Assault on Atlantis

CHAPTER TEN

Mitch Bouyer screamed as the knife sliced down the inside of his right arm, severing muscle and tendon. The pain was blinding, and his body convulsed, straining against the leather straps binding him to the tree. He blinked sweat out of his eyes. In the glow from the surrounding fires he could see the black “U.S.” stamped on the leather wrapped around his chest and upper arms. Must be from a packhorse, he thought, trying to keep his mind from the warrior approaching him again.

Beyond the warrior he could see a circular framework of rough-cut poles, connected with rawhide thongs, some of the thongs disappearing over his head to a center pole. Buffalo skulls leered at him from the top of some of the poles. Warriors squatted around the outer poles, staring impassively in. In the darkness beyond them, he could make out the figures of women and children moving about.

A sun dance site, he realized.

He blinked. There was a Lakota woman in the inner circle who was standing close around him. In a flicker of firelight he locked onto her eyes and felt a shock, as strong as if a blade had touched him once again-she had blue eyes, just like his! But she was translucent, as if she were not really there. And behind her, his half-brother, Crazy Horse, staring back at him with a strange look on his face. A white man, arms bound behind him, stood next to Crazy Horse, a white man with dirty blonde hair cut short and a thick mustache and scraggly beard. He wore a tom buckskin shirt with an epaulette on one shoulder, the other one apparently ripped off.

Farther in the distance, Bouyer saw a scaffold mounted in the branches of a young tree. A body, a small body, was up there. Crazy Horse was shifting his gaze between the woman’s image in front of him and the funeral scaffold with the same strange look.

His left arm exploded, ripping his attention from the man. How could cold steel cause such heat? Bouyer wondered with the dwindling sanity left to him. Agency steel. He would have laughed if he could have. Agency steel and cavalry leather.

The warrior held up the knife, showing Bouyer the red blood dripping off the blade, his blood, then lowered it. Bouyer felt the tip touch just below his sternum. He sucked in his stomach, desperately trying to pull away from the blade, the rough wood of the pole he was bound to scraping along his back.

He screamed again as the point punctured skin with a ripping noise. He felt his stomach muscles part. The warrior held a handful of thick, knotted red rope under Bouyer’s face. It took Bouyer a second to realize those were his guts. The warrior yelped-and walked back toward the nearest fire, pulling Bouyer s intestines with him and dropping what he had into the fire.

Mitch Bouyer woke to utter darkness and a feeling of being buried alive, his scream echoing back right at him. He blinked several times, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of light. After a lifetime on the frontier he had learned to trust his inner clock and he had no doubt it was after dawn, yet there was no sign of daylight.

He could feel his breath hitting something just in front of his face. He tentatively reached up and felt the wool blanket he had placed over the trench he’d dug in the snow the previous evening. It was less than four inches from his face, although it had been two feet above when he’d put it in place. It also didn’t move, as if it were weighed down by snow.

Bouyer remained still, trying to get his panicked breath Hiller control. He closed his eyes. He knew Crazy Horse was somewhere not far away. He’d always bad a sense for his half-brother’s presence. But it wasn’t his brother who he needed to go to now.

Southeast. In his mind’s eye, Bouyer could see the vast stretch of plains in that direction. Across the Colorado Territory, Kansas, into the Indian Territory just north of Texas. A river winding through a snow-covered plain. A river that ran with blood. And the officer he had seen in the dream. Bouyer knew he was down there somewhere.

Had the dream been something that would happen or something that could happen? That was the question Bouyer always had when he had a vision. As he got his breathing under control, Bouyer thought about what he had “seen” and decided it was something that could happen but shouldn’t. After all, his fate as foretold was to die nobly, not tied to the stake. Perhaps the vision was a warning letting him know that if he did not stay true to his fate, things would turn out worse.

Also, there was the Army officer. He was important.

Bouyer shoved his arms upward, the blanket and snow slowly giving way. He stood up. It had snowed during the night. And the ground was now covered with almost three feet of white powder.

Bouyer gathered his gear, wrapped it in the blanket and pushed his way through the snow to the tree where his horse was tethered. He tied off the roll behind his saddle and swung up onto the horse. The skull, still retaining a slight blue glow, was wrapped in a leather satchel underneath the bed roll.

He knew he needed to go to the southeast. But there was someplace he needed to stop by on the way. He nudged his horse’s head and began to move.

