Chapter 20

The so-called Indian Agent was a blustering Irishman from Boston called Murphy. He was about the most mean-minded individual with a soul filled with blackness that I had ever met.

I could easily understand why he kept a pair of Johnny Reb deserters always close to his person because he made enemies left and right with little effort. I made it a point to have the least amount of interaction with him as possible because I was sorely tempted to lift his hair and say it was a wandering reservation jumper with a chip on his shoulder. Those two beady-eyed boys in grey were sometimes derelict in their duty due to a fondness for the drink and an urge to ride some poor Indian female hard into the ground. My boys didn’t have anything to do with them and it wasn’t because they were on the losing side in Mister Lincoln’s War.

I caused me to reflect on the terrible loss of steady “Abe” at a time when he was needed the most. The scheming carpetbaggers from back east were making victims of the American Indians, the defeated southerners, and the poor immigrants getting off the ships at all the points of entry with little opposition from the minions of government. In a way, the military were getting screwed as well, because our supplies were often sold to other groups and we were being told to “tighten our belts” and count our blessings. I could easily understand why so many of our men drifted away from the forts and headed to their own destiny in the civilian world.

The still-attractive white woman captive called Sue was a bit fearful when I explained that I had to leave to return to duty at the fort. She was convinced the Indian Agent Murphy would use her physically as soon as I was gone. It troubled me some knowing she was a white woman and in a bad way with a half-breed son to raise and no respect from the Indian Agent and the whoring pair of Johnny Rebs under his direct control. I considered my options and decided to take the pair of them back with me to the Fort and set her up in a small apartment of her own working to sew and repair the men’s uniforms in dire need of a woman’s touch in mending. The boy could go to the small school inside the walls and stand a better chance of assimilating with some book learning and a grasp of English to keep him out of trouble.

It was beginning to look like there was no place of safety outside the walls of the many Forts because the Plains Indians were on a killing spree the like of which had never been seen in those parts.

The reservations were a cruel joke.

In effect, they were basically a concentration camp of starvation and despair that would result in genocide unless the government took some action to rectify the situation. I guess, in the same scenario, I would have been on the war-path as well if I was in their shoes.

The scouts reported to me that the Indian tribes were all on the move down from Canada. I knew it was the start of the “great gathering” of forces to deal with the famous Yellow-hair and the dreaded bluecoats with no mercy. The tribes had nothing to lose. The buffalo were already gone. The dignity and honor of the people was gone with the wind. To die in battle seemed the only recourse in such a no-win situation.

It was obvious to me that the time for talking was long past, but the silly politicians back east kept sending so-called “mediators” to settle the conflict. I knew the only talk at this point would be bloodshed. The only question was who would be the ones shedding the blood. Would it be the United States Cavalry or the American Indians with hope all but lost?

The answer to that would be at the Little Big Horn and I knew when they started looking at the maps in the planning tent that the event was inevitable. I had no intent to reverse the course of history. It was a decision that I made years ago in the American Civil War. I knew enough of the science of linear timelines that such attempts might result in a conundrum of mysterious unforeseen consequences. I had no stomach for such tomfoolery and was satisfied with going along for the ride and making as little fuss as possible.

When I looked in the mirror shaving in the morning, I could see I was not aging the way the others around me were doing all the time. I sensed that my participation in this space-time abnormality excluded me from the aging process and that in my own time period my years in the past might be only moments asleep on the subway system of New York City. Strangely, I was more worried about being mugged by some thief on the subway than in some rage-filled Indian doing his best to relieve me of my hair in justifiable revenge against the fork-tongued white man.

I made a fairly good intelligence report of the gathering storm of Indian tribes to present to the General. He sort of sat through the whole affair getting his hair groomed and his beard trimmed never asking a question or making any comment on the dire circumstances. I was too respectful to ask for his opinion because he was a genius in his own way. Unfortunately, I was too well informed on the outcome of his nonchalance during those formative months before his last battle against overwhelming odds.

Major Reno was interested in the scout’s reports of the Indian movements. He was a pretty good officer but had a tendency to “go by the book” even when common sense dictated otherwise. He was not on the best of terms with the boy General, but it was more friction of class distinction rather than anything to do with military conflict.

We got a whole trainload of veteran Civil War dark-skinned enlisted men. They were good workers, but had been sent to the frontier without the horses they needed to fill the ranks of the mounted cavalry. It was suggested by some idiot officer that we just put them on the mules and hope for the best. I could see using that fine animal for some emergency transportation, but the job of the mounted cavalry demanded a horse of character able to display the stamina needed for long range operations on the vast open plains. I dickered with a couple of shifty-eyed Comancheros from south of the border for a string of horses that were barely adequate for the daily grind of dusty trails on the barren wastelands. They were totally undependable, but the reality of the urgent need for working horses made me close the deal and I grabbed them before some other enterprising Non-Commissioned Officer snatched them right out from under me. That string added in with the reclaimed mounts from the mustered out men gave our unit a full complement of properly mounted troopers and we were about as ready as we ever could be to confront the elusive enemy.