Libbie

by Judy Alter

  It was as though a faucet within Autie had been let open, for he talked on, seemingly glad to have an audience for this story, which made him so indignant.

  "Can you imagine, Libbie? He tells me with a straight face that he thinks it would be wise in this instance for me to explain my orders. And he even expects me to stand on a barrel while I explain myself to a bunch of soldiers!" Autie slammed his fist into his other hand in exasperation and began to pace while I sat quietly, waiting for what would come next with an unexplainable dread running through me.

  "Now they've gone and signed a petition—soldiers drawing up a petition like they had some rights! They're demanding Earle's resignation. He's afraid for his life—the coward—and came to me for protection. Frankly, I think he should resign, but it's not up to his men to make that decision. It's up to me!" Autie was more intent, more angry, than he had ever been during the whole of the Great War.

  I said nothing, but that night before retiring, I walked in a wide circle around the bed to make sure the pistol was in its place.

  The next day, Autie came home looking more jaunty, more like himself.

  "Autie?"

  "The men have all apologized to Earle," he said triumphantly, "and the matter is closed." Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "All except one."

  Something in the way he said that caught my attention. "And that one?"

  "He'll be executed," Autie said firmly. "I cannot brook disobedience."

  Executed! The very thought sent shivers through me, and I spent a sleepless night, tossing, turning, and worrying about the poor man who was to die within a week.

  Next morning, as soon as Autie was gone, I cornered Eliza for the whole story.

  "He's a nice gentleman, so they say, Miss Libbie. Got a wife and child back up North somewheres.... I hear he wears a lock of the child's hair next to his heart, so you know he's a good man... but he won't apologize. Says he was not wrong in signing that petition, and he'll stand by his word. I 'spect he doesn't think the ginnel'll go through with it... but he doesn't know our ginnel."

  Grimly I shook my head in agreement. This man had underestimated Autie, in this case a fatal mistake. "Is he to be executed alone?"

  "No, there's some deserter gonna be shot with him. Bad man, though, Miss Libbie. He done been caught stealing from folks, runnin' away from the army, 'most everything bad a man can do."

  "But the other...?"

  She simply shrugged, and I put my hands to my ears, wanting to hear no more as I fled to our bedroom for refuge.

  Autie refused to discuss the matter further with me, though I frequently sank into tears, pleading with him for the poor man's life.

  "It is not your business, Libbie."

  "But, Autie, think of his wife at home... and the child." Knowing his wish for children of his own and his soft heart with his younger brothers and sisters, I did not see how he could visit such tragedy on an unknown child. But he remained firm.

  "Libbie, if you persist in discussing this with me, I will send you back to Monroe and tell your father that I've found you are not suited to military life after all!"

  Tears disappeared in anger! "You'd send me home, as unfit for service?" I demanded. "Autie, sometimes you overreach yourself. And you listen to me, for once—if you execute that innocent man, you'll live with guilt... and a big blot on your record, no matter what kind of authority Sheridan gave you."

  He stared long and hard at me and then left the room without a word. I collapsed on the bed in tears, aghast that I'd stood up to Autie, beside myself with grief for the condemned man and his innocent, unknowing family.

  The distance between us for the next few days was like a visible chasm, deep as any gorge in the greatest mountains. We barely spoke, even at dinner, and Eliza, nervous as a cat, broke two of the good Sevres china dishes, trying to be unobtrusive and yet desperately trying to find a way to end the war between the Custers.

  "I suppose I shall have to send you back, too," Autie said caustically to her, when she broke the second dish. "But unfortunately there's nowhere to send you. It appears I am stuck with you."

  Eliza fled for the kitchen, and I lifted my chin in the air and turned my head to avoid the meaningful look he sent in my direction. There was some place to send me, and Autie wanted to be sure I understood that.

  I made the mistake of speaking to Tom, who simply echoed Autie's sentiments, as I should have expected. "Discipline is most important, Libbie. Don't fret yourself about a man you've never met." And with that callous attitude, he dismissed the entire affair.

  Jacob Greene sought me out one day, his attitude much different from Tom's.

  "I know you're upset, Libbie... and I just, well, I wanted to... oh, I don't know what I wanted. It's an awful business." He shook his head uncertainly. "I'm sure glad Nettie's not here. I guess that's what I wanted to say, maybe—that I'm sorry you have to go through this."

  "Thank you, Jacob," I said, taking his hand in mine. "You don't know how fervently I wish Nettie were here, even if that's a selfish wish!"

  "I hope to have her in Texas with us soon," he said. "That is, if we ever get out of this hot, wet place!"

  I knew what he was feeling. All the richness of Louisiana—the lush growth, the fragrant odors, the musical birds—had turned sour to me. In an odd way, I blamed it all on Major Earle.

  Several nights Autie slept in the officers' tents, which were pitched not too far from the main house. The first night he did this, he sent no message of his whereabouts. I ate a lonely dinner—or at least I picked at my food, with Eliza in constant attention—and sat alone with a book until near midnight, though I could tell you not one word that was on the pages.

