How Few Remain (90 page)

Firing slowly died away as the C.S. troopers found no more targets, real or imaginary: for Stuart was sure his men had frequently fired at bushes and rocks and even—he glanced over at Major Sellers—armadillos. “Forward!” he shouted, and forward the column went.

A few hundred yards beyond the place where the Apaches had made their stand, the trail led into another wide, fertile valley. Water trickled down from springs on the hillsides. Even in winter, everything was green. Birds chirped and warbled. Flies buzzed. The Apaches had had a camp there. It was far more hastily abandoned than the one Stuart’s army had overrun early in the morning. A couple of beef cattle the Indians hadn’t been able to take with them lowed mournfully.

Major Horatio Sellers rubbed his hands together. “We’ve got ’em on the run now, by God!”

Jeb Stuart looked around, as he had at the other abandoned camp. He saw no one but his own men. That did not mean no one but his own men saw him, and he knew it. “They’ve got enough places to run to,” he said, not so delighted with having driven the Indians from their refuge as he’d thought he would be.

“Sooner or later, we’ll get ’em,” his aide-de-camp said.

“Yes, I figure we will, too,” Stuart agreed. “As you said, Major, we’re a lot more stubborn than the Mexicans. But I hadn’t realized how many hiding places this country offers till I traveled it. We’ll be a good long while at the job, I fear—years, most likely.”

Sellers’ mouth twisted. “I don’t like that notion so very much.”

“Neither do I, not even a little.” Stuart drew himself up straighter. “It’s got to be done, though, and I expect we’ll do it … eventually.” After that last word was out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t said it. Then he looked around at the Sierra Madre again. He sighed.
Eventually
had needed saying.

From a bush so small no white man would ever have imagined using it for a hiding place, a rifle barked. Something hit Stuart a heavy blow in the belly. He grunted, as if at acute indigestion. “My God!” Horatio Sellers cried. “The general’s shot!”

Next thing Stuart knew, he was lying in the dirt. Someone was making a noise like a fox with its leg in a trap. He realized it was he. The pain had started. It was very bad. It was worse than very bad. It was tremendous, appalling, all-consuming. He writhed and moaned and then shrieked, unashamed. None of it did any good.

Leaning over him, Sellers shouted, “Fetch the surgeon, dammit!”

Blood poured between Stuart’s fingers as he clutched at himself. The surgeon wouldn’t do any good, either. Wishing he could lose consciousness again, Stuart was only too sure of that. He shrieked again. He couldn’t help himself. However long
eventually
was, he wouldn’t be here to see it.

Brigadier General George Custer threw more coal into the stove in his quarters at Fort Benton. The fire in the stove glowed a cheery red. Despite that, he was anything but warm. A blizzard howled outside.

He scraped a match against the sole of his boot and lighted a cigar. Libbie gave him a disapproving look.
“Must
you do that?” she demanded.

“Dashed right I must,” Custer said, and sucked in smoke. He didn’t cough at all now. Sometimes the smoke even tasted good.

“Dashed?”
Libbie set her hands on her hips. Her eyes sparked. She was a very determined person. “Autie, you didn’t just promise not to swear where I could hear. You promised not to swear at all.”

Another nice thing about a cigar, Custer had discovered, was that it gave him an excuse not to talk for a little while. Libbie wasn’t just determined; she was tenacious as a terrier. Tom would have known how disapproving of his new vices she’d be. Tom had loved her, too, loved her like a sister. Poor Tom. Custer wondered if the empty place inside him would ever disappear. He didn’t think so. When he couldn’t use the cigar to keep quiet any more, he said, “Times have changed, and not for the better, either.”

“And,” Libbie went on implacably, “you promised your sister you would never again drink liquor, and I know you have violated that pledge as well.”

“When I promised her, I never dreamt my beloved country would go down to humiliating defeat at the hands of the Black Republicans not once but twice,” Custer said. “Can you blame me if I seek consolation?”

“I might not blame you had you sought consolation
once
, though even that would be a violation of your promise,” Libbie said. “But, having reacquired the habit you abandoned so long ago, you have indulged it not once but repeatedly.”

