Tom glanced up, feeling the whiskey warm his hot, knotted belly. The Rees mounted their horses.
“Gerard!” Custer shouted. “Why aren’t your lazy Arikarees going after those Sioux? There are horses to be taken! Scalps and honors to be won!”
Tom climbed back into the saddle as Fred Gerard cursed his scouts prancing atop their skittish horses. Perhaps the horses themselves sensed the visceral fear of their riders. Gerard got no response from the younger members of his detail. On the ground nearby hunkered some of the older Rees, Bloody Knife and Stabbed among them. They tore up handfuls of the dry grass, tossing the blades into the hot breeze.
“Otoe Sioux! Otoe Sioux!”
“They claim there’s too many Sioux again, General. More than there are blades of grass.”
“You take them—take them all and ride with Reno!” Custer bellowed in disgust. “I don’t want the Rees with me. Nowhere near me!”
“They don’t want to fight so many,” Gerard explained weakly, whispering so that only Custer and Tom could hear his plea. “Not with you or Reno. There’s more Sioux than we can handle, General.”
“Bullshit!” Tom shouted.
Gerard almost said something to young Custer but turned instead to the general. “None of the Rees want to go any—”
“Take their guns, boys!” Custer suddenly spat in the direction of the Arikara scouts. “Take their horses too! Give them their old ponies back. I have no more use for these whining squaws! We’ve found the Sioux, yet these miserable wretches don’t want to fight. So be it, Tom. I’ll send them home to their lodges, where they can die toothless old men.”
Minutes later after a detail from Tom’s C Troop loped up with the Rees’ ponies, and the exchange of animals had taken place, the scouts still refused to ride the back trail. Instead, they clustered in a knot, afraid to leave the protection of the soldiers. Many wailed their death songs against a background of horse snorts and blue-tongued curses from the stable sergeant retrieving the army mounts.
An eerie, wailing, profane chorus—fitting background itself for Custer’s descent into the valley.
Somewhere behind Custer’s own standard and the regimental guidons, back down the columns in those faceless rows of soldiers, a single voice rose strongly, clear in its baritone plea. A trooper, singing the words to “Out of the Wilderness”:
If you want to smell hell,
Just join the cavalry,
Just join the cavalry.
If you want to smell hell,
Then join the cavalry,
’Cause we’re not going home.
CHAPTER 19
“CAPTAIN Keogh! Take Cookey with you to Reno’s command,” Custer ordered, now fully in sight of the Little Bighorn.
About time he started stirring things up, Keogh thought. Time to get this bleeming attack under way.
“And when I get there, General?”
“Inform the major I want him to take his men across the river below and attack the village as fast as he deems prudent, he’s to charge the village. Tell him he will be supported by the whole unit.”
Turning from the wide-eyed major minutes later after delivering Custer’s message, Keogh and Cooke watched Reno lead his men down the dry bluffs of Ash Creek toward the Little Bighorn for about half a mile before the pair wheeled and kicked their mounts back to Custer’s outfit waiting some three-quarters of a mile up the Ash Creek trail. They hadn’t ridden far when the sound of clattering hooves made them turn and rein up.
Its nostrils flaring in the staggering heat, Gerard’s mount lagged wearily, already lathered from its valiant charge up the back trail. All the two officers could now see of Reno’s men was a heavy dust cloud over the red-eyed bluffs hugging the river below. It appeared the major had made his crossing of the Little Bighorn.
“Cooke!” Gerard croaked, licking his lips as he reined up between the two soldiers.
“What t’is it, Gerard?” Keogh’s brogue peeled off the rolling R’s.
“Major Reno sent me with his compliments—”
“What’s the news?” Cooke bit his words off impatiently.
“He’s already met the Indians.” Gerard offered his whiskey canteen to Cooke.
Cooke shook his head, but Keogh greedily scooped it from the interpreter’s hand with his own big paw.
“I pass up no man’s whiskey!” he bawled with a sour grin.
Cooke watched the Irishman swallow, then went back to studying Gerard. “Reno’s spotted the Indians, you say?”
