Libbie

by Judy Alter

  Autie denied these accusations vehemently to my face, his anger turning on me. "It's all your fault," he would say, "for letting Coker get enthralled with you. He's just doing this to embarrass me, so he can have free run at you. I'll have to take him on again."

  And then I would beg and plead and assure Autie that I believed none of what James Coker said. But gnawing doubts stayed in my mind. Sometimes I sat and stared at Autie and wondered if I even knew him. Maybe, I thought, Autie was someone I didn't know at all, had never known. I was sure, at least, that he was a different man now than the one I'd married. His victory at Washita had made him, overnight, the nation's most prominent Indian fighter... and it had given him a new self-confidence—Autie, who'd never lacked in that department to begin with. Sometimes I thought he bordered on arrogant.

  But what did that have to do with ladies of the night and married women in St. Louis? Sometimes my brain reeled in confusion, and I put Autie off at night when we came to bed. I couldn't bear for him to touch me, though at other times—my doubts momentarily quieted—I welcomed him passionately. Ah, Libbie, I thought to myself, you are a fickle and weak woman.

  "Old lady, come with me to see the Indians. I have to do some parleying with them."

  There were some sixty prisoners from Washita still quartered at Hays, and Autie frequently had to go to them since he had learned their language.

  "I believe not," I said, lightly as I could. "They wouldn't want me peering at them, and I..."

  "Libbie, you're afraid!" He hooted around, doing a little dance and clapping his hands as though he'd caught me in the most embarrassing situation.

  "I am not!" I declared. "It's just..." There was nothing for it; I went to visit the Indians. In truth, I was more than a little afraid. The chiefs among these Indians were apart, preparing for their council with Autie—or, I should say, being prepared by their squaws, who fluttered over them like lords and ladies over royalty. But I'd heard enough tales about the desperate work squaws and children had done in battle to fear going in among them, chiefs or no. The reins shook in my hand as I rode quietly along beside Autie, and the shaking hand unnerved Phil, my new quarter horse, who was used to a firm, guiding hand.

  "You're awfully quiet, Libbie. I keep telling you there's nothing to fear. These are peaceful Indians... they are conquered Indians."

  My failure to reply goaded him into further reassurances. "You don't think I'd take you where there is any danger, do you?"

  I simply shook my head.

  As we neared the stockade, Phil began to tremble from more than the shaking hands that guided him, and I had all I could do to keep him from turning back toward camp.

  "He's afraid of Indians," Autie said matter-of-factly. "He can smell them, and he's afraid."

  If I hadn't known that Autie would accuse me of losing control of my horse, I'd have given Phil his head, for I wanted to go back home as much as he did. By the time I dismounted, the animal had nearly torn my arms from the sockets.

  Boldly Autie walked past the sentinel and into the midst of a crowd of Indian women and children, dragging me with him. So great was my distress that I was sure I could see knives being fondled under bulky garments, even feel the points of weapons aimed in my direction.

  Autie began signing to the women. "What are you telling them?" I asked curiously.

  "That you are my wife. They want to know if you are the only one."

  I looked at him archly. "You told them yes?"

  "They pity me. It means I am not a chief of much consequence."

  The squaws moved closer, reaching out to touch my shoulder, my hair, my gown. One took my hand in her rough palm, and I realized that hard work had turned her hand to leather. Then another, with a wrinkled and rough face, laid her cheek against mine, and I thought instantly of sandpaper. Her hair was thin and wiry, scattering over her shoulders and hanging over her eyes, and her lined face spoke of weather and work beyond my imagining. Her ears were ragged, having once been punctured from top to lobe to hold rings, but now torn out by the weight of these ornaments. It was all I could do to keep from drawing back, but I forced a smile of pleasure onto my face and hid my revulsion.

  I looked for Autie and, to my alarm, found him some distance away, with an old woman pulling his head down so that she could lay her cheek against his. Later I asked why he was so popular with old women, and he told me that it was not considered acceptable for young women to show any attention to strangers. But it was eminently proper for old women to do so.

