Long Winter Gone

CHAPTER 6

CUSTER countermarched his troops a mile upstream to guard against their discovery by Cheyenne guards. Only then did he send his three civilian scouts to read the lay of the land and size of the village. Corbin reported first, Milner on his heels. Ben Clark finally appeared out of the ice-rimed trees, his story confirming what the other two had seen in their search.

“They chose a good spot on the south bank of the river,” Clark continued. “Fifty-some lodges, all sitting on level ground in a wide loop of the river—something like this.”

Clark dropped to his knees, pulling out a knife. The scout scratched the river’s meandering course in the snow, with that big loop where the troops would find the village sleeping.

“Where are we now?” Custer inquired.

“Right about here, sir.” Clark’s knife point jabbed the ground. “On the far side of the village is a steep cutbank. Fifty feet high. Noses almost straight up, following the course of the river. Plenty of—”

“Splendid!” Custer interrupted, slapping his thigh as he stood. “They surely can’t make their escape that way, can they, now, Clark?”

“Why … not at all.”

“I expect them to run, you see. Indians always do when we attack.” Custer’s smile faded as his eyes scanned the officers and scouts.

“They’ll skedaddle, General. Like hens with a weasel in the yard.” Milner spat into the snow. “Make no mistake about it—Injuns always run.”

Custer grinned beneath a winter-bright quarter-moon. “I’m counting on that, Joe. I must have all the exits sealed—if you catch my drift, gentlemen.”

“General Custer?” A swarthy scout named Romero rose on creaky knees. “Some of your Osages think your soldiers will be outnumbered by that village.”

“That so?” Custer turned it over in his mind like a man would inspect something in his hand. He figured this Romero ought to know. Born of Mexican parents. Kidnapped by Indians, growing up a Cheyenne. “What else my Osage got to say?”

“They’re scared.”

“Scared of those warriors in the village?”

“Not scared of Cheyenne. Afraid of your cavalry … and you.”

“Afraid of us!” Custer exploded. “Insane! Why in heaven’s name should they be afraid of us?”

“Way they see it, the Cheyenne in there will give you a real fight of it. So when things turn out a draw, they figure you’ll parley with the Cheyenne to save your men. And to save your men, you’ll hand the Osage over to their old enemies, them Cheyenne.”

“That’s the most preposterous—”

“There’s more. These Osages aren’t all that impressed by what you soldiers done so far out here in Indian country. These trackers got their doubts, you making good your attack on that village.”

Custer glared at Romero. “Seems we’re just going to have to educate these Osages on how the Seventh Cavalry fights Indians. Won’t we, gentlemen?”

A murmuring of assent arose among the officers before Custer continued. “By General Sheridan’s orders we’ll level the village and kill or hang every man of fighting age. I wasn’t sent here to show these hostiles any mercy at all. So tell your Osages that Custer won’t stop until Sheridan’s orders are carried out—”

“General?”

Custer’s eyes snapped to Jack Corbin, youngest of the scouts, who had earned the respect of many frontiersmen on the southern plains. “What is it?” Custer barked.

“Don’t know what the others think,” Corbin began, toeing the snow as nervously as a schoolboy stammering before a pigtailed, freckle-faced girl. “But I don’t see a way there can be a big war party down in that village. That camp’s just too damned small.”

“Not a war camp?” Custer’s voice rose an octave. “Why in Hades did these Osage trackers follow Indian ponies here? You remember those ponies, don’t you, Jack? Better than a hundred or more—you all told me that!”

Corbin shook his head in exasperation. “Something just don’t fit right, General.”

“Better than fifty lodges, I’m told!” Custer roared.

Corbin’s pleading eyes darted to Milner, then implored Ben Clark. Joe looked away, studying his dirty fingernails.

Clark eventually stepped up to Custer. “Might be Jack’s put a finger on something.”

“Which is?” Custer growled, glowering at Clark with eyes that could frost a man’s mustache.

“Doesn’t read right. That village ain’t got fifty warriors in it—much less a hundred fifty.”

