Seize the Sky: Son of the Plains-Volume 2 (25 page)

Up and down the columns many of the men glanced at one another with those first few notes out of the tin horns. The first such trumpet call in over two days now. Trotting
forward along the excited columns, there wasn’t a one of Custer’s officers who didn’t fully understand the time for secrecy and silence had come and gone. The blowing of that one, solitary bugle call meant the time for battle had arrived.

Custer gripped Dandy’s reins tightly as he paced on foot in one direction three steps, then retraced those steps in another direction.

“Gentlemen, you recall the Crows reported seeing the village from the Crow’s Nest. They claim to see smoke and dust, a big village. I, on the other hand, was unable to see a bloody thing. I really doubted the Indians were down there along the Little Horn, so I kept looking up north, in the direction of Tullock’s Forks.

“At least in those valleys we could bottle the tribe up, and they couldn’t escape me so easily. However, the scouts tell me I’ll find them in the valley of the Little Horn. And down there the Indians can run and scatter two ways of Sunday without us having a ghost of a chance to run them down.”

For a moment the only sounds filling the hot, dry air came from the general’s boots scuffing at the dry ground, or his horse munching on the brittle grass, even the scratchy cough of some man’s trail-raw throat.

“All along I meant to surprise that hostile camp,” Custer went on. “We’ve got a command riddled with green recruits of the rawest order. Our mounts are about as weary as any could get, while the warriors we’ll soon face are going to ride fresh ponies. Yet do any of you see sense in my original plan to wait out a day and attack at dawn tomorrow?”

“Yes, General. I do,” James Calhoun finally gave a cautious response.

“But we can’t now, Lieutenant!” Custer snapped.

Like only a handful of the rest, Yates realized the general had addressed his brother-in-law by rank. Custer was angry, disappointed, and now veering close to fury.

“Gentlemen, despite the fact that we’re not fully prepared for battle, and that we surely are not going to have the advantage of surprise on those warriors, we nonetheless have one advantage. We are the Seventh, a proven fighting
machine—and never before has our grand republic really seen what we can do when asked to perform above and beyond the call of duty.”

“General Custer?”

“Who are you?” Custer asked, squinting at the tall, thin civilian looking out of place in dusty frontier clothes.

“George Herendeen. Assigned you from Colonel Gibbon and General Terry.”

“Ahhh, yes … I remember now,” he replied absently, an eye twitching as he appraised the man. “You came along to communicate with the other column, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Too late for that now, Herendeen.” Custer crossed his arms emphatically, eyes filling with the icy fire of a zealot, waiting for the scout’s response.

“Too late, General?” the startled Herendeen protested with the rolling bass of his voice. “The head of Tullock’s Creek is right over the hills yonder. We can have your men down that valley in no time and meet up with Gibbon’s men. If you aren’t going to send me with word as you promised General Terry, best you get all these men heading north that way right now—north where you’ll have Gibbon’s support.”

“
Gibbon’s support!
” Custer bristled. “What the devil do I need his help for? Tullock’s Fork may very well be up north, but there are no Indians in that direction, Herendeen! They’re in our front—and they’ve discovered us. It would serve no purpose dispatching you down the Tullock’s now.”

Custer wheeled to face his men once more. “The way I see it, fellas—the only thing to do is push ahead and attack the camp as soon as possible.”

There it was, Yates figured. Custer had finally put into words what every officer had been fearing the general would decide on his own.

“General.” Herendeen stepped closer, a lean, hard wisp of a man, his wrinkled face like well-soaped leather. “Haven’t your scouts been telling you for days that you’re bound to run onto more than you can handle?”

“I’ve listened to all their ghosty stories. What of it?”

“Those scouts told you how many Sioux there are. The Crow even showed you how big the village is down there in that valley where you’re dragging these men. Right?”

“You’re forgetting that I didn’t see a blessed thing that could be taken for a huge Indian camp—and I had the field glasses!”

“Dammit, General!” Herendeen’s sudden anger silenced them all like a slap across the mouth. “If you wanna play dumb to everything your scouts tell you, then there’ll be a helluva lot of blood on your hands. If you’re going to let your hot-blooded stupidity and eagerness to attack that summer gathering of the whole goddamned Sioux nation—with nothing more than a handful of worn-out men and trail-busted stock—then you might well be damned by that decision for all of eternity.”

