Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 (35 page)

Moylan glanced back at the swelling columns of blue. “Shouldn’t we wait until the troops come up and they can go to the hostile camp with us? Hard Rope says there’s bound to be more warriors than you can count.”

“Mr. Moylan, the Seventh Cavalry will never be intimidated by a large force of warriors. Mere numbers are meaningless. To your grave I want you to remember it takes only one Indian to kill a soldier who’s lost his courage.”

“Yessir.”

“Romero, give my message to Myers, and stay with him.”

Custer watched the interpreter wheel and gallop off into the sparkling, frosty light of midday. He turned to the Cheyenne chief.

“Medicine Arrow, we will go with you to your lodge now—to talk of peace, or war … between our peoples.”

L
IEUTENANT
Myles Moylan watched Medicine Arrow wheel his pony about, parting the warriors in a V like a beaver’s nose breaking the glassy surface of a high-country pond. Moylan gulped, not sure what he was following Custer into.

An eleven-year veteran from Massachusetts, Moylan had first served with the Second Dragoons where he had risen to rank of sergeant by 1863. Later that year when he had been transferred to the Fifth Cavalry and been given a commission, the young Yankee was dismissed from the service for some unnamed and impetuous act. Under a false name, Moylan turned around and reenlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, where he fought out the rest of the war, earning a brevet major for heroism. When the Seventh Cavalry was formed in 1866, Moylan was appointed its first sergeant major. Custer soon took a liking to the scrappy Irishman and commissioned Moylan as first lieutenant. While the rest of the officers did not appreciate Moylan’s “left-hand” promotion. Custer himself took young Myles
under his wing, where with Tom Custer and Billy Cooke he became part of Custer’s first inner circle.

As the warriors parted for Medicine Arrow, Moylan recognized the old Cheyenne woman, the one called Mahwissa. Wrapped in a leaf-green blanket atop her gray pony, Mahwissa intently watched the parley in the meadow.

Custer halted at her side, a forced smile on his lips. “You have fared well with your people.”

“You have learned some Cheyenne talk,” she replied.

“I have a good teacher.”

“How is Monaseetah?” she asked.

“She is well. Monaseetah rides with us.” Custer threw a thumb to indicate the advancing cavalry and wagons.

“She has a child?”

“A son. Born the first week of the Moon of the Seven Cold Nights.”

“Will he have a brother, Yellow Hair? Will you give Monaseetah a child of your own? She is your woman.”

“Monaseetah is not my woman,” he stammered, his eyes searching the faces of the curious warriors.

Mahwissa’s wrinkled lips curled. “It is true no black-robe waved his hand over your marriage. Yet the Everywhere Spirit knows you took Monaseetah as your wife. She is fertile like the prairie soil in spring. It is not yours to decide, Yellow Hair. The Everywhere Spirit will use you in His way. Not even the great
Hiestzi
can change that.”

Agitated, Custer glanced at her belt, anxious to change the subject of this conversation. “You have my knife. The knife I let you carry to visit your people.”

“Yes.” She giggled, pulling aside her blanket to expose
the scabbard at her belt. Mahwissa had trimmed it with small, tinkling tin cones and strips of red cloth.

“You decorated it for me. I thank you.” Custer extended his hand.

“No longer is this your knife.” She closed her blanket.

For a moment Custer was speechless. “I see,” he finally replied, straightening in the saddle. Custer gazed at the old chief. “Tell me, is Medicine Arrow like you, Mahwissa? Is he a liar too? I gave you warm food to fill your belly. A blanket for your back. Yet now you steal my knife. Is the word of the Cheyenne an empty sound?”

Mahwissa threw her head back, cackling. “Do not talk to me of lies between our people, Yellow Hair. You offered food and I ate. You gave me a blanket and I slept. You gave me a pony and sent me back to my people. I stayed. Would you not remain with your people?”

“I asked you to help—”

“Yellow Hair, hear me! I would sooner starve in freedom with my people than live with a full stomach as your prisoner. Though I would shiver at night without your blankets, I would sooner let my bones freeze and my flesh rot in freedom than live my years beneath your warm blankets.”

Moylan watched Custer draw in his shoulders at the tone of her words as if flinching at a painful wound. Without knowing what was said, he sensed the air sour between Custer and the woman. And Moylan knew as few others would exactly how shame stung Custer like a slap in the face.

