by Len Levinson
General Custer entered the bachelor officers’ quarters, a row of small square one-story cabins. Lights were extinguished in all except one. General Custer rapped his bony knuckles against the door as his dogs did back turns and wild swirls, snapping their teeth.
The door was opened by Lieutenant Classen, on the chubby side, thinning brown hair, serious.
“May I come in?” General Custer asked.
Lieutenant Classen stepped to the side. General Custer entered a small room with a watercolor of a gray-haired matron on the wall. He angled his head so he could read the spine of the book on the desk:
POETICAL WORKS by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A glass of brandy stood beside the book. “Hope you’re not drinking too much of that,” Custer said. “Do you have a loaded weapon in this place?”
“I won’t shoot myself, if that’s what you’re worried about, sir.”
General Custer looked him in the eye. The last thing he needed on his record was the suicide of a junior officer. “You’re sure of that?”
“You have my word, sir. But perhaps you might not accept the word of a coward.”
“Some men aren’t cut out for army life,” Custer said. “I had to throw the book at you, but don’t take it personally. You ever need a recommendation from me, just ask. Who knows, maybe you’re the lucky one. The rest of us’re stuck at Fort Hays, and you’ll go back East with your whole future in front of you.” General Custer extended his hand. “Good luck to you.”
Lieutenant Classen shook the proffered hand. A cool customer, General Custer thought. Never know what’s going on behind that expressionless face. He expected Lieutenant Classen to thank him for the visit, it wasn’t every day General Custer dropped in on junior officers. “If you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’d sleep easier if I had your service revolver.”
Lieutenant Classen opened a drawer, pulled out the gun, pointed it at Custer. For a terrifying moment, the Boy General thought he’d be assassinated.
Lieutenant Classen turned the revolver around and passed it butt end first to General Custer. “Want my sword too?”
“We’ll get it in the morning. Just stand steady when they start the drums. You have friends coming to meet you, I understand?”
General Custer walked toward the sutler’s store, riding crop slapping his leg, brow creased in thought. Classen would be ruined for life, a man can’t run from something like a drum-out. Wherever he went, the taint would follow. He’d enter his club, they’d snub him. A man without a country.
General Custer had known fear. Every man had his breaking point. Better shot through the head in a cavalry charge than rot with age.
He came to the sutler’s store, climbed the stairs. A voice hollered: “Ten-hunt!” Scramble of chairs and tables, General Custer opened the door. Soldiers and officers stood stiffly at attention, uniforms disheveled, struggling to maintain balance. General Custer saw the officer he wanted standing in the corner next to a table with a bottle, glass, ashtray, and cigar sending up a trail of smoke.
“As you were,” Custer said casually, walking toward the officer. The other men drank up quickly, rushed to get out of there. The captain at the table looked at General Custer disdainfully as he approached. The captain had large bulging eyes and prematurely white hair furling beneath his campaign hat.
“Want to have a word with you, Benteen. Have a seat and listen.”
Both men lowered to chairs. Captain Benteen wore his hat tilted low over his eyes; General Custer’s black brim was pulled down also. General Custer pushed the bottle out of the way. He and Benteen took an instant dislike to each other when they met nearly four years ago. Their relations had worsened ever since.
“At the drum-out tomorrow,” General Custer said, “I don’t want you to go too hard on Lieutenant Classen. Just get it over with.”
“You’re awful easy on Classen, General. Can’t help wondering why. The scared little puppy should be shot at dawn, and if you’re looking for someone to pull the trigger, I volunteer here and now. Maybe you’re sympathetic to cowards because you’re one yourself.”
General Custer brought himself under control. They stared into each other’s eyes, both unwilling to face the inevitable court-martial for shooting a fellow officer in public. A few seconds passed. General Custer felt in command of the situation once more.
“You’ve received your orders,” he said levelly to Benteen. “Do you have any questions?”
“Why’d you leave Major Elliot behind?”
General Custer thought he’d lose control, but focused his iron will and clamped down. He didn’t need a life sentence at Fort Leavenworth for gunning down Benteen.
