The Spirit of Thunder

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  One Who Flies smiled and they headed off toward the river.

  A storm broke over the camp the day the bands began to head out, and George reflected on how much the weather echoed his mood.

  Cold and gray, the clouds were so thick as to make the sky unknowable. It might have been noon, or daybreak, or twilight from the looks of things. Only his inner sense of time told him that it was the forenoon of the day. The wind, edged and honed sharp by the season, cut through clothing with an icy knife. The rain, when the thunder finally loosed it, fell in thick sheets that drenched a man clear through in moments.

  George began to take down his lodge and pack it for travel. He felt cold inside, and angry without good reason. When the lodgepoles all slipped their ties at once and clattered down upon his head in a loud and bruising pile, his temper at his own ineptitude in handling anything Indian built and burst forth.

  “Hellfire,” he cursed. “Damnation and Hellfire!” He sat down in the mud and the driving rain and wished, once and fervently, for a horse, a tent, a pan of biscuit, and a pot of hot, steaming coffee. He wished for something, anything, as long as it was old and familiar.

  Someone laughed and he glared from beneath a shock of rain-soaked hair. Speaks While Leaving was standing there, a stiff hide held above her head for protection from the storm. His glower cut short her laughter and she came toward him instead with a look of mirthful pity that, though less derisive, made him feel even worse.

  “Oh, One Who Flies,” she said, holding the rawhide up to cover them both. “You are so miserable.” She could not keep the laughter out of her voice and his temper began to abate.

  “I suppose I am rather ridiculous.”

  She reached forward and set his hair back out of his eyes. “This is not what you expected, is it?”

  “No,” he admitted quickly.

  “Do you regret?”

  “No,” he said, just as quickly. “I regret nothing.”

  “Good.” She reached for a small pouch that she had tucked under her wide belt. She handed it to George. “A gift,” she said, having to speak up a little to be heard over the drumming of the rain. “For your friendship. For your advice.” She smiled, and George felt his heart lighten at the sight. “And for falling from the clouds.”

  She stood.

  “We will meet soon,” she said. “During the Hatchling Moon. Keep well, my friend.”

  And she was gone, swallowed up by the hammering rain.

  He looked at what she had given him. It was a small bag of stiffened deerhide, fringed at the bottom and painted with blue and red stripes. George worked at the leather tie at the top, his fingers fumbling in the cold and wet. When it finally gave way to his efforts, he opened it and dumped the contents into his hand.

  Despite the gloom, the nugget shone. Speaks While Leaving had scrubbed it clean of all dirt and detritus, and it gleamed and glistened in the rain that fell upon it but could never change it.

  He looked up. Mouse Road was standing over by her family’s flock. She stared at him for a moment with an expression he could not fathom, and then turned away without comment.

  George chuckled. He hefted the nugget and put it back into its bag.

  “Crazy vé’ho’e,” he said, and with a buoyant heart, he turned back to his packing.

  Chapter 3

  Winter, A.D. 1886

  Washington

  District of Columbia

  Winter in the D.C. had always depressed Custer. Never enough snow for a boy from the Michigan Territory, but more than enough rain for any man alive.

  This winter, however, as the Christmas holiday approached, it seemed to Custer that the Almighty had taken pity on the people of the region. Between storms, He allowed the sun to make brief appearances, and the land was given a chance to come up for air.

  Custer looked up from his report, squinting as the afternoon sun broke through the clouds and sparkled from the still-wet panes of his office window. The reprieve was brief, however, and the light was doused as clouds returned. He sighed and turned away from the window.

  His office was on the second floor of the executive mansion. A large square room, it still showed the touch of several of its previous occupants.

  On a nearby occasional table rested a silver tray upon which stood a cut-crystal decanter and four crystal tumblers, a gift left behind by the Grants. On the wall was a map of the frontier as it looked during Sherman’s stormy tenure. And the chair in which Custer now sat—with its leather upholstered seat, straight back, and heavy oak arms—had been Lincoln’s for many years and the one in which he reputedly sat as he freed the slaves with a stroke of his pen. It was not an impressive office. Custer, like Sherman, preferred working at a large table rather than at a desk. It was, however, serviceable.

