by Judy Alter
A premonition of disaster ran through me. "How did you get from Harker to Riley?"
"By train," he answered confidently. "I told Smith I could not return without seeing to my wife's health. I was frantic when I heard of the cholera. You are well, aren't you?"
Smith was, of course, Colonel A. J. Smith, the district commander who had been at Riley when we first arrived "He gave permission?" I asked unbelievingly.
"Of course he did. Your boy has done so much for this man's army, no one would deny him a reunion with his wife. Now I can take you to Wallace personally."
He was going to take me to Fort Wallace! I could hardly believe my ears. Autie had written long, long letters about the perilous position of Wallace, the mutinous men, the failing supplies... and yet he was going to take me there.
"When do we leave?" I asked. The thought of refusing to go never occurred to me, for in my mind I heard my father saying, "Follow Autie wherever he takes you."
"Tomorrow."
We retired soon after dinner. Wounded to my very core, I crept into one side of the bed, desperately wishing for my own house so that I would not be confined to the same room with Autie. He, however, had no inclination to stay on his side of the bed. His hands began their sensuous stroking—he rubbed my back, almost kneading the knots that had appeared between my shoulders. And then gradually, ever so slowly, his hands worked their way downward until he was stroking the length of my leg, moving those insistent fingers toward my inner thighs. I shuddered but lay perfectly still.
"I missed you, Libbie," he murmured, inching himself toward me until I felt the length of his body along my back and the hard, strong force of his member pushing at me. "I... I can't exist without you, and the thought that another man might possess you. It drove me crazy.... Say you'll forgive me."
"Autie," I whispered, tears running down my cheeks as I turned toward him, "how could you hurt James Coker? He's a good man. You once trusted him to put a bullet in my brain."
He jerked upright. "Coker told you that? He's a worse fool than I thought. Libbie, if you had to dally, how could you choose someone like Coker?"
Stiff with renewed anger, I turned away from him.
I lay awake all the night, sometimes crying quietly into my handkerchief, more often trying to make sense out of something absolutely incomprehensible. For now, I could not forgive Autie for doubting me, for beating James, for being Autie—his rushing, insistent fingers with all their probing and stroking would arouse not one whit of passion in me. But I prayed it would not always be so, for I could see a miserable lifetime ahead if passion did not hold us together. And Fort Wallace? I would think about that in the morning.
The morning spared me from thinking about Wallace. Autie was as usual up and about early, cheerful as though nothing had ever happened. I dragged myself from bed, avoiding the mirror so as not to see the dark circles that I knew marked my eyes, and stood for several long minutes, bewildered, in the middle of the room.
"Best get packed," Autie said. "We'll leave in an hour."
Listlessly I moved toward the wardrobe, my mind not up to the task of choosing clothes, rolling them in bedding, gathering my toilette. Where, I wondered, was Eliza, and then I knew—she was probably hiding from Autie.
At a knock on the door, I expected to see her face bringing coffee. Instead, a young soldier stood very erect. When Autie opened the door, he saluted and then said in a staccato voice, "Official orders for you, sir," before fleeing as fast as his military dignity would allow.
"Orders?" I asked.
Autie unfolded the papers and read, his frown deepening. Then, wordlessly, he wadded the papers into a ball and threw them across the room. Next he began to pace, back and forth, back and forth. I crept to the comfort of the bed, watching and waiting.
At long last he spoke. "Court-martialed," he said bitterly. "I've been court-martialed."
This whole bizarre episode was going from bad to worse, and I heard him in disbelief. "For what? Beating James Coker?"
Autie came closer that moment to hitting me than he ever yet had. Striding across the room to place his face in front of mine, he raised his fist and then lowered it. "No," he said in a mimicking tone of voice, "not for beating James Coker." Then his voice deepened. "For absence without leave and conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline." He had, it appeared, memorized the words of the document.
