The soldier column rattled to a noisy halt at the ford seconds before the lead horseman plunged his big, blazefaced sorrel into the cool waters of the Greasy Grass.
This brave one riding in the front wore buckskin britches and had atop his head a big-brimmed hat that shielded his pink, sunburned face. Right behind the leader rode two others, both carrying small flags that snapped in the warm breeze.
With a jerky wave of his arm, the man on the big stocking-footed sorrel shouted something over his shoulder to his soldiers, urging them into the ford.
A mighty, chilling sound rose from the throats of those white men streaming down out of the coulee as they followed their leader into the river.
As quickly, another noisy challenge sailed across the river from the lips of those brave four who had chosen to sacrifice their lives at the crossing. Their shrill cries filled the air as they stared down the barrels of their weapons and knew only they could stem this cavalry charge. If the soldiers made it across the river and pushed through the undefended village, they would have the Indian forces cut in half. Defeat of the tribes would be assured.
One choice only—to turn the soldiers somehow, to force them back across the river until more warriors could come up. These four could not allow the pony soldiers to cross the Goat River and gain its western bank.
“This is a brave one!” Bob-Tail-Horse shouted to The Cow as he took aim on the leader. “I will wear his scalp proudly!”
Tom rode a few lengths behind Autie as the head of the column reached the mouth of the coulee. Custer surged ahead, into the river, splashing wildly and waving his arm for the others to follow.
“The villages are abandoned!” he shouted.
True enough. Or so it seemed to Tom. The lodges and camp ahead showed no activity. The village had fled.
Autie’s two flag-bearers urged their horses down into the cool water, where they had to fight to keep the animals moving. So much water and so much thirst. The horses fought their bits.
Then the young bearer of the regimental standard spurred his animal. The horse struggled against the bit, then surged forward.
At the moment the trees ahead erupted with that single rifle shot, the standard-bearer’s mount leapt alongside Custer’s horse.
The big lead ball struck the young soldier in the side of the face. The exit wound left little of the back of his head. Blood and gray matter splattered the soldier-chief.
Tom watched his brother jerk his reins in. He wheeled crazily as Vic fought her bit, bringing the animal under control in the knee-deep water midstream. Custer gave Vic the business end of those gold spurs. The big animal lurched on across the middle of the cold, rushing stream.
As his .44-caliber bullet smashed through George Armstrong Custer’s chest, the shock wave sent the pink- faced soldier tumbling over the back of the big horse, into the turbulent water.
Almost by command his blaze-faced sorrel pranced once-round on the rocky bottom of the stream and loped back to where the soldiers skidded to a halt.
Their leader lay face down in the water. Some soldiers dropped from the saddle to fire their carbines at the Indians hidden behind their cottonwood fortress. At the same time, two other troopers stumbled along the rocky river bottom to retrieve the young soldier’s body when it began to drift off on the bobbing current.
Three more soldiers dropped to the cold, tumbling waters beside their fallen leader. One of these wore buckskins too. His gray hat fell into the river.
Tom’s frantic cry bounced along the ragged river bluffs as he dashed forward, watching his brother pitch backward from his mount. As if it all happened in slow motion, Tom reached out—trying to check Custer’s fall.
But he got there too late. Autie already floated in the water. Some soldiers at the head of the column dropped to the river, forming a protective barrier around the general, while the rest of the command milled and jostled—suddenly numbed and dumbstruck.
Lieutenant Smith was there in the river after the next beat of Tom’s heart. George Yates right behind him.
The big blond captain from Monroe, Michigan, eased the general out of Tom’s arms, turning Custer over, bringing his face out of the bloody water.
Tom stared, lips trembling and unable to talk, unable to move, staring at that huge red stain spreading like soft flower petals across the left side of Custer’s gray shirt.
“Get his horse, goddammit!” Yates bellowed.
Tom didn’t know what to do. Autie had always given the orders. Except in that wild unthinking charge at Saylor’s Creek—when no one dared an assault on the Confederate artillery battery … no one, that is, until Tom cried out and led the charge himself.
“T-tom …”
He looked down into his brother’s face clouded with pain, with confusion and fear. And watched a gush of blood pool at the corner of Autie’s cracked lips, beneath that bushy, strawlike mustache.
“Hill …” Custer bubbled his one-word command at the face swimming before his glazing eyes. “Get us back up the hill.”
As his heavy head slowly drooped, the general fell silent.
“Is he dead?” Fresh Smith demanded coarsely, suddenly very afraid.
Those precious seconds at the ford became confusion. Then confusion gave itself to the beginnings of panic that spread through the ranks. Milling, shouting wildly, this headless army bottled itself at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee. While above them on the hillside, Calhoun and Keogh watched in concern.
Custer’s own companies weren’t moving across the river. Stalemated. And that spelled anything but hope in the hearts of Keogh’s rear guard.
By now more warriors had slid behind the cottonwoods, returning the random soldier fire. Bullets pinged off the low bluffs directly behind the troopers or slashed into the river around them, sending up tiny eruptions.
Yates had been busy over the body, covering it while he felt at Custer’s neck for a pulse. Then he pulled back momentarily, cursing himself. No wonder he couldn’t sense a pulse beat … his gloves!
Instead, the captain bent to put an ear against Custer’s chest. Almost as if they stood enclosed in some foggy dream, the shooting and shouting around the small knot of officers stopped suddenly, the horses quit neighing or fighting their bits, and the warriors across the river mysteriously fell silent.
There was powerful medicine made at this place.
“He’s alive!” The Michigan soldier rose dripping from the water, bawling to the bone-pale sky above. “By God in heaven—the general’s alive!”
“Get his horse!” Tom cried out, instilled with hope, instilled with life himself now. And Vic was suddenly there. “Help me, dammit! Get Autie up! Up there on Vic. Get him on his horse!”
“It’ll be all right,” Lieutenant Smith droned over and over. “It’ll be all right now.”
Fresh Smith and George Yates helped sling the general over the saddle before Tom leapt atop Vic himself, squaring himself behind the cantle where he could cling onto his brother’s body, steadying it for the coming ride. Lieutenant and captain caught up their own mounts, swinging into the saddle and splashing out of the stream.
From across the river, in their cottonwood deadfall fortress, the screams and shouts grew louder. And beyond them the shrieks grew more in number. Above a pounding of pony hoofbeats.
“We’re in for a scrap of it now, Tommy!” Smith said it evenly, looking back over his shoulder.
“Sounds like the gates of hell have opened up, George!” Smith shouted to Yates.
