Long Winter Gone

CHAPTER 21

CUSTER made certain every last man of them fidgeted, cold and anxious as they waited in his tent.

He had had Moylan summon his officers to an unexpected conference. His flair for the dramatic coupled with his trembling rage dictated he wait until they had gathered before making his grand entrance.

Tearing the flaps apart, Custer yanked their attention to him as surely as if he had slapped them with the back of his hand. Pausing, he let each man suffer the silent, icy impact of his eyes. Fred Benteen stared at the rawhide quirt Custer slapped monotonously against a muddy boot.

“Gentle-men.” Custer made it sound profane, something he was loath to speak. “As most of you are aware, yesterday, the twenty-third of January, a post express arrived from Camp Supply with mail from Fort Dodge, letters from home.”

Custer paused. “Including some traitorous news for me!” he roared.

From his tunic Custer wrenched a crumpled newspaper page. He shook it before their faces.

“An old friend from my Michigan days sent me a copy of the St. Louis Democrat. Most of you get clippings and news items from your hometown papers, but my friend thought I should read an article written about me by a St. Louis man: a most scandalous story about our recent campaign against the Washita village of Black Kettle.”

Custer’s eyes, now steel blue, sliced toward the officers, accusing every man. Some shifted from boot to boot. Others cleared throats or wiped hands across lips gone dry.

Benteen swallowed hard. He watched Custer tense his jaws, struggling to control his anger.

“This St. Louis journalist couldn’t know a bloody thing of our campaign! But the language he used says that it was written by someone who knew what went on—an officer of this regiment! That wording, the detail, these veiled implications—all of it means some officer of this regiment wrote this filth to ruin me!”

“Read ’em some of it, Autie!” Tom Custer prodded, his own eyes scolding the others.

Amused in a way, Benteen watched as the Custer family closed ranks.

“Listen to these words a traitor uses,” Custer said. “Reviling me before the American public!”

And now, to learn why the anxiously-looked for succor did not come, let us view the scene in the captured village, scarce two short miles away. Light skirmishing is going on all around. Savages on flying steeds, with shields and feathers gay, are circling everywhere, riding like devils incarnate. The troops are on all sides of the village, looking on and seizing every opportunity of picking off some of those daring riders with their carbines. But does no one think of the welfare of Maj. Elliott and party? It seems not. But, yes! a squadron of cavalry is in motion. They trot; they gallop. Now they charge! The cowardly redskins flee the coming shock and scatter here and there among the hills to scurry away. But it is the true line—will the cavalry keep it? No! No! They turn! Ah, ’tis only to intercept the wily foe. See! a gray troop goes on in the direction again. One more short mile and they will be saved. Oh, for a mother’s prayers!

Will not some good angel prompt them? … There is no hope for that brave little band, the death doom is theirs, for the cavalry halt and rest their panting steeds …

And now return with me to the village. Officers and soldiers are watching, resting, eating and sleeping. In an hour or so they will be refreshed, and then scour the hills and plains for their missing comrades. In a short time we shall be far from the scene of their daring dash, and night will have thrown her dark mantle over the scene. But surely some search will be made for our missing comrades. No, they are forgotten. Over them and the poor ponies the wolves will hold high carnival, and their howlings will be their only requiem.

Custer let the officers suffer his fury in silence as he paced before them.

“This tells the public that we didn’t do everything we could to rescue Elliott.” Tom was the first to speak, protective, even combative in defense of his older brother. “It says the Seventh gave up searching while Elliott was butchered. We didn’t know, dammit! Who was it? Which one of you gutless bastards wrote this—”

“As surely as I’m standing here,” Custer interrupted, pushing Tom back a step, “I know this was penned by one of you. If I ever find out who’s guilty—” He slapped the rawhide quirt against his boot for emphasis, “why, I’ll give him a sound thrashing he’ll never forget!”

His threat hung like stale cigar smoke in the silent tent. The silence was punctuated only by the slap of that quirt he drummed against his boot.

Benteen took a step forward. “May I look at the paper?”

Stunned and speechless, Custer shoved the article toward Benteen, like some loathsome thing contaminated with pox.

