Beneath a Wounded Sky

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “What is it?” Mouse Road asked.

  George shrugged. “It is just hard to believe,” he said.

  She put her hands over his eyes. “Remember,” she said, and the vision filled him, as clear as if he was staring at it with open eyes: the paths, the journeys, the choices, the outcomes. The conviction filled his heart, but his mind refused to give in, resisting what felt so true.

  “But the bluecoats,” he muttered. “Allies?”

  He heard his wife’s breath in his ear, heard her smile. “After all the things you have seen, you balk at this?”

  And then he understood: he doubted it could be simply because it hadn’t been; with that thought, it was gone, the doubt gone in a puff of wind like a dandelion’s seed-head.

  The soldiers’ camp was separated from the Iron Shirts’, primarily to keep the whistlers away from the Spanish horses but George knew there were other, uglier reasons, just as the Council had instructed Alejandro’s force to camp downstream from the People. The two cultures were opposite in nearly every way, though no different than the People and the bluecoats might be. Each side thought little of the other, deemed them filthy and backward, judged their people mad or savage or demented or monstrous. George was probably the only person alive who had truly experienced both cultures. The People were not all good; he knew that, just as he knew that the Iron Shirts were not all bad. Reconciling the two cultures would not be a task of years. With either the Iron Shirts or the bluecoats, it would be the work of decades.

  He looked over at the whistler riders. The soldiers complained, joked, laughed, trading jeers and barbs as men will to keep their spirits up after a disappointment. Storm Arriving rode in their midst, shrouded in silence, a man apart. Convincing him would be difficult—George wondered if it was even possible. “Contingencies,” his father used to say, over and over, to George, to his command staff, to whomever would listen. “Plan for what you want, and then plan for what will work.” George knew what he wanted; he just needed to figure out what would work.

  At camp, Storm Arriving set his soldiers about their duties while George made his walker comfortable, taking off the rope and wicker riding gear, and rubbing her down with a rough piece of hide to clean away the dust of their journey. As she was soothed by his ministrations, her calmness fed back to George, an echo of an echo. His mind was emptied of questions as he worked, leaving a blank slate upon which answers could be written. By the time he turned away from his walker to go and find Storm Arriving, contingencies had begun to form.

  Storm Arriving sat on a spread hide, cleaning the disassembled pieces of his rifle. Mouse Road stood nearby, scratching his resting whistler’s spine. She was telling him about Alejandro as George walked up, and of how his Ravens had been unfairly doling out their assistance to the poor.

  Storm Arriving glanced up at George. “You two did not come all this way to complain about the Iron Shirts’ Ravens,” he said as he began to reassemble his weapon.

  “No,” George replied. “We came to tell you about Speaks While Leaving.”

  Storm Arriving’s face went cold, his look dismissive beneath a raised eyebrow.

  “She has shown us her vision.”

  A flicker crossed his features. “Shown?” he said, putting the last pieces of his weapon in place. “You mean she told you of it.”

  “No,” George said. “She showed it to us.”

  He sat down across from his old friend and told him of their experience. Mouse Road joined in the telling, the story spilling out of them. George held nothing back, hoping his zeal would be infectious. He told of his own reluctance, his own doubts, and of the feeling of truth that had filled him whenever he recalled the vision. But as they spoke to him, a fire began to smolder within Storm Arriving, and the more fervor they put into the tale, the more that fire grew. Finally, they stopped, their words petering out, the outburst imminent.

  “The bluecoats,” he said, barely controlled. “After all the visions of the Iron Shirts, after she went across the waters to bring them back here, now she says that they are the true danger, and our hope lies with the bluecoats?”

  “I had the same thoughts,” George said quickly.

  “The spirits only told her part of the tale,” Mouse Road said.

  “You know the visions are sometimes unclear,” George added.

  “Unclear?” he shouted, his hand flashing out to grab George by the shirtfront. “My daughter died because of her vision, and you say it was because it was unclear?” He released George and stood. “How much do we risk, while she searches for clarity? How many will die this time, because she is not clear?”

  George raised his hands, his gaze lowered deferentially. “To survive, we must build an alliance with the vé’hó’e,” he said. “The Iron Shirts are the leverage we need to bring the bluecoats to our side. I know you see that.”

  He glared at George. “I see only a mess, made by her visions. I see only the lives it has cost us, and the lives it will cost us to put things right.” He turned and George stood to follow, but Mouse Road rose and put a hand on his arm.

  “Let him go,” she said. “For now.”

  The sun was ready to set, and George and Mouse Road were leaning against his walker, waiting for Storm Arriving to return when two riders came up from the Spanish camp, a third horse in tow. They stopped, and one of the riders dismounted. He came forward, stopping some yards away, unwilling to approach the walker. He gave a shallow nod in greeting.

  “Your presence is expected at our commander’s tent,” he said. He indicated the third horse. “If you will accompany us?”

  George turned to Mouse Road and gave her a smile of farewell.

  Eyes open, she signed.

  He swung up onto the horse—it felt small and spindly compared to riding on the back of whistlers and walkers—and followed his escorts back to the Spanish camp.

