Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1

by Terry C. Johnston

  Moylan watched Custer draw in his shoulders at the tone of her words as if flinching at a painful wound. Without knowing what was said, he sensed the air sour between Custer and the woman. And Moylan knew as few others would exactly how shame stung Custer like a slap in the face.

  “I will remember, Mahwissa,” he whispered. “You spit in my outstretched hand, like an ungrateful dog.”

  “No longer will you treat me like a dog, Yellow Hair,” she said with a sneer.

  Custer gazed at the amused faces of the onlookers. “Sadly, it will not be you, nor this Medicine Arrow, who will suffer. Instead, the Cheyenne of the future will pay for your stupidity here today. Listen! You can hear the Cheyenne of winters to come—hear their keening on the prairie winds. Listen! I hear Cheyenne children crying, growing weak with empty stomachs. Fathers killed by soldiers. Mothers chased into the wilderness to starve. Listen to the winds of the future!”

  Custer straightened in the saddle, signaling Moylan to follow. Medicine Arrow studied the renowned Yellow Hair as he rode up, as if appraising the portent of the moment.

  Written on both faces Moylan saw the realization that they were about to play out a drama neither one had the power to stop. Two men brought here to confront each other, setting in motion the gears of some machinery that would grind inexorably for eight more years.

  Something in the haughty way the old chief sat on his horse told Myles that Medicine Arrow had made his choice—to defend his people and their ancient nomadic way of life.

  Moylan studied Custer as he and the commander drew closer to the Cheyenne villages on the Sweetwater, wondering if Custer had learned that all his kindness had gone for naught. Moylan sensed something tighten, shrivel and die in Custer back there when Mahwissa shamed him.

  With the set to his commander’s jaw, Moylan realized George Armstrong Custer finally accepted the fact that the Indian respected only a pony soldier who was tough and fearless, a soldier as possessed in following his own vision of personal glory as were the Indian warriors who rode against him. Near the center of the sprawling, bustling village, Medicine Arrow halted in the midst of a large crowd come to see the great Yellow Hair.

  Boys stepped up to take the reins from Medicine Arrow as he slid from his pony. Others came to lead the soldier horses away. The war chief ducked into his lodge. At the front stood two short tripods. The first held a war shield. From the second hung a bow and quiver stuffed with arrows.

  Custer ducked into the close warmth of the lodge, the adjutant on his heels. The chief gestured for Moylan to have a seat on the robes by the door.

  Medicine Arrow settled at the rear of the lodge, showing Custer to sit at his right hand. He muttered briefly to the gray-headed woman busy at the fire. Without a word she scurried like a gray spider from the lodge.

  “My woman is told to bring the camp crier. He will walk the circle of our camps, calling the chiefs and counselors to join us in our talk. The fire warms our cold bones while we wait. When all are here, we listen to what lies in each other’s hearts.”

  Custer turned to Moylan. “Myles, see how they’ve placed me at the right hand of the chief himself, the seat of honor.”

  One by one the chiefs, and counselors entered, taking their respective seats in the circle. Each plopped down on the dark robes like winter owls around the cozy warmth of the fire.

  “Myles,” Custer whispered, “you see this ancient one here?” He gestured to the wizened Indian at his right, his face carved with the passing of many winters. “Probably a medicine man among these people. One of their feared shamans. Seems I’m flanked by two powerful men among the Cheyenne. You’re privy to a momentous occasion, Mr. Moylan. The tribe is about to pay me a great honor.”

  Custer swept his arm about. “Crude paintings on the buffalo-hide wall. Figures representing the stories of Medicine Arrow’s life. Deeds in peace and war. Rawhide parcels hung from the poles. Some hold articles of dress. Others might contain rock and feathers, ashes or bone—all part of Medicine Arrow’s personal magic.”

  Directly behind his head, Custer pointed out a long bundle wrapped in the skin of a coyote’s winter hide. From it hung fringe. Porcupine quillwork decorated both red and blue trade cloth wrapping the ends of the bundle. “This must be some magical container—something signifying the chiefs rank among his people. An esteemed honor for a man to sit beneath the bundle.”

  What Custer could not know was just how wrong he could be.

