Seated together on the stoop, Prudence Chaffee and Marie-Louise watched Madeline. A woman in the crowd, May's sister, wept loudly. Heely opened his mouth to say something.
"She's right."
Heely and everyone else turned toward the voice. Andy stepped into the center of the lighted area. "They've left us only one choice. The one printed in the U.S. Constitution."
"What are you talking about, Sherman?" Foote asked.
"I'm talking about what it says in the second amendment. 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."'
"Showin' off his damn lawbook learnin'," someone else muttered. Andy paid no attention:
"I'm talking about starting our own militia company. Right here."
"You're a fool," Heely said. "If there's anything those Klan boys hate worse than the League, it's nigra militia. I am opposed —"
"I'm afraid you have nothing to say about it," Madeline broke in. "I think you're right, Andy. We have to protect ourselves. If those Klansmen come to Mont Royal, we won't have time to send to Charleston for soldiers."
Jane asked, "Where will we get guns?"
"Buy them in the city," Madeline said.
"Won't it be expensive?" Prudence asked.
Madeline gave her a strange, grieving look that neither she not Marie-Louise nor any of the others understood. "I should imagine. I'll find the money."
Wrote Mr. J. Lee, the architect, asking him to suspend work. The money for his services must be spent another way.
46
Here was the true prairie. Not a tree broke the horizon. It was the last day of October, and the wind scything over the ground foretold winter. Steel-colored skies expanded the vast, bleak space.
A tiny dot appeared, near the cut bank of a meandering creek. It enlarged to a horse and rider — Satan and Charles. Bundled into three shirts layered beneath the gypsy robe, he was still freezing. The hem of the robe whipped and snapped around him. The Spencer stock jutted above his left shoulder.
His eyes searched a large arc ahead, saw nothing. He chewed on a cold cigar, grumpily. Hell of a season to start a war, he thought. But if there was to be war, he wanted to take part. He'd quit his most recent job, loading freight at the wagon depot near Fort Leavenworth, and ridden over two hundred miles in the bitter autumn for that purpose.
In another half hour buildings of stone and adobe appeared on the horizon. Fort Dodge at last. He'd been resting Satan at an easy pace. Now he put him into a fast trot
He saw a big wagon park, then mounted squads drilling. He heard the crackle of practice fire from beyond the fort. This wasn't a post sunk into routine; there was too much activity. It got his blood up.
The officer of the day cast a wary look at the somewhat sinister stranger and said he might find those he asked about in the sutler's. Charles turned south past the stables to a flat-roofed adobe building with horses tethered outside. He put Satan with them and went in.
Dutch Henry Griffenstein was playing cards at an old round table in the corner. The largest pile of paper currency lay in front of him. Charles didn't know the three other civilians in the game. One, a nondescript man with tangled hair and a pipe in his teeth, kept spilling the deck as he tried to shuffle. "You're too drunk, Joe," said the player on his left, relieving him of the cards. Joe belched and slouched down on his tailbone, indifferent.
"Charlie," Griffenstein exclaimed, jumping up. "You got the telegram."
"I started the very next day."
"Boys," Dutch Henry said, leading him to the table, "this is Cheyenne Charlie Main. Charlie, this here's Stud Marshall, this is Willow Roberts, and here" — his tone shaded into deference as he presented the unkempt man, who was about ten years older than Charles — "our chief of scouts, California Joe Milner."
California Joe, whose eyes barely focused, shook Charles's hand. It was hard to say whose palm was more callused. Milner wore a filthy Spanish sombrero, his red side whiskers hadn't been trimmed in a while, and he was altogether one of the most slovenly men Charles had ever seen.
"Joe's the man I work for, Charlie," Dutch Henry said. "You, too, now."
California Joe belched. "If the general says so." He had an accent. Nothing cultivated, like fine Southern speech. It was the nasal whine of the mountain border. Tennessee maybe, or Kentucky.
"He means Custer," Dutch Henry said. "We got more than one general. We got General Al Sully, too. Little Phil put him in charge of the Seventh while Curly was still exiled. Sent him south of the Arkansas to chase the Indians. He didn't do so well. That's when Phil asked Sherman to remit Curly's sentence so we'd have a field commander who knows how to fight. They're both lieutenant colonels, Custer and Sully, but Sully's brevet is only lieutenant general, so Custer says he ranks him. They're sniping and fussing all the time."
"No business of ours," California Joe said to Charles. "I report to Custer, and so do you if he hires you. Ever scouted in the Indian Territory?"
"I traveled it for more than a year with a couple of trading partners. I can't say I memorized it."
"That part don't make no difference. All you really need to scout is a pocket compass and balls."
"You'll have to take my word that I qualify."
California Joe laughed. "You said he's all right, Henry. He is all right. Main, you go see Custer. You'll find him drillin' his troops at the new camp down on Blufif Creek. If he okays you, the wage is fifty dollars a month."
"I brought my own horse."
Another belch. "Then it's seventy-five. I'm gonna need another damn snort soon."
Charles wasn't much impressed by Milner's drunken buffoonery. Dutch Henry saw that and tugged his arm.
"I need a drink myself. Come on, Charlie, I'll buy. Deal me out, boys." They walked toward the log bar. California Joe picked up his new hand and dropped three cards in the lap of his greasy trousers.
"That's Custer's famous pet?" Charles said, incredulous.
Dutch Henry grinned. "One of the two-legged ones. Custer also brung two of his staghounds when Sherman fixed it so's he could come back from Michigan. We're getting ready for action here. Phil and Uncle Bill finally convinced Grant we should carry the war to the hostiles. Offense, not defense. The plan is to push 'em back to the Territory, and kill those who won't go peaceably to the reservation and stay put."
Charles drank a tall shot of razor-edged popskull in three, swallows. "You mean to say that's the plan with winter coming on?"
"I know it's contrary to sense, but it's really pretty smart of Little Phil. The hostiles will be settled into their villages, and you know as well as I do, their horses will be weak from lack of forage."
"I heard talk at Leavenworth that Sherman wanted Sheridan to move as early as this past August."
"He did, but the damn Interior Department screwed him again. The Olive Branchers made the Army hold off until it set up a safe camp for the hostiles who don't threaten anybody."
Charles scratched the head of a match with his thumbnail. He squinted behind the flame and puffed strong smoke out of the stubby cigar. "Where's the camp?"
"Fort Cobb. Satanta already took his Kiowas in. Ten Bears took his Comanches. Some Cheyennes went there, too, but General Hazen sent them away because we're not at peace with the Cheyennes. The Cheyennes are the ones we're going after. Some of 'em captured another poor white woman, Mrs. Blinn, and her little boy, over by Fort Lyon, first of October —"