Distinctly Montana Magazine

44 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 6 O N THE HOT SUNDAY AFTERNOON OF JUNE 25, 1876, THOU- SANDS OF LAKOTA, NORTHERN CHEYENNE, AND ARAP- AHO WARRIORS SURROUNDED 210 CAVALRYMEN LED BY CUSTER AND CUT THEM DOWN. Amid the firing and screaming, the pounding of hoofs on dust, Comanche was shot seven times while carrying Captain Keogh. Four hit behind his shoulder, another his hoof, and one in each hind leg. One bullet through his chest exited his flank and hit Keogh's knee. They probably fell together. Most of the cavalrymen died on foot, running nowhere in partic- ular but away from the innumerable pursuers. The rank and file were killed first. Custer spent his final minutes knowing he was already dead. As Mari Sandoz writes, Custer and his officers were "surely not killed so long as flight seemed possible," but were fi- nally "killed only in the last desperate moments to delay the end." The horse, bloodied, crawled into a ravine as warriors passed through the field of dead and wounded. Within minutes, any U.S. cavalryman still alive was dead. After the battle followed the taking of prizes, the mutilation of the defeated, and the re- moval of most of the Native dead. The battle itself lasted only an hour and fifteen minutes. The cele- bration of the victors continued until, fearing reprisal, they aban- doned their camp. After that, quiet fell over the Greasy Grass. Not silence, but quiet; as the siege on Reno's men a few miles away continued into the night, anything still living on the field would have heard the distant reports of rifle fire go on for hours, and throughout the next day until, in the evening, the great mass of Native warriors left for the Bighorn mountains, leaving the ruins of their giant encampment behind. And then the valley fell silent, save for the muted droning of greenbottles and flesh flies, and the occasional screeching calls of carrion birds. On June 27, in the early morning, General Terry of the Montana Column inspected the far ridge through binoculars, examining first the few dark and white dots he could see there, and then the remains of the makeshift Indian village, apparently abandoned, nearby. The strange dots could have been the remains of a buf- falo hunt. That would have explained why some of the objects were seemingly white, and some darker—the lighter color may have been skinned buffalo, their exposed tallow twinkling in the distance. The darker objects could have been buffalo that hadn't been skinned yet. But if that were the case, where were the figures of the humans and pack animals required to process and move all the meat? The ridge stood curiously, even ominously still. The day before, Crow scouts had told them that Custer had been killed along with all of his men, but it seemed too absurd to be- lieve. Most did not credit the news, but the Crow scouts travel- ing with Terry believed their comrades, as they were reported to by JOSEPH SHELTON

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