Scream of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  Colonel John Gibbon smiled and said, “Now don’t be greedy, George. There are plenty of Indians for us all. Wait for us.”

  Custer’s reply has been studied and analyzed and debated for over a hundred years. “No,” he said, “I won’t.” Then he rode away, galloping up to the head of the column.

  General Terry frowned and glanced at Colonel Gibbon. “Now, what the hell did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Moments later, the twelve companies of the 7th, under Custer’s command, disappeared from view, riding south toward the Rosebud. Only their dust could be seen. At Custer’s insistence, he had refused to take along an additional battalion of troops and a battery of Gatling guns.

  “They would only slow me down,” he had told General Terry at the meeting on the sternwheeler. “Besides, the 7th can handle anything the hostiles might throw at us.”

  As Custer and his column faded from view, General Terry shook hands with Colonel Gibbon. “Good luck, John.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Jamie and the other scouts rode out far ahead of the column, ranging north, south, and west of the advancing troops.

  Jamie, as did the other scouts, began to see signs that disturbed him. The signs told him that there were far more Indians in the area than the army had thought. Jamie began to wonder if even Lonesome Charley’s estimates might be low. Just before leaving camp, Lonesome Charley had given his few personal possessions away.

  “I ain’t comin’ back,” he told one friend.

  “There ain’t none of us gonna come back,” Mitch Bouyer had added solemnly.

  It was one o’clock on June 22. Custer and some two hundred and sixty-one (that figure has been in dispute for a hundred and twenty years) other officers and enlisted men had approximately seventy-two hours to live.

  * * *

  After getting himself a room in the small hotel in a tiny town in Utah, Falcon went down for a drink and something to eat. Much of the grief he’d been carrying had left him, but he was still not wanting company. He took his bottle and glass and went to a far corner of the saloon.

  Two men walked in, one wearing a sheriffs badge, the other with a federal marshal’s badge pinned to his suit coat. Falcon was not interested in them and paid them scant attention as they walked to the bar (strutted was more like it, he thought) and ordered whiskey. Falcon returned to his whiskey and his sorrowful thoughts and ignored all others in the saloon.

  But Falcon was his father’s son; he could smell trouble, and the lawmen had it written all over them. To begin with, they were both small men, about five-six or -seven, and both walked like they had something to prove. And the bigger the man to prove it with, or on, the better.

  Falcon was wondering where his dad was and how he was doing when he heard boots approaching his table. He looked up into the faces of the two star packers. Very unfriendly faces.

  “Stand up,” the federal marshal said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Falcon questioned.

  “Get on your feet, Lucas,” the sheriff said.

  “My name is not Lucas. It’s Falcon MacCallister. And I am very comfortable sitting, thank you.”

  “I said get up, you thievin’ son of a bitch!” the federal marshal demanded. “Lucas or MacCallister, it don’t make no difference. You’re still a horse thief and a rustler.”

  Falcon took a better look at the men. Definitely related. Probably brothers.

  The sheriff pulled a leather-wrapped cosh from his back pocket and held it up threateningly. “Get up, you scum. Or I’ll pound your head in where you sit.”

  “That would be a real bad mistake, Sheriff,” Falcon warned.

  “You makin’ threats agin my brother, boy?” the federal marshal asked.

  Falcon was getting mad. He could feel his temper being unleashed. “My name is MacCallister. I’m from Valley, Colorado. I have done nothing wrong. Why don’t you gentlemen take a seat and we’ll talk about this?”

  “Get up, you bastard!” the sheriff hollered. Then he took a swing at Falcon with the blackjack.

  Falcon ducked the swing and grabbed the edge of the table, overturning it and knocking the two star packers sprawling on the floor. The federal marshal grabbed for his pistol, and Falcon kicked it out of his hand and then put his boot against the side of the man’s jaw. The federal marshal kissed the floor, out cold.

  The sheriff was struggling to get to his feet. Falcon helped him, sort of.

  He reached down, grabbed a handful of the sheriff’s shirt, and hit him on the side of the jaw with a powerful right fist. The sheriff’s eyes rolled back into his head, and Falcon released the man. The sheriff sighed and joined his brother on the floor.

