“The both of you—sound ‘Officers’ Call.’”
“Sir?” the veteran Henry Voss gulped. “The Indians, they’ll hear the trumpets!”
“Dammit all, Voss! The red buggers already know where we are! So blow it!” Custer snapped, wrenching the bugle from Voss’s saddlebags and practically stuffing it in the man’s mouth.
Up and down the columns many of the men glanced at one another with those first few notes out of the tin horns. The first such trumpet call in over two days now. Trotting forward along the excited columns, there wasn’t a one of Custer’s officers who didn’t fully understand the time for secrecy and silence had come and gone. The blowing of that one, solitary bugle call meant the time for battle had arrived.
Custer gripped Dandy’s reins tightly as he paced on foot in one direction three steps, then retraced those steps in another direction.
“Gentlemen, you recall the Crows reported seeing the village from the Crow’s Nest. They claim to see smoke and dust, a big village. I, on the other hand, was unable to see a bloody thing. I really doubted the Indians were down there along the Little Horn, so I kept looking up north, in the direction of Tullock’s Forks.
“At least in those valleys we could bottle the tribe up, and they couldn’t escape me so easily. However, the scouts tell me I’ll find them in the valley of the Little Horn. And down there the Indians can run and scatter two ways of Sunday without us having a ghost of a chance to run them down.”
For a moment the only sounds filling the hot, dry air came from the general’s boots scuffing at the dry ground, or his horse munching on the brittle grass, even the scratchy cough of some man’s trail-raw throat.
“All along I meant to surprise that hostile camp,” Custer went on. “We’ve got a command riddled with green recruits of the rawest order. Our mounts are about as weary as any could get, while the warriors we’ll soon face are going to ride fresh ponies. Yet do any of you see sense in my original plan to wait out a day and attack at dawn tomorrow?”
“Yes, General. I do,” James Calhoun finally gave a cautious response.
“But we can’t now, Lieutenant!” Custer snapped.
Like only a handful of the rest, Yates realized the general had addressed his brother-in-law by rank. Custer was angry, disappointed, and now veering close to fury.
“Gentlemen, despite the fact that we’re not fully prepared for battle, and that we surely are not going to have the advantage of surprise on those warriors, we nonetheless have one advantage. We are the Seventh, a proven fighting machine—and never before has our grand republic really seen what we can do when asked to perform above and beyond the call of duty.”
“General Custer?”
“Who are you?” Custer asked, squinting at the tall, thin civilian looking out of place in dusty frontier clothes.
“George Herendeen. Assigned you from Colonel Gibbon and General Terry.”
“Ahhh, yes … I remember now,” he replied absently, an eye twitching as he appraised the man. “You came along to communicate with the other column, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Too late for that now, Herendeen.” Custer crossed his arms emphatically, eyes filling with the icy fire of a zealot, waiting for the scout’s response.
“Too late, General?” the startled Herendeen protested with the rolling bass of his voice. “The head of Tullock’s Creek is right over the hills yonder. We can have your men down that valley in no time and meet up with Gibbon’s men. If you aren’t going to send me with word as you promised General Terry, best you get all these men heading north that way right now—north where you’ll have Gibbon’s support.”
“Gibbon’s support!” Custer bristled. “What the devil do I need his help for? Tullock’s Fork may very well be up north, but there are no Indians in that direction, Herendeen! They’re in our front—and they’ve discovered us. It would serve no purpose dispatching you down the Tullock’s now.”
Custer wheeled to face his men once more. “The way I see it, fellas—the only thing to do is push ahead and attack the camp as soon as possible.”
There it was, Yates figured. Custer had finally put into words what every officer had been fearing the general would decide on his own.
“General.” Herendeen stepped closer, a lean, hard wisp of a man, his wrinkled face like well-soaped leather. “Haven’t your scouts been telling you for days that you’re bound to run onto more than you can handle?”
“I’ve listened to all their ghosty stories. What of it?”
“Those scouts told you how many Sioux there are. The Crow even showed you how big the village is down there in that valley where you’re dragging these men. Right?”
“You’re forgetting that I didn’t see a blessed thing that could be taken for a huge Indian camp—and I had the field glasses!”
“Dammit, General!” Herendeen’s sudden anger silenced them all like a slap across the mouth. “If you wanna play dumb to everything your scouts tell you, then there’ll be a helluva lot of blood on your hands. If you’re going to let your hot-blooded stupidity and eagerness to attack that summer gathering of the whole goddamned Sioux nation—with nothing more than a handful of worn-out men and trail-busted stock—then you might well be damned by that decision for all of eternity.”
“Why, Mr. Herendeen,” Custer drew back, strangely calm at the moment. “What would you know about military strategy?”
“Not a god … damned … thing … General Custer.” Herendeen allowed Custer his smirk. “But I can count. As good as the next man. And I can see your ragtag outfit ain’t ready for any kind of scrap, much less a fight against the best warriors these northern plains can throw at you.”
“Are you quite done, Herendeen? Because if you are, you can ride with us to attack the village in that valley below. Or you can skedaddle up to the Tullock’s Fork. You see, we’re going to attack the Sioux before they scatter, and all those warriors you talk about can’t be found.”
“For these past three days, I was beginning to think all they’d said about you couldn’t be true, that you weren’t really such a goddamned arrogant asshole when it comes to following orders.
“Exactly what General Terry didn’t want done, you’re doing up in fine style. Instead of continuing south up the Rosebud, you’ve followed the Indian trail straight to their village. You’ve dogged this trail with your nose to the ground, and it’s hard for me to believe you didn’t intend to attack this village on your own from the start. So you see, General Custer—I, for one, don’t buy your claim that you ever intended to obey Terry’s orders, and you’ve never given a god-bloody-damn where Gibbon’s forces are because you want the whole pie for yourself!”
Every man there stood in stunned silence. After a long, brutally painful moment, Custer allowed a smile to crease his face.
“Perhaps you aren’t as dumb as I thought you were, Mr. Herendeen.” Custer turned, slipping a boot into his stirrup. “One thing you are right about. I want the coming action for myself. For the Seventh—these men. Right, fellas?”
George Yates yelled and whistled as loudly as any other. Custer held up a gloved hand for silence atop Dandy.
“I’ll return in a few minutes, boys. After I’ve discussed our plans with the Rees.” His blue eyes darkened as he narrowed his attention on the civilian scout below him.
“And as for you, Mr. Herendeen—I suggest you either fall back with the rest of the scouts, or you can plan on bucking over to that Tullock’s Fork you speak so highly of. You’ve got your choice to make now, and make it fast—because this outfit’s going into battle!”
CHAPTER 16