Beneath a Wounded Sky

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “I will,” he said.

  Chapter 19

  Thursday, October 16th, AD 1890

  Westgate

  Yankton

  Custer sipped his steaming tea, tasted the floral, citrus, and bitter leaves, and tried to ignore the soft discussions located around the hotel’s lounge. Samuel and Jacob were leaning on a table, looking at maps and coordinating telegraph messages, while Hancock was discussing perimeters and entry points with his security team. Custer took another sip and then concentrated on steadying his hand. The cup was over the table before his arm began to waver, tremble, shake; the china cup chattered against the rose-bordered saucer as he brought it to rest. Nothing was spilt, but his forehead was beaded with sudden sweat.

  The train trip west had exhausted him, which angered him immensely. Why, after so many months of struggle, after subjecting himself to the quackery of surgeons and medical “innovators” alike, was he still so easily made infirm? Why, after just a few hours activity, was he still so susceptible to tremors and instability? Why did he still need a twenty-minute nap in the afternoon to avoid the fatigue that slurred his speech by evening? And why, oh, why was it that he could not consistently master his sibilants, no matter how many times he repeated the elocutionist’s exercises?

  Two ghosts sat on posts drinking toasts to their hosts.

  He hated it, hated it all, and—no, he refused that next thought, for despair was the cracked door, the little death whereby all was lost. His only solace reached out and put her hand on his. His Sunshine, his one love.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?” Libbie asked with a smile. It was an old dialogue, one that they had shared a thousand times.

  “For everything,” he said, truly meaning it. He pulled at his watch chain, and popped open the case. The blue-steel moon hands angled outward over the scripted Waltham name.

  “Don’t fret,” Libbie said. “He’ll be here soon enough.”

  Custer shook his head. “It’s times like this that I wonder at the wisdom of being a teetotaler.”

  Libbie slapped the back of his hand and stood. “Walk with me,” she said.

  He grabbed the bone handle of his cane and levered himself upward. Hancock, the ginger-haired chief of his protective detail, rose but Custer waved him away. “We’re just going to the gardens,” he said. But Hancock did not retake his seat, and Custer knew he would follow them, regardless. He sighed.

  The common room at the Persistence Hotel was well-appointed, with brass fittings on doors of golden oak and thick carpets with intricate designs woven in deep reds, dark purples, and bright yellows. The walls, paneled in pale poplar, bore framed photographs that told the story of the town, its triumphs as well as its tragedies. As they walked to the front door, Custer glanced at the pair of photographs situated prominently on either side.

  The photograph on the left showed a row of stately gentlemen, all standing in a row, chests out, hands on lapels to keep still for the exposure. Behind them rose the cabled arches and iron trestlework of the soon-to-be-finished bridge they had built across the great river. Custer had studied their faces before and recognized in their features the pride they all felt, but in them he also saw something else: arrogance. These men—dignitaries, engineers, soldiers, and businessmen—considered themselves invincible, untouchable by any danger, incapable of failure. What they dreamed, they could do, and there was no obstacle that could not be swept out of the way. It was beyond their capacity to imagine what would befall the grand and impressive structure that rose behind them. Their assumed omnipotence did not allow for what the other photograph would show.

  On the right was a photograph of the same bridge, taken a few short days after the first. The view was taken a little to one side, to show the length of the span. Here, in contrast to the first image, the men who stood in the foreground had their backs to the camera, all staring at what had become of the structure. The heavy stone footings on either side of the main span were cracked, two were broken, and between them where once had risen two graceful arches with a deck was suspended from cables of woven steel, there now was empty space, twisted girders, and wiry tangles. The whole of the central span lay in ruin, destroyed by explosives set by the Cheyenne. Pieces of the structure reached up out of the river like skeletal fingers, bones of metal, broken and bent. In a midnight flash, the pinnacle of their skills had been brought down by those they considered less than human. Viewing the photograph, Custer was unable to see the faces of the men who stood staring at the wreckage, but still he could tell what they were feeling. Their arms hung limp at their sides, hats no longer at cocky angles but now either in loose-fingered hands, on the ground, or missing altogether. Their shoulders sagged. One man had squatted down, his head in his hands, his world turned in on itself. These men, gods on earth just a few days before, had been transformed overnight into wretched, disconsolate men; stunned mortals, their mouths filled with the ashes of yesterday’s fruit.