  For a man to be given a seat at the right hand of the chief was disgrace enough. Yet it was a mild rebuke compared to the Cheyenne giving him this place beneath the sacred bundle. Its presence over his head during this council marked how momentously serious these proceedings were viewed by the Cheyenne.

  Years before, when Rock Forehead had been chosen as the keeper of that sacred bundle by the Southern Cheyenne, he had taken his new name. Legend had it the bundle’s Medicine Arrows had been presented by the Everywhere Spirit to a Cheyenne man in the long before as a gift to a chosen people. Wrapped in a wide strip of winter-gray fur lay the four arrows: two shafts painted crimson, symbolizing a continued abundance of food for the Cheyenne people, the second pair painted black to signify the tribe’s continued victory in war.

  By placing the soldier chief they called Yellow Hair beneath their sacred arrows, the Cheyenne had placed George Armstrong Custer on trial.

  While Custer admired the red-and-black-dyed forked stick from which the sacred bundle hung, the last guests stooped into the lodge. The elkskin flap slid over the doorway.

  The old man to Custer’s right drew a long buckskin bag into his lap. From this beaded bag he pulled a pipestem as big around as a walking stick, from which hung a decorative array of war-eagle feathers and winter-white ermine skins. To the end of this stem the chief attached a crimson pipestone bowl, inlaid with pewter and rubbed with bear grease to reflect every dancing flame of the fire.

  At the old man’s waist hung a smaller pouch. From it he drew a handful of willow bark and tobacco mixture, which he poured on a square piece of red cloth on the ground before him. Herbs and leaves were added, then stuffed into the huge pipe bowl. During the ritual, the old one droned an ancient prayer, asking that with the smoking of the pipe this day would come truth from every tongue.

  The old medicine man surprised Custer, grabbing his wrist. The old man closed his rheumy eyes and turned his face toward the smoke hole above, placing the soldier chiefs hand over his heart while he murmured his toothless prayers.

  Finished, he dropped Custer’s hand, next presenting the long pipestem to the heavens and earth, then to the four winds of life. With no warning, the old man placed the mouthpiece against Custer’s lips as he held a coal over the pipe bowl. The soldier chief drew in a mouthful of the fragrant smoke, steeling himself against the waves of nauseau rolling over him. Never had he used tobacco. Even the smell of it on a man’s breath could turn him green.

  The shaman pulled the mouthpiece from Custer’s lips, once again placing the soldier chiefs hand over his heart. Muttering another prayer, he raised Custer’s hand aloft, shaking it while the others repeated his prayer.

  Over the next quarter-hour the soldier chief smoked alone, emptying the entire bowl. Through it all, the Cheyenne studied him for any sign of weakness. Medicine Arrow himself held the yard-long pipestem while the shaman cradled the bowl. The chief explained why Custer smoked alone.

  “Yellow Hair, you stand before the Cheyenne people to speak the truth—or all your soldiers will be killed for your deceit. If your tongue is not straight, if your words do not show what truly rests in your heart, Yellow Hair and all his soldiers will die together, left for the buzzards to pick their bones clean beneath the winds of summers yet to come.”

  At Medicine Arrow’s signal, the shaman refilled and lit the huge pipe bowl, starting it on its journey around the lodge. Four times it passed each man. With four prayers, every man smoked. With its last circle, Medicine Arrow held the pipe bowl against Custer
’s dusty boots, the long stem pointed heavenward.

  “The wise counselors of the Southern Cheyenne have smoked this pipe. Their breath is like their prayers, forever on the winds to touch the heart of the Everywhere Spirit.”

  Custer smiled through the speech, wishing he had Romero at his side. From the start of their council, the Cheyenne had refused to use sign language. The soldier chief contented himself with catching a word here and there.

  How he ached to ask about the white girls, though he decided not to press the subject for the moment. There would be time when the villages were surrounded. When there was no chance for the Cheyenne to kill their captives. One ill-timed word now, and it would spell a death sentence for those women.

  “Our prayers to the Everywhere Winds ask that the soldier chief speak the truth to us,” Medicine Arrow explained. “Evil will follow you all your days, that evil will fall to your sons, and to the sons of your sons, if your tongue does not speak true.”

