But Rosser’s letter revealed only the slightest alteration of opinion, though it was all phrased civilly enough. The destruction of Custer’s forces were, Rosser concluded, entirely the failure of Major Marcus Reno, who had faltered when he should have attacked, pressed forward to Custer’s rescue instead of falling back. It was a failure of nerve, caused by Reno’s inexperience as an Indian fighter, and no other reason could be properly ascribed to Custer’s demise. And Custer himself lay “sublimely in an honored grave, and all patriots and lovers of heroic deeds, performed in devotion to duty, will join in his requiem.”
Reno sighed. Custer had died an honorable death, or so the world believed, while Reno … He put the thought aside.
“The Indians appear to have withdrawn from your front as soon as you recrossed the river. Why, then, could you not have gone in pursuit of Custer earlier? When you did go you say that you heard ‘chopping shots.’ Do you not think that, even then, by a bold dash at the Indians, you might have saved a portion, at least, of Custer’s perishing command?”
Reno had wondered the same thing a thousand times, and had always come to the same conclusion: not without adequate ammunition unless he wanted to march a suicide column toward the vast numbers before him, and not without some way of protecting the wounded.
Rosser’s jabs, no matter that they were couched in respectful language, opened wounds in Reno’s heart.
“I have heard that someone has advanced the theory that Custer was met, at this point where he first struck the river, by overwhelming numbers and so beaten that his line from that point on was one of retreat. This is simply ridiculous.”
“Had Custer been repulsed at this point his column would have been driven back upon the line on which he had approached and the proposition is too silly to be discussed. I claim that the part which Custer acted in this engagement was that of a bold earnest man, who believed he had before him a rare opportunity to strike the Indians a blow which, if successful, would end the campaign, and it was worth the bold effort … .”
And so the armchair general, poring over maps, didn’t budge an inch. And he was dead wrong. Custer had not retreated along the line of his approach. But whether or not Rosser was wrong, this view had spread like black ink through the sinews of Reno’s command, stained his record as a soldier, dripped into the counsels of the highest officers of the army. And there was little a major on active duty could do to counter it.
That night saw a great reunion at the Officers’ Club Room, and Marcus Reno was present. So were Weir, Varnum, Hare, Robinson, Craycroft, and Eckerson of the Seventh Cavalry; Lieutenants Manley, Ogle, and Finley of the Sixth Infantry, and Post Trader Harmon. By the bright homecoming light of the kerosene lamps, the lieutenants and captains gathered, washed and shaven and primed and powdered in clean blue, and the whiskey flowed swift and gold into tumblers dissolving the hurts of the road. Spirits ran high. Men laughed, and reminisced, and Marcus Reno laughed and reminisced until his ears caught the tenor of a conversation in a corner:
Infantry Lieutenant Manley was agreeing with Rosser.
Reno peeled away from the crowd, braced Manley, and told him he didn’t have things right.
“I’ll come to my own conclusions, sir,” Manley replied.
“If they agree with Rosser, then they’re ignorant. You weren’t there.”
“I agree with Rosser. You could have rescued the lieutenant colonel if you tried. You didn’t even try.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
“One good charge, sir, one brave charge, rallying your men, and Custer would be here right now.”
“Manley, you’re an ignorant sonofabitch.”
Manley rose suddenly. Reno grabbed a fistful of tunic and began pushing the lieutenant back. Manley’s fist found Reno’s shoulder. Reno countered with a fist into Manley’s midriff.
“Stop that!” yelled someone, but Reno was too busy pummeling to heed the yell. Reno swung hard now, feeling his fists collide with flesh and bone, feeling Manley’s fists smack home, knock air out of him, whack his head aside.
Reno pushed. Manley tumbled to the grimy floor. Reno landed on the younger man, pounding hard, a demon loosed in him, while Manley writhed and bounced and shoved Reno off.
“You sonofabitch, I’ll kill you,” Reno breathed, hot craziness welling through him. He was filthy; the floor slop staining his uniform. Manley’s was even more begrimed.
