Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876 tp-10

by Terry C. Johnston

  Minutes later, as all three of them hid just beneath the crest of that small conical mound, the lieutenant found he commanded a full view of everything moving on the land between their post and the distant ridges. Behind them the trees bordering the Warbonnet could be made out in the middistance, the cottonwood and brush laced with a wispy fog rising off the creek as it poured sluggishly toward its meeting with the South Fork of the Cheyenne. Back there waited 330 enlisted men as well as 16 officers, in addition to their surgeon, along with Bill Cody and his 4 other scouts.

  Grinding his teeth on nothing for the moment, King thought how just about now the others were pumping life into the small fires they buried in the sand, starting to heat up some coffee. What he’d give for a hot, strong cup of army brew right now. And he brooded that they’d be laying out slabs of that pungent salt pork in their frying pans as the coffee water heated to boiling.

  As if it had overheard his thoughts, his own stomach grumbled, protesting. Man just wasn’t meant to fight on an empty stomach.

  Due south he could begin to make out the outline of the fabled Pine Ridge that stretched all the way from western Wyoming Territory, on through Nebraska, then angled north toward Dakota. Time and again King swept the whole country with his field glasses, scouring the horizon from east to west in a 180-degree arc. Off to the west in the growing light he could begin to see the deeply chewed trail the Fifth made reaching this point last night. But off to the east—nothing moved.

  By 4:30 A.M. all seven companies had saddled their horses and were awaiting action in the cold stillness of the sun’s emergence. The chilled air refused to stir. The silence was almost crushing. Behind the observation knoll, King, Schreiber, and Wilkinson had left their horses with two pickets in a shallow depression. At times the lieutenant could even hear the animals tearing at the abundant prairie grass. King swore he could even hear the thump-thump of his own heart beat as he peered into the distance coming alive with the new day’s ever-changing light. For a moment he studied the faces of the men on either side of him, finding them drawn and haggard with nonstop fatigue, their eyes sunken and draped with liver-colored bags.

  “Lieutenant!” Wilkinson called out in a harsh whisper, suddenly coming to life—tapping King on the upper arm.

  Immediately he trained his glasses in the direction the corporal was looking. “You see something?”

  “Saw something move.”

  Schreiber crawled back to the crest of the mound on his belly, shading his eyes against the brightening sky.

  “Look, Lieutenant!” Wilkinson gushed. “There … there are Indians!”

  “Where?” Schreiber demanded.

  Slowly the corporal rose on his hands and knees, bringing one arm up to point to the southeast. “That ridge … can’t you see them?”

  It took a few moments, maybe as much as a minute, not any more than that—as King strained his eyes, squinted, twirling the adjustment knob this way with painstaking precision, then back the other direction just as slowly.

  “I see ’em, Lieutenant!” Schreiber said.

  “Yes,” King replied, the hair rising at the back of his neck. “There’s a second group now.”

  A third small knot of five or six horsemen appeared on the distant ridge, then dropped back out of sight. For the time being none of those warriors seemed to be in a great hurry to advance, but instead seemed intent solely on something off to the southwest of where King lay observing the entire panorama with the sun’s rising. Over the next few minutes he counted a half-dozen small parties popping up to the crest of the distant ridges, then turning about and disappearing from sight.

  Finally King turned to Schreiber. “Sergeant—send word back to the signalman from A Troop. He’ll alert the command.”

  “Tell ’em the Injuns are coming?”

  “Yes,” King replied.

  Down the backside of the slope the sergeant slid until out of sight. Then he trotted on down to the horse-holders, gesturing as he whispered his message. One of the troopers flung himself into the saddle and tore off toward the lone trooper from A Company waiting on a knoll halfway back to the Warbonnet bivouac.

  “Way they’re acting, you think they’ve seen us?” Wilkinson asked as Schreiber crawled back in beside them.

  “Don’t think so,” King replied. “They keep popping over, watching something. If they knew we were here, they’d be gone already.”

  “That’s right. If they knew we was here,” the sergeant agreed, “we’d never knowed they was there.”

