Down near the streambank where the scouts had pitched their bedrolls, Shad Sweete stood watching the unfolding drama with the rest as the last straggler on foot among the thirteen slogged out of the creek, up the bank, and onto the rolling prairie.
“They taking off for the gold mines, ain’t they?” asked Jonah Hook as he came to a stop beside the old trapper.
Sweete kept looking back and forth between the deserters and the bustling soldier camp, knowing something was soon come to budge. “S’pose so, Jonah Some men can take only so much of this. Some just ain’t cut out to take such a hammering that Custer hisself can take.”
“Officer of the Day!”
“That was Custer hollering, weren’t it?” Comstock asked.
“Sounded to be,” Hickock replied.
“Major Elliott, get Tom—Lieutenant Custer—and Billy Cooke. Bring Jackson with you too. They’re our best marksmen.” Custer was sputtering as he reached the streambank, arms flaying the chill morning air. “I want those men!”
“Yessir,” Elliott replied, turning away into the disordered bivouac halfway to being put on the march.
Shad shook his head and spit a stream of tobacco juice into the sand at his feet. The coffee in his tin cup had quickly gone cold and tasteless.
“Why don’t he just let ’em go?” Hook asked. “He didn’t get so worked up over the rest took off before.”
Hickok glanced at Sweete a moment before he said, “This is something different, I imagine. The rest sneaked off under cover of darkness. This bunch—they just bolted off right in the bright of day.”
Sweete nodded. “Right under Custer’s nose. He can’t let ’em do that—he won’t have no soldiers left if he don’t get control and get it quick.”
A clatter of bit and saddle and hooves snagged their attention as four soldiers reined up beside an agitated, stammering George Armstrong Custer at the grassy bank.
“You’re in charge of this detail, Major Elliott,” Custer explained, his arm outstretched, pointing across the stream. “You are to perform as if these men were deserting in time of war, men! And how the army deals with deserters in time of war is to bring them back …” He pointed at his feet. “Bring them to me,
Elliott and the rest nodded gravely. Only Tom Custer, a dull-red Civil War bullet wound still glowing in his cheek, made a comment as the four hurriedly nudged their animals down the slope toward the water.
“By God, Autie—we’ll bring ’em all back—one way or other!”
Shad looked over at the rest, then stared at the quartet of officers splashing noisily out of the stream, up the far bank. He said quietly, “The general’s sent off a lynch mob.”
Across the next hour, it was hard for any man with good ears not to hear the distant rattle of sporadic gunfire roll back to camp on the pristine prairie air. The camp bustled with nervous energy, waiting. Waiting …
“Here they come!” a voice called out.
Every eye strained into the distance of those rolling, grassy hills on the far side of the South Fork of the Republican.
“They’re back!”
Elliott rode at the lead. Behind his saddle slumped a body.
“By God—they killed ’em all!” someone whispered loudly as the soldiers and civilians alike jostled for a place among the plum brush and willow along the stream.
As Elliott made it down to the far edge of the stream and his horse began splashing across, the water flung up by the prancing hooves appeared to revive his prisoner. The soldier, hands and feet bound together beneath the horse’s belly, raised his dripping head, cursing and thrashing wildly. The captain turned in his McClellan saddle and grabbed his prisoner by the back of the belt, readjusting the soldier and cursing back every bit as loudly.
Three of the deserters suddenly appeared on foot at the top of the bank behind Elliott. They paused there for a moment, then were nudged down the bank by Tom Custer, pistol in hand. The last two mounted officers carried restrained prisoners behind them, lashed behind their McClellan saddles. The whole sad procession plodded through the shallow creek, up the grassy bank, and halted before Custer.
“Cut ’em loose,” he ordered his sergeant of the guard.
The camp guards hurried forward and cut the three men loose. Two of them crumpled to the ground, loudly complaining. A third sank to the damp sand like a sack of wet oats, without a word and not moving.
“These three wounded, General,” explained Major Elliott.
“Get us a surgeon, goddammit, General!”
Custer stood above the soldier in that next heartbeat, sand flying, his pistol drawn. “By the saints—you’ll not have a surgeon’s care. And any man who takes a step to help these three will answer to me!” He waved the pistol, causing most to step back.
“You’re refusing the men my care?” inquired an officer who broke through the curious throng, carrying a small leather-bound satchel at the end of one arm.
“Yes, surgeon. That’s precisely what I’m doing. These men wanted to desert the army,” Custer spat. “By God—they won’t get the attention of an army surgeon for their wounds.”
“You’ve had them shot, General! In the name of humanity!”
“That’s the last I’ll hear from you, Captain!” Custer snapped at the surgeon. “I’ll put you on report myself if you continue.” He whirled on the rest of the group. “And let this be a lesson to the rest of you! I’ll shoot any man who deserts from here on!”
Custer turned on his heel. “Take these men to a wagon. Chain them up inside,” he ordered his camp guards.
“Tom—where are the others? I thought there was more.”
Tom stepped up, scratching his chin self-consciously. “Seven more. They were horseback. Got too much a head start on us. Spotted us when we crossed the stream—and took off at a hard gallop.”
“They left these six to fend for themselves,” added Lieutenant William W. Cooke, a Canadian who had come to the States to fight for the Union during the Civil War.
Below his bushy mustache, Custer pressed his wind-burned lips into a line of utter frustration. The man looked as if he wanted to cuss in the worst way, but swallowed down the temptation. He whirled on the noisy, protesting deserters who were being led off by the guard. Stomping over to one, he jammed his pistol against the man’s head.
“You shut up that caterwauling right now! Or I’ll be the one to blow your head off!”
“Yessir general,” the man replied meekly, his eyes wide and fearful.
“Get them out of my sight!” Custer ordered his guard. “These men aren’t soldiers. They’re criminals!” He wheeled on the breathless assembly. “And any criminal in this regiment will be dealt with just as harshly!”
“You want the march ordered for the day?” Elliott asked.
“No,” Custer answered, squinting into the new sunlight. “Not just yet. Tom—I want you to see that the three who are wounded are placed in the wagon. The other three—have them shaved completely, and then stripped to their birthday suits.”
Tom was smiling, a devilish light in his own blue eyes. “We’ll march ’em to the ‘Rogue,’ Autie?”
“Exactly,” Custer answered. “Now, go do it.”
“With pleasure!”
“
Jonah Hook and the rest craned their necks at the increasing clamor from the wagon camp. He and Shad Sweete followed Custer’s officers toward the men’s voices.
“You can’t control your employees, Watkins?” Custer asked of his wagon boss.
“They seen how the rest took off on you, General,” Lyle Watkins, the contract civilian, explained. “How you treated your own men. They figure they’ve had enough. I think—”
“You’re not getting paid to think, Watkins.” Custer whirled to find Elliott nearby. “Major—these civilians who are guilty of mutiny are under arrest. I want them punished!”
Some of the civilians lunged forward. A rattle of pistols greeted them as iron cleared leather, officers and
