Libbie

by Judy Alter

  Those few moments seemed a second century, after the one I'd lived through just the day before, but at last we saw why the village was so empty—the top of a nearby bluff was lined with bodies as the Indians, hidden from view to the front, looked off at a faint cloud of dust in the distance.

  "It's the Seventh," Autie said quickly.

  Next day Autie said, "I guess you'll stay behind today, old lady," as he started off on his afternoon ride.

  "No, Autie," I replied. "It's worse to be left behind. I'll go with you." But there was never a day without a new terror—from rattlesnakes to sunstroke, which once overcame me to the point of dizziness. Yet I was driven by a determination to be with Autie, as though I knew I had not much longer to marvel at his energy and strength.

  My reaction to him at night in the privacy of our tent was much the same, a kind of desperate passion as though at my back I heard time's winged chariot drawing near.

  "Libbie, Libbie," he marveled one night after we'd spent ourselves in passion, "what has brought this change about in you? A year ago... two years... you would not sleep with me, and now you wear an old man out." He chuckled with obvious delight.

  "Must be the Dakota weather," I answered lightly.

  "Then we shall live in Dakota the rest of our lives," he said jokingly.

  * * *

  The day came at last when we reached Fort Rice and were ferried across the Missouri, still muddy and full of sandbars, in a rickety old boat. There we hoped for a bath... and found ourselves bathing in liquid mud. We learned to settle the water with alum and even to endure the taste of it, but our accommodation was for nothing. The regiment was to go out to guard the engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad while they surveyed the route from Bismarck to the Yellowstone River. The ladies were to be left behind.

  "Autie," I fumed, "I will not go back to Monroe. The last summer I was there, no one even knew that there was a campaign. 'Oh, is Armstrong on a march?' they'd ask, 'and what's the purpose of this one?' They think with the Civil War over, there's no need for soldiers. I need to be with army people."

  "There's no place for you to stay at Rice," he said placatingly. "And you'd be miserable."

  "I would not be miserable, and don't tell me that. I know there are no tents... but there are vacant rooms in the bachelor quarters."

  "Old lady," he hooted, "surely you're not thinking of taking a room in the most awful of men's boardinghouses known in the West!"

  "I might," I said loftily. "Your letters would reach me so much sooner."

  "Well, your fellow boarders would never tolerate it, not for one night. There's nothing for it, Libbie. You'll have to go to Monroe... but you'll have Maggie with you."

  And so began the summer of my discontent.

  * * *

  The days in Monroe dragged by, punctuated only by the mail. Maggie stayed with me in the house on Monroe Street, rather than returning to the Custer family farm, and I was grateful for her company. We two lived a Spartan existence, taking our meals in the kitchen and otherwise confining ourselves to the parlor and bedroom. The highlight of our day was the walk down Monroe Street to pick up the mail, and woe be the day on which we did not each get a letter.

  Autie, as was always his habit, wrote frequently... about Indian skirmishes, his new hobby of taxidermy—I shuddered at the thought of a parlor full of stuffed animals—and about the series of articles he'd written, which had been well received—and well paid for—by Galaxy Magazine.

  My letters in return overflowed, for it always seemed I had so much to tell him, in spite of my dull existence. "The Galaxy articles have been such a clever, lucky hit.... I am determined now that the public not lose sight of you. Take lots of notes of everything that happens.... Do not, dear Autie, ever go out with less than twenty-five men, for the Indians know you are abroad and are closely following you."

  "Are you, old lady, presuming to tell me how to conduct a march?" he wrote back in mock anger, but I replied that I was sure he needed my advice, even from this long distance.

  On a more serious note I once wrote of my pride in him. "Just think how quickly glory and honor have come to you, Autie. Most men are in the waning sun and yellow leaf before they have half your reputation. It adds a great charm for us to have our youth to enjoy these honors." But as I wrote, the grim thought struck me that Autie had fame and glory as a young man because he would not live long enough to enjoy it as an old man. I ripped the letter to shreds.