Crazy Horse knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the village. He had been gone for a month, chasing Crow warriors who had stolen some ponies. During that time the village had moved, something he’d been apprised of when he met a hunting party two days ago. The movement was normal, as ponies ate grass and a village could not stay in one place for long before the available grazing was gone.

Although others in his party carried scalps, Crazy Horse, despite killing two Crow in battle, did not. His mother had told him never to partake of the custom, and. it was one of the few things she’d said that he took to heart.

No one would meet his eyes. That was what told him there was bad news. He knew Black Robe, his wife, had the white man’s wasting sickness. She’d been coughing for more than five moons now and was not expected to last much longer. As he slid off his horse in front of his lodge, he was prepared for the bad news of his wife’s death.

He threw back the flap to the lodge and paused, seeing his wife seated by the fire. Wrapped in several robes in a vain attempt to get warm. She, too, would not meet his eyes, and he felt a pain rip through his heart as he wildly looked about, not seeing his young baby girl anywhere.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“At the last camp,” Black Robe whispered, before breaking out in a spate of coughing. “The quick draining death disease.”

Crazy Horse sunk to his knees. His only child, dead of another of the white man’s fevers. He had not seen this. Why? Why was she taken?

Black Robe finished coughing, wiping the thin stain of blood from her lips. “I am sorry.”

Crazy Horse ignored her. She was not the woman he had wanted for a wife. His face bore the scar where a bullet had punched through his left jaw when he had been with Black Buffalo Woman, the one he had always desired. But Black Buffalo Woman belonged to another man, and Black Robe had born him the one thing he had cherish above all else — his daughter.

Crazy Horse howled, the yell echoing across the village. He was cursed, of that he had no doubt. The woman he loved was with another man. The child he loved was dead. The wife he didn’t love. But lived with, was dying, and could not even look him a decent meal or bear another child.

Crazy Horse staggered to his feet. He left the lodge. Many were gathered about, wondering what he would do. He was known as a strange man. one who had visions, who often rode off alone. Who took no scalps, yet was brave in battle. Who bad pursued another man’s wife beyond the bounds of Lakota law. Who had been shot in the face because of it yet had not wreaked revenge on the man who shot him.

Crazy Horse ignored them all and jumped on his horse. He knew the previous location of the village. Almost seventy miles away. He didn’t bother to get water or food. He rode out of the village, pushing his horse mercilessly through the new snow.

Bouyer felt the urge pulling him to the southeast, but he resisted it He sat cross-legged in the glade near the small stream, whispering the Lakota prayers Bridger had taught him. He heard a horse coming upstream, breathing hard. But he didn’t turn his head.

The rider stopped between him and the scaffold. Bouyer watched Crazy Horse run forward, even as his horse collapsed in the snow. The Lakota warrior climbed up the tree that held the end of the scaffold until he could look down at the small wrapped bundle tied to it. Gingerly, Crazy Horse laid down next to his daughter, holding her to his chest. Bouyer didn’t move the entire time.

And as the sun arced across the sky and day turned into night, neither man changed positions.

When dawn came, Bouyer stiffly got to his feet and gathered wood. He built a large fire and waited by it. It was late afternoon before Crazy Horse rose from the scaffold and climbed down. The warrior seemed drained to Bouyer, empty of any energy, even of the anger Bouyer bad always felt coming from his ‘’brother.’’ Crazy Horse walked up to the fire and stared into it.

“I am sorry,” Bouyer finally said.

“Why are you here?”

“I felt your pain.” Bouyer paused. “And your anger.”

“Why are you here?”

“I can always feel your anger. Sometimes strong, like the full moon, sometimes weak, like a distant star in the sky. But it is always there. This is the first time I’ve felt your pain.”

“My daughter is dead. My wife is dying. All because of your people.”

“And my people will make your people pay in turn,” Bouyer said. “Where does it end?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he angrily turned toward Crazy Horse. “Your anger is selfish. All you care about is how you feel. Why is it always about you? It is your daughter who is dead. You should mourn her, not be angry. But your anger makes you feel better, so you give in to it.” Bouyer reached across and slammed Crazy Horse in the chest, surprising the warrior, who staggered back a few steps. “Until you let go of the hardness in there, you will not be a great leader, nor will you fulfill your destiny. I have seen what happens to me if I do not fulfill the destiny foretold. It is terrible. I would imagine your fate would be as terrible if you do not do what is foretold.”

Crazy Horse stared at Bouyer for several seconds and then surprisingly sat down, with his back to the fire, facing the burial scaffold. “I have nothing left but my people, and I am told they are doomed, too.” He glanced over his shoulder at Bouyer. “You are going somewhere?”