“Why, Mr. Herendeen,” Custer drew back, strangely calm at the moment. “What would you know about military strategy?”

“Not a god … damned … thing … General Custer.” Herendeen allowed Custer his smirk. “But I can count. As good as the next man. And I can see your ragtag outfit ain’t ready for any kind of scrap, much less a fight against the best warriors these northern plains can throw at you.”

“Are you quite done, Herendeen? Because if you are, you can ride with us to attack the village in that valley below. Or you can skedaddle up to the Tullock’s Fork. You see, we’re going to attack the Sioux before they scatter, and all those warriors you talk about can’t be found.”

“For these past three days, I was beginning to think all they’d said about you couldn’t be true, that you weren’t really such a goddamned arrogant asshole when it comes to following orders.

“Exactly what General Terry didn’t want done, you’re doing up in fine style. Instead of continuing south up the Rosebud, you’ve followed the Indian trail straight to their village. You’ve dogged this trail with your nose to the ground, and it’s hard for me to believe you didn’t intend to attack this village on your own from the start. So you see, General Custer—I, for one, don’t buy your claim that you
ever intended to obey Terry’s orders, and you’ve never given a god-bloody-damn where Gibbon’s forces are because you want the whole pie for yourself!”

Every man there stood in stunned silence. After a long, brutally painful moment, Custer allowed a smile to crease his face.

“Perhaps you aren’t as dumb as I thought you were, Mr. Herendeen.” Custer turned, slipping a boot into his stirrup. “One thing you are right about. I want the coming action for myself. For the Seventh—these men. Right, fellas?”

George Yates yelled and whistled as loudly as any other. Custer held up a gloved hand for silence atop Dandy.

“I’ll return in a few minutes, boys. After I’ve discussed our plans with the Rees.” His blue eyes darkened as he narrowed his attention on the civilian scout below him.

“And as for you, Mr. Herendeen—I suggest you either fall back with the rest of the scouts, or you can plan on bucking over to that Tullock’s Fork you speak so highly of. You’ve got your choice to make now, and make it fast—because this outfit’s going into battle!”

C
USTER
yanked savagely on Dandy’s reins, tearing back along the columns in search of Gerard’s scouts.

By the time he found the Rees, they already understood that the command was preparing for battle.

A few of the older scouts squatted on the ground, tearing up the tall, dry grass at their knees, wailing as they tossed the brittle stalks into the hot breezes. Their death songs made for a melancholy background as Custer reined up before Bloody Knife, Stabbed, and Frederic Gerard himself.

“Gerard, tell them the time has come. Soon we fight the Sioux. You all came from Lincoln’s Fort to help me find the Sioux. You’ve done your job. If you will not fight your enemies beside my soldiers, then at the very least I want you to race in and hit the Sioux pony herd. Drive them all off so your enemies cannot use them in battle. You can keep them as I promised you.”

Custer stepped beside Bloody Knife. “But no matter what, my old friend—there will be a home for you, as I have
promised Bloody Knife, if you fight alongside me. Bloody Knife will have a home I make for him. He is my good friend.”

Instead of speaking for himself once the soldier-chief had finished, Bloody Knife grunted for Stabbed to speak for him. The old man nudged his tired pony out front of the other Arikaras to begin his high-pitched harangue.

“My brothers and nephews,” Stabbed announced in his thin, reedy voice, “the fight we stare in the eyes will be a difficult one for most of you.” The light breezes tousled his unbraided hair already marked with the iron of many winters. “I know many of you have never been tried in battle before this day. You have never had to kill an enemy before. Never heard the song of bullets whistling past your faces.”

After lifting his chin to the sky for a moment as if in prayer, Stabbed went on, exhorting his men. “Your older brothers and uncles have done all we could to prepare you for this day. Nothing more can we do now but dress you in the sacred colors as we prepare to fight our old, old enemies. These sacred colors will guard you against the arrow, blade, or bullet that comes your way. Colors calling upon your spirit helpers to protect your bodies in this coming-time of madness.”

