The Removes

by Tatjana Soli

  My soul is too small to forgive.

  Afterward there were rumors.

  Scurrilous things such as Custer shot himself. That Indian women drove sewing needles into his ears, shattering the delicate incus bone so that he would hear better in the afterlife. Darker rumors of disfigurements not fit to be told. Articles quoted Reno and Benteen as they lied to cover their misdeeds. Their jealousy translated his bravery into recklessness. She gave the last word on the matter to General Nelson Miles, who wrote: It is easy to kill a dead lion.

  Benteen, whose bile did not subside even when his rival was long buried, said that Autie was not among the dead, but that like at the Washita, he had gone off to graze his horse. Seeing the tide of evil, he had escaped.

  Another rumor, more painful, was that the Crow scout Curly, realizing the battle was futile, begged Autie to escape with him. Autie dropped his head on his breast in silence for a moment—a gesture Libbie had seen him do hundreds of times before—then waved Curly away and rode back to his men. How could he not choose her?

  His men were up against a force far greater than they. The scouts, when they found the fresh Indian trail, estimated from the width and size of the grazing area that the population of the camp was 1,200. They knew that the camp was ahead in the Bighorn Valley but had not yet seen it. History had taught that it was impossible to surprise such a large camp, with its lookouts and signal fires on each hill. If they discovered a large approaching army they would flee. So Terry had the generals divide, each taking a smaller force that the Indians would stand against. Of course Autie felt that the 7th with 600 men was an easy match for 1,200 Indians. What he had no way of knowing was that a greater number of Indian bands had come in from the north. Instead of 1,200, the village was more than 5,000 strong. An unfathomable number, a number never seen before or since.

  The Arikara and Crow scouts, having led the 7th to the camp, were allowed to make their exit, although some stayed on to fight. Whether that was due to their fellow feeling for the doomed or if it was an opportunity to fight their traditional enemy remained unclear. Most took off their army uniforms in order to fight as Crow, as Arikara, and give honor for the killing where it was due.

  Another wicked rumor was the one that ironically most comforted Libbie over the years, and it came from the Indians themselves. Autie had been wounded at the beginning of the battle, and the soldiers pulled him to safety while they fought on to their death. The actual last stand took only half an hour by all accounts. When the women moved in to do their work—murder the wounded, mutilate the dead—a group of Cheyenne women recognized Autie as the white husband of Monahsetah. Therefore he was family and sacrosanct. He was carried away and nursed back to health, on condition that he live out the rest of his days with them. Did the idea of his being alive, husband to Monahsetah, pain her? Beyond anything except for his being dead.

  Sometimes she pretended he was out there, aware of her efforts to preserve his legacy. Perhaps Autie lived in the nature he so loved. Anonymous, immune to fame, he could at last rest. Perhaps he had the sons she could not give him. If only he was alive, she could bear it all.

  * * *

  AT THE BATTLE the only man who acted on his conscience was Captain Weir, who never recovered from his guilt in not disobeying the cowards Benteen and Reno. By nightfall Weir could stand their inaction no more and made the attempt to break through, but it was too late. He died only a few months later, Libbie believed of a broken heart.

  When Terry finally arrived the next day, Reno and Benteen reported a force on horseback riding up to them, clothed in the jackets and hats of the cavalry. They expected it was Custer’s column riding back in victory. Instead, as it got closer, they saw it was warriors wearing the 7th uniform jackets, riding their cavalry horses, bearing the 7th’s flags and arms. Minus only the pants. A great joke that would have made Autie roll in laughter, something that he might have done himself.

  The only living being found on Last Stand Hill was the badly wounded horse Comanche. He was nursed back to health and lived out his days in honor. Libbie wondered at the scenes of carnage the animal had been witness to. Did he have equine nightmares as she had human ones? He survived his wounds because his rider, Myles Keogh, died holding his reins, and the Indians were superstitious about taking a horse from a dead man.

  Weeks later Dandy was delivered back to her. It was hard to describe the sight of Autie’s beloved horse alive while his owner had perished. Libbie went under the covers of her bed with no intention to rise again. Of course she was not in a position to give the animal a home, and made arrangements for him to go to Father Custer. A collection was taken up among the soldiers to pay the travel fare. The horse gave the old man great comfort, a link to his three deceased sons. In such grief one clings to whatever can sustain one. The two were inseparable companions for the next thirteen years till Dandy passed from old age. He was buried under an apple tree on the farm.

  Libbie did not visit the farm, could not bear this link to Autie, but was told that it was a beautiful sight in summer when the blossoms fell to the ground, a fitting tribute to a brave, loyal steed.

  * * *

  A BLACK-DRAPED TRAIN waited in Bismarck to take Autie and her away a final time. It stopped at each town as if grief weighed it down, and crowds stood in silence to see the car pass. Sad bouquets of flowers were laid along the tracks, wilting in the hot sun.

