Perhaps Red Cloud had met his equal.
The Great White Father sat at one end of the longest eating table in the world. A Seizer officer wanted the Lakota to sit here and there, but we decided to sit together. Red Cloud took the chair facing the Great White Father. I sat between Plenty Cuts and his friend Jesse.
Jesse smelled like a Washitu and spoke like a Washitu. Plenty Cuts had told me Jesse was a Washitu chief, but the other Washitu chiefs ignored him.
I asked Jesse why he wanted to be a Washitu. “You must love the Washitu very much,” I said.
My remark hurt Jesse and I was sorry I said it. When I apologized, he said, “We must learn how to live with one another.”
The Great White Father stood to say that The New York Times had called Red Cloud “the most celebrated warrior now living on the American continent,” which made the Great White Father jealous. All the Washitu laughed.
The man at the Great White Father’s right hand began to make a speech, but Red Cloud stood and interrupted. My husband translated as Red Cloud said he sought peace with the white man and bullets and powder so his people could hunt the blackhorns and have plenty to eat. Red Cloud had been told the Great White Father was a great warrior. If the Great White Father came to Lakota country, Red Cloud would take him on a war party against the Crows.
A black robe made a prayer to the Lord JesuChrist.
The men who brought our food were as black as Jesse and Plenty Cuts. It is a great honor to serve chiefs and I wondered what these black men had done to deserve such honor.
The Great White Father’s wine tasted like thin trade whiskey and his water had been drawn from a stagnant pond. The meat they put before us was covered with white slime and I couldn’t tell what animal it had been. Lakota do not eat unless they know what animal it is.
Red Cloud said, “Maybe this is why the Washitu don’t send us the food they promise. They cannot send it because their meat is spoiled.” Plenty Cuts did not tell the Washitu why we were laughing.
My husband and I ate what Red Cloud ate: strawberries and ice cream.
The ice cream was so sweet it bit my mouth and though the Washitu strawberries were as fat as plums they had no flavor.
CHAPTER 45
LIGHT BROTH AND A CODDLED EGG
For chicken broth, when stock is boiling remove it from heat and add desired cream.
To coddle an egg, lower it gently into boiling water. Cover the pan and remove from heat. Cook for six to eight minutes.
MRS. EBEN BARNWELL TOOK HER CUSTOMARY TABLE AT HER usual hour: after the opera and theater crowd but earlier than fashionable Manhattan society dictated.
Gaslights cast their soft glow on embossed wallpaper and wine-dark swagged silk drapes. Delmonico’s was almost empty and waiters were relaxing at a large corner banquette. Randolph folded his newspaper, straightened his bow tie, and draped his towel over his arm. “Sorry, Mrs. Barnwell.” He laid Delmonico’s morocco-bound menu at her elbow. “I didn’t see you come in. Will Mr. Barnwell be joining us tonight?”
His voice was so empty of affect, he might as well have shouted that Eben Barnwell and his wife never dined together anymore. Pauline’s husband dined with his friends.
“I’m afraid not,” Pauline murmured. “Your mother, is she improved?”
“Thank you, yes. Mother isn’t coughing so much and last night she slept through the night. Sunday we’ll ride the ferry. Mother adores salt air. Her cheeks bloom like a schoolgirl’s.”
He filled her water glass. “The trout is particularly good this evening. How is young Master Augustus?”
Pauline smiled. “Merely the light of my life. I wish I could spend every minute with Augie. Sometimes I wish we didn’t have servants so I could do everything for him myself. Augustus Belmont Barnwell is a spark! No fish, thanks; just light broth and a coddled egg. Green tea, please.”
Randolph raised a disapproving eyebrow and tapped the thick menu. “If I might, Mrs. Barnwell . . . Pauline . . . please. Our Chef Ranhofer is a genius of cuisine and when regular patrons—like yourself—don’t let him demonstrate his art, well . . .” With a glance to be sure nobody was in earshot, the waiter whispered conspiratorially, “Our prima donna sulks!”
Pauline covered her mouth to contain her giggle. Randolph’s mock seriousness—he could be more waiterly than any real waiter—raised her spirits. Although she wouldn’t have confessed it, not even to herself, Pauline felt more at home at this table than in her own home.
How she missed Stratford Plantation!
“I fear your prima donna will be obliged to sulk . . .”
