Long Winter Gone

CHAPTER 10

WORK continued in earnest pulling Cheyenne property from the lodges. A count to record captured goods had started when shouts cracked the still air, floating across the river. Hard Rope and Romero led the first of the Cheyenne ponies into the Washita. The Seventh Cavalry had the Cheyenne herd.

Benteen’s troops had driven off the warriors and recaptured the ponies. In a brief running fight, his two squads lost a few of the animals but took no casualties. Like milkweed down before a wind, the hostiles had scattered and fled. Then Hard Rope and Romero had showed Benteen’s men how to get that herd moving south onto the river trail.

More than nine hundred prized Cheyenne stock splashed out of the Washita, up the south bank. The ponies burst into the captured village, nostrils flaring, tails held high, fresh dung dropped fragrant on the muddy snow.

“Drive them into the meadow southeast of camp!”Custer shouted as Hard Rope cleared the top of the bank, riding among the herd leaders.

“Some good-looking stock there, General.” Lieutenant Godfrey dismounted beside his commander.

“I’m going to let each troop commander select a pony of his own. Then we’ll cut out a few to replace the mules we’ve lost. After that, Romero will see that the captives ride a pony back to Camp Supply.”

“And the rest of ’em, General?”

Custer turned to Godfrey. “The rest are yours.”

“Mine?”

“The herd is yours to destroy, Lieutenant.”

A quarter-hour later the ponies grazed in the open meadow southeast of the Cheyenne camp. Custer called in the captain and lieutenant of each troop to make a selection after he gave his brother Tom first choice. When all officers had finished cutting out their chosen ponies, Custer signaled to his Cheyenne interpreter.

“Romero, Lieutenant Godfrey’s men will assist you capturing mounts for the captives. When you have enough ponies for the women and children, take them back to camp. Tether them near Bell’s wagons.”

It didn’t take long for the prisoners to show up at the edge of the herd, each woman carrying one or more rawhide or buffalo-hide hackamores rescued from the loot taken from the lodges for counting. What animals would be spared the coming slaughter were soon picketed near Lieutenant Bell’s wagons.

“How do I handle this destruction for you, sir?” Godfrey’s mouth had gone dry. He watched Custer climb into the saddle.

“Don’t waste a lot of our limited ammunition, Lieutenant but your four companies will have to shoot each one.”

Godfrey nodded, turning to set his men to their grisly task.

It wasn’t long before the soldiers discovered that Indian ponies didn’t take to the smell of white men. Again and again they darted away from the confining ring of soldiers, making it tough keeping the animals corralled when the firing began in earnest. Custer’s slaughter was under way.

Overhead, the winter sun reached midsky, softening the snow into slush, turning the ground into red gumbo beneath the churning of so many hooves and boots. Some frustrated, cold troopers slipped and fell among the frightened, wild-eyed ponies, grumbling curses.

With every boom of a Springfield in that muddy meadow, another Cheyenne pony dropped, its blood seeping into the Washita snows. The whole process took three entire companies more than an hour and a half.

By the time the last frightened, snorting pony dropped to the slime of bloody snow, better than 875 animals lay dead. The earthy odor of their fresh dung was like a heady perfume on a cruel wind. Puffs of steam hissed from each bullet wound. The stench of blood and dung and death hung like an ache over the camp.

With an unbridled fury the milling warriors watched the soldiers loot the village.

Worse still, they could only watch as the slaughter of the prized Cheyenne herd took place. Ponies shot like so many white men’s cattle in a butcher pen. The warriors were helpless to stop the destruction. Deep in each red breast beat an agony at so great a loss of the plains warrior’s greatest possession.

Black Kettle’s band was no more. The survivors would never recover from the loss of those hundreds of ponies that enabled them to continue their nomadic way of life. In less than one journey of the sun, this band of people had been rubbed from the breast of the Mother of All Things.

“We must go on making war against the pony soldiers—fighting for those who cannot!” Arapaho chief Left Hand cried out in fury and dismay atop a tree-lined hill.

“No!” shouted Skin-Head, another war chief, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “These soldiers have dealt us a vicious blow—we must learn from it. This is surely what happens when the pony soldiers hunt down the warriors who raid their white settlements. These pony soldiers slaughter old men, and call it battle. They capture women and children … if those helpless ones do not already lie dead in the snow beside the young men.”

“Cowards speak of giving up! Are you a fool? Is your mind so small not to remember our fight in the snowy meadow this morning?” Left Hand asked. “Those pony soldiers fought with courage. They died like men. Not like these butchers!”

Skin-Head agreed. “Look what crimes the white man commits now. Not only has he killed our people, he hungers to destroy our way of life!”

“Keeyiii! Black Kettle could not fight an enemy who attacks and kills old people, who murders children and butchers ponies!”

“Next they will burn Cheyenne homes.”

Soldiers stacked most of the captured Indian goods in huge piles or displayed the items on blankets and robes between the lodges.

