The Removes

by Tatjana Soli

  * * *

  CUSTER RODE OUT OF VIRGINIA on the victory train to Washington, traveling at the dizzying speed of forty miles per hour. A cavalryman, the fastest he ever wanted to go was on top of a horse running dead out. There was nothing as soul-filling as man and beast crossing the earth together at such speed. The trains were progress, the progress the army was fighting to ensure, yet he did not know if progress set that well with him. Out West the Indians regularly tore up tracks and attacked trains, attributing to the iron beast a particular malevolence rather than it being a simple manifestation of the white man’s greed.

  The train was forced to stop often due to burned timbers across the tracks. He watched as hungry, owl-eyed soldiers-become-marauders leered in. Along some sections it did not pay to open the windows or breathe in too deeply; burial was an indulgence when the living struggled to survive. He was glad that he did not have Lincoln’s burden to stitch the nation back together once the War was done. How to unite the population when the South had turned feral, savage in its desperation? But Custer’s mind wasn’t a philosopher’s. He did not have the clarity for politics that he had on the battlefield.

  Being a soldier was in his blood. He must be humble about it or be labeled a war lover, suffering the same slander as Sherman and Sheridan. What they all shared was the military’s universal admiration for the soldier who was without fear. To be such and lead men who fought bravely was the highest calling he could conceive.

  He’d seen much these last months and longed for the balm of Libbie’s company, to burrow into her velvet. Nothing counted except when she saw and approved her boy’s victory, saw how his men loved him and thus made it real. She had written to him: I’m so proud of my Bo.

  … Don’t expose yourself so much in battle. Just do your duty, and don’t rush out so daringly. Oh, Autie, we must die together. Better the humblest life together than the loftiest, divided. My hopes and ambitions are more than a hundred times realized in you. I have dreams of us in old age, sitting side by side in rocking chairs, hair as white as snow, surrounded by a big, loving family such as yours was growing up. Oh, how happy I was when I woke up to dream of our future together …

  In Washington, Pennsylvania Avenue was packed with cheering crowds, the captured Confederate flags hung out the window of the omnibus as they rode down the street. The new nation was newly proud of itself, like a babe taking his first wobbly steps. Troopers climbed down only to be lifted again off their feet. Earnest veterans with gray in their hair came up to Custer, kissed his hand. He burned, he delighted, although it was that same stained hand they touched. The dead marked him like the rings inside a tree, another rite of passage. He pulled back, wondering at the lie, the thinness of victory.

  He prayed no one saw the quiver in his hands, the blood under his fingernails. He stood at rigid attention as the dead men in his regiments presented themselves one at a time—the long line of loyal Union men who had followed him to their death thinking his enchantment extended to them. Only he could see them. Confederate soldiers were there, too, with their surprised eyes and bloody black wounds, waiting patiently to pass in review. Last was the Rebel from that lonely, rainy night. He walked past slowly, limping, which detail Custer did not recall. The majority of the men he did not recognize but understood that he was responsible for. He was to accept the blame for all.

  He swallowed a scream, tried to bolt forward, but the crowd pinned him back, unwilling to give him up. The paucity of the actual experience seemed wrong against this praise yet he hungered for its balm. Huzzahs and slaps on the back. Maybe the toll paid was not too high, a divine equation, adulation matching the destruction, a nation tearing apart at the seams of union, a hero elevated beyond his due to heal it back up. He did not create the War, but he determined to thrive within it. He was twenty-three years old.

  ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS (1864)

  The Battle of Sand Creek

  Among the brilliant feats of arms in Indian warfare, the recent campaign of our Colorado volunteers will stand in history with few rivals, and none to exceed it in final results … Among the killed were all the Cheyenne chiefs, Black Kettle, White Antelope, Little Robe, Left Hand, Knock Knee, One Eye, and another, name unknown. Not a single prominent man of the tribe remains, and the tribe itself is almost annihilated. The Arapahoes probably suffered but little. It has been reported that the chief Left Hand, of that tribe, was killed, but Colonel Chivington is of the opinion that he was not … the utter surprise of a large Indian village is unprecedented. In no single battle in North America, we believe, have so many Indians been slain … A thousand incidents of individual daring and the passing events of the day might be told, but space forbids. We leave the task for eye-witnesses to chronicle. All acquitted themselves well, and Colorado soldiers have again covered themselves with glory.

  ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

  The Fort Lyon Affair

  Washington, December 20, 1864

  The affair at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in which Colonel Chivington destroyed a large Indian village, and all its inhabitants, is to be made the subject of congressional investigation. Letters received from high officials in Colorado say that the Indians were killed after surrendering, and that a large proportion of them were women and children.

  THE SECOND REMOVE

  Captivity and starvation—A falsehood—The march—Elizabeth—A smiting—Moccasins

  The captive women walked behind the horses like chattel, guarded loosely but such was enough given their traumatized condition. Escape required resolve, and the women—many wounded, all grieving—had none. Many did not even have full clothing on, much less coats. Some had lost their shoes on the march and shuffled forth on bleeding feet. As she walked, Anne felt along her ribs and was convinced the bottom one was broken. She feared that if she bent over too quickly she might jab herself from within. The memory of Nevin’s shinbone poking through skin haunted her.

