As the opiated alcohol loosened the constraints of the newspaper man’s thought process, he began to consider to himself how to invest his vast personal fortune, and who to allow in on the opportunity of a lifetime. There were new friends to be made, new business opportunities to be exploited with this priceless insider’s knowledge.
Audie neither smoked nor drank; a promise he made to his future wife Libbie, during the years he tried to shake off the disease through exercise and clean living. But he never could shake it off-not completely. It would come and go. Sometimes it ravaged him so badly that he was nearly incapacitated. During a time he thought it was gone, he saw his longtime lover and first cousin, Mollie and infected her. She would not know for a long time, but by then it was too late. He had married Libbie, and infected her as well.
All this, I have wrought on these poor women, the females most dear to me. All in the course of drinking. He thought to himself. The Boy General had more on his mind than the clap, though.
Custer needed a victory in the field against the Sioux and Cheyenne, and a sycophantic press to publicize it. Out West, on the frontier, lay the last remaining chance to practice his Warrior’s Ritual; and Bennet, seeing himself as a potential king maker, would assign his best ink man in the region, Clement A. Lounsberry to ride with the 7th. Lounsberry had, along with a junior editorialist named Mark Kellogg, founded the highly respectable Bismarck Tribune, which served the entire area of the Dakota Territories.
As with the other jewels that adorned his crown of achievements, James Gordon Bennet had his tentacles in the Bismarck Tribune as well. He would see to it that his enterprise would be the first to herald the account of the stunning victory of America’s favorite icon, and be the only newspaper on the planet to have an actual reporter on the spot to give accounts in incredible detail, describing Custer, the man, the legend, the hero-and the next President of the United States of America! He, James Gordon Bennet, would make Custer the greatest publicity draw the world had ever known, and not only would sales of his newspapers soar, so would Custer’s political debt to him.
Chapter Four ~ Custer and Terry Strike the Devil’s Bargain
The next day found Reno ranging ahead with a small entourage of hand-picked scouts. He took notes and carefully scrutinized the terrain that lay ahead. He did so in part because of the implied threat from Custer the evening before. He would do whatever his commanding officer ordered, out of respect, duty, and fear. He was not a well man, and the Army was all that he had at this stage in his life.
Major Reno was a trustworthy and capable career officer in whose charge General Terry placed the reconnoitering of this unexplored land of rolling hills, plains, valleys and rivers. Terry was in overall command of the three pronged offensive designed to crush Sioux resistance, and the decision to place Reno in charge of the initial reconnaissance had met with bitter resistance from Custer.
The matter of who was to lead the reconnaissance had been debated earlier, while on the Far West, a fast, powerful stern wheel steamboat that was transporting the 7th up the Yellowstone River.
“You’ve got enough on your plate already, George.” placated the maneuvering Terry, as he tried to control the strong willed commander of cavalry.
“You’re burning the candle on both ends, look...” Terry lowered his voice conspiratorially as if others were in the room, which was not the case. “…look, Grant has expressly forbidden you from bringing an AP correspondent on this expedition. I can make that all change, with the stroke of a pen.” the general assured Custer, who could not remain still.
Custer was pacing back and forth in the wardroom of the Far West-a river boat steamer that served as command center for the far flung military expedition. It was a cutting edge shallow draft river steamboat launched in 1870, and piloted by the legendary Captain Grant Marsh. The Far West had set numerous speed records and had the ability to crawl over sandbars by use of steam capstans and spars. Although she was 190 feet in length with a beam of 33 feet, she only drew 30 inches of water when fully loaded with 200 tons of cargo. A triple decker, the low slung leviathan had two smoke stacks and a powerful pair of high pressure Herbertson steam engines with 15 inch pistons and a five foot power stroke. These were driven by steam generated by three boilers which turned the enormous single stern wheel, which measured 30 feet.
“Look.” reiterated Terry, who easily controlled the psychotic officer, and enjoyed doing it. “Sit down, all your pacing is getting on my nerves.”
Custer sat on the plush over padded leather club chair and locked eyes with his superior officer. “In return for what?” asked Custer.