“What are you saying?” As it did every time he got excited, Custer’s voice was on the verge of stammering like a buggy spring hammering over a washboard road.

“I figure what we’ve bumped into ain’t a hostile camp, General.”

“You agree that’s not a hostile camp, Corbin?”

“General, I don’t figure we’ll find but a handful of seasoned warriors down there.”

“So where did all the rest of them just off and disappear to?” Custer hissed.

“I suppose it’s my job to find out where the warriors disappeared,” Corbin answered sheepishly.

“Well, now.” Custer hammered his fist into the open palm of his left hand. “That’s just what I intend to do, gentlemen. We’re finally in agreement! About time you found out where they went—the ones that you and the Osage trackers followed into that village down there.”

“We figured better than a hundred warriors,” Clark said.

“Those odds will make for a pretty fair fight of it. We’ve got the hostiles pinned against that cutbank behind the village. Unable to reach their pony herd for escape. We’ll charge across the river from the north. So their only route of escape will be downriver.” He stabbed his toe into Ben Clark’s snowy map. “Right about there.”

Custer ground his heel into the snow and mud. “And that’s where I’ll be waiting for them—with Cooke’s men!That’s it!” Custer wheeled suddenly, stomping off deep in thought. “Deployed up the south bank. By the stars, that’s good!”

Corbin looked back at Clark and Milner. “You think that’s the camp we’re looking for?”

Clark squinted, appraising something unseen. “Don’t think so, Jack.”

They both looked at Milner for his confirmation.

“I don’t reckon how neither one of you got anything more to say ’bout it now. We found a village for the man. And no matter what Injuns they be, Custer’s going on in there and carve ’em up. Just like Custer’s been intending all along. Was only a matter of time before we found what he wanted—any village a’tall.”

Corbin turned away, stung by the certainty of Milner’s words. With his own eyes he had seen those browned, smoke-blackened buffalo-hide lodges, hunkered sleepy and silent beneath the winter sky. Almost forlorn—all squatting in slumber on pewter-bright snow aglow beneath a quarter moon splaying itself through thin, pony-breath clouds. The haunting vision of that sleeping village clung to Corbin’s mind like old smoke in his clothes.

That wasn’t a war camp.

Corbin wheeled on Milner. “I tried to tell Custer about—”

“You’ve done all any man can do, son,” Milner consoled. “When the army brass gets high behind and ready to plunge ahead without listening to his scouts … it’s just a waste of time trying to talk sense to him.”

“I gotta make him see—”

Milner grabbed his young partner, yanking him around. “Best just shut up! And see you got your rifle and pistols loaded afore the peep of day when Custer rides down on that village.”

Corbin watched Milner turn toward his mule Maude.

Joe’s right, he brooded. I’ve already done my damage. I’ve brought that hungry wolf stalking up on that sleeping winter village.

Time to watch my own goddamn backside now.

Down in a gully behind a brushy hill north of the Washita, Custer gathered his officers. In the snow he scratched a diagram of the river, where the village stood and the horse herd grazed.

“We’ll surround the village, deploying the regiment along the river,” Custer explained. “My plan will make for a rapid encroachment of the village, securing it within minutes. Only in that way can we effectively seal off any chance for escape.”

“And lessen the odds of losing any of our own men?” the deep, familiar voice prodded him.

Custer measured Frederick W. Benteen, an experienced Civil War veteran. “Yes, Captain.”

Custer glanced over his men, most of whom had been with him for better than a year, not counting his temporary absence. He knew what he could expect from each of them. Still, it disappointed him that there were some in this group who had grown to despise him, losing no chance in letting Custer know it. Benteen stood at the center of the opposition. Though he could be a mean, sniveling complainer, Benteen remained every bit as good a leader of cavalry under fire as Custer. Now, as these two decorated veterans prepared to plunge into battle, perhaps each realized he had to count on the other.

“Saving lives is, after all, a main thrust of this campaign, isn’t it, gentlemen?” Custer waited, looking into the expectant faces encircling him. “Let us begin. Major Elliott?”

