Pride's Folly

by Fiona Harrowe

  At Christmas, true to my word, I sent for Page. I tried hard not to gush or make too much of him. He was growing up and my kisses seemed to embarrass him. But what a beautiful boy! I couldn’t get enough of looking at him, the high-colored, tanned cheeks, the blond cowlick, the earnest blue eyes that could turn merry in a moment.

  He enjoyed the train trip, he said. That and seeing me apparently were the high points of his journey. He thought Chicago looked “bleak” and was disappointed because the zoo he had heard so much about had so few animals and those were made lethargic by the cold. He and Ward got along cautiously. I think Ward was afraid of children. It was the only time I had ever seen him less than sure of himself, not knowing quite how to act. One moment he would strike a patronizing pose, asking Page what he wanted to be when he grew up (a racehorse jockey), and the next he’d play the role of authoritative master, giving Page long lectures on “duty” and “responsibility.”

  When the time came for Page to leave, I felt the all-too-familiar wrench. (I often wondered if it wouldn’t have been better not to see him at all rather than suffer the pain of separation each time I did.) It didn’t make it any easier to realize that Page himself seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he left, as did Ward.

  The following year we were posted to St. Louis. Ward closed the house, pensioned the old butler off, and dismissed all the servants except for Mrs. Sprockett. Hints that perhaps we could retire her too fell on deaf ears. “She’s a good cook, and they’re hard to find,” Ward said unsentimentally. So, accompanied by a huge, humpbacked trunk, she came along.

  Ward was still serving under General Sheridan, who had been given command of the Department of Missouri. The general’s principal task was to see to it that the Indian tribes under his jurisdiction submitted to Federal authority. Sheridan had no sympathy for the red man, and he impatiently brushed aside the argument that the tribes had a claim to the land from which they were inexorably being driven. To him the Indians were some sort of subhuman species, barriers to the white man’s progress, creatures to be removed and herded on to reservations and, if they refused, killed with impunity. He was rumored to have said, “The only good Indian is a dead one,’’ though Ward vehemently denied it.

  Time had not altered my opinion of Sheridan. Nor his of me. I once asked Ward if he thought my presence was hampering his promotion to full colonel. “No, not in the least,” he replied. “Phil is not swayed by the wives. He doesn’t attach very much importance to women.”

  It was a statement that made me like General Sheridan even less.

  But St. Louis endeared itself to me. Still the jumping-off place to the West, the older sections retaining the flavor of its fur-trading days, it had grown now to the fourth largest metropolis in the United States, offering a variety of fine shops, restaurants, opera, theater, and pleasant society. Though the country as a whole was in the throes of a panic, with banks failing and financial institutions crumbling daily, life here seemed to go on at a happy pace. The jolt would come later, with unemployment and long breadlines, but for those of us in the military, news of the New York Stock Exchange’s closure caused hardly a stir. Instead, people were still talking of Jesse James’s latest exploit, a spectacular robbery during which he and his gang descended on the Kansas City Fair and escaped with $10,000 in gate money.

  Nor did the panic seem to effect the building of Eads Bridge, one of the most costly to be undertaken in the West. Sometimes after a morning of shopping I would stop the carriage to watch its progress. The superstructure of steel rising sixty feet above water was supported by four granite-and-limestone piers, which in turn rested on the rock bed of the river. It was an awesome sight even in its unfinished state.

  There were two strata of society in St. Louis: those Creoles descended from the founders of the city, Chouteau and the Marquis Liguest; and the more recent settlers, the sons and daughters of German immigrants, with names like Anheuser, Busch, and Limps. The two cliques did not mix, but each held rival balls several times a year.

  Because Ward’s father had gone to Harvard with a Cabanne, we were invited to the Creole ball. It was a scintillating affair, so different from the humdrum dances we had attended in Chicago. The women were beautifully gowned, the men dashing in their tailored evening clothes and white gloves. I hadn’t seen such elegant manners since Richmond, and didn’t realize I had missed them until a covey of young swains, begging to put their names on my dance card, brought back poignant memories of the Stanard’s ball during the war.

