by Judy Alter
Autie exploded with merriment, and I had to admit it was a good joke.
At Louisville we left the train. The rest of our journey south would be by steamer.
* * *
"Libbie, hurry up! Hurry up! You'll miss the fun if you don't scramble!"
"Miss what?" I asked naturally, not knowing that I was walking into the very trap they'd set for me.
"Why, they're going to bury a dead man as soon as we land," Tom said gleefully.
"Another man drowned?" I asked unbelievingly. The first night we were on the steamer, a Negro had fallen in. The boat routinely bumped into the shore, anywhere it happened to be wooded, so that more wood could be loaded. An army of hurrying Negroes, made faster by the first mate's stern voice, would hurry ashore to gather wood. The scene was eerie at night, lit by pine torches and resinous knots burning in iron baskets slung over the side. This first night they made a pretense of looking for a lost Negro but soon gave up their search. Tom was on the upper deck to tell me the tale with no time wasted, and I thought he relished it far too much, embellishing the details as he told the story. Thereafter, at every night landing, I imagined some poor soul swept off into watery depths. Now I was being invited to watch the burial of one of these victims.
"How," I demanded, "can you make so light of death?"
"What difference," Tom asked, "is one more worker, more or less?" And with that, he dragged me to the deck.
Once there, Tom stood gazing solemnly at a great cable, which was used to tie us up, fastened to a strong spar, the two ends of which were buried in the bank. The ground was hollowed out beneath the center, and the rope slipped under to fasten it around a log.
We watched while the boat was secured to the shore, and then Tom said, "The sad ceremony is now ended, and no other will take place until we tie up at the next stop."
It dawned on me, slowly I admit, that the process of tying up was called "burying a dead man." Indignantly I attacked Tom, beating my fists against his chest, but he, laughing, held me at arm's distance. And behind me I heard the familiar sound of Autie's explosion of laughter. I had once again been the butt of a good joke on "the old lady."
"General, I don't think it appropriate to play jokes on the sensibilities of such a lovely lady as your wife," said a stern voice from the shadows. Major Earle stepped forward, his frown clearly showing his disapproval.
"My behavior to my wife is best left undiscussed," Autie said coldly, turning his back on his junior officer.
I just stared, amazed that one of Autie's officers would dare to chastise him in public and indignant that he misunderstood my relationship with Autie and Tom. Something told me in childhood came back to me: "If they didn't love you, they wouldn't tease you." I was secure in Autie's love for me—and Tom's more brotherly passion—and I wouldn't have traded it for a thousand proper Major Earles.
We were on The Ruth, one of the most sumptuous steamers on the Mississippi River, and Autie and I enjoyed every luxury it had to offer, from lavishly decorated rooms to delicacies of confectionery served by white-coated waiters. We prowled the entire ship, with the blessings of a most patient captain, who even allowed us into his sacrosanct wheelhouse, where I listened for hours to his stories and watched with fascination while he pointed out, there, where the river had burst its banks and made a new channel and, here, where it had swept over its banks and flooded out someone's home. Never, I thought, has a girl from Monroe seen such sights.
Though all worry about our Texas welcome was temporarily thrust aside by my fascination with the river, it was a melancholy journey, for we saw plantation after plantation where the grand old home was abandoned, standing in a lake of water, and the slave cabins and outbuildings had all but disappeared. It seems these once-rich homesteads were protected by embankments that were not maintained when all the men were away at war. It was not enough for these poor people that they suffered the agony of defeat and loss of their loved ones, but their very homes gave way to the river.
"Wars," I said vehemently, "should be fought on deserts."
Autie, of course, was intensely interested in every battle site we passed, and he knew them all by name. At one point a tall, dignified man whose very being spoke "soldier" came on board. He turned out to be General Hood of the Confederate forces, come to greet Autie. The war was still too recent for me to be able to understand the cordiality with which the two greeted each other, but I remembered that Autie had sent greetings to his comrades on the other side of the line, and when presented to General Hood, I was as gracious as possible. Even after I was presented, they continued to trade news of various battles.
"The hardest thing," General Hood told us confidentially, "was to fit myself with an artificial leg after I lost my own. For a while I had to carry an extra strapped to my led horse, in case of accident to the one I wore. Once our reserve horses were captured, and I could just imagine the shock of the soldiers who got this horse, with an artificial leg strapped to it." Then he looked directly at me. "You can imagine, Mrs. Custer, that it pains me to admit this, but of all the legs I tried—English, German, French, Yankee, and Confederate—the Yankee was the best of all."
Autie sometimes paced the deck of the steamer late at night, when he thought I was safe asleep in our comfortable cabin. But I lay wide awake, aware that the night was passing and my husband was not with me.
"Autie?" I asked once when he crept into our cabin, almost as the first shards of daylight began to thrust in the window. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, just out on the deck," he said casually, stooping to give me a caressing kiss and brushing my face with the newly grown mustache that he would sport the rest of his life.
I pushed him away. "Why did you dress and leave me?"
"I couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to wake you. For heaven's sake, Libbie, what do you think? I had a tryst with a beautiful maiden on deck?"
