hour ago.”
“Claims he didn’t know it was you, Long Hair. Says his band will mosey on now—no hard feelings.”
“They want to pull out? Just like that?” Custer asked.
As Sweete started to reply, a young warrior brandishing a war club in his left hand and an old rifle in his right appeared on the far bank from the plum brush. Without hesitation, the warrior urged his pony into the stream, sending diamond drops into the golden air as he splashed noisily toward the conference.
“Tell Pawnee Killer I’m growing angry!” Custer demanded, watching the far bank, hearing the brush rustle. “Now more warriors are coming when he guaranteed six only.”
From the plum and swamp-willow on the far side appeared a second unwelcome warrior, who reined into the stream. Then two more splashed into the water as the white men grew restless.
“Tell the chief he’s violating his word as a warrior,” Custer demanded.
As Shad Sweete’s words were spoken and Jonah Hook’s sign was made with his hands, Pawnee Killer smiled widely with big teeth in his small, feral face.
“The chief says his young warriors only wanna come say hello to the great soldier chief Long Hair. Says his men admire you—want to see you up close.”
“Not too close, Sweete. Tell him that if any more come—we will start our fight right here … and now.”
When the words were spoken in Lakota, the smile slipped from Pawnee Killer’s face like a man’s longhandles as he stood over a latrine trench.
“The chief wonders why you don’t trust your new friend.”
“Because he cannot control his warriors,” Custer replied. “Like those.”
Jonah and the rest watched another handful of warriors ride into the stream to join Pawnee Killer.
“That’s enough of this, Sweete. It’s plain they mean to do something underhanded here. Inform them there are many soldiers with repeating rifles in the brush behind me.”
Pawnee Killer held up his hand, causing the five warriors to halt halfway between the bank and midstream.
“Put your horn to your lips, bugler,” Custer directed, then turned quickly back to the old mountain man. “Tell the chief if any more come, my bugler here will signal the rest of my soldiers and there will be blood in the water this morning.”
Sweete sighed after the Brule leader had spoken. “Pawnee Killer wonders who will be the first to fall.”
“Tell him it will undoubtedly be both Pawnee Killer and Long Hair—chiefs die first.” Custer inched the pistol loose from his belt.
The Sioux’s flinty scowl was eventually replaced with a broad smile as he spoke once more.
“Seems they want some coffee and sugar, General. They need powder and bullets too.”
“For hunting, of course.”
“I figure they’ve got bigger game on their minds,” Sweete replied.
“Tell them nothing doing.”
“He’s unhappy about your answer, General,” Shad said after refusing the chief’s demand for provisions.
“How far off you suppose is their village?”
“A few miles perhaps. And getting the jump on us as we palaver.”
“They’re making good their escape, while this bunch keeps us talking.”
“With Pawnee Killer’s warriors covering the retreat, General.”
At their chief’s direction, the warriors inched their ponies backward with a rattle of rawhide and weapons, and a splash of pony hooves. Pawnee Killer joining them.
“Where they going?” Custer’s blue eyes darted over the retreating warriors.
“I figure they got done what they came for.”
His sunburned brow knitted beneath the broad brim of his cream-colored slouch hat. “We … can’t we hold them?”
“Unless you want to start shooting—and then the only ones you’ll have hold of here will be the dead ones floating facedown in a bloody river, General.”
Custer quickly studied the bank behind him, upstream, then down. “Bloody blazes! We’ll follow them.”
He sawed his reins around, the horse kicking up a gritty spray over Sweete and Hook. Jonah recognized the intense light behind those blue eyes Custer trained on the soldiers awaiting his orders.
“Major Elliott! Take a battalion, your company and Keogh’s”—he pointed across the stream—“follow the trail of that village.”
“Follow the warriors,” Elliott replied, his voice bellowing. “Yessir!”
As the major splashed away, more than a hundred soldiers scrambled out of the brush, trotting up the grassy bank toward their bivouac where they would quickly saddle and mount for the chase. Custer turned back to Shad Sweete and Jonah Hook.
Hickok reined up in the middle of the stream with the group. He shook his head in resignation as he glanced over the two scouts who had been with Custer at midstream. “What chances you think we have of keeping that bunch in sight now, Shad?”
“A snowball’s chance between a hot squaw’s legs, Bill.”
30
ELLIOTT EVENTUALLY CAUGHT up with Pawnee Killer’s Sioux.
But only when the warriors had loped far enough ahead to set up an ambush for the trail-weary soldiers. Had it not been for the captain’s battle savvy and a little bit of luck in sniffing out the ambush, that battalion of the Seventh Cavalry would have made history of a different sort.
As it was, they had to return to the main command, reporting their lack of success to a frustrated Custer.
“Except for bullets, this bunch is out of everything an army needs to march on,” grumbled Shad Sweete as he plopped onto his bedroll between scouts Jonah Hook and Will Comstock.
“You figure we’re ready to boil your greasy moccasins down for soup yet?” Hook asked, pointing at the old trapper’s feet.
He wiggled his toes thoughtfully. “You don’t want to even think of making soup out of these.”
They laughed together. Shad had to admit it helped ease the empty gnawing of their bellies. Following the trail of the fleeing Sioux across this fire-hot skillet bottom of a prairie, the scouts had found the land cleared of game.
“What I wouldn’t give now for some of that hardtack,” complained Will Comstock, a veteran frontiersman. “Weevils or no.”
“Meat’s meat!” Shad cheered. “Maybe them weevils ain’t buffler hump ribs—but they’d go a long way to cheering up a bowl of moccasin stew.”
“Don’t even talk about hump ribs,” Hook mumbled. “Makes my mouth water thinking about them spitting grease over a fire. Instead, we’re down to dreaming about moldy salt pork sold to the Yankees during the goddamned war!”
“Custer’s had enough himself,” Hickok said, coming up out of the darkness. “We’re moving out come first- light.”
Shad rolled up on his elbow as Hickok hunkered at the fire, warming his hands from the coming chill of a prairie night. “Where we bound for, he say?”
“Forced march. Sedgwick. Custer figures to get supplies over there on the South Platte.”
“Glory! It’s about time,” Comstock whispered, collapsing back on his bedroll and gazing overhead at the stars.
“We really gonna get some decent food at this fort?” Hook asked.
