Yessir.

  Well, what is it?

  General, that’s a hundred and fifty miles round trip—

  We’ll be back the day after to-morrow if possible. I was advised it would take five days, but we aim to do better.

  Well, general, that sure would be—

  Recruit the men, but keep on the qui vive.

  Of course, sir.

  Gentlemen, that will be all. O, Doctor Alexander, I was just about to send for you. So that’s your list.

  Yessir.

  All right. I’ll see what I can do. Bomus, are your requisitions drawn up?

  Here they are, sir.

  I know how you feel, giving vouchers which don’t even pledge the credit of the Government! A serious embarrassment.

  Yessir. Our postwar Army—

  Right you are. Good-bye, gentlemen.

  Good-bye, general!

  5

  Thanks, father, for bringing me with you.

  The pleasure’s mine. How are you holding up?

  O, I love this wild country! What about you?

  A pleasant adventure, and we just may set a record. Poor Captain Adams is fast asleep. A wonder any man can doze jouncing over this boulder-field!

  Father, how can you never get tired?

  O, I get tired all right. That’s all on that subject.

  Looks like the Gallatin River ahead.

  Correct.

  Do you think Mr. Joe will get away?

  His purpose is undeveloped so far as I can tell. He’s squandered whatever advantage he had in delay and indecision. In my opinion, wild Indians are essentially opportunistic. If the Crows take him in, he’ll join them; if not, he might ride for the British Possessions, or seek to winter at Yellow Stone. Now that we’ve driven him from home, he has no strategy, only tactics. That’s why he’s finished.

  Thank GOD! By the way, father, I admire Wilkinson more and more.

  Good. He’s an upright, hard charging man . . .

  6

  How are you feeling, father?

  Sadly disappointed.

  About Camas Meadows?

  O, about everything, Guy. Enough. It’s in GOD’s hands,

  the sun as crimson as a Crow brave’s saddleblanket.

  No, don’t let him graze even in passing. When a horse tires is just when you can’t be slack. That’s the ticket!

  He’s a real fine trotting horse.

  So’s the grey. We may have to work them to death.

  Father?

  What is it now?

  What do you think about Mr. Chapman?

  O, he reminds me of a Seccesh with his knapsack full of cornmeal “dodgers.” A simple harmless fellow who wants to be sly—

  I worry that he plays you false.

  How so?

  I don’t know, exactly. Just a feeling.

  Never mind, Guy. Every soldier lies to his general. How are you holding up?

  Fine, thanks,

  his face dusted as grey as the suits Mother used to make up for me out of milled wool from my stepfather’s many sheep—but no complaint from him! Thank You, LORD, for his love and courage.

  Happy to be with you, father—

  Likewise. I’m so lucky to have such a son. Enough of that. What do you suppose that Mama’s up to?

  Riding all night and into the dawn, they descend into clouds as white as the tops of new pioneer wagons, pass an island of aspens in a meadow, then roll into Virginia City before noon. The citizens give them a hurrah. Three hours later they set out again with a fresh team, carrying shoes and blankets, and drugs for Doctor Alexander, with the mail following behind them, and fresh horses on order—all at profiteers’ prices. The following day they canter back down the Divide,

  Captain Adams taking the reins, Guy snoring heartily, the general swaying easily in his seat, with his mouth locked in a faint smile,

  remembering the flowery breeze regaling him on the second-storey porch of General Saxton’s headquarters, the Fuller House in Beaufort, as in lemonade we toasted our hopes of colored elementary schools throughout our Reunited States, and inalienable negro homesteads in Edisto, once upon a time, as Samuel Fullerton sat taking notes on the President’s behalf;

  and into that wide bowl of sagebrush, which presently opens up into Henry’s Lake pale blue and wide, on the shore of which our city of grimy-pale Sibley tents has been long since erected (every man hoping to be in at the death), sunshine sparkling prettily on Gatlings’ bronze-jacketed breeches, and the suits flashing and glittering like black and crimson beetle-swarms upon the painfully white fan-arrays of playing-cards in the last quarter-hour before the bugle call to afternoon fatigue.

