Long Winter Gone sotp-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  Clark eventually stepped up to Custer. “Might be Jack’s put a finger on something.”

  “Which is?” Custer growled, glowering at Clark with eyes that could frost a man’s mustache.

  “Doesn’t read right. That village ain’t got fifty warriors in it—much less a hundred fifty.”

  “What are you saying?” As it did every time he got excited, Custer’s voice was on the verge of stammering like a buggy spring hammering over a washboard road.

  “I figure what we’ve bumped into ain’t a hostile camp, General.”

  “You agree that’s not a hostile camp, Corbin?”

  “General, I don’t figure we’ll find but a handful of seasoned warriors down there.”

  “So where did all the rest of them just off and disappear to?” Custer hissed.

  “I suppose it’s my job to find out where the warriors disappeared,” Corbin answered sheepishly.

  “Well, now.” Custer hammered his fist into the open palm of his left hand. “That’s just what I intend to do, gentlemen. We’re finally in agreement! About time you found out where they went—the ones that you and the Osage trackers followed into that village down there.”

  “We figured better than a hundred warriors,” Clark said.

  “Those odds will make for a pretty fair fight of it. We’ve got the hostiles pinned against that cutbank behind the village. Unable to reach their pony herd for escape. We’ll charge across the river from the north. So their only route of escape will be downriver.” He stabbed his toe into Ben Clark’s snowy map. “Right about there.”

  Custer ground his heel into the snow and mud. “And that’s where I’ll be waiting for them—with Cooke’s men!That’s it!” Custer wheeled suddenly, stomping off deep in thought. “Deployed up the south bank. By the stars, that’s good!”

  Corbin looked back at Clark and Milner. “You think that’s the camp we’re looking for?”

  Clark squinted, appraising something unseen. “Don’t think so, Jack.”

  They both looked at Milner for his confirmation.

  “I don’t reckon how neither one of you got anything more to say ’bout it now. We found a village for the man. And no matter what Injuns they be, Custer’s going on in there and carve ’em up. Just like Custer’s been intending all along. Was only a matter of time before we found what he wanted—any village a’tall.”

  Corbin turned away, stung by the certainty of Milner’s words. With his own eyes he had seen those browned, smoke-blackened buffalo-hide lodges, hunkered sleepy and silent beneath the winter sky. Almost forlorn—all squatting in slumber on pewter-bright snow aglow beneath a quarter moon splaying itself through thin, pony-breath clouds. The haunting vision of that sleeping village clung to Corbin’s mind like old smoke in his clothes.

  That wasn’t a war camp.

  Corbin wheeled on Milner. “I tried to tell Custer about—”

  “You’ve done all any man can do, son,” Milner consoled. “When the army brass gets high behind and ready to plunge ahead without listening to his scouts … it’s just a waste of time trying to talk sense to him.”

  “I gotta make him see—”

  Milner grabbed his young partner, yanking him around. “Best just shut up! And see you got your rifle and pistols loaded afore the peep of day when Custer rides down on that village.”

  Corbin watched Milner turn toward his mule Maude.

  Joe’s right, he brooded. I’ve already done my damage. I’ve brought that hungry wolf stalking up on that sleeping winter village.

  Time to watch my own goddamn backside now.

  Down in a gully behind a brushy hill north of the Washita, Custer gathered his officers. In the snow he scratched a diagram of the river, where the village stood and the horse herd grazed.

  “We’ll surround the village, deploying the regiment along the river,” Custer explained. “My plan will make for a rapid encroachment of the village, securing it within minutes. Only in that way can we effectively seal off any chance for escape.”

  “And lessen the odds of losing any of our own men?” the deep, familiar voice prodded him.

  Custer measured Frederick W. Benteen, an experienced Civil War veteran. “Yes, Captain.”

