The rain quit, the ground dried, and the cavalrymen clipped along, their excellent band striking up pleasant tunes. Since nobody was bringing him fresh meat, Colonel Stanley ate the same rations his soldiers ate.
Shillaber and Plenty Cuts were drinking coffee at their fire while, sitting cross-legged, Kellogg turned his notes into an article that would go with the morning courier. Behind the column of heat and embers, the sky was splashed with stars.
Tom Custer emerged from the smoke. In the firelight the scar on his cheek was deep and moody. “Major Shillaber. ” Custer hunkered and put hands to the fire. He emptied Kellogg’s coffee and refilled the reporter’s cup from his flask.
“Something we can do for you, Captain?” Shillaber asked.
Tom Custer sipped and ran his tongue around his lips. Smiling, he turned to Plenty Cuts. “I been thinkin’.” He laughed. “Mostly I leave thinkin’ to my brother. You know what he told me once? He said I’d make a better general than him. How ’bout that? You seem familiar. Don’t I know you from somewhere? Fort Sills? The Washita?” He chuckled. “You kin to my brother’s cook?”
Plenty Cuts’s eyes reflected the firelight.
“Or maybe you’re her husband? You are married? You have the worn-out look of a married man. Nigger or squaw?”
“Suppose my wife is white?”
Tom Custer sputtered into the fire. He coughed and wiped his mouth. “God Damn, ain’t you the one. Ain’t you the one! Damned if you ain’t!” He wiped the laugh off his mouth and got to his feet, pointing. “I’m keepin’ my eye on you.”
After he left, Kellogg asked breathlessly, “He really doesn’t remember you, Top. Did you really knock him down? What will you do if he recognizes you?”
“Knock him down again.”
TIRED OF WAITING every morning until Custer’s stove was cool enough to load, Colonel Stanley informed that officer army ambulances were for sick or wounded soldiers, not cookstoves. The next morning, the expedition waited until the stove cooled and was loaded into a Northern Pacific wagon.
Soldiers soaked their salt pork and hardtack in alkali water. Those with money bought the sutler’s tinned peaches and tomatoes.
It was eighty-five degrees during the day, forty at night. Sometimes before the poker players broke up, they sang “Annie Laurie” or “Drink to Me Only” or “The Lost Chord” under a black sky with so many stars it looked like a tin plate punctured by birdshot.
Plenty Cuts was staring into a dying fire when Shillaber hunkered beside him.
“Win tonight?” Plenty Cuts asked.
“Them pony boys can’t play poker.” Shillaber yawned and stretched. When he lit his cigar, his match flare extinguished the darkness.
Plenty Cuts said, “Makes a man think, night like this.”
“Don’t know that I care to think.”
“I was thinkin’ about baby Tazoo.”
“Why the hell did you name your daughter after that murdering savage?”
“Tazoo was a Santee hero.”
Shillaber puffed on his cigar. “Heard from She Goes Before?”
Plenty Cuts didn’t reply right away. “Nary a word. She hates me bein’ on this expedition. Thinks I’m betraying her people.”
“Hell, Top. You’re no Lakota.”
“She thinks I ought to be.” He sorted through memories. “Back in ’64, I had a friend whose woman quit lovin’ him. Jesse Burns was the sorrowfulest man in the United States Army. So I say to him, I say, ‘Jesse, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.’ ” He sneezed when Shillaber’s cigar smoke tickled his nostrils.
“So,” Shillaber asked, “are there?”
“Not so many as I thought.”
THE NORTHERN PACIFIC crew shot elevations and determined gentle grades through the badlands’ arid pinnacles. Shillaber’s scouts found no fresh indian sign, hostile or otherwise.
One month after leaving Fort Rice, the expedition rendezvoused with the sternwheeler Far West where Glendive Creek emptied into the Yellowstone River. The Far West looked fragile as a wedding cake, but its powerful engines could shove thirty passengers and two hundred tons of cargo upstream in just three feet of water. All day long the Far West ferried men, horses, wagons, and guns to the western bank of the river: Lakota country.
EARLY MORNING. SILVERY RIVER. Fog in the trees. Clouds of gnats. Two ungroomed ponies were tied behind a poor man’s lodge. The lodge flap was closed. Maybe somebody was inside, maybe the man’s wives, maybe nobody.
