by John Jakes
May’s dark eyes flashed with fury. “He is. He’s a citizen and just as good as any of—”
“May, stop,” Ridley begged.
“We are the devil’s agents and we demand respect,” the man said, raising his revolver to strike the pregnant girl.
Ridley jumped between them. “Run, May,” he shouted. His hands darted to the throat of the robed man. The man fired a round. The sound of it was thunderous.
“Jesus, Jack,” another of the riders protested. Ridley dropped to his knees, a wound just above his belt pouring blood onto his shirt. May screamed and leaped at the man with the revolver. Instead of shooting her, he drove his elbow into her round stomach. She cried out and fell on her back in the road, holding herself and weeping.
Her faded dress was twisted around her hips. She wore clean cotton drawers that suddenly showed a dot of blood. Jack Jolly pulled off his mask and gazed at May with repugnance. Another of the men said, “She’s just a girl, Jolly.”
Jolly pointed the Leech and Rigdon between the eyeholes of the man’s hood. “You ain’t got a goddamn word to say about it, Gettys.” Ridley slowly rolled onto his side, quivered, lay still. Jolly gave a satisfied grunt, cocked the revolver, aimed at May’s head, and fired another round.
Her body jerked. The sound boomed through the woods, rousing unseen birds that flapped away in alarm. Jolly laughed and wiped his damp chin with the hem of his hood.
“That’s one nigger vote we’ll never have to worry about. Two if she was carryin’ a boy.”
“No violence,” said Devin Heely, the small, red-bearded Irishman who had been hired in Charleston by the mine operators. “The Beaufort Phosphate Company’s dead set against violence. It’s my job as foreman—”
“They killed two innocent people,” Madeline exclaimed. “How do you propose we deal with mad dogs like that? Invite them to tea to discuss the issue?”
Silence. Heely chewed on the stem of his cob pipe. It was dusk, twenty-four hours after the double murder on the road. Every available lantern was lit outside the whitewashed house, and every black man employed in the phosphate fields was standing or kneeling there in a great semicircle. They’d brought their wives, and all their children, too. A baby fretted. The mother rocked the bundled infant.
Seated together on the stoop, Prudence Chaffee and Marie-Louise watched Madeline. A woman in the crowd, May’s sister, wept loudly. Heely opened his mouth to say something.
“She’s right.”
Heely and everyone else turned toward the voice. Andy stepped into the center of the lighted area. “They’ve left us only one choice. The one printed in the U.S. Constitution.”
“What are you talking about, Sherman?” Foote asked.
“I’m talking about what it says in the second amendment. ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ ”
“Showin’ off his damn lawbook learnin’,” someone else muttered. Andy paid no attention:
“I’m talking about starting our own militia company. Right here.”
“You’re a fool,” Heely said. “If there’s anything those Klan boys hate worse than the League, it’s nigra militia. I am opposed—”
“I’m afraid you have nothing to say about it,” Madeline broke in. “I think you’re right, Andy. We have to protect ourselves. If those Klansmen come to Mont Royal, we won’t have time to send to Charleston for soldiers.”
Jane asked, “Where will we get guns?”
“Buy them in the city,” Madeline said.
“Won’t it be expensive?” Prudence asked.
Madeline gave her a strange, grieving look that neither she not Marie-Louise nor any of the others understood. “I should imagine. I’ll find the money.”
Wrote Mr. J. Lee, the architect, asking him to suspend work. The money for his services must be spent another way.
46
HERE WAS THE TRUE prairie. Not a tree broke the horizon. It was the last day of October, and the wind scything over the ground foretold winter. Steel-colored skies expanded the vast, bleak space.
A tiny dot appeared, near the cut bank of a meandering creek. It enlarged to a horse and rider—Satan and Charles. Bundled into three shirts layered beneath the gypsy robe, he was still freezing. The hem of the robe whipped and snapped around him. The Spencer stock jutted above his left shoulder.
His eyes searched a large arc ahead, saw nothing. He chewed on a cold cigar, grumpily. Hell of a season to start a war, he thought. But if there was to be war, he wanted to take part. He’d quit his most recent job, loading freight at the wagon depot near Fort Leavenworth, and ridden over two hundred miles in the bitter autumn for that purpose.
