Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 (24 page)

They watched Custer wheel and plod downhill. Myers said, “Times I don’t understand the man.”

Thompson shuddered. “It gives me the creeps. Seeing the general not acting in his right mind—what with these men buried here—the wind and wolves all a’howling at us. Damn!”

Myers chuckled with a hollow sound. “Even the trees
around us look like some kind of hoodoos with wild arms scratching against the sky.”

“Like they’d grab right ahold of a man.”

“Let’s be about our assignment, Mr. Thompson.”

“Yessir.”

“I suggest your detail scour the hillside for deadfall. Use it to cover the grave so that no goddamn wolves dig up the bodies after Custer’s gone to so much trouble to get them buried. And buried quick.”

“He’s washed his hands of it all now, hasn’t he?” Thompson whispered.

“For the time being. Time comes, that him leaving Elliott behind to die will come back to haunt Custer. My sainted mother was one to say the raven always comes back to roost. They always do. Custer might’ve washed his hands of the whole grisly matter. But as much as he’ll scrub, Custer’ll know his hands will never come completely clean. Someday this’ll come back to haunt him.”

“Think he’ll
ever
be shet of it?” Thompson asked.

“No,” Myers answered. “Custer’ll carry the blood of young soldiers on his hands till his dying day.”

By first light that following morning the entire command of the Seventh Cavalry and Nineteenth Kansas Volunteers marched southeast down the Washita.

By midmorning, Custer’s scouts discovered that the Indian trail split into two directions. Moses Milner and the others sat atop their winded animals among the milling Osage and Kaw trackers, waiting for Ben Clark to bring Custer up.

“Sure wish you’d think about getting yourself a regulation mount, Joe.” Custer smiled.

Milner eyed him suspiciously, then spit a brown track to the snow. “You got something again’ mules?”

“Just figure a horse would outshine that cantankerous, wheezing bag of bones you ride.”

“General, you ain’t ever been held up on my account, have you?”

“Can’t say as I have, Joe.”

“Anytime you’d care to wager, I’ll give you handicap with you on your finest charger and me on the old gal here: I’ll beat you into camp before light falls from the sky, any day you choose.”

“What handicap would you be foolish enough to offer?” Custer appraised Milner’s mule more carefully.

“Why, General, I’ll give you a couple mile on me. Maybe even three—you think you’d need them?”

“Now, why would I need such a handicap, Joe?”

“Damn, General—but I’d give you more credit than you deserved, I suppose. You got yourself a handicap a’ready, if for no other reason than you’re mounted on a army horse!”

Milner spit into the snow as all the scouts laughed at his joke on Custer. Jack Corbin rode into view, whipping his winded pony into that circle of civilians surrounding Custer. He gallantly ripped off his greasy hat and swept it low in salute.

“Morning, General.”

“Mr. Corbin.”

“You was right, Joe,” Corbin declared.

“Ain’t many times I been found wrong, Corbin.” Milner’s tone slid out a bit on the caustic side. He removed the stubby pipe from his lips. “Why you so all-fired anxious to prove me wrong, anyhow?”

“You boys care to let me in on this?” Custer asked impatiently.

“Joe figured them villages would break up,” Corbin announced. “Sure enough, they did.”

“Why’d you figure them to split up, Joe?” Custer asked.

“Simple. First, there ain’t a good chance for the bands to find much game in winter. Easier hunting if they split up. Next, there’s always some Injuns wanna go off one way, and others wanna go off on another. Still more up and decide to try someplace new entirely. Last reason, General, Injuns is just Injuns.”

“What in thunder do you mean by that?”

“Simply ’cause Injuns choose to split up every time they got the army on their back trail.”

“I see.” Custer stared off to the southeast. “You able to say what the hostiles might do?”

“Couple camps moseyed down the Washita this direction,” Corbin answered. “The bigger passel of ’em headed due south.”

“Heading for the Red River, General,” Milner declared.

“You figure we could find a couple of villages marching down the Washita?” Custer said.

Corbin nodded. “That’s right. Imagine they’ll be heading straight for—”

“Fort Cobb,”
Custer finished Corbin’s sentence. “General Hazen and Fort Cobb, Indian Territory!” He slapped his thigh.

“You figure to run ’em down, General?” Milner smiled with the pipe between his yellowed teeth.

Custer said, “We’ll follow the hostiles straight to Fort Cobb. I’ll be busted before I’ll let those murderers hide
behind Hazen like a bunch of schoolboy brats behind their mama’s skirts.”

