“Then he wants me to keep the Ree scouts with my command?” Reno inquired suspiciously, scratching his beard.
“It’s my opinion that he does—yes, sir,” Cooke replied. “He’s keeping four of the Crows and Bouyer with him. The rest, I assume, are now to go with you.”
“Anything more? Something in the way of orders?”
“No, Major.” Billy Cooke glanced back at Custer, sitting loosely atop Dandy on the rise above them. Strange, now that I think about it—
“Custer just wants me in command of three companies … is that right?”
Cooke thought Reno sounded more than a bit anxious. But then the skin around the major’s eyes sagged again. The dastard’s relieved that he’s not ordered into battle immediately. If I had my way—
“Correct, Major,” Cooke answered. “He orders you to proceed down the left bank of the stream.”
“Very good, Lieutenant.” Reno turned toward his three companies.
By the time Cooke galloped back to the head of the columns to rejoin the general, Custer was sending the short, shy Charley Reynolds off to ride with Reno as well. The scout’s soulful blue eyes twinkled with a melancholy light as he waved farewell to the general and the swarthy Bouyer, kicking his mount back along the dark snake of cavalry waiting patiently for Custer to complete this division of the troops for what most officers realized was to become a three-winged attack.
“Captain Yates?”
“Yes, sir!” he replied in his best Michigan Yankee accent.
“You and Captain Keogh will be in charge of the five remaining companies under my aegis.”
“Sir?” Yates appeared startled.
“You’ll take command of C Company under Captain Custer, E under Lieutenant Smith, along with your own F Company, Captain Yates.”
The eyes of the officers studied Custer as he in turn studied the valley beyond.
Billy Cooke understood why he wanted George Yates to command the lion’s share of companies under Custer’s personal aegis. Besides being a hometown Monroe, Michigan boy, Yates had served on Custer’s staff during the war. He was a rock-steady hand, proven in battle. Yet, as Cooke thought on it now, there still remained the hint of stain. Guilt by association. George’s brother, Fred, was the head trader for the Sioux at the Red Cloud Agency down in Nebraska, a fact that had not escaped the attention of many in high places during the graft-and-corruption scandals still rocking the War Department since the past winter.
If George does well in the coming fight, Cooke thought, looking at the two men, then Custer’s faith in him will be vindicated—and all taint removed from Yate’s career. That’s the kind of soldier the old man is.
“Meanwhile,” Custer continued, bringing his eyes back to the big Irishman, who sat sweltering in his own coarse gray-woolen pullover, “immediate command to fall under Captain Keogh will be his own and Lieutenant Calhoun’s companies.”
James Calhoun grinned as he reached over swinging a fist, slugging Keogh on the shoulder. They had long been the best of friends and drinking partners. Together they repeatedly boasted that their two companies alone could whip thrice their weight in Sioux.
“I want your command to be prepared for a rearguard action, gentlemen,” Custer went on. “No telling what the sneaking hostiles might do in coming up our backsides. They know we’re coming.” His eyes scanned the far hills to the north, then moved back up the divide behind them. “I can’t think of any better commanders to protect this regiment’s backsides.”
Keogh snorted that rollicking bray of his that characterized his lust for life. He never shied from anything thrown his way. “Jimmy and me—we’re ready and able to watch over anyone’s arses, we are, sir!”
“Splendid,” Custer said with a smile. “Now that Reno’s moving across the creek, you’ll see that I’ve kept my family with me. Just as I’ve long envisioned it on such a day of glory. You’ll all ride with me today. What say you, friends?”
“I’m one bastard fotching to spill some Sioux blood first, General!” Keogh rattled. “Washington City can wait till I get that outta my gawdamned system. Gimme more whiskey and bring on Crazy Horse!”
Custer said, “You’ll have your wish shortly, Myles. Let’s see if the Sioux are going to cooperate with us or not. I can’t shake this worry that they’re going to run on me.”
“How can we assure that they don’t, sir?” Calhoun piped in.
“Jimbo, I have a plan that might just work when we come in sight of the village,” Custer whispered, lending a mysterious air to his answer. “But for the time being—ah, good. Here comes Vic now!”
