Young Autie Reed stood agape, transfixed by the terrible beauty of war.
Reno’s tiny soldiers drew up and dismounted to form a skirmish line. Two horses bolted with their riders into the heart of the indian village. Autie Reed clamped his eyes shut as the troopers were swallowed.
Pop. Pop. Pop. The Commander rubbed his jaw. Troopers slumped in the heat. Horses shuffled their hooves. Pop. Pop.
The indians divided, threatening to envelop Reno’s line. More whistles, more pops.
Toy soldiers. Toy indians.
Shillaber, Hairy Moccasin, and White Man Runs Him had found a way down from the bluffs into the village. The Commander asked, “Did you attend West Point, Major Shillaber?”
“Didn’t have the honor.”
“There were thirty-four cadets in my West Point class,” the Commander confided affably. “Thirty-three graduated above me.”
Pointing at Reno’s beleaguered skirmishers, Hairy Moccasin asked, “Why don’t you cross the river and help?”
“Oh,” the Commander said, “there’s plenty of time. Let them fight for a while. Our turn will come.”
Reno’s troopers broke and scattered into the timber with the indians right behind blowing their eagle-bone whistles.
The Commander’s adjutant scribbled a note and gave it to bugler Martino. “Bring Benteen!” Martino kicked his horse into a stumbling gallop. White Man Runs Him unbuttoned his blue jacket and dropped it on the ground. Other scouts took their jackets off. Hairy Moccasin shook out his braids, found a metal mirror in his parfleche, and began daubing his cheeks with paint.
“Shillaber,” Tom Custer called. “What the hell are they doing?”
“They want to die as warriors. They don’t want to die as white men.”
Tom Custer snapped, “Christ! Get those damn cowards out of here.”
Shillaber clasped each scout’s hands. He told them they had done their duty and now should save their lives. Shillaber turned to the reporter. “Kellogg? You can go out with them.”
The reporter’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “Bu . . . bu . . . Ben? Man like me—how . . . how often does opportunity knock for a man like me?” He clamped his trembling right wrist with his left hand to take a note.
Then the chief of scouts turned to his friend. “Top? Top, listen to me! You didn’t sign on to fight. You aren’t in the army now, you’re just a civilian interpreter.” He paused. “Top, the palaverin’ is done. Didn’t you promise She Goes Before you wouldn’t fight her people? Didn’t you?”
Grinning, Tom Custer stepped between the black man in the neat uniform and the chief of scouts. “How ’bout it, Top? Want to die like a white man?”
It was hot. Top was thirsty. His mind was blank. His strong fingers unbuttoned the top button of his jacket and fished inside for a tarnished five-pointed star. He let the medal lie in full view.
Mock-solemnly, Captain Custer saluted.
Top sneezed. “God bless,” Shillaber said.
The indian scouts fled.
Unseen marksmen’s bullets cracked over the troopers’ heads. An arrow arced into the dirt. Another arrow thumped into a sergeant’s saddle. “Son of a bitch!” He jerked it out and snapped it over his knee.
Troopers watched the angry noncom through weary, indifferent eyes.
Captain Keogh stretched.
Another bullet cracked by.
Shillaber picked up the broken arrow. “Brulé,” he said.
C Company formed a skirmish line and volleyed into the sagebrush. Four or five hundred yards behind the concealed sharpshooters, a Cheyenne in a feathered headdress emerged from a coulee and trotted his pony across their front: bold as brass. The Commander yanked his Creedmore sporting rifle from its scabbard, ran up its leaf sight, took careful aim, and squeezed off a round. A half second later the indian flattened on his pony’s neck and disappeared into another coulee.
“Gave him something to chew on.” The Commander smiled. “Mount up.”
With the Commander’s Vic in the lead, they proceeded along the bluffs at a trot. At the head of the coulee Shillaber had found, they split into two wings: Companies E and F and the Commander’s staff would go down the coulee, while Captain Keogh’s companies stayed here to protect the rear.
A tiny creek meandered through the broad downsloping coulee. They crossed and recrossed it until its water ran brown.