Tom Custer stopped beside his brother and Lieutenant Moylan. Nearby, stood some of the civilian scouts and a handful of the Osage trackers.

“Look at that plunder, Autie. I’m taking some of these weapons back with me.”

“Help yourself, brother. Just make it quick.”

“What’re you gonna do with the rest of it?”

“Not going to leave it behind, Tom. Better grab what you want. Moylan, fetch me Captain Myers.”

Myers rode up minutes later, saluted. “General?”

“You’ll be in charge of the destruction of the camp. Tear down the lodges, Captain … put them to the torch—poles and all.”

“All the lodges. Yes, General. Any further instructions?”

“Myers, on second thought—”

“Yes, sir?”

“All the tepees … but that one.” He pointed to a lodge but a few months old, sewn from cowhides taken in a late-summer hunt. “I want that one taken down and the cover folded for travel. Strap every lodge pole to one of Bell’s wagons. Have Romero’s squaws help your men dismantle and pack it for transport.”

“A souvenir, sir?”

“You might say that.”

“Want to save some robes, maybe some blankets to use in the lodge?”

“No. We’ll burn everything here. Gad, the lice and vermin must be thick on it all.”

Myers left to pass along instructions. Within minutes, the first of the Cheyenne lodges came down. Soldiers moved in and out of the tepees.

Captain George Yates approached the commander, shaking a long sheet of foolscap on which he had been scribbling his tallies with the nub of a pencil he moistened on the end of his tongue. The handsome blond hometown Monroe officer cleared his throat nervously before beginning his report, his breath steaming like a halo round his bearded face. “We count two thousand one hundred and eighty-five blankets, five hundred seventy-three buffalo robes, and another three hundred sixty untanned hides. In addition, we captured two hundred forty-one saddles along with numerous lariats, bridles, and other tack used by the hostiles.”

“What of the Cheyenne weapons?” Tom Custer asked.

“Better than a hundred hatchets of various sizes. Along with thirty-five revolvers and forty-seven rifles. As near as we can estimate, we also captured two hundred fifty pounds of lead and better than five hundred thirty-five pounds of gunpowder. Some ninety bullet molds, along with over four thousand arrows and arrowheads, seventy-five spears, thirty-five bows and quivers, plus a dozen rawhide shields.”

The commander turned to his scouts. His bright blue eyes found the Mexican. “This camp could have taken care of itself had we failed to surprise them—wouldn’t you say, Romero?”

“I suppose if you gave ’em the chance … might’ve been a different story to tell by the end of the day.”

“Go on, George. What else?” Custer prompted.

“Better than three hundred pounds of Indian tobacco was seized, sir. Along with that, we didn’t even try counting what must be thousands of pounds of dried buffalo meat they put up for the winter.”

“No need to weigh it.”

“Yes, sir,” Yates replied, eyes dropping to his list once more as it fluttered in a gusty breeze pungent with the acrid odors of smoke and burnt powder, heady with horse dung and aromatic red clay turning to muddy slop under a winter sun. “The next discovery is interesting, General. We captured some meal flour and other bags of provisions, all in burlap stamped ‘Department of the Interior.’”

“So this tribe was at the Medicine Lodge treaty conference last year.”

“I’d bet on it,” Romero replied.

Yates continued. “Nearly all the Cheyenne’s clothing is in our possession. Those who escaped have only what they carried on their backs.”

“That’s the way I planned it. Dawn’s the time to catch ’em napping, don’t you see? Does that conclude your report?”

“Yes, General.”

“Very good. Then go to Myers with my suggestion that he put all this captured matériel on those piles he’s making of the lodges. I suggest he pour some of the Cheyenne gunpowder over the lot of it. Have him see me when he’s ready to set it afire.”

The tall, husky Yates saluted and was gone.

In less than half an hour Custer’s chosen lodge was secured in a wagon for the return trip. Meanwhile, the remaining tepees had been gathered in mountains of buffalo robes and tanned hides, blankets and weapons, clothing and food. Everything was to be destroyed, save for those few ponies the prisoners would ride while leaving behind their winter home along the Washita.

“Yates told me you wanted to see me,” Myers said when he arrived.

Custer saluted the captain. “Torch it all!”

Myers signaled his men. They tossed their flaming brands on each mountain of captured goods. The powder caught and flared. Some exploded, spraying showers of brilliant sparks over the scattering troopers. With the goading of a freshening breeze, the mountains burned like bright funeral pyres. The shivering troopers inched as close as they dared to warm their fronts while their backsides froze in a brutal wind. The troopers turned around and around, reveling in the warmth of the dancing flames. Over the trees and up the slopes of snow-whitened hills climbed a black, oily haze. Dark clouds reeking of destruction and death sent the warriors on the surrounding hillsides to keening in grief or angry fury.

Tom turned to see his brother staring at the hilltops bristling with enemy warriors. Custer’s azure eyes were as merry as ever.

“You know those red bastards are vowing revenge on your Seventh Cavalry, don’t you, Autie?”

