Long Winter Gone

CHAPTER 18

“I’LL curse their bloody hearts straight into the pits of hell!”

Tom Custer had rarely seen his older brother this angry. More than angry—stomping, raring, spitting-fire mad. No soldier in the valley of the Washita could blame Custer, either. After all, what man wouldn’t be driven blind mad when he’d just been lied to, his trust spat on and betrayed.

Yesterday had done it.

Following yesterday’s introductions to more than twenty additional chiefs who would accompany Satanta and Lone Wolf to Fort Cobb, Custer had taken his guests back to Lieutenant Bell’s commissary wagons, opening the larder for his new friends. All to Sheridan’s consternation—and his eventual, begrudging agreement.

“It really isn’t much,” Custer had argued. “Some hardtack and parched corn, a little of the poor sowbelly we have along. Nothing of value, General. But enough to fill the empty, hard-winter belly of Indian chiefs who always serve their guests a meal before talking over important matters.”

When their bellies had been stuffed and the Kiowa custom of complimentary belching satisfied, Custer gave the order to move out once more. By late afternoon the command reached the benchlands near the banks of the Washita. Here Custer’s entire command established camp for the coming winter night.

That evening after supper with their copper-skinned guests at officer’s mess, Custer and Sheridan began more preliminary discussions with the great gathering of Kiowa, Comanche and Apache chiefs. The army commanders listened to repeated guarantees of peace and friendship for the white man, the army itself, and especially for the war chiefs themselves: Custer and Sheridan.

“Doesn’t seem you have much faith in the Kiowa tongue either,” Custer whispered to Sheridan.

“Bastards up to their eyeballs in goddamn treachery,” Sheridan growled. “The whole scheming bunch followed your columns all day, Custer.”

“I feel something in the air, too. And ordered a double guard posted.”

Yet there was something more that irritated the young cavalry commander like a tiny thread unraveling from one of his long wool stockings. “The more I listen to the Kiowa’s speeches, the more I’m convinced they have no intention of bringing their villages in to Fort Cobb.”

“What do you think they have up their sleeves?” Sheridan asked.

“I can only guess—stealing some wagons, running off some stock, harassing our rear guard. Something’s afoot, and I can smell it.”

By the time he finally closed his eyes near midnight, Custer couldn’t escape that hard rock of a feeling lying cold in his belly that he was about to be made the fool. But not by the Kiowa.

The next morning at dawn Custer knew the chiefs had put their foot in it. And what it was didn’t smell sweet at all.

Awakened by shouting soldiers clamoring around his tent at first light, Custer rolled from his blankets. What he had in his belly wasn’t only growling hunger. Suspicion and anger are never a hearty breakfast. Custer burst from his tent to discover the reason for the uproar.

A few yards off stood three of the chiefs. Only three.

A chagrined sergeant of the guard stomped up, saluting. “General … Custer, sir,” he stammered. “Sometime last night, the rest of the Injuns … well—they slipped away through our pickets. Back to their own camps, I guess, General. These three fellas here … they hung behind to be the last to go, it seems. And they are setting to fly when we caught ’em.”

Custer roared through the troopers surrounding the chiefs like a cat with lightning at its tail. And found Satanta, Lone Wolf, and a Kiowa subchief called Licking Bear huddled together in a ring of army carbines.

“Get me Romero!” Custer bellowed. “He won’t sleep in this morning!”

A corporal turned on his heel and darted away.

“I’ll watch these blackguards burn in hell before they’re shown any mercy from here on out!”

The high-pitched shriek of his voice had done its job. All around him the camp awakened with a start. Within moments Sheridan, Crosby, Moylan, and Tom Custer joined the growing crowd. Dragging in last on the the scene was Romero, groggy and frog-mouthed, wiping last night’s sleep from his eyes.

“Tell these buggers I’m holding them for ransom, Romero! Ransom for the rest of their villages—every last nit and prick of them!”

Custer stomped in a small circle as he spoke, sticking his nose into the Kiowa’s faces from time to time, roaring, spitting mad.

“They won’t play me the fool like this! They’ve picked the wrong tree to shake this time. You tell them every last word of what I said!”

The coloring of his pale eyes had turned that color of blue at the center of a flame wrapping a sulphur-head match.

“Tell them, Romero. This time they’ve knocked down a hornet’s nest and they’re bound to get stung!”

Romero did as he was ordered, and got the response he figured he would. “General, they haven’t got an idea what you’re mad about.”

“They’ve got to be joking! I’m not blind! The lying swine never had any intention of coming in to Fort Cobb!”

“They say they’re your friends, General. Can’t figure why the others ran off last night. They say, maybe because they fear you’ll harm ’em.”

“Blathering fools, Romero! They’ll learn not to lie to Yellow Hair. Blackhearted thieves. From what Milner tells me, we’ll be at Fort Cobb by nightfall. When we arrive, we’ll have these lying brigands slapped in irons!”

“Irons? How are these three Kiowa gonna be any good to you in irons?”

