How Few Remain

Chapter 13

As the: Louisville campaign ground on, Colonel Alfred Von Schlieffen found himself with ever freer access to Orlando Willcox and to the map-filled tent where the commander of the Army of the Ohio planned his operations. He found himself less and less happy each time he visited the U.S. general. It was too much like having ever freer access to a sickroom where the patient grew visibly more infirm as day followed day.

Brigadier General Willcox seemed uneasily aware of the wasting sickness afflicting his campaign, aware but doing his best to pretend he wasn't. "Good afternoon, Colonel," he said when he spied Schlieffen through the partly open tent fly. "Come in, come in. Ah, I see you have coffee. Very good."

"Yes, General, I have coffee. Thank you." Carrying the tin cup stamped USA, Schlieffen ducked his way into the tent and came over to stand beside Willcox. "The guns in the night were not noisier than usual. Have I right-no, am I right; this mistake I make too oftennothing new happened?"

"Nothing new," Willcox agreed with a small sigh. He stared down at the maps, at the blue lines and the red that had moved so much less than he'd hoped. "It's always good to see you here, Colonel. I want you to know that."

"You are too kind to a man who is not of your country," Schlieffen said.

Without looking over at the German military attache, General Willcox went on, "You always keep your temper. You never judge me.

My corps commanders, my division commanders-sometimes this tent gets like a kettle full of live lobsters over the fire. But I never hear recriminations from you, Colonel, and, if you send telegrams to Philadelphia, you don't send them to General Rosecrans."

Schlieffen hadn't heard the word recriminations before, but he didn't bother asking Willcox to explain it; context made the meaning plain. An army that was winning had little backbiting. When things went wrong, everyone was at pains to prove the misfortune could not possibly have been his fault.

Willcox said, "Tell me what you think of our position at the present time."

"Let me examine the map before I answer." Schlieffen seized without hesitation the chance to think before he spoke. He wished he had Kurd von Schlozer's diplomatic talents, so he might come somewhere near the truth without destroying the U.S. commander's good opinion of him. At last, he said, "I think it now unlikely that you will from the east into Louisville break."

Willcox sighed again. "I'm afraid I think the same thing, although, if 1 admit it to anyone but you, I'll see my head go on a platter faster than John the Baptist's after Herodias' daughter danced before King Herod. We came close; I'll wager we scared old Stonewall out of a year's growth. But in war, the only thing that does any good if it's close to where it ought to be but not quite there is an artillery shell."

That was an effective image; Schlieffen filed it away to use if and when he had the luck to return to General Staff duty in Berlin. He said, "In the salient you made with the flanking move, you still have most of your men on the line facing Louisville, and in other places not so many."

"Well, yes, of course I do," General Willcox replied. "I have orders that I am still to do everything I can to capture the city, and I must obey them."

"If you think you can do this, then naturally you… are right," Schlieffen said, pleased he'd remembered the English idiom this time. "If you think you cannot do this, and you leave your flank as weak as it is-"

"The Rebs looked to have a weak flank," Willcox said. "It got strong a lot faster than we wished it would have, and that's the Lord's truth. If the Confederates could stop us, I reckon we'll be able to stop them."

"This may well be so, but your situation here seems to me not to be the same as that of the Confederate States," Schlieffen said.

"And why not?" Willcox bristled at what was to Schlieffen a gentle suggestion of something so obvious a schoolchild should see it.

Patiently, the attache spelled it out in words almost literally of one syllable: "The Confederate States had more depth to use than you have now. They could halt you for a little while, fall back, halt you again, and so on. This is not something you enjoy. If they break through your trenches from the south, they will go into the rear of the main body of your forces there."

"Ah, I see what you're saying." General Willcox was mollified. Nonetheless, he brushed aside Schlieffen's concern. "We do have men enough and guns enough to make them pay a high price if they try that. Myself, I don't think they'll do it. All their attacks up till now have been aimed at the line closest to Louisville." Someone came into the tent. Willcox nodded a greeting. "What is it, Captain Richardson?"

After saluting Willcox and politely inclining his head to Schlieffen, the adjutant answered, "Sir, we just got a report that the Rebels have raided the stretch of trench the Sixth New York was holding."

After a glance at the map, Willcox turned triumphantly to Schlieffen. "There? Do you see? They persist in striking us where we are strongest." He spun back toward Oliver Richardson. "A raid, you say? They didn't break through, did they?"

"Oh, no, sir," Richardson assured him. "I'm sorry to say Colonel van Nuys was killed in the attack, but they seemed to be trolling for prisoners more than anything else-and, I daresay, paying back the Sixth for a raid yesterday. They captured a few men, then withdrew to their own entrenchments."

"Why even bring this to my notice, then?" Willcox asked. He took a longer look at the young captain. "And why, after a raid in which a colonel was killed, have you that smirk on your face?"

Schlieffen wondered if Richardson had an enemy in the Sixth New York, of whose demise in the raid he had heard. The adjutant had sounded properly regretful when reporting Colonel van Nuys' death, so Schlieffen doubted he was the man, if any man there were. He would not have wanted an officer who gloated at a comrade's death on his staff. By the building anger on Willcox's round face, the commander of the Army of the Ohio felt the same way.

And then Captain Richardson said, "Sir, you must know that Frederick Douglass has made the Sixth New York his pet regiment, and also the horse on which he mounts all his complaints about the manner in which you have conducted this campaign. He was with them today; I gave him a letter authorizing a river crossing this morning. And I have reports, sir, that he was among those whom the Confederates captured in this raid."

"Ah," Schlieffen said: a short, involuntary exclamation. His opinion of Captain Richardson recovered to some small degree. Disliking a reporter to the point of enjoying his misfortune was a lesser matter than similarly disliking a fellow officer. And Richardson had made no secret of his distaste for Douglass, though Schlieffen could not understand what, aside from being a Negro, Douglass had done to deserve it.

"Good God!" Willcox exclaimed, taking a point that had eluded the German. "Douglass has been a thorn in the slaveholders' side since long before the War of Secession. What will the Confederates do to the poor man, if he has been so unfortunate as to fall into their hands?"

"I don't know, sir, but my bet would be that they don't do anything good." Yes, Richardson sounded delighted at Douglass' discomfiture. English lacked the word Schadenfreude, but not the idea behind it. Men being the sinful creatures they were, no nation, Schlieffen was sure, lacked that idea.

He said, "But is he not protected from mistreatment as a civilian citizen of the United States?"

"The Confederate States seldom feel obliged to recognize any black man's rights of any sort," Willcox said.

"You ask me, sir, they've got the right idea, too," Richardson said. "If it hadn't been for the niggers, Abe Lincoln never would have been elected president, and we never would have fought the War of Secession in the first place. Never would have lost it, either."

"How does the second statement follow from the first?" Schlieffen asked. The only answer Richardson gave him was a dirty look. That made him realize he'd been less than diplomatic. He wasn't so upset as he might have been. Failures in logic distressed him; he rejected unclear thinking as automatically as he breathed.

"Most disturbing," Orlando Willcox said. "Most disturbing indeed. I shall pray for Douglass' safety and eventual liberation, however unlikely I fear that may prove."

"I'll pray, too," Richardson said. "I'll pray, May God have mercy on his soul." He laughed a nasty laugh.

"That will be quite enough of that, Captain," Willcox said, as sharply as Alfred von Schlieffen had ever heard him speak. The German military attache frowned, not understanding why Richardson 's prayer was offensive. Seeing as much, General Willcox explained: "Colonel, that's what the judge in an American court says after he sentences a prisoner to death."

"Ach, so," Schlieffen murmured. Truly praying for God to have mercy was one thing, a prayer any Christian ought to be glad to make or to have made for him. Praying for a man to be condemned to death was something else again; Willcox had been right to rebuke his adjutant.

Richardson came to attention, saluted, did a smart about-turn, and left the tent with precisely machined steps. That was exactly what a German officer, similarly rebuked yet still feeling himself to be correct, would have done. The only difference Schlieffen could see was that the Americans did not include a heel-click as part of coming to attention.

Willcox drew in a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a long sigh. "He's an able young man, Colonel," he said, as if Schlieffen had denied it. "He's just-unreasonable on the whole Negro question."

"Many in the United States are, is this not so?" Schlieffen said. "It is true almost as much in the United States as in the Confederate States, yes?"

"Mm, not so bad as that, I'd say," Willcox replied. "On the other hand, one man in three in the CSA is a Negro, near enough, and we have only a relative handful of colored people in the USA, so white men here have less to get exercised about. A lot of folks do wish, though, we had no Negroes among us: I can't deny that."

"This is foolishness," Schlieffen said, never for a moment thinking of the Polish peasants his ancestors had subjugated to help make Prussia the power that would reshape the German Reich.

"I think so myself." Willcox spread his hands, palms up. "Not everyone agrees with me, though. And you'd be hard pressed to say my adjutant is wrong in one regard: absent the Negro, I believe the United States would still remain one nation today."

"I understand this reason for resenting Negroes," Schlieffen said. "But if Negroes were not resented before your War of Secession for other reasons, there would have been no war, is this not true? And these other reasons I must say I do not understand."

"It's a hard business, that it is," General Willcox said, which most likely meant he didn't understand it, either. As if to confirm that, he changed the subject: "I fear Captain Richardson is right in thinking it will be a hard business for Frederick Douglass, too."

"If he is mistreated, will the United States avenge themselves by mistreating Confederate prisoners in their hands?" Schlieffen asked. "This is, excuse me for saying it, an ugly way to make war."

"So it is-or so it would be, at any rate," Willcox answered. "As for what will happen, Colonel Schlieffen, I just don't know, and have no way to guess. Right now, I'd say it lies in the hands of God-and of the Confederate States."

General Thomas Jackson looked as dour as usual while studying the situation map of his two-front battle in and east of Louisville, but his heart sang within him. "I truly do believe we have nothing more to fear from the Army of the Ohio," he said.

"I think you're right, sir," E. Porter Alexander agreed with a boyish grin. "Been a hard fight-they are brave, even if their officers could be better-but I don't really see how they can surprise us now."

"That's why they fight wars, General Alexander: to discover how the other fellow can surprise you." When Jackson essayed a joke, he was in good humor indeed. More seriously, he went on, "In my view, however, you are correct. 1 do not think they can break free of their present lines, and the cost of containing them within those lines appears acceptable. That being said, will you take some supper with me?"

"I'd be delighted, sir, so long as you let me put mustard on my meat," Alexander said, grinning still.

"Such sauces are unhealthy," Jackson insisted. His artillery chef looked eloquently unconvinced. Jackson yielded, as he would not have on the battlefield. "Have it your way. General. You see, I refuse you nothing." Laughing, the two men started out of the tent.

Had Alexander not teased Jackson, they would have been gone when the messenger came rushing in. Instead, he almost ran into them-he almost ran over them, as a matter of fact. "General Jackson, sir!" he gasped. "They've captured-you'll never guess who they've captured, sir! He's on his way here now, not that far behind me."

He was so excited, he didn't notice he'd failed to give Jackson the name. "Who is on his way here now?" the Confederate general-in-chief inquired. "By the way you sound, young man, it might be General Willcox himself."

"Even better'n that, sir," the messenger answered, chortling with glee. "They just captured Frederick Douglass his own self."

"You don't mean it!" E. Porter Alexander exclaimed. That was foolishness: the messenger obviously did mean it. Alexander turned to look at Jackson. Jackson was already looking at Alexander. The same thought had to be uppermost in both their minds. Alexander spat it out first: "We couldn't get a hotter potato right out of the fire, sir. What in blazes do we do with him?"

"I don't know." Jackson briefly felt all at sea. This was not the sort of decision he was supposed to have to make. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he knew what needed doing. Stepping back into the tent, he walked over to the telegraphers' table. "I am going to wire President Longstreet, requesting instructions. This is more a political than a military matter, and beyond my sphere of competence." He dictated a brief telegram, then turned back to the messenger. "You said Douglass is being brought here?"

"Yes, sir," the man answered.

"I had better stay and await him, then. General Alexander, you may go and eat your mustard without me."

"Sir, by your leave, I wouldn't miss this for the world," Alexander said. "It's almost like having the Antichrist walk into the tent, isn't it?"

"I had not thought of it in those terms, but you are not far wrong," Jackson agreed. He nodded to an orderly. "Bring back supper for two, Corporal-no, for three: Douglass will be hungry, too, no doubt. And bring back as well a pot of mustard for General Alexander, since he will have it."

After that, there was nothing to do but wait. The orderly returned with three full plates, a mustard pot, and three cups of coffee. Jackson and Alexander were still wondering whether to begin on their own meals when the tent flap opened and Frederick Douglass walked in ahead of a couple of grinning young soldiers with bayoneted Tredegars. "I thank you for delivering your present, lads," Jackson told them. "I believe we shall be able to protect ourselves from him henceforward. Go on back to your regiment now." Saluting, they obeyed.

Frederick Douglass was staring at him. The Negro-mulatto, actually, by his looks-was a fine figure of a man, despite dishevelment and obvious dismay. "You are Stonewall Jackson," he said, his voice deep and rich, his accent that of an educated man of the United States, with only the slightest hint of something else, something softer, underneath.

"I am," Jackson admitted. He pointed to the food the orderly had just brought. "Will you join General Alexander here and me for supper?'

To his surprise, Douglass burst out laughing. "I beg your pardon, General," he said, checking himself after a moment, "but, seeing you, I feel rather as if I have been ushered into the presence of the Antichrist. In that presence, the last thing I expected was a supper invitation."

