Part 2 ~ Yates

[The Sound of the Firing Guns] Twelve different people, twelve different viewpoints. The thing that links them is one battle.

PART 2

‘’Where the hell is Captain Benteen?!’’ Captain George Yates exclaimed as he watched a number of Indians clustering north of the ridge where Custer and his men were currently positioned. ‘’He should be within sight by now �" shouldn’t he?! Oh heaven above, I don’t even know the time anymore!’’ The captain halted his rant �" which had been stopping and starting for at least fifteen minutes by then �" and fumbled in his jacket for his pocket watch. With trembling hands, he tried to flip it open. It tumbled into the river below, the dial sinking into the mud. He swore. Another arrow seared past, coming within inches of his hand. No one flinched anymore.

‘’Goddammit, I can’t even see where they are,’’ Yates muttered, didn’t even bother to look into the trees along the river. They must have been in there, must have been, but the heat was stifling, licking at Yates and getting trapped in his uniform, and he couldn’t tell what was there in front of him and what wasn’t. He didn’t even know if that was General Custer up on the hillside or just some figment of his weary imagination, stretched to project proposed ideas against the sky so he could feel better �" more hopeful �" about being atop a horse amongst the reeds and waiting for a sign, if only to break this awful, awful tension.

Sitting ducks. They were bloody sitting ducks.

But it wasn’t Custer. Never Custer.

‘’Where the hell is Captain Benteen?!’’ he said again. Again. Again. Who was listening? Everyone. And no one.

Not even he was listening when the distant phantom call of volley fire rose through the air, bursting the bubble of repeated yells and orders. So far away, but just up that hill. Another arrow. Someone was bleeding onto his leg.

The volley.

At last.

They knew what to do. They moved as one, organised, quick, tidy. Up out of the coulee and to Custer.

Yates felt his pocket watch shatter as his horse’s hooves came straight down upon it.