“Don’t question me, Romero! Just tell them they’re my honored guests until their people come in to Fort Cobb. As guaranteed by their own tongues! Their treachery will get them more than they bargained for—their people are to come in immediately or the chiefs will rot in irons!”

Tom Custer watched his brother stomp off to his tent as the interpreter explained their captivity to the three Kiowa. Lone Wolf began singing his mournful death song. Its high, wailing notes cast an eerie pall over the camp as Custer disappeared beyond his tent flaps, his seething anger rolling over him.

“I fought many battles beside your brother, Tom.”

The younger Custer found Sheridan at his side.

“Can’t remember ever seeing him this angry. Except maybe once.”

“When was that, General?”

“In the Shenandoah. Mosby’s raiders had hanged some of Custer’s soldiers as retaliation against Custer himself. That was the first, and the last time I ever saw him this mad. Until today. Maybe I’d better have a talk with—”

“General, I suggest we all give Autie wide berth for the while. Give him the chance to cool down.”

Sheridan scratched his beard. “Anger’s a cleansing emotion, Lieutenant. If a man can control it, harness it, there’s no telling the power he can exert over others, on events. Your brother carries a weapon he will have to learn to use—before it destroys him.”

Tom Custer heard Sheridan move off, leaving him alone near the fire. At this stage in Autie’s career, Tom alone knew how deep his brother’s anger could run. While the commander’s emotions and friendships and passions rarely ran wide, the power of his heart was nonetheless a very deep river.

And Tom Custer realized there were few things which could affect his heart as had the betrayal of the Kiowa this morning. To put his faith in someone or something, only to have it betrayed, was a wound that pricked his marrow.

That evening as darkness slid headlong down the valley of the Washita, Fort Cobb came in sight.

As Custer had promised, he had the three chiefs clamped in leg irons borrowed from the post guardhouse and placed in a heavily guarded Sibley tent pitched beside his own. Through that evening and into the night one or more of the three wailed incessantly, chanting death songs or murmuring prayers to their spirits. Custer didn’t sleep, troubled by thoughts as black as the inky sky above.

Winter’s chill had long since sucked the sun’s light from the heavens when Custer was summoned to Sheridan’s tent. Surrounding the Irishman’s circular Sibley stood a crude pole fence erected by soldiers. Sheridan waited outside his tent, leaning against the fence. Wearing only his wool tunic, he paid little attention to the plummeting temperature, for it had been one of those warm days filled with sunshine, the type so often found in the Territories during winter.

“Evening, Custer,” Sheridan began as the young officer walked up to the tent. “Appears these Kiowa of yours are endeavoring to play us false, eh?”

“How do you read it, General?”

“Seems they want us to listen to their empty, bunghole promises right up to the time the new grass makes their goddamned ponies strong enough to make war.”

“You’re not confident I can get the tribe to come in? I hold their chiefs!” Custer leaned back against the crude fence opposite Sheridan.

“Don’t trust ’em at all. We’ve given them every opportunity to come in and behave, haven’t we? These red buggers are about the worst I’ve had to deal with. The bastards aren’t scared of us—because they know Hazen’s gonna protect ’em. Feeding, clothing, coddling the vermin!”

Custer grinned.

“You always liked a good scrap, didn’t you, Custer?”

“Pleased to hear you say again how you’re fed up with civilians running the army. Things need changing in Washington City, sir. Our Republic sorely needs a new direction entirely, someone strong at the helm across the next critical decade.”

“Too goddamned long we’ve waited for a leader with a military background, someone who appreciates what it is to open up this great country out here. With Grant in the White House, we’ll see that change you’re wanting.” The look on Custer’s face stopped him. “What is it, Armstrong?”

“You have a lot more faith in Grant than I do, sir. For one thing, the rumpled bugger took more credit for winning the war than he should have. Sherman and Sheridan handed Lincoln Lee’s surrender. Not Grant.”

Sheridan smiled. “The way of politics, Armstrong.”

“Doesn’t change my mind, sir. Grant’s not up to the job. Not just any man can do what’s needed. Ten years from now, the plains should be pacified.”

“The tribes confined to reservations and the land made fruitful, eh?”

“Nothing wrong in that, is there?”

“No wonder you’re the hero to so many of these farmers out here, Custer. You share the same dreams they do.”

Custer gazed at the twinkling dusting of stars overhead. “Not really, sir. Mine aren’t earthly dreams.”

Sheridan slapped Custer on the back. “Should’ve remembered. Long ago recognized that in you. Not about to be held back like mere mortals, are you?”

“You may joke, sir—”

“I’m not joking with you at all, Custer.”

“Then believe me when I say I’m destined for far greater things.”

“Greater than commanding your own goddamned regiment?”

“As colonel?”

Sheridan studied the sunburned face, bright beneath a torch’s glow. “Are you content to climb the ladder one rung at a time?”

Custer grappled with that a moment. “For the time being, sir. I just turned twenty-nine. You’re thirty-seven now, and the next lieutenant general, once Grant’s sworn in as President on the fourth of March. But look at me!”

