Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 (40 page)

It moves me to once again think of Daniel’s poor sister, Anna Belle. Married but a month before she was brutally wrenched from the arms of her wounded husband.

The second captive is Miss Judith White, a year younger than Mrs. Morgan, and taken a month before Anna Belle’s capture.

Every evening round the fire at Mrs. McNeil’s tent, hundreds of young soldiers and volunteers gather to hear their distressing stories. Traded among the Indians. Beaten by jealous Cheyenne harpies. Countless abuses. And an ill-fated attempt to escape.

No eye was found dry when the two described their first meeting in the hostile camp. How great must have been their joy amid such suffering, fear, and outrage. When one owner grew tired of dallying with his captive, he sold her to another, who misused the women in the most unspeakable manner.

From the moment of their first meeting, the two laid plans for escape. So, trusting to Providence one night, they
traveled for hours in a northerly direction. They had reached the ruts of a wagon road and were congratulating themselves when a bullet whistled past their heads. To their horror, their late captor rode up in pursuit.

That very next day he separated them by selling one. From that moment the two have been apart, until brought together on the back of a single pony and sent out to freedom.

What victories we win in this war seem so small—they pale in comparison—before this sweet victory of securing freedom for these citizens!

It had not been dark long that first evening of freedom when the Cheyenne sent a delegation to me, demanding the release of their three chiefs. I reminded them I would not free their leaders until the tribe returned to the reservation near Camp Supply.

The delegation left my quarters quite upset, reminding Romero of some curse one of their evil, old wizards of the tribe had laid about my shoulders. One should only fear such poppycock if one believes in poppycock!

Seems I’ve fallen victim to one Medicine Arrow, the culprit who has (they claim) cursed my command with total annihilation. Romero himself became agitated, saying I should take it seriously. I find such primitive beliefs amusing at best.

With our camp grown quiet, a second delegation called for Yellow Hair. Seeing I would not bend my demands, they finally promised that as soon as their ponies were fit to travel, their villages would proceed to Camp Supply, abandoning the warpath forever.

With this happy termination to our struggles here, we set out in the morning for Camp Supply. If I were to bring a
true peace to this southern frontier, it would prove more than a mere feather in my cap, Libbie. Our friend Philip is seeing to promotion and a regiment of my own with President Grant himself!

Lt. Moylan calls me now for some duty, so I scribble as fast as possible. As always, my prayers are with you, sweet Libbie. May God Himself watch over you. Please remember me in your prayers too, Dear Heart. Perhaps I am in all the more need of your prayers.

Pray you forgive me of my past indiscretions, to forever hold your Bo dearest in your heart.

This wilderness lures me as seductively as any siren.

I will not fail you, dear one.

By midmorning of 22 March, Custer marched his troops north, following the Sweetwater.

After but three miles, they reached the meadow where the Cheyenne villages had stood until evacuated in fear of attack. Another scene of frantic, hasty departure. Stuffed in the forks of the skeletal trees stood enough lodge poles to outfit more than two hundred lodges. These the soldiers set afire, feeding the blazes with the other property left behind—bows, axes, robes, and blankets abandoned in the rush.

Climbing into the hills north of the Sweetwater, Custer turned to watch the leaden, oily smoke claw at the leaden sky. Once again, Yellow Hair left behind only the charred, smoking ruins of a village, and the scattered, bloody carcasses of those ponies abandoned by the fleeing Cheyenne.

As the jangle of saddle gear and wagon harness faded to the north, a wilderness silence returned to the Sweetwater.
The stream’s happy chatter mingled with the drone of green bottle flies buzzing over the bloating carcasses abandoned by both races of escaping warriors.

Two days later, Custer’s advance guard rounded a point of timber in a wide bend of the Washita, bumping into a sprawling camp of horses, wagons, and soldiers. Assigned by Sheridan to await the Seventh’s return, these two companies had fared far better than those who had marched into the wilderness behind Custer.

To Custer’s weary cavalry, these commissary troops appeared strange to the eye. Their bodies looked puffy, even swollen. Rosy cheeks chubby. Eyes bulging in clean faces. To top if off, Captain Henry Inman’s troops even wore bright blue uniforms.

Custer’s cavalry finally realized the strange malady afflicting the Washita troops: Inman’s soldiers hadn’t been starved and used to the quick.

Since leaving Camp Supply last December, the men of the Seventh Cavalry had undergone subtle changes that no man among them had noticed. Months of busting trails through the wilderness, poor rations, and medical infirmities had taken their toll. Faces gone skeletal. Uniforms now greasy rags.

While some of Custer’s troops ran, most limped painfully into that Washita campground. What a sight were those rows of cheery mess fires, each banked by clean utensils and sides of bacon. Everywhere lay half-empty hardtack boxes, each one surrounded by Custer’s men. Ravenous soldiers ripped at half-cooked sides of bacon, grease dripping down their dirty, bearded chins.

“General Custer!”

Custer turned slowly. Striding his way came the stout quartermaster corps’ captain. Custer presented his hand.

“Inman! Dear God, it’s good to see you!”

“From the looks of it, you’ve had a deuce of a time!” Inman rattled Custer’s arm like a water pump handle.

“Nowhere near what it might’ve been,” Custer replied, “had the Cheyenne decided to run, forcing us to pursue. I see you’ve fared well.”

“Most of us, General.”

“Most?”

“Yes,” Inman answered, sighting his duty sergeant. “Lewis! Coffee here, quick!”

“Sit here, sir,” Inman directed, indicating a downed cottonwood trunk. “We’ll have your animal watered and fed. Oats.”

