Dakota Dream (49 page)

He rode hard and fast, stopping only to allow his mount to rest. Hours later, Jacob pulled up and listened to distant echoes. Off to the south, where his own Hunkpapa village lay, he could make out the vague popping of occasional rifle fire. Ahead, to the north along Custer's path, tremendous bursts of gunfire resounded. There could be only one decision.

Heartsick, he galloped toward the northern bluffs. As he rode, the wind carried an ominous warning, a message of death to his ears, and a deep sense of failure nearly overcame him. Still, Jacob forged ahead.

By the time he reached the battlefield, an eerie silence had settled over the valley. Jacob rode to the top of a small bluff,
then
groaned as he made a visual sweep of the area. Puffs of dust and gun smoke rose above the dead, a shroud of sorts protecting the lifeless skin from the sun's burning rays. Sickened by the carnage, the mountain slopes carpeted with the bodies of red men and white men alike, Jacob slid down off his mount and fell to his knees in despair.

"Why?"
he screamed, pounding his fist into the earth. "Why didn't anybody listen to me?"

In shock, unable to accept what his eyes told
him,
Jacob got to his feet and began walking through the field of bodies. Even in his dazed condition, he began to understand the futility the soldiers must have felt as their numbers were overwhelmed by his people. Many of the men died behind barriers constructed with the bodies of their own horses, shot no doubt by their loving masters in a last ditch effort to save themselves.

Jacob called a halt to his journey and sucked in a huge gulp of air as he caught sight of a thatch of red-gold hair. As he moved toward the fallen leader, Jacob's shoulders slumped and he groaned in frustration as he looked down on Custer's almost peaceful features. A small bullet hole near his temple and a dark stain at the side of his blue shirt were the only hints that the great general had not simply fallen asleep.

Again Jacob said, "Why? Why couldn't you have listened to me?" He rubbed his eyes,
then
glanced around. Boston and Tom Custer lay nearby, their faces much more gruesome in death, the loss of their lives somehow more terrible. Thinking of Dominique and the white burial custom, Jacob looked around for a tool with which to dig a common grave for the Custer brothers. For her, he would try to save them from the final indignity.

Then up ahead he noticed movement. When he looked toward the ridge, he saw several warriors descending the slopes. His people would return to the field now to collect their wounded and dead. Then, to complete the final ritual they would strip, scalp, and mutilate their enemies to prevent their passage to the heavens.

As the Indians drew closer, Jacob recognized his father, Gall. Wearing his full headdress, he was a regal sight, a dramatic antithesis of the testament to death all around him. When the chief waved, acknowledging and greeting his son, Jacob's response was to turn his palms up and shrug, mutely asking the same question of his father that he'd asked of his wife's dead uncle.

From behind Jacob, a dying Cheyenne warrior caught the movement through hazy eyes. Spotting Jacob's cavalry uniform, determined that not even one of the soldiers would live to tell this tale, he raised his rifle.

"Death to all Long Knives," he screamed as he began firing.

Jacob turned at the sound, but he was too late. He caught the full impact of the first round against his skull.

Two other bullets slammed into his body as he fell to the bloodied earth, but Jacob never felt them tear open his flesh.

 
Chapter Twenty

June 27, 1876

Dominique paced up and down in her small cabin on the steamship, the
Far West.
As she walked, she loosened the collar of the shirt she'd borrowed from an officer, and then eyed her buckskin wedding dress, which lay on the bunk. The heat was especially stifling in the confines of the cabin. But here she was, decently covered in a man's long-sleeved flannel shirt and a skirt hastily thrown together from one of the ship's fine tablecloths. Again she eyed the more comfortable buckskins, then sighed and crossed over to the porthole.

Where was Jacob?
she
asked herself for the thousandth time. What had become of her uncles? She stared out at the Little Bighorn River and at the calm waters and un- scarred landscape where the ship was docked. Only a few miles upriver, the battle still raged. The memories of the horrors she'd witnessed added to the perspiration on her brow. Hoping to catch a gust of fresh air, Dominique pushed the porthole open. The minute her fingertips touched glass, the crew below began shouting. She froze.

A horse burst through the bushes near the water's edge. Dominique lurched against the glass panel, her heart thundering in her ears, and strained for a better view. Then she noticed the lathered animal carried a naked Indian. Dominique watched, dry-mouthed, as the savage waved his rifle, but she slumped with relief when the crew members surrounded him in greeting.

"Sioux, Sioux, Sioux," the Indian screamed as he fell to the ground.

Dominique ran out of her room to the top deck of the steamship. Leaning outward, she shouted down at the men below. "Captain Marsh? Please, Captain Marsh. What's happened? Is there word from the Seventh?"

