Bouyer remounted and moved forward. A soldier appeared, running out of the valley, no weapon in his hands and fear on his face. He staggered, then stumbled to his knees as m arrow struck him in the back. Within seconds, at least two-dozen more arrows struck around and into the soldier, pining his lifeless body to the ground.
Bouyer halted less than ten feet from the dead soldier. He could see the entire battlefield now. The blue coats had been ambushed while they were stretched out. Most were already dead. There were at least a thousand warriors visible, moving forward from their ambush positions. He could see Fettennan and Captain Brown with perhaps a half-dozen of their men round them making a stand near a couple of large boulders. The warriors weren’t charging into their guns, but rather standing back and firing volley after volley of arrows up into the air A light snow had begun to fall, coming down onto the soldiers along with the deadly arrows.
Bouyer could feel the desperation in the air as the warriors closed on the soldiers. There was no hope of escape. He saw the young warrior he had exchanged signals with, Crazy Horse, gather a large group of braves near Fetterman, preparing for a final charge. Bouyer opened the satchel and removed the crystal skull. He held it in his hands, feeling it grow warmer by the second.
Fetterman and Brown also saw the last charge preparing. Bouyer swallowed hard as he watched the two officers kneel side by side, pistols pointed at each other’s temple. Fetterman’s mouth was moving, counting, Bouyer realized.
On three both men fired.
Cowards. The word came to Bouyer. They had not died fighting but in shame.
Crazy Horse galloped forward at the lead of a wave of a hundred warriors. They swept over the little knot of resistance, and in seconds no white man was left alive there. Bouyer watched as survivors from the rest of the column were run down and killed. A few of the warriors looked in his direction, but none headed toward him. The skull was too warm to hold in his naked hands, so he used the satchel to cradle it in.
A bolt of lightning crackled through the falling snow, hitting a tree not far from Bouyer. While the rest of the warriors were scalping and dismembering bodies, Crazy Horse turned his horse and galloped up the ridge toward Bouyer. He came to a halt twenty feet away, staring at the skull in Bouyer’s hands. It was glowing, giving off a slightly blue hue.
The two men stared at each other as another bolt of lightning struck directly between them. Both horses reared and lied to run, forcing them to dismount. Bouyer could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing straight out. The heat from the skull was coming through the satchel’s leather.
Another bolt struck in the same place, and Bouyer lost his grip on the skull. It fell to the ground in front of him, now glowing bright blue. He blinked as a black circle appeared between him and Crazy Horse. It was small, less than a foot in diameter.
Was now the time? Bouyer wondered.
He could see Crazy Horse beyond the black hole. The young Indian was gesturing, stopping other warriors from approaching and killing Bouyer but keeping his eyes on the circle.
The hole grew larger, extending down to the ground.
A hand appeared, the skin blistered and burnt, holding a metal tube. The arm followed, then half a person. His other arm Was stretched back the way he was coming from, as if someone or something were trying to hold on to him.
Bouyer stepped forward to take the metal tube, but a hock of electricity knocked him back a few feet.
The man collapsed through the hole and the circle napped out of existence. The man turned blind eyes toward Bouyer, hands raised in supplication. Crazy Horse and Bouyer both moved forward. The hands fell to the ground.
Bouyer knelt, feeling the man’s neck for a pulse. Nothing. He looked up at Crazy Horse standing over him. “Brother,” he said in Lakota.
A grimace crossed Crazy Horse’s face. “You are not my brother.”
Bouyer ignored the correction as he examined the body. The man wore strange clothes. Even though they were scorched, Bouyer could tell they were made of some kind of tiny material he had never seen before. There was fur around the coat’s hood. It must have been cold like this, where the man had come from, Bouyer realized.
Reaching inside the coat, Bouyer found a metal chain with two small metal plates. He pulled them out. There was writing on them, in English. Bouyer frowned as he read the few words:
Ensign Graeheme
U.S. Navy
USS Nautilus
It made no sense to Bouyer. What would a Navy man be doing out here on the High Plains, as far from ocean as one could get? And where he had gotten the clothes made of such strange material? And how had he been burned? There was something clutched in the man’s hand. Bouyer pulled back the burnt fingers to reveal a slim metal tube, which he removed.
Bouyer didn’t have time to look at the tube as Crazy Horse stepped up to him, coming to within dew feet. Bouyer slowly stood to face the Sioux warrior.
“It is as Earhart predicted,” Bouyer said. He waved his and to indicate the scene of the massacre below. There were no survivors among Fetterman’s troops, and scalps were being taken while bodies were mutilated. “A desperate battle opened a gate.”
“But it was not time,” Crazy Horse noted. He spit as he nodded his head toward the site of the massacre behind him. “They were weak and cowards.”
Bouyer nodded. “As she said, we will meet again, brother. Another battle, much greater than this, with many brave fighters on both sides.”
“And then you will die,” Crazy Horse said.
Bouyer gave a wistful smile. “We are guided by a greater spirit than our own. And we are more brother than we are not.”
“Next time we meet, only one of us will walk away,” Crazy Horse said.
Or the greater good,” Bouyer said.
The anger left Crazy Horse’s face for the first time. “Whose greater good? My mother said the same thing.”
“Our mother.” Bouyer said.
“I should kill you now,” Crazy Horse said. “Perhaps that will change the prophecy.”
Bouyer noted that Crazy Horse made no move to attack, even as he said the words. “It is our fate to meet again.”
He looked at the scorched tube. There was a mark near one end. Bouyer twisted it and the tube came apart into two pieces. A piece of paper was inside. Bouyer pulled it out and unrolled it. It appeared to be a page tom from a book, but Bouyer had never seen such smooth paper or fine typesetting.
“What does it say?” Crazy Horse asked, his curiosity overcoming his hatred.
“It is a list of names.” Bouyer nodded to himself as he read down the two columns.
‘’Whose names?”
In response, Bouyer tore the paper in two, separating the Columns. “1 believe it is those who must be there for our next meeting.” He handed one piece to Crazy Horse.
Crazy Horse glanced at the paper in his hand. “I cannot read the white man’s writing.”
Bouyer looked at the warriors below, reveling in their victory. “Some are here. Some are from tribes far away.” He took the list back and read it out loud. “From your tribe, the Oglala: yourself, Big Man, Black Twin and He Dog. From the Brule Sioux: Crow Dog. From the Blackfeet: Kill Eagle. The Sans Arc: Fast Bear and High Elk. The Hunkpapa Sioux: Sitting Bull, Gall, Black Moon.” Bouyer continued reading even though Crazy Horse was shaking his head. “From the Cheyenne: Brave Bear, Crazy Head, Two Moons.”