Libbie

by Judy Alter

  For one thing, the troops foraged liberally, stealing at will from the local population. Autie issued stern orders against such foraging and set the penalty at ten lashes and a shaved head. Several men underwent this punishment before Autie got his point across, and the rest of the men remained angry at the restriction, at the punishment, and most of all, at their general.

  "Lashes?" I asked Eliza. "Like we used to hear...?"

  "Yes, ma'am, jes' like the worst slave owners did, lashing a man's bare back with a whip. I seen it done when I was nothin' but a young'un, and I tell you, I never want to see such a bloody back again, and I don't want to hear no man yell like that...."

  My stomach churned in revolt at the thought. How, I wondered, could Autie expect to inspire loyalty in his troops by such brutal methods? He, who had always handled men better than generals twice his age... to resort to this! I blocked the scene from my mind, refusing to think on it, and when once I chanced to pass a soldier with a shaved head, I looked quickly away before I could wonder about his back, and whether he stood straight enough or seemed to stoop in agony.

  The returning Confederate soldiers were an equally trying problem—belligerent, angry at finding the army of occupation in their homes, frustrated because the entire way of life they had known was wiped out. Had they but realized, they were more fortunate than their brethren from, say, Virginia, whose homes were literally burned to the ground. In Louisiana, property suffered nothing but neglect—as Lane's Glen Ellen plantation well testified. Still, these men saw their lives gone forever, and they stood on street corners, talking loudly and angrily about what they'd do to Union soldiers, given half the chance. Our men had to listen to gibes and taunts while they were forbidden to return them in kind. Autie issued a declarative couched in welcoming terms, but its underlying message was that continual troublemakers would be arrested and brought to headquarters.

  And finally, there were the newly freed slaves. Autie was as disgusted with them as with the soldiers, both blue and gray. "They seem to think that the army will take care of them, and they have no need to support themselves. Once they took orders willingly, but now they resent the least little direction. If you tell a freedman to curry a horse, you're as likely to get an insubordinate remark as you are any help with the horse." To the blacks he was counselor, doctor, lawyer, taskmaster, father, and provider. And he hated every minute of it.

  The very air around Alexandria crackled with tension, and Autie was supposed to whip the soldiers into fighting shape so that they could be a peacekeeping force in Texas, as well as encourage the blacks to care for themselves and the returned Confederates to rebuild their lives instead of simply complaining. It was an enormous task for a twenty-five-year-old man, and even I knew it. Autie had, of course, the support of that tight little band of men who became his military family—Tom, whose attitude toward all troublemakers was that they should be immediately shot, and the much more peaceful Jacob Greene, who thought the officers should be able to reason with the men. There were others Autie relied on—Fred Nims, James Farningham, Farnham Lyon, and George Lee; and then the unpleasant Major Earle was still with us.

  Autie never talked to me about his troubles. Instead, in the evenings we went on our long rides. "A man," he said one evening, "may do everything to keep a woman from knowledge of official matters, and then she gets so confounded keen in putting trifles together, the first thing you know, she is reading a man's thoughts."

  * * *

  Autie was right. I was putting trifles together. What he didn't know was that I got my trifles from Lane Murphy and, even more reliably, from Eliza.

  My days were long, and the afternoons were hot. Sometimes in the midafternoon, when Autie was occupied trying to bring discipline to an unruly army, Lane Murphy would wander up from the overseer's quarters. Autie would disapprove, but I did not expect Autie to know—and I did not feel guilty, for I was merely trying to help Lane. I knew that if my days were long, his were interminable, for as far as I could tell, he didn't have much work to fill his days. There is only so much that one man can do on a dilapidated plantation, and Lane was southern and relaxed by nature, with none of the Puritan drive of us Yankees. Nor was he in the best of health. I thought of Autie's absolute obsession with his work, and the contrast heightened my love for Autie. I could never bear an idle man.

