Then broke a flying area of awe
Across the rabble like a patch of sun
Upon the troubled corn when gray clouds run
And in the midst a glowing rift is blown.
Pressed back before the plunging white-faced roan
Of Crazy Horse, men brightened. How they knew
That lean, swift fighting-spirit of the Sioux,
The wizard eyes, the haggard face and thin,
Transfigured by a burning from within
Despite the sweat-streaked paint and battle grime!
Old men would ponder in the wane of time
That lifting vision and alluring cry:
“There never was a better day to die!
Come on, Dakotas! Cowards to the rear!”
Some hundreds yonder held the net of fear
Round Reno’s hill; but in the cloud that spread
Along the valley where the fleet roan led
Were thousands.
Now the feeble and the young,
The mothers and the maidens, terror-flung
Beyond the lower village to the west,
Had seen the soldiers loom along a crest
Beyond the town, and, heading down a swale
By fours, with guidons streaming in the gale,
Approach the ford. ’Twas Custer with the grays,
A sorrel troop and thrice as many bays—
Two hundred and a handful at the most;
But ’twas the bannered onset of a host
To those who saw and fled. Nor could they know
The numbers and the valiance of the foe
Down river where the bulls of war were loud;
For even then that thunder and the cloud
Came northward. Were they beaten? Had they won?
What devastation, darkening the sun,
Was tearing down the valley? On it roared
And darkled; deepened at the lower ford
And veered cyclonic up the yawning draw
To eastward. Now the breathless people saw
The dusty ponies darting from the van
And swarming up the left. The guns began,
A running splutter. Yonder to the south
The big dust boiling at a coulee’s mouth
Was pouring ponies up around the right.
Grown dimmer in the falling battle-night,
The stormy guidons of the troopers tossed,
Retreating upward, lessened and were lost
Amid a whirling cloud that topped the hill.
And steadily the valley spouted still
The double stream of warriors.
Then a shout
Enringed the battle, and the scene went out
In rumbling dust—as though a mine were lit
Beneath the summit and the belch of it
Gloomed bellowing. A windy gloaming spread
Across the ridges flicked with errant lead
And wayward arrows groping for a mark.
And horses, hurtled from the central dark,
With empty saddles charged upon the day.
Meanwhile on Reno’s hill four miles away
Men heartened to a rousing cheer had seen
The bays and blacks and sorrels of Benteen,
Hoof-heavy with their unavailing quest
Among the valleys to the south and west,
Toil upward. Unmolested by the foe,
The pack mules, trumpeting “We told you so,”
Trudged in a little later. By the cheers
It might have been reunion after years;
And was in truth; for there were graying locks,
That night, to mock the pedantry of clocks,
Untroubled by the ages life can pack
Between the ticks.
The fire had fallen slack
Upon the watching summits round about
And in a maze of wonderment and doubt
Men scanned the north that darkled as with war.
“What was it that the Major waited for?
He’d best be doing something pretty quick
Or there’d be Custer with a pointed stick
To look for him!” So growled a bolder few.
But many thought of little else to do
Than just to dodge the leaden wasp that kills
Sent over by the snipers on the hills
In fitful swarms.
Now like a bellowed word
The miles made inarticulate, they heard
A sound of volley-firing. There! and there!
Hoarse with a yet incredible despair
That incoherent cry of kin to kin
Grew big above the distant battle din—
The sequent breakers of a moaning sea.
And twice the murmuring veil of mystery
Was rent and mended. Then the tearing drawl
Was heard no more where Fury, striding tall,
Made one in dust the heavens and the earth.
“He’s pitching into them for all he’s worth,”
Some ventured;—“was there nothing else to do
But hug that hill?”
Then suddenly there grew
A voice of wrath, and many lying near,
Who heard it, looked—and it was Captain Wier
By Reno yonder; and the place went still:
“Then, Major, if you won’t, by God I will,
And there’ll be more to say if we get back!”
They saw him fling a leg across his black
And take the northward steep with face set grim;
And all the black horse troop rode after him
Across the gulch to vanish on a rise.
Two miles away from where the smudgy skies
Of afternoon anticipated night,
They halted on a space-commanding height
And, squinting through the dusty air ahead,
Were puzzled. For the silence of the dead
Had fallen yonder—only now and then
A few shots crackled. Groups of mounted men—
Not troopers—by the rifting dust revealed,
Were scattered motionless about the field,
As wearily contented with a work
Well done at last.
Then suddenly the murk
Began to boil and murmur, like a storm
Before the wind comes. Ponies in a swarm
Were spreading out across the ridgy land
Against the blacks.
By now the whole command
Was coming up, and not a whit too soon;
For once again the sun became a moon
Amid the dust of thousands bearing down.
Now farther back upon a bleak bluff crown
The troop of Godfrey waited for the fight,
Not doubting that their comrades held the right,
When orders, riding with an urgent heel,
Arrived with more of prudence to reveal
Than pluck: Withdraw at once! A startled stare
Made plain how all the flanking hills were bare
And not a sign of Reno in the rear!
Just then the fleeing troops of French and Wier
Came roaring down across a ridge in front
And, close upon their heels, the howling hunt
Made dimmer yet the summit of the slope.
And Godfrey, seeing very little hope
If all should flee those thousands, overjoyed
With some great coup, dismounted and deployed
To fight on foot, and sent the horses back.
And so he dared the brunt of the attack,
Retreating slowly like a wounded bear
With yelping dogs before him everywhere
Regardful of the eager might at bay.
And so the whole command got back that day
Of big despairs; and men remember still.
Then all the ridges circling Reno’s hill
Were crowded. In among the flattened men,
Now desperately fighting one to ten,
Hell hornets snarled and feathered furies crooned
A death song; and the sun was like a wound
Wherewith the day bled dizzy. Yet from all
The muddled nightmare of it, men recall
Deeds brighter for the years: how Captain French,
Like any stodgy tailor on his bench,
Sat cross-legged at the giddy