  On the first day they traveled many hours and stopped in darkness atop a hill. The prisoners fell to the ground in pain and exhaustion and were left there for the night. Their captors gave no thought to providing food or drink or warmth. Instead they celebrated a victory feast unlike any the whites had ever imagined. All the night they were kept awake by the roaring and dancing of the warriors around a huge bonfire, their long, attenuated forms throwing dark shadows over the prone bodies of their captives.

  At some point in their saturnalia, eight warriors came to the cowering women, and each picked one. The one who chose Anne was thick and squat, muscular, and when he pushed her down a short distance from the other women, her desperate slaps landed as futilely on his arms and chest as if she were striking at a boulder. He smelled of unwashed skin and mineral earth. Tired of her struggle, he hit her in the face, and the high, snapping sound of her nose and the feel of warm blood down her throat quieted her. If she did not concentrate to breathe, she was sure she would drown in her own blood. Nonetheless, at the thought of what was about to happen, she kicked at his groin as he ripped her skirt in half and used a knife to slice away her undergarments. He held a thin branch across her throat to pin her to the ground, and all she was left was to close her eyes and pray that she would be dead before he defiled her.

  When it was over, she stood up and walked back to the group of women who had been spared thus far. All averted their eyes, and not one word of solace was offered. After that, each time it happened it mattered less, until eventually it mattered not at all.

  The smell of roasting meat knifed her stomach with hunger. The enemy had stolen horses, cattle, swine, and fowl, and now they butchered with the abandon of having received such bounty unearned. Much of the meat was boiled or roasted, but much else was wasted, either left burning to char or uncooked on the ground. Starvation drove one woman to crawl to the fire to grab at a piece of beef. A warrior observed the attempt and stepped on her arm, flinging the piece of meat into the bushes and promptly clubbing her hand so that it was broken and left her permanently crippled.
Anne watched the scene in silence, without a thought of coming to her aid, an unthinkable act of cowardice and selfishness of which she would not have imagined herself capable only the day before.

  Instead, like a bird of prey, she studied the trajectory of the beef, the slope of the bush it landed underneath. In the deepest night when all was quiet, she slowly crawled to the bush and swallowed the meat without hardly chewing. She had not even considered sharing it. Only after it was safely in her belly did she beg forgiveness for her sins.

  At dawn the captives were awakened by the prods of sticks. The Indians had torn down the camp and wanted to move out quickly, worried about retribution from the army for the previous day’s killing spree. Those who refused to move were hit, and one grandmother who refused to rise due to her debilitated state was left behind. Anne pretended that the roll of dirty clothes and bonnet were merely a bundle and did not mask a poor, doomed soul within its folds. She also pretended not to recognize that the hanks of hair and scalp hanging from the saddles of the horses were the fresh scalps harvested from their homestead. One with long gray hair in particular must have belonged to her beloved grandfather.

  Anne turned her back and concentrated merely on taking each step ahead, and that proved difficulty enough as the way became more steep and treacherous as her physical state weakened steadily.

  It was unimaginable that they would travel such a way over many months through the vast and desolate wilderness, each night stopping without comfort, each morning waking with more hunger than the day before. In retrospect she considered the hardship valuable only in that her extreme suffering denied any room for grief over the loss of her family.

  During that period she traveled farther than she had in all the previous years of her young life combined. Her existence had been confined to a mile radius of the settlement, interspersed with infrequent, fearful wagon rides to the nearby small township. These trips were always hurried and defensive, with a wary eye turned to the possibility of encountering either inclement weather or Indians bent on destruction. The land itself was viewed as endless and treacherous, in need of taming, as were the natives who ruled over it.

  The Cheyenne were not practiced in husbandry and seemed to give no thought that their valuable commodities, their captives, would likely perish before reaching their intended destination.

  At some point the children were reunited with the women as the war party joined a larger group from the same tribe, presumably feeling safer now that they were no longer in danger of being pursued. Anne was frantic to find if Emma was among them. She asked all the children, then the women, but none could give her an answer to the whereabouts of her young sister. It was as if the neighborly ties that bound the settlers had been erased, and each was estranged from the others. Had she only imagined seeing her sister that first, horrific morning?

  Each woman who had strength enough took custody of a child. In lieu of her sister, Anne took care of Elizabeth, a golden-haired girl of five whose parents she had known. The mother had been a delicate transplant from Massachusetts and had raised the girl to be ignorant of country ways compared with the other children. Anne had babysat the girl and spent an afternoon acquainting her with the most common plants in her yard. Elizabeth had a damaged shoulder and whimpered at the jarring it received during movement. She was unable to grab undergrowth during rocky climbs, causing her to fall behind, to the displeasure of their guards. It proved a difficult parenting.

  Undeterred, Anne continued to ask her captors where her sister Emma had been taken and if she had survived. Eventually one of them answered in broken English that she had been a bad girl and so was wasted. The warrior made a circle the size of a plum in his palm.

  “I eat this much of her. She taste good.”