“Lakota,” Shillaber said.
“Brulé Lakota,” Top defined the subtribe.
The old man fishing on the riverbank hadn’t seemed bothered when a cavalry company galloped up. Plenty Cuts ground-hitched his horse and sat beside the old man. “Hello, Grandfather. Are the fish biting?”
“You Washitu have scared the fish away.” The Brulé’s face was lined with age and a ragged scar zigzagged across his forehead. His checked red wool shirt was buttoned to the neck. He didn’t seem to notice the gnats sipping at his eyes.
Tom Custer stood nearby with his hands on his hips.
“I am Plenty Cuts. My wife is Santee. She is White Bull’s sister.”
The old man’s bobber floated in an eddy behind a beached cottonwood. “So. Why do you ride with the Seizers?”
“I translate what the Lakota say so the Washitu can hear it true. I have translated for Red Cloud.”
“Does Red Cloud ride with the Seizers these days?”
“Red Cloud stays at the Agency and eats food Washitu give to him. The young men no longer listen to Red Cloud.”
“What’s the old fool saying?” Custer demanded.
“We’re getting acquainted.”
“Get acquainted quicker.”
“Rain in the Face has promised to cut that man’s heart out. Rain in the Face says he will eat it.” The old man chuckled merrily.
“So I have heard. Is Rain in the Face near? Is Sitting Bull?”
The old man lifted a shoulder in the tiniest shrug.
“Ask where the hostiles are camped,” Tom Custer said.
The old man understood more English than he let on. In Lakota he replied, “They are where they are.”
“We mean them no harm. Will they attack the survey expedition?”
Another shrug. “This is Lakota country. It is ours by right and by treaty. Do you think you can come into Lakota country whenever you want to? When I was young I would have fought you, but I am too old to fight now. Go away. Let me catch a fish so my wives can eat.”
TOM CUSTER RODE with Plenty Cuts asking questions men never ask one another. “How many women you had? You ever count ’em? How many was niggers and how many was indians? Red women I laid with didn’t do nothin’ but lay there like they was dead. They play dead with you? Nigger wenches are more lively, but their private hair is scratchy. Like pressin’ ’gainst a porcupine. Don’t you think so?”
“Can’t say I noticed.”
“Why does Major Shillaber call you ‘Top’? Ain’t ‘Top’ a ‘Top Sergeant’? Ain’t a Top Sergeant a soldier? Why you so solemn all the time? I don’t trust a man don’t laugh.”
“Niggers ain’t got much to laugh about.”
“Yeah, but you’re a redskin.” Tom Custer paused. “Hell, I don’t know which is worse!” When he slapped Plenty Cuts’s pony, the animal shied. Custer laughed. “Don’t go getting no burr under your saddle.”
With two companies, General Custer proceeded along the Tongue River. The scouts fell back on the cavalry while Bloody Knife and Shillaber searched the hillsides for an ambush.
Tom Custer was so excited he hummed like a teakettle. “Oh, I guess we’ll get into it now,” he said. “You scared, Top? I reckon I’m not scared. When I get myself worked up, I ain’t scared of the devil himself. You ever think what it’s like to be dead? Wonder how it feels when they lift your scalp. Think we’ll find out? Lookee there! Bloody Knife is comin’ hell-for-leather. Shillaber too. My brother’s up in his stirrups. Oh
, we’re for it now!”
Bloody Knife had struck the tracks of a Lakota hunting party.
“Twenty, maybe thirty. We fight.” Bloody Knife smiled. “Today or tomorrow.”
George Custer chuckled. “Oh, we’ll fight, will we?”
That night they doubled the horse guard.
The morning was clear and still. A bird was singing.
“Wonder where Stanley is,” Kellogg said.
“Too far behind to do us any good.” Shillaber checked the loads in his revolver.
“Do you think we’ll fight?” Kellogg was scribbling furiously. “What’s the bird, the one that’s singing?”
Shillaber said, “Meadowlark. That’s M-E-A-D-O-W-L-A-R-K.”
“Hoka hey.” Plenty Cuts yawned. “This is a good day to die.”
Shillaber shook his head. “Redskins have the strangest damn notions.”
