Dawn was breaking to the east, and Bouyer could begin to make out shapes around him. Curly and Hairy Moccasin, two Arikara scouts, were peering off to the northwest. Bouyer wiped his brow. The sky was clear and it would be a warm day. He looked to the east and saw smoke rising into the air from the regiment’s hasty bivouac site. That surprised him. Custer had or4ered no fires and no bugle calls the last several days of the march since they’d split from General Terry. Why had that order been changed now?
Suddenly the Arikara began chanting.
‘’Damn,’’ Varnum cursed. “Enough! Stop it! Bouyer stop them.”
“They’re singing their death songs, sir,” Bouyer said, making no attempt to stop the chanting. He could now see what had prompted them, and he didn’t blame them in the least. “look, sir,” Bouyer pointed.
Varnum put the field glasses to his eyes, but early morning mist blanketed the long dark line to the northeast that was the course of the little Big Horn River. To the right of the Little Big Horn were bluffs that also obscured looking down into the valley in places. Far to the west, the ground rose in steps, leading to the Rocky Mountains. Closer in that direction were the Wolf Mountains, of which the Crow’s Nest was on the eastern edge.
“Don’t you see it?” Bouyer asked. “On the west side of the Little Big Horn.”
Varnum squinted, but all he could see was haze. “What?”
“Biggest pony herd I’ve ever seen,” Bouyer said.
“I don’t see a thing,” Varnum complained.
‘There,” Bouyer said, pointing once more. Looks like a bunch of worms squirming about.”
Varnum tried, but he couldn’t make it out. “You’re sure the Sioux are there?”
“Sioux,” Bouyer said affirmatively. “And more. Many, many more. They’re all there. The Sioux, Hunkpapa, Blackfoot, Oglala, Two Kettle’s people, Sans Arc. Old Sitting Bull, he’s out there. Gall. Crazy Horse, too. There will probably be.some Cheyenne there from the signs I’ve been seeing.” Crazy Horse was most definitely there, Bouyer knew. He could feel his “brother’s” presence. And the others needed I1im to be there. He hoped Sitting Bull was able to keep his coalition together from the Rosebud.
Varnum rubbed his eyes and put the glasses back to his eyes. “Why don’t I see any smoke from their fires?”
“Smoke’s there,” Bouyer said. “Most of it caught in the alley, but you can see it.” He looked about. ‘’They’ve got to have hunting parties out. You’re sure to be spotted soon.”
Varnum looked back the way they had come. He could see the smoke from the regiment’s cooking fires, which was for sure. Rising up against the bright morning horizon.
“You,” Varnum said, pointing at Bloody Knife. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and scribbled a note onto to it with the stub of a pencil. “Take this to the general. Tell him we’ve found the village.”
Varnum cursed as Bloody Knife took the time to tie up his horse’s tail prior to leaving. Bouyer knew it was a signal that Bloody Knife believed a battle was about to commence. Once he was gone, Varnum looked through the binoculars again, trying with all his might to see the village or the pony herd.
Bouyer felt light-headed. Things were moving, corning together. He had never heard of such a large gathering of his mother’s people. There was powerful medicine at work — very powerful medicine. Just as he knew there would be.
His back ached. That was what had woken him up. Gall, not for the first time or the last, cursed the blue coat who had driven a bayonet through him, back to front, ten years ago.
A party of soldiers had come to his lodge to arrest him in the middle of winter when they’d known he’d be stuck in one place. He’d spotted them and walked out to meet them, try109 to talk peace. He was hit in the face with the stock of a gun and fell to the ground. While he was lying there, one of the soldiers pinned him to the ground with his long bayonet like a fish pinned by a bear’s claw.
They had left him there, cold steel holding him to cold ground, while they went to get their commander. Gall had pulled the bayonet out and then run, blood pouring from his wound, until he was in the cover of some trees. He stayed there until the soldiers finally gave up searching for him in the icy cold. He returned to his lodge, where his wives nursed him back to health.
Gall turned his head. Some of these women had been there. Others had come after. He had several wives, as befitted a war chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux. After that incident he vowed never again to meet the white man with anything but a weapon in his hand.
Gall reached toward where his head had rested. The crystal skull he’d been given by the strange white man was in a sack. He took the sack in his hands. The object was unnaturally warm. Gall didn’t need Sitting Bull’s confirmation to know this was powerful magic.
Gall rose, took the sack and slipped out of his lodge. The door, as was the custom, faced to the east. The Greasy Grass River, the river the white man called the Little Big Horn, was a hundred yards away. Gall stretched his heavily muscled arms up to the sky, trying to relieve some of the ache in his back. He was built like a wide tree stump. He had dark black eyes that had been the last thing many an enemy had seen. His name among his tribe was Man Who Goes in the Middle, referring to his bravery in battle, where he could always be found in the middle of the fray. His weapon of choice was a steel hatchet, something that required close combat, as he disdained using both bow and rifle.
Gall turned and surveyed the camp. His lodge and his people, the Hunkpapa of the Lakota Sioux, were the southernmost tribe in the camp. The other Sioux tribes were camped along the valley floor, stretching to the north, with the northernmost encampment being that of the Northern the northernmost encampment being that of the Northern or heard of.
The pony herd, cared for by young boys, was to the east and north among the green spring grass. Gall knew there Were warrior sentries out there among the boys. Only a fool would leave ponies without guards, but there were fools among the various tribes, as recent events had shown. Some still felt that no one would be stupid enough to attack such a large encampment. The same fools called the battle against Three Stars, which was now called the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, a victory. Gall knew better, even though Three Stars and his soldiers were retreating to the south. They called the battle that because a Cheyenne warrior named Comes in Sight had had his mount shot out from under him and faced certain death, from the Crows when his sister, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, rode in, grabbed his arm, swung him up on her horse and rode off with him to safety.
Looking at the vast number of lodges, Gall could almost I’ve that they were too numerous to be attacked. Except for one problem-he had never found the white man to be particularly sensible. The red man fought only when necessary and then in the most economical way possible. The white man, well, Gall shook his head. The white man made no sense. Their warriors were paid to fight. How can one pay for bravery and courage? Their homes might be many, many rides away, even on the far side of the great river, yet they came out here because they were told to. And they fought because someone told them to and paid them pieces of paper to put their lives in peril. And they followed a leader because he was appointed, not because he had necessarily proven himself on the field of battle to be worthy of being followed.
The first requirement of a leader among the Sioux was bravery. In fact, there were times that displaying bravery was more important than winning the fight. Gall had displayed bravery on more than enough occasions to rise to the position he held in his tribe.
Despite his position as war chief, though, to get a tribe of his own people to fight, Gall had to get a consensus and give them a valid reason to put their lives in jeopardy. He could see. The lodge signs representing the different tribes. Some had even been enemies in the past, but they had run out of options as they had run out of land. The Indians gathered here at the Greasy Grass were from two major tribal groups: he Lakota, or western, Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne.