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

For what seemed like hours they plodded their way north along the top of that ridge above the Greasy Grass, the oppressive, sickeningly sweetish stench of mortifying flesh mingled with the aroma of burned grass that was carried up from the valley floor and benchland west of the river by the breezes. This seemed to be a land laid to waste. Nothing left alive except the predators, both four-legged and hard-shelled, at work on the bloated, gassy flesh. Nothing else alive, except for two intruders who had stumbled onto this ridge where the two hundred would tomorrow again lie beneath a blistering canopy of high-plains summer heat.

Yet by the time Grouard and Donegan reached the northern end of the ridge where more than forty, perhaps as many as fifty, bodies lay bunched a few yards down the western slope, Seamus realized that even though their ride along that hogback had seemed to take endless hours, it had taken less than a dozen minutes as their horses nosed their way through the stiff-legged carcasses and fish-bellied corpses. Both horses had fought their bits, bobbing their heads in disgust at the smell of decay every step of that journey through this killing ground.

This had to be the same bunch that caught Crook’s army flat-footed on the Rosebud, Seamus thought. Had to be. The big village was camped on the Rosebud—that much they knew. Between then and now they crossed over the mountains. Which meant that the same bunch that came close to wiping out Crook a week later wiped out these soldiers.

Injins what had me and the Snake scout surrounded and all but dead … finished the job on these … these men.

For longer than he dared remember, his mouth had been painfully dry. With this slaughterhouse of death around him, it was becoming harder and harder still to concentrate on how he breathed—having to remind himself to inhale through his mouth and not through his nose. Feeling the rotting stench like a crawling, wriggling, living thing on the back of his tongue instead of smelling it.

What made that big man shudder in abject fear there in the dark, there in the utter silence of that unmarked graveyard, was that these had been the Indians he had fought on the Rosebud, come face-to-face with, the warriors who almost killed him.

A few feet ahead Grouard halted his mount down the slope from the northernmost end of that long ridge of death. He patted the animal’s sleek black neck and said, “We better cross and see where the village is headed.”

Seamus swallowed, shuddering unconsciously as he remembered standing over that soldier’s fallen body when Royall began his retreat near the Rosebud, swinging his empty Henry against the onrushing red horde for what seemed like an eternity spent in hell.

Then he forced himself to say, “We both know where they’re headed, Frank. There’s no mistaking it.”

“S’pose you’re right,” Grouard replied. “Moving south.”

Donegan peered off into the eerie blackness at the dark humps of the hills that lost themselves as they thrust up against the cast-iron underbelly of the night sky. “Moving south … and heading straight for Crook’s army.”

It wasn’t until that first graying of dawn shortly after moonset that Donegan and Grouard got themselves a good look at the immense trail heading toward the Bighorn Mountains. Less than an hour later they both caught the aroma of wood smoke on the wind.

“You said you know this country pretty good, Frank?”

Grouard nodded. “Lakota come to this ground to hunt last few years, yes.”

“Where you figure they’re going to be camped?”

“Maybe on up there, I suppose. Yes. On Pass Creek. Maybe down to the mouth of Twin Creek on what some call the Big Flat.”

Donegan sighed, troubled. “Then if you know that much about the ground between us and them, you’re gonna keep us as far away from them h’athens as you can— right?”

“Wrong, Irishman.”

“Wrong?” he squeaked, his throat constricting, remembering that slaughterhouse along the bluff above the Little Bighorn.

“We gotta get close enough to figure out for sure what they’re gonna do, where they’re headed for certain. Crook’ll wanna know.”

“Yeah, yeah. Crook’ll wanna know. Blessed Mither of God, Grouard. I come along thinking this was going to be an Injin scout. Not a God-blame-ed Injin fight!”

“No fighting to do if you stick with me, Irishman.”

“I’ll remember you said that,” Seamus growled. Then he eventually smiled. “And if there’s fighting to do—by God, I’ll make you eat your words, you half-breed son of a bitch.”

Grouard grinned as he led off. Seamus could do nothing more than shake his head, and follow.

Now there were Indians between them and Crook’s camp at Goose Creek. Enough Indians to slaughter more than two hundred pony soldiers back there on that ridge above the Greasy Grass.

More than enough to take care of two army scouts.

Chapter 8

27-28 June 1876

“You can’t be serious about going over there to talk with that old man!” Seamus squealed, his throat cords constricting in surprise.