Custer at the Alamo Read Free Page B

civilization, discouraging me greatly. The sun was setting, the weather turning to a nasty, bone-chilling frost. I had spent many such afternoons on the plains, for General Sheridan often placed me at the forefront of the government’s efforts to pacify the West, but this day felt strangely different. This was not the same country I had ridden for so many years.
    Then I saw smoke up ahead, just beyond a low hill. Puffy streaks of a campfire made with scrub wood. It could be Indians, or not. Feeling as I did, even enemies would be better than no one. From the top of the next rise, I found a pleasant surprise. Cavalry. Dozens of soldiers camped along a muddy creek huddled around a string of fire pits. A blue and red guidon embroidered with crossed sabers blew from a leafless tree.
    I drew my pistol and fired a shot in the air. Two men wearing buckskin jackets jumped on their horses and rode in my direction. It was Tom and Bill Cooke.
    “Autie! Autie, thank God you’re all right,” Tom shouted, his voice higher pitched than usual.
    We dismounted and embraced. Somehow it had not occurred to me to worry about the young scallywag, thinking the strange adventure a delusion of my own. That belief had been an egocentric mistake. Sadly, not an unusual one.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “Strangest damn thing anyone ever heard tell of. One minute we were forming a skirmish line along the ridge. Gunshots coming from every direction. Indians all over the place. Then this fog rose up. The next thing I knew, we were strung out across this plain. No Indians. No village. Nothing. Cold, though. Glad we finally got the fires started,” Tom said.
    “The command?” I requested.
    “Still gathering up stragglers,” Cooke reported, his accent as crisp as the cold air. “We’ve counted ninety-two enlisted men and six officers. Seven, now that we’ve found you. And two civilians, Bouyer and Kellogg. Smith and Yates are leading search details. Harrington’s trying to find enough brush for some shelters. No sign of Keogh or Calhoun yet. Doctor Lord is by the fire. Not faring so well.”
    “I’d like to get a feel of that fire myself. Any food?” I asked.
    “Caught a couple of fish. Hope you don’t mind the bones,” Tom said with a grin.
    We rode down to the water, a wide stream cutting a flat basin. A thick grove of cottonwoods lined the bank, providing a windbreak. I recognized men from several different companies, all tired and worried. Confounded by our unfathomable situation. The first order of business was a hot meal.
    Captain George Yates and Lieutenant Algeron Smith rode in just before sunset with nineteen more men. Second Lieutenant Henry Harrington had made a bonfire on the hill to guide them. Among the newcomers was Captain Myles Keogh, my best officer and a soldier of long experience. Along with a few dazed troopers who had followed our signal, it brought our total to eight officers, the doctor, and a hundred and twenty-six enlisted men. What happened to the other members of my command may never be known. There was no sign of my brother-in-law, Jimmy Calhoun, or my nephew, Autie Reed. Thank God my youngest brother, Boston Custer, had been left behind with the pack train.
    We made camp, such as it was, hunched down in a gully using tumbleweeds stuffed between trees to block the wind. Some of the men had shot a few skinny winter rabbits. A dreary quarter moon lit the prairie. The horses were tethered near the creek where they could chew the damp grass. Grain-fed horse weren’t likely to thrive on such fodder, but I wanted to parcel out the oats slowly while they made the transition. There was no telling how long it might take to find proper stables.
    “Going to be tough on them,” Sergeant Major Sharrow said, stroking the neck of his favorite horse, a Morgan-Mustang mix named Sue.
    A thirty-one-year-old Englishman from Yorkshire, William Hunter Sharrow was the Seventh’s ranking non-commissioned officer, a burly man