“All right. We’ll take pistols,” Custer advised the group. “But unbelt them, and stuff the weapon beneath your tunics, men. Have them ready in the event of something underhanded.”
He turned to his officers. “Major Elliott, you and Captain Yates will see that the men are deployed in the willows, up and down the streambank. If there is any treachery, we’ll blow the bugle from the far side.”
“And we come riding!” Tom Custer answered enthusiastically.
“You understand that, soldier?” the lieutenant colonel asked of his bugler. “At the first sign of trouble, turn and blow your trumpet.”
“Yessir.”
“If you and Mr. Hook are ready, Sweete—let’s go parley with this bunch.”
By the time Custer’s delegation was at the edge of the water to welcome a half dozen warriors wading across the stream, the sun had burst full and yellow as an egg yolk at the edge of the eastern plain. The air stirred with sudden new life as insects took to the wing, and the water beneath their horses’ hooves shimmered like liquid gold in the breaking light of jeweled morn.
“Pawnee Killer,” Sweete whispered to the officer beside him.
Custer said, “I recognize him. Back at McPherson—he told me what good friends he was to the white man.”
“He tell you how honest he was—and how he never lied to a soldier?”
“I believe I remember him saying something like that.”
“Then he was lying to you,” Sweete replied. “Watch his oily tongue, General. The sonofabitch opens his mouth, he’s lying. White or red—his kind of snake will cheat their own mother.”
“Hau!” came the greeting from the warrior at the center of the six bare-chested Brule when they entered the stream astride their multicolored ponies.
“How!” Custer replied.
“C’mon, General.” Sweete nudged his horse into motion. “Let’s go be sociable in the middle of the river.”
As the soldiers came up and halted, the warriors raised their arms in greeting, then presented their hands.
“They wanna shake, General—but I suggest you don’t go any closer than where you sit now.”
“All right,” Custer answered, making it plain to the warriors that his right hand was going to remain on the butt of his pistol. “Let’s see what Pawnee Killer has to say for himself—coming to steal my horses when he said he was my friend back at McPherson.”
Sweete flicked his eyes at Hook. “Get your hands limbered up, Jonah. You need to practice your sign as much as I need practice on my Lakota.”
When he had the chief’s answer, he told Custer, “Pawnee Killer says he’ll forgive you for getting lost and crossing his hunting ground, General. Forgive you for spoiling his pony raid.”
“He will …” Custer cleared his throat, drew himself up. “Tell Pawnee Killer that among my people we punish thieves and murderers. If any live among his people—they are the ones should be afraid for their lives.”
“He says his people are not thieves and they don’t murder white men. And he takes shame that you think with his warriors there are some with bad hearts for the white man.”
Custer snorted quickly. “What’s he take us for, Sweete? The snake just about ran off with half our herd an hour ago.”
“Claims he didn’t know it was you, Long Hair. Says his band will mosey on now—no hard feelings.”
“They want to pull out? Just like that?” Custer asked.
As Sweete started to reply, a young warrior brandishing a war club in his left hand and an old rifle in his right appeared on the far bank from the plum brush. Without hesitation, the warrior urged his pony into the stream, sending diamond drops into the golden air as he splashed noisily toward the conference.
“Hau!” shouted the newcomer as he came to a halt, shaking his weapons at the white men.
“Tell Pawnee Killer I’m growing angry!” Custer demanded, watching the far bank, hearing the brush rustle. “Now more warriors are coming when he guaranteed six only.”
From the plum and swamp-willow on the far side appeared a second unwelcome warrior, who reined into the stream. Then two more splashed into the water as the white men grew restless.
“Tell the chief he’s violating his word as a warrior,” Custer demanded.
As Shad Sweete’s words were spoken and Jonah Hook’s sign was made with his hands, Pawnee Killer smiled widely with big teeth in his small, feral face.
“The chief says his young warriors only wanna come say hello to the great soldier chief Long Hair. Says his men admire you—want to see you up close.”
“Not too close, Sweete. Tell him that if any more come—we will start our fight right here … and now.”
