The Cry of the Wind

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “Yes,” she said, as if she had been expecting it.

  He turned to face her, but could not look at her, and so he held her hands in his and stared at them. He saw the peeling skin on the backs and palms of her hands, remnants of the fever that had nearly taken her from him.

  “I would like you to be my wife,” he said, blurting the words out all at once, and then laughed, embarrassed and relieved at having spoken so boldly.

  The hands he held squeezed his. “And I would like you to be my husband,” she said.

  He could not keep the smile from his face and he felt the sting of tears in his eyes. “Good,” he said. “That is good. But...” There were things he wanted to say, things that needed to be said. “But you need to know, you need to realize...life with me won’t be the life your mother led.”

  “I know this.”

  “It will be busy. I will have to travel. And if things go the way I hope, it may be like that for years.”

  “I know this, too,” she said.

  “But, but that means I won’t be home very much at all.”

  “Then neither will I,” she said.

  He looked up at her and saw the smile, the cheeks round as plums, the long eyes, dark-lashed and bright with happiness. “You will travel with me?”

  “I am never letting you go anywhere without me again,” she said.

  He embraced her, propriety be damned, and she held him tightly. He felt the silk of her hair against his cheek, smelled the sunshine warmth of her skin. He took her by the shoulders and pushed her to arm’s length.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, challenging her with a level stare.

  Her smile broadened. “Yes,” she said. “You will show me the vé’ho’e world, and we will bring peace to the People.”

  He reached to hug her again but she put a hand to his chest, smile waning. “My brother will not approve,” she said. “Storm Arriving will never approve.”

  “No,” he said, and his gut tightened into a knot of the old fear. He remembered the rituals that had brought Storm Arriving together with Speaks While Leaving, rituals in which he had played a part. He had acted as a liaison, and visited Speaks While Leaving’s father to offer the chief the bride-price and ask for his permission on behalf of Storm Arriving. He remembered sitting with Storm Arriving through the night as they awaited either the return of the bride-price—and the implicit refusal of his suit—or the appearance of the wedding party bearing gifts of their own, including the bride herself. Now, with Mouse Road’s father long passed on to Séáno, Storm Arriving was the only one who could grant a man permission to marry his sister. But George had already pressed his suit and been refused that permission, and he had no reason to expect that Storm Arriving had changed his opinion on the matter.

  “What can we do, then?” he said.

  “It is simple,” she said brightly. “We must elope.”

  “Elope?” George had spent a lot of time among the People, but they had always been very close-lipped in matters concerning the sexes. “How do we elope?”

  She shrugged. “We run away together.”

  “But...” He chuckled. “But we have already done that.”

  She giggled—an incredibly girlish sound—and leaned into his embrace. “Yes. I know.”

  “Then we are...I mean, there’s no ceremony...no...”

  “No,” she said, and now her voice was deep and womanly against his chest. “So, if you want to be married, we can be.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “As simple as that.” She looked up at him. “Of course, when we get home, you should offer my brother a bride-price.”

  He swallowed against the tumult of emotions. His love for this tiny woman, and his gratitude for that love, threatened to overwhelm him. He had always admired the relationship his parents were so willing to show the world—partners in life as well as in love—and now it seemed as if he was to be similarly blessed.

  “I don’t have enough to pay for such a treasure as you,” he said. “No man does.”

  She laughed once more, and he felt the closeness of her body draw him like a magnet. “A single blanket is a fortune if it is all a man owns.”

  “I think I can arrange for a little more than that.”

  They walked to the aft rail where the passengers had begun to gather. They sidled in among the men and women who stood chatting excitedly, prepared for one last farewell wave to friends and family.

  “Have you ever lain with a woman?” Mouse Road asked.

  George felt the blood rush to his cheeks and he was glad that Mouse Road spoke the language of the People and no tongue that might have been overheard and understood. He glanced down at her and saw her looking up at him with an expression of innocent curiosity. The choice of lying to her occurred to him, but he decided against it, as one lie always led to others.

  “Yes,” he said, “but it was a long time ago.”

  “But you learned what you need to know? About men and women?”

  He cleared his throat, now regretting his decision of honesty. “Yes,” he said.

  “Good,” she said, and leaned against his arm. “Then I won’t have to teach you.”

  His breath caught in his throat and he coughed. She could hardly have surprised him more.

  “She was a vé’ho’e?” she asked.

  George, still trying to regain control of himself, looked out over the docks and the milling people and signed with his hand. Yes.

  “Was she prettier than me?”

  He looked at her, surprised again by her quicksilver mind. “Was she...prettier?” he said. The answer required no thought, but still he gave it thought as he realized for the first time that, as he looked at Mouse Road, he was looking at his wife.

  Her long black braids, supple and warm as satin, shone in the sunlight. Her skin, from brow to jaw to the exquisite length of her neck and the shelf of her collarbone, glowed with youth and beauty. Was she prettier? Remembering the tired, waxy features of the small-town whore he had slept with, the question did not deserve consideration, not on that level or on any other. Even taking into account the young women of society whose company he had enjoyed—daughters of judges, congressmen, and generals, women of fine breeding and wealth—he could not in any earnest manner compare them to the woman at his side.