  “Idiots,” Falcon said, straightening his coat.

  “Run, mister,” a customer said. “Run for your life.”

  Falcon looked at the local. “Run? Why?”

  “ ’Cause when them two wakes up, they’ll kill you for sure. Them’s the Noonan brothers. They’re both crazy. And they’re Nance Noonan’s brothers, both of ’em.”

  “Who the hell is Nance Noonan?”

  “The he-coon of this part of the territory, son,” an older man said. “And you’re in his town. Nance Noonan owns everything and damn near everybody in this part of the territory. He owns the N/N ranch.”

  “He’s right, mister,” another local said. “Get gone from here as quick as you can. Pride ain’t worth dyin’ for. Not in my book anyways.”

  “You do have a point,” Falcon said.

  “I’ll saddle your horse whilst you pack your possibles,” the local said. “Then ride, boy, ride. The name MacCallister don’t mean nothin’ to men like Nance Noonan . . .”

  The federal marshal stirred and reached for his gun. “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!”

  Falcon palmed his gun and shot him, the .45 slug punching a hole in the center of the man’s forehead.

  “Git the hell up to your room and pack, son,” Falcon was urged. “I’ll throw a saddle on your horse.”

  Falcon was coming down the stairs with his bedroll, saddlebags, and rifle when Sheriff Butch Noonan rose to his boots and grabbed for his guns. Falcon lifted the Winchester. 44-40, thumbed back the hammer, and drilled the man in the center of his chest.

  “Oh, shit!” a citizen breathed.

  “Ride, MacCallister, ride!” a man shouted. “Ride like Ol’ Nick is after you, ’cause he damn shore is!”

  35

  Custer was convinced that no Indian would ever stand and fight. He felt that given the slightest chance to cut and run, the Indian would do just that. Custer was fully aware that he had to have a mighty victory to carry on his military career, for he was disliked intensely by many, which now included the President of the United States, Grant. Custer had taken along with him, against orders from Sherman, a friend of his, a civilian reporter, Mark Kellogg of the New York Herald. Kellogg was to chronicle Custer’s victory against the Indians. It was a story he would never get to write.

  On the morning of the 23rd, Custer started the march at about five o’clock in the morning, and he set a tough pace. The day turned hot and dry.

  “Look,” Jamie said to Lonesome Charley. He pointed to the ground, rutted by the lodgepoles dragged by Indian horses. “I’ve seen hundreds of those.”

  “Yeah,” Lonesome Charley agreed. “They’s so many Injuns the grass has been et right down to the roots by their ponies. I’m tellin’ you, Ol’ Hoss, we’re ridin’ right straight into hell.”

  The men rode on, and became more dismayed by the signs left by the Indians.

  “This is not a series of camps we’ve been seeing,” Jamie said. “It’s one damn huge camp.”

  “You be right,” Lonesome Charley said. “Biggest damn Injun camp I ever saw. Hell, Ol’ Hoss, it must stretch for miles!”

  “Maybe twelve or fifteen thousand Indians,” Jamie mused.

  “Sweet Baby Jesus!” Lonesome Charley breathed in awe.

&nbs
p; “Nonsense!” Custer said, after hearing Jamie’s report. “Puff and piffle. What you’re implying is that the Indians have banded together, probably under one leader.” He shook his head. “That has never happened and is not happening now.” He dismissed Jamie with a wave of his hand.

  Jamie resisted an impulse to deck the man. Angered at the man’s stubborn resistance to the truth, Jamie wheeled around and left the tent without another word.

  “Well, ol’ son, you tried,” Mitch Bouyer said to Jamie over coffee. “Up yonder a ways, I found a place where I figure the Indians held a sun dance. That tells me someone, a chief probably, had a vision of a great victory for the Indians. If that’s so, there ain’t gonna be no holdin’ ’em back.”

