Seize the Sky: Son of the Plains-Volume 2 (8 page)

Terry directed his attention to Custer. “What say you to the offer of Brisbin’s Second Cavalry?”

“At my disposal?”

Terry shifted his gaze to Gibbon with that question unspoken between them. In turn Gibbon looked at Brisbin.

Grasshopper Jim found himself nodding reluctantly. “Yes,” he sighed. “Major Brisbin and his cavalry completely at your disposal, Colonel Custer.”

“I can only thank you for your generous offer, Major. And yours, too, Colonel Gibbon.” Custer smiled again. “However, as you say, we are to keep the hostiles from scattering on us once more. Seems that’s all they’ve been doing to Major Brisbin all spring.”

Custer let the weight of that affront hang in the air. Brisbin opened his mouth, but Gibbon raised his hand, shutting him up, allowing Custer to continue. Brisbin figured Gibbon wanted Custer to hang himself with his ample tongue.

“No, General Terry,” Custer continued. “I don’t think we’ll run into a thing the Seventh isn’t capable of handling all by itself.”

Brisbin seethed in silent fury at the breach of military etiquette.

“Shall we take up this matter of the scouts to ride along with Custer on the reconnaissance?”

Gibbon nodded in resignation. It was his only response to Terry’s question.

Terry continued, clearing his throat. “Very well. Colonel Gibbon has selected six of his finest Crow scouts to accompany the Seventh. To the Crow the colonel is known as No Hip. His most trusted Crow scouts will be ferried across the Yellowstone this evening and presented to your regiment, Custer. They’re to act as a medium of communication between our two commands while in the field. I want to stress this fact—you already have some forty Arikara scouts. Gibbon has but thirty now that these six Crow boys are loaned to you. The Crows are more for our benefit than yours on this exploration of yours up the Rosebud. These six are really for service to Gibbon.”

“How can they be of service to Gibbon if they’re riding with me?”

“Because you’ll use them to communicate with Gibbon’s command. When you locate the Indian encampment, find out where the hostiles are going, their strength, then dispatch one or more of the Crows back to Gibbon with word. Only in that way can we execute this pincer movement that will keep the hostiles from escaping our noose. In fact, Gibbon here is even assigning Mitch Bouyer to you. He’s got a Crow wife. Been living with the Crow for some time. But he’s half Sioux. A good man. Trained under none other than Jim Bridger himself. Gibbon evidently feels you should have the best, Custer.”

“I appreciate that,” Custer answered.

“Very well,” Terry replied with a sigh, staring down at those charts and maps spread across the oak table. “If only we knew what has become of General Crook and his forces.” He tapped a finger down the Rosebud. “Somewhere … down to the south of us … is our third prong. And only God knows where.”

As the rest of the officers leaned in round the table, studying the maps, the commander of the Department of Dakota stood tall and cadaverously thin over his papers, deep in thought. “What I propose to do now is to go over this report by Major Reno’s scout and look over these charts on the Rosebud and Wolf Mountains. We even have some surveyor’s maps given us by the Northern Pacific Railroad.”

“Do any of them show us where General Crook is at this moment?”

“No, Custer. We have no idea where Crook is,” Terry said. “But more important to this campaign—and to you—is figuring out just where the Indians under Sitting Bull might be gathering.”

N
OT
long after Terry’s officers hunkered round the table over those maps and charts, the sky opened up as if someone had slit its underbelly and everything tumbled out.

For the first few minutes it rained, assaulting the
Far West
and all the troops on shore with drops the size of tobacco wads. When the wind suddenly shifted out of the north, the rain just as quickly turned to hail—huge, ugly, sharp-edged weapons from the heavens.

By the time the storm rumbled past and sundown was at hand, the ground lay white and the air chilled John Gibbon to his marrow.

“Isn’t that just like the high plains, gentlemen?” Custer asked, as he, Terry, and Gibbon crunched across a thick layer of hail icing the ground as far as a man could see. “One day you broil your brain, … and if you’re still alive the next, you catch your death of cold.”

Both Gibbon and Terry chuckled with the young lieutenant
colonel as they drew near Custer’s tent at the center of his Officers’ Row on the south side of the Yellowstone.

“I wish I had more to offer you in the way of refreshment,” Custer apologized. “Just never got a handle on this matter of alcohol.”

