Last Cavaliers Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  “My hands are grubby and dirty. Flora, you’re going to freeze yourself.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “One of the men asked me what it was like to be married. One of the younger fellows. He must have marriage on his mind.”

  “What did you tell him, Jeb?”

  “I told him it was like going to heaven here on earth.”

  Flora laughed and lightly pulled his beard, something she often did. “Well, your supper may not exactly be heaven on earth. Ham and beans.”

  “Better than antelope. Oh, I’m so glad to be home for Christmas with you, my best love! I got you a present, but you can’t have it until tomorrow morning.”

  “I have presents for you, too, Jeb. So yes, let’s wait until tomorrow.”

  He picked her up and squeezed her and said, “I’ll go clean up, and then I’ll eat. But I’ll hurry, because I’m ready to go to bed,” he added mischievously. “I haven’t slept with you for two weeks. In fact, I may skip supper.”

  “You’ll do no such thing! Ruby tells me that if I don’t feed you a good supper when you get home, I’m headed straight for the pit. Or you are. Or someone is, anyway. No, I want you to eat, my darling. I’ll wait.” She smiled at him. “After all, I haven’t slept with my very own stove for two weeks, either, and I want you to be nice and full and happy when we go to bed.”

  The next morning, Flora arose early. As she dressed, she could smell the sweet scent of burning oak. Jeb never seemed to get tired. Even after long patrols, he came back with boundless energy. Quickly she finished dressing and did her hair. She went in to find that he already had big hot fires made in the fireplace and also in the cooking stove.

  “Can’t have too much fire after those snowy prairies,” he said. He came over and kissed her. “When do I get my present?”

  “Anytime you want it.”

  “I want it now, then,” he said boyishly.

  “I want mine first,” Flora said.

  “All right.” He walked over to where he’d thrown his camp bag. He sorted through it and pulled out two packages, one larger than the other, wrapped in brown paper. “This one first.”

  Flora took the larger of the two packages and tore it open. Inside she found a bolt of beautiful emerald green muslin with tiny white flowers.

  “You look so pretty in that color. I know Ruby can make you a dress fine enough for a queen.”

  “Oh Jeb, it’s perfect! Thank you so much, my darling.”

  “Here’s the other present.” He handed her a small velvet box.

  She opened it and found a necklace with a gold chain and a tiny cross of emeralds that matched the fabric perfectly. “Oh my goodness, Jeb, it’s absolutely beautiful! But however did you pay for this? It must have been a dear price, indeed.”

  “No, you are the pearl of great price,” Jeb said, fastening the necklace around her neck. “And its beauty cannot compare to you, Flora, my dearest.” He kissed her tenderly.

  Then she said excitedly, “I have two presents for you, Jeb.” She went back into the bedroom, came out with a box, and handed it to him. “I think you’ll like it. She watched as he opened the box and then laughed as his blue eyes lit up. “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

  Jeb pulled out the golden spurs. One of the other officers had ordered them for Flora, so she had been able to keep them a secret from Jeb. “Now you can be the most dashing cavalier of all, riding around with your golden spurs. But promise when you wear them you’ll always think of me.”

  “Flora, my girl, these are something!” Jeb rubbed the gold admiringly and said, “No one else can beat this finery. I’ll be strutting for sure.” He looked up at her with his ever-present boyish grin. “And who else would I think of but you? I think of you always, my dear.”

  “I knew you’d like them, and they suit you, Jeb.”

  “Thank you, thank you, Flora. So…where’s my other present?”

  She rose and came to sit on his lap. “Well, I’m afraid that you can’t actually have that one until around August.”

  Jeb stared at her for a moment. “What? What does that—in August? Are we going to have a baby? In August?”

  “Yes, we are. Merry Christmas!” She watched him as he absorbed this, and she saw the intense pleasure come over his face. Flora had been a little worried about this, because though she and Jeb had always agreed that they wanted children, it was different when it became a reality.

  But now Jeb’s blue eyes positively sparked, and he hugged her, hard. “Just what I wanted! You couldn’t have given me anything better! Think I’ll be a good papa?”

