Page 72 of The Veteran

He was present when they reached the mouth of the River Tongue and met up with General Terry; he rode back with the combined column until they found again the mouth of the Rosebud. Here the Seventh Cavalry under Custer was detailed to go south up the course of the creek, and the call went out for anyone who could speak Cheyenne.

Custer already had at least two Sioux-speaking scouts. One was a black soldier, the only one in the Seventh, Isaiah Dorman, who had lived with the Sioux. The other was the Chief Scout, Mitch Bouyer, a half-blood, part French, part Sioux. But although the Cheyenne have always been regarded as first cousins and traditional allies of the Sioux, the languages are different. Craig put up his hand and was detailed by General Gibbon to join the Seventh.

Gibbon also offered Custer three extra companies of cavalry under Major Brisbin, but was turned down. Terry offered him Gatling machine guns, but he turned these down as well. When they set off up the Rosebud the Seventh was 12 companies of troops, 6 white scouts, over 30 Indian scouts, a wagon train, and 3 civilians, in all 675 men. These also included farriers, smiths and muleteers.

Custer had left his regimental band behind with Terry, so when he made his final charge it would not be to the sound of his fa

vourite march, ‘Garryowen’. But as they moved down the river course, kettles, pots, cauldrons and ladles banging together from the sides of the chuck wagons, Craig wondered which band of Indians Custer hoped to catch by surprise. With the noise and the column of dust raised by 3,000 hooves, he knew they could be seen and heard several miles off.

Craig had had two weeks between the Tongue and the Rosebud to look at the famed Seventh and its iconic commander, and the more he saw the more his heart sank. He hoped they would not meet a large body of Sioux and Cheyenne prepared to fight, but feared they might.

All day the column rode south, following the course of the Rosebud, but saw no more Indians. Yet several times, when the wind blew off the prairie to the west, the cavalry horses became skittish, even panicky, and Craig was sure they had smelt something on the breeze. The burning teepees could not have gone unnoticed for very long. A high-rising column of smoke over the prairie could be seen for miles. The element of surprise was gone.

Just after four in the afternoon General Custer called a halt and made camp. The sun began to drop towards the distant and invisible Rockies. Tents for the officers were quickly established. Custer and his intimates always used the ambulance tent, the biggest and most spacious. Folding camp chairs and tables were set up, the horses watered in the stream, food prepared, campfires lit.

The Cheyenne girl lay silent on the travois and stared at the darkening sky. She was prepared to die. Craig took a canteen of fresh water from the creek and offered her a drink. She stared at him with huge dark eyes.

‘Drink,’ he said in Cheyenne. She made no move. He poured a small stream of the cool liquid onto her mouth. The lips parted. She swallowed. He left the pannikin beside her.

As dusk deepened a rider from B Company came down the camp looking for him.

When he was found the trooper rode back to report. Ten minutes later Captain Acton rode up. He was accompanied by Sergeant Braddock, a corporal and two troopers. They all dismounted and surrounded the travois.

All the frontier scouts attached to the Seventh, the six whites, the small group of Crows and the thirty or so Arikaras, known as the Rees, formed a group with a common interest. They all knew the frontier and the way of life.

Round the campfires in the evening, before turning in, it was customary for them to talk among themselves. They discussed the officers, starting with General Custer, and the company commanders. Craig had been surprised how unpopular the general was with his men. His younger brother Tom Custer, commanding C Company, was much better liked, but the most loathed of them all was Captain Acton. Craig shared this antipathy. Acton was a career soldier who had joined just after the Civil War ten years earlier and risen in the Seventh in the shadow of Custer, the scion of a wealthy family back east. He was thin, with a chiselled face and a cruel mouth.

‘So, Sergeant,’ said Acton, ‘this is your prisoner. Let’s find out what she knows.

‘You talk the savage’s lingo?’ he asked Craig. The scout nodded. ‘I want to know who she is, what group she was with and where the main body of the Sioux is to be found. Right now.’

Craig bent over the girl on the buffalo hide. He broke into Cheyenne, using both words and numerous hand gestures, for the dialects of the Plains Indians had limited vocabulary and needed hand signals to make the meaning plain.

‘Tell me your name, girl. No harm will come to you.’

‘I am called Wind That Talks Softly,’ she said. The cavalrymen stood around and listened. They could understand not a word, but could comprehend the shakes of the girl’s head. Finally Craig straightened up.

‘Captain, she says her name is Whispering Wind. She is of the northern Cheyenne. Her family is that of Tall Elk. Those were his lodges that the sergeant wiped out this morning. There were ten men in the village, including her father, and they were all away hunting deer and antelope east of the Rosebud.’

‘And the main concentration of the Sioux?’

‘She says she has not seen the Sioux. Her family came up from the south, from the Tongue River. There were some more Cheyenne with them, but they parted company a week ago. Tall Elk preferred to hunt alone.’

Captain Acton stared down at the bandaged thigh, leaned forward and squeezed hard. The girl sucked in her breath but gave no cry.

‘A little encouragement perhaps,’ said Acton. The sergeant grinned. Craig reached out, took the captain’s wrist and removed it.

‘That will not work, Captain,’ he said. ‘She has told me what she knows. If the Sioux cannot be to the north, the way we have come, and they are not to the south and east, they must be to the west. You could tell the general that.’

Captain Acton plucked the restraining hand from his wrist as if it were infected. He straightened up, produced a half-hunter silver watch and glanced at it.

‘Chow time in the general’s tent,’ he said. ‘I must go.’ He had plainly lost interest in the prisoner. ‘Sergeant, when it is full dark take her into the prairie and finish her off.’

‘Anything say we can’t have a little fun with her first, Captain?’ asked Sergeant Braddock. There was a gust of approving laughter from the other men. Captain Acton mounted his horse.

‘Frankly, Sergeant, I don’t give a damn what you do.’

He spurred his mount in the direction of General Custer’s tent at the head of the camp. The others mounted likewise. Sergeant Braddock leaned down to Craig with a leer.

---