The reason for that was simple: after twenty years, Custer had rediscovered how much he enjoyed the feel of whiskey coursing
through him Coming right out and saying so, however, struck him as impolitic What he did say was “I am far more moderate than in the old days “

“If you mean you aren’t staggering down the street puking every few steps, well, yes, that is true “Such acid filled Libbie’s voice, Custer flinched from it as he never had from enemy fire Inexorably, she went on, “But if you think you are fulfilling your promise, I cannot agree “

Custer did not answer. He felt trapped Not only did the blizzard keep him from escaping his wife, it also kept him from escaping Colonel Henry Welton Welton was a model of military punctilio; nothing he did, nothing he said, could possibly be construed as offensive toward the newly promoted superior now residing in what had been his fort for so long All the same, Custer felt about as welcome as a man in the last stages of cholera.

Libbie might have picked the thought out of his head She said, “That foolish infantry colonel thinks he should have more of the credit for winning the battle by the Teton, Autie. I can’t imagine why, but he plainly does. Everyone wants some of the glory that should rightly attach to you.”

Whatever she thought of Custer’s shortcomings—and she was seldom reticent in telling him what she thought—she was as determined as he to wring the greatest possible advantage out of his virtues. He said, “I still maintain, and shall continue to maintain, that we should have done as well against the British without the Gatling guns as we did with them Tom would back me, I know it Dear Lord, if only he could have then! I wish the stupid things had not been on the field at all; in that case, no occasion for argument would have or could have arisen “

“Of course not,” Libbie said soothingly. Then her brow, which she prided herself on keeping smooth, furrowed. “I wish that that Colonel Roosevelt had not been on the field, either He has stolen much of the approbation that would otherwise have gone to you “

“I’ve thought about that,” Custer said, “and I have decided it does not matter.”

“It certainly does,” Libbie exclaimed indignantly. He nodded, ever so slightly; he’d succeeded in diverting her from his flaws. She continued, “How can you possibly say it does not matter when he has what should be yours?”

“Because whether he has it or not, what can he do with it?”
Custer said. “He is a colonel of Volunteers whose regiment has been mustered out of U.S. service, so he cannot harm my Army career. And he is a puppy of twenty-three, so he cannot be my rival for any political office, the Constitution disqualifying him from such a pursuit on account of his age. Q.E.D., as my instructors in the mysteries of geometry were given to saying.”

“All that may be so,” Libbie said, and then, grudgingly, “I suppose all that is so. Nonetheless, I am ever so glad he has left Fort Benton. Say what you will about him, enough ambition burns in that man for a hundred Henry Weltons. Deny it if you can.” Her chin jutted defiance.

“Let him be as ambitious as he likes,” Custer said. “His desires cannot impinge on mine.”

Her voice dropped almost to a whisper: “Do you think you can be nominated for the presidency? Do you think you will be nominated for the presidency?”

“I
can
be,” he answered. “Jackson was. Harrison was. Taylor was. Winfield Scott was, too, though he failed of election.”

“Whoever faces Blaine year after next will not lose,” Libbie said.

“No, I shouldn’t think so,” Custer agreed. “Whether I
will
be nominated depends on whether I can keep my name in the public’s eye between now and then, and also on whether the leaders of the party decide I am the man whose name they want to put forward at the convention.”

“And whatever fame this Roosevelt gained at your expense will make both of those things less likely,” Libbie pointed out. “There. Do you see? You have contradicted yourself.” She looked as triumphant as if she had just driven back an invading British army.

Before Custer could reply, someone knocked on the door to his quarters. Through the yowling wind, a soldier called, “Colonel Welton’s compliments, General, and would you and your lady care to join him for supper?”

“Yes, we’ll come,” Custer said, and then, to Libbie, “Wrap yourself up warm, my dear, and we’ll see what the cooks have done with—or to—supper.” Her coat was of Angora sheep, and warm. His own, of buffalo hide, had served him well in the field.

Even so, that first dreadful breath of air once he left his quarters almost froze him from the lungs outwards. His teeth chattered. A moment later, he heard Libbie’s clicking away, too.

Snow swirled around him, making even the short walk to the officers’ dining room an adventure. The way was made more
uncertain because the dining-room shutters, like most of the rest at Fort Benton, were closed to help hold in heat. Custer had to grope for the latch. Only when he opened the door did yellow lamplight spill out and illuminate the endlessly blowing snow—and no sooner had he opened the door than shouts of “Close it!” rang out from within.