  That’s fine, Custer said to himself. It’s a room for business, not politics. Plenty of other rooms with which to impress the enemy. He turned his attention back to the report.

  There was a tap at the open door. It was Douglas, the old Negro butler who saw after the family’s needs and kept the household staff in line. His skin was night-black and his fringe of curly white hair provided a high contrast to his bald pate. His eyes were dark and expressive, and, as Custer had come to know, held no artifice. He had come with the house, having seen to the needs of eight presidents, and Custer had grown quite fond of him over the past two years.

  “Yes?” Custer said.

  “Excuse me, sir, but your afternoon guests will be here soon. Will you want any...refreshment?” He glanced at the crystal decanter which, by Custer’s standing order, was kept empty.

  “Oh, yes. Good idea. Find out what the General drinks and fill it up. Check with Samuel. He’ll know. I wouldn’t know a rye from a whiskey.”

  Douglas picked up the tray with its decanter and glasses. “A rye is a whisky, sir.”

  “See? Exactly my point. Is Mr. Greene here yet?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s speaking with Mrs. Custer out in the conservatory. Shall I bring him up?

  “Just send him up, Douglas. No sense your climbing that staircase again. He knows the way.”

  “Very well, Mr. President.”

  Custer went back to reading the report that had already taken up too much of his morning. After two years in office, he was still staggered by the amount of seemingly useless information that required presidential review. He thumbed to the back of the report.

  One-hundred fifty-seven pages. One-hundred fifty-seven pages of gray, washed-out type, rambling on and on about the completion of the Canadian-Pacific railroad and its expected effect on American trade relations.

  He took off his reading glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache that threatened to scuttle his day.

  “Mr. President?”

  Custer looked up to find his Secretary of War at the open door. “Ah, Jacob,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome, sir. For what, sir?”

  Custer held up the report. “For rescuing me from this.” He tossed it onto the far end of his long table. “Come. Sit down. Matherly and the General will be here shortly. You met with him this morning?”

  Jacob eased himself onto one of the straight-backed chairs that were always around Custer’s table. “General Herron? Yes. He and I met for breakfast at his hotel.”

  “What was your impression of him?”

  Jacob ticked off points on his fingers. “Gruff. Unpleasant. Crass. But thoroughly committed to the idea.”

  “You think so?”

  Jacob poked the tabletop with a finger. “This man,” he said, “will follow orders. Without question or remorse. Herron will not give us a repetition of that miserable performance Stant gave us this last summer.”

  “You’re damned right I won’t,” said a voice from the open doorway.

  Herron’s frame filled the available space. He was tall and broad of shoulder but ominously lean in a way that Custer had only seen in Indian warriors: a slenderness for
ged by a life of athleticism and warfare, built of quick reflexes and a quicker mind. His pale green eyes looked at Custer and Jacob with a keen gaze. He wore his uniform as if he could wear nothing else. The dark blue wool of his double-breasted frock coat was dry, but his black slouch hat was beaded with droplets of rain. He was younger than Custer had expected, or at least he appeared so.

  Behind him was an aide, also in blue army wool, and Robert Matherly, dressed in a riding coat and high-collared shirt. Behind them all was Douglas with coats of Kersey blue and congressional black draped over his arm.

  “Beg your pardon, Mr. President. General Herron and Senator Matherly to see you.”

  “Thank you, Douglas. Come in, gentlemen.”

  The general removed his hat as he entered the room. Now Custer could see the man’s age, as his thinning hair was shot through with silver, especially at the temples. His square jaw was clean-shaven beneath a still-dark mustache. He moved to one of the straight-backed chairs across the table but did not sit. Custer saw the deep lines at the corners of his eyes and the tautness of the skin across his angular cheekbones.

