Dane pointed at the golden globe on top of the black rod. “I bet that’s something very similar to a crystal skull. I think it takes the power from all these people-” he indicated the bodies circling the room. Dane looked more closely at the closest body. “Here.” He pointed at several leads that ran from the enclosure into the body. “I think. those were designed to kill these people. Slowly. And they knew it. A hell of a way to produce power.”
“Don’t knock it,” Earhart said.
“What?”
“It’s what we plan on doing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CUSTER
“Sound officers’ call,” Custer ordered Trumpeter Martin. “The twenty-fifth of June,” Custer said to himself as he counted days, in his head. The centennial of the United States of America was to be celebrated in less than two weeks. As the bugle call brought his officers to his tent, Custer calculated whether the telegraph wires would be working going east. If the regiment engaged the Sioux today, he could send a messenger to Fort Lincoln and then, if the wires were up, the word of the Victory would most certainly make it to the celebration that would be taking place in Philadelphia in early July.
Custer frowned. But if the wires were down, the news might not get there in time. “Hurry up!” Custer snapped as his officers slowly gathered around.
He rubbed his forehead to push away a growing pain there. He was responsible for every damn thing in this regiment. His Indian scouts were chanting their death songs, and his own officers were moving like molasses. Damn fools, all of them. Custer looked over the sunburned faces of his twelve troop commanders. “Each company commander will immediately detail one NCO and six troopers to the pack train.”
He could see the surprise on the faces of some of the officers as the Import of the message sunk in. They’d been planning on resting today. Ten years of Indian fighting had lll1pressea one tact upon Custer: If the regiment delayed, there Would be nothing in the valley of the Little Big Horn. In all those years he had managed to come to blows with his red foe Only once decisively, at the Washita, and then only by surprising the village at dawn. Here dawn was already come and gone and the Sioux knew he was here. They would have to hurry.
Because the regiment was moving quickly, they had no Wagon train for logistical support. Extra ammunition, grain and food were laden on mules, and the detail Custer had just designated would have the duty of controlling the mules that held each company’s resupply of ammunition.
There was so much more to this than the damn fools back east imagined, Custer fumed as he waited for his subordinates to relay that order and return. He had 175 mules in his supply train and only six skinners to work them, thus the detail. The supply train was like a leash around his throat, but it was one that he could only cast off for several hours before the regiment needed the supplies that were carried.
“There’s a village on the Little Big Horn, northeast of here,” Custer briefed his men. “But my brother informs me that we’ve been spotted.” Custer glared at his subordinates. There would be plenty of time after they took care of the Sioux to get to the bottom of the breadbox incident. He would find out which troop it came from and deal with the commander appropriately.
“Any sign the Sioux might attack us?” Major Reno asked.
Custer stared at his second-ranking officer in amazement. How Reno ever survived the Civil War, he didn’t know. “Major, they would not dare attack the regiment. The issue is, can we catch them before they break camp and run? If we delay there will be no Indians to fight.”
“Sir, if they are on the Little Big Horn,” Reno said, “we must wait until tomorrow for General Crook and General Terry to complete the encirclement. They will be on the river shortly. We will catch the hostiles between us in a classic pincer maneuver.”
“Are you not listening?” Custer said. “There will be nothing to encircle on the twenty-sixth. Besides, we are not certain that General Terry will have made it that far by then, and of General Crook there has been no sign.”
Custer’s fingers bore down on his riding gloves as another officer spoke up. “Sir, our orders are to move in coordination with-” Captain Benteen began, but Custer had no time for this.
“I know what my orders are, gentlemen.” His tone of voice indicated there would be no further discussion of the subject. “Commanders will inspect their troops and prepare them to move out. We will march in the order that the commanders report back to me that they are ready to move. The last commander to report in will guard the pack train.” Custer waved a hand, dismissing them and ending any further discussion. He missed the days when he had a divisional staff waiting to carry his orders to his subordinates and he didn’t have listen to the whining and complaints of mere company commanders.
