Chapter 13 #3
Custer nodded, deeply upset. “Politicians! My military service is beginning to consist of traveling back and forth between their hearings in the East and my troops out here! It seems that they don’t care what is going on out here, if they can just get the right results from us.
Damnation!” Sloan arched a brow; Custer so seldom swore.
He seemed incredibly shaken. “They are a pack of hypocrites. Kill the Indians—just don’t get any blood on us!
Befriend the Indians—just don’t let it cost us anything.
I told them the truth!” he said. “I told them about the graft and the corruption, and I told them that President Grant’s fat, pompous brother was getting rich on government contracts—and because I spoke the truth, I’m being summoned to Washington when my troops will face danger without me! ”
Sloan lifted a hand, then hesitated. Custer had a habit of mixing truth and rumor, and not realizing the difference between the two himself.
Though Custer had taken a permanent army position after the war without the benefit of his “brevet” rank, it was still deemed appropriate and courteous to refer to the man as “general.” Despite the fact that Custer irritated him nearly to death upon most occasions, Sloan thought now that the one decent thing Custer was attempting to do here was going to hurt him.
“General, you have a habit of telling me government policy and then, when I ask you for a sane and rational explanation, you say, ‘That’s the way it is!’ Well, Autie, listen to me: this is the way that it is.
Our old General Grant is President Grant now, and that’s the way it is.
His brother is corrupt, and I’m damned sure that he’s admitted it, but that isn’t going to make you a popular man.
You’ve been summoned. You’ve got to go back.
Answer the questions you’re ordered to answer, and do your damned best to be both honest—and diplomatic. ”
Custer stared at him, shaking his head again. “How the hell have you done it, all these years? You’ve said what you think; you’ve defied Phil Sheridan—who does think you’re capable of scalping him, by the way—and they’ve never hanged you.”
“I never took on the president’s brother,” Sloan said.
Custer sighed, looking at his hands. “The whole damn thing is a mockery!” He shoved a letter toward Sloan.
“Will you look at this!” He thumped the letter with his forefinger.
“I started this argument because Belknap was forcing soldiers to buy their goods from his corrupt contractors. I argued that the management of the agencies should be in the hands of the military instead of with those inept robbers in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Emergency rations were requested for a number of the agencies; our ‘good’ Indians were starving to death because their government subsidies had met with the highway thievery of the government contractors, so now hundreds—perhaps thousands!—of those peaceful Indians have left places like the Red Cloud Agency to go and join with the damned hostiles, wherever the hell they may be! The government cries out that we do not punish our enemies, but each time we take to the field, the government causes us to face more and more of our enemies!”
Sloan quickly scanned the letter. He’d seen the situation; he’d expected no less.
“All those Indians leaving the agencies are going straight to the hostiles, aren’t they, Major?”
“I would imagine,” Sloan said. “What would you do under the circumstances?”
Custer swore. He stood, pacing the room.
“I know that you’re aware of Sheridan’s planned three-pronged attack.
Hell, everyone who can read ten sentences in a row knows Sheridan’s plan; surely the Sioux know it, too.
General Crook has already ridden out of Fort Fetterman, heading north, on the Bighorn Expeditions.
He’s supposedly an ‘observer,’ and Joe Reynolds is supposed to be field commander, but I know Crook, and he’ll be commanding.
He’s the first of Sheridan’s columns to take to the field. And I’m on my way back to Washington.”
“Apparently, you have no choice. And you are aware, as is General Terry, that we are still in the midst of winter, and that winter can be treacherous. General Crook and his troops could be bogged down for months.”
“But he is still in the field!” Custer said wistfully. He cleared his throat. “We disagree often enough, Trelawny, but in this instance, I’m requesting that you do something for me.”
“At this moment, you still outrank me,” Sloan reminded him.
“I don’t want to give you an order; I want your help in something that means more to you than it does to me.
If you write letters to Sherman, Sheridan, and Grant, you will help my cause.
” He shrugged. “I believe that the generals will stand with me, support me, but your opinion on matters regarding the Sioux, hostile and not, is respected, and if you were to write regarding the corruption and graft at the agencies…”
“In this matter, you know that you have my support.”
Custer nodded gravely, looking down at his hands.
They were trembling. He clenched them tightly together.
He appeared a very grave man indeed. He had shorn the long curly blond locks that he had worn on his reckless rides to glory during the Civil War.
He appeared older now, and far more solemn than Sloan had ever seen him.
Sloan saluted him before turning to leave the office.
On the wooden porch walkway just outside the building, he paused.
He would support Custer because the cause was just. But it was ironic.
Custer would come back and viciously lead his troops against Sloan’s own blood.
And they had reached a point in the conflict where there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Crazy Horse was determined on war; Sitting Bull, who had drawn the respect of so many of the Lakota Sioux from all the tribes—Miniconjou, Brule, Oglala, Hunkpapa, and the rest—intended to make a stand.
Sloan thought wearily that he should have stayed the hell out of the damned cavalry.