Martin rode right up. and without a word handed over a note scrawled on notepaper:
Benteen, come on; big village; be quick; bring packs. P.S. COOKE.
“Where’s the villager?” Benteen asked Martin.
“In the valley,” Martin replied shortly.
“Are they fighting”
“Martin shook his head. “ They skeddadling.”
Benteen could hear no firing. If the Indians were running, there might not be time to go back for the packs. Besides, Benteen figured, they were coming as fast as they could. His battalion’s presence with the pack train would not make them come any quicker, but could make a large difference if Reno and Custer had the Indians on the run.
While Benteen had been talking to Martin, Captain Weir of D Troop rode up. Benteen handed him the note without any comment. Weir read it.
“We’re moving forward to the river,” Benteen said.
Weir silently acknowledged by riding back to his troops.
Benteen moved the battalion forward quickly, traversing two miles until they reached the Little Big Horn right where the trail said one of the two cavalry units had crossed. Looking to the north, Benteen could see some fighting going on and he could now hear firing. The soldiers he could see seemed to be withdrawing toward the right, north of his position.
“Where did Custer go?” Benteen asked Martin.
The trumpeter simply pointed to the north on the east side of the river. Benteen frowned. It was obvious that Reno’s troops were engaged and not faring well. Other than a handful of soldiers, all he could see were hundreds of warriors in the valley on the other side of the river.
Benteen looked to his right and to his dismay spotted a small group of four Indians about a quarter-mile away in that direction. If there were hostiles between him and Custer and Reno was retreating in the valley, then he paused in his thinking as he recognized them. They were Crow, scouts from Custer’s unit.
Benteen rode to them as they came forward. He could tell they were agitated.
“Many, many Sioux!” one of the scouts exclaimed.
“Much fight, much fight!” another babbled.
Benteen looked past them, up the hill, and he could see clusters of blue uniforms in the high ground almost a mile away. That decided it for him. He quickly formed his battalion and headed in that direction. He was met just short of the soldiers by Major Reno, who was staring blindly toward the northwest.
Benteen stilled his horse and stared as the senior ranking officer came forward. Reno had no hat and his tunic was covered in blood. There was a look in his eyes that Benteen had seen before in battle: shock, close to panic.
“He said he would support me!” Reno cried out before Benteen could say a word. “He said he would support me with the entire outfit!”
“Where is Custer?” Benteen asked.
“He didn’t support me. They’re dead. Hodgson, MacIntosh, Bloody Knife. All dead.”
Benteen looked past the distraught major. There were a number of troops on the high ground. Some were firing back down the way they came. Occasionally more soldiers would come up from the river, some on horse, many walking. All in a panic, obviously there had been a rout.
“Here,” Benteen said, holding out the order he’d been given.
Reno took it and read. He laughed hysterically. “Big village. Oh, yes, it’s big. There’s thousands of them, Benteen. Thousands. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Benteen said, leaning over and putting a band on Reno’s shoulder. All the while he was thinking hard. If Reno had been beaten as badly as it appeared and most of his troops were dismounted and pushed back to this side of the river, then the pack train was a priority. They would need the ammunition it carried to replace that which was lost on the horses in the valley and for them to be able to mount a viable defensive stand. Benteen barked orders, moving his three companies onto the high ground to support Reno’s battered troops, and then he turned to a lieutenant and sent a detachment riding hard to the rear to bring up the pack train.
He knew one thing Custer had been right about. They were in for a fight today. He saw Bouyer. Standing near the northern edge of the knoll. Benteen rode over.
“Where’s Custer?”
Bouyer pointed north, toward a cloud of dust. The distant echo of shots could be heard. “There.’’
“This side of the river?”
Bouyer nodded. “He didn’t make it into the village for some reason.”
Benteen rubbed his chin worriedly.
“We’ve got to move forward,” Bouyer said.
Benteen was stunned. “What’?”
“We’ve got to move forward to support Custer.”
“Support Custer?” Benteen laughed bitterly. “We’ll do well to survive here.”
Captain Weir rode up in a hurry. “Sir, my company is ready to move.”
“Move where. Captain?”
Weir pointed in the same direction Bouyer had. “To the Sound of the firing, sir.”
Benteen realized that Weir had been taught a little too much Napoleon at West Point.
“They’re massing below us,” Benteen said. “If the pack mules don’t get here soon, we’ll be overrun.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Bouyer said as he mounted his horse. “I’m going forward.”
He held out his hand toward Benteen. “The satchel.”
Benteen took the leather case off his saddle and almost dropped it. He could smell the leather burning. Whatever was inside was very, very hot. Bouyer took it and looped the tie over his pommel. Then he simply took the one from Reno, realizing the officer was too dazed to offer any help.
