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

the snow for a nap.
    Until time came for the bugles.
    Here and there small knots of men congregated, waiting for that opening note of the coming fight. Enlisted men complained of the bitter cold or talked of the warmth of their hard haytick bunks back at Fort Hays. Some dreamed of the pleasure brought a man by those fleshy sporting ladies in Hays City, friendly kind of gals who followed soldiers to every post and fort and fleshpot dotting the western frontier.
    Talk of anything now … but no talk about the coming battle.
    Instead of talking at all, most only leaned against their mounts, using the horses’ warmth to ward off some of the foggy cold that stung a man to the bone, chewing away at the core of him. Many of the battle-hardened were long used to eluding prefight jitters. They snored back in the snowy rabbit brush.
    Custer himself awoke refreshed from a long nap about the time a ghostly light climbed out of the dense river mist. Nearby the scouts murmured among themselves. A few Osages began chanting their own eerie melodies as the bright light emerged from the thick fog bank, ascending into the lamp-black sky.
    “It’s the Morning Star, sir,” Moylan whispered at Custer’s side.
    It loomed close. Huge, and shimmering with life.
    “A good omen for our victory, Lieutenant.”
    Nothing short of powerful medicine to the Osages, this appearance of the celestial light above the river, here on the precipice of battle. As the brilliant globe climbed above the southwestern horizon, it seemed to ascend more slowly, its light radiating prismatically from color to color. An imperial stillness settled over this wilderness in these last moments before dawn, causing something deep within Custer’s being to assure him this star was destined to shine on this valley, his command—on he alone.
    Custer smiled, certain to the core of the outcome of the impending fight. The heavens had ordained the star to shine upon him.
    He vowed to do nothing to disappoint the gods of Olympus with the coming light of a new day.
    Stiff with cold, the Cheyenne sentry who stationed himself atop the knoll south of camp had no appreciation for the celestial light glowing above him in the river mist. Half Bear settled in the snow.
    Not much longer before he could return to a warm lodge where his woman would build up the fire, put some breakfast meat on to boil. His stomach churned, angry with him, a hunger enough to keep a sentry awake.
    Yet he decided he could nap a bit before the sky paled in morning-coming.
    Half Bear slumped over. By the time he had curled his legs up beneath the heavy robe, his breath had begun to warm his frozen face. His breathing grew more regular. Before he realized it he was no longer merely napping. Half Bear slept.
    Down he plunged, deep and sound, unable to yank himself back out of that warm, liquid pit. In the midst of its welcome darkness he was sure the ear he laid against the ground caught the warning of iron-shod hooves scraping across the frozen breast of the Mother of Them All.
    Half Bear’s eyes refused to open. He heard horses circling to the backside of the knoll where he slept on. Horses clattering up from the river. Creeping south of the village behind him. That unmistakable jangle of pony soldier saddle gear! Still he tried to convince himself it was only a dream.
    Hah! That pony soldiers would come in the cold of a winter dawn made bright beneath the Morning Star—this could only be a dream!
    Curled deep within his robe, Half Bear dozed … warm enough to dream on.
    With the growing light, Custer sent Lieutenant Cooke’s detail far to the left, deploying his men among the tall oaks along the steep northern bank of the Washita. A quarter-hour later, Custer led his four companies down the gradual slope that sank away to the river. There he halted the troopers in a dense copse of trees shading the north lip of the Washita as it circled the sleeping village in a lazy loop of icy water.
    To his left, astride a