Top hadn’t made friends. Some muttered he was a “garrison soldier.” Top didn’t care what they said so long as they didn’t say it to his face.
Shillaber and Kellogg had stayed with General Terry and the main force while Top went as Major Reno’s scout. “Where is the big village?” That was all Reno wanted to know.
Reno scouted from the Yellowstone to the Tongue but hadn’t found any Lakota—just three burial lodges, which the soldiers looted before the Ariska scouts burned them.
Wordless soldiers made room for Top at the cookfire. Top dropped his chunk of salt pork into the communal pot and while it changed from gray to furry gray with dark stripes, he continued the interior monologue that cluttered his waking mind. His remonstrance to She Goes Before reused the same words, over and over until he was sick of his mind: “What can I do? What else can I do?” (He’d emphasized “else” when he’d explained his decision to go with Yellow Hair again, and that “else” was fixed in place, as if “else,” the word, had forced his choice.) “Me? Live at the Agency? A God Damned blanket indian? Maybe I should have let you and Tazoo starve? Can you eat buffalo bones? What else could I do? In my entire misbegotten life the only home I ever had was the army. Course I’ll miss you and Tazoo. I’ll ache missing you. I won’t fight the Lakota. I promised I wouldn’t. What else can I do? I been a damned slave. I been bought and sold. Bein’ a slave was better than this godforsaken Agency . . .”
“’Scuse,” Top said, reaching past a corporal to spear his breakfast with knifepoint.
The eastern sky turned gray. Sunrise came early this time of the year.
When the bugle sounded “Officers’ Call,” Top buttoned his collar and joined others at Major Reno’s tent. There was something odd about the plump, vague Reno, and his junior officers were just this side of openly contemptuous.
Major Reno announced today’s line of march: to the Rosebud, then back to the Yellowstone to rendezvous with General Terry.
Captain Keogh asked for more detail—as he always did—and irritation flared behind Reno’s eyes. “Are you slow this morning, Captain? Are you stupid?”
Keogh grinned at his superior. “Yes, sir. Us Irish boyos ain’t noted for intellect.”
“Just follow orders.”
Officers looked away. Someone cleared his throat.
“Strike my tent. Bugler, sound ‘Boots and Saddles.’ ”
Major Reno, his staff, interpreter, and scouts rode silently at the head of the column.
The same land Plenty Cuts had once hunted, that Eden teeming with game and sparkling rivers, was altered. Its ridges were too bare or too wooded, too rocky or too steep; its creeks were muddy or alkaline and the gullies interrupting the landscape might conceal hundreds of hostile warriors.
When they struck the Rosebud, a little after eleven, they found what they were looking for. A disbelieving Top got off his horse.
It was June in the shadow of the Bighorns and the prairie was blooming. Bunchgrass, wheatgrass, and false oats waved feathery seed heads, wildflowers colonized every gap between them.
They’d struck a dark, broad scar—a gouge in the earth. In a three-hundred-yard swath, the earth was as bare as if teams had harrowed it.
The back of Top’s neck prickled. Eyes shaded, Major Reno stood in his stirrups, peering around. “Top?”
“’Spect this is the village,” Top said, more easily than he felt. He walked onto the tremendous lodge trail, stepping around pony and dog droppings, trying to estimate from the scars how many lodgepoles had scored this riverbank.
The lodge trail proceeded upstream and disappeared around a bend. Reno asked, “Top?”
He stooped for a discarded child’s bow. “Blackfoot,” he sang out. He turned over a worn-out moccasin with his foot. “Sans Arc.”
Captain Keogh asked, “We goin’ after ’em, Major?”
Major Reno shook his head as if it had come unbolted. “We are on a scout, Captain. A scout. Those are my orders.”
Top knelt beside a broken papoose board, tracing decorative paint with his fingertip.
Captain Keogh picked his way through the pony droppings to the interpreter’s side. “Sans Arc?”
Top shook his head. “Santee. We used to have one like it . . .”
Straightening, he kicked the discarded papoose board.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like this,” Captain Keogh said. “Must be a couple thousand lodges.”
“That’s what I’d guess,” Top said.
“Do Blackfeet, Sans Arc, and Santee travel together?”
