Thirty Years on the Frontier. McReynolds Robert
another brother, Boston Custer, and his nephew, Armstrong Reed, a youth of 19. All were scalped except General Custer and Mark Kellogg, a correspondent of the New York Herald.
When the fight was at the hardest a Crow Indian with Custer wrapped himself in a dead Sioux Indian’s blanket and made his escape; as he left the field he saw the squaws and Indian children rifling the dead of their trinkets and going about with their stone battle axes beating out the brains of the wounded; they danced about over the dead and dying, mutilating their bodies and singing the wild, weird strains of their battle songs.
When the welcome news of relief came to Reno’s besieged command, strong men wept like children.
Among the first of his men to search among the fallen for a dead friend was one Charles Wilson, a blue-eyed, beardless trooper, a mere boy whose heart seemed to fairly break as he contemplated what must have been the awful death of his comrades. The man he was seeking was Jim Bristow, a tall, dark private whose last words to the young trooper were:
“Charley, my hour has come. We shall ride into this fight and you will come back alone. I want you to promise to take a little trouble for me when I am gone. You will find her face here in this locket upon my breast. I had thought to some day make her my wife, and that thought has gladdened my lonely life. Write to her, Charley, and tell her where is my resting place and that my spirit will wait for hers in that borderland twixt heaven and earth.”
The boy answered, and his voice was low with pain. Just then the bugle sounded, and for an instant eye met eye and hand touched hand, and Jim Bristow rode away with Custer’s column. This was the man young Wilson was searching for. The dead were so frightfully mutilated, their bodies bloated, blackened and swollen by the hot rays of the sun that they were buried as speedily as possible, on June 28th. Major Reno and the survivors of his regiment performed the last sad rites over their comrades and then a general retreat to the mouth of the Big Horn River was ordered.
V
THE SHADOW SCOUT
The bugle notes had died away, the cloud of battle smoke lifted from the valley and peaceful starlight shone over the rugged hills when a shadow crept out of a deep ravine and skulked into the valley of death and began dealing out retribution. Chief Dull Knife had much to say about it when he surrendered. He spoke in whispers when he referred to it, and he looked suddenly around, as if he feared it was softly stealing upon him to stab him in the back. Chief Gall’s braves had something to say about it when they surrendered, and when white men asked them who or what the shadow was, they shook their heads and whispered:
“We kill ’em all, but yet there is one left. It is a white man; there is blood on his face and clothing; he carries a sabre and two revolvers, and the night wind blows his long black hair over his shoulders. It is a spirit sent by the Great Manitou to watch over the graves of the white soldiers.”
White men saw the shadow, hunters, trappers and scouts who built their camp fires near that valley, through which the big mountain wolf skulked and prowled all night long, had felt the mysterious presence of the shadow or had seen it. They fled from their blankets at its soft step, and they had fired at it, and seen it glide off unharmed.
It was not a shadow of sentiment, but a being who sought vengeance for the butchery of the little band of heroes, for the brave comrades who grouped themselves about the noble Custer and fought to the death.
When the soldiers moved out of the valley, leaving so many graves behind them, the wolves rushed out from canon, ravine and den, to dig up the fresh earth and mutilate the dead. The shadow was there – a solitary, mysterious and vigilant sentinel to guard those sacred mounds. It screamed and gestured at the fierce beasts, it fired upon them with rifle and revolver and struck them with bright, keen sabre. The wolves ran here and there, from grave to grave, gnashing their teeth in anger, but the shadow closely pursued them. They formed in groups in the midnight darkness and waited for the shadow to tire out and fall asleep or go away, but it paced up and down over the graves, vigilant and unwearied, and daylight came to hurry the wild beasts to their lairs till another night.
Hunters and scouts had seen the sentinel-beat among the graves in the light of noon-day, when men could not be mistaken. The path ran from grave to grave, winding about to take in every one, and then it ran to the river and disappeared in a ledge of rocks. Scouts said it was a path beaten by human feet. The Indians said that a shadow or spirit alone could remain in that lonely spot, having only the company of wild beasts and the graves of the lonely dead.
Once when Red Cloud and a trusty few were scouting to learn the whereabouts of their white foes, they encamped in the valley for the night. The shadow stole among them as they slept, and when the fierce scream aroused the band from their slumbers, five of the red men had been murdered, each throat slashed across with a keen blade. The shadow stood and jeered at the living, who huddled together like frightened children. When they fled for their lives it pursued them with drawn saber, and one of them had a scar on his shoulder to prove he had been struck with a blade. Next day when a full band of Indians rode into the valley to solve the mystery and secure revenge, they saw no living thing. The bodies of the dead warriors were cut and hacked and gashed. Five of the poor cavalrymen whose brains had been beaten out had been revenged.
Before the crown of a single grave had sunk down, Crazy Horse started to cross the valley at midnight with his lodges. The shadow confronted his band and mocked them, and as the red men hurried along in the darkness, vividly recalling the mad charge of the cavalry, the strange shadow skulked along with the column and fired shot after shot into the band. They fired at it and rushed out to capture it, but it disappeared, as shadows do. Two squaws, a child or two, an old man and two warriors fell by the bullets which the shadow fired. From that time the red men avoided the valley as white men avoid a pest. They would not cross it or skirt it, even at high noon when the sunshine beat down upon the graves.
Texas Jack, the famous scout in the employ of the army, and a companion, in the late autumn of 1876 crossed the lonely battleground and halted long enough to see that the graves had not been disturbed. They saw the path of the sentinel leading from grave to grave. They saw the skeletons of the red men slain by the shadow. They saw the shadow itself. They were leaving the valley when their ears were greeted by a wild laugh, and from a bed of rank grass and dry weeds a quarter of a mile away they saw the shadow beckon them to come forward. The shadow was a man – a tall, gaunt, heavy bearded and long-haired human being dressed in rags that once had been an army uniform. He held up in the air and shook at them a carbine and a sabre, and when they galloped away, he sent a leaden ball whistling over their heads.
This was the last time this trooper was seen alive, no doubt he was bereft of reason, and believed himself called upon to avenge his comrades and so lurked in the valley, living like the wild beasts around him and missing no chance to strike a blow.
Some years later, when peace was restored and Crow Dog with his son and two warriors were hunting buffalo on the Little Big Horn, they were themselves pursued by a hostile party of Crow Indians. They took refuge among the shelving rocks along the river. Far into the deep recesses, where the waves and winds for centuries had hollowed out a chamber, they found a skeleton. By its side lay a carbine, two revolvers and a long cavalry sabre; about the neck was a delicately wrought chain with a gold locket attached. This and some other trinkets they carried away. After a lapse of fourteen years from the time Custer and his soldiers fell, these same Sioux Indians were again on the war path in the Bad Lands of South Dakota. Custer’s old regiment was there, too. Many of them had fought with Reno and Benteen on that fateful 25th of June, and by the chance of war it was a part of their command under Colonel Forsythe who fought the battle of Wounded Knee. Among them was Charles Wilson, the beardless boy, who rode away with Reno, whilst his friend Jim Bristow followed Custer. No longer a boy, but a bronzed and bearded soldier who had stood the chance of fate in many an Indian fight.
After the battle, when they were gathering up the dead Indians frozen stiff by a four days’ blizzard which raged with wild fury over the plain, there was found about the neck of a young warrior a locket and chain. Wilson curiously examined the trophy and found upon opening it, the photograph of Jim Bristow on one side and upon the other the sweet face of the girl who had promised to be his wife. The young brave from whose neck the locket was taken was found to be the son of Crow