  Never did she regret marrying a soldier. People asked how she managed to survive the heartache, but Libbie had been preparing for the possibility since her wedding day. Each step one took in life, from what one ate for breakfast in the morning to whom one married, involved regret for the choices not taken. Each decision involved a narrowing of the experiences possible. In an honest accounting, the end of the happiest existence still contained a mountain of regrets that were part of being alive. Maybe, just maybe, it was finally the regrets that defined one.

  Custer’s scouts at the site of Custer’s death. From left: Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, Curly, and White Man Runs Him

  Autie’s mystery was the mystery of them all. Once he was there and then he was not.

  At the bidding of men in Washington, whom he would never know, he had been sent out into the wilderness to subdue the Indian, a decision based on avarice and dishonesty, squeezed in between afternoon paperwork and a cocktail party that evening. Autie ended up having more respect for those he fought than for those who sent him. Sometimes bigger events set in motion lifted an individual to fame, and sometimes they dashed him on the rocks. Autie experienced both.

  History betrayed him as well as the Indian. The great, fearsome Sitting Bull afterward traveled in a Wild West show. Autie complained often of how he was expected to perform when he was back east in the States. A few decades more of fighting and then the frontier closed.

  It had been another world. The land and the freedom that went with it seemed without limit. They had simply glutted themselves.

  After the railroads were built shooting parties could be easily brought out to the plains. Rich men rode in private cars for their “frontier” experience, complete with shooting buffalo from the windows of the train. Almost eight million buffalo were killed in the space of three short years for their hides or simply for sport. They, too, seemed as plentiful as the grass or wind, without end. Herds that stretched five miles wide and twelve miles long disappeared. It was almost as unthinkable to the Indians as the oceans being sucked dry or the sun extinguished.

  There was a story that by the beginning of the twentieth century the appearance of one lone buffalo wandering the hills near a small town in Wyoming was a major occurrence. It generated a holiday atmosphere, with families hitching up wagons and riding out to see the novel sight. Children were told to look carefully and commit the display to memory—the thin, shaggy beast, knock-kneed, bleating, standing in confusion before them—because he might be the last specimen of his kind to be seen in their lifetime. The people filled their eyes, their imaginations, wi
th the vision of this forlorn creature, who stood in for the mighty millions he had descended from, birthing the very land they stood on. Then, not sure what else to do, they shot him dead. That was the frontier.

  * * *

  THE BIBLE EXHORTED ONE to love the eternal over the transient, an impossible command. The immortality Autie was so enamoured by was dead and faraway, trapped in history books. For decades Libbie niggled over the prosaic in her quest to restore Autie’s memory to its rightful place. How much more she would have preferred to simply grow old with him. The heart was fugitive, it reached out to its own. Hers had reached out to him. Love, fleeting, was all that mortals could hope to know.

  Libbie’s consolation came mostly in sleep because in dreams Autie and she were always together. More often than not, she dreamed of their early days in Kansas, racing along the plains. She felt the thundering speed of the horses as the earth sped under their hooves. Although she never saw his face, she knew it was Autie beside her, their horses running shoulder to shoulder. Strong arms reached around her waist and before she knew it she was airborne, suspended between heaven and earth. Safe.The world had been so big then. So unutterably alive. It was the purest freedom. So perfect she knew she could bear whatever followed. When she woke, tears were in her eyes because for a time she had been so very, very happy.

  THE EIGHTEENTH REMOVE

  Escape—Recapture—Punishment—Neha

  The night is ink under the faint scrawl of stars. Although Anne clearly reads the direction to Neha’s homestead by it, she cannot see the few feet of ground in front of her. She compares the night’s journey with providence—the riddling, unfathomable events of her own life. Her sack of essentials is found in the hollow of the tree where she left it, yet she realizes she has forgotten to include the most basic item: suitable walking shoes. Her thin-soled dancing slippers allow every sharp rock to pain her. She has planned poorly. It seems her fate to remain badly provisioned for each journey in her life. She longs for her thick moccasins that offered surprising protection and comfort, besides leaving no trail, but Josiah has long since destroyed them.

  For the first hour she stumbles down every small wash, brushes against each barbed bush that tears at the delicate fabric of her dancing dress. She has prepared all wrong. In her imagination there was only the end of her journey, being united with her children, rather than the arduous trip and necessities needed to get there. Just as she looks up to the sky for direction, she steps on a low-lying prickly-pear cactus and hisses as the thorns bite into the flesh of her foot. She sits on the ground to examine the abraded skin, but it is too dark to pull out the spines.

  When she comes to a river, she is confused. She has no recollection of the terrain between the two homesteads because Josiah forbade her visits. Perhaps she can follow it down and find a crossing at daybreak? It will make her rescue of Neha more perilous once others are awake.

  She walks along the river, careful to avoid the sandy, crumbling banks and scratching willow lining its sides when she hears the expected sound of hoofbeats from the posse. She should hide herself but already her legs have turned to rubber. Her months of confinement, not being allowed to roam outdoors, have made her as weak as before her captivity. In the fiery judgment of the pine-knot torches, she sees horses speeding toward her. The swiftness of the discovery leads her to guess that it is due to Jeremy’s treachery. Perhaps he chose not to endanger his own standing in the community for an outcast, especially in going up against the formidable influence of Josiah.