  "Guess who I met today?" I wrote in mid-July. "John Rauch... the lawyer who once courted me. Oh, Autie, he would make an excellent husband... but what a monotonous and commonplace life I would have led!" I could not believe that I could ever have looked at another man, when I had Autie's love. In my bliss I forgot James Coker... and erased from my mind Tom Custer's devotion. I was firmly wedded to Autie, spiritually and physically.

  With lively correspondence flying between the Dakotas and Michigan, the summer soon enough passed. In October Autie was to stop off in Toledo for a reunion of the Army of the Tennessee and then come to Monroe to collect me. Maggie would go with us back to the Dakotas.

  But I could not wait another moment. I determined to take the train to Toledo.

  "Libbie," Maggie protested, "you cannot just go to Toledo alone."

  "Of course I can, Maggie," I said, fixing my bonnet. "Autie will be delighted."

  "I wish Jimmi had come home with him," was all she could answer.

  In Toledo, having arrived in advance of Autie, I went window-shopping, always looking for a way to update my pitiful wardrobe. As I stood looking at the grand clothes, I felt sure people were pointing at me, whispering to themselves, "Poor dear, why do you suppose her clothes, though of good quality, are so out-of-date?" I longed to shout back, "Because I've been with the Seventh Cavalry in the Dakotas! I am Mrs. George Armstrong Custer." Those who saw a dowdy but demure young matron peering into the windows would never have guessed the depth of my feelings.

  One traveling dress of rust sateen with black cisele velvet trim particularly intrigued me. As I stood looking at it, I suddenly felt myself grabbed about the waist. Horror-struck, for a moment I forgot where I was and thought only of Indian attacks. But then, before fright could force me to embarrass myself, I heard the familiar, "Old lady! What are you doing here?"

  Laughing and crying at once, I turned to Autie. His face was sunburned to a ruddy red, though mottled pink where he'd shaved off his summer beard, and his hair was cut short again, but the blue eyes were as intense as ever... and they looked deep into my own.

  "Oh, Autie, I came to surprise you. I couldn't wait...."

  "Nor could I," he laughed, "and I must have known you'd be here, for I've taken unbearable joking for insisting on shaving on a train tearing along at forty miles an hour. Everyone thought I must be meeting my sweetheart."

  "And?"

  "And I am meeting her," he said, wrapping me in a passionate embrace with little regard for the citizens who had to walk around us on the sidewalk.

  * * *

  We had a brief interlude in Monroe, and then it was off to the Dakotas again. Autie, as always, found it extremely difficult to part from his mother—I never saw him lose control of himself except when it was time to tell that frail woman good-bye. Then he would follow her about for hours, whispering words of comfort to her, sitting silently beside her. Mother Custer, having been an invalid for many years, always thought that each visit with Autie would be her last, and her efforts to be brave were heartrending. Never did she guess that she would outlive her darling boy.

  At last we were in the carriage and on our way, Autie riding tight-lipped beside me while I, having learned painfully before, said nothing. To have reached for his hand in a comforting gesture, as I longed to do, would only throw him further into the depths of despair. We were on the train and well away from Monroe before he even favored me with a smile, and at that it was grim.

  But nothing could quiet my happy heart. Autie and I were on ou
r way back to the frontier and the Seventh. We were going home. The summer of my discontent faded rapidly from my mind in the face of the joys of being with Autie again. Perhaps, I remember thinking, the reason we were apart so often was so we could enjoy reunions.

  Rebecca Richmond had declined to go with us this time, her heart having been captured by a civilian, of all things.

  "Rebecca," I asked indignantly, "when you've met so many officers, how could you fall in love outside the army?"

  "It was easy, Libbie," she said frankly. "I had your example before me."

  "My example!" I was indignant. "There was never a woman more happily married than I."

  "Perhaps," she mused, "but you live in constant terror of your husband's death, and even when he is not in peril, you live through long separations from him. I want a husband I can enjoy."