“Yes, General?” He stepped forward, saluting.

“You’ll take your command and ride wide left. To the east.”

“Splendid, sir!”

For some time, Custer had been aware of the contagious power in Elliott’s unbridled enthusiasm. “Should any of the Indians escape the trap we’ve laid for them, they’ll be running your way, Major. Right into your arms.”

“We’ll be ready for them, General. They won’t get past us.”

“Good. Now, Captain Myers—you’re to move your troops off to the right.” Custer traced a ragged line in the snow. “By backtracking west a short distance, the scouts tell me you’ll find a wide bend in the river where you can attack from southwest of the village. Station your two companies in the timber after crossing the river about a mile above my command here. You won’t have to ford the river at the moment of attack. Understood?”

“Perfectly, sir,”

“Captain Yates?” Custer gazed at the tall blond yankee from Monroe, Michigan, who for a short time during the Civil War, George W. Yates had served as an aide to Custer as part of General Pleasanton’s staff. A hometown boy, and a natural for the Custer inner circle. “General?”

“Your F Company will be assigned to Captain Thompson.”

Custer watched Yates’s steel-gray eyes flick to William Thompson. “Yessir,” Yates responded, nodding.

Custer turned to Captain Thompson. “Will, you’re to take your two companies with Yates’s men to the crest of the knoll directly south of the village. If possible, link up with Elliott’s command, sealing the escape route the hostiles might use.”

“Certainly.”

“Sweep around the village and establish yourselves to the south of the village to await the attack.”

“As you’ve ordered, General.”

“Good. Now, I suppose you’re all wondering what my four troops will be doing as you flank the village on the east, west, and south. Frankly, boys, I’ve saved the point of the lance for myself. I’ll lead my companies across the river. While the four company commanders secure the village in concert with your actions, I’ll oversee the attack from a knoll south of the village.”

“Sir?”

“Mr. Cooke?” Custer turned toward the tall, handsome lieutenant, just recently awarded his bars. Billy Cooke, his men called him. And with respect. This dashing, bearded Canadian had migrated south into the States at the beginning of the Civil War simply so he could become a soldier. Some called him a patriot. Others, a soldier of fortune. A few went so far as to call Billy Cooke a mercenary. Little did it matter to Custer what made the Canadian tick, for he had recognized the makings of a fine officer and a close friend in W. W. Cooke.

“Will my corps of riflemen ride across the river to engage the hostiles, sir?”

“No, Lieutenant.” Custer stepped over to Cooke. “You are the final, crushing blow I plan for these murderers who have plundered the southern plains for the last time. Your sharpshooters won’t cross the river at all.”

Custer waited for Cooke to nod. “I’ve sealed the village up from left and right, from north and south. The only way the warriors escape is to use the river itself. The banks are high enough to use the terrain for cover in an escape—but we don’t want one of these murderers to flee. So I’m sealing my trap with your forty sharpshooters—right there.” Custer pointed to his snowy map, showing Cooke to station his marksmen in the timber high along the north bank of the river. “Up there you will command a wide field of fire when the hostiles attempt to flee down the Washita.”

“We won’t let you down.”

Custer smiled, giving Cooke a hearty slap on the shoulder. “The scouts will remain with me.” He gazed down at the crude, muddy drawing in the snow near his feet and paused. “I suspect these warriors will be all the harder to bring down because we’re striking them in their homes, with their families. Be sure your men understand we’ll have a real scrap of it on our hands.”

He waited for them to nod.

“Good. From here on there must be no talking. Nothing above a whisper will be allowed. Warn the men against stamping their feet. An Indian sleeping on the ground might hear our troops. We’ll attack at first light—which gives you less than four hours to circle into position. Just prior to dawn, the men are to strip to battle readiness. I’ll signal the attack from here.”

He stepped from the center of the group, turning so he could face them all at once.