“We crossed the river. Spotted the bastards then. Lots of the red bastards. You can see their naked bodies as they ride to and fro down in the river bottom, down in the trees and marsh as we was crossing. We also seen the tips of their lodges downriver a throw or two.”
“Damn,” Cooke whispered, “but the queen’s got her a one-eyed jack sneaking into her bedchambers, eh! Custer’ll be tickled!” He slapped his thigh in amusement, startling his own skittish mount.
“You’ll take the major’s message on to Custer, won’t you? Reno’s desperate for the general’s promised support—”
“Make no mistake,” Cooke answered enthusiastically. He glanced at Keogh. “The general will want to hear all about this, he will.”
“Here, my good man,” Keogh belched, holding his arm out with the empty canteen at the end of it.
Gerard shook the canteen. “My God! You’ve emptied the damned thing.”
“’Ave any more about you, Gerard?” Keogh interrupted him, feeling the warm whiskey jolting against the pasty hardtack and greasy salt pork in his belly like clashing lines of calvary. “I’d be willing to have me a go at another one of them, if you’re willing to sell.”
Gerard eyed him severely, then his face lightened. “When would I have my money?” he asked suspiciously.
“Soon as we hit Lincoln.”
“I don’t know—”
“I’m good for it, Gerard,” the big Irishman said gruffly, sticking out his hand impatiently.
“Oh … all right, Captain. I suppose it won’t hurt a thing, will it now?”
“Not when you’ve been drinking a goodly bit of it your own self,” Cooke admonished.
“You’ll get Reno’s message to Custer now, won’t you?” Gerard implored with his dark eyes, handing a full canteen over to Keogh. “Like the general promised—bringing his support to the major?”
Keogh dropped the canteen into his saddlebag, smacking his lips as he kicked his horse about. “C’mon, Cookey—we’ve got us a message to deliver to the old man hisself, we ’ave.”
By the time his two officers had scaled the sunny hills back to Custer’s position, the commander had already dispatched three young Crows under Bouyer to ride to the top of those bluffs rising above the river for the purpose of taking a look at the Sioux village below. But instead of heading uphill behind Bouyer, Half-Yellow-Face and White Swan kicked their ponies down into the Ash Creek drainage, following Reno and his men. In some mystical sense of order, they must have figured that going with the major was decidedly safer than riding with Custer.
The blue-eyed general watched the two Crows skedaddle downhill, his eyes glowering. He then turned back to see young Curley and Mitch Bouyer reach the top of the hill north along the bluffs.
Good. Maybe that half-breed Bouyer will work out after all.
The pair did not stay atop the hill but a moment before they came galloping back with their news.
Far beyond up the valley, they had spotted the village itself, seen through the thick trees clustered along the bends of the Greasy Grass. Many lodgepoles reaching into the summer sky … more than many lodges … much dust. Some mounted Indians dashed back and forth, riding as if they were trying to warn others of the cavalry attack.
Young Curley politely waited for Bouyer to finish with the pressing matters at hand, then asked the interpreter to speak to the general on his behalf.
“Long Hair.” The young Crow’s face clouded, creased with worry. “You a
nd I are going home today by a trail we do not know.”
“He says he’s going home today?” Custer asked as he studied the Absaroka scout.
Bouyer nodded.
“Maybe he’s right, Mitch. Maybe he will go home with glory about his shoulders. Soon to be a chief of the mighty Crow. By jiggers! We are going to win this land back for these Indians. You will be a chief too, Mr. Bouyer!”
His sapphire eyes flicked to the right, straining to see something, perhaps hoping to spot those hostile Indians seen by the others far to the north, at least to see the dust from all those hooves.
“Off to the north, eh?” Custer repeated rhetorically, a plan already forming, congealing, solidifying in his quicksilver mind.
Custer visualized the river flowing north and the village at the upper end of this green valley, the brown lodges squatting in the sun—but a handful of miles away now. The warriors Reno had run into must surely be some of the first fighting men spurring out to defend their village because of the advance warning from those forty Sioux they had spotted back up Ash Creek.
