezing slush.

One summer we took our children to Seaside, Oregon, not far from the mouth of the mighty Columbia. My older children spent much of the time playing in the sand, building castles with moats and palisades. They enlisted me to dig with them, knowing that I was generally up for any sort of fun with them when I wasn’t in the family way, and bending became a chore.

I didn’t last more than five minutes. The simple act of digging nauseated me as it brought back terrible memories. If my children read this some day, they will understand why I begged off digging in perfectly wonderful sand on a fine beach.

The day began cloudy and misty, with high winds. None of us had slept, so by the time it was light enough for firing to commence, the women and children had mostly completed their digging and were out of sight of the soldiers who tried once to creep closer to fire upon them. That effort proved reckless, as Nimiipuu sharpshooters, Hawk among them, rained down accurate fire.