In another half hour buildings of stone and adobe appeared on the horizon. Fort Dodge at last. He’d been resting Satan at an easy pace. Now he put him into a fast trot.
He saw a big wagon park, then mounted squads drilling. He heard the crackle of practice fire from beyond the fort. This wasn’t a post sunk into routine; there was too much activity. It got his blood up.
The officer of the day cast a wary look at the somewhat sinister stranger and said he might find those he asked about in the sutler’s. Charles turned south past the stables to a flat-roofed adobe building with horses tethered outside. He put Satan with them and went in.
Dutch Henry Griffenstein was playing cards at an old round table in the corner. The largest pile of paper currency lay in front of him. Charles didn’t know the three other civilians in the game. One, a nondescript man with tangled hair and a pipe in his teeth, kept spilling the deck as he tried to shuffle. “You’re too drunk, Joe,” said the player on his left, relieving him of the cards. Joe belched and slouched down on his tailbone, indifferent.
“Charlie,” Griffenstein exclaimed, jumping up. “You got the telegram.”
“I started the very next day.”
“Boys,” Dutch Henry said, leading him to the table, “this is Cheyenne Charlie Main. Charlie, this here’s Stud Marshall, this is Willow Roberts, and here”—his tone shaded into deference as he presented the unkempt man, who was about ten years older than Charles—“our chief of scouts, California Joe Milner.”
California Joe, whose eyes barely focused, shook Charles’s hand. It was hard to say whose palm was more callused. Milner wore a filthy Spanish sombrero, his red side whiskers hadn’t been trimmed in a while, and he was altogether one of the most slovenly men Charles had ever seen.
“Joe’s the man I work for, Charlie,” Dutch Henry said. “You, too, now.”
California Joe belched. “If the general says so.” He had an accent. Nothing cultivated, like fine Southern speech. It was the nasal whine of the mountain border. Tennessee maybe, or Kentucky.
“He means Custer,” Dutch Henry said. “We got more than one general. We got General Al Sully, too. Little Phil put him in charge of the Seventh while Curly was still exiled. Sent him south of the Arkansas to chase the Indians. He didn’t do so well. That’s when Phil asked Sherman to remit Curly’s sentence so we’d have a field commander who knows how to fight. They’re both lieutenant colonels, Custer and Sully, but Sully’s brevet is only lieutenant general, so Custer says he ranks him. They’re sniping and fussing all the time.”
“No business of ours,” California Joe said to Charles. “I report to Custer, and so do you if he hires you. Ever scouted in the Indian Territory?”
“I traveled it for more than a year with a couple of trading partners. I can’t say I memorized it.”
“That part don’t make no difference. All you really need to scout is a pocket compass and balls.”
“You’ll have to take my word that I qualify.”
California Joe laughed. “You said he’s all right, Henry. He is all right. Main, you go see Custer. You’ll find him drillin’ his troops at the new camp down on Bluff Creek. If he okays you, the wage is fifty dollars a month.”
“I brought my own horse.”
Another belch. “Then it’s seventy-five. I’
m gonna need another damn snort soon.”
Charles wasn’t much impressed by Milner’s drunken buffoonery. Dutch Henry saw that and tugged his arm.
“I need a drink myself. Come on, Charlie, I’ll buy. Deal me out, boys.” They walked toward the log bar. California Joe picked up his new hand and dropped three cards in the lap of his greasy trousers.
“That’s Custer’s famous pet?” Charles said, incredulous.
Dutch Henry grinned. “One of the two-legged ones. Custer also brung two of his staghounds when Sherman fixed it so’s he could come back from Michigan. We’re getting ready for action here. Phil and Uncle Bill finally convinced Grant we should carry the war to the hostiles. Offense, not defense. The plan is to push ’em back to the Territory, and kill those who won’t go peaceably to the reservation and stay put.”
Charles drank a tall shot of razor-edged popskull in three swallows. “You mean to say that’s the plan with winter coming on?”