At the Battle of the Washita, Major Elliot and his detachment became lost, cut off, and massacred by injuns. Custer had been blamed for the disaster. If you’re deep in hostile territory, you can’t sacrifice a regiment for a hand who went astray, and Custer had had every reason to believe Major Elliot returned to safety. The Boy General was a fighting field commander, and would match his war record against anybody’s. Benteen’s a jealous drunken complainer, not worth anybody’s time.
General Custer walked toward the door. Captain Benteen felt like shooting him in the back, but didn’t want Fort Leavenworth either. General Custer left the sutler’s store, Benteen returned to his chair. Major Elliot had been a friend, while General Custer was a blowhard and liar. Everybody loved old Iron Butt except the men who served under him.
~*~
General Custer walked home, unsettled by his encounter with Benteen. The army was rife with incompetent officers who undermined every enterprise with their pointless nit-picking questions to show how smart they were.
In the old days with the Wolverines, when he hollered forward, they advanced. They never questioned his authority, never dragged their feet. The Seventh Cavalry needed a major victory to bring them together behind his banner, but Washington couldn’t agree on an injun policy, and the Seventh Cavalry languished on the plains.
Something slipped from an alley straight ahead, General Custer ducked into the shadows, pulled his service revolver. Could be an injun. How’d he get through the pickets? The man came closer, moonlight flashed on his face: Lieutenant Forrest. General Custer stepped into the open. Lieutenant Forrest went for his gun.
“As you were,” said General Custer.
Lieutenant Forrest’s mouth hung open in surprise, he snapped to attention. “Evening, sir.”
General Custer wrinkled his nose. Ladies’ perfume clung to the young officer, they found him irresistible, his affair with Major Scanlon’s wife had scandalized the post. “Out for a walk, Mr. Forrest?” He tried to remember which of his officers’ wives wore the fragrance. It had a familiar rose scent. At the next dance, he’d sniff the wench out. “I have a new assignment for you. I’m appointing you new acting provost marshal, effective right now. Tell Sergeant Major Gillespie to have the order on my desk first thing in the morning.”
Lieutenant Forrest shuffled his feet nervously. “I’m sorry about what happened with Major Scanlon, sir. I caused you concern, couldn’t help myself. Marie Scanlon was quite a … well, quite a woman.”
General Custer wondered if he could say no to a woman like Marie Scanlon. “Try to be more discreet in the future, Mr. Forrest. We wouldn’t want an irate husband to shoot you.”
They saluted. A dog chewed on Lieutenant Forrest’s heel. Custer walked home exhausted. The peacetime army took more out of him than hard combat without sleep for days.
He entered his home, climbed the stairs, found Libbie in bed, her lovely tresses adorning the pillow, reading her journal entries, chewing the end of the pen like a schoolgirl. “What happened to you?” she asked.
Custer looked at the open window. Not Libbie and Lieutenant Forrest. The shavetail wouldn’t dare. Still, he had to know. Summoning his famous courage, he leaned forward, sniffed Libbie’s perfume, afraid of what might strike his nose.
Lemon scent, unlike the rosebushes em
anating from Lieutenant Forrest. General Custer breathed a sigh of grateful relief as he nuzzled his nose into his wife’s throat.
“Did you speak with Lieutenant Classen?” she asked. “How’s he holding up?”
“Hard to say, because he barely spoke. I took his service revolver just in case. Then I ran into Captain Benteen. Of all the regiments in the army, they had to send that bellyaching troublemaking imbecile to me. He’ll be the death of me yet.”
~*~
Stone was awakened by an itch in a sensitive spot. He scratched, gnashed his teeth, lice driving him mad, couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. He saw the body of Ritterman lying on the floor. Should be quite a show when the corpse was found in the morning.
Stone shuffled his ball and chain to the water bucket, dipped in, drank water with something threadlike and crackling, an insect down the hatch. On the way to his blanket, he passed the window, yearned to see the sky. He leaned against the shutter, peeked through a crack, saw the parade field and bare flagpole, halyards banging in the wind.
