Libbie

by Judy Alter

  "Because every man in this post would like to have you for himself... some more than others."

  "Pshaw! Most of them are happily married."

  "And some," he said darkly, "are not."

  My mind flew to James Coker, for I knew he was in Autie's thoughts at the moment.

  Another time: "It's a great expedition, Libbie—those Indians are going to see what a fighting force we have and abandon the warpath. They'll know they can't win."

  I was filled with terrors and wished I could believe as easily as he did.

  And finally: "Libbie, don't let me see you cry, for I could not bear it."

  Chin in the air, I replied, "I won't." But then, unable to hold back the tears in the privacy of our bedroom, I collapsed in great sobs, and Autie stroked me until, once again, despair was replaced by passion.

  Next morning I stood straight and tall as the band played "The Girl I Left Behind Me" and then endured the absolute silence that prevailed as the column left the garrison. We army wives were too well trained to give in to weeping and wailing as our men marched out, but oh! It overtook us when they were out of sight.

  Melissa Thompson, bereft, came to stay at my house for a night or two, to gain comfort, and I listened to her say the Lord's Prayer backward and count to 10,000, all in an effort to put herself to sleep.

  "Libbie, are you awake?"

  "Yes, and have been for ever so long."

  "Oh, say something to me, for I'm past all hope of sleep," she implored, and so I recited a single verse of poetry that leapt to my mind:

  There's something in the parting hour

  That chills the warmest heart;

  But kindred, comrade, lover, friend Are fated all to part.

  But this I've seen, and many a pang

  Has pressed it on my mind—

  The one that goes is happier

  Than he who stays behind.

  When at last Melissa slept, I lay awake, haunted by my own thoughts. I loved Autie desperately, and I could not face the thought of his death on the field of battle—at the hands of savages, no less—but there was a corner of my mind that wondered what life without Autie would be like. And I could not quiet that corner, despite my best efforts. I began, again, to recite poetry to myself, over and over.

  Chapter 11

  All around us, as far as we could see, the rolling land was covered with prairie grass. It grew thick and matted down into close clumps on the plains and in the valley along the river near us.

  "Libbie? Look at that, like a ribbon of smoke." Diana stood, shielding her eyes with one hand while she gazed to the west. With a group of officers' wives, now all abandoned like myself, we were out for a walk around the parade ground.

  I looked for a long minute. "It is smoke. It looks like a tiny thin line of fire far out on the prairie. I'll sound the alarm."

  "Why?" she asked, shrugging. "It's a long way away. It's not going to bother us."

  But I knew better. Hadn't Autie made me read about fires as part of what he called my indoctrination into life on the plains? In Kansas, where the wind blows so constantly and fiercely, the least flame, seen from miles away, is life threatening. Unfortunately, that was about all I knew about fires, and none at the post—even Autie before he left—had been enough of a plainsman to have taken the precautions so common to ranchers. We should have had double furrows plowed around the entire post, so as to stop any leaping fire. And at the first sight, we should have burned a stretch of grass between the post and the fire, to rob the advancing blaze of its food.

  The men left at the post discovered the fire almost at the same time. Behind us we heard a roar and shout from the soldiers' barracks as they were marshaled into a fighting line. Transfixed, we women stood and watched as that slender tongue of fire, curling and creeping toward us, began to ascend in waves. In seconds the sky had turned black, the sun shut out by a dark pall of smoke. This dark canopy was broken by flashes of light when flames, fanned by a fresh gust of wind, rose heavenward.

  The blaze swept on toward us, surging in waves, coming ever closer, until it seemed that the end of the world, when all shall be rolled together as a scroll, had really come. The whole earth appeared to be on fire.

  The river was half a mile away, and our feet could not fly fast enough to reach it before the flames overtook us. There was no such thing as a fire engine; we did not even have Babcock Extinguishers. All the men—citizen employees, soldiers, and officers—seized gunnysacks, blankets, anything that came to hand, and raced wildly beyond the post to the fire. Forming a cordon, they beat and lashed the flames with blankets, twisted so as to deliver a more powerful blow. Soldiers yelled, swore, and leapt in frenzy as the flames darted around them. They would stamp the flames out in one spot, only to run madly across the prairie to another island of flame and begin stamping and thrashing anew.