  I felt my hair being examined at the back, and then sensed that the bird on my hat was being fingered. Children were called to admire the buttons on my riding habit, and my hand was imprisoned while an old woman stroked the kid of my glove.

  "They admire your gloves," Autie whispered, coming behind me, "to the point of possession should they catch you alone outside the post." It was all I could do to keep from snatching my hand away and running from the post.

  There were mothers with babies among them, babies who were gathered into little cocoonlike rolls, their limbs lashed into absolute quietude. One special infant, born just before the battle, belonged to Monahsetah, a Cheyenne princess. She offered the infant proudly for inspection, her eyes fastened on Autie as though desperate for his approval. When he favored her with a smile, she muttered something guttural to him.

  "Who is she?" I asked.

  Autie explained that she was a princess of some intelligence whose advice had been used to bring in tribes over the winter. "She can read a trail better than any scout I ever knew," he said enthusiastically. "The bones of the game killed by a war party, the fur or skin of the animals, the ashes of the camp fire, all these little details mean an enormous amount to her. She could tell how long ago game had been killed by the marrow in the bones."

  "But I thought she was imprisoned here," I said curiously.

  "Monahsetah? No, she was on the march with us much of the winter. Until time for the papoose. Tom called her Sallie Ann, and she took to the name."

  Did he look away from me deliberately as he said that?

  "Where is the baby's father?" I expected to hear that he had been killed at Washita.

  "Crippled," Autie said. "She shot him."

  "She shot her husband!"

  He grinned. "Well, I don't know the whole story, but he apparently wanted her to do more work than she thought was appropriate for a princess. It was an arranged marriage."

  Could she just as easily pull a knife and cripple the wife of the man who'd captured her? I looked again into soft eyes that seemed to smile at me, but I was leery and uncomfortable. I was as charmed by her baby, with his dark, darting eyes, as I was puzzled by Monahsetah.

  At last the chiefs were ready. Autie had secured permission for me to attend the council, a great honor, he told me, but one I could have done without. In the presence of those fierce and gloomy men, I began to tremble anew. In honor of the occasion, women and children—usually barred—were admitted, and their excitement was so high, it filled the air with anticipation.

  When the traditional clay pipe was passed, I feared I should be further honored. Fortunately, it circulated only among Autie and the three chiefs; I was spared. Even so, as we waited for those taciturn men to speak, I began to feel faint. To be shut up in a Sibley tent with a crowd of Indians on a warm summer day is not an experience that one longs to repeat. Kinnikinnick—a mixture of willow bark, sumac leaves, sage leaf, and tobacco, mingled with buffalo marrow—saved our nostrils from the odors and the closeness, but still I buried my rebellious nose in my handkerchief. Etiquette forbade my leaving for open air until the general and the chiefs had agreed—every captive white man, woman, and child must be released before the Indian prisoners could return to their homes—and shaken hands. Then, at long last, we escaped.

  These visits became routine, though I can't say that I ever became more comfortable with them. Once Autie took Eliza, but he never repeated that experiment, for she proved to be more scared
than I. When she couldn't see Autie, she "took one leap and lit out of thar in a jiffy," as she described it.

  Neither Eliza nor I were foolish in our apprehensions. One day in the summer an orderly from the post rode to our tent in a lather, barely pausing to present his commander's compliments before spilling out that the general was wanted at the post, for there'd been an uprising among the Indians, and all they could be induced to say was that they wanted "Ouchess," meaning "Creeping Panther," a name they had given Autie some time before.

  It seems there were rumors that hostile bands lurked near the post, intent on rescuing the three chiefs. The commanding officer decided to separate the chiefs from the others, but the soldiers sent to effect this were unable to explain in terms the Indians understood. Typically, the Indians resisted when force was applied, and the women and children, once they saw a fight, joined in. Knives were drawn, and one sergeant was stabbed so badly, his life was despaired of. The remainder of the guard came to the rescue, and soon one chief—Big Head—was dead, and another—Dull Knife—lay mortally wounded. Far Bear, the third chief, was felled by a rifle butt, but uninjured.