“Gentlemen, we’re about to spell an end to those bloody depredations committed on the southern frontier. Until now, an operation such as this hasn’t been possible—for there had been no Seventh Cavalry. That makes us, very simply, the spearhead of destiny, gentlemen! It is our Seventh that will always ride the vanguard of glory and honor. To that glory and honor, gentlemen!”

“Glory and honor!”

It stirred a fire within him hearing the chorus of their strong young voices echoing the courageous sentiment that would bring the Seventh Cavalry fame across the years ahead. Soon enough they could cross the river. Dawn would bring him what destiny had promised.

He repeated it in a lead-filled whisper that could raise the hairs on the back of a man’s neck. “To glory and honor.”

Two hours of freezing agony ground past for the men waiting huddled in the freezing mist of the Washita.

Officers repeatedly checked their watches as time dragged by. Eventually the moon slipped behind the western hills, throwing the countryside into complete and eerie darkness.

“Gotta be your mind playing tricks on you,” Milner, the man they called California Joe, muttered to himself. “Feels colder what with that goddamn moon sunk.” He carried his old Springfield across an arm as he prodded his mule in Custer’s direction. “Morning, General.”

Custer nodded. “Joe.”

“What I’ve been trying to get through my old topknot all night is whether we’ll run up against more Injuns than we bargained for.”

He watched Custer raise an eyebrow, concerned. Milner realized he’d handed the general a thorny problem.

“You don’t figure those Cheyenne down there will make a run for it, Joe?”

“Them Cheyenne skedaddle? How in the Good Lord’s Creation can Injuns run off when you’ll have ’em clean surrounded afore first light?”

“Precisely my plan. I don’t want a one to escape.” He chewed thoughtfully on the corner of his droopy mustache. “Supposing we are able to bottle them up—you figure we can hold our own against the warriors in that village?”

“That is some handsome dilemma, now, ain’t it?” Milner ground teeth on the stub of his unlit pipe. “One thing’s sure as sun. If them Injuns down there don’t hear a squeak out of your soldier boys till we open up our guns on ’em come crack o’ day, they’ll damned near be the most astonished redskins that’s been in these parts lately! If we do for certain get the bulge on ’em … why, we’ll sweep their platter clean!”

“I’m relieved to have your confidence in my plan, Joe.”

“Well, General—I like to deal the cards face up. We’re holding aces high over them Injuns down there.”

“I’ve got the feeling that something still troubles you.”

“I’ve played enough cards to know that both Lady Fate and Lady Luck often sit ’cross the table from a man—and it’s them two whores what might have something to say about what a man draws from his deck.”

“You think those Cheyenne still have a draw at one of our aces?”

Milner ran the tip of his tongue thoughtfully across winter-chapped lips. “I’ve fought me plenty Injuns, and damn if they don’t always find a draw at the cards. Hang me but they’ve got a play even at the bottom of some goddamned played-out deck.”

Without another word, Milner plodded pulled Maude away into the roiling mist, quiet as cotton through the calf-deep snow until the mist had swallowed him completely.

Custer shuddered. Some parts of this Indian fighting sat in his craw. Cursed with scouts so of times somber and ghostly. Turning into the brush, he decided to find himself a quiet spot and stretch out on the snow for a nap.

Until time came for the bugles.

Here and there small knots of men congregated, waiting for that opening note of the coming fight. Enlisted men complained of the bitter cold or talked of the warmth of their hard haytick bunks back at Fort Hays. Some dreamed of the pleasure brought a man by those fleshy sporting ladies in Hays City, friendly kind of gals who followed soldiers to every post and fort and fleshpot dotting the western frontier.

Talk of anything now … but no talk about the coming battle.

Instead of talking at all, most only leaned against their mounts, using the horses’ warmth to ward off some of the foggy cold that stung a man to the bone, chewing away at the core of him. Many of the battle-hardened were long used to eluding prefight jitters. They snored back in the snowy rabbit brush.

Custer himself awoke refreshed from a long nap about the time a ghostly light climbed out of the dense river mist. Nearby the scouts murmured among themselves. A few Osages began chanting their own eerie melodies as the bright light emerged from the thick fog bank, ascending into the lamp-black sky.