THREE SUMMERS AGO, Plenty Cuts and White Bull had hunted this beautiful valley and White Bull had killed a blackhorn calf in the aspens beside the river.
Sweat trickled down Plenty Cuts’s back. Sun glare shortened familiar shadows. The front horse’s hooves stepped through shimmering heat mirages. Sun scorched the backs of Plenty Cuts’s hands. His pony’s neck was dark with sweat.
The valley was sullen. It had turned from him.
AT NOON, THEY RESTED in a cottonwood grove beside the river. While cavalrymen snoozed, Plenty Cuts watered his pony and filled his canteen.
Dragonflies skimmed the river. Horseflies buzzed his pony’s head. A soldier yelled, “They’re in our horses.”
Somehow, Lakota warriors had slipped into the herd. They’d cut hobbles and were escaping with their prizes through a sputter of poorly aimed carbine fire.
Angry, exhilarated troopers mounted and gave chase.
The indians pounded through withers-high grass, exploding pollen.
They slowed outside a cottonwood thicket, which they entered at an insolent walk.
“Colonel!” Shillaber shouted his warning.
Custer reined up. “Yes,” he agreed. “Martino! You and I’ll go on ahead. Tom, take command here.”
Two men trotted toward a cottonwood grove whose leaves shimmered faintly in the hot air. When angry ravens erupted from the grove, Custer reined up. Shillaber pulled his Winchester from its scabbard and jacked a round into the chamber. The metallic clack broke Tom Custer’s stillness. He called, “Troop dismount! Form a skirmish line!”
Horse-holders—one to every four—took horses behind the skirmish line troopers formed in the tall grass.
Just ahead, General Custer was circling Vic, telling the Lakota he wanted to talk.
Then the cottonwood trees became flesh. Two hundred shrieking Lakota warriors broke from the grove while General Custer and the terrified bugler galloped for their lives. Shrill eagle-bone whistles. Kill songs.
Tom Custer was jittering, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His grin stretched his face. “Cock and take aim,” he said. “Fire on my command! Kill their damn horses!”
His quirt failing, Yellow Hair stretched out over his horse’s neck. Behind him, in the heat haze, his pursuers seemed bigger than life-sized. Sweat burned Plenty Cuts’s vision and he blinked. The lead warrior’s chest was covered with red wampum beads. Plenty Cuts didn’t know him.
As Custer and Martino broke through the skirmish line, Tom Custer screeched, “Fire!”
Fifteen seconds later his troopers had fumbled new rounds into their carbines and Custer ordered “Fire!” again. The indians had been shaken by the first volley and lost momentum at the second.
The third volley broke them.
Yellow Hair ordered a retreat into a dry creek whose banks would serve as breastworks.
Tom Custer grinned at Plenty Cuts. “Ain’t this stupendous?”
The Lakota crept nearer the surrounded troopers. Their arrows glinted in the air before plunging into the creekbed. Troopers fired at where they thought the indians might be.
Plenty Cuts’s cheeks were white with sweat salt and his tongue was thick in his mouth.
Seemingly indifferent to indian bullets and arrows, George Armstrong Custer strolled to and fro as if promenading in the park.
After two hours of shooting at shadows, the troopers’ ammunition was running low. When he heard the grim report, Custer didn’t hesitate. “Horse-holders! Bring up the horses!”
Eighty-six men loaded their carbines, mounted, and burst out of that dry creekbed with Martino blowing his bugle like Gabriel at the last trump.
The Lakota ran. Custer’s men pursued them for a mile, two miles, three—with no ammunition for a fight if they did catch them. When they finally abandoned the chase, the troopers were laughing.
“God Damn!”
“Didn’t we show those heathens!”
Some shook hands.
Tom Custer danced his horse around Plenty Cuts. “How many you drop, Top? How many?”
“Dunno, Captain.” When the interpreter levered his Henry, an unfired cartridge ejected. “B’lieve I forgot to shoot.”
IN HIS FLATTERING article Kellogg accepted Custer’s estimate of forty indians dead. Shillaber reckoned they might have killed ten.
ALTHOUGH THEY SKIRMISHED with the Lakota again, the Northern Pacific completed its survey, and at sundown, September 21, 1873, six months and twelve hundred miles after they had departed, the weary but satisfied expedition returned to Bismarck, Dakota Territory.