“I know it’s contrary to sense, but it’s really pretty smart of Little Phil. The hostiles will be settled into their villages, and you know as well as I do, their horses will be weak from lack of forage.”
“I heard talk at Leavenworth that Sherman wanted Sheridan to move as early as this past August.”
“He did, but the damn Interior Department screwed him again. The Olive Branchers made the Army hold off until it set up a safe camp for the hostiles who don’t threaten anybody.”
Charles scratched the head of a match with his thumbnail. He squinted behind the flame and puffed strong smoke out of the stubby cigar. “Where’s the camp?”
“Fort Cobb. Satanta already took his Kiowas in. Ten Bears took his Comanches. Some Cheyennes went there, too, but General Hazen sent them away because we’re not at peace with the Cheyennes. The Cheyennes are the ones we’re going after. Some of ’em captured another poor white woman, Mrs. Blinn, and her little boy, over by Fort Lyon, first of October—”
“Who were the Cheyenne chiefs who went to Fort Cobb?”
“There was just one. Black Kettle.”
Charles took the cigar from his mouth. He rolled it back and forth in his fingers. “And they didn’t let him in? Of the whole crowd, Black Kettle’s the least likely to harm anybody.”
“A Cheyenne’s a Cheyenne, that’s the way Hazen saw it.” Dutch Henry didn’t understand why Charles looked troubled. Nor did he care. He slapped his friend’s shoulder. “Ay God, Charlie, you missed a fine muss at Beecher’s Island. The Solomon Avengers showed plenty of sand and spirit.”
“That’s what you called yourselves, Solomon Avengers?”
“Yes, sir. We killed a passel of Indians. But there’s plenty more waiting. Cheyennes and Arapahoes—”
“The Army should stay away from Black Kettle.”
“Hey, I thought you hated the whole bunch.”
“Not him,” Charles said, uneasy. He saw a vivid image of Willa’s blue eyes. Dutch Henry frowned.
“Charlie, I told you, nobody cares which Cheyennes are all right and which aren’t. The main idea’s to kill ’em. You object to that, maybe you better forget it.”
He thought of Boy and Wooden Foot, of their poor slaughtered collie.
“I don’t object.”
He ordered another drink. The smoke of his cigar drifted up past eyes grown as chill as the autumn sky.
He couldn’t understand how a rum-pot like California Joe Milner could win George Custer’s favor, but obviously he had, so Charles shook hands with the chief of scouts before he walked out of the adobe building. A snow flurry whirled big flakes around him. The sky was as black as dusk. A caped soldier appeared and handed him something.
“Compliments of the post Grant for President Club, sir.” Charles examined the leaflet and its engraving of the candidate with military collar and epaulets showing. “No, thanks.” He handed it back.
“Sir, voting is the civic responsibility of every—”
“I’ve got other business,” Charles said. The boy in the dark blue cape saw his eyes and didn’t argue.
Charles curried and fed Satan and slept in the stables at Fort Dodge overnight. Next morning he reprovisioned and set out for the Seventh Cavalry encampment on the north bank of the Arkansas, about ten miles south of the fort. Flurries continued to whip out of the slate sky and he soon felt frozen again. He kept his spirits up by whistling the little tune that reminded him of home.
Camp Sandy Forsyth had been named for the commander of the Solomon Avengers. Charles saw its lights glimmering through the gloom of an early dusk. The sentry who challenged him said he was lucky not to have been shot at by some Cheyennes who’d lately been sniping at the camp. Charles shrugged and said he’d seen no sign of the Indians. He figured he’d had so much bad luck, he was due for some good.
He bedded in the wagon park with the permission of the noncom on duty. After chewing a little hardtack, he pulled down the earflaps of his muskrat cap, secured them by a thong under his chin, and rolled up in his blankets. He was thirsty; the water in his canteen had frozen. He felt tired, alone, depressed.
What he saw and heard soon after reveille changed that and got his blood up again. Rifle fire with the steady rhythm of practice drew him to the far side of the tent camp. He found a dozen troopers banging away at wood targets. He asked an old three-striper what was going on.
“When we find the hostiles, old Curly wants to be sure we can knock ’em down. These boys are some of the forty he picked out for his corpse day elite. Sharpshooters. Lieutenant Cooke’s in command.”