Corbin cleared his throat. “They’ve got a few days’ start on us already.”

Milner threw his head back, laughing. “Shit, young’un—ain’t I taught you any better? Village packed with women and kids and old folks ain’t able to move anywhere as quick as mounted cavalry.” He turned to Custer, finally removing the stub of his pipe from his mouth. “General, you follow me and Jack—we’ll get your command downriver to Fort Cobb as fast as your cavalry can march!”

“To Fort Cobb, sir.” Jack Corbin pulled his gray charger round, signaling the nearby Osages to follow him.

Custer turned to Milner. “It’ll be easy enough to bottle up one band of hostiles there at Fort Cobb. Then all I have to do is countermarch southwest to pick up the other trail you say the big bands are taking.”

“Pretty tidy, you ask me, General. You play this hand right, you can whup ’em all afore spring.”

The azure eyes twinkled. “Not just this one hand, Joe. I’m dealing the cards now. And these bands are about to lose the last call of the night!”

“You are Medicine Arrow?” Satanta asked of the large, gray-headed Cheyenne warrior seated across the fire from him.

“I am Medicine Arrow.” The deep voice filled Satanta’s lodge. “You are the one they call the White Bear?”

“Yes, I am Satanta. This is Lone Wolf,” he replied, indicating the older warrior beside him. “He is chief of a small band of Kiowa who follow the seasons with my people.”

“We know of Lone Wolf,” the Cheyenne leader stated. “My chiefs and warriors want to know if the Kiowa will join us in wiping out the soldiers of Yellow Hair before he can destroy any more sleeping villages.”

Satanta and Lone Wolf studied one another across the time of three breaths.

The younger Kiowa shook his head. “We have decided not to join you in making war on this Yellow Hair. We came here to the foot of these mountains to escape his soldiers. If your warriors want war with Yellow Hair, the Kiowa will leave this place for Hazen’s fort, the one the white men call Cobb. With Hazen we won’t have to worry about pony soldiers in the night.”

Medicine Arrow laughed so loudly it shook the lodge poles. When he finished, his granite eyes narrowed on his Kiowa hosts.

“I was a fool to ask Satanta and Lone Wolf to meet me here on the north fork of the Red River, here in the shadow of the Wichita mountains, after Black Kettle was killed and his village wiped from the face of the land.”

The words poured like poison from sneering lips. His cruel mouth was little more than a scar slashed across his dark face. Satanta sensed the coming sting of the Cheyenne’s rebuke.

“A fool I was to ask White Bear and Lone Wolf to join the Cheyenne, for now I see the Kiowa nation lay down and show its belly for the white dogs,” Medicine Arrow spat. “Like the runt of the litter, you cower before Yellow Hair even though he does not threaten your villages.”

“Our eyes saw the destruction brought by the Yellow Hair’s soldiers—”

“Silence!”
the Cheyenne roared.

The lodge packed with Kiowa and Cheyenne warriors stirred nervously. This was a bad thing, friends saying evil of friends. Perhaps, this trouble came by the white man’s evil.

“You Kiowa dogs cannot call yourselves warriors! Cheyenne Dog Soldiers will protect you as we protect our women. Or we can watch you destroyed, withering as the grass before the winter winds.”

Amid the silence of the lodge, Medicine Arrow held his bare palm over the flames, his eyes narrowing on Satanta and Lone Wolf, watching their reaction as he burned his own flesh. His wolfish grin grew bigger, until he removed his hand from the flame, showing the Kiowa his charred totem of bravery.

“There, my sacred little brothers! If I would burn my own hand, would I not destroy your camps and all therein if they offend me?”

The Cheyenne chief leapt to his feet, accompanied by the Dog Soldiers who joined him in this grand council of tribes.

“Run, Kiowa! Run! Hide behind your soldier chief who will protect you from Yellow Hair. Know that the mighty Cheyenne are not running. Nor will we hide from Yellow Hair. We stay the winter as we have for winters beyond count. When spring brings forth the buffalo for our hunters, we journey to the Llano Estacado in the south.”

Medicine Arrow glared down at the warriors clustered about Satanta and Lone Wolf. “Once a powerful nation, the Kiowa. Once our brothers in war, vowing to wipe the white man from the face of the land. Now a race of dogs tucking tails between their legs when the name of Yellow Hair is whispered.”

He kicked the fire pit, sending embers and burning wood scattering before the Kiowa’s feet. Sparks shot into the smoke hole overhead like summer’s fireflies.