He waved Libbie in ahead of him, then went into the dining room and shut the door after himself. The first breath of warm air inside was nearly as stunning as the first frigid breath outside had been. Sweat sprang out on his forehead. He got out of his overcoat in a hurry. So did Libbie.

“Good evening, General Custer, ma’am,” Henry Welton said. He rose and saluted.

Custer returned the salute. “Good evening, Colonel,” he said. Yes, everything was perfectly proper, perfectly correct, and colder than the blizzard outside. Everything had been that way since he’d brought the Fifth Cavalry down to Fort Benton after the first of the year. He sniffed and smiled. “What’s for supper?” he asked. “Whatever it is, it sure smells good.”

Sometimes his pretense broke the ice for a little while. Today was one of those times. Henry Welton actually smiled back and answered in civil tones: “Fried potatoes from our own garden, boiled beans and salt pork, and roast prairie chickens.” He even essayed a small joke: “Not too hard keeping meat fresh, this season of the year.”

“No, indeed.” Custer tried to joke back: “Not too hard keeping meat
hard
, either, this season of the year.”

Welton smiled again. So did a couple of his junior officers. So did Custer, with some effort. It didn’t help much. He and the officers of Welton’s Seventh Infantry were smiling past one another, like carriages going by on opposite sides of the road.

Custer was fond of fried potatoes, though he would have liked fried onions—or onions of any sort—even more. The beans and pork were beans and pork; he’d been eating them for so many years, he hardly noticed them on his plate except insofar as they helped fill his belly. He enjoyed the prairie chickens. They were all dark meat, and full of flavor.

A couple of whiskey bottles and a pitcher of lemonade from concentrate went around the table. Most of the officers drank whiskey. Libbie filled her tin cup with lemonade and pointedly passed the pitcher to Custer. “Wouldn’t you like some, Autie?”

That would have sounded harmless to anyone who didn’t know her well. To Custer, it was anything but. “With the weather like this, I do believe I’d sooner have something to help keep me warm,” he said. One of the whiskey bottles sat within reach. He poured some—not an enormous tot, by any means—into his cup, then raised it high. “Confusion to our enemies!”

Not even Welton and his officers could find fault with that toast. They drank with Custer. As the liquor ran down his throat, Libbie gave him a look that should have completely counteracted its warming effect, but somehow didn’t quite. She did no more than that. In public, she stood foursquare behind Custer, for behaving in any other way might have harmed his chances. What she was liable to say when they went back to their quarters was another matter. Custer didn’t care to think about that. To help keep him from thinking about it, he poured more whiskey into the cup. Libbie sent him another glacial glance.

“Confusion to our enemies indeed,” Henry Welton said. He was drinking whiskey, too, and making no bones about it. “It’s the best thing that could strike them, from our point of view, and the only thing that could bring them down to our level.”

When it came to politics—with, no doubt, the exception of Custer’s political ambitions—Custer and the officers of the Seventh Infantry were not so far apart. Almost to a man, they loathed the administration currently in Washington, or rather in Philadelphia, having been shelled out of Washington. Only the presence of Libbie Custer and some of the other officers’ wives kept them from expressing their opinion in terms even more forceful than the ones they used.

Custer said, “We didn’t know what the devil we were doing when we made war, and we don’t know what the devil we’re doing now that we’re trying to make peace, either.”

“Blaine can’t stomach giving away half of Maine,” Welton said scornfully. “If he does, it’ll make the state we ship him back to smaller.”

“We should have hanged Lincoln—look at the rabble-rousing he’s doing now—and we should hang that dashed idiot Blaine, too,” Custer said. Even with whiskey in him, he would not curse in the presence of women.

“That’s what comes of electing Republicans,” Libbie said. There her opinions marched with her husband’s.

“Once we finally do have peace—if we finally do have
peace—that’ll be a sham, too, nothing but a hoax and a humbug,” Custer said. “It always has been. Sooner or later, the Fifth will go back to Kansas, and we’ll ride along the border with the CSA, and sure as the devil the Kiowas and the Comanches will ride up and burn a farm and kill the men and do worse to the women, and then they’ll go back down into Indian Territory where we can’t follow ’em. It’s been going on ever since the War of Secession, and what can we do about it? Not a blasted thing I can see.” A considerable silence followed. Into it, Custer added, “That’s the way it’s always been, and I don’t see it changing any time soon. I wish I did, but I don’t.”