hearts of those who would see this land run red before they would give up the prisoners. I only pray I can say the right words to shift the rush of history.”
The chief turned to go, accompanied by a crush of feathers and paint, rifles and bows.
“Little Robe, wait!” Custer pressed a hand to the old one’s shoulder. “Yellow Hair prays for you too. May you find the strength our people require of you at this moment in history.”
“What rests in your heart is good, Yellow Hair. Together we will find that strength.”
Like a stone quickly swallowed by a still pond, disappearing beneath a corona of silent ripples, so too was Little Robe swallowed up by the fifty warriors who followed him back to the icy meadow where waited their winter-gaunt ponies.
CHAPTER 25
Two more days passed. The stalemate continued.
Then, unexpectedly, the chief who had accompanied Little Robe’s delegation now visited Custer alone.
The soldier chief fumed at Slips Away, stuttering his limited Cheyenne. “You tell me again your chiefs have decided not to release the girls!”
“Yellow Hair holds our three chiefs. Too, you hold fifty more from Black Kettle’s camp. I am sent to tell you— release the chiefs, then we can talk of freeing the white prisoners.”
His teeth on edge and close to boiling, hands clenching in fists, Custer shook with rage.
“Hell, no!” he shouted in English. “Your people don’t understand. I hold my soldiers back. Many in this camp come from the land where you captured the women. They hunger to spill Cheyenne blood! Go back and tell them Yellow Hair sees the Cheyenne are worse than squaws—cowards! It takes no brave warrior to kidnap a woman. Remember—were it not for those two captives, I would level your village!”
“Many stand ready to answer your guns, Yellow Hair.”
Custer leapt up, almost upon the warrior’s toes, his cheeks flushed. “Silence! Go tell them Yellow Hair makes ready to wipe the Southern Cheyenne from the breast of their mother! Every man, woman, and child!”
He turned away, afraid of what he might do if he glared into that Cheyenne face much longer. His heart eventually calmed. “Little Robe did not come today, for he is ashamed. Still, I know what course I must take.”
Slowly, he turned back to the tall warrior, crossing his arms. Custer’s sunburned face clouded. “Take my word back to your people. I grow weary. No more talk. If you do not come to me by noon tomorrow to tell me when you will release the white captives, I will follow your villages. Each time you move, we will follow. Now, go!”
He shoved past the warrior, angrily flailing his arms. “Moylan! Have Sergeant Lucas get this Indian out of my camp! Before I do something I’ll regret!”
Custer disappeared into his tent, furious and fuming, collapsing onto his bed, his head propped between his hands. The only thing that helped was Monaseetah’s fingertips rubbing across his shoulders, up the tense cords at the back of his neck.
Seeking those places only she knew … the calming places.
Noon came and went the following day. And with it, Custer’s patience.
“Moylan, there’ll be no more quibbling with these Cheyenne—I’m about to force their hand.”
“You’ve been more patient than most, General.”
“Those days are over,” he spat. “They squat in their villages, laughing at me. I’ll not be treated like some treaty diplomat! I’m a soldier.
“We’ll force their hand or I’ll chop it off in the process. Have Romero take a detail of troops to the village and inform those Cheyenne they must send their chiefs to me at sunrise tomorrow. Not noon.
“Yessir.”
“And when Romero’s on his way, inform the companies this camp’s about to move. We’ll sit on the Cheyenne’s doorstep before nightfall!”
By six A.M., before the next sun had crept into the east, Custer was up and about, anxious to see matters forced off dead center. Once more this warrior, this cavalry officer who had become known in the Shenandoah as “Sheridan’s firebrand,” found himself preparing for that to which he had been born—to fight.
By the time the morning frost began to burn off, Custer had fifteen Cheyenne chiefs seated before him.
“You will hold your tongues,” he began without preliminaries. “No food. No pipe. I’ll leave that to the treaty makers you laugh at. Yellow Hair is a warrior. You will listen without speaking a word. The time for discussion has gone.”
Custer pointed at his three prisoners seated nearby. “These men are your leaders. What stupidity to want me to kill them.”
He paced in front of the fifteen, reminding them how patient he had been with the slow progress in freeing the white women. Then Custer dropped the other boot.
“Upon your heads rest the responsibility for war!”
Rhythmically, he slapped the rawhide quirt against his muddy boot top for emphasis, like ticking off the seconds until releasing his mighty army on the Cheyenne villages.
“You hold the women. We came to get them back. If you won’t release them peacefully, we’re prepared to pay for their lives with our own. I’ll lay waste to your villages—leaving them a smoking ruin for all Indian nations to know of Cheyenne stupidity!”
Custer stepped close to the fifteen now, assured of their rapt attention. “If you harm one of the women, I will kill ten Cheyenne. And if one of the captives is killed, I will put two hundred of your own to the sword myself! I’m prepared to keep on killing until no more Cheyenne walk the face of this earth! No more wombs to carry Cheyenne warriors!” He said to his interpreter angrily, “See that they understand that, Romero!”
Custer and the other officers gathered with him watched the chiefs eventually indicate their understanding.
“Now, Romero—have Dull Knife join me.”
The tall, stately chief, one of the three held captive, followed the pony soldier to a nearby cottonwood. From one of the overhanging branches dangled a length of hemp rope at the end of which hung a noose. Custer signaled Sergeant Lucas.
Two soldiers immediately seized Dull Knife, binding his hands behind him. The warriors shouted furiously. Quickly the soldier guard around them leveled rifles at the delegates. Angrily, the Cheyenne fell silent as the noose fell over the chiefs head, tightened at the base of his skull. The rope was raised until the chief was on tiptoe.
Big Head’s dark eyes glared flinty hatred at Custer. Yet not a muscle in his face betrayed any emotion.
“See your mighty chief now!” Custer cried, flush with anger. “Listen carefully, for you’ll no longer play me the fool. Release the two girls by sunset tomorrow, or you will watch your chiefs hang—one at a time!”
Custer turned to the sergeant. “Lucas, ease the chief down.”
When he could stand flat-footed once more, his neck no longer stretched and his hands released, Dull Knife joined the other captives. He sat rubbing his wrists and raw neck.
“None of you’ll be so brave tomorrow when I have your bodies hanging from this tree!” Custer roared at the Cheyenne. “I’ll watch the magpies feast upon that flesh left on your bones when the buzzards have had their fill!”
In two steps he stood before his interpreter. “Romero, tell our visitors they have five minutes to talk with their chiefs. For if the girls are not freed by sunset tomorrow, this is the last time they’ll see their chiefs alive!”
Throughout the next long, fateful day, a hushed tension wound itself through camp like a watch spring; every man was fearful it would get one rough twist too many and the whole thing would snap. Not a soldier could fail to know this was the day the Seventh Cavalry would go back to war with the Cheyenne.
With its pale, milky light, the winter sun had sunk halfway out of midsky, falling steadily toward sunset. Still no tidings heard from the hostile villages.