He’d come so far, Marie was gone, he was locked up. Would his bad luck ever change? A coyote wailed mournfully in the distance, and Stone was tempted to open his mouth and reply. He crawled beneath his blanket, scratched. In his dream, the lobo sat alone on a cliff, snout raised high, serenading the moon.
Chapter Four
It was morning, and Tomahawk cropped grass on a vast plain. He was nervous and frightened, but remained in the vicinity of the fort in case John Stone came by.
He glanced suddenly behind him. A wildcat or injun could attack out of nowhere. He chewed the frothy dew-laden grass. Winter was coming. Got to move south before snow. He didn’t want to leave John Stone, but had to be sensible.
He heard something. In the distance, a lone horse trotted toward him. His first reaction was run like hell, but no rider sat on the horse’s back. Tomahawk waited curiously to see what the other horse would do.
The strawberry roan mare came closer. She twitched her tail, showed rippling flanks, bent down, chewed grass. Tomahawk stared at her in awe. She was one of the wild ones.
Come with me. We are going to the land of the sun.
~*~
Sergeant Buford unlocked the door to the guardhouse, Private Klappenbach carried a big black pot full of thick gruel with bones, bits of meat and fat. It smelled ghastly, but Stone was starved. He and the other prisoners shuffled their shackles and chains toward it, holding wooden bowls.
Sergeant Buford looked past them to a dark form on the floor. “What’s that!” He entered the cell, slapping his riding crop against his leg in imitation of his idol, General George Armstrong Custer.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch.” He rolled Ritterman’s stiffening corpse over. “Who did it?”
Nobody said a word. Sergeant Buford rushed to the head of the line, where Antonelli stood with his bowl. He flipped his riding crop, a cut appeared on Antonelli’s nose.
“Fall in!” Sergeant Buford hollered. “Right here—right now— no food till we git to the bottom of this!”
Antonelli and the other prisoners lined up. Stone advanced to the stew pot and filled his bowl with the dense oleaginous substance. Sergeant Buford stared at him for a few moments in astonishment. “I gave you a goddamn command! You got shit in yer ears?”
“I’m not in your army.”
“Don’t talk back to me!” Sergeant Buford raised his arm to whack Stone across the face with his riding crop, but Stone caught his wrist in midair.
“Wouldn’t do it if I were you.”
Private Delancy and Pfc. Klappenbach dived on Stone from behind, holding his shoulders. Stone bucked like a mustang, and flung them through the air. Corporal Warwick smashed Stone in the head with the butt of his rifle. Stone dropped to the floor like a sack of flour.
Sergeant Buford noticed something strange. Stone wore the same boots Ritterman had on earlier in the day. A fight over leather, looked like. “This time you done it, deserter,” Sergeant Buford said to Stone’s motionless body. “You’ll git the firing squad, ’fore I’m finished with you.” He turned to Corporal Warwick. “Drop him in the hole.”
“What hole?” Lieutenant Forrest entered the guardhouse, campaign hat slanted rakishly over his eyes, silver bars gleaming on his gold shoulder boards. “What’s going on here, Buford?”
“This man attacked me, sir.”
Lieutenant Forrest looked at the unconscious trooper on the floor. “Who is he?”
“Deserter. He killed that man over there.”
Lieutenant Forrest noticed the unconscious prisoner. “You see him do it?”
“No, but he’s wearin’ the other one’s boots, sir.”
“You’ll need more proof than that to throw a man in the hole. Two sides to every story, and we don’t have time for a courtroom debate. Give the prisoners their breakfast, then take them to the formation.”
Lieutenant Forrest walked out of the guardhouse. Sergeant Buford waited until his footsteps could no longer be heard, then turned to the other prisoners. “Any of you girls see ’im kill Ritterman? Come on, don’t be shy.” He gazed into each of their faces, one after the other, but no one said anything. “So that’s the way it is, eh? All right—you asked for it—as of right now you’re on half rations, and I’ll see if I can find some nice work for you around the post, like carrying boulders on yer shoulders till you drop in yer stinkin’ tracks!”