  Clutching Diana with one hand, I stood motionless. Not a woman around me spoke—all were nearly paralyzed in horror. Those with young children clutched the youngsters to them and tried, vainly, to quiet the cries of terror. But beyond these whimperings, there was no sound except the roar of the fire and frantic cries of the soldiers.

  The wind, which sent the danger toward us, saved us. Capriciously, in its usual Kansas fashion, it swept the flames off in a new direction, away over the bluffs. And then, in that smoky air, we stood and looked at devastation. The green that had begun to appear on the prairie with spring was gone, and the land looked more desolate than ever, a blackened desert surrounding us.

  * * *

  Within days of the fire, a unit arrived to replace the departed cavalry. They were black infantrymen, garrisoned to the post for the summer under the command of Colonel John Williamson, a courteous, quiet, and scholarly man, who was baffled by the behavior of his untrained charges. While they danced and turned cartwheels on the parade ground, he stood by with obvious perplexity. When they were issued their first rifles and in great joy fired round after round from the barracks, he was incapable of restoring them to order.

  One afternoon as we sat on the veranda, the sound of a shot came from the barracks, followed by a wild rush of men out the doors, running back and forth, yelling with alarm. My needlework dropped unseen from my hands—I was trying to repair the damage done to my riding habit by hard use and the Kansas wind—as I stared in horror, wondering what had happened.

  "Eliza?" I called.

  Sticking her head out the door, she stared a minute, then said grimly, "I bet they done shot someone. Fools can't handle a gun."

  And that is exactly what happened. One soldier trustingly allowed himself to be cast for the part of William Tell's son. He was shot and killed by a man who had held a gun in his hand for the first time that week.

  Eliza tried to counter my growing concern about the lack of discipline on the post. "Nothin's gonna happen, Miss Libbie. They're jes' havin' some fun." She was actually enjoying having the new troops at Riley, for never before had she been courted by so many. She would flirt with a new beau one day, quarrel and discard him for a new one the next. The men hovered around her—and around our kitchen, where I suspect they ate very well during their brief time in Eliza's favor.

  Eliza was having fun, but I knew what Autie thought of the inappropriate combination of soldiers and fun, and I worried about the lack of discipline. Williamson simply watched benevolently, though he had locked up the accidental murderer for one night and issued a stern command against use of firearms inside a building. Nonetheless, we still heard shots from the barracks.

  One night I was wakened from a sound sleep by the tramp of feet over the ground. I lay, listening for the sentinel to call out, but heard nothing. Diana crept into my room to ask what was going on, and I, equally puzzled, called for Eliza.

  "Lord, I don't know what they's doin'," Eliza said, joining us at the bedroom window, where we knelt clutching our wrappers about us and feeling ill prepared—and poorly dressed—to meet any crisis.

  Muttered threats and a
low rumble, like a constant growl, reached our ears, though we could not make out anything that was said. But we could see fists waved threateningly in the air and feet stamped impatiently as the men milled about, not yards from our house.

  Diana clutched my arm. "Libbie, I... I wish Autie were here."

  "So do I," I answered grimly. "It appears to be a mutiny." The very thought sent a shiver through me. If Autie had been at Riley, there would have never been a mutiny... and we women would not be helplessly alone with no one to call for help. I remembered the shaved heads of in-subordinates and, worse, the young man nearly executed in Louisiana. No, there would have been no mutiny with Autie present. As it was, those who were supposed to protect us were the very ones threatening us.

  The men were demanding that Williamson come out of his house, the very dwelling that adjoined ours, and I feared at any moment they would storm the doors.

  "Miss Libbie, you know we's safe inside here."

  "In a house with no locks?" I asked. "Not that locks would stop them." Surely black soldiers were not as cruel to women as Indians, I thought to myself, not wanting to ask Eliza's opinion on the subject.

