Seize the Sky: Son of the Plains-Volume 2 (23 page)

“Otoe Sioux! Otoe Sioux!”

Varnum listened, frantically trying to sort out the babble, trying to remember the meaning of the Arikara words.

“Otoe Sioux!”

“Plenty!” the soldier whispered to himself, snapping his fingers as he recalled. “No,” he muttered. “More than plenty.
Otoe
means
too many!
”

Charlie gulped unconsciously, staring up at those Rees crowded in the Crow’s Nest, each one moaning with the sad refrains of his private death chant. Some scratched their
faces, drawing blood, while others tugged at their un-braided hair, pulling strands out.

“Sioux everywhere,” Varnum murmured his own death song that cool dawn. “Too many Sioux.”

Because of some recent fears that Red Beard Crook would follow them over from the Rosebud after Crazy Horse’s warriors had battled the white soldiers to a standstill only eight suns ago, the Lakota chiefs kept a constant string of young scouts riding out from the camps in the valley of the Greasy Grass west of the divide.

Day and night, the scouts came and went.

Following little Ash Creek east up the divide from the Greasy Grass, Standing Bear and a handful of Hunkpapa warriors ran across a startling discovery: iron-shod horse tracks! And they were very fresh. A trail coming up to the crest of the divide, from below on the Rosebud.

Eighteen ponies, maybe more, Standing Bear concluded.

“Perhaps Red Beard is returning for another try at our great gathering of tribes, little brothers!” Standing Bear whispered to his scouts.

“One thing about the white man,” laughed Round-Face-Woman, a young warrior, “they can be very persistent.”

“Pretty stupid at times,” snorted another young scout.

“But—always persistent,” Standing Bear echoed, ending the discussion.

Just beyond the eastern slope of the crest, the scouts spotted the smoke rising from the regiment’s fires, the distinct smell of bacon and coffee carried on the morning breeze as the cool air was harried up and out of the valley toward the high places.

Yet this fresh trail seemed to lead off to their right.

Strange
, Standing Bear brooded,
those soldiers are camped below and to our left … while this fresh trail wanders up the divide to our right—

“
Aiyeee!
There!” Round-Face-Woman shouted, pointing up the slope, toward a pinnacle of rocks high on the divide to their right.

It was true. Several Indians hid themselves up there,
looking over the edge into the valley of the Greasy Grass as the sun slipped its red ball of fire over the edge of the earth far to the east. Indians by their dress and hair … mostly their hair.

Sparrowhawks!
Standing Bear figured.
Maybe some corn eaters along by the look of things. And yes! A white man with them.

“Little brothers, these surely must be spies from Red Beard Crook’s soldiers.”

“We will ride back and give warning,” Grass-That-Sings cried out, urging his pony aside.

“I do not think Red Beard will attack this day,” Standing Bear whispered confidently. “He would not get close enough to our villages until the sun stands high in the heavens. And we all know soldiers prefer to attack at dawn. Have no fear, little brothers, that Red Beard will try our warriors in battle this day.”

The younger scouts agreed and snatched up their reins.

Up, up through the trees they climbed until coming to those bare rocks they had to cross before they could descend into the cover of shady trees and concealing shadows on the far side of the divide.

And that’s when Varnum spotted them: A handful of Sioux hurrying into the valley of the Little Bighorn with their urgent message of warning.

At daylight there were still a few soldiers and officers stretched out on the ground, some curled under a bush or with a saddle blanket pulled over them. Most of the troops hunkered red-eyed and wasted, clutching cups of strong, alkaline coffee and content not to have to think about much of anything at all.

Only a handful of these half-dead soldiers paid any attention to the lone Arikara scout who loped into camp, searching for the pony soldier-chief himself.

Tom Custer saw him coming first. He stood at the fire Burkman fed to heat some coffee the general wanted.

“Autie, you best quit wetting those bushes down now. Button up your britches and come on over here.”

Custer came back to the fire as he buttoned up his
buckskinned pants. Tom pointed out the Ree scout headed their way on horseback, coming in at a slow walk now.

“You remember that one’s name, Tom?”

“Can’t say as I do.”