For breathless moments, the captain scanned the page, listening as Custer’s breath rose and fell in labored wheezes. The Missourian handed the article back to Custer. He adjusted his holster, freeing the mule-ear from its brass stud, a gesture not lost on a single man in that tent. Least of all George Armstrong Custer. Benteen blinked anxiously, steeling himself for what might come, raking the tip of a pink tongue across his dry lips.

“Colonel,” Benteen began, “you threatened a sound thrashing for the man who wrote that letter.” His eyes flicked to the rawhide quirt, returning dead-level with Custer’s. “Well, sir—be about it, and now. Appears I’m the author of that article you hold in your hand.”

A dangerous electricity sparked between the two men. Tom Custer bolted, lunging at Benteen. His older brother restrained him, struggling to bridle his own anger.

“You wrote this filth?” Custer spat.

Benteen sensed every eye on his back. “No. I wrote a letter to a friend in St. Louis. He has contacts in the newspaper business … St. Louis, Chicago, even the New York Times.”

As he watched the color drain from Custer’s face, Benteen straightened himself. “I had no idea my letter would ever wind up on the front page of any paper.”

“You knew damned well it would—you goddamned, two-faced traitor!” Tom Custer shrieked. “Better you resign your commission. It’s unhealthy for you to stay on in this outfit, you lying bastard!”

Having taken about all he could from the younger Custer, Benteen’s eyes snapped to Tom, eyes filled with white fire. “You’re going to make it unhealthy for me to stay on—you?”

If his meaning was not clear enough, he slipped his hand beneath the mule-ear so it rested loosely on the butt of his pistol.

“Benteen?” Custer said savagely. “You wrote this about me, about my regiment?”

“I did.”

“I had no idea,” Custer stammered, confused, not knowing what to say. “No idea any man would step forward to confess …”

Benteen figured Custer had intended to use the article to bully them all, not expecting the real author to announce his guilt. He watched as Custer swallowed hard, his nostrils flaring above that bushy mustache, before his eyes climbed to Benteen’s again.

“I’ll deal with you later, Benteen.” His face turned crimson as he struggled to maintain his composure.

Those gritty words hung in the close, sweaty air as Custer shoved his officers aside and tore from the tent, disappearing as quickly as he had entered.

“You frigging sunuvabitch!” Tom Custer flung his words at Benteen, restrained by two officers.

“Your brother’s feelings are far less precious than a soldier’s life, Lieutenant. Don’t forget that—ever.” Benteen stepped forward. He wasn’t any taller than the younger Custer, but he loomed with the bulk of an ox over the whipcord-lean lieutenant from Michigan. “Damn Custer’s feelings, I say! Your brother can go off on a sulk and suck his thumb, for all I care! Lives are at stake here! His poor judgment is to blame—not that bloody letter I wrote.”

“I understand you all too well, Captain. Mind you, he might forgive you someday. But I never will!”

Benteen stood in the fury of Tom’s rage a moment longer before the lieutenant shoved past the Missourian, blasting from the tent. It was quiet enough to hear boots scraping on the hard ground or a nervous cough. Captain Samuel Robbins came beside Benteen.

“You’ve tackled yourself a real handful there.”

“I can handle either one of ’em,” Benteen growled.

“A real hornet’s nest you’ve stirred up, old boy!” Myers snorted.

“Figured on making some waves,” Benteen admitted. “Want to save some lives next time out.”

“What’ll you do when Custer wants to deal with you later?” Thompson inquired.

“I’m not afraid of him or his horsewhip. I’ll beat Custer at his own bully game. Before he can confront me in private, I’ll force his hand in public.”

“Never advisable to bait that man,” Myers said.

“He’s right,” George Yates agreed. “I staffed for him in the war. Let it blow over, by God. He’s hurt enough.”

“Enough?” Benteen snapped, glaring at Yates. “You Monroe boys stick together, don’t you, Yates?” He glanced out the tent flaps. “I’ll fetch that reporter, Keim. Take him with me when I see Custer. We’ll have it out, once and for all. Keim’ll be my witness. Not like you, Yates—someone Custer can bluff and bully.”

Benteen glared at them all. “I’ll break that arrogant bastard yet—see that never again does he send men off on suicidal attacks then refuses support to those soldiers in their tragic moment of struggle!”