  Some days we walked among the slave cabins, visiting the few who were left. They greeted Lane like a hero, inquiring after his health, calling him "Mistah Lane," and sometimes ever so gently teasing him about some past event. "Remember the time, Mistah Lane..." became a familiar refrain in my ears. The other refrain was, "Mistah Lane, we sure do miss Mastah Tom." Master Tom, I learned, was Lane's late father.

  "Lane," I asked one day, "they were so anxious to be free. Even old Granny Goshen told me how she praised the Lord she'd lived long enough to see freedom. And yet they obviously love you... the man who kept them from being free."

  Stifling a smile, he drew himself up in mock indignation. "I wasn't quite that bad, Libbie. Not Simon Legree or anything." Then he sobered. "My family and I provided the only security these people knew. We cared for them—physically and emotionally. We weren't bad slave owners—we saw that they were fed and clothed and lived as well as possible. We didn't raise the whip, and we never sold families apart. Abolishing slavery isn't just a question of freeing poor indentured people, Libbie. You mark my words—it's much more complicated, and that precious husband of yours is already finding that out."

  I flinched at his reference to Autie. Neither man cared for the other—that was obvious—but they were both usually polite. Now Lane's anger caused him to cross that fine line, ever so slightly.

  He explained the situation to me in more compassionate terms than Autie had used. "The master is used to giving orders, and the slave to taking them. Now neither one knows how to treat the other, and it's leading to disasters. The general's right about one thing—crops are wasting in the fields, because the slaves—excuse me, freedmen—don't think it's their responsibility to harvest them. And no one has ever taught them to think ahead about consequences—they see no relationship between their refusal to work and possible hunger next season." He shook his head in despair.

  But Lane, unfortunately, did not always confine his talks to the terrible troubles that beset Louisiana. "Let's walk to the river," he suggested one hot, muggy day.

  "Lane," I laughed, "my hair is already hanging in strings in my face from the heat. Surely you don't want to walk anywhere." What I didn't say to him was that my petticoats felt damp from sweat and seemed to flap about my legs, and I could feel the perspiration glistening on my face.

  "It's important," he said. "I don't want to sit around with Eliza or walk down to the cabins and see ol' Granny Goshen today."

  "Of course," I said, fearing that he was upset about his continued poor health, his bleak future, the disrepair of his family home—Lane had, I thought, any number of reasons to be melancholy, and it was my self-appointed chore to brighten his days.

  We tramped down the dirt road by which we'd first approached the plantation, then up onto the dirt levee, Lane leading at a fairly brisk pace. Before us, the dirty river rolled along, depositing silt on the riverbanks, lapping against the exposed roots of trees.

  "Lane, where are you going?" I asked, a little breathless from trying to keep up with the pace.

  "You'll see. Come on. We're still on the plantation."

  Within minutes we rounded a bend in the river and came upon a secluded gazebo—a hexagonal-shaped building, very small, boarded in up to waist level but with remnants of old screening flapping above. Inside, it was surprisingly clean—I'd expected an accumulation of leaves and mold, but instead, the benches, which faced the inside walls, were clean, though badly in need of paint.

  "I... I come here frequently," Lane said, suddenly hesitant in his speech. "It's a comfort to me."

  "It's a beautiful spot, Lane." Indeed, the Red River—in my mind the uglie
st river I'd ever seen—looked almost grand from this vantage, the view gentled by weeping willows, which swayed around the edges of the gazebo. Even on this stifling hot afternoon, there was a welcome cooling breeze.

  "I thought you'd like it," he said, sounding relieved. "My mother had this built years ago. When I was little, we'd come here on a hot afternoon, and she'd read to us. Now I come here when I'm upset... or discouraged... or almost every day, I guess." He ended with a wry smile.

  "Thank you for bringing me," I said, sincerely moved that he would share such a place with me.

  "Surely you know why I brought you here?" he asked, his voice suddenly husky.

  I looked at him, standing awkwardly across the gazebo from me, his hands clenched at his sides as though he were trying to quiet an anger... or some other intense emotion. I knew, of course, right then, why he'd brought me to this treasured spot, but I had no idea what to do or say next.

  "Yes," I murmured, "I guess I do."

