The Year the Cloud Fell

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “Aw, Hell,” he said again. “Hellfire and Damnation!” He did not think it was broken but it was cut for sure and deeply, too.

  The Indians supported him as he limped his way back to the whistlers. Several more men stood with the mounts. Through his squinted pain, he once more thought he saw the wink of brass within their midst. As he got closer, the group parted and George found himself face to face with an officer of the U.S. Army, at attention and saluting.

  “Captain Custer, sir! Corporal Hollings from Fort Whitley, reporting with a message from command staff, sir!”

  George looked at the young man before him. He recognized him as one of the several new recruits that had arrived back in March, though the man’s freshly sunburnt brow marked him as much. He was still fairly fresh-faced, despite the miles of travel and the healthy helping of terror that made his eyes wide and his hand tremble at the brim of his hat.

  “Sir. What are your orders, sir?”

  George took a moment to concentrate on breathing—a task that had become difficult, as each respiration caused the knife blade to grate against his rib.

  “Corporal,” George rasped. “What are you doing here?”

  The youth straightened even more—a feat George would have thought impossible. “Sir! I am here to ascertain your whereabouts and condition and, if I find you here, I am to deliver an invitation of parley to the chiefs of the force holding you hostage.”

  “Oh, for the…” George grimaced, regretting the outburst for several reasons. More calmly, he continued. “Corporal, your timing is miserable. Had you come ten minutes later I would have been healthy and on my way to Fort Whitley. As it is, however…. Aw, hell!” He motioned to the men who held him upright. “Nóheto,” he said, and to the corporal, “Follow, if they let you.”

  Carefully they placed him atop a whistler and then led it back down the embankment towards camp. George clenched his teeth and swore with each rolling step.

  Speaks While Leaving had just arrived with the wounded from the day’s hunt when they brought One Who Flies to her. She shooed the men back outside her father’s lodge, not wanting their clumsy help and incessant questions. Mouse Road had met them on her way back from the river, and she sat near, ready to assist.

  “Bite down on this.” Speaks While Leaving said and placed a thick fold of parfleche in the bluecoat’s mouth. He lay curled on his side on the floor. Sweat beaded his brow but he did not cry out. She wished that Storm Arriving was there that he might see the fortitude of One Who Flies, but he was still out on the hunting ground. It would fall to Mouse Road to testify as to his bravery in the face of pain. Of course this was nothing compared to a skin sacrifice or the Sun Dance, but for a vé’ho’e, it was a fair test.

  “Will he die?” the young woman asked. “My sister will be crazy angry if he dies.”

  “Your sister?” Speaks While Leaving inquired as she prepared her tools and wrappings. “Why will she be angry?”

  “Blue Shell Woman is crazy in love with One Who Flies. Crazy in love. She hides it well, so my mother and my brother do not know of it, but she has told me. Crazy in love.”

  “Truly? What about Standing Elk?”

  “She says no one can compare to a man who rides the clouds.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think she is silly. One Who Flies is nice; I like him, but he will not be here very long. Standing Elk has courted her for three years. He is strong and he is brave and he loves her. I think she should pick Standing Elk.”

  “Blue Shell Woman would do well to heed the advice of her younger sister.” She handed her helpmate a cloth. “Wet this down and be ready to clean away the blood when I ask.”

  The girl did so as Speaks While Leaving picked up her small tin box. Opening it, she searched until she found her heavy needle. From a length of buffalo sinew she separated out one thin strand. This she threaded through the eye of the needle.

  “Are you ready?” she asked One Who Flies, using the Trader’s tongue. The pale man—more pale than ever now—nodded and hugged the bundled robe she had given him. “Try not to move,” she said.

  She pulled back his shirt. The wound was crusted with dirt and bits of grass. Blood seeped out with every breath taken. The knife was in deep; she could see the outline of the finger-long blade beneath his flesh.

  “You were lucky today.”

  He spoke from around the dried hide. “Luck like this I do not want,” he managed to say.

  “Better I suppose if the blade had not been turned by your ribs? You would have sung your death song by now. Hold your breath—”

  He held. She pulled.

  The knife slid out. He growled and bit down on the parfleche. The wound poured fresh blood down his side but that was a good sign. She favored Mouse Road with a glance. The girl sat close, moist cloth at the ready, unfazed by the jeweled flow.

  “Wipe now,” she told her. “Clean it with smooth strokes.”

  She did as instructed while Speaks While Leaving poured water on the injury. One Who Flies growled again though with less energy, now. His gaze had gone vacant and slack. She splashed water on his face. He spluttered and gave her a vicious glare.

  “Stay awake,” she told him. Then to the Mouse Road, “That is good. You are a fine helper. Now put your hands like this and hold the wound closed while I sew it up. Good girl.”

  She stitched quickly, tying each one off individually the way the holy man of the Trader folk had taught her years before. Her needles were her most prized possessions. They were a rare enough commodity among the Trader folk, but the People used only awls and hooks in their sewing, which made the needles rarer still. They had been worth the price, and repaid their cost tenfold at moments such as this.

