Seize the Sky: Son of the Plains-Volume 2 (9 page)

“I want you to understand I have not called you to go with me up the Rosebud to fight. Instead, you need only track the enemy’s path and tell me where they are. I do not want, nor do I expect, you to fight these Indians we are trailing. You just find the Indians for me. I will do the fighting.”

He turned to his striker. “Burkman, fetch me that pouch I set out on my field desk. The leather one with the fringe down one side.”

With pouch in hand, Custer turned again to Curley. “With this money I am giving you,” and Custer began to pour some coins out of the pouch into the scout’s palm, “I want you to go to the steamboat and buy some paints and new shirts. You must do this now,” he directed while he poured more coins into the palms of the rest. “We leave tomorrow as soon as preparations are made. I want you ready to take me to the Indians who took your hunting land and have long been causing your people many problems.”

Custer suddenly turned to Cooke, struck with an idea. “Lieutenant! I want you to hurry straightaway to the quartermaster and bring me a wall tent for these boys.”

“The Crows, General? A tent?”

“Exactly, Cooke! These boys will stay with me tonight. Eat supper and camp with me … won’t you boys?”

They nodded their heads after Bouyer interpreted the invitation, smiling for the soldier-chief.

“While supper is being readied for us,” Custer motioned for the scouts to stand once more with him, “you go to the steamboat and get your supplies with the money I’ve given you. By jiggers, I feel all the better already about this scout. With good men like you Crows with me … I can’t help but find the Sioux quick and finish them off. Now, come back as soon as you’ve made your purchases, and we’ll have something to eat.”

Custer escorted the group to the south bank of the Yellowstone, where several boats sat on the sand to ferry soldiers to the far shore or the steamboat itself.

As the Crow were about to board the skiffs that would row them out to the
Far West
, Custer suddenly became drained of his bubbly enthusiasm. The famous smile disappeared from his haggard face.

“I want you scouts to know I understand you don’t know a thing about me yet,” he explained through Bouyer by the lapping waters of the Yellowstone. “I am known far and wide among the tribes as Charge-the-Camp, because I will not hesitate to wade right into a battle myself. You ask
about me. Anyone will tell you how I cleaned up a camp of Cheyenne on the southern plains. That was eight years ago, but I intend to do the very thing to these Sioux. And remember the Crow scouts who ride with me—the scouts who lead me to these Sioux I’m hunting—you will share in the horses captured from the Sioux herds.”

Smiles reappeared beneath the greased Crow pompadours as Bouyer translated.

Sioux ponies as an additional reward? What could possibly be better?
Curley wondered.
Money from this soldier-chief to buy a new shirt for this journey, and some war paint for our faces when we ride down on the Sioux camps. Aiyeee! Now the promise of Sioux ponies as well! This is a great thing in a young Crow scout’ life!

As Custer turned with a wave to them all, crunching back toward his tents across the icy hail melting in slushy patches up the slope, Curley turned to Half-Yellow-Face and White-Man-Runs-Him.

“This Young Star will be a good soldier to follow. He understands Indians. He will not fall behind. I will like fighting for such a soldier. This one will win. This one will bring us victory over our old enemies. Young Star will not quiver and fall back, afraid of the Lakota.”

As the soldier-boatman dipped his oars into the water, dragging the skiff toward the
Far West
, Curley watched the steamboat’s lights illuminate the tops of the wind-whipped whitecaps.

“It is decided,” Curley said quietly. “I will go with this one wherever he leads me.”

A half hour later Custer sent bugler Henry Voss to blow “Officers’ Call” through camp.

Tom Custer was the first to appear, as was usually the case. “Something’s eating at you, Autie,” he remarked as he strode up, watching his older brother slapping the old rawhide quirt against his boot. “Don’t often see you this worked up. Reminds me of the time Benteen wrote that letter dragging your name through the mud in papers all over St. Louis, Chicago, and New York.”

“Another attack on the Seventh, that’s what!”

“What now? Or should I say, who?”

“That infernal Grasshopper Jim!”

“Brisbin?”

“None other!” He glared testily at his brother with those icy marine eyes, flames from the nearby fire dancing off his reddish blond mustache that all but covered his mouth.

“He still pushing to come along?”

“Tried once more to worm his way in on this scout,” he flared. “This fight is ours!”