Top’s mind was blessedly empty of excuses and sorrows. He had lived as well as many men and longer than some better men. Maybe the Comman-der would live up to his legend. Maybe he wouldn’t. Top’s daughter and wife were at the Agency. They’d be fine. They were better off without him.
The sagebrush along the coulee’s rim seemed to glow. That skeleton pine had died hard, twisted in anguish. Top’s mojo felt smaller outside his tunic where everyone could see it. His horse lurched but caught itself. It wouldn’t last much longer. In its boot, his rifle chafed his thigh.
When the cavalrymen emerged from the coulee on the banks of the Little Bighorn, terrified indian women scooped up their children and fled into the village. Empty sweat lodges smoked on the riverbank. A few warriors collected fleeing women and escorted them away. Top heard the patter of gunshots somewhere upriver. That’d be Reno’s fight. Three boys and one old-timer came to defend the crossing. When the old man triggered his antique musket, he vanished in a tremendous puff of gray-black smoke. C Company dismounted to form a skirmish line, while F Company trotted downstream to a ford at the mouth of another, narrower coulee.
The Commander asked his brother, “Captain Benteen doesn’t like me does he?”
“What?”
“Yet Benteen is popular with his men, is he not?”
Shillaber turned to Top, “I guess we’ll hit ’em here.”
“Ain’t much to stop us.”
A boy who couldn’t have been twelve years old drew his rabbit bow to its utmost and lofted an arrow at the Seizers.
Behind the boy, the village was in turmoil. Scattering indians, shouts and yelps.
“They’re . . . ?” Shillaber asked.
“Sans Arc lodges,” Top said.
“You got no business here,” Shillaber said.
“Got no business anywhere.”
Tom Custer urged his brother to attack. “We’ll cut through them like a knife through jack cheese.”
“Some may escape, Tom. We haven’t the force to capture them all.”
“So? We’ll round them up later.”
“Tom, Tom . . . you’ve always been impatient. We’ll wait for Benteen. Maybe I’ll show Benteen a thing or two.”
Shillaber clucked to his horse, rode to the river, dismounted, and waded into the water to check the ford’s bottom. He waved his approval.
Instead of crossing, the Commander led his companies back up the bluffs through the narrow coulee. Some indians followed. After one trooper was hit in the arm with an arrow, E Company dismounted and fired two volleys into their pursuers. They shot the indian boy with the rabbit bow. He flopped in the dirt like a fish out of water.
As soon as they emerged on the bluff tops, Captain Keogh’s companies cantered toward them, pausing three times to volley from the saddle at sharpshooters they couldn’t see.
Two Lakota riders appeared in the coulee they’d just vacated and Tom Custer fired at them. An indian pony went down, and its rider rolled into the brush.
“Damn, Tom.” The Commander laughed. “You never could shoot straight.”
The village streets were noisy, dusty, and confused. The Seizers who had attacked us had been driven away, but there were more Seizers on the bluffs above the river trying to come down and kill us. No one knew what to do. Some warriors quit fighting to help women, old men, and children flee. Some who had started fighting without preparations came back to make their medicine and dress for war. Young warriors who wanted to follow Crazy Horse waited impatiently as he chanted and prayed to his medicine animals.
I searched for Tazoo.
A young Cheyenne beat his drum and sang a suicide song. When other warriors heard his song, they sang too. The warrior who sings the suicide song vows to fight until the fight is won or he is killed.
Someone had seen Rattling Blanket Woman and Tazoo digging camas, so I went there. When the Seizers came to the river, a few old men and boys hurried to defend us.
I saw him there. I could not be mistaken. In his blue coat. He was with Seizers watching the village from a flat place above the river. It was too far for me to make out his face, but I knew he was Plenty Cuts. “Oh,” I said. “Oh.”
Our old men and boys fired at them. A man in buckskins walked into the ford a little ways but did not cross the river.
Then they all rode into another coulee and climbed back up the bluffs. The men and boys who’d stopped them at the river followed.
The warriors had made their medicine and were ready. Crazy Horse and hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors splashed across the ford and up the coulee after Plenty Cuts’s Seizers. I followed behind.