  The general’s tent was a large, square affair, with a peaked roof, crenelated fringe, and striped awning over the entrance flap. It reminded George of the pavilions of old, and he fairly expected to see conquistadors in chain mail and crested metal helmets stationed at guard rather than the riflemen who stood on either side.

  Ushered within, he saw at once that the general was new to command. A small group of officers stood talking and laughing, smoke from their cigars heavy in the air. The trappings of power and privilege had been placed around the interior: a rack with three swords stood atop a heavy sideboard, a tray with crystal decanter and snifters to one side. Next to the sideboard was a stand with the chain mail and helm George had expected to see outside. Strung taut along one side of the tent was a hide, painted with a map of the states of Nueva España. In the center of the room, a long, narrow table with three chairs on either side and one at the head, all with places set before them in china, linen, and silver-plate. George had seen the tent of many a field commander, from the brilliant to the able to the comical, and this one betrayed a serious lack of self-confidence.

  During his evaluation, conversation had halted. George noted the slack-jawed expressions. He didn’t know what these men had expected—after all, he had lived with the People for over four years—but they obviously had expected something other than a blond-haired native in deerskins and breechclout. He saw their surprise and, from a few, disgust, and did his best not to react in kind.

  An officer—the general himself, by his uniform—disengaged from the group of stunned gawkers and came over to George, hand extended.

  “Mister Custer,” the general said in English with only a hint of an accent. “Welcome. I am General Francisco Pereira.”

  George smiled. The general was young, just a handful of years older than George himself; some high-ranking relative had likely brevetted him to the rank. He shook the offered hand. “A pleasure to meet you, General” he said.

  “I remember seeing you during your visit to San Francisco, some years past. At the corrida?” He turned to his other guests. “He and his men had come at the invitat
ion of my uncle, the Viceroy. You should have seen them, gentlemen. It was a remarkable exhibition of riding skills.”

  The ice broken, the tone set, the other men followed suit. The officers, all hand-picked for the occasion, spoke enough English to carry on a polite conversation, and this they did, over drinks, over dinner, over cigars and brandy afterward. The conversations were innocuous and without substance, despite George’s attempts to steer the talk to more meaningful discussions. He had not been invited as a representative of the People; he was here as the son of President Custer, as a curiosity, an interesting spice to enliven their mundane society.

  Only once, during the fish course, did he manage to garner any useful information. Complimenting on the sauce, George asked how the general managed his butter stores in such a long supply line. The answer, accompanied with a nonchalant wave of the general’s hand, told much more than the general intended.

  Following the meal, George returned to Mouse Road and immediately sought Storm Arriving. They found him sharpening his knife, sitting near the story fire where some of the men tied tales one to the next, laughing at stories of one another’s missteps, smiling at each other’s valor.

  “Back from supper with your friends, I see,” Storm Arriving said.

  George ignored the taunt. “Time is shorter than we thought,” he told him.

  “Short? For what?”

  “For defeating the Iron Shirts. We must break with them and ally ourselves with the bluecoats, and soon.”

  Mouse Road nudged George’s arm. “You have learned something,” she said. “What?”

  Storm Arriving snickered. “Learned something? From that squirrel-head? Impossible.”

  George shrugged. “He said it as a brag, but it told me much.”

  “What?” Mouse Road urged, more interested than her brother.

  “I asked how he managed to get fresh butter, with his supply lines so long, and he told me it was impossible now. Then he said that it was no matter, because they’d be getting more soon enough, plus some fresh fruit for his table.”

  Storm Arriving stopped honing his blade. “Fresh milk fat and fresh fruit?”

  “Yes,” George said, glad that Storm Arriving had come to the same conclusion.

  “What?” Mouse Road said. “I don’t understand.”

  Storm Arriving was still staring at his blade, turning it this way and that, studying the edge in reflected firelight. “Milk fat would turn, and fruit would surely spoil, if they came here from the Tejano Coast. So, he must be traveling toward a new supply line, a shorter one.”

  George leaned forward. “And there’s only one place for that,” he said.

  Storm Arriving pressed his lips into a thin line and frowned. “The Bay of Kansa. The Iron Shirts will be landing a new force somewhere on the northern shore, east of the Sand Hills.”

  “There is nothing out there but ghost towns, abandoned when the railroads failed. The nearest opposition would be from Fort Whitley, and truthfully, I don’t think they’re up to facing Iron Shirts.” He hooked a thumb toward the Spanish encampment. “Even this group would give them a nasty time.”

  “When do you think they will arrive?” Mouse Road asked.

  George shrugged. “A week, perhaps two. Pereira did not seem to think he would be without butter for very long.” He turned back to Storm Arriving. “So you see, we don’t have much time before things change dramatically. We must broker a deal with the bluecoats. Now.”

  Storm Arriving finally looked up from the study of his blade. “You think this news changes my mind? With more Iron Shirts, and hopefully some smarter ones, we will have no problem beating the bluecoats.”

  George slumped, rubbing his forehead. “That is not the point,” he said. “Whatever side you ally with, that side will win this conflict.”

