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

our troops. We’ll attack at first light—which gives you less than four hours to circle into position. Just prior to dawn, the men are to strip to battle readiness. I’ll signal the attack from here.”
    He stepped from the center of the group, turning so he could face them all at once.
    “Gentlemen, we’re about to spell an end to those bloody depredations committed on the southern frontier. Until now, an operation such as this hasn’t been possible—for there had been no Seventh Cavalry. That makes us, verysimply, the spearhead of destiny, gentlemen! It is our Seventh that will always ride the vanguard of glory and honor. To that glory and honor, gentlemen!”
    “Glory and honor!”
    It stirred a fire within him hearing the chorus of their strong young voices echoing the courageous sentiment that would bring the Seventh Cavalry fame across the years ahead. Soon enough they could cross the river. Dawn would bring him what destiny had promised.
    He repeated it in a lead-filled whisper that could raise the hairs on the back of a man’s neck. “To glory and honor.”
    Two hours of freezing agony ground past for the men waiting huddled in the freezing mist of the Washita.
    Officers repeatedly checked their watches as time dragged by. Eventually the moon slipped behind the western hills, throwing the countryside into complete and eerie darkness.
    “Gotta be your mind playing tricks on you,” Milner, the man they called California Joe, muttered to himself. “Feels colder what with that goddamn moon sunk.” He carried his old Springfield across an arm as he prodded his mule in Custer’s direction. “Morning, General.”
    Custer nodded. “Joe.”
    “What I’ve been trying to get through my old topknot all night is whether we’ll run up against more Injuns than we bargained for.”
    He watched Custer raise an eyebrow, concerned. Milner realized he’d handed the general a thorny problem.
    “You don’t figure those Cheyenne down there will make a run for it, Joe?”
    “Them Cheyenne skedaddle? How in the Good Lord’s Creation can Injuns run off when you’ll have ’em clean surrounded afore first light?”
    “Precisely my plan. I don’t want a one to escape.” He chewed thoughtfully on the corner of his droopy mustache. “Supposing we are able to bottle them up—you figure we can hold our own against the warriors in that village?”
    “That is some handsome dilemma, now, ain’t it?” Milner ground teeth on the stub of his unlit pipe. “One thing’s sure as sun. If them Injuns down there don’t hear a squeak out of your soldier boys till we open up our guns on ’em come crack o’ day, they’ll damned near be the most astonished redskins that’s been in these parts lately! If we do for certain get the bulge on ’em … why, we’ll sweep their platter clean!”
    “I’m relieved to have your confidence in my plan, Joe.”
    “Well, General—I like to deal the cards face up. We’re holding aces high over them Injuns down there.”
    “I’ve got the feeling that something still troubles you.”
    “I’ve played enough cards to know that both Lady Fate and Lady Luck often sit ’cross the table from a man—and it’s them two whores what might have something to say about what a man draws from his deck.”
    “You think those Cheyenne still have a draw at one of our aces?”
    Milner ran the tip of his tongue thoughtfully across winter-chapped lips. “I’ve fought me plenty Injuns, and damn if they don’t always find a draw at the cards. Hang me but they’ve got a play even at the bottom of some goddamned played-out deck.”
    Without another word, Milner plodded pulled Maude away into the roiling mist, quiet as cotton through thecalf-deep snow until the mist had swallowed him completely.
    Custer shuddered. Some parts of this Indian fighting sat in his craw. Cursed with scouts so of times somber and ghostly. Turning into the brush, he decided to find himself a quiet spot and stretch out on