“I will remember, Mahwissa,” he whispered. “You spit in my outstretched hand, like an ungrateful dog.”

“No longer will you treat me like a dog, Yellow Hair,” she said with a sneer.

Custer gazed at the amused faces of the onlookers. “Sadly, it will not be you, nor this Medicine Arrow, who will suffer. Instead, the Cheyenne of the future will pay for your stupidity here today. Listen! You can hear the Cheyenne of winters to come—hear their keening on the prairie winds. Listen! I hear Cheyenne children crying, growing weak with empty stomachs. Fathers killed by soldiers. Mothers chased into the wilderness to starve. Listen to the winds of the future!”

Custer straightened in the saddle, signaling Moylan to follow. Medicine Arrow studied the renowned Yellow Hair as he rode up, as if appraising the portent of the moment.

Written on both faces Moylan saw the realization that they were about to play out a drama neither one had the power to stop. Two men brought here to confront each other, setting in motion the gears of some machinery that would grind inexorably for eight more years.

Something in the haughty way the old chief sat on his horse told Myles that Medicine Arrow had made his choice—to defend his people and their ancient nomadic way of life.

Moylan studied Custer as he and the commander drew closer to the Cheyenne villages on the Sweetwater, wondering if Custer had learned that all his kindness had gone for naught. Moylan sensed something tighten, shrivel and die in Custer back there when Mahwissa shamed him.

With the set to his commander’s jaw, Moylan realized George Armstrong Custer finally accepted the fact that the Indian respected only a pony soldier who was tough and fearless, a soldier as possessed in following his own vision of
personal glory as were the Indian warriors who rode against him. Near the center of the sprawling, bustling village, Medicine Arrow halted in the midst of a large crowd come to see the great Yellow Hair.

Boys stepped up to take the reins from Medicine Arrow as he slid from his pony. Others came to lead the soldier horses away. The war chief ducked into his lodge. At the front stood two short tripods. The first held a war shield. From the second hung a bow and quiver stuffed with arrows.

Custer ducked into the close warmth of the lodge, the adjutant on his heels. The chief gestured for Moylan to have a seat on the robes by the door.

Medicine Arrow settled at the rear of the lodge, showing Custer to sit at his right hand. He muttered briefly to the gray-headed woman busy at the fire. Without a word she scurried like a gray spider from the lodge.

“My woman is told to bring the camp crier. He will walk the circle of our camps, calling the chiefs and counselors to join us in our talk. The fire warms our cold bones while we wait. When all are here, we listen to what lies in each other’s hearts.”

Custer turned to Moylan. “Myles, see how they’ve placed me at the right hand of the chief himself, the seat of honor.”

One by one the chiefs, and counselors entered, taking their respective seats in the circle. Each plopped down on the dark robes like winter owls around the cozy warmth of the fire.

“Myles,” Custer whispered, “you see this ancient one here?” He gestured to the wizened Indian at his right, his face carved with the passing of many winters. “Probably a
medicine man among these people. One of their feared shamans. Seems I’m flanked by two powerful men among the Cheyenne. You’re privy to a momentous occasion, Mr. Moylan. The tribe is about to pay me a great honor.”

Custer swept his arm about. “Crude paintings on the buffalo-hide wall. Figures representing the stories of Medicine Arrow’s life. Deeds in peace and war. Rawhide parcels hung from the poles. Some hold articles of dress. Others might contain rock and feathers, ashes or bone—all part of Medicine Arrow’s personal magic.”

Directly behind his head, Custer pointed out a long bundle wrapped in the skin of a coyote’s winter hide. From it hung fringe. Porcupine quillwork decorated both red and blue trade cloth wrapping the ends of the bundle. “This must be some magical container—something signifying the chiefs rank among his people. An esteemed honor for a man to sit beneath the bundle.”

What Custer could not know was just how wrong he could be.

For a man to be given a seat at the right hand of the chief was disgrace enough. Yet it was a mild rebuke compared to the Cheyenne giving him this place beneath the sacred bundle. Its presence over his head during this council marked how momentously serious these proceedings were viewed by the Cheyenne.