Randolph covered her hand with his own and lowered his voice solicitously. “I’m to bring the maestro a request for broth and a coddled egg? May I tell him you’re an invalid?” Hearing his own words the waiter flushed. “Sincerest apologies, Mrs. Barnwell. I completely forgot myself. In the spirit of my jest, I—”
She patted his hand reassuringly. “Randolph, Randolph . . .”
He straightened. “Broth and a coddled egg, madam. Can I persuade you to try a glass of wine? They say wine improves the digestion.”
“Oh, very well.” The waiter sped off on his vital mission while Pauline was thinking theirs was an odd friendship, odder here in New York than it might have been in Virginia, but friendship it was.
Randolph’s father’s had captained a New Bedford whaler sunk with all hands by the Confederate raider Kearsaw, with the consequent economic collapse of a cadet branch of the “distinguished” (Randolph’s word) Howland family. Mother and son left Massachusetts for a modest cottage on Staten Island and Randolph took employment at Delmonico’s. From Randolph’s hints, Pauline guessed Mrs. Howland was unreconciled to their reduced status.
He was a complicated man, this waiter, and sometimes surprised her. When Pauline mentioned her distaste for Dr. Beecher, Randolph pronounced, “Beecher serves the rich man’s Christ. Though he dines with us, he never leaves a penny for his waiter. The good reverend believes gratuities ruin a poor man’s moral standards.”
Every Saturday, rain or shine, at one o’clock Pauline brought Augie here for lunch, showcasing her special joy and triumph.
Pauline’s table was directly beneath a gaslight where she could read and reread Cousin Molly’s letters.
As always, Molly’s latest began with Stratford’s weather, presently too much rain: they had so much grass you couldn’t see the lambs, and the woods roads were too muddy to work. How Pauline would have loved suffering such inconveniences: the “days too cool for oats,” the “afternoons too wet for hay,” even those hushed winter mornings when ice locked the ponds and snow covered the porches and the path to the sawmill and milk barn.
Everyone at home was well. Thomas Byrd and Miss Stuart were affianced. “Our Thomas is making a career as a politician. He cannot be ‘pinned down.’ ” Samuel worked at the sawmill from dawn to dusk. SunRise Chapel’s preacher had quit his church for the Dakota gold camps. “Poor Reverend Todd, ” Molly wrote. “When God didn’t favor the Confederate cause, He destroyed the poor man’s faith—but the promise of Black Hills gold lying where any man could pick it up is faith of a sort, I suppose.”
Pauline was dabbing her eyes when Randolph brought her wine. Through nostalgic tears, Randolph’s friendly face prompted an indiscretion. “Has my husband been in tonight?”
The waiter hesitated. He murmured faintly, “Mr. Barnwell, madam? I can ask in the other room. Mayor Tweed dined with Mr. Fisk tonight.”
She touched his sleeve. “Oh, no. Never mind. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Pauline . . .”
Damn it! The man was sorry for her! She stiffened.
“As you say, Mrs. Barnwell. I’ll fetch your broth.”
“Oh,” Pauline said, “please don’t hurry. My letters are excellent company.” She laid her precious packet on the snowy tablecloth beside her wine. “Letters from home.”
Randolph startled her by taking and hefting them as if verify
ing their importance. Gently, he set them down. “I envy you your home,” he said softly.
She had met Randolph’s mother just once; the day before Christmas when she arrived at her usual time, she happened upon the heels of the employees’ holiday party. Mrs. Jacob Howland’s clothes had been fine twenty years ago. She smiled, but not at anyone in particular. Her eyes were vague. When Randolph introduced Pauline, his mother said, “So nice,” and coughed discreetly into her handkerchief. Pauline wasn’t to notice the red spots staining the thin old linen.
THERE’D BE “ACTRESSES” if Eben was with Jim Fisk and Boss Tweed: “actresses”! Eben’s “actresses” never played a bigger stage than a double bed!
Although Eben’s “amative bump” had vanished, her husband indulged her to distraction. Eben Barnwell’s wife could buy whatever trifle she wanted. Unlike most husbands, Eben relished visits from his wife’s dressmakers and hatmakers.
“Eben, I cannot possibly wear what I already have!”
“Dearest Pauline, how can anyone ever have everything they desire?”
