Chapter 38

THE LAST STAND

However daring the pen, it cannot but falter when attempting to picture the events of those hours of victorious defeat. Out from the scene of carnage there crept forth no white survivor to recount the heroic deeds of the Seventh Cavalry. No voice can ever repeat the story in its fulness, no eye penetrate into the heart of its mystery. Only in motionless lines of dead, officers and men lying as they fell while facing the foe; in emptied carbines strewing the prairie; in scattered, mutilated bodies; in that unbroken ring of dauntless souls whose lifeless forms lay clustered about the figure of their stricken chief on that slight eminence marking the final struggle--only in such tokens can we trace the broken outlines of the historic picture. The actors in the great tragedy have passed beyond either the praise or the blame of earth. With moistened eyes and swelling hearts, we vainly strive to imagine the whole scene. This, at least, we know: no bolder, nobler deed of arms was ever done.

It was shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon when that compact column of cavalrymen moved silently forward down the concealing _coulée_ toward the more open ground beyond. Custer's plan was surprise, the sudden smiting of that village in the valley from the rear by the quick charge of his horsemen. From man to man the whispered purpose travelled down the ranks, the eager troopers greeting the welcome message with kindling eyes. It was the old way of the Seventh, and they knew it well. The very horses seemed to feel the electric shock. Worn with hard marches, bronzed by long weeks of exposure on alkali plains, they advanced now with the precision of men on parade, under the observant eyes of the officers. Not a canteen tinkled, not a sabre rattled within its scabbard, as at a swift, noiseless walk those tried warriors of the Seventh pressed forward to strike once more their old-time foes.

Above them a few stray, fleecy clouds flecked the blue of the arching sky, serving only to reveal its depth of color. On every side extended the rough irregularity of a region neither mountain nor plain, a land of ridges and bluffs, depressions and ravines. Over all rested the golden sunlight of late June; and in all the broad expanse there was no sign of human presence.

With Custer riding at the head of the column, and only a little to the rear of the advance scouts, his adjutant Cook, together with a volunteer aide, beside him, the five depleted troops filed resolutely forward, dreaming not of possible defeat. Suddenly distant shots were heard far off to their left and rear, and deepening into a rumble, evidencing a warm engagement. The interested troopers lifted their heads, listening intently, while eager whispers ran from man to man along the closed files.

"Reno is going in, boys; it will be our turn next."

"Close up! Quiet there, lads, quiet," officer after officer passed the word of command.

Yet there were those among them who felt a strange dread--that firing sounded so far up the stream from where Reno should have been by that time. Still it might be that those overhanging bluffs would muffle and deflect the reports. Those fighting men of the Seventh rode steadily on, unquestioningly pressing forward at the word of their beloved leader. All about them hovered death in dreadful guise. None among them saw those cruel, spying eyes watching from distant ridges, peering at them from concealed ravines; none marked the rapidly massing hordes, hideous in war-paint, crowded into near-by _coulées_ and behind protecting hills.

It burst upon them with wild yells. The gloomy ridges blazed into their startled faces, the dark ravines hurled at them skurrying horsemen, while, wherever their eyes turned, they beheld savage forms leaping forth from hill and _coulée_, gulch and rock shadow. Horses fell, or ran about neighing; men flung up their hands and died in that first awful minute of consternation, and the little column seemed to shrivel away as if consumed by the flame which struck it, front and flank and rear. It was as if those men had ridden into the mouth of hell. God only knows the horror of that first moment of shrinking suspense--the screams of agony from wounded men and horses, the dies of fear, the thunder of charging hoofs, the deafening roar of rifles.

Yet it was for scarcely more than a minute. Men trained, strong, clear of brain, were in those stricken lines--men who had seen Indian battle before. The recoil came, swift as had been the surprise. Voice after voice rang out in old familiar orders, steadying instantly the startled nerves; discipline conquered disorder, and the shattered column rolled out, as if by magic, into the semblance of a battle line. On foot and on horseback, the troopers of the Seventh turned desperately at bay.

It was magnificently done. Custer and his troop-commanders brought their sorely smitten men into a position of defence, even hurled them cheering forward in short, swift charges, so as to clear the front and gain room in which to deploy. Out of confusion emerged discipline, confidence, _esprit de corps_. The savages skurried away on their quirt-lashed ponies, beyond range of those flaming carbines, while the cavalry-men, pausing from vain pursuit, gathered up their wounded, and re-formed their disordered ranks.

"Wait till Reno rides into their village," cried encouraged voices through parched lips. "Then we'll give them hell!"

Safe beyond range of the troopers' light carbines, the Indians, with their heavier rifles, kept hurling a constant storm of lead, hugging the gullies, and spreading out until there was no rear toward which the harassed cavalrymen could turn for safety. One by one, continually under a heavy fire, the scattered troops were formed into something more nearly resembling a battle line--Calhoun on the left, then Keogh, Smith, and Yates, with Tom Custer holding the extreme right. The position taken was far from being an ideal one, yet the best possible under the circumstances, and the exhausted men flung themselves down behind low ridges, seeking protection from the Sioux bullets, those assigned to the right enjoying the advantage of a somewhat higher elevation. Thus they waited grimly for the next assault.

