This would truly be a fight. The soldiers in the valley had turned and run away. These on the hill had nowhere to run. They had to turn and fight.
From the Medicine Tail Coulee the pony soldiers had struck out north by east, riding hell-bent for leather to the highest ground. Always take the high ground, they had been taught. Secure that high ground, General Custer’s damp lips had reminded them before he slipped into blessed unconsciousness.
Once the soldiers reached that hilltop, the thousands upon thousands of spectators watched them spread out in a thin skirmish line along the ragged, grassy spine three-quarters of a mile long.
“Ride, you wolverines!” Tom Custer hollered to spur on the Michigan boys gathered tightly round him in their charge, like a blue fist sheltering the general slung over the saddle in front of Tom, his spirit oozing out of him with every drop that soaked his saddle red.
“Ride, goddammit!” Tom bellowed again, goading his men to the top of the ridge, where he could finally turn and look back into the valley.
There at the southern end of the spine, Tom gazed at the throbbing lines of black ants scurrying out of their anthills, streaming in a solid phalanx across the river, splashing up the slope toward the retreating cavalry.
“Troops, dismount!” he hollered, then his eyes darted over to Yates.
The big Michigander nodded and flashed him a huge, grim smile. It had been the proper order to give.
“Form skirmish lines—out—left flank! Out—right flank!” George Yates bellowed, already on the ground, pistol out and waving at the stragglers.
Not all the soldiers heard Tom Custer or George Yates. Not all could. There was simply too much sporadic shooting and yelling, besides all the horses neighing, bucking, and fighting their handlers. The animals had smelled the rippling water when they loped down into the Medicine Tail, then were refused a drink, lashed all the way to the top of this dry, dusty ridge without a chance to lap their muzzles in the cool river. Sadly the greenhorns didn’t stand much of a chance controlling their wild mounts, rearing, fighting the bit—crazed with thirst.
Some soldiers clung to their saddles, while others stayed on the ground. A few riders spurred in and out of the skirmish formations, shouting orders, waving commands down the line—officers mostly, or veteran sergeants. Anyone who would take charge. Time and again a few cooler heads turned and glanced down the grassy slope into the river valley at those great camp circles spread like clusters of buffalo-hide jewels strewn across the green velvet of the meadows.
They knew in their guts that no man had ever seen such a gathering before and lived to tell of it.
“Form up that left flank! They’ll sweep us off the top if you men don’t hold!” Tom shouted at his end of the spine of high grass and cactus after the general had been placed in the care of his own C Troop.
Keogh, Yates, Smith, and Calhoun spread the word, working feverishly among their men, attempting to wrench some order out of the panic in their flight up the slope.
Frightened out of their wits, most of the raw recruits simply let the reins go. Horses reared away in the melee, dust, and noise, nostrils flaring and eyes wide as nose bags with fear—then galloped off downhill toward the river and water, big oxbow stirrups flapping. Ammunition jingled in every saddle pocket. The mounts of some were gone for good.
“Tommy boy!”
It was Keogh’s voice young Custer recognized above the din of the first carbine shots as some of the veterans turned, dropped to their knees, and began to return the Sioux fire. He wheeled Vic on the mare’s haunches, darting back to slide from the bloody saddle near the Irishman.
“Lookee there, man!” Myles pointed downhill. “We got them bastards stopped for a wee bitten moment or two!”
Sure enough the warriors were piling up behind the brow of the hill, most releasing their ponies, driving the animals back downhill to the river and the villages beyond. From a clump of grass or shadowy sage, the warriors tried to fire a potshot every now and then.
For the time being, the tall grass would hide a soldier lying prone, but only until that soldier fired his carbine. Then a burst of blue powder-smoke betrayed him. And the Indians returned his fire. Perhaps the noisy rattle of Henrys and Winchester.
For close to an hour the soldiers held Gall off while the warriors fired volley after volley from their repeaters or old muzzle loaders into the scattered lines of white troopers. Here and there a young soldier might hear for the first time that soapy smack of lead pounding into a human body. They were still breathing, and still alive—holding the Sioux at bay.
There wasn’t any widespread nervousness or anxiety or fright … not just yet.
They had the Indians held down for the time being. Dr. Lord was working on Custer right up there in that ring of dead horses. The general would be on his feet again soon, and then they’d fight their way out of this red nightmare.
With Custer to lead them, they could fight their way right through the bleeding heart of hell.…
Beyond the throbbing movement just down the slope, Myles Keogh peered at warriors massing at the river, crossing the silvery ribbon of water before they streamed north, racing toward the far end of the sway backed ridge.
He didn’t want to think any longer on it.
“Myles!”
Keogh turned. Tom Custer was hollering, waving his pistol in the air. “George! Jimmy!”
When Tom called, the inner circle hunkered on the run to Tom’s central position beside the general. Young Custer knelt in the grass and sage, his brother leaning against him. Dr. Lord sweated over a wet, blackened belly dressing that was drying about as fast as it was sopping up the flow that didn’t seem to want to stop. A soldier’s bloody tunic lay in Custer’s lap.
“General!” Keogh growled in surprise as he knelt at Custer’s side. Myles found himself marveling at the strength in the man.
“Myles …” Custer coughed up some blood, a pink froth bubbling over his lower lip.
“General,” Dr. Lord whispered, pressing down on the compress all the harder, “don’t try to talk now.”
“End of the ridge …” Custer sputtered.
“You want us to go to the end of the ridge?” Tom asked anxiously, eyes darting nervously along the spine of grass and sage.
Custer nodded, weakly, eyes half-mast and watery.
“He’s right,” Keogh replied in a whisper. He pointed down the slope at the warriors streaming off to the north. “We don’t get to the end of this ridge … north—the bastards can have full run at us when they ride up the north slope. Down there at least we keep them at bay.”
Tom looked at each one in turn. “That means we’ll have to protect both ends of the ridge.”
Calhoun nodded.
Yates wiped a hand across his dry mouth. “Keogh’s right. We don’t keep ’em off both slopes … we’re done.”
“We’re done as it is,” Lord whined, his greenish face gone white with fear as his wet hands worked in the general’s warm, sticky blood.
“We’re not done, goddammit!” Tom snapped. He peered again at each of his old drinking partners, longtime friends who had lived so much life with him and the gallant Seventh.
“Up to you now, Tom,” Calhoun said it for all of them.
“The gauntlet’s passed, Tommy!” Keogh cheered as best he could.
“Don’t you think we ought to be moving!” Lieutenant Algernon Smith suggested, shouldering in on the tight huddle around Custer. “Like the general ordered, Cap’n Custer?”
“Fresh is right, Tom,” Yates replied.