When the words were spoken in Lakota, the smile slipped from Pawnee Killer’s face like a man’s longhandles as he stood over a latrine trench.
“The chief wonders why you don’t trust your new friend.”
“Because he cannot control his warriors,” Custer replied. “Like those.”
Jonah and the rest watched another handful of warriors ride into the stream to join Pawnee Killer.
“That’s enough of this, Sweete. It’s plain they mean to do something underhanded here. Inform them there are many soldiers with repeating rifles in the brush behind me.”
Pawnee Killer held up his hand, causing the five warriors to halt halfway between the bank and midstream.
“Put your horn to your lips, bugler,” Custer directed, then turned quickly back to the old mountain man. “Tell the chief if any more come, my bugler here will signal the rest of my soldiers and there will be blood in the water this morning.”
Sweete sighed after the Brule leader had spoken. “Pawnee Killer wonders who will be the first to fall.”
“Tell him it will undoubtedly be both Pawnee Killer and Long Hair—chiefs die first.” Custer inched the pistol loose from his belt.
The Sioux’s flinty scowl was eventually replaced with a broad smile as he spoke once more.
“Seems they want some coffee and sugar, General. They need powder and bullets too.”
“For hunting, of course.”
“I figure they’ve got bigger game on their minds,” Sweete replied.
“Tell them nothing doing.”
“He’s unhappy about your answer, General,” Shad said after refusing the chief’s demand for provisions.
“How far off you suppose is their village?”
“A few miles perhaps. And getting the jump on us as we palaver.”
“They’re making good their escape, while this bunch keeps us talking.”
“With Pawnee Killer’s warriors covering the retreat, General.”
At their chief’s direction, the warriors inched their ponies backward with a rattle of rawhide and weapons, and a splash of pony hooves. Pawnee Killer joining them.
“Where they going?” Custer’s blue eyes darted over the retreating warriors.
“I figure they got done what they came for.”
His sunburned brow knitted beneath the broad brim of his cream-colored slouch hat. “We … can’t we hold them?”
“Unless you want to start shooting—and then the only ones you’ll have hold of here will be the dead ones floating facedown in a bloody river, General.”
Custer quickly studied the bank behind him, upstream, then down. “Bloody blazes! We’ll follow them.”
He sawed his reins around, the horse kicking up a gritty spray over Sweete and Hook. Jonah recognized the intense light behind those blue eyes Custer trained on the soldiers awaiting his orders.
“Major Elliott! Take a battalion, your company and Keogh’s”—he pointed across the stream—“follow the trail of that village.”
“Follow the warriors,” Elliott replied, his voice bellowing. “Yessir!”
As the major splashed away, more than a hundred soldiers scrambled out of the brush, trotting up the grassy bank toward their bivouac where they would quickly saddle and mount for the chase. Custer turned ba
ck to Shad Sweete and Jonah Hook.
Hickok reined up in the middle of the stream with the group. He shook his head in resignation as he glanced over the two scouts who had been with Custer at midstream. “What chances you think we have of keeping that bunch in sight now, Shad?”
“A snowball’s chance between a hot squaw’s legs, Bill.”
30
July, 1867
ELLIOTT EVENTUALLY CAUGHT up with Pawnee Killer’s Sioux.
But only when the warriors had loped far enough ahead to set up an ambush for the trail-weary soldiers. Had it not been for the captain’s battle savvy and a little bit of luck in sniffing out the ambush, that battalion of the Seventh Cavalry would have made history of a different sort.
As it was, they had to return to the main command, reporting their lack of success to a frustrated Custer.
“Except for bullets, this bunch is out of everything an army needs to march on,” grumbled Shad Sweete as he plopped onto his bedroll between scouts Jonah Hook and Will Comstock.
“You figure we’re ready to boil your greasy moccasins down for soup yet?” Hook asked, pointing at the old trapper’s feet.
He wiggled his toes thoughtfully. “You don’t want to even think of making soup out of these.”
They laughed together. Shad had to admit it helped ease the empty gnawing of their bellies. Following the trail of the fleeing Sioux across this fire-hot skillet bottom of a prairie, the scouts had found the land cleared of game.
