by Matt Braun
Lillian thought it a witty pun. She knew her father’s levity was meant to allay their fears. She was suddenly quite proud of him.
Alistair Fontaine was truly a man of many parts.
A noonday sun was lodged like a brass ball in the sky. The caravan followed a rutted track almost due west along the river. Scouts rode posted to the cardinal points of the compass.
The Fontaines’ buckboard was near the front of the column. Josh Ingram, mounted on a blaze-faced roan, had stopped by not quite an hour ago with a piece of welcome news. He’d told them the caravan, by his reckoning, was less than twenty miles from Fort Dodge. He expected to sight the garrison by the next afternoon.
Lillian breathed a sigh of relief. The likelihood of confronting Indians seemed remote so close to a military post. Even more, from a personal standpoint, she would no longer have to suffer the indignity of squatting behind bushes to relieve herself. Her spirits brightened as she began thinking about the civilized comforts—
A scout galloped hell for leather over a low knoll to the north. He was waving his hat in the air and his bellow carried on the wind. “Injuns! Injuns!”
Ingram roared a command at the lead wagon. The teamster sawed hard on the reins and swung his mules off the trail. The wagons behind followed along, the drivers popping their whips, and the column maneuvered between the river and the rutted trace. The lead wagon spliced into the rear wagon minutes later, forming a defensive ring. Chester halted the Fontaines’ buckboard in the center of the encircled caravan.
A war party boiled over the knoll even as the men jumped from their wagons. The massed Indians appeared to number a hundred or more, and they charged down the slope, whipping their ponies, at a dead run. The warriors rapidly deployed into a V-shaped formation and fanned out into two wings. They thundered toward the caravan whooping shrill battle cries.
The men behind the barricaded wagons opened fire. Before them, the buckskin-clad horde swirled back and forth, the wings simultaneously moving left and right, individual horsemen passing one another in opposite directions. The warriors were armed for the most part with bows and arrows, perhaps one in five carrying an ancient musket or a modern repeater. A cloud of arrows whizzed into the embattled defenders.
Ingram rushed about the wagons shouting orders. Fontaine instructed Lillian to remain crouched on the far side of the buckboard, where she would be protected from stray arrows. He left her armed with a Colt .32 pocket pistol he’d bought in Abilene, quickly showing her how to cock the hammer. She watched as he and Chester joined the men behind the barricade, shouldering their rifles. Here and there mules fell, kicking in the traces, pincushioned with feathered shafts. The din of gunfire quickly became general.
Ten minutes into the battle the warriors suddenly retreated out of rifle range. Several teamsters lay sprawled on the ground, dead or wounded, and beyond the wagons Lillian saw the bodies of dark-skinned braves. She thought the attack was over and prayed it was so, for neither her father nor Chester had suffered any wounds. Then, with hardly a respite, the Indians tore down off the knoll, again splitting into two formations. Lillian ducked behind the buckboard, peering over the seat, racked with shame and yet mesmerized at the same time. She was struck by something splendid and noble in the savage courage of the Indians.
A man stumbled away from one of the wagons, an arrow protruding from his chest. In the next instant, a lone brave separated from the horde and galloped directly toward the wagons. He vaulted his pony over a team of mules, steel-tipped lance in hand, and landed in the encirclement. All along the line men were firing at him, and Lillian, breath-taken, thought it was the most magnificent act of daring she’d ever seen. Suddenly he spotted her, and without a moment’s hesitation he charged the buckboard, lance raised overhead. She froze, ready to crawl beneath the buckboard, and then, witless with fear, cocked the hammer on the small Colt. She closed her eyes and fired as he hurled the lance.
The warrior was flung forward off the back of his pony. He crashed onto the seat of the buckboard, a feather in his hair and a hole in his forehead, staring with dead eyes at Lillian. She backed away, oddly fixated on the war paint covering his face, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She couldn’t credit that she had shot him—between the eyes—actually killed a man. The lance quivered in the ground at her side, and she knew she’d been extraordinarily lucky. A mote of guilt drifted through her mind even as she lowered the pistol. Yet she had never felt so exhilarated, so giddy. She was alive.
