Killing Custer

by Margaret Coel

  “Yeah, and the moon would have evaporated,” Osborne said. “Sooner or later, Custer was going to lead the Seventh to disaster. He was a hothead. Thought about himself and his reputation first. The men whispered about it all the time. They were always worried. You didn’t like him any more than anybody else.”

  “You forget Libbie. Beer, Father?” Veraggi said.

  “No, thanks,” Father John said. The man had already walked around the stoop and was rooting among the chunks of ice in a cooler. He lifted himself up with some difficulty, as if he were lifting a bale of hay, tossed a can to Osborne and popped open another can. He raised it to his mouth and gulped probably half the contents. Strands of white foam trickled down his chin. The smell of beer hit Father John in his rib cage, like an arrow shot from nowhere.

  “That woman over there,” Osborne said, popping his own can, “is in love with money. Met up with Edward at the Little Bighorn reenactment couple years ago and latched on to him. Found out he had a big ranch outside Laramie. Married him two months later and started working on him to sell the ranch. Wants the money now. All she cares about.”

  “She seemed very upset.”

  “Blames us for Edward getting shot,” Veraggi said. He took another long drink of beer and belched. “Says we should’ve protected him from the wild Indians, come to his rescue. Backed him up. Says we let him die.”

  Osborne gave a bark of laughter. “How were we supposed to protect him? Indians rose up out of nowhere. Raced around our command, double column of riders, whooping and hollering. All we could do to stay mounted, the horses were so spooked. Then the Indians rode in front, got back into formation, and kept going down Main. That’s when I saw Edward on the street. Figured he got thrown. Reno and I”—he paused a moment, then went on—“we knelt over him. Telling him not to die. We was gonna get the medics. I saw that big hole in his chest, and it was like a vision, like I was back at the Little Bighorn on the hillside, staring down at the general’s body.”

  “Was his wife there?” Father John was thinking that, at least, Libbie Custer had been waiting for her husband at Fort Lincoln when he was killed. There was mercy in that.

  Osborne and Veraggi were both shaking their heads. “Showed up yesterday,” Veraggi said. “Tore through the trailer looking for the money. Stomped over here and started blaming us. The woman is certifiably nuts.”

  “Why would she blame you?”

  “She’s talking about Custer! Libbie never stopped blaming us for not coming to Custer’s defense. Well, we were pinned down by Indians. All we could do to stay alive.” Osborne leaned forward and cleared his throat. Then he took another drink of beer, as if he’d had second thoughts. “Problem with being a reenactor,” he said finally, “you forget who you are. Riding in parades and arenas, reenacting the battle, I’m Benteen. You understand? The rest of the world, a hundred and thirty-some years, fades away like it never happened. I’m Benteen, and I have to follow orders and kill Indians.” He looked off into space a moment. “I pretty much am Benteen the whole season. First of October, the powwows, parades, reenactments stop, and I get in the trailer and go back to Tennessee and work in a bar until the season starts up again. I get into my own life. Philip Osborne, best therapist bartender in the state. Ask any drunk. He’ll tell you. But it’s like Benteen’s in the next room, waiting to come out again.”

  “You’re saying Edward’s wife is upset Custer was killed?” It seemed preposterous, but everything about the reenactors was preposterous and mysterious. He had a sense he was talking to ghosts.

  “Edward’s wife,” Osborne said, emphasizing the words, “is upset ’cause the money’s gone.” He shrugged. “Says Edward withdrew the money he got from the ranch, and now it’s disappeared. Says we took it. Hell, we didn’t even know he’d withdrawn it.”

  “Did anybody in the command know?”

  Osborne was staring into space again, and Veraggi said, “Kept pretty much to himself. You heard of actors that get into the part and live the part for weeks and months at a time? That was Edward. He got into the part. He was Custer for the whole season, so he never showed up to drink beer or eat barbecue with the troopers.”

  “Is that the same for you?’