“Oats?” Custer moaned. “It’s been so long since our stock had grain.”

“You’ve been through the grinder, sir.”

“Yes,” Custer murmured. “This does feel good. Getting out of that blasted saddle. Feels like I’ve lost most of my natural padding the last few months!”

“I’m amazed you still have your spirits about you, General. We’ll put some meat on those bones of yours soon enough. Ah, here comes your coffee. Drink it while I have some hardtack and salt pork brought over.”

Custer watched the sergeant scurry off to a mess fire while he sipped at the scalding, heady potion an army man generously called coffee.

“I lost four couriers,” Inman explained. “Two were civilian scouts Sheridan left here on his way north. The other two were our enlisted.”

Custer squinted into the middle distance. “Couriers?”

“Not sure what happened to three of them. Found only one body.”

“Assume the worst.”

“One of my patrols found a pair of ripped pantaloons. Civilian pants covered with blood. Savages had themselves quite a field day with that boy. My patrol searched the area, coming up with a bullet-riddled mackinaw, a coat one of our riders wore.”

“That’s all you found?”

Inman shook his head. “Wasn’t long before the men spotted a flock of crows and turkey buzzards squawking over their bloody meal and half a dozen wolves.”

Custer stared at him vacantly. “The bodies?”

“By following a line of spent cartridges, we figured the scout had his horse shot out from under him. Made a dash for it on foot, into the thick timber, where he made a stand. Found his courier pouch riddled with holes. Blood on everything. Letters scattered through the buckbrush. Even scraps of the reporter’s stories.”

“Did you save those?”

“Saved everything we found.”

“Good. We’ll take the letters back to Hays. And Keim’s stories will reach the New York
Herald.
More than ever, now, I want the world to know these men have gone through more than four months of hell.”

Inman coughed, rising, “I suggest you and your men rest here for a few days. Eat decent meals. Sleep in tents again, beneath clean blankets. Before we push on to Camp Supply, then the final leg of our return.”

“Fort Hays. Perhaps you’re right.”

To Custer, all that seemed so far away, Kansas and the new headquarters for his Seventh Cavalry.

And … Libbie.

When should I have her come west? To Hays
? With reddened, gritty eyes, he stared into the distance.
Should I delay her departure from Monroe until I settle matters with Monaseetah?

“What say you, General? Rest for the men, sir?”

“Of course, Captain. Two days—then back on the trail.” Custer rose unsteadily from the cottonwood stump. “Two days should prove about right.”

Inman watched Custer wander off, stopping here and there to shake hands with his bony troops, joking now of their endurance and privation, congratulating all for a job well done in the wilderness. Thanking them for those sacrifices and burdens borne as cheerfully as any soldier in any war had ever marched through a winter of hell, and returned.

On he walked, talking to all, teasing those who would laugh, consoling those who couldn’t.

And at every fire, he reminded his men exactly how he felt to ride at the head of the best horse soldiers the world had ever known, or was likely to know—the U.S. Seventh Cavalry.

On the morning of the twenty-seventh, Custer led his troops out of the valley of the Washita for the last time, on their way home.

Five days later, when the columns were still a few miles from Camp Supply, Custer was greeted by a courier dispatched by Sheridan, with word that Grant and Sherman had summoned the general to Washington City, and giving full command of the base camp over to George Armstrong Custer.

As the last few miles were crossed, he devoured the
dispatches Sheridan left for his return: orders, disbursements, assignments—all quite boring and routine until he came across two items, the first from Washington City itself, dated months ago.

Bitter tears welled in his eyes.

Who the hell does this pompous ass think he is
, Custer thought,
singling men out for special mention over and above others who’ve suffered just as much as any? Damn his bloody hide! Damn every one of those puffed-up Washington poltroons who wave their magic wands over the army’s head, pulling strings, making the generals jump!

He swiped at his dribbling nose, staring into the bright sun.

To make heros of some … leaving the rest as common soldiers. There’s not a man riding out of the wilderness behind me who can’t be called a hero! Not a single man of these who can’t ride up the hill to the halls of Congress to receive his medal for valor in the face of the enemy, while those reeky bureaucrats tremble and quake in the face of any criticism.

He crumbled Schofield’s telegram, stuffing it inside his coat. Then he found a sealed envelope with his name written on it, in Sheridan’s familiar scrawl, dated the 2 of March.

Custer’s eyes smarted as he sensed the kinship he shared with Sheridan. Knowing Sheridan would not let him down. Knowing, one day, he would command his own regiment.

Washington City needs strong men … able men … men unafraid of taking a stand for what’s right and just
, he told himself.
Someone who’ll bring some sense and order to the frontier, instead of fanning the flames of war from afar. Someone who’ll do more than line the pockets of family and friends with trading contracts on the reservations … while the tribes starve, or wander off their lands in search of food for the empty bellies of their children.

A spring breeze nudged the dirty, unkempt beard he had
worn all winter. He scratched it, thinking he’d shave, once warm weather arrived.

Custer realized there would long be a need for good soldiers, officers, thinking men.
More than ever, this Republic needs a man of vision
, he thought.
A man of action. Someone who will bring about a change on the frontier.

Custer stuffed Sheridan’s letter inside his tunic and raised his face to the warming sun of a new season. A sun that would bring rebirth to the land.

My days aren’t numbered … far from it! My efforts here have only begun to bear fruit.

From the crest of that hill overlooking Camp Supply, Custer stared down into the valley of the Beaver and Wolf Creeks, both shimmering like a pair of silver ribbons beneath a dazzling sun—a sun that shone no less brightly on George Armstrong Custer.