“No man will argue that, Autie!”

“He’ll play no part in any of it, not him nor Gibbon! Not even Terry.” He slapped the quirt once more for emphasis as others straggled into the ring of firelight.

“I hope you told that bastard what-for!” Tom said.

“I did just that!” Custer kneaded the quirt handle into his palm. “I told him the Seventh had no need of his four troops of cavalry.”

“Damn, if you can’t stir a fighting man’s blood, Autie!” Tom slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Why, fellas, we’re going to kill us some Sioux just like we done to Johnny Reb down at Saylor’s Creek!”

Tom had won his second of two Congressional Medals of Honor during the Civil War at Saylor’s Creek, charging a Confederate artillery position and single-handedly bringing back the rebel flag to Union lines. He also brought back a serious wound—a hole in his cheek where a Confederate ball had entered, smashing an exit wound behind the ear. More than eleven years later, Thomas Ward Custer still wore that rosy scar on his cheek. Wore it as proudly as he wore his medals.

“Hear! Hear!” shouted Captain George W. Yates, a hometown Monroe boy like the Custers. “Go, you wolverines!”

“That’s the spirit, men!” Tom hollered enthusiastically as he watched friends backslapping.

His was the sort of contagious enthusiasm that his older brother liked to see run through his officer corps. Here on the precipice of their march up the Rosebud, here with the men keyed up tight as a cat-gut fiddle string, brother Tom could work his singular magic on his fellow officers.

Irishman Myles W. Keogh pounded big James Calhoun on the back. Both members of the Custer inner circle cheered lustily with Tom.

“Nothing short of death stands in the way of the Wild I Company!” Captain Keogh growled in his peat-moss brogue.

“Appears nothing will stand in our way now, Myles,” Custer said as the huzzahs quieted. “Terry’s giving us all the help he can. I believe the old boy knows we’ll be the ones to save his hide on this campaign—not Gibbon, not even Crook.”

“Custer and the Seventh!” Tom shouted, amid cheers.

“All right!” Custer himself shouted. “Let’s get down to business so we can get you back to your units. There’s much to do and little time to do it. We are leaving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Captain Frederick W. Benteen croaked.

“Damn! Old Sitting Bull himself better watch out for that mangy scalp of his now!” adjutant Cooke hollered.

“In the morning?”

“Dang-it-all—but I’m itchy for a good scrap a’ready!”

Waving a hand for silence, Custer began, “We’ll leave somewhere between late morning to early afternoon.”

“How long we expect to be out, General?” Major Marcus Reno shuffled a step forward to inquire. He would be second only to Custer himself on the scout.

“Just as long as it takes, Major. To put it in terms of something you can tell your men, I want to be ready for fifteen days of march.”

“Fifteen, sir?” Captain Yates asked.

“That’s correct, George. We’re being provisioned for fifteen days. For the first few days the marches won’t be all that long, but later on I figure the length of each march will be increased as need and circumstance arise.”

“Ol’ Iron Butt won’t go hard to wear us out—eh, Autie?” Tom joked.

“No,” he grinned. “It wouldn’t do to wear out a single man of you and run you into the ground trying to keep up with me! But on the lighter side, if more of you had done
as I have, you would not have to brood on dying and leaving someone behind with nothing but your memory.”

“If you’re talking about that life-insurance policy you took out in your name for Libbie, I got myself one for Maggie as beneficiary,” Lieutenant James Calhoun boasted.

“Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Jim?”

“That’s right, General. Same as you.” Calhoun winked to those round him. “While I don’t expect to use it—you never know when old Iron Butt here will ride us all to our deaths chasing Sioux up and down some bloody river again!”

As the laughter subsided, Keogh stepped forward, slapping his chest. Many were the times Myles Keogh was not the most-liked man in the regiment. Too often a drunken braggart, strict to a fault with his men and most times prone to violence. There remained an electrifying aura about the man, especially in that effect he had over the fairer sex—and it all carried over to the unquestioned control he held over the men of his “wild” I Company. With Custer’s regiment from its inception, brooding Myles Keogh brought the best, and perhaps the worst, out in all his men.

“What’s to say ’bout me—eh, mates?” His thick brogue poured over every one.

“Why, who the hell would you name your beneficiary, you lady-humping rounder, you?” Tom Custer swung a fist into Keogh’s taut mid-section.

