Walking Blanket Woman spoke suddenly at my elbow. “Take a good look, white-face,” says she, pretty sullen. “Soon they will be looking at you. The One-Who-Catches will come today, and you will be burned. Maybe other white snakes will be burned, too, if they come any closer.”
And off she went, clattering her pots, leaving me to wonder what the devil she meant. Had Terry’s force been sighted, perhaps? If Gibbon had force-marched, he could be here today. Custer and his blasted 7th must be roaming off in the blue somewhere, or he’d have been here already. If only I could ask questions!
The hawk stoops, but in the grass
The rabbit does not lift his head.
He runs but does not see. The hunter
Waits, and the quarry is unaware.
They come, they come! from the rising sun.
Will any meet them, the hunter with his bow and long lance?
It was an old man singing in a high, keening wail, as he shuffled by, face upturned and eyes closed, dirty white hair hanging over his blanket. He had a pot from which he dabbed vermilion on his cheeks in spots as he sang; then from a medicine bag he shook dust on the ground either side. The people fell silent, watching him; even the kids stopped their row.
Who are the braves with high hearts?
Who sings? Who sings his death-song?
Is it the young hunter, shading his eyes as he looks to the east?
But the sun is high now; it shines on both the hawk and the quarry.
The thin voice died away, and a great stillness seemed to have fallen on the camp. I ain’t being fanciful; it was like the silence after the last hymn in church. Out in the heat haze they were standing in silent groups – women, children, braves in their blankets or breech-clouts, some with their faces half-painted; they were looking upstream through the trees, but at nothing that I could see. Over the river the bluffs were empty, except for a few children playing on the Greasy Grass slope to the left; the woods around us were quiet, and no birds sang now. A dog yelped in the distance, a few ponies under the care of a stripling snuffled and stamped, the crackle of a fire fifty yards away was audible, and the soft murmur of the Little Bighorn meandering through its fringe of cottonwoods. I’ll never forget that silence, as though a storm were coming, yet the sky was clear midsummer blue, with the least fleecy drift of high clouds.
Somewhere on the right, away towards the Hunkpapa circle, there was a soft mutter of sound, a rustle as of distant voices growing, and then a shout, and then more shouting, and the low throb of a drum. People began to move up that way, the braves first, the women more slowly, calling their children to them; voices were raised in question now, feet moved more quickly, stirring the dust. The hum of distant voices was a clamour, rippling down towards us as the word passed, indistinct but of growing urgency; crouched under my yoke just inside the tipi, I wondered what on earth it could be; Walking Blanket Woman pushed past me – and then from the trees up to the right there was a scatter of people, and I heard the yell:
“Pony-soldiers! Long Knives coming. Run, run quickly! Pony-soldiers!”
In a moment it was chaos. They ran like startled ants, braves shouting, women screaming, children rolling underfoot, all in utter disorder, while the yells from upstream increased, and then came the distant crack of a shot, and then a fusilade, and then the running rattle of irregular firing, and to my disbelieving ears, the faint note of a bugle, sounding the charge! At this the panic redoubled, they milled everywhere, with some of the braves yelling to try to restore order, and the mob of women and children surging past downstream. The men were trying to herd them away, and at the same time shouting to each other, and with mothers crying for their children and vice versa, and the wiser heads trying to give directions, it was bedlam. The crash of distant firing was continuous now, and to my right I could hear the whoops and war-cries of men running to join the fight, wherever it was.
One thing was sure – it wasn’t Gibbon. If he came at all it would be from my left, downstream; this was all up at the southern end of the valley, and they were pony-soldiers. Christ, it could only be Custer! And seven hundred strong, against this enormous mass of hostiles! No – it might be Crook, hitting back after his reverse at the Rosebud; this was far more likely, and he had twice as many men as Custer. Perhaps it was both of them, two thousand sabres; the Sioux would have their hands full if that were so.
(It wasn’t, of course. It was Reno, obeying orders, coming full tilt towards the Hunkpapa circle along the bank with a hundred-odd riders. And I called Raglan a fool!)