Varnum stepped in. “Hold up, major. Enough. Get off of him. Manley, back away.”
“God damn you, Varnum, if you don’t let me finish up here, it’ll be personal with me.”
Varnum, who had fought beside Reno at the battle, backed off.
Tom Weir shouldered in to the arena and helped both men up. Manley retreated.
“Now shake hands, major,” he said. “And you, lieutenant. You’ll behave like officers and gentlemen.”
Varnum tentatively pushed a begrimed hand forward.
“I won’t touch your goddamn hand. We’ll settle this, all right, with revolvers. I’m calling you out, Varnum.”
Lieutenant Robinson intervened, and said sharply: “You bring revolvers into this club and I’ll arrest you both.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Lieutenant Robinson, Seventh Cavalry.”
Reno had barely noticed him before.
“Cool off, major,” Tom Weir said. “We’re stopping this here and now.”
By then the rest of the officers, suddenly sobered by the prospect of a duel, drew Reno apart.
“Don’t touch me, damn you,” Reno snapped.
They let him alone. Furiously he wiped muck off his miserable blues and retreated into a corner, apart from his staff officers, and demanded a bottle and a tumbler. They stared, brushed their own uniforms, and returned quietly to their sipping. But the evening would never be the same, this night the Seventh Cavalry returned to Fort Abraham Lincoln.
Reno drank until he was tired of drinking. Drank until a great weariness crept through his limbs, and then stepped into the chill night, feeling the gazes of a dozen officers and gentlemen on his stained back. He stepped into blackness. Autumn was in the air, the autumn of nature, and the autumn of his career in the army. He did not let the cool air undo the heat within him, the heat he needed to defend his honor.
He would defend his good name, defend it in heaven or hell, defend it in the streets, in officers’ clubs, defend it on the parade ground, defend it to Sheridan and Sherman and Terry, defend it to adjutants and courts and second lieutenants, defend it until he could no longer see stars or know the sun was rising.
The anger did not leave him as he wove through the night to his quarters, where a sentry saluted. Reno returned the salute, but growled at it.
His room was dark and cold. He found a lucifer, lit the coal oil lamp, jammed the glass chimney down, adjusted the wick, and saw orange light fill the room. He found a looking glass and peered into it, discovering the ruin of his face and flesh, and he knew he and his image were alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HARD WORK WAS ALWAYS THE SALVATION. RENO THREW HIMSELF INTO rebuilding the regiment. New men and horses were flooding in, arriving almost daily, and suddenly the Seventh was at full strength. But these five hundred men and five hundred mounts didn’t know anything.
He set his company commanders and first sergeants to work, drilling men, turning useless horseflesh into disciplined cavalry mounts. The men were the usual raw material of armies, some off the immigrant boats, some a few steps ahead of sheriffs, and some too dumb to hold a civilian job. But there would always be those few who loved the cavalry, had an aptitude for it, and would rise through the ranks to become first-rate soldiers.
If his manner was brusque, that was exactly what he intended. If he was prickly, it was because he wanted to be a thorn in the side of everyone around him. He would show them what a soldier was made of, and what Marcus Reno was made of, too. There would be a winter campaign shortly, and Reno intended to whip
his command into fighting shape.
But he was also walking the edge of an abyss, one he understood perfectly and felt helpless to do anything about. He especially felt the reproach of the youngest officers, those first and second lieutenants fresh out of West Point who secretly thought that they could do better than the major, and who devoutly believed that soldiers, properly trained and mounted, could have swept through that village, knocking over the warriors, women, and children like tenpins, and reached the beleaguered Custer in time to save the command and pull victory out of disaster.
Reno knew the feeling. It had burned brightly in his bosom during the Civil War. He had watched timid generals fail to grasp the chances that opened to them, retreat at the very brink of success, see danger where the enemy was actually falling to pieces. He had then been the lieutenant, the captain, helpless to alter events, seething with that secret scorn that the young and untried reserve for their commanders.