“Why, Tommy, me boy! You know I ’aven’t got a dolly to mourn me passing, a’tall … a’tall. But, still took me out a policy with the same blooming life insurance drummer. And, should these red buggers be-chance lift my scalp—why, them bankers’ll pay me dear ol’ mither back in Erin they will!”

Calhoun slapped Keogh on the back, pushing him back into line good-naturedly.

Calhoun and Keogh were quite a pair. Both serving long with Custer and his magical Seventh, both part of the inner clique that drew close around Custer himself, protecting the general. Fiercely loyal to a fault, both Keogh and Calhoun swore that should the day ever come that they
could repay Custer’s kindnesses to them, neither of them would be found wanting.

“Gentlemen!” Custer held his arm up, and the officers’ laughter subsided. “We’ll move up the Rosebud tomorrow. There will be no wagons this time. Hence, no tents.”

He waited until the good-natured groans and complaints played out. “No wagons means we’re taking mules along. A pack train. Twelve mules per company. That forces us to march light, you understand. Fifteen days we’ll be out, so fifteen days’ rations packed for each man. Hardtack, coffee, and sugar to be carried on each man’s mount. Twelve days of bacon only. No more. Don’t overburden the mounts, gentlemen. There may well come a time when we can’t afford to overtax the animals, and we’ll need their energy and strength for a fight of it. Ammunition more than food, fellas. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” Cooke answered for them all.

Custer peered a moment at the cloudy sky, almost as if hoping for a peek at a star. “Speaking of our mounts, every man will carry twelve pounds of oats and a nose bag for his horse. In case we can’t locate good graze, we must be prepared to feed the animals. And every man will keep on him a hundred rounds for his carbine, twenty-four for his revolver. In addition, see that two thousand rounds of carbine ammo are loaded on each company mule. If you feel your assigned mules can take it, I might suggest some extra forage.”

“Sounds like you’re fixing to have us out even longer than fifteen days, General.”

Custer glared at Major Reno’s dark face. “We might be. Terry figured five days at the most before the jaws of his trap snap shut. However, I want us ready for fifteen at the least. These Indians won’t get away this time. My only fear is that the Sioux are going to run, that I’ll have to chase them as they scatter on us. But Sitting Bull won’t get away for long if we’re prepared to follow.”

“Beggin’ pardon, General.” The big Missourian stepped into the light between lieutenants Edgerly and Smith. “Are you prepared to support any unit that gets itself into trouble this time out?”

Custer tensed, turning slowly toward the strapping Benteen. “Captain, care to tell me just what you mean by your question?”

“Why, I was remembering the Washita and Major Elliott.…”

With Benteen’s acidic words Tom Custer sensed a stunned silence slash through the assembled officers like a saber.

“Major … Major Elliott?” Custer stammered.

“Yes, General. That time on the Washita when you failed to support one of your officers. I want to be assured in front of your officer corps that such an event will not occur again. You will follow and support as you have promised?”

“Promised?” Custer grew bright red. “This is war, Benteen! Not some sterile battle maneuver pitting us against civilized soldiers in the Shenandoah Valley. We’re preparing to do battle with hardened warriors. Don’t dare speak to me of promised support, for I won’t hear of it ever again! We’re soldiers, doing our job as best we can. Do you all understand?”

After a moment of reflection, Custer ripped off his hat and ran a hand over his freshly clipped hair. Back to bristles, compliments of barber-trader James Sipes aboard the
Far West
.

“We’ll be fighting warriors who have battled us before on the Yellowstone, I’m sure. Led by Gall and American Horse and none other than Crazy Horse himself. So it’s reported. I led my cavalry into many battles during the recent rebellion in the south, engaging my horse against the cream of the Confederate horse. But I want each and every one of you to understand that we have never come up against warrior-leaders like this Crazy Horse. He’s the kind who likes to hurt you before he kills you, as I understand.”

“Let the bastard taste Seventh Cavalry steel!” Tom blurted angrily.

“If anything, he’ll have to taste our lead,” Custer replied. “The sabers were left behind at Powder River.”

“Let it be
my
lead, pray God!” Tom said.

Custer turned back to Benteen. “Captain, I repeat—we
will be fighting warriors.” He eyed the rest of his officer corps. “Unlike those you killed at the Washita.”