Heaven and Hell (69 page)

"That's one nigger vote we'll never have to worry about. Two if she was carry in' a boy."

"No violence," said Devin Heely, the small, red-bearded Irishman who had been hired in Charleston by the mine operators. "The Beaufort Phosphate Company's dead set against violence. It's my job as foreman--"

"They killed two innocent people," Madeline exclaimed. "How do you propose we deal with mad dogs like that? Invite them to tea to discuss the issue?"

Silence. Heely chewed on the stem of his cob pipe. It was dusk, twenty-four hours after the double murder on the road. Every available lantern was lit outside the whitewashed house, and every black man employed in the phosphate fields was standing or kneeling there in a great semicircle. They'd brought their wives, and all their children, too.

A baby fretted. The mother rocked the bundled infant.

Seated together on the stoop, Prudence Chaffee and Marie-Louise w

The Year of the Locust 435

watched Madeline. A woman in the crowd, May's sister, wept loudly.

Heely opened his mouth to say something.

"She's right."

Heely and everyone else turned toward the voice. Andy stepped into the center of the lighted area. "They've left us only one choice.

The one printed in the U.S. Constitution."

"What you talking about, Sherman?" Foote asked.

"I'm talking about what it says in the second amendment. 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' "

"Showin' off his damn lawbook learnin'," someone else muttered.

Andy paid no attention:

"I'm talking about starting our own militia company. Right here."

Page 470

"You're a fool," Heely said. "If there's anything those Klan boys hate worse than the League, it's nigra militia. I am opposed--"

"I'm afraid you have nothing to say about it," Madeline broke in.

"I think you're right, Andy. We have to protect ourselves. If those Klansmen come to Mont Royal, we won't have time to send to Charleston for soldiers."

Jane asked, "Where will we get guns?"

"Buy them in the city," Madeline said.

"Won't it be expensive?" Prudence asked.

Madeline gave her a strange, grieving look that neither she nor Marie-Louise nor any of the others understood. "I should imagine. I'll find the money."

Wrote Mr. J. Lee, the architect, asking him to suspend work.

The money for his services must be spent another way.

i,

IT

46

Here was the true prairie. Not a tree broke the horizon. It was the last day of October, and the wind scything over the ground foretold winter. Steel-colored skies expanded the vast, bleak space.

A tiny dot appeared, near the cut bank of a meandering creek. It enlarged to a horse and rider--Satan and Charles. Bundled into three shirts layered beneath the gypsy robe, he was still freezing. The hem of the robe whipped and snapped around him. The Spencer stock jutted above his left shoulder.

His eyes searched a large arc ahead, saw nothing. He chewed on a cold cigar, grumpily. Hell of a season to start a war, he thought. But
Page 471

if there was to be war, he wanted to take part. He'd quit his most recent job, loading freight at the wagon depot near Fort Leavenworth, and ridden over two hundred miles in the bitter autumn for that purpose.

In another half hour buildings of stone and adobe appeared on the horizon. Fort Dodge at last. He'd been resting Satan at an easy pace.

Now he put him into a fast trot.

He saw a big wagon park, then mounted squads drilling. He heard the crackle of practice fire from beyond the fort. This wasn't a post sunk into routine; there was too much activity. It got his blood up.

The officer of the day cast a wary look at the somewhat sinister stranger and said he might find those he asked about at the sutler's.

Charles turned south past the stables to a flat-roofed adobe building with horses tethered outside. He put Satan with them and went in.

Dutch Henry Griffenstein was playing cards at an old round table in the corner. The largest pile of paper currency lay in front of him.

Charles didn't know the three other civilians in the game. One, a non436

y^

The Year of the Locust 437

jescript man with tangled hair and a pipe in his teeth, kept spilling the ieck as he tried to shuffle. "You're too drunk, Joe," said the player on lis left, relieving him of the cards. Joe belched and slouched down on lis tailbone, indifferent.

"Charlie," Griffenstein exclaimed, jumping up. "You got the

;elegram."

"I started the very next day."

"Boys," Dutch Henry said, leading him to the table, "this is Cheyenne Charlie Main. Charlie, this here's Stud Marshall, this is Wil;ow Roberts, and here--" his tone shaded into deference as he presented the unkempt man, who was about ten years older than Charles-- 'our chief of scouts. California Joe Milner."

