Seize the Sky: Son of the Plains-Volume 2 (7 page)

“Two thousand lodges?” Gibbon bolted upright in his ladder-back chair, ripping the dead cigar from his lips.

“Reported as fact, John. He’s regarded as one of our best.”

“Why, that would make over three thousand warriors ready to fight,” Major Brisbin exclaimed in wonder.

Someone else whistled low and long to fill the silence as thick as the storm clouds gathering outside on the Yellowstone prairie.

“More,” Custer said. “If you count every weapon-carrying male between thirteen and sixty, you very well could have twice that number to take the field.”

“Gentlemen!” Terry held up his hand to quiet the clamor. “Custer could well be right in fearing what numbers
we’ll confront. Gentlemen, I want to emphasize what I’ve said. The Indians are confident and intend on making a stand.”

“Are you trying to scare us, General?” Gibbon inquired with a wry smile.

“Not in the least, John.” Terry flashed a quick grin. “It’s just that—well, let me bring in a civilian scout to add some credence to these reports. George! Come on in now!”

From the far door strolled lanky, leathery George Herendeen. Terry had stationed him on the quarterdeck just outside the dining cabin, awaiting his cue from the general.

“This is George Herendeen, a scout of mine who’s worked for the army for many years. Not all that long after we pulled out of Lincoln, I called George into consultation regarding the Sioux we’d be meeting and just how many he expected we’d run up against. Would you tell them what you said to me on that occasion, George?”

“Sure, General,” the tall, weathered scout answered. “I told you what I felt was the truth. I said that a good many Indians have skipped the reservations, and that if all these various bands leaving the agencies unite with the hostiles of Sitting Bull, they’d probably have a force of some four thousand warriors.”

“Besides those sobering numbers, Mr. Herendeen,” Terry prompted, “what appears the disposition of the hostiles at this time?”

“What you have gathering up out there, General, is a convention of the hardest, hell, the very best fighting chiefs known on the plains. They are well armed and well supplied with ammunition and provisions.”

“Thank you, George,” the general nodded to Herendeen as a cue for him to make his exit.

“Excuse me, General. Mr. Herendeen?” Custer pushed off the wall and took a step forward so he could lean on the long, ornate table bolted to the floor in the center of the room. “You brought this scout all the way from Lincoln only to have him tell us this? What is Herendeen to do now?”

“He’ll ride along with Colonel Gibbon and myself as one prong of the attack.”

“I see,” Custer mused, his eyes darting to those maps laid out on the table before Terry. “Mr. Herendeen—”

“Please, General Custer. Call me George.”

“All right,” and he flashed that famous peg-toothed grin of his, “suppose you tell me, George—are you acquainted with Tullock’s Fork—here?”

“Yes, General, I am.”

“Do you know where the head of Tullock’s Fork lies?”

Herendeen nodded, beginning to catch Custer’s drift. “Yep, I do that.”

“What’s this all about, Custer?” Terry inquired suspiciously and not a little impatiently.

“Tullock’s Fork, sir—right here on the divide between the Rosebud and the Little Horn.” Custer stabbed a freckled finger on the map. “It flows north to the Yellowstone where we sit at this moment. If Mr. Herendeen here knows that fork and that divide, he’s the man I want along with me.”

“Pray … what the devil for, Custer?” Terry’s interest was rubbed sore by now.

“For a moment let’s suppose I’ll have some need for a man who knows the lay of the land between the Rosebud and the Little Horn and where the hostiles might best be bottled up so they won’t run on us.”

Terry didn’t reply at first. Instead, his eyes shifted from Custer to Herendeen, then dropped to his maps as he studied Tullock’s Fork and the Wolf Mountains. At last he peered back at the tall, graying scout.

“George? How would you feel about riding along with the Seventh?”

Herendeen scratched at his heavy beard flecked with some winter iron, pondering the proposal as if it were something tangible and weighty. “All right. It’ll be an honor to ride with you, General.”

“I’ll have you know, Mr. Herendeen—I’m going to work you for your keep!”

Most of the officers in the room chuckled along with Custer and the tall scout.

“He means that, Herendeen,” Major Brisbin added,
“that Ol’ Iron Butt Custer can ride the pants off any man in this army!”