With Bloody Knife’s help, the old man mixed dried clay and earth pigment in his palm, smearing the pigment and bear grease and spit mixture onto every young warrior’s face and chest. One after another, each scout stoically presented himself to the old warrior for this painting ceremony, while the others gathered round him, chanting.

One by one they ripped open their cloth shirts or tugged up the long tails of their buckskin war shirts so the old man could paint his mystical symbols on their flesh. At last Bloody Knife smeared red paint on those wounds scarred across Stabbed’s chest and back: not only the scars suffered in his many Sun Dance sacrifices, but also knife and lance wounds of many scalp raids and war parties.

Finally Custer’s most trusted Ree scout presented himself to the silent soldier-chief.

Bloody Knife held up his hands to Custer, showing him the smeared paint left in his palms.

“He wants you to paint him, General,” Gerard whispered huskily as he pulled the flask bottle from his mouth, amber drops glistening on his lips. Ever since daybreak, when Custer himself awoke him with word that the Sioux were close enough to kill with spit, Fred Gerard had been drinking harder than ever.

Custer beamed at this singular honor. Kicking one leg over his saddle, he dropped to the ground and dabbed his fingers in what was left of the greasepaint in Bloody Knife’s palms. When he was finished, Custer stepped back to admire his work.

“It is good,” he signed for his old friend, The Knife.

“Yes, Long Hair,” the Ree answered with his hands. “It is good for you to paint me before I go into battle at your side.”

Bloody Knife laid a finger on that striking black silk scarf resplendent with blue stars tied at his neck. “One time, long ago, you gave this young tracker this fine present. I have worn it always with good thoughts of you in my mind. But—I can never escape the thought that by riding with you, death almost touched me once before. Does Long Hair remember?”

Custer shook his head. Bloody Knife went on solemnly speaking in sign.

“We traveled into the Sioux’s Paha Sapa—their Black Hills—when one of the wagons I was leading got stuck in crossing a stream. You blamed me for the mud sucking that wagon into the creek bank. So crazy were you for that wagon that you aimed your rifle at me and fired a bullet. I ran away, not knowing what to do now that Long Hair’s blood was mad at me and he wanted to kill me. There I was deep in the land of my enemies, and my good friend Custer was trying to kill me.”

“I remember.” The commander nodded gravely, his thin lips pursed beneath the corn-silk yellow mustache. “It is true what you say, Bloody Knife. I did get angry and shoot at you with a bad temper. But you must remember that I later asked you to come back and be my trusted wolf, my
scout, once more. And—” He swallowed hard, for it appeared as hard now to spit out these words as it had been back in the Black Hills. “I apologized to you, Bloody Knife.”

“I heard your apology and told you shooting at me was not a good thing for a man to do to his friend,” the aging scout replied sadly. “Then I said that if I got crazy-mad like you, you would not see another sunset. Bloody Knife does not miss when he shoots, Long Hair. Do you remember all this?”

Gerard watched the rest of the Rees. Those young scouts had never heard of this dramatic incident. Now they muttered among themselves fearfully. Better than any other, Fred knew the Arikara. For these young trackers nothing else could pucker their bowels more here on the precipice of battle with their old enemies—than to learn that Long Hair shot at his old friend, The Knife.

Gradually their death songs grew louder, more insistent. Fred alone knew the Rees believed they were being led into a valley crawling with Sioux warriors by a man who had tried to kill their beloved and revered scout-chief.

Paying no attention to the rising cries of the other scouts, Custer gazed into Bloody Knife’s eyes. “Trusted wolf, we both lived to see another sunset—and many more after that black day. I am certain the setting of this day’s sun will be one of glory for us both. You will leave that valley below with me, Bloody Knife. We will be going home together, old friend.”

Instead of smiling at Custer’s bright optimism, the old Ree said, “Long Hair, my friend, I am going home today—yes. Not by the way we came, but in spirit. I am going home to my people. Before the sun sets this day, I will see all my relatives gone before to the spirit world. You and I will not ride together to Washington City. We are soon to journey to join the old ones gone before.”

“Indian superstition,” Custer muttered from the corner of his mouth, forcing a smile. “Simply superstition.” He spat on the ground to emphasize it, then turned from Bloody Knife.