  I felt very young that night. Wearing a gown of teal blue, the skirts drawn back in a draped bustle on which perched a large, saucy bow, I studied myself in the Cabanne mirror upstairs with immodest satisfaction. The low-cut neckline and the narrow-shouldered sleeves showed my arms and bosom off quite delectably, and as I descended the stairs to join Ward he gave me one of his rare approving smiles.

  I laughed a good deal during those hours of music and champagne, exchanging witticisms with male admirers, bestowing dazzling smiles on them along with silly, fatuous compliments. But it was all in fun. Ward, I thought, did not seem to mind. He was busy with some of the older men, discussing the panic or politics or whatever stuffy subjects older men discussed even at balls. But I was wrong. Ward did mind. He must have been watching me, for when one of my dancing partners, a dark-haired, handsome young man hardly more than a boy, waltzed me behind a potted palm and kissed me. Ward was suddenly there, his eyes slitted in fury. For one or two terrible moments I thought he would strike the young man, but then someone—a fellow officer, I believe— sensing trouble, stepped up and said something to Ward. The young man apologized to me and so averted an incident.

  We left soon after.

  Ward did not utter a single word to me all the way home. I tried to explain several times, saying the kiss had been innocuous, part of the evening’s revelry, that I had had too much champagne, that we both had had too much champagne— all to no avail.

  When we reached the house we had rented I went directly upstairs. If Ward wanted silence, I would give it to him. I locked my bedroom door. Perhaps sleeping in the spare room or on the sofa would teach him not to sulk. I began to undress, expecting momentarily to hear his knock on the door, but none came. I got into my nightgown, a new one of foulard, frilled and tucked in the bodice, and sat down at the dressing table to unpin and brush out my hair. The house seemed unnaturally quiet. I wondered if Ward had gone out again. I rose and silently tiptoed to the door, putting my ear to it. I thought I heard a movement downstairs, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I sat back down at the dressing table, dousing one of the lamps. There I remained, staring at myself in the mirror, my eyes unseeing, only dimly aware of my white face, the auburn hair falling in a cascade past my shoulders. I thought of Ian, wondering where he was—England? Scotland?—and whether or not he and his wife had any children. I thought of Page. In his last letter he’d asked if he couldn’t spend part of the next summer at Wildoak. He had taken a sudden fancy to it, he said. Of course, why shouldn’t he? It was his ancestral home.

  A peremptory knock jerked me out of my reverie and I half rose from my chair.

  “Open!” Ward commanded.

  “No. I don’t believe my behavior warranted such a reaction.”

  “Open the door!”

  “No.”

  I sat down again and turned my back, picking up the brush.

  He threw himself against the door, shivering the panels. “Lost your temper, did you?” I sneered.

  The next moment the door crashed open, banging against the inner wall. I got to my feet.

  Ward stood on the threshold, swaying from side to side. He was drunk. It was the first time I had seen him any the worse for liquor. His control had always been too tight to permit even a slurred word to pass his lips, no matter how much he imbibed.

  “Whatever it is you have to say,” I announced coldly, “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Oh, you’ll hear it, damn you!”r />
  Never, even in his most angry moments, had he sworn at me. It was more frightening than his inebriation.

  “Get out!”

  He strode across the room. “Are you ordering me from my own bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  He struck me, the flat of his hand catching my cheek with a stinging blow.

  My fingers flew to my face, my eyes widening with shock. We stared wildly at each other and then he yanked me into his arms, his lips savaging mine with a brutality that made me cry out in pain.

  Lifting his head, he glared down at me. “Don’t ever again do what you did tonight!”

  “You have no right to tell me what to do. I’m not your wife!”

  “You’re mine just as surely as God had bound us. You’re mine!”

  “God did not bind us. Only a marriage can do that. Now, let me go!”

  He released me, but before I could step back he grabbed me about the knees and flung me over his shoulder. With my fists beating on his back he carried me to the bed, tossing me among the pillows. When he let go to undo his belt, I rolled over to the far side and was instantly on my feet and out the door.