  “Done,” she said. “I seem to do nothing but patch you up.” One Who Flies dropped the hide from his mouth and let out a long-held breath. She washed the wound again and dressed it with a pack of powdered quince and red river-berries mixed with a few other herbs. She covered it with a thick pad of blanched hanging-moss, sat him up and wrapped his ribs with strips of deerskin, tying them tightly to keep the dressing in place. Then she turned her attention to his knee.

  “What were you doing out there?” she asked.

  He hesitated as if considering his response.

  “I do not think you would believe me if I said I was heading back to the hunt to lend a hand.” He snarled as she cleaned the laceration on his knee.

  “No. Not with you heading in the wrong direction with a useless blade tucked in your belt.”

  “Useless? It was good enough to skewer me.”

  “But on the field after a hunt it would be too small to do anyone any good.” She looked up from her work. His face was sweaty and dusty and a week’s worth of red beard stubbled his chin and jaw. Still, she found him not unhandsome—for a vé’ho’e. She wrapped the knee with cloth and sat back on her heels.

  “So, since I would not believe your first tale, what will you tell me instead?”

  He studied her; she could see it in his eyes.

  “I was trying to escape,” he said.

  She made no overt reaction other than to nod and say, “Now that I do believe.”

  She stood. He moved to follow but she sat him down. “You will stay here tonight. I want to watch that wound.” She held out her hand to Mouse Road. “Come. Your mother is probably back by now and wondering where her youngest is.”

  They stepped out of the lodge and into the crowd that had formed when they carried in the wounded One Who Flies. There was a handful of grandfathers sitting in a patient circle, three men from those who guarded the camp squatting nearby, and a curiously quiet group of boys—too young to participate in the hunt—who stood as if made of wood, awaiting her report.

  “He will be fine,” she said.

  The boys ran off without a word. The men walked off in their separate ways. The grandfathers halted their conversation for a moment, then continued.

  Just as t
he area was clearing out, Blue Shell Woman came running in from around a neighboring lodge.

  “I just heard,” she said, breathless. “Is he all right?”

  Speaks While Leaving stopped the young woman from entering her home. “He is fine,” she said. “He will be fine. It was not bad.”

  “I will sit with him while he mends.” She moved to step past, but Speaks While Leaving stopped her again.

  “No,” she said. “You will not. Instead, you will take this—” She handed her the knife. “—and this—” She gave her Mouse Road’s hand. “—and you will go back to your brother’s lodge and help with the butchering. Your sister tells me he had a very good day.”

  “Y-yes,” the elder sister said as she was turned bodily and firmly propelled homeward. “He did.”

  “I also heard that Standing Elk took down one of his own.”

  “Yes,” Blue Shell Woman said with an unfriendly glare. “That is true, too.”

  “He is such a fine young man,” Speaks While Leaving said. “Thank you for your help, Mouse Road.”

  Blue Shell Woman protested. “But I want to—”

  “Thank you. My greetings to your mother.”

  Mouse Road grinned and waved. Speaks While Leaving watched as the youngest sister confidently led her elder off by the hand. She saw Blue Shell Woman look back over her shoulder and mutter to herself until she was lost to sight amongst the lodges.

  As Speaks While Leaving turned to re-enter her father’s lodge, one of the old men in the story circle caught her attention.

  “There is trouble there, I think.”

  She glanced back toward the departed but probably still-complaining Blue Shell Woman.

  “Perhaps,” she said with a smile. “But for whom?”

  Custer sat in the private library on the second floor of the White House. He sighed and turned another page in Lincoln’s memoir. He had not read the previous page, but felt that he had stared at it long enough and wanted to stare at a new one. He had read the book before and knew most of it by heart. The chapter he was staring at now recounted the beginnings of the great civil war that had nearly sundered the nation.

  Lincoln’s words concerning that time, written with the aid of the clarity that comes from outliving a crisis by a decade and more, echoed the sentiments in Custer’s own heart. With effort, he focused on the paragraph in the middle of the page.

  I did not, in the course of my response to the matter in April, 1861, consider within the limits of credibility that these heretofore stalwart men—many of whom were well-known to me—could be anything but misguided or deceived by the machinations of others. I did not and could not conceive of the authors of such actions as reasoning, civilized members of an otherwise flourishing country. It was, therefore, a much altered response that was formed and given up than might otherwise have been crafted. Had it been foremost in my mind that these were not demons, not a handful of simple minds waving the banner of zealotry, but that they were men—intelligent men, well-intentioned men, good men—whom we faced across the bloody waters of war, then I would have allowed none of the half-hearted actions nor felt any of the confidence that so infused my spirit. Had I known these men to be of reasonable and sober character, then I would have responded at once with a force assured to bring them low. There is, however, a malady that walks with war and that affects everything that its more sanguine partner might touch. This sickness infects the mind and causes the disorganization of thought. That such a pestilence had already swept the South was clear; what was less so was that, unbeknownst to us, it has also seized the North. We, the men responsible for the care of the Union, had already been affected. We were already prevented by our own prejudices from treating the enemy as the enemy and, as a result, I believe—to my most profound sorrow—that many good men died who might otherwise have lived. The only one among us at that time who seemed immune to this “illness” as I have called it—though it is in truth a set of the mind—was Sherman. He saw at once, though he could not, for years could not convince us, that the enemy was, in dire fact, the enemy, and was thus entitled to our complete and total attention.