Jackson said, "You may be interested to know that, not fifteen minutes before your arrival, General Alexander compared your coming to that of the Antichrist."

"To the unrighteous, the righteous no doubt seem wicked," Douglass replied.

"You are not the least bold of men, to say such a thing here," Jackson observed, more approvingly than otherwise.

E. Porter Alexander caught something he had missed: "Who here is righteous, who the reverse, and how do you go about proving it?" He held up a hand. "Since we could argue about that through the night, what say we don't, but eat supper instead?"

"I find myself unable to oppose such logic, especially when I but recently thought a noose my certain fate," Douglass said. Jackson contented himself with a single short, sharp nod.

A couple of minutes later, General Alexander said, "Do you see, sir? Douglass is among the righteous after all-for he eats mustard."

"His digestion would be better if he abstained," said Jackson, who, as usual, used only salt on his meat. Frederick Douglass looked from one of them to the other, unsure how serious they were. Jackson willed his face to reveal nothing. Only when his artillery chief smiled did the captured Negro agitator relax.

After all three men had finished, Douglass asked the question no doubt uppermost in his mind since he'd entered the tent-no doubt uppermost in his mind since he was taken prisoner: "What do you intend to do with me, General?"

"Hold you here until I have received instructions from President Longstreet." Jackson answered, "then follow them, whatever they may be." He cocked his head to one side, raised his arm in the air, and asked in turn, "What would you have us do with you?"

"What would I have you do?" Douglass said. "Why, release me, of course. I am a U.S. citizen, and a civilian member of the Fourth Estate."

"You are, I have heard, an escaped slave," Jackson remarked.

Douglass scowled. "I am an escaped slave," he said proudly, "but I escaped from Maryland, which is and has always been one of the United States, not a Confederate state, so your cruel laws pertaining to such conduct are without application to my case. Further, on payment of the sum of one hundred dollars, my former master formally manumitted me in December of the year 1846, proof of which I can readily provide if allowed to communicate in any way with my friends. I am, sir, a free man, both in my heart and in point of law."

"You are the cause of more runaways and the wellspring of more plots against the white men of the Confederate States than any other half dozen people I could name," E. Porter Alexander said.

"Thank you," Douglass replied, which nonplussed the artillerist. Douglass added, "You are telling me I have not lived my life as a free man in vain."

"Why should we not condemn you for attempting to create a servile insurrection of the sort John Brown tried raising?" Jackson asked.

"I advised Brown against that, brave patriot though I thought him-and still think him," Douglass said with a defiant toss of his head. "As for why you should not, I told you: I do not fall, and have never fallen, under your jurisdiction. I have broken none of my nation's laws. If you declare me persona non grata and deport me, you would be within your rights. Condemn me? No, not if you wish to adhere to the law of nations."

Jackson leaned forward, relishing the argument. "But uprisen slaves have committed many outrages in the Confederate States, some of them citing you as the author of their discontent. In war, shall I shoot the simpled-minded soldier who goes over the hill as a deserter, while taking no notice of the wily civilian who induces him to desert? Your case strikes me as similar."

"How can it?" Douglass raised his impressive eyebrows. "Do you not aim to keep your Negroes in such abysmal ignorance that they are not allowed to learn to read and write, lest the written word lead them to the desire for freedom? How then could your servile populace come to know my words, since assuredly I have never given an address within Confederate territory?"

"We instruct them in the things that matter," Jackson said. "Why, I myself began and taught a Sunday school for the Negroes in and around Lexington, Virginia, before the War of Secession. They are, in my view, perhaps not the Regulars of the church, but they assuredly make up the militia."

Douglass started to say something, then stopped. He resumed after an evident pause for thought: "I have come to see, over the years, that few men are entirely of a piece. I did not know you had done such a thing, General; it shall redound to your credit on the day when our Father judges you. How can you, though, justify the manifold evils of slavery while preaching the Gospel that sets all men free?"

"As you must know, the Good Book sanctions slavery," Jackson replied. "If Providence sanctions it, who am I to speak in opposition? I do believe Negro slaves to be children of God no less than myself, and deserving of good treatment."

"You might be wiser, from a master's point of view, if you did not," Douglass observed. "A slave who has a bad master wants a good master. A slave who has a good master wants to be free."

"Are you not betraying slaves' secrets to tell us this?" Porter Alexander asked.

Douglass shook his leonine head. "A bad master does not become a good one at the pull of a lever. Nor does a good one easily go bad; that can and does happen, as I know to my pain, but slowly, over years."

One of the telegraph keys in the tent began to chatter. Everyone whirled to stare at it. When it fell silent, the telegrapher carried the transcription of the wire over to Jackson. Douglass' eyes followed the man's every step. Jackson read the telegram, then smiled a crooked smile. "Anticlimax, I fear," he said. "General Alexander, some of the new shipment of horses that will haul your guns has arrived."

"I'm relieved to hear it." The artillery commander glanced over at Frederick Douglass. "Rather more so than our… guest, I daresay."

"I am not your guest, unless I misunderstand and am in fact free to come and go as I please," Douglass snapped. "I am your prisoner."

"Yes, you are a prisoner." Jackson minced few words, and appreciated candor in others. "Whether you will remain a prisoner, and upon what terms-these matters await President Longstreet's decision."

Porter Alexander raised an eyebrow. "I stand corrected. Our distinguished prisoner, I should have said, or perhaps our notorious prisoner. No, distinguished will do, for were you not distinguished, Douglass, were you, say, an ordinary white Yankee, it is moderately unlikely that you should have taken supper with the general-in-chief of the Confederate States."

A beat slower than he might have, Jackson caught the irony there. It won a smile from Frederick Douglass, too, a sour smile. "I note, General Alexander, that however distinguished I may be in your eyes and those of General Jackson, I am not distinguished enough for either of you to preface my name with Mister." Jackson blinked. "It never occurred to me to do so," he said. "To the best of my recollection, I have never called a Negro Mister in my entire life."

"That in itself speaks unhappy volumes on the history of my race in what are now the Confederate States," Douglass said bitterly, "and, I note, in the United States as well."

Another telegraph apparatus began to click. "This is the reply from the president, sir," said the soldier at the chair in front of it. Like every telegrapher, he enjoyed the privilege of learning the content of the message before it reached the man to whom it was addressed.

When the clicking stopped, he brought the wire to Jackson, who donned his reading glasses and skimmed through it. Longstreet made his instructions unmistakably clear. Jackson turned to Douglass. "By order of the president of the Confederate States, you are to be turned over to U.S. military authorities under flag of truce as soon as that may be arranged. You are to be freely given to those U.S. authorities; no exchange of any Confederate prisoner now in U.S. hands is to be required or requested. Until such time as you are turned over to the U.S. authorities, you are to be treated with every consideration. Is that satisfactory…" He hesitated, but the president had said every consideration, and he was not a man to disobey orders. He began again: "Is that satisfactory, Mr. Douglass?"