Now he felt himself to be the target of exactly that scorn, unspoken, buried behind geniality, hidden in smiles, scarcely revealed even to wives and sweethearts in letters, hinted at only by the cliques that formed in the Officers’ Club Room. It was not visibly present, but it was there, staining his honor and eroding his career. And he hated it.
The only defense against it was a brusqueness that could scarcely be borne by his men. And he was especially brusque with the new officers, the ones who had not been at the Little Bighorn, the ones with inflated notions of what white soldiers could do and what red soldiers could not do.
One of those new officers was Captain James Bell, actually a veteran army man who had a much younger wife, Emily, who was unusually handsome and vivacious as well. And there was something else about her: certain rumors concerning her virtue, her easiness with other officers, had been bruited through the staff of the Seventh Cavalry for years. Whether true or not, they did not escape the attention of Reno, and he eyed Emily Bell with curiosity and interest.
At one of the many social events at the post, she surprised him.
“My dear major, I should very much enjoy having a photograph of you,” she said.
He eyed her bountiful beauty, was tempted, and thought better of it.
“Madam, I am afraid I have none. I haven’t been near a photographer in years. Press of business, you know. The army’s a great taskmaster.”
“Ah! A pity! Well, when you have one taken, please make a copy for me.”
“I’m flattered, Mrs. Bell,” he said.
He had been over two years without a wife, and he felt a rush of hunger as he watched Emily Bell circulate through the party, drawing the long gazes of handsome career army officers. He was forty-one, had a twelveyear-old son being cared for by the boy’s aunt and uncle, and lived a solitary life, save for the occasional parties at the post. It would not do to get involved. Especially not then, with an angry cloud poised over him. But he could not help but watch Emily, her rose satins rustling, as she drifted through those ranks of blue and gold, catching attention from men who pretended not to look. He headed out to the veranda, and downed a sharp splash of whiskey, capped the flask, and restored it to its nest.
Colonel Samuel Sturgis, the commander of the Seventh, arrived in October, and swiftly put plans into effect to disarm the Sioux at their agencies. The Seventh would ride to Standing Rock and the Cheyenne Agency, collect weapons and ponies, and make very sure that the reservation Indians would not again furnish guns and ponies to the hostiles.
Reno found himself commanding one column that descended the Missouri River on its west bank, while Sturgis took another column down the east bank, and then they spent a few days at the agency collecting arms and horses. It was harsh business, taking away the means to hunt, and leaving the Sioux dependent on wormy and erratic starvation rations from the government. But he didn’t pity them; no one in the Seventh pitied any of them. The Sioux, wrapped in shabby blankets, stared as the troopers systematically ransacked each lodge for firearms, and then made off with the scraggly ponies. Reno saw bitterness in their eyes, but he didn’t much care.
The two columns returned with eight hundred confiscated ponies and a few wagonloads of arms. Now the Seventh could settle down to a peaceful winter without worrying about surprises. The regiment was scattered to various winter posts in the area, and began the long wait for spring. It would be a time of musicales, dancing, holiday feasts, charades, balls, and other light games, and gossip. It would also be a time of chafing; officers who didn’t get along always did worse in close quarters than out in the field.
Reno received a twenty-day leave and was glad of it. He had been out in Indian country too long, and was ready for the sights of any large city. He chose Chicago. There would not be time enough to reach Harrisburg, see his son, Robert Ross Reno, and the Rosses and Haldemans this time. Nor did he particularly want to. He wanted to don the mufti, live anonymously for a few days, and … do whatever he might do. The river took him south; the railroads took him east, the rattle of wheels against rails numbing his mind until the overheated passenger train squeaked and rattled into Union Station and he stepped out into damp, cold Lake Michigan air. He checked into the Palmer House, signing himself as Marcus Renault. He did not lack for money, having banked his major’s salary all the while he was out where he could not spend it. And he commanded a substantial income from Mary Hannah’s estate as well.
He felt right at home among the potted palms, the high and ornate gray marble lobby, the drummers in brocade vests, black-suited moguls and green-uniformed lackeys; the fashionable ladies in ermine-lined coats, glossy boots, and furry muffs; the comfortable dark saloons glowing under gas lamps that spilled buttery light into corners, redolent of good Kentucky whiskey and Havana cigars … and sometimes lilac perfume.