Charles continued his walking tour. There was an air of bustle in the encampment, a sure sign of a massive campaign. He counted twenty supply wagons and forty oxen present already. He saw evidence of an experienced military mind at work when he came upon two troops wheeling and maneuvering under the gray sky. All of one troop rode bays, all of the other chestnuts and browns. Custer had adopted the Confederate custom of coloring the horses. Putting all the men of one troop on similar mounts made identification easier in combat, and it had a way of enhancing pride and discipline, too.
Hammers whanged on hot anvils; Charles saw half a dozen farriers working to reshoe large numbers of horses. The Seventh’s bandsmen drilled to the strains of “Garry Owen.” Their gray mounts reminded him of Sport.
Another half-dozen wagons arrived during the afternoon. Shortly after five o’clock he was able to see Custer in his large A-frame tent.
“Be still, Maida.” Custer patted the growling staghound who’d gotten up the moment Charles entered. He’d interrupted the general as he vigorously washed his hands in a basin of water that was still clear when he finished. Custer dried his hands and bounded forward energetically, his smile broad and white beneath his reddish-gold mustache. Blue eyes sparkled above the harsh ridges of his cheekbones. As they shook hands, Charles sniffed oil of cinnamon on Custer’s ringlets.
“Mr. Main. Been expecting you. Please, sit right there.”
“Yes, sir, General. Thank you.” Charles sat on the canvas chair, noticing Eastern newspapers on Custer’s crowded field desk. Reading upside down, he noted a headline circled in black ink. It had something to do with Grant’s presidential campaign.
Elbows on the desk, Custer scrutinized him. It was hard for Charles to remember that this world-famous soldier was not yet thirty years old.
“We’ve met before, somewhere,” Custer said.
“You’re right, General. We were on opposite sides at Brandy Station.”
“That’s it.” Custer laughed. “You gave me one or two hot moments, I recall. What was your unit?”
“Wade Hampton’s Legion.”
“Fine cavalry officer, Hampton. I’ve always liked Southerners.” Custer opened a file. “You know the general purpose of our expedition, I presume. We’re to search out and attack the enemy when they are least prepared, and kill as many of their warriors as practicable. To use the phrase of Senator Ross, we intend to conquer a peace.”
Charles nodded
. Custer scanned something in the file. “You must have an affinity for the Army. I see you tried to get back in twice, under a different name each time.”
“Soldiering is all I know, General. I went to the Point a few years before you did. Class of ’57.”
“I see that here. I graduated in ’61 by the grace of God and the fall of Fort Sumter.” He closed the file. “Do you know the Indian Territory?”
“Your man Millier asked that. I was there for over a year, with a couple of trading partners the Cheyennes butchered.”
The blue eyes pinned Charles. “So you’d have no hesitation about taking the lives of hostiles?”
“No, none.”
Yet he was vaguely troubled by his answer. He decided it was because of the news about Black Kettle being turned away from sanctuary at Fort Cobb. Well, chances were the expedition would miss the tipis of the peace chief. The Indian Territory was vast.
“Griffenstein recommended you for this campaign. You two hunted together.”
“Yes, sir. We worked for Buffalo Bill Cody.”
“Do you speak Cheyenne?”
“Some.”
“I’ve got a greaser who was raised with the tribe. You can back him up.” He wrote a note. “Now let’s go back to your experience. How well do you know the Territory?”
“I told Milner the exact truth. I’ve been over part of it. Any man who claims much more than that is a liar. The whole western part has never been explored in any systematic way. The Salt Fork of the Arkansas, the Canadians—white men have seen pieces of it, that’s all.”
“Fair enough. I’d rather have candor than lies.”
A few cursory questions, and then Custer nodded. “All right, you’re on. You take orders from Milner or from me. The first time you don’t, you’ll be disciplined.”
A muscle in Charles’s jaw jumped. He knew about Custer’s famous discipline. It included such illegal punishments as head-shaving, flogging, imprisonment in a pit in the ground—and then of course there was Custer’s order to his subordinates to shoot deserters.