  Custer ran a raw tongue around his foul-tasting mouth.

  “You are a most treacherous one, oh Creeping Panther. You slink in the night to surround a winter village of sleeping women and children. Hear me, white man!” Medicine Arrow took a thin willow twig, with it loosening the dead ash in the pipe bowl.

  “This deadly curse I lay on you and your sons, and on all the sons of your sons, a curse made powerful many times over from the lips of this council.”

  Medicine Arrow turned over the tall red pipe bowl, slowly pouring the ashes onto the soldier chiefs muddy boots.

  Custer froze, frightened. Are they anointing me for some reason? Giving me this place of honor beneath the coyote bundle … spreading ashes on my boots as other cultures anoint with oil?

  With no way to know for certain, he nodded at each chief. Just as ignorant of white men as Custer was of them,the council believed he understood the seriousness of Medicine Arrow’s curse.

  “Hear us, Yellow Hair! Should you ever approach a Cheyenne camp with evil purpose, to destroy as you did the helpless ones of Black Kettle on the Washita, you will one day be killed, your soldiers lying broken like the brittle grasses of winter. Your white bodies left to rot beneath the all-seeing eye of the sun above. Cheyenne spirits will determine your fate. My curse rides your shoulders, till the end of your days.”

  Medicine Arrow took the pipe bowl from Custer’s boots, passing it to the medicine man.

  Custer dragged a freckled hand across his dry lips, worried. With the shaman putting the pipe away, it appeared the council had drawn to a close—and he hadn’t had the chance to speak.

  “Medicine Arrow.” Custer began to move his hands in the ancient language of the prairies. “I thank you for the honor of your lodge.”

  He studied the chiefs face, searching for some sign of agreement, some flicker of good intention.

  “I come to speak of peace with the Cheyenne. No more can your young men ride north to the settlements of the white farmers to carry off their women and children. No longer can you wander off your reservation for hunting or for raids.”

  Lord, did he wish for something to drink, to soothe his scorched throat.

  “If the Cheyenne want peace, you must return to the reservation. If you want war, Yellow Hair will bring sorrow to the door of every Cheyenne lodge.”

  Custer pointed toward the tent flap. “Do not force me to use the soldiers who surround your village. Do not force me to destroy those you hold most dear—your families, sons, and daughters. Return to the land given you by the Grandfather back east, return before it is too late for either of us to stop the killing.”

  For a long time after Custer’s hands fell silent, the Cheyenne elders considered the words of Yellow Hair, ruminating as a buffalo cow would chew and rechew something hard to swallow.

  “Hiestzi” the old chief eventually whispered, “we will consider your words. It is a hard thing you ask—for the Cheyenne have always been a strong people. We do not like the choices you give us. Each choice means an end to our way. Your bullets are an easy answer. Bullets kill Cheyenne warriors. But soldier bullets will never kill the spirit of the Cheyenne.”

  He paused while the murmurs of approval faded.

  “Hear me, Yellow Hair—as long as there are Cheyenne women, there will be Cheyenne warriors. You may have enough bullets to kill Cheyenne warriors today, but as long as there are Cheyenne wombs, there will always be Cheyenne sons! The spirit of our people lives with the hills and the sky. Everlasting!”

  Custer politely waited as he considered the chiefs words. “You have spoken well, Medicine Arrow. My heart is small … it lies on the ground this day to know we both are warriors driven to fight each other. Never will it be said Yellow Hair questions the courage of the Cheyenne.”

  Medicine Arrow nodded, the doubting scowl beginning to soften.

  “Hear me, Cheyenne,” Custer continued. “You say that you cannot trust that my tongue is straight. You will know me by my actions. For what I do will stand much longer than what I say.”

  “Yellow Hair has spoken well,” Medicine Arrow replied. “We will judge you by your actions. If you deal with our people with one heart, you will live. If you prove to have two hearts … then you and your soldiers will be wiped out to the last man. Our Everywhere Spirit will crush your faithless bodies after driving your minds mad with fear. Hear me! Fear that evil you bring upon yourself, Yellow Hair.”

