He knew he needed men, far more than he had with him.
“Mitchell,” he yelled. The cook pushed his mount forward. “Go to General Custer, off on the right or behind those bluffs, and tell him the Indians are before me, in strong force. You have that? Before me, in strong force.”
The cook nodded and spurred his mount.
It was the same message he had sent with the striker, but he meant to get through and get help.
Hodgson returned, and Reno told him to bring up Company G from its reserve position, and take the right side of the line. He would put every last man into the line of battle. Hodgson slipped back again, and Reno saw his reserves swing right and spread into an evenly spaced battle line, each mount well separated from the others, all of it done by the book.
His mouth was so dry that he could barely lick his gummy dead cigar, so he clamped it between his stained teeth.
His horse had blackened with sweat. It was a hell of a hot Sunday. Nothing was gained by a hard gallop now, and he kept his column moving at an easy canter, eating up prairie, a thin band of blue. Now he heard the occasional crack of rifles. The Indians had plenty of arms, including Winchester repeaters, but not much ammunition, and they would be cautious about expending it. That was one thing in Reno’s favor, but there weren’t many others. Five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred Indians. All over, left and right, mixing with the scouts on the left, driving the scouts away from the village herd.
Damn!
Hodgson looked as taut as a fiddle string, and Reno studied him. The young man hadn’t seen much action.
“Lieutenant.”
“Sir?”
“Think about what’s coming at them, not what’s coming at you.”
Hodgson smiled and nodded.
Where the hell was Custer? Reno craned his head to the right, and to the rear. He heard and saw nothing, no bugles, no signals, no support. And where the hell was Benteen? The captain and his command had vanished, still hunting outlying villages so that Custer could sweep the whole encampment.
A horse sneezed, stumbled behind him, and then recovered. This was not quite tabletop land, and the command dipped into shallow watercourses and up again. There would be such little dips ahead, and each one could swarm with hostiles. Dust, swarming on the flanks, knots of warriors getting behind Reno’s line, dark deadly knots of men against the green of the river brush.
“They’re not running, major,” Hodgson observed.
Reno pulled his cigar out of his teeth and spat, or tried to. “They’re supposed to run. That’s in Custer’s book. Attack in force, and the redskins scatter.”
“See that?” Hodgson asked.
On the right, close to the river and half concealed by green river brush and lofty cottonwoods, a large column of warriors was trotting into a flanking position. They sure as hell weren’t scattering. Others were flanking on the left, driving back the Arikaras, who were grossly outnumbered.
There were pops and snaps now, nothing finding its mark, but no firing from the flanks. The Indians between the command and the village were backing slowly, shooting now and then but putting up no great resistance, luring the command forward, giving way, scarcely fighting.
“We’re about to be flanked, lieutenant. They’re sucking us in.”
“I was thinking that. There must be five or six hundred in sight, and more coming.”
“Where’s Custer?”
“Someone’s up on the bluffs across the river, major. Too far away, but I’d guess that’s Custer or someone from his command.”
Far away, indeed. The figure on the bluffs was so small Reno could barely make him out. “At least they see what the hell we’re up against,” he said.
He heard a pop, and behind him a man screamed. One wounded. A horse screeched and stumbled. Men yelled. Something whipped across his sleeve. Some of the Indians were very nearly behind the command, on the right. Getting ready to fire at Reno’s backsides.
He needed firepower now, and you don’t get much of that from horseback. “Hodgson, tell them to halt, dismount, form a skirmish line. Time to start shooting.”
This was a familiar maneuver. Every fourth man became a horse holder; the other three deployed in battle formation.
“Pick your targets; watch the flanks, and move forward,” Reno said. The company commanders and noncoms led their men forward, step by step, a hundred more yards on foot, two hundred … and then men began falling. Reno had heard that terrible sound in many battles, a thump, scream, groan, sob.
