“Yes, it ruined him, you know,” the mayor said, lowering his voice. “His career never recovered. Poor Carrington. Spent his whole life writing letters, petitioning Congress, trying to get his good name back, but he never found any satisfaction. Sad, really.”
Gier said, “What about his wife? Was she here too, back then?”
“Yes, she was here. But the colonel was married to another woman at the time. The first wife—Margaret, I think her name was—died back in seventy. Tuberculosis. They had two sons who were here too. One of them, Jim, is a writer for Scribner’s in New York. The older boy, Harry, died in ninety-two or ninety-three down in Mexico, trying to get cured of consumption. He was a railroad engineer, lived in Chicago. Fine man, by all accounts. Frances, the current Mrs. Carrington, was married to one of the colonel’s officers at the time. Grummond, one of them killed up there.”
The men sat in silence, looking at Lodge Trail Ridge. The lush lower slopes were in shadow but the rocky, wind-blasted crest was lit by the setting sun. Just over the crest, at a site not visible from the Gier porch, stood a new monument, a stone obelisk, erected at the urging of a Wyoming congressman in memory of the eighty-one victims of Fetterman’s Massacre. It would be officially dedicated the following day, with the eighty-four-year-old Henry Carrington delivering the memorial address.
Gier rocked in his chair, thinking of the aged soldier in his guest room. “He lost everything, pretty near,” he said. “That explains his eyes. There’s a lot of sadness in them.”
The mayor nodded, then got to his feet. “Your place will be crawling with people tomorrow, George,” he said. “Hundreds, I’d say. A lot of old-timers coming back for the dedication. I appreciate your cooperation, my friend. Damn good for the community.”
“What about Doc Dixon?” Gier said. “Will he and Rose be here?”
The mayor shook his head. “No, they didn’t seem interested. Anyhow, he and Rose are in California this month. Harry, their oldest boy, lives in San Francisco, you know. He practices medicine out there, makes a lot of money too, or so I hear. Doc and Rose, they’re mighty proud of him. They’re proud of all those kids, and so they should be.”
He consulted his pocket watch then stuck out his hand. “Well, I’ll be getting along. See you in the morning, George. Ceremony starts at ten but I’ll be here at nine or so to pick up the colonel and the missus and drive them up to the site. Thanks again for being a sport about all this. It’s a lot easier on them, you know, staying here, close to the action. Not so much back-and-forth.”
The mayor climbed into the Chamber of Commerce car and with a wave of his arm began the twenty-seven-mile drive back to Sheridan.
The rancher stood alone on his porch. Inside the parlor someone began to play the piano. He smiled. That would be Mary, his youngest, showing off for the visitors.
A cool wind blew down from the mountains. Gier turned to go inside but something, distinct as a tug on his sleeve, compelled him to pause and look back, over the plateau where Fort Phil Kearny once stood, toward Piney Creek where silvery grasses rippled in the breeze, and finally to Lodge Trail Ridge where so many men, red and white, had lost their lives forty-two years before. He stood for a full minute, eyes closed, face to the wind, listening to the drumbeats of the past. Then he turned and entered his house, hungry for his dinner. The screen door closed behind him, reverberating like a pistol shot throughout the darkening valley.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2015 Susan Salzer
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3625-7
First electronic edition: March 2015
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3626-4
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3626-5
Frontier Page 28
