Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876

“They’re called Kwahadi Comanche, Johnny boy,” Donegan replied, standing to stretch out his cold, cramping muscles. “And pray you don’t ever have to campaign down on the Staked Plain of west Texas against those devils incarnate.”

Chapter 43

9-10 September 1876

Not long after the last echoes of gunfire faded from the nearby bluffs, a pair of sore-footed troopers from the Fifth Cavalry limped out of the darkness, hailing the pickets surrounding infantry camp. They had been some of the first forced to abandon their played-out horses that morning when the entire column followed in the wake of Crook’s rescue, which placed the pair as the last stragglers on the trail.

As they approached the northern end of Slim Buttes, the weariness of the muddy trail overwhelmed them, and they decided to lie down and nap among the shelter of some rocks they found in a ravine. At the moment the Sioux chose to launch their attack, the two hapless soldiers were awakened rudely. It didn’t take them long to figure out they would be a lot safer staying right where they were than attempting to thread their way through the hostile horsemen in hopes of reaching the army’s lines. They hadn’t dared to raise their heads from their ravine until long after dark.

The steady, eerie throb of death chants and wails of mourning women floated down from the shelter half where the surgeons had done what they could to make American Horse comfortable. Out there in the night, evil spirits lurked, ruling that dominion just beyond the fire’s light.

Seamus shuddered and crossed himself superstitiously, sitting at a fire with John Finerty, Lieutenant Bourke, and others, staring mesmerized at the sputtering flames—then turned suddenly, tearing his revolver from its holster as a dark figure crouched from a gash in a nearby lodge.

With the audible double click of so many pistol hammers, the ghostly form stopped immediately, one leg in, one leg out of that slash in the buffalo hides, slowly standing erect in his long calf-length blanket coat of many colors, staring at the three barrels glinting with a dull light beneath the fire’s dancing aura.

A pair of black eyes twinkled as the dark-skinned Indian tried out a lame smile, lifting his hands into the air and stammering, “T-there ain’t a thing w-worth having in the hull damned outfit.”

“Who in the thunder are you?” Donegan demanded.

“Ute John,” he answered sheepishly as he inched into the light, his hands shaking as the Irishman advanced on him. “Some call me Cap’n Jack.”

“Bejesus—you gave me a start!” Finerty exclaimed.

Donegan got close enough to press the revolver’s muzzle against the tracker’s head. With his empty hand he grabbed the Indian’s chin and turned the brown face from side to side in the firelight. “Damn—it is you. The squaw scalper. Should’ve killed you right off.” In disgust he turned away, stuffing his pistol into the holster on his hip.

“What are you doing there?” Bourke asked.

The Indian replied, “Looking for plunder.”

“You’re lucky to have a few lodges still standing, you sick bastard,” Seamus added. “Cap’n Powell’s gonna finish putting ’em all to the torch come morning.”

Ute John’s head bobbed, and he said, “I see what I find before the fires.”

“G’won!” Bourke demanded. “Get out of here before I have you put under guard myself.”

Early that rainy evening the general ordered that the four corpses Ute John had scalped and mutilated be given to the captives so they could perform a proper burial. With Grouard and Pourier, Crook then wrung what information he could from his reticent prisoners. From them the general learned that not only was Crazy Horse in the neighborhood, but Sitting Bull was as well—with plans to take his Hunkpapa north to the Antelope Buttes to trade. What came as the most discouraging news, however, was hearing that the bands had indeed split and scattered, most making for the reservations, and already far ahead of his column.

“Charging Bear keeps saying this bunch wasn’t on the Greasy Grass, General,” Big Bat reported. “Says they didn’t fight the soldiers on the Little Bighorn.”

“Then ask him why we found in their lodges the gloves of one of Custer’s men, why we found their horses among these ponies, why we recaptured the pony soldiers’ flag in this camp,” Crook snarled.

To Three Stars, Charging Bear repeated the assertion that visiting Oglalla of the Crazy Horse Hunkpatila band brought those spoils from the Greasy Grass fight into camp.

In the end Crook used his interpreters to drive home his point that the army intended to punish all who remained off their agencies, then concluded by telling the prisoners he would release them the following morning. They would be allowed to remain there in the midst of their destroyed village, where they could bury their dead in the manner of their people.