"What does that mean?" I asked. "I know about absence without leave... that means you're here and you should be at Fort Wallace. But the other?"
"I shouldn't be at Fort Wallace!" he said, raising his voice. "I told Smith where I was coming... and the other, I don't know." He paused a long time, then spoke dramatically. "I tell you what I think it means. Hancock's Indian campaign this summer has been a bust, and he needs a scapegoat. So here I am. But I'll not let them ruin me this way. Believe me, Libbie, I'll fight."
With a shudder, I nodded.
Trial would commence in September—it was now late July—and until then Autie was to remain at Riley, so we were given our own quarters, small blessing that that proved to be. Autie spent long hours convincing me of his innocence and of the necessity that we fight the charges together.
"We must, above all, not appear worried," he lectured time and again. "We'll give parties, go on with our fives as though nothing were the matter."
And so, newly ensconced in temporary—and draftily unsatisfactory—quarters, I began again to give dinner parties. Autie was always the charming host, laughing with his guests, urging them to have more to eat, more to drink, telling another joke. I watched it all with a peculiar sense of detachment I'd developed after Autie returned to Riley.
The guests who enjoyed Autie's hospitality, however, did not see him during the hours he spent poring over military law books and official records in his study. He would leave those papers in the late afternoon, having worked at least ten hours, with eyes red-rimmed and spirits dejected. But by dinner he would be affable and bright.
His scars from the fight with James had healed, and gradually the distance between us lessened. Not that I ever understood or forgave his attack on James, nor his distrust of me, but the circumstances of being united against the world inevitably drew us back together again. We began with those little gestures of caring—a touch here, a light kiss there—and within three weeks we were again lovers. Sometimes, exhausted in the early-morning hours, I thought that Autie took out all his frustrations in an extraordinary sexual energy, an energy that swept me along, unwilling, and ultimately left me like a shipwrecked sailor washed ashore. Somehow I deemed it my conjugal duty to match his intensity, and my responses were ardent enough that he never sensed my doubts.
"Libbie," he whispered, panting, one night, "I can't bear it when we're not happy like this. Promise me... promise me that you'll never look at another man."
I evaded the promise with a rebuke. "You know I never have, Autie," I said, stroking the sweating head that lay on my bosom.
Passion had weakened him. "I know," he whispered, almost pitifully. "I was wrong. Forgive me?" He could, when it suited his purposes, be almost a little boy, pathetic in his need to be loved and forgiven.
"Do you forgive James?" I wanted to ask, but I said nothing. Instead my hands traveled over his back, his arms, his chest, feeling him stiffen into arousal again. Somehow, as my absolute faith in Autie crumbled, my physical reticence lessened, and I often became the aggressor. Autie was delighted.
* * *
James Coker's division rode into Riley about two weeks after Autie's returned. I heard the news, of course, and watched them from a distance, but it was two more days before I chanced to come face-to-face with James while on a walk about the parade ground with Diana.
He took off his cap and bowed, saluting me in a formally correct manner. I looked for scars but saw none obvious beyond a thick scab that still clung above one eyebrow. With relief I realized that my fears of permanent maiming had been an exaggeration. But h
is eyes were different—they glittered with a hardness I'd not seen before.
"Libbie, you are well?"
"Very, James, and you?" It was like a formal dance, where the partners barely touch, following a prescribed and impersonal form.
"I am well," he said. "And Armstrong?"
"He is well. You've heard...?"
"I've heard," he said grimly. Then, nodding to Diana a few steps away, he made bold to say, "I'm the one who reported him, Libbie. I think it only fair to tell you that."
"Reported him? James, why? Because you fought?"
"No. That was a private affair between two men. But, Libbie, the men who died on the trail, the others who marched 150 miles in fifty-five hours, the horses that had to be destroyed..." His voice trailed off bitterly.
"James!" I commanded. "Whatever are you talking about? Men and horses dying? Autie has simply been court-martialed for being absent without leave and for something about military order... I don't remember the words."
"Nor," he said sarcastically, "do you know their meaning. Libbie, we must talk, privately."
I looked around, expecting to see Autie leap from the door of our quarters and come bounding across the parade ground to confront James again. "That's impossible, James. You and I both know it."
"It's important... important that you understand the situation."
His face was earnest, and I, God help me, wanted to know what he had to say. James Coker was perhaps infatuated with me—or had been—but he was not blind enough in love to fabricate stories. I had to hear what he wanted to say.
"Be at Mrs. Gibbs's house for tea tomorrow at four o'clock," I said boldly, counting on that dear lady's cooperation. "I'll be there, and I'll arrange a brief private talk." Autie detested our afternoon teas and always remained at his desk at that hour.
He nodded and resumed his formal manner. "Delighted to see you again, Libbie, and you, Miss Diana."
When Diana heard of my plan, she was appalled. "Libbie, you wouldn't! Meeting him in secret!"
"It's for Autie's sake," I said, admitting to myself that it was only in part a white lie. I also admitted that I was running a terrible risk.
Mrs. Gibbs was one of the world's nonjudgmental persons. She never asked, she never blinked, she simply said, "If it's important to you, Libbie, I'll arrange it." And so, next afternoon, James Coker and I found ourselves in a small study in the Gibbses' home.
"Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline," James said, standing stiffly before the chair where I sat, "means that 150 men were on a forced march, two were sent after deserters, attacked by Indians, and never searched for, ten horses were left to die along the road, troops were subjected to agonizing unbroken travel, with hardships of exhaustion, thirst, and starvation. Twenty men deserted." He reeled these charges off as though he had been reciting them over and over to himself.
"Why?" I managed to ask, though my voice was faint and I was grateful for the chair that supported me. Had I been standing, I was sure my weak knees would have given way.
"So Autie could get to you. He was panicked about reports that you had cholera," James said, straight-faced.
"And rumors that I was having an affair with you," I added softly.
"That too," he admitted.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because it is your right to know before you leap to his defense." His correct military manner dropped, replaced by an impassioned, personal pleading. "Libbie, you've got to know what land of a man you're married to."
I saw the pain—and love—in his eyes, and I cringed. Those thoughts of what life would be like without Autie flitted through my poor brain, but I could not allow myself to take them seriously. "Thank you for your concern, James. I'll certainly consider this," I said most formally, sweeping from the room and leaving behind me a confused and crushed man. Unfortunately, my put-up front was so good that James Coker did not at that moment know of my own confusion and uncertainty.
The mind plays strange tricks to protect itself. Because I could not, or would not, leave Autie, I could not believe James's accusations. So I discounted them, convincing myself that James had exaggerated, even fabricated the charges out of jealousy and misguided love. And then, by one of those inexplicable twists of logic, James became the enemy for Autie and me to vanquish, and Autie, to my mind, was an innocent victim—well, almost.
Poor James... all he ever did was offer me his love and follow his conscience.
"Of course, Autie knew he risked the consequences of leaving Wallace," I wrote blithely to his mother, "but he did what he thought was right at the time. His troops, who have always been his first concern, needed supplies. Surely he will be vindicated." Then from my superior military knowledge, I added the reassuring thought that court-martial was neither serious nor unusual in this man's army. "Almost half the men have been court-martialed at one time or another." I half came to believe my reassurances myself.
In early September we were transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where the court convened on September 15 with a jury of nine men. I sat with Autie each day, convinced that the trial would go our way... until Captain Robert M. West took the stand.
I had been convinced that James Coker was the only man who could testify against Autie with any impact, and that he would not do so because of me. Perhaps I was smug, but nonetheless, I knew it true, and I was right—James stayed well away from Leavenworth and the trial. But Captain West was a surprise to me. Sitting beside Autie, I watched as he was sworn in, a man much older—in his fifties—with the florid face that often bespeaks too much consumption of the grape.