“Captain’s pardon,” Yates said, “but Custer’s not the sort to be cowed by anybody. He’ll never forget your insults.”

“I bloody well hope he doesn’t!” Benteen shouted. “We’re talking about saving lives, stopping Custer from sending men to their deaths to further his career. Can’t any of you see that? When Custer will send any man to his death to further his hunger for promotion and glory, none of us matters anymore.”

Benteen was certain none of them understood a thing he tried to say. At the tent flap he stopped, sickened with bile at the back of his throat. He sucked a deep breath of the cold to still the nausea. He wheeled on them, his passion bubbling, his voice thick with mockery. “Mankind’s just dust in the wind to him. Custer plans his glory and fame to last the eons. Who are we mere mortals to try stopping a man destined to etch his name across those stone walls of eternity itself?”

Benteen jammed the cap down on his head and dove into the cold.

* * *

“Allow me one final sweep of the Territories, General!” Custer demanded, banging his fist on the table in Sheridan’s tent, scattering some coffee-stained maps. “By God, I’ll march south and west from here. You can’t deny me this! If I can’t be in Federal City for Grant’s inauguration—”

“Neither one of us. There’s not enough time,” Sheridan said. “We haven’t finished our task here.”

“So I’ll put our homebound march to good use before calling it quits on your campaign.”

“Use the march for what, Custer?” Sheridan asked.

“Find the most troublesome, bloodthirsty band—the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers under Medicine Arrow.”

“Damn that red bastard!” As much as he hated to admit to preferring another man’s idea to his own, Sheridan had liked Custer’s proposal from the start. “Here’s to your success.” He held up the sterling silver hip flask that was never far from his side. “More then ever—may you find the Indians you’re so desperately seeking.”

“Thank you for your continued faith in me, General.”

“Truth of it is, Custer, I’m very pleased by the progress you’ve made this winter. If you concern yourself strictly with your job here you won’t find time to worry about the lives of a few miserable savages.”

Sheridan waved a hand, silencing Custer as he continued. “Just the way you did things in the war. You pressed on, doing a soldier’s work. Do that now! Be a soldier before anything else!”

Last night on the eve of his departure, Sheridan had grappled with the fear that his winter campaign had become a grand failure. So this morning the whiskey tasted better than breakfast, what with having to leave the Territories with much undone, called back to department headquarters and the desk that awaited him. Whiskey and cigars, better than the best breakfast salt pork and hardtack. For an old warhorse like Phil Sheridan, whiskey and cigars made a fighting man’s diet.

Sheridan appraised Custer. “I’ve seen a handful of your kind before. Not only in the army, but in public life. You’re after the brass ring! Something no amount of money can buy—power.”

“Sir, if I may—”

“That’s no disgrace.” Sheridan lifted his hand. “Truth is, every great military commander hungers for power.”

Custer sank to a leather trunk as soldiers loaded the wagons around he and Sheridan, a late February sun just poking its head over the hills.

“Why the hell you think I sent Sully packing back east?” Sheridan watched Custer’s expression narrow.

“That’s right,” Sheridan said. “You’re commander of the Seventh Cavalry. I ordered him back to Kansas.”

“I never—”

“’Course you never knew, Armstrong.” Sheridan sipped at the flask. “Got rid of that old pussy-footer so this campaign would be your show and your show only.”

He waved the flask under Custer’s nose, a finger pointing. “Don’t frig this up, Custer! I can put you in the right place at the right time—like I did through the Shenandoah campaign. But I can’t fight your battles for you.”

“I had no idea that’s what became of Colonel Sully.”

“When I first got to Camp Supply, you two were arguing like yard dogs over who would lead the attack on the hostiles. The old slogger wanted me to ship you back, send you off to some other regiment. You believe that? By damned, you should’ve seen the look on his face when I told him he was the one packing!

“The rest of the campaign’s in your hands alone, dear boy,” Sheridan finished. “I’ve sent Sully home to pound sand. So it’s yours to find the Indians. Do what you’ve always done best: Find the enemy and make him bleed.”

Custer leapt to his feet. “By all means, General!”