“It’s the Morning Star, sir,” Moylan whispered at Custer’s side.

It loomed close. Huge, and shimmering with life.

“A good omen for our victory, Lieutenant.”

Nothing short of powerful medicine to the Osages, this appearance of the celestial light above the river, here on the precipice of battle. As the brilliant globe climbed above the southwestern horizon, it seemed to ascend more slowly, its light radiating prismatically from color to color. An imperial stillness settled over this wilderness in these last moments before dawn, causing something deep within Custer’s being to assure him this star was destined to shine on this valley, his command—on he alone.

Custer smiled, certain to the core of the outcome of the impending fight. The heavens had ordained the star to shine upon him.

He vowed to do nothing to disappoint the gods of Olympus with the coming light of a new day.

Stiff with cold, the Cheyenne sentry who stationed himself atop the knoll south of camp had no appreciation for the celestial light glowing above him in the river mist. Half Bear settled in the snow.

Not much longer before he could return to a warm lodge where his woman would build up the fire, put some breakfast meat on to boil. His stomach churned, angry with him, a hunger enough to keep a sentry awake.

Yet he decided he could nap a bit before the sky paled in morning-coming.

Half Bear slumped over. By the time he had curled his legs up beneath the heavy robe, his breath had begun to warm his frozen face. His breathing grew more regular. Before he realized it he was no longer merely napping. Half Bear slept.

Down he plunged, deep and sound, unable to yank himself back out of that warm, liquid pit. In the midst of its welcome darkness he was sure the ear he laid against the ground caught the warning of iron-shod hooves scraping across the frozen breast of the Mother of Them All.

Half Bear’s eyes refused to open. He heard horses circling to the backside of the knoll where he slept on. Horses clattering up from the river. Creeping south of the village behind him. That unmistakable jangle of pony soldier saddle gear! Still he tried to convince himself it was only a dream.

Hah! That pony soldiers would come in the cold of a winter dawn made bright beneath the Morning Star—this could only be a dream!

Curled deep within his robe, Half Bear dozed … warm enough to dream on.

With the growing light, Custer sent Lieutenant Cooke’s detail far to the left, deploying his men among the tall oaks along the steep northern bank of the Washita. A quarter-hour later, Custer led his four companies down the gradual slope that sank away to the river. There he halted the troopers in a dense copse of trees shading the north lip of the Washita as it circled the sleeping village in a lazy loop of icy water.

To his left, astride a broad-backed gray, sat the regimental color guard, his guidon dancing stiffly in the fog. Staying near Custer and refusing to wander far from that colorful cavalry standard sat the twelve Osage trackers. In a mad charge against Indians, they had decided, there could be no safer place for them.

Like warm milk from a cracked bowl, the gray light of a new day eventually began to leak out of the east.

The twenty-seventh of November. One day after Thanksgiving. That thin band of growing light caused Custer to send Moylan to carry word among the four companies shivering behind him.

Troopers shed their warm buffalo coats. They dropped their haversacks holding rations of hardtack and coffee. One soldier from each company was assigned to stay behind to guard the coats and haversacks. All eyes focused on the coming light of dawn.

“Moylan, bring the band up. I want them to play at the moment of attack.”

Officers pulled pistols from mule-eared holsters, reins gripped anxiously in the other hand. Hundreds of troopers sat shivering in the brutal cold, not knowing what awaited them in that sleeping village on the other side of the frozen Washita.

Across the river a dog began to bark, its call soon taken up by another.

Murky light spread behind the hills like alkaline water strained through a dirty pair of trooper’s stockings.

A few more minutes. A few more anxious heartbeats, and he would lead them splashing across the Washita, victory assured before that new sun ever rose above these ancient hills. Wrapped securely in winter’s cloak of deep hibernation, the Washita valley slept on.

Little Rock stirred and listened again. Now he was certain. The dog he heard wasn’t snarling at another in camp.