Of course, Custer had to remind himself, he was grateful to be here at all and in command. Custer had literally had to get on his knees to beg to be in this place. And he wasn’t going to let the fears of lesser men destroy the opportunity that he now saw in the valley of the Little Big Horn. Remembering kneeling in front of General Terry and pleading to be allowed to participate in the campaign against the Sioux still rankled Custer. Damn Grant and those meddlesome fools in Washington! Wait until they hear about what happens today. Custer thought. Which brought his mind full circle to the centennial celebration in Philadelphia. For a few moments he toyed with the possibility of even making it there in person if all went well today and the campaign was ended in one fell swoop. With luck and catching the right trains, it might just be possible. It would be wonderful to look Grant in the eye with a great victory over the Sioux under his belt. Custer remembered the adulation that had come his way, particularly from be press, from his victory at the Washita. Today could make that look like a minor engagement if he broke the back of the Lakota Sioux nation.
Custer’s ill mood with his unit became even blacker when the first company commander to report ready for march was Captain Benteen of Company H. The captain was the senior company commander and as such the third in command of the regiment in the field. Benteen had been a colonel in the Civil War and his record. As Custer reluctantly knew, had been exemplary.
Despite that, Custer did not wish to cede the lead in the march to Company H. “Does your company comply with the standing orders that were issued at the Yellowstone, captain?” he asked Benteen.
The captain, whose most striking feature was white hair above a sharp and tanned face, kept his face impassive. “I’ve lent an NCO and six men back to the pack train to take care of the mules for my troop, sir. Each man has one hundred rounds of carbine ammunition and twenty-four rounds of ball for their pistols.”
The regiment, and Custer, had left their sabers back at Fort Lincoln. The unwieldy swords were next to worthless in the field. If there was fighting to be done, it would be done with rifle and pistol.
“Then Colonel Benteen, you have the advance,” Custer reluctantly said. He then ignored Benteen as the rest of the commanders trickled in. Captain Weir of D; Lieutenant Godfrey of K; Captain French of M; Custer’s brother Tom, of C; young Lieutenant McIntosh of G; Captain Moylan of A; Lieutenant Calhoun of L; Captain Miles Keogh of I; Lieutenant Smith of; Captain Yates of F; and last, and to be designated in the least favored spot, Captain McDougall of B, which Custer accordingly assigned to guard the pack train.
“Move your troop to the right and proceed in column of fours,” Custer ordered Benteen. Custer then pulled his horse to the side and watched as Benteen led the way, heading around the bulk of the mountains toward the valley of the Little Big Horn.
“Magnificent, sir, magnificent,” a voice piped up to · Custer’s right. He turned in the saddle and saw Mark Kellogg, the correspondent from the Bismarck Tribune. Some of Luster’s black mood fell away from him.
“You are most fortunate, Mister Kellogg,” Custer said… You are going to be witness to one of the greatest victories the frontier has ever known and see the end of the power of the mighty Sioux nation.”
/> “We will have a fight then. Sir?” Kellogg asked.
“If they do not run, we will have a fight,” Custer replied.
The third company in column was now passing by. A splendid sight to Custer in the morning sun. Custer knew Kellogg’s presence violated Shennan’s order to General Terry for no reporters to accompany the Seventh Cavalry. But Custer saw the long reach of President Grant in that order and had decided to ignore it. Custer had actually invited the publisher of the Tribune. Clement Lounsberry, to come along, but Lounsberry’s wife had taken ill just before they left Fort Lincoln and Kellogg had been chosen to take his place.
“Do you think they will run?” Kellogg asked anxiously.
Custer liked the man. The reporter wanted to see a fight. Unlike some of his own men, he thought bitterly. “The red man always runs,” he answered. “I have been out here a decade, and not once have they settled down and fought like · men. You have to threaten their women and their children to get them to fight at all.”