The Indians seemed emboldened by the one warrior’s suicidal charge. Their ponies edged closer to the wagons, and the sky rained wave upon wave of arrows. Here and there a brave would break ranks and charge the defenders, whooping defiance, only to be shot down. But it appeared the Indians were working themselves into a fever pitch, probing for a weak spot in the defenses. There was little doubt that they would attempt to overrun the wagons and slaughter everyone in savage struggle. Then, so abruptly that it confounded defenders and attackers alike, the din of gunfire swelled to a drumming rattle. A bugle sounded over the roar of battle.
The Indians were enveloped from the rear by massed cavalry. Fully two troops of horseback soldiers delivered a withering volley as they closed on the warriors at a gallop. The lines collided in a fearsome clash, and the screams of dying men rose eerily above the clatter of gunfire. Lillian saw a cavalry officer with long golden ringlets, attired in a buckskin jacket, wielding a saber slick with blood. The warriors were caught between the soldiers and a wall of gunfire from the wagons, and scores of red men toppled dead from their ponies. Others broke through the line of blue coats and fled across the plains in disorganized retreat. A small group, surrounded at the center of the fight, was quickly taken prisoner.
One of the captured warriors was tall and powerfully built. His features were broad and coarse, as though adzed from dark wood, and his eyes glittered with menace. Lillian watched, almost transfixed, as the cavalry officer with the golden hair reined through the milling horses and stopped near the tall warrior. He saluted with his bloody saber.
“Hao, Santana,” he said crisply. “We have you now.”
The warrior stared at him with a stoic expression. After a moment, the officer wiped the blood from his saber with a kerchief and sheathed the blade in his saddle scabbard. He spun his horse, a magnificent bay stallion, and rode toward Josh Ingram and the men at the wagons. He reined to a halt, touched the brim of his hat with a casual salute. His grin was that of Caesar triumphant.
“Gentlemen,” he said smartly. “The Seventh Cavalry at your service.”
“The Seventh!” someone yelled. “You’re Custer!”
“I am indeed.”
Ingram stepped over a dead mule. “General, I’m the wagon master, Josh Ingram. We’re damned glad to see you and your boys. How’d you happen on this here fracas?”
Custer idly waved at the tall warrior. “Mr. Ingram, you are looking at Santana, chief of the Kiowa. We’ve been trailing him and his war party for near on a week.” He paused with an indulgent smile. “You are fortunate we were not far behind. We rode to the sound of gunfire.”
“Mighty glad you did, General. We might’ve lost our scalps.”
“Yes, where Santana’s concerned, you’re entirely correct. He keeps his scalping knife sharply honed.”
Lillian had joined her father and Chester. She listened to the conversation while studying the dashing cavalry officer. Finally, unable to contain herself, she whispered to Fontaine, “Who is he, Papa?”
“The greatest Indian fighter of them all, my dear. George Armstrong Custer.”
“Thank God he came along when he did.”
Fontaine smiled. “Thank God and the Seventh Cavalry.”
CHAPTER 7
THE FONTAINES were quartered in a billet normally reserved for visiting officers. There were two bedrooms and a sitting room, appointed in what Lillian assumed was military-issue furniture. She stood looking out the door at the garrison.
Fort D
odge was situated on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas. To her immediate front was the parade ground, and beyond that the post headquarters. Close by were the hospital and the quartermaster’s depot and farther on the quarters for married officers. The enlisted men’s barracks and the stables bordered a creek that emptied into the river. Everything looked spruce and well tended, orderly.
The caravan, accompanied by the cavalry, had arrived earlier that afternoon. The wagons were now encamped by the river, preparations under way to continue tomorrow on the Santa Fe Trail. Colonel Custer, courteous to a fault, had arranged for the Fontaines to stay the night in the officers’ billet. Upon discovering they were actors, he had invited them to his quarters for dinner that evening. He seemed particularly taken with Fontaine’s mastery of Shakespeare.
Fontaine, on the way to the fort, had spoken at length about the man many called the Boy General. He informed Lillian and Chester that their host was the most highly decorated soldier of the late Civil War. A graduate of West Point, his gift for tactics and warfare resulted in an extraordinary series of battlefield promotions. From 1862 to 1865, a mere three years, he leaped from first lieutenant to major general. He was twenty-five years old when the war ended.