“Find Fred Gerard, wherever he might be sleeping off last night’s whiskey. Bring him here immediately. I figure we’ve got us some news coming down from Varnum.”

As Tom loped off on foot to search for the interpreter, Custer held out his tin cup, not even looking back at Burkman.

“Striker! Coffee, please.”

John watched the young Indian dismount, then poured a cup for Custer. The general signed his offer of coffee. Red Star nodded and held out his hands; from them the single rawhide rein looped back to the lower jaw of his horse. Burkman picked up his own tin cup and poured the thick, scalding brew into it for the scout.

As he squatted down at the fire with his cup cradled in one hand, Red Star reached inside the neck of his shirt and pulled out the dispatch scribbled by Varnum.

Custer ripped the tablet page open with more eagerness than most men would know in a lifetime.

“You damned bet I’ll come see for myself, Lieutenant Varnum!” Custer danced a little jig around the morning fire for Red Star and Burkman right then and there.

“This is just the news I’ve been waiting for!” He stuffed the message inside his shirt.

Bellowing like a bull elk in the rut, Custer raced over to Vic and leapt upon the mare bareback. Seizing the reins, he tore off through the regiment’s camp to spread the word all by himself. The fringe on his buckskins snapped and popped like corn parching as the blaze-faced sorrel’s mane fluttered, creating a stirring sight for those grumbling soldiers rousted from their sleep by the general himself.

“Get up! Get up you lady-thumping rummies! We’re marching at eight!” he hollered at the top of his lungs.

“General … over here!” It was Calhoun’s recognizable baritone. Keogh dashed up beside him, winded from his run.

“By God, we’ve got them cornered now, Jimbo!” Custer gushed happily. “The scouts have spotted the village just on the other side of the divide. They’re within reach!”

Custer hammered his heels against Vic’s ribs and burst off to continue spreading the word.

“How far away, General?” Myles Moylan asked, sensing the familiar fever of impending battle already pumping in his veins.

“Twelve, maybe fifteen miles on the other side of the divide!”

“We’ll whip ’em for sure, General!” Moylan cheered, throwing his huge fist into the air.

“Pray they don’t run, Myles,” Custer reminded him anxiously, his sunburned face suddenly serious. “Just pray they don’t run on me now. I so desperately need to catch them right where they are.”

Back at his fire a few officers had already gathered with Tom.

“Where’s Gerard, Tom?” Custer demanded gruffly, eyes scanning the group for his interpreter.

“Couldn’t find him,” Tom shrugged, staring back into his coffee cup.

“You just didn’t look under the right bush!” Custer flared.

He wanted Gerard, and he wanted him now. The general was certain Red Star had more to tell than Varnum’s terse note could ever say. And Custer wanted that too. All of it.

He wheeled and tore off, never dismounting.

“Whaaaa!” Gerard growled moments later, blinking as he peered up into bright morning light and that tall man standing over him, thumping the heel of his boot with the toe of his own. “What in glory hell’s wrong with you, Custer?”

“Get your flea-bitten, hung-over ass moving, Gerard!” he barked. “You’re holding up my victory.”

Gerard allowed his aching head to plop back to the saddle blanket he had pulled into the bushes with him. “Ohhh …”he moaned. “That’s all, is it? Well, General, when you find the Sioux, you come tell me then.”

“How’d you like to ride back to Lincoln in irons, Gerard? If you make it back alive at all.”

Frederic F. Gerard opened one raw, bloody eye again and stared up into the new light of day shimmering round the tall man towering over his bed in the bullberry thicket. He had known Custer for most of three years now. Long enough to know the general was damned well dead serious.

“I’m coming, General.” He struggled to sit up, feeling of a sudden he might lose last night’s supper … then remembered he didn’t have any supper last night. While others had eaten, Fred had only nursed his deep, abiding thirst.

Running a thick tongue over sandpaper teeth, it felt like a guard had tramped back and forth all night long inside his mouth … and with a pair of muddy boots on as well.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll wait five minutes at my headquarters fire,” Custer advised sternly, climbing to the saddle. “Then, I’ll send a guard detail to fetch you, Gerard.”