The Negro's eyes widened; he recognized what Jackson had done. Ever so slightly, he inclined his head to the Confederate general-in-chief. "It is more generous than I had dared hope. As soon as my identity was known to my captors, I thought a rope hoisted over a tree branch my likeliest fate, an apprehension of which they did little to disabuse me. I know your opinion of me here."

"Not far removed from your opinion of us," General Alexander remarked.

"Perhaps." Douglass shoved that aside with one word. His features took on a look of intense concentration. "President Longstreet is a clever politician. He realizes, where many in his position would not, that harming me would in the end also harm the reputation of your country even more, and refrains from taking the brief pleasure that hanging me would bring." His shoulders hunched and slumped as he sighed.

"President Longstreet is a clever politician," Jackson agreed. He eyed Douglass. "And you, sir"- every consideration — "unless I find myself badly mistaken, are at the moment somewhat dismayed that you shall not make your cause a martyr after all."

"I cannot contest the charge," Douglass said. "And yet I should also be lying were I to claim that I am not glad to go on living, and, even more so, to be restored to liberty. Having lived without it more than twenty years, I know how dear it is."

"At dawn tomorrow, 1 shall send an officer under flag of truce to arrange for your return to the United States," Jackson said. "I delay only because a flag of truce may not be recognized at night, and 1 would not willingly expose a man to danger thus."

"I understand." Douglass turned his dark, clever eyes on Jackson. "Tell me, General, what would you have done with me absent President Longstreet's instructions?"

"Since I did not know what to do with you, I asked for those instructions," Jackson answered. It was an evasion, and he knew as much. To his relief, Frederick Douglass did not press him on it.

Cananea baked in the Mexican sun. No sooner had that thought crossed Jeb Stuart's mind than he rejected it. Sonora now being part of the CSA, Cananea baked in the Confederate sun. The Stars and Bars hung limp from a flagpole in the middle of town. The tents of the Confederate army and its Apache allies vastly outnumbered the squalid adobe houses that made up the miserable little place.

Water mirages danced and shimmered on the desert. Stuart knew they weren't real. They were amazingly convincing, though. Someone thirsty who hadn't seen them before would surely have chased them till he perished or realized that, like wills-o'-the-wisp, they endlessly receded before him and were not worth pursuing.

Major Horatio Sellers walked up beside Stuart. "Good morning, sir."

"Hmm? Oh, good morning, Major," Stuart answered, a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I was looking at the mirages and not thinking about very much of anything. If you hadn't come along, the buzzards probably would have picked me up and carried me off in an hour or two."

"Really, sir?" Sellers looked surprised. "I would have guessed you were thinking about your son."

"Captain Stuart, do you mean?" The commander of the Department of the Trans-Mississippi smiled. "If he's not the youngest captain in the history of the Confederate Army, I'll be everlastingly surprised. What I should be is jealous. I wasn't even at West Point at his age, let alone winning battlefield promotions."

"War will give a push to things that would have happened more slowly without it," his aide-de-camp said. Sellers suddenly looked as if he'd bitten down on a lemon. Without seeing any more than that, Stuart understood what it meant.

Sure enough, Geronimo and Chappo silently came up to stand beside the two Confederate soldiers. Their soft moccasins were far better suited to quiet movement than the boots Stuart and Sellers wore. As always, Geronimo greeted Stuart as an equal. That bothered the general less than the impression he got that Geronimo was stretching a point to do so.

Through Chappo, the medicine man said, "Is it true your son is now a warrior? I have heard this from my men who have some English."

"It is true," Stuart agreed gravely. "Your son, Chappo here, fought well against the Yankees in New Mexico Territory. My son, who is Chappo's age and has the same name I do, fought well against the Yankees in a land called Kentucky, far from here."

"For boys to become men is good," Geronimo said. "Your son, I hear, did something very brave, something very fine. What is it?"

"The Yankees were attacking," Stuart answered, "and all the officers of higher rank in his regiment were killed or wounded." That was oversimplifying, but the Indian wouldn't know the difference, and explaining it struck Stuart as more trouble than it was worth. "He took charge of the regiment and fought back against the Yankees and stopped their attack."

After that was translated, Geronimo and Chappo went back and forth for a couple of minutes, as if the old man was making sure he understood correctly. Then he said, "But your son, with only Chappo's years-how did the other soldiers, the men who were soldiers for a long time, how did they obey him? They were already men, and he a boy in his first fight, not so?"

"Yes," Stuart said. "But he had higher rank"-again, oversimplifying-"and so they had to obey."

"Foolish to make men who have been in many fights obey a boy in his first. He might lead them wrongly," Geronimo said. Under normal circumstances, he would have had a point. Circumstances where Jeb Jr. was hadn't been normal. And, realizing he might have been tactless, the Indian added, "But this is your son, and he did well in the fight, you say. This is good. A father is always glad when his son grows up well." He set a hand on Chappo's shoulder, to show that he too had a son of whom he was proud.

They would have gone on, but the alcalde of Cananea came up and waited for Stuart to notice him. Senor Salazar was a round-bellied little man who wore a dirty red sash of office over a black jacket, ruffled shirt, and tight trousers that had all seen better days. "Yes, sir? What is it?" Stuart asked him, respecting the dignity of his office.

Salazar, fortunately, spoke fair English; the U.S. border lay only a few miles to the north. "Can I talk wit' you, General, by yourself?" His black eyes flicked to Geronimo and Chappo. The Apaches, Stuart had discovered, frightened the whey out of him and out of everybody in Cananea. The farmers had scarcely dared work their parched, meager fields since Maximilian's National Guards withdrew in the wake of the Confederate occupation.

Geronimo sent Senor Salazar the sort of look a coyote gave a pork chop, which did nothing for the alcalde's composure. Stuart had mercy on the petty official. "Well, yes, senor, I suppose so." He stepped a few paces away from the two Indians. Salazar followed with obvious relief.

Geronimo and Chappo both frowned, though their unhappy expressions did not make Stuart start to turn to jelly, as they did with Salazar. The Confederate officer understood why the Apaches were unhappy. The alcalde made Major Horatio Sellers seem as if he were on the Indians' side. Salazar not only feared the Apaches, he hated them with a Latin passion beside which Sellers' feeling toward them hardly rated more than the name of mild distaste. He would have slaughtered them all if he could. He only hated them the more because he couldn't.

To forestall him, Stuart said, "1 do hope you will remember, the Apaches arc our allies."

"Oh, si, General Stuart, I remember this." Salazar's eyes flashed. He might remember, but he didn't like it for hell. He needed a deliberate effort of will to set aside his anger. Stuart watched him make it. Like ocean waves with oil poured over them, his face smoothed. "I don't want to talk about no Apaches."

"That's good," Stuart said equably. "What do you want to talk about, then?"

"We have a ball tonight," Salazar said, "to commence when the sun go down. We have dancing and music and good food and mescal. You do us the honor to come? You and so many officers from your country-officers from this country now, I should say-you want to bring?"