“Do not worry for me, Kiowa brothers. Yellow Hair dares not attack Dog Soldiers. Worry only for yourselves. Proof of that lies rotting along the banks of the Washita. You have seen that the soldiers of Yellow Hair kill women.” He laughed, like the metallic scraping of knife blade on stone. “Shake, gutless Kiowa! For you are no better than squaws!”

Medicine Arrow swept from the lodge like a spring thunderstorm, followed by his tense warriors. Outside, the noise and bluster of their passing from camp faded, until the Kiowa sat in silence once more.

Satanta studied his old friends, the chiefs of the Kiowa bands. Brooding on what to say the way a toothless one chewed on boiled meat. His own son stood.

“Tsalante wishes to be heard?” Satanta said.

“Yes, Father. In my twenty summers the Kiowa have never been pressed between two forces as we are this winter.” He held up one hand. “We fear the pony soldiers of Yellow Hair, for they have wiped Black Kettle off the earth.” Tsalante listened to the murmurs of the old men as he brought up his other hand. “Over here we have the mighty Cheyenne, who would have us join their war on the soldiers. Like Yellow Hair, Medicine Arrow has the might to destroy our Kiowa villages.”

“Your son speaks with the wisdom of many winters,” Lone Wolf admitted sadly. “We are caught in between. With no place to go.”

“I cannot accept defeat,” Satanta said, wagging his head.

“It is true!” Lone Wolf argued. “Either we flee the jackal by running into the wolfs mouth, or we flee the wolf
and find ourselves caught in the jackal’s mouth. We have no choice!”

For a long time, Satanta stared at the flames dying near his feet. He finally sighed, straightened.

“Satanta has decided. As chief I must do what is best for my people. Not only what our warriors clamor for. Satanta does what is best for the women and children. The old ones. The sick ones who will not last the winter.”

“You are chief,” Lone Wolf replied. “Your word will stand.”

Satanta went on, “I tell you this, brothers. If Kiowa join with Cheyenne against Yellow Hair now, we would have the pony soldiers to fear.”

“This is true,” Lone Wolf answered while others muttered their agreement.

“But if we go to Fort Cobb and live in peace as the Yellow Hair wants, we have only to fear the wrath of this evil one called Medicine Arrow.”

“His Dog Soldiers are many!” Lone Wolf cried.

“They are few, while the pony soldiers who would crush us are like the stars overhead,” Satanta answered sadly. “Better to have the pony soldiers to protect us against the war-crazy Cheyenne—better that than live in fear of pony soldiers wiping our villages from the face of the earth.”

A day after the expedition left the battlefield, a harsh storm battered Custer’s command, dumping two more feet of fresh snow on the surrounding countryside. Hacking a path through the wilderness became an ordeal. Civilian teamsters struggled in the predawn darkness, chipping harness and tack out of the ice as they readied their wagons for the day’s march.

Brutal winds slashed at the men for two days. Civilian and soldier alike used axes, picks, and shovels to cut through frozen drifts blocking the trail or to chop ice from slippery creek banks.

On the fourth day the skies cleared as welcome, southerly winds breathed warmth across the land. At first the troopers hailed the warmer weather, until they found the red clay and snow turned to red sticky gumbo. Harder work than before. Custer employed more than two hundred troopers in clearing the narrow trail made by the fleeing Kiowa, hauling his heavy wagons through boggy meadows and windswept lowlands. Hour after hour the men hacked at the impenetrable undergrowth; the columns slogged through a quagmire sucking greedily at every wagon wheel, hoof, and boot.

While the command struggled crossing a sharp ravine on the morning of the seventeenth of December, the air rang with excited whoops. Corbin and Clark galloped into view, tearing through the scattered work details.

“You found something?” Custer piped eagerly, standing in his stirrups as the two scouts slid their horses to a halt.

“Found your Indians, General,” Ben Clark announced. “The bunch skedaddling to Fort Cobb.”

“What’re they up to now? Haven’t made it to Hazen, have they?” Custer rapid-fired his questions.

“Party of warriors on the trail ahead, waiting for us. I figure the Kiowa been watching us for some time.”

“By the gods of Abraham! Tell me something I don’t already know!”

“Sir … Injuns waiting under a flag of truce.”

Custer was speechless. He opened his mouth three times before any words broke free. “By God’s blood! Like
Lee himself at Appomattox Wood! Gentlemen—let’s parley with these Kiowa.”