  Autie walked alone into the midst of the women and children, and with remarkable ability and calm was able to quiet them. Soon they were keening their grief over the dead, some of the women gashing their legs and cutting off their fingers.

  I never again visited the stockade with Autie, for the Indians were now dissatisfied and restless, and we had seen how skillfully they hid knives, how quickly they used them. When at last the white captives were released and word came that the Indians would return to their homes, there was general rejoicing on both sides.

  The Indians—who had come to us with no possessions—left with wagonloads of goods, "all kinds of truck," as one soldier told me. When Monahsetah left, the soldiers all cried, "Good-bye, Sallie Ann," and she bowed as though acknowledging an ovation. Then she came directly to where Autie and I stood watching the goings-on. Standing before us, she ignored me and raised her eyes coyly to Autie to murmur, "Good-bye, Creeping Panther."

  Autie blushed, a weakness he had not been able to overcome, even now that he wore buckskin and was an Indian fighter.

  Chapter 14

  Years after Bighorn someone wrote in Harper's that the Custers were "the most romantic couple on the frontier, their total absorption in each other making them comparable to the great lovers of the Ages." I read that grimly, suppressing an urge to write the author and explain that apparent absorption, though I never did write the letter.

  Still, I suppose it was true. There were times—instant, electric moments that would flash upon us—when Autie and I were so acutely aware of each other that it was a physical sensation. Across a room, I could feel his slightest move, the gesture of a hand, the turn of an eye, and he would feel the same tension at the same moment. In a roomful of people, we would then exist only for each other, boldly cutting an entire crowd out of our consciousnesses and barely managing the politest of nods, the murmured monosyllable in response to a question.

  These moments were not physical passion alone, though that was surely a strong element, and more than once Autie whisked me off early from a party, explaining, "I fear Libbie is overtired," when in truth, desire had swept over both of us in waves. But more often those instances were of the spirit rather than the flesh, psychic if you will, rather than physical. And they grew more infrequent over the years.

  In spite of romantic rumor, Autie's suspicions, and my great doubts about his fidelity, our marriage settled into the dailiness of most marriages—the taking for granted, even the small irritations and quarrels that sometimes seem to drive away the joy. Oh, Autie insisted that I sit by his side when he wrote, and everyone thought that romantic, but it was simply that he wanted me to divert him from boredom. And I took it as my chore to save him from hyperbole.

  Around me I saw marriages that were more or less like ours—especially less when there were children involved on the frontier, for the wives had to raise their children mostly alone, and they tended to be too tired and frazzled for any joy. Lucille Brown, with whom I'd stayed in Leavenworth, was charming, bright, and witty... but she rarely left her home, never left the post because of her constant obligation to her two children. No rides across the prairie on a cool spring evening for her!

  But even those fortunately childless, like Katherine Miles and myself, who followed their husbands from camp to camp, seemed ecstatic only once in a blue moon, moderately happy some of the time, and curiously discontent the majority of their days.

  As I sailed blindly past the crises in our lives and sometimes wondered what life without Autie would be like, I firmly believed that each man and each woman should have a mate. It was fixed in me since childhood that man and woman walked the road of life together, and I was constantly scheming to marry off this one or that... my cousin Rebecca, who spent much of the summer at Big Creek with us, Autie's sister Maggie, even my stepmother if I could. But my most dedicated efforts were directed toward finding a wife for Tom Custer. A wife, I told Autie, would civilize Tom.

  "I know he's my brother, and I may be prejudiced," Autie laughed, "but why does he need civilizing? I think Tom is a delightful fellow."

  "Have you been to his tent lately?"

  "No. Have you?"

  "Yes, I have," I said vehemently. Tom had invited me there almost as soon as we camped on Big Creek to see his collection of Indian mementos. I was used to necklaces of the fore claws of the bear, war bonnets with eagle feathers extending from head to heels, buffalo-hide shields, and even scalp locks, which were frequently stretched over small willow hoops to keep them from shrinking.

