A smile eventually cracked Grasshopper Jim’s face. “Good hunting, General! And good luck to all your men!”
“Thank you, Major,” Custer replied as he tugged his glove back on the right hand. “That means a lot to me, it does.”
Custer sawed Vic’s reins to the left, stopping in front of Terry for a moment, their eyes on the column-of-fours, each troop accompanied by its own twelve pack mules. As they watched, some of the mules began fighting their loads, resisting the cargoes and kicking up heels. The general watched Custer grimace, his cheeks reddening as the men struggled with the mules.
Not quite the grand embarkation Custer was dreaming of, Terry brooded, sympathetic for the Seventh’s young commander. Yet he’ll soon be on the trail, where there will be little to dampen his spirits. He gazed at the shimmering waves of heat rising round that plodding column of blue and gray and yellow heading into the hills bordering the Rosebud.
A bulldog trotted past, loping off behind the departing troopers heading south into history. Major Brisbin whistled, then whistled again, until the bulldog was out of sight.
“That’s not one of your hounds is it, General Custer?”
He shook his head. “Not mine, Major. Must belong to one of the men. Tramping all the way from Fort Abraham Lincoln. Appears he’s not about to be left behind!”
“A grand sight, Custer!” Terry cheered, something of a chill like January ice water nagging at the base of his spine.
Custer cleared his throat, turned, and lifted his cream-colored hat from the reddish bristles on his head. “Gentlemen! Until I see you next!”
“In a few days, Custer!” Terry reminded, smiling professorially.
“See you then.” Custer tapped Vic with those gold spurs, and the big mare spun away.
“Now, Custer!” Gibbon suddenly piped up, standing in his stirrups. “Don’t be greedy. Wait for us!”
Custer slapped the big hat back on his head and pranced Vic round in a tight circle before he brought the anxious mare under control.
“I … I w-won’t, sir!” his stammer floated provocatively on the stiff, chill breeze.
In Terry’s next heartbeat Custer jabbed the sorrel with those golden spurs and set off at an astonishing gallop, kicking up moist clods of dirt and grass as Vic sped him along the squeaking, jangling column of cavalry and mules, disappearing into the distance, his back to the superiors he was leaving behind at the Yellowstone.
The hope of final victory
Within my bosom burning
Is mingling with sweet thoughts of thee
And of my fond returning.
But should I ne’er return again,
Still worth thy love thou’lt find me;
Dishonor’s breath shall never stain
The name I’ll leave behind me.
BOOK II
THE STALK
CHAPTER 8
FOR better than a hundred fifty summers, the Sioux had journeyed to Bear Butte with the short-grass time. Bear Butte, close by the east slope of their sacred Paha Sapa.
Every summer the great pilgrimage to the Black Hills had traveled from the four winds, to meet in celebration of their ancient way of life. Summer after summer the mighty Teton bands gathered until their combined herds numbered thirty thousand gnawing at the rich grasses along the forks of Bear Butte Creek.
Here the seven circles of the mighty Lakota nation raised their lodges like bare brown breasts uplifted to the sky in praise, thanksgiving, and celebration of life.
But for the past two summers, the Sioux had been driven from their ancient land where the great Wakan Tanka ministered to His people’s needs. Bear Butte lay within shooting distance of the obscene mining camp called Deadwood Gulch, Dakota Territory. Really nothing more than a collection of saloons, sutlers’ tents, and prostitutes’ cribs.
Yet stain enough still on this holy place, enough to force the Sioux away. No more could the Lakota gather to celebrate with thanksgiving at Bear Butte. Not while the white men tore greedily at the Mother’s dark breast, searching voraciously for the yellow rocks that made white men crazy.
So the great council of the Teton Sioux tribes had declared their move to the Rosebud this summer to be good. With the coming of the first snows of last robe season, word had spread from camp to camp, across the agencies and reservations—announcing that the clans would steer far from their Paha Sapa.
This summer, farther west. Not on the Powder. No, not on the Tongue either.
The great summer joy would gather to celebrate under Sitting Bull along the Rosebud.
In the Sore-Eye Moon of last winter, those of Old Bear’s band of Northern Cheyenne who had survived Red Beard Crook’s attack on their snowy camp huddled in the darkness in the hills above the headwaters of Pumpkin Creek. Below them soldiers set fire to lodges and robes, clothing and dried meat, while some of the brave young warriors slipped in and stole back their fine herd of Cheyenne ponies from Colonel Reynolds’s young, foolish soldiers.
“Hush,” Monaseetah cooed to her boys, shivering in her one blanket.
“I am hungry,” Sees Red snapped. He was seven winters now and had learned that when he wanted something, he had to demand it like a young warrior.
His mother stroked his black hair. “We will eat soon.”
“When?” he demanded.
“Soon,” she whispered, hunkered down in the scrub oak and cedars with knots of other survivors who had fled from the soldiers. She held her two sons against her body, staring down the long slope at the bright fires. Fires glowing warm and inviting now. Fires that were once their lodges, their lives, in this winter valley.
She was reminded of a camp along the Little Dried River in the southern country when she was but a girl of thirteen summers, a camp where white soldiers butchered and defiled her mother. Then she remembered Black Kettle’s village along the Washita in the southern territories as well, when she was seventeen winters. A camp where the soldiers killed her father.
“How long will we stay here?” Sees Red asked.
“You ask too many questions.” She pulled him closer. “Why can’t you be like Yellow Bird? He is content to sit here with his mother, watching the fires, and wait for the others to begin our long walk.”
“Yellow Bird is not like us, Mother,” Sees Red said darkly.
She gazed down at the quieter of her two sons, stroking his light-colored hair. Hair not at all like his brother’s. “He is your brother.”
“Others tell me that we truly are both your sons but with different fathers.” Sees Red sniffed, feeling arrogant again. “I am Shahiyena, Mother.”
“Yes, you are Cheyenne.”
“He is not.” Sees Red jabbed a dirty finger at his little brother.
“He is Cheyenne,” Monaseetah protested, shivering. “From my body … Yellow Bird is Cheyenne.”
“No, Mother. He is white, like the soldier-chief who is his father. My father was a Cheyenne warrior.”
“Yes, Sees Red. But Yellow Bird’s father was also a great warrior.”
“No! He was white—an earthman!”
She nodded. “It is true, Yellow Bird’s father is white, but he is the greatest of all soldier-chiefs—a powerful warrior among his people.”
Sees Red pouted a few moments, glaring flint arrow points at his little brother in his sixth winter now. “He is not like me or my friends. Not like us, Mother.”