Free Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 by Terry C. Johnston

for it, Paw-Husk. I can’t make out a thing in this darkness.”
    “Come, soldier chief. We find.”
    “Yes, by God. You best find me something better. Not a fire. Not some worms. Find me the
village.”
    Two hills later, Little Beaver motioned for Hard Rope to join him at the crest of the knoll. A finger to his lips, the old Indian demanded silence. “I want Hard Rope hear,” he whispered hoarsely.
    This way and that, his head up in the air, then close to the ground, Hard Rope listened to the night. Cold, freezing minutes crawled by until Custer could take this sitting in the snow no longer. He struggled to his feet. “I’m going back. When you have the village located, come fetch me. Seems I might as well be looking for this blessed village with a compass and a map all on my bloody own!”
    “You hear?” Little Beaver whispered, paying no attention to Custer.
    “Yes, Uncle. A dog. There.”
    Hard Rope stuck out his woolen mitten, stretching his arm toward the river course below. Here and there inpatches the Washita silvered beneath the moon’s pale light like bands of polished metal.
    “You heard a dog bark?” Custer asked. “Not in this wind, you didn’t!”
    “Man who wants to hear, he must first listen, General.” Hard Rope clamped Custer’s bearded cheeks roughly within his mittens and pointed his face in the general direction of the enemy camp he had located.
    Then he heard it! A dog!
    “How’re we sure?” he whispered. “Not a wolf?”
    Litter Beaver shook his head. “Soldiers never learn the difference.”
    With each pause in the whining chorus of the wind, Custer listened with all that was in him. Then … he heard the dog bark again. Answered by another, different voice.
    Custer muttered, “If only I could be sure—”
    With Custer’s next doubting heartbeat, an infant’s cry rose above the trees lining the silver river course.
    “By all that’s holy, boys!” Custer whispered harshly, flush with excitement and pounding the trackers on the back. “The Cheyenne are here!”
    “We find your Indians for you, soldier chief. Get your hundred dollars ready. Pay your Indian friends,” Hard Rope reminded him.
    “Of course I’ll pay!” Custer said, turning to race downhill.
    Nothing would stop him now. The village was at hand and the enemy hadn’t been warned. The cry of the infant confirmed that much.
    “By glory!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got them now. They’ll learn not to sleep so soundly when Custer’s nearby!”

CHAPTER 6
     
    C USTER countermarched his troops a mile upstream to guard against their discovery by Cheyenne guards. Only then did he send his three civilian scouts to read the lay of the land and size of the village. Corbin reported first, Milner on his heels. Ben Clark finally appeared out of the ice-rimed trees, his story confirming what the other two had seen in their search.
    “They chose a good spot on the south bank of the river,” Clark continued. “Fifty-some lodges, all sitting on level ground in a wide loop of the river—something like this.”
    Clark dropped to his knees, pulling out a knife. The scout scratched the river’s meandering course in the snow, with that big loop where the troops would find the village sleeping.
    “Where are we now?” Custer inquired.
    “Right about here, sir.” Clark’s knife point jabbed the ground. “On the far side of the village is a steep cutbank. Fifty feet high. Noses almost straight up, following the course of the river. Plenty of—”
    “Splendid!” Custer interrupted, slapping his thigh as he stood. “They surely can’t make their escape that way, can they, now, Clark?”
    “Why … not at all.”
    “I expect them to run, you see. Indians always do when we attack.” Custer’s smile faded as his eyes scanned the officers and scouts.
    “They’ll skedaddle, General. Like hens with a weasel in the yard.” Milner spat into the snow. “Make no mistake about it—Injuns always run.”
    Custer grinned