by Sarah Bird
Though I’d heard Drewbott say it before—that “boy” business—it still shocked me to hear the Sergeant addressed in such a manner. The Sergeant, busy reading the telegram, seemed not to notice. He finished and looked up. I feared someone had died.
“What?” I asked. “Has the president been assassinated?”
That would of been shocking but not necessarily sad. For the current occupant of the White House, Andrew Johnson, the nincompoop vice president who’d slid his tiny feet into Lincoln’s giant shoes, was currently trying to turn us all back into slaves.
“No, no,” the Sergeant corrected me. “The news is good.” He put his hand over his mouth in a girlish way I’d never thought him capable of and pressed against the smile that formed there. “Very good, indeed.”
“What?” I asked again, for once not feeling the need to add “sir.” The Sergeant suddenly seemed so young and wide-eyed, I was certain I was seeing an expression that had not played across his face since he was a boy.
“I’m not supposed to say,” he said.
“Sergeant, you know me. Who would I tell? I hardly talk to anyone but Powdrell.”
“Hell, you’ll know tomorrow anyway. All right, Cathay.” It pleased me when he called me “Cathay” instead of “Private.” “What would you say if I told you that the military governor of the entire Fifth Military District was going to pin a Marksman medal on you?”
I could not speak.
He thought my surprise was about the medal and said, “I didn’t want to say anything until the award had been approved, but I put you in for it weeks ago.”
But that wasn’t what had shocked me. “Sheridan?” I croaked, for my old commander was the military governor. “General Sheridan is coming here?”
“Week from today. To conduct a general inspection. Custer will be accompanying him. They’ll award all the honors earned until now.”
“The General? He’s going to see me?” I heard the tremble in my voice, for the instant the General set eyes on me, I’d be mustered out and turned onto the prairie to fend for myself. I wondered what’d kill me first: hostiles, wolves, or a rattler. Of course, a chughole’d do it. Horse trips and breaks a leg and a person afoot in the desert is dead.
“I’m as surprised as you are,” the Sergeant went on, beaming. “The first general inspection of the first colored cavalry unit and a presentation of honors by the highest-ranking officer in the district?”
Then I realized I didn’t have to worry about dying of thirst on the desert: once the General exposed me, I’d never make it out of the fort alive. Vikers and his jackals’d see to that.
“Cathay,” the Sergeant went on, more talkative than I’d ever known him to be. “I was having doubts, but this renews my faith in the United States Army. Like all made by man, the army is an imperfect organization filled with members who don’t live up to its ideals. But, say what you will, when it comes to the nut-cutting, the army is fair.” He nodded and, with stern decisiveness, stated, “No matter what the color of your skin, Private, if you serve, if you deserve, you will be recognized.”
“Yessir,” I answered.
“And, just as surely, if you fail to serve, as Drewbott is failing, the army will, I promise you, eventually recognize that, too. No wonder the man’s worried. He knows a reckoning is coming.” The Sergeant nodded, satisfied, then went on. “According to the telegram, both Sheridan and Custer—did I mention that Custer is coming as well? In any case, they have already sent out advance kitchen staff. And since you served with Sheridan during the Rebellion—”
“Well, ‘served with,’ sir,” I interrupted. “I maybe shouldn’t have gone that far—”
“Don’t be modest, Cathay. I’m not saying you were a strategy adviser.”
“No, sir.”
“But you know the man, right?”
“Well, ‘know,’” I crawfished.
“Fine. I’m assigning you to meet with his staff. Show them around. Lots to be done, Private,” he muttered, already drawing up lists in his head. “Lots to be done. Your old general gives a tough inspection. I’ve heard he doesn’t miss a thing.”
“No, sir,” I agreed. “General Philip Sheridan never misses a thing.”
Chapter 59
“Two generals on post,” Pinkney the cook grumbled, slamming a cast-iron Dutch oven down on the counter. “That don’t mean work, ain’t a hound dog in Georgie.”
“Technically,” I said, “Custer’s only a captain. He was only brevetted to general on account of the war.”