Bouyer rode off. Weir looked at Benteen, awaiting orders. Benteen was between a rock and a hard place. If he ordered Weir to stay, he was abandoning Custer, much like Custer had done to Elliott at Washita so many years earlier. But if he ordered him to go, he was reducing his fighting strength by one-fifth. Probably more than that given the state most of Reno’s men appeared to be in.
Taking silence as assent, Weir yelled orders and his company charged after Bouyer. Heading toward the sound of firing.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
THE SPACE BETWEEN
“I can’t give you anything,” Dane said. He stepped back from the golden globe and reluctantly looked around the chamber. Everyone was dead. The crew of the Nautilus had gone above and beyond the call of duty to an extent none of them could have ever imagined.
“We’ve got the ozone!” Earhart yelled, causing Dane to reach up and pull the headset away from his ears. “Let’s head back to your time line.”
“We don’t have the power.” Dane stepped back into the Valkyrie suit and headed up. As he passed the control room, Earhart was waiting, also in her suit. She followed him up the tube to the upper half. The panels were folded in, and even inside the suit, Dane could feel an air of electricity filling the compartment. He continued upward toward the top of the sphere. The Naga staff was still in the keyhole, and he turned it. The top parted and Dane stopped it when there was enough room to exit. He went out, onto the top of the sphere. They were floating in water, only the top sixth of the sphere above the surface.
“What now?” Earhart asked. “We have the ozone.”
“Wait,” Dane said.
“For?”
“Just wait. We have to trust that the others have done their duty.”
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CUSTER
General George Armstrong Custer stared at the blood on his hands in disbelief. There was no pain. He just felt very, very tired. He was aware that someone was walking next to his horse, holding him in the saddle. He looked down and saw Autie guiding him. There were troopers all about, most mounted some on foot, all heading up the draw toward higher ground.
That was good, Custer thought. Higher ground was always best.
He could hear firing and screams, but they seemed far away. Where was the village? Were the Indians running? He saw Tom off to hi
s right and slightly ahead. He tried to call out but no words would come. They came out of the draw and a knoll was ahead. Tom was deploying troopers in a defensive line, facing downslope.
Defensive? Custer thought. That was wrong. They should be attacking. Always attacking. Autie helped Custer off his horse. Custer tried to stand, but his legs were so weak. He sank to the ground. He was surprised when Autie pulled a pistol and shot his horse, his favorite steed. Why did he do that?
Custer wondered as the horse collapsed next to him. Autie helped Custer to a seated position with his back against the dead animal. He drew Custer’s pistol and placed it in his hand. Custer could barely hold on to it. He tried to ask Autie what was going on, why were they on the defensive. But no words would come and his nephew turned his attention outward, pistol at the ready. There was blood on Autie’s face. Now had that happened?
Then Custer saw beyond the perimeter. Hundreds of Indians were coming forward, up the draw like wolves to a downed buffalo calf. They were firing rifles and bows. A trooper trying to escape was swarmed by the wave of hostiles disappeared. This couldn’t be, Custer thought. It just simply couldn’t be happening. Not to my regiment. Not to the Seventh.
BOUYER
Bouyer and Weir, with D Company behind them, reached a high point where they could see to the north.
“Oh my God,” Weir whispered.
A small knot of soldiers was holding a perimeter about a mile away on a hill. All around were Indians, at least a thousand Bouyer estimated. The Indians weren’t charging, but holding back, pouring lead and arrow at the soldiers.
“We can’t …” Weir didn’t finish the obvious.
Bouyer understood, but he also knew he didn’t have the luxury of choice. He had three skulls. He’d had to pad the satchels with his blanket to keep them from burning his horse.
Bouyer kicked his spurs into his horse’s side and headed forward.
Weir wheeled his horse and pointed back the way they had come. His troop needed no urging. D Company raced back to the bluff that held the survivors of Reno’s command.
CRAZY HORSE
Crazy Horse rode around to the left, two hundred of his mounted warriors following, putting the firing to his right. He knew the terrain and knew where the battle was taking place. He also knew that the other tribes would attack head-on.
He and his warriors galloped along a draw, out of sight. Crazy Horse could sense the anxiety among his men and their desire to ride straight toward the shooting and join in the battle. But they followed his lead.
GALL
Gall strode hack and forth along the front edge of the Indian line, holding them back from charging directly into the white men’s guns. It was difficult, but his size and stature brought grudging obedience. They lay down in the waist-high grass along the edge of the coulees that flanked the hill on which the white men had set up their perimeter.
Gall had warriors with rifles move forward so they could see. He directed those with bows back, out of direct sight, and had them fire up into the air, their arrows arching over and down into the whites. Gall had his hatchet in one hand, and the satchel from the sun dance in the other.
