The Year the Cloud Fell

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  Custer turned the paper over. Below the fold was a cartoon. It showed Custer, distorted and inflated into an immense, gluttonous man surrounded by pie plates. Most of the plates were empty and had been labeled with the names of the territories; Missouri, Kansa, Yankton, Santee. One pie plate was uneaten. It was labeled “Unorganized Territory,” and the balloon of words that hung above Custer read, “I’ll eat them all if it’s the last thing I do.”

  He cursed and folded the paper once, then twice. He gripped it like a chicken’s neck and wrung it like the hated enemy it was. When it was a tight spindle, he held the end of it to the candle’s flame. The end caught and the flame slowly started to eat its way upward. Custer stood and walked to the hearth. He threw the paper into the bed of ashes.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked of it. “What do you expect me to do?” The paper began to unfurl as the flames embraced it. It unrolled just enough so that he could see the picture of George in his Academy uniform, all solemn for the occasion, the Custer chin held up and his eyes leveled at the camera’s lens.

  That day had been difficult. George graduated from his father’s alma mater with all the honors that Custer himself had never been able to achieve.

  “I never knew how to talk to you,” he said to the picture of his boy. “You were always different from me. More like your mother’s people: quiet, bookish. I never knew what to say.” He frowned as his eyes welled, but he forced himself to continue, compelled to confession by the picture’s sober regard and the feeling that time was running out.

  “The truth of it is,” he said as the heat began to curl the front page, “that I’ve always been afraid of you. You and that intellect of yours. Afraid…afraid of the day when you realized that you were smarter than your old man. Afraid that you would be ashamed of me. Ashamed of your own father.” A sob broke through his façade. He bit it off. The picture curled, darkened and disappeared in the flames.

  Chapter 12

  Friday, May 28th, AD 1886

  Washington, District of Columbia

  The still-groggy corporal sat down in the hard-backed chair in the little office set aside for the telegraph equipment.

  “But sir,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”

  Custer gestured to the unshuttered window. The sunlight outside fired the clouds with reds and pinks and cast long dark shadows across the lawns.

  “I am not an idiot, Soldier. I know quite well how early the hour is, and I know, too, that it is even earlier out in Kansa. Now fire up this contraption and send a message. Get the old warhorse out of bed if you have to. He and I are going to have a conversation. Do I make myself clear?”

  The corporal was awake now. “Clear as spring water, sir.” He turned, flipped three switches, and began to rock the telegraph key back and forth, sending his rapid clicks on down the wires.

  Morse’s code came back as the corporal began to navigate the web of exchanges and dispatches that rested along the wires like gems on a fragile necklace. Custer heard the dits and dahs from ever more distant points return as another gem was added to the chain.

  It took ten minutes to maneuver out of Virginia, ten more to cross beyond the Allegheny Mountains; but after that the lines were fewer and most were military. That combination brought the message across Kentuckee and the Missouri Territory in five more minutes. Soon, Custer heard the response from Candide, at the edge of the Frontier, deep in Kansa Territory, and finally from Fort Whitley, where it had all begun only three and a half weeks before. Seventeen men and over fifteen hundred miles of wire relayed the wish of a president to get an old man out of bed.

  For several minutes nothing happened. The telegraph operators sent a single dit that bounced slowly between the White House and Fort Whitley, a dit to ensure the lines were still open and functioning.

  The tinny speaker began to stammer. Code came through. Stant was there.

  “Good. Tell the good general that my boy is still out there. I want him to be found. Send men. Send scouts. And send them now.”

  The weak dawn offered no warmth. George shivered and pulled the heavy buffalo skin closer around his shoulders.

  “After today,” he said, “we will have to do most of our travelling by night.”

  The warchiefs listened to the quiet translation that Storm Arriving offered them. Storm Arriving looked peaked but otherwise hale. He had washed away the crusted blood during his morning bathe. The two wounds had formed scabs overnight; cracked, angry-looking seals on his otherwise smooth and unmarked flesh.

  “It is very important,” George continued, “that we remain hidden as long as possible. I don’t know if this is going to work. It will be difficult for us to travel all that distance without being seen, but we must avoid it for as long as we can. I will guide the party away from towns and we will travel along the gravel beds of the railways. We will bivouac in woods or cornfields. This will help us stay hidden longer. Stealth is the key.”

  One of the chiefs—an ugly, pock-marked man with a deep, velvety voice—said something the others found humorous.

  “Not Quite A Bear speaks: the son uses the father’s tools.”

  The comment hurt, but he knew that such was not the chief’s intent. “That is so,” he said. “It is a good tool. But there is one thing we must do that my father never did.” He waited for the words to pass along before he continued; he wanted their complete attention.

  “We must not kill anyone. If we do, we will bring down the anger of the entire country. As soon as the first vé’ho’e is killed, we lose. I cannot stress enough how important this is. Our goal is not killing. Our goal is power.”

  “But what of honor?” asked one of the chiefs. “To travel into the enemy’s land and not count a coup?”

  “And what if we are attacked?” another asked. “We must be able to defend ourselves.”

