Long Winter Gone: Son of the Plains - Volume 1 Read Online Free

lived it for centuries already. They knew nothing else but to go on as they had lived for time beyond any one man’s memory.
    In the heart of this river basin the southern tribes had long visited, the Washita wound its lazy trail in tight twists before it finally looped northward to form a large horseshoe. Black Kettle’s tribe selected that same bend in the river for their winter home. Here they were protected by the sandy red bluffs to the north across the river and the shaded knolls rising behind them. Here they would find no end to fresh water and abundant grazing for their pony herd of nearly a thousand animals. For fires to ward off the chill of autumn mornings and the numbing cold of winter nights, timber grew thick along the bottoms choked with plant life of all description ablaze in color.
    One clear, frosty morning, the Cheyenne awoke to finda thin slick of ice coating the water kettles. It was a magical time of year along the Washita. The buffalo hunted by the young men who left camp each day had already grown fat from a long summer grazing on the rich grasses carpeting the southern plains, their curly coats grown thick—a sign of an early and cold winter.
    Chief Black Kettle sighed as he bent to retrieve a bundle his wife expected him to bring to her in their lodge. His heart swelled with happiness.
    The Cheyenne will sleep here for the Time of Deep Snows.
    “Good to have you here with us,” Major Joel Elliott said, dropping his salute. “You belong here, sir. At the head of your men.”
    “Thank you, Major.” Custer flashed that famous peg-toothed smile and shook Elliott’s hand.
    “Damn good to have you back!” First Lieutenant Thomas W. Custer shouldered his way through the crowd clustered about his older brother.
    “Tom!”
    “Can’t begin to tell you what it means to us having you leading us into this one, Autie.”
    “Trouble?” Custer asked.
    “Nothing we can’t handle
now!
Right, boys?”
    Custer waited until the cheering died. “So, tell me. Something’s afoot. I can smell it.” His eyes moved from man to man, watching each of his old friends and fellow officers avoid his look.
    “Tom?”
    “It ain’t been a pretty sight here,” Tom replied. “Under siege practically every day … small bands of warriorswandering past here heading north out of the Territories. Some bands not so small.”
    “That’s trouble?” Custer rocked back on his heels and smiled beneath the corn-straw mustache. “You worried about a handful of roving warriors?”
    “They’ve proved us idiots so far,” Elliott answered grimly.
    “Buck up, gentlemen!” Custer said. “A new day is coming. We’ll soon show them a force to be reckoned with—our own beloved Seventh!”
    “Hear, hear! To the Seventh!” Tom roared, slapping his brother on the back. “To the regiment that will pacify the plains!”
    On the morning of 30 September, George Armstrong Custer had arrived at Fort Hays, Kansas, new duty station of the Seventh Cavalry. There he reported to General Sheridan, who had moved his departmental headquarters farther west to station himself closer to the main theater of hostilities.
    After less than a day of rest and some final instructions, the young lieutenant colonel pushed west with a small escort, arriving at Fort Dodge on 4 October. There he had learned his regiment was encamped some thirty miles southeast of the fort along Bluff Creek, a small tributary of the Arkansas River. Into this besieged camp the regimental commander had galloped on the afternoon of the fifth to find brother Tom, Major Elliott and the others relieved that he had arrived at last to lead the regiment into the winter campaign.
    Along with orders to reorganize the Seventh, Custer brought new ideas for some specialized training he and General Sheridan had designed for troops unaccustomed towinter warfare. Although General Alfred Sully commanded this District of the Arkansas, Sheridan had devised an operational force of eleven