  "They won't come near here, Miss Libbie. Too many of them done ate your good food. And remember the one you wrote a letter for? Or the one you gave the ginnel's shirt to because he didn't have one without patches? They'll protect this house, you mark my words."

  To my everlasting relief, the men dispersed without violence, though their muttering could be heard the rest of the long, sleepless night. Next day we learned that it was a mutiny over sugar—Colonel Williamson had, rightly, refused to issue the entire ration of sugar at once.

  My letters to Autie were grim and desperate, filled with fire and mutiny, and his in return told of a snowstorm so fierce that the horses had to be whipped to keep them moving and thus prevent death from freezing. One of Autie's fellow officers, suffering from the cold, begged to borrow Lord Byron as a sleeping companion for warmth. Autie agreed and then howled with laughter when the man complained the dog had slept on top of him and nearly suffocated him.

  But the expedition was not going well. They had tried to parley with a band of Pawnee Indians, who had, in fear—even Autie admitted that—slipped away in the night. They split up into small groups, so that the army could not follow them—leading, I knew as I read between the lines of the letters, to great frustration on Autie's part. Then a stage station was burned on the Smoky Hill Trail, and in retaliation Hancock burned the village left behind by the Pawnee. Autie insisted, however, that it was Sioux who attacked the stage station, not Pawnee—and later, too late for the Pawnee, he would be proved right. The Sioux chief Pawnee Killer, whom Autie had councilled with and trusted, was responsible for the carnage. Meanwhile, Autie's frustration was growing... and his loneliness.

  "I could bear all this better," he wrote, "if my dear girl were by my side. I am nothing without you...."

  Holding that letter in my hand, I stared out over the plains and thought what a wild land we had come to, how far from Monroe, with its predictable climate and peaceful, civilized ways. For all my differences with Autie, I would not have gone back for anything. He loved me.

  * * *

  My next letter from Autie said that I might safely join him at Fort Hays, where a temporary camp was being set up. Autie never asked if I preferred to stay at Riley; he simply expected me at Hays with all possible haste. He had left in March, and it was now May—we had been apart two months, and though we'd endured longer separations during the war, this seemed interminable to both of us. "I did not marry you to live in separate houses," he wrote. "One bed shall accommodate us both.... Bring a good supply of bacon—one hundred pounds or more; three or four cans of lard, vegetables—potatoes, onions, etc. You will need calico dresses... and bring a set of field croquet."

  From Autie's letter, I began to think I was going to a house party—field croquet, indeed!

  When I heard that General Sherman and a party were to stop at Riley on their way by train to Fort Harker, I ordered Diana to pack what she could into a valise. Sherman was more than willing to do anything to keep his boy-general happy and applauded my decision to join Autie.

  "Every cavalryman needs a wife as brave as you," he said benevolently, and I blushed. Little did I realize what I, with my so-called bravery, would be called on to face.

  Eliza fixed us a huge roll of bedding, and that, with our two valises, was handed into the general's special railroad car—somewhat to my embarrassment, for the bedding hardly looked like ladies' baggage. But I anticipated sleeping on the ground once we got to Fort Hays, and experience had by now taught me to be practical.

  The railroad line was littered with deserted town sites. Towns sprung up overnight and disappeared as quickly, the one-story buildings and tents moved on to the next spot to form a new street of saloons. Devastation was left behind—broken kegs; short, rough chimneys made of small stones; tin cans everywhere; broken bottles littering the ground; great gaping holes where canvas-roofed buildings had stood. Civilization was, I thought, making a mess of the West.

  "Libbie, if that is Fort Harker, Riley looks a paradise," Diana whispered to me as we descended from the train.

  Before us was a scene barely better than the abandoned towns we had passed—dismal wooden buildings huddled together against the Kansas wind, and no trees nor vegetation softened the landscape. Even the soldiers looked disheartened, I thought. Diana and I shared a room with a floor of boards so uneven that enough prairie sand had sifted in to plant a good crop of something.