“What I wouldn’t give now for some of that hardtack,” complained Will Comstock, a veteran frontiersman. “Weevils or no.”
“Meat’s meat!” Shad cheered. “Maybe them weevils ain’t buffler hump ribs—but they’d go a long way to cheering up a bowl of moccasin stew.”
“Don’t even talk about hump ribs,” Hook mumbled. “Makes my mouth water thinking about them spitting grease over a fire. Instead, we’re down to dreaming about moldy salt pork sold to the Yankees during the goddamned war!”
“Custer’s had enough himself,” Hickok said, coming up out of the darkness. “We’re moving out come first-light.”
Shad rolled up on his elbow as Hickok hunkered at the fire, warming his hands from the coming chill of a prairie night. “Where we bound for, he say?”
“Forced march. Sedgwick. Custer figures to get supplies over there on the South Platte.”
“Glory! It’s about time,” Comstock whispered, collapsing back on his bedroll and gazing overhead at the stars.
“We really gonna get some decent food at this fort?” Hook asked.
“If they got any.” Shad’s eyes measured Hickok.
“Who knows, fellas?” Hickok rose and trudged over to his own bedroll, kicking it flat. “All a man can do is hope.”
“If’n I was a praying man, I’d say amen to that. This bunch that Custer’s leading around is about ready to bolt on him,” Sweete said.
“They got the Colorado gold diggings not far yonder, that’s for sure,” Comstock said.
“Lure of gold is strong enough to lead men to point their noses off into Injun country anytime,” Hickok said.
“Trouble is, it ain’t only the lure of gold,” Sweete said. “Maybe now it’s the lure of some decent food, an end to this hot saddle ride, and a chance for a little piece of shade.”
The next dawn came early enough, but saw the column of dusty twos already pushing northwest toward the South Platte. Custer ordered his scouts out far ahead, with orders to set a bruising pace for his command. Into that furnace of early July on the high plains, the Seventh Cavalry marched, eating up mile after mile as the sun rose off the horizon, hung at midsky for the longest time with no water in sight, and slipped off into the western half of that cruel blue dome overhead.
No water. No stopping. No rest for man nor animal. Most of the dogs belonging to troopers, which had trotted out of Fort Hays with the command weeks before, collapsed from thirst and exhaustion as the hours rolled by, mile after grueling nonstop mile put behind the Seventh Cavalry.
Sixty-five miles in one long summer day.
It was just past the first streaking of stars across the prairie sky when Shad Sweete, Comstock, and Hook stopped at the top of a hill. There they spied the beckoning glow of windows below.
“Riverside Station.” Comstock pulled the floppy hat from his head and swiped a greasy sleeve across his dusty brow. His face, like the rest, was streaked with yellow alkali dust and rivulets of sweat.
“That the one Hickok’s been calling Valley Station?” Shad asked, eyeing the narrow ribbon of water, lying like a silver, moonlit thread across the darker prairie land just beyond the three small shacks and a skeletal corral comprising the outpost.
“Water down there?” Hook inquired, his voice cracking with dryness.
“You’ll have your drink soon enough,” Shad said.
“I’m going now.” Jonah ran his tongue over his cracked lips as he nudged heels into his horse’s flanks.
Sweete caught the reins.
“Let go me,” Hook demanded.
“We got a job to do, Jonah. Ride back—”
“You go do that, old man. Only need one to tell them goddamned soldiers to come on. I don’t only smell water—I see it!”
He yanked on the bridle again, causing Hook’s horse to sidestep suddenly. The ex-Confederate fought the reins a moment, then his right hand shot to his belt.
Comstock had his elk-handled quirt tacked down on Hook’s wrist in the next heartbeat. “Take your hand off the gun.”
His dark eyes flared. “Tell the old man take his hand off my horse!”
“We’re going to ride back to the columns now,” Shad said quietly, hearing the coming of hoofbeats.
Hickok was among them, out of the growing darkness, his horse lathered at the withers, foam at the bit. “Trouble here, boys?”