~*~
Sergeant Major Gillespie stood in front of the mirror, scraped the straight razor across his cheek. Fifty years old, but solid as a man of thirty, he examined himself in the mirror. “Damn!” A trickle of blood appeared in the cleft between his chin.
Marsha Gillespie, his wife, entered the kitchen. “One of these days you’ll cut yer head off,” she declared. “A body would think you’d know how to use one of them things by now.”
He held the shiny implement in the air and bared his teeth. “This is a razor,” he explained, “and it’s sharp. You could cut a man’s head off with it. Anybody who shaves nicks himself once in a while. It’s the nature of the beast. Back in the days when I was single, I wore a beard, didn’t have to go through this goddamned torture every morning.”
“You don’t like it, go back to the barracks where you come from. You’ll be a private again inside a month.”
Sergeant Major Gillespie who had been up and down the ranks many times knew she was right. The barracks were crowded with lonely men who drank too much. Inevitable disagreements produced constant brawling, and the only thing to do was get in the middle of it. Then he met the sergeant major’s daughter, married her, now was a sergeant major himself. Every trooper at Fort Hays trembled in his presence, but she treated him like a dumb recruit. He’d passed from one condition of subservience to another, and sometimes longed for all-night poker games at payday stakes, parties at the hog pens, saloons, the camaraderie of the barracks.
She placed a mug of coffee on the table next to him, the fragrance of Brazil rose to his nostrils. He raised the coffee to his lips, sipped the strong hot beverage. She’d subjugated him with good food, drink, and her truly magnificent bosom, the feature that caught his eye in the first place.
He shaved the last patch of stubble away, rinsed his face in the basin, grabbed the towel. She brought a platter of bacon and eggs to the table, as Sergeant Major Gillespie’s mouth watered. He tucked in his blue shirt emblazoned with three gold chevrons and three rockers on each sleeve. Shameful for a soldier to live with lace curtains and doilies, but he couldn’t help it.
Across the table sat his wife, plump but still pretty. They ate in silence, their only son away at school, preparing for West Point. He had a good chance, because General Custer wrote a personal letter of recommendation, and Sergeant Major Gillespie won the Congressional Medal of Honor at Antietam.
“Hope there’s no trouble with Benteen today,” Sergeant Major Gillespie muttered, biting into a gingerbread muffin. “Enough hate on this post, you can cut it with a
bayonet.”
“Stay out of it,” she replied, stirring her cup of coffee. “If officers want to fight, and you stop them, they’ll both turn on you. Maybe if we’re lucky they’ll kill each other, and we’ll get a new commanding officer.”
Sergeant Major Gillespie and his wife were Old Army, not overly impressed by General Custer. The Boy General came up too fast, broke too many conventions, to suit them.
“I never seen such a worthless and silly bunch of officers in me life,” Sergeant Major Gillespie said. “Before the War, that’s when we had a real army. We fought for the flag and the nation, but nowadays they just fight to git their names in the papers.”
~*~
General Custer stood before the full-length mirror in his bedroom, tying his red bandanna. His hair was long and curly to his shoulders, mustache drooped to his chin. He put on his buckskin jacket and studied the effect with a critical eye. The Wolverines adored him during the war, but now his men despised him, laughed behind his back, and he was a sensitive man.
“You’d better hurry,” Libbie said. “The troops are forming up.”
He buttoned his buckskin jacket, carefully adjusted his wide-brimmed hat over his eyes. Then he took a step backward and examined the total effect.
“Don’t let Benteen do anything to provoke you,” she counseled. “He’ll go too far and hang himself someday, all you have to do is let him. Just be patient, Autie. I have complete faith in you. One day soon, your time will come.”
~*~
Stone opened his eyes. He lay on the floor of the guardhouse, had a severe headache, and wondered if his skull was cracked. He arose, staggered to the water bucket, drank some down.
He heard commands on the parade ground, the drum-out was under way. His head spun, he lost his balance, dropped to one knee near the water pail. He dipped the cup in, poured water over his head.
It refreshed him, he rinsed his mouth and swallowed it down. His stomach was hollow. If he didn’t get a square meal pretty soon, he wouldn’t make it.