  Custer glanced over his men, most of whom had been with him for better than a year, not counting his temporary absence. He knew what he could expect from each of them. Still, it disappointed him that there were some in this group who had grown to despise him, losing no chance in letting Custer know it. Benteen stood at the center of the opposition. Though he could be a mean, sniveling complainer, Benteen remained every bit as good a leader of cavalry under fire as Custer. Now, as these two decorated veterans prepared to plunge into battle, perhaps each realized he had to count on the other.

  “Saving lives is, after all, a main thrust of this campaign, isn’t it, gentlemen?” Custer waited, looking into the expectant faces encircling him. “Let us begin. Major Elliott?”

  “Yes, General?” He stepped forward, saluting.

  “You’ll take your command and ride wide left. To the east.”

  “Splendid, sir!”

  For some time, Custer had been aware of the contagious power in Elliott’s unbridled enthusiasm. “Should any of the Indians escape the trap we’ve laid for them, they’ll be running your way, Major. Right into your arms.”

  “We’ll be ready for them, General. They won’t get past us.”

  “Good. Now, Captain Myers—you’re to move your troops off to the right.” Custer traced a ragged line in the snow. “By backtracking west a short distance, the scouts tell me you’ll find a wide bend in the river where you can attack from southwest of the village. Station your two companies in the timber after crossing the river about a mile above my command here. You won’t have to ford the river at the moment of attack. Understood?”

  “Perfectly, sir,”

  “Captain Yates?” Custer gazed at the tall blond yankee from Monroe, Michigan, who for a short time during the Civil War, George W. Yates had served as an aide to Custer as part of General Pleasanton’s staff. A hometown boy, and a natural for the Custer inner circle. “General?”

  “Your F Company will be assigned to Captain Thompson.”

  Custer watched Yates’s steel-gray eyes flick to William Thompson. “Yessir,” Yates responded, nodding.

  Custer turned to Captain Thompson. “Will, you’re to take your two companies with Yates’s men to the crest of the knoll directly south of the village. If possible, link up with Elliott’s command, sealing the escape route the hostiles might use.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Sweep around the village and establish yourselves to the south of the village to await the attack.”

  “As you’ve ordered, General.”

  “Good. Now, I suppose you’re all wondering what my four troops will be doing as you flank the village on the east, west, and south. Frankly, boys, I’ve saved the point of the lance for myself. I’ll lead my companies across the river. While the four company commanders secure the village in concert with your actions, I’ll oversee the attack from a knoll south of the village.”

  “Sir?”

  “Mr. Cooke?” Custer turned toward the tall, handsome lieutenant, just recently awarded his bars. Billy Cooke, his men called him. And with respect. This dashing, bearded Canadian had migrated south into the States at the beginning of the Civil War simply so he could become a soldier. Some called him a patriot. Others, a soldier of fortune. A few went so far as to call Billy Cooke a mercenary. Little did it matter to Custer what made the Canadian tick, for he had recognized the makings of a fine officer and a close friend in W. W. Cooke.

  “Will my corps of riflemen ride across the river to engage the hostiles, sir?”

  “No, Lieutenant.” Custer stepped over to Cooke. “You are the final, crushing blow I plan for these murderers who have plundered the southern plains for the last time. Your sharpshooters won’t cross the river at all.”

  Custer waited f
or Cooke to nod. “I’ve sealed the village up from left and right, from north and south. The only way the warriors escape is to use the river itself. The banks are high enough to use the terrain for cover in an escape—but we don’t want one of these murderers to flee. So I’m sealing my trap with your forty sharpshooters—right there.” Custer pointed to his snowy map, showing Cooke to station his marksmen in the timber high along the north bank of the river. “Up there you will command a wide field of fire when the hostiles attempt to flee down the Washita.”

  “We won’t let you down.”

  Custer smiled, giving Cooke a hearty slap on the shoulder. “The scouts will remain with me.” He gazed down at the crude, muddy drawing in the snow near his feet and paused. “I suspect these warriors will be all the harder to bring down because we’re striking them in their homes, with their families. Be sure your men understand we’ll have a real scrap of it on our hands.”

  He waited for them to nod.