"He's a drunk," Autie whispered to me too loudly. "I had him court-martialed for being drunk on duty. I guess he wants his revenge."
Surely, I thought, the army is more systematic or businesslike than to allow petty revenge in its most serious proceedings.
West charged Autie with ordering the pursuit of deserters, causing "three men to be severely wounded" and then "persistently refusing to allow said soldiers to receive treatment," so that one subsequently died.
"Didn't Sheridan order you to shoot deserters without trial?" I whispered to Autie.
"Yes," he replied. "Nine men deserted—we went after them and recovered six. Three of them were... ah,... unfortunately shot, but I saw that they had medical attention." He paused for a moment and then muttered, "I just didn't want everyone to know that they got care. Wanted them to think I was willing to let them die. But, Libbie, I wouldn't have done that...."
I remembered the execution in Louisiana, and I could not look at Autie.
Autie was also charged with responsibility for the death of the two troopers lost on the march from Wallace to Harker. The prosecution's description of their mutilated, scalped bodies was so graphic that horror almost made me gag. "Autie?" I whispered.
"I did not have time to go searching for every man jack of them," Autie whispered back defensively. "Besides, if they'd fought back when they were attacked, instead of running, they'd be alive today, sitting in this damn courtroom."
I turned away from him again.
* * *
In spite of eloquent testimony on Autie's behalf—and a widespread belief that the whole trial was a whitewash for Hancock and an exercise in envy for officers who'd resented Autie since his graduation from West Point—the verdict was guilty on all counts. Autie was sentenced "to be suspended from rank and pay for one year, and forfeit his pay for the same time."
Phil Sheridan had at first offered to testify as to his orders concerning the treatment of deserters, but his campaign kept him from Leavenworth. After Autie's conviction he wanted to intervene to obtain a remission of the sentence, but Autie would not accept this. "How would that look?" he asked me bitterly.
"We shall remain in Leavenworth for the winter," he said solemnly, "and I shall work on my book, the story of my adventures from West Point to Appomattox."
Sheridan had invited us to stay at his residence at Leavenwort
h, since he would be away on campaign, so it was settled. In the spring, Autie said, perhaps we should go to Europe.
If my joy at the turn of events was less than Autie expected—after all, he would now be my constant companion, and I would be relieved of worry over his fate at the hands of savages—I could only explain it by financial concerns. Autie had certain emoluments, so that the loss of his regular pay did not render us penniless, but still we would have to conserve. Europe, indeed!
Beyond pleading the strain of financial worries, I could not have explained my reserve to Autie. Indeed, I myself never made sense of the tangled web of truth and deceit woven by Autie and James and the court-martial.
We spent the winter at Leavenworth, dancing merrily to keep our own personal ghosts at bay. There were gay dances and lavish dinners, long walks on the post grounds near the river, hunting with the dogs once spring arrived. But Europe was farther and farther away—Autie was unable to secure the sponsorship he wanted, and we could not afford to go without backing. Autie worked at his memoirs.
In June we left for Monroe, taking Eliza and Diana with us. Autie had grown increasingly uncomfortable, watching patrols head out from the post in pursuit of deserters and Indians. Autie, who needed a war, was now not only forced to be inactive but also to watch others marching off to a war that he knew he could have conducted better. It was too much for him.
"We'll stay in Monroe until October, when the year is up," he said.
I was miserable in Monroe, though I kept my spirits up to fool Autie... and to avoid having to talk to him about how I felt. In Leavenworth, surrounded by our cavalry family, who understood the politics of Autie's court-martial and who saw no disgrace in our situation, I had managed a good face, laughing and dancing with the best of them. But Monroe was different—it was home, and its people had little understanding of army ways. Though no one ever spoke a critical word to me, I felt on display, the subject of curiosity and—dare I say it?—scorn from our fellow citizens. And I was more acutely aware of my own hidden doubts now that there was no dancing to keep them away.
