CUSTER yanked savagely on Dandy’s reins, tearing back along the columns in search of Gerard’s scouts.
By the time he found the Rees, they already understood that the command was preparing for battle.
A few of the older scouts squatted on the ground, tearing up the tall, dry grass at their knees, wailing as they tossed the brittle stalks into the hot breezes. Their death songs made for a melancholy background as Custer reined up before Bloody Knife, Stabbed, and Frederic Gerard himself.
“Gerard, tell them the time has come. Soon we fight the Sioux. You all came from Lincoln’s Fort to help me find the Sioux. You’ve done your job. If you will not fight your enemies beside my soldiers, then at the very least I want you to race in and hit the Sioux pony herd. Drive them all off so your enemies cannot use them in battle. You can keep them as I promised you.”
Custer stepped beside Bloody Knife. “But no matter what, my old friend—there will be a home for you, as I have promised Bloody Knife, if you fight alongside me. Bloody Knife will have a home I make for him. He is my good friend.”
Instead of speaking for himself once the soldier-chief had finished, Bloody Knife grunted for Stabbed to speak for him. The old man nudged his tired pony out front of the other Arikaras to begin his high-pitched harangue.
“My brothers and nephews,” Stabbed announced in his thin, reedy voice, “the fight we stare in the eyes will be a difficult one for most of you.” The light breezes tousled his unbraided hair already marked with the iron of many winters. “I know many of you have never been tried in battle before this day. You have never had to kill an enemy before. Never heard the song of bullets whistling past your faces.”
After lifting his chin to the sky for a moment as if in prayer, Stabbed went on, exhorting his men. “Your older brothers and uncles have done all we could to prepare you for this day. Nothing more can we do now but dress you in the sacred colors as we prepare to fight our old, old enemies. These sacred colors will guard you against the arrow, blade, or bullet that comes your way. Colors calling upon your spirit helpers to protect your bodies in this coming-time of madness.”
With Bloody Knife’s help, the old man mixed dried clay and earth pigment in his palm, smearing the pigment and bear grease and spit mixture onto every young warrior’s face and chest. One after another, each scout stoically presented himself to the old warrior for this painting ceremony, while the others gathered round him, chanting.
One by one they ripped open their cloth shirts or tugged up the long tails of their buckskin war shirts so the old man could paint his mystical symbols on their flesh. At last Bloody Knife smeared red paint on those wounds scarred across Stabbed’s chest and back: not only the scars suffered in his many Sun Dance sacrifices, but also knife and lance wounds of many scalp raids and war parties.
Finally Custer’s most trusted Ree scout presented himself to the silent soldier-chief.
Bloody Knife held up his hands to Custer, showing him the smeared paint left in his palms.
“He wants you to paint him, General,” Gerard whispered huskily as he pulled the flask bottle from his mouth, amber drops glistening on his lips. Ever since daybreak, when Custer himself awoke him with word that the Sioux were close enough to kill with spit, Fred Gerard had been drinking harder than ever.
Custer beamed at this singular honor. Kicking one leg over his saddle, he dropped to the ground and dabbed his fingers in what was left of the greasepaint in Bloody Knife’s palms. When he was finished, Custer stepped back to admire his work.
“It is good,” he signed for his old friend, The Knife.
“Yes, Long Hair,” the Ree answered with his hands. “It is good for you to paint me before I go into battle at your side.”
Bloody Knife laid a finger on that striking black silk scarf resplendent with blue stars tied at his neck. “One time, long ago, you gave this young tracker this fine present. I have worn it always with good thoughts of you in my mind. But—I can never escape the thought that by riding with you, death almost touched me once before. Does Long Hair remember?”
Custer shook his head. Bloody Knife went on solemnly speaking in sign.
“We traveled into the Sioux’s Paha Sapa—their Black Hills—when one of the wagons I was leading got stuck in crossing a stream. You blamed me for the mud sucking that wagon into the creek bank. So crazy were you for that wagon that you aimed your rifle at me and fired a bullet. I ran away, not knowing what to do now that Long Hair’s blood was mad at me and he wanted to kill me. There I was deep in the land of my enemies, and my good friend Custer was trying to kill me.”
“I remember.” The commander nodded gravely, his thin lips pursed beneath the corn-silk yellow mustache. “It is true what you say, Bloody Knife. I did get angry and shoot at you with a bad temper. But you must remember that I later asked you to come back and be my trusted wolf, my scout, once more. And—” He swallowed hard, for it appeared as hard now to spit out these words as it had been back in the Black Hills. “I apologized to you, Bloody Knife.”
“I heard your apology and told you shooting at me was not a good thing for a man to do to his friend,” the aging scout replied sadly. “Then I said that if I got crazy-mad like you, you would not see another sunset. Bloody Knife does not miss when he shoots, Long Hair. Do you remember all this?”
Gerard watched the rest of the Rees. Those young scouts had never heard of this dramatic incident. Now they muttered among themselves fearfully. Better than any other, Fred knew the Arikara. For these young trackers nothing else could pucker their bowels more here on the precipice of battle with their old enemies—than to learn that Long Hair shot at his old friend, The Knife.
Gradually their death songs grew louder, more insistent. Fred alone knew the Rees believed they were being led into a valley crawling with Sioux warriors by a man who had tried to kill their beloved and revered scout-chief.
Paying no attention to the rising cries of the other scouts, Custer gazed into Bloody Knife’s eyes. “Trusted wolf, we both lived to see another sunset—and many more after that black day. I am certain the setting of this day’s sun will be one of glory for us both. You will leave that valley below with me, Bloody Knife. We will be going home together, old friend.”
Instead of smiling at Custer’s bright optimism, the old Ree said, “Long Hair, my friend, I am going home today—yes. Not by the way we came, but in spirit. I am going home to my people. Before the sun sets this day, I will see all my relatives gone before to the spirit world. You and I will not ride together to Washington City. We are soon to journey to join the old ones gone before.”
“Indian superstition,” Custer muttered from the corner of his mouth, forcing a smile. “Simply superstition.” He spat on the ground to emphasize it, then turned from Bloody Knife.
“Gerard, you tell your Rees if they don’t want to fight with my men, then they can chase after the enemy herd and fight the young boys who watch over those Sioux ponies.”
As he translated, Fred watched how Custer’s words slapped many of the older scouts. Still, the young ones remained too fearful to care about shame. Reluctantly, as if cutting a long-standing bond, The Knife pulled his horse from Custer to rejoin Stabbed and the rest.
“Gerard, tell them there are others coming, other soldiers,” Custer said. “I want the Rees to understand these other soldiers are coming to attack the village, and I want to be the first because I want the honors of fighting the Sioux alone. I need to defeat them myself.”
No expressions on those stony copper faces changed as Custer’s words became Ree words. Dark, black-cherry eyes burned between Custer’s shoulder blades as the soldierchief finally yanked on the reins and led Dandy back to the head of the columns.