If Cananca boasted good food, Stuart had yet to see it. The locals mostly ate atole, a cornmeal gruel that reminded him of library paste.

Sometimes they enlivened it with chilies that would have made a man sweat at the North Pole, let alone in the middle of the Sonoran desert. As for mescal, it gave the vilest North Carolina moonshine a run for its money. Major Sellers swore the Mexicans distilled the stuff from kerosene, but that oath came the morning after a night of copious indulgence.

As much as anything else, curiosity impelled Stuart to say, "Thank you very much, Senor Salazar. My men and I will be there." Wickedly, he added, "Does your generous invitation also extend to the leaders of the Indians?"

"Maybe we do that," Salazar said, but he made no effort to hide his scorn for the Apaches. "We do it before. We get them plenty drunk, get them loco with mescal, then kill all we can. We do it three, four times, every few years. Stupid Apaches come every time. They like to drink plenty mescal."

"And you wonder why the ones you don't kill want to kill you?" Stuart said. The alcalde's answering shrug was as old as time. Whether Mexicans had first wronged Apaches or Apaches Mexicans no longer mattered much. Each side had been going after the other for so long, the CSA would need lots of years or lots of troops or more likely both to bring firm order here.

"You will come, and not the Indians?" Senor Salazar persisted.

"We will come, and not the Indians," Stuart agreed. Salazar bowed stiffly from the waist and departed.

As soon as he was gone, Geronimo and Chappo hurried up to Stuart. "What did he want?" Geronimo demanded. Stuart could hear the hard suspicion underlying the Apache words even before Chappo translated. "That man is a rattlesnake in stupid Mexican clothes. He would murder every one of us if he had the way and the courage to do it."

That being obviously true, Stuart ignored it. "What he said had nothing to do with you," he answered, which wasn't true but would keep the lid on the kettle. "He invited me and some of my officers to a ball in town tonight."

"Ah," Geronimo said when that was translated. He knew what a ball was, and what accompanied it. "Mescal." Longing filled his voice. He ran his tongue over his lips. Stuart hadn't altogether believed Senor Salazar's claim that the Apaches would frequently come into town for ardent spirits and lay themselves open to massacre. The warriors he'd seen in action had appeared too level-headed for that. Now, he decided the alcalde had been telling nothing but the truth.

The explanation did satisfy the old medicine man and his son. To Stuart's relief, they didn't seek to invite themselves to the ball. The commander of the Trans-Mississippi had no trouble finding enthusiastic celebrants among his officers. Those who held a high opinion of senoritas were eager to dance and drink with them; those who held a low opinion were even more eager.

At the appointed hour, Stuart led his contingent of officers into Cananea's central square. An orchestra of two drums, two fiddles, and an accordion greeted them with a squeaky rendition of what, about three-quarters of the way through the piece, Stuart recognized as " Dixie." It was, in its way, a compliment. So was the roast pork, basted in a red, no doubt fiery, sauce.

And so was the tumbler of mescal Senor Salazar pressed into Stuart's hand. The alcalde was armed with a similar tumbler. He raised it. "To the Confederate States of America!" he said in English and Spanish. He gulped down half his tumbler.

Stuart had to follow suit. He felt as if a shell had exploded in his stomach. His eyes crossed. His ears rang. Dimly, he realized he had to offer a return toast. He wondered if he could still talk. Duty required him to make the effort. "To Sonora and to Cananea!" he croaked, and everyone within six inches of him could hear his voice. He tried it again, and succeeded in making himself understood the second time. The Cananeans burst into applause. Stuart drank the rest of the tumbler. That he didn't fall over proved he was made of stern stuff.

"Your glass is empty," Salazar said sympathetically. He filled it from an earthenware jug. Stuart stared, glassy-eyed. The mescal didn't seem to bother the alcalde.

Food helped. The sauce on the pork was as spicy as it smelled. It started a fire of its own in Stuart's belly, and seemed to counteract the fire from the firewater. He ate bread, too, hoping it would help absorb some of the second tumbler of mescal.

Disappointingly few senoritas were in evidence. The band thumped out something that might have been a dance tune or an improvisation. Whatever it was, people started dancing to it. About seven out of eight were men. Nobody cared much. After more mescal flowed, nobody cared at all.

In the middle of a quadrille with the colonel of the Fifth Confederate Cavalry, Stuart said, "If a horse danced the way you do, they'd shoot it."

"If a camel danced the way you do, they'd shoot it," retorted Colonel Calhoun Ruggles, who, when it came to camels, knew whereof he spoke. Being considerably elevated by mescal, he needed a moment to remember proper military courtesy. "Sir."

After a while, Stuart decided to take a blow. While he leaned against an adobe wall and watched his officers and the Cananeans cavorting, Senor Salazar tapped him on the shoulder. The alcalde swayed where he stood; by now, whatever his capacity, he'd illuminated himself even more generously than the Confederates. But he spoke with great earnestness: "Do you know, General, those Indios will take your guns and take your bullets and go up into the Sierra Madre"-he pointed west, then, correcting himself, east-"and they be bandidos there. They go up there, they be bandidos forever."

"They can be bandidos against the United States," Stuart said. "They won't be bandidos against your people any more."

"Maybe you are right. Quien sabe?" The alcalde smiled a sweet, sad, drunk smile. "But if you are right, then the Estados Unidos" — his English was slipping-"will get Indios to be bandidos against us. It will be the same in the end. For us, it is siempre the same in the end."

How many years of disasters-and how many tumblers of mescal — went into that resignation? Stuart shook his head, which was beginning to throb. "It won't be the same any more. You're in the Confederate States of America now. You're going places, and you'd better believe it."

The only place the alcalde was going was to sleep. His eyes closed. He sagged against the wall and slumped to the ground. Jeb Stuart laughed. Five minutes later, he joined Senor Salazar.

"Well, Colonel," Henry Welton said, "I trust your stay in Fort Benton, and also in Great Falls, has been a pleasant one."

"Yes, sir. Thank you very much," Theodore Roosevelt answered. "Pleasant in ways I couldn't have anticipated when you ordered me down from my regimental headquarters, as a matter of fact."

Colonel Welton grinned a sly grin. "When I ordered you down, you thought you were coming for nothing but work."

"That's true, sir," Roosevelt said, "but it's not precisely what I meant. The usual pleasures of Fort Benton — and even of Great Falls — are easily named: saloons, dance halls, bathtubs with hot water." A couple of other pleasures were easily named, too, but he declined to name them.

"Hot water, yes." Henry Welton nodded. "You do miss it in the field."

But Roosevelt hadn't finished. "As I say, sir, those are the usual pleasures, the commonplace pleasures. Hearing Abe Lincoln speak, though: that I had not looked for, and I expect I'll remember it all my days."