Minutes ago he had dispatched Saddler Sergeant John Tritten from his personal headquarters command to ride back to the pack train with Dandy and fetch Vic, Custer’s favorite chestnut sorrel, from Private Burkman. Back in the days of his Civil War battles Custer had learned the advantage in taking a fresh animal into a fight. Such a tactic had worked well for him in past campaigns, so he was not one about to break a string of good fortune now that he stood on the precipice of glory.
On Sergeant Tritten’s tail loped angel-faced Boston Custer and young Autie Reed, the eighteen-year-old bullyboy who had come to watch his uncles butcher some Sioux. Beside them rode Mark Kellogg, still raking his worn-out army-issue mule with Herendeen’s spurs. Taking their cue from the general’s stern face, the three civilians fell silent, not anxious to interrupt the proceedings. They reined to a halt. Tritten switched Custer’s saddle to Vic’s back atop a dry blanket. At the same time, other officers and enlisted tightened cinches, patted their horses’ sweaty necks, or adjusted their own damp clothing. Belts were wrenched up a notch, yellow-striped britches restuffed into scuffed boots.
Then Custer was up in the saddle once more, looking bigger than life atop Vic, the blaze-faced sorrel standing better than sixteen hands high. After tugging his hat down over his hogged strawberry haircut, Custer waved his officers and their commands to follow him downstream.
“Billy, you’ll see the troops are put to the march, then rejoin me?” Set deep within that sun-rawed, wind-scalded face were a pair of eyes burned red with alkali dust, hollowed and black-rimmed with characteristic lack of sleep.
“Will do, General,” Cooke answered. “We’ll follow your lead!”
And as Custer turned from his officers’ conference, he pointed Vic’s nose to the right—to every man’s surprise. For now he no longer led his men down that wide, well-marked Indian road scoured by thousands upon thousands of hooves across the dusty, dry breast of the Ash Creek trail.
Custer ducked behind some low hills, hills that for a time put him out of Major Reno’s sight.
With every bend and twist of the trail down into the valley, Marcus Reno grew a bit more apprehensive.
What if Custer’s taken off, and I suddenly confront the Sioux on my own? Reno’s mind raced, burdened by all the dreadful possibilities.
Several miles down the creek, both commands passed through a swampy morass. Here lay a steamy bog that over the centuries filled with stagnant seepage trapped as the spring rain and winter runoff trickled down from the Wolf Mountains. At this stage of the year, the morass by and large had already gone dry, its surface cracking beneath summer’s retribution upon the land.
Over the damp belly of the bog hung a stifling stench. Unmistakable—some poor animal had blundered into the marsh, seeking relief from the heat, instead found no way out. Even the wary predators of these high plains had left the old buffalo bull to rot beneath the hot sun. The stench of its decaying flesh clung to the place as the soldiers hurried past, choking down their stomach’s revolt at not only the smell, but the sight of maggots and blowflies busy at the blackened meat.
Shortly before two o’clock, Reno decided he would move his companies back to the north bank to ride in concert with Custer. Both the terrain itself and the major’s own nervousness dictated his change of heart. Even the veterans tensed up on their reins, wary and alert when a few minutes later arose th
e frightened cries of the scouts.
They were pointing ahead. Shouting.
Reno’s eyes shot up and down his columns. Every soldier had ears alert. Sour tongues raked dry lips. Sweaty hands yanked carbines into readiness.
Yet for all the tension and excitement, what the scouts had discovered was not a buffalo or antelope—much less a Sioux warrior.
All that stood astride the wide, well-plowed Indian trail pointing itself down the dry, cracked bottomland of Ash Creek was a solitary painted Indian lodge.
At first the Arikara scouts milled about nervously, bumping their mounts against one another, unsure of what to make of this startling discovery, more so afraid of what the existence of this lone tepee foretold. They shouted to scare off any evil spirits from the place. Then one of their number finally realized there were no Sioux here.
Only then did that solitary young warrior rattle heels against his pony’s flanks.