“Nope.” Top rubbed his hands. He stuck them into his armpits as if they were cold. He glanced upstream where the trail vanished. He said, “Christ.”
Major Reno was already turning his horse’s head toward the Yellowstone. He said, “The pack mules are worn out.” He said, “We’re only a scout.”
MAJOR MARCUS RENO was the Seventh’s second in command. Next in line was Captain Frederick Benteen, a hearty, angry officer who thought Custer was a fraud—and said so. Captain Keogh had served in the Papal Guard before immigrating to America. Some of Custer’s officers, like Captain Yates of the Gray Horse Troop, were martinets; Smith and Keogh were liked by their men. Tom Custer and Lieutenant Calhoun, the Commander’s brother-in-law, were the worst poker players. Lieutenant John Crittenden was an infantry officer detailed to the Seventh Cavalry at his own request. All but the youngest, Lieutenant Jack Sturgis, had seen action in the War.
West Point had trained these officers for Napoleonic conflicts: eighty, a hundred thousand men fighting standup at musket range. The Lakota hadn’t studied the same texts. They didn’t like casualties and if they lost the element of surprise or lacked overwhelming superiority, they melted away. Indians were notoriously hard to catch. Their ponies could outlast cavalry horses and a fleeing village would divide and subdivide until the pursuing cavalry regiment was chasing one family’s lodge.
General Sherman, who’d perfected civilian warfare in Georgia and South Carolina, brought his expertise into play: hit the indians in their winter camps when they couldn’t maneuver. Warriors and whoever got in the way could be killed and their food, clothing, goods, and homes destroyed. At the Washita fight that made Custer’s reputation as an indian fighter, after the warriors had been driven off, troopers wagered who could kill the most indian ponies. When ammunition ran low, the troopers cut the ponys’ throats.
Sherman’s strategy guided the thinking aboard the Far West that evening of June 21, 1876, when General Terry, General Custer, and Gen-eral Gibbon made final plans. Although Shillaber had warned that the indians were numerous, confident, and angry, these officers intended to attack their village, shoot every man, woman, and child who resisted or tried to escape, destroy their means of survival on the plains, and escort the survivors across the Dakotas to the agencies.
They hadn’t heard a word from General Crook, coming up from the south, and wanted to beat Crook to the punch.
Late that same evening, Major Brisbin of the Second Cavalry came aboard for a private word with General Terry. Brisbin believed four companies of the Second Cavalry should accompany the Seventh, with General Terry in command. Terry asked if Brisbin had confidence in Custer. “None at all,” the major replied. “I have no use for him.”
General Terry wanted to give Custer a chance to redeem himself with President Grant, but if Brisbin could convince Custer to accept the extra troopers, why, yes, Terry would command.
When Brisbin made his offer, Custer replied tersely, “The Seventh can handle anything it meets.”
At dawn on the twenty-second of June, Myles Keogh and Tom Custer stumbled off the Far West, hungover and broke from a night of the worst poker hands either could remember.
THAT MORNING, Kellogg wrote:
And now a word for the Most Peculiar Genius in the Army, a man of strong impulses, of great-hearted friendships and bitter enmities, of quick nervous temperament, undaunted courage, will, and determinat
ion; a man possessing electric mental capacity and of iron constitution; a brave, faithful, gallant soldier, who has warm friends and bitter enemies; the hardest rider, the greatest pusher, with the most untiring vigilance, overcoming seeming impossibilities and with an ambition to succeed in all things he undertakes; a man to do right, as he construes the right in every case; one respected and beloved by his followers, who would freely follow him into the “jaws of hell.” Of General G. A. Custer I am now writing. . . .
WITH THE REPORTER nattering in his ear, Ben Shillaber watched Custer’s troopers loading pack mules. These troopers hadn’t been taught mule skinner’s skills and the mules were outraged at this fresh test of their patience. Overloaded packs obeyed inexorable laws of gravity and slid underneath braying animals’ bellies. A poorly balanced pack clung to a mule’s side like a giant carbuncle while one cursing trooper tried to heave it upright and another clung to the animal’s halter and kicked at its head. Kellogg said, “Isn’t this truly grand, sir? Isn’t this the grandest sight you’ve ever seen?”
