To the man, the civilian scouts all stopped on the grassy sand of the riverbank and shouldered their weapons, firing at random, aiming for the inky forms looming out of the murky predawn darkness. The carbines punctuated that gray, ghostly light with orange spurts of muzzle flame. Behind him rattled more carbine fire as half a hundred soldiers appeared at the top of the bank.
In the span of less time than it would take Jonah to tell the story across those years still in the womb, the coming morning was smudged with gun smoke and noise, men crying out to one another as they fired into the hundreds of warriors like disembodied shadows, splashing out of the river, up the far bank, and into the skimpy brush and timber. In a matter of heartbeats, they were gone, become part of the plum brush and swamp-willow and the few stunted cotton-woods across the fork.
“They get anything?” Hickok sang out, easing off in the direction of camp.
“Half a dozen!” a voice came back from the dark. “No more’n that.”
“Hickok!”
The scouts whirled, each one recognizing that high-pitched call from the expedition commander.
“General Custer—over here!”
The soldier came out of the darkness, dressed only in stockings and a red flannel night robe. His long, shoulder-length curls were yet to be brushed for the day, rumpled from sleep. “I hear you say the hostiles got some of our horses?”
Hickok threw a finger over his shoulder. “One of your pickets said they ran off with half a dozen.”
“Blast it!” He whirled, calling out into the darkness. “Elliott—you, Yates, and Tom—double-time!”
The officers came among the civilian scouts in a matter of seconds, every one of them breathing heavily, while Custer had already purchased his second wind.
“Hickok, you and Sweete find out who that bunch is—who they belong to.”
Sweete glanced at Hickok in the growing gray light. “I’ll put my money on them being Lakota … er, Sioux, General.”
Custer wagged his head. “Your gambling spirit is admirable, Mr. Sweete. But I want to know for certain. Now—find out!”
“Let’s go see if we can get them to talk with us, Shad,” Hickok said, waving his arm.
“You stay put, Jonah,” Sweete said, a hand on Hook’s shoulder. “And keep your head down.”
In a matter of moments the pair returned to the spot, this time on horseback, inching past the soldiers and urging their mounts into the shallow river. They crossed, slowly—stopping on the far side, their horses standing at the edge of the sluggish river. Jonah could hear muted talk, not sure if the two riders were talking between themselves, or with one of the would-be horse thieves concealed on the far bank. Then, ever so slowly, the two scouts reined about and made their way back across the water.
“You t-talked with them?” Custer asked, excited.
“I told you they was Sioux, General,” Shad said.
“Whose Sioux?”
“I figure we’ll find out when you got your britches on,” Sweete replied.
Custer glanced down at his red robe.
“You make a fine red target of yourself, General.” Hook joined the group. “Parading up and down, here on this side of the river. All them Sioux over there know you as Long Hair. Any one of them bucks would love to place a bullet somewhere between your gullet and your gizzard.”
“Major Elliott,” Custer rasped, still glaring at the scout who spoke with the drawl, “you’re in charge until I return in uniform. See that nothing changes here until I get back.”
The general was fingering the top button into the hole in his blouse as he strode back minutes later.
“Now tell me what these Sioux plan on doing, Sweete. Do they want a fight of it?”
Hickok shook his head and took a step forward. “Appears they wanna talk—for now.”
“A parley, is it?” Custer replied. “They’ve seen they can’t whip us, can’t run off our stock.”
“They want the soldier chief and only six of his men,” Sweete explained.
“Take me, Autie!” Tom Custer addressed his brother by the family’s intimate name for the eldest brother.
“No, you and Elliott and Yates will wait here. If there’s treachery afoot—I won’t have us all wiped out.”
“Dammit, when will you gimme a chance—”
“Tom, you are a soldier above all, and you will learn to do as I order. Like every other man in this regiment must do.” Custer turned to the gathering of soldiers on that streamside slope, quickly finding his bugler and selecting three other enlisted. “You men will follow me.”
“You want us come along to translate for you, General?” Sweete asked, with a thumb indicating Jonah Hook.
“He know Sioux as well as you?” Custer asked, eyeing the ex-Confederate.
“I don’t know it all that good, General—but I do know the only way he will learn is by hearing it spoke and talking it himself.”
“All right. We’ll take pistols,” Custer advised the group. “But unbelt them, and stuff the weapon beneath your tunics, men. Have them ready in the event of something underhanded.”
He turned to his officers. “Major Elliott, you and Captain Yates will see that the men are deployed in the willows, up and down the streambank. If there is any treachery, we’ll blow the bugle from the far side.”
“And we come riding!” Tom Custer answered enthusiastically.
“You understand that, soldier?” the lieutenant colonel asked of his bugler. “At the first sign of trouble, turn and blow your trumpet.”
“Yessir.”
“If you and Mr. Hook are ready, Sweete—let’s go parley with this bunch.”
By the time Custer’s delegation was at the edge of the water to welcome a half dozen warriors wading across the stream, the sun had burst full and yellow as an egg yolk at the edge of the eastern plain. The air stirred with sudden new life as insects took to the wing, and the water beneath their horses’ hooves shimmered like liquid gold in the breaking light of jeweled morn.
“Pawnee Killer,” Sweete whispered to the officer beside him.
Custer said, “I recognize him. Back at McPherson—he told me what good friends he was to the white man.”
“He tell you how honest he was—and how he never lied to a soldier?”
“I believe I remember him saying something like that.”
“Then he was lying to you,” Sweete replied. “Watch his oily tongue, General. The sonofabitch opens his mouth, he’s lying. White or red—his kind of snake will cheat their own mother.”
“How!” Custer replied.
“C’mon, General.” Sweete nudged his horse into motion. “Let’s go be sociable in the middle of the river.”
As the soldiers came up and halted, the warriors raised their arms in greeting, then presented their hands.
“They wanna shake, General—but I suggest you don’t go any closer than where you sit now.”
“All right,” Custer answered, making it plain to the warriors that his right hand was going to remain on the butt of his pistol. “Let’s see what Pawnee Killer has to say for himself—coming to steal my horses when he said he was my friend back at McPherson.”
Sweete flicked his eyes at Hook. “Get your hands limbered up, Jonah. You need to practice your sign as much as I need practice on my Lakota.”
When he had the chief’s answer, he told Custer, “Pawnee Killer says he’ll forgive you for getting lost and crossing his hunting ground, General. Forgive you for spoiling his pony raid.”
“He will …” Custer cleared his throat, drew himself up. “Tell Pawnee Killer that among my people we punish thieves and murderers. If any live among his people—they are the ones should be afraid for their lives.”
“He says his people are not thieves and they don’t murder white men. And he takes shame that you think with his warriors there are some with bad hearts for the white man.”
Custer snorted quickly. “What’s he take us for, Sweete? The snake just about ran off with half our herd an