“Volleys,” he yelled, and a ragged blast from eighty or ninety carbines stopped the flow of the Sioux on the right, but only for the moment. As fast as the men ejected the spent copper cartridge and jacked in another, the Sioux flankers were scurrying toward the side.
“Wheel the right line, face them,” Reno called, and the noncoms set to work, swinging Company G toward the flankers along the river.
Where was that damned Custer?
Reno clamped teeth over the cigar, kept his men moving forward, and was met by peppering shots that found its mark here and there. Men fell, and there was no way to help them. Horses screeched. Reno smelled the sweat and stink of his own mount.
Where was the goddamned commander? And Benteen? He no longer had time to send messengers. His untrained men were no longer pushing ahead, but standing and firing, half wildly, missing targets, wasting shots. Jamming fresh cartridges into their carbines. This attack was falling apart.
“Shoot low, shoot low!”
Where was Benteen?
He scanned the horizons. “You see any support?” he asked Hodgson.
“Not a damned thing.”
Reno sighed. He hated this, hated to do what he had to do, knew he had no choice. He would soon be surrounded. “Company M, Company F, into the timber.”
He lifted an arm and pointed at the dense cottonwoods flanking the river. His lieutenants got the message, and pointed their noncoms toward the woods where Lieutenant Hare had already taken the horses for safety. It was an orderly maneuver, with the volleys keeping the Sioux at bay. But another man fell, and no one could help the wounded.
As fast as they reached the woods, they formed a perimeter, with the horses collected in the center, in an open glade. Here was brush and wood and tree trunks, as well as an old riverbed that made an ideal breastwork. Porter, the surgeon, was working on several wounded who had found their way into the woods.
Where was Custer?
Reno thought he heard a distant volley, but who knew?
He saw to the defense, put men behind fallen logs, started some men to cover the bluffs—where some Indians had climbed in order to shoot down upon the soldiers in the trees.
“How are we on ammunition?” he asked Hodgson.
“I’ll find out.”
The lieutenant, revolver in hand, trotted off to check with noncoms. He soon was back.
“We’re alright for the moment.”
“What are our casualties?”
“I’ll find out.”
It was getting hot in the woods. Clipped leaves filtered down. Some arrows hissed through. The hostiles were within bow range, out in the brush. The scouts slipped in, excited, and joined the rest, firing at will. The men were digging in, hunkering down, throwing up anything that would stop lead. Reno thought they could hold … for a while. An hour, maybe. Until help came. In the distance, brought coyly on the zephyrs, came the sounds of another hot fight, volleys, rattle, and then the wind shifted.
Reno wasn’t even sure of it, but he didn’t have time to wonder what it was. But if Custer was in a fight of his own, that meant that Reno could expect no help from that quarter. He was on his own, with around a hundred surviving troopers and some scouts. And out there, in numbers unfathomable, were ten times that.
And where was Benteen?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RED MEN RUNNING. YOU SEE THEM, YOU DONT. GROUPS OF THEM burst out, vanish, pop up. Warriors rise, loose arrows, disappear. Popping
rifles, silence, snapping, odd quiet moments. Slap of bullets into wood. Clipped twigs drop. Now and then a sally, several dusky savages, howling, driven back by ragged volleys. Always closer, closer and closer. Sweat and smoke, stinking air. Crack and scream, men hit, bloodred blouses. Sobs, white bandages blooming red.
More and more and more and more Indians, hundreds, then maybe a thousand, more than Reno had ever seen at once, wraiths dancing, dodging, diving, creeping, ducking, shooting. Indians pressuring that woods, bullets snapping in from all quarters, no barricade safe, Indians at the rear. Closer and closer.
Where was Custer?
Reno paced, revolver in hand, studied the attacking red men, tried to plug holes, yelled at his company commanders, made sure the noncoms were keeping men from bolting. Steady now, steady. His men lined a shallow embankment, once a riverbed, carbines poking over the top.