“I have had a vision,” Bouyer acknowledged.

Then go. Leave me to my mourning in peace.”

“General, what if we find more Indians than we can handle?”

The object of the question spit into the snow. “All I’m afraid of is we won’t find half enough. By God, there aren’t enough Indians in the entire country to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.”

Mitch Bouyer’s expression of disbelief was masked by the scarf wrapped around his face, leaving only his dark eyes visible. He stared hard at George Armstrong Custer, the commander of the newly formed Seventh Cavalry. One of Custer’s officers had asked the question. And Bouyer thought it a valid one.

The cluster of officers, scouts and Bouyer were standing on the near side of a bluff overlooking the Washita River in the Indian Territory. It was night, but there was good visibility due to star and moonlight reflecting off the foot of newly fallen snow. They were here because a day ago one of the scouts bad discovered the trail of a war party running across the Canadian River and beading southeast toward the Washita. They were in the Indian Territory, south of Kansas and north of Texas. It was a bleak land. Scoured by wind, with few trees, usually only along the riverbeds, which were few and far between.

Custer had pounced on the report and ordered his command in pursuit. A winter campaign was something new for the Army in the west, but it was a sign of the pressure being put on the War Department by outraged civilians throughout the western territories. Particularly Kansas. Which had been hard hit by Indian raids the past couple years. There was also l report that one of the tribes in the area had white captives — women and children-which added to the urgency.

Bouyer had arrived just two days ago, after a week of hard riding from Colorado. On the second day he’d sensed Crazy Horse’s presence behind him like a trailing storm, never closing, but not falling very far behind, either. Where before the sense of his “brother’s” aura bad always been red, of anger, there was a blackness now about Crazy Horse that worried Bouyer.

He’d booked up with Custer and the Seventh at Camp Supply, an outpost on the Canadian River. He’d hired on in his usual position as hunter, something the outfit had desperately needed as it moved through the bare wintry terrain. His time with Bridger, who bad often scouted for the Army, held him in good stead with the few Army people who had some time on the frontier and remembered the old mountain man and knew anyone that bad ridden with him was an asset.

As soon as he had seen Custer, Bouyer had known not only that he was the man in his vision. But that he was also part of Bouyer’s future. It worried Bouyer greatly that such an apparently ignorant person was wrapped up in his fate, even though the exact nature of that fate still eluded him. Worse, the timing was also uncertain. Could it be today? Bouyer sensed Crazy Horse was not far away, but not close by, either. He definitely was not in the village that was Custer’s target. Bouyer knew his ‘’brother’’ was an integral part of whatever would Ultimately happen.

The crystal skull he’d been given by Earhart was in a bag tied off to his saddle, hidden by his bedroll. Despite knowing Crazy Horse wasn’t in the immediate area, Bouyer didn’t have a good feeling about what was going to happen.

The village that slept on the other side of the bluff, along the banks of the Washita, was Cheyenne, led by Chief Black Kettle. Bouyer’s brief look at it in the dark during the reconnaissance made him tend to agree with the officer who had questioned Custer-there were many lodges in the village, indicating at least a hundred warriors, along with perhaps three times that number of women and children. Also, he’d listened on the way here, to both whites and Indians he met, and Black Kettle had just gone to Fort Kearny on a peace mission. Why Was Custer so anxious to attack his camp then?

Custer was issuing orders, dividing his command into four columns, directing his subordinate officers to maneuver in such a way as to surround the village and attack at dawn. Having no official position in this matter, Bouyer decided to shadow Custer. He didn’t think much of the Colonel’s tactical plan. It presumed there would be no coordinated resistance. Also, it ignored the fact that there were several other Indian camps farther upriver. Custer seemed more concerned with the Cheyenne running than fighting.

Then Custer did something that struck Bouyer as coldhearted. He had all the dogs-a common thing for a cavalry unit was to have an assortment of strays follow along on the march-killed. They were muzzled with ropes and strangled. He knew Custer was afraid the dogs might bark and give away the advance, but he could have easily leashed them out of earshot. Custer even had his own two prized dogs killed, indicating how anxious he was for a victory.

Bouyer had heard stories of the yellow-haired regimental commander. How he had his own men who deserted shot down, much like he was killing the dogs. How he’d been court-martialed for leaving his command to go to his wife two years ago at Fort Hays. How he’d shot his own horse in the head while hunting buffalo.

