Autie came to her against all advice, against all reason, accused of abandoning his command, riding his horses to exhaustion, taking a night train, and thus almost ending his career in court-martial. He came like a little boy seeking comfort, a sinner seeking salvation. He came as an angry lover, infuriated over a slight. Perhaps in jealousy at false rumors over a certain officer. Maybe Libbie was a silly, vain woman for being gratified that he risked all for that one long, perfect day they spent together. He redeemed himself after his neglect of her. He was then quickly placed under arrest.
During the court-martial it became evident that he had created enemies among the officers who were outraged at his perceived ill-treatment of his soldiers. There was the perception that he no longer had the fire in his belly to pursue Indians. Why else abuse his men on such marches, only to abandon them to run off to his wife?
Even to her, he seemed changed.
A vulnerability was in him, one she had first noted during the War. It had started in camp one night in Virginia. She found him in his tent, where he was bent over a washbasin, soaping his hands and furiously using a hard brush on his fingertips until they bled. When she came to him, he held up his hands as if under arrest, claiming grime under the nails. She assured him it was not so and put him to bed.
The search and then the grim discovery of the Kidder party had shaken him, a man who had seen thousands die during the Rebellion. They buried the mutilated remains and pushed on to Fort Wallace, exhausted, demoralized, only to find that base under siege from constant attacks, the supply line stopped, and food low. Provisions consisted of rotten bacon and hard bread. An outbreak of cholera struck down the weakened men.
Although the men were spent, something had to be done. He picked out seventy-five of the strongest horses and pushed on to Fort Harker for supplies. At the court-martial much was made of the brutal pace of the ride, but the select detachment rode through dangerous territory in a weakened state. The shorter the period out, the better the outcome. They covered 150 miles in fifty-five hours of hard riding to Fort Hays. A smaller group covered another 60 miles without change of animals in twelve hours to Fort Harker.
She received long, frantic letters during this period, sometimes thirty pages or more, sections written only hours apart, complaining of his need and longing for her. Last night the thought flashed through my brain that if ever I lost you, no other woman could or ever should reawaken it. You are irrevocably my first, my present, and my last love. He said her letters back to him were more important than food or even air.
Autie’s strength was being in motion, no hesitation, minimal reflection after making a decision. That was his greatness as a cavalry leader. His job done, he boarded a train in the middle of the night without leave to reach Libbie. That was when it happened, the perfect day that would make up for all the others, that assured her that she was the love of his life despite everything. She swore to him that she would never do anything to fan his jealousy again. The only sad thing was that the day had to end. It was mine, and—blessed be our memory, which preserves to us the joys as well as the sadness of life!—it is still mine, for time and eternity.
Married life had turned her into a bit of a contrarian. More often than not she had found that the rosiest picture was run through with veins of gray. Undiluted satisfaction was almost an alien condition to the human mind, and conversely the bleakest hour could usually be mined for its thimble of gold. During and after the court-martial, they remained together, vowing to never again endure long absences, even if it meant Autie resigning his post. For a time she believed him.
* * *
AUTIE AND LIBBIE both claimed that the trial was a diversion from Hancock’s failures against the Indians. The charges during the court-martial were rancorous, fed by the brooding resentments that fester in the army. Sheridan supported them to the point of lending them his living quarters at Leavenworth. What especially rankled her were the accusations against Autie’s character. In addition to the charges of abandoning his post, it was his response during the Indian attack at Downer’s Station and subsequent treatment of the deserters that was brought into question.
Six soldiers had been sent back to find Autie’s straying horse Fanchon and found themselves attacked by a war party of fifty hostiles. Two soldiers were reported killed. During more clement times, the regiment should have gone back to bury the victims and possibly give chase, although experience forecast that the Indians would be long gone. Low on supplies and ammunition, it made no sense to risk further delay. Soldiers testified to Autie’s lack of sympathy for the slain men, but emotion at this time would have wasted precious hours for a futile task, possibly endangering them all. Had Autie not just proven himself by his long, exhaustive search for the Kidder party?
Instead of being praised for his prudence, he was painted with a tar brush. At the trial, irritable, he made the further mistake of indelicately pointing out the flaw in the party’s actions—to have fled instead of offering a tactical defense.
“You never run from Indians,” he said, as if it should be self-evident. “They don’t respect it, and they smell blood.”
Such detached honesty was impolitic in the extreme of men asked to fight and die together. But Autie remembered General McClellan during the War, walking the battlefield and crying over the dead. This behavior had diminished him to his men, and he was shortly after relieved of duty. Autie was determined to remain as tough as Sheridan, or even Sherman if need be.
He was found guilty as charged: absence without leave from his command; conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline; overmarching men and government horses; using public vehicles for private business; failing to care for two soldiers shot at Downer’s Station; shooting deserters without trial; withholding care of wounded, resulting in one death.
The punishment was a year’s suspension of rank, command, and pay. Sheridan told him it was considered a lenient sentence, account being taken of his past heroic conduct.
* * *
THE MONTHS SPENT in Monroe were pleasant beyond words, an endless round of socializing, and the novelty of sleeping together in the same bed each night. Libbie did not like to admit that she wished the suspension would last even longer. What kind of harpy had she become, to revel in her husband’s misery? She simply had found the silver lining.
Autie was pleased when, to show support, Tom came home to Monroe on leave of absence. While there, he went on his usual rounds of the local ladies like a bee to a bed of clover. His leave finished, he returned to the army, but came back quickly at the behest of a certain lady. When he took Libbie aside, she was prepared to welcome a new sister, not for what he was about to tell her.
“With child?”
“She claims I’m the father.”
“So it must be true.” She struggled to not show her feeling of shock.
His face twisted for a moment. “Other women are not like you. Not as pure.”
“Oh.”
She had always felt an outsider to the Custer family secrets but now wished Tom had chosen Autie to share this confidence instead of her.
“I will die if I am forced to marry her.”
“But—”
“Die! I say. She is nothing, nothing like you. Virtuous, loyal.”
Libbie recognized the characteristic family theatrics in his words. She blushed.
“Then why did you court her?”
“Cruel words!”
“Perhaps Autie can talk to her—”
“You should hear the men in the regiment congratulating themselves for not being his brother! He jumps on me for every little matter. They pity me.”
Tom stopped in front of her chair and went down on one knee. He took her hand and placed it over his heart, which was hammering. The poor boy was in agony.
“Promise me on your life he will never learn of this.”
“Oh, Tom.”
“I couldn’t bear his disappointment in me.”
He wrapped his arms around her legs and buried his head in her lap. She felt his hot breath through the fabric. She stroked his head. The sweaty hair was fine and thin like his brother’s.
“I’ll talk to the lady in question. You and I will figure a course to take.”
He held her face between his hands, beaming as he gave her a kiss on the lips, then jumped up, relieved, as if the difficulty were already behind him.
“Remember, I’d die of shame if it were ever found out.”
* * *
ON HIS DEATHBED, Libbie’s father had warned her to never try to thwart Autie’s ambition as a soldier, that he was born to the vocation and would be unhappy doing anything else. When the telegram came from Sheridan begging him to come back to head an expedition against the Cheyenne, she pretended a happiness she did not remotely feel. The tearful leave-taking of kin was repeated, the packing away of most of their possessions was done once more. They would take only the most essential things because military life was not conducive to sentimentality, toward either things or people. Oblivious to it all, a euphoric Autie left in advance, taking three dogs with him, on the train back to Fort Hays.