“We going to hold them off?” Hodgson asked.
“An hour, maybe. We’re flanked now, and there’s no going back. Got to keep them from our rear. Any word about the pack train?”
“Nothing.”
“Benteen?”
“Vanished from the earth.”
“How many men down?”
“Eight, nine.”
“We’re holding, then.” Reno chomped his dead yellow cigar. “I sent two dispatches. Maybe we’ll see some blue somewhere. You have any idea where Custer is?”
“Across the river. Varnum saw the gray-horse troop on those bluffs. They saw us. Custer has to know we’re in the thick of it.”
Reno stared. The cottonwoods extended to the Little Bighorn where the river meandered close to the steep bluffs beyond. A half a mile away, perhaps, loomed a grassy high point, several humps, a crown of naked grassland frowning over this field of blood. A place where a few could hold off many. Maybe he could get another message out, around behind that hill, and over to wherever Custer was. But to think it was to reject it. At the foot of those bluffs, and across the river, the Sioux were thick, and those without rifles were pouring arrows into the command.
“We’ll stay here.”
“I’m guessing it’s ten to one,” Hodgson said. “Twelve hundred out there.”
“That shouldn’t slow down the Seventh,” Reno replied.
The lieutenant didn’t smile.
Moylan was sending every other man back to the saddlebags for reserve ammunition. Reno watched, knowing that if his men were digging into their fifty-cartridge reserves, they could hold the timber for only another half hour. Time was running out unless the pack train showed up.
Some of the hostiles’ arrows and balls were striking the horses, which were gathered in a glade as far as possible from the perimeter. Reno heard screeching and snorting as horses were hit.
He watched Lieutenant DeRudio of Company A hustle some troopers into a defensible thicket and organize several volleys that stopped a dozen warriors in their tracks.
Good.
“I want ten men from Company G to ride with me to the river,” he said. “I want a look.”
Swiftly, a squad mounted and accompanied Reno on a dash through the timber to a spot where he could see deep into the village, with its endless circles of lodges. He could see even more warriors filtering into timber across the river, concealing themselves in the woods as they slipped forward.
“Stay here: keep them pinned across the river,” he told these men. “Don’t let them get behind us.”
The troopers dismounted, hastily set up some defenses, and held the warriors at bay for the moment.
Reno was facing decisions. He could not hold out here. The damned woods were too big. His men were firing slower and more carefully, a sure sign that they were conserving the cartridges they had left. There was no sign of support. His horses were being hit. They screeched, pitiably. His only hope was to find the rest of the regiment and the safety of numbers.
If the command was to survive, it would have to reach those distant bluffs. He spit out his cigar, summoned Moylan and McIntosh, and told them to mount their men and form in fours: they were going to sally across the river, drive the hostiles out of there, and keep on going to high ground. He sent Hodgson to inform French. They would try to mount the ambulatory wounded and take them, but some might be left behind. Those were the hard choices of war. What other choice was there?
He collected his horse, saw Hodgson trot off to find French, and saw the men pull out of their perimeter and head for the herd. No sooner did the men abandon their lines than the hostiles swarmed in, and what started as an orderly troop movement, even an attack, swiftly fell to bits.
Too damned many Indians. He saw commanders yelling at the troopers: line up, load, fire in volleys! But now the troopers were not listening but heading pell-mell for their mounts, not waiting to form in fours but racing straight for the river, which flowed under a steep muddy bank on the far side, meaning the horses had to claw up six or eight feet of mud to reach level land.
And there the blue-bloused men were dying and horses were floundering and red men were darting close, loosing arrows and balls at shooting gallery range, and escaping unscathed to reload. The water turned red. A man floated facedown, and drifted along with the slow current. It was like shooting ducks.