  Custer and Libbie walked through the open doors—Hancock at a respectful distance behind them—and stepped out onto the hotel’s wide porch. The Persistence Hotel stood on high ground inside a bend in the river. It had a commanding view of the growing town of Westgate, and from its porch the couple could see the lower section of town, its streets lined with sturdy, square buildings all whitewashed and clean. Down at the end of the main street were the riverside docks where ships from afar and ferries from across the river exchanged their cargoes. And there, in midstream of the river, were the pylons of the new bridge that was being constructed. This bridge would be much less elegant than its predecessor, with trestles spanning the short distance between each of the bulwarks built up from the riverbed. No long arches, no cable suspensions; nothing but the same simple, sturdy, reliable design that had been used for a hundred years. Custer loved innovation, but the frontier was rarely the best place to test something new.

  The midday sun was refreshing, warming Custer’s face and melting the tension from his shoulders and arms. The front garden was filled with the creepers and huge leaves of squash and the yellowing leaves of bush beans. Robins ran about, stopping to eye the ground or overturn a fallen leaf in search of a grub or worm. He patted Libbie’s arm in thanks for her suggestion of a walk. They had just begun to descend the front steps when they heard a carriage coming around the bend in the road.

  “There,” Libbie said. “That must be him.”

  “In a carriage?” Custer said. “That’s not like John at all.”

  But it was true. The carriage—a low-slung, covered landau drawn by a pair of chestnut mares—was driven by a uniformed teamster, with one soldier at shotgun and one more at the rear. It jounced on its long springs, rocking along the rough road and creaking as it was brought to a none-too-gentle halt at the gate before the hotel’s small garden. The private at the back jumped down, opened the door and dropped the step for the occupant.

  Meriwether emerged, stepping down but, instead of greeting his President and First Lady, he turned and extended his hand. From within the carriage came a small female hand, a thin wrist wrapped with leather and beads, a well-toned arm, and a deerskin-clad shoulder.

  “What the...?” Custer said.

  The woman inside took Meriwether’s hand and gently, steadily, stepped out of the carriage. She was small-boned, quite young, with dark almond-shaped eyes, cheekbones high and broad above a gracile jaw. Her hair was dark as a raven’s wing, almost purple-black in the sunlight, done in two plaits that wound from nape to crown and back, decorated at the back with tufts of grouse and owl feathers. She wore the tunic-like dress of her people, the ties loose at one shoulder, a wide girdle of beads and shells tight around her small waist. On her feet were hand-wrought boots of supple leather, with beaded strips down each side and fringed hide decorating the tops.

  She said not a word as she descended, nor did she look at Meriwether. On the ground, she stepped to the side and turned back to the carriage.

  Custer looke
d to Libbie and found her as puzzled as he was.

  Then another hand emerged from the landau’s interior and grasped the jamb. Custer immediately noticed the missing joint on the little finger. Libbie gasped, and he knew she had seen it, too.

  “It can’t be,” she said.

  Their son—thin, haggard, skin as brown as a wheat-berry, his hair sun-bleached to flax—stepped down from the carriage, took the young woman’s hand, and looked up. His eyes, the same piercing blue as Custer’s own, crinkled at the edges as he gave a small, meek smile.

  Libbie’s breath broke. “Oh, Heavenly Father,” she said, running forward. George reached out to accept his mother’s embrace, and for a time her sobs and George’s quiet words of comfort were all that could be heard in the garden.

  Meriwether discreetly stepped away and walked up toward the hotel. Custer reached out for his arm as he passed. Meriwether halted.

  “What is this?” Custer whispered.