“Why all this interest in Tullock’s Fork, though?” Gibbon interrupted. “To me it appears these Indians of yours are somewhere up the Rosebud.” He pulled the stub of a dead cigar from his clenched teeth. “We’ve flushed them from the Powder and the Tongue. They’ve got to be far up the Rosebud now—”

“Or …” Custer paused, then said: “on the Little Horn itself.”

Major James Brisbin watched General Terry wave his hand, shouting for silence against the hubbub in the
Far West’s
dining room, where their afternoon meeting had reached a critical point.

Terry turned to Custer. “Why all this suspicion of the Little Horn?”

“I believe the scout you ordered Major Reno to take—coupled with my own march west to join up with Colonel Gibbon’s forces here at the mouth of the Rosebud—pushed them on over to the Little Horn.”

“Why the hell would the Sioux move over there if they’re reported to be ready and willing to stand and fight?” Gibbon asked, twisting in his chair to look over his shoulder at Custer.

“Simply because Indians choose where they’ll stand and fight, as rare as it is. If the place is not right, if their medicine isn’t strong enough, or if the odds don’t favor them in the slightest—the warriors will run to fight another day.”

“Custer here’s the most experienced Indian fighter we have,” Terry offered by way of explanation.

Brisbin sensed the others in the room give their begrudging agreement.

“They’ll find their place,” Custer continued. “They’ll make their stand. They’ll fight, by God. And gentlemen—I might add it will be a fight worthy of any man’s career.”

“Not just yours, General Custer?” Brisbin growled.

“No, Major.” Custer spat it out like slander. “Any officer with the brains—and the balls—to ride down into them when we find that camp.”

“Perhaps—” Brisbin slapped a glove along his leg. “Just perhaps you’re suggesting a man who’s been brought up on charges twice already for not following the orders of a superior officer—”

“Major!” Custer roared.

The small, tight room grew tighter as every man’s eyes were suddenly directed toward Custer. No longer a rosy-cheeked “Boy General,” the wrinkles of time and sun and wind cut across his brow, crow-footing his eyes and chiseling his cheeks into the thick mustache. A single muscle twitched along his red-stubbled jaw.

“Not once has either of those actions shown that I lost a man on account of what some would
claim
was my refusal to obey orders.”

“Nonetheless, General,” Brisbin said as he raised a hand for silence in the murmuring room, “without fail you put your men in jeopardy.”

“J-jeopardy?” Custer stammered. “We are soldiers, Major Brisbin!”

“Gentlemen!” Terry stepped between the two as the argument heated far too quickly.

“General?” Custer wheeled on Terry. “It appears the major here suffers from Colonel Gibbon’s green flu.”

Brisbin was certain of it now. He’d struck a raw nerve with Custer. “Green flu?”

“Explain this flu. Custer,” Gibbon himself echoed, glaring at the young cavalry commander.

“Yes, sir. Looks as if Major Brisbin—like you, sir—has grown jealous of General Terry’s decision to have the Seventh deliver the death blow to these Sioux.”

There followed a long moment of silence in the room before Gibbon spoke. “If you do go, it will be a death blow. But not to the Indians, Custer. You’ll be lucky if you get out of there with the shirt on your back and what you have left for a scalp still clinging to your head!”

Custer turned to Terry, winking. As if to say Gibbon was proving his own jealousy.

“You know well enough my plan doesn’t allow Custer a solitary hand in this action, John.” General Terry laid his
papers on the table and gazed steadily at Gibbon. “He’ll be moving in concert with us.”

Gibbon scoffed. “Hardly, General. This man has never moved in concert with anything but his own ambitions. He may appear ready to work with us in this maneuver … but he’s most able and indeed ready to seek a way out of the confines of what you’ve planned for him, sir.”

“John”—and this time Terry’s voice was quieter than normal—“I don’t believe I’m hearing you say this. Could it be true that you do indeed find my plan somewhat distasteful?”

Gibbon glared at Terry a moment as if found out, then his eyes softened as he stared out the window at the water of the Yellowstone whipping past. “Alfred, with all due respect, my four troops of Second Cavalry from Fort Ellis have been in the field since the twenty-second of February. I put my six companies of infantry from Fort Shaw on the trail of these bloody savages back in March. Since that time both my cavalry and foot soldiers haven’t returned to their station—”

“What’s the point of this, General?” Custer appealed to Terry.

