Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (27 page)

“And you’re sure which direction they were moving?”

“Yes, sir, absolutely sure. They were headed toward the Little Bighorn River. My guess is that that’s where the village is now.”

Terry, armed with Reno’s information, called for a conference among his staff. They met on June 21 aboard the steamboat
Far West,
where he outlined his strategy for the next phase of the campaign. Terry was reasonably sure he knew where the Lakota camp was—if not precisely, then within a few miles—but in any event close enough to move on them.

Spreading his maps out on a table, he indicated the point along the Rosebud where Reno had discovered the trail of the lodges. “Here,” he said, “is where I want you to start, Colonel. This is where Major Reno found the signs. Follow the trail wherever it leads you. I suspect that it will take you to the Little Bighorn, and you should come out somewhere to the south of the Sioux village,”

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer frowned. Still pining for his brevet rank of major general, he was, as usual, prickly with authority. “I still think that Major Reno should have followed it all the way. He let them know we’re here, and it’s going to be more difficult to get close now.”

Reno was annoyed. “They didn’t know we were there. We never saw one Indian. We never saw one fresh sign that any Indian had been there for weeks.”

“Just because you didn’t see them doesn’t mean they didn’t see you,” Custer argued.

Terry was in no mood for squabbling among his commanders. “Whether they saw you or not, it is too late to worry about it, Major,” Terry snapped. “And it doesn’t alter what I want you to do, Colonel Custer. The point is, we know where they are; now all we have to do is hit them. While you come in south of the village, Colonel Gibbon and his men will move in from the north. We’ll have them in a vise, and all we have to do then is turn the screws and squeeze them until they say uncle.”

“We’ll have to move quickly,” Custer said. “The Sioux don’t stay in one place too long. As soon as the grass is chewed up, they’ll move the village.”

“I don’t imagine we’ll have any trouble finding them again, even if they do,” Terry said. “They’ve been in this general area for several weeks, and I see no reason to expect them to stray too far.”

Custer nodded. “Even so, I’ll want to travel light. Minimum rations for fifteen days, so we can follow them wherever they go. But we’ll leave the tents and sleeping gear behind.”

“Don’t stint on your ammunition, Colonel,” Terry warned.

Custer laughed. “No need to worry about that, General. My men like to fight more than they like to eat.”

“I can let you have the Gatling guns …”

Custer shook his head. “They’ll just slow us down. That’s rough country.”

Terry looked at the two, his jaw set in anticipation of an argument. “Any questions, gentlemen?”

Neither man had any, so Terry concluded, “You know your orders, gentlemen, and I expect you to follow them, unless you see sufficient reason to deviate from them.”

Custer wasted no time. His command moved out on the morning of June 22. Fearful of giving away his position by unnecessary noise, he issued orders that the men leave their sabers behind.

In the Lakota village, Sitting Bull was uneasy. No one had seen the Long Knives since they had withdrawn from the Rosebud, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were not far away. He redoubled his scouting expeditions, but still they came back with nothing to report.

Sitting Bull was not alone in his concern. On the
evening of June 23, he left his lodge to get some fresh air, and to get away from the pressures of family matters. In his lodge he had two wives, two daughters, two sons, his brother-in-law, Gray Eagle, and a set of newborn twins—sometimes he needed to get away, to have a little silence just to clear his head.

As he watched the sunset, he heard a voice crying out, and he stood on tiptoe to see who it was. Moving through the camp was a Cheyenne herald, and as he moved closer, his words finally became clear. “Tie your horse outside your lodges. Soldiers are coming.”

Sitting Bull walked into the crowd gathering around the herald and pulled him aside. “Why are you stirring up the people?” he asked.

“Box Elder has had a dream,” the Cheyenne told him.

Sitting Bull knew Box Elder as a revered holy man among the Cheyenne, and he pressed the herald for more information. “What kind of dream?”

“He saw soldiers coming to our camp,” the herald explained. “That’s all he told me.”

