N months,” Lincoln argued, a refrain that had been going between them ever since the great battle.
“Time in this war doesn’t work like that.”
Lincoln knew his wife wasn’t referring to the War between the States. It had taken him a long time to accept that there was something at stake larger than even the Union.
Mary Todd Lincoln put a hand on his ann. “I promise, I will let you know. As soon as I hear it.”
CHAPTER TWO
Colonel George Armstrong Custer stared at the blood on his hands in disbelief. There was no pain. He just felt very, very tired. He was aware that someone was walking next to his horse, holding him in the saddle. He looked down and saw his nephew Autie Reed guiding him. There were troopers all about, most mounted, some on foot, all heading up the draw toward higher ground.
That was good, Custer thought. Higher ground was always best.
He could hear firing and screams, but they seemed far away. Where was the village? Were the Indians running? He saw his brother Tom Custer off to his right and slightly ahead. He tried to callout but no words would come. They rode out of the draw and a knoll was ahead. Tom was deploying troopers in a defensive line, facing downslope.
Defensive? Custer thought. That was wrong. They should be attacking. Always attacking. Autie was helping Custer off his horse. Custer tried to stand but his legs were so weak, he sank to the ground. He was surprised when Autie pulled a pistol and shot his horse — his favorite steed. Why did he do that? Custer wondered as the horse collapsed next to him. Autie helped Custer to a seated position, with his back against the dead animal. He drew Custer’s pistol and placed it in his hand. Custer could barely hold on to it. He tried to ask Autie what was going on, why were they on the defensive, but no words would come and his nephew turned his attention outward, pistol at the ready. There was blood on Autie’s face. How had that happened?
Then Custer saw beyond the perimeter. Hundreds of Indians coming forward, up the draw like wolves to a downed buffalo calf. They were firing rifles and bows. A trooper trying to escape was swarmed by the wave of hostiles, disappearing. This couldn’t be, Custer thought. It just simply couldn’t be happening. Not to his regiment. Not to the Seventh.
Mitch Bouyer and Lieutenant Weir, with D Company behind them, reached a high point where they could see to the north.
“Oh my God,” Weir whispered.
A small knot of soldiers were holding a perimeter about a mile away on a hill. And all around were Indians. At least a thousand, Bouyer estimated. And the Indians weren’t charging, but holding back, pouring lead and arrow at the soldiers.
“We can’t … “ Weir didn’t finish the obvious.
Bouyer understood, but he also knew he didn’t have the luxury of choice. He had three skulls. He’d had to pad the satchels with his blanket to keep them from burning his horse. They’d been growing hotter with each passing minute mirroring the intensity of the battle.
Bouyer kicked his spurs into his horse’s side and headed forward.
Weir wheeled his horse and pointed back the way they had come. His troop needed no urging. D Company raced back to the bluff that held the survivors of Reno’s command.
Crazy Horse rode around to the left, two hundred of his mounted warriors following, putting the firing to his right. He knew the terrain and knew where the battle was taking place. He also knew that the other tribes would attack head on.
This was the great battle that his mother had foretold.
He and his warriors galloped along a draw, out of sight. Crazy Horse could sense the anxiety among his men, their desire to ride straight toward the shooting and join in the battle. But they followed his lead.
Gall strode back and forth along the front edge of the Indian line, holding them back from charging directly into the white men’s guns. It was difficult, but his size and stature brought grudging obedience. They lay down in the waist high grass, along the edge of the coulees that flanked the hill on which the white men had set up their perimeter.
Gall had warriors with rifles move forward so they could see. He directed those with bows back; out of direct sight, and had them fire up into the air, their arrows arching.over and down into the whites. Gall had his hatchet in one hand, the satchel from the Sun Dance in the other. Inside of it was a crystal skull.
Autie placed something in Custer’s lap. A leather satchel. With something hot inside. That woke Custer from his blood-drained stupor. He blinked, looking about. Arrows were coming down, almost as heavily as a summer squall. Some men had pulled saddles over their backs as they lay prone, firing. The ground was littered with arrow shafts like stalks of prairie grass.
Custer saw that the damned Springfield rifles were jamming as cartridges expanded in the heat of the chamber. One trooper, fifteen yards in front of the main line of the perimeter was on his knees, knife in hand trying to extract a round. Several braves saw this and charged forward. The man grabbed the barrel of his Springfield and jumped to his feet, swinging it like a madman. He knocked two of the braves to the ground before he was overwhelmed by the others.
Custer tried to lift his hand holding the revolver but he couldn’t do it. Where was Tom? And Autie? And Boston? And Calhoun? His family1 Someone came rushing up on the left and Custer twisted his neck. Tom. Bleeding from a wound in his chest.
“George — ” Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off as an arrow punched in one side of his neck and out the other with a gush of blood. Tom’s hands grabbed for the shaft as arterial blood spurted for several seconds. A bullet cut short that attempt, hitting Tom Custer in the side of his head, splattering his brother with his brains.
Custer could only stare in horror.
A soldier came galloping madly toward Bouyer, leaning as far forward on his horse as possible. It took Bouyer a second to realize why the man was in this uncomfortable and unusual position — he was trying to minimize his back as a target for the dozen braves on ponies chasing him.
Bouyer pulled back on the reins, halting. As the man raced past a bullet caught him in the shoulder, tumbling him from the horse. The man scrambled to his feet, looking about wildly. He saw Bouyer and raised his hands in supplication.
Bouyer forced himself to be still as the braves raced up, two jumping off their ponies. One of them smashed the back of the soldier’s skull in with a stone-headed club. The other braves circled Bouyer, weapons held menacingly. Bouyer pulled one of the crystal skulls out of its wrapping. It glowed bright blue and was so hot, he could feel it sear his flesh, but he held it high.
The warriors pulled back, even the two who had been · in the process of scalping the soldier. Then they were startled as a second glowing skull held high appeared over a rise to the west. And the hand holding it belonged to Sitting Bull.
“Powerful magic!” Sitting Bull cried out in Lakota.
“Yes,” Bouyer agreed.
Sitting Bull turned to the left. Just over the next rise lay the battlefield. They could hear the firing falling off from the crescendo it had been. Bouyer knew the end was close.
“We go?” Sitting Bull inclined his head toward the rise.
Bouyer nodded and put the stirrups to his horse. Skulls in hand the two rode toward the rise.