“No matter.” Terry freed some of the top buttons of his tunic. “I think I’ve had quite enough for the day as it is.”

Gibbon glanced at Terry. “We came along for only a moment, Custer. To speak with you in private.”

Custer appeared perplexed as he settled on his prairie bed, a tick stuffed with grass. “Why is that?”

“Armstrong,” Terry began. He removed his hat and shook the water from the crown. “I need to reemphasize some concerns of mine now that we three are alone. I have only the two of you with me … the two who will form the pincers of this campaign.”

“Sir?”

“You’ve made it perfectly clear to everyone that you don’t want the Gatlings nor Major Brisbin’s cavalry along. I could beg you to reconsider, Armstrong. Hell, I could order you to reconsider … if I thought it’d do any good.” Terry sounded as morose as his dark beard. “But I’m afraid ordering you to take them wouldn’t be an answer either.”

“No, sir. It wouldn’t in the slightest.” His eyes held steadily on Terry’s.

“I think I share the general’s opinions of your talents here, Custer,” Gibbon offered with rare candor. “Even though I don’t approve of your methods at times.” He slipped his hat from his head, running a hand over his thinning hair. “I haven’t spent all these years in this man’s army not to recognize a young officer who’s going places. But we all want you to understand that you have much more at stake here. Not merely your reputation—”

“A reputation that’s been tarnished from time to time,” Custer interrupted. “Is that what you mean to say?”

“Only for doing what you felt was right.” Terry put a hand up so Gibbon wouldn’t reply. “I know. Let’s just say you got caught in some political traps through no fault of your own, and we’ll leave it at that.”

At that moment a black woman appeared at Custer’s tent
flaps. Terry’s eyes flicked at Gibbon, watching consternation boil across the colonel’s face.

“John, this is Maria,” Terry introduced Custer’s servant.

Custer waited for her to curtsy to Gibbon before he explained, “She’s been with me since 1873 when my former maid ran off with a teamster after my unit transferred to Fort Rice. Maria’s been on both the Yellowstone and Black Hills campaigns with me.”

“Ginnel,” Mary began, bowing her head politely. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had com’ny, sir. I’ll come back later on.”

“No, that’s quite all right, Mary. You go right ahead and work on what you were doing.”

“I won’t be in the way?”

“Not at all,” Custer replied. She slipped past him into the tent. “Maria is quite the cook. Should you both choose to stay the evening, we’ll fix up some special dumplings for supper to go along with her sage hens. Including some delicious prairie onions she’s dug up hereabouts.”

“Thank you—no, Custer,” Terry answered for them both. “We’ll be heading back to the
Far West
. A lot planned yet for this evening. Still, Mary’s sage hen with dumplings does sound inviting. I’ll trust you to invite me to dinner when we get back home? Mary?”

She turned, surprised that General Terry had addressed her so directly. “Why, of course, Ginnel. Anytime you say. Anytime you and the Missus wanna have the hens. I’d be much pleased to cook for you.”

“Maria here is even taking some live sage hens back to the fort with her when she leaves in the morning.”

“Oh?” Terry glanced at the black woman. “You’re leaving in the morning?”

“Yessuh.”

“I’m sending her east with Chawako and his Rees, who are heading back to your Powder River depot, where she can board a supply steamer, taking our mail and dispatches with her to Lincoln. Since the Seventh pulls out in the morning, there’s going to be a lot of mail: letters to family back east … sweethearts and wives. I wouldn’t doubt but there’ll be a lot of greenbacks headed east on that ride too.”

“Dollars that sutler Coleman didn’t get his hands on yet? Now, that’s hard to imagine!” Terry guffawed with Gibbon and Custer. “That trader can smell a man with a coin in his pocket at fifty paces!”

“And pick that man’s pocket at ten paces!” Gibbon stated.

“You certainly know the man, don’t you?” Terry laughed all the harder. “Mary, I will take you up on that offer. When we return to the fort, Custer—you and Libbie must have us over for dinner.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Custer.” Terry cleared his throat, then said, “In all confidence—between the three of us—the plan for this campaign awards you and the Seventh the brunt of the action and hence the lion’s share of the—”

“Glory, sir?”

“Why, yes. Nothing short of the glory.”

