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

“This trail,” and Frank pointed down at the muddy tracks. “That ain’t no Injun trail. It’s ours.”

“W-why … in heaven’s name it can’t be our trail,” Mills exclaimed, his eyes darkening with suspicion.

“It is. I’m certain. I just spotted the tracks of that cow-hocked pony Lieutenant Bubb there is riding.”

With his compass held out before him in a trembling hand, Mills declared, “There’s no way this compass can be wrong. Without landmarks to go by in this nasty weather, Grouard—I think you’re proving yourself of little use. So this command will stick by the compass. It will take us to Crook City and Deadwood.” Turning to Lieutenant George F. Chase, Mills ordered, “Let’s move them out.”

Wagging his head, Grouard mounted up and eased his pony to the side so that he rode by Donegan at the end of the column. This was something new for the two of them. Usually they were in the front, far in the lead. But now Mills had his compass doing the scouting, doing the guiding for them all.

Both of them shook their heads as the compass took them circling back to the north a second time.

It was nigh onto midmorning when Grouard wanted to stop again. “Colonel!” he shouted, halting and dropping onto the flooded prairie. “You better come take a look at this.”

“Halt!” Mills growled as his patrol stopped and he wrenched his horse around savagely to approach the half-breed and Irishman. “What is it now, Grouard!”

Lieutenant Chase took out his big turnip watch and held it out of the rain as he opened it. “Colonel—it’s ten-thirty. If we’re going to cover more than forty miles today, we can’t keep stopping.”

Mills rose in his stirrups, glaring at the two scouts. “Why have you stopped us this time?”

“We just crossed our trail again, Colonel,” Donegan said, his arm pointing off to the southeast.

“Dammit! Are you and Grouard here disputing this compass again?”

With a nod Seamus said, “I suppose that’s it.”

Now Jack Crawford spoke up. “We should have crossed Willow creek by now, Cap’n. I know the country where we’re heading, but this ground just don’t feel right.”

“It’s merely the weather,” the captain argued impatiently, “and none of you can pick out the normal landmarks. That’s why it pays to rely on a compass.”

Dropping into the mud, Seamus slogged off about twenty feet while the soldiers grumbled behind him. At a small outcropping of red-hued rock, he kicked again and again with the heel of his battered boot, careful not to tear the buckskin he had used in a field repair to lash the sole to the upper vamp. Eventually he knocked loose a chunk of the blood-tinged stone and slogged back to Mills.

“Hold your compass out, Colonel,” Seamus demanded.

“Why, what for?”

“Just hold it out, and I’ll prove something to all of you.”

Bewildered, Mills held out the compass in the palm of his wet gauntlet as the rain continued to patter on its glassy face.

“Now,” Donegan instructed, “watch what happens.”

As Seamus slowly moved the red stone around the compass in a clockwise motion, the needle followed as obediently as a child’s pull toy on a string.

“In heaven’s name!” gasped Lieutenant Chase.

Incredulous, Mills asked, “W-what does this mean, Irishman?”

Seamus lowered his stone. “It means Frank and me been right all along. We ain’t been headed where we need to go. South ain’t there,” and he pointed. “Crook City and Deadwood and all the rest of them settlements are over that way.”

As a whole those seventy-odd men turned in their saddles.

“Behind us?” Mills asked, still not believing.

“Absolutely right, Colonel,” Crawford exclaimed.

“How?” Mills demanded testily.

“These rocks, Colonel,” Seamus explained. “This ground’s filthy with ’em. They been pulling your compass off all morning. Making us go in circles.”

“Two big circles already,” Grouard repeated.

“That’s right,” Donegan added. “Just what I suspected: we’ve gone and crossed our own trail for a second time.”

Mills could only stare at his compass, slowly wagging his head. “I don’t believe it. Why, we’ll be lost without this compass.”

Donegan stepped right up to the officer’s horse. “Colonel, we’ve damn well been lost by using it! Now, why don’t you just put that compass back in your saddlebags and let this patrol get on down the trail to the settlements?”

Disgustedly, the captain yanked up on the flap behind his McClellan saddle and dropped the brass compass into its depths. “Lead on, gentlemen. Now it’s your turn to show us how you’re better than a compass.”

As Donegan swung into the saddle atop that buckskin pony, he reminded the officer, “Colonel Mills, don’t you remember who led our attack column through the dark and a howling blizzard one miserable cold night last winter? Don’t you remember who was it led us to a spot right over that enemy village on the Powder River, just before daylight—doing all of his guiding in the slap-dark of a snowstorm?”*