CUSTER
Autie placed something in Custer’s lap. A leather satchel with something hot inside. That woke Custer from his blood-drained stupor. He blinked. Looking about. Arrows were coming down, almost as heavily as a summer squall. Some men had pulled saddles over their backs as they lay prone, firing. The ground was littered with their shafts like stalks of prairie grass.
Custer saw that the damned Springfield’s were jamming as cartridges expanded in the heat of the chamber. One trooper, fifteen yards in front of the main line of the perimeter. Was on his knees, knife in hand, trying to extract a round. Several braves saw this and charged forward. The man grabbed the barrel of his Springfield and jumped to his feet, swinging it like a madman. He knocked two of the braves to the ground before he was overwhelmed.
Custer tried to lift his hand holding the revolver but he couldn’t do it. Where was Tom? And Autie? And Boston? And Calhoun? His family? Someone came rushing up on the left and Custer twisted his neck. Tom. Bleeding from a wound in his chest.
“George—“ Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off as an arrow punched in one side of his neck and out the other with a gush of blood. Tom’s hands grabbed for the shaft as arterial blood spurted for several seconds. A bullet cut short that attempt. Hitting Tom in the side of his head, splattering his brother with his brains.
Custer could only stare in horror.
BOUYER
A soldier came galloping madly toward Bouyer, leaning as far forward on his horse as possible. It took Bouyer a second to realize why the man was in this uncomfortable and unusual position-he was trying to minimize his back as a target for the dozen braves on ponies chasing him.
Bouyer pulled back on the reins, halting. As the man raced past, a bullet caught him in the shoulder, tumbling him from his horse. The man scrambled to his feet, looking about wildly. He saw Bouyer and raised his hands in supplication.
Bouyer forced himself to be still as the braves raced up, two jumping off their ponies. One of them smashed the back of the soldier’s skull in with a stone-headed club. The other braves circled Bouyer, weapons held menacingly. Bouyer pulled one of the crystal skulls out of its wrapping. It glowed bright blue and was so hot he could feel it seer his flesh, but he held it high.
The warriors pulled back. even the two who had been in the process of scalping the soldier. Then they were startled as a second glowing skull held high appeared over a rise to the · west-and the hand holding it belonged to Sitting Bull.
“Powerful magic!” Sitting Bull cried out in Lakota.
“Yes,” Bouyer agreed.
Sitting Bull turned to the left. Just over the next rise lay the battlefield. They could hear the firing falling off from the crescendo it bad been. Bouyer knew the end was close.
“We go?” Sitting Bull inclined his head toward the rise.
Bouyer nodded and put the stirrups to his horse. Skulls in hand, the two rode toward the rise.
*****
An arrow slammed into Custer’s left thigh. Piercing through flesh and muscle into the ground beneath. He didn’t feel any pain. He didn’t feel the burning heat from the satchel Autie had placed in his lap. All he felt was in his mind, disbelief and shock about what was going on all around him.
*****
Gall saw Sitting Bull and the strange half-breed from the sun dance appear to the south. Both holding up glowing skulls. He signaled, indicating for the warriors not to attack the half-breed. Then he reached into his satchel and grabbed hold of the hot skull. He almost laughed at the pain. The sun dance bad prepared him for this. He held the glowing skull aloft and moved forward.
*****
Buffalo Calf Woman slammed an awl through a dead soldier’s left ear, pulled it out, then jammed it into the right, piercing the eardrum. He should not hear in the afterworld. Because he had not heard clearly in this world. He had not heard the Great Spirit warning the whites to leave the people in peace.
She looked up and saw mighty Gall striding forward. A glowing blue object in his hand. She opened the satchel she’d taken from the blue coat. She blinked in the bright blue glow and then reached in. She grabbed hold with both hands and held it aloft. Then she headed in the direction Gall was going.
*****
Walks Alone saw Gall and Buffalo Calf Woman. Where was Crazy Horse? He wondered as he pulled out the skull the great warrior had given him. He stood up, ignoring the warnings from the braves around to stay down. There were still soldiers alive on the hill, firing.
None would hit him. Walks Alone knew. He beaded up the hill.
*****
Two Moons notched an arrow and fired it high into the sky, firing a second before the first impacted. He paused as he noted the people moving forward with the skulls. He put down his bow and opened the satchel he’d taken from Bloody Knife. He removed th
e skull, gasping as it burned his flesh, and moved forward.
*****
Crazy Horse turned to the south toward the firing. His warriors spread out on either side. He could hold them back no longer. Their vengeance against those who had invaded their lands, killed their families, and brought disease and death was unstoppable now.
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