And then there was more smoke, black smoke. Reno coughed. The savages were setting the woods on fire. He spun about. He could see the sparkling water of the little Big Horn dancing over stones. On the far side of the river were high bluffs, a steep cut going up.
Reno turned back. He saw Captain Moylan. Bloody Knife · came up and signed. Yes, yes, Reno signed back. Hostiles behind them, all around. Bloody Knife was gone, back into the line, fighting. It was all hectic, confusing.
“We have to pull back!” Reno yelled at Moylan.
Moylan looked at him in astonishment. “To where?”
Reno pointed at the cut.
“We’ll never make it,” Moylan protested. “They’ll cut us down crossing the river.
“They’ll roast us here!” Reno yelled back. “If we get up to the high ground, we can reunite the regiment!”
“We don’t know where Custer is,” argued Moylan. “He could be coming up the valley. Maybe we can fight back south,” Moylan suggested.
Keno moved around the perimeter, trying to get an idea of how his force was faring. He could be coming up the valley. Maybe we can fight back south,” Moylan suggested.
Reno moved around the perimeter. Trying to get an idea of how his force was faring. He came across Bouyer loading his rifle and firing calmly. Isaiah Dome, the black scout, was near Bouyer, also firing away. Bloody Knife was also there, carefully firing his rifle.
Where will the Sioux attack come from? Reno signed to Bloody Knife.
Bloody Knife lowered his rifle and looked thoughtful for a second, then his head exploded, splattering blood and brains into Reno’s face. Reno blinked blood out of his eyes.
A great shout rose from the Indians’ lines. Reno looked up as bile rose in his throat to see a massive force of hundreds of hostiles coming forward from the northeast.
Reno vomited. Then spit. “Across the river, men! Fall back across the river to the high ground Mount up and ride!”
Some heard him and moved. Most didn’t. A trooper in the middle of the first group was shot and tumbled from his horse. Reno suddenly realized there were Indians along both banks of the river, but it was too late to rescind the order. It would be a desperate gauntlet to run, but there was no other way to go. And if they spent any longer down here they would be out of ammunition. Even if Custer wasn’t up there, the pack train had to be. And they needed the rounds the mules carried.
“Go!” Reno urged his men. The word spread and the battalion dissolved, flowing toward the river. Indian riders appeared, mixing in with the troopers, and it was a desperate battle, men firing at each other at point-blank range. Hand-to-hand combat developed as Indians dragged troopers off their horses.
Like a magnet, though, the cut on the far side drew Reno’s men. The terrain ruled. It was the only way they could go. The water wasn’t wide, perhaps twenty feet, and shallow.
Reno turned as he heard lieutenant McIntosh call out. The lieutenant staggered and fell. Reno tried to turn back to get him, but the wave of retreating troopers was too strong. He was pushed out toward the river. He had no idea how many dead and wounded he was leaving behind. At least twenty-five, probably more, he estimated from what he’d seen.
No time to reflect on the staggering defeat he’d just received. His horse leaped off the bank into the water. He spurred it across, clambering up the far bank. He saw Lieutenant Hodgson get shot and fall off his horse into the river. A trooper came by, yelling for the lieutenant to take his stirrup. Hodgson grabbed it, and the horse carried rider and wounded across the river, but too slow, too slow, as arrows and bullets honed in on the helpless target. Hodgson’s dead hand released the stirrup as the rider made the far bank. The body rolled back into water.
Reno fired until he realized his pistol was empty. Tears in his eyes, he turned and rode into the draw and up toward the high ground.
Behind him, among the smoke and trees, Two Moons, the leader of the Cheyenne, found Bloody Knife’s horse. He saw a leather satchel and reached for it, pulling his hands back in surprise as they were burned by whatever was inside. He grabbed a shirt off a dead blue coat and wrapped it around the satchel, then took it with him.
His horse had been drinking in the little Big Horn when Crazy Horse heard the first shots. The horse’s ears pricked back, and it lifted its head while Crazy Horse sat motionless. Other than the distant shots, it was very quiet where he was, about a mile downstream from the northern-most edge of the village. He’ d had to go that far in that direction to find a place to easily ford the river, then be able to get up on the high bluffs to the east He’d ridden several miles, noting how empty the terrain was to the east, but also how rolling and full of gullies and ravines it was. A large force could easily sneak through that land and come up on the village unobserved, then fall down out of the high ground with a devastating attack.
Crazy Horse had made a mental note to have sentries from his tribe placed to the east this evening. As he heard the sound of the firing to the south increase in volume, he realized that the enemy was already here and coming from the south.
He climbed his horse out of the riverbed and then galloped to his lodge on the northern end of the village. He knew that warriors from the southern lodges would be taking the brunt of whatever fight was happening there. Crazy Horse began yelling to the warriors from his tribe and the Cheyenne who were also camped nearby to prepare themselves for combat.
While he was doing all this, Crazy Horse could hear the sound of battle: gunfire. The screams of wounded men and horses, and the war cries of other warriors. Women and children fled by his lodge seeking shelter as far away from the ting as possible. Some were even beginning to strike their lodges to remove themselves from the area entirely. Although time was crucial, Crazy Horse didn’t even consider not completing his preparations — after all, what good did a bulletproof dream do him if he didn’t do as it told?
Each warrior had his own way of preparing, and by the time. Crazy Horse was done, he had quite a large number of Warriors waiting to be led. With more than three hundred mounted men behind him. He raced for the southern end of the camp. It was a fearsome sight, this large group of warriors, painted and bedecked for war, their hands bristling with the instruments of killing: rifles, muskets, spears, lances, bows, war clubs, hatchets.
But as they made their way to the other end of the camp, they were met by exulting Warriors, yellin2 about their great victory over the blue coats. Crazy Horse stopped and questioned a brave holding a bloody scalp: “What has happened?”
“Many blue coats attacked. We killed many and the others ran away, across the river.” The warrior pointed to the southeast. “It is a great victory!”
Crazy Horse looked in the direction the man indicated. He could see many Sioux crossing the river and climbing up to the bluffs, and puffs of smoke from rifles being fired up there.
Then he looked at this side of the river, down the valley floor. He could see squaws moving forward to strip the bodies of the dead soldiers. Crazy Horse made a quick count of at least fifteen white bodies.
Still, he thought. That is not right. The white man might be crazy, but not that crazy. And from that direction the soldiers were not falling into camp. Of course those soldiers were now in the high ground, and if they attacked again they would be coming down, but from all indications those particular soldiers had been defeated.