Read Online Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 by Terry C. Johnston - Free Book Online
Authors: Terry C. Johnston
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sky. Black Kettle watched his wife shuffling along between the lodges, coming back home to their warm robes. She would havespent an evening with friends, singing at the dance and gabbing of woman matters.
It was good she did not have to worry about the concerns of men. Still, she alone was able to cheer his gloom when the burden of leadership grew too great. Black Kettle sucked at the cold air, wishing he had pulled a blanket around his shoulders as he waited for Medicine Woman Later.
Tomorrow the riders would find the soldiers and his tribe’s safety could be assured. After all, his old friend Red Cloud of the Sioux had recently touched the pen on another treaty with the white Grandfather. After a long and bloody conflict, the plains both north and south could be at peace.
Peace would burst across the prairie as surely as the spring grasses rose to flower after the hard, dark days of winter. Pony soldiers would come no more.
“You are tired, my husband?”
“Yes,” Black Kettle answered as his wife ducked back inside the warm lodge. “Tonight I can once again sleep the sleep of peace.”
And dream of the great birds flying south.
CHAPTER 5
I T was close to nine o’clock, long since dark, before the regiment finally rendezvoused with Elliott’s scouting detail.
Adjutant Moylan nudged his mount close to Custer. “Sir?”
“Pass the word. From here the troopers will take only what they need for battle. And Myles, that means only what a man can strap behind his saddle.”
“I’ll pass the word, General.”
Moylan loped back into the freezing darkness to give the details of the order: Every trooper was to carry a hundred rounds of carbine ammunition and twenty-four loads for his pistol. In addition, each soldier was to be rationed some coffee and hardtack, along with an equally scanty bit of forage for his mount.
From here on out their buffalo coats would have to do. Blankets and tents would be left behind with the wagons. Not knowing the exact location of the hostile village, the men must be ready for battle at any moment. Word had itthat at least five hundred warriors awaited them on the Washita. Earlier that evening the scouts had run across a “small” war party of over a hundred braves moving south with the smell of home fires in their nostrils.
For a few minutes the men slid from their saddles after better than fourteen straight hours in leather. A short break to rub some semblance of life back into their numb, cold rumps. One hour and no longer to chew on the crackerlike hardtack, to sip at the scalding coffee Custer allowed them to brew over small fires built beneath the overhang of creek banks.
A good site had been chosen by Elliott’s chief scout. He had worn the same droopy sombrero for years, a bushy mustache and dirty beard spilling across his chest. Christened Moses Embree Milner, the scout came to call himself Joseph, and later took the nickname California Joe during his gold rush days. A Kentuckian by birth, Milner had escaped his farming home to end up scouting for Kearny’s forces during the Mexican War. After peace had been gained in the southwest, Joe had moseyed to the California gold fields. Until Nancy Emma Watts came along to temper some of his wanderlust. She was all of thirteen but every bit a woman when he met her; she would bear him four children before Joe figured out domestic life really was a scratchy suit. Milner owned up to what he was—a wanderer—taking Nancy Emma and their children north to the ranch of some friends in Oregon.
Once again on the plains enjoying a man’s freedom, Joe cut quite a figure atop his cantankerous mule Maude.
Learning of Milner’s qualifications, the Seventh Cavalry’s young commander had snatched up Milner to become his chief of scouts.
“One thing ’bout a prairie winter,” Milner growled to anyone who would listen, “it don’t stop reminding a man he can never wear enough clothes.”
He huddled with the rest of the
It was good she did not have to worry about the concerns of men. Still, she alone was able to cheer his gloom when the burden of leadership grew too great. Black Kettle sucked at the cold air, wishing he had pulled a blanket around his shoulders as he waited for Medicine Woman Later.
Tomorrow the riders would find the soldiers and his tribe’s safety could be assured. After all, his old friend Red Cloud of the Sioux had recently touched the pen on another treaty with the white Grandfather. After a long and bloody conflict, the plains both north and south could be at peace.
Peace would burst across the prairie as surely as the spring grasses rose to flower after the hard, dark days of winter. Pony soldiers would come no more.
“You are tired, my husband?”
“Yes,” Black Kettle answered as his wife ducked back inside the warm lodge. “Tonight I can once again sleep the sleep of peace.”
And dream of the great birds flying south.
CHAPTER 5
I T was close to nine o’clock, long since dark, before the regiment finally rendezvoused with Elliott’s scouting detail.
Adjutant Moylan nudged his mount close to Custer. “Sir?”
“Pass the word. From here the troopers will take only what they need for battle. And Myles, that means only what a man can strap behind his saddle.”
“I’ll pass the word, General.”
Moylan loped back into the freezing darkness to give the details of the order: Every trooper was to carry a hundred rounds of carbine ammunition and twenty-four loads for his pistol. In addition, each soldier was to be rationed some coffee and hardtack, along with an equally scanty bit of forage for his mount.
From here on out their buffalo coats would have to do. Blankets and tents would be left behind with the wagons. Not knowing the exact location of the hostile village, the men must be ready for battle at any moment. Word had itthat at least five hundred warriors awaited them on the Washita. Earlier that evening the scouts had run across a “small” war party of over a hundred braves moving south with the smell of home fires in their nostrils.
For a few minutes the men slid from their saddles after better than fourteen straight hours in leather. A short break to rub some semblance of life back into their numb, cold rumps. One hour and no longer to chew on the crackerlike hardtack, to sip at the scalding coffee Custer allowed them to brew over small fires built beneath the overhang of creek banks.
A good site had been chosen by Elliott’s chief scout. He had worn the same droopy sombrero for years, a bushy mustache and dirty beard spilling across his chest. Christened Moses Embree Milner, the scout came to call himself Joseph, and later took the nickname California Joe during his gold rush days. A Kentuckian by birth, Milner had escaped his farming home to end up scouting for Kearny’s forces during the Mexican War. After peace had been gained in the southwest, Joe had moseyed to the California gold fields. Until Nancy Emma Watts came along to temper some of his wanderlust. She was all of thirteen but every bit a woman when he met her; she would bear him four children before Joe figured out domestic life really was a scratchy suit. Milner owned up to what he was—a wanderer—taking Nancy Emma and their children north to the ranch of some friends in Oregon.
Once again on the plains enjoying a man’s freedom, Joe cut quite a figure atop his cantankerous mule Maude.
Learning of Milner’s qualifications, the Seventh Cavalry’s young commander had snatched up Milner to become his chief of scouts.
“One thing ’bout a prairie winter,” Milner growled to anyone who would listen, “it don’t stop reminding a man he can never wear enough clothes.”
He huddled with the rest of the
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