  7

  Here at last come the two muleteers mounted on mules (of course) and leading a pack-mule full of mail. Many communications fall to him: three from Lizzie (the most intimate one is destined to be transferred to the breast pocket of his blouse), which he smilingly sets aside for some private instant, a dozen from his Department in San Francisco, one from Washington, another from Chicago, requesting the favor of his autograph; a packet of very worrisome confidential appreciations of those Communist-led strikes (which have tapered off, thank the LORD); an unfavorable press notice from New York, referring to Gibbon’s attack on Joseph at Big Hole as a “massacre”—this good-intentioned journalist quite failed to see what poor Custer used to refer to as the dark side of the Indian question—an envelope from the Chicago Advance (Charley boy, no doubt); an anonymously mailed press notice from Washington accusing this campaign and more specifically its general of inaction and inefficiency in relation to Joseph (I’ve heard worse); one very urgent note from his lawyer about some new charge which might be preferred against him relative to the Freedmen’s Bureau (this time his supposed peculations date all the way back to 1862, when Mr. Charles B. Wilder was Superintendent of Negroes); two direct from General Sherman, none whatsoever from Agent Monteith at Lapwai (which proves him to be intriguing against me) and a letter dated March first from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, whose office is in New York: I hear from Portland that you have delivered publicly a lecture on the Battle of Gettysburg, in which you complimentarily mentioned the dear boy and the brave officer, my son, who was killed in your first day’s fight. I cannot express to you the sorrowful joy and the profound gratitude kindled in my heart . . . Thank You, FATHER, for permitting me who have never lost a son to console this sad old man; and thank You for taking from me so far only my arm. May You never take Guy from me, I beg you (this, only this)! Dearest Father: We have all been praying for you, and Mother is becoming very blue. O, that’s very sweet from Grace! I do hope that she or Lizzie will inform me how Mrs. Perry is getting along. No word on this Captain Gray, I see. Is he serious about Grace? She’s so tender-souled she needs an extremely sympathetic husband. When I consider how she still mourns for that colt she used to have (a well-broken animal named Topsy), I realize how she . . . O, suddenly I feel unwell—must never let anyone see. And has Wood received any missive from his intended? A lovely-haired belle, for a fact! Sometimes I worry that she is playing the field and will break his heart. My Dear General: By the last mail I had received a letter from you informing me that you had received a letter confidential and private in character, stating that I am constantly under the influence of strong drink. I have resolved, on my bended knees before my GOD, that with the assistance of His sustaining grace I will refrain from drinking intoxicating liquors; hereafter, neither will I offer it to others. No one knows, but my GOD, the efforts I have been making . . .

  Yes, Guy, sit down. Roll up that map. Did you get any letters from Mother?

  Dear Genl Howard, enclosed please find the signature card of my late father, Mr. George Beauddry, who on your say-so placed all his savings in the Freedman’s Bank and lost it all in the crash, so I am hoping you can so far redeem your promise as to return to his orphaned children their due, sincerely yours, Mrs. Letitia Thompson, formerly Letitia Beauddry

  the card made out to George Beauddry, with his master and mistress’s names also written in (they being of course the original Beauddrys), his height five foot five and one-fourth inches, his complexion black, his plantation Edisto:

  Yes, father; three or four at least—

  —and a nickel’s worth of side meat.

  Where was that?

  O, in Lewiston, of course. You know that Sibley tent down by the river, where them d——d officers sneak in, and fancy they’re real discreet? Well, this one Blackfoot squaw, what she did with me you wouldn’t believe.

  How many times?

  Three or four at least. And if she’s still swishing around after we whip Mr. Joe, guess what I’m a-gonna do to her?

  Good.

  And Glass has gone septic; he’s about to expire—

  So that is all the news of our bunch. Nobody cares anymore if Mr. Joe dusts over the border and keeps his skin. How is Mother’s cough? I pray to GOD every night that our darling little Mary Elizabeth will not be taken away from us like her brothers. Now you had better address your letters, darling, to Fort Ellis, Montana . . .