Across my front braves were hurrying upstream. One young buck was strapping on two six-guns as he ran, and a girl hurried after him with his eagle feather; he was shouting as she thrust it through his braid, and then he was away, and she standing on tiptoe with her knuckles to her mouth; two more braves I saw tumbling out of a tipi, one with a lance and his face painted half-red, half-black, and an old man and old woman hobbling behind them, the old fellow with an ancient musket which he was calling to the boys to take, but they never heard, and he stood there holding it forlornly; another old woman hurried by with a small boy, the bundle she was carrying burst open, and they both paused to scrabble in the dust until the kid shrieked and pulled the old girl aside as a thunder of hooves came from my left, and out from beneath the trees came as fine a sight (I speak as a cavalryman, you understand) as one could wish – a horde of feathered, painted braves, lances and rifles a-flourish, whooping like bedamned. Brulés and Minneconju, I think, but I’m no expert, and then there was another yell somewhere behind my tipi, and by humping out for a look I could see another mob of feathered friends making for the river, too – Oglala, I fancy, and everywhere there were braves on foot, with bows and rifles and hatchets and clubs, racing towards the sound of the firing, which was growing fiercer but, I thought, no nearer.
The Brulé riders were thundering by before me, shrieking their “Kye-kye-kye-yik!” and “Hoo’hay!”, and if ever you hear that from a Sioux, get the hell out of his way, because he isn’t asking you the time. The only worse noise he makes is “Hoon!” which is the equivalent of the Zulu “s’jee!” and signifies that he’s sticking steel into someone. Out before my tipi was the old singer, waving his arms and bawling:
“Go! Go, Lacotahs! It’s a good day to die!”
There’s a kindred spirit, thinks I – he wasn’t going. But the rest of them were, by gum, horse, foot, guns, bows, and every damned thing – these were the Sioux who weren’t going to fight, you recall. They vanished among the trees upstream, and the women and kids were away down in t’other direction by now – which left the world to sunlight and to me, more or less. Suddenly there was hardly a soul in sight between me and the river; a few stragglers, one or two old men, the ancient singer who had stopped encouraging the lads and was making tracks to his tipi. Upstream the firing was banging away as loud as ever – but I didn’t care for it. The boys in blue were making no headway at all; if anything, the crash of musketry was receding, which was damned discouraging.
Now, two things I must make clear. First, that I had not merely been viewing the stirring scene, but considering keenly which way salvation lay, and deciding to lie low. I was wearing four feet of timber across my neck, you see, with my hands bound to it, to say nothing of being painfully gagged, and while my feet were free, I felt I’d be a trifle conspicuous if I lit out from cover – and where to, anyway? Secondly, my memory, while acute for what I hear and see and feel in the heat of battle, is usually at fault where time is concerned. I’m not alone in that – any soldier will tell you that five minutes fighting can seem like an hour, or t’other way round. From the sound of the first shot I would guess that perhaps twenty minutes had passed, and now the sound of firing was decidedly fainter, when across the clearing Walking Blanket Woman came running – she’d pushed past me and disappeared, you remember, and here she was again, excited as all get-out.
“They are killing your pony-soldiers! Ai-ee!” cries the bloodthirsty biddy.
“They are driving them back on the river! Everywhere they kill them! Ees! Soon all will be dead!”
She was rummaging in a corner of the tipi, and damme if she didn’t come up with a most ugly-looking hatchet and a long thin knife, which she tested on the ball of her thumb, grunting with satisfaction. Plainly she was going to join in the fun, no doubt to avenge her brother – and then she stopped and looked at me, and the light of battle died out of the saucy little face, and I could read her thoughts as clear as if she’d spoken.
“Drat!” she was thinking. “There’s this great idiot to look after, and me all over of a heat to help cut up the remains! How tiresome! Oh, well, someone’s got to mind the shop, I suppose – hold on, though! If I ‘look after’ him permanently, so to speak, I can go with a clear conscience … on the other hand, Jacket will be annoyed if he’s cheated of his little kakeshya – haven’t seen a good flaying and dismembering for ages myself, for that matter. But I would like to join the fun up yonder …”
It was such a winsome little face, too, but as the expressions chased one another across it my gorge rose. She was eyeing me doubtfully, thoughtfully, angrily, determinedly – and I was about to bolt headlong, yoke or not, when above the distant din of firing came another sound, so faint that for an instant I thought it was imagination, and yet it was quite close at hand, across the river.