  “Nah.” Veraggi said, bringing his eyes back to Father John’s, as if he had hoisted himself again into the present. “I can put Reno away long enough for a couple beers with the guys. Sometimes it’s the same with Osborne here. Right?” He leaned toward the man in the captain’s uniform. Neither one had missed many drinking bouts, Father John was thinking. “But I understand Edward. He was the best Custer impersonator ever. He was . . .” He hesitated, his eyes focused on the distances. “He was Custer.”

  “Daughter hated all of it,” Osborne said. “Thought the old man was crazy. Didn’t want anything to do with him.”

  “She was the part of Edward that he wanted to hold on to,” Veraggi said. “You see her after her old man got killed?”

  Father John told them that he’d driven out to the woman’s ranch with Detective Madden to give her the bad news. “She mentioned that her father had intended to buy a ranch close by.”

  “You ask me,” Osborne said, “that’s where the money went. He put it down on a ranch, and that crazy wife of his wants it back. Last thing she wanted was another ranch.”

  Father John took a step backward, away from the stench of sour beer. “The cops think one of the Indians shot Edward,” he said.

  Osborne nodded. “That’s what happened, all right.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “I told you, we couldn’t see anything. It was like a tornado hit us. We were trying to survive.”

  “I don’t think any of the Indians were responsible.”

  “Come on, Father,” Osborne said. “How long you been on the rez? Too long, you ask me. You want to think they’re innocent victims. Well, you should’ve seen what those innocent victims did to our troops at the Little Bighorn. Scalped them, cut off private parts and stuffed them in their mouths, rammed stakes and awls in them. Jesus, there was no cause for that.”

  Except desperation, Father John was thinking. And mindless anger at troops that had attacked their villages, killed and captured their women and children, burned their tipis and stores of food.

  “It was a hard time on all sides,” he said. “What about your feelings toward Edward?”

  “You accusing us?” Veraggi squeezed the empty can in one fist and tossed it under the metal steps.

  “I’m not accusing anybody.” He kept his eyes on Osborne.

  “You said some of the men in Custer’s command didn’t have much use for him. Anyone in the command feel that way about Edward?”

  “Like I said,” Osborne began, “Edward kept to himself. He didn’t socialize enough to get under anybody’s skin. Only one that got to know him was his wife.” He gave a quick nod in the direction of the trailer. “Look, Father.” The man took a step closer. “Edward was an officer. He was a full bird colonel in Desert Storm. The first Iraq war. That’s how we met him, Veraggi and me. He was the commander. Won medals for bravery. Took a bullet in his thigh. After the war, we kept an eye out for each other, you might say. Then a few years ago, we saw Edward was impersonating Custer, so we decided to join the Seventh Cavalry. Ride with the general. Let me tell you”—he leaned forward, stabbing each word into the air—“officers like Custer keep in their own tents. Sometimes he’d call the troops together and give them a pep talk, like tomorrow we’ll meet the enemy and he will be ours. That kind of thing. But he wasn’t kicking back and joking and drinking with the troops. I told you, Edward was Custer.”

  14

  FATHER JOHN LEFT Osborne and Veraggi sunk in webbed folding chairs, sipping beer and staring into space. He fished his keys out of his jeans pocket, got into the pickup, and slammed the door. Nothing they had said changed anything or would send Detective Madden onto a diff
erent track, away from the Arapahos. Edward Garrett was a loner. Not much chance for a loner to antagonize people.

  The engine coughed into life. He looked across the hood and along the dirt road to the white trailer on the right, trying to grasp the shadowy thought at the edge of his mind. Edward Garrett, who had thought he was Custer, had fought in the first Iraq war. He’d been wounded. Father John had counseled vets from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder. Men and women who spent sleepless nights watching the horror movies in their own heads, looping through the fear and terror and exploding roadside bombs and pieces of their buddies pasted all over them. He wondered about Garrett and what he had gone through. Maybe it was easier to be George Armstrong Custer, cushioned by the years, than it was to be Edward Garrett.

