CHAPTER 6
CUSTER countermarched his troops a mile upstream to guard against their discovery by Cheyenne guards. Only then did he send his three civilian scouts to read the lay of the land and size of the village. Corbin reported first, Milner on his heels. Ben Clark finally appeared out of the ice-rimed trees, his story confirming what the other two had seen in their search.
“They chose a good spot on the south bank of the river,” Clark continued. “Fifty-some lodges, all sitting on level ground in a wide loop of the river—something like this.”
Clark dropped to his knees, pulling out a knife. The scout scratched the river’s meandering course in the snow, with that big loop where the troops would find the village sleeping.
“Where are we now?” Custer inquired.
“Right about here, sir.” Clark’s knife point jabbed the ground. “On the far side of the village is a steep cutbank. Fifty feet high. Noses almost straight up, following the course of the river. Plenty of—”
“Splendid!” Custer interrupted, slapping his thigh as he stood. “They surely can’t make their escape that way, can they, now, Clark?”
“Why … not at all.”
“I expect them to run, you see. Indians always do when we attack.” Custer’s smile faded as his eyes scanned the officers and scouts.
“They’ll skedaddle, General. Like hens with a weasel in the yard.” Milner spat into the snow. “Make no mistake about it—Injuns always run.”
Custer grinned beneath a winter-bright quarter-moon. “I’m counting on that, Joe. I must have all the exits sealed—if you catch my drift, gentlemen.”
“General Custer?” A swarthy scout named Romero rose on creaky knees. “Some of your Osages think your soldiers will be outnumbered by that village.”
“That so?” Custer turned it over in his mind like a man would inspect something in his hand. He figured this Romero ought to know. Born of Mexican parents. Kidnapped by Indians, growing up a Cheyenne. “What else my Osage got to say?”
“They’re scared.”
“Scared of those warriors in the village?”
“Not scared of Cheyenne. Afraid of your cavalry … and you.”
“Afraid of us!” Custer exploded. “Insane! Why in heaven’s name should they be afraid of us?”
“Way they see it, the Cheyenne in there will give you a real fight of it. So when things turn out a draw, they figure you’ll parley with the Cheyenne to save your men. And to save your men, you’ll hand the Osage over to their old enemies, them Cheyenne.”
“That’s the most preposterous—”
“There’s more. These Osages aren’t all that impressed by what you soldiers done so far out here in Indian country. These trackers got their doubts, you making good your attack on that village.”
Custer glared at Romero. “Seems we’re just going to have to educate these Osages on how the Seventh Cavalry fights Indians. Won’t we, gentlemen?”
A murmuring of assent arose among the officers before Custer continued. “By General Sheridan’s orders we’ll level the village and kill or hang every man of fighting age. I wasn’t sent here to show these hostiles any mercy at all. So tell your Osages that Custer won’t stop until Sheridan’s orders are carried out—”
“General?”
Custer’s eyes snapped to Jack Corbin, youngest of the scouts, who had earned the respect of many frontiersmen on the southern plains. “What is it?” Custer barked.
“Don’t know what the others think,” Corbin began, toeing the snow as nervously as a schoolboy stammering before a pigtailed, freckle-faced girl. “But I don’t see a way there can be a big war party down in that village. That camp’s just too damned small.”
“Not a war camp?” Custer’s voice rose an octave. “Why in Hades did these Osage trackers follow Indian ponies here? You remember those ponies, don’t you, Jack? Better than a hundred or more—you all told me that!”
Corbin shook his head in exasperation. “Something just don’t fit right, General.”
“Better than fifty lodges, I’m told!” Custer roared.
Corbin’s pleading eyes darted to Milner, then implored Ben Clark. Joe looked away, studying his dirty fingernails.
Clark eventually stepped up to Custer. “Might be Jack’s put a finger on something.”
“Which is?” Custer growled, glowering at Clark with eyes that could frost a man’s mustache.
“Doesn’t read right. That village ain’t got fifty warriors in it—much less a hundred fifty.”
“What are you saying?” As it did every time he got excited, Custer’s voice was on the verge of stammering like a buggy spring hammering over a washboard road.
“I figure what we’ve bumped into ain’t a hostile camp, General.”
“You agree that’s not a hostile camp, Corbin?”
“General, I don’t figure we’ll find but a handful of seasoned warriors down there.”
“So where did all the rest of them just off and disappear to?” Custer hissed.
“I suppose it’s my job to find out where the warriors disappeared,” Corbin answered sheepishly.
“Well, now.” Custer hammered his fist into the open palm of his left hand. “That’s just what I intend to do, gentlemen. We’re finally in agreement! About time you found out where they went—the ones that you and the Osage trackers followed into that village down there.”
“We figured better than a hundred warriors,” Clark said.
“Those odds will make for a pretty fair fight of it. We’ve got the hostiles pinned against that cutbank behind the village. Unable to reach their pony herd for escape. We’ll charge across the river from the north. So their only route of escape will be downriver.” He stabbed his toe into Ben Clark’s snowy map. “Right about there.”
Custer ground his heel into the snow and mud. “And that’s where I’ll be waiting for them—with Cooke’s men!That’s it!” Custer wheeled suddenly, stomping off deep in thought. “Deployed up the south bank. By the stars, that’s good!”
Corbin looked back at Clark and Milner. “You think that’s the camp we’re looking for?”
Clark squinted, appraising something unseen. “Don’t think so, Jack.”
They both looked at Milner for his confirmation.
“I don’t reckon how neither one of you got anything more to say ’bout it now. We found a village for the man. And no matter what Injuns they be, Custer’s going on in there and carve ’em up. Just like Custer’s been intending all along. Was only a matter of time before we found what he wanted—any village a’tall.”
Corbin turned away, stung by the certainty of Milner’s words. With his own eyes he had seen those browned, smoke-blackened buffalo-hide lodges, hunkered sleepy and silent beneath the winter sky. Almost forlorn—all squatting in slumber on pewter-bright snow aglow beneath a quarter moon splaying itself through thin, pony-breath clouds. The haunting vision of that sleeping village clung to Corbin’s mind like old smoke in his clothes.
That wasn’t a war camp.
Corbin wheeled on Milner. “I tried to tell Custer about—”
“You’ve done all any man can do, son,” Milner consoled. “When the army brass gets high behind and ready to plunge ahead without listening to his scouts … it’s just a waste of time trying to talk sense to him.”
“I gotta make him see—”
Milner grabbed his young partner, yanking him around. “Best just shut up! And see you got your rifle and pistols loaded afore the peep of day when Custer rides down on that village.”
Corbin watched Milner turn toward his mule Maude.
Down in a gully behind a brushy hill north of the Washita, Custer gathered his officers. In the snow he scratched a diagram of the river, where the village stood and the horse herd grazed.
