shoving each other.
“Yates!” Custer sang out, watching his Monroe friend ride up.
“Kansas boys on the alert, General. We’re securing all livestock in the middle of the compound so the Indians can’t run ’em off.”
“Good, but I don’t think we’ll be attacked. That village is on the run. They’re too busy making good their escape. I think they realized we’re just too big an outfit to attack … even to hit us and run like Mosby’s raiders in the Shenandoah.”
“We hung some of those Johnny bastards!” Tom Custer growled.
“Times are, I think on stretching the neck of lying dog Medicine Arrow,” Custer snarled.
“Damn, Autie,” Tom grumbled, wringing his hands. “I was looking forward to a good scrap with these Cheyenne.”
“Just remember one thing, little brother,” Custer said, the twinkle gone from his azure eyes, “we’ve never fought the Cheyenne before.”
“What about the Washita?”
“We didn’t fight any Cheyenne warriors there. We attacked a small village with a few old men.”
“You make it sound like you don’t know who’d come out on the better end of it if we did fight Cheyenne.”
When Custer glanced at his younger brother, his eyes were as cold as the winter sky overhead. “Whether we can defeat Cheyenne warriors, that remains for the future. But you’re right—I’m not sure who’d come out on top if we had your scrap with ’em. Would it be the Cheyenne warrior who believes with all his heart in what he’s fighting to protect—his home, family and his way of life? Or would it be the soldier who’s getting pay to do his job until something better comes along and he can desert? You tell me which one makes a better warrior.”
Tom watched his brother turn, stride away purposefully, his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Hey, Autie! Which one, eh?” Tom’s voice trailed after Custer.
Custer stopped, turned slowly. “You don’t really want me to tell you, Tom.”
Custer shook his head. “Imagine how those poor girls must feel—hearing of troops nearby as they’re tied, thrown on ponies, and spirited away with the fleeing village. With no apparent effort made by those soldiers to rescue them! God in heaven—what am I to do?”
His eyes climbed from the coals at his feet, beseeching. “Romero, will the Cheyenne keep their prisoners alive long enough to exchange for the chiefs?”
The scout sighed. “Can’t say, General. Only thing I’m sure of is that you’re lucky Medicine Arrow isn’t in that camp right now. He’d have them girls gutted, scalped, and skewered, left behind as a little surprise for your soldiers to find.”
“With him here, what will the village do?”
“They’ll get as far away as their skinny ponies will take ’em. Then they’ll sit down to figure out what to do next. And while they’re sitting, you can creep back up on ’em.”
“To have them pull away again. That cat-and-mouse would go on until … No. We’re sitting tight, right here. I may not have the best hand in the deck, but I’m going to play out the hand I’ve been dealt. C’mon, Cheyenne-talker. Let’s go bust one of those four loose.”
Custer glared down at the four bronze faces. “See which one’s the messenger.”
Romero turned to Custer a moment later. “You’re not going to believe it—the old bastard himself.”
“Medicine Arrow?” Custer replied, grinding a fist into an open palm. “I should’ve known! All right. Tell him when the girls are freed and Medicine Arrow takes his people back to the reservation, I’ll send these three warriors to him.”
As Romero translated, Medicine Arrow’s head bobbed eagerly.
“That’s not all—you tell him that if he doesn’t release those girls, I’ll level his villages—like Black Kettle’s. Then I’m going to hang every last warrior I can lay my hands on until the trees are filled with Cheyenne flesh for the buzzards!”
Custer watched all four sets of eyes stay with his hands as he slowly curled them into fists as if he were choking a man standing before him.
“Tom, go requisition a tin of hardtack from Bell. And a small sack of parched corn and a couple pounds of coffee. Better bring a pound of sugar. Go on.”
When Tom had returned with the gifts and Romero led up a captured Cheyenne pony, Custer instructed his interpreter, “Tell Medicine Arrow these gifts are to show his people I can be as kind as I can be brutal.”
“Sending presents back with this old bastard,” Romero clucked. “Good idea. You’re learning ’bout Indians, General.”
“All I know is that I’m gambling the whole pot on those Cheyenne believing my word. They don’t believe me and I lose that gamble—those two girls are dead.”
“Appears you put the scare of God in this bastard.” Romero flung a thumb at Medicine Arrow.
Custer waved his hand, irritated. “Get him out of here before I change my mind and do something I’ll regret!” He turned on his heel and headed back to his tent, seething with anger.
More and more of late he wondered what white women were doing out here on this frontier anyway. Seemed the Indians never captured any men. The white women served only to lure the young warriors who lusted for conquest, and more. He brooded on the type of woman who would venture into an unknown, dangerous land, standing shoulder to shoulder with her man—assuming every risk the land threw at them both.
Warriors hungering for white women.
“What’s the ruckus?” Custer hollered, stepping from his tent the next morning.
“Indians spotted, General!” shouted a young guard rushing up.
“How many?”
“Fifty. Maybe more.”
“Good. Fetch Romero for me, Lieutenant!” He clapped his hands, wheeling back into his tent, where he strapped on his pistol and tugged on the buffalo cap. By the time he reached the northernmost picket line, a large crowd of troopers and Kansas volunteers had gathered to watch the approach of the Cheyenne.
Less than a mile off the Indians dismounted, put their ponies out to graze under the care of two young herders, and began their walk into the soldier camp behind two older men.
“You’ve got visitors, General.”
Custer turned, watching Romero slide up. “Those two in front. Chiefs?”
Beneath a shading hand, Romero squinted, studying the pair. “Can’t say. Don’t see feathers.”
“Whoever that bunch is,” Custer grumbled, “they aren’t coming like beggars. Every one is loaded for bear.”
Beneath a bright winter sun it was plain enough to see every weapon carried by the warriors following the two leaders. Besides a bow, most carried an old rifle or musket. And many had a pistol or two at their waists. The delegation stopped a quarter-mile off, conferring among themselves.
“Romero, take a good look,” Custer instructed. “That Little Robe out there?”
“The short one? By God, it might be!”
Custer turned to his brother. “Tom! Tell me that doesn’t look like Little Robe.”
“Goddamned, Autie—that’s him! I’d recognized the rascal anywhere. Good sign, him coming to see us.”
“You bet your freckled hide on that.” Custer lunged past the pickets. “We just might get those girls back in one piece now!”
“Where the hell you going, Autie?” Tom got no answer from his brother. He glanced at Romero, who shrugged his shoulders.