“No,” Shillaber said.
“Isn’t this a splendid time to be alive? Do you hope to visit the Centennial? They say half the country will see it. After we defeat the Sioux . . . This is my big chance, you know. The New York World is taking my articles. After we’re back in civilization, I’m going to take my daughters to the Centennial. I’m afraid I . . .well, I haven’t been the father I might have been.”
Shillaber said, “Did I hear right? Custer’s letting Autie and Boston ride with us?”
“You know what Autie Reed told Major Brisbin? ‘Major,’ the boy said, ‘you’re just jealous you can’t go.’ Wouldn’t it be splendid to be seventeen years old commencing this adventure?”
After a while the reporter went away.
Top had promised She Goes Before he wouldn’t fight the Lakota. What was he doing at the sutler’s buying cartridges for his Winchester?
“Get you a army carbine, Top,” Ben said. “Quartermaster’ll give you a hundred rounds free.”
“They shoot too slow.”
“Thought you weren’t going to shoot at all.”
“Uh.” Though most troopers wore comfortable homemade canvas cartridge belts, Top stuffed his cartridges into the clumsy regulation leather box.
“You get your rations?”
“Six days’ corn for my horse, all the Cincinnati Chicken [salt pork] I can carry.”
“Thank God the army’s feeding Kellogg. That boy’s got a hollow leg.”
Top shut his cartridge box. “You want somethin’, Ben? Or you just jawin’?”
“You don’t have to go. Stay with Terry. He’ll need an interpreter more than Yellow Hair will.”
“Ben . . .”
Shillaber sighed. After a while he said, “I was with Johnson’s army when he finally surrendered. My horse was so poorly I abandoned him and walked three weeks and two days to the Low Country. My house was burned to the ground. They’d killed every animal on the place, even my hunting dogs. My dikes were breached and my rice fields filled with salt water. My wife, she—”
“Ben,” Top said softly, “knowin’ about your troubles won’t cure mine.”
Ben Shillaber set his lips in a soundless whistle. After a moment he said, “Okay, Top. Can’t say I like tellin’ them anyway.”
Three hours later the inexperienced mule skinners finally had their mules more or less packed. Everybody else mounted and fell in behind their company guidons.
Shoved by a cold wind, dark clouds scudded across the sky.
General Terry, General Gibbon, and their officers waited atop a cutbank for the Seventh to pass in review. Ignored by the officers, Mark Kellogg was scribbling furiously.
In white buckskins and new slouch hat, George Armstrong Custer galloped up and threw his commanding general an extravagant salute. His battle horse Vic had been brushed until Vic’s sorrel coat gleamed. As Custer was shaking hands with the reviewing party, the Seventh’s buglers were sounding “Boots and Saddles.”
Led by indian scouts, the regiment passed in a column of fours behind their guidons: Keogh’s I Company, Yates’s F, and Calhoun’s E dipped their banners. Protesting pack mules hee-hawed.
Kellogg’s pencil raced down a page which almost got away from him when he turned it sideways to write across. He was whispering to himself. He had tears in his eyes.
After his regiment was out of sight, George Custer shook hands and saluted Terry again. Custer’s grin split his face from ear to ear.
As the Commander galloped after his regiment, General Terry called, “Now, George. Don’t be greedy. Wait for us.”
Was it some trick of the wind, or did Custer cry, “No! I won’t!”?
I had not dreamed there were so many Lakota in the world. Grass-hopper ceased chattering as we rode down that wide valley past uncountable pony herds. The sun was low, and blue shadows fingered from the bluffs to dim the sparkling river. The Little Bighorn looped through the valley like a discarded lace. I sneezed from the campfire smoke. Some lodges were tucked into the timber beside the river, but six great villages stood in the open valley between the river and the pony herds. I sneezed again.
We rode through Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapa: hundreds of lodges guarded the east entrance of the village. One of the young men we’d traveled with called that we should come to his lodge and eat, but I was eager to find my brother. We rode through Blackfeet and Sans Arc before splashing across a small creek into the Minnecon-jou camp. Smoke, pony droppings, dogs yapping, children’s shouts, so much singing and drumming. It might have been a Washitu city, it was so noisy and smelled so bad. After passing through the Brulés, I was among familiar Oglala lodges greeting old friends as my sorrows lifted off my shoulders.
As befitted a Shirt Wearer, White Bull’s lodge was at the mouth of the village where the Oglala joined the Cheyenne.
His lodge was familiar and comforting. Smoke trickled from the smoke flap. Painted buffalo skins glowed from the firelight within. As I said goodbye to my Cheyenne friends, Tazoo couldn’t keep still. Her sharp eyes flashed. I whispered a prayer to Low Dog and JesuChrist that Tazoo would grow up Santee.
I hobbled my horse behind the lodge but hesitated at the entrance because my husband was with Yellow Hair. Those words choked me as if someone had me by the throat. “White Bull,” I called, “it is I, your sister.”
Rattling Blanket Woman jerked the flap aside and rushed out to embrace me. She stroked my hair as if I were a lost child. “Tazoo, Tazoo! Sister, she is so beautiful. I had forgotten how dark she is!” When she pinched Tazoo’s cheek, my daughter did not flinch.
“I have come because—”
“Oh, I am so glad our family is together! Your brother and I missed you so.”
Rattling Blanket Woman was dressed like a bride. Blue and black beads swirled across her bodice and her braids were fastened with a trader’s amber comb. “But come in, come in. White Bull is preparing for the dance.”
Before a mirror dangling from a lodgepole my brother was painting his cheeks with horizontal red and green stripes. Like Rattling Blanket Woman, he wore his finest clothing: his fringed leggings, shell necklaces, and foxskin cap. Without pausing his application or looking at me, he said, “I welcome you, Sister. Please sit and have something to eat.”
A pot was steaming on the back of the fire. Tazoo lifted the lid.
I hissed at her bad manners.
“She is Santee.” Rattling Blanket Woman approved of my child’s boldness. “The young men will be drawn to her like bees to spilled honey.”
Hesitantly, I asked if White Bull was preparing for war.
“Oh, no, no. My husband has been to war.” Proudly she pointed to the fresh scalp on a hoop. “Shoshone.”
That scalp would add another brave warrior’s strength to my brother’s own.
“White Bull took a Seizer scalp too, but the Seizer was running away.” She sniffed. “There is no honor in Seizer hair. I threw it to the dogs.”
Rattling Blanket Woman had crimsoned her cheeks. Her dark eyes glittered.
As my brother made ready, the drums grew more insistent and women began chanting.
Sitting Bull had dreamed of Seizers falling into the camp. He said the Seizers would be killed but the people were not to loot their bodies. Two days later, scouts found General Crook approaching the camp. Crazy Horse and my brother drove General Crook away. Many Lakota had died in that fight, but many had won honors. The people had mourned for three days, but the mourning was over and grumbling drums anounced the victory dance.
My brother turned from his mirror and embraced me carefully so I wouldn’t smear his paint. “Ah, Sister. Tazoo, you have grown so big. Soon you will be as tall as my war pony.”
Tazoo hid her face in her hands.
White Bull met my eyes directly. “Plenty Cuts was a brave Lakota warrior. I mourn my friend.” That was what White Bull said about the man who had been my husband.
A burst of drumming pulled us outside. Many people were hurrying to a great bonfire roaring in the meadow. Already, young warriors were dancing around the fire. Since they had not taken wives yet, their fathers waved their scalp sticks and boasted of their sons’ coups. Young women watched excitedly and from time to time a young warrior and a young woman would slip away together. When an older warrior danced, his wife shook her husband’s scalp stick and sang his kill song. One after another, each warrior was honored, not just for defeating General Crook but for every one of his brave deeds.
A few renowned warriors watched without dancing. Crazy Horse’s medicine paint was white hail spots on his chest and a lightning streak down his face. He wore a pebble behind his ear and a red-tailed hawk on his head. Though he had killed more Seizers than anyone, Crazy Horse let others take their scalps. All the young men wanted to follow him because he brought them honors. While we celebrated, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse talked together.
My brother had many honors and I was proud when Rattling Blanket Woman recited them. I am White Bull’s sister. My honor comes from the Shirt Wearer White Bull and my father Red Leaf, who killed the trader Myrick and stuffed grass into his mouth.
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