  He came thundering after me, his nailed boots clattering on the uncarpeted floor. Terror gave wings to my feet. I raced down the stairs, nearly falling as I tripped on the hem of my gown. Lifting the skirt, I ran into the library and slammed the door behind me. Gasping, my heart knocking violently against my ribs, I dragged a chair up and shoved it under the knob.

  Again he flung his weight against the door. I heard it crack, splinter. And then he was in the room, catching me, bringing me to the hearth rug, securing my thrashing body under his strong one. His mouth, tasting of brandy, brutal with bruising anger, assaulted mine, silencing all protest. Spreading my legs with a jab of his knee while holding me with one hand, he freed his distended member.

  “I’m not yours!” I sobbed between swollen lips.

  Leaning over me, his hair falling across his forehead, he entered me with such force I gasped.

  “Stop!”

  He did not hear, was past all hearing, all caring. He drove at me, plunging deep within, each full, hard stroke causing me to throb with pain and pleasure. Heat fanned up through my loins, a sudden gripping excitement raising my hips. In my mind I tried to fight him. I tried. But the effort fell before the storm of his passion and I knew by my gasps and little moans that I was surrendering, the final glorious defeat bringing an ecstatic cry to my lips.

  In the silence that followed, I whispered, “I’m not yours.”

  Taking my face in his hand he said, “But you are!”

  Chapter 10

  Time passed but the real Mrs. Ward Gamble did not die. Wherever she was—a shadowy figure sitting behind dark fretted bars, as I sometimes pictured her—she clung to life with a tenacity that puzzled me. Finally I felt bold enough to question Ward.

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “She has a strong heart. The mind may be weak, but her body lives on.”

  “How long has it been since you last saw her?” I asked.

  “A number of years,” he answered after a moment’s reflection. “There’s no point to seeing her. She doesn’t know me.”

  “Were you very fond of her?”

  “Fond enough,” he said in a manner that told me the subject was closed.

  In June of 1874, Ward was transferred to Fort Abraham Lincoln, in the Dakotas. Built two years earlier to protect the workmen laying track for the expansion of the Northern Pacific Railroad, the fort was currently under the command of General George A. Custer. Like Ward and Phil Sheridan, Custer was a veteran of the war. Young, sandy-haired, considered by some a little rash, he had nevertheless attained reknown for his successful campaigns against the Cheyennes in 1867-68. His experience and skill would be put to the test in his present assignment, for the Sioux of that area were complaining of treaty violations. The treaty in question had given the Sioux exclusive right to a huge region east of the Missouri and west of the Big Horn Mountains including the Black Hills, preserved by them as the sacred place of the Great Spirit.

  By the time we arrived, the Sioux had become increasingly bitter over the number of whites who were carving out ranches and farms on their traditional hunting grounds. Nor did the scores of prospectors trampling over the Black Hills in search of rumored gold allay their grievances. They asked for army protection. I was in no position to judge how much effort was expended in ejecting these trespassers. Ward assured me that it was being done scrupulously whenever the culprits could be apprehended, but the task was made difficult by the vastness of the untracked region in question.

  I accommodated myself to life “outside the States” (as my friends in St. Louis dubbed territorial assignments) much more quickly than I had anticipated. Situated on a steep bluff where the Heart River joined the Missouri, Fort Lincoln stood directly across from Bismark. A thriving river port and railhead now, Bismark had grown overnight from a frontier village to a good-sized town. However, we rarely took the trouble to ferry over, since the fort itself provided for most of our needs. Built in the form of a triangle, Lincoln, home of the Seventh Cavalry, was protected by a blockhouse at each corner, palisade walls on two sides, and the steep face of the river bluff on the third. The officers’ quarters, barracks, kitchens, and a hospital were laid out tidily in cottonwood log or lumber buildings, a self-sufficient community.