"After he finished, you and he were going at it hammer and tongs there for a while," Henry Welton said. "You made him stop and be thoughtful once or twice, too." He chuckled. "You make everybody you meet stop and be thoughtful, seems to me. Twenty-two-you ought to be illegal."

"Twenty-three soon, sir," Roosevelt said with a grin, which made Welton grimace and mime pathetic decrepitude. Roosevelt went on, "Plainly, Lincoln has a faction that will heed him in all he says. As plainly, there is a large faction that will not heed him in anything he says." He laughed. "He has me speaking like him, even yet-he is a demon on the stump. But both those factions I mentioned have their homes in the Republican Party. It could split on account of him."

"It could split if we lose this war, too," Welton replied, which was plain common sense. "Of course, if we lose this war, not enough men will admit to being Republicans for it to matter much whether the party splits or not."

"These things do matter, sir-they always matter," Roosevelt said seriously. "Look what happened when the Democrats, like Gaul, were divided in partes tres in 1860. Had that not happened, the United States might well be the only nation lying between Canada and the Empire of Mexico."

"Maybe you're right. I'm just a soldier, and soldiers are better off not meddling in politics," Welton said. "If we hadn't already learned that lesson, the War of Secession would have driven it home like a schoolmaster with a hickory switch." He slapped Roosevelt on the back. "Here come the stablehands with your horse, Colonel. Have a safe trip back to the Unauthorized Regiment, and I hope to see you again before too long."

"Likewise, whether here or in the field," Roosevelt said. "And, thanks to your generous permission, I will be sending A Troop here for rest and recreation as soon as I can draft the orders."

"That will be fine," Colonel Welton said. "I do very much approve of an officer who looks out for the well-being of his men."

Roosevelt mounted and rode out of Fort Benton, pausing in the gateway to wave back at Welton. His mount, which had done next to nothing since he'd come down to Fort Benton, felt lively, almost electric, under him. He had to hold the animal under tight rein to keep its trot from exploding into a gallop.

"Easy, old fellow, easy," he said, patting the horse on the neck. "We've got a long road ahead. If you go too fast now, you'll wear yourself down to a nub long before we get there."

The horse didn't want to listen to him. It wanted to run. Roosevelt laughed as the fort disappeared behind a swell of prairie. He was the same way. When anyone told him to slow down, he generally went faster. And not a man in the world had the right to rein him in.

He checked himself. That wasn't quite true. Military discipline did for him what reins did for the horse. Without it, he would have charged into Canada by now. But the cases weren't identical. He'd submitted to military discipline of his own free will. The horse didn't have a choice.

Jackrabbits bounded over the plains, sensibly taking no chances on whether he might try to shoot them if they stayed around to watch him ride by. He didn't need to bother with jackrabbits, not today, not with fresh-baked bread and several chunks of fried chicken in his saddlebag. If he spied a herd of pronghorns on his way north, though..

He saw some antelope off in the distance, but too far off for him to bother chasing them. Welton had sent a courier up to the headquarters of the Unauthorized Regiment, letting Lieutenant Jobst and the rest of the men know he would be spending some time at Fort Benton. He couldn't help feeling he'd been away too long. One thing he emphatically did not want was for his regiment to discover it could get along just as well without him.

Walk, canter, trot. Walk, canter, trot. Mile after mile of prairie unrolled behind him. More miles lay ahead. The horse was still willing, but no longer eager. Roosevelt rode north by the sun and by his compass; not nearly enough horsemen had traveled back and forth between Fort Benton and his headquarters to wear even the beginnings of a trail into the grass. Walk, canter, trot.

Every hour or so, he gave his mount a few minutes' rest and let it snatch at clumps of grass. The grass was still green. It wouldn't stay green forever, nor even much longer. Winter came early to Montana Territory, just as it left late. Blaine had rejected the Confederates' peace offer: well and good. Despite that, though, Roosevelt still hadn't been able to do any fighting. If the damned British didn't get moving, or if his own orders didn't change, he wouldn't be able to start till spring.

When he came to the Marias River, he stowed the compass in his saddlebag. He wouldn't need it any more. He rode northwest along the southern bank of the river till he came to a ford. With the water so low in summer, that didn't take long. His boots stayed dry while his horse splashed across. No steamboat had ever made it up the Marias. "And I know steamboats," he told the horse, "that can pour a barrel of beer into a dry riverbed and make fifty miles on the suds."

The horse snorted. He couldn't tell whether it was derision or appreciation.

He rode up the northern fork of the Marias, which was the Willow. "Almost there now," he told the horse as the sun sank toward the Rockies. The horse didn't answer, not this time. It had worked hard all day. He patted its neck. "Come on-not much farther."

He strayed away from the riverbank after dark, and almost rode past the camp. The night was mild-milder than the past few had been-and the men had let the fires die back to embers. He spied their red glow off to his left only a moment before a challenge came out of the night: "Halt! Who goes there?"

"Hello, Johnny," he answered, recognizing the sentry's voice. "It's Colonel Roosevelt, back from Fort Benton."

"Advance and be recognized, Colonel," Johnny Unger said, playing the game by the rules. His voice held a grin, though. As Roosevelt rode slowly forward, he whistled to the next nearest sentry and called, "Hey, Sean-the Old Man's come back from town."

"Bully!" Sean said. Neither of their voices would have disturbed the men sleeping back at regimental headquarters.

A booted foot crunched a twig. Johnny Unger materialized, one moment invisible, the next standing right beside Roosevelt. "Yes, sir, it's you, all right," he said, and chuckled. "Go on in. Did you do the trip in one day, or stretch it out over two?"

"Started this morning," Roosevelt answered. "Never waste time, Johnny. It's the one thing in the whole wide world you can't get back."

"Yes, sir," the sentry said. "If you've been riding that horse all day, I was just thinking, he'll need more seeing to than if you'd done it the easy way."

"I'll tend to him, never fear," Roosevelt said. He asked for very few of the privileges to which his rank might have entitled him. When the sentry vanished once more, Roosevelt rode the beast into camp.

He poked and fed one of the fires up to brighter life so he could see what he was doing as he brushed down the horse and checked its hooves. One of them had a pebble caught in the horseshoe. He dug it out with a curved steel pick. The beast couldn't have had it long, or it would have started favoring that leg.

Roosevelt tried to be as quiet as he could, but a couple of men sat up in their bedrolls to see what was going on. "Good to have you back, Colonel," one of them said softly. Roosevelt waved and went back to work.

After an hour or so, the horse was settled. Roosevelt patted him one last time, then got out his blanket, wrapped himself up in it like a papoose, and fell asleep even while still wriggling around to get comfortable.

He woke with the sun shining in his face, the smell of coffee in the air, and First Lieutenant Karl Jobst standing only a couple of feet away. "Good morning, sir," Jobst said while Roosevelt stretched and yawned. "By what the courier had to say, you found yourself a livelier time than you looked for when you went down to Fort Benton."