Terry leaned back in the swivel chair behind his mahogany desk, locking his fingers behind his head, as he carefully made his gambit. He did not seem to notice the thud, then the rise and dip of the steamboat as it slammed into, and rode over a submerged sandbar.
“I’ll come straight to the point, George. I’m nearing retirement. I’m ready to hang up the sword and shield and move on to the next chapter of my life, just as you are. I’ll sign the waiver allowing a press correspondent to accompany you, in return for an ambassadorship to Spain. But I can’t have the next President of the United States needlessly getting himself killed on a reconnaissance mission that a capable junior officer can carry out.”
Custer seemed to unwind and relax, saying; “Alright, then. We’ve got a deal. What is it with you and Spain anyhow?”
But Custer’s thoughts were on the topography of the land-largely uncharted that lay before him; land that was gouged by rivers of which the depths varied widely from one stretch to the next. What lay out there Custer largely only surmised based on rumor and hearsay. What little he knew for fact troubled him.
Oddly, these rivers ran north, and roughly parallel to one another in their meanderings. They were the Powder, the Tongue, and the Big Horn. They disgorged their contents into the Yellowstone River. There were a number of tributaries which supplied these water courses, one being of which was the aptly named Little Bighorn, which gave to the Big Horn River. The Little Bighorn had its origins in the extreme upper edge of Wyoming, where it began on the north face of the Bighorn Mountains and followed a bow like trajectory for 138 miles deep into Montana; it was fed by several tributaries of its own along the way.
Already, the Far West had traversed several rapids and many sandbars in its journey into the unknown. The central cabin where they sat was small, but lavishly furnished. Passenger accommodations were limited, and the steamer lacked a Texas deck, affording it a low profile with decreased wind resistance.
“I took a second major in addition to the mundane law degree I acquired at Yale. I found Spanish to be an interesting hobby, and have continued studying it during my leisure time.” answered General Terry.
Custer was brought back to the present, and studied the man sitting before him, really for the first time. A general, he thought, fluent in Spanish.
“Would you consider a military governorship of Mexico, if that country were to seek our assistance in liberation?” inquired Custer.
Terry cut an unimposing image of a military man; slight of build, of medium height, his receding hairline remained stubbornly thick in the center, and the dark hair was combed over to the left side. This hair remained ungrayed, despite his years, and crowned a high forehead, wide at the top. This forehead Custer knew contained a brain of tremendous administrative and logistical talent. The sloe eyes were dark, overly large, and sparkled with intelligence. The face was narrow, lending to a false impression of weakness and lack of stamina. The full beard did little to dispel this image. Terry was evasive and noncommittal in his response.
“I have a substantial estate between Madrid and Merida that I acquired during the settlement of an egregious debt for a plaintiff during the time I was a lawyer.” responded Terry, clearly caught off guard. “At this stage of my life a military governorship of Mexico would be, shall we say, worth considering?” General Terry added ambiguously, as if he were u
ncertain as to whether or not to make such a major course correction in the penumbra of his life.
Custer’s gaze bore into Terry’s eyes with an intensity that was unsettling. There was that slight shifting of the eyes from side to side, noticed Terry, as Custer tried to enter his mind.
“It would be worth a man’s soul, wouldn’t you say, Alfred?” said Custer, innocuously. Purposefully Custer began addressing his superior officer by his first name. Terry seemed not to notice the transgression, although Custer knew that he had.
Chapter Five ~ Reno Scouts the Gargantuan Indian Trail
Major Reno with his scouting expedition had the advantage of Cree scouts who were familiar with the area, and were scouting along the more distant Rosebud Creek. In the past, the Arikawa (Cree) had been semi nomadic, following the herds of buffalo but also growing fields of corn. During times of good harvest they would remain stationary, living in earth lodges; dome shaped dwellings constructed of bent saplings overlaid with wattle and daub, then covered with earth.