  “The Northern Cheyenne is in here, too,” Lonesome Charley said. “I wish I could get close enough to their camp to see if they’re gonna do the Suicide Warrior’s dance. That would really tell me somethin’.”32

  Mitch Bouyer smiled. “If the Northern Cheyenne is in on this, that means Custer is gonna be fightin’ some of his relatives, in a manner of speakin’, that is.”

  The men chuckled. It was an open secret that Custer had a Cheyenne mistress, a very comely maiden named Me-o-tzi.

  Jamie looked far off into the distance. “The valley of the Little Big Horn,” he finally said. “Near the bluffs. That’s where they’ll be.”

  “Good water and graze,” Lonesome Charley said. “Yep. That’s where we’ll find them.”

  “And God help us when we do,” Mitch said softly.

  May 24, 1876

  Custer had set a brutal pace that day, the column traveling just over thirty miles through very rough terrain before Custer called a halt. The troopers were as tired as their horses, which were exhausted.

  When the Crow scouts Custer had sent out returned early that evening, Custer made several of the decisions that would ultimately cost him his life . . . and those decisions went against direct orders he had received from the commanding general of the campaign. (1) He ordered his men to prepare for a night march. (2) He was so far advanced past any point where Terry might believe him to be, he was miles out of position. (3) He was going to launch a surprise attack alone and thus claim the victory as his own.

  Custer did not know that Sioux scouts were watching his troopers’ every move. The only surprise would be Custer’s. And that would not last long.

  The column moved out just before midnight, the men cussing, the horses whinnying, kicking, and biting. The men were running into each other in the thick, choking dust, and the mules were braying to high heaven.

  “This is a surprise attack?” Jamie said to Lonesome Charley.

  “We’re gonna be the only ones surprised,” the scout said, and then added with a dour smile, “Surprised if we wake up in Heaven instead of hell.”

  Jamie chuckled. “You afraid of dying, Charley?”

  “No. But I ain’t ’specially lookin’ forward to it neither.”

  They marched for ten long miles before Custer called a halt for rest and water and food. At seven the next morning, they were back in the saddle and put ten more miles behind them.

  Ahead of the column, on the eastern side of the Little Bighorn, on bluffs some one hundred feet high, just at dawn, Lieutenant Varnum and several scouts had just awakened from a short nap. They were stunned by what they saw: on a plain, some miles away, they could just make out huge herds of horses—thousands and thousands of horses.

  “Dear God in Heaven,” Varnum said, as much a prayer as an utterance.

  He immediately sent word back to Custer.

  Custer was awake and waiting word from Varnum. He had dressed casually that morning: a blue flannel shirt, buckskin britches tucked into high boots. He wore a white hat and carried two pistols. Custer mounted up on Vic and rode through the camp, giving orders to his officers.

  They were on the march moments later.

  By the time Custer reached Varnum’s observation post, the day had turned scorchingly hot, and the sky was hazy. Custer was unable to see the thousands of horses (some place the number at twenty thousand), or the Indian encampment.

  “It’s the biggest Indian camp I ever seen,” Bouyer had told him.

  Custer smiled. He did not care how big the Indian camp was. Only that it was there. And only that it was his. His moment of glory was at hand.

  He mounted up and waved his cavalry forward, toward the Little Big Horn.

  When Custer reached Ash Creek (later changed to Reno Creek), he halted the regiment.

  It was blisteringly hot at noon on June 26, 1876.

  Custer began dividing his command. He ordered one full company and squads of men from others to stay and guard the slow-moving pack train. He ordered Captain Frederick Benteen to take three companies and scout the area south of the valley.

  Benteen smiled, thinking: Keeping me well out of the fight, eh, George. How typical of you.

  Benteen mounted up and rode off.

  Custer ordered Major Marcus Reno to take three companies of men and strike the Indian camp at the southern end. Custer told him that he, Custer, would take five companies and support Reno.

  Reno and his men rode off.

  “Go with him, Colonel MacCallister,” Custer said to Jamie, using Jamie’s old rank.

  Jamie nodded and swung in behind Reno’s column. He whoaed Sundown for a moment to lift a hand in farewell to Lonesome Charley Reynolds and Mitch Bouyer. They both waved their farewells to Jamie.