  At midnight I went to waken Eliza, only to find her prowling in the pantry. "Just straightenin' up, Miss Libbie. It sure enough beats me how things get so out of order." She moved a stack of dishes here and another there, but it was obvious she was simply rearranging to be busy. I thought in view of her recent record she might best leave the dishes alone, but I didn't say so.

  "He's not come home," I said.

  "I know. I been listenin'."

  "I suppose he's all right."

  She put a warm, comforting arm around me. "Miss Libbie, you know he is. Anything were wrong, them soldiers would come running to tell us. He's just doin' his job, doin' what he has to...." She slept—or dozed—outside the bedroom door all night, while I lay inside, wide awake and miserable.

  It was not that I feared Autie would actually send me packing home to my father—not really, anyway, for that would have cost him face. But I could not imagine, not in my wildest dreams, how our marriage could ever go back to its former idyllic state. There was too much anger between us, too much hurt.... At dawn, I sobbed myself into a fitful sleep, only to be awakened within an hour by Eliza, who barged into the room, announcing, "Miss Libbie, you gonna sleep all day? The ginnel's downstairs, waitin' on his breakfast."

  I splashed water on my face—that tepid, nasty water, which was all we had and did precious little for my tear-swollen eyes—and threw on a clean wrapper, hastily brushing my hair.

  Autie greeted me coolly with a kiss on the forehead and explained that he thought it best to sleep in the officers' tents for the next few nights, as a show of support for his officers and to demonstrate his own strength.

  I simply nodded.

  * * *

  At last the dread day arrived, in some ways a sweet relief, because the suspense would be over within hours. I'd had nothing else on my mind for days, and my nerves had reached the breaking point, or so I thought—until nerves actually break, I suspect no one knows how far they will stretch.

  Eliza, as frightened as I, had confided to me that rumors were abundant that Autie would be murdered before the executions could take place, and if not then, he would be shot as soon as the firing squad had done its job. Undaunted, he had ordered his officers to remain unarmed, although they had begged for sidearms at least to defend him, should the n
eed arise.

  Autie left at dawn, and I watched in horror as he rode away, sure that he would never return. Instead of a mutinous deserter and an innocent soldier being shot, Autie would be cut down on the field.

  I retreated to my bedroom, to put pillows over my head and deaden the gunshots I expected to hear. Eliza stayed by me, patting my head and reassuring me, until I was momentarily reminded of my mother, who had so stroked and loved me when I was upset as a small child. We seemed to stay in that bedroom, hung in suspense, for hours.

  "Eliza, have you heard it yet?" A thousand times I pulled the pillow slightly aside to question her.

  "No, Miss Libbie, not yet. You know the ginnel be all right. He always is."

  I buried my head again. Later I learned that even executions involved military formality. The entire division, 5,000 soldiers, was assembled to witness this execution—the men formed a hollow square in a field outside town. Autie rode slowly around the line, close enough that any hand could have reached out and dealt him harm. Behind him, alive with alarm, were Tom, Jacob, and the other senior officers, including Major Earle, who was, Eliza reported later, actually shaking with fear. Behind the officers came a wagon bearing the two doomed men, sitting on their coffins. They were escorted by the guard and the firing squad of eight men.

  When the parade had gone once around the ground, the provost marshal took all eight rifles off to one side and loaded seven, so that each of the eight might forever comfort himself that it was possibly not his shot that dealt the death blow. All the while the condemned men waited and watched—later, from gossip transmitted through Eliza, I learned too much of the white color of their faces, the despair and fear in their eyes, ever to erase the picture from my mind. At last they were blindfolded, while those gathered soldiers held their breath in agony, waiting for the dread command, "Fire!" One soldier later reported that in that moment of absolute silence, the mockingbirds in the hedges around the field even stopped singing briefly, as though aware of the great tragedy being enacted before them.

  * * *

  We heard the shots, of course—pillows can muffle only so much—and Eliza and I clung to each other, speechless. Within an hour we heard Autie mount the stairs.

  "It's done?" I asked dully.

  "In part," he replied self-confidently. "The deserter is dead."

  "And the young sergeant?" My heart did a crazy leap in my chest, and I put a hand to my breast, as though to quiet the beating.

  "He was pardoned." Nonchalantly Autie began stripping off his gloves, taking off his dress saber.

  "Pardoned? Ginnel, you tell us what happened!" Eliza demanded, propriety sinking before her amazement.

  It seems that just before the command to fire was given, the provost marshal stealthily stepped to the sergeant, took his arm, and led him away. Then came the command, and the deserter fell back dead, in blessed ignorance that he went to eternity alone, while the sergeant swooned in the provost marshal's arms.

  "I believe he was the victim of undue influence," Autie said properly, "and I had determined from the outset to pardon him. But I could not let the soldiers feel that I was persuaded by threats on my life."

  And so, he had subjected one terrified young man to a week of agony beyond endurance. The soldier was also imprisoned for some length of time, and I often wondered if that man were ever whole again, ever but a shell of the loving husband and father he had once been.