  “You’ll be a wonderful father, just like you’re a wonderful husband,” she answered, rising to seat herself back in her own armchair.

  Jeb, radiating energy as always, started walking the floor. He couldn’t hide his excitement, nor did he want to. He wasn’t a man who hid things like that. “The dragoons have a good carpenter. I’ll have him make us up a cradle and a crib and…and…some little tiny chairs and a table…”

  Flora laughed. “It might be awhile before we’ll be needing all that, Jeb.”

  Then Ruby came down the ladder that led up to the attic, yawning.

  Jeb said in his booming voice, “Ruby, guess what? Me and Miss Flora are going to have a baby around August.”

  “Well, ain’t dat fine.” Ruby grinned. “You wants it to be a boy or a girl?”

  “Either. Or both would be just fine with me.” He winked and laughed. “I don’t care as long as it’s healthy and strong. You ought to get married and have a bunch of babies, Ruby.”

  “I ain’t studyin’ about any of that foolishness now. I’ll be busy helpin’ Miss Flora to take care of your baby, Mr. Jeb.”

  “That’s real good, Ruby. Miss Flora and I need you. That reminds me. I have a present for you, Ruby,” Jeb said. “It’s a surprise.” He went back to his bag and pulled out another package and said, “I’ll bet you’ll like this one.”

  Ruby opened the package, stared up at Jeb openmouthed, and said, “Dis is the finest bonnet I ever saw in my livin’ life, Mr. Jeb.” It was a black silk hat trimmed with dangling jet beads and an enormous bunch of cherries.

  “I’ve got something for you, too, Ruby,” Flora said. She went to a small table with a drawer and pulled out a package. She handed it to Ruby.

  She opened it with obvious anticipation. “It’s a ring! Ain’t it pretty? And it’s gold just like my tooth.”

  Jeb slid an arm around Flora’s waist. “I hope you like your presents, Ruby.”

  “Why, a woman would have to be crazy to not like dis bonnet and dis here ring. Jest wait till Miss Alma Strong sees me. I’ll put one in her eye, I will. Now you two set back and lemme get dis turkey going. We’re going to have the bestest meal you ever had, Mr. Jeb Stuart, and you, too, Miss Flora, to go with the bestest Christmas I ever had.”

  “Me, too,” Jeb said to Flora. “The best I ever had.”

  That winter passed happily for the Stuarts. As Jeb had said, there were no reports of troublesome Indians at all. They had indeed gone into winter quarters.

  Flora, as tiny as she was, began very soon to show. By early spring she had already gained so much baby weight she had to be very careful about doing any energetic housework or even taking long walks. She encouraged Jeb, however, to get out and ride around and visit with his men as often as possible.

  He was not a homey kind of man. After he found out Flora was pregnant, he hung around the house most of the time, but Flora was reminded of a caged lion. He paced, he fidgeted, he made unneeded repairs on the cottage just so he could hammer something and make noise.

  Finally she persuaded him that he needed to ride the horses to keep them in good condition, he needed exercise, and he needed to be with the new 1st Cavalry as they were still a regiment in training. With ill-disguised relief, he started riding, some for pleasure and some patrolling, scouting around the countryside, learning the ground and the territory.

  A
nd soon he was called to his grim duty again. The 1st Cavalry got news from the frontier that the Cheyenne were raiding wagon trains, and in May they rode out to hunt them down.

  It was a fine spring morning, even on the dreary plains of the border of Kansas Territory. The 1st Cavalry had been following a number of Cheyenne for nine days, their scouts finding clear tracks but always days old.

  Jeb rode with two of his longtime friends who had joined the 1st Cavalry, along with Jeb, back in St. Louis: Pat Stanley and Lunsford Lomax. Their commanding officer was Colonel Edmund Sumner, and the men respected him as a good soldier and officer. Still, the men were restless, for they had thought they would find the renegade Indians before now.

  “We’ll find ’em,” Jeb said confidently.

  “How do you know?” Stanley asked.

  “Because if we don’t chase them down, if they’ve got any grit at all, I’d imagine they’ll find us,” he answered.

  Two days later his words proved prophetic. They had come into a small bowl of the prairie surrounded on three sides by small, smooth hills. That afternoon they stared into the west and saw three hundred Cheyenne warriors lined along one of them.

  Colonel Sumner immediately shouted orders for battle formation, and the straggling column quickly formed up as the Cheyenne, screaming bloodily, started riding down the little hill. Jeb fully expected Colonel Sumner to order a carbine volley—Jeb had already started pulling his rifle out of the sheath—when the commander thundered, “1st Cavalry! Draw sabers! Charge!”

  The men, sabers glinting like steely death in the dying red sun, charged, screaming and yelling furiously. The line of Cheyenne riding toward them wavered, slowed…and then they turned and fled.

  Jeb spurred Ace so furiously that he got ahead of the battle line and rushed into the scattered Indians, yelling like fury. Only a few of the officers had barely kept up with him, including Stanley and Lomax. Close by him, Stuart saw an Indian turn and point a rifle right at Lunsford Lomax, and Jeb thrust at him but landed only a thin slash on the Indian’s side and rode past him, then turned back. The Indian now had his rifle pointed at Jeb.

  Close by Jeb heard, “Wait, Jeb! I’ll fetch him!” He saw Pat Stanley, unhorsed, kneeling and pointing a carbine at the Indian. He pulled the trigger, but the rifle misfired, and Stanley was out of ammunition. Quickly the Cheyenne rode toward Stanley, who watched helplessly as the warrior raised his rifle to point directly at Stanley’s head.

  Jeb shot forward, and this time landed a killing blow to the Indian’s head. But as he fell he fired, and Jeb felt the shot hit him high on the breast.

  Stanley jumped up and ran to him. “Jeb, you’re shot! Stay here. I’ll get my horse and get you to the rear.” He disappeared and soon came back riding his horse, which had managed to unseat Stanley in the middle of the fray but then had only moved a few feet off to unconcernedly graze a little.

  “I don’t think it’s too bad,” Jeb said cheerfully. “But I guess I had better go get it seen to. No sense bounding around on Ace, here, until the bullet plows around and finally blunders into my heart.” Blithely he rode to the rear.

  …I rejoice to inform you that the wound is not regarded as dangerous, though I may be confined to my bed for weeks. I am now enjoying health in every other respect…

  Flora kept reading those two lines over and over and weeping harder each time the words burned into her heart.

  Her father had been an Indian fighter for many years, and she and her sisters had always worried about him when he was on patrols. Flora had seen injured men, had even seen men killed and brought home to weeping wives and families.

  She’d thought she knew and understood the dangers of a soldier’s life. But this was different. This was her husband, her beloved Jeb. And though his letter was so obviously cheerful, with the energetic note of his demeanor clearly coming through, Flora sobbed helplessly with the sudden harsh reality she was now facing. Jeb was a soldier, he was in constant mortal danger, he could be injured—he could even be killed. Thinking of it, she felt as if she herself might simply pass out into a cold, lonely darkness and oblivion.

  How long she remained in this desolation, she really didn’t know. But finally she rose and washed her tearstained, swollen face and smoothed her hand over her swollen belly. She couldn’t do this to herself. She couldn’t do it to the baby. And most certainly she could not do it to Jeb. If she were a weeping, wailing wreck of a woman all the time, Jeb would go mad with grief, she knew. He was happy with her, he found joy and pleasure in his life with her, and she was determined that she would keep it that way.

  She would find the strength in the Lord, to live with His comfort, to live under His care. She would learn to live her life with Jeb—no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the hardships or the grief—to the fullest, every day, to be grateful to God every day for him, and never to forget all of the countless treasured moments they had. She would be strong, and she would be full of joy, always, for Jeb.

  She would do this. No matter what the cost.

  The wounded of the 1st Cavalry were not able to get back to Fort Leavenworth until August 17th.

  Flora saw them come into the parade grounds, and she saw Jeb’s big body lying on a travois. Though she was so big now she couldn’t possibly run, she hurried as fast as she could to his side. He looked up at her, and with an almost stunned relief, Flora saw that his eyes were clear and dancing as merrily as ever. She knelt by him, awkwardly.