  “Good. From here on there must be no talking. Nothing above a whisper will be allowed. Warn the men against stamping their feet. An Indian sleeping on the ground might hear our troops. We’ll attack at first light—which gives you less than four hours to circle into position. Just prior to dawn, the men are to strip to battle readiness. I’ll signal the attack from here.”

  He stepped from the center of the group, turning so he could face them all at once.

  “Gentlemen, we’re about to spell an end to those bloody depredations committed on the southern frontier. Until now, an operation such as this hasn’t been possible—for there had been no Seventh Cavalry. That makes us, very simply, the spearhead of destiny, gentlemen! It is our Seventh that will always ride the vanguard of glory and honor. To that glory and honor, gentlemen!”

  “Glory and honor!”

  It stirred a fire within him hearing the chorus of their strong young voices echoing the courageous sentiment that would bring the Seventh Cavalry fame across the years ahead. Soon enough they could cross the river. Dawn would bring him what destiny had promised.

  He repeated it in a lead-filled whisper that could raise the hairs on the back of a man’s neck. “To glory and honor.”

  Two hours of freezing agony ground past for the men waiting huddled in the freezing mist of the Washita.

  Officers repeatedly checked their watches as time dragged by. Eventually the moon slipped behind the western hills, throwing the countryside into complete and eerie darkness.

  “Gotta be your mind playing tricks on you,” Milner, the man they called California Joe, muttered to himself. “Feels colder what with that goddamn moon sunk.” He carried his old Springfield across an arm as he prodded his mule in Custer’s direction. “Morning, General.”

  Custer nodded. “Joe.”

  “What I’ve been trying to get through my old topknot all night is whether we’ll run up against more Injuns than we bargained for.”

  He watched Custer raise an eyebrow, concerned. Milner realized he’d handed the general a thorny problem.

  “You don’t figure those Cheyenne down there will make a run for it, Joe?”

  “Them Cheyenne skedaddle? How in the Good Lord’s Creation can Injuns run off when you’ll have ’em clean surrounded afore first light?”

  “Precisely my plan. I don’t want a one to escape.” He chewed thoughtfully on the corner of his droopy mustache. “Supposing we are able to bottle them up—you figure we can hold our own against the warriors in that village?”

  “That is some handsome dilemma, now, ain’t it?” Milner ground teeth on the stub of his unlit pipe. “One thing’s sure as sun. If them Injuns down there don’t hear a squeak out of your soldier boys till we open up our guns on ’em come crack o’ day, they’ll damned near be the most astonished redskins that’s been in these parts lately! If we do for certain get the bulge on ’em … why, we’ll sweep their platter clean!”

  “I’m relieved to have your confidence in my plan, Joe.”

  “Well, General—I like to deal the cards face up. We’re holding aces high over them Injuns down there.”

  “I’ve got the feeling that something still troubles you.”

  “I’ve played enough cards to know that both Lady Fate and Lady Luck often sit ’cross the table from a man—and it’s them two whores what might have something to say about what a man draws from his deck.”

  “You think those Cheyenne still have a draw at one of our aces?”

  Milner ran the tip of his tongue thoughtfully across winter-chapped lips. “I’ve fought me plenty Injuns, and damn if they don’t always find a draw at the cards. Hang me but they’ve got a play even at the bottom of some goddamned played-out deck.”

  Without another word, Milner plodded pulled Maude away into the roiling mist, quiet as cotton through the calf-deep snow until the mist had swallowed him completely.

  Custer shuddered. Some parts of this Indian fighting sat in his craw. Cursed with scouts so of times somber and ghostly. Turning into the brush, he decided to find himself a quiet spot and stretch out on the snow for a nap.

  Until time came for the bugles.

  Here and there small knots of men congregated, waiting for that opening note of the coming fight. Enlisted men complained of the bitter cold or talked of the warmth of their hard haytick bunks back at Fort Hays. Some dreamed of the pleasure brought a man by those fleshy sporting ladies in Hays City, friendly kind of gals who followed soldiers to every post and fort and fleshpot dotting the western frontier.

  Talk of anything now … but no talk about the coming battle.