Gen. Philip Sheridan personally posted Custer to the West following the Civil War. Though his peacetime rank was that of lieutenant colonel, he retained the brevet rank of major general. A splendid figure of a man, he was six feet tall, with a sweeping golden mustache, and wore his hair in curls that fell to his shoulders. He had participated in campaigns against the Plains Tribes throughout Kansas and Nebraska, culminating in a great victory in Indian Territory. There, on the Washita River, Custer and the Seventh Cavalry had routed the fabled Cheyenne.
Josh Ingram, listening to Fontaine’s dissertation on Custer, had pointed out a parallel with Santana, the Kiowa war chief. His Indian name, Se-Tain-te, meant White Bear, bestowed on him after a vision quest. A blooded warrior at twenty, he began leading raids along the Santa Fe Trail and as far south as Mexico. He ranged across the frontier, burning and pillaging, leaving in his path a legion of scalped settlers and dead soldiers. What Custer was to the army Santana was to the Kiowa: a bold, fearless leader who dared anything, no matter the odds.
Lillian, reflecting on it as the sun went down over the parade ground, thought there was a stark difference. Santana, with his four followers who were captured in yesterday’s battle, was in chains in the post stockade. George Armstrong Custer, victorious in every battle he’d ever fought, was yet again lauded for his courage in the field. She recalled him saying that he “rode to the sound of gunfire,” and she mused that he was a man who thrived on war. She wouldn’t be surprised if he one day replaced William Tecumseh Sherman as General of the Army. Custer, too, was a leader who never reckoned the odds.
Capt. Terrance Clark, Custer’s adjutant, called for the Fontaines as twilight settled over the post. He was a strikingly handsome man, tall and muscular, resplendent in a tailored uniform. He shook hands with Fontaine and Chester and bowed politely to Lillian. Outside, he offered her his arm and led them across the parade ground in the quickening dusk. His manner somehow reminded her of Adonis, the young hero of Greek mythology. A warrior too handsome for words.
Custer’s home was a military-style Victorian, with a pitched roof, square towers, and arched windows. The furniture in the parlor was French Victorian, with a rosewood piano against one wall flanked by a matching harp. The study was clearly a man’s room, the walls decorated with mounted heads of antelope and deer and framed portraits of Custer and Gen. Philip Sheridan. The bookshelves were lined with classics, from Homer, to Shakespeare, to James Fenimore Cooper.
Elizabeth Custer was a small, attractive woman, with dark hair and delicate features. She insisted on being called Libbie and welcomed the Fontaines as though she’d never met a stranger in her life. She informed them that she was thrilled to have a troupe of professional actors in her home. Hardly catching her breath, she went on to say that she and the general were amateur thespians themselves. Lillian gathered that Libbie Custer, at least in public, referred to her husband only by rank.
“We have such fun,” she rattled on. “Our last playlet was one written by the General himself. And he starred in it as well!”
“Libbie makes too much of it,” Custer said with an air of modesty. “We stage amateur theatricals for the officers and their wives. Life on an army post requires that we provide our own entertainment.”
“How very interesting,” Fontaine observed. “And what was the subject of your production, General?”
Custer squared his shoulders. “I played the part of a Cheyenne war chief and one of the officers’ wives played my … bride.” He paused, suddenly aware of their curious stares. “We depicted a traditional Indian wedding ceremony. All quite authentic.”
“I must say that sounds fascinating.”
“Hardly in your league, Mr. Fontaine. Perhaps, after dinner, you would favor us with a reading from Shakespeare. We thirst for culture here on the frontier.”
Fontaine preened. “I would be honored, General.”
“By the by, I forgot to ask,” Custer said. “Where will you be performing in Dodge City?”
“We are booked for the winter at Murphy’s Exchange.”
Fontaine caught the look that passed between Custer and his wife. Lillian saw it as well, and in the prolonged silence that followed she rushed to fill the void. Her expression was light and gay.
“We so wanted to see something of the frontier. And the timing is perfect, since we’re between engagements until next spring. We open then at the Comique Theater in Wichita.”