  The hooligan burst out in laughter and started bragging in his language to his accomplices. They all howled in mirth and made supping noises.

  Anne walked on. She would learn not to ask questions, because her captors used words simply as one possible tool in an arsenal of torture. Only later did she learn that the Cheyenne were as horrified by cannibalism as were the white settlers. The care of Elizabeth somewhat salved her worry over Emma, and she prayed another woman took equal care of her dear sister.

  * * *

  IT BEGAN TO SNOW. The first storm of the year came much earlier than usual. Anne could not help but think them cursed. Elizabeth had only slippers, and cried piteously at the pain in her feet. Anne took off her apron, ripped it in half, and wrapped the pieces around each of Elizabeth’s tiny feet, appalled when the yellow cloth quickly turned brown with blood. She had never experienced such biting hunger in her own life, it was like a rooting beast let loose, hollowing one out from the inside. Now the child’s pleading for nourishment undid her. In desperation she invented a game—naming what they would eat when they returned home. Turkey, beef, fried chicken, cornbread, rhubarb pies, cookies and biscuits. Eventually, even porridge and brown beans sounded extravagant. A fellow prisoner frowned and asked them to stop, the memories of such meals driving her mad with hunger.

  A few mornings later Anne rose with such lightness in her head she did not care if she lived to see that day’s sunset. She strode to the man she presumed was chief, who did not deign to deal directly with the captives, and demanded food and shoes for the girl. Her eyes blazed. She swore her heels lifted a few inches off the ground. She could already feel at her elbows the lift of angels readying her for the final ascension. After a moment’s silence she realized she was yet standing on earth, corporeal, and so she dared add that enough provision should be given to all the children and the women also, herself included.

  Without a word, the chief clubbed the back of her head with his arm, smiting her, and she fell unconscious to the ground.

  When she woke, she found the camp had been halted for the day. A broth of sorts, consisting of boiled grain and the leg bone of a horse, had been distributed to the prisoners. As Anne sat up, Elizabeth carried her a cup of the brew, her feet adorned in her new leather moccasins.

  LIBBIE

  Almost as soon as the courtship began so did the problems.

  Autie had known only a bounty of familial happiness in his youth, and it gave him an unshakable optimism that all remarked upon. Libbie, on the other hand, was always waiting for the next stroke of misfortune that was surely just around the corner.

  Her father, although a fan of the local hero, still did not see Autie as suitable for his daughter. Rumors of various women and drunkenness abounded. Judge Bacon didn’t want his brilliant girl to live the straitened life of an army wife so he forbade Autie to even visit the house. Their meeting elsewhere was strictly banned.

  Libbie Bacon Custer

  Libbie had her own doubts. Autie was a terrible flirt. During his leaves, her girlfriends reported sightings of him at parties all over town in the company of other women. There was one especially, Fanny, whom Libbie considered vulgar and of loose character. In fact Fanny was quite pretty and outgoing; she came from an affluent family. Libbie was simply eaten up by jealousy. She sat alone in her house brooding on the nights she suspected them together. Her father was right—she would do best by forgetting him.

  But then she would receive a barrage of notes begging for her to meet him at a mutual friend’s house. She went, fully intending to give him her mind and break off their flirtation. People wondered at Autie’s quick rise through the ranks during the Rebellion, but Libbie understood it. Unlike regular army, cavalry commanders were successful to the extent that they could react quickly, instinctively—a trait Autie had on the battlefield as well as in the parlor. His was a charm offensive.

  So magnetic was he that everywhere he went in the world, he made fast friends. He was a singular burning flame, as if destiny had put her finger on him and nobody else would satisfy. It was the unfairness in his good fortune that would eventually earn him a number of detractors, but that was in the future. During those first months Autie laid siege to win her heart.
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  Angry at his latest indiscretions with Fanny, Libbie would sit next to him at a party and look away. He brought her flowers. A chain of paper cutout hearts. When she allowed him to hold her hand, he quite forgot himself and kissed her fingertips. What to make of such a man?

  Once when he was escorting her home, they came to a mud puddle. Instead of walking around it, which they could have done easily, he insisted on taking off his jacket. Waiting for a nearby group of revelers to notice, he laid it with a flourish in the mud so she could step across and not dirty her skirts.

  “No, Autie!”

  The revelers stopped what they were doing and came to watch. A few clapped.

  “Allow me. It gives me pleasure,” he said.

  “It’s not necessary!”

  “The jacket will be precious to me forever.”

  After they were married, she saw his brother Tom wearing said jacket, and realized it had been borrowed and had been his all along. But it was more than these courtship antics that had won her over.

  How could she explain? They extinguished each other’s loneliness simply by being together. Except for her father, she lacked family, and he filled that need for her. What did he see in her? He came from a large, boisterously loving tribe. The Custers’ copious tears and kisses at every reunion, however brief the absence, never ceased to astonish and faintly repulse her. His mother would need be put to bed, so overwrought with grief was she at his departures to the War. For his part, he fled the house with his own face bathed in tears. He needed someone to understand him and cheer him on, and this Libbie was perfectly willing to do.