  Mouse Road’s beauty surpassed that of anyone he’d known or wished to know, but so did the other features that drew him to her: her exuberance, her resolve, her intelligence, the devotion and loyalty that had driven her to search for him, the passion that she had shown in berating him for his weaknesses, and the alluring femininity that pervaded her every move, every word, every thought.

  “No one is as pretty as you,” he said, and her smile was bashful, happy, and loving, all at once.

  The ship blasted three long notes as the last passengers boarded and the gangway was removed. George felt the deck tremble as the giant engines below fired to life. The others at the rail called out and waved goodbye to those who were staying behind. George spied Alejandro and Roberto on the pier. He waved and Roberto waved back. So did Alejandro, after a jab and a pointing finger brought his attention to his departing guests. Smoke gushed upward from the stacks, in white and black, and the Gracia de la Mar got underway.

  “When will I get to meet your parents?” Mouse Road asked, bringing laughter out of him as an answer. “Is that funny?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, grinning, but then thought of how that meeting might go. “And yes, it is.” He waved again and breathed deeply of the warm tropical air.

  There was a scuffle behind them, and they turned to find Speaks While Leaving stumbling toward the rail. George reached out to steady her. Her eyes were wide, staring out toward the harbor, but not seeing. He called her name. The passengers retreated. Her knees buckled and George caught her as she fell.

  “No,” she said. “Leave me alone.” Her eyes stared up into the sky.

  “It is the ma’heono,” Mouse Road sai
d.

  “Leave me alone. I do not want to see it. I do not want to see it!”

  George felt the fear that swirled around them like a whirlwind. He saw the frightened faces of the vé’ho’e passengers. “It is fine,” he said, hoping someone among the Spaniards understood his French. “She has fainted. A swoon. That is all.” He heard a man’s voice translate his words and looked back at Speaks While Leaving.

  “I am in a dark place,” she said.

  “It is all right,” Mouse Road said. “We are with you. Just tell us what you see.”

  Once before, George had been present when the ma’heono had come upon Speaks While Leaving with a vision. Just as she had then, she told them now what it was she saw in the spirit world.

  “I smell rusted metal, and sour water. I smell vé’ho’e machines. It is dark. Wait. There is a light,” she said. “A tiny fire. I see Vincent.”

  “Vincent?” George said. The ship had begun to slowly pull away from the pier, and George saw both Alejandro and Roberto, standing, stretching their necks to see what was happening.

  “The fire begins to sparkle. I run. I am in a cave, or a tunnel. There is another with us. We climb a ladder. Vé’hó’e. In blue and white.”

  “Vincent,” George said again. “On an errand.”

  “There is light, now. And others, men and women. And water. We walk down the ramp.”

  Vincent. An errand. Sparkling fire.

  George remembered Vincent’s expert instruction to him and the others as they mined for gold up in the Sheep Mountains. He remembered Vincent’s lessons on fuses and explosives, lessons that had helped them in mining and in war.

  He stood. Alejandro and Roberto still stood on the dock, Roberto shading his eyes with his hand. Beyond them, behind them, was the wharf, and beyond that, the other piers for the larger ships.

  Vincent. Sparkling fire.

  The warships of Spain and the United States stood side by side, American ships to the south, Spanish on the north. George saw men and women on board, taking tours given by captains glad to have their crews on liberty instead of at battle readiness.

  “Oh, no,” George said. “What have you done?”

  Lying on the deck in Mouse Road’s arms, Speaks While Leaving shouted. “I see fire!”

  A booming sound wrung the air and George felt it in his chest. The aft deck of the northernmost warship blew upward, tossing planks, sailors, and the Spanish flag high into the air. Fire gouted upward in a smoky billow. Screams came from everywhere—the ship, the wharf, the pier, and from the passengers around George as they piled to the rail. People ran, those near the warship running away, and those distant running closer. A second detonation crumped deep within the ship and the superstructure was thrust up and forward like the metal of a sardine can. Screams of munitions joined those of people as the ship’s battery caught, and now no one ran toward the warships. All fled. Shells exploded in popcorn reports, and George saw fire break out on the warship next to the first, as well as the cargo ship on the other side. Sailors dove off into the harbor’s green water. The warships at the end of the line, the American ships, sent heavy smoke up from their stacks as they brought their engines on line. Fire spread, on the piers and from ship to ship. Explosions multiplied, propagating like fiery weeds.

  Vincent. Sparkling fire. An errand.

  George stared at the two men on the pier, growing smaller as the Gracia de la Mar poured on the steam to get herself clear of any possible danger.

  “What have you done?” George shouted at them. “Alejandro! What have you done?” But as the first Spanish ship started to go down at the aft, its graceful bow rising up out of the water, he knew what they had done. He slid down along the rail until he sat on the deck next to Mouse Road. Speaks While Leaving blinked her eyes, returning from the spirit world.

  “I had a vision,” she said.

  George listened to the screams of dying men and frightened townsfolk, the shouts of orders and of rending metal.