ALTHOUGH HIS OFFICERS couldn’t understand why he was waiting and his brother Tom was nearly mutinous, the Commander smiled and said they had plenty of time, that anyone who wanted to pot a redskin should try for one of the sharpshooters. “If you can’t see them,” he counseled, “aim for the stink.”
Captain Keogh dismounted a company as skirmishers above the narrow coulee. His horse holders and two reserve companies moved behind the low ridge at their rear.
“Keep them off our backs, Myles,” the Commander admonished. “Benteen will be here any minute and between us and Reno we’ll round up every mother’s son.” He smiled at his brother. “I’ll bet you’d like another go at Rain in the Face.”
The Commander’s red-and-blue personal guidon fluttered bravely as he led three companies a half mile or so farther along the bluffs until they found another coulee to descend to the river, to a second ford well below the indian village.
This ford was as good as the first. A few mounted Cheyenne shot arrows from the far bank. The Commander tugged his chin.
Tom Custer stood in his stirrups. “Now will you attack? In God’s name, what are you waiting for?”
“Sir, are you waiting for General Terry?” Mark Kellogg asked. For an answer an arrow thumped into his throat. He clutched at the arrow. Shillaber snatched at him but missed and the reporter slid off his mule. On the ground, Mark Kellogg hunched and writhed like a dog crushed by a wagon wheel. He wanted to pull the arrow out of his throat, but pulling hurt too much. That’s how he died.
WHEN AUTIE REED vomited, Captain Yates made a face. “Be a soldier, son.”
Tom Custer said, “Now, by God, will you attack?”
“Remember when I said you were a better general than I was?” The Commander turned Vic back up the coulee. “Tom, I’m afraid I lied.”
Although the indian sharpshooters were busier than they’d been, firing was still light and the indians pulled back as the Commander’s men returned to the bluffs. On a hogback ridge, E Company deployed as skirmishers, with F in reserve.
“Where the hell’s Benteen?” Tom Custer demanded.
“Do you think I’d make a good President, Tom?” his brother asked. “You don’t have to answer immediately. Think about it.”
Keogh’s skirmishers were volleying steadily. “I think we should join Keogh,” Tom Custer said. He turned to Top. “What do you think, Top?”
At a cry and a grunt, Top spun around. A Cheyenne had gotten among their horses and stolen one. Knocked back on his heels, trying to control the three animals he still had, the horse holder fired his carbine but missed. Other troopers were too startled to fire and the Cheyenne galloped away with his prize. “I think they want our horses,” Shillaber answered for Top.
“It’s time to sing our death song,” Top answered for himself.
The Commander shifted them to a new position a thousand yards above where Keogh’s skirmishers were firing at blurs and briefly seen feathers and skin.
Tom Custer said, “For Christ’s sake! Where’s that God Damned Benteen?”
Shillaber said, “Reno’s behind us somewhere. Maybe Benteen linked up with Reno. Maybe Benteen couldn’t get through.”
“Get through who?” Tom Custer demanded.
“Ever fight a Lakota warrior, Captain?” Top asked. “Man to man?”
Tom Custer’s eyes flickered.
Shillaber breathed, “Look at that son of a bitch!”
A lone warrior popped up beside Captain Keogh’s position and walked his pony between Keogh’s skirmishers and his reserve company. He rode sedately for a long time before he whooped, wheeled his horse, and rode back as slowly as he’d come.
“Hands painted on the pony’s hips: that’s Crazy Horse,” Top said.
“Hell, Tom,” the Commander joked. “Keogh’s boys can’t shoot any straighter than you can.”
A horse escaped from Keogh’s horse holders. The horse had a Cheyenne on his back. Another horse followed, carrying another Cheyenne.
“Watch now,” the Commander said. “Myles will put a stop to that nonsense.”
With some boys who were too young to fight, I had climbed the coulee behind Crazy Horse and his warriors. We found the Seizers on the bluff. They were fighting with their medicine flag planted at the end of their line. Other Seizers were behind the hill with their horses. The warriors wanted to steal their horses, but Crazy Horse said no, not yet. More and more Lakota and Cheyenne came along. They stood to fire and lay down again. Then they crawled to a new place to fire again.