  James Coker was at Harker with a detachment of men and was to escort us the eighty miles to Fort Hays. He looked at me with amusement once he settled his two female charges into the ambulance. "Well, Libbie, if it's not a swollen river, it's an Indian-infested prairie."

  "Pshaw, James," I answered laughingly, "we're in good hands, and we know it." It never occurred to me that the march was really dangerous, nor did I understand the quick, dark look that James shot in my direction.

  Stage stops appeared along the route every ten or fifteen miles—log or stone huts huddled together for protection, with doors and window coverings of rough-hewn timber that would withstand an attack. Supplies were kept inside so that the occupants could hold out against a siege, and nearby was always a dugout—a dwelling dug into the earth, with its roof level with the ground—for escape in case of fire. This subterranean dwelling was connected to the station by an underground tunnel, but one look at it made me utter a desperate prayer that I would never be forced to crawl through such a tiny space under the ground. Apparently the Indians' favorite trick was to shoot a flaming arrow into the hay stored in the barns—if I were in a station when that happened, James assured me, I would be grateful for the tunnel and the dugout.

  James occasionally reined his horse beside the ambulance and chatted as we rode. Once he startled me by saying, "I was sorry to hear about your horse."

  Leaning out of the ambulance, I thought perhaps I'd misunderstood. "My horse?"

  "Custis Lee? Wasn't that his name?"

  The use of the past tense alarmed me. "He's with Autie," I said.

  James gave me a strange look. "You haven't heard? Armstrong hasn't written you?"

  "James," I fairly shouted, "what is it?" Diana, seated on the other side of the ambulance, inched closer to me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders.

  "He was shot, Libbie. God, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you."

  "No!" I screamed. "Not Custis Lee." After several minutes, my eyes swollen with tears, I managed to ask, "How?"

  "Armstrong was buffalo hunting.... I don't know how it happened exactly, except that he found himself in a pretty sticky situation. Horse down, no troops around, and an angry bull in front of him... you're lucky you didn't lose both horse and husband."

  His humor was lost on me. "Autie shot Custis Lee?" I echoed.

  "That's what the story is. Libbie, please, wait until he tells you.... I... I didn't
mean to be the bearer of bad tales." He spurred his horse quickly away.

  While Diana held me tight, I wept for Custis Lee, the most gentlemanly, beautiful horse I had ever known. I truly believe that we have some animals who are soul mates—just as some people are lucky enough to find marriage partners who are soul mates—and for me, Custis Lee was such an animal. I would never again feel quite the same about another horse.

  And Autie? Why hadn't he written me?

  * * *

  At last we reached Hays—another log-hut post, treeless and desolate, except that beyond it stretched the white tents of the Seventh Cavalry.

  Autie greeted me enthusiastically, bouncing me out of the ambulance and holding me high off the ground, as though to get a good look. Then, his manner turning much more proper, he faced James and said, "I'm obliged, Coker. No trouble, I presume?"

  "None, thank God," James said with more fervor than I thought our uneventful trip justified.

  Then Autie whisked me off to his tent for a private reunion.

  "Autie," I protested as he reached for the buttons on my dress, "in the middle of the day? The entire command will know what we're doing... and so will Diana."

  "Diana's too young," he murmured, his mouth at my throat, "and the men will be jealous."

  "They'll think me a harlot."

  "I told you they'd be jealous." He laughed softly, the buttons loosening under his efforts and my resistance melting away. We had parted on a passionate note at Riley, and Autie and I were both ready to resume our relationship on that level, ignoring the differences that had plagued us. After all, Autie had his war now—or almost.

  We spent the entire afternoon in bed and not much of it talking. By the time we reappeared for supper—my face a furious red, I was sure, from embarrassment and from Autie's whiskers—we were reunited.

  "Autie," I whispered once when he lay contentedly close to me, "where's Custis Lee?"

  Startled, he sat straight up. "Shot, Libbie, I wrote you about that."

  "I never got the letter."