The Coming Storm Read Online Free Page A

continued. He felt numb, but not from the cold. His mind refused to accept the horrific sights before him or to listen to the question his heart kept asking: How can I be a part of this?
    The firing seemed endless as the shells ripped through innocent people. Some of the soldiers collapsed the tepees and set them ablaze. Zane was standing in front of the opening of one lodge when a young woman, babe in her arms, emerged. She looked directly into Zane’s face, crying out in her native tongue.
    “Please don’t kill my daughter.” She held the infant up for Zane, as though offering the baby to him.
    He shook his head and fired his rifle into the air as he said, “Get out of here. Go to the river.”
    She looked confused for a moment, so he repeated the order in Blackfoot. She nodded and pulled the infant close before running for her life. Zane tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that he’d saved one woman and her child, but it did little to ease the misery of participating in the worst massacre he’d ever known.
    Zane moved out, stepping over the dead as he went, trying his best to direct women and children toward the river. Baker might well believe they should all be killed, but Zane would rather face a court-martial than commit murder.
    The fighting stopped almost as quickly as it began. With a few of the lodges burning in a bright blaze as evidence of Baker’s hatred, Zane could feel the heat begin to thaw his frozen face. The painful prickling on his cheeks made him only too aware that this was no heinous nightmare. This was real.
    “Round up the strays,” Baker called, as if they were on a cattle drive.
    Zane moved toward the river, knowing that other men might not be as compassionate. Women and children, some looking quite ill, were pressed together in the sheltering banks of the river. Zane approached one group and began conversing with them in Blackfoot. The women seemed surprised but almost grateful.
    “We’re sick,” one woman told him. “The white man gave us sick blankets.” She pulled back her blanket to reveal a poxcovered child. The girl couldn’t have been more than two or three years of age.
    Zane swallowed hard and searched the area until he spotted his commander. “Lieutenant Doane!”
    The man came to Zane, the expression on his face appearing to match the same confusion in Zane’s mind. “What is it, Sergeant?”
    “They’ve got smallpox.” Zane motioned to the woman, who once again revealed her child. Several other Pikuni opened their blankets to reveal they, too, bore the disease.
    Doane swore softly. “Round them up anyway. I’ll go to the major and explain.”
    Zane motioned the women to bring their children and move back to the village. He hated that they were forced to march back past the bodies of their dead loved ones. He hated that they were sick and probably hungry as well. He hated that the obliteration of this people seemed the only sacrifice acceptable to appease the leaders of the army.
    As dozens of survivors gathered at the edge of the camp, soldiers set fire to the tepees that were still standing. Zane noted the body of the old man who’d come out to them shouting the word friend and waving his piece of paper. Stooping down, Zane closed the old man’s eyes and breathed a prayer. Blood from the chief ’s wounds stained Zane’s palm and the cuff of his uniform.
    “What’s he got in his hands?”
    Zane looked up to find Major Baker and Lieutenant Doane standing only a foot away. Taking the paper from the old man’s stiff fingers, Zane glanced at it quickly, then stood. He had no interest in the formalities of greeting his superiors in proper order. Instead he shoved the paper at them.
    “It says he and his people are not to be considered hostile,” Zane relayed evenly. “They are a friend to the whites and are to be treated as such. It’s from our government.”
    Zane didn’t wait for either one to comment. Instead, he stalked away, rage threatening to