“Did you tell the Cheyenne of your discovery when you stopped in their camp?” Lone Wolf asked, growing uneasy.
“We told them of the trail of hundreds,” Sees Red answered. “But they talked only of our new ponies. They were not interested in hearing our stories of pony soldiers—only our ponies!”
“That is the Cheyenne for you!” Rabbit Way stopped laughing as soon as he saw Lone Wolf staring off to the west, toward the Cheyenne camp of his old friend, Black Kettle.
“Did you tell their camp police of the great iron-shod trail?”
“Yes, Uncle. We told Medicine Elk Pipe of the horses and wagons. But he and the others just laughed at the idea of pony soldiers coming to fight us in the cold of winter. They claim the soldiers are harmless sun-birds, chasing warriors around the countryside only after the shortgrass comes in spring.”
“So I reminded Medicine Elk Pipe about the great sadness of Sand Creek four winters gone,” Sees Red added. “He grew angry with me, saying I was no more than a boy wetting my cradleboard when his people escaped from the Sand Creek soldiers. Another man, Red Shin, laughed and claimed we three children got lost and double backed onto our own trail.”
Lone Wolf shivered with something more than the deepening cold. “You did not get lost and double back on your own trail, did you?”
“No, Uncle,” Rabbit Way answered. “We saw iron shoes on those hundreds of hundreds of pony tracks. Saw deep cuts carved in the snow and mud near the foot of the Antelope Hills—meaning but one thing—the white soldier wagons.”
“Near the foot of the Antelope Hills?”
“Yes, Lone Wolf. On the north side of the hills.”
“Perhaps it will be all right,” the chief said.
“Do you want me to warn the other villages?” Sees Red asked.
“No, Nephew. The tracks reach only as far as the Antelope Hills. The sky grows dark. It will be very cold this night. If there are any pony soldiers near the Antelope Hills, they will not move far from their own fires now. No, you have been on the trail for forty-three suns already. Go, get something warm in your bellies and put these many fine ponies in our great herd.”
“You believe us, Uncle?” Rabbit Way asked.
“Yes,” Lone Wolf answered. “I will go at first light to convince my old Cheyenne friend that he too should be on the alert for soldiers. Black Kettle will believe me.”
Out of the inky twilight loomed three shadows: horsemen. Scout Jack Corbin first recognized the young standard bearer who carried Custer’s personal banner. To the right rode Myles Moylan, Custer’s adjutant. Between them, Custer himself.
“Major Elliott sends his compliments, sir!” Corbin announced as the trio halted before him.
“Jack! Elliott has some news for me?”
“Good news, General.”
“We can use it.”
“Them Osages of Pepoon’s found you a trail.”
“How big?”
“Best news of all. Better than a hundred ponies.”
Custer whistled low with approval. “Good-sized war party.”
“Nary a one of ’em wearing shoes.”
“What direction?”
“South, by east.”
Custer slapped his thigh. “By jove! Just where we counted on them gathering all along!”
“Wintering on the Washita, General!” Moylan agreed. “How old’s the trail?” Custer inquired.
“Less’n a day now.”
“Beautiful! That means they can’t be far ahead now. How long till we join with Elliott’s detail?”
“Twelve, maybe fourteen miles. What with all the snow—”
“Fine job, Corbin!” Custer cut him off, appraising the young man atop a strong gray charger. From beneath Corbin’s worn mackinaw coat poked a pair of revolvers. And across his left arm rested a Sharps carbine—short- barreled and easily handled by a man on horseback.
“Moylan. Ride back and inform the command. Give them my apologies—there will be no sleep for us tonight.”
Myles realized the moon had been up for more than an hour already. “We’ve been driving them hard already, sir.”
“Lieutenant, I’ve got a trail to follow. I want to be sitting right there on the Washita before dawn so I can awaken that village myself.”
“As you wish, General.” Moylan reined away, his mount kicking up rooster tails of new snow.
“You bring me good news, Jack. Four days out of Camp Supply now. Some of the men beginning to grumble with the cold—and the rations. But it reminds me of the sacred meaning of this special day.”
“Special day, General?”
“Yes, Jack. November twenty-sixth—Thanksgiving! And we have much to be thankful for now. Lead on, Mr. Corbin. Troops forward! Ho!”
Twenty-four hours ago they had crossed Wolf Creek itself, climbed into snow-capped ridges, then descended into the valley of the Canadian River. After beating their way through quicksands and floating ice snared along the river, the regiment had crawled around the five towering embattlements of the Antelope Hills, each piled deep with new snow.
But Custer’s Luck has returned in spades!
They had tried to strip him of his dignity, his rank and office. But he had shown them he could take the drumming, like some bitter medicine he was forced to drink. With the courage he had shown in the face of court- martial, Custer let them know who alone the brass could count on in all the West. Now he would give the hostiles a taste of cavalry steel.
His old bones began to warm at last. For so long now, Black Kettle had sensed the coming of this winter’s cold. Each night it took longer to chase the icy knots from his chest. Age had made a prison of his body. No more could he deny that it had.
Still, he had felt this eerie chill clamp its icy fingers around his heart but once before. As it took hold of him, he suffered the painful visions of long ago: the brittle white of winter snows littered with death, blood oozing to fill Sand Creek until the stream overflowed its banks and washed away his little band … as the flag of the Indian commissioner fluttered overhead in an angry wind.
He filled his belly with none of the big meal his wife had prepared for his guests. Instead, the old Cheyenne slewed his eyes around the warm lodge, touching each of the tribal chiefs and counselors he had called to join him here this night. They had finished their supper and the pipe had completed its solemn rounds when Black Kettle remembered that many of his friends frequently called him Sour Apple because he rarely smiled anymore.
Ever since Sand Creek and all those people gone. A long winter. And all his people gone.
With the pipe still in hand after he had emptied the burnt tobacco and willow bark into the fire pit, Black Kettle began his hushed story in words so quiet that the guests had to lean forward to hear of the lonely ride their chief had just made from his council at Fort Cobb with the pony soldier chief Hazen.
Medicine Woman Later finished passing out cups to their guests, each brimming with the scalding sugared coffee her husband had brought back from the fort as a gift from Hazen. She nodded farewell after she pulled a robe over her shoulders, then slipped out the door.
“What could be so important for the soldier chief to bring you a hundred miles to Fort Cobb?” Black White Man demanded in his own characteristically brusque manner that always drove right to the heart of a matter.
“Hazen says there are pony soldiers roaming about the country this winter,” the chief answered with a flat
