“Damn that red bastard!” As much as he hated to admit to preferring another man’s idea to his own, Sheridan had liked Custer’s proposal from the start. “Here’s to your success.” He held up the sterling silver hip flask that was never far from his side. “More then ever—may you find the Indians you’re so desperately seeking.”
“Thank you for your continued faith in me, General.”
“Truth of it is, Custer, I’m very pleased by the progress you’ve made this winter. If you concern yourself strictly with your job here you won’t find time to worry about the lives of a few miserable savages.”
Sheridan waved a hand, silencing Custer as he continued. “Just the way you did things in the war. You pressed on, doing a soldier’s work. Do that now! Be a soldier before anything else!”
Last night on the eve of his departure, Sheridan had grappled with the fear that his winter campaign had become a grand failure. So this morning the whiskey tasted better than breakfast, what with having to leave the Territories with much undone, called back to department headquarters and the desk that awaited him. Whiskey and cigars, better than the best breakfast salt pork and hardtack. For an old warhorse like Phil Sheridan, whiskey and cigars made a fighting man’s diet.
Sheridan appraised Custer. “I’ve seen a handful of your kind before. Not only in the army, but in public life. You’re after the brass ring! Something no amount of money can buy—power.”
“Sir, if I may—”
“That’s no disgrace.” Sheridan lifted his hand. “Truth is, every great military commander hungers for power.”
Custer sank to a leather trunk as soldiers loaded the wagons around he and Sheridan, a late February sun just poking its head over the hills.
“Why the hell you think I sent Sully packing back east?” Sheridan watched Custer’s expression narrow.
“That’s right,” Sheridan said. “You’re commander of the Seventh Cavalry. I ordered him back to Kansas.”
“I never—”
“’Course you never knew, Armstrong.” Sheridan sipped at the flask. “Got rid of that old pussy-footer so this campaign would be
He waved the flask under Custer’s nose, a finger pointing. “Don’t frig this up, Custer! I can put you in the right place at the right time—like I did through the Shenandoah campaign. But I can’t fight your battles for you.”
“I had no idea that’s what became of Colonel Sully.”
“When I first got to Camp Supply, you two were arguing like yard dogs over who would lead the attack on the hostiles. The old slogger wanted me to ship you back, send you off to some other regiment. You believe that? By damned, you should’ve seen the look on his face when I told him he was the one packing!
“The rest of the campaign’s in your hands alone, dear boy,” Sheridan finished. “I’ve sent Sully home to pound sand. So it’s yours to find the Indians. Do what you’ve always done best: Find the enemy and make him bleed.”
Custer leapt to his feet. “By all means, General!”
“Don’t dally with the chiefs. Those old bastards just waste your time. Show ’em how you made a name for yourself on the James and the Rappahannock! All those red sonsabitches understand is toughness anyway. They’ll sneer at your kindness as a mark of something weak and womanly.”
“Yes, General.”
“I ought to know, dammit. I strung up some of those Yakima bastards back in ’56 up in the Oregon country. The hostiles will remember you only for the pain you dealt them on the Washita. Not a goddamned soul—white or red-will remember you for any kindness you show an Indian. Not those two old Kiowa in the shadow of Fort Cobb. And certainly not those Cheyenne running to save their miserable hides.”
Sheridan sipped at the whiskey that warmed his gut as few things could. “Hell, history will treat you kindly only when you act in a decisive manner and strike with a firm hand! Damn those peacemakers in Washington City! Let them tend to their knitting while we get on being soldiers!”
Sheridan wiped the back of his hand across his thin lips, stepping close to Custer. “Years from now you won’t find the name of one of those politicians in the schoolbooks, Custer. Only the generals and those like you—destined to ride a shooting star—will be cloaked in printer’s ink. So don’t be dismayed that the tribes have not come in! This only proves your greatest opportunity yet! Greater than the Shenandoah campaign.”
“That would take some doing. General.”
“Blast it, son! Don’t sit on your record. Make ’em stand up and take notice of you back east. The only way you’ll wear these goddamned stars again is with your butt in the saddle. Not resting on your laurels.”
He slapped a gloved hand on Custer’s shoulder, leaning close to confide. “You teach a hound by rewarding it, don’t you? That’s what we tried with these savages at first. Reward them. It didn’t work, so now we punish them. Just the way you’d do with your hound. Reward doesn’t work! Sherman knows that. Even Grant’s come to the light. As sure as you’re sitting before me,
On 2 March, Custer led the full command of his Seventh Cavalry and Nineteenth Kansas out of Fort Sill, bound for Fort Hays via Camp Supply. To garrison the new post Sheridan had erected deep in the heart of Indian Territory, he left behind a complement of the all-Negro Cavalry, those called “buffalo soldiers.”
Winter still gripped the plains—cold, blustery weather battering the soldiers daily. Every man nursed frostbite—ears, noses, cheeks, fingers, or toes. For seven days Custer’s troops plodded west by south. Every morning his scouts stuffed a day’s supply of jerky and hardtack in their saddlebags before setting out on their dawn-to dusk march, fanning through the countryside ahead of the blue columns.
Come the morning of the ninth, Custer’s scouts hurried back with news that, while not exactly to Custer’s taste, was nonetheless not without flavor. They had located a trail no more than a month old.
“How many lodges?” Custer asked eagerly.
“One travois, General,” replied Moses Milner.
“One.” Custer sighed. “Not to worry, fellas. Something tells me that one travois will lead me to bigger game.”
“Your itch same as mine. Got a hunch we’ll run those brownskins down yet.”
“Keep your scouts fanned wide, Joe,” Custer instructed.
“Your itch the same as mine, General. We’ll make a scout out of you yet.”
Custer’s faith in his hunch paid off the next afternoon. Eleven more lodges had joined the first. He dropped from the saddle beside his scouts on the bank of a small bubbling spring.
“Camp ain’t that old,” Milner said.
“We’re finally gaining on ’em?” Custer piped excitedly.
“Got a couple weeks’ lead at the most.”
Custer patted his chest, “Remember, boys—I’ve got another hundred dollars for the scout who leads me to the village where the white girls are held. Moylan, pass word we’re camping here for the night. When you’re done, have Romero bring Monaseetah to my fire.”
Milner turned to Hard Rope. “Say, old fella—that’ll be my hundred dollars this time! Best you make camp. I’ll boil coffee.”
“Good. Hard Rope and Little Beaver tired of your white chin-music. You make better coffee than talk, Joe California.”
Custer watched Milner lead the Osages into the trees, laughing. Two old Indians hunkered under their blankets coats and one jerky-tough scout pounding their backs with his every joke, chasing after his hundred-dollar dream.
By the time Moylan returned with Romero and the young Cheyenne mother, soldiers had unsaddled horses and raised canvas along the creek.
“Have Monaseetah look over the Indians’ camp, Romero,” Custer ordered.
Without replying to the interpreter, Monaseetah slipped off to an old campfire with the infant tied at her back. Monaseetah knelt, raking the old ashes, examining everything that caught her eye. She walked every inch of the Indian camp, picking up a bit of cloth or a scrap of old hide. Sniffing at old bones, she broke each one apart,