  Gazing into the still lake as if to count its leeches, Wilkinson holds his envelope

  (perhaps I am defective in some way, for Sallie’s letter ought to be a treat to me and she is plenty affectionate but I continue to find her passing dull, perhaps on account of my own disappointment in being passed over by the general);

  Wood (not exactly one of us) perches on a boulder with his notebook on his lap, rubbing his head and then writing something which resembles a squaw track cunningly doubled back on itself

  —and a fish leaps:

  extremely interesting the way the spiny knobs and scales of the Continental Divide manifest themselves as a reddish-brown fan on the lake! I wonder if Professor Mahan could have explained it?

  And pig iron’s all the way down to $16.50 a ton. Could that be true?

  Don’t know, sir.

  If so, that’s bad. The Silver Panic was just the beginning. How’re we supposed to live?

  And on account of those hateful Indian eyes, and you know what I’m talking about, well, that’s why I believe in phrenology

  and just then Wilkinson receives a more substantial envelope! Wishing with all his heart to save the general from distress, he has now unearthed (thanks to a clipping service incarnated in his selfsame diligent Sallie) a number of unpleasant new articles in the newspapers. While intimidating the storekeepers of the Bitter Root Valley, Chief Joseph and his reds supposedly let loose impudent gibes about “General Day-After-To-morrow,” whom President Hayes would have sacked but for our victory at Clearwater, and Governor Potts continues to deride to this day. With each week the chase drags on, our poor general grows more risible. Wilkinson considers the slurs of the press to be nearly as disgusting as the dirty ribbons on Sallie’s corset, which he once discovered halfway by accident. And the root cause is Perry’s failure at White Bird Cañon! Concerned that in the forthcoming Court of Inquiry this jackassical so-called colonel (whose brevet signifies no more than one of Sallie’s corset-strings) might drag our general down, and I mean down, Wilkinson, his high forehead shining, has tabulated the reporters’ insinuations, then made certain investigations among the mule-packers, not to mention side-trips to Perry’s two most forthright enemies Ad Chapman and Captain Trimble:

  General, I have certain information that Theller used to drink and run around with loose women. Mrs. Theller doesn’t know a thing.

  Thanks, Wilkinson. I’ll trust you to keep this in confidence. You’d best get back to your duties.

  Pappy’s in a rage. His writing’s all frazzled. There’s been another railroad strike, and they’ve called out the Army.

  That’s why our bunch ain’t gettin’ no help against the d——d reds. Now they got the socialists

  as Ad Chapman (who never receives letters) happily skins another eight-and-a-half-foot swan.

  You know the way the Old Turnpike runs through Chancellorsville?

  Sure. Lemme draw it in the dirt here. Now, this square’s the Fairview Cemetery—

  It weren’t square, but—

  Right. Then that’s where we were that Sunday,

  looking out across the slimy rocks of the lake bottom, across the leechy blue which is pure looking yet mucky smelling. And Mr. Joe was over there—

  As for our Christian Soldier, well, unlike you others, I don’t attach no blame because we was all told—

  And Empire Transportation has sold out to Standard Oil.

  Then there’s gonna be another French Revolution back East.

  But them Secceshes must have been told different. Now, if we had Chancellorsville to fight all over again, and Sherman had my ear—

  Blackie’s mother died.

  Put him on guard over that hill.

  Yessir.

  Them Indians is skulking over there, I’ll bet,

  like soldiers sitting around their campfires after mail call, and the ones who received no letters pacing sadly in the dark

  (except for Chapman, who would only have expected trouble if he got a letter in the name of that Umatilla squaw he put away:

  she can write her ABC near about as good as a mule),

  all the tent-flaps open, men sharing home news with one another, sparks rising:

  No, he gave it to me to hold. And since you know the mule-driver—

  Now that there’s getting pretty rare, like one of them old box-lock Sharpses, from before they started slanting the breech,

  Perry,

  whose bitter harshness of demeanor Wilkinson has always considered suspect,

  wondering whether the general has just now been informed in some despatch that the Court of Inquiry has now been set in motion as it must be next year if not this year unless Mr. Joe does for me; I must study the general’s face to discover whether he has yet begun to hide any fact; but no, I won’t see anything because who can read so noble an idiot? Who will be my judges? They can trip up anyone they’ve got a mind to. I’ll say the truth: that GODd——d Ad Chapman started it:

  Is the mule-driver interested or not?

  and here as so often Perry’s thoughts take on the colors of dead men: black and yellow.