  Custer closed the book. He felt its weight in his hands, felt the pebbled surface of its leather cover beneath his fingertips. Lincoln’s words bolstered his resolve and his faith in his own decision. The nation had ignored the Alliance long enough. It was time for Sherman’s solution: total war.

  There was a knock at the door. Samuel entered, a folded and sealed letter in his hand. He crossed the room and without a word he handed it to the president.

  “No. Stay,” Custer said as Samuel turned to leave. “You worked diligently on this. You deserve to know the results of your work.”

  He cracked the wax seal on the back and unfolded the heavy paper. “It’s from Carlisle,” he said. “It will take a few days for them to formulate the language of the declaration, but the votes are there, though barely so.”

  “Congratulations,” Samuel said. “Your wish has been granted. The war you wanted.”

  Custer was surprised by his aide’s tone. “You are wrong. I never wanted this.”

  “Really?” Samuel asked in an uncharacteristic show of impertinence. “With all due respect, Mr. President, you’ve hated the Indian ever since Kansa Bay; perhaps even before. Is there really no thirst for vengeance within you?”

  Custer felt his pride pricked by the accusation. He stood and walked the length of the room. “No, it has nothing to do with vengeance, Samuel. You should know me better than that.”

  “All I know, Mr. President, is that I’ve spent my recent days and nights amassing a set of lists, the only purpose of which was to justify the use of the War Power against the Indian.”

  “It shows them to be the enemy, and the enemy must be dealt with as an enemy.”

  “Sir, they’re just Indians. How much trouble can they be?”

  Custer bit down and ground his teeth. “Samuel, if I learned nothing else at Kansa Bay, it was to respect the Indian in battle. They are not ‘just Indians.’ They are talented and innovative soldiers who whipped the tar out of three of my divisions before we put them down. I did not want this war, Samuel. I did not, but I believe that it is necessary. It is time to protect ourselves and assert our territorial rights. Don’t underestimate them, Samuel. It is a grave mistake that I made once and will not make again.”

  Samuel faced his employer with a grimness of mouth and a stability of eye that Custer had never before seen in him. He did not, however, press the issue.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” was all he said and with a curt bow, turned and left the room.

  The President of the United States stood alone. He looked out the window, then at his book. He opened the cover. He touched the narrow loops and shaky lines of the author’s inscription.

  Though battle sees the best in men,

  War knows but the worst.

  A. Lincoln

  He closed the book and held it close to his chest beneath folded arms. He took a deep breath. It came out in a shudder.

  “It’s not revenge,” he said as he sunk down into an upholstered chair. “It’s not.”

  He shut his eyes tightly, but the memories were too strong; Kansa Bay knew all his weak places. The sounds of long ago filled his mind. The smells of battle invaded him.

  Gunsmoke. The tang of the sun on the tidal mudflats of Kansa Bay. The pain of the arrow through his thigh and the choking heat. The screams of men and horses from the field just quitted, being rent limb from limb by monstrous lizards, eaten while still alive. The heralds of the Indian whistlers signifying another charge of the cavalry’s position. The shrills of panicked horses as they faced that charge. The staccato of rifle volleys, the shouts of orders given too late to too few. The light that beat down on the brassy blades of late summer grass, only to bounce back up from them as from a mirror, blinding all. The breeze that cooled the sweat on his back. The surge of blood as hope returned with an idea. The crack of his own voice, breaking
with exhaustion as he issued his commands. The urgent sound of breaking lantern glass. The pungency of kerosene. The rattle of a matchbox in a nervous hand. More shouts. More screams. The acrid smoke and the heat, more heat than he ever knew possible, so much heat that he thought the sky would melt. And then the awful, terrifying quiet as the world lay dead and charred around him and his surviving men.

  Custer hugged himself as the memories drained away, leaving him—as they always did—trembling and sick. He sat in the chair, his ragged breath loud in the empty room, the long summer evening fading into night outside the window. He sat and he rocked back and forth, ever so slightly, as he mastered his emotions and his body. He prayed, but for neither strength nor forgiveness. He prayed for the safety of his son, trapped as he now was before the onrushing powers of war.

  George limped towards the Council Lodge. Speaks While Leaving pressed through the gathered crowd and held the doorflap open for him. He grunted as he bent both knee and torso to enter. The Army, showing its ignorance in such matters, had sent out messengers who did not speak French and George was therefore required to act as a link in a chain, translating English to French. Speaks While Leaving would take it from him and translate into Tsétsêhéstâhese.

  Most of the chiefs were already present and seated. The place of honor at the back of the lodge was unoccupied. Speaks While Leaving led him to a place near the empty spot. She sat. George noticed several of the chiefs watching him. He lowered himself to the ground, and though he was slower than his companion, he did manage to neither groan nor wince. He could not, however, sit cross-legged as the other men were and it took him some time and several positions before he finally found one that was bearable for both his knee and his side. He settled in, holding one leg flexed up near his chest while leaving his injured leg outstretched.