Seize the Sky

the company horses matched by color, not to mention those crimson-striped guidons snapping in the warm breeze, this might have been any group of ragtag riders.

Custer took a moment to reach inside his saddlebags, pulling out his pair of gold spurs. He straightened after strapping them over his dusty knee-high boots. He smoothed his jacket and admired the spurs privately before he met John Burkman’s pinched expression.

Custer grinned. “What’s the problem, dog-robber? Don’t you agree these are a splendid and fitting addition to my battle outfit?”

“The spurs, General?” Burkman squeaked.

“Certainly,” Custer replied cheerfully, still admiring how they added a martial note to his buckskin outfit. “They are my good luck charm, you see, Nutriment,” he explained, calling his orderly by the nickname given Burkman for his love of eating. “You see, I wore them on the Washita. And you’ll remember I wore them next with Stanley on the Yellowstone and down with Calamity Jane herself in the Black Hills. They’re quite the item—don’t you agree?”

“You said ‘good luck,’ General?” Burkman stammered with a serious case of the willies. “But you don’t seriously wanna … you told me General Santa Anna lost them to a U.S. officer as spoils of war at the end of the fight down in Mexico … then that same officer sided with the Rebs, and you whipped him in the war.”

“Correct in every respect, John.”

“Then them spurs ain’t really all that lucky, seems to me, General. Every respect intended. Looks like every man that’s worn them spurs lost a battle they fought with ’em on.”

“Silly superstition—just more willy-nilly claptrap!” he scoffed, peering down at his spurs beneath the high overcast of this late-June morning. “And to think of it, John—I’ll proudly wear them as I parade down the streets of Philadelphia on my triumphant journey to the nation’s centennial birthday party … even gallop once more down the streets of Washington City amid the cheers of millions of adoring citizens!”

Burkman glanced at the officers gathered near, as mute as he.

“Then, Striker—I suppose I’ve got no other choice but to break Medicine Arrow’s silly Indian curse with Custer’s Luck!”

Without another word Custer tore the reins from Burkman’s hand and leapt aboard Dandy.

Poor, simple Burkman realized he was close to crying. He hid his face, welcoming the hot stinging release of tears.

As Custer loped off, Lieutenant James Calhoun turned to Ed Godfrey, a gnawing knot tightening in his gut. He whispered, “What the devil’s Custer talking about? What have his gold spurs got to do with some Injun curse?”

Godfrey wagged his head. His own eyes clouded with the remembrance of that winter campaign down in Cheyenne country. “Goes back to the winter of sixty-nine, down in the Territories, Jim.”

“What the hell is it, Ed?” Calhoun gazed anxiously at Godfrey. “Tell me, dammit!”

“A goddamned chief put a curse on the General—”

“Curse?” Calhoun shrieked in a hoarse whisper.

“Chief claimed Custer and all his men would get wiped out.”

Calhoun gulped and tried a grin. “A curse. Shit! Silly pagan superstition, what it is. Right, Ed?”

Godfrey didn’t return Calhoun’s tin-plated smile. “Right, Jim. Nothing but silly superstition.”

Jim was a big man, the kind any plainsman or hard case might think twice about taking on.

Calhoun watched Ed Godfrey turn and ride off. “Say, Ed … so how come you don’t think it’s just superstition, eh? So how come?”

Moments later Custer whirled back up to Burkman. “Remember, dog-robber, we’ll be back by dinner for a good feed. These men’ll be hungry, and I more than they! A good scrap does wonders for my appetite!”

Burkman watched the general wink as Autie Reed and Boston Custer loped up at that moment, followed into the intimate gathering by Custer’s brother.

“Uncle Tom suggested I come ask you if I can ride at the front of the columns with you!” exclaimed ruddy- cheeked Harry Reed.

“Oh, he did—did he? Well, your uncle Tom is nothing more than a lady-humping rascal and a trouble-making rounder!” Custer smiled widely, teeth gleaming. “Of course, I can’t grant you permission to ride at the front of the columns.”

“Can’t?” Autie stammered as if slapped.

“That’s right,” he answered, his face going as grave as a church warden’s. “You’ll ride right behind me with my personal staff!”

“Thank you, Uncle! Damn—did you hear that, Boston?”

“Don’t you think it’d be a lot safer if you stay back in the pack train with me, Autie?” Burkman interrupted, stepping up to the young Reed boy, who looked quite the out-of-place innocent in his dirty and prairie-worn eastern clothing.

Pulling a foot out of a stirrup so he could swing his boot at the striker, Autie Reed chided, “You’re just mad ’cause you can’t go along with the general yourself!”

Burkman turned to Custer, finding sense in the youngster’s words. “General, surely I oughtta be going along, you know.”

For a long moment Custer did not answer. Instead, he straightened himself and gazed down at his striker. At last he leaned over, placing a gloved hand on Burkman’s shoulder. When he spoke, the words came out quiet, as if what he had to say was something shared only between the two of them.

“Your place really is with Captain McDougall and his pack train, John. Safer there by a long shot. I need someone to stay behind to watch over Dandy and the dogs, after all. What you do best—looking after my animals for me. But”—he flashed that peg-toothed grin again—“if we should have to send back for some more ammunition during the fight, you can come in with the pack train for the home stretch. What say to that?”

“If that’s what your orders are, sir.” Burkman bowed his head, crushed.

The man John adored, the man he had centered the last six years of his life on, was abandoning him as he rode into battle. And Burkman knew, somewhere deep inside the tar black melancholy pit of him, that he would never see the general alive again.

“That’s a good solider.” Custer snapped a salute, waiting for Burkman’s response. “A good soldier always follows orders.”

“Yes, … sir,” John croaked, then turned to trudge off, heading back to the pack train. The tears were coming again. God! how he wanted to turn around and beg the general not to ride into that valley.

But if the general’s of one mind to ride down into that place of evil—then at least he should take me. Burkman brooded darkly. Then at least I can die beside him.…

“Private?”

Burkman turned to find Custer coming up on horseback.

“You’ll take proper care to see that Vic is ready when it comes time to ride down upon the village, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Burkman found his voice strained, dry as the dust beneath his feet. His eyes moistened in gazing upon Custer’s haggard face. Damn! The tears stung his eyes as he stared up into the sunlight at the general.

“Those dogs of mine, you’ll always see they’re cared for, won’t you. Private?”

Something in the way the general said it, something on Custer’s face told Burkman that Custer knew.

He wants Missus Custer’s favorite horse out of it come the fight. Come the finish, he wants Dandy safe.

And perhaps most of all, Custer wanted his staghounds protected. General always had a special thing for those dogs, nothing ever closer than he had with them two, Bluech and Tuck. He said farewell to both of ’em back at Lincoln before marching out … and they surprised him by loping up to the column hours later, tongues lolling and tails wagging like schoolchildren playing hooky. Custer just didn’t have the heart to refuse ’em their romp west at his side. They were so much like … like his own dear children.

So now Burkman was assigned the task of holding the dogs’ thick latigo collars while they whined and whimpered piteously, watching their glorious master gallop out of sight, down into the valley of the everlasting sun.

“Front into line, gentlemen! Center at a walk—let’s ride!” Custer shouted, turning