“Don’t matter,” Pinkney grumbled. “That is one white man believes he was born a general. Everyone calls him ‘general.’ Treats him like a general. Don’t matter whether he’s got the stars to prove it or not. Worse part of it is, they brung their own damn cooks. You ever know a white boy could cook? Tell you what, them white-boy cooks killed off more Yanks than the Rebels ever did. Hughes, hand me that gourd.”
Hughes, one of his cook’s helpers, passed a gourd of the sort that the Mexican women sold filled with pulque. Like most cooks, Solomon being the exception, Pinkney was a jug-steamed drunk. He tipped the gourd, it glug-glugged down his gullet, and he went back to the tear he was on. “They think they gon come in here, tell Elijah Bountiful Pinkney how to—”
“Ten-HUT!” Hughes bellowed out the instant he caught sight of Major Carter leading two white corporals into the kitchen. Several other soldiers followed behind, but they were blocked from our view.
Carter introduced the two corporals, Adams and Poteet.
Pinkney was whispering to me about the bother it’d be to have them boys underfoot when I saw something that punched the wind out of me. Pushing her way through the clot of men barring the kitchen door, was none other than my beautiful little sister, Clemmie.
The earbobs and face paint were gone, but she was bolder and brassier than ever. And if it was possible, she was even prettier. Her skin had seen the touch of the sun since she’d left indoor work behind and it glowed satiny and near dark as mine. This brought out her eyes to the point that one glance her way left the kitchen helpers struck dumb. She didn’t notice those boys as, standing there with her hands on her hips, she appraised the kitchen with a disdainful eye. That disdain vanished when her gaze lit on me. She opened her mouth like she was going to scream. But I shot her a look warning her to shut up and my little sister composed herself on the spot.
Carter pulled a list from his pocket and read, “Here are General Custer’s requirements. Colored troops, with proper supervision, may assist Corporals Adams and Poteet in the preparation of the general’s food, but they will not serve him at table. General Custer will eat only white meat. See to it that no other is put before the general.” He folded the order, returned it to his pocket, and asked the newcomers, “Which ones of you are with General Sheridan’s staff?”
Clemmie stepped forward.
“Where are the others?”
“There are no others, sir.”
“Oh. What are General Sheridan’s requirements?”
“Only has two,” Clemmie answered then said no more, forcing Carter to ask, “And what might those be?”
“Hot and on time.”
Pinkney and his kitchen boys snickered at Clemmie’s sauciness, aimed as it was direct at Custer’s fussiness.
“Now,” Clemmie concluded and pointed at me, “if this gentleman will show me to my quarters.”
Outside, we had to run an obstacle course of men frozen in place, gaping at Clemmie like she had two heads and was shooting Liberty dollars out her mouth. Even if she hadn’t been a looker, they’d of stared for, aside from the Seminole women, we hadn’t seen a single black woman since leaving San Antonio. Most of the troopers were harmless. They just gaped like they were dying of calico fever and she was the cure. Some of them, though, I knew to be bad men. I’d heard enough barracks talk about “gals putting up a little fuss” even though they’d “asked for it” and “wanted it bad” to know that some of those dogs with th
eir tongues dragging the ground figured Clemmie was asking for it and wanted it bad because she was pretty. Their kind believed the pretty had been put on, just for them, and Clemmie was just waiting for them to come and take it. My sister took no notice of any of them.
I marched us straight to the Sergeant’s office. He opened the door and, like the most common soldier in the yard, his eyes bulged out of his head at the sight of Clemmie. This caused jealousy to twine about my heart like the viper it is and squeeze hard.
“Our guest needs quarters,” I said, my voice crisp as a dried corn husk.
“Yes, yes,” he stammered, buttoning his jacket up to his chin. “I wasn’t expecting a…” He couldn’t so much as say the word “female,” he was that struck. “Please, I hope this office will do. There’s a small…” He stumbled again. This time over the word “bed,” and ended up pointing to his neat cot. “The door…” He rushed to demonstrate how to slide the iron bar in and out of place to lock it.
