The messenger lowered his white flag across his left arm, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. “They are.”
“They are … I don’t understand.” Custer shook his head.
“Like I said, I’m no Kiowa.”
Clark couldn’t figure it. The messenger looked as Indian as the next warrior he’d run across on the plains. Those eyes and that nose … this stranger was born in buffalo-hide lodge. No doubt of that.
“My mother was Comanche. My father Texican. I’m in the same line of work you three fellas are. Scout for the army. Work for Hazen down to Fort Cobb. Name’s Cheyenne Jack.”
“You rode up on our advance with those warriors,” Custer said.
“Fort Cobb ain’t but twenty-five miles off.” He studied Custer a moment more. “Who I got the pleasure of addressing?”
“This is General Custer, boy,” Milner spouted proudly.
Clark watched the half-breed’s eyebrows climb a notch.
“You’re the outfit destroyed old Black Kettle’s village, eh? We heard you was out and about in the country for the winter. Well, I’ll go to hell in a hand cart if General Hazen didn’t have that one ciphered right.”
“Hazen ciphered what?” Custer put an edge to his voice.
“We’ve known all about what you did to that village for some time now. Didn’t take long for word of that fight to come downriver. Week later, some Kiowa showed up on Hazen’s doorstep and we got a better look—”
“Are the Kiowas with Hazen now?” Custer demanded. “That why a civilian employee of the army is riding the wilderness with those hostile Kiowa warriors?”
“General,” the half-breed began as he untied his white rag from the willow branch, “I’m a scout for the same army you work for. We’re the same, just work for different commanders is all.” He tossed aside the branch, stuffing the cloth in his blanket coat. The breezes dallied with his long braids wrapped in red trade wool. A pair of eyes glinting like obsidian never left Custer’s.
“So, General George Armstrong Custer, best you savvy these Indians knowed of your coming our way for some time. You’ve got yourself a slow and noisy bunch of soldiers.”
“Get to the point of it!” Custer slapped his thigh in angry exasperation.
“I got a message here Hazen wanted me to deliver to you personal.”
“Well? Out with it, man.”
“I would. But I never learned to read, sir. Besides, every good army scout knows he can’t read official army papers.”
The half-breed fished out a folded parchment, sealed with a small dollop of wax deeply carved with the impression of an
Ripping it open, he immediately read to himself:
Commander in the field, U.S. Army—
Indians have just brought in word that our troops to-day reached the Washita some 20 miles above here. I send this to say that all camps this side of the point reported to have been reached are friendly, and have not been on the war-path this season. If this reaches you, it would be well to communicate at once with Satanta or Black Eagle, chiefs of the Kiowas, near where you are now, who will readily inform you of the position of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, also of our camp.
Custer’s eyes climbed from the letter, flecked with cold fire. “Does Hazen know who he’s addressing?”
“He ain’t got idea one, General Custer.”
“With me rides the commander of the Department of the Missouri, Philip H. Sheridan himself! Hazen would be interested to know that fact.”
“I’m sure he would.”
Shaking the brittle parchment like an autumn-dried leaf in a tremble of rage, Custer said, “Hazen’s protecting the Kiowa?”
“He doesn’t figure they need protecting, General,” Cheyenne Jack replied. “He just wants to make sure Kiowa camps aren’t butchered like Black Kettle’s.”
“Black Kettle’s! We followed a trail of a hundred war ponies straight to the heart of his village!”
“A hundred warriors in Black Kettle’s village? If that don’t smell of horseshit! Black Kettle’s band hasn’t counted a hundred warriors since Sand Creek almost wiped his little band out for good.”
Custer slapped a gloved fist into a palm. “Suppose you tell me what’s going on with Hazen and his Kiowa!”
“Love to, General. But, I don’t know any more than what I see with my own eyes.”
“And that is?”
“Kiowa rode in some time back, telling what happened upriver to Black Kettle’s camp. Last fall Hazen hoped the tribes would come to Fort Cobb for safety. But you caught the Cheyenne hunkered for the winter.”
Clark watched Custer’s eyes narrow.
“Hazen protecting his wards, eh?” Custer snapped.
“Looks that way.”
“And now he’s got the Kiowa under his wing? After they sent warriors north to rape and pillage and burn and kill? Right?”
“Hazen doesn’t figure the Kiowa had a thing to do with that.”
“I’m sure Hazen doesn’t!” Custer scowled, once again scanning the message from the commander of Fort Cobb. “What’s he mean the Kiowa will tell me where the Cheyenne and Arapaho are?”
“Cheyenne and Arapaho are assigned to Fort Cobb by treaty, General.”
“By treaty, you say? Seems that Hazen’s wards didn’t stay at home this past summer, did they?”
“If you mean that Hazen’s to keep the tribes under his thumb at all times, watching every move they make across the seasons—you’re poking into a blind hole there. Hazen isn’t here to wet-nurse a single band of these Indians. It’s his job to prevent the trouble that you enjoy stirring up.”
“How dare you lecture me on army policy!” Custer sputtered.
Cheyenne Jack straightened. “I ain’t lecturing, General. You asked the questions. I answered ’em. Now, I’m all talked out.”
The messenger tugged on the reins, backing his Indian pony from the crescent cluster of scouts.
“Wait! You just hold on there!” Custer shouted, nudging his horse forward until he sat opposite the half- breed. “These Kiowa know where the escaping Cheyenne and Arapho are?”
“That’s what Hazen told you, ain’t it?”
“I take it they aren’t nearby?”
“General, you hit the mark on that one.”
Custer flicked his eyes to his scouts. “You hit the nail on the head this time around, boys.”
The half-breed perked up, curious. “How’s that?”
“We already learned the tribes had split up, didn’t we, fellas?” Custer said. “So all we had to do was find out which band of murderers went where. My scouts told me the Kiowa headed down here to Fort Cobb. We just needed you to confirm where the Cheyenne are headed.”
Cheyenne Jack’s dark eyes slewed over Custer’s scouts. “Sounds like you know it all but the shouting.”
“You’re riding back to Fort Cobb now?” Custer asked, his eyes accusing.
“Shortly.”
“You’ll report to General Hazen?”
“Like I said.”
“Be sure you get it right, then. That’s Philip H. Sheridan, Commander, Department of the Missouri. And George Armstrong—”
With that the half-breed wheeled his horse. He turned in the saddle to holler over his shoulder, “Won’t anyone ever forget George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh U.S. Cavalry.”