She heard it too, and we both stood stock-still, straining our ears. It was just the tiniest murmur at first, and then the drift as of a musical pipe, far, far away. And while I’m well aware that the 7th Cavalry band was not present at Little Bighorn, I know what I heard, and all I can say is that some trooper had a penny whistle, and was blowing it. For there was no doubt – somewhere beyond the river, on the high bluffs a bare half-mile away, was sounding the music of Garryowen.
Walking Blanket Woman was beside me in an instant. We both stood staring over the trees. The bluffs were empty – and then on their crest there was a movement, and another a little behind, and then another, tiny objects just above the skyline, slowly coming into view – horsemen, and one of the foremost carrying a guidon, and then a file of troopers, and I could make out the shapes of fatigue hats – ten, twenty, thirty riders, and as they rode at the walk, the piping was clear now, and I found the words running through my head that the 8th Hussars had sung on the way to Alma:
Our hearts so stout have got us fame,
For soon ’tis known from whence we came,
Where’er we go they dread the name
Of Garryowen in glory.
The piping stopped, and I heard the shout of command faint over the trees. They had halted, and in the little knot of men round the guidon I caught a glint – field-glasses, sweeping the valley. Custer had come to Little Bighorn.
Perhaps I’m a better soldier than I care to think, for I know what I thought in that moment. My first concern should have been how the blazes to get across to them, but possibly because it was a long, steep way, and there was a young lady beside me at least toying with the notion of putting her knife-point to my ear and pushing, it seemed academic. And the instinctive order that I would have hollered across that river was: “Retire! And don’t tarry on the way! Get out, you bloody fool, and get out fast while there’s still time!”
He’d not have listened, though. Even as I watched I saw a tiny figure with hand raised, and a moment later the faint call of “Forward-o!” and they were coming on along the bluffs, and wheeling down into the coulee, and beyond the bluffs to their left was a sputter of shooting, and down the steep came a handful of Sioux at the run, and after them a party of Ree scouts, little puffs of smoke jetting after the fugitives. There were yells of alarm from far up the river, closer than the distant popping of the first fight, which had faded into the distance.
A bugle sounded on the bluffs, and the first troop was coming down the coulee – greys, and I thought I could make out Smith at their head. Had lunch with your wife and Libby Custer on the Far West recently, was the ridiculous thought that went through my mind. And behind them there came a sorrel troop – why, that would be Tom Custer, who’d wept at that ghastly play in New York. And there, by God, at the head of the column, was the great man himself; I could see the flash of the red scarf on his breast – and I almost burst my gag, willing him to stop and turn, for he was doing a Cardigan if ever a man did, and he couldn’t see it. The clamour in the trees upstream was rising now; I thought I could hear pony hooves, and from the left, along the water’s edge, came a mounted brave, yelling in alarm, waving his rifle above his head, and after him two more – Cheyenne, as I live, all a-bristle with eagle feathers and white bars of paint.
The girl gasped beside me, and I turned to look at her, and she at me. And what I tell you is strictest true: I looked at her, with a question in my eyes – Flashy’s eyes, you know, and I put every ounce of noble mute appeal into ’em that I knew how, and that’s considerable. God knows I’d been looking at women all my life, ardent, loving, lustful, worshipful, respectful, mocking, charming, and gallant as gadfrey, and while I’ve had a few clips on the ear and knees in the crotch, more often than not it has worked. I looked at her now, giving her the full benefit, the sweet little soul – and like all the rest, she succumbed. As I say, it’s true, and here I am, and I can’t explain it – perhaps it’s the whiskers, or the six feet two and broad shoulders, or just my style. But she looked at me, and her lids lowered, and she glanced across the river where the troopers were riding down the coulee, and then back at me – this girl whose brother had been killed by my people only a few days back. I can’t describe the look in her eyes – frowning, reluctant, hesitant, almost resigned; she couldn’t help herself, you see, the dear child. Then she sighed, lifted the knife – and cut the thongs securing my hands to the yoke.