  To his credit and my relief, he did not take one step toward me. "Libbie, back in Monroe I thought you the prettiest, liveliest girl I'd ever met. But my world was full of pretty girls then, and I took none of them seriously. But now, here, a lifetime since then, I find that each day you are more and more important to me."

  "I've wanted to be your friend, Lane," I said lamely.

  His impatience was instant. "You know that's not what I mean." He took a deep breath. "Libbie, are you... do you really... oh, hell, do you love him?"

  Startled, I echoed, "Him? Autie? Of course I do, Lane. More than life itself."

  "You've been reading bad novels, then," he said bitterly. "He's going to cause you grief."

  My loyalty to Autie sprang to the surface. "Autie will always take care of me, Lane Murphy, and it is ungentlemanly of you even to hint at anything else."

  "And I am above all else a southern gentleman," he finished. "You're right, Libbie, and I'll say no more—except that I want you to know that if you ever find yourself in need of help, shelter, whatever... I'm here. I'm yours."

  Quickly, before embarrassment could cause me to stumble, I moved toward him, took his hands in mine, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Lane, I am most grateful... and most appreciative. I shall never forget, never. But I'm not sure we should spend our afternoons together anymore."

  "Whatever you wish," he said stiffly.

  After that, I missed Lane Murphy sorely. He would never, I was sure, have been the passionate husband that Autie was, but he was a companion, a friend of the heart, in a way that Autie could never be. I didn't try to explain that even to myself.

  * * *

  Things went along with relative smoothness—Autie irritable and preoccupied, me bored and miserable—until the night a rock came through the parlor window. Autie, as usual, was pacing, and I sat in a Windsor chair underneath the lamp, stitching on something—I was always stitching on something merely because I thought ladies were supposed to be busy with needlework and it would make the time go by. Autie asked me once what we were to do with all the linens I embroidered—set up a hotel?—and I threw my embroidery hoop at him. But he loved the nightgowns I did for myself.

  The rock came from nowhere with a crashing suddenness that startled even Autie. No matter that it brought me screaming from my chair—my nerves were notably unstable—but to startle Autie was a feat in itself.

  "What in thunder...?" Autie sprang across the room to the windows, though I, rooted to the spot where I'd been, screamed, "Get back, Autie, don't go near the windows."

  Deliberately he turned to me. "Libbie, be quiet!" Then he turned again to peer out the long, tall windows of the Murphy parlor while I held my breath and fought off tears simultaneously.

  "Nothing," he said calmly, finally turning back toward me. "Whoever it was rode on by in a hurry." He bent to pick up the rock—an ordinary red rock, from the river bottom, no doubt—and held it in his hand, thoughtfully turning it over and over.

  I had by then sunk onto the horsehair sofa—not a soft place to sink, but nonetheless, I was glad to be off my feet. "Autie," I asked, my voice trembling, "who would have done such a thing? You have no enemies!" Ah, how love blinds us!

  He whirled to look at me, the rock still clasped in his fist. "Yes, but I do, my darling. I haven't talked with you about it because... well, there was no need to upset you. But some of my troops are unhappy... to say the least."

  Before I could ask further, a great commotion erupted in the back of the house, most of the noise being Eliza's voice raised to fever pitch. "Ginnel? Miss Libbie? What the tarnation's goin' on around here?" She stormed unceremoniously into the parlor to stand staring at both of us, hands on her hips in a defiant, somehow threatening pose. "You tell me what this noise is, now."

  And with that, Autie began to laugh. He stood still for a moment, shoulders twitching, one hand vainly trying to cover his mouth, and then he sank into a convenient chair and put his head almost between his knees while great, loud laughter rumbled up from his very boots.

  "Autie," I said sternly, still half-scared to death, "stop that now and tell us what's going on!"

  Finally he had himself in control enough to gasp, "If the troops knew they'd have to fight you two, they'd never give me a minute's trouble." A loud guffaw broke up whatever he intended to say, and then, "Ladies, I thank you for your concern."

  Suddenly he was back to himself, General George Armstrong Custer in command. "I can take care of it, ladies," he said. "Believe me, you are in no danger."