California Joe, whose eyes barely focused, shook Charles's hand.

[t was hard to say whose palm was more callused. Milner wore a filthy Spanish sombrero, his red side whiskers hadn't been trimmed in a while, and he was altogether one of the most slovenly men Charles had ever seen.

Page 472

"Joe's the man I work for, Charlie," Dutch Henry said. "You, too, now."

California Joe belched. "If the general says so." He had an ac:ent.

Nothing cultivated, like fine Southern speech. It was the nasal whine of the mountain border. Tennessee maybe, or Kentucky.

"He means Custer," Dutch Henry said. "We got more than one general. We got General Al Sully, too. Little Phil put him in charge of the Seventh while Curly was still exiled. Sent him south of the Arkansas to chase the Indians. He didn't do so well. That's when Phil asked Sherman to remit Curly's sentence so we'd have a field commander who knows how to fight. They're both lieutenant colonels, Custer and Sully, but Sully's brevet is only lieutenant general, so Custer says he ranks him. They're sniping and fussing all the time."

"No business of ours," California Joe said to Charles. "I report to Custer, and so do you if he hires you. Ever scouted in the Indian Territory?"

"I traveled it for more than a year with a couple of trading partners.

I can't say I memorized it."

"That part don't make no difference. All you really need to scout is a pocket compass and balls."

"You'll have to take my word that I qualify."

California Joe laughed. "You said he's all right, Henry. He is all right. Main, you go see Custer. You'll find him drillin' his troops at the new camp down on Bluff Creek. If he okays you, the wage is fifty dollars a month."

438 * HEAVEN AND HELL

"I brought my own horse."

Another belch. "Then it's seventy-five. I'm gonna need another damn snort soon."

Charles wasn't much impressed by Milner's drunken buffoonery.

Dutch Henry saw that and tugged his arm.

"I need a drink myself. Come on, Charlie, I'll buy. Deal me out, boys." They walked toward the log bar. California Joe picked up his new hand and dropped three cards in the lap of his greasy trousers.

"That's Custer's famous pet?" Charles said, incredulous.

Page 473

Dutch Henry grinned. "One of the two-legged ones. Custer also brung two of his staghounds when Sherman fixed it so's he could come back from Michigan. We're getting ready for action here. Phil and Uncle Bill finally convinced Grant we should carry the war to the hostiles. Offense, not defense. The plan is to push 'em back to the Territory and kill those who won't go peaceably to the reservation and stay put."

Charles drank a tall shot of razor-edged popskull in three swallows.

"You mean to say that's the plan with winter coming on?"

"I know it's contrary to sense, but it's really pretty smart of Little Phil. The hostiles will be settled into their villages, and you know as well as I do, their horses will be weak from lack of forage."

"I heard talk at Leavenworth that Sherman wanted Sheridan to move as early as this past August."

"He did, but the damn Interior Department screwed him again.

The Olive Branchers made the Army hold off till it set up a safe camp for the hostiles who don't threaten anybody."

Charles scratched the head of a match with his thumbnail. He squinted behind the flame and puffed strong smoke out of the stubby cigar. "Where's the camp?"

"Fort Cobb. Satanta already took his Kiowas in. Ten Bears took his Comanches. Some Cheyennes went there, too, but General Hazen sent them away because we're not at peace with the Cheyennes. The Cheyennes are the ones we're going after. Some of 'em captured another poor white woman, Mrs. Blinn, and her little boy, over by Fort Lyon, first of October--"

"Who were the Cheyenne chiefs who went to Fort Cobb?"

"There was just one. Black Kettle."

Charles took the cigar from his mouth. He rolled it back and forth in his fingers. "And they didn't let him in? Of the whole crowd, Black Kettle's the least likely to harm anybody."

"A Cheyenne's a Cheyenne, that's the way Hazen saw it." Dutch Henry didn't understand why Charles looked troubled. Nor did he care.

He slapped his friend's shoulder. "Ay God, Charlie, you missed a fine f

The Year of the Locust 439

Page 474

muss at Beecher's Island. The Solomon Avengers showed plenty of sand and spirit."

"That's what you called yourselves, Solomon Avengers?"