However, Bouyer did have to give Custer credit for one thing-leading the blue-coat cavalry out in this weather. He knew the Cheyenne would not suspect the white soldiers of doing that. Balancing that advantage was that Bouyer had seen the trails for several different tribes in the area-not just Cheyenne, but Kiowas, Comanche’s, Apaches, and Arapaho. Winter was a time when tribes had to put aside animosities and share the best places for camps. In this desolate country, the riverbed was the only option.

Crazy Horse stood, throwing off the snow-covered blanket. He walked over to his pony and untethered it. Shaking the snow off the blanket, he threw it over the pony’s back and then slid on top. He headed east along the top of the bluff.

As he rode he thought of his daughter, nursing the black feeling it brought. Dead because of the white man. Not by bullet or knife, but the bad air the whites brought with them. In just one generation, the Lakota had been halved in numbers due to the bad air. The same was true everywhere he traveled. The medicine men were powerless against the diseases the white men brought with them.

Crazy Horse did not understand why the white men weren’t satisfied with the land they already had. Why did they always want more? And was there no end to their numbers?

How could his mother have talked of glory and a greater good in the midst of the destruction of her people? A greater good for whom? It could only be for the whites if his people were destroyed.

The only good Crazy Horse could see was to kill as many of them as possible.

Bouyer watched as the columns separated to surround the village. Bouyer followed Custer’s column, moving on foot, leading their horses along the river bluff, keeping their, horses between them and the village, hands over their muzzles to keep them quiet.

A first sergeant next to Bouyer leaned close. “Stay by the general. You’ll see how he did in the Rebs during the war.”

Bouyer knew the first sergeant was a Custer man. The “general” reference for Custer indicated that Custer had been a brevet major general during the Civil War. By the time of the surrender at Appomattox, Custer had been leading the Third Cavalry Division at only twenty-five years of age. But Bouyer had listened to others in the past couple days enough to know things that the first sergeant didn’t or chose not to believe. That Custer’s division had had the highest casualty numbers of all Union divisions during the war. That despite a dozen horses shot out from underneath him, Custer had never been scratched. That Custer had risen so fast in rank and had so much success that perhaps he had lost touch with soldiers he commanded and with whose blood he had won his glory.

Then the peace had come and the great demobilization. Custer, although still a major general in brevet-a basically honorary title-was reduced in rank to captain in the regular Army. He managed to crawl back up from that, and when the Army was reorganized in 1866, he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Seventh Cavalry. There was a colonel who by letter commanded the Seventh; Bouyer had actually met Colonel Sturgis when he had visited St. Louis with Bridger the previous winter.

General Sherman, who commanded the Western Department, had lashed Sturgis to a desk in Mounted Recruiting Command in St. Louis and turned the Seventh over to Custer. Bouyer knew that Sturgis, at fifty-four, would not have been able to push the regiment like Custer had the last several days in this harsh weather. The bottom line was that everyone felt Custer was the great Indian fighter, at least by reputation. Half the regiment thought Custer walked on water, the first sergeant one of them. The other half despised him, which wasn’t good for morale.

They reached the top of the bluff overlooking the village. The men deployed, many still wrapped in rough wool blankets, trying to stay warm in the bone-chilling air. No alarm had been given. Bouyer was surprised there were no guards about, even just to watch the pony herd from thievery.

Custer climbed onto his horse, the other cavalrymen doing the same. Bouyer was surprised when Custer turned to his hand and deployed them, instruments ready, along the top of the bluff. Custer nudged his horse forward and began to descend toward the village, the line of troops to his left and right following suit.

Crazy Horse was as still as the stunted tree he stood next to. Black Kettle’s village lay to the east and below. He could see the line of blue coats descending the bluff across from his location. No guards-Black Kettle deserved what was coming. Crazy Horse glanced to the east. Dawn was close, as he could make out a red glow on the horizon.

Bouyer followed the wave of troopers down the bluff, sweeping toward the village. As the troopers increased speed to a gallop, the band broke into music, playing “Garry Owen,” the Seventh Cavalry’s song. A shot rang out as a brave burst out of his lodge, firing wildly. A ragged volley came from the charging troopers in response, several bullets striking the warrior and knocking him back against the lodge.

Bouyer pulled back on his horse’s reins, halting at the edge of the village. The scene was surreal as cavalrymen charged through the village, firing at point-blank range at anything that moved while the sound of the band playing floated overhead.