However, the influx of European settlers had obliterated their numbers with the introduction of small pox. Hard pressed and outnumbered by the Sioux, they became allies of the US Army and provided the bulk of the scouts in Custer’s command. Alarmed by an Indian trail of gigantic proportions-the likes of which they had never seen before, the scouts urged Reno to advance the column and ride forth with them to see the trail for himself.
“This is an Indian trail of a magnitude most disproportionate to any I have yet beheld.” opined a visibly concerned Major Reno. He turned around, telling his sergeant to rest the troops.
“Dismount! Prepare your meals, rest the horses, and make no fires.” the sergeant shouted, the order was passed back down along the column.
Taking time to relieve himself–an act of nature he dreaded, Major Reno wiped his hands on his dust covered trousers. Having been diagnosed with syphilis many years before, he counted his lucky stars that it had not entered the tertiary stage. Sometimes it never did, the post surgeon had explained to him. But the act of micturition ignited a fire along the entire length of his urethra that sometimes made him scream. The oozing, purulent discharge from the urinary meatus of his penis was a constant annoyance, causing him to wear a padding to absorb the discharge and avoid embarrassment.
Looking through beady, rat-like eyes set behind a pudgy face, Reno assessed the cyclopean trail in troubled silence. Some parts of the Indian trail were gouged into ruts sixteen inches deep, filled with a talcum like dust. This trail led up the Rosebud Creek, between the Tongue and Bighorn Rivers. The Rosebud is a large creek, spilling from the Beartooth Mountains; it is roiled with white water rapids before it slows to a sluggish drunken meander, its banks lined with huge orange tiger lilies and other wild flowers.
The midday heat was sweltering and the biting buffalo gnats plagued the eyes of the horses and the dust covered troopers that swatted at them, causing clouds of dust to fly from their sleeves. The assault of deerflies on the horses was unrelenting. The Indian trail was titanic in its proportions, and another joined it, further on. Reno continued to survey the trail, which carried ominous portent.
The tails of the horses were giant fly swats that struck forcefully at the blood sucking horseflies that pestered their flanks. The horseflies could not be deterred, coming back again and again. Often alighting on soldiers and inflicting painful blood seeping bites. Most of the men wore light colored straw hats over closely cropped hair. Their hair was cut short to lessen the intolerable heat of the march, and the straw hats were more practical than the broiling felt cavalry hats. When in the field, discipline was lax as far as pettifogging went.
“In the field,” Reno had heard Custer say, “We don’t play games. We play for real.”
Middle aged and widowed, Reno worried for a moment about how he would remarry-how he could hide the syphilis. Large sores on his penis that never healed oozed puss. The searing treatments of silver nitrate injected with a glass syringe directly into the urethra had not staunched the disgusting, fetid discharges. These thoughts passed in a couple of seconds as he walked alone a short distance up the Indian trail.
His shirt tugged tightly against the scarlet papules and nodules that scored his back in numerous wheals as he knelt down. Leaning forward, he scooped up a palm full of tan, talcum fine dust with his swollen hand- the palm of which was covered always in a rash, and let it escape in streams between the inflamed knuckles of his fingers.
“This is for real!” he said aloud to no one in particular. “Bloody Knife, what make you of this?” queried Reno.
The Indian trail resembled a huge deeply plowed field; having been furrowed by thousands of lodge polls pulled by the Indian ponies. Reno remembered his courses in mythology at West Point, regarding the Labors of Hercules when the demi-god plowed with the Cretan Bull. The absence of grass was a consternation; having been clipped to the ground by the enormous herds of Indian ponies, leaving nothing for the exhausted cavalry horses and pack mules. The bare expanse was littered with countless horse droppings, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
“Big Indian village, plenty heap big, more warrior than Custer have bullets.” was the Arikawa’s reply.
Bloody Knife was not wholly Arikawa, being born of an Arikawa mother and a Hunkpapa Sioux father. As a boy he had been ostracized and viciously bullied by the Sioux, who considered him an inferior. Two of his brothers had been killed and scalped by the Sioux, who left their bodies in the field to be eaten by wolves. Bloody Knife had a deep dislike of the Sioux, of Sitting Bull and of a particular man who had tormented him viciously-Gall.
“Too many injun to fight!” Spitting a long brown stream of tobacco juice, Bloody Knife added, “Maybe good we go back, tell Custer!”
∞
“Too many to fight?” Custer studied the enigmatic face of his best scout and close personal friend, Bloody Knife.
“I was telling you,” interjected Major Reno, “that the Indian trail I observed could only have been made by contingents numbering in the tens of thousands.”
A pause of several moments ensued, which seemed like minutes to Reno. Custer was sitting on a stool behind the table on which lay a map-a map which grew in detail based on the reports of scouts as they provided new information on the topography that lay ahead. He was rubbing the temples of his forehead, his eyes were closed.
“How many?” Custer asked, without looking up.
“Tens of thousands, twenty thousand on this trail alone, by the looks of it. Give or take, but my estimate can’t be far off.” replied Reno, who fidgeted while Bloody Knife remained stoic.
“Go ahead and sit down, take a load off. What I mean is, how many days ride are they ahead of us?” clarified Custer.
Custer looked up at Bloody Knife, who remained standing.
“Two day, hard ride.” ejaculated the stalwart Indian.
Reno took a sip of whiskey from the flask he always carried, adding; “General, we need to slow up and wait for the other columns to get here, we’re way too far ahead of them, and there aren’t enough of us to take them on alone.”
“More injun than soldier have bullets.” reiterated Bloody Knife.
Custer stood up and walked to the opening of the tent and stood there, looking out at the activity of the camp.
Pompous fool, thought Reno, he’s going to do it, he’s going to go after the whole multitude of them by himself and get us all killed.
Custer remained silent, alone in his thoughts.
“Martini!” shouted Custer.
Martini stood at attention listening to his commanding officer, who did not ever seem to notice he was even a human being. Custer seldom, if ever, gave scant thought to Martini. He was vaguely aware that the bugler was an Italian immigrant, one of many immigrants that had been dumped on the 7th. But like so many higher ranking officers, he paid little attention to those men who ranked far below him in the Army’s social caste structure.
“Go find Lt. Varnum. Tel
l him to come here, now.” the Yellow Hair ordered Martini, who looked back over his shoulder into the tent as he departed.
The general seemed to have already forgotten about Martini, and had sat down heavily on his field chair, leaning into the back of it. His head was facing the top of the tent and his eyes were closed, his officers talked among themselves as the general took no notice of them, either.
After Lt. Varnum arrived Custer stood up and faced Reno saying, “Varnum is going to take his scouts and leave here at 2200, after they’ve rested their horses and fed. I want them several hours ahead of us before we break camp.”
Reno took another swig of whiskey in front of the General, who never drank but paid no mind. Alcoholism was rampant among the officers as well as the enlisted.
“Have the officers roust the men at 0300, we step off at oh five hundred.” added the General.
Reno stood up, nervously knocking dust from his trousers before coming to attention.
“Yes Sir! Is that all, Sir?” asked Major Reno.
“That’s all, Marcus. Carry on.” Custer was surprised by Reno’s competency and was pleased.
He turned and spoke to Bloody Knife who watched him with a wooden expression.
“Sit down, old friend. Now, talk to me openly.” said Custer with the relaxed personal demeanor that he only shared with Bloody Knife.
Chapter Six ~ Bare-Knuckled Antics at Camp Custer
They had been on the march since before the light of day on the morning of the 23rd, moving up the Rosebud with the best scouts ranging far in the advance. The scouting party had stolen out hours earlier in the gloomy darkness, guiding through gulches and past towering hills into the quietness that presages the coming of dawn. Guiding not only through the ghostly gulches and past the towering hills that appeared as gossamer shapes in the purple gloom, but they had also long since guided beyond the furthest advance of Major Reno's scouting of the Indian trail. They could only discern the trail in the oppressive darkness when the horses stepped into the deep ruts, gouged into the hard earth, causing the horses to stumble. Often, the riders were thrown from their mounts or crushed beneath the heavy, grain fed horses.
Metal Storm: Weird Custer A Novel Page 3