"That's nothing but the truth," Roosevelt said. "I rode down to Great Falls with Colonel Wclton, as you'll have heard, to listen to Abe Lincoln. Very fine speaker-no two ways about that-but he spouts nonsense, nothing but Socialistic nonsense. Let him rave, I say. If he keeps at it, he'll split the Republican Party right down the middle, or I'm a Dutchman."

"Uh, sir… you are a Dutchman," Jobst pointed out. Of German blood himself, he got called a Dutchman a lot, but Roosevelt was the genuine article.

"Proves my point, doesn't it?" Roosevelt said gleefully as he got to his feet. Over coffee and hardtack and antelope, he asked, "Anything new on patrol that's worth hearing?"

"No, sir," his adjutant answered. "All routine. No, I take that back. Somebody in D Troop got bitten by a rattlesnake, but it's not a bad bite, and they're pretty sure he'll pull through."

"I'm glad to hear it-not that he got bitten, but that we won't lose him. The rattlesnakes north of the border arc quiet, though?" When Jobst nodded, Roosevelt went on, "In that case…" He set out the scheme for leave Colonel Welton had accepted.

Karl Jobst blinked. Plainly, such an idea would never have occurred to him. Once he heard it, he liked it. "What a clever notion, sir. You're right-I'm sure it will have a tonic effect on the men's spirits."

"I'll draft the necessary orders," Roosevelt said. Jobst looked slightly miffed; a lot of regimental commanders would have let him do the job. Everything Roosevelt could do himself, he did do himself. Inside of an hour, one courier was on his way to A Troop, announcing a week's leave for its men, and another to B Troop, ordering it to stretch out to cover the ground A Troop would be clearing.

Half an hour after that, another courier rode into regimental headquarters at a pounding gallop: Roosevelt 's farmhand, Esau Hunt, who was serving in B Troop. "Boss!" he shouted, and then, remembering himself, "Colonel Roosevelt, sir! The limeys are over the border, sir. Whole great big column of 'em crossed yesterday. We took a few shots at 'em, but they got a hell of a lot more men than we do."

Theodore Roosevelt stared, briefly speechless. "All leaves cancelled," he murmured. Half a moment later, he was bellowing for couriers at the top of his lungs, some to concentrate his regiment and set it in motion against the British, another to ride down to Fort Benton and bring the rest of the Army the news. That done, he threw back his head and laughed out loud. "God delivered the Midianites into Gideon's hands, and He has delivered the British into mine." He raised his voice to a great shout: "For the Lord, and for Gideon!"

Colonel George Custer had a splendid view of the hanging of the Mormon traitors in front of Fort Douglas, but could not watch it so closely as he should have liked. He was too busy keeping an eye on the crowd that pressed up against the restraining rope a couple of hundred yards from the gallows.

"Be ready, men," he called to his Gatling-gun crews. "If anyone crosses that barrier, we are to open fire without warning and without mercy. The scoops know as much. They had better-we've warned them often enough."

The Mormons were splendidly law-abiding-except when their church elders led them astray. If John Taylor, who remained at large, wanted martyrs in large numbers, he would have them. The believers were likelier to heed his admonitions than those of the hated U.S. Army.

"We'll get 'em, sir," Sergeant Buckley said, and the other gunners nodded.

They were not alone out there. Riflemen stood between the Gatlings, and several cannon shotted with canister bore on the crowd. Custer wished the Gatlings weren't there at all. Their absence would have let him pay more attention to the Mormons' getting what they deserved. But General Pope had assigned him the miserable gadgets, and so he had to make the best of it.

Softly, his brother Tom said, "Here they come, Autie."

And indeed, out through the gate, guarded and led by more soldiers with Springfields, came George Q. Cannon, Orson Pratt, a Mormon apostle named Daniel Wells, Cannon's brother (whose Christian name-if Mormons' first names deserved that description- Custer had never bothered to learn) and two other leaders of the Latter-Day Saints. Their hands were bound behind them. John Pope followed in dress uniform.

None of the Mormons hesitated in mounting the thirteen steps to the multiple gallows; their steps were firm and sure. Each leader took his place at a noose, beside which stood a hangman in a black hoodPope, sensibly, did not want the grimly silent crowd to be able to recognize the executioners.

Each hangman offered his Mormon a hood without eyeholes. Wells, Cannon's brother, and one of the men whose names Custer had not noted accepted; Pratt, George Cannon, and the other stranger refused. The hangmen set the nooses around the Mormons' necks.

In a voice just loud enough for Custer to hear, Orson Pratt asked General Pope, "May I speak to my people one last time? I give you my sacred oath the words shall be of reconciliation, not of strife."

Custer turned his head and watched Pope mull. He would have said no. But Pope answered, "Speak, then. Be brief, though, and remember that your people shall answer if you betray them into madness."

"I remember, and I thank you," Pratt said, quietly still. The salt-smelling breeze ruffled his bushy white beard. He cried out to the throng who believed as he did: "My brethren, my friends, I leave you today for a better world to come, and give you these words from the second book of Nephi as my parting gift: 'O then, if I have seen so many great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart leap and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions? And why should 1 yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have placed in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy? Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. Do not anger again because of mine enemies. ' " He bowed his hoary head.

"Amen!" George Cannon cried.

"Amen!" the other Mormon leaders echoed more quietly.

"Amen!" It rippled through the crowd, along with the sound of weeping.

"He kept his word," Tom Custer murmured, his voice more serious than was his wont. "That's not the worst prayer I ever heard, either."

"It is nothing but a mockery and an imitation of the Good Book." George Custer remained unmoved.

So did Brigadier General John Pope. "These men have been convicted of treason and insurrection against the United States of America," he declared in a shout that would have been huge had it not followed Orson Pratt's. "For their crimes, I, under the authority given me by President James G. Blaine, have sentenced them to death by hanging. President Blaine having reviewed and confirmed these sentences"-he raised his right hand high in the air-"let the punishment be carried out." The hand dropped.

So did the traps beneath the six condemned Mormons as the hangmen worked their levers. So did the Mormons' bodies. Custer heard neck bones snap; the men who'd tied the hangman's nooses had known their business. The bodies kicked and spasmed briefly, then were still.

No one surged forward out of the crowd. The sound of weeping grew louder. "Shame!" someone shouted. In an instant, men and women alike took up the call: "Shame! Shame! Shame!" It washed over the soldiers and their weapons and the military governor of Utah Territory and the gallows and the bodies dangling from it. For a quarter of an hour, the Mormons repeated their one-word answer to what they had just witnessed.

John Pope had grit. He walked out in front of his men, advancing on the rope barrier till he was within easy pistol range of the crowd that hated him. He raised his hand, as he had done to order the executioners to ready themselves. "Hear me!" he shouted. "People of Utah, hear me!" And the people did grant him something close to quiet. "Go home. All is over here. Live in peace, and obey the laws and authority of the United States of America. Go home."