“Don’t dally with the chiefs. Those old bastards just waste your time. Show ’em how you made a name for yourself on the James and the Rappahannock! All those red sonsabitches understand is toughness anyway. They’ll sneer at your kindness as a mark of something weak and womanly.”

“Yes, General.”

“I ought to know, dammit. I strung up some of those Yakima bastards back in ’56 up in the Oregon country. The hostiles will remember you only for the pain you dealt them on the Washita. Not a goddamned soul—white or red-will remember you for any kindness you show an Indian. Not those two old Kiowa in the shadow of Fort Cobb. And certainly not those Cheyenne running to save their miserable hides.”

Sheridan sipped at the whiskey that warmed his gut as few things could. “Hell, history will treat you kindly only when you act in a decisive manner and strike with a firm hand! Damn those peacemakers in Washington City! Let them tend to their knitting while we get on being soldiers!”

Sheridan wiped the back of his hand across his thin lips, stepping close to Custer. “Years from now you won’t find the name of one of those politicians in the schoolbooks, Custer. Only the generals and those like you—destined to ride a shooting star—will be cloaked in printer’s ink. So don’t be dismayed that the tribes have not come in! This only proves your greatest opportunity yet! Greater than the Shenandoah campaign.”

“That would take some doing. General.”

“Blast it, son! Don’t sit on your record. Make ’em stand up and take notice of you back east. The only way you’ll wear these goddamned stars again is with your butt in the saddle. Not resting on your laurels.”

He slapped a gloved hand on Custer’s shoulder, leaning close to confide. “You teach a hound by rewarding it, don’t you? That’s what we tried with these savages at first. Reward them. It didn’t work, so now we punish them. Just the way you’d do with your hound. Reward doesn’t work! Sherman knows that. Even Grant’s come to the light. As sure as you’re sitting before me, you can be the instrument of our pacification on this frontier. The choice is yours. Will you obey not only that direction I give you, but what history demands of you? Dammit, some soldier’s name will be written in the annals of this western land, a name repeated over and over on the lips of every schoolboy down through all eternity. Will it be George Armstrong Custer?”

On 2 March, Custer led the full command of his Seventh Cavalry and Nineteenth Kansas out of Fort Sill, bound for Fort Hays via Camp Supply. To garrison the new post Sheridan had erected deep in the heart of Indian Territory, he left behind a complement of the all-Negro Cavalry, those called “buffalo soldiers.”

Winter still gripped the plains—cold, blustery weather battering the soldiers daily. Every man nursed frostbite—ears, noses, cheeks, fingers, or toes. For seven days Custer’s troops plodded west by south. Every morning his scouts stuffed a day’s supply of jerky and hardtack in their saddlebags before setting out on their dawn-to dusk march, fanning through the countryside ahead of the blue columns.

Come the morning of the ninth, Custer’s scouts hurried back with news that, while not exactly to Custer’s taste, was nonetheless not without flavor. They had located a trail no more than a month old.

“How many lodges?” Custer asked eagerly.

“One travois, General,” replied Moses Milner.

“One.” Custer sighed. “Not to worry, fellas. Something tells me that one travois will lead me to bigger game.”

“Your itch same as mine. Got a hunch we’ll run those brownskins down yet.”

“Keep your scouts fanned wide, Joe,” Custer instructed.

“Your itch the same as mine, General. We’ll make a scout out of you yet.”

Custer’s faith in his hunch paid off the next afternoon. Eleven more lodges had joined the first. He dropped from the saddle beside his scouts on the bank of a small bubbling spring.

“Camp ain’t that old,” Milner said.

“We’re finally gaining on ’em?” Custer piped excitedly.

“Got a couple weeks’ lead at the most.”

Custer patted his chest, “Remember, boys—I’ve got another hundred dollars for the scout who leads me to the village where the white girls are held. Moylan, pass word we’re camping here for the night. When you’re done, have Romero bring Monaseetah to my fire.”

Milner turned to Hard Rope. “Say, old fella—that’ll be my hundred dollars this time! Best you make camp. I’ll boil coffee.”

“Good. Hard Rope and Little Beaver tired of your white chin-music. You make better coffee than talk, Joe California.”

