Custer said, "We didn't know what the devil we were doing when we made war, and we don't know what the devil we're doing now that we're trying to make peace, either."
" Blaine can't stomach giving away half of Maine," Welton said scornfully. "If he does, it'll make the state we ship him back to smaller."
"We should have hanged Lincoln — look at the rabble-rousing he's doing now-and we should hang that dashed idiot Blaine, too," Custer said. Even with whiskey in him, he would not curse in the presence of women.
"That's what comes of electing Republicans," Libbie said. There her opinions marched with her husband's.
"Once we finally do have peace-if we finally do have peacethat'll be a sham, too, nothing but a hoax and a humbug," Custer said. "It always has been. Sooner or later, the Fifth will go back to Kansas, and we'll ride along the border with the CSA, and sure as the devil the Kiowas and the Comanches will ride up and burn a farm and kill the men and do worse to the women, and then they'll go back down into Indian Territory where we can't follow 'em. It's been going on ever since the War of Secession, and what can we do about it? Not a blasted thing I can see." A considerable silence followed. Into it, Custer added, "That's the way it's always been, and I don't sec it changing any time soon. I wish I did, but I don't."
Not quite quietly enough, one of Henry Welton's officers muttered, "I wish to Jesus the Fifth would go back to Kansas, and get the devil out of our hair."
Another considerable silence filled the room, this one not nearly so sympathetic nor companionable as the first. Custer might have blown up. Instead (and he saw Libbie looking at him in surprise), he sipped his whiskey and affected not to hear. When the Fifth did go back to Kansas, he would not be going back with it, at least not as regimental commander. That was too small a position for a brigadier general to hold. Maybe, as John Pope had been doing before being sent to Utah, he would take charge of several regiments. Maybe the War Department would send him back to Washington, to help clean up the mess there. Whether or not he did that, someone would have to take care of it.
And maybe, when 1884 rolled around, he would lay down his commission, take off his uniform, put on a civilian sack suit and top hat, and campaign not against the British or the Confederates or the Indians but against the manifest and manifold iniquities of the Republican Party. That, though, was not entirely up to him. He would have to see what-and whom-the leaders of the Democrats had in mind.
Henry Welton said, "General, when you do go back to Kansas, would you arrange to leave behind some of your Gatling-gun crews as a defense against another British invasion?"
"Why, certainly," Custer said. "As a matter of fact…" He was about to say, You 're welcome to every blasted one of them. Before he could, he saw Libbie looking intently at him. That look reminded him of the slaughter the Gatlings had wreaked on the Kiowas. They might do the same again. Tom would surely have thought so. He softened his words: "As a matter of fact, you can have several of them."
"Thank you, sir." By Welton's tone, he'd expected Custer to give him all the contraptions.
Maybe the whiskey helped fuel Custer's chuckle. Being too predictable didn't do. "See me tomorrow, Colonel, and we'll see if we can't settle on how many can stay here and how many will go with us."
"Yes, sir, I'll do that," Welton answered. "I do wish you all the best on your return to Kansas." That was more polite than the way his junior officer had phrased it, but meant the same thing. Henry Welton did not care for having a bigger chief in the teepee with him.
When supper was over, Custer and Libbie made their way back to their quarters. It was cold outside, and had got colder since they'd come to the dining room. Inside, it was nice and warm. Libbie spoke one word: "Whiskey." All at once, it was chillier in there than out in the snow. Custer wanted another drink.
Chapter 20
"As it then agreed, General?" Alfred Von Schlieffen asked. "You will send officers to Berlin to study the methods of the German Empire?" You will send officers to Berlin to learn how to do things right? was what he meant, but, although no diplomat, he knew better than to phrase it so.
Major General William S. Rosecrans scratched the end of his long nose, then nodded. "It is agreed, Colonel," he told the German military attache, "or rather, the president, the secretary of state, and I agree to it. The Royal Navy, unfortunately, has other ideas."
Schlieffen said, "Had President Blaine made peace some time ago, the British would not have found it necessary the blockade of your coast to resume."
"I am painfully aware of that," Rosecrans said, and his voice did indeed hold pain. "The entire country, I would say, is painfully aware of that-the entire country, less one man."
"What can be done to persuade him?" Schlieffen asked. "Even if he would for more war make ready, he cannot fight more now. He needs to win time in which the United States can get over this fight. So it has always been. So, I think, it will always be."
"Do you know the fable about the goddamn donkey dithering between two bales of hay, Colonel?" Rosecrans asked. After Schlieffen had nodded, the U.S. general-in-chief went on, "Well, sir, James G. Blaine is that donkey, except both bales are poisoned. If you were one of my colonels instead of one of the Kaiser's colonels, I'd say he was a prize horse's ass, too. But you aren't, so I won't."
"But you just-" Schlieffen broke off, realizing exactly what Rosecrans had done. The military attache sniffed, as if he had a cold. He'd smelled liquor on Rosecrans' breath before. He didn't smell it now. Anger and frustration could also drive a man into indiscretion.
Rosecrans went on, "One bale of hay is making peace with the bastards who beat us. But that means admitting they beat us, and he can't stomach it. The other bale is going back to war with 'cm. But if we do, the only thing that'll happen is that they'll lick us some more. He knows as much, but he keeps trying to sick it up, too. And that leaves him nothing to do but dither. Stupid fool's got pretty good at it, too, wouldn't you say? He's had practice enough lately, anyway."
"This dithering, though-" Schlieffen liked the sound of the word, and repeated it: "This dithering cannot last. President Blaine must remember, he is not the only one who can begin again the war. Come soon or come late, your enemies will force you to fight if you do not obey now. This blockade is only a small thing. Much more could come. Much more would come."
Rosecrans' wrinkles got deeper. "I know that, damn it. You'll have a friend in Richmond — your attache to the Confederate States, I mean."
"Aber naturlich, a colleague." Schlieffen made the correction without noticing he'd done it. Since his wife's death-to a large degree before his wife's death, too-he'd so immersed himself in work that he had no time for friends.
"Then you'll have got word from him, one way or another, that the Confederate States are moving troops toward the Potomac," Rosecrans said.
"I had heard this, yes," Schlieffen said, nodding. "I was not going to speak of it if you did not; such is not my place."
"They're moving a good many troops." Rosecrans' voice was sour, heavy. "The railroad makes it easy to move a lot of troops in a hurryhell of a lot easier than moving 'em on roads knee-deep in mud would be. They aren't coming up toward the border for their amusement, or for ours."
"You are also moving troops, I know," Schlieffen said.
"Oh, yes." The U.S. general-in-chief bobbed his head up and down. "If they hit us, we'll give 'em the best damn fight we can-don't doubt it for a minute, Colonel, the best fight we can. But what you may not have heard"-he was almost whispering now, like a boy talking about some bugbear or hobgoblin-"is that General Jackson is back in Richmond."