Charles ran to the perimeter where the young soldiers knelt with revolvers and carbines. He grabbed a blue shoulder. "Put that down. Stop it. Don't kill dumb animals." It sounded perfectly reasoned to him; he had no sense that the words came out in screaming bursts, or that an unfamiliar strength was pumping in him, enabling him to hurl one of the shootists four feet to one side just by gripping his shoulders.
A soldier with eyes as damp and bright as those of the dying horses shied from Charles, warning others near him, "Look out, Cheyenne Charlie's gone crazy."
Charles wondered why the soldier said that. All he wanted was a halt to the killing of the animals, perfectly reasonable.
"Stand aside. I'll deal with him." Charles recognized the voice before he saw Harry Venable, Handsome Harry, small and dapper despite hunger and fatigue and the grime of a forced march.
"Tell them to stop it, Venable." .
"You filthy, craven idiot, we are carrying out the general's orders."
Charles formed fists and beat the air and screamed then, really screamed, because it seemed the only way to get through Venable's studied calm. "Let them go. Let them go free. Stop the killing!"
Venable raised his hand. His spotless, lightly oiled Colt with the ivory grips gleamed a foot from Charles's chest. Only a faint tremor of Venable's chin showed he was wary of the threat presented by the screaming, scruffy man. The carbines and pistols volleyed with a sound like stones thrown on a tin roof. The smells ripened. More than one soldier turned away and puked on the churned-up ground, adding a thin pink slime to the brown, the white, the red.
A speck of vomit flew to Venable's right boot, which was already filthy with mud. The speck seemed to excite him. He whipped the revolver across Charles's face, pulling on it so that the sight cut into Charles's cheek like a dull knife.
"Now, Main, leave the field."
Charles stared at him — a mistake, because Venable was ready. "Hold him," Venable yelled to the soldiers as his knee caught Charles between the legs, a clumsy blow but effective. Dizzy with pain, Charles tried to punch Venable. But he was slow. Two troopers seized his arms and jerked them out full length.
Venable's blue eyes danced. In his finest, softest Kentucky voice, he complimented the soldiers. "Very good, sirs. Now hold him fast."
He holstered his side arm and stepped in near Charles. He threw a hard punch into his stomach. For a small man, he was very strong. Charles's head came up slowly. Wild-eyed, he spit at Venable, who wiped it off and punched him low in his groin. Then he pounded Charles's head once from the right. Blood and mucus spewed from Charles's nose. He was going down and he couldn't help it.
A great sense of failure enveloped him. He ought to get up. Fight back. He was unable to. It was Jefferson Barracks again.
Venable stood beside Charles's head, his drawn revolver pointed down. Despite the noise of guns and horses, Charles heard the revolver cock. Venable aimed it at the canal of his ear.
"Sir," a soldier said, "sir, he's out of it. Griffenstein told me he has a thing about seeing horses hurt. That oughtn't to merit killing —" Charles couldn't see which young soldier had spoken, but he saw Venable glare, and heard the boy's assertive tone fade away as he added one more gulping, "Sir."
Charles knew he was going to be murdered right there. He watched Venable glance around at witnesses Charles couldn't see except as pairs of blood-spattered boots. Venable hesitated. He couldn't get away with it.
"Pick up the son of a bitch," he said, jamming the Colt in his holster again. "You — and you. Get him on his feet, the damn traitor. We'll let the general settle this."
53
The two soldiers quickstepped him toward the cottonwoods, where a new fire had been built near the general's standard to provide light and warmth as the afternoon darkened. Almost as fast as it had come, the rage diffused, leaving Charles with pains in his body and a vague awareness of having tried to stop the horse slaughter. A sad finality settled on him; he knew at last what he wanted to do. No, stronger than that. Had to do, at all hazards.
General Custer, youthful and somehow rakish and spruce despite his filthy uniform, looked annoyed by Venable's interruption. He had been talking to California Joe, who was saying, "No, sir, I can't find Sergeant Major Kennedy's body no place as yet."
Custer turned from the blazing fire, his right leg slightly bent at the knee, his left hand resting on the hilt of his saber. He always seemed aware of his posture.
"What is it, Captain Venable? Quickly. I intend to march in less than an hour."
"Sir, this man, this damn reb, tried to stop your men from performance of duty." Venable sounded very proper and sententious, although Charles, whose head was clearing and giving him a sense of the enormous trouble he was in, could hear Venable's wrath bubbling underneath. "He attempted to prevent our work with the pony herd."
"Your butchery," Charles said.
"Your tender sensibilities object to that, Mr. Main?" Custer strode over to Charles, addressing him as though Charles did not have an eye swelling shut, a cheek dripping blood, and snot hanging from his nose. "You prefer that we leave healthy horses so the savages can ride them in the spring to commit more atrocities?
General Sheridan charged me with the duty of punishing the Cheyennes and Arapahoes —"
"Black Kettle was a peace chief."
"That's of no consequence. My responsibility is to eradicate the threat to white people —" Why was he talking so much, Charles wondered. To whom was he justifying his actions? He didn't have to do it to a shabby scout of questionable background. Despite his pain, Charles had a sharp sense that Custer was aware that today had damaged him; a sense that he was already on the run. ''A duty which I have this day carried out. Only total war will bring peace to these plains."
"May be, but I don't want any more of it."
"What? What's that?" Custer was caught off guard, his blue eyes confused, then angry again.
"I said I don't want any more of your kind of war. I shouldn't have signed on."
"We should not have engaged you," Custer retorted. California Joe looked ready to sink into the ground.
Charles threw everything into the pot and made his last bet. "I'm leaving. If you want to stop me, you'll have to shoot me. Or order someone to do it."
Venable said, "I would be pleased —"
"Be quiet!" Custer shouted. He was breathing fast, his face ruddier than Charles had ever seen it. "You're rash to suggest that, Mr. Main. I can very easily order you shot. Witnesses to your rebellious behavior will testify to the necessity —"
"You've got enough trouble on your hands." Blood in Charles's beard formed a drop that fell and struck a patch of snow between his boots. He tried to shut out the sounds of the steady small-arms fire, the horses dying. "I saw Mrs. Blinn shot. I saw her son shot."
"I have it on reliable authority that the Cheyennes slew the woman."
"Your men shot her, I saw it. So did others."
"We have no evidence the white woman was the Mrs. Blinn who was abducted from —"
"I heard her name and others did, too." Bleeding, glowering, Charles pushed Custer. The Boy General was momentarily panicked; Charles saw that in the bright blue eyes. "They're not going to call this a battle, they're going to call it a massacre. Babies with bullets in their heads. Women scalped by United States soldiers. A white captive and a peace chief, an old man, murdered. Not a very pretty episode to include in a campaign biography, would you say, General?"