Crazy Horse’s caution was proved when a second band of Seizers appeared on a ridgetop a little north of the first. We had not known they were here. They put out their fighting line and started shooting too.
Then Crazy Horse told us that the Seizers could not kill us today. He dug into a prairie dog hill and rubbed dirt all over himself. He rubbed dirt over his pony and sang his kill song. Then he rode between the Seizer firing line and the Seizer horse holders. The firing line could not shoot because Crazy Horse was between them and their horses, and the horse holders could not because they would shoot into their own people. When Crazy Horse came back unharmed, he told the young men, “You see? They cannot kill us today.”
The Seizers’ horses were in a shallow ravine behind the ridge, behind their firing line, and Cheyennes got into this ravine and stole two Seizer horses.
This angered the Seizers and thirty or forty rushed down the coulee after the horse thieves. They dismounted there and formed their line to fire.
But in that coulee were hundreds and hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. At first the warriors ran away when the Seizers attacked, but soon they came back. So much smoke and dust rose from that coulee I could not see what was happening there. Then the Seizers who had ridden into the coulee reappeared with many warriors among them. Behind them, still more warriors came. More horse thieves got among the Seizers’ horses. Frightened, wounded horses bolted out of the ravine onto the ridge and trampled Seizers on the firing line. Arrows hissed down on the Seizers and I wondered why the second band of Seizers did not come to help. Could they not see? Were they afraid? A warrior snatched their medicine flag and rode off with it. When the Seizers who had ridden into the coulee got to their firing line, our warriors were among them. Then all the warriors who had been creeping toward the Seizers rose up and rushed to count coup with hatchets and war clubs. The Seizers quit firing and were quickly killed. On horses and on foot those who still lived ran to join Seizers who had not come to help but the suicide riders cut them off and killed them.
WHEN KEOGH’S C COMPANY galloped down the coulee after the indians who’d stolen their horses, Tom Custer yelled, “Give ’em hell.”
Firing wasn’t heavy, Benteen would be up soon, and the Commander was taking potshots at sharpshooters. It was three o’clock. The sun burned their heads, arms, and shoulders. The village below was quiet. Dust on the far side of the valley showed where the indian wom
en and children were fleeing.
Shillaber turned to Top. “Maybe we’ll get out of this with our hair.”
Top’s grin glistened in his dark, wind-roughened face. “Hoka hey,” he said.
Two volleys roared from the coulee into which Keogh’s company had charged. Then no more volleys. Then shots were drowned out by eagle-bone whistles. Something that was more like a clot than a company of disciplined soldiers reemerged at the head of that coulee with indians clinging to it like leeches.
Two breaths after the clot rolled into Captain Keogh’s position, the position disintegrated. Keogh’s force was like an unlucky grasshopper fallen into a red ants’ nest. They were overcome, swarmed over, disappeared. Lakota and Cheyenne whooped joyfully as they galloped off with their horses.
Keogh’s survivors fled toward the Commander, but hard-riding young warriors pulled them down, clubbed them, shot them, stabbed them, trampled them, hacked them, and rolled with them in the dirt.
That’s how they died.
A handful reached the Commander’s position.
“In God’s name, what?” Tom Custer cried.
“Christ, they cut Findley’s head off!” one survivor screamed.
There was no time to understand what had happened to Keogh and less time to prepare as on every side thousands of warriors rose up within touching distance. Arrows rained down. Pierced troopers fell.
That’s how they died.
George Armstrong Custer was slack-jawed when Tom shot beautiful Vic in the head and guided the crumpling horse into a makeshift barricade. Yates and Smith cried, “Fire at will!” but most troopers were too stunned and terrified to fight. Troopers raised their hands in surrender. When Autie Reed begged a warrior not to kill him he was scalped alive.
That’s how they died.
Dust from charging warriors and horses made thick fog. Top tasted death in the dust on his tongue.
Shillaber went down under two burly Cheyenne. The indians were killing close and the last thing most troopers saw was an indian’s painted visage.
When a warrior jerked a dead trooper’s pants off, paper money skittered across the ground.