I now have some Crow scouts with me, as they are familiar with the country. They are magnificent-looking men, so much handsomer and more Indian-like than any we have ever seen, and so jolly and sportive; nothing of the gloomy, silent red man about them. They have formally given themselves to me, after the usual talk. In their speech they said they had heard that I never abandoned a trail; that when my food gave out, I ate a mule. That was the kind of man they wanted to fight under; they are willing to eat mule too.
I am sending six Ree scouts to Powder River with the mail; from there it will go with other scouts to Fort Buford.
From here on out the men will sleep in overcoats and saddle blankets. I have arranged for the hounds to be left with the mules when battle is assured. At the very least John can care for them in my absence. Tuck is such a problem tonight. She is in and out, dashing out with a playful yip when a wolf howls, scurrying back in with her tail fast between her legs to cower at my knee. Let us hope the Sioux are as discerning as Tuck … to know when to stick their tails between their legs!
I also wanted you to share in the good news—I have seen that Boston and Autie were transferred from Quartermaster Corps for the next fifteen days so they can accompany us on our scout up the Rosebud. Along with Tom, Boston, Autie, James, and Fred Calhoun, I want all the Custer clan in on the fun! We have such a dear, dear family gathered round us, Libbie. We are indeed fortunate in this life to share that family together.…
To the end, Custers all!
His pen fell silent above the page as he grew pensive again. Listening to the wolf howl … seeing her dark eyes conjured up before him on the tent wall once more. He clenched his eyes, trying to block out the vision. Still they haunted him. Dark black-cherry eyes gleaming out at him from the back of that wagon as it rumbled out of Fort Hays, heading south and out of his life.
Less than fifty yards downstream stood Mark Kellogg’s tent where the late-night oil burned just as brightly as Custer’s lamps.
Although both Sherman and Sheridan had warned him against taking any reporters along, Custer found it impossible to refuse that fervent request from the former telegraph operator working for the summer in a Bismarck law office and writing an occasional article printed in the Bismarck paper, even the New York Herald, under his pen name, Frontier.
After all, Custer had reasoned, the Herald was owned by his good and politically powerful friend, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. Without much time given over to wrestling with the problem, Custer had decided to allow Kellogg to accompany the campaign. Besides, why shouldn’t Bennett’s paper get the scoop on everyone else when he defeated the Sioux and became the darling of the Democractic convention about to meet in St. Louis?
Kellogg was a likable fellow, sharing much in common with Custer anyway. He favored a get-tough policy with the “noncompliers,” those Indians refusing to come in to their reservations. Custer was sure Kellogg would write a favorable account of the coming battle, since there had been so much concern after the Washita debacle and how aspects of that winter’s campaign had been manhandled in the press. After all, Kellogg had stated publicly, “I say turn the dogs of war loose and drive the savages off the face of the earth, if they do not behave themselves.”
A widower with two girls, who smoked Bull Durham, and enjoyed a rare game of chess, the reporter had once preached a temperance lecture at the graveside interment of a drunk who died of consumption. Since he shared Custer’s teetotaling habits when it came to whiskey and other spirits, Kellogg was not among those who bolstered trader Coleman’s profits that cloudy night of 21 June.
Instead, Mark Kellogg spent the evening rattling off dispatches to be sent back east in the morning in addition to letters to his daughters. The remainder of his time he spent in getting rations and supplies squared away and stuffed securely in his canvas saddlebags, along with an adequate supply of lined paper and pencils he would require up the Rosebud with Custer.
At forty Kellogg was nonetheless youthful in appearance, with but a few small crows’-feet worrying his eyes in addition to the steel-rimmed glasses, and some flecks of gray in his hair that betrayed his age.
Mark brooded needlessly past midnight, concerned that he would have enough bacon and sugar and coffee for the fifteen days, as well as enough paper. More important than food was paper. Kellogg wanted to write the war story to end all war stories. And by riding with an Indian fighter of Custer’s caliber and reputation, Kellogg was certain he would see action worth description. Never before had he written anything worthy of much notice, since most of his prose plodded along in a pedestrian manner.
This time, however, Mark Kellogg was certain the drama of the coming chase and the thrill of battle with Custer’s cornered quarry would inspire him to lofty prose.
This small, unassuming widower would ride an army mule south along the Rosebud behind Custer, certain this was to be his moment in the spotlight. No longer would he merely report the actions of others. At long last Mark Kellogg, reporter and campaign correspondent for no less than the New York Herald, would participate in the making of history—a destiny he had waited forty long years to enjoy.
That old mule picketed outside his tent just might carry him farther than the Rosebud and any Sioux camp Custer would assure they would run across.
Well past midnight John Burkman left Custer at his field desk, perched on his cot, finished with his letter to Libbie, and now working on his journal. Always the journal.
The striker headed next door to his small A-tent, with a stop to relieve his bladder swollen from all the coffee he had shared with his commander.
As he watered the ground, Burkman gazed at the lights glittering on board the Far West moored against the far shore and remembered that some of the officers from Terry’s command had rowed across to join Gibbon’s men for a late-night game of monte. For a moment he sensed those soldiers were the lucky ones, not having to suffer this unexplained dread for the coming of day, not having to worry over the noose of despair that his own private premonitions tightened around his heavy heart.
Burkman stuffed himself back in his britches and wiped his hand off on army wool before he nudged the buttons back through their holes. Here in the chill wee hours, all he heard was the sound of Custer’s two horses munching dried grass at their picket pins.
That, and the steady beat of the Crow and Ree drums. Burkman was sure it was the distant beat of those drums that helped him fall asleep that last night at the Yellowstone.
The distant beat of Indian drums.
CHAPTER 7
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF DAKOTA
(IN THE FIELD)
Camp at Mouth of Rosebud River, Montana,
22 June 1876
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The brigadier general commanding directs that as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno, a few days since. It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement; and were it not impossible to do so, the department commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders, which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears to be almost certain that it will be found) to turn toward the Little Horn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank.