Sundance 5

by John Benteen

  Later, at council. Crazy Horse was almost drunk with elation. “Ah, we whipped them good! There were as many of the Long Knives as of us, and they had also with them many Crows and Shoshones and some white buffalo hunters and miners! But not all of them together could stand against the Sioux and Cheyennes! We fought them hand-to-hand, knife-to-knife, gun-to-gun, until we saw they were beaten. Then, when they ran, we came home!” He drank long and deeply from a pot of water. There were fresh scalps at his belt. “Ah-yah, it was a great fight, a great victory!” Then he turned to Sitting Bull. “Now, what does your medicine say?”

  The great medicine man was still weak from his self-inflicted torture at the Sun Dance. “It says the white-eyes won’t come again for a long time. We did not kill Three-Stars”— Sundance relaxed inwardly. Thank God, he thought— “but he will not fight us again soon. Still, he knows we are here and may tell other soldiers. I think we should move camp.”

  “Where?” Tall Calf asked the question.

  “To the Greasy Grass. It is not far, but it is a good strong place to be, and I think once we are there, the white men will not bother us again, after they have seen what we did to them on the Rosebud.” He turned to Sundance. “My son, you know the generals. What do you think?”

  “I think they will come,” Sundance said. “I think Crook was only part of the movement. I have heard that another column under Gibbon is supposed to come from the west, and one under Terry from the east, from Fort Lincoln. They will come up and down the Yellowstone and search the tributaries. And they’ll keep on until they find us.”

  Crazy Horse whipped a knife from his belt. He raised it high, lean, handsome face gleaming in the firelight. Then he slashed down with it and buried its blade in earth.

  “Let them come!” he rasped. “When they do, we will kill them all!” He looked at Sundance. “And this time, you will fight?”

  “Yes,” Sundance said. “This time, if they come after us, I will fight.”

  From its headwaters in Wyoming, the Yellowstone loops northeast across Montana to drain into the Missouri in Dakota. Pouring into it from the south is a network of lesser streams—from east to west, the Powder, the Tongue, the Rosebud, and the Big Horn. The Little Big Horn—the Greasy Grass—forks into the Big Horn only a fair day’s ride from the encampment on the Rosebud. It did not take long for more than fifteen thousand Indians—their numbers reinforced by new arrivals from the agencies and outlying hunting grounds—to dismantle the equivalent of a town the size of Omaha and set it up again in a new location. Up and down the west bank of the stream they pitched their lodges: the Hunkpapa in the south, then the Minneconjou and Sans Arc, next the Oglala, and then, at the northern extremity, the Cheyennes. Directly across from the Oglala and Cheyenne encampments, the ground of the east bank rose in rolling hills and ridges; southward of that there were more high bluffs and broken country. Secure from attack from the south and likely from the west, the chieftains were fairly sure that the rough country on the east would slow or thwart any surprise attack. Besides, they were confident that, after the bloody nose they had dealt Crook, the Army would think twice before hitting them again.

  “But they don’t know the Goddamn bluebellies,” Frank Huston said. He spat tobacco juice into the buffalo grass as he and Sundance sat their ponies on the high ground of the east bank. “Those sonsabitches never give up.”

  Sundance looked at the man beside him. Once Huston had been white; had, as a youth, served with Robert E. Lee. When the Federal army had taken Richmond, his mother had been raped and beaten by Yankee soldiers; soon afterward, she had died. Lee surrendered; Huston kept on fighting. The place to fight Yankees was in the west, the people who were doing it were the Sioux. So he had joined them, and now he was as much Indian as any warrior among the Oglalas. His hair was dark, his body long since burnt to a copper color by the prairie sun. He was keenly intelligent and well educated, but by far the bitterest man Sundance had ever met.

  “They’ll come,” Huston went on. “You know that good as I do. And when they do, next time they’ll bring artillery and Gatlin’ guns. And then it’ll be a different matter entirely.” He spat again. “But what I hope—oh, Jesus, I hope it—is that Custer will come with ’em. After what he did to Black Kettle on the Washita, after what I saw him do to Rain-in-the-Face one time when Rain had been arrested— He stood by while two troopers held Rain and Tom Custer kicked and slapped him and damned near beat him to a pulp, before we got him loose, helped him escape. If Custer comes, we’ll git him anyhow. Because he ain’t got sense enough to know what he’s riding into.” Huston smiled, not a pleasant sight, and fingered something attached to his antelope hide saddle. It was an Army bugle. “You see this?” he said. “I’m saving it. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to blow taps with it over Custer.”

  Sundance stared out across the vast, endless country, looking eastward. He thought about the Black Hills and what Custer had done there; he remembered four months in that stinking hole at Fort Lincoln; and a bitterness to match Huston’s welled up in him. “If Custer comes,” he said, hand stroking the barrel of his rifle, “he’s mine. You blow your bugle over him all you want to. But if he comes, he’s my meat if I can get to him first. Let’s ride on. We got a scout to make.”

  “Yeah.” Huston twisted in his saddle, looked back at the great camp spread out for two miles along the river. “Sittin’ Bull’s called for an all day dance and celebration. He feels safe, now. Me, you, we know too much about the bluebellies to let down our guard. Come on.” He lifted rein. Then he pulled up again. “By the way, you happen to know what day this is?”

  “I picked up a calendar in Bismarck, marked it off. June twenty-fifth. Why?”

  “No reason, only I was trying to remember when my birthday comes. And you know what?” Huston asked. “I’ve been Injun for so long I’ve even forgot what day I was born on.”

  They worked their way northeast into the broken country. Sundance could not shake off a sense of foreboding. He tried to reconstruct everything he’d heard: from Colfax; from Crook. He knew Sheridan and Sherman, could imagine their tactics. The Indians were south of the Yellowstone; let that be the northern boundary of the campaign. Send out Terry—and Custer and his Seventh—from the east, send somebody else from the west, Crook from the south, and box the Indians in. Only Crook had been beaten and retreated; that still left the eastern and western columns. Sundance and Huston were keenly aware of that, if nobody else was. And he was taking no chances. With Barbara down there in the Cheyenne camp, he would ride all day and night if that was what it took to find soldiers before they got Gatling guns and cannons mounted on those heights east of the Little Big Horn.

  The day drew on; by midmorning, the heat was brutal. He and Huston split up, taking ridges that offered various vantage points. Lying on his belly on a crest that offered a sweeping view of the rough country dividing the Little Big Horn from the Rosebud, he saw nothing. He took a moment to let his thoughts drift. Come winter, no matter what happened, he had to get Barbara away from the Cheyennes. Win, lose, draw, they were in for hell. Farther west, in Idaho, the Nez Percés still lived in fair security, for nobody wanted their lands yet. Maybe he and she would winter with Chief Joseph.

  Then he heard hoofbeats drumming across the valley behind him. He whirled to see Huston lashing his mount. Sundance jumped to his feet, sprang on Eagle, and rode to meet the man.

  Huston jaw-reined his horse into a rearing halt. “Sundance! Over yonder!” He pointed to another ridge. “Soldiers. Jesus God Almighty, a whole damn’ regiment of cavalry!”

  Sundance stared at him a moment. Then he snapped: “Come on!”

  They pounded across the valley, up the opposite ridge. Before they reached its crest, both swung down in flying dismounts, ran ahead, leaving their well-trained horses ground hitched. When they reached the top, Huston pointed: “Down there. Take this telescope.” He held it out to Sundance.

  Sundance unfolded the pocket scope, shield
ed it with his hand so no glare or dazzle would give away their position. Then he sucked in a long breath.

  A great column of troopers, seven hundred men or more, snaked through the valley of a little creek below, guidons flying. Like a long, blue snake, it reached into the farther distance; but through the scope, he could pick out details. There was no mistaking the man in the buckskin shirt and cavalry breeches who rode at its head. Custer had cut his yellow hair short; but the big beak of a nose, the auburn mustache, stood out plainly. So did the two six-guns on his hips.

  Beside him rode a man in conventional uniform, wearing major’s insignia. That, Sundance guessed, would be Reno, second-in-command. His eye snaked back along the column, caught sight of a rider pounding up its length. He recognized that weathered face, the white-streaked hair and felt a kind of sadness: Benteen, the captain who had lent him the gun. Then Custer raised his hand; the column halted, coiling up on itself.

  “Come on!” Huston’s hand dug into Sundance’s arm. “Let’s burn it back to camp!”

  “Wait.” Sundance kept the scope to his eye. “They’re up to something.”

  “Damn it,” Huston said impatiently, “there’s a whole blasted cavalry regiment down there. If they take the camp by surprise, all seven hundred of ’em—”

  “Hold on.” Sundance passed him the scope. “They’re having some kind of powwow.”

  “Well, they’re bound to know the camp’s there. They got scouts with ’em—Crow ‘wolves.’” Huston shook his head. “They’re not fool enough to split up.”

  “The hell they aren’t,” Sundance rasped. “Look.”

  Even as he spoke, Benteen gesticulated angrily. Custer replied with what seemed equal anger. Benteen saluted sharply, whirled his horse, galloped down the line. Huston gasped unbelievingly, as Benteen passed orders and a third of the column fell out.

  “Well, of all the Goddamn stupidity—” Huston shook his head. “He is doing it! By God, he’s sending a third of his men off in the opposite direction! Scouting south—”

  Sundance’s mouth twisted. “He and Benteen hate each other. He scents glory. He doesn’t want Benteen to get any part of it, so he’s putting him out of the way.” He tapped Huston on the shoulder. “All right. You hightail it back to camp, spread the word. I’m going to keep track of ’em, see what else they do. I’ll get to camp before they do, one way or the other.”

  “Right! Keep this scope!” Huston sprang up, ran back down the hill, landed on his horse in a flying leap. Then he was gone.

  Sundance lay where he was. He saw the column wait until Benteen’s group, several companies of them, was well away, working into the brakes on the southern flank. With it went a contingent of pack-horses. Custer raised his gauntleted hand and brought it forward. The column struck a trot and moved forward along the valley of the creek.

  Sundance ran back to Eagle, mounted, put the big horse swiftly to the next ridge, a half mile away, keeping cover. Then he dismounted, reconnoitered again. And this time, his jaw dropped.

  Once more, the column had halted. Sundance used the telescope, saw Custer and Reno in conference, Tom Custer hovering by. Custer pointed south in a swooping gesture, then north. Reno nodded, danced his horse aside. He spoke to a sergeant who galloped down the line, then sat uneasily in conversation with a couple of Indian scouts—Sundance tagged them as Arikaras. Then the column divided itself in half. With Reno at its head, one battalion traveled along the creek. With Custer in the lead, the other swung north into the rough country, paralleling the Little Big Horn.

  And now Sundance understood. Surely, the Crows and Arikaras had seen the village, had told Custer how huge it was. But the general, with his customary arrogance, refused to believe it. Or else he was sure that four hundred cavalrymen could take on thousands of tribal warriors. At any rate, he had given Reno orders to hit the village from the south; obviously, he intended to hit it from the north simultaneously.

  Sundance lay where he was until he was sure of both columns’ line of march. Then he ran back to Eagle.

  He wanted Custer. But he was cut off from the man by Reno’s column, would have to pass through it to get to him. No. No, he would have to ride with Reno first. And when Reno struck the village, fight his way through to get to the other column, which would hit the Cheyenne camp northward.

  He lashed Eagle, and the big horse stretched itself as it ran for the Little Big Horn. Sundance knew the ground, took advantage of every cleft and valley. Just before he reached the river, he put the appaloosa boldly to a ridge crest. What he saw made him catch his breath. Down there, Reno’s command had moved into a gallop, heading for the south crossing at the camp’s lower end. Sundance saw sun glinting on carbine barrels and drawn pistols; he saw the ranks of horses, grey, sorrel, bay, thundering along in good order, their blue-clad riders ready, pennons snapping in the breeze. In the distance, another blue column was thundering up the northern ridges.

  Sundance whipped his rifle from its scabbard. And now, he thought, the last, the ultimate battle was beginning. He kicked Eagle hard, sent the big horse racing toward the river.

  Scenting war, combat, Eagle ran swiftly. He reached the edge of a bluff, hesitated, then plunged down its steep flank, skittering in a crouch, sending a roil of dust from beneath hind legs. Simultaneously, Reno’s column, whooping, yelling, firing, galloped out of a notch between two more bluffs, plunged into the shallow water. They were so intent on the Indian camp that no one saw Sundance as he crossed and lashed Eagle toward the cover of a grove of cottonwoods. From there, he could take Reno on the flank with rifle fire.

  Reno’s horse plunged out of the Little Big Horn, one of the Arikara scouts riding close beside him. A bugle blew the brassy terse notes of Charge! The other troopers of the Seventh, firing as they rode, splashed across the river behind their commander, spread out, pivoted north to strike the camp. At that instant, all hell broke loose.

  As Sundance halted Eagle in the cottonwoods, dismounted, the camp of the Hunkpapa on the south came alive, exactly as if an anthill had been overturned, and Sundance knew that Huston had made it in time. On foot and mounted, Indians swarmed out of the Sioux circle of lodges, and all at once the valley of the Little Big Horn roared with gunfire and arrows filled the air like a flock of slim, shuddering, deadly birds.

  The two forces smashed together in head-on collision: Reno’s cavalry and Gall’s. Swarming down the river came more Indians: Sundance heard the shriek of Sioux, the shrill ki-yi of Cheyennes. He saw Crazy Horse and Two Moons and Tall Calf riding in the lead.

  Reno reined his horse up so hard it reared. He gestured with his pistol toward the timber in which Sundance crouched. His column broke, scattered, turned, making hell bent for the cottonwoods. Sundance snarled, levered a round into his Winchester, raised it. An Arikara riding stirrup-to-stirrup with Reno saw him, lined a pistol. Sundance aimed the rifle, squeezed the trigger.

  The round blew the Ankara’s head apart. His blood and brains splattered squarely in Reno’s face. Sundance heard the major’s scream of horror, saw Reno yank his horse up again, then swing it around, back toward the river. Now there was firing from every quarter, and the cavalrymen were rushing toward the shelter of the cottonwoods—save Reno and a few dozen more who had seen his quick turn. He and a small contingent rode hell-for-leather in retreat back toward the Little Big Horn.

  After that single shot, Sundance ran back to Eagle, swung into the saddle. An overwhelming force of Indians was descending on Reno. But it was not Reno he wanted. Somewhere down the river, Custer would be crossing.

  The timber was a seething hell of red bodies and blue uniforms as he bent low in Eagle’s saddle. Lead whined around him, arrows whipped in a deadly pattern. He was caught in the middle, in a crossfire, and he knew he had damned well better get out of it in a hurry. He kicked Eagle hard and lashed him with the rein, and the big horse gave everything he had.

  The edge of timber was in sight; beyond that, the camp with its two thousand lodges.
Just as he reached the rim of cottonwoods, a blue-clad figure, on foot, leaped out from behind a tree. Sundance saw a rifle coming into line, aimed squarely at him. There was no time for himself to shoot; he headed Eagle for the cavalryman. There was an almost imperceptible shock as the stallion slammed into the man and knocked him spinning. Then Sundance was in the open.

  As the appaloosa dodged among the lodges, frightened women peered out then jerked back inside, screaming orders to their children. This was their home, and it, with their families, was being attacked; if their men could not defend it, death and worse lay ahead for them, and for their sons and daughters. They had seen before what cavalrymen did to Indian women and children.

  Sundance pounded through the Sioux end of the village. Behind him, he heard a bugle blow retreat. At almost the same instant, in front of him, downstream, he heard one blow Charge! Custer! Custer and his detachment were striking the Cheyennes!

  But there were plenty of other Indians, more than had hit Reno. They swarmed northward through the village, shrieking like all the devils of hell. Sioux and Cheyenne alike, they rode toward the sound of that arrogant trumpet call, and Sundance not only joined them, he passed through them, as Eagle, faster than their horses, pulled ahead. He neared the edge of the Cheyenne part of the encampment, and looking across the river, he saw Custer’s column spilling down off the bluffs, headed for the stream, firing as they came.

  Custer and his brother Tom were in the lead. “Sundance saw the buckskin-clad figure on its big, running mount, emerge into the open, then Custer’s horse was in the river; and Custer had his first full view of what he had ridden into.

  Pulling out ahead of the other Indians, Sundance saw Custer rein up, saw his jaw drop. Then the Colonel pulled his mount around. His brother Tom followed suit and so did the men behind them. The column coiled back upon itself like a wounded snake, and then split up in confusion.