  For the next thirty minutes the trio didn’t take their eyes from the southeast as the sun continued its climb. Then King turned at the snort from one of the held horses in the depression below them. Coming up on his resplendent buckskin, Bill Cody led seven soldiers: Merritt and Carr, along with Major John J. Upham and aide-de-camp Lieutenant J. Hayden Pardee of the Twenty-third Infantry as well as three from the colonel’s staff. All of them came to a halt and leaped from their saddles, hurrying up the slope at a crouch behind the scout. Without a word the colonel and his lieutenant colonel trained their own glasses on the distance, watching the dark specks appear and disappear in the distance, now narrowed to less than two miles. From the rear hurried three more of Cody’s scouts—White, Tait, and Garnier—along with several more curious officers loping in from bivouac to have a look for themselves.

  Merritt turned to Forbush, his regimental adjutant, asking, “Have the men had their coffee?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then return to the company commanders with my instructions to mount the regiment and have them formed into line.”

  “Yes, sir.” Forbush slid down the slope and trotted to his horse.

  “What do you think they’re after?” the colonel asked as he turned around to train his eye on the distance.

  “Don’t know for sure, General,” Cody answered. “But they’re sure acting like they’re watching something.”

  The knoll was growing crowded with soldiers and scouts when King asked, “The Black Hills Road?”

  “Could be,” Merritt replied. “It lies somewhere out there.”

  “I don’t think so,” Cody argued, shaking his head. He was dressed in a dashing black outfit, tailored in the lines of a Mexican vaquero’s. “The road is off over there—more to the east. And those warriors are watching something coming in from the west.”

  “Besides, no one would be using the Black Hills Road now,” Carr agreed with his scout. “They’ve been warned off of it because of the agency scare.”

  “That can’t be the Black Hills Road,” King responded. “Off to the west—that’s the Sage Creek Road, on our backtrail.”

  “The way those warriors’re keeping themselves hid from the west,” Cody explained, “I’ll lay a wager they’re keeping an eye on something coming from that direction.”

  Merritt asked, “Then they have no idea we’re here?”

  “Just look at all of them!” Carr marveled.

  It was as if the light suddenly ballooned across the entire horizon at that very moment. Every ridge and hill screened from the west was now alive with warriors, all of them excitedly moving about.

  Carr wagged his head, rubbing his gritty eyes with two fingertips as he muttered, “What in thunder are they laying for?”

  “By glory—that’s it!” Cody bellowed. He pointed west now.

  “There! Yes! I see them!” Merritt said.

  “Is that—Oh, dear God!” Carr replied. “That’s got to be our own supply train.”

  Better than four miles away the white tops of Lieutenant Hall’s company wagons began to pop up on the distant horizon as the light swelled around them. Hurrying his teams as fast as he dared push them, Hall was bringing along those two companies of infantry.

  “By doggies!” Cody said, then chuckled. “Those Injuns think they’ve found ’em some easy pickings.”

  “All alone on the Sage Creek Road,” Charlie White added.

  “But those wagons aren’t fi
lled with plunder,” Carr said with a smile.

  Merritt couldn’t help himself, clapping in glee. “Great Jupiter—have we got a surprise in store for them when they ride down to jump those wagons!”

  White cheered, “They’ll roll those covers back and let those red sonsabitches have it!”

  “I don’t believe this! Hall’s made an all-night march of it,” Merritt announced.

  “I, for one, General,” said Carr, “am glad he did.”

  With a nod Merritt agreed. “I suppose he’s made himself the bait in our trap, without even knowing it.”

  “Nothing those Injuns want better,” Garnier observed, “than a supply train loaded with plunder headed to the Black Hills settlements.”

  “Instead,” Cody said, a big smile creasing his face, “those wagons are loaded for bear.”

  King interrupted their celebration, pointing in another direction as he said, “Will you look at that, sirs?”

  Off to the southeast they saw a bright-colored, plumed band of warriors separate from the hundreds and kick their ponies into motion. At a gallop they rode down into the bottoms and at the base of the hills, staying out of sight from the oncoming wagons. Unknowingly, the nine or ten horsemen were closing the gap between them and the soldiers’ lookout post.

