Seize the Sky

Fred had disappeared in the dust. “We’ve gotta hold the bastards off and buy our boys some time— goddamn sonuvabitch!”

Calhoun watched the corporal’s brains splatter across the front of his checkered shirt but did not stop to wipe off the blood and gore. Jim sensed himself growing more numb with every click of the hammer on his pistol. Around him drew the last shreds of his gallant command. Crittenden was nowhere to be found.

Probably one of the many bodies I had to leave down the slope, he brooded, slamming cartridges into the cylinder. Sergeants Mullen and Bender and Cashan—all gone now.

Their bloodied bodies littered the thirsty soil just outside a ring of horses atop the knoll. Three veterans who had gone out to drag others to safety sacrificed their own lives in the process.

Try as he might, Calhoun couldn’t locate Sergeant Findeisen through the smoke and dust that lent the hilltop an opaque, daguerreotype look. Nowhere in the blur could he see chevrons.

Doesn’t matter much anyway. Calhoun already knew who he was going to choose for the ride. First Sergeant James …

“Butler!” Calhoun bellowed like a castrated calf, his left arm aching horribly where a bullet had raked a furrow along the elbow. Blood dripped off the hand. The arm hung useless now, swinging like a beef quarter, raw meat suspended lifeless from his big shoulder.

“Sir?” Butler crawled on his knees and hands, crabbing up. His leathery face was smudged with burnt powder and other men’s blood.

“You’re the last one left,” Jim hissed breathlessly above the noise.

“Last, sir? Sergeants—oh … yes, sir. I’ll rally the squads, sir.”

“Shuddup and listen to me, Butler!” Calhoun said it more softly than he had expected. “A horse—not hit yet. Find one. Make the ride out of here. Save yourself if you can do it. I’ll give you what cover fire I can. Ride south—off that way—yonder to find Benteen … the pack train. Just—get—somebody.”

“Ride, Lieutenant?”

“Ride, Butler! Goddammit—like you never have before!”

“Yesssssir!”

Butler appeared to come alive of a sudden, slapping a salute against his bloody, hatless brow and wheeling to find a mount. When he had one of the sorrels captured, he stuffed two extra pistols in his belt. Leaping atop the bloody McClellan saddle, the sergeant found the stirrups cinched much too short. A small man. Maybe one of the boys. But no matter.

He spurred back to Calhoun.

“Lieutenant—I’ll bring ’em back, sir!” Butler shouted above the ear-splitting noise of battle and men dying.

Butler nearly brought the weary horse over on one haunch, yanking hard on the reins and kicking savagely at the animal’s flanks. Probably figuring there was one last, mad dash left in the horse and nothing more. Tufts of yellow dust erupted from its flying hooves as Sergeant Butler sped away, butt in the air, head down along the animal’s lathered neck. Like a jockey, reins clutched inches from the bit.

Off the spine of grassy ridge, right down into Two Eagle’s Sans Arc warriors he rode, surprising hell out of the Sioux with his crazy courage.

Calhoun fought back the stinging tears of frustration and grief. Perhaps saddest that he would never again hold his dear Maggie.

Sweet, sweet Maggie Custer. Funny, he thought, swiping the hot sting from his eyes, funny that I still think of her as a Custer and not a Calhoun. But—that woman will always be a Custer. She might’ve taken my name to wear for all the world to see, but beneath Maggie’s freckles she remains a Custer through and through.

He had lived for her, Jimmy Calhoun had. And now, he would die for her. For her brothers. For the general.

Jim just hoped Butler would be in time to save Keogh, Smith and the others up there … strung out along the ridge like dry beans scattered across his mother’s floor back home.

Home. Maggie. God, I love you!

The tall, thick-shouldered lieutenant cursed his useless left arm and flung some more of the bright, sticky blood across the toes of his boots.

Damn, but I’m going to miss them all! Every goddamned one of you! We had a time, didn’t we, boys!

“Ride, Butler!” he cried out with everything left in him at the disappearing back of the sergeant so far away, past the first warriors.

He might make it yet, Jim Calhoun prayed. Too far away to hear me now.

“Ride, Butler—goddammit, ride!”

If any man could make it through the Sioux, it would be Sergeant James Butler. There wasn’t a better horseman in the Seventh.

Sorry, Butler. It’s just too late for L Company now. We’ve held ’em off long enough.

Calhoun turned and saw I Company in position north along the spine, Keogh’s men hunkering along the east slope while the Indians worked their way up from the river side.

L Company just didn’t have many men left now … men who could fire a weapon at the damned Sioux creeping closer and closer …

How many do I have left now?

He wondered that as the bullet smacked into the side of his gut with a wet thud. Slamming him with the power of a mule kick.

That was a funny sound. Something I’ve never heard before. Look, you’re bleeding, goddammit, Jimmy. Don’t hurt much though. Not like this gaddamned arm!

Calhoun struggled to his feet.

“Uhhhnnnn!”

That one burns, dammit!

He fired at the warrior he figured had shot him in the lung.…

Right in the lights! Man don’t live if he’s shot in the limits.…

The warrior couldn’t believe that the big soldier just stood there, rocking on the balls of his feet, refusing to go down.

But Calhoun’s gun was empty long, hot minutes ago. He clicked the hammer over and over and …

“Ride, Butler, ride!”

Then two more rounds tore through his body, blowing huge, fist-sized holes out through the front of his chest. Jim Calhoun stared down at what was left of him. More numb than ever now.

Suddenly he felt the hot flourlike yellow dust beneath his wet cheek and wondered if he had been shot in the head. It was wet beneath his cheek.

Then Calhoun realized he was crying. Good-bye, Maggie! Good-bye, Mother!

Jimmy Calhoun heard the pounding of moccasined feet. Damned close now.

“We did our best, General!”

With the high, thin call of his eagle wing-bone whistle stuffed between his thick lips, Gall brought his warriors to their feet behind him.

As one they rose on command and surged toward the top of the hill where Calhoun had desperately held on as long as his men and his own strength could stem the tide. Some warriors knelt like sharpshooters with their rifles, covering the advance of the light cavalry that thundered past them toward the crest of the hill, whipping their ponies over Calhoun’s handful of hold-outs.

The last few troopers alive were bowled over by the overwhelming onslaught, their screams of pain smothered beneath the hundreds of throats crying out with a vengeance for fifty years of broken promises and shattered treaties. Stone clubs swung against skull bone and shoulder blade. Old pistols fired point-blank into fear-