Seize the Sky

sky. I can see it! Lord, I can see it clearly now—earth as brown as her slim body … rising to meet the sky the way her musky earth-scent breasts rose to meet my lips as I covered her.

That’s it, Tom! Up there where no man has ever gone before … your destiny, Custer. It’s your destiny alone, always has been yours alone to go where no man has trod.

Up just a little higher … higher still … up where I can seize the sky.

Less than twenty of them still breathed on the hill under that hot, merciless sun. Twenty, if you counted the wounded who could still hold a gun.

When Tom Custer, George Yates, and Fresh Smith led the rest of them out of the Medicine Tail and up the slope to that hogback spine of grass-strewn ridge to join with Keogh and Calhoun, there had been something close to two hundred twenty-five soldiers and civilians riding hell-bent for election to cover their asses and get someplace where there weren’t so damned many screaming Indians.

By the time Tom and the rest left James Calhoun and Myles Keogh behind along the ridge, Custer had with him about a hundred and twelve stragglers limping onto that last hill north along the hogback.

After Smith’s men had slaughtered themselves in the ravine and the lieutenant himself struggled to crawl back to the general’s position, there were about sixty soldiers left, grim-lipped and squint-eyed, to stare back down the slope at the warriors closing the noose. Time and again their fierce, resolute little ring tightened round the general’s command. Each of those still alive by some cruel twist of fate’s own sleight of hand, understood by now that none of them were walking out of this valley.

No man found breath to joke about riding out either. A couple of men had tried that earlier. Corporal Foley and another.

Harrington, Tom thought. Maybe it was him. Haven’t seen the man in a long time.

Both riders had succeeded in getting off a ways, each followed by warriors on ponies fresh and spirited for the chase. Then each soldier shot himself in the head before the warriors could catch them alive.

So no man on that hillside joked now about riding out of here. There was no one laughing anymore.

Tom had about had it from the drag uphill. He stopped to rest and catch his breath, yanking at the big blue bandanna knotted round his neck. Already sopping wet. Still he used it to wipe his brow while he dropped to the dust and grass beside his brother. He had watched that horrifying whirlwind of frightened horses, panicked men, and finally the suicides sweeping west along the ridge. He had seen it nibble away at the will to live … the will to try.

How long ago?

How long had it been since Smith had led them down? How long since the lieutenant had been cut off on his retreat uphill?

Poor, sad, Fresh Smith, Tom thought dryly, running his gummy tongue around the inside of his mouth, sour with the taste of old whiskey.

With the scars of a horrendous wound suffered in the Civil War, Smith couldn’t raise his left arm above his shoulder, couldn’t even put on his tunic without a struggle. So when his right arm was mangled by a Cheyenne bullet as he crawled away from the suicides in the ravine, Smith found himself fair game for any glory-seeking young warrior.

A Cheyenne Crazy Dog had stood over him seconds later, reveling in his triumph. Poor Smith, hampered now by two useless arms, spread-eagled on the hillside while the warrior carved his scalp off. Still alive.

The scream …

Tom would always remember that paralyzing sound. A friend, this Lieutenant Algernon E. Smith. Yes, Fresh was one to always do his best. But he just couldn’t make it back up the hill as his men slaughtered themselves in that ravine below. His scream …

So as the warrior did his gruesome work on Smith’s scalp, Tom Custer ground his teeth, swiped the hot tears from his eyes, and sat down calmly, bracing Autie’s hunting rifle over the bloated ribs of a dead horse. He drew and held his breath. Let half of it go.

When he had the side of Smith’s head in his sights, he closed his eyes to the stinging tears and squeezed on the Remington’s trigger.

Reluctantly he had opened his eyes to the bright, white-hot sunlight once more. The Cheyenne warrior was standing every bit as tall, flinging his anger up the side of the hill at the man above who had killed the helpless soldier, robbing him of pleasure in slowly butchering the wasichu trooper wearing metal bars on his shoulders.

“Goodbye, Lieutenant Smith,” Tom had whispered, choking on gall, pulling the Remington back. Then he slumped behind the horse carcass until Autie moaned.

How long ago now?

Now nearing the top of the hill, dragging his brother, the sun seemed brighter.

All of the civilians gone now.… Had no damned business coming along, Tom brooded.

Kellogg was somewhere down by the river. He had never made it very far out of the Medicine Tail at all. Riding that poor slow mule he loved and coaxed all the way from Lincoln. The mule had cost the reporter his life as those five companies made their last mad dash up the slope out of the slopes and away from the river.

Boston and young Autie.

Harry. Just should’ve called you Harry. Not named you after your famous uncle. Maybe you’d still be back in Monroe right now if they’d let you be just plain Harry. You’d be flirting with girls down at the mercantile … or sneaking in for a swim up to Hansford’s place … swinging on that rope and dropping into the cool, rippling water. Instead, you’re lying dead, baking on the hot sand of a nameless Montana hillside.

Tom eventually gazed down at Autie. Custer was still breathing, but his eyes were half closed, as if he were asleep. Only the whites of his eyes showing. Sleeping through these last few minutes. Quickly Tom pulled all three pistols from his belt and checked them for live rounds. Replacing some spent cartridges, young Tom put one back in the holster, one in his belt, and the third he clutched in his sweaty hand.

Lord, the soft, pliant breasts I’ve held with this hand, he thought, staring down at it dirty, bloody now. What pleasure you gave the girls, Tommy lad. No more of that now.

Certain as the sun baked the back of his neck, Tom would see that the last two bullets weren’t used on the Indians. He’d learned enough from Indian warfare to know that. Two bullets. One for Autie, one for himself.

Lord, am I crying? Shit! I’ve never cried. Not even at Saylor’s Creek when half my face was blown off in that charge for the flag. I had to do it, goddammit! That artillery position was chewing Autie’s cavalry to pieces. Crying?

He sighed and fought for control. He didn’t want to cry in front of the men. Not now. Jesus, is it noisy here! Just listening to the sound of these few men on the hill. To the south Keogh was down to—

Hell, Myles has four men left.

Cooke was firing off into a pocket of some snipers to the west and still doing some damage. Christ, Billy had only two others still with him now.

Down the west slope in front of Tom sat perhaps a dozen more of his men nestled behind the bodies of comrades or horse carcasses. Up here he felt so alone … so goddamned alone. Then he looked down at Autie’s unruly straw mustache and sunburned freckled cheeks. And suddenly he didn’t feel so alone anymore.

Up here right near the top of Autie’s goddamned hill.

He tried to spit. Nothing but cotton balls in his mouth now.

Shit! Can I make it to the top? Can I?

Custer wanted Tom to drag him to the top. He had always done what Autie wanted him to do. From their earliest days as kids in Ohio right up to courting the proper girl—that Agnes Bates from Monroe last summer at Lincoln. He had always done just what Autie wanted, and he always would.

Autie … oh, Autie! You were always the fair-haired boy in town, the hero—even as kids. The one we were told to be like. And I was always the younger brother—trying to live at the edge of your bright light. It wasn’t fair, Autie!