  He shifted into first and started down the road, then swung right and jerked to a stop on the dirt apron in front of the white RV. Even if Garrett had found a way to deal with his nightmares, that didn’t explain the other troopers here. All veterans? All suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? Unlikely. He walked up the metal steps and knocked on the green door that bisected the trailer. A thin-lipped woman with brown curls escaping around a blue bonnet flung open the door and beckoned him inside.

  “Been watching you with those drunks,” she said. “I got you figured for the priest that was with Edward at the end.” She nodded toward the red plastic benchlike sofa attached to the wall and sat down on a wooden chair.

  “Father John O’Malley,” Father John said. He perched on the bench. The trailer was small and closed-in with faint smells of roses mixed with odors of coffee. “I’m sorry about your husband.”

  The woman gave a noncommittal shrug. She wore a yellow dress with puffed sleeves that camouflaged the narrow shoulders and the wide hips spreading over the sides of the chair. “Everybody calls me Libbie.”

  “Is that your name?”

  “On my birth certificate?” She shook her head. “Belinda Clark is the so-called legal name, but we all name ourselves in a way, wouldn’t you agree? We all wear a mask and pretend to be whoever we want to be. I happen to be comfortable in the role of Libbie Custer. Such a strong, confident, and tenacious woman! Oh, if she lived today, she would be president.” The woman stared off into space, as if the thought had taken her somewhere else. “I should thank you,” she said, bringing her eyes back to his, “for your efforts on Edward’s behalf. I heard you brought the news to his horrible daughter. What I wouldn’t have given to have seen her face! Now everyone will know the truth.”

  “I’m not following,” Father John said.

  “Isn’t it obvious? She wanted him dead. How else could she get her hands on his money? She arranged this whole charade. I’m sure she’s in cahoots with the Indians.” She leaned forward, one hand gripping the edge of the table. “I’m surprised you didn’t see it in her, you being a priest and all. You must talk to all kinds of people. Listen to their sins. Seems to me you should’ve seen her for what she is, a scheming, grasping witch.”

  “She seemed shocked by her father’s death.”

  “She’s a very good actress.” Belinda Clark threw her head back and laughed at the ceiling. “Ironic, wouldn’t you say? She detested what Edward did, running around the country impersonating Custer. And so good at it! Why, one newspaper reporter at a reenactment of the Little Bighorn asked him if, in some way, he believed he was Custer. Reincarnated.” She smiled at the memory. “That’s how good an actor he was.”

  The woman dipped her head toward the door and the RVs across the road. “They’re almost as good as he was. Playing their roles, both of them. How they hated my husband! They could have saved him, but they refused. Just sat on their horses and let my husband die! Their commander. The man they had sworn to follow and obey and protect!”

  For a second, Father John wondered who she was talking about. Edward Garrett or George Armstrong Custer? “You’re saying that Veraggi and Osborne hated Edward?”

  “Yes, of course. They were always jealous, because he outranked them. My husband was the commander, the big cheese. Nobody could measure up to the general.”

  “You mean Edward? I understood he was a colonel.”

  She squared herself toward him and gave him a slowly developing smile that made the muscles around her mouth resemble spreading glue. “The difference between outsiders, like yourself,” she said, “and reenactors is that we can move back and forth. In and out of characters, if you like, or historical persons. We can come back any time we like, or we can stay where we feel the most comfortable. Where we belong. It’s as if we were born in the wrong time. As if some cosmic catastrophe occurred that kept us away from our own, natural time and thrust us here.” She opened her arms and waved them about, as if she could take in the whole universe. “You’re a philosopher.”

  “I’m a priest,” he said.

  “Whatever. Priest, philosopher.” She leaned forward and shook a schoolteacherish finger at him. “You live with invisible realities every day, the things that can’t be seen under a microscope. You must understand what I’m talking about.”

  “You believe that in some way you are Libbie Custer? And Edward was Custer?”

