Seize the Sky: Son of the Plains-Volume 2 by Terry C. Johnston

readied for us,” Custer motioned for the scouts to stand once more with him, “you go to the steamboat and get your supplies with the money I’ve given you. By jiggers, I feel all the better already about this scout. With good men like you Crows with me … I can’t help but find the Sioux quick and finish them off. Now, come back as soon as you’ve made your purchases, and we’ll have something to eat.”
    Custer escorted the group to the south bank of the Yellowstone, where several boats sat on the sand to ferry soldiers to the far shore or the steamboat itself.
    As the Crow were about to board the skiffs that would row them out to the
Far West
, Custer suddenly became drained of his bubbly enthusiasm. The famous smile disappeared from his haggard face.
    “I want you scouts to know I understand you don’t know a thing about me yet,” he explained through Bouyer by the lapping waters of the Yellowstone. “I am known far and wide among the tribes as Charge-the-Camp, because I will not hesitate to wade right into a battle myself. You askabout me. Anyone will tell you how I cleaned up a camp of Cheyenne on the southern plains. That was eight years ago, but I intend to do the very thing to these Sioux. And remember the Crow scouts who ride with me—the scouts who lead me to these Sioux I’m hunting—you will share in the horses captured from the Sioux herds.”
    Smiles reappeared beneath the greased Crow pompadours as Bouyer translated.
    Sioux ponies as an additional reward? What could possibly be better?
Curley wondered.
Money from this soldier-chief to buy a new shirt for this journey, and some war paint for our faces when we ride down on the Sioux camps. Aiyeee! Now the promise of Sioux ponies as well! This is a great thing in a young Crow scout’ life!
    As Custer turned with a wave to them all, crunching back toward his tents across the icy hail melting in slushy patches up the slope, Curley turned to Half-Yellow-Face and White-Man-Runs-Him.
    “This Young Star will be a good soldier to follow. He understands Indians. He will not fall behind. I will like fighting for such a soldier. This one will win. This one will bring us victory over our old enemies. Young Star will not quiver and fall back, afraid of the Lakota.”
    As the soldier-boatman dipped his oars into the water, dragging the skiff toward the
Far West
, Curley watched the steamboat’s lights illuminate the tops of the wind-whipped whitecaps.
    “It is decided,” Curley said quietly. “I will go with this one wherever he leads me.”
    A half hour later Custer sent bugler Henry Voss to blow “Officers’ Call” through camp.
    Tom Custer was the first to appear, as was usually the case. “Something’s eating at you, Autie,” he remarked as he strode up, watching his older brother slapping the old rawhide quirt against his boot. “Don’t often see you this worked up. Reminds me of the time Benteen wrote that letter dragging your name through the mud in papers all over St. Louis, Chicago, and New York.”
    “Another attack on the Seventh, that’s what!”
    “What now? Or should I say, who?”
    “That infernal Grasshopper Jim!”
    “Brisbin?”
    “None other!” He glared testily at his brother with those icy marine eyes, flames from the nearby fire dancing off his reddish blond mustache that all but covered his mouth.
    “He still pushing to come along?”
    “Tried once more to worm his way in on this scout,” he flared. “This fight is ours!”
    “No man will argue that, Autie!”
    “He’ll play no part in any of it, not him nor Gibbon! Not even Terry.” He slapped the quirt once more for emphasis as others straggled into the ring of firelight.
    “I hope you told that bastard what-for!” Tom said.
    “I did just that!” Custer kneaded the quirt handle into his palm. “I told him the Seventh had no need of his four troops of cavalry.”
    “Damn, if you can’t stir a fighting man’s blood, Autie!” Tom slapped his brother on