All the handbills for the forthcoming visit of Trump's players showed a change. The performance at Fort Harker had been stricken out.
"I hear your lady friend's responsible," Barnes told Charles. "She found out the brass wouldn't let any colored boys into the same hall with whites. Our men, y'understand. Your friend sent a letter saying that she and Trump had talked it over, and the Army at Fort Harker could go fry. You want to see her, you'll have to traipse on over to Ellsworth."
Just like Willa, he thought. Crusading was an unchangeable part of her nature. It was one reason, though not the main reason, that he continually warned himself to stay away from her. Then he would remember the silver-gold glint of her hair, and her vivid merry eyes, and the feel of her in his arms —
He knew he'd traipse to Ellsworth, no matter what the consequences.
ST. LOUIS, MO., FRIDAY, NOV. 1
HON. O. H. BROWNING, Secretary of the Interior:
Please congratulate the President and the country upon the entire success of the Indian Peace Commission thus far. It concluded a treaty with the Cheyennes of the South on the 28th, this being the only tribe that has been at war in that quarter. More than 2,000 Cheyennes were present ...
34
Trump's players performed in Frank's Hall, City of Kansas, then ferried over the river to repeat their show at the Leavenworth post hall the following night. The troupe consisted of Sam, Willa, Tim Trueblood, and a stout character actress, Miss Suplee. A large trunk held their few simple props and costume pieces. Willa had argued Sam out of such encumbrances as a stock of "genuine" diamond rings, the sort of trinket given away on Saturday night by many touring companies.
Brigadier Duncan attended the Shakespearean evening. He'd invited Willa to stay with Maureen until her train left for Fort Riley the next afternoon at five. "I imagine you're anxious to see my grand-nephew," he said. Willa said she was.
"Why, he's grown remarkably," she said next day. Duncan had just returned for the noon meal, instead of taking it in the officers' mess. Little Gus kept scrambling off his chair. Duncan ordered him back, good-natured but firm about it.
"He'll be three come the end of this year." The brigadier spooned into the hot turtle soup Maureen had prepared. The boy, sturdy and towheaded, jumped off his chair and seized Willa's hand.
"She's all thumbs," he said to Duncan, and broke into a shrieking laugh. "All thumbs, all thumbs! Thumbs on her head, thumbs on her arms." He was red-faced, convulsed.
"What is he talking about, Willa?"
"After you left this morning, I brought a bowl of corn-meal mush to the table. I was careless and dropped the bowl. It cracked. I was annoyed with myself and said I was all thumbs. He sees the picture in his imagination."
"All thumbs," Gus cried, jumping up and down until Duncan shushed him. The boy obeyed but he couldn't be repressed for long. He tugged her hand again. "Another walk. Aunt Willa?"
She noticed Duncan's keen look, turned pink. "After your nap, but not until."
Maureen scooped him up and carried him to bed. His legs kicked and his arms waved in uninhibited merriment. "All thumbs!" He was giggling as the door closed.
Duncan said, "Aunt Willa." He tilted his head with an approving smile.
"I didn't prompt him. It was his idea."
Over the noise of a troop of mounted men riding by on the parade ground, Duncan said, "You'd like to be more than his aunt. That would be good for him. And for his father."
"Well —" A bit nervous about it, she shrugged. "I would. But I'm not sure how Charles would feel. He's a wonderful man, but there's a strange, distant streak in him."
"The war." Willa gazed at the brigadier, her pale eyes as quizzical as his had been a few moments ago. "The war did that to a lot of soldiers. On top of it, Charles lived through the massacre of a man who befriended him."
"I understand. I just don't know how long someone can use the past to excuse present behavior."
Duncan frowned. "Until the patience of others is exhausted, I suppose. Patience, and affection too."
She concentrated on folding her napkin. "Never the latter. But the former — I don't know. My patience grows very thin sometimes. I refuse to deny everything I believe just to please Charles."
"Charles is strong, like you. Right or wrong, he won't abandon this vendetta against the Indians."
"And I hate it. I hate it for what it is, and for what it does to him." She paused. "I'm almost afraid to see him at Ellsworth."
The old soldier reached out and closed his thick-knuckled hand over hers. She turned away, overcome with embarrassing tears. The squeeze of his powerful fingers said he understood her fear. His eyes said she had some cause for it.
Charles's detachment came in the night before the performance. He found Ike Barnes with Floyd Hook, discussing details of a C Company club modeled after the International Order of Good Templars, a society to promote temperance. There were chapters at many Western posts. As the old man explained, the epidemic Army problem of drunkenness hadn't spread into his troop, and the club would help insure that it wouldn't. First Sergeant Star Eyes Williams would be responsible for calling the initial meeting.
Tense about seeing Willa again, yet eager too, Charles shaved and spruced up in a clean uniform with big yellow bandanna and regulation hat. Since he'd stabled Satan to rest him, he took another company horse for the five-mile ride along the north bank of the Smoky Hill to what was officially called the Addition to Ellsworth. As he rode, he whistled the music Willa had written out. His Carolina music, he called it.
Much of the original site platted by the Ellsworth Town Company had been destroyed in June when the normally placid Smoky Hill overflowed its banks and washed away flimsy cottages and stores. Scarcely had they disappeared when the town promoters bought new land, on higher ground to the northwest. They filed a new plat in Sauna to create the Addition, which showed every sign of becoming the real town of Ellsworth. It already had its own depot to supplement the one at Fort Harker; the first passenger train had rolled in from the east July 1.
The town also had cattle pens and chutes, testifying to the developers' faith that Ellsworth could become a shipping point for the trail herds pushing up Chisholm's Trail from Texas. Ellsworth boosters derided Abilene, about sixty miles east, and its promoter, Joe McCoy, even though McCoy had received his first big herd in September.
The November evening was clear and bitter. Charles was bundled in his thigh-length double-breasted buffalo coat. Weaving through wagon and horse traffic on the Addition's rutted main street, he saw half a dozen wagons approaching in a line. Red-stained tarpaulins mounded over the bed of each. Broad swipes of dried blood marked the wagon sides. Riding ahead of the wagons was a young man Charles recognized. The horseman next to the young man recognized Charles.
"Howdy. You're Main. We met at the Golden Rule House."
Charles wasn't accustomed to hearing his right name, but he didn't let on. "I remember. You're Griffenstein." He peeled off his gauntlet and leaned over to shake hands.
"This here's my boss, Mr. Cody."
Charles shook hands with the young man too. "Griffenstein said you wouldn't stay in the hotel business. Are you two hunters for the railroad?" He'd recognized the blood smell pervading the air.