He wore his black worsted suit with a dove gray vest, a monogrammed kerchief in his vest pocket, along with a paisley cravat, gray spats, and a good silk bowler. He was not the handsomest of men, but he was a natty one, and with soft brown eyes he surveyed the hubbub, especially the ladies, and remembered nothing of the hard days beyond the western horizon, when a mouthful of bad whiskey hastily swallowed was the only luxury, and an extra blanket the only warmth.
He began with a steaming bath in the enormous Palmer House clawfoot tub he found in his suite, then summoned a barber to shave him and trim his moustache and cut his black hair and leave the scent of witch hazel upon him. The barber, an obvious gossip, tried to make conversation, but Reno gave him no opportunity. He did give the man a dime tip. He summoned a boy to black his boots, and a laundress to press his white shirts.
He examined himself: medium sized, paunchy, sun-stained about the face and neck and hands; far from pale elsewhere, sad-eyed, knowing, and permanently tired. But still not an unattractive package, he thought, not even in civilian clothes. He sent his uniforms out for a cleaning, and would have them back in a day or so.
But for now, just for now, he was Mr. Renault, not Major Reno, not the man who had commanded at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Mr. Renault would look for entertainments and business opportunities. The country was beginning to blossom again after the Crash of 1873. Mr. Renault was unknown, had never appeared in the public prints, and could go about his business at will.
He sipped three good bourbons at the Palmer House saloon that evening, content to be alone, listening to the chatter around him. Two gents were debating whether to invest in traction stocks. Traction companies were the coming thing; streetcars, interurban trolleys promised to weld great cities together. Reno listened attentively. He might invest in one, especially one located in a great metropolis.
He dined alone at the famous Palmer House restaurant, enjoying the white linens, the cut glass carafes, the waiters in livery. He ordered a porterhouse steak, with pearl onions, twice-baked potatoes, California asparagus topped with hollandaise, and baked squash. He ate quietly, far from howling savages, sipping a good French red table wine, and watching the women.
One, in the
booth across, wore a splendid pearl necklace, three strands in graduated sizes. She was brown-haired and ethereal, and wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the middle-aged gent squiring her through a glittering evening. They talked about theater, and Edwin Booth, and Shakespeare.
Reno declined dessert, paid his tab from a wad of greenbacks stuffed in his trousers, gathered his black wool cape, and headed for the portico on State Street. There, while the Chicago winds gusted about him and swirled his cape tight, he engaged a hansom cab drawn by a tired dray in blinders.
“Nine-twelve North LaSalle Street,” he said.
The driver turned and smiled. “Yasser, just a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll move right smart.”
It was a famous address, well known to any bon vivant: it was the handsome three-story brick parlor house of Madam Porphyrie DuPont, whose select clientele had included Major Reno for many years. And for a fortnight, he would not think of Armstrong Custer and the dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SLATE SKIES SHROUDED FORT ABERCROMBIE, WHICH LAY ON A FEATURELESS plain, open to the blasts of winter. Subzero air sliced through the frame buildings of the dismal post, driving men to the wood stoves or under their blankets. The little fort, lying on the Red River of the North at the boundary of Dakota and Minnesota, had long since ceased to be important in the defense of settlers in the lush river valley, and now was occupied merely as precaution. Until the last of the Sioux were collected on reservations, the little army posts dotting the northern plains would have their complements of troops.
Reno arrived in mid-December, after detraining at Breckenridge, twelve miles south. He would command here, on orders issuing from the Department of Dakota. His post housed Company A, Seventeenth Infantry, under Captain William Van Horne, and Company F, Seventh Cavalry, under Captain James Bell. Five officers in all: Lieutenant Troxel, quartermaster for the infantry company, Lieutenant Robinson, post adjutant, and Lieutenant Slocum, Seventh Cavalry. All but Slocum had their wives with them.
An Obituary for Major Reno Page 15
