Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 (26 page)

Custer remained silent, staring at his boots. For the first time in their long relationship, he couldn’t look Sheridan in the eye. “What is it you’d have me do, General?” His voice had that clear, controlled ring to it.

“From this day forward, you’ll never question a command given you, nor waver from it. Is that understood?”

“Understood, General.”

“Armstrong, can’t you see I need you to keep your nose
clean? If you botch things now, they’ll reassign you. I need you here with me.”

“Yessir.”

“There’s this matter of the Kiowa now, Custer.” Sheridan turned to his field desk, where he glanced at a slip of foolscap on which he had been scribbling some plans of operation. “We’ll talk with these Kiowa first.”

“Talk them into returning their prisoners?”

“If there are any left alive,” Sheridan growled. “I’d love to hang a few of those bastards for what they did to Mrs. Blinn and her boy.”

“From what you’ve told me, that would only get us in more trouble back east.”

“You’re learning, aren’t you?” Sheridan slapped a paternal hand on Custer’s shoulder. “For the time being, we’ll try talking with them. Surround the villages in the event our parley fails. You must exhaust all diplomatic means before using any firepower.”

“Diplomacy with murderers, sir?”

“That’s what Washington asks of us, Custer. You’re a soldier, and a soldier—”

“Follows orders.”

“I know to some it might seem futile,” Sheridan said. “But you concentrate on one thing and one thing only until this campaign’s over.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“The white captives these red bastards kidnapped. You remember them. When you eat and when you sleep. You think about those poor women and what they’re going through at the hands of the savages. And remember that it rests in your hands to free them. Destroying one village
after another won’t win you favor back in Washington. Freeing those captives will.”

“And Washington is the key to my promotion.”

Sheridan smiled that Irish smile of his. “Now you understand how the game’s played.”

“Got a good teacher in Philip H. Sheridan.”

“Before this winter campaign’s over, Custer—we’ll wrangle that promotion out of those bastards back east. We’ll make you colonel and get you your own regiment if we have to hog-tie President Grant himself.”

When Custer came face to face with the great Kiowa war chief Satanta, both men led armies itching for battle.

After deciding not to join Medicine Arrow, Satanta fumed at the arrogance of the Yellow Hair in following the Kiowa like a hunting dog trailing wounded, bleeding quarry, knowing full well those pony soldiers on his back trail were capable of destroying his villages at will.

On the other hand, Custer remained bitter, licking his own wounds. More than anything, he had wanted to capitalize on the Washita victory, taking the war into the Kiowa strongholds. No matter what any man might say about him, Custer had learned exactly what the Indian warrior understood best. Sheer might. War itself.

Blood was a common language understood by all peoples.

Custer’s horse pawed at the crusty ground.

“Joe—” His eyes found Milner. “Take Corbin, Clark, and Romero. Maybe the Mexican can help Clark interpret Kiowa for me.”

“What you got in mind, General?” Romero asked.

“Ride to the middle of the clearing and wait there.
Appears they brought their head men with them this morning. Go find out when I can parley with Satanta and the others.”

“Lookee there, will you?”

Custer whirled. From the far side of the clearing two warriors left the main body, heading down a short, gentle slope heading from the trees into the bottom of the bowl.

“Time to earn your pay, Joe.”

Milner grinned within his greasy beard. “Looks like the curtain’s going up on this road show at last, General. ’Bout damned time.”

Custer gazed at the two crossing the windswept meadow. “Couldn’t agree more.”

“I think it best you send just two of us out to meet them fellas,” Milner advised sullenly.

“Because they’ve sent two?”

“Right.” Milner nodded. “Make a good show of the soldier chief’s intentions.”

“All right.” Custer sighed. “Joe, looks like you and Romero will be the ones. Go find out when I can meet with the chiefs.”

“They’ll keep us as far away from their village as they can, General,” Romero said. “Won’t be anxious to talk to you with their women and kids around.”

“That’s fine with me.” Custer glanced over his shoulder to check on his troops snaking their way down the river some distance behind his advance party. “We won’t push any farther till our command can support us.”

Better than a mile back, those long, dark columns of Seventh Cavalry and Nineteenth Kansas Volunteers had begun to reach the high ground north of the river. They made an impressive show of it snaking against the white
tableland. Every bit as impressive, however, were the warriors backing the two delegates descending into the frosty meadow.