With a whoop and a high-throated cry, Strikes Two charged down on the solitary lodge, swinging by it at a full gallop, slapping his quirt across the dry buffalo hides. He whirled about in a dust spray, bringing his snorting pony up sharply. He smiled, quite proud of himself as the first man of this campaign, white or red, brave enough to count coup on an enemy’s lodge.
His strutting turn ended in time for him to watch his childhood friend, Young Hawk, leap from his pony at a full run and race on foot to the lodge, yanking his huge scalping knife from his belt. With one swift slash he had the lodge skins opened from the smoke flaps down to the stakes that were pounded into the dry, crumbly earth. Suddenly freed through that new wound in the old lodge, the stench of death and rotting flesh escaped, surrounding the tepee as Young Hawk stumbled back, his hand covering his nose.
More brown-skinned riders dashed up, striking the lodge with quirts as Young Hawk and Red Bear tore aside the lodge entrance. Inside on a low scaffold lay the body of a dead warrior, his heat-bloated carcass wrapped in a beaded ceremonial buffalo robe.
With both hips shattered by a soldier bullet, Old-She-Bear, a renowned Sans Arc Sioux, had been dragged from the Rosebud battlefield as Crook’s troops struggled to hold their ground against the maddening horsemen under Crazy Horse barely eight suns ago. Because he had clung tenaciously to life at the time, Old-She-Bear had been loaded on a travois and pulled from the scene of the fight to the Rosebud camps. From there over the divide when the bands moved toward the Greasy Grass. The dying warrior slung behind a pony beneath the sun for each day’s journey, until his family and friends decided the old warrior was in fact looking out at them from eyes filled with shadows.
Here along this boggy creek the Sans Arc warrior had clung to life for several days, nursed by family who patiently waited out the old man’s slow death walk to the Other Side.
After his final breath had escaped the old man’s lungs, the relatives painted Old-She-Bear’s face with red clay and dressed him in his finest ceremonial elk-skin war shirt and leggings. Alongside the scaffold on which they laid his body, the family placed his feather-draped shield, bow, and quiver. Before leaving this death lodge for the last time, his relatives had placed some cooked meat and blood soup for Old-She-Bear’s trip to see his grandfathers.
As a final tribute the warrior’s favorite pipe, tobacco, and tender bag were laid beside him. When at last his journey to the Other Side was complete, the old man would enjoy having a smoke and talking with friends gone before.
To further desecrate this enemy’s lodge, Red Feather chewed the dried meat and swilled down the cold, scummy blood soup before he pulled his breechclout aside. He urinated on the body of Old-She-Bear and those sacred articles left behind by family and friends in celebration of a brave warrior.
Custer reined up as Red Feather stooped from the torn lodge, gripping his penis and spraying the side of the buffalo hides.
“Gerard!”
From all the way back with Reno and Reynolds, the Arikara interpreter heard his name screamed as if it were some black curse. By the time Fred rode up to the lone tepee, Custer trembled with an uncontrollable rage.
“You tell these poor excuses for men, these Rees, that I’ve ordered them to ride on! By God, they were told not to stop for anything! They’ve disobeyed me once too often! Long Hair has been shamed by a bunch of ragged Arikarees, and I won’t have it!”
Custer was nearly shrieking, the color of his cheeks redder than a high-plains sunburn. Flecks of spittle dotted his rosy chapped lips. When Gerard started to speak, Custer plunged ahead, his fury still unspent.
“Gerard, you inform them they belong to you now.” Custer spit so the Rees would make no mistake understanding that he symbolically rid himself of them. “I do not want them. Tell these red bastards to step aside and let my soldiers through. My troops will take the lead if the Rees won’t. Tell your Arikaras I think they are women if they won’t fight the Sioux. And if they are a bunch of cowardly squaws, I’ll take their guns from them and send them back to their lodges, where their children can make fun of them for all the rest of their days. To laugh at them because they didn’t fight beside Long Hair when he destroyed the mighty Sioux!”
Instead of answering the general’s challenge, translated on Gerard lips, Bloody Knife and Stabbed both pulled their ponies out of the column and plodded off some distance from the soldiers. But Bear-in-Timber had long had a powder-keg temper. As the interpreter finished, the young warrior stood and shouted back at Custer, his own copper face flushed with anger.