  We had been given a house, newly constructed, painted and wallpapered, and completely furnished down to carpets and curtains, it was not a luxurious establishment (it certainly did not boast a crystal chandelier like the one hanging in the Custers’ reception room), but I was quite comfortable there and found no fault with it. Mrs. Sprockett, however, had a long list of complaints, chiefly about the kitchen—its size, inadequate stove, lack of cupboard space, and so forth. When I tactfully pointed out that she needn’t put up with such inconveniences, that she might be happier living with her sister in Chicago, she said, “I shan’t leave the colonel as long as he requires taking care of.” The flared nostrils and outraged lifted chin relegated me to my place, perhaps no longer as a stray pet, but as a lap dog, pretty but useless.

  Mrs. George Custer, Libbie, as her husband called her, was a vivacious, attractive young woman who took her duties as commanding officer’s wife seriously. Every Friday night she held a social, a “reception hop,” where we danced to the tunes of the Seventh’s regimental band and partook of refreshments and small talk. It did not seem at all incongruous to most of the fashionably gowned women waltzing in the arms of spit-and-polish officers that only a few leagues away the Sioux were sitting around campfires smoldering with resentment. But I thought of it. I thought of it again when Ward told me he would be joining General Custer in an expedition to the Black Hills. Ostensibly the general had been ordered to make the trek at the head of a large contingent of men and supplies to study the region’s geology. But everyone knew this was merely a thinly disguised excuse to search for gold, a reconnaissance plainly in violation of the Sioux treaty.

  When I commented on this, Ward said, “I’m only obeying orders. You forget I’m an officer in the United States Army.”

  “Does being a soldier mean that much to you?”

  “Yes,” he answered simply. “It’s my life.”

  Weeks after Ward had gone with Custer, a Rees Indian scout returning to the fort with mail brought me a letter from him. It read in part:

  We have set up camp at the headwaters of French Creek . . . beautiful country, lush meadows, blooming with wild flowers. One of our party, Horatio Ross, has discovered gold about three miles east of the new town we've named Custer in the Black Hills. I don't suppose such a find can be kept secret for long. . . .

  He was right. Even before Custer’s special messenger brought the news to Sheridan’s headquarters, a Chicago paper headlined:

  GOLD! STIRRING NEWS FROM THE BLACK HILLS!

  A BELT OF GOLD TERRITORY THREE MILES WIDE!

&nbs
p; The old hands at Fort Lincoln shook their heads. “There’ll be no way to keep the prospectors out of Indian territory now.” I remembered Aunt Carmella’s account of the rush to the Comstock lode when silver was discovered in Nevada. Sober citizens as well as the riffraff had been suddenly struck with a raging fever and had stampeded off to try their luck, hurrying pell-mell up Sun Mountain to stake their claims. The Black Hills would draw like a magnet too, but the Indian situation spelled trouble—when or in what guise it would come we could not guess.

  In August I received a letter from Carmella.

  Dear Deirdre:

  I've certainly had a time getting your address. Finally thought of writing Page's school. We are mystified by your long silence. The least you could have done was to send a short note thanking us for our bank draft which was dispatched the moment we heard you had been stranded in Chicago without funds.

  How astonishing! I had never received a bank draft. But then Carmella would not lie about it. Uncle Miles must have sent the money to the boarding house in Chicago; but given the turmoil following the fire, more than likely it had either been misdelivered or lost. And I had accused Miles of not caring. I read on:

  ... I understand from the Gans that you have remarried to a Mr. Gamble. Is he in any way related to that awful major we had at Wildoak?

  Of course I should have forseen this eventuality. Though Miles and Carmella corresponded with the Gans at infrequent intervals, it could only be a matter of time before they found out. Yet when I had accepted Ward’s offer to become his mistress I’d considered myself estranged from my aunt and uncle and hadn’t cared what they thought. Now, however, I felt differently. Faced with the choice of telling a falsehood or confessing that yes indeed it was “that awful major,’’ I stewed over an answer for several days. Miles was a reasonable man, but I was not quite sure how he would take my alliance with a Yankee officer.