Seize the Sky

“Thank you, sir,” McIlhargey replied, sensing the winded mount sagging beneath him. “I’ll report back to Captain Keogh and I Company.”

Custer yanked on Vic’s reins and galloped off past the private. The strong, well-fed thoroughbred lunged along the lines of troops waiting for some word on the Indians and news of Reno’s attack on the village. He brought them the news they hungered for. Up and down the columns he loped, shouting of the discovery by the Crow scouts—the village far to the north—and that Reno was in the thick of it.

“We’ve got the village in our sights now, boys!” Custer cheered, standing tall in the stirrups, every bit as ragged as any of them, but more regal at this moment than ever before in his life.

Destiny waited for him downriver. Close at hand. Beckoning him on with her sweet perfume and seductive come-hither.

He watched his effect on the men, loving, it, knowing he could stir them as no one else could at this critical moment.

“Reno’s got them tied down at the river … so, we’ll go on to make a crossing where we can cut their head off! What say you, fellas? Reno’s already in the thick of it! And we’ll have some of that glory for ourselves in a few minutes! Just be patient … hold those mounts. What say—are you boys ready to ride the Seventh into gloryland?”

Many of those two-hundred-odd soldiers cheered and whistled their enthusiasm right back at the general. Some even tossed their hats into the air or tucked them away into their saddlebags with that loose ammunition for their carbines. Around their heads some troopers tied the brightly-colored bandannas bought off trader Coleman back at the Yellowstone.

Those five companies of old files and raw, frightened shavetails stripped for a fight worthy of the mighty Seventh U.S. Cavalry.

They prepared to ride into gloryland behind General George Armstrong Custer.

So now the Long Hair set off like a winter-gaunt wolf on a trail that smelled of snowshoe hare.

Into that scooped-out depression carved just behind the high ridges that rose up from the river, Custer led his five companies. Through the windless, suffocating coulees and red-eyed gullies, the dust stinging thickly in their nostrils by the time the last man loped up Custer’s trail. From time to time they heard the bunching of low, resonant carbine shots creeping up the ridges from the river valley below. These soldiers riding behind the bluffs realized Reno’s men were having themselves a hot time of it. All but the greenest of Custer’s two hundred wished he himself were down with the major right about now having a go at the Sioux.

From the top of one of the coulees, Custer’s men glanced down at the shining silvery river as they marched past. Reno’s soldiers seen through the shimmering summer haze were mere specks on the green sward beyond, bugs scurrying back and forth, swallowed by dust and the gray blue of burnt powder smoke. The sight of that distant, impersonal battle was a bit more than some of the veterans and shavetails could take. Hearing now and then the booming reports of carbine and rifle fire was one thing—but seeing it firsthand … that was another altogether.

Some of those in Custer’s command cheered spontaneously as they tromped along behind their leader’s blue-and-crimson banner. Others cried out, allowing their weary, lathered mounts to have their heads for just a moment. One by one more soldiers joined in the raucous disorder, their horses charging out of formation around the head of the column. Up where Custer rode, leading them north.

“Hold your horses back, boys!” he shouted in a dust-ravaged voice. “Just hold ’em back for now! And don’t worry—there’s enough Indians down there for us all!”

By the saints, Lieutenant Cooke thought, riding beside his commander, this has to be the finest fight you’ve ever taken part in, Billy Cooke! Reno’s pounding hell out of ’em down there—and we’ll slip behind ’em to hammer their asses to the ground.

Custer reached over and slapped Cooke at that moment, clenching a fist in exuberance.

Damn, but my life bodes well now. Riding with Custer to glory. Beginning at the Washita, now along this river the Sioux call their Greasy Grass.

Custer turned in the saddle and waved, urging the troops out at a gallop this time, cutting more to his right, heading for the higher bluffs and ridges.

“These bluffs just might hide us from the villages below, Billy!” the general shouted above the clatter of hooves and the jangle of bit and saddle gear.

“Damn right, sir!” Cooke answered, every bit as lusty.

“I intend to surprise the warriors at the head of the village while Reno batters their feet,” Custer explained, shouting above the hubbub. “But to do that, they must think Reno’s attack is all there is.”

Cooke turned for a last glimpse of the valley as Custer cut more sharply to the right again, far behind the bluffs. A last glimpse of the valley. What he saw was Mitch Bouyer and his Crow scout Curley, nodding gravely to one another.

Billy did not like the look on their copper faces at all.

What are they thinking? Cooke wondered. Do they figure Custer’s turning off from the attack … away from the river now?

He watched the two exchange quick words, a few signs, before they both kicked their ponies into a faster lope to catch up to the columns.

Cooke felt the cold shaft of ice water spill down his spine as he turned away from those two copper faces clouded with doubt and confusion as they all followed Custer into the coarse, grassy bluffs ahead.

When the command was at last hidden behind the high ground, Tom Custer heard himself hailed ahead by his brother.

“Tom, get up here!”

He flushed, that scarlet spot on his cheek from Saylor’s Creek blushing beneath his excitement. “Yeah, Autie?”

“Choose one of your trusted men.…” Custer looked away from Tom, scaring down their back trail. “I want you to have him send a message back to the pack train.”

As soon as Custer had finished his instructions, Tom whirled and tore away, headed back to his C Company.

“Sergeant Knipe! Need you to ride back to the pack train.”

Daniel Knipe grew mule-eyed. “Sir?”

“Hurry back to McDougall. Tell the captain to rush his pack train along, directly across country to our position. He must come now. And if some of the packs come loose, he has the general’s orders to cut them loose and leave ’em behind. He must come on at all haste. Quick, Sergeant! There’s a big Indian village directly ahead of us. Tell McDougall that! And if you spot Benteen down there, tell that sonuvabitch to hurry his ass up here too!”

“Yes, sir!” Knipe answered. He jammed his square-toed jackboots more snugly in the oxbow stirrups for the hard ride he would have of it over broken country. He short-reined his mount, twisting away, but young Custer suddenly seized his bridle.

“Sergeant!” Tom hollered into Knipe’s face with the sour smell of stale whiskey. “Remember to tell him—it’s a big village.”

“Will do, sir!”

Knipe sawed his reins again. The animal leapt forward as if it had been shot, its rider raking the big heaving flanks with his spurs. Sergeant Knipe was on his way back to the pack train. Only once did he glance back over his shoulder for a last look at those five companies of soldiers and friends, their bright bandannas and glittering carbines flashing beneath a midday sun.

Not much farther along the jagged bluffs, Custer scanned the ground to his left.

“Hoping to find a place where I can see Reno’s fight,” the general explained to Tom and Cooke at his side.

“I see it, Autie,” Tom said, pointing. “That flat table, jutting out into the valley looks like the spot.”

Custer twisted in the saddle, ordering a halt and waving for Keogh to come up. The four galloped eagerly to the edge of the bluff.

From this high point Custer studied the valley below through field glasses. “Strange,” he muttered absently, the glasses clamped against his red, burning eyes. “Very strange. I can’t see a single warrior in that village. I