He noticed the faces pressed against the window glass and, muttering apologies, rushed over to draw the heavy curtain. The room darkened. This, too, seemed to embarrass him, and muttering “lamp,” he hurriedly lighted the lantern, then gathered up his jacket and cap. Even though we were indoors, I snapped to and saluted. As he was backing out of the room, he paused to shift his belongings to his left arm and he saluted me back.
The instant we locked the door behind him, everything disappeared except Clemmie. We grabbed ahold of each other and jumped up and down like a couple of crazy ladies, me saying she’d kill me of apoplexy if she kept popping up out of nowhere and her just laughing. We were out of breath by the time Clemmie stopped and marveled, “You did it. You’re wearing the blue suit.”
“Said I would,” I answered.
She studied me, concluding, “Damn, Cathy Williams, you make a fine-looking man.”
“I do?”
“About fine enough make me forget you’re my sister.”
We got to laughing so hard about that, I had to shush her for the wolves were still out there, circling.
Turning serious, she told me, “You’re crazy. You do know that, right? Cathy, there are some hard cases out there. And I’ve seen a world of hard cases, believe me. But them? Out there?”
She’d only been pretending not to notice. The way girls have to do.
“Those are the most woman-hungry bunch I’ve ever seen. You know what they’d do to you, they ever found out the truth?”
I thought about the washroom. My head being hammered into a tile wall. I didn’t answer.
“Cathy, it scares me to think about it. You are playing a game’s a whole hell of a lot more dangerous than you think it is.”
“Not if they don’t find out.”
“I can’t believe they haven’t already. You’re not the most girlish thing around, but still…”
“Folks generally see what they expect to see.”
“But what if you take sick? Get shot?”
“Don’t plan on doing either of those things.”
She gasped with annoyance just the way she’d always done when she thought I’d gone too far. Then she said, “Well, what about if you fall in love?”
“Don’t intend to do that, either.”
She gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “Don’t intend? Do you think I’m as stupid as you’re pretending to be right now?”
“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” I sniffed.
“Can’t say as I blame you,” she said, playing like I’d admitted everything. “The sergeant is even finer up close than he was back at the recruitment. All oak and iron-bound, no question about it. When’d you completely lose your mind over him?”
“I never!”
She shook her head. “Girl, girl, girl. You got it bad, don’t you?”
The softness in her voice drained the sand right out of me and I slumped onto the bed. “He’s all I think about.”
“I never figured you for the type get her nose wide open, give it all up for a man.”
“I ain’t given up nothing. It’s not like that. He’s not like that. He’s better. Purer. He’s like Daddy was.”
“Oh, a deluded fool?”
“A man of principles.”
She hooted at that. “‘Principles’? Is that what he calls it?”
“Let’s leave off this foolishness,” I said, cutting the conversation short, for the desire to tell her about Wager Swayne was threatening to overwhelm me. And that was one ghost I was determined to keep buried. “I got much bigger problems.”
“Like what?”
“I won a medal for sharpshooting and—”
“You don’t say. Congratulations. Always could shoot the eye out of a needle.”
“Clemmie, Sheridan’s going to pin that medal on me.”
“So?”
“So, he’ll recognize me and I’ll be done for.”
Clemmie snorted a bitter laugh. “You’re seriously worried that General Philip Sheridan, governor of the Fifth Military District, third highest-ranking officer in the United States Army, is going to recognize you?”
“Hell, yes, he’ll recognize me. I fed the man every damn meal he ate for almost a year.”
“Oh, pea blossom, I know you always believed you were a bend or two above most, but no matter how special you think you were to Sheridan, he’s still a white man. Believe me, he’ll never recognize you ’cause he never really saw you in the first place. Tell you what, though, them jackals out there.” She nodded her head toward the slavering pack. “Day they figure out what you got down there”—she tipped her head toward my crotch—“probably gon be your last.”
“Sergeant Allbright’ll protect me.”
“Sergeant Allbright? Cathy, you put that man on a pedestal all the way back to the recruiting. He’s a man. You saw the way he looked at me.”
“Did he? I didn’t notice.”
Clemmie hooted. “Oh, sister, are you jealous?”
