Without a word of reply, nothing more than a grave, watery look in his eye to betray his unspoken love for this Mitch Bouyer, Curley leaned over and hugged the aging half-breed. With that embrace he turned to leave his brother-in-law.
In all the maddening, swirling confusion, Curley’s pony had been driven off by some Cheyenne scaring away the horses from Calhoun’s position. As the young scout twisted and turned, wondering how to flee without his pony, a Cheyenne warrior began a ride up the hill toward the troops breaking loose from the end of Calhoun’s hill. A sudden volley of carbine fire from the hilltop blew that young warrior into glory.
Curley was on his feet before the Cheyenne even smacked the ground.
Dashing through tall grass and around silver sage, the young Crow scout raced down the slope after that riderless Cheyenne pony. Bullets kicked up spouts of dirt near his heels. Arrows hissed past his bear-greased pompadour. With one desperate lupge Curley grabbed for the end of the rawhide lariat looped round the mustang’s neck and held on for all he was worth, jerking the animal around, stopping it from running off.
Curley lay in the tall grass, catching his breath. Just moments ago he had discarded his dirty carbine because it had jammed. Tearing the army cartridge belt from his waist, Curley belly-crawled back uphill toward the dead Cheyenne, poking his head up every now and then from the sage to check his bearings.
Making it to the crumpled warrior’s body, Curley took the old Winchester ’73 and the Cheyenne’s half-empty belt of cartridges. Better this than nothing, and those cavalry carbines were as close to nothing as a man could get.
He pulled in the rawhide lariat tied to the pony until the animal grazed almost directly above him. Lucky that the Sioux could not pick him out through the dust and smoke … probably thinking the pony was merely grazing on the field of battle.
Curley glanced to the south and east. Unless he moved now, the end of the ridge would be surrounded. Hundreds upon hundreds swept up the Medicine Tail like maddened ants. He had to go now!
With one swift, smooth leap, the young Crow scout sailed onto the animal’s back from the tall grass. He twisted the rawhide rein round one hand, urging the animal up and over the spine of the ridge while Cheyenne warriors howled in anger and utter dismay at the Sparrowhawk’s escape aboard one of their own ponies.
“White-Man-Runs-Him!” Bouyer shouted in Crow as many soldiers turned to watch Curley gallop over the top of Calhoun’s hill, through the soldiers and warriors and into the valley beyond.
“It is your turn, White-Man. Take one of the army horses that looks fresh enough to run. You have done all that you said you would do when No Hip hired you. I will tell your people in the land beyond how brave you are, but you must go back to the pack train now. Save yourself to tell this story. We are all dead men now.”
White-Man nodded, a trace of confusion on his young face. He began to rise and dart away but was back in the next instant, grabbing Bouyer’s collar, dragging him uphill toward the soldiers preparing to retreat north along the ridge.
“No!” Mitch barked, twisting painfully against the bullet hole gaping in his gut, a bubble of intestine protruding, puffy and purple. “I am done for. I go now to meet my people. Leave me to die here on this spot!”
Gently, almost as if Bouyer were a baby, White-Man lowered the half-breed Sioux down among the tall grass and touched Bouyer’s hand where it lay drenched in blood oozing from the belly wound.
“Your people are my people now, Uncle,” he told Bouyer. “I will see you again one day, in a valley not far from here. Remember this now, the journey you go on will not take long. The trail is easier than any trail you have ridden before. All your friends are there. Mother and father too. I will see you in that valley one day, brave one.”
Then White-Man was darting uphill in a rooster crouch, heading for some horses held together by a grim bunch of recruits hunkered near Tom Custer’s command. From what Bouyer could see over his shoulder through the swirling dust, the Crow scout fast-talked one of the recruits out of a horse and leapt aboard just as George Yates hollered out a warning.
Tom Custer whirled, yanking up his service revolver. Down the end of the muzzle he aimed at the scout’s broad back but never pulled the trigger as the rider disappeared into the smoke and dust, galloping east as fast as the army horse could carry him.
Tom slowly stuffed the pistol in its holster before he dashed back to his brother’s side.
Those high, clear notes sailing on the dry air, like cottonwood down lifting over the ridge and the villages below, brought most of the warriors to a staggering halt for a few precious moments.
Soldier trumpets!
Their murderous fire slackened … shrieking cries died off.
Even some of the army horses near that hilltop acted as if they recalled something in their past, some tatter of memory stirred on this dusty slope by those brass horns.
From behind the trees and clumps of grass the old men, women, and young boys peeked to see just what was taking place with the pony soldiers up the hill.
“This is no
First a handful, then a wave of Cheyenne and Sioux swept up Calhoun’s hill behind Old-Man-Coyote.
Raggedly, grimly, the soldiers fired back. Not in volleys this time. Independent. More frantic now as the enemy tide swept upward.
The big horses reared. More broke free of men scrambling into the stirrups.
All of them headed for the river below.
Calhoun’s troopers held—staying behind as the others scattered along the ridge, running north.
L Company laid down a destructive fire into the charging warriors, doing the best they could with the men they had left. Careful aim from a kneeling position—then plopping down behind the tall grass to reload and perhaps to struggle with the carbine’s shell ejector. The shells they kept inside the leather pouches or on the cartridge belts were coated with a sticky verdigris that acted like a cement inside the superheated chamber of the Springfield carbines. Sometimes all the ejector did was to rip off the base of the shell from its tubing, leaving the soldier with a useless, army-issue club. Silently they fought a knife into the jammed breech beneath the trapdoor, in utter frustration breaking off the tips of knife blades.
Cursing as the Sioux worked their way closer up L Company’s hill … ever closer.
The old ones hit a warrior near every time. Yet more came on—more still on painted, wide-eyed ponies looming out of the blue powder smoke and yellow dust like demons in a ghost charge. Some even rode the big army horses now instead of their Indian ponies. Better to lose a soldier horse to the soldiers’ bullets than a prize war pony or buffalo runner. Most of these daring warriors wore the bloody blue tunics or gray shirts of Reno’s dead.
A warrior wearing a tunic or blouse and riding an army horse found he could gallop that much closer to the hilltop positions before he was discovered and shot at. Slowly, inexorably—the warriors tightened the noose.
The bugle calls ended. More troopers darted like wild men along the ridge, following the general’s body, following Tom Custer.
A retreat? No, the Sioux and Cheyenne watched these men running for their lives … running to steal a few more precious minutes of life.
A handful of those staying behind fired their carbines with one arm from the hip as they dragged wounded friends up the hillside until they reached the top, where Calhoun stood like a steadfast oak, bellowing orders all round, shouting encouragement.
He could afford to be courageous now, Jim Calhoun could.
Most of the men were throwing aside their useless Springfields and grabbing others, or pulling out their revolvers. The Indians inched close enough for pistol work now. Almost close enough for hand-to-hand—close enough that a man could hit them with chaw spit if his mouth hadn’t gone dry.
Those wounded and dragged uphill cried out as they bounced over sage, yanked toward the spot where Calhoun’s L Company remained behind to cover Custer’s retreat down the ridge.
“Just hold ’em back, goddammit!” Calhoun hollered, his eyes straining to catch a glimpse of where his brother