“I thought you had great respect for the red man, general. In your book Life on the Plains you wrote about-”
“I do respect them as foes once they take weapon in hand.” Custer quickly cut the reporter off. “They fight fiercely. The problem is getting them to fight. In the Civil War we knew our foe, and we could meet them bravely, face to face on the field of honor. Here we have to track them down like dogs.”
Custer knew he always had to be careful around newspapermen. He never knew how they might take something he said and twist it to their own end. He’d been criticized by newspapers before. But he also knew that Kellogg’s own career was tied to the success of the Seventh Cavalry. This was Kellogg’s big chance, because his stories were not only being printed by the Bismarck paper but were also being picked up by the New York Herald.
‘’Make sure you spell my uncle’s name correctly,” a boyish voice joked from behind the two men. Custer smiled as he pulled back on his reins and turned his horse. His nephew, eighteen-year-old Harry Armstrong “Autie” Reed was grinding. Having Autie along was another violation of Army policy, Custer knew, but it was good for the lad. He had been sickly back east, and the fresh air of the High Plains had done wonders for him.
“We’ll be seeing some action today,” Custer told Autie. “I want you to stay close to me.” Custer glanced over at the other man with his nephew. “You, too, Boston,” he directed toward his younger brother, Boston Custer. At least Boston was authorized on this trip. Although Custer had had to pull some strings to get his younger brother hired as a civilian guide. There were those, Benteen’s voice among them, who had wondered at the usefulness of a guide who had never been in this part of the country before. Boston was a comfort to Custer, and for that reason the general felt he was more than worth having along.
“You guard Autie now,” Custer said. “It wouldn’t do to have him get hurt. Elizabeth would never let me hear the end of it.”
Custer noted the new scout standing silently behind the officers and his family members. Bouyer bothered him although he couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason. The man rarely spoke. He’d shown up two days ago, which had been convenient considering one of the scout/interpreters for the regiment had simply disappeared the previous evening. Custer remembered Bouyer from the Washita, and the man’s reputation for working with Bridger was well known along the frontier. But there was an air about him, a darkness that disturbed Custer. While Bouyer had dutifully reported all the signs the scouts picked up regarding the savages, he had not had the same edge of fear the others displayed. It was as if he were resigned to whatever was going to occur.
Custer turned his attention back to the column. The fifth troop was now going by. He looked to his left. He could see the front of the column crossing over the high ground between the Rosebud and Little Big Horn Valleys. By the sun, Custer estimated it would be noon shortly. Not good, he thought. The damn Indians had all morning to break: down their lodges and leave if they had spotted his troops.
The regiment, in columns of fours, was strung out for quite a long distance, another disadvantage of moving in this terrain. Because of the unevenness of the landscape, the column y.ras bunching up and spreading out in a most unmilitary fashion.
This will not do at all, thought Custer. He galloped forward, along the column, passing the troops. Catching up with Benteen, he waved at him to stop his troop.
“Cooke, come with me,” Custer said to his adjutant, Lieutenant William Cooke. Custer liked having the Canadian-born officer as his right-hand man. Cooke was a deadly shot with both carbine and pistol. He also presented a fierce appearance, with bushy sideburns adorning his cheeks that were so long they flapped about in the breeze.
The two men rode forward about fifty yards. They halted on a slight rile, but there was nothing to be seen to the front except rolling grass-covered hills and a small gap between them.
Custer used the tail of his red cravat to wipe sweat from his face. It was hot already, the temperature somewhere in the mid-90s and likely to get higher. Two Crow scouts raced up and reported in sign language that they had spotted some Sioux nearby. The Sioux had ridden off quickly to the north. Custer dismissed the scouts with a wave of his hand. There was no doubt the seventh had been spotted. The problem was, despite his time on the Crow’s Nest, Custer still had no real idea where exactly the Indian camp was.