  But Tom also had a box of rattlesnakes... live rattlesnakes. Whenever he saw a snake with seven or more rattles, he would leap off his horse, take off his coat, and tie up one end of a sleeve, commanding his long-suffering orderly to hold the sleeve open for the prisoner. Then, with the butt of the carbine, he pinioned the reptile near the head, holding it down with one hand and using the other to seize it by the back of the neck. Then he was back on his horse, seven rattles ominously threatening him from the sleeve of the jacket rolled behind him.

  The snakes were kept in patched-up hardtack boxes and had to be lifted out to be seen and fully appreciated. While I perched on the bed, carefully holding my petticoats about me lest a stray snake be curled in the bedclothes, Tom lifted these monsters one by one so that they could show their full length and shake their rattles in rage.

  "There's one missing," he exclaimed in genuine regret.

  "One missing?" I echoed, my eyeballs wide in horror as I began to peer under the bed.

  "Oh, you needn't be looking for it," he said more cheerily. "The other in that box ate it apparently. I shouldn't have put those two together."

  Thereafter I tried to argue with Tom that he should keep all his snakes in one box—was that, I wondered, like all your eggs in one basket?—because they surely craved companionship.

  "If you think, old lady, that after all the trouble I have taken to catch these snakes, I am going to make it easy for them to eat each other up, you are mightily mistaken."

  "Tom," I exploded, "how are you ever going to interest a nice young lady in marriage if you persist in having snakes, cannibalistic snakes at that, around you?"

  "The only girl I want is married," he said, giving me a long look that I could not possibly have misinterpreted.

  I'm sure I blushed. In all the years Autie and I had been married, Tom had been part of our household, a happy conspirator in Autie's high jinks, another wayward man for me to boss and cajole, sometimes almost the son I'd never raised. That laughing Tom, with his face always open and smiling, could feel any other way about me had never occurred to me.

  There was no smile now. "I'll say it once, Libbie, and I'll never say it again." He approached me and grabbed one wrist almost hurtfully, holding me so that I could not move from him, could not easily evade his eyes. "My brother is married to the woman I lov
e. Should he ever mistreat her, I'll take action. Beyond that, I'll stay a happy bachelor."

  He released me and turned his back, and I, a speechless coward, fled back to my own tent, where, as fate would have it, I encountered Autie.

  "Any luck in taming Tom?" he asked jokingly.

  "No," I muttered, "none."

  "Why, Libbie," Autie said, perceptive as always, "I do believe you're upset. Is it the snakes... or Tom's perpetual bachelorhood?"

  "Both," I managed to say as lightly as possible. "He's hopeless." Autie would never know how I meant that.

  "Well," he replied, "I doubt you'll find a young lady who will appreciate Tom's snakes well enough, but keep trotting out candidates, Libbie."

  And keep trying I did, though Tom went to his grave a bachelor.

  * * *

  That summer on Big Creek had many highlights—the time we took our Thoroughbred to Leavenworth for a race; the great slow mule race in which Autie had to literally beat his reluctant beast across the finish line; murderous storms, which put me in mind of the earlier terrifying flood; even the hanging of a horse thief in town. But the events that remain most clear in my mind are the buffalo hunts.

  Buffalo were in such enormous herds all about us that it seemed as if nothing could diminish their numbers. General Sherman told me, not long since, that from the time Autie and I were in Kansas until the date of the almost total annihilation of the buffalo, nine million of the brutes had been killed.

  The prairie was stamped with the presence of buffalo. There were, for instance, trails leading to streams, narrow ruts so deep we had to check our horses to cross safely. Each hoofprint evenly replaced the next in a steady march—not for the buffalo the wild, exultant run of the deer or the antelope. The lumbering buffalo led a solid, practical existence.

  Then there were the strange circles beaten in the prairie grass, fifteen feet or more in circumference. They were made by a buffalo calf's mother walking round and round to protect her newly born sleeping calf from wolves at night. I, who had been so often the gullible victim of western stories, thought this the crowning example of a tall tale. But it proved to be true, and ever after those pathetic circles roused in me the deepest sympathy for the mother who vigilantly kept up the ceaseless tramp during the long night. It was rather how I felt about watching over Autie.