He sat up, straining at the thick blanket of silence laid over the sleeping camp. In his dark lodge he quickly pulled on his clothing and wrenched up his old muzzle loader, checking the priming in the pan.

For a heartbeat the old Indian gazed down at his young daughter, peacefully cocooned in childlike slumber. Wisps of last night’s fire hung like skinny ghosts refusing to depart, suspended beneath the dark smoke hole. Up in the narrow opening he could make out a growing light in the sky, knowing dawn would come to the valley in little more time than it took a man to eat his morning meal.

Slipping quietly through the doorway, he stood. Listening to all the air told him. Again the two dogs barked from the far side of camp where the sun rose each morning. Something told him they didn’t bark at each other. Perhaps at something across the river—some predator roaming through the horse herd.

He moved east, through the cadaverous lodges and around those hard, frozen droppings left behind by more than ten times ten ponies three young Kiowas had driven through the Cheyenne camp late yesterday afternoon.

It did not matter. He had not truly been asleep anyway. Little Rock never was able to fall back to sleep each night after his daughter awakened him with her nightmare screaming.

In minutes he found himself down at the sharp slope of the bank. The river lapped quietly beneath a thin scum of ice within the webby red willow nodding in the breeze above the slow-moving water.

Again the dogs barked … moving to his left now. He crept back along the bank toward camp. Perhaps the dogs tormented a hungry wolf, wandering about with an empty winter-belly, hoping to drag down a poor, weary, winter-old mare.

With his breath freezing his cheeks, he stepped from the cover of some overhanging oaks. The dogs lurched back and forth in the shallow icy water, barking at the anonymous north bank.

Little Rock’s eyes crawled across that short span of the cold river collared in fog. His old eyes strained to penetrate the swirling gray mist. Still the dogs yipped and howled, barked and splashed, snarling at the far side of the stream. The fog slowly danced and cavorted … lifting momentarily.

He could not be sure.

Little Rock crept down the bank. Cracking through the ice at water’s edge, he found his footing shaky on the slippery rocks. Three more greasy steps brought him out to the river’s main flow. The stinging mist lifted fully for the first time. Only then did the dark trees on the steep northern bank relinquish their frightening secret.

Pony soldiers!

“Aieeee!” That frantic sound clutched his throat as surely as the icy current clawed at his spindly legs. Tugging, making it hard for him to turn and sprint out of the river. Struggling against the Washita’s icy flow, he raised his rifle in the air and slipped an old finger against the trigger.

Make it to the bank now! If I cannot … must fire a warning shot.

The fog that momentarily swirled off the river to expose the cavalry to Little Rock had at the same time revealed the old Indian to the troopers.

Major Joel Elliott’s mind seared with the dilemma dropped in his lap. He wasn’t sure if he should stop the old man. But the Indian had a rifle held up in his hand. No mistaking that. And no mistaking that the old man had seen Elliott’s men waiting like a long ribbon of black ghosts picketed among the icy trees.

With a damning frustration Elliott understood he would be alerting both the camp and the rest of the regiment to his predicament if he fired at the old man. Yet that was exactly what it appeared the old man himself was about to do.

Only one way to get the jump on that goddamned village.….

“Sergeant Major Kennedy!” he barked.

“Yessir!”

“Kill that Indian!”

Without dropping his reins, the veteran trooper answered by throwing his carbine to his right shoulder, pressing his cheek along the frozen stock. The deep rumble of the Spencer tore through the low-hanging mist. Kennedy rarely missed.

The bullet caught Little Rock squarely between the shoulder blades. With both arms flung wide, his old muzzle loader went tumbling across the frozen mud at the river’s edge. A gaping hole blown in his chest where his heart once beat, he stumbled two more slippery steps. Then took one last lunge as his wet, gut-slimy moccasins fought to hold the rocky bottom. It no longer mattered. He could walk no more.

As the old man crumbled into the skiffs of snow at the water’s edge, the village disappeared from view behind the gentle slope leading to the water. Little Rock pitched face down into the frozen crust lapping at the edge of the icy Washita.

An old man robbed of time to sing his death song.