  “They spotted us?”

  “Naw,” Cody said. “If they knew soldiers were here, there’d be more than just that little bunch coming.”

  “What do you suppose they’re about?” Merritt wondered.

  “Them,” Cody said gravely.

  Every man on that hill now trained his glasses to the southwest. A pair of riders broke into view, riding well ahead of the bow-topped wagons.

  “Couriers?” Carr asked.

  “I’d bet money on it,” Cody said. “General, Colonel … appears that Hall is sending you word he’s coming in.”

  “But those two don’t realize they’re about to get chopped up!” King said. “That band of warriors is going to butcher those couriers before they even know what surprise the rest of the red bastards have in store for the train.”

  “Dear Lord—those men are riding to their death,” Merritt muttered.

  “Look, General!” Cody said. “There—see that ravine where that war party is riding?”

  “Yes.”

  “Down there—see—where the ravine’s mouth opens onto the road,” Cody said confidently. “That’s where they’ll likely jump those couriers.”

  “I can’t allow that to happen,” Merritt grumbled.

  Carr wagged his head and said, “But if we fire on them now, we’ll scare off the rest of the warriors before we can engage them.”

  “By Jove, General,” Cody cheered as he got to his feet, dusting off the resplendent braided vaquero costume he wore that day. “Now’s our chance. We can ride out and cut those red hellions off!”

  “Yes!” Merritt rose, gripping Cody’s arm. “It’s up to you, Cody. Cut them off!”

  The scout turned on his heel and sprinted downslope as Merritt whirled on King, gripping the lieutenant’s arm. “Stay here, Mr. King. It’s your call: watch till that war party is close under you—then give the word! The rest of you come down, every other man of you.”

  “Yes … sir!” King saluted and watched the others start their hurried race down the slope to their mounts.

  Again the hair on the back of his sunburned neck prickled with anticipation. Two hundred yards behind him to the north he watched as the first of the six companies of mounted troopers moved into line and halted—brought up by their company commanders as soon as Private Madsen had carried word to camp: Indians had been spotted. Now the Fighting Fifth was fronting out in a thin blue line against the green and brown of those rolling hills, horses colored by troops, carbines glittering with a dull blue sheen in that first light of day.

  King’s heart was thundering now, and his mouth had gone dry. He tried licking his lips with a pasty tongue as he turned back to the south. In the distance a hundred lances stood out against the summer sky, feathers and scalp locks fluttering on the renewed breeze. The horsemen watched their own ride on down that ravine, ready to cut off the two unsuspecting couriers.

  Again Charles glanced over his shoulder. Cody, White, the half-breed Tait, and a half-dozen men from his own Company K waited in the saddle atop anxious animals— tightening gunbelts, straightening clothing, tugging hats down on their brows. All of them with their eyes trained intently on King above them on the hill. Halfway down the slope Merritt, Carr, and their aides waited out of sight.

  King was the only man left at the top now that the enemy was drawing dangerously near. Stretched out flat on his belly, he swallowed hard, wishing he had brought his canteen along. Instantly knowing there was no amount of water that would ever wet a man’s mouth when it had gone dry with the anticipation of battle.

  He could not give the word too soon, or the warriors would escape. And he could not wait too long—the couriers would be swallowed up before rescue could race round the hill.

  Now he could hear the hoofbeats. Or was it the pounding of his heart? No, it was the hoofbeats of those war ponies.

  No longer did he need his field glasses to watch the oncoming collision. Everything seemed to loom closer and closer, ever closer.

  He turned and flung his voice downhill. “All ready, General?”

  Merritt answered, “All ready, King. Give the word when you like.”

  That thunder had to be his heart.

  No, it was the hammering of those hooves as the warriors reached the last hundred yards of ravine.

  Ten seconds.

  God—but they were beautiful men: their dark skin made golden in the coming light.

  Eight.

  The new light reflected off the bright war paint, brass arm bands and bracelets, the silver gorgets.

  Six seconds.