“Long Hair, hear me! You take our weapons and send us home as cowards because we fear too many Sioux. You yourself told us we did not have to fight these Sioux, but that we owned their horses. Did you speak to us with two tongues, Long Hair? Do you now change your heart again and call us squaws? If you would tell your own young soldiers of the Sioux beyond count waiting for them in the valley below … they would surely act the same as we. You keep that from your men. If the soldier-chief spoke the truth to your own soldiers, you would be many days taking their rifles from them and beating them back to your fort.”
Many of the Rees laughed behind their hands as Gerard translated that portion of the harangue.
Custer squinted his hollow, sleepless eyes, fuming. Gerard had seen the general angry before, but never this furious.
Gerard was afraid Custer might make an example of Bear-in-Timber for the others, to maintain discipline among his scouts. To let both Indian and trooper alike know that he wasn’t about to take any of their guff.
“Just tell them this, Gerard,” Custer growled like a hound with its guard hair up. He swallowed once, throttling some of his anger. “Tell them they can stay with us if they will fight. I don’t want them otherwise.”
At the moment Fred Gerard opened his mouth to speak, a young Ree scout called Good Face, along with an older warrior named Boychief, hollered out, signaling from a nearby knoll not far up the trail. Gerard leapt atop his horse and tore up the hill. He got to the top of the knoll, his own horse prancing barely under his control as he peered down the far slope for a moment, then kicked the horse back down the slope. The two Rees rode right on his heels.
“Indians, General!” Fred shouted.
“What? Where?”
“Maybe forty of them … could be more!” Gerard rasped breathlessly as he yanked on the reins, his mount sliding to a dusty halt.
Reno galloped up from his position. He had spotted the same hostile warriors. “They’re sitting just out of our rifle range, General!” he shouted, genuine fear constricting his throat.
“Funny thing, Custer,” Gerard added, wiping his hand across a parched mouth, thirsting for the liquid treasure in his saddlebags. “They just sat there, looking at us, like they expected us to be here.”
Custer studied Gerard carefully as the interpreter stuck his hand into his three-strap saddlebag to pull out another tin flask. Custer couldn’t help but smell the sweetish odor of the sour-mash whiskey as Gerard drew long and hard on the fiery elixir.
From
the look on the general’s face at that moment, Gerard was certain Custer—a notorious teetotaler—wanted a drink.
From behind them arose that sudden shrill cry Custer had known as a boy growing up in Ohio and Michigan, then again when he attacked Confederate cavalry and artillery positions during the war. This shrill and famous Custer shout leapt from Tom Custer’s lips as he tore up on his charger.
Little brother had caught sight of the quarry himself.
Without invitation Tom held out his hand to Gerard, yanking the flask away from him. He drank every bit as long on the potent whiskey as had Gerard. When he handed the canteen back, Tom rattled the sagebrush hills once again with his wild war cry, a screech that would scour any white man’s throat. Any but Custer’s.
“Thirty days furlough for the first goddamned soldier who raises a scalp!” Tom shouted.
Down the waiting columns those who could hear young Custer’s promise raised their own cries of battle lust. It was part of the fever they must each experience, working themselves into a lather for the coming battle.
Custer said, “Good, Tom! Work some fight up in ’em!”
Tom took the flask again and threw some more whiskey down his throat, peering up the knoll … then down the dry coulee that Ash Creek followed in the rainy season.
A small bunch of Indians, eh? he thought.
Tom gave the flask back to Gerard. They would share. Tom had never been selfish when it came to drinking. Whiskey was, after all, for sharing. For friends.
And he thought on those forty Sioux he had watched disappear over the knoll, riding out of reach.
Perhaps those Indians who had darted over the hill were nothing more than enticing decoys. After all, Tom knew as well as the next man how Crazy Horse had lured Fetterman and eighty men over Lodge Trail Ridge ten winters ago. It was the oldest Indian trick in the book.
Seize the Sky sotp-2 Page 23
