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the savages this time out.”
    Late that night Custer finished supper and set his plate aside. Tonight’s would be the last hot meal he or his men would remember for some time to come.
    The snow continued to pile up outside as the camp settled into that restless peace of soldiers on their last night before departing into the unknown. A solitary tent glowed with lamplight. Well past midnight Custer continued to push his numb fingers across the sheet of paper, scribbling a final letter to his wife.
    MY DARLING ROSEBUD ,
    Your handsome beau is thinking only of you at this hour. We stand on the precipice of something great. Perhaps all we have dreamed of, my sweet. With one stroke I can right the wrong done me. Continue my career climb. And put our lives back together. I so need you. All others are as toys compared to you. That you must believe.
    The snow grows deeper outside. Already I find more than six inches on the ground, and it’s falling rapidly. Problem is, in this corner of the world, the wind blows every bit of it into icy drifts. Do not worry for me, my love. Destiny awaits me down this wilderness road.
     
    It snowed all night.
    When reveille sounded at four A.M ., yanking soldiers from their warm blankets, the Seventh Cavalry found better than fifteen inches on the ground; and the storm wasn’t letting up. Still more snow pushed angrily through the bone-bare trees.
    Despite his wool blankets and buffalo robes, Sheridan had found it hard to sleep through the icy night. Now he lay alone in his tent, listening to the familiar, reassuring sounds of men and animals preparing for departure. Surprised at himself, the general suffered a momentary pang of doubt in sending good men out in such bitter weather. His melancholia was just as quickly interrupted by a sturdy rap at the front pole of his huge wall tent.
    “Yes?” Sheridan demanded.
    The buglers were blowing “The General,” that familiar call ordering troopers to strike their tents and pack the wagons for the march.
    “It’s Custer, sir. May I have the honor of saying farewell to an old friend in person?”
    “Of course, Custer. Come in.”
    Clutching a blanket around his trembling shoulders, Sheridan stood to turn up the wick on his lamp, its feeble, flickering saffron light wind-dancing on bitter gusts that sneaked in on Custer’s heels.
    “Damn this infernal thing!” His numb fingers were unable at first to adjust the wick roller.
    “May I be of some help?”
    “There.” Sheridan got the lamp to respond. “That’s better, now.” He pointed to the corner by his trunk. “Grab one of those stools, Custer.”
    The young cavalry officer settled on his perch, clumsy in his bulky buffalo coat, looking like a portly blackbird balanced precariously atop a delicate branch. His thick mustache dripped melting hoarfrost into the beard framing his face.
    “Warm enough, Custer?”
    “Yes, sir. What’s more, I’m happy to report the Seventh is prepared for what may come in this campaign.”
    “I see.” Sheridan rose from his cot and paced to the front flap, where he allowed the cold to slice in at him as he peered out at the men and animals, dark smudges across the new snow. “Seems the storm has moved east at last.”
    Custer stood, stepped to the flap beside Sheridan. “It’s a good sign for us, pulling out just as we are.”
    Sheridan trudged back to his cot, where he sank heavily. “I had forgotten how you look at things sometimes. Searching for a good omen in every turn you make in life.”
    “But, of course. I’ve been blessed with what many of my men have come to call Custer’s Luck.”
    “You’re the first to believe in it, too, eh?”
    “If I didn’t, how could I ask my men to believe in me?”
    Sheridan studied the bushy eyebrows of the taller man. “You damn well go out there and make your own luck, don’t you? You did it with General McClellan when you recklessly waded the Chickahominy. Then you impressed General Pleasanton with