"No," I said quietly, "I didn't think that at all. But it worries me that you don't sleep."
He sat down beside me, repentant, and took my hand. "I'm restless," he said. "I'm no good at loafing."
I couldn't hide my amusement. "Loafing? We've been busy as ever, supervising the captain's progress down the river, watching the plantations go by, running down the gangplank so that we could say we'd set foot in Arkansas and Missouri and Tennessee—loafing! Why, Autie, this trip has been fascinating to me. How could you be restless?" I was truly incredulous.
He clutched my hand tightly, and I sensed that Autie was begging me to listen to him. "It's not... oh, Libbie, I hate to even say this, but it's not the same as war."
Merrily—and a bit stupidly, I suppose—I replied, "Of course it's not. And aren't we glad?"
Autie stared intently at me. "Are we?"
I sobered instantly. "Autie, you can't be at war your whole life. We're not going to war now. Yours is a peacekeeping assignment. There'll be no battles."
Then he smiled briefly. "I know, Libbie. I'm not that far gone. But I'll be in command again. I'll be responsible for men, for seeing that things are done in military fashion. It'll be all right as soon as I'm in the field again."
"Of course, Autie," I said, rising to dress for the day and pushing away the thoughts that frightened me.
We were detained by orders for some little time in New Orleans, and there I thought briefly that Autie had conquered his restlessness. It was a fascinating city, nearly unscathed by the war. Funny little foreign shopkeepers still held forth in the French Quarter, nearly dragging us off the sidewalk when we walked by to offer rare coffees and spices, imported laces, all manner of goods. Autie even whispered to me that one man had pulled him aside and offered him some guaranteed aphrodisiacs.
"I told him I had no need," Autie said, leering at me until I blushed.
We ate like royalty, in restaurants where dining was raised to a fine art. Seafood was new to a Michigan girl, and I hovered over crabs, lobster, and shrimp, though I shrunk away from a huge live green turtle, upon whose bac
k was painted his epitaph: I will be served for dinner at five o'clock.
At one sidewalk cafe, Autie drank so much coffee that the old mammy who served him said "Mon Dieu!" in surprise at his capacity and proceeded, in voluble French, to tell her neighbors of what marvels a Yankee man could do in coffee-sipping. Autie swelled a little with pride—as though, I later thought, his masculinity had been commented upon, and I confess to having felt a little of the reflected glory. I was obviously attached to a man of unusual strengths. The thought does a girl's heart immeasurable good.
General Winfield Scott was staying at our hotel, and I, remembering how his picture had hung in my childhood home, was anxious to meet him, if for nothing more than to gaze upon my father's hero. Meet him we did, and though the general knew nothing of my admiration, he remembered Lieutenant Custer, who had reported to him in 1861, and he congratulated Autie on his career, congratulations that made the boy-general's heart leap for joy, I could tell.
General Scott was then very infirm, and though he begged to be introduced to me, he explained with old-fashioned gallantly that he would be obliged to claim the privilege of remaining seated. But it was too much for him, and weak as he was, he drew his tall form to a half-standing position as I entered. I remembered the picture of a colossal figure on a fiery steed—the Mexican War had seemed to mythologize the man—and I was almost sorry to see him now, tottering and decrepit.
General Sheridan was also in New Orleans, having assumed command of the Department of the Mississippi and established his headquarters in a mansion there. We dined with him often, sumptuous meals after which I was given over to the military family to entertain so that Autie and the general could confer. Autie deliberately left me in absolute ignorance of what he and Sheridan believed would be a campaign across the border into Mexico. As far as I knew, we were going to bring peace to Texas and nothing more—Autie kept me in that state of ignorance, even reading the eastern papers to me so that he could censor what I read.
"Just think of it," Tom said one day, "me, a wealthy man!"
"And how," I asked archly, "do you expect to come into this wealth?"
"Why, the spoils of war, Libbie, the spoils of war." He grinned like a disobedient child.
"The spoils of war," I said sarcastically. "In Texas? Tom, you're a dreamer!"
Before he could answer, Autie leapt across the room and boxed him soundly on the ears. When Tom lunged back, they were soon into one of their friendly fisticuff battles, which distracted me totally from the spoils of war, and once peace was restored, I never thought to pursue the subject with Tom. That was just what Autie had in mind when he instigated that sudden bout of roughhousing.
As wonderful as New Orleans was, one afternoon stands out in my mind. We spent it—the entire afternoon!—in a milliner's shop.
"Autie," I complained, "we have no money, probably not even enough to pay our passage up the Red River. I cannot buy a bonnet that I'd never wear in Texas, anyway." I stood with a sensational brown creation of felt and feathers and trim on my head, turning this way and that, admiring my image in the mirror.
"Bother practicality!" Autie said vehemently. "You shall have the best hats of anyone in Texas."
"Eliza says a good practical sunbonnet is what I need," I laughed. "Do you like this brown one... or perhaps the bottle green, with its swirl of net."
"Take them both," he replied expansively. Autie sat in a comfortable chair—provided, I'm sure, just to make husbands happy—coffee in his hand, satisfaction written on his face.
"Autie, really... ," I protested. "I can't take them both. I have no idea how much these cost, but I know they are dear."