  However it came about, she has lost. Instead of the indignity of hiding, she chooses to stand still and let the men find her. If she attempts to scurry under a bush or along the bank, it will only prolong the inevitable. The whole town will soon be out looking for her. Josiah has seen through her deceit of the last months. A lookout will be watching Neha’s homestead, and regardless, Anne would be afraid to attempt the voyage back to the tribe alone. Likely she would wander the prairie until she perished, either from the elements or other malevolent forces. She is all resignation and surrender and meekness when at last they ride up. As she suspected, Jeremy rides at the side of her uncle and will not meet her eyes.

  Josiah sits atop his horse and looks down at her in undisguised delight, the illumination from the torches coloring his face a virulent rust against the surrounding shadows.

  “A grave disappointment,” he says, for his audience rather than her. “It is clear that your morals have been destroyed. The devil resides within you.”

  Jeremy looks ill with remorse. It gives her a small comfort that perhaps he, too, feels duped.

  “Tie her up and put her on a horse,” Josiah instructs, then turns his horse around for the short ride back home. Anne discovers she had made even less progress than she had first assumed.

  At the dance hall there is a hitching post for the horses. With great care Josiah instructs the men to bind each of Anne’s wrists to the horizontal rail so her arms are outstretched. Because he is a man of God and because she is his niece, he allows her blouse to remain on to deny any lascivious interest that might distract from her punishment. The large crowd of revelers mills about, scandalized and titillated in equal measure. A carnival atmosphere pervades. Although the dance allowed only lemonade to be served, men have secreted away small flasks of spirits that they are now passing around. The crowd grows boisterous, unsure of the proceedings. The women stand mesmerized, not knowing the cause of the lashing. Josiah understands that he must hurry, that his brand of justice might look more dubious in the light of day.

  He takes out a long bullwhip. It cracks through the air and leaves a slash of bright red blood along the cloth of Anne’s back. She moans, her whole will concentrated on not giving him the satisfaction of crying out. Her broken flesh excites Josiah, and in his mind proves her putrescence. For that alone he will punish her. The paradox is that the bruising of her further inflames him. He does not lust after her, no. He punishes her for giving herself to the heathen rather than martyring herself to retain her purity. His purity. Her very abasement arouses him, and he fears the taint of her flesh. Eventually she collapses against the post. Josiah is engorged with rage at this stripling girl who has been nothing but a thorn to him since he retrieved her. He brings back his arm for yet another stroke. He does not know when he will stop, how many lashings will lance the poison from the girl, or indeed if he will stop. Perhaps he will keep on until the girl is only a memory, but as he winds his arm back, it is grabbed painfully.

  Lydia buries her nails into his skin. The expression on her face will remain with him always.

  “That is enough!” she says. “You have gone too far this time. Your righteousness has corrupted you.”

  Trembling, she takes the whip, stumbles for a moment in her anger, and walks off.

  * * *

  ANNE WAKES TO THE SWEET SMELL of alfalfa and hay, the green, muddy scent of horse manure. She has been put in the barn. When she tries the doors, they are of course bolted shut from the outside. She stands, her head spinning, legs shaky, when the sound that woke her comes again—wolves howling far away. She tries to look out but can only see the dove gray of dawn through the high window. With the last bit of her strength she drags a bale of hay over, feeling the sear of her back as the cloth stuck by blood to her wounds rips away. She is beyond pain as she unsteadily climbs up. The bloodline of the horizon to the east pulses with its promise of day and warmth. It seems the profoundest miracle that the world goes on, that there is something beyond her pain, her confusion, her despair.

  When the howling comes again, her heart skips then rushes against her ribs. Not wolves, but the cries and chants of Indians. Signaling one another for a raid. She prays for it.

  It has always been thus in her life. Never imagining the waves about to engulf her. Even now, she can with no certainty decry her future—if she will ever again be reunited with her daughter and son, or if instead she will be made prisoner to a stunted, irreconcilable town life. This was her
last attempt at escape. Josiah has broken her so that she will never have strength enough again to attempt it. Each human is capable of only one such effort in a lifetime, but for a magical moment as she stands on tiptoe, clinging to the window frame, she has a vision as clear as the growing, bleeding horizon.

  Painted warriors burst through the flimsy door of the house. Their faces are brilliant in stripes of red, yellow, and white. They pull the covers off Mary curled in her pitiable slumber. Indian women strip her of the foreign cotton nightgown and over her head slip a deerskin chemise that is like a second skin. They pull beaded leggings over her legs, thread bone through her earlobes. Piece by piece they transform her back into Neha. She will grip the pony beneath her as surely and easily as taking a breath. In the toughness required to gain freedom, she does not give Anne a second thought. As swift as the wind, the band of Indians will travel north following the great herds, all the way to the valleys of the greasy grass, fields filled with wildflowers resembling the pastures of heaven. As always Anne has been too dull and slow to understand. She has mistaken a treacherous gift for an unalloyed curse. The raid will right things. For however long it lasts, the land will again be Neha’s birthright. The land, forgiving and without limit, will be the last true freedom.