Some of the Mormons kept on calling, "Shame!" More, though, began the walk back down to Salt Lake City. Little by little, the crowd melted away.

Tom Custer whistled softly. "We got by with it, Autie. I was a long way from sure we would."

"So was I." Custer didn't know whether to be relieved the Mormons had not erupted at the execution of their leaders or disappointed the U.S. Army had not had the chance to teach them precisely how much rebellion could cost.

By the expression on Pope's face, the military governor was contemplating the horns of the same dilemma. "Six traitors dead," he said, walking up to Custer. Apparently choosing to look on the bright side, he added, "God grant the rest learn their lesson."

"Yes, sir." Custer looked back toward the gallows. "They died well." He shrugged to show how little that mattered to him. "Redskins die well, too. In my view, the Mormons arc about as fanatical as the Sioux and the Kiowa."

"And in mine as well." Pope took off his plumed hat and mopped his forehead with a linen handkerchief. "I took a chance with that rascal Pratt, and I know it. But I reckoned he couldn't make things much worse, and might make them better. And his fanaticism, I have seen, includes a fanatical truthfulness."

"It worked out well, sir." Custer was not about to criticize a superior to his face, especially not after that superior had scored a success. What he said to Libbic come evening was liable to be something else again. He thought of Katie Fitzgerald, of her mouth, of her breasts, of her coppery bush. Ever so slightly, he shook his head. No matter how much of a tigress Katie was between the sheets, he was glad his wife had come to Fort Douglas. He could unburden himself to her as to no one else on earth.

Pope pointed to the limp bodies swaying in the breeze. "We'll have to cut that carrion down and bury it. I don't fancy giving the bodies back to the Mormons so they can riot at a funeral where they didn't at the hanging."

"That's-very clever, sir," Custer said, and meant it. Worrying about the funeral would never have entered his mind. He turned to the eight Gatling-gun crews. "Men, you have helped keep order in Utah Territory. The United States are in your debt."

"Well said, Colonel," Pope agreed. "That goes for all of us here. We have subdued this Territory, and we are reducing it to obedience. And we have done it with a minimum of bloodshed, and with no need to summon excessive forces away from the armies in the field against the Confederate States."

"I wish I were serving in an army in the field against the Confederate States," Custer said.

"So do I," Pope replied. "We also serve here, however. I remind myself of this daily. And, were I facing the Rebels, 1 should not have had the opportunity, after all these years, to pay Abe Lincoln back at least in part for the bitter lot he imposed upon me and rendered far more bitter by the fact that my sacrifice was made in vain. But I am in some measure avenged for my exile to Minnesota."

"I wish he'd tried to tread the air with the Mormons here today," Custer said. "From what I hear, he continues to spread trouble wherever he goes."

"You know we are also in complete agreement on that score," Pope said. "But, being soldiers, we can only obey the orders we receive from the duly constituted civil authorities." He cocked his head to one side. "It is a pity, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, it is," Custer said. "I was General McClellan's man during the War of Secession, and you, of course, were anything but, yet all soldiers who served during that unhappy time cannot possibly have any other view of Honest Abe." He freighted the title with as much contempt as it would bear.

Pope set a hand on his shoulder. "Since coming to Utah, we have proved to be in harmony on more than that view alone, Colonel. You have carried out my wishes in a fashion with which I can not only find no fault, but which pleases me very highly indeed, and I have so stated in my reports at every opportunity."

"Thank you, sir!" Custer said joyfully.

When he told Libbie about it at supper that evening, she beamed, too. "That's splendid news, Autie," she said. "Of course you deserve it, but a man does not always get what he deserves." Her lip curled. "As you said, Lincoln is the chiefest example there."

"Yes." Custer cut a piece off his beefsteak and tossed it up in the air. Stonewall caught it before it touched the ground, gulped it down, and barked for more. "Later, boy," his master told him. Custer patted the dog's head. To his wife, he went on, "I always marvel at how you manage to move everything we have, beasts and all, without missing a beat."

"Your duty is to be a soldier, Autie. My duty is to keep an eye on you, and one way or another I do it." If Libbie's mouth narrowed a little, if her voice held the slightest edge, Custer, whose gaze was ever most focused on himself, failed to notice.

The cook came out of the kitchen. "Anything else, sir, ma'am?" she asked.

"No, thank you, Esmerelda," Libbie said before Custer could reply. Esmerelda nodded and withdrew.

In a low voice, Custer said, "She cooks well-no one could deny it-but that is one of the homeliest women I have ever set eyes upon, even in Salt Lake City."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Libbie said. Custer chuckled at women's blindness about other women. If Libbie wasn't quite so blind as he thought she was, he failed to notice that, too, as he'd failed for a good many years.

He was pouring cream into his coffee when a soldier rushed up thumping in booted feet to the door to his quarters and pounded on it, shouting, "Colonel Custer! Colonel Custer! General Pope needs to see you right away, sir!"

Custer pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet. "I wonder what it can be," he said. Whatever it was, Stonewall wanted to come along and find out, too. "Down, sir. Down!" Custer commanded. The dog stared at him with resentful eyes as he dashed off, as if to say, Why do you get to have all the fun?

"Hurry, sir!" the orderly said when Custer opened the door.

"Hurry I shall." To prove it, Custer dashed past the soldier and beat him to Pope's office by half a dozen strides. He wasn't quite so young as he had been, but kept himself in top shape. Not breathing hard at all, he saluted and said, "Reporting as ordered, sir."

Pope held up several telegrams. "Colonel, within the last half hour, I have learned that British forces have invaded Montana Territory."

"Good God, sir!" As if lightning had struck close by, electricity arced up Custer's spine.

"I can only presume that their goal is to plunder and ravage the mining regions of that Territory, as the Confederates have done to such unfortunate effect in New Mexico," Pope said. "Whatever their purpose, though, we must and shall beat them back, punishing them as they deserve for thus testing our mettle."

"Yes, sir!" Custer said. "We'll lick them. We must lick them, and so we shall." And then, hardly daring to hope, he asked, "What can we here in Utah "-by which he meant, What can I, myself, personally — "do to lend a hand?"

And Pope replied, "As I told you earlier today, I have spoken highly of you in my reports back to Philadelphia. That praise has apparently borne fruit." He picked through the sheaf of telegrams for one in particular. "You and the Fifth Cavalry, and, specifically, the eight Gatling guns attached to your regiment are ordered to Great Falls, Montana, there to join in defending our beloved country. And you, Colonel, are ordered to take overall command of that defense, with the brevet rank of brigadier general." He stood up and shook his hand. "Congratulations, General Custer!"

In a pink-tinged daze, Custer shook the proffered hand. "Thank you very much, sir," he whispered. He'd dreamt of stars on his shoulder straps since the day he entered West Point. Now, at last, they were his. "I shall save our country, sir," he declared, while an interior voice added, In spite of those Gatling guns.