Where they learned that three days earlier, the Northern Pacific Railroad had declared bankruptcy.
CHAPTER 51
PANIC
September 18, 1873
To the Public—We regret to be obliged to announce that, owing to unexpected demands on us, our firm has been obliged to suspend payment. In a few days we will be able to present a statement to our creditors. Until which time we must ask their patient consideration. We believe our assets to be largely in excess of our liabilities.
Jay Cooke & Co.
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE FALL DAYS WHEN GRIMY MANHATTAN IS briefly a beautiful city. Last night’s rain had washed the streets and granite cobblestones glistened. A breeze off the Hudson broomed coal smoke away. It was a day when old men smiled.
Over breakfast, Eben had agreed to a picnic with Pauline and little Augustus. Bridget was preparing their basket while Flynn brought the carriage around.
Last night, awakened by the drumming of the rain on the roof, Eben lay sleepless, feeling very much the sinner.
It had been a distressing year. Jim Fisk, who’d been so full of life, Jolly Jim had been shot dead by a rival for an actress’s affections. Jim hadn’t been in his grave a month before his opera house was sold. Jay Gould had been forced out of the Erie and poor Boss Tweed—rumors circled Tammany’s Boss like sharks.
Reform was in the air. Well, if reform was the coming thing, by God, couldn’t Eben Barnwell reform?
Henceforth he would be faithful to Pauline. If the truth be told, he hadn’t been much of a Don Juan anyway. It distressed him awfully when actresses begged him for money. Why must so many pretty young women have destitute mothers or sisters at the poorhouse door?
So that morning, when Pauline suggested—without much hope—that her husband might accompany his wife and son on an outing, Eben enthusiastically accepted her invitation.
While Pauline dressed Augustus, Eben tried on his new straw boater before the hall mirror.
When the doorbell rang, Eben sang, “Finish our basket, Bridget. I’ll see who’s at the door.”
A gray-faced Amos Hayward was clutching a notice.
“Why, Amos,” Eben said. “My, you are the early bird.”
With trembling hand, Amos delivered it.
Which Eben read without comprehension, smiling brightly, “Oh, this is nothing. Cooke can’t fail.” Then he gasped, “My God!”
After the ’69 gold panic, Amos Hayward left the Washington Treasury for the New York subtreasury, where he became—in a modest way—a man of means.
His salary and cautious ventures—managed by his friend Eben Barnwell—had bought the lugubrious clerk a townhouse on Bank Street. Amos Hayward married and in due course—rather to Eben’s astonishment—Mr. and Mrs. Hayward produced a daughter they adored.
Eben opened his watch: 8:14 on a beautiful Manhattan morning. He blinked rapidly. “Joke? Is this some kind of joke?”
“Oh, it’s real enough, Mr. Barnwell. There’s been a run on the Union Bank. E. B. Clarke has failed.”
“Clarke? Not Clarke too.” Eben peered up and down the silent street as if eavesdroppers might be hiding behind the plane trees or the wrought-iron fences. He snatched Amos Hayward’s sleeve and dragged the man into his parlor, which he darkened by drawing the drapes. He turned to Hayward. “The Northern Pacific?”
“Bankrupt.” Amos wore the smug gloom of a government employee whose livelihood is impervious to financial crises. “I came as soon as I heard.”
“Who is that, dear?” Pauline called from upstairs.
“Nobody, dear. I’ll deal with it.”
“We’ll just be a minute. Augustus is so excited.”
“The street’s a madhouse. There are so many men out of their offices, the horsecars can’t turn around. There’s a run on the Fidelity,” Amos added. “But Fidelity promises to sustain.”
The Northern Pacific’s predecessor, the Union Pacific, had not merely made fortunes, it had made men. Who were Stanford or Crocker or Huntington before the Union Pacific? Every “live man” expected the Northern Pacific to repeat history. On Eben’s advice even Amos Hayward had invested in Northern Pacific bonds.
Despite this shock, Eben felt a sting of anger at the man who had heeded his advice to buy Northern but refused to hold them. “Don’t sell your bonds,” Eben had advised Amos. “Don’t buy a house. Houses don’t earn a return on capital.”
He had believed that Jay Cooke’s promises were worth more than solid bricks, wainscoting, chimneys . . .