What was Pauline supposed to do with her life? Pray? Try on new gowns? Read novels? Wait for Eben to come home?
Always late at night. Tiptoeing up the stairs with his shoes in his hand. She’d feel their bed dip under his weight and she’d smell cigars and whiskey. Sometimes, underneath those masking odors, she smelled perfume.
Eben’s faithlessness was impersonal and had nothing to do with her. She hadn’t failed him as woman or wife. Eben Barnwell, who was utterly indifferent to music, attended the opera because Jay Cooke kept a box. Despite Pauline’s genuine fright, the inexperienced Eben Barnwell drove their carriage four-in-hand because Augustus Belmont did.
Eben Barnwell lay with actresses because Jim Fisk lay with actresses. The sheer innocence of Eben’s faithlessness made it harder to bear. If Eben had turned against her, perhaps Pauline could have done something about it—but how could she stand against the entire New York demimonde?
She made excuses for herself: Stratford had been so poor and so utterly vanquished. Poor Preacher Todd! If God could treat ordinary Southerners so harshly, how could He be the just God Pauline’d been taught to revere? If God could ruin Stratford, kill Pauline’s father and mother, and keep Grandfather Samuel desperate, what sort of a God was He?
Her conscience rejected Pauline’s excuses. How had she, who had so many convictions, married a man who had so few? Had she forgotten Christ’s teachings: “For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven”?
Poor woman: she’d grown to love her flawed, sinning husband. There, she’d admitted it! That grasping, careless, shallow child she’d married; yes, she loved him. She loved the frightened boy beneath that stiff celluloid collar and heavily starched shirt. She loved the silly bravado of the white rose boutonniere. She loved what Eben Barnwell was, not what he strove to become.
What did Pauline care for the “sophistication” Eben admired? Today’s sham, smart understandings would be succeeded by tomorrow’s sham, smart understandings. What did she care what the demimonde thought or promised or believed? Vanity; all is vanity, sayeth the preacher.
“Your broth, Pauline?”
“I’m sorry, Randolph.” She smiled. “Lost in my thoughts. I didn’t see you standing there.”
The man smiled his better-than-a-waiter waiter’s smile. “Delmonico’s staff are inconspicuous, madam. From our first day in service, we train for it.”
“I’m sorry, Randolph. We’ve got off on the wrong foot and it was my fault. I shouldn’t have grilled you about my husband and I shan’t again. I promise.” Sudden tears flooded her eyes and fell unheeded on the linen tablecloth.
“Pauline . . . ?” Randolph hastily provided a glass of port. “Dear Mother drinks this whenever she’s distressed. Will you . . . ?”
“Thank you.” Pauline blew her nose into her handkerchief. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the glass to her lips. “I wouldn’t want to make this a habit,” she said.
“No indeed. Now, dear Pauline, do taste your broth. It’ll do you no end of good.”
THAT NIGHT, SHE WAS in her nightdress when Eben came home slightly drunk and ebullient. Her husband had attended a Century Club dinner honoring General Custer. Everyone had been charmed by the “Boy General.” The famous indian fighter, frontiersman, author, and youngest (brevet) major general in the Army of the Potomac was considering a career change. “Custer’s sick of the army,” Eben confided. “He told me, and these are Custer’s own words, ‘Eben, my friend, the army’s no place for “live men.” ’ The General might run for political office, but I hope he’ll come into our line of work.”
Eben kicked one shoe under the bed and dropped his necktie on their dresser, where it dangled like a flaccid snake.
“What, husband,” Pauline asked, “might that work be?”
He blinked. He blinked again. “Dear wife.” Eben’s lopsided smile begged for understanding. “How would the Northern Pacific be built without Jay Cooke to finance it?”
Pauline felt a sharp headache coming on. “Why, dear husband, does the Northern Pacific need building?”
Eben’s face fell and Pauline felt terrible. Disappointing Eben was too like disappointing little Augie. Eben rummaged for a cigar, lit it, and puffed until his head was wreathed in smoke.
He smiled at her like Emperor Maximilian must have, facing the black muzzles of that Mexican firing squad. “Pauline, dear, are you becoming an anarchist?”
CHAPTER 46
IN THE TERRITORY
“SURE YOU WON’T JOIN ME IN A LIBATION, GATEWOOD?” COLONEL Eugene Baker chafed his hands together.