Custer wheeled, stomped a few steps away. “It’ll be ten years before I become a full colonel and have my own regiment. By then we’ll have the plains pacified and there’ll be no more battlefields on which to earn my promotions. How the blazes will I ever get those general’s stars back on my collar?”

Sheridan scratched at his dark beard, feeling the first of the evening’s chill penetrate his wool tunic. “We could help you climb out a bit, Armstrong.”

“How?”

The general tapped one finger against his thin lips, as he always did when pondering, considering, plotting. “Yes. It just might work.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“By God! We’ll show up for Grant’s inauguration ourselves! Won’t that impress the buzzard!”

Custer tingled. “Yes!”

“And we’ll get Grant’s ear while he’s bubbling with his own juices—the new commander-in-chief!”

“Will Sherman go along?”

“Of course! He thinks the world of you, Custer. Despite that business with leaving your command and shooting those deserters in ’67—Bill realizes your value as much as I.”

“Then you’ll both lobby for a promotion for me in March?”

“Is that too soon for you, Custer?”

“No, sir! Not by a long stretch.”

Sheridan plopped a muddy boot on a fence rail. “All we’d have to do is have a voice inside the Army Appropriations Committee.”

“Senator Chandler?”

Sheridan turned on Custer slowly. “The committee chairman? By God, Custer—you go right to the top, don’t you?”

“A man want’s to make it to the top, he might as well reach as high as he dreams.”

“You sunuvabitch! We’ll get you up in army command yet. Between Bill Sherman and Senator Chandler himself, Custer is on his way to his own command! But before we go to Federal City for the inauguration in March, you have a job to do here in the Territories. If you go east with the tribes still out, there’s no chance for promotion.”

“If the hostiles are punished, I can ride into Washington City assured of promotion.”

“You’ve got to start with these miserable Kiowa. We don’t get their villages in, you don’t stand a prayer with Chandler.”

“I’m ready, General. They’ve played me for a fool long enough. These Kiowa have me held prisoner here while I should be out hunting down the other tribes. My patience is exhausted.”

“Patience, hell!” Sheridan bawled. “You were ordered down here to the Territories to do a job. You don’t have time for patience with these red beggars.”

“And if I fail to bring the tribes in?”

“Spring will come, Custer. The grass will green and the bastards’ ponies will be strong once more. And you’ll be back out chasing and chasing … and chasing some more.”

“Sir—”

Sheridan cut him off with a wave of his hand. His dark eyes glowed as he spoke, sparking like a wolf that had a hamstrung old bull down, moving in for the kill. “I’m going to see you get that promotion, Custer. See you don’t frig this up.”

Custer’s brow knitted. “What you have in mind?”

“Tomorrow we’re going to give those red mongrels an ultimatum.” Sheridan tapped a finger between the rows of brass buttons on Custer’s tunic. “No more dallying! We’ll give them a time limit to perform, or we’ll make an example out of one of those goddamn flea-bitten savages.”

“How will we—I—make an example of the Kiowa?”

Sheridan whirled on Custer again, half his face dark beneath the torch. “Don’t you remember the orders passed down from Grant, to me, to you? The Shenandoah? August 1864? Turn Custer loose on Mosby!”

“You don’t mean—not these Kiowa!”

“Why not, goddammit? If those villages don’t come in, then string the chiefs up. Hang the bastards!”

“What about the other tribes? If you hang the chiefs—”

“Put the fear of God in ’em. Dammit, Custer—make their assholes pucker when they hear your name!”

“But hanging?” he repeated.

“Better you convince them once and for all that when Custer finds a hostile village, he’ll level it like he did Black Kettle’s. Take prisoner those who can be captured. And kill everything—everyone else.”

“Sir, begging your pardon, but Satanta and the others promised us their villages would come—”

“Bullshit! You’ll trust an Indian? Someone told me once that trusting the word of an Indian was like shoveling fleas in a barnyard!”

Custer found himself without a single thing to say. His mind filled with the smoky images of that sleepy Cheyenne village beside the foggy Washita, old men and women and children … rolling out of their warm sleeping robes to be greeted with the cold, whistling messengers of death. Young women trying to escape a screeching lead bullet or whispering steel saber. He shuddered.

“No, sir,” he answered Sheridan at last. “I’ll no longer allow the hostiles to play me false.”

Sheridan stepped up to Custer again, more paternal now. “Armstrong, you’ve been sent here to do a job. If you don’t act, the army will simply send someone down here who will.”

“I understand.”

Sheridan plopped a hand on Custer’s shoulder. “Besides, we have plans for you, my boy! So if the army sends someone else down here, the glory and honor and fame would surely go to him.”

Custer swallowed hard. “Tomorrow, sir.”

Sheridan smiled. “Tomorrow, we’ll start back down that road we set out upon when I telegraphed you in Monroe last September. We’ll get this campaign back on track. And your promotion in your hip pocket.”

“My promotion, sir.”