  “Agreed. If attacked, you must defend yourselves, but we must avoid confrontation if we can,” George said. “And as for honor, I believe there will be plenty of coup to count by the time we are done.”

  The ten chiefs took a silent vote with looks and small gestures. When they spoke to Storm Arriving, their agreement was clear.

  “It shall be done as you suggest,” Storm Arriving told him. How long will it take to reach the big fort you described?”

  George pursed his lips and made some mental calculations. “From what I’ve seen of the whistlers—their speed, their stamina—we can cover the distance in less than half the time it would take conventional cavalry. I don’t know about the walkers, though. How much will they slow us down?”

  Storm Arriving conferred with the chief of the Red Shield soldiers. They discussed the issue at some length, and the chief that represented the Little Bowstring soldiers added his own comments. George understood none of it.

  “As far as a whistler can run in two days, a walker can travel in three.”

  “That still beats out the horse by a good measure. If we push, we can make it in…four days. You get me across the Santee, and I’ll get you the rest of the way.”

  The chiefs seemed pleased by his answer. He thanked them as they rose to distribute their orders. Two Roads held back, a frown of concern across his sharp features.

  “One Who Flies,” he said through Storm Arriving. “This plan you have laid out for us sounds easy to accomplish. Why is it so easy?”

  A few of the other chiefs hesitated, waiting to hear the answer.

  “My apologies, Two Roads, and to the other chiefs as well, if I have made this sound as if it will be an easy thing. It will not. It will be very dangerous, and I fear that many of us will die. We will need a great deal of luck to succeed.”

  “Ah,” the chief said. “That is good. Such an important thing should be hard-won. I was afraid that it was going to be easy.”

  George smiled. “Do not worry. It won’t be.”

  The quiet of dawn was broken by whoops and whistles as the war party began to form up for departur
e.

  There were more than three hundred men that rode whistlers and each man had a riding mount and a war mount. Some gathered in groups around their chiefs, listening to final words of instruction. Others ran their beasts in long figure-eights across the plain of the empty camp, to loosen their whistlers’ legs or just to burn off their own exuberance in simple activity.

  To one side stood the party’s contingent of walkers. They were all of the Red Shield and Little Bowstring soldiers—the two groups that George considered the most militaristic of the six soldier societies. The men sat on their walkers, nearly one hundred strong all arranged in rank and file, and heard the words of their war chiefs.

  The bellies of their walkers were large and round. In a moment of gruesome curiosity, George wondered if the beasts had all fed on buffalo or if some of that roundness was due to the limbs and bodies of soldiers. When the chiefs were done, men and beasts alike shouted their war cry, a sound that sent a shiver down George’s back.

  He worried about them. They would slow their progress, and they were harder to handle than the more docile, bird-like whistlers. The walkers were predators, and as such were an unknown to his education in military tactics and strategy. He shook his head in wonder.

  Not even Hannibal rode in on man-eaters, he thought.

  With their battle cry still echoing off the stone cliffs, the Red Shields and the Little Bowstrings turned and slapped their mounts into a long-legged lope. The Elkhorn Scrapers and Wolf soldiers rode out, too, along with the riders from the allied tribes. George hurried over to where Storm Arriving and Laughs like a Woman waited with the Kit Fox and Crazy Dog soldiers. He climbed up on his riding whistler and tied the halter for his war mount—both a loan from Two Roads—to his first rope.

  “Well,” he said to Storm Arriving. “I guess I am ready.”

  Laughs like a Woman rode up beside him. Over his shoulder hung the strap that held his knife. He took the strap off his shoulder, wrapped it around the knife and sheath, and offered the bundle to George.

  “Laughs like a Woman does not think you should travel into battle without a weapon,” Storm Arriving explained. “We have discussed this with the others and we all agree.”

  George looked around and saw that all the Kit Foxes were nearby, watching to see the outcome of the offer.

  “I remember the first time he offered me this knife. Does he?”

  Storm Arriving relayed the question. Laughs like a Woman giggled and replied.

  “Laughs like a Woman says things are very different now. Now you are a friend of the People and a friend of Laughs like a Woman as well.”

  The knife was offered again, and George saw the hopefulness in the eyes of the former Contrary.

  With a bow of his head, he took the knife. He unrolled the strap and put it over his shoulder, just as Laughs like a Woman had carried it. He took the knife out of its sheath. The blade was longer than his hand and well-honed. The sheath—made of tough, heavy hide—was sewn with circlets of silver and tied with strips of leather. Long, white feathers hung from the bottom, and on the strap were circles sewn with quills and white eagle’s down, tied to the strap with leather and red cloth. It was an impressive weapon and one that clearly carried importance for Laughs like a Woman.

  “Néá’eše,” he said with solemnity. “I am honored.”

  The riders yelled their ululating cry and whistlers called out in huge hoots that swept from their keel-like bodies up through their curved bone crests. Two Roads raised his lance and enscribed a circle in the air.

  “Nóheto!” he shouted. They were underway.

  George was prepared. Hand on the first rope, he held on as his whistler leapt to keep pace with the others. All of the whistlers stayed close together as they ran—George could reach out and touch those nearest to him. They moved as a flock, all the whistlers together, and when they changed direction to avoid a shoulder of stone or take an easier fording across a rill, they shifted not one after another as in a line, but all at the same moment like a school of fish or a flight of birds.