Years before, when Rock Forehead had been chosen as the keeper of that sacred bundle by the Southern Cheyenne, he had taken his new name. Legend had it the bundle’s Medicine Arrows had been presented by the Everywhere Spirit to a Cheyenne man in the long before as a gift to a chosen people. Wrapped in a wide strip of winter-gray fur lay the four arrows: two shafts painted
crimson, symbolizing a continued abundance of food for the Cheyenne people, the second pair painted black to signify the tribe’s continued victory in war.

By placing the soldier chief they called Yellow Hair beneath their sacred arrows, the Cheyenne had placed George Armstrong Custer on trial.

While Custer admired the red-and-black-dyed forked stick from which the sacred bundle hung, the last guests stooped into the lodge. The elkskin flap slid over the doorway.

The old man to Custer’s right drew a long buckskin bag into his lap. From this beaded bag he pulled a pipestem as big around as a walking stick, from which hung a decorative array of war-eagle feathers and winter-white ermine skins. To the end of this stem the chief attached a crimson pipestone bowl, inlaid with pewter and rubbed with bear grease to reflect every dancing flame of the fire.

At the old man’s waist hung a smaller pouch. From it he drew a handful of willow bark and tobacco mixture, which he poured on a square piece of red cloth on the ground before him. Herbs and leaves were added, then stuffed into the huge pipe bowl. During the ritual, the old one droned an ancient prayer, asking that with the smoking of the pipe this day would come truth from every tongue.

The old medicine man surprised Custer, grabbing his wrist. The old man closed his rheumy eyes and turned his face toward the smoke hole above, placing the soldier chiefs hand over his heart while he murmured his toothless prayers.

Finished, he dropped Custer’s hand, next presenting the long pipestem to the heavens and earth, then to the four winds of life. With no warning, the old man placed the
mouthpiece against Custer’s lips as he held a coal over the pipe bowl. The soldier chief drew in a mouthful of the fragrant smoke, steeling himself against the waves of nauseau rolling over him. Never had he used tobacco. Even the smell of it on a man’s breath could turn him green.

The shaman pulled the mouthpiece from Custer’s lips, once again placing the soldier chiefs hand over his heart. Muttering another prayer, he raised Custer’s hand aloft, shaking it while the others repeated his prayer.

Over the next quarter-hour the soldier chief smoked alone, emptying the entire bowl. Through it all, the Cheyenne studied him for any sign of weakness. Medicine Arrow himself held the yard-long pipestem while the shaman cradled the bowl. The chief explained why Custer smoked alone.

“Yellow Hair, you stand before the Cheyenne people to speak the truth—or all your soldiers will be killed for your deceit. If your tongue is not straight, if your words do not show what truly rests in your heart, Yellow Hair and all his soldiers will die together, left for the buzzards to pick their bones clean beneath the winds of summers yet to come.”

At Medicine Arrow’s signal, the shaman refilled and lit the huge pipe bowl, starting it on its journey around the lodge. Four times it passed each man. With four prayers, every man smoked. With its last circle, Medicine Arrow held the pipe bowl against Custer’s dusty boots, the long stem pointed heavenward.

“The wise counselors of the Southern Cheyenne have smoked this pipe. Their breath is like their prayers, forever on the winds to touch the heart of the Everywhere Spirit.”

Custer smiled through the speech, wishing he had Romero at his side. From the start of their council, the Cheyenne had refused to use sign language. The soldier
chief contented himself with catching a word here and there.

How he ached to ask about the white girls, though he decided not to press the subject for the moment. There would be time when the villages were surrounded. When there was no chance for the Cheyenne to kill their captives. One ill-timed word now, and it would spell a death sentence for those women.

“Our prayers to the Everywhere Winds ask that the soldier chief speak the truth to us,” Medicine Arrow explained. “Evil will follow you all your days, that evil will fall to your sons, and to the sons of your sons, if your tongue does not speak true.”

Custer ran a raw tongue around his foul-tasting mouth.

“You are a most treacherous one, oh Creeping Panther. You slink in the night to surround a winter village of sleeping women and children. Hear me, white man!” Medicine Arrow took a thin willow twig, with it loosening the dead ash in the pipe bowl.

“This deadly curse I lay on you and your sons, and on all the sons of your sons, a curse made powerful many times over from the lips of this council.”