Custer was gone as quickly as he had come, through the trees and milling troopers preparing horses and mules for the march that would be ordered at eight.

By the time Gerard staggered up, bleary-eyed and heavy-headed, Bloody Knife, Stabbed, One Feather, Soldier, Curly Hair, and others were gathered at Custer’s fire. Each one talked low and solemn with young Red Star.

No longer wearing a light, easy expression on his face, Custer was intent on the business at hand. He handed his reins over to Burkman and dropped to one knee in the circle of solemn Arikara scouts. Their somber expressions and grave speech generally went unnoticed as Godfrey, Moylan, Keogh, Calhoun, and others eased up to listen in on Custer’s discussion with the Rees.

“What’s that he said?” Custer interrupted Gerard. He recognized something in Bloody Knife’s tone from their
years together. After all, the bold Ree scout had ridden this trail with Custer many times in the past. Custer could sense something serious in the color of the aging Ree’s words.

Gerard turned back to Bloody Knife. When the scout had finished, the dry-mouthed interpreter blinked at Custer.

“Bloody Knife says there’re too many Sioux over in that valley.”

“Yes?” Custer replied, feeling a surge of anger. “We know there are many—”

“He says, General,” Gerard interrupted uncharacteristically, “we’ll find enough Sioux over there to keep us fighting for two, maybe three days.”

“Oh, now …” Custer wagged his head as the peg-toothed smile widened, azure eyes twinkling distantly at the officers round him. “I guess we’ll just have to get through them in one day.”

Rising to his feet, Custer dusted his hands off on his buckskin britches. He simply didn’t have more than one day to get the job done.

Even if the Sioux village was a little strong, the warriors would probably wage only a staying action, merely holding the troops off while their women and children and old people escaped into the hills. Like the Washita the men would fight only until the weak ones had escaped.

“Let’s go to the valley!” Custer commanded. “Saddle up your men, fellas. We’re moving out to catch us some Sioux!”

C
HARLEY
Reynolds watched Custer coming that last mile up the rocky slope. For better than forty-five minutes the general had been in the saddle. He slid from Dandy’s back and jogged stiffly up the last seventy-five yards of slope with that renowned restless energy of his.

Reynolds smiled beneath his sun-bleached mustache. While lesser men might feel the effects of a night march and the rigors of three long days on the trail, Custer was a special breed. His kind never tired. The closer he drew to his quarry, the more energy he always seemed to exude. Custer drew life from the hunt, the close, and the kill.

You just might need some of his energy yourself, Charley—before this day’s out
. Reynolds chewed on his thoughts as he watched Custer climb toward him.
Tomorrow if the general whips these Sioux, you could be riding to spread the news again.

Two years back when Custer wanted to spread the news of gold found in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory, he had asked his Indian scouts to carry the news south to Fort Laramie. Trouble was, between the Black Hills and the fort
lay Sioux country, swarming with hostiles. Bloody Knife and the rest refused to ride Custer’s suicidal mission, even with the general’s offer of gold.

But Charley Reynolds had stepped up and said quietly, in that way of his, “General, I’ll carry your mail for you.”

What had astounded those present was that Charley said it as if he were volunteering to do nothing more than take a ride into Bismarck.

Reynolds made his hair-raising ride through Lakota land and carved himself a niche forever in Custer’s heart. Last day or so he had heard rumors that the general was about to single him out again to carry some crucial news back to the States.

While the Indian scouts made way for Custer at the top, Reynolds, Bouyer, and Varnum clung at the rocks. When the general was ready, Charley pointed where he should look through the field glasses loaned him by Lieutenant Charles DeRudio.

After several minutes adjusting the focus and straining his tired, wind-burned eyes, Custer was still unable to make out that dark carpet of worms they wanted him to see, nor could he claim that he recognized the smoke curling up from all the fires to be found along the banks of the Greasy Grass.

Eventually Custer pulled DeRudio’s glasses from his eyes, disappointed. “I’m sorry, boys. Seems like a blind trail, because I can’t see a thing that tells me there’s Sioux camped in that valley yonder.”