Cry of the Hawk

Fort Wallace, far to the west along the Federal Road had been under daily attack. And even the nearby Fort Dodge down on the Arkansas was far from immune. Only now, reports had it, Kiowa chief Satanta himself had led a massed raid on Fort Dodge and had driven off more than a hundred head of stock, all while dressed in that pretty blue uniform, resplendent with braid and brass buttons—a gift from the head of the department, one General Winfield Scott Hancock.

“Gonna take some time to get these animals ready to go back out on the trail of those war bands.”

Jonah Hook turned at the sound of the voice. Shad Sweete strode up in the falling light. The ex-Confederate stooped to snatch up another handful of grass, using it to curry his horse.

“I hear some of them soldiers give Custer a new name few days back,” he said to Sweete. “Horse-Killer.”

The big man snorted a quick, light chuckle. “He drove the animals hard, eh?”

Jonah’s gut tightened. “He drove us and his men even harder. No graze or forage for the animals. Little water from camp to camp. A real sin, Shad. Treating stock the way he done—and all the time, coddling up to his hounds the way he does. Takes better care of those dogs than he does his own men.”

The surprising cold of spring coupled with the sudden and early heat of an approaching summer had taken about all there was in the way of strength from the regiment’s mounts. Yet worse still was to find upon their arrival at Fort Hays no feed and forage waiting. Traders and government sutlers had been there before the Seventh Cavalry rode in—weeks ago bartering and selling it off to the tribes.

Hundreds of horses and mules were led onto the prairie to graze as best they could on the new grass.

“Injun ponies live on the stuff,” Hook said as his horse snapped off some more of the growing stalks with a crackling crunch.

“But these horses of ours never meant to live wild and free on the prairie like Injun ponies, Jonah,” said Sweete. “Injun pony bred to eat grass all night and run all day. These horses of Custer’s—they don’t have a snowball’s chance in the hand of the devil hisself.”

Off in the distance, a prairie wolf set up a brief howl. Then another in the pack answered.

“There are critters live off this hard land. And some what can’t, so you’re telling me,” Jonah said as the eerie howls faded.

“Just like the warrior bands, Jonah. They’ll live off the land, running and fighting, and running again. But Custer’s cavalry—these young soldiers—they ain’t fit to run and fight on what the land gives ’em. They need their bacon and hardtack and beans.”

“You see what they had for supper tonight?”

Sweete nodded. “Moldy salt pork. And the hardtack so full of weevils, I swear mine walked right off the plate from me!”

Jonah laughed along easily with the old scout.

“Listen, son—these traders been selling the army what a sutler calls surplus.”

“Goods from the war?”

“The crates is marked with the dates it was packed—years ago, during your war back east.”

“Damn. Didn’t know a man could stoop so low as to send soldiers such food to eat.”

“Some of the bastards back east even sending crates filled with rocks.”

“Can they make ’em pay, Shad?” he asked, stuffing the last handful of grass beneath his horse’s muzzle.

“Government contracts, boy. Never anything be done about it.”

“So we starve along with Custer’s soldiers, that it?”

“Pray you don’t come down with scurvy like some already has. Cholera spreading through some of the other stations, Jonah. Pray you keep your health.”

“Injuns don’t get sick like that, do they?”

He wagged his head. “Not less’n they get too close, rubbing up against the white man, they don’t.”

For all the serious illness, for the lack of food and, worst of all, for all the lack of hope—there was one sure-fire remedy: desertion. And over the next few weeks of despair and waiting for supplies in the growing heat, a growing number of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry tried the remedy.

Yet at Fort Hays there was one officer not about to let pass the slightest infraction of rules, much less insubordination and mutiny. Not to mention out-and-out desertion. Custer vowed he would deal with every infraction swiftly, and harshly.

Without trial, soldiers who had been accused of an infraction of some military regulation or another were confined during the day to a large hole dug in the Kansas prairie, climbing down on ladders that were as quickly pulled up until sunset. It was then those soldiers still conscious from the excruciating heat were allowed to climb onto the cool prairie once more.

Drunks were quickly dealt with: given a stirring ride at the end of a dunking stool that repeatedly plunged them into the Smoky Hill River.