  I rushed across the room. "Autie, we're not worried about our danger. What about you? What's going on?"

  "Major Earle came to me today," he said slowly, "to ask that I appear before his command to explain my orders. I refused."

  "Ginnel, why couldn't you just go and explain?" Eliza demanded. Her hands were still on her hips.

  "Because once I start to explain or justify, I've weakened my position," he answered firmly. "I'm in charge here, and my orders stand, no matter what the reason for them. I don't intend to start bargaining with my troops. Besides," he added wearily, "Earle doesn't know how to handle his troops. They once fired into his tent at night, and if he hadn't been asleep on the ground, he'd have been killed."

  "You let that happen?" I asked, incredulous.

  Autie stared at me in disbelief. "Let it happen? If I knew the men responsible, they'd be standing before a firing squad, but I cannot prove who did it." He was getting angry now—at me, Eliza, the men, everyone!

  "But Miss Libbie..." Eliza was not to be silenced easily, and I admired her pluck, even as I bit my tongue to keep from voicing my worries over and over in a repetitious song.

  "Miss Libbie will always be safe, Eliza." I promise you I felt none of the relief one would think I should at this calm, strong statement. "Autie," I whispered, "I'm not worried about myself. That rock wasn't thrown at me... it was a threat to you."

  "I know that," he answered, looking straight at me with those intense blue eyes, "but I cannot give in to threats. I will not explain my actions to my underlings." Autie stood very straight as he said this, his chin raised ever so slightly, his eyes looking out the window.

  Briefly, I wished for a portraitist to capture him as he looked that very moment. But the practical side of me asked, "Will you take precautions?"

  From haughtiness to amusement, his face changed instantly. "Precautions? Libbie, no one is going to gun me down when I appear in front of the troops tomorrow."

  "No," I persisted, made strong by my fear, "but they might attack you at night. Will you put your pistol under the pillow at night?"

  He guffawed again. "If that's all it will take to make you comfortable, of course I shall. Come to me, my love."

  I walked unsteadily toward him, to be enfolded in his embrace, where everything seemed safe and certain. Eliza, a grin on her face, slipped quietly out of the room just before Autie hoisted me in his arms and carried me upstairs to the bedroom.

  Before he got in bed, he ceremon
iously placed his pistol on the floor next to his pillow. "It would make a lump under the pillow," he explained to me.

  As the innocent often do, I slept soundly that night. Unbeknownst to me, other precautions were taken, principally by Autie's officers, who slept in a tent campground not yards from the mansion. Having decided among themselves that the situation was serious, they divided up the watch and guarded the house all the night. Their suggestion later that Autie lock the doors and windows at night fell on deaf ears.

  * * *

  Autie grew progressively more distracted. At night, sitting at that long dining table with gleaming silver dishes and Eliza hovering over us to see to our every comfort, he would be silent, eating his food with no enjoyment and, I'm sure, no taste.

  "Autie, what troubles you tonight?" I felt I had to shout the length of the table between us, and I knew Eliza listened at the door to the servants' pantry.

  "It's nothing," he said, with no emotion in his voice.

  "Autie, what is it?" I became almost desperate, after days of seeing my beloved husband lost in a fog of concern.

  He sighed deeply. "The men. Nothing to worry your head over, my darling."

  "Autie," I stormed, "I will not be dismissed like that. If the problem is so severe as to cause you such concern, I deserve to know about it."

  "Does your father know you talk to me this way?" he asked wickedly, then sobered immediately. "Earle's men, he insists, are used to apologies and explanations. That buffoon came to me again, asking that I talk to his men. You should have seen him, Libbie—pompous as could be. You'd have thought he was the general in charge, and he spoke just so precisely, as though explaining a very simple matter to a halfwit. I tell you I had a hard time to keep from boxing him one. The men are not regulars, sir, as you know' "—here Autie's voice rose in imitation of the major, then fell again into his own normal range—"and they do not understand military formality. It seems their former officer would issue an order and then go among them—to, ahem, stand on a barrel and explain the order to the men."