Nor was it long delayed. Scarcely had the troopers recovered, refilled their depleted cartridge belts from those of their dead comrades, when the onslaught came. Lashing their ponies into mad gallop, now sitting erect, the next moment lying hidden behind the plunging animals, constantly screaming their shrill war-cries, their guns brandished in air, they swept onward, seeking to crush that thin line in one terrible onset. But they reckoned wrong. The soldiers waited their coming. The short, brown-barrelled carbines gleamed at the level in the sunlight, and then belched forth their message of flame into the very faces of those reckless horsemen. It was not in flesh and blood to bear such a blow. With screams of rage, the red braves swerved to left and right, leaving many a dark, war-bedecked figure lying dead behind them, and many a riderless pony skurrying over the prairie. Yet their wild ride had not been altogether in vain; like a whirlwind they had struck against Calhoun on the flank, forcing his troopers to yield sullen ground, thus contracting the little semicircle of defenders, pressing it back against that central hill. It was a step nearer the end, yet those who fought scarcely realized its significance. Exultant over their seemingly successful repulse, the men flung themselves again upon the earth, their cheers ringing out above the thud of retreating hoofs.

"We can hold them here, boys, until Reno comes," they shouted to each other.

The skulking red riflemen crept ever closer behind the ridges, driving their deadly missiles into those ranks exposed in the open. Twice squads dashed forth to dislodge these bands, but were in turn driven back, the line of fire continually creeping nearer, clouds of smoke concealing the cautious marksmen lying prone in the grass. Custer walked up and down the irregular line, cool, apparently unmoved, speaking words of approval to officers and men. To the command of the bugle they discharged two roaring volleys from their carbines, hopeful that the combined sound might reach the ears of the lagging Reno. They were hopeful yet, although one troop had only a sergeant left in command, and the dead bodies of their comrades strewed the plain.

Twice those fierce red horsemen tore down upon them, forcing the thin, struggling line back by sheer strength of overwhelming numbers, yet no madly galloping warrior succeeded in bursting through. The hot brown barrels belched forth their lightnings into those painted faces, and the swarms of savagery melted away. The living sheltered themselves behind the bodies of their dead, fighting now in desperation, their horses stampeded, their ammunition all gone excepting the few cartridges remaining in the waist-belts. From lip to lip passed the one vital question: "In God's name, where is Reno? What has become of the rest of the boys?"

It was four o'clock. For two long hours they had been engaged in ceaseless struggle; and now barely a hundred men, smoke-begrimed, thirsty, bleeding, half their carbines empty, they still formed an impenetrable ring around their chief. The struggle was over, and they realized the fact. When that wave of savage horsemen swept forth again it would be to ride them down, to crush them under their horses' pounding hoofs. They turned their loyal eyes toward him they loved and followed for the last time, and when he uttered one final word of undaunted courage, they cheered him faintly, with parched and fevered lips.

Like a whirlwind those red demons came,--howling wolves now certain of their prey. From rock and hill, ridge, ravine, and _coulée_, lashing their half-crazed ponies, yelling their fierce war-cries, swinging aloft their rifles, they poured resistlessly forth, sweeping down on that doomed remnant. On both flanks of the short slender line struck Gall and Crazy Horse, while like a thunderbolt Crow-King and Rain-in-the-Face attacked the centre. These three storms converged at the foot of the little hill, crushing the little band of troopers. With ammunition gone, the helpless victims could meet that mighty on-rushing torrent only with clubbed guns, for one instant of desperate struggle. Shoulder to shoulder, in ever-contracting circle, officers and men stood shielding their commander to the last. Foot by foot, they were forced back, treading on their wounded, stumbling over their dead; they were choked in the stifling smoke, scorched by the flaming guns, clutched at by red hands, beaten down by horses' hoofs. Twenty or thirty made a despairing dash, in a vain endeavor to burst through the red enveloping lines, only to be tomahawked or shot; but the most remained, a thin struggling ring, with Custer in its centre. Then came the inevitable end. The red waves surged completely across the crest, no white man left alive upon the field. They had fought a good fight; they had kept the faith.

Two days later, having relieved Reno from his unpleasant predicament in the valley, Terry's and Gibbons's infantry tramped up the ravine, and emerged upon the stricken field. In lines of motionless dead they read the fearful story; and there they found that man we know. Lying upon a bed of emptied cartridge-shells, his body riddled with shot and mutilated with knives, his clothing torn to rags, his hands grasping a smashed and twisted carbine, his lips smiling even in death, was that soldier whom the Seventh had disowned and cast out, but who had come back to defend its chief and to die for its honor,--Robert Hampton Nolan.