“We won’t let you down, General.” Custer pursed his lips beneath the straw mustache.

“That goes a long way to relieving my anxieties, Custer. In that event I’ll issue your written orders in the morning.” Terry got to his feet as he slipped his campaign hat over his dark hair. “If you have any further questions at that time, we can go over them before you embark on your scout. For now, however, my mind is quite fogged enough as it is. We were at that meeting from near three o’clock until close to sundown! Life at the War Department in Washington City must be quite a bore compared to field action—eh, gentlemen?

“I plan to rest through the shank of the evening and see you off in the morning. Then I’ll get Gibbon’s outfit squared away and dispatched down the Bighorn to meet with you.”

“An effective plan, General,” Custer answered, his azure eyes smiling.

“Custer?” Terry stared at the ground a moment, as if tongue-tied. “One more thing—I’m not all that sure … sure just what to say for the last.”

That caught Custer completely off-guard. “Say … say whatever you want to say, General.”

Terry gazed at Gibbon a moment. Gibbon nodded.

The general sighed before he spoke. “Remember this, Custer: use your own judgment and do what you think best if you strike the trail. If you find my concept for this campaign impractical under the circumstances you encounter, you can change it … accepting full responsibility for varying from my plan, you understand.”

Custer nodded, a hard smile still crow-footing his eyes with tiny wrinkles.

“And, Custer—whatever you do—by God, hold onto your wounded. Just hold onto your wounded.”

“Yes, General.” Custer squinted quickly, his pale blue eyes gazing past Terry to the deepening indigo of the evening sky outside and the first faint splash of the stars spread across the darkening canopy reaching far across the southern horizon. Up the Rosebud. “The wounded … they will be protected. I promise you both that.”

Gibbon set his hat over his thinning hair and swiped the back of a hand beneath his huge nose as he turned to step out the tent flaps.

Terry halted at the doorway.

“Custer, I just may be the last to trust in you.” The general gripped the young officer’s arm paternally. “In fact, this spring it became apparent that not even your old friend Phil Sheridan …”

“I understand fully, sir.” Custer nodded at Gibbon before looking at Terry. “Thank you, General. The Seventh won’t let you down.”

“Find the Indians, Custer. We’ll help you do the rest.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.” Custer snapped a smart salute.

Terry and Gibbon walked toward the south bank of the Yellowstone, where a rowboat waited to ferry the officers over to the
Far West
.

“Cooke!” Custer called into the twilight.

His adjutant trotted up from a nearby camp fire. “Sir?”

“Have trumpeter Voss sound ‘Officers’ Call.’ I want to speak to the men in an hour.”

In fresh paint and their finest outfits, Gibbon’s Crow scouts presented themselves to Custer.

To them the soldier-chief would be known as Young
Star, Ihcke Deikdagua. At times they would call Custer the Morning Star. In years to come, none of the Crow would be able to explain to interpreters precisely why he had been given that name.

Young Curley was the first to climb up the bank to Custer’s tent, crunching across the frozen hail to present his hand to the famous pony soldier.

“What’s this?” Custer asked, peering down at his right palm, where Curley had placed a coin with his vigorous handshake.

“It is good luck that you touch his dollar.” Interpreter Mitch Bouyer translated Curley’s explanation.

Though only seventeen winters in age, Curley liked what he saw in the cut of the man. This pony soldier stood tall and slim, broad of shoulder as he thought a warrior should be. Most of all, it was those azure eyes that told Curley,
Here is a kind, brave, and thoughtful man
.

He had never before seen any man with such eyes.

Custer said, “Curley, is it? Yes—by jigs, I do believe we’ll all be good luck for one another, boys!”

After shaking hands all round with the others, Custer gestured expansively across the entire group. “I have seen most of the other tribes of these mountains and plains except the Crow. And now I see the Crow for the first time. I truly think they are good and brave scouts. I have some scouts here, these Rees. But most of them are worthless to me. I am told the Crows are good scouts, so I sent for you to be part of my command. I myself gave General Terry six hundred dollars for you scouts, and Mitch Bouyer here, to pay for your services.”

He motioned the scouts to sit as Burkman and adjutant Cooke came up with stools and a couple of small trunks. After the Crows had settled themselves, Custer spoke through the half-breed Bouyer.