Long winter gone / Terry C. Johnston.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The bestselling author of Crack in the Sky brings to life Custer's legacy as never before in the start of a triumphant trilogy.

From the battlefield to the homefront, they were the proud and passionate inheritors of a glorious frontier, their fates linked to the star of one ambitious, enigmatic--and tragic--man. Few names of the American frontier resonate like that of George Armstrong Custer. His fiery temperament and irrepressible arrogance led him to glory on the field of battle . . . and tragedy at Little Big Horn.

At twenty-eight, Custer was already a legend. In 1868, the Civil War hero was sent west to lead a daring winter campaign against the Cheyenne. Among the hostiles captured at the battle of Washita was Monaseetah, a ripe, raven-haired firebrand of only seventeen summers. Though "Yellow Hair," as her people called him, had taken her prisoner, it was he who was held hostage by her charms--and he who risked marriage, reputation, and career in her arms. For in love, as on any other battlefield, Custer would never know retreat.