Assault on Atlantis

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

General 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 Autie 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 Tom off to his right and slightly ahead. He tried to call out but no words would come. They came 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 helped 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. Now had that happened?

Then Custer saw beyond the perimeter. Hundreds of Indians were 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 disappeared. This couldn’t be, Custer thought. It just simply couldn’t be happening. Not to my regiment. Not to the Seventh.

Bouyer and 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 was holding a perimeter about a mile away on a hill. All around were Indians, at least a thousand Bouyer estimated. 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.

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.

He and his warriors galloped along a draw, out of sight. Crazy Horse could sense the anxiety among his men and their desire to ride straight toward the shooting and join in the battle. But they followed his lead.

Gall strode hack 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, and the satchel from the sun dance in the other.

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 their shafts like stalks of prairie grass.

Custer saw that the damned Springfield’s 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.

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 family? 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 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 his 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 seer 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 bad 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.

An arrow slammed into Custer’s left thigh. Piercing through flesh and muscle into the ground beneath. He didn’t feel any pain. He didn’t feel the burning heat from the satchel Autie had placed in his lap. All he felt was in his mind, disbelief and shock about what was going on all around him.

Gall saw Sitting Bull and the strange half-breed from the sun dance appear to the south. Both holding up glowing skulls. He signaled, indicating for the warriors not to attack the half-breed. Then he reached into his satchel and grabbed hold of the hot skull. He almost laughed at the pain. The sun dance bad prepared him for this. He held the glowing skull aloft and moved forward.

Buffalo Calf Woman slammed an awl through a dead soldier’s left ear, pulled it out, then jammed it into the right, piercing the eardrum. He should not hear in the afterworld. Because he had not heard clearly in this world. He had not heard the Great Spirit warning the whites to leave the people in peace.

She looked up and saw mighty Gall striding forward. A glowing blue object in his hand. She opened the satchel she’d taken from the blue coat. She blinked in the bright blue glow and then reached in. She grabbed hold with both hands and held it aloft. Then she headed in the direction Gall was going.

Walks Alone saw Gall and Buffalo Calf Woman. Where was Crazy Horse? He wondered as he pulled out the skull the great warrior had given him. He stood up, ignoring the warnings from the braves around to stay down. There were still soldiers alive on the hill, firing.

None would hit him. Walks Alone knew. He beaded up the hill.

Two Moons notched an arrow and fired it high into the sky, firing a second before the first impacted. He paused as he noted the people moving forward with the skulls. He put down his bow and opened the satchel he’d taken from Bloody Knife. He removed the skull, gasping as it burned his flesh, and moved forward.

Crazy Horse turned to the south toward the firing. His warriors spread out on either side. He could hold them back no longer. Their vengeance against those who had invaded their lands, killed their families, and brought disease and death was unstoppable now.

Crazy Horse reached into the satchel tied off to his pony and pulled out the talisman given by his “brother.” He kicked his pony in the side and raced forward.

Sitting Bull halted, fifty yards short of the last stand being mounted by the whites. He could see the Son of the Morning Star, still alive but wounded in several places, leaning back against the saddle of a dead horse.

Bouyer saw Custer also. He stopped next to Sitting Bull as Buffalo Calf Woman and Walks Alone joined them. The skulls seemed to sense each other’s presence, their glow becoming brighter, making them unbearable to gaze upon directly.

And then Crazy Horse and three hundred warriors crested the hill behind the last stand and swept down.