Within that stinking compound made of some seventy dead horses littering the hillside, just below its crest, the air went deathly silent while it all sank in.
The only sound for the longest time was the random Indian bullet smacking into those huge, bloating carcasses. With every hit noxious gas escaped with a moist hiss, adding to the despair creeping over that yellow slope.
Lieutenant W. W. Cooke—Canadian adventurer who came south to fight in the Civil War and afterwards joined Custer’s newly formed Seventh U.S. Cavalry at Fort Riley to fight Indians rather than return home—rose awkwardly to one knee.
“Well, gentlemen,” he began in that soft, winning way of his that had won the friendship of many a man and the heart of many a pretty lady. “General, sir. I’ve a job to do. And I’m still of one body and soul so, I’ll be about it.”
Cooke stood, a fairly large man for the time and exceedingly fleet of foot. He more than any other man had won regimental footraces held at forts Riley, Hays, and Abraham Lincoln. “Just this last month we celebrated my thirtieth birthday, boys.”
“I remember it well, my friend,” Tom said, placing a hand on Cooke’s shoulder. “What a celebration that was. We truly drank the day away!”
“Aye.” Cooke licked his burning lips. “Wish I had some of that whiskey right about now.” He sounded sorry there wasn’t any left after caring for the wounded with what whiskey had been carried to the hillside in some saddlebags. “But there’s been many a time in the past that I knew for sure the way my life was going, I’d never make thirty. And look at me!” He chuckled with dark humor. “I’m thirty now and stuck on some goddamned hillside in—who knows where? Going to buy myself a small piece of this goddamned barren ground! Made it to thirty—only to die a month later!” He started to cackle wildly.
Tom Custer lunged at Cooke, gripping his shoulders in a close, fierce embrace. When Tom pulled back, he said “Billy, why don’t you go right over there?” He pointed out a position on the perimeter that needed some bolstering. “Looks like we could use a top shot covering that slope.”
Behind his tears, Cooke swallowed hard. “I am a good shot, you know.”
“The best, Billy.” Custer himself struggled to raise a hand to his adjutant. “I ought to know … choosing you to lead our sharpshooters at the Washita.” He winced with a swell of pain. The gray veil passed over his eyes. “You remember the Washita, don’t you fellas? The high point for the Seventh Cavalry. You remember, don’t you?”
Cooke knelt again beside Custer, wrapping one of the bloody freckled hands in both of his.
“Aye, General.” Cooke nearly choked on the sob, some slow, fat tears rolling down his cheeks and into those thick black Dundrearies. “It’s been a hell of a pleasure knowing you, sir! One hell of an honor too. May I shake your hand, General?”
“Of course, Billy Cooke.” Custer did not fight to hide his tears any longer. “You’ve been one of my closest allies all along. I’m going to miss you too.” His eyes gone gray searched each of them out now. “Miss all of you.” Then he gazed back at Cooke. “Remember one thing for me, Lieutenant Cooke …” He waited, clenching his eyes against the pain like a hot poker dragged slowly through his rib cage. “Remember, we’re taking no prisoners this time.”
At first, none of them knew how to take that. Then the general opened his eyes. They seemed to sparkle with some renewed light. It wasn’t only a glistening of tears. Some small flicker of fire still burned bright behind those sapphire eyes.
He was having a rough time breathing. So much pressure on his chest that he wanted to cry out. Instead, he would issue his last orders.
“Spread out. Keep your heads down. And remember, we take no prisoners this trip out.”
Cooke clutched the general’s freckled hand quickly a last time, then was gone up the north slope in a crouch, crabbing in the direction where he would keep an eye on a band of warriors massing down the side of the hill.
And out front of them all sat a warrior with light-colored unbraided hair, perched regally atop a prancing horse painted with bloody handprints on its hips, an arrow and a scalp drawn along the neck of the animal. Close enough for Cooke to marvel at the princely bearing of this one.
That solitary warrior sat watching, studying the holdouts upon the rise. As if deciding whether or not to crush such a pitiful last reserve of
“Tom?”
“I’m right here, Autie. Not going to leave you now. Won’t ever leave you, brother.”
Custer reached out for him, his eyes glazed so badly he could barely see. And Tom, his hand was there, holding onto his own with a fierce grip. He fought down the bile that rose with the pressure filling his chest, heavy on his belly.
“G-get me … get me to the top,” Custer gasped. “I’ve got to … just get me to the top.”
“Sure, Autie,” Tom answered, his voice wavering. He glanced up to the top. It was still some fifty feet away. “Should I drag you?”
“Yes …” He winced in more pain, sensing he didn’t have long now. What with the effort it took to speak, to stay conscious. “Just get me to the top.”
Tom Custer stuffed the pistol in his holster, then thought better. He picked up two more Colts from soldiers who wouldn’t be needing them any longer and stuffed them both in his belt. Only then did he lean over and snag both hands around Custer’s collar, beginning to pull him over the summer-cured grass and sage.
Up … up … up the hill.
But the exertion was enough. Tom didn’t want to waste his energy in this heat by talking.
Late June in Montana Territory.
The hillside ablaze with the splash of tiny flowers and budding blossoms. Across the tall-grass slopes lay scattered patches of locoweed like carpets spread over hardwood floors. So many flowers strewn in wild profusion across the rumpled-bedspread hillsides: pink and rose, lavender and blue, each one sleepily nodding its head at him in the soft June breeze.
Custer knew exactly how they felt. He wanted to go to sleep too … wanted so badly to go to sleep for a long, long time.
But he could smell them. And with their seductive scent, those wildflowers reminded him the time for picking drew near.
Young Indian girls would come up this hillside and gather the sweet peas and buffalo beans, carrying their treasure back down to their camp circles, where they would boil and mash the fruit to be eaten greedily with a tender hump roast.
He could remember those meals, Custer could. Why, even now he could see her as one of those young girls skipping giddily up this slope, with each gay step working her way between the bodies of men or bloated, gassy horse carcasses, completely oblivious—as if death hadn’t opened its fetid bowels and littered itself across this colorful hillside. As if the foul refuse of war really wasn’t here at all to defile this slope where young girls went to play and whisper together about their young lovers down in the villages at the river below.
Flowers all purple and magenta, white and fire orange and a delicate pink. The color of his own skin under this merciless sun. Pink.
He had to make it to the top of the hill. If only Tom could get him there.
Custer turned his head slightly, blinking several times, trying to clear his eyes.