A rout. Horses whinneying, trying to flail up that muddy bank, slow, bullets picking off men, troopers jolted, tumbled slowly into red water, facedown. Pistol shots, troopers firing point blank at red men in their midst, a bang, Indian down, his head red, another down. Blue shirts moving, some riding hard into the gulch beyond, the only way up those looming cliffs, some helping the wounded, some retrieving riderless horses. A rout but not entirely without discipline.
Reno wanted an opinion from a scout, Bloody Knife: what would the Indians do once the command reached the bluffs? He waved the scout to him. Bloody Knife trotted his horse to Reno. They would have to talk in crude signs; no translator was near.
He pointed to the bluff and the troopers heading that way. He pointed to the Sioux. “What next?” Reno asked.
Bloody Knife started to point, and then his face turned into a mass of red and white, and he fell from his horse, dead. The scout’s brains soaked Reno’s blouse. Shaken, Reno jerked his horse back, stared, fighting back the vomit in his throat.
He kicked his mount into action. Get to the bluffs, organize a command, charge, drive the devils away.
French’s company was no longer a rear guard. There was no one facing the rear, no line volleying, no order or discipline, nothing. French was yelling but his orders had no effect. Men kicked their mounts savagely into the river, clawed up those muddy banks, and died there.
“Form a line!” Reno yelled, but no one heard.
He saw Hodgson try to wrestle the troopers into a line, and then Hodgson lifted out of the saddle, a rag doll, tumbling off his horse.
“Oh, Christ,” Reno said.
There was no time. Hodgson lay still, his bosom red with his own blood.
Reno felt the air part; the balls were thick now. He spurred into the river, his revolver barking at red men, and then he angled up the bank, easier passage, found the slippery grass, and spurred his horse up the gully. He fired at another stalking red man until his revolver clicked empty.
His good horse clawed the soft soil and he felt its powerful legs pull him upward, almost jerking him out of his saddle. They were, for the moment, free of assailants, but one look behind told him that the Sioux were finishing off the wounded out on that murderous field.
Moylan and French were ahead. DeRudio had vanished. McIntosh was dead, caught at the river crossing. The surgeon, DeWolf, had died near the river. He thought fifty, sixty men had gained the heights, maybe even seventy, and these were spreading out. Moylan was deploying them into a line. It was no longer a rout.
Reno reached the grassy top, dismounted from his heaving horse, swiftly surveyed the perimeter, saw that the whole place was vulnerable to fire from the east, but there was no choice. The last of the command straggled u
p the bluffs, momentarily not under fire because the howling Sioux had plenty of coup to count below.
He shuddered, swiftly jacked empty shells from his revolver and reloaded. Six shots. Men were flopped on the ground, seeing to their weapons. The horses were driven into a central basin, along with the wounded.
Men were pillaging the saddle packs for spare rounds, distributing bullets to those who had few. Others were throwing up defenses, killing wounded horses and dragging them into the line, clawing away dirt with knives. There wasn’t much ammunition left. One man was trying to pull a jammed cartridge out of his carbine.
Where the hell was Custer?
“French, put your company there,” he said.
It was a redundant order. French was ahead of him. The company commanders had worked out their own deployment.
Reno counted men. Seventy-some up here in a place that would require two hundred to make use of the high points. But he saw more blueshirts on foot, scaling the bluff. They were still crawling in.
Scarcely a shot reached these breezy crowns of the hills, but he knew that wouldn’t last. And in the hazy distances, out of range, hordes of Indians were on the move.
Where was Benteen? Where was the pack train? Where was Custer?
His men needed little direction; they were deploying well. But all Reno could think of was the fate of Major Joel Elliott in the battle of the Washita, not long before. The major and his men had been left to die when things got too hot for Custer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RENO SAW BENTEEN, HIS COLUMN AT A TROT, OFF TO THE SOUTHWEST. No sign of the pack train. He folded up his spyglass. Benteen had seen the troops on top of this barren knob and was heading this way, cautiously, his men riding by fours. Benteen’s column was still south of the hostiles.
An Obituary for Major Reno Page 8