“Go on, then,” says she. “You poor old man.”
Well, I couldn’t reply with my mouth full of gag, and by the time I’d torn it out she had gone, running off to the right with her hatchet and knife, God bless her.73 And I was cool enough to drain a bowl of water and chafe my wrists while I took in the lie of the land, because if I was to win across to Custer in safety it was going to be a damned near-run thing, and I must settle my plan in shaved seconds and then go bull at a gate.
To the right my girl was nearing the trees, and there were a few Indians in sight, but a hell of a lot more behind by the sound of it, no doubt streaming down from the first fight to give the boy general a welcome. Three Cheyenne had appeared from the left – and knowing them, I doubted if they’d be the only ones. By God, Custer had picked a rare spot to make his entry. The three Cheyenne were close to the bank, perhaps fifty yards away on my left front, arguing busily with a couple of Indians on foot; they were pointing up towards the ford and doubtless remarking that the pony-soldiers would shortly be crossing it and charging through the heart of the village. At that moment, out from between the tipis on my right came the old singer, leading a pony and yelling his head off.
“Go! Go, Lacotahs! See where the Long Knives come! The sun is on the hawk and the quarry! Hoo’hay! It’s a good day to die!”
If I’d been the Cheyenne I’d have spat in his eye – for one thing, they weren’t Lacotahs, and no doubt sensitive. But now was my moment. I looked across the river; the 7th were fairly pouring down the coulee, so far as I could see, for the farther they got down, the more they were obscured by the trees on the banks. The bugle was shrilling, shots were cracking on my side of the river, the three Cheyenne were apparently fed up with arguing, for they were skirting up towards the ford – and my ancient with his led pony was hobbling in their direction, shouting to the two dismounted chaps to take his steed and good luck, boys. I took a deep breath and ran.
The old fool never knew I was there until I was on the pony’s back. It might have been ten seconds, probably less, but time for me to realise that I was in such poor trim, what with my ordeal, aching limbs, too much tuck, booze, and cigars, and general evil living, that if he and I had run a race,
the old bugger would have won, by yards. But he was looking ahead, yelling:
“Here! Calf, Bobtail Horse! Mad Wolf! Here’s a pony! Climb aboard, one of you fellows, and smite the white-faces, and my blessing go with you!” Or words to that effect.
I hauled myself on to the beast, grabbed the mane, and dug in my heels. I know people were running somewhere to my right, the Cheyenne were trotting purposefully towards the ford, shots were flying all along the river banks – and dead ahead of me, under the cottonwoods, was the ford leading to the coulee. Behind me the dotard was yelling:
“Go on, Lacotah! Here is a brave heart! See how he flies to meet the Long Knives!”
Apparently under the impression that I was one of the lads. The three Cheyenne were moving well, too – four of us going hell-for-leather, more or less in line abreast, three in paint and feathers, waving lances and guns, and one in white tie and tails, somewhat out of crease. Possibly they, too, thought that I belonged to the elect, for they didn’t so much as spare me a glance as we converged on the ford.
They were three good men, those – again I speak objectively – for they were going bald-headed against half a regiment, and they knew it. If the Indians put up statues, I reckon those three Cheyenne would be prime candidates, for if anyone turned the tide of Greasy Grass, they did. Mind you, I’m not saying that if Custer had got across the ford, he’d have had the battle won; I doubt it myself. He’d have got cut up either side, I reckon. But the first nails in his coffin were Roan Horse, Calf, and Bobtail Horse – and possibly my humble self – for it was our appearance at the ford, I think, that checked his advance. I don’t know – except that when my pony hit the shallows, with the three Cheyenne close behind, I lifted up mine eyes to the hills and saw to my amazement that the troopers in the coulee were dismounting and letting fly with their carbines. Whether the three Cheyenne stopped or came on,74 I don’t know, for I wasn’t looking; there were shots buzzing like bees overhead as I scrambled up the bank – and not twenty yards away a Ree scout and a trooper were covering me with their carbines, and I was bawling:
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