Thompson shuddered. “It gives me the creeps. Seeing the general not acting in his right mind—what with these men buried here—the wind and wolves all a’howling at us. Damn!”
Myers chuckled with a hollow sound. “Even the trees around us look like some kind of hoodoos with wild arms scratching against the sky.”
“Like they’d grab right ahold of a man.”
“Let’s be about our assignment, Mr. Thompson.”
“Yessir.”
“I suggest your detail scour the hillside for deadfall. Use it to cover the grave so that no goddamn wolves dig up the bodies after Custer’s gone to so much trouble to get them buried. And buried quick.”
“He’s washed his hands of it all now, hasn’t he?” Thompson whispered.
“For the time being. Time comes, that him leaving Elliott behind to die will come back to haunt Custer. My sainted mother was one to say the raven always comes back to roost. They always do. Custer might’ve washed his hands of the whole grisly matter. But as much as he’ll scrub, Custer’ll know his hands will never come completely clean. Someday this’ll come back to haunt him.”
“Think he’ll
“No,” Myers answered. “Custer’ll carry the blood of young soldiers on his hands till his dying day.”
By first light that following morning the entire command of the Seventh Cavalry and Nineteenth Kansas Volunteers marched southeast down the Washita.
By midmorning, Custer’s scouts discovered that the Indian trail split into two directions. Moses Milner and the others sat atop their winded animals among the milling Osage and Kaw trackers, waiting for Ben Clark to bring Custer up.
“Sure wish you’d think about getting yourself a regulation mount, Joe.” Custer smiled.
Milner eyed him suspiciously, then spit a brown track to the snow. “You got something again’ mules?”
“Just figure a horse would outshine that cantankerous, wheezing bag of bones you ride.”
“General, you ain’t ever been held up on my account, have you?”
“Can’t say as I have, Joe.”
“Anytime you’d care to wager, I’ll give you handicap with you on your finest charger and me on the old gal here: I’ll beat you into camp before light falls from the sky, any day you choose.”
“What handicap would you be foolish enough to offer?” Custer appraised Milner’s mule more carefully.
“Why, General, I’ll give you a couple mile on me. Maybe even three—you think you’d need them?”
“Now, why would I need such a handicap, Joe?”
“Damn, General—but I’d give you more credit than you deserved, I suppose. You got yourself a handicap a’ready, if for no other reason than you’re mounted on a army horse!”
Milner spit into the snow as all the scouts laughed at his joke on Custer. Jack Corbin rode into view, whipping his winded pony into that circle of civilians surrounding Custer. He gallantly ripped off his greasy hat and swept it low in salute.
“Morning, General.”
“Mr. Corbin.”
“You was right, Joe,” Corbin declared.
“Ain’t many times I been found wrong, Corbin.” Milner’s tone slid out a bit on the caustic side. He removed the stubby pipe from his lips. “Why you so all-fired anxious to prove me wrong, anyhow?”
“You boys care to let me in on this?” Custer asked impatiently.
“Joe figured them villages would break up,” Corbin announced. “Sure enough, they did.”
“Why’d you figure them to split up, Joe?” Custer asked.
“Simple. First, there ain’t a good chance for the bands to find much game in winter. Easier hunting if they split up. Next, there’s always some Injuns wanna go off one way, and others wanna go off on another. Still more up and decide to try someplace new entirely. Last reason, General, Injuns is just Injuns.”
“What in thunder do you mean by that?”
“Simply ’cause Injuns choose to split up every time they got the army on their back trail.”
“I see.” Custer stared off to the southeast. “You able to say what the hostiles might do?”
“Couple camps moseyed down the Washita this direction,” Corbin answered. “The bigger passel of ’em headed due south.”
“Heading for the Red River, General,” Milner declared.
“You figure we could find a couple of villages marching down the Washita?” Custer said.
Corbin nodded. “That’s right. Imagine they’ll be heading straight for—”
“You figure to run ’em down, General?” Milner smiled with the pipe between his yellowed teeth.
Custer said, “We’ll follow the hostiles straight to Fort Cobb. I’ll be busted before I’ll let those murderers hide behind Hazen like a bunch of schoolboy brats behind their mama’s skirts.”
Corbin cleared his throat. “They’ve got a few days’ start on us already.”
Milner threw his head back, laughing. “Shit, young’un—ain’t I taught you any better? Village packed with women and kids and old folks ain’t able to move anywhere as quick as mounted cavalry.” He turned to Custer, finally removing the stub of his pipe from his mouth. “General, you follow me and Jack—we’ll get your command downriver to Fort Cobb as fast as your cavalry can march!”
“To Fort Cobb, sir.” Jack Corbin pulled his gray charger round, signaling the nearby Osages to follow him.
Custer turned to Milner. “It’ll be easy enough to bottle up one band of hostiles there at Fort Cobb. Then all I have to do is countermarch southwest to pick up the other trail you say the big bands are taking.”
“Pretty tidy, you ask me, General. You play this hand right, you can whup ’em all afore spring.”
The azure eyes twinkled. “Not just this one hand, Joe. I’m dealing the cards now. And these bands are about to lose the last call of the night!”
“You are Medicine Arrow?” Satanta asked of the large, gray-headed Cheyenne warrior seated across the fire from him.
“I am Medicine Arrow.” The deep voice filled Satanta’s lodge. “You are the one they call the White Bear?”
“Yes, I am Satanta. This is Lone Wolf,” he replied, indicating the older warrior beside him. “He is chief of a small band of Kiowa who follow the seasons with my people.”
“We know of Lone Wolf,” the Cheyenne leader stated. “My chiefs and warriors want to know if the Kiowa will join us in wiping out the soldiers of Yellow Hair before he can destroy any more sleeping villages.”
Satanta and Lone Wolf studied one another across the time of three breaths.
The younger Kiowa shook his head. “We have decided not to join you in making war on this Yellow Hair. We came here to the foot of these mountains to escape his soldiers. If your warriors want war with Yellow Hair, the Kiowa will leave this place for Hazen’s fort, the one the white men call Cobb. With Hazen we won’t have to worry about pony soldiers in the night.”
Medicine Arrow laughed so loudly it shook the lodge poles. When he finished, his granite eyes narrowed on his Kiowa hosts.
“I was a fool to ask Satanta and Lone Wolf to meet me here on the north fork of the Red River, here in the shadow of the Wichita mountains, after Black Kettle was killed and his village wiped from the face of the land.”
The words poured like poison from sneering lips. His cruel mouth was little more than a scar slashed across his dark face. Satanta sensed the coming sting of the Cheyenne’s rebuke.
“A fool I was to ask White Bear and Lone Wolf to join the Cheyenne, for now I see the Kiowa nation lay down and show its belly for the white dogs,” Medicine Arrow spat. “Like the runt of the litter, you cower before Yellow Hair even though he does not threaten your villages.”
“Our eyes saw the destruction brought by the Yellow Hair’s soldiers—”
The lodge packed with Kiowa and Cheyenne warriors stirred nervously. This was a bad thing, friends saying