  Storm Arriving pointed at George with his knife. “And you say it should be the bluecoats.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because my former wife said so.”

  “Yes!”

  “The woman who you said is not clear about what her visions are telling her.”

  George grimaced. “You are twisting it all up. We, Mouse Road and I, we have seen this vision. It could not have been clearer.”

  “In your great experience with visions,” Storm Arriving said derisively. He turned his palm upward, signifying his disagreement. “I will not create a new enemy by aligning myself with an old one.” He spat on his whetstone and began honing the knife once more.

  “Brother...” Mouse Road began.

  “No,” he said, cutting her short. Then he glared at both of them in turn. “I say no.”

  Mouse Road looked at George, distress written across her brow. He motioned and they stood and walked away.

  “What will we do now?” she asked. “If we cannot convince my brother, how can we avoid the other paths of the vision?”

  George put his arm around her shoulder and she put hers around his waist. They stood for a time in silence, and George kissed the top of her head, the scent of her calming his whirling mind.

  Contingencies. Contingencies.

  Then a smile began to grow on his lips.

  “I have an idea,” he said to his wife. “When the time is right, we will need to be ready to move.”

  Chapter 17

  Saturday, October 11th, AD 1890

  North of the Niobrara River

  Unorganized Territory

  Meriwether stood outside his tent, surrounded by activity. Men and horses were gearing up, readying tack and harness. His elite sharpshooters were checking their weapons and supplies. Infantrymen looked on, still displeased that they were being left out of today’s fight.

  Soon, he said to himself. Soon enough.

  He reached into his white glove and pulled out the quarter-folded slip that contained the President’s wire. He unfolded it and reread the message. It was a personal wire, not a message relayed through handlers or a coded message from Jacob’s War Department. This was from the President himself, and its cryptic tone worried Meriwether all the more.

  JOHN,

  PUT THE KETTLE ON.

  COMING FOR A CHAT.

  WESTGATE. WEDNESDAY NEXT.

  AUTIE

  It didn’t make sense or, to be more accurate, it made sense only if Meriwether was missing some important fact. Custer was known for many things, but not making sense wasn’t one of them. He was shrewd, and he knew Meriwether well enough to know he’d puzzle over the wire’s hidden meaning.

  Developments, then. And big ones. Something that could change everything.

  The Spanish were nearly in the jaws of his vise. In a week’s time they would be within easy range of his foot soldiers and artillery teams, both of which were itching to take their shot at the invaders. The Spanish had been very accommodating, following his strike forces like sheep back to a point where his own supply lines were short enough to be defensible—he had to give the Cheyenne credit for causing that particular headache—and from which he would be able to hit them with a blow that would break their backs, their spirit, and their capacity to do any more harm. When he was done, their only choice would be retreat, and he would make them pay for every bloody step.

  What was it, then? What could change everything?

  Custer had promised him everything he needed, but Meriwether wasn’t so naïve to believe that Custer the commanding officer didn’t share a face with Custer the politician. Promises were hopes, and hopes sometimes went unfulfilled. So, either Custer needed some of the men he’d given to Meriwether or....

  Spanish reinforcements.

  That had the ring of truth to it. And not reinforcements from the west; Meriwether’s scouts would have spotted movement of that type. From nearer, then.

  From Kansa Bay.

  It made sense. The cliffs along the gulf’s northern shore were nearly unscalable, and the jungles at the base were home to all sorts of nasty creatures that would tear a landing force to bits overnight. Kansa Bay, ho
wever, was lined with sandy beaches all around, none of which were fortified to any extent, especially along the northern side. Meriwether closed his eyes and let the map of the region float in his mind’s eye.

  He had struggled to pull the Spanish forces across the Niobrara, but in that one thing they had been reluctant to comply. They had followed him eastward like sheep, but it had taken him a fortnight to get them across the Niobrara. Meriwether now saw that rather than him leading the Spaniards into a trap, they had been slowly marching him closer to their own rally point.

  “Put an idiot in charge, and make me believe they’re all idiots,” he said and then cursed himself for an idiot, too. He re-folded the message and stuffed it back under the cuff of his glove.

  “McGettigan!” he shouted. His adjutant appeared at his side with a crisp salute. “Change in plan, Captain” he said. “Everyone comes on this trip. Gather the command staff.”

  “Sir!” McGettigan said, and hurried off to spread the word.

  It didn’t take long before cheers were heard among the infantry. Meriwether hoped those cheers would keep their spirits up through a forced march.

  The men were ready in record time and, to their credit, did not complain at all as they marched through the day and most of the following night. They had outpaced the light artillery Meriwether had selected for the fight, but with double teams of men and horses, the cannon were able to spell each other and catch up while the infantry prepared the stage.

  It would not be the stage he had hoped for. There had been many sites from which to choose—the gentle hills that rolled through this part of the territory provided ample combinations of high ground surrounding a level battlefield—but he had been timing things so that it would all come together at the perfect place. Now, though, he was being rushed into a choice, and neither the ground nor the condition of his men would be perfect. But Meriwether had learned long ago that insisting on perfection was the hobgoblin of little minds; it didn’t exist, and thus had no place in military thinking.