  “Like you, I am searching for an honest tongue—among the Cheyenne,” Custer signed. “I hope to find that tongue among those in this lodge. In the days to come, we will talk of peace, as we blaze a new road for the Cheyenne to travel.”

  Medicine Arrow’s dark eyes slewed around the lodge. “We will talk, Yellow Hair—of many things.”

  Custer shifted anxiously, knees aching from sitting for so long. “Will Medicine Arrow tell me where I can find the most suitable ground for my soldier camp?”

  The old chief studied the shocked faces of those around him before he answered, gesturing for the soldier chief to rise. “Come, I will show you myself where your soldiers can camp. You will have the swift-flowing river, and timber for your fires. Plenty of grass for your horses. Come, Yellow Hair.”

  While their leaders conferred in Medicine Arrow’s lodge, both the Cheyenne and the soldiers engaged in an uneasy standoff.

  Myers had his officers deploy the troopers around the villages like Joshua encircling Jericho, as a number of mounted warriors dodged in and out of the trees, taunting and shouting at the soldiers. Anxious troopers warily watched the timber. Nervous, but itching for a chance to even the score for Elliott’s men. Back and forth the officers rode, trying to keep a lid on things, knowing one wrong move by either side would blow the cork on a powder keg.

  By the time Custer and Medicine Arrow emerged from the lodge into midday winter brightness, a flurry of noise and frantic motion swirled about them. Both leaders realized the situation must be diffused.

  “I do not hold these young ones much longer, Yellow Hair,” the Cheyenne chief growled. “I told you what the sight of your soldiers would do to our villages.”

  “You will hold your young men!” Custer snapped, his hands flying angrily. “And I will withdraw my soldiers to our camp for the night. Now show me!”

  Custer and Moylan mounted and were led by the Cheyenne chief to a campsite three-quarters of a mile above the villages. Only then did the warriors drift away from the timber, resigned that there would be no fight this day.

  As his troops pitched their camp along the Sweetwater, Custer had a chance to really study the faces of his haggard soldiers. Skin sagged beneath sunken cheeks. Eyes without brightness peered back at him as he rode through their ranks. Smudge from countless fires caked their faces. Teeth stood out as if all were grinning skulls. He began to realize to what extent the long and hard winter had exacted its toll on his men. No soldier had come this far unscathed. They had had more than five months of freezing, too little to eat, and still had untold miles yet to go.
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  Something deep within Custer tugged, unlike anything he had felt since the days of the Shenandoah. A warm knot of sentiment rose in his throat as he gazed at these young soldiers—his Seventh Cavalry. While they grumbled and complained as soldiers always had from the time of Alexander and Caesar, still these boys in blue had followed. Wherever Custer led, soldiers followed. Talk around the campfires had it that glory awaited Custer at every turn. Honor would surely come to every soldier who followed in Custer’s wake.

  “Monaseetah.” Custer showed her a stump to sit on. Moylan had brought her from one of Lieutenant Bell’s ambulances. Custer signed for her, “I need your help freeing the girls. I think they’re in these camps.”

  “I will help.” She removed the infant from the folds of blanket at her back, rocking him in her arms.

  “We have found the village of Rock Forehead. He is the one your people call—”

  “Medicine Arrow. A wild and wicked man. Black Kettle did not respect his counsel. Said he had too much power—power he gained through fear.”

  “Fear can be a great ruler, Monaseetah. It controls as few things do.”

  “An evil man. There are stories he has killed men with his curses.”

  “Romero said the same thing. Don’t tell me you believe those stories too!”

  “Yes, Hiestzi. Many have told me.”

  “He’s an old man! Flesh and blood—like me! Old dogs like him have worn teeth. I’m more worried about his young warriors—they have the sharp teeth.”

  She hid her face.

  “Monaseetah? Is this old man so evil that he will hold the white girls in his village, while saying he knows nothing of them?”

  Monaseetah’s eyes darted this way and that, like the sudden flight of frightened hummingbirds. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “You are afraid of something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of Medicine Arrow.”

  “Not afraid of him. Afraid of something I cannot see. The evil he can do. If it were something I could see, I would use my knife to kill it. We can fight what we can see. It is only what I cannot see or touch …”