“Damn,” Cooke whispered, “but the queen’s got her a one-eyed jack sneaking into her bedchambers, eh! Custer’ll be tickled!” He slapped his thigh in amusement, startling his own skittish mount.
“You’ll take the major’s message on to Custer, won’t you? Reno’s desperate for the general’s promised support—”
“Make no mistake,” Cooke answered enthusiastically. He glanced at Keogh. “The general will want to hear all about this, he will.”
“Here, my good man,” Keogh belched, holding his arm out with the empty canteen at the end of it.
Gerard shook the canteen. “My God! You’ve emptied the damned thing.”
“’Ave any more about you, Gerard?” Keogh interrupted him, feeling the warm whiskey jolting against the pasty hardtack and greasy salt pork in his belly like clashing lines of calvary. “I’d be willing to have me a go at another one of them, if you’re willing to sell.”
Gerard eyed him severely, then his face lightened. “When would I have my money?” he asked suspiciously.
“Soon as we hit Lincoln.”
“I don’t know—”
“I’m good for it, Gerard,” the big Irishman said gruffly, sticking out his hand impatiently.
“Oh … all right, Captain. I suppose it won’t hurt a thing, will it now?”
“Not when you’ve been drinking a goodly bit of it your own self,” Cooke admonished.
“You’ll get Reno’s message to Custer now, won’t you?” Gerard implored with his dark eyes, handing a full canteen over to Keogh. “Like the general promised—bringing his support to the major?”
Keogh dropped the canteen into his saddlebag, smacking his lips as he kicked his horse about. “C’mon, Cookey—we’ve got us a message to deliver to the old man hisself, we ’ave.”
By the time his two officers had scaled the sunny hills back to Custer’s position, the commander had already dispatched three young Crows under Bouyer to ride to the top of those bluffs rising above the river for the purpose of taking a look at the Sioux village below. But instead of heading uphill behind Bouyer, Half-Yellow-Face and White Swan kicked their ponies down into the Ash Creek drainage, following Reno and his men. In some mystical sense of order, they must have figured that going with the major was decidedly safer than riding with Custer.
The blue-eyed general watched the two Crows skedaddle downhill, his eyes glowering. He then turned back to see young Curley and Mitch Bouyer reach the top of the hill north along the bluffs.
Good. Maybe that half-breed Bouyer will work out after all.
The pair did not stay atop the hill but a moment before they came galloping back with their news.
Far beyond up the valley, they had spotted the village itself, seen through the thick trees clustered along the bends of the Greasy Grass. Many lodgepoles reaching into the summer sky … more than many lodges … much dust. Some mounted Indians dashed back and forth, riding as if they were trying to warn others of the cavalry attack.
Young Curley politely waited for Bouyer to finish with the pressing matters at hand, then asked the interpreter to speak to the general on his behalf.
“Long Hair.” The young Crow’s face clouded, creased with worry. “You and I are going home today by a trail we do not know.”
“He says he’s going home today?” Custer asked as he studied the Absaroka scout.
Bouyer nodded.
“Maybe he’s right, Mitch. Maybe he will go home with glory about his shoulders. Soon to be a chief of the mighty Crow. By jiggers! We are going to win this land back for these Indians. You will be a chief too, Mr. Bouyer!”
His sapphire eyes flicked to the right, straining to see something, perhaps hoping to spot those hostile Indians seen by the others far to the north, at least to see the dust from all those hooves.
“Off to the north, eh?” Custer repeated rhetorically, a plan already forming, congealing, solidifying in his quicksilver mind.
Custer visualized the river flowing north and the village at the upper end of this green valley, the brown lodges squatting in the sun—but a handful of miles away now. The warriors Reno had run into must surely be some of the first fighting men spurring out to defend their village because of the advance warning from those forty Sioux they had spotted back up Ash Creek.
Surely, the camp now knows soldiers are coming, he brooded, an eye twitching. With Reno attacking from the foot of the village, I’ll take my five companies and go after the head! Pound them solidly while Reno holds their feet to the ground.
“Clausewitz, you genius! You’d be mighty proud of your best pupil this day!” Custer muttered excitedly.
“What’s that, sir?” Cooke asked, still breathless after his climb up from Reno’s crossing of the river.
“Nothing, Lieutenant.” He blinked nervously. The way he always did once the excitement set in. “Let’s ride!”
“General, rider approaching!” called Sergeant Major Sharrow, who clutched a beefy hand round Custer’s personal flag.
Intently they watched the man’s lathered mount labor up the slope, lunging, resting for a moment, kicked again into another furious series of weary lunges. Across the dusty slope the mount carried its rider with the last bit of bottom it had to give.
“Private Archibald McIlhargey, sir!” the soldier gasped as his horse stumbled, nearly collapsing beside Custer’s mount. “Reporting from Major Reno.”
“What’s your message, boy?” Custer asked, swiping a finger around the sweatband of the cream-colored hat.
“The major wanted to report he’s in the thick of it now, sir,” McIlhargey gulped dryly. “Lots of warriors swarming on ’em down there.”
“Swarming, you say?”
“Like a nest of mad hornets!”
“Good!” Custer slapped his knee. “Perfect, in fact. We’ll let Reno have at them a bit here while we make a go of it at the head, up north a ways near the village.”
“S-sir?” the young soldier stammered.
“We’re going to ride north, young man, and attack the village.”
“Major Reno asked for your support, General!” McIlhargey pleaded. He was scared as hell, talking to the regiment’s commander. He had ridden away from Reno with the screams of the Sioux and the frightened cries of his fellow troopers ringing in his ears. Now he sensed his heart pounding in his throat as he glared at the general. “Your support, sir?”
“And that’s just what I’ll give him, Private.”
Custer peered to the north and breathed deep, swelling his chest against the sweat-stained gray pullover. “I’m fixing to chop the head off this beast for the major.”
“He—the major was thinking—aren’t you coming down to help him, General?”
“Of course not, Private. I’m going to attack as I’ve always attacked. Reno’s gone in and dealt them the first blow, and I’m going in to finish the job. Now, son—you report back to the major … or you can come with me. Frankly, I think you should ride with me. Appears your mount won’t make it back to Reno’s command.”
“Thank you, sir,” McIlhargey replied, sensing the winded mount sagging beneath him. “I’ll report back to Captain Keogh and I Company.”
Custer yanked on Vic’s reins and galloped off past the private. The strong, well-fed thoroughbred lunged along the lines of troops waiting for some word on the Indians and news of Reno’s attack on the village. He brought them the news they hungered for. Up and down the columns he loped, shouting of the discovery by the Crow scouts—the village far to the north—and that Reno was in the thick of it.
“We’ve got the village in our sights now, boys!” Custer cheered, standing tall in the stirrups, every bit as ragged as any of them, but more regal at this moment than ever before in his life.