Sweete never took his eyes off Hook. “No trouble, Bill. Me and Jonah here set to come back and give you word.”
“That must be Valley Station down there,” Hickok sighed. “And—praise God—that’s the Platte lying yonder.” He eyed the three scouts in the silver light. Comstock removed his quirt from Jonah’s wrist as Sweete released the bridle.
“C’mon, Will. You and me ride back and give ol’ Horse-Killer the good news about the station and water.” Hickok tilted his head toward Sweete. “Shad, you and Jonah stay here—ride on down and get yourselves a good drink and tell those fellas the Seventh’s coming in to bivouac tonight.”
Shad glanced at Hook. “All right, Bill. Obliged to you.”
Hickok started off, then flung his voice over his shoulder, turning in the saddle. “Just don’t muddy the water too much that it ain’t fit for the rest of us to drink, Jonah!”
They waited a moment, watching Hickok and Comstock disappear into the starry night splayed on the prairie hills before Sweete slapped Hook on the arm.
“Go pulling a gun on me, boy—I’ll break every one of your fingers in that hand I get the chance!”
“You gotta catch me first, old man!” he whooped, pounding heels into his weary horse, bolting off the hilltop.
Shad sang out at the top of his lungs as well when he set his animal in motion. There was no problem getting the horses rolling—both had been anxious on that hilltop, what with the smell of the nearby river in their alkali-crusted nostrils.
Halfway down the gentle slope, another yellow slash opened up on one of the three low-roofed buildings nestled fifty yards from the river. The short rectangle was as quickly filled with first one, then two and finally a third dark shadow, each making its way into the yard. From the glint of lamplight spraying into the dusty yard, Sweete could see the three held rifles at the ready.
“Ho! The ranch!” he hollered out.
“Who goes?”
“By damned—it’s white men!” yelled a second voice from the darkness.
Shad slowed his horse a bit as they loped past the yard and the three shadows, headed for the river. “A thirsty p
air of scouts for the army.”
“What outfit?”
“Seventh Cavalry!” he hollered back, twisting in the saddle as Jonah reached the riverbank up ahead with a joyous splash.
“By damned—Custer’s outfit. You can’t be here,” a new voice called out, the body framed in the lamplit doorway. “How the hell you come across that piece of country so quick?”
By that time Sweete was in the water up to his knees, slurping and gurgling. He turned and hurled his voice up the bank to the four civilians who stood looking down on the two scouts and their thirsty horses.
“By damned is right, boys. When you’re chasing Sioux with George Armstrong Custer, you better be ready to ride across the fry pan plains of hell itself at double time!”
“Sweet Jesus, but you can’t be here yet!” the voice muttered from the top of the bank.
Shad spread his arms out, dripping wet from dousing his hair with a hatful of water. It seeped off his mustache and beard. “Take a look, pilgrims. This ain’t no goddamned ghost you got your eyes laid on.”
Hook joyously flung some water his way. “No, sir. We ain’t ghosts a’tall. Just a pair of poor resurrected souls come wandering in off that godforsaken prairie!”
Jonah got to his feet wearily as Hickok and Sweete came up to the small knot of civilian scouts huddled beneath the stars.
“No word waiting for Custer when we got in,” Hickok told them. Beyond the station’s three low-roofed buildings, the Seventh Cavalry was going into camp. The twinkling of those first few fires brightened the noisy celebration of water.
“Where we head from here—Custer figure that out yet?” Comstock asked.
“He wired for written orders from Sherman … Sheridan—anyone at this point, fellas,” Hickok explained. Then he glanced at Sweete.
The old mountain trapper nodded. “That’s when Custer found out the post commander at Sedgwick already sent written orders out to Custer. Somewhere … out there”—he flung his arm southwest—“there’s a Lieutenant Lyman Kidder and ten troopers of the Second U.S. Cavalry hunting for us now.”
Comstock dug a toe into the sandy soil. “Unless Pawnee Killer’s Sioux already got ’em.”
The group fell quiet a moment. Then Hickok spoke again.
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