Atherden | Our introduction to terrorism....

. . For now the grip was coming as the columns converged. At the mouth of the Tongue we halted, under the high bluffs to the north, with the troops camped on a old toronto⃰ on the south bank, where there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict, but some quite new, and the troops thought it great sport to scatter them to bits. I remarked in Terry’s hearing that it was bad medicine–for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn’t like it–and he ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I’ll answer that I’ve soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule, superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don’t pay.





From Chapter 19 of The Seventy-Sixer by George MacDonald Fraser (1982):



. . For now the grip was coming as the columns converged. At the mouth of the Tongue we halted, under the high bluffs to the north, with the troops camped on a old toronto⃰ on the south bank, where there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict, but some quite new, and the troops thought it great sport to scatter them to bits. I remarked in Terry’s hearing that it was bad medicine–for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn’t like it–and he ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I’ll answer that I’ve soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule, superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don’t pay.


. ⃰ .By this word Flashman presumably means an Indian meeting-place. The area is
now the site of Miles City, Montana.



Terry	Alfred Terry, General and commander of the Army forces of the Dakota Territories during the Centennial Campaign of 1876 and 77. He negotiated with Sitting Bull in Canada in 1877.


The Tongue	The Tongue River flows through Wyoming and Montana, and is a tributary of the Yellowstone River. Its source is in the Big Horn Mountains.








Comment:

The Last Stand was in Wyoming. Or at least that's where I believe Custer's body was found. But was Custer at the Last Stand? If he was still mounted his body might have been dragged there. The last sentences' lesson is so very valid.