“Yes, Tom. Promising someday to reverse the fortunes of war. Cursing us—that come a day they’ll destroy the pony soldiers the way we’ve destroyed Black Kettle’s band.”

“Don’t laugh too hard, General.” Ben Clark stepped up to the Custer brothers. “You ain’t begun to wipe out the Cheyenne nation. Curse the man who can’t see there’s a lot of fight left in those warriors. Pity the man who thinks he’s got ’em whipped.”

A winter sun raced into the western hills faster than a mule with the smell of a home stall strong in its nostrils. Securing the village had burned more time than Custer had planned. His count and destruction of the captured goods had taken far too long. Tom watched his brother grow angrier as winter’s light drained from the day.

“Look around you, Tom. Not one of these men realizes the danger in our march back to Camp Supply. We’re hampered now not only by our own wounded, but we’re dragging along better than fifty prisoners.”

“We’ll get out of this valley without getting jumped. You’ve done it before, Autie. Just have to make a night march of it.”

“Even doing that, I’m troubled we’ll draw attention to our supply train near the Antelope Hills. If we march in that direction, the hostiles might figure where we’re headed. And that could spell a sentence of death for the men guarding the train. The warriors could reach them on fresh ponies faster than we’ll be able to march.”

“Or set up an ambush for the rest of us along the way,” Tom said. “Tough choice. I know how it’s eating at you, Autie. You grip this victory in your hand—something to redeem you before your superiors, to show them the injustice of that court-martial. But that year away from the regiment was really nothing more than an annoyance diverting you from your goal—”

“That’s it, Tom! A stroke of genius!”

“What’d I say?”

“We’ll do the same with the hostiles! And at night, as you suggested. We’ll draw them away from our supply caravan. The way a sage hen draws the weasel from her nest.”

“It can work, Autie!”

“Tom, it’s got to work.” He whirled. “Lieutenant Moylan! Prepare the men to move out in columns of two. I want the regimental band in front, right behind our scouts. Post all guidons. Have them snapping, Lieutenant.”

“A march … now, sir?” the adjutant inquired, glancing at the sun sinking behind the hills.

“Why, Mr. Moylan, we’re going to march on down the Washita and chase the rest of these beggars right out of the country!”

Within a matter of minutes, the Seventh Cavalry had mounted, strapped in, and tuned up. Long after Custer’s “Forward, ho!” had echoed back from the hills, troopers shivered with the falling temperature. Nauseous from the hard, icy knots in their shrunken bellies, some grumbled.

“Hey, Sarge! What the divil is Ol’ Iron Pants trying to do?”

“What’r you griping ’bout, Dooley?”

“Thought we was marching back to Camp Supply. But me got the feeling we’re nosing round for more Injuns!”

“Just shuddup and keep that nose of yours in the wind, soldier!”

“Will you listen to that, Dooley?” Private Miller said. “Custer’s band is playing your song! ‘Ain’t I Glad To Get Out Of The Wilderness’!”

“Didn’t you hear the sarge up there?” Dooley snarled. “Shuddup!”

Miller shut his mouth. But that didn’t stop him from wondering why Custer wanted the regiment to make such a grand and noisy spectacle of their march. Don’t seem like smart soldiering, he brooded, warning the Injins before we can sneak up on ’em.

But veterans like Sergeant Mathey knew exactly what Custer had up his sleeve.

* * *

“They cross the river!” Sees Red shouted as he skidded to a stop before his Kiowa chief.

“Coming our way?” Satanta asked.

“They blow their horns in the falling light.”

“The soldiers come to destroy our villages now,” Lone Wolf added sadly.

“It is good the women and old ones have already started on the trail to Hazen’s post, my friend,” Satanta replied.

“Soldiers come. Attack all the villages. I will see that all our people are gone, our campsites bare.” Sees Red wheeled about and was gone.

“This soldier chief attacks at night,” Satanta murmured. “Is he a man? Perhaps this soldier chief has no soul.”

No mistake about it; the warriors watched the pony soldiers cross the river, plunging into the same hills where Godfrey had been turned back by the Arapaho.

“He is coming! The pony soldiers intend to attack all our villages!”

The once bristling hilltops shed themselves of all but a handful of feathered warriors, the rest already gone to warn their villages of the army’s approach. Warriors prepared to fight, protecting their women and children and old ones while the lodges came down and the camps retreated into the wilderness.

As the smoked buffalo hides fell, leaving naked lodge poles behind, the frantic women herded travois ponies, children, and dogs after the old people scurrying into the fading winter twilight.

Pony soldiers in blue and buffalo fur come! Already they have laid waste the Cheyenne camp of Black Kettle!

Aieeee!

It seems the soldier chief is a madman, leading white soldiers who won’t even halt for the coming night when a man’s soul is in such horrible danger should he be killed after dark!

“Are these soldiers devils?” Skin-Head asked of Left Hand.

“Truly, the soldier chief himself has no soul.”