  The way the wind whipped their hair, the scalp locks tied to fringed leggings and shields, fluttering beneath the jaws of the onrushing ponies.

  Four.

  What horsemen these, he marveled as he began to reach for the brim of his slouch hat he had laid on the grass beside him. Never again will there be any the likes of these.

  Two seconds left.

  In my hand I hold your fate. In my very hand, I hold vengeance for the death of Custer’s Seventh!

  Then, as the racing warriors burst from the mouth of the ravine, King bolted to his feet, waving his hat and bellowing as Cody exploded away in a blur.

  “Now, lads! In with you!”

  Chapter 20

  Moon of Cherries Blackening

  Indians on the Offensive

  OMAHA, July 17—Telegrams received here yesterday are to the effect that the Indians are moving on Medicine Bow, a station on the Union Pacific, almost due south of Fort Fetterman, it is supposed for the purpose of capturing or destroying the supplies which have been stored there recently in great quantities by the government, there being 50,000 rounds of ammunition among other things. A small force of Indians could seize and destroy these stores, as Medicine Bow is a small station, and the country round about sparsely settled. Their destruction at this time would seriously impede military operations against the Indians.

  His name was Yellow Hair.

  Not because yellow was the color of his own. No, Yellow Hair’s was as black as any Cheyenne’s. His skin as dark as his red earth home.

  Hay-o-wei.

  Instead, Yellow Hair was named for the scalp he wore. The hair of a white woman he had killed, so went one tale.

  But Yellow Hair knew better—it was the scalp of an important man. Hair he had taken seven winters before along the Little Dried River.* Among his people a warrior was known by the coups he counted, by the ponies he stole, by the hair he took and the women left to mourn. Yellow Hair knew there must have been mourning when he took that scalp.

  Instead of cutting it up to tie along the sleeves of his war shirt, instead of stringing small pieces of it around the edge of his war s
hield, Yellow Hair instead stretched the scalp on a small hoop of green willow and to that hoop tied a long thong. This he wore around his neck. It was the biggest victory he had ever won—this fight with the yellow-haired man.

  A tough and worthy opponent. So he proudly wore the hair of that enemy around his neck ever since. They had called him other names when he was a child, when he was a brash youngster wandering with Tall Bull’s band of Dog Soldiers raiding and stealing from Comanche country on the south, to Lakota country on the north.

  Then Tall Bull was killed at the Springs on a hot summer’s day, much as this one promised to be. The soldiers attacked without the slightest warning from their herd guard. Yellow Hair and the others stayed behind long enough to protect the children and old ones as they fled into the sandy hills and crossed the river† to safety. The pony soldiers and their scalped-head scouts‡ did not pursue for long. He had learned the scalped heads would not—not when there was plunder among the lodges, not when there was something of a proud people to steal or destroy.

  But Tall Bull was dead. And for weeks they had wandered aimlessly while some of the other war chiefs argued as to just where they should go. Some families broke off and went their own way. A few bands even returned to the south that autumn, to live with relatives down on the southern agency.* But not the true Dog Soldiers like Yellow Hair. They continued to raid on into that autumn. And early that winter he took his scalp down by the Little Dried River where five winters before the soldiers had attacked old Black Kettle’s village of peace-loving Shahiyena. A lot of good it did the old chief to tie that white man’s star flag from his highest lodgepole. Four years later Black Kettle was killed by Custer’s men.

  Now both Black Kettle and Tall Bull were dead. A man could die fighting, or he could die doing what the white man ordered him to do. To Yellow Hair’s way of thinking, the old peace chief was a pitiful man, worthy only of scorn for his stupidity in believing in the white man’s word. Black Kettle deserved to die for putting his trust not in his own people, but in what the white man considered truth.

  But Tall Bull—it mattered little that he was dead, for he had died an honored man: a warrior who never shrank from the task at hand, a man who always thought of his people first, a fighter who went down defending his people, his home, and the land where he had buried the bones of his ancestors. That was the death of a true warrior and patriot of the People: to die with honor, to lay down his life fighting off the white man.