“Better than five hundred warriors, by my count, General,” Clark said.

Back and forth across the hills loped the Kiowa decked out in full war regalia. Their songs of war and profane challenge crackled through the air, which was heavy with the excitement of impending battle. Waving aloft their rifles and lances, bows and shields, even a blind man could tell the young warriors weren’t the least bit interested in suing for peace.

What really concerned Custer were those warriors hanging back among the trees ringing the meadow. With him now were enough men to make a good stand of it should the need suddenly arise: Lieutenant Pepoon’s fifty-man squad of civilians, Osage, and Kaw scouts, every man-jack of them armed and expecting a surprise if not outright treachery from the Kiowa. Captains Myers and Yates waited with Lieutenant Tom Custer. And beside the younger Custer sat reporter DeBenneville Randolph Keim, never straying far from center stage on Custer’s winter campaign.

Custer settled on his McClellan saddle as his scouts reined up before the two warriors. All four moved their arms and hands, conversing in prairie sign.

In less than a minute, the scouts headed back toward Custer’s group at a lope.

“I don’t like the looks of that, General,” Clark said.

“What’s gone wrong, Ben?”

“Maybe nothing at all, General. Just figure they should’ve talked longer.”

“By Jupiter!” Custer growled. “The truce break down?
Is that why they’re coming back here at a gallop?” Custer wheeled, feeling the hairs prick along the back of his neck. “Cover ’em, men! Watch the bloody trees. I don’t like the smell of this.”

Behind him rose the familiar clatter of men checking the loads in their weapons, unsnapping the mule-eared holsters, resettling their cold rumps on their colder saddles. Itchy. Itchier still as the two scouts came skidding back beside Custer.

“You won’t believe this, General!” Milner yelled, yanking his mule up in a snowy cascade.

“Don’t try me, Milner! I’m in no mood for your humor.”

“Those two back there seem upset with you,” Romero explained. “They weren’t about to talk with us. Want to see the pony soldier chief himself.”

“Smells like a trap, Autie,” Tom Custer said, inching closer. “Look at ’em. Just laying for you, waiting to get you in their claws.”

Custer glanced at his younger brother. “Does have the foul smell of a trap, doesn’t it, Tom?” Then he looked at Milner and Romero. “Why’re you two grinning like coon hounds on the scent?”

“Them red niggers ain’t planning no ambush, General,” Milner answered.

“With my own eyes I can see two warriors sitting there as bait for me—”

“Them two ain’t no everyday warriors, General,” Milner interrupted. That’s the head boys of the Kiowa nation sitting out there, waiting to talk with you personal. That’s ol’ Satanta and Lone Wolf themselves!”

All eyes in Custer’s group focused on the two horsemen in the center of the snowy bowl. One of the Indian ponies
pawed at the frozen ground anxiously. Its rider brought the pony under control.

“Lieutenant Colonel Crosby?”

“Yes?” The older officer, dressed in blue and a buffalo-hide greatcoat, nudged his horse forward beside Custer. Sheridan’s aide-de-camp was, as always, impeccably attired. Regulation army.

“It would please me if you came along with me to meet these warrior chiefs as General Sheridan’s personal emissary.”

J. Schuyler Crosby studied the pair of Indians. “Colonel Custer, believe me—it’d be an honor, sir.”

“Very good. Mr. Keim? Care to go along? Recording first-hand what occurs for your readers back east?”

Bobbing his head eagerly, the young newspaperman tapped heels to his mount, joining Romero. “You’ll never have to ask a question like that twice, General Custer!”

“Fine.” Custer let his eyes touch every one of those who would accompany him into the meadow. “Gentlemen, be aware that our lives might be at forfeit in but a twinkling of an eye. Check your weapons. Have them ready. Understood?”

Custer set off. Caught by surprise with his dramatic departure, Crosby and Keim dashed behind Custer, while Romero and Milner rode the flanks.

At long last he had come face to face with two of the bloodiest warriors on the southern plains.

“General,” Milner whispered as they clattered to a halt, “these boys got a reputation that’s smellier than a Comanche’s breechclout.”

“We’ll pay heed, Mr. Milner,” Custer replied, blue eyes
searching the faces before him for signs of treachery or truth.