  Spirits were high and soon the men began to sing. There was no need for stealth, here in Alliance lands, so George did not worry about it. Each soldier society sang its own song and the competition for the loudest group was on. George did not understand the words, but he helped as he could by joining in with the melody. All competition was over, however, when the two groups on walkers began. They sang the same percussive song they had sung on the way to the treacherous meeting with Stant. The great beasts stomped their feet and pounded the earth. They chuffed in rhythm—a huge haoh-haoh that nearly drowned out the singers.

  In response, the other soldiers joined in on a single song, one that ran to the rhythm of the walkers’ beat, and with a melody that played descant to the other song’s deep ostinato. They sang the two songs that were one, and to George’s amazement, he heard whistlers adding their voices to the choir.

  The sun was ahead of them as they headed east to cross the first of many rivers that lay across their path. This one would, George feared, be the easiest of the lot.

  “Nóxa’e!”

  The whistler stopped and Speaks While Leaving gripped the first rope.

  “What is it?” her mother asked.

  From the travois at the rear her grandmother spoke. “Be careful. They are upon her.”

  Her mother spoke to her again—a question, she thought it was—but she could not hear it all. The world around her had already folded in and stopped up her ears. She saw only white, and heard only the wind through the prairie grass.

  Then, as from a distance, a voice separated itself from the susurrus. A voice. Many voices. Singing.

  The prairie appeared below her, the sun sparkling on the morning dewdrops. She floated above it, looking down as from a low cloud. The song grew in her head, words accentuated by the chuffs of walkers.

  I am going (haoh-haoh)

  To search for a man (haoh-haoh)

  If I find him (haoh-haoh)

  There will be fighting (haoh-haoh)

  Perhaps he will kill me (haoh-haoh)

  Perhaps he will kill me (haoh-haoh-ha!)

  And in her sight they passed beneath her, one after another, men filled with song and excitement and the joy of camaraderie. She saw her father with the other chiefs near the end of the group and, in their midst, she saw One Who Flies. On his one side rode Laughs like a Woman, favored of the thunder beings, and on his other side rode Storm Arriving. She gasped at the wounds of the skin sacrifice that marred his chest and she felt her pride choke her throat and fill her unseeing eyes with hot tears. Her vision eyes saw clearly, and she turned as the last of the huge war party rode past.

  “They are on their way,” she made herself say, and the vision flared back to blinding white.

  When she could see again, there were worried women all around her: family, friends, and neighbors.

  “They are on their way,” she said again. “The vision is coming true.” Her words did not console them, and they turned back to their march without comment.

  “Don’t worry, Little Dreamer.” Her grandmother rode by on her whistler-borne travois. “It will make no difference to them, vision come true or vision prove false. No amount of faith in you will keep them from worrying about their men.”

  Speaks While Leaving bowed her head. She knew the truth of her grandmother’s wisdom, for it was her own vision; she believed in it more than anyone could, and yet still the pit of her own stomach was black and tight as she thought of Storm Arriving and the road before him.

  Storm Arriving knew this land. He had traveled it as a boy and had patrolled it as a man. It was the land of the Inviters, who controlled the lands north of the People, but it was a border land to the Santee—land now lost to the Horse Nations—and so it required more patrolling than the Inviters alone could adequately provide. Thus, he had worked these lands along the river of the Santee from the Big Greasy up to Big Stone and on up to the Red River, helping to protect
the lands of the Alliance.

  The land here was pleasant and abundant with trees and small game. The strength of summer was still a moon away and everything was green and flowers were sprinkled across the knolls and vales like stars in the night sky. He heard the cack-cack of a magpie scolding from a tree and higher, he spotted a hawk soaring beneath a tumbling cloud.

  The river pooled up here and grew wide and sedate. Up ahead, where the land gradually lifted itself up into rolling hills, it was narrower and filled with the strength of its youth. It was also shallower and soon Storm Arriving and the rest reached the sandy place above Crazy Woman Creek and, for the first time in his life—for the first time in the lives of nearly every man present—they turned to the east and forded the River of the Santee, crossing into the lands of the Horse Nations.

  There were no more songs and no more games among the men. They were now on enemy soil and Storm Arriving saw the serious heart of every man reflected in their grim faces.

  They passed over the land at a moderate pace, slowed only by the walkers and their swaying bellies. As the sun turned from the top of the sky towards evening, the war party turned south along the river. Storm Arriving watched as scouts went out and came back with easy regularity. There was no danger here. The land lay much the same as it did in his homelands: green, rolling prairie, gentle on the eye and no trouble to cross. The whistlers ran without thinking, so familiar was it to them. It seemed to go on forever, but that notion felt wrong. This was the frontier of his world.

  “How long does the land continue like this,” he asked One Who Flies.

  The former bluecoat scrunched his face and gazed up at the sun. “The land? It will be much the same for today and most of tomorrow. After that we leave the prairies and the land becomes very different. Before that, however…” He did not finish his thought.

  “What?” Storm Arriving asked. “What will happen?”