  “You’ve spent a long time on the Frontier,” Custer said, extending his hand.

  “It shows,” Herron said. “On both of us. It’s a land that leaves its mark.” His handshake was firm and stable.

  “Mr. President,” Matherly said as he came forward. The portly senator presented his hand as well. “So nice to see you again.”

  “You’re to be congratulated, Robert. The passage of your first bill. It went about as smoothly as you could have hoped.”

  “Smoother than I could have dreamed, thanks to you, Mr. President.” Matherly pumped Custer’s hand in both of his own. “I can’t thank you enough for your help in getting it passed before the election. Now, with the Democrats in control of the House, I could never have gotten it to the floor.”

  “Yes,” Custer said. “That may be. But I can’t take all the credit. It was well presented by you.”

  “Could we dispense with the niceties,” Herron growled, “and get down to business? Sir?”

  Custer glanced at Jacob who made a “See? I told you” shrug.

  “By all means, General. All of you, please, have a seat.”

  They all settled into their chairs except for the general’s aide who remained at silent ease behind his commander. Douglas reappeared, carrying the silver tray and crystal decanter. The butler silently mouthed a word and Custer turned to Herron.

  “Scotch, General?”

  Herron raised a dark eyebrow and nodded.

  Douglas poured two fingers of the pale brown liquor into a tumbler and handed it to the general with a white-gloved hand. Herron sniffed, then sipped.

  “Very nice,” he said showing white, even teeth. “Single malt?”

  Douglas answered quickly, acting as if the question had been put to him. “Yes, sir, General Herron. Lagavulin. Sixteen years old.”

  The general bristled—at being addressed by a servant or by a Negro or both, Custer did not know—but the tall man made no further complaint. “Very nice,” he said again, though his smile was strained.

  “So, now,” Custer said, drawing the meeting together. “I asked for an overview of your plans for the execution of this bill.”

  “Yes, sir.” Herron motioned to his aide, a young captain, who opened the end of a leather map case and shook out a roll of parchments. Herron took one and rolled it out on the table, setting his tumbler at one end to keep it flat.

  It was a map of the State of Yankton, from the Mississippi to the Missouri, and beyond.

  “Crossing the state with a new railway is the easiest part of the venture,” Herron said. “And the quickest. We’ve already laid out our path, a straight east-west corridor from the existing bridge at Davenport-Rock Island.” He pointed to the site on the state’s eastern border and drew a line with his finger. “We extend the line straight through to Washita and onward to this spot on the Missouri shore.”

  “The state legislature has already set aside the land we need,” Matherly put in. “We’ve had to displace some of the local residents, and there’s been some unpleasantness in the—”

  “Yes, yes,” the general interrupted. “Can’t make an omelet, as they say.” He tapped the spot on the state’s western border.

  “This,” he said, “is our challenge. The Missouri starts to meander here. It is wide and deep along most of its accessible length, but my engineer says that those facts, in and of themselves, are not the problem. The problem with the Missouri is seasonal flooding, much like the problems they had bridging the lower Mississippi. It doesn’t matter where we bridge the river, the potential for flooding exists everywhere. Whatever we build, it will have to be strong enough to withstand a serious flood. That means wider and stronger than the minimum required.”

  Matherly leaned forward in his chair, a smile of appeasement on his lips and a wheedling tone in his voice. “I am sure that General Herron’s concerns are well-intentioned, but to accomplish his goals will increase the time and money required well beyond that already allotted. And since my state is responsible for a large portion of that cost, I would like to entertain some alternatives.”

  “Alternatives?” Herron made a rude sound. “You can build a ferry in a fortnight for a double sawbuck,” he said, “but it won’t do what you want.” He turned back to Custer. “The plan calls for a bridge that will carry over a million souls; transport the goods to supply them, the livestock to feed and transport them, the army and weapons to protect them, and the machines to haul it all; and do all that for ten or twenty years. Frankly, I’d build a pontoon bridge and call it done if I thought it would suffice.”