“Point, Custer?” Gibbon snapped. “The point is there isn’t a man among those soldiers who hasn’t come to regard these Sioux as his very own. Why, we’ve been waiting some five long months to corral and contain these red buggers! By all that’s holy—by all that’s just—I again appeal to you, General. Allow my troops the honor of crushing them!”

“John,” General Terry whispered, the quiet appeal filling the dining room against the backdrop of rhythmic wavelets lapping along the hull. “I’ve already decided, and that decision will stand. The strongest unit I can field will make our attack. The unit that is the most ready for battle will spearhead this operation. The Seventh Cavalry.”

“We are at full strength, Colonel,” Custer jumped quickly to conciliate. “Many of your men and animals are simply worn out. It’s been a long spring for them. Surely, sir—we can bury this hatchet and find a way to restore amicable relations between our regiments once more. I want no glory for myself alone. Instead, I seek only to play
what role General Terry designs for me in this campaign. Believe me, I don’t seek to take anything from you or your men. I want only to perform my duty as a soldier.”

“And what duty is that, Custer?” Gibbon inquired.

“To do as ordered, sir.”

“Only what General Terry sends you to do?”

“Exactly, yes, sir.”

“And if General Terry sends you to scout the location of the hostiles? If he orders you to find them first, then
wait
until you can perform in concert with my forces? What then, Custer?”

He gulped slightly, adjusting his shoulders nervously. “I am a soldier first, sir.” Custer’s back snapped rigid. “I live as a soldier. I will most certainly die not having forsaken that profession, Colonel.”

“I believe, gentlemen,” Terry yanked every man’s attention back to himself, “that we’ve answered that question concerning Custer. Suppose we proceed.”

“General Terry?” Brisbin bristled, barely containing his disappointment.

Terry looked at the commander of the Second Cavalry under Gibbon. “Yes?”

“Will you take up the matter of Custer’s use of Lieutenant Low’s Gatling guns now?”

“Yes, we will.” Terry nodded, his quick blue eyes a little nervous. “I suppose we should dispense with that consideration as the next order of business.”

“Gentlemen,” Gibbon interrupted, “I suggested to General Terry that if Custer were indeed going to take the lead in this operation, he should at least take along the Gatlings for the safety of his command.”

“I could not agree more, and let the record show my concurrence, sir.” Brisbin smiled. “When you consider that they can fire over two hundred fifty rounds per minute at some nine hundred yards—I can’t imagine any commander trailing such a massive congregation of hostiles without those guns at his disposal.”

“The Gatlings are old,” Custer replied firmly. There arose a quiet gasp from those officers sweating in the room. “Since seventy-two the army has preferred the Hotchkiss
gun. But whatever the case, as for me—the Gatlings will slow me down. I’m leaving them behind.”

“Slow you down?” Gibbon, an old artillery officer and proponent of the Gatlings, could not believe what he heard. “You’re on a scout, Custer—intending to find the Indians and prevent them from scattering. That’s all, Custer. But for the sake of your men, I implore you to take those guns. For some reason I’m not all that sure you and your Seventh won’t stumble into more than you can handle keeping those hostiles contained until my troops can come up. With all those estimates we’ve heard out of the reports here this afternoon, why—those Gatlings might just save your notable scalp.”

“I appreciate the concern for my scalp, Colonel. I consider it a high compliment, to be sure. But with respect, those guns are heavy, and I want to be able to move as fast and as light as I can. Those Gatlings would very likely kill me before they’d ever save a single trooper’s neck.”

Terry coughed. “You choose to leave the Gatlings behind?”

Custer studied Terry before answering the general’s question, as if reconsidering one last time. He had thought it over and knew what unknown factors he was heading into, measuring those odds as best he could. He was, after all, a horse soldier. Pure and simple. Being that and that only had served him well in the Civil War and across the plains, from south to north. Custer was a horse soldier. Cavalry. Nothing more than horses and men … and guts.

“Yes, sir. I’ve chosen to leave the Gatlings behind.”

“Very well, gentlemen. This matter of the Gatlings has been decided.”

“General Terry?” Gibbon said, his eyes still locked on Custer.

“Yes, John.”

“Since Custer refuses to take along the guns for an added measure of safety, has he considered my offer of Brisbin’s cavalry to ride along as a means of giving him more strength, yet with that
mobility
of the cavalry he so ardently espouses?”