Surely, the camp now knows soldiers are coming, he brooded, an eye twitching. With Reno attacking from the foot of the village, I’ll take my five companies and go after the head! Pound them solidly while Reno holds their feet to the ground.
“Clausewitz, you genius! You’d be mighty proud of your best pupil this day!” Custer muttered excitedly.
“What’s that, sir?” Cooke asked, still breathless after his climb up from Reno’s crossing of the river.
“Nothing, Lieutenant.” He blinked nervously. The way he always did once the excitement set in. “Let’s ride!”
“General, rider approaching!” called Sergeant Major Sharrow, who clutched a beefy hand round Custer’s personal flag.
Intently they watched the man’s lathered mount labor up the slope, lunging, resting for a moment, kicked again into another furious series of weary lunges. Across the dusty slope the mount carried its rider with the last bit of bottom it had to give.
“Private Archibald McIlhargey, sir!” the soldier gasped as his horse stumbled, nearly collapsing beside Custer’s mount. “Reporting from Major Reno.”
“What’s your message, boy?” Custer asked, swiping a finger around the sweatband of the cream-colored hat.
“The major wanted to report he’s in the thick of it now, sir,” McIlhargey gulped dryly. “Lots of warriors swarming on ’em down there.”
“Swarming, you say?”
“Like a nest of mad hornets!”
“Good!” Custer slapped his knee. “Perfect, in fact. We’ll let Reno have at them a bit here while we make a go of it at the head, up north a ways near the village.”
“S-sir?” the young soldier stammered.
“We’re going to ride north, young man, and attack the village.”
“Major Reno asked for your support, General!” McIlhargey pleaded. He was scared as hell, talking to the regiment’s commander. He had ridden away from Reno with the screams of the Sioux and the frightened cries of his fellow troopers ringing in his ears. Now he sensed his heart pounding in his throat as he glared at the general. “Your support, sir?”
“And that’s just what I’ll give him, Private.”
Custer peered to the north and breathed deep, swelling his chest against the sweat-stained gray pullover. “I’m fixing to chop the head off this beast for the major.”
“He—the major was thinking—aren’t you coming down to help him, General?”
“Of course not, Private. I’m going to attack as I’ve always attacked. Reno’s gone in and dealt them the first blow, and I’m going in to finish the job. Now, son—you report back to the major … or you can come with me. Frankly, I think you should ride with me. Appears your mount won’t make it back to Reno’s command.”
“Thank you, sir,” McIlhargey replied, sensing the winded mount sagging beneath him. “I’ll report back to Captain Keogh and I Company.”
Custer yanked on Vic’s reins and galloped off past the private. The strong, well-fed thoroughbred lunged along the lines of troops waiting for some word on the Indians and news of Reno’s attack on the village. He brought them the news they hungered for. Up and down the columns he loped, shouting of the discovery by the Crow scouts—the village far to the north—and that Reno was in the thick of it.
“We’ve got the village in our sights now, boys!” Custer cheered, standing tall in the stirrups, every bit as ragged as any of them, but more regal at this moment than ever before in his life.
Destiny waited for him downriver. Close at hand. Beckoning him on with her sweet perfume and seductive come-hither.
He watched his effect on the men, loving, it, knowing he could stir them as no one else could at this critical moment.
“Reno’s got them tied down at the river … so, we’ll go on to make a crossing where we can cut their head off! What say you, fellas? Reno’s already in the thick of it! And we’ll have some of that glory for ourselves in a few minutes! Just be patient … hold those mounts. What say—are you boys ready to ride the Seventh into gloryland?”
Many of those two-hundred-odd soldiers cheered and whistled their enthusiasm right back at the general. Some even tossed their hats into the air or tucked them away into their saddlebags with that loose ammunition for their carbines. Around their heads some troopers tied the brightly-colored bandannas bought off trader Coleman back at the Yellowstone.
Those five companies of old files and raw, frightened shavetails stripped for a fight worthy of the mighty Seventh U.S. Cavalry.
They prepared to ride into gloryland behind General George Armstrong Custer.
So now the Long Hair set off like a winter-gaunt wolf on a trail that smelled of snowshoe hare.