For a moment, Sitting Bull was tempted to dismiss the warning as Box Elder’s attempt to keep the warriors alert. Everyone knew the soldiers were still in the field, but the only ones they knew about for certain were Crook’s column, which was still moving away from the village, and some Long Knives camped on the Rosebud. Neither group posed a threat to the Lakota and Cheyenne encampment. But Box Elder was not a man to dismiss lightly. If he had
dreamed the Long Knives were coming, then they were coming.

He sent the herald on his way, knowing that few would listen to him, but more worried than ever about the day ahead. Just the night before, a Cheyenne warrior had howled at a wolf, and the wolf had howled back, a sure sign that there would be meat for the wolves … and soon.

On the evening of the twenty-fourth, Sitting Bull stripped to his breechcloth and painted himself, took a pipe, then waded across the Little Bighorn and walked to the bottom of a hill just across from the village. He stood watching the sun beginning to set behind the snowcapped peaks of the Bighorn Mountains. For a moment, he felt a pain in his chest, as if a fist had closed on his heart and begun to squeeze it. The land was so beautiful, and the mere thought of losing it was almost too painful to endure.

He climbed up the hill, the village behind him now. He could hear the sounds of the camp, and as the sunlight faded, the firelight flickered, casting long shadows on the walls of the lodges. Holding the pipe high overhead, he pleaded with
Wakantanka,
“My people wish to live,” he cried. “Save us from danger. Wherever the sun and moon are, there you are, too. You are everywhere. Watch over the people and let them live.”

His voice sounded strange to his own ears—strained, raw, as if the words had to struggle from somewhere deep inside him. He watched the sun set, and when it was gone, waited for the stars to come out before walking slowly back to his lodge.

Inside, he lay down and closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. He tossed and turned all night long, every now and then sitting up to listen. Anything might be a signal that the Long Knives had come; the bark of a stray dog, the nicker of a pony, the snap of a twig, the call of an owl. But each time, straining his ears to hear the meaning behind the sound, he heard nothing more. He lay back down, his eyes fixed on the smoke hole over his head, through which he could see a handful of stars flickering in the wavering plume of smoke.

Sitting Bull was up at dawn and watched Gray Eagle and his nephew One Bull, White Bull’s brother, turn the picketed horses loose, then drive the animals down to the water’s edge to drink. Later they would bring them to the grass behind the camp for grazing. It was hot, the air thick and humid already, as Sitting Bull walked to the council lodge to visit with some friends.

After an hour or so of conversation, the men in the council lodge heard a shout and a young warrior burst in, his words tumbling from his lips. Sitting Bull raised a hand, “Wait until you can say what you have to say,” he said. “Take a deep breath, then let the words come.”

The young man started babbling again, but this time the sense of his words was unmistakable. “Two boys, they were walking in the hills, and they found a soldier bag. They opened it up and found bread. They sat down to eat it, and some Long Knives came and started shooting. They killed Deeds, but Hona got away.”

Every man in the tent knew what the news meant—the Long Knives were getting close. Sitting Bull got to his feet and ran to his lodge for his weapons. As he neared his tipi, he heard a shout and turned to see a warrior pointing south, downstream from the camp. There, Sitting Bull saw a cloud of dust and at the bottom of it, the blue shirts of the Long Knives and the heads of their horses.

He ducked into his lodge and found that One Bull was already there, grabbing his own weapons. “Uncle,” One Bull said, “I am going to fight the Long Knives.”

Sitting Bull hugged him. “Good. Don’t be afraid. And take this… .” He grabbed his shield, the same one his father had given him so long ago, and draped it over One Bull’s chest, then sent him out of the lodge. Sitting Bull, his hands full of weapons and a cartridge belt, was right behind him.

Vaulting onto his warhorse, which someone had caught and held by its picket rope, Sitting Bull worked his way through the milling throng of women, children, and old men who were preparing to flee the village. By the time he reached the south edge of the camp, it was clear that the Long Knives knew exactly where they were heading. The Hunkpapa camp, as the southernmost of the camp circles, was going to take the brunt of the assault.

Sitting Bull turned to see his mother on horseback, already riding away from the oncoming soldiers, then turned back to the business at hand. The Hunkpapa warriors, some on horseback and others, who had given their horses to women and children, on foot, poured out of the village. They
were already firing their guns, trying to slow the advance of the Long Knives long enough for the noncombatants to make their escape.