"Yes, sir. We killed a passel of Indians. But there's plenty more waiting. Cheyennes and Arapahoes--"

"The Army should stay away from Black Kettle."

"Hey, I

thought you hated the whole bunch."

"Not him," Charles said, uneasy. He saw a vivid image of Willa's blue eyes. Dutch Henry frowned.

"Charlie, I told you, nobody cares which Cheyennes are all right and which aren't. The main idea's to kill 'em. You object to that, maybe you better forget it."

He thought of Boy and Wooden Foot, of their poor slaughtered collie.

"I don't object."

He ordered another drink. The smoke of his cigar drifted up past eyes grown as chill as the autumn sky.

He couldn't understand how a rum-pot like California Joe Milner could win George Custer's favor, but obviously he had, so Charles shook hands with the chief of scouts before he walked out of the adobe building.

A snow flurry whirled big flakes around him. The sky was as black as dusk. A caped soldier appeared and handed him something.

"Compliments of the post Grant for President Club, sir."

Charles examined the leaflet and its engraving of the candidate with military collar and epaulets showing. "No, thanks." He handed it back.

"Sir, voting is the civic responsibility of every--"

"I've got other business," Charles said. The boy in the dark blue cape saw his eyes and didn't argue.

Charles curried and fed Satan and slept in the stables at Fort Dodge overnight. Next morning he reprovisioned and set out for the Seventh Cavalry encampment on the north bank of the Arkansas, about ten miles south of the fort. Flurries continued to whip out of the slate sky and he soon felt frozen again. He kept his spirits up by whistling the little tune that reminded him of home.

Page 475

Camp Sandy Forsyth had been named for the commander of the Solomon Avengers. Charles saw its lights glimmering through the gloom

°f an early dusk. The sentry who challenged him said he was lucky not to have been shot at by some Cheyennes who'd lately been sniping at the camp. Charles shrugged and said he'd seen no sign of the Indians.

"6 figured he'd had so much bad luck, he was due for some good.

i

440 HEAVEN AND HELL

He bedded in the wagon park with the permission of the noncom on duty. After chewing a little hardtack, he pulled down the earflaps of his muskrat cap, secured them by a thong under his chin and rolled up in his blankets. He was thirsty; the water in his canteen had frozen. He felt tired, alone, depressed.

What he saw and heard soon after reveille changed that and got his blood up again. Rifle fire with the steady rhythm of practice drew him to the far side of the tent camp. He found a dozen troopers banging away at wood targets. He asked an old three-striper what was going on.

"When we find the hostiles, old Curly wants to be sure we can knock 'em down. These boys are some of the forty he picked out for his corpse day elite. Sharpshooters. Lieutenant Cooke's in command."

Charles continued his walking tour. There was an air of bustle in the encampment, a sure sign of a massive campaign. He counted twenty supply wagons and forty oxen present already. He saw evidence of an experienced military mind at work when he came upon two troops wheeling and maneuvering under the gray sky. All of one troop rode bays, all of the other chestnuts and browns. Custer had adopted the Confederate custom of coloring the horses. Putting all the men of one troop on similar mounts made identification easier in combat, and it had a way of enhancing pride and discipline, too.

Hammers whanged on hot anvils; Charles saw half a dozen farriers working to reshoe large numbers of horses. The Seventh's bandsmen drilled to the strains of "Garry Owen." Their gray mounts reminded him of Sport.

Another half-dozen wagons arrived during the afternoon. Shortly after five o'clock he was able to see Custer in his large A-frame tent.

"Be still, Maida." Custer patted the growling staghound who'd gotten up the moment Charles entered. He'd interrupted the general as he vigorously washed his hands in a basin of water that was still clear
Page 476

when he finished. Custer dried his hands and bounded forward energetically, his smile broad and white beneath his reddish-gold mustache.

Blue eyes sparkled above the harsh ridges of his cheekbones. As they shook hands, Charles sniffed oil of cinnamon on Custer's ringlets.

"Mr. Main. Been expecting you. Please, sit right there."

"Yes, sir, General. Thank you." Charles sat on the canvas chair, noticing Eastern newspapers on Custer's crowded field desk. Reading upside down, he noted a headline circled in black ink. It had something to do with Grant's presidential campaign.