A manservant saved the moment. He appeared in the doorway of the dining room, dressed in a white jacket and blue uniform trousers, and announced dinner. Libbie, ever the gracious hostess, tactfully arranged the seating. Fontaine and Chester were placed on one side of the table, and Lillian was seated on the other, beside Captain Clark. Custer and Libbie occupied opposite ends of the table.
Dinner opened with terrapin soup, followed by a main course of prairie quail simmered in wine sauce. Throughout the meal, the Custers peppered their guests with questions about their life in the theater. Fontaine, though flattered, gradually steered the discussion to Custer’s military campaigns against the warlike tribes. The conversation eventually touched on yesterday’s engagement with the Kiowa.
“A sight to behold!” Fontaine announced, nodding to Libbie. “Your husband and the Seventh Cavalry at a full charge. I shan’t soon forget the spectacle.”
“Au contraire,” Libbie said, displaying her grasp of French. “The General tells me your daughter was the heroine of the day.” She cast an almost envious glance at Lillian. “Did you really shoot an Indian, my dear?”
Lillian blushed. “I’ll never know how,” she said with open wonder. “I closed my eyes when I fired the gun—and then … he practically fell in my lap.”
Everyone laughed appreciatively at her candid amazement. Lillian was all too aware of Captain Clark’s look of undisguised infatuation. He stared at her as if she were a ripe and creamy éclair and he wished he had a spoon. She noted as well that he wore no wedding ring.
After dinner, the men retired to the study for cigars and brandy. Lillian and Libbie conversed about New York and the latest fashions, discreetly avoiding any mention of the Fontaines’ upcoming appearance at Murphy’s Exchange. A short while later, the men joined them in the parlor. Captain Clark, rather too casually, took a seat beside Lillian on the sofa.
Fontaine required no great coaxing to perform. He positioned himself by the piano, his gaze fixed on infinity, and delivered a soliloquy from King Richard II. Custer and Libbie applauded exuberantly when he finished, congratulating him on the nuance of his interpretation. Then, with Libbie playing the piano, Lillian sang one of the day’s most popular ballads. Her voice filled the parlor with ’Tis Sweet to Be Remembered.
Terrance Clark watched her as though he’d seen a vis
ion.
Dodge City was five miles west of Fort Dodge. A sprawling hodgepodge of buildings, it was inhabited principally by traders, teamsters, and buffalo hunters. Thousands of flint hides awaited shipment by wagon to the nearest railhead.
Late the next morning, when the Fontaines drove into town, they were dismayed by what they saw. Nothing had prepared them for a ramshackle outpost that looked as though it had been slapped together with spit and poster glue. Abilene, by comparsion, seemed like a megalopolis.
“To paraphrase the Bard,” Fontaine said in a dazed voice. “I have ventured like wanton boys that swim on bladders. Far beyond my depth, my high-blown pride at length broke under me.”
Chester nodded glumly. “Dad, no one could have said it better. We’ll be lucky if we don’t drown in this sinkhole.”
The permanent population of the Dodge City looked to be something less than 500. At one end of Front Street, the main thoroughfare, were the Dodge House Hotel and Zimmerman’s Hardware, flanked by a livery stable. Up the other way was a scattering of saloons, two trading companies, a mercantile store, and a whorehouse. The town’s economy was fueled by buffalo hunters and troopers of the Seventh Cavalry. Whiskey and whores were a profitable enterprise on the edge of the frontier.
Fontaine directed Chester to the Dodge House. There were no porters, and they were forced to unload the buckboard themselves. Fortunately, it was a one-story building, and after registering with the desk clerk, they were able to slide their steamer trunks through the hall. Their rooms were little more than cubicles, furnished with a bed, a washstand, one chair, and a johnny pot. The clerk informed them the johnny pots would be emptied every morning.
Still shaking his head, Fontaine instructed Chester to take the buckboard to the livery stable. He expressed the view that it would not be prudent as yet to sell the horses and the buckboard. Their escape from Gomorrah, he noted dryly, might well depend on a ready source of transport. An hour or so later, after unpacking and changing from their trail clothes, they emerged from the hotel with their trepidation still intact. The men were attired in conservative three-piece suits and the Western headgear they had adopted while in Abilene. Lillian wore a demure day dress and a dark woolen shawl.