He knew the Little Big Horn ran in a roughly northeasterly direction and that the Sioux were most likely on the west side of the river; at least that’s what all the scouts agreed on. If the hostiles were going to run, they would run either north or south along the river, Custer decided. West was high ground leading to the Rocky Mountains; it was possible they might go that way, but if they did, Custer wasn’t exactly in position to stop them, being to the east. To loop around to the west would take much too long.
Eight years earlier, in November 1868, Custer had been in t similar situation on the Washita. In the dead of night he’d divided the Seventh into four groups and surrounded the village. It had been over in fifteen minutes. One hundred three Indians lay dead, their blood seeping into the snow. It had been glorious. Custer remembered. Riding forward at the head of his troopers, the strains of “Garry Owen” in the air, he had rushed through the village, firing his pistol at any red target that presented itself. It had been hailed as a great victory, perhaps the greatest of the western Indian Wars to date. By God, Custer remembered, General Phil Sheridan himself had ridden down from Fort Hays in the middle of the winter to congratulate Custer personally. Custer hoped to top that now.
Today, though, Custer knew he had a time problem. At Washita he’d been able to deploy the regiment at night to surround the village. He’d also known exactly where the village as. Right now he was still more than twelve miles away from the little Big Horn River, and he didn’t know exactly where along the water the village was. It was likely the regiment had been spotted, so the element of surprise might well have been lost. And if he didn’t burry, he might even lose what daylight he had left. To wait for next morning. He knew there would be no village.
Custer turned to look at the head of the regiment. Waiting like a deadly snake, the body stretching out to the east. His mind wrestled with the tactical situation. Then he spotted Benteen. His shock of white hair making him easily visible. Benteen had been with him at the Washita victory, but ever since then the man had become an irritating presence in the regiment Farther back in the column, Custer knew Reno was riding. Another burr.
If those were rebels down there, Custer had no doubt about what he’d do. Swing the regiment on line along the valley floor. Making sure they were south of the village. And weep up it, taking the enemy head-on. But if he tried that against the Sioux, he knew they wouldn’t stand and fight. They’d run, especially if the entire might of the Seventh was brought to bear.
No. Custer thought, this was going to be difficult to pull off. “How far do you make it, Cooke’?” he asked, pointing through the gap in t
he bills ahead to a dark line that marked the river.
‘’Ten miles or so, sir,” Cooke replied.
There was a creek a quarter-mile ahead. Ash Creek, the scouts had told him. It divided farther down, but eventually led into the Little Big Horn. To the right were rolling ridges, the same to the left with the Wolf Mountains behind them.
Custer noticed a group of riders coming in from the left. He waited impatiently, feeling success tick away with each minute. It was Varnum with his scouts, come from Crow’s Nest.
“General, we spotted some Sioux moving north along Ash Creek ahead of you,” Varnum reported.
Bloody Knife’s hands moved in the hand symbols typical of the Indian. They are too many!
Bouyer had come up to meet Varnum and the other scouts. He echoed Bloody Knife’s hands. “There are many in the village. It fills the valley.”
“How many is many?” Custer demanded.
Bouyer shrugged. “Two thousand warriors. Maybe more.”
Custer blinked. “They’ve never had that many in one place before. They couldn’t feed their ponies or their people.”
Bouyer didn’t answer.
“Even if they did,” Custer continued, “they can’t coordinate a force like that.”
“If you go in there,” Bouyer said, pointing ahead, “you will never come out.”
“Are you afraid?” Custer demanded, his patience with the temperamental scouts snapping.
A slight smile crept across Bouyer’s face, which irritated Custer, but the man said nothing.
Bloody Knife’s hands moved, gesturing toward the sun. Custer knew the sign language well enough to read it: I will not see the sun go down behind the hills tonight.
Custer ordered the scouts to move back to the column. He needed a moment to think. He stared straight ahead as if he could see through the blocking hills to the Indian camp.
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