To his right one of Custer’s officers was hit, a bullet ripping through his heart and out his back. The man stayed in his stirrups for several more strides of the horse before toppling off, landing in the snow with a puff of white powder. It was pandemonium in the village as soldiers raced to and fro, firing at anything that moved, including dogs. There was no coordinated defense, just warriors using whatever weapon was handy to fight back. There was no distinction between those who fought and those who tried to run, between men and women or even children.

A bullet whizzed by Bouyer’s face, and he realized he also was being shown no distinction by the warriors. He swung off his horse, drawing his rifle. Two years ago he’d reluctantly traded in his muzzle-loading Hawkins for a Henry repeating rifle, giving up bullet caliber for speed of firing.

Bouyer rested the barrel of the rifle over his saddle but didn’t shoot. The camp was bedlam, with no hope for the braves to mount an effective defense as they were tom between fighting and saving their families. Bouyer saw Black kettle mount a horse, grab one of his wives, placing her in front of him on the horse, and gallop toward the river. Several soldiers also saw the chief. Bullets peppered the old man’s back, passing through him and killing his wife also. Both boodles toppled into the water.

A young Cheyenne girl ran out of a lodge that had been set on fire. A mounted soldier rode by and slashed at her with his saber, opening a bloody wound along the top of her skull. But the girl kept running. The soldier wheeled his mount and came back for a second try. Bouyer fixed the soldier in his sights and his finger caressed the trigger.

He didn’t fire.

The saber hit the girl’s left shoulder and sliced through her clavicle into her chest so deeply it was ripped out of the soldier’s hands as she fell to the ground mortally wounded. He halted his horse and dismounted. Putting a boot to the dead girl’s chest, he pulled the saber out, wiped the blood off on her clothes and reheated it. Then he drew a skinning knife and Proceeded to scalp the girl.

Scenes like this were playing out all over the camp. Bouyer pulled back his rifle, leaving it dangling at his side as he stood, as if in the eye of an insane hurricane, surrounded y death and barbarism. He saw two soldiers firing at a running boy, taking turns until finally one dropped the child, a round blowing off the top of his head. Lodges were being set ablaze, and the smoke added to the confusion. Still the band played on.

There was little resistance left, the survivors running or trying to hide in gullies or behind bushes. The top of the sun was showing on the horizon. Spelling doom for those who were hiding as soldiers tracked them down and executed them.

Bouyer tied off his horse to a sapling and slowly walked through the camp. He saw women and children being killed, some being used as sport by mounted soldiers with sabers. And where was Custer? Bouyer wondered. He spotted the regimental commander by the pony herd with a few of his officers. Bouyer walked over, eager to be away from the slaughter.

“I Want a count,” Custer was ordering. “Of everything. Ponies. Bodies. Weapons. Robes. Food. A written report. Then burn it all. Every single thing.” Custer had turned and was surveying the village. He pointed at a fine white lodge, not yet on fire, which Black Kettle had run out of. “I want that taken down and packed. · Mrs. Custer would appreciate it.”

He turned back to the large pony herd, about four hundred head, Bouyer estimated. “Officers and scouts may choose whatever they want. Kill the rest.”

One of the officers protested. “Sir, that’s a lot of horses to be-”

Custer spun on the man. “Damn it, do as I say.”

“Yes, sir.”

The general mounted his horse and rode off. leaving the officers debating how they should go about the gruesome task. Bouyer watched as they detailed soldiers to try to slit the ponies’ throats, but that proved difficult because as soon as a white man approached the tethered animals, they’d go wild, bucking and lashing out with their hooves.

Finally they settled on shooting them. Bouyer turned away as the slaughter began. The sound of wounded animals added to the insanity. As he made his way back through the village, he halted and slowly turned to the west. A warrior was standing a half-mile away on the bluff.

In his excitement and subsequent disgust at what he was witnessing, Bouyer had not listened to his inner voice.

Crazy Horse saw Bouyer amidst the death below him. He had yet to see his “brother” take part in the battle, but it did not matter-he was with the blue coats. Crazy Horse saw two soldiers run down a squaw, throwing her to the ground near the western edge of the village. He mounted his horse and rode, keeping to the cover of the brush.

He heard them before he saw them-one of the soldiers was grunting with pleasure. Crazy Horse came around a thick bush and fired, the round catching the standing soldier in the face and knocking him backward. The one on top of the woman looked up, pleasure mixed with shock on his face. Crazy Horse dismounted in one smooth movement, drawing his hatchet. As the soldier fumbled with his pants, Crazy Horse threw the hatchet, the edge burying itself in the man’s chest.

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?