“It is good,” he signed for his old friend, The Knife.
“Yes, Long Hair,” the Ree answered with his hands. “It is good for you to paint me before I go into battle at your side.”
Bloody Knife laid a finger on that striking black silk scarf resplendent with blue stars tied at his neck. “One time, long ago, you gave this young tracker this fine present. I have worn it always with good thoughts of you in my mind. But—I can never escape the thought that by riding with you, death almost touched me once before. Does Long Hair remember?”
Custer shook his head. Bloody Knife went on solemnly speaking in sign.
“We traveled into the Sioux’s Paha Sapa—their Black Hills—when one of the wagons I was leading got stuck in crossing a stream. You blamed me for the mud sucking that wagon into the creek bank. So crazy were you for that wagon that you aimed your rifle at me and fired a bullet. I ran away, not knowing what to do now that Long Hair’s blood was mad at me and he wanted to kill me. There I was deep in the land of my enemies, and my good friend Custer was trying to kill me.”
“I remember.” The commander nodded gravely, his thin lips pursed beneath the corn-silk yellow mustache. “It is true what you say, Bloody Knife. I did get angry and shoot at you with a bad temper. But you must remember that I later asked you to come back and be my trusted wolf, my scout, once more. And—” He swallowed hard, for it appeared as hard now to spit out these words as it had been back in the Black Hills. “I apologized to you, Bloody Knife.”
“I heard your apology and told you shooting at me was not a good thing for a man to do to his friend,” the aging scout replied sadly. “Then I said that if I got crazy-mad like you, you would not see another sunset. Bloody Knife does not miss when he shoots, Long Hair. Do you remember all this?”
Gerard watched the rest of the Rees. Those young scouts had never heard of this dramatic incident. Now they muttered among themselves fearfully. Better than any other, Fred knew the Arikara. For these young trackers nothing else could pucker their bowels more here on the precipice of battle with their old enemies—than to learn that Long Hair shot at his old friend, The Knife.
Gradually their death songs grew louder, more insistent. Fred alone knew the Rees believed they were being led into a valley crawling with Sioux warriors by a man who had tried to kill their beloved and revered scout- chief.
Paying no attention to the rising cries of the other scouts, Custer gazed into Bloody Knife’s eyes. “Trusted wolf, we both lived to see another sunset—and many more after that black day. I am certain the setting of this day’s sun will be one of glory for us both. You will leave that valley below with me, Bloody Knife. We will be going home together, old friend.”
Instead of smiling at Custer’s bright optimism, the old Ree said, “Long Hair, my friend, I am going home today—yes. Not by the way we came, but in spirit. I am going home to my people. Before the sun sets this day, I will see all my relatives gone before to the spirit world. You and I will not ride together to Washington City. We are soon to journey to join the old ones gone before.”
“Indian superstition,” Custer muttered from the corner of his mouth, forcing a smile. “Simply superstition.” He spat on the ground to emphasize it, then turned from Bloody Knife.
“Gerard, you tell your Rees if they don’t want to fight with my men, then they can chase after the enemy herd and fight the young boys who watch over those Sioux ponies.”
As he translated, Fred watched how Custer’s words slapped many of the older scouts. Still, the young ones remained too fearful to care about shame. Reluctantly, as if cutting a long-standing bond, The Knife pulled his horse from Custer to rejoin Stabbed and the rest.
“Gerard, tell them there are others coming, other soldiers,” Custer said. “I want the Rees to understand these other soldiers are coming to attack the village, and I want to be the first because I want the honors of fighting the Sioux alone. I need to defeat them myself.”
No expressions on those stony copper faces changed as Custer’s words became Ree words. Dark, black- cherry eyes burned between Custer’s shoulder blades as the soldierchief finally yanked on the reins and led Dandy back to the head of the columns.
Gerard watched Custer prance away. He sucked again at the hot whiskey, not minding what dribbled onto his chin, into his beard. The whiskey no longer helped Fred Gerard.
Now he was as afraid as the next man.
The army surgeon’s belly ached and his rectum burned. Raw, red, on fire.
Dr. George Edward Lord, a strikingly handsome young physician who had accepted a short-term army surgeon’s commission so he could revel in the glory of army blue on the frontier, diagnosed his own infirmity exactly. Every jolting step his mule took sent a wave of nausea through him. With insistent taps of his heels, Lord urged the reluctant animal toward the front of the columns, where he would find Custer.
“Cooke!” Custer hollered as Lord drew close. “I want every troop to call out six men and a noncom. They’re to join B Company under Captain McDougall in guarding the pack-train mules carrying our ammunition at the rear of the march.”
“Understood, General!”
“Get them cracking, Billy!”
“General Custer?” Lord’s voice broke as he reined up.
Custer wheeled. “Doctor! Good day! How can I be of service to you?”
“I—I’m merely reporting—”
“Great God, man!” Custer interrupted, studying the doctor’s peaked appearance. “You look about as green as high meat.”
“Yes … quite. I—”
Custer laid his bare palm against the physician’s forehead. “You’re burning up, Doctor! I want you back with the supply mules. B Company. Immediately.”
“Please, General,” Lord protested lamely. “Had I any idea you’d send me back, I wouldn’t have come to you. Today is what I accepted commission for, after all. To ride into battle with
“Hmmm,” Custer thought on it, tapping a finger against his lips. “Perhaps it will at that. Very well, you’ll stay with my command throughout this day, Doctor.”
“I was hoping I could, sir!” Lord cheered slightly with a brave attempt at his own smile. “I believe it’s only a touch of this prairie dysentery catching up with me. Bad water the past few days. Can’t keep anything down, or in me.”
Custer slapped the physician fraternally on the shoulder. “You stay close, Doctor. I’ll divide DeWolf and Porter to the other commands when the time comes. But you—you’ll go with me this day, and I’ll show you enough bloody action to pucker up any bunghole!”
“Thank you, General.” Lord offered a weak smile. “I’d be forever in your debt … if you could only pucker this problem hole I’ve been sitting on!”
During the short break that Custer called, the troops had laughed, joked, and kidded one another. Some even laid odds, betting future pay on who among them would come out of the fight with the most scalps hanging from his belt.
They were a rugged, Falstaffian group by now—some five weeks out of Lincoln, marching that trail west through spring snows, rain, and hail, not to mention the scorching heat of the past few days.
Round sunburned, cracked lips new beards sprouted on every face. Those floppy straw hats on their heads provided the only shade for the red dust-raw eyes that ofttimes now looked vacantly toward the wide valley yawning far below them.
Uniforms were worn and dusty if not ragged now, along with boots scuffed and cracked and far from black. Back at the mouth of the Rosebud, most soldiers had shed their blue tunics in favor of a civilian shirt. To watch them cross that fateful divide, an observer would think this regiment looked more like a band of vagabond gypsies than the legendary Seventh. Had it not been for the majority still wearing their yellow-striped cavalry britches and
