Bloodshed of Eagles

“Yes, we met on the train,” Rosanna said. “I must say, brother, you made quite an impression on her. She was singing your praises until we told her that we were your brother and sister, and we knew all your foibles. ”

“But you couldn’t dissuade me, could you?” Lorena said. “I told them, Colonel, that you and I met in Washington,” Lorena said. “I also told them how courageous and gallant you were when you saved my life.”

Falcon cleared his throat. “Hardly that,” he said. “All I did was run a few miscreants off.”

“Well, you were certainly my hero that day,” Lorena said flirtatiously.

“My, my, it looks as if this visit may be more interesting than we anticipated, you think so, sis?” Andrew asked.

“You may be right, Andrew,” Rosanna replied.

“Shouldn’t we get back to the post?” Falcon asked.

“Why, Colonel MacCallister, I do believe this pretty lady has gotten you all discombobulated,” Tom Custer teased.

The dining table in Custer’s house was extended to its fullest length that night in order to accommodate all the guests. Libbie managed the seating arrangement, putting Tom Custer with Rosanna, and Falcon with Lorena. Margaret was with Jimmi Calhoun, Libbie was with Custer. Custer’s brother Boston and nephew Autie Reed, along with Falcon’s brother Andrew, completed the party.

Custer, as was his right as host of the dinner, was regaling his guests by quoting from memory one of his articles for Galaxy Magazine.

“Stripped of the beautiful romance with which we have been so long willing to envelop the Indian, transferred from the inviting pages of the novelist to the localities where we are compelled to meet with him—in his native village, on the warpath, and when raiding upon our frontier settlements and lines of travel—the Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the noble red man. We see him as he is and, so far as all knowledge goes, as he ever has been, a savage in every sense of the word, one whose cruel and ferocious nature far exceeds that of any wild beast of the desert.”

“You see nothing at all noble in the Indian?” Falcon asked.

“I do not, sir.”

“And yet you have Indian scouts upon whom you not only depend for information, but often for your very life.”

“Yes, my dear sir,” Custer said, holding up his finger as if proudly making a point. “But even those Indians, the Cree, the Crow, serve not for any noble purpose, but for the money we pay them, and also, to carry on their ancient enmity with the Sioux.”

“Uncle, I am just happy you were reinstated to duty,” young Autie Reed said.

“Yes, it would have been disastrous for the Seventh had I not been allowed to return in time to lead the regiment on this upcoming expedition,” Custer replied immodestly. “General Terry admitted as much to me. Can you imagine? Grant, that fool in the White House, wanted to put Reno in charge of the Seventh. And while I’ll admit that Reno fought well enough during the war, he wouldn’t have the slightest idea of what to do should the Seventh be attacked. It is a totally different thing when you are fighting Lo.”

“Lo?” Lorena asked. She had a confused look on her face. “Who is Lo?”

“The soldiers call the Indian Lo, my dear,” Libbie explained. “It comes from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man.”

Libbie began to quote the poem:

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;

His soul proud Science never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n,

Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heav’n.

The others at the table applauded in appreciation.

“Libbie just learned to recite that poem to aggravate me,” Custer said, and again they laughed.

“Uncle, you were explaining why Major Reno would not be up to leading the regiment,” Autie Reed said.

“Yes,” Custer continued. “The Indians, always mounted on fleet ponies, often charge in single file past your camp. They are magnificent riders and they show that in such a demonstration. They pass by in easy carbine range, but the soldiers, being unaccustomed to firing at such rapidly moving targets, are rarely able to shoot them. The Indians, riding singly, or by twos or threes, would, with war whoops and taunts, dash across the plain in a line parallel to that occupied by the soldiers until, finally, they turn and ride away.”

Custer paused to take a bite of his bread, and he used the remaining roll as a pointer.

“And here,” he said, “is where an inexperienced officer, like Reno, would make a fatal blunder. For the inexperienced officer would pursue the fleeing Indians. The Indians would make a great show of trying to get away, all the while leading the soldiers well away from the main body to where they could be surrounded and destroyed by the aid of overwhelming numbers of Indians, previously concealed in a ravine until the ambush could be put into play.”

“General, you tell that story as if you are speaking from experience,” Falcon said.

Custer laughed.

“You are right, Colonel,” he said. “You are absolutely right. As a new officer, engaging the Indians for the first time, I did make just such a mistake.”

“As long as you don’t make such a mistake again,” Libbie said, but there was no smile on her face as she spoke