  I turned away, struck by the truth of her words but unwilling even to think of trading my life for a so-called normal marriage. No, what Autie and I had was infinitely better, even if we had it only by fits and starts and always under a cloud of fear.

  Rebecca Atwood's parents had consented to let her journey to Fort Lincoln with us, for I could not conceive of returning to those officers without a young woman to grace their winter evenings. No, I assured them, I will not let her marry in haste on the frontier without your consent and presence; yes, I will see that she is warm in the winter, protected from mosquitoes in the summer, and safe always from Indian attacks.

  "Libbie," she giggled on the train westward, "how did you bear all that questioning by my parents?"

  "By remembering my own parents," I answered, realizing that my very understanding marked me as of a different generation than the bright young thing next to me.

  "I'm so excited, I can hardly sit still," Rebecca said with a nervous giggle, and I knew she would be a hit at the fort. I had done one more thing to take care of my soldiers.

  Chapter 17

  Our train went as far as Bismarck, where an alarming crowd was waiting to return with it to St. Paul. They were gamblers and murderers and other lawless citizens whose outrageous way of life had led the citizens to oust them. These shouting, cursing people were desperate to leave the territory on the last train of the season. Autie spirited us out the back side of the car, and we departed quietly for the post, though Rebecca's eyes were wide with mingled horror and amusement.

  "The frontier," I said airily, and she rewarded me with a bright smile indicating that she was ready for any amusement.

  The next amusement was not so funny. The Missouri River was frozen solid enough to bear our weight partway across, but then came a torrent of rushing water, which we would have to cross in a boat. Several soldiers rowed, while Autie sat boldly in the front of the craft, watching everything, and another soldier used a long, iron-pointed pole to keep the huge cakes of ice from capsizing our frail craft. Rebecca and I huddled in the bottom of the boat, refusing to raise our eyes even for a second, sure that any moment an ice floe would send our little boat spiraling down the river.

  "Old lady, you're giving Rebecca the wrong impression of your character," Autie crowed cheerfully from his position on high, where he looked, for all the world, like king of the river. He was enjoying himself immensely.

  "I never promised to make her brave," I quaked from the bottom of the boat.

  "No," Rebecca said, "but you promised me adventure, and this is surely an adventure." She was not nearly as alarmed as I, and I envied her youth and its eternal optimism.

  "Old lady, you've been through much worse than this," Autie said, a faint tone of reprimand tingeing his teasing. "Remember the floods in Kansas when I wasn't even there to protect you."

  "And are you protecting me now?" I managed to ask icily.

  At last we were on firm ground again. Clinging to Autie's arm, I said, "Here I will live and die. I'll never cross that river again." But I knew somehow it was a hollow boast.

  "Autie! Libbie! Over here!" Tom stood by a carriage, waving frantically, and we all piled in for the ride to the fort' Autie and Tom chatted incessantly during that brief ride, bringing each other up-to-date on happenings at the fort and at their family home in Monroe. I was so distracted listening to them that I scarcely paid attention as we reached the fort.

  In the dim light, though, I could see an entire army fort, where before I'd left a barren plain with only a few buildings. "What's that?" I asked. "Surely it's new."

  "That it is," Autie said, turning to smile mysteriously at me.

  As we drew closer, a band broke into the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," followed by Autie's song, "Garry-owen." Then we stopped before the brightly lit building—a two-story house with a large, inviting veranda. Autie had told me that we had a new house in the center of Officers' Row, but he had led me to believe that I would return to a cold and empty dwelling, waiting for me to bring to it the warmth of a home.

  Instead, I saw a house where every room glowed. The lamps were lit, fires were in each fireplace, and the rooms were full of people. The entire cavalry post had turned out to greet us, and as we clambered down from the ambulance, the veranda filled with cheering couples.

  "Autie?" I turned toward him, overcome with the emotion of the moment.

  "They've come to welcome you home, my darling girl," he whispered tenderly in my ear. "Here, I've never carried you into a proper home before."