  Meriwether looked back at the trio near the carriage, then back at Custer. “For the moment, it is a reunion; nothing more. Later? We shall see.”

  Meriwether continued up to the hotel, explaining the situation to Hancock. George, Libbie, and the young Indian woman walked up the path. Libbie’s eyes were red but there was a smile on her lips. George stopped a few steps away. He held out his hand.

  “Hello, Father,” he said.

  Custer, still stunned, reached out dumbly for the handshake.

  “I know,” George said. “Bit of a surprise.”

  Custer expelled a “ha” of agreement. “Quite,” he finally managed.

  “One of many, I’m afraid,” George said. He took the hand of the young woman at his side. “Mother. Father. Please allow me to introduce you to Mouse Road. My wife.”

  Custer forgot to breathe. He saw his own gaping expression mirrored on Libbie’s face. Then her features went slack, her eyes rolled up, and George turned to catch his mother as she swooned. Hancock was there in an instant, and together he and George carried Libbie up into the hotel. Custer stood there, staring at the empty doorway. Then he felt a small hand take his arm. He turned and found the woman, Mouse Road, his daughter-in-law, standing at his side, looking up at the hotel, waiting for him.

  “Parlez-vous français?” he asked her

  A shy smile as she looked down. “Un peu,” she said.

  He did not know what to make of this woman; her demure aspect did not match his expectations of the kind of woman his son would eventually take to wife. Then again, here she was, holding the arm of one of her people’s most hated enemies.

  “Aidez-moi s'il vous plaît?” he asked, indicating the stairs ahead.

  “Oui. Bien sûr.”

  Slowly, leaning on her arm, they walked back up into the hotel to see how Libbie was recovering from the shock.

  Their entry to the hotel lounge put every man in motion. George was able to nod a greeting to both Jacob and Samuel as he and the general carried his mother and laid her down on the divan. Others went for cold water, for a fan to cool her skin. Samuel waved a sheaf of telegrams over her head while some man with red-hair and a muscular build took her wrist in a two-fingered hold and checked her pulse against his pocket watch’s second hand.

  George had never known his mother to faint, and he seriously regretted being the cause of it. Providing a surprise was one thing, but to stun your mother insensible, well, that was just mortifying. Once she was settled on the divan, he just stood there. “What should I do?” he asked of no one in particular. Meriwether shouldered him aside and undid the top button of her high collar. Then he undid the buttons on her wrists.

  “That’s the extent of it,” the general said. “Usually there’s a cluster of women to take over, but here...”

  “Let me through.”

  George stepped back to let his father pass. Heavily, clumsily, his father knelt at her side. He took her hand, patted it, then reached up and pinched her cheek. George’s mother blinked once, fluttered her eyelids, and then shook her head a little. An audible sigh passed through the room.

  “There now, Sunshine,” George’s father said. He looked up and motioned to the serving maid for the glass of water she had brought. With trembling hands, he dipped his handkerchief into the cool liquid and dabbed it against his wife’s temples and forehead.

  George watched this tableau of tenderness, seeing the side of his father that was rarely shown to anyone, family and outsiders alike. He glanced around the room and noted as the other men—soldiers, statesmen, administrators; all men of action and purpose—looked away or busied themselves with messages or reports, all somewhat embarrassed to witness such a gentle moment from a man who was, to many, a legend. Only Meriwether looked upon the scene frankly, with a warm smile of his own. The general patted the President’s shoulder.

  “Back with us?” he asked George’s mother.

  She took a deep breath and lifted her eyebrows above widened eyes, looking around, wondering. “Yes,” she said, and then remembered. “Autie,” she said. “I saw George.”

  “He’s here,” Custer said, nodding back toward their son.

  She looked past her husband’s shoulder, saw her son, and smiled. Mouse Road stepped to his side and the smile faded.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s right.” Then, before the menfolk could stop her, she shifted to a sitting position and rose, hand out. “Forgive me, my dear, but I think I missed your name.”

  George muttered a quick translation and Mouse Road replied.

