Essay: The Lone Taurus

The Lone Taurus

Hubris springs eternal. I know this first-hand. Following in the path of G.A. Custer, I made a bonehead, hubristic move on the Little Big Horn. It was exactly 25 years ago today, June 25, 2001. My compadre, A. J. Thompson, and I went to the 125th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

We got there early and explored the Reno and Custer battlefields, walking ghostly trails into the past. Across the Little Big Horn River, grandstands began to fill for the reenactment.

Captain Thompson and I hit on the idea of finding a spot to watch the battle from our side of the river, instead of driving down to the frontage road and crossing the river to join the crowd in the stands. We are not sheep, we said. We scouted around and found a worn dirt path that headed toward the river. We proceeded down it.

In a flat clearing, we found a nice secluded spot that offered a commanding view. Much better than the grandstands. We parked my mother’s Ford Taurus which I had borrowed for the day and sat waiting for the battle to commence. We saluted ourselves on our brilliant gambit. “Captain Thompson, I like our position,” I said.

In front of the grandstands I spied a movie camera on a tripod. A man standing by it was waving his arm back and forth, like a windshield wiper. What is that man doing? I wondered. Was he waving at . . . us? Why? Did he recognize my mother’s Taurus?

Thompson and I looked at each other. He said, “Colonel, I think we might be in the field of battle.” He was correct. I spun the lone Taurus around and spurred it up the worn path — just as Custer had done that day 125 years prior when he tried to cross the river into the Indian camp and retreated hells bells up the ravine to his last stand.

As we charged up the hill in a cloud of dust, I imagined hundreds of arrows pinging and denting my mother’s Taurus. I’d catch hell for that. Fortunately, Custer and the 7th Cavalry were the only ones who caught hell that day.

Today, June 25, 2026, is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn — also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Wish I could be there to watch the reenactment of this iconic event. And hubris lives on.