  “The baby’s not here yet,” Jeb murmured. “Oh, I’m glad.”

  “I am, too. He waited until he could see his father.”

  “Flora, my best girl, you can’t know how I’ve missed you.” He joked, “I would have hurried back much sooner, but these lazy fellows wouldn’t come along with me.”

  She ran her fingers down his face and entangled them in his soft beard. “You’re pale, my darling. Your letters…You seem not to be hurt too badly.”

  “I’m not,” he grunted then pulled himself up to a sitting position. “And I’m as tired of this infernal machine as a man can be. I can walk into that infirmary myself. There’re no men big enough to carry an ox like me, and somehow I don’t think they’d welcome Ace pulling me in.”

  “No Jeb, don’t. You’re scaring me,” Flora begged even as he stubbornly pushed himself to his feet.

  He took her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it, as he had so many times before. Flora never tired of it. “Please don’t be frightened, Flora. I never want you to be frightened of anything in this world. I am fine, really. I’m so much better, thank the Lord, and I feel very well, if only a little weak.”

  Flora nodded. “All right, then. I do have to agree that perhaps I might walk you into the infirmary, instead of Ace.” She put her arm through his.

  He hesitated and said uncertainly, “Flora, I know this must be so hard for you, but you’re really all right, aren’t you? I mean, you grew up in a soldier’s house and you married a soldier. You always knew, didn’t you? You always knew what it would mean?”

  She could see the fear in him, as she knew she would. And she steeled her thoughts and cried out to God and then smiled up at him. “Of course, Jeb. Just know that I love you, I will always love you, and I will always be waiting for you when you come home. Now come on, silly bear, and let the doctor see you.”

  No matter the cost.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Flora entered the room and paused abruptly at the scene that was taking place before her. Her lips curved upward in a smile, and she felt a rush of love mixed with pride.

  She had been confident, almost from when she met him, that Jeb Stuart would make a good husband. He was always considerate, even gallant to her, a man who was faithful to everything that marriage stood for. But many men who had these qualities didn’t necessarily take well to infants. She’d been relieved, however, as Little Flora had come through the first year and a half utterly adored by her father.

  Flora remained silent, watchin
g as Jeb, who was lying flat on his back, set Little Flora down upon his chest. She leaned forward, making little yelps of joy. Grabbing Jeb’s luxurious beard, she tugged at it and yelled, “Paaah! Paaah!”

  “Well, be careful there, little darling. You’re going to pull my beard out, and you would see what an ugly fellow I am. Did you know I grew this beard just to hide my ugly face?” He suddenly reached out and grabbed her and held her high in the air. She chortled with joy, and he lowered her until their noses touched.

  “Jeb, what in the world are you doing? You always have to play on the floor,” Flora demanded, coming to stand over them.

  “I’m just too big. There’s not enough room anywhere else,” Jeb said, lifting Little Flora high again as she squealed.

  “You’re supposed to be rocking her to sleep.”

  “I tried to, but she talked me out of it.” Jeb grinned. His eyes sparkled with merriment, and his red lips, almost hidden beneath his thick mustache, revealed a smile, exposing his excellent teeth. “I miss out on so much time with our little princess here, I have to make up for it.”

  “You’ve been playing with her for over an hour. We have to feed her and put her to bed.”

  Jeb got to his feet reluctantly.

  Flora reached out and took their daughter.

  “I’ll just watch and you feed,” Jeb said. “I think it’ll be better that way.”

  Flora was still nursing Little Flora, so she opened the front of her dress and the baby began to nurse noisily.

  “No sweeter sight on earth than that to me,” Jeb said. “Everyone I know says children take in their mother’s character when they nurse, so she’s going to be sweet and beautiful like you.”

  Flora couldn’t help but smile. “You must want something, Jeb. You never say those sweet things to me unless you want something.”

  “You hurt my feelings, darling.”

  “I couldn’t hurt your feelings with a sledgehammer. What is it you want?”