“No,” I lied.
“Well, you sure are acting like it’s my fault for the way men look at me. Like I’m to blame for the way the meat got stacked on my bones.”
For some reason, saying this last turned Clemmie gloomy and she sat down on the Sergeant’s bunk and stared at her hands. Finally she huffed out a big sigh and said, “Sergeant Allbright saluted you. No one salutes me, Cathy. I’m just another pair of black hands. And a woman to boot. Means any white can order me about and any black man believes he can do the same.” Then, instead of carrying on about what a fool, dangerous thing I was doing, her tune changed completely and she said, “We have to make sure Little Phil doesn’t recognize you.”
Chapter 60
Inspection day dawned hot and bright. Too bright. I’d been praying for rain. At least some clouds. But Clemmie had convinced me that if I just kept my head down and my hat tipped low, the General wouldn’t look at me twice since he hadn’t ever really seen me in the first place. And now, there he was, inching his way down the long line toward me. Though it hurt, I prayed that Clemmie was right.
Our line gleamed for, like everything else on post, we had all been spit-and-polished to within an inch of our lives. Every button, every buckle, every boot, every saber, every crossed-sword insignia atop our caps shone in the sun. Drewbott had even ordered a couple of men to trim the tall soapberry tree outside the fort so that a bit of pristine green would greet the General.
No one spoke. The flag on the pole didn’t even flutter, as the General made his slow, careful way down the line. He was just as I’d seen him last, standing in front of that farmhouse outside of Appomattox. He might of fattened up a bit now that he didn’t spend all day in the saddle chasing Rebs. But he still had that big ferocious head, jaw clenched, eyes black and savage, all set atop his stumpy, bulldog body. He eyed every trooper hard. But, to my relief, I saw that he didn’t pay any mind to faces. The only parts he cared about had patches, buttons, or shoeshines on them.
In the stillness, we all heard Drewbott
say, “General Sheridan, sir, tell me something.”
“What’s that, Colonel?” Sheridan asked, not taking his gaze from the trooper in front of him.
“Since this is your first tour of the Lone Star State, what do you think of Texas?”
“What do I think?” Sheridan repeated. “Colonel, I think that if I owned Texas and hell, I would rent out Texas and live in hell.”
Custer, standing behind the General, about wet himself laughing. Though the Boy General was now but a lowly captain, Custer had not been demoted in Sheridan’s affection. His laughter pleased the General. The instant Drewbott joined in, though, Custer and Sheridan went solemn as judges. They were still the two bad boys together, the outcasts of West Point, sneering at the timid good boys.
Leaving Drewbott chuckling too loudly at a joke that had already been taken away from him, Sheridan snapped, “Colonel, there is rust on the guard of this man’s saber.”
“Noted, sir,” Drewbott said as he added the rust spot to the list he was keeping of every unpolished buckle, missing button, and stray bit of lint that the General observed.
Inspection had already gone on long enough for the sun to rise up noon high. Heat and nerve sweat ran from beneath my cap. I caught sight of Clemmie in the distance, watching from the shade of the kitchen porch. When Sheridan reached the man two down from me, I ducked my head so low all I could see were his boots.
“General,” Custer asked in a jokey way. “Did you notice that the band which greeted us was missing a bass drum?”
Playing along, Sheridan answered, “Why yes, General, I did. What do you think happened to it?”
“I couldn’t say for sure,” Custer replied then lowered his voice and said out of the side of his mouth just for Sheridan to hear, “But from the looks of her, they’d better bring Drewbott’s wife in for questioning.”
When he reached me the General was too busy snickering about Drewbott’s fat wife to pay me any mind. And though he passed by close enough that I could hear his stomach growling, he didn’t so much as pause, much less pin that sharpshooter medal on me. I should have been grateful and relieved, but I wasn’t. Leastwise, Cathy Williams wasn’t. William Cathay was delighted that he wasn’t going to be mustered out. But Cathy Williams? She was downheartened that her old commander hadn’t seen that she’d done what he said could not be done. And done it well enough that she was getting a medal.
