The woman scrambled to get away and Crazy Horse ignored her as he retrieved his hatchet. She was soiled by the white men and of no use any more. He pulled the hatchet out of the man’s chest just as a nearby soldier spotted him and raised a cry of alarm. Crazy Horse ran to his horse and bounded on top of it.
Bouyer had had Crazy Horse in his sights almost the entire time he rode down the bluff. He’d lost him as he entered the trees along the bottom; but he spotted the warrior as he came around the tree and fired at the soldier. As Crazy Horse jumped off his horse, Bouyer started to pull the trigger, but he forced himself to stop. This was not the time. Bouyer had seen what the soldiers were doing.
As the alarm was raised. A detail of about twenty men on the western end, led by a major, charged after Crazy Horse. The soldiers disappeared around a bend, hot in pursuit. Bouyer felt Crazy Horse’s essence moving away, and he felt a brief moment of pity for the soldiers chasing him.
The pity was gone as Bouyer turned and walked through the camp. Every Cheyenne body Bouyer passed had been scalped. Many were mutilated. A,s he came around the edge of a lodge, Bouyer, who didn’t think he could be any more disgusted, was shocked to see u. soldier laying on top of the body of a squaw, violating her even though she was dead and scalped. Bouyer rushed up and kicked the man. The soldier scrambled to get his pants up, cursing at Bouyer.
“She don’t care none,” the man protested.
Bouyer drew his hatchet and laid the fine edge against the soldier’s neck. The man’s eyes went wide. “You won’t either m a second, if you don’t get the hell away from here.”
The soldier scuffled away, yelling “Indian lover” over his shoulder. Bouyer looked down at the violated body. She was in her teens, blood covering her face, indicating she’d still been alive when she was scalped. He grabbed a nearby blanket and covered her, knowing the gesture was futile.
Bodies were being stacked like cordwood along the edge of the river as officers tried to get a count. Bouyer saw few warriors among the dead, mostly women and children. He glanced at the sun. It had not taken long. Perhaps thirty minutes. Having spent years on the frontier, Bouyer was used to death and violence, but he’d never experienced anything quite like what he had just seen. The band was playing a waltz now, of all things.
Bouyer reached his horse. He tentatively reached out and touched the bag holding the crystal skull, but there was no heat being projected by it. He pulled himself up into the saddle. Custer was organizing the regiment to withdraw to the east.
As Bouyer rode up, one of the officers was protesting the quick retreat. “Sir, Major Elliot and a patrol is still out chasing down some warriors.”
“Elliot can catch up with us on the march,” Custer said.
Another officer, the one named Benteen, held his ground. “Sir, Elliot is upriver. There are other villages up there, and he might be in trouble.”
Custer stared hard at Benteen. “Captain, I command this regiment, and as long as I do, you will do as I say. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Custer put the spurs to his horse and rode off, the rest of the regiment falling into line behind him.
Bouyer followed. Pausing as he reached the crest of the bluff. He looked back at the village. Bodies were stacked like logs, and acrid smoke blew across the black and red stained snow.
Crazy Horse was upriver, leading the soldiers on. Of that, Bouyer had no doubt.
He also had no doubt that this was just the prelude. He would meet his brother again, and Custer would be a part of it. And the battle would be very different than what had happened today. Bouyer turned and headed after the cavalry.
Crazy Horse waved at the first warriors coming down river, indicating for them to turn and head back the way they had come. They hesitated, then followed his orders, which surprised him as he was not of their tribe. It was a curious situation as Crazy Horse negotiated the turns of the Washita. He could hear the soldiers behind, and in front of him was a growing cluster of warriors, most looking over their shoulders, wondering why he was directing them away from where they had heard the gunfire.
Two miles from Black Kettle’s village Crazy Horse signaled to the warriors in front of him, spreading his hands to both sides and then pointing up. Like water into sand, the warriors dispersed and disappeared into the brush on either bluff. Crazy Horse passed through the kill zone and halted his horse. He turned, facing downstream.
A soldier appeared, pushing his horse hard, then others right behind him. The soldier fired at Crazy Horse, the bullet coming nowhere close. The cluster of soldiers charged toward Crazy Horse, eager for the kill. Crazy Horse put the rifle to his shoulder and fired, knocking the point man off his horse. At that shot, more than two hundred warriors rose and fired bullets and arrows at the soldiers from above on both sides of the riverbed. A half-dozen blue coats were hit immediately. The officer in charge screamed orders, and the surviving soldiers dashed to the south side, where the bank was wider, and threw themselves on their bellies in the waist-high grass. They fired wildly, most without aiming.
The men who had been so brave killing women and children huddled in the high grass like cowards, dying as arrows and bullets rained down on them. Crazy Horse didn’t bother to fire his rifle again. He stood in the open, watching.
It was over in less than five minutes. All the blue coats were dead. The warriors swept down, scalping and mutilating the bodies. However, the war leaders of the various tribes who had shown up rode over to Crazy Horse and silently gathered around him.
Looking at the tribes represented. For the first time Crazy Horse felt a glimmer of hope. If they could come together like this in the spur of a moment, what could they accomplish with · more time?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amelia Earhart knelt at the edge of the Inner Sea and waited. Taki stood behind her. Naga staff in hand, eyes scanning the shore in both directions. Valkyries rarely ventured anywhere but between their cave and the portals, but one never knew.
Taki didn’t ask why they had come here. As a samurai in training in fourteenth-century Japan, he had quickly learned one never questioned orders. He had been onboard a ship off tile coast of Japan when they were caught in a terrible storm. They were adrift, out of sight of land for more than a week before a strange mist appeared, enveloping their ship. That was the last Taki remembered of the world he had known.
When he awoke he was on this same shore and that is all he and the other samurai from the ship had known since. There were several, people who spoke strange languages already here, and Earhart had arrived not long afterward. Her ability to speak Japanese and organize the group had earned her the loyalty of the samurai and Taki in particular. His last master in Japan had been a woman, the widow of his lord, and he felt serving Earhart was as close as he could come to performing his sworn duty while trapped here.
Duty was all Taki could focus on as he did not understand this place, the strange creatures in white called Valkyries, or the black columns Earhart called portals. Duty and fealty he understood; they were traits that superseded place and time for him.
Taki’s attention was drawn to the inner sea as he heard a splash. A dolphin swam up near the shore, right in front of Earhart. She waded out. Placed her hand on the dolphin’s forehead, and closed her eyes. The two remained still for several moments before Earhart removed her hand and walked back to Taki. With a thrust of its powerful tail, the dolphin headed back out into the Inner Sea.