It was a little after ten o’clock on a brisk Montana morning. Duncan, Aunt Opal, and Joe Lame Deer had started rounding up horses long before dawn to have them at Fort Ellis by seven: the appointed hour. Then they’d waited. “Little early for me, Colonel. Your remounts . . .”
The Second Cavalry commander poured whiskey into his coffee cup and downed it. “Starts the soldier’s day right.” He shuddered when the whiskey hit home.
Duncan persisted. “I only had eight grays in my bunch; I hunted up the rest in Virginia City, Helena, and Butte. Joe and I took the stage to Fort Benton for the last two.” He chuckled. “Colonel, you have single-handedly cornered the gray gelding market in Montana Territory.”
Baker waved that away as if six thousand dollars in horseflesh were beneath his consideration. “Gatewood, you lost your wing at Cedar Creek?”
Duncan, who’d discussed that fight with the man before, bit his tongue. “No, sir. I was at Petersburg when Cedar Creek was fought. General Early commanded our forces in the Valley.”
Baker was bemused. “My God, what a day! What a God Damned day! We called it ‘the Woodstock Races.’ ”
At Cedar Creek the Federals had whipped half their number of exhausted, starved Confederates. “You Johnny Rebs ran like rabbits.”
Duncan Gatewood managed a wan smile.
Fort Ellis protected Gallatin Valley settlers from indian raids and Duncan’s SunRise Ranch bred and broke horses to cavalry specifications. Ellis’s commanding officer was Duncan’s biggest customer and this requisition was the largest he’d ever filled.
Early that year, a Seventh Cavalry crony had boasted to Baker that the Seventh Cavalry troops were mounted on distinctive horses—E Company rode grays, C sorrels, L bays, and so forth.
Although some men balked at giving up known, trusted mounts, the Second Cavalry’s bays and sorrels were reassigned, and Duncan easily found Baker’s blacks. But Duncan and Joe Lame Deer had scoured the territory for thirty-eight gray geldings, and gray geldings ran through Duncan’s dreams.
Colonel Baker’s office was unpainted pine walls, two mangy wolfskins (one adult, one cub) on the floor, and stern daguerreotypes of President U. S. Grant, Secretary of the Army Sherman, and General Sheridan, commander of the military district. Baker’s uniform was perfectly pressed
, his slouch hat was brushed, and his epaulets gleamed. Despite his smartness, Colonel Baker often seemed on the verge of toppling over. His eyes were unfocused and his hands locked around his cup.
“Cedar Creek was hard-fought,” Duncan said.
“Like rabbits,” the Colonel repeated vaguely. As if some inner debate had been resolved, he refilled his cup and stepped to the window overlooking Fort Ellis’s parade ground.
“The survey . . .” Baker announced.
“The Northern Pacific . . . ?”
“Next week, we’ll escort Northern Pacific surveyors to the Yellowstone.”
“The Lakota . . . ?”
“Overrated, Gatewood. They’ll run before they fight.” He downed his whiskey and glowered at Duncan as if Duncan might be one of those Quaker do-gooders who thought the Lakota could do no wrong.
Last January, when temperatures were well below zero, Colonel Baker’s cavalry had attacked a Piegan Blackfoot village on the Marias River. The village had been friendly and most of the 173 dead were women and children. Although his own officers later testified Baker was drunk during the attack and had, in fact, attacked the wrong village, Montana settlers applauded him and he was cleared by an army board of inquiry.
After burning the indians’ robes, supplies, food, and lodges, they shot the ponies. Then Baker marched two hundred prisoners toward Fort Ellis until told that some had smallpox. He abandoned them in the snow.
JAY COOKE’S NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD was already carrying passengers and freight between Duluth, Minnesota, and Bismarck, Dakota Territory. The railroad’s western segment had been surveyed from the Pacific Ocean to Bozeman, Montana Territory. But that country between Bozeman and Bismarck was six hundred miles of terra incognita: prime Lakota hunting ground, granted to them in perpetuity by Red Cloud’s treaty. Although some Lakota lived at the indian agencies, many still roamed the grasslands between the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers hunting buffalo and feuding with their traditional Crow enemies. Their winter counts—Lakota tribal histories—described fights with the Crows or memorable hunts. The Washitu were too insignificant to mention.
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