Custer watched Milner lead the Osages into the trees, laughing. Two old Indians hunkered under their blankets coats and one jerky-tough scout pounding their backs with his every joke, chasing after his hundred-dollar dream.

By the time Moylan returned with Romero and the young Cheyenne mother, soldiers had unsaddled horses and raised canvas along the creek.

“Have Monaseetah look over the Indians’ camp, Romero,” Custer ordered.

Without replying to the interpreter, Monaseetah slipped off to an old campfire with the infant tied at her back. Monaseetah knelt, raking the old ashes, examining everything that caught her eye. She walked every inch of the Indian camp, picking up a bit of cloth or a scrap of old hide. Sniffing at old bones, she broke each one apart, examining the age of the marrow. Custer watched her repeatedly place her palm against the ground, as if testing for the warmth of some print left by man, beast, or lodge pole.

Romero interpreted her conclusions. “Twelve lodges camped here, a small band of some petty chief. Says the village broke up to hunt some time back, but seems they’re gathering for something important. Left here less than two weeks ago.”

“Were they scared off? Know of our coming?”

“She says no—they packed and rode off in no particular hurry.”

“How far will they travel each day?”

Monaseetah gazed thoughtfully across the merry stream before her hands danced as gracefully as two birds fluttering in courtship. “When the Cheyenne travel in late winter—when the grass is scarce—they make short trips each day. Moving from one stream to the next. Where they know there’ll be water,” she signed, and Romero interpreted for Custer.

One ability no one had ever questioned was Custer’s memory for detail, like the topography of the old maps he studied every night by lamplight. His command had already crossed Elm Fork, at times called the Middle Fork of the Red River. Several miles to the east, that Elm Fork joined a sizable prairie river called the Sweetwater.

“By glory, the bands are heading north by east!” Custer exclaimed. “Marching to the Sweetwater.”

Romero shook his head. “Cheyenne head south this time of year. Especially when they’re hungry. They’re moving toward the buffalo with empty bellies, General.”

Monaseetah broke in, wagging her head, her chatter quick and hands flying.

“What did she say?”

“Funny thing,” Romero admitted, his dark brow furrowed. “Says she can’t make sense of it either—seems the bands are moving backward for the season. Gotta be something important for them—”

“What do you mean backward?”

“I’ll be damned but she claims the bands are marching north and east, just like you figured.”

Custer couldn’t help smiling now. He had drawn a card few men would have pulled from the deck, winning a big hand of the game. But by no means the last hand of the night.

“I’ll soon have my Indians, Romero—the ones I’ve wanted since last fall.”

“Dog Soldiers now, General.” Romero eased himself down on a stump.

“Ask her what’s so important to the Cheyenne for their bands to move backward now.”

When her hands came to a stop, Romero looked at Custer, his dark eyes brooding. “To join with many others, to come together to fight Yellow Hair.”

The news she had given Hiestzi had saddened Monaseetah. She remembered how hopeful she had been at first, thinking she would have him forever. Now, that girlish dream seemed cold as yesterday’s fire.

Each night since the baby had come, she yearned for him anew. Yet more and more he made himself too busy with the other soldier chiefs and that young brother who called her Sally Ann. Monaseetah hadn’t bled for days now. No longer did she wear the rope and blanket scrap that absorbed her flow. Healed at long last.

Why will he not come to me? she wondered.

Of late Custer seemed obsessed with finding the Cheyenne bands she knew were gathering for a great war council. Once Yellow Hair found and destroyed their camps as he had done on the Washita, Monaseetah knew the soldier chief would leave her.

Even if the Cheyenne surrendered, as he had conquered the Kiowa without a shot fired, Yellow Hair would leave her. With victory complete, the soldier chief would ride far to the north.

Back to his other woman.

Up and down this creekside camp she listened to soldiers excited at finding the trail of the hostiles warming. But Monaseetah sank into a wallow of despair. Beside her, the infant wailed, his belly empty.

She sensed the keening of her heart signaled a deeper hunger still.

Hot tears slipped down her cheeks. Never before had she felt for any man as she did for him, and never before had Monaseetah felt so abandoned, knowing that Yellow Hair was slipping from her life already … as surely as the spring tore itself from the winter.

A long, long winter gone.