Satanta bore a hawkish countenance, his eyes shaded by a heavy, knitted brow, his dark face split by a carved beak that gave him the appearance of a predator. Beside him sat Lone Wolf, a little older in years perhaps, but no less frightening in appearance. Both copper faces were surrounded by straight, raven hair falling well past shoulders wrapped in blankets. Their dark glinting eyes gazed past Custer’s shabby, trail-worn appearance, attentive to the small party gathered behind the Seventh’s commander.

Satanta flashed a wide smile that showed most of his teeth as he nudged his pony past Custer, bringing up his right hand … presenting his big bare paw to Sheridan’s uniformed aide. To the Kiowa’s way of thinking, one dressed in this bright blue uniform and wool cloak dripping with glittering gold braid and festooned with brass buttons had to be the soldier chief.

The gesture caught Crosby by surprise. Dumbfounded and unsteady under pressure, Crosby shook his head violently, refusing to take Satanta’s hand. He began to stammer, trying ineptly to tell the chief that he was not the soldier chief. A garbled hodgepodge of tongue-tied words dribbled past his lips.

“I’m not—General Custer—why can’t he understand—”

Offended, Satanta angrily jerked his hand back at Crosby’s botched refusal. He gazed at his hand as if told he carried the pox. Then he spit on the ground with a sneer.

Custer realized the danger in embarrassing the Kiowa chief. From the corner of one eye he watched Lone Wolf ease his pony to the left, away from possible gunfire. Away
from the impetutous Satanta. In the trees beyond, Kiowa warriors made their first bold forays from the shade, inching closer to their chiefs.

It didn’t take a cook to know someone had just thrown some sand in the soup.

“Me Kiowa!” Satanta roared in a tree-ringing growl, banging his chest with a huge ham hock of a fist he had offered Crosby.

“Romero!” Custer called out. “Tell this fellow he picked the wrong man for a chief—and tell him fast!”

“This scared one is not the chief,” the Mexican explained.

Again the chief glared at the shaken Crosby. “So you say, Indian-talker. Tell Satanta who is leader of the soldiers who trample across Kiowa land. Who among these poorly dressed hairy-faces claims to be the mighty soldier chief?”

“This one,” Romero answered, gesturing. “He who wears a buffalo coat, beside me.”

Satanta gave Custer nothing more than a cursory going over before he glowered at Romero.

“Stupid Indian-talker! You take Satanta for a fool, don’t you? This is no pony soldier chief. Hear me now! Satanta demands you bring me the pony chief who destroyed Black Kettle’s village. He and he only I wish to meet. Not this imposter!”

“I swear you are looking at the pony soldier chief,” Romero persisted. Suddenly he remembered something that might convince Satanta. “This one in the buffalo coat is well known on the plains. From the land of the winter winds south to the land of the Summer Maker. He is known to all great warriors.”

“Who is this?” Satanta demanded, glaring at Romero.

“Yellow Hair!”

Two sets of dark obsidian eyes studied the soldier chief.

“Yellow Hair truly sits before us?” Lone Wolf broke the silence at last, speaking to Romero.

“He does.” Romero nodded.

“The soldier chief who left Black Kettle’s village an ash heap?”

Again Romero nodded.

“I would meet this Yellow Hair,” Satanta remarked. “His heart must surely be brave to ride into this meadow when my warriors have it surrounded.”

Romero turned to Custer. “They understand you’re chief of this outfit. Satanta figures your heart must be pretty brave to be here in this meadow when he’s got his warriors surrounding it.”

Without a word, Custer inched forward, halting his mount nose to nose with Satanta’s smaller pony. “Tell the chiefs I do have a brave heart. If they intend to start something, they better do it now while they have the chance to slaughter us.”

“General,” Romero’s voice rose, “you really want me to tell these chiefs you’re calling their bluff?”

“No. Just tell them I don’t believe they have us surrounded. I have no fear of their treachery, for they’ll soon see my cavalry come up behind us.”

“Yellow Hair says his heart is strong. He is not afraid, for he does not believe you have him surrounded.”

Like quick black birds, four dark eyes darted left and right, finding their warriors circling the meadow.

“Yellow Hair comes from the north, the land your warriors raided. Many soldiers follow Yellow Hair.”

Satanta glowered for a moment, studying the soldier
chief. Then surprisingly his countenance completely changed. Flashing a broad smile at Custer, he spoke to Romero. “Does Yellow Hair not enjoy a good joke, Indian-talker?”