More and more warriors were filling in the gaps in the Hunkpapa lines, and they now had enough men to bring the cavalry charge to a halt. The Long Knives dismounted and took cover, firing their weapons incessantly. Sitting Bull was out front, rallying his warriors. With the Long Knives on foot, it would be easier. He formed two lines, one on the north and one on the west side of the river, and started to press the soldiers, who began to drop back, still firing, but seemingly more concerned with their own safety than with pressing their attack. In dismounting, they conceded an advantage; that puzzled Sitting Bull, who began to suspect a trap.

But the Hunkpapa continued their attack, and the Long Knives pulled back away from the river and took refuge in the thick timber. Falling back still further, the soldiers formed a rough line along a cutbank that ran through the trees, and the Hunkpapa advanced on them from all sides.

Small bands of warriors now began to probe the line of the Long Knives, charging forward until they drew fire, then falling back. The soldiers had good cover now, and their weapons gave them the advantage. Several young warriors were cut down in the middle of headlong charges against the army line, and Sitting Bull shouted for the others to hang back.

Puzzled by the behavior of the soldiers, Sitting Bull wanted to be certain he understood what was
happening before sacrificing any more men. For the time being, the village was safe, and he was content to hold the Long Knives off at long range. No sooner had he made that decision, however, than the soldiers climbed back on their horses and turned to run. They were no longer in good order; they were running for their lives. This much, at least, was no trick, he realized. They had been waiting for someone to join them, and whoever it was had not come.

Immediately, the Hunkpapa swarmed through the trees, cutting off small groups of fleeing soldiers, chasing others in headlong flight. But Sitting Bull was more concerned now about the other Long Knives. They were out there somewhere. But where?

He saw a handful of horse soldiers plunge into the river, still running away from the camp. One Bull started after them, rallying several warriors for the chase, but Sitting Bull stopped them with a shout. “Let them go, let them live to tell the truth, to say how it was the Long Knives and not the Lakota who started this fight!”

Heading back to the deserted village, Sitting Bull spotted more Long Knives on the ridge to the east across the river, hundreds of horse soldiers, riding flat out, and he knew that he had been right—there had been a second force. But now, with the first attack beaten back and the soldiers fleeing for their lives, the Long Knives on the ridge had no one to help them.

Sitting Bull moved closer, riding his black warhorse and holding his quirt. He was surrounded
by warriors, some of whom headed across the river to join the fight shaping up there. It looked as if the Long Knives were heading for the ford, planning to cross the river. As Sitting Bull watched, several Cheyenne warriors cut them off, and the horse soldiers stopped. A moment later, the hillside exploded in gunfire, and the thick banks of gun-smoke mingled with the clouds of dust from the army horses and the Lakota and Cheyenne war ponies.

At first it was possible to see what was happening, but only dimly through the thickening haze. The warriors had surrounded the Long Knives now, and the horse soldiers dismounted. More gunfire erupted, and it sounded to Sitting Bull as if it would never stop. At first the heavy fire drove the warriors back, but a hail of arrows poured in on the troopers from every side, and one by one their guns began to fall silent.

The smoke and dust were too thick to enable him to see anything clearly now, and Sitting Bull had to gauge the progress of the fight by sound alone. He could tell that the warriors were capturing rifles and pistols from the fallen Long Knives, and the tide was turning in the Lakotas’ favor.

The sound of the battle had changed. There was still shooting, but it was no longer steady, as if most of the guns were empty, or the soldiers who manned them no longer able to shoot. Isolated war cries echoed across the river now, and a sporadic shot cracked here and there, until at last there was total silence.

Sitting Bull urged his black into the river and
rode across. On the far side, he saw White Bull coming back from the battle.

“Are they all dead?” Sitting Bull asked. White Bull nodded. “Yes. They are all dead.” Sitting Bull did not know it then, but among the dead Long Knives on the hill was the man who had stolen the
Paha Sapa,
the hated Long Hair, George Armstrong Custer. And his prophecy had come true.