  Each man in the regiment of the 7th Cavalry carried one hundred and twenty-five rounds of ammunition. Custer left behind with the pack train some twenty-five thousand rounds of rifle and pistol ammunition.

  Custer swung into the saddle and headed out, but he did not ride after Reno. Instead, he turned downstream, riding parallel to the river. His officers exchanged glances, wondering what in the hell he was doing.

  As they drew ever closer to the massive Indian village, Mitch Bouyer said, “If we go in there, we won’t come out.”

  Custer gave him a sharp look. “Are you afraid, Mr. Bouyer? Have you turned coward on me?”

  Mitch spat on the ground and refused to dignify that with a reply. So far as is known, that was the last exchange between Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and scout Mitch Bouyer . . . at least on this earth. Although it is strongly suspected that just before Custer and his men were overwhelmed on a piece of ground that some would call Last Stand Hill, Bouyer gave Custer a thorough cussing; surely he was not alone in doing that.

  Bloody Knife looked up at the sun and said goodbye to it, using sign language.

  Jamie rode to the head of the column and said to Major Reno, “Custer’s turned away from us.”

  “What!”

  “He’s heading downstream.”

  Reno considered the situation, cussed for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “We have our orders, Mr. MacCallister. We must follow them.”

  “Indeed we must,” Jamie replied.

  Lt. Varnum and most of the scouts rode up to join Reno’s column.

  “What the hell? . . .” Reno exclaimed.

  “Bouyer sent us to join you,” one of the scouts said. “He said there is no point in all of us dying this day.”

  “The man has uncommon good sense,” Jamie muttered. “But I wonder why he didn’t save himself?”

  Reno heard Jamie’s comments but chose not to reply to them. He twisted in the saddle and looked back at the column, doing some quick arithmetic. He had about one hundred and thirty-five officers and men, and some fifteen or sixteen scouts.

  Then, faintly, he heard the first shots of the day being fired.

  “We’re in it now,” Reno muttered, not knowing that the shots were not coming from Custer’s men attacking the Indians, but from Indians attacking Custer from ambush.

  “Let’s water our horses up ahead,” Jamie suggested, pointing to the river. “And ourselves,” he added. “We might not get another chance.”

  Horses watered and cantee
ns filled, Reno and his men forded the river and regrouped on the other side, the Indian village about three miles away. Reno positioned his men in the classic cavalry line and lifted his arm. “Charge!” he shouted, and the long blue line galloped forward.

  The village Reno and his pitifully small detachment were attacking was a Hunkpapa village, under the leadership of Chief Gall. The Indians started shouting as the cavalry charge became evident, and Crazy Horse, in another village, heard the shouting and leaped onto his pony, racing toward the sound of yelling and gunfire.

  “Fall back, fall back to me!” Crazy Horse yelled from his pony. “Let them come on!”

  The Indians began running back toward the village.

  Reno saw the movement and picked up immediately on what the Indians were doing. He halted the charge.

  “It’s a trap!” he shouted. “Don’t fall for it.”

  Reno ordered his men to dismount; every fourth man would hold four horses, and the others would form a skirmish line. He had already lost some men; others had become scattered as their horses had panicked and tossed them to the ground. Some riders (many of whom were ill-trained new recruits) could not control their animals and could do little more than try to stay in the saddle until the horse wore itself out.

  Reno had about eighty-five men left, including the scouts. He had no idea where Custer was. One end of the skirmish line was in the timber. The men were standing about eight feet apart, weapons at the ready.

  Reno’s charge was halted, and thus, technically, he had disobeyed Custer’s orders. But had he gone on into the village, he and his men would have been slaughtered within seconds. It was a tough field decision to call, but Major Reno was right in making it.

  “The woods!” Jamie called, and Reno nodded his head in agreement, having already made up his mind to take to the woods for better cover.

  Now, all any man could do was think of survival.

  Reno looked around for Custer. But he had no way of knowing that Custer was miles away, across the river, attacking the village.

  “Goddammit!” Reno cussed.

  Some of the newer men were wildly firing their rifles, even though the enemy was far out of range.