  “It’s not that simple.” She was shaking her head, rolling her eyes. A particularly dense student! “What I know is that I could have been Libbie, and maybe”—she stumbled over the rest of it—“maybe I was. But I’m fully aware that I can step back into Belinda Clark and the present any time I wish. That is what outsiders don’t understand. You think we’re all a bit crazy. Edward’s daughter thought her father was a nut. She didn’t have the capacity to realize he was different. He could move from one person to another. He had a great capacity to imagine Custer. He could bring him back to life. Is that really so hard to understand? So impossible?”

  Father John was quiet. Pavarotti as Calaf, becoming the character, singing him to life in Nessun dorma. Caruso as Pagliacci. He had listened to the recording of Vesti la giubba a hundred times, caught up in the imaginary world. So many plays and movies with great actors. Laurence Olivier as Hamlet, the prince of Denmark himself stalking the halls of Elsinore, alive. Meryl Streep becoming Margaret Thatcher.

  He got to his feet, cowboy hat in one hand. There was barely room to step toward the door past the woman’s white boots crossed in the middle of the aisle. “I stopped by to see if there was anything I could do for you,” he said.

  “You can tell that detective to release my husband’s body.” She rose alongside him. “I intend to have his body cremated, then I’ll spread his ashes across the plains in the unspoiled spaces he loved. Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, South Dakota. All the places where he felt most at home. Free.”

  Father John wondered again who she was. The wife of Edward Garrett or a very good actress playing a role. “I can ask him when the body will be released.”

  “You do that,” she said. “Maybe the detective has figured out that Dorothy stole her father’s money. Ask him what he intends to do about it.”

  Father John waited for her to go on, something he had learned from counseling. People seemed to throw away something important, then went after it because they hadn’t really meant to throw it away. All he had to do was wait.

  “Edward sold his ranch in Laramie,” she said, spitting out the words. “He had a lot of money in the bank account. A half million dollars. He was set to buy another ranch near Dubois, though for the life of me I never understood why. Edward preferred to roam.” She shrugged. “‘Why do you want another ranch?’ I asked him. ‘You just got rid of one. Let’s go off, live in the trailer, sit outside under the sunshade, and read and write. You can write your memoirs. My Life on the Plains with Custer by Edward Garrett.’ Oh, for a while I thought I had convinced him. I could tell he liked the idea of having his name on a book, connected to Custer forever. Next thing I knew, he announced he found a ranch he really liked. Close to Doro
thy. My God! Dorothy, who hated his guts and only wanted his money.”

  “What makes you think she took his money?”

  “It’s gone. Disappeared into thin air. Who else could have gotten hold of it? That conniving witch talked him out of every last cent.” She was still standing so close that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. The brim of her bonnet cast a faint shadow across her eyes. “Detective Madden should investigate the theft of Edward’s money.”

  “Have you told him about this?”

  She gave him another slow smile. “Naturally. It did little good. It’s so simple, I don’t know how he could miss it. Like shooting at a bull’s-eye as broad as a barn and hitting the trees a hundred feet away. Dorothy got hold of his money somehow, and hired those Indians to create a disturbance at the parade and shoot Edward while nobody could make out what was going on. Brilliant, when you think about it. I’m sure she didn’t have to work too hard to convince them. Flashed a little money around. Besides, they hated Custer, all the Indians did. They could sense something about Edward, sense Custer in him. They were happy to do her bidding. She still has the bulk of the money.”

  She stepped back and tilted her head even further. “Make him understand,” she said.

  “Look, Mrs. Garrett . . .”

  She interrupted. “You can call me Libbie, or Belinda, if you insist.”

  “Belinda,” he said, “Madden is investigating anybody who might have wanted your husband dead. If the money is part of it, he’ll find out. We have to wait until the investigation is complete.”

  “We? We? It wasn’t your husband who was shot by those filthy, marauding Indians who should have been chased back to the reservation. What were they doing off the reservation, anyway?”

  Father John stared at her a moment, unsure of what she was talking about. Custer, sent out with the 7th Cavalry to round up Indians and force them onto a reservation? Edward Garrett, pretending to be Custer? “They’re not captives,” he said. “They’re free to move about like any other U.S. citizen.”