  “Je m’appelle Hohkeekemeona’e,” she said, reaching out and clasping his mother by the wrist.

  George smiled. “She says her name is Mouse Road.”

  His mother’s reciprocal smile was slow in coming. Eventually, it arrived, dimly at first, but as her gaze moved around the trio, from son to husband to unexpected daughter-in-law, her confusion and disbelief receded, and soon she pulled George into another embrace.

  “All right, all right,” Custer said. “Time enough for that later. John, I presume there’s more reason for this than a family reunion?”

  “Indeed,” Meriwether said.

  George’s mother recognized the implication and rose with regal dignity. She spoke to the serving maid. “Emily, will you please bring some tea into the sun room?” Then she turned to Mouse Road. “Would you care to join me, dear?”

  George spoke to his wife. “She asks if you would join her for some hot tea. You can stay, if you prefer.”

  Mouse Road looked at George’s mother and considered the invitation. “I will go,” she said. “She is someone I must know better.”

  George spoke to his mother. “She is learning French, but she has no English.”

  “Je comprends,” his mother said, and with a gesture led the way, leaving the affairs of state to the men.

  With the departure of the women, the atmosphere in the room abruptly changed. All eyes turned to George, though no longer with expressions of welcome for the surprise return of a wayward son. Eyes had narrowed, eyebrows quirked. All papers were put down, all other interests put aside. It was back to the business of diplomacy: argument without anger, suspicion without insult.

  “What is this all about, John?” Custer asked. “There are things we need to discuss. Alone.”

  Meriwether nodded. “And I believe I know what they are. But this man—your son—came to me under a flag of parley, just as I was about to engage the Spanish. What he told me...what he offered...was important enough that I brought him immediately to you, as I believe it bears directly upon the items you wanted to discuss.”

  Meriwether was trying to speak without letting any hints fall, and if the Spanish general hadn’t clumsily let his own news slip during his self-aggrandizing dinner, George would have been in the dark as to Meriwether’s meaning. But the only thing that would have brought his father here, personally, to discuss strategy with his commander in the field was a major change in the status quo, and George was already well aware of what that change wa
s. It was time to prove he was here to participate.

  “You needn’t tiptoe around the subject,” George said. “The Spanish are about to sail into Kansa Bay, probably with reinforcements, definitely to establish a new supply line for their existing forces.” George did his best not to enjoy the open-mouthed stares from both his father and Meriwether. All around the room, stunned expressions ruled on every face.

  “I had guessed,” Meriwether said. “But—”

  “You guessed?” Custer blurted.

  “Well, naturally,” the general replied. “You wouldn’t come all this way just to—”

  “I’m glad to know my motives are so transparent.”

  “More importantly,” Meriwether said, deflecting the topic, turning to George, “is how you found out.”

  George shrugged. “I can draw inferences, too.”

  His father took a step closer and leaned on his cane. “I want to know why you are telling us.”

  “To prove my earnest intentions,” he said.

  Meriwether cleared his throat. “It is why he’s here in the first place, sir.”

  Custer squinted and looked at his son. The room was silent, waiting. “Why are you here?” he asked George.

  “To propose an alliance between the United States and the Allied Tribes, so that we might act together to repel the Spanish forces.”

  Jacob Greene laughed out loud. “Repel the Spanish forces? You are the ones who brought them here in the first place!” he said. “And now you’re ready to turn on them? If you would turn on them, why not turn on us? What makes you think we would ever trust you?”

  Discontented murmurs rumbled through the room, and George understood their mistrust. It was there, strong and unforgiving on both sides; mistrust born of a century’s hate and strife, nourished by the blood of generations. Whereas he might be able to convince the People with his description of a vision from Speaks While Leaving, these men would react to such talk with derision and scorn. He closed his eyes for a brief moment and recalled the view from atop that mountain, beneath that wounded, blood-soaked sky. Yes, regardless of whether he spoke in realities or metaphor, the calculus remained the same. Now he just had to trust in the vision itself, and speak to these men in a language they could understand.