  Captain Pollock, what news from Sara and the children?

  O, Josie has been sick again, sir, but at least it’s not the cholery—

  Says it’s worth whiskey, if the general don’t—

  Straighten up. Colonel Perry’s staring at us—

  —wanting to get my hands around Mr. Joe’s throat, and, if he escapes, then some other dirty treacherous Indian will do (plenty of Indians all over the country).

  Wrenching himself out of that maggoty pit, he entertains himself with a vision of Delia Theller,

  with her brown hair falling smoothly around her wide fair oval face, then banged off at the neck, always with her silver hoop-earrings, her lace collar and that lovely single button under the throat, and me undoing it

  —Delia, Delia, whom I have loved even more ever since she realized she had become a widow and then covered her hair in that black net cap—

  and that Blackfoot squaw, as brave and determined as a quartermaster who must refuse some pushy officer, now gives me her haughtiest once-over, so I practically want to hand her my last silver dollar: what a great show, and no wonder Theller’s enchanted! Talk about the best stock on hand!

  —except for Delia:

  D——n, I want a drink. And Delia with her legs spread. Soon as I get leave I’ll see if that squaw’s still in Lewiston. When will that be? If Joseph doubles back down into the Buffalo Country, it may be awhile before I can lay me down

  with Delia underneath me

  or even Theller’s squaw in the tent, or

  anyone but my GODd——d wife.

  In the willow thicket growing out of the white gravel at the lake’s southwestern edge, a tiny creature moves, probably a bird, although only a red would know for sure, and then he hears a fly. From within the muck-scented greenness, a duck dives down under the lake, then comes up pecking at something on its neck.

  Now with Redington leading the general by the nose and me disgraced by White Bird Cañon I’ll never get to show what I can do. If I asked for permission to scout ahead—

  GOD HELP ME

  AUGUST 24

  1

  Soldier, is that as fast as you can ride?

  I been whuppin’ her real good, sir, but she—

  No excuses. You’re falling behind.

  Yessir.

  And if I catch you mistreating that horse, you’ll lose a month’s pay.

  Yessir.

  I could sure use a squaw to make me some good elkskin mockersins.

  Well, you’d better get you some more burlap and be

  your own d——d squaw.

  I asked the sergeant if I could see Lieutenant Bomus and he—

  Then go ask Doc and stop bothering the rest of us.

  I could use some grease for my feet.

  Go grease your asshole and see if we care.

  Don’t treat me mean. I always shared with you. My feet’s gettin’ all swoled up,

  Left—left—LEFT.

  Doc striding unweary with his elbows in, his hat at an angle.

  If you won’t do like the rest of us and wash your d——d feet whenever you can, you ain’t got no sense.

  Well, that softens up the skin.

  Does not.

  Anyhow, I seen ’em chaw that green leather in their teeth—

  You never seen nothin’.

  Where’s Doc?

  Somewhere.

  Doc could trail that Joseph right across water.

  Guy’s right. They’re looking sullen. Even Perry, GOD bless him, begins to complain of the old wound the Modocs gave him. Can I blame the man? If Lizzie were here to coax me, how could I prevent myself from lying down to rest? But this is mere weakness, nothing more; our desires need not bear on our actions for which we shall be judged. It may turn out that I cannot whip Joseph. LORD knows I’ll keep trying! As yet every officer still holds the line, but Pollock and Jocelyn begin to bear watching; poor Trimble has failed, and even Miller is losing confidence—while good old Sladen could ride to the ends of the earth with his one leg! I can’t deny that some enlisted men are getting cynical. I’d best nip all outward demonstrations in the bud—

 

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