He jingled the money in his pocket. "Never let it be said that I could not provide the best for Elizabeth Bacon of Monroe, Michigan, Judge Bacon's daughter."
"Elizabeth Custer now," I corrected him, smiling.
"Yes, but you shall always be Judge Bacon's daughter to me."
His words caught me off balance. "I think I should prefer to be Armstrong Custer's wife," I said softly.
Unaware that his words had troubled me, Autie leapt up to plant a kiss on my nose. "And so you are, my dear, so you are. Never let it be said that Custer's wife went without the best millinery." He signaled the shopkeeper. "We'll take these two. Please box them carefully for traveling."
I never knew... and don't know to this day... how much those hats cost in gold currency—I do know their price in peace of mind, and it was dear.
* * *
We sailed up the Red River the last week in June on a steamer commanded by a wonderful Yankee captain named Greathouse. The name fit his huge girth as well as the expansive nature of his hospitality.
"You and your men shall be my guests on this trip," the captain said privately to Autie, who breathed, I know, a sigh of relief. After thanking the captain appropriately for his generosity, Autie sought out his staff to inform them. Then he came to me, threw himself on the bed in our cabin, and muttered, "Custer's Luck again!"
"What now?" I asked laughing.
He told me of the captain's offer, explaining that the poor man was not going to lose a pennyworth by such hospitality. "There are government horses and freight aboard," he said, "and Greathouse will be well paid—but not by us."
The army, of course, was responsible for our expenses, but it was such a hassle to secure the money in advance that we often paid our way and waited thirty days or more for reimbursement. This time we had no funds to advance and were saved only by a prudent and calculating steamboat captain.
The scamp saw a chance for a joke. When we were all assembled with the captain, he jingled the last twenty-six cents in his pocket against his knife blade, so that it sounded as though he had gold currency.
"I always like to pay in advance," he said haughtily to Captain Greathouse. "What is the cost of this journey?"
"Sir, I have invited you to be my guests," Greathouse said with formality.
"Well, sir, if you insist," Tom said haughtily, managing to convey the sure impression that he accepted such generosity with condescension and was fully capable of paying his own way.
Behind me I heard a snort, then a choking sound, and I turned just in time to see Autie bolt out the cabin door so fast, he nearly catapulted over the railing into the muddy depths of the river.
"Must have been something he ate," Tom said solemnly.
Our trip on the Red River was a far cry from that down the Mississippi. The crooked river was ugliness itself—dull, reddish-brown water from clay beds, tree trunks gray and slimy from the last sudden rising of the level of the river, muddy banks strewn with brush and fallen trees. Sometimes the pilot wound us around piles of driftwood and logs, covered with moss and jammed so tightly that they looked like solid ground. The surrounding forest was so dense that we could see into it but a short distance, and I imagined it filled with all sorts of horrors, from unrepentant Confederate soldiers to haints who lived in the air and subsisted on the dripping Spanish moss.
There was a more real and present danger.
"I almost got him!" Autie shouted with disgust. He was aiming his rifle at an alligator, trying for the vulnerable spot in their hide just behind the eye.
"What would you do with the disgusting creature if you did kill it?" I asked unhappily.
"Why, turn it into shoes and a bag for you," he said.
"Better you should hit a sand crane," I replied. "They look so miserable standing on one foot. I'm sure it's because they can't bear to put both feet down into the muck of this river!" In spite of my resolve, I don't think I was quite game on that trip.
Captain Greathouse's company was the only thing that made the trip bearable, and with great regret we parted from him at Alexandria, Louisiana, where we were to stay for some time before moving on to Texas. The captain seemed to enjoy our silly, joyous bunch, too, and gave us a hogshead of ice as we departed. Little did I know it was the last ice I would see for a year or more.
* * *
As I stepped off the boat, a worn-looking man in slightly shabby clothes came toward me. Instinctively I backed a step toward Autie. Southerners, I knew, were not glad to have us among them.
"Libbie," the man cried, "it's so good to see you after all these years."
Dubiously, I held out my hand. He did look a little familiar, but only, I thought, because he called to mind someone much younger and much happier. There was something about those eyes, though....
"It's Lane Murphy, Libbie. We met years ago in Monroe, when we were both young and carefree." There was just a touch of regret in his voice, as though he longed to go back to that "carefree" time.
"Lane!" I cried. Lane Murphy! Once I had fantasized that he would whisk me away to a charming southern plantation, where I would be waited on hand and foot; now here he stood before me, obviously no longer the wealthy plantation owner I had thought him.
"You're to stay in my family's home," he said. "I couldn't believe it when I heard who the army had quartered there."
"I... I hope we won't be putting them to any trouble," I said, appalled at the thought of moving in on someone and sharing their house with them.
"No... no one has lived in the house for over a year," he said reluctantly. "My parents are both dead now... and I live in the overseer's quarters alone."
Did he emphasize that last word? "Lane, I'm so sorry... the war, I suppose..."
"Yes, the war. It's been hard on everyone, I fear." But then he brightened. "Except you. You look wonderful, Libbie. Fit and healthy and happy."