  Instead of talking at all, most only leaned against their mounts, using the horses’ warmth to ward off some of the foggy cold that stung a man to the bone, chewing away at the core of him. Many of the battle-hardened were long used to eluding prefight jitters. They snored back in the snowy rabbit brush.

  Custer himself awoke refreshed from a long nap about the time a ghostly light climbed out of the dense river mist. Nearby the scouts murmured among themselves. A few Osages began chanting their own eerie melodies as the bright light emerged from the thick fog bank, ascending into the lamp-black sky.

  “It’s the Morning Star, sir,” Moylan whispered at Custer’s side.

  It loomed close. Huge, and shimmering with life.

  “A good omen for our victory, Lieutenant.”

  Nothing short of powerful medicine to the Osages, this appearance of the celestial light above the river, here on the precipice of battle. As the brilliant globe climbed above the southwestern horizon, it seemed to ascend more slowly, its light radiating prismatically from color to color. An imperial stillness settled over this wilderness in these last moments before dawn, causing something deep within Custer’s being to assure him this star was destined to shine on this valley, his command—on he alone.

  Custer smiled, certain to the core of the outcome of the impending fight. The heavens had ordained the star to shine upon him.

  He vowed to do nothing to disappoint the gods of Olympus with the coming light of a new day.

  Stiff with cold, the Cheyenne sentry who stationed himself atop the knoll south of camp had no appreciation for the celestial light glowing above him in the river mist. Half Bear settled in the snow.

  Not much longer before he could return to a warm lodge where his woman would build up the fire, put some breakfast meat on to boil. His stomach churned, angry with him, a hunger enough to keep a sentry awake.

  Yet he decided he could nap a bit before the sky paled in morning-coming.

  Half Bear slumped over. By the time he had curled his legs up beneath the heavy robe, his breath had begun to warm his frozen face. His breathing grew more regular. Before he realized it he was no longer merely napping. Half Bear slept.

  Down he plunged, deep and sound, unable to yank himself back out of that warm, liquid pit. In the midst of its welcome darkness he was sure the ear he laid against the ground caught the warning of iron-shod hooves scraping across the frozen breast of the
Mother of Them All.

  Half Bear’s eyes refused to open. He heard horses circling to the backside of the knoll where he slept on. Horses clattering up from the river. Creeping south of the village behind him. That unmistakable jangle of pony soldier saddle gear! Still he tried to convince himself it was only a dream.

  Hah! That pony soldiers would come in the cold of a winter dawn made bright beneath the Morning Star—this could only be a dream!

  Curled deep within his robe, Half Bear dozed … warm enough to dream on.

  With the growing light, Custer sent Lieutenant Cooke’s detail far to the left, deploying his men among the tall oaks along the steep northern bank of the Washita. A quarter-hour later, Custer led his four companies down the gradual slope that sank away to the river. There he halted the troopers in a dense copse of trees shading the north lip of the Washita as it circled the sleeping village in a lazy loop of icy water.

  To his left, astride a broad-backed gray, sat the regimental color guard, his guidon dancing stiffly in the fog. Staying near Custer and refusing to wander far from that colorful cavalry standard sat the twelve Osage trackers. In a mad charge against Indians, they had decided, there could be no safer place for them.

  Like warm milk from a cracked bowl, the gray light of a new day eventually began to leak out of the east.

  The twenty-seventh of November. One day after Thanksgiving. That thin band of growing light caused Custer to send Moylan to carry word among the four companies shivering behind him.

  Troopers shed their warm buffalo coats. They dropped their haversacks holding rations of hardtack and coffee. One soldier from each company was assigned to stay behind to guard the coats and haversacks. All eyes focused on the coming light of dawn.

  “Moylan, bring the band up. I want them to play at the moment of attack.”

  Officers pulled pistols from mule-eared holsters, reins gripped anxiously in the other hand. Hundreds of troopers sat shivering in the brutal cold, not knowing what awaited them in that sleeping village on the other side of the frozen Washita.