  Autie never told me, but I later learned that the sergeant's regiment had gone to the execution with loaded rifles. Had Autie known, he probably would not have rescued the young man, and then there would have been even greater disaster, with Autie dead, in all probability. The whole affair was to me proof again that the Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to accomplish. Either that or the Lord wasn't ready for Autie yet.

  Autie's performance the night after the execution did little to quiet my uncertainties. He began to dance around our bedroom with the air of one who has a secret and wants only to have that hidden knowledge pulled from him. Yet each time I inquired, begged, pleaded, even announced that I didn't care a rap what he was excited about, he chuckled in triumph, insisting that he had a good joke on me. It was, it turned out, a fine joke: there had been no ammunition in the entire house the whole time he'd been under threat. That pistol beside the bed, in which I'd placed so much trust, had been unloaded—and could not have been loaded without a trip to the commissary!

  The rift between Autie and me did not heal magically overnight. We were like strangers, awkward and self-conscious around each other, building again a relationship that would never be quite the same as it had been before this traumatic event. I could never forget that Autie had a streak of cruelty in him and a need to prove his authority that blotted out human kindness, though he justified it as military necessity; Autie could never entirely forgive me for questioning his word and judgment.

  Fortunately, we were ordered to march to Texas, a long, grueling journey that accomplished the healing that idle days in Louisiana could never have seen. Autie studied his maps for days on end, calling alternately for the quartermaster—to discuss transportation—and the commissar—to discuss supplies. When at length he announced that we would be on the march within days, he was astounded that I replied calmly, "So I've gathered."

  "How," he demanded, "did you know?"

  I would, I assumed, ride Custis Lee, and Autie would ride Jack Rucker, the new quarter horse he'd recently acquired. Jack Rucker was stronger and tougher than the Thoroughbred Don Juan, but no more beloved by Autie. "I'm shipping Don Juan home," he told me. "He deserves a rest, and my father will take care of him."

  I didn't mind, as long as he didn't ship Custis Lee home. I had no spirit for getting acquainted with a new horse on a long march. Distracted by details, I didn't see the real trouble ahead of me.

  Chapter 8

  "You and Eliza will journey to Texas by way of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. You'll join me in Hempstead, which is to be our permanent camp." Autie looked up from the maps he was poring over, seated at the desk in the Glen Ellen library, a room now woefully devoid of books.

  "Join you in Texas!" I echoed indignantly. "Eliza and I will accompany you to Texas."

  He assumed that now-familiar look of authority. "You are the only two women in the whole command. And the march will be entirely too difficult for you, especially at this time of year."

  It was August, and even our Red River quarters were unbearable, though I had been careful not to complain about mosquitoes, suffocating heat, poor water, even alligators, for I feared that complaint might send me packing back to Monroe. Now I saw that New Orleans, not Monroe, might be my dreaded fate. Perhaps at that point in our marriage, the separation would have been wise, for we were still sleeping stiffly on separate sides of the bed, still distantly polite with each other at the dining table. But I sensed that being sent away would cost me more than a separation from Autie and the possible discomfort of a boat trip. Stubbornly, I dug my heels in for battle.

  I also changed my tactics. Walking behind the chair where he sat, I twirled a finger in his long curls and said in my most gentle voice, "Autie, you know I'm a good campaigner. You've said so yourself."

  Though he was startled at this unexpected touch of affection, he remained firm. "You've never been tested by anything like this. Your father has written sternly advising me to send you by water, and even other officers are saying they wouldn't take their wives on such a journey. I'll not be put in a position of the villain who caused you a miserable trip... or worse."

  "And if something were to happen to me in New Orleans... or perhaps the boat will capsize in the Gulf.... Besides, since when do you let Papa's notions govern our relationship?"

  He sprang out of the chair, away from my fingers, which had crept from his hair down to the back of his neck, beneath his tight collar. "Libbie, stop! You're not an effective seductress—too obvious. And I won't be swayed by cheap feminine tricks."

  I
began to laugh aloud. "Did they remind you of Fanny Fifeld?"

  Autie had the grace to blush. But then he blustered, "Stop trying to distract me! And I'm not making this decision because of anything your father has written. I simply agree with him this one time."

  Autie was right that I was not very good at feminine wiles—most times when I pouted, he simply laughed. I decided that, as always, honesty was the best tack, and there was not a bit of playacting in me when I stood before him at the window where he looked out over the lawns of Glen Ellen.

  "Autie, I really don't want to be separated from you." I hesitated and then added, "Not right now."

  Autie took that as a step toward reconciliation on my part, for he turned toward me and gave me the first meaningful kiss we'd shared in more than two weeks. Responding, I knew how much I'd hated the distance between us, how badly I wanted things to be just as they had been. I was too young to realize the impossibility of ever going back, but for now, once again, I was in his arms.

  "I don't mind hardship, you know I don't, and I'll be no trouble. You know I can do it."

  He tilted my head up for another long, slow kiss. "I don't want us to be apart, either," he said. "But, Libbie, I could not bear it if anything happened to you that I could somehow have prevented."

  "It won't," I promised, sure that I'd won another small victory. Then, grinning, I asked, "Have you thought how Eliza would react to that pronouncement? If you think I was indignant, I defy you to tell her she's not to accompany you."