  “Do it once, do it right?” Custer suggested.

  “Precisely, Mr. President. Senator Matherly’s worries about cost aside, you have to take longevity into account. My engineer tells me that if this bridge is to survive even a mild storm season, it must be longer and stronger than originally estimated.”

  “Who is your engineer?” Jacob asked.

  “Lt. Colonel Craig M. Shafer. Top-notch. Bit of a perfectionist, but the man knows his business. Did work all over the world before he joined the service.”

  “Why did he join up?”

  “Wants to build bridges, and the army builds more bridges than anyone, these days.”

  So,” Custer said. “How much will Colonel Shafer’s recommendation affect the project?”

  Matherly jumped in again, saying, “It will double the construction time to a year or more, and it will quadruple the cost!”

  Custer held up a hand of gentle placation. “Nevertheless, it is often foolish to ignore the advice of experts.”

  Jacob sighed. “Already over budget. Now this is a military operation.”

  “But Mr. President,” Matherly whined. “How can you expect Yankton to shoulder such an increase in costs? We’re only 200,000 in population, almost all of it in farmland. How can we possibly—”

  “The same way everyone else does,” Custer said. “Borrow it.” He got up from his chair and walked around the table to where Sherman’s map of the Frontier hung on the wall.

  “Look,” he said, pointing to a long squiggly line that traveled north and west from Yankton’s border. “That’s the Missouri River. And this...” He spread his hand over the blank area that lay between the meandering river and the Gulf of Narváez. “That, Senator, is a plain of fertile farmland six times the size of Yankton. We are going to flood this plain with settlers and you, Mr. Matherly, you and the State of Yankton are going to be the beneficiaries of that flood. This plan—this bridge—is going to make you rich.”

  “And famous,” Jacob said.

  “And famous,” Custer echoed. “Do you have ambitions, Senator? A committee chair? A cabinet post? Even...” He motioned to the room and the building around them.

  Matherly was wide-eyed. He swallowed hard, but laughed nervously and gave a small nod.

  “That kind of ambition tak
es vision, Robert. Strong vision.”

  “And guts,” said Herron, not helpfully.

  “And guts,” Custer said, “but mostly vision. You’ve got to be able to see beyond the dollars you’ll be spending, to the fortunes that you’ll reap.”

  Matherly chewed his lower lip but Custer could see that he was taking the bait. “It will be a hard sell to the state legislators,” he said.

  “Small fry,” Herron growled.

  “Little minds,” Jacob condemned.

  “Precisely,” Custer said with a smile. “Not like you, Robert. This whole plan was your idea from the start. You’ve taken it all around the track, and admirably, too.”

  “Admirably,” Jacob and Herron said in banal unison.

  “Don’t fail now in the home stretch.”

  The senator shook his head. “That kind of debt. It would be crushing.”

  “You know,” Custer said, turning to Jacob and tapping the bridge site on the map. “Senator Matherly has been so instrumental in this....”

  “I’ve an idea,” Jacob said, picking up the hint. “I propose that this bridge spanning the Missouri River be named in honor of the man who made it possible: The Senator Robert J. Matherly Bridge.”

  “Oh, well done,” Herron said without enthusiasm.

  Matherly gaped and then beamed. “Such an honor, Mister Secretary. I could hardly—”

  “Nonsense,” Custer said. “It’s well-deserved. I’ll brook no further argument. General, would you please include a ground-breaking and dedication ceremony into your plans?”

  “Done, sir.”

  “Thank you. Good.” Custer clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “What’s next?”

  Herron leaned back into his chair. “That pretty much covers it from the civilian side of things. There are the military aspects that I could present, but we needn’t waste the senator’s time with that.”

  “Yes,” Custer said. “I should like to hear of your strategies. What do you say, Robert? Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”