  And with my protests echoing in his ears, Autie hoisted me into his arms and carried me over the threshold, to the cheers of the gathered crowd. He deposited me with such an earnest kiss as to earn another round of cheers.

  Mary had prepared tables of food, and it was the most festive evening I remember of all my years on the frontier. Well after midnight the last visitor straggled out the door, and I leaned against Autie in happy exhaustion.

  "Don't be too tired," he said lightly. "I want to make love to you in our new house."

  "Autie! Rebecca will hear you. She's too young to know about such things."

  "Bother!" He rubbed his chin against my forehead, his hands insistently pressing my body against his so that I could feel his need of me... and my own need rose in response.

  "Rebecca?" I managed to call weakly. "Autie is very tired. Let me get you settled before we retire for the night." I saw her into her room, fussed over her a moment, checked the bedside water pitcher and towels, every nerve in me straining to rush to Autie.

  "Libbie," she said sweetly, "Autie's waiting for you. Go on. I'll be fine."

  With a kiss to her forehead, I left her and fled to Autie. When I would have rushed out of my clothes and thrown them aside, Autie deliberately slowed the process, unbuttoning one button at a time until I was nearly wild with wanting. His kisses—on my cheek, my neck, my breast—were like small flames, and clumsily I tried to return them. But he was, this night, the more controlled, and I was left to follow, almost helpless, where he led. When at last we came together, it was like a fiery explosion, need and pleasure and happiness and caring for him all wrapped into one big inferno.

  "Autie," I whispered once I recovered my breath, "can't we live here forever?"

  "No, old lady, we probably can't. But I will preserve this moment forever in my mind... and would preserve it for all time if I could."

  I stifled a sob. Autie would never be content to make love to me, to be the consummate husband. He needed his wars... and his victories. In the battle that sometimes raged between us, this evening had been one of his victories •.. and I had willingly been conquered.

  * * *

  "Autie, wake up! I hear something." I poked at him as hard as I dared.

  Stirring lazily, he mumbled, "You always hear things, Libbie. We are in a house... there are no rattlesnakes, no storm will blow the tent down. Go to sleep."

  "Autie, something is roaring in the chimney."

  Instantly alert, he sat straight up in bed, then flew, stark naked, out of the bed and into the hall.

  "Autie, your nightdress!"

  "Bother
my nightdress! Bring it to me quickly!"

  I did as he bid, and he struggled into the large unwieldy garment, while running up the stairs at the same time.

  "This bedroom's on fire," he shouted from the room directly above that where we slept. "Bring me some water! And wake Rebecca!"

  Rebecca had no need of wakening, for she came quickly to the head of the stairs to inquire about the racket. Laboring with a pail of water—much of which I sloshed on the stairs—I shouted for her to don a wrapper and get downstairs immediately.

  As I went back for the second pail of water, I was stopped in my tracks by a loud explosion, and my brain reeled from fright. Autie had been killed—I was convinced of it. "Autie!"

  "I'm all right, Libbie."

  My relief was so great that I nearly sank down on the floor and forgot all other effort. But Autie, now clad in his nightshirt and nothing else, came flying down the stairs and out the door, crying over his shoulder, "Go to Maggie and Jimmi. I'll alert the sentinel."

  Upstairs the roaring was louder than ever, and now we heard the cracking of beams as they split under the heat. It took no more urging for Rebecca and me to fly out the door. Just as we did, there was a report that sounded like a whole unit of artillery soldiers firing at once, or so I thought. I realized later that what I heard was the roof blowing off the house.

  The sentinel fired his carbine in alarm, and in an incredibly short time men were swarming about the house. Autie had gone back to get his vest, with his watch and purse, and had buttoned this over his nightdress, so that he made a strange sight as he gave orders to the soldiers, as cool as if he'd been in the midst of a battle. They worked feverishly to remove our belongings, for there was not an engine nor enough water to battle the blaze, and all we could hope was to rescue but a few things.