The ship's pilot turned and regarded the panic-stricken woman. Holding up his hand to her, he whispered to a crew member so that Dominique would not hear his words. "What's Curly trying to tell us, Baker?"

The crewman shrugged as he studied the stick figures the Indian was drawing in the dirt. "I'm not sure, Captain."

"Sioux, Sioux.
Absaroka.
Boom, boom," the savage shouted, stabbing his finger into his chest.
"Boom, boom,
absaroka
."

"Oh, hell, Captain.
He's talking about the cavalry. I think he's trying to say we've been whipped."

Marsh glanced up at Dominique,
then
shook his head. "I can't tell her that on the word of a half-crazed Indian, especially after what she must have gone through in that Sioux camp. Try not to look so damned upset. Pretend he's just babbling on about nothing of any consequence."

Changing expressions as he turned back to the ship, the captain smiled up toward the railing. "It's nothing, Miss DuBois. Just one of your uncle's Crow scouts who got separated from the main group. You go back to your cabin and rest now. I'll be sure to inform you when I hear any news about your family."

But Dominique knew there was something more, some horrible news the Indian was trying to tell them about. Disheartened, she turned and slowly walked back to her cabin. Beyond tears, she stretched out on the narrow bunk, and tried to find a way to escape from the nightmare her life had become.

She slept in snatches, always alert to the slightest sound, and worked at filling her mind with hope. When the dawn broke, Dominique rose and crossed over to the porthole.

She was staring
out,
remembering her past, wondering what was left of her future, when again the quiet was shattered. A single frantic rider exploded through the willow thickets. This time the stranger wore the uniform of a soldier. And this time she was unable to move.

Certain she couldn't bear to hear his message, Dominique waited in her quarters. Her eyes dull, her hopes reduced to a bare flicker, she observed as the crew helped the exhausted man from his horse.

After a few moments, Captain Marsh looked up toward her window. He quickly turned away,
then
started up the gangplank.

Dominique swallowed hard, knowing he would soon bring her the news she'd been dreading. Holding her head high, she marched to her door and opened it, then stood there waiting to receive him.

Captain Marsh approached the cabin and uttered a gasp as he realized the door was open. "Oh, Miss DuBois, excuse me, I don't mean to intrude."

"Please come in, Captain. I've been expecting you," she said, her voice sounding as if it belonged to someone else. "I have a feeling you finally have some news for me."

Marsh removed his hat, bowing his gray head as he tried to find the right words. "Yes, I'm afraid I do. Why don't you have a seat?"

"I'd rather stand, if you don't mind. Please, just tell me what you've found out. What's happened?"

"Well, it's just terrible, ma'am. I don't know how I can even tell you after the dreadful experience you've already been through as a captive—"

"Why don't you forget about what did or didn't happen to me in the Sioux camp, Captain?" she said angrily. "I have. Now please tell me. Do you have news of my uncle and the Seventh?"

Unable to look her in the eye, Captain Marsh took a deep breath and finally spit it out. "I'm afraid that, to a man, your uncle's troops were wiped out. I'm sorry I couldn't bring better news."

Dominique choked back a sob. "What do you mean, to a man? Where's my uncle Armstrong? I demand to see him at once."

"Please, Miss DuBois. Please sit down. Let me get you some water."

"I don't want water, I want my uncle."
I w
ant Jacob.
Dominique swallowed another sob.

"Please, ma'am.
If you'll just sit."

"Captain, I said I want to see my uncle."

"Yes, ma'am I know you did, but I'm afraid you didn't hear me. You uncle—
uncles,
"
he corrected, "
are
all dead, killed by the Sioux."

Dominique sucked in a breath so painful she thought it might crack her ribs. She pressed her hand to her mouth and turned away, speaking through her fingers.
"And Boston?
Boston, too?"

The captain brushed his hand across his eyes as he gave her a slow, painful nod.
"Both Boston and Tom.
I thought I had talked
Bos
out of going. He told me he'd stay behind and play poker with me on the ship. I don't know what made him decide to mount up and ride off with the rest of them. I really liked that boy."

"And Cousin Autie?" she managed through a throat barely able to perform. "Was he with Uncle Armstrong's men?"

"Autie Reed? Yes, I'm afraid so. He's gone, too," he said quietly.

A sudden rage swooped over her, spun her around, and sent her flying at the captain with talons of fury. "How could you let Autie and Boston
go
?" she demanded through a heart-wrenching sob. "They were so young, so full of fun. They never had a chance to live. Don't you understand?
They never lived."

The captain just stood there, allowing her to pound her fists against his chest until she'd exhausted her anger. When she finished, and stood before him panting for breath, Marsh held out his arms to receive her trembling body.