Assault on Atlantis

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

They could all hear firing to the west. They couldn’t see anything because the entire unit was riding in the low ground formed by a ravine running to the north. Four miles had · passed since they’d looked from the high hill and Sergeant Kanipe had been dispatched to bring up the pack mules. Lieutenant Cooke rode just behind Custer as the long line of troopers moved at a trot. Lonesome Charlie Reynolds was also close to the general.

“Perfect,” Custer said to Cooke. ‘’Reno will fix them in place. They don’t know we’re coming-these hills are a perfect shield.”

Reynolds didn’t quite share the general’s optimism, but the · scout didn’t say anything. The horses and-men were nervous both from the sound of the fighting to the west and the knowledge that they were heading toward the massive Indian village.

The Crows scouts, who had been ahead, were now sitting off to the side of the ravine. Custer paused and looked at them. They didn’t look anxious to continue down. Custer crooked a finger to them. He signed with his hands, indicating they were released from duty.

The scouts nodded their agreement, then turned their horses and rode back toward the south. Custer spit. “Cowards, all of them. I’d rather not have such with me.”

Reynolds thought the scouts were the smartest people in the area.

Custer cut into his brooding. “How do we get down there?”

Reynolds pointed ahead and to the left, where the ground started descending more steeply. “That’s Medicine Tail Coulee. It runs into the Little Big Horn.”

“Can we cross down there?” Custer asked.

“I Suppose,” Reynolds answered weakly.

“I rode up the Little Big Horn during the ’74 expedition,” Custer said. “It’s not deep. I’m sure we can cross. We’ll go down and smash them against Reno’s blocking force.”

As far as Reynolds could recollect, Reno wasn’t supposed to be a blocking force. Reno’s battalion was supposed to be attacking the village, but Reynolds didn’t see any point to reminding Custer of his own orders. A light was in the general’s eyes, one that Reynolds had seen before, the light of battle. There was no stopping the man now.

“Trumpeter!” Custer called out.

Martin rode to Custer’s side. ‘’Ride to Benteen,” Custer instructed. “Have him link up with the pack train and bring m forward on the double.”

Lieutenant Cooke tore a page out of his notepad, scribbled on it and handed the piece of paper to the man. “Go!” Cooke yelled. Martin galloped along the line of troopers. Cooke watched his departure with sad eyes.

Custer faced downslope. “At the quick, men!”

The coulee narrowed as they descended, forcing the column of fours to become twos. Reynolds was not far behind Custer, who led the entire force. Reynolds happened to look up and see an eagle circling high above, floating on currents of warm air. “I wish 1 were you,” he whispered.

The vision was true. The soldiers were coming down out of the heights and falling on the camp. But the others had not listened, drawn in by the firing to the south. Walks Alone had remained, but not totally because of the vision. He was only twelve, and he’d been ordered to remain behind if the camp was attacked. He was to use his rifle to defend his tribe’s portion of the camp, along with several other boys and old men. It had been very difficult for Walks Alone to remain in place as he heard the firing and war cries to the south, but he had done so.

And now his obedience to his orders was bearing fruit. More blue coats had just been spotted coming down Medicine!ail Coulee, just opposite his tribe’s lodges. Walks Alone and the handful of armed boys and old men left in the camp had raced to the opposite side of the Greasy Grass from the coulee and taken up position, watching the blue coats get closer and closer while a messenger was sent to the south to warn the warriors of this new threat.

Walks Alone steadied the barrel of his old rifle on a tree. There were only old men and a handful of warriors at the west side of the ford. And there were so many soldiers-a file, two by two, as far as he could see up the Medicine Tail Coulee. In the lead was a slender white man in pale buckskins, followed by a soldier carrying a fork-tailed banner with crossed sabers on it.

There was a grassy half-bowl on the east side of the river. Medicine Tail Coulee, down which the soldiers were streaming, entered the bowl from the southeast. A sharper, more deeply cut ravine branched up to the northeast, about forty feet north of Medicine Tail Coulee. A high ridge abutted the river between the two coulees.

The lead soldiers paused in the bowl, gathering strength for a charge. The buckskin soldier was gesturing, crying out something in the words of the white man, gesturing right toward where Walks Alone was hiding and the village behind him.

Walks Alone now knew he had not been a coward. If he had run to the sound of the firing he would not be here to see Sitting Bull’s vision come true. He knew now why the hills · had drawn him.

The hooves of the buckskin soldier touched the water, the first of the white men. Walks Alone pulled back on the trigger, surprised at the kick of the rifle against his shoulder. The buckskin soldier twisted in his saddle and crumpled, a look of shock on his face. He was kept from falling only by the quick actions of another soldier at his side who spurred his horse to the buckskin man’s side and held him.

Walks Alone pulled back the lever on the rifle, the spent · shell casing tumbling out. His fingers shook as he pushed another cartridge in the chamber. The soldiers would overrun them, he knew that. There was no way the handful of warriors could stop them. But he would stand here and do his duty. He looked up and was surprised to see that the soldiers were milling about. Not charging. The column in the coulee was halted by the confusion. The soldiers were not falling into camp.

Walks Alone sighted in on another blue coat and pulled the trigger.