  “No,” he said, unwilling to watch any more, having seen too much already. “No vision. You saw the truth.”

  “Do you know what her vision means?” Mouse Road asked.

  The captain of the Gracia de la Mar sent his ship cruising out of the harbor, not willing to risk crew or cargo to the disaster behind him. George, sitting on the deck, surrounded by weeping passengers and cursing Spaniards, knew exactly what the vision meant.

  “It means war,” he said. “And no one will be able to avoid this one. Not even my father.”

  Chapter 27

  Wednesday, July 30, A.D. 1890

  The White House

  Washington, District of Columbia

  With the fork a clumsy lever in his right hand, Custer pinned the slab of breakfast ham in place while with his left he did his best to cut it with the knife. His grip slipped and the tines screeched like fingernails against a blackboard slate, raising the hair on the nape of his neck, and making Lydia and Maria shudder at the sound. No one moved for a moment as the memory of the sound faded, and then Libbie cleared her throat.

  “Autie, Senator Tibbets is having a dinner party on the fifteenth next.”

  “At last,” Maria said. “Finally, something to look forward to.”

  “Maria, we have yet to accept the invitation,” her mother reminded her.

  “But Mother, this year was so dreadfully dull. I only went to three balls all season.”

  “There are reasons, Dear, not the least of which has been your father’s health.”

  “But can’t we at least go to the Tibbetses?”

  “That’s what I’m asking your father.” She turned to Custer. “Autie? May we? You know how the girls love dining at the Tibbets.”

  “Indeed,” Custer said as he maneuvered a piece of meat from the plate to his mouth.

  “Can we go, Father?” Maria’s eyes were wide at the prospect of a dinner party—and the new frock that it would require—but Custer’s eye was on his eldest daughter.

  “What do you think, Lydia? Do you want to go to a dinner party at the Tibbets place?”

  Lydia blushed as she studied the food on her plate. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t mind?” Maria laughed. “Why, she’s been dreaming of nothing but for a fortnight, ever since she heard that Richard Tibbets is back from his tour of Europe.”

  Lydia’s blush burned up from her cheeks to her hairline and she threw a daggered glare at her baby sister.

  “Richard Tibbets would be quite the prize,” Libbie said.

  “Mother,” Lydia whispered. “Please.”

  “No, no,” Custer said. “She’s quite right.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Lydia said.

  “Young Tibbets would be quite the conquest,” he continued, enjoying his daughter’s discomfort, “but in comparison, I think that our Lydia would be the prize.”

  “May we please change the subject?”

  “No!” they all said together before breaking into laughter. Lydia lifted her gaze to heaven and gave an infuriated “Augh!” that only added to the merriment of the others.

  Custer was still chuckling when the dining room door opened. Samuel stepped inside and tugged at his ear, the sign that the President was wanted. Libbie caught the sign and sighed.

  “It seems as though Samuel has come to your rescue, Lydia.”

  Custer put down his utensils. “If you will excuse me, ladies?” He stood and took his cane when Douglas handed it to him. As he walked past Libbie, she reached out and took his hand. Her smile was bittersweet as she gazed up at him.

  “I became quite accustomed to our leading a normal life,” she said.

  “I know you did, Sunshine.” He leaned over and kissed the smooth sweep of her dark hair. “So did I.” Then he turned to follow Samuel.

  “My apologies, Mr. President. You know that I wouldn’t interrupt unless it was important.”

  “I know,” he said, and he did. Samuel was not one for histrionics,
and if he chose to interrupt the family dinner, he had reason.

  As Samuel led him from the residence dining room, he wondered whether he preferred this life to the one he’d known in the months following the shooting. Never before had he had the leisure that the months of recuperation provided: the freedom to read, the release from responsibility and command, the time to enjoy family and friends without the looming presence of politics and “business.”

  Business. It had become a bad word during Morton’s stewardship, a word that connoted all the worst of rampant industrialization at the expense of the worker. That, too, was something that the past months had shown him. Business, as the conglomerates defined it, was steel and machines and cash flow and seven-figure finances. It was the engine of the economy, but it ran the common man under its wheels as it moved ahead, and Custer wondered at the wisdom of his party’s strong affiliation with the captains of American “business.”

  But such ruminations were a luxury he had little time for, now, and as Samuel ushered him into the parlor, they vanished, for Jacob was waiting there, and Jacob never came at dinnertime unless it was a crisis.

  “What has happened?” Custer asked.

  Jacob handed Custer a handful of telegraph messages, all written in the block letters of the operator’s hasty hand.

  Havana harbor. Three Spanish warships, two Spanish freighters, destroyed by explosion and fire.

  “Aw, Hell,” Custer said as he read the other messages. “Spanish warships? What about the ships Morton sent there?”

  “The USS Boston and the Chicago escaped harm, as did one of the other Spanish warships. Better for us, though, if we’d lost them.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  Jacob grimaced. “It wasn’t an accident. The Cuban rebels have been fitted squarely with the blame for the initial explosion.”

  “The rebels? How have they figured that?”

  “They caught one of them,” he said. “And he told them that they were provided with explosives and instruction by an American posing as a reporter or something.”