Into that scooped-out depression carved just behind the high ridges that rose up from the river, Custer led his five companies. Through the windless, suffocating coulees and red-eyed gullies, the dust stinging thickly in their nostrils by the time the last man loped up Custer’s trail. From time to time they heard the bunching of low, resonant carbine shots creeping up the ridges from the river valley below. These soldiers riding behind the bluffs realized Reno’s men were having themselves a hot time of it. All but the greenest of Custer’s two hundred wished he himself were down with the major right about now having a go at the Sioux.
From the top of one of the coulees, Custer’s men glanced down at the shining silvery river as they marched past. Reno’s soldiers seen through the shimmering summer haze were mere specks on the green sward beyond, bugs scurrying back and forth, swallowed by dust and the gray blue of burnt powder smoke. The sight of that distant, impersonal battle was a bit more than some of the veterans and shavetails could take. Hearing now and then the booming reports of carbine and rifle fire was one thing—but seeing it firsthand … that was another altogether.
Some of those in Custer’s command cheered spontaneously as they tromped along behind their leader’s blue-and-crimson banner. Others cried out, allowing their weary, lathered mounts to have their heads for just a moment. One by one more soldiers joined in the raucous disorder, their horses charging out of formation around the head of the column. Up where Custer rode, leading them north.
“Hold your horses back, boys!” he shouted in a dust-ravaged voice. “Just hold ’em back for now! And don’t worry—there’s enough Indians down there for us all!”
By the saints, Lieutenant Cooke thought, riding beside his commander, this has to be the finest fight you’ve ever taken part in, Billy Cooke! Reno’s pounding hell out of ’em down there—and we’ll slip behind ’em to hammer their asses to the ground.
Custer reached over and slapped Cooke at that moment, clenching a fist in exuberance.
Damn, but my life bodes well now. Riding with Custer to glory. Beginning at the Washita, now along this river the Sioux call their Greasy Grass.
Custer turned in the saddle and waved, urging the troops out at a gallop this time, cutting more to h
is right, heading for the higher bluffs and ridges.
“These bluffs just might hide us from the villages below, Billy!” the general shouted above the clatter of hooves and the jangle of bit and saddle gear.
“Damn right, sir!” Cooke answered, every bit as lusty.
“I intend to surprise the warriors at the head of the village while Reno batters their feet,” Custer explained, shouting above the hubbub. “But to do that, they must think Reno’s attack is all there is.”
Cooke turned for a last glimpse of the valley as Custer cut more sharply to the right again, far behind the bluffs. A last glimpse of the valley. What he saw was Mitch Bouyer and his Crow scout Curley, nodding gravely to one another.
Billy did not like the look on their copper faces at all.
What are they thinking? Cooke wondered. Do they figure Custer’s turning off from the attack … away from the river now?
He watched the two exchange quick words, a few signs, before they both kicked their ponies into a faster lope to catch up to the columns.
Cooke felt the cold shaft of ice water spill down his spine as he turned away from those two copper faces clouded with doubt and confusion as they all followed Custer into the coarse, grassy bluffs ahead.
When the command was at last hidden behind the high ground, Tom Custer heard himself hailed ahead by his brother.
“Tom, get up here!”
He flushed, that scarlet spot on his cheek from Saylor’s Creek blushing beneath his excitement. “Yeah, Autie?”
“Choose one of your trusted men.…” Custer looked away from Tom, scaring down their back trail. “I want you to have him send a message back to the pack train.”
As soon as Custer had finished his instructions, Tom whirled and tore away, headed back to his C Company.
“Sergeant Knipe! Need you to ride back to the pack train.”
Daniel Knipe grew mule-eyed. “Sir?”
“Hurry back to McDougall. Tell the captain to rush his pack train along, directly across country to our position. He must come now. And if some of the packs come loose, he has the general’s orders to cut them loose and leave ’em behind. He must come on at all haste. Quick, Sergeant! There’s a big Indian village directly ahead of us. Tell McDougall that! And if you spot Benteen down there, tell that sonuvabitch to hurry his ass up here too!”
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