She turned back to Custer suddenly, desperately. “It is come. The hour I dread the most, dear heart. Come … kiss me. And with those lips tell me you have inside some very private and special place reserved just for me still. Kiss me.”
He swept her up and held her fiercely, pressing his lips against her with a consuming passion that surprised him. He too realized the time had come to part—her blackest hour.
Calhoun and Maggie stood some ten feet away, appearing as nonchalant as possible without interrupting the embrace. James stared at the trees, the ground, his fingers—anything. Margaret, on the other hand, grinned impishly at the couple, as if she had just been let in on the biggest secret ever.
“Maggie!” Custer exploded when he noticed her out of the corner of his eye. “How long’ve you been standing there?”
“Long enough!” Libbie answered with a grin, winking at Margaret. “Plain to tell by the smile on your sister’s face!”
“Sure enough.” Margaret winked back with her own Custer blue eyes. “This isn’t a pleasant time for any of us … but it needs something special in the doing. Might as well do it as well as you two in your private parting … if there’s a parting to take place. Right, Jimbo?”
The tall, strapping lieutenant blushed.
She nudged him with her elbow. “Am I ready to bid you farewell, my love?”
Custer had always liked that about his freckle-faced younger sister—her straightforwardness that cut straight to the core or the quick, depending which side you found yourself on. He had always supposed that trait came from growing up the only girl in a family of prank-pulling, mercilessly teasing boys.
Calhoun said, “The corporal with your horse should be—”
“Here,” she answered, turning to watch the young soldier bringing an animal up the slope, followed closely by Tom Custer, who waved his wide-brimmed hat.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Custer asked of his brother.
“Say—that’s a fine ticket you’ve just handed me!” Tom answered as he halted, handing the reins of the saddled mare over to Libbie. “Here I have a sister of blood and a sister of marriage bidding us a sad farewell, and you actually think I’m going to book out on it?”
“Tom is a dashing, gallant young cavalry captain,” Libbie said approvingly. “And you must keep in mind, Autie—he is very available.”
Tom rushed at Libbie, sweeping her off her feet and swinging her round and round several times to the accompaniment of cascading giggles. Finally he dropped Libbie to the ground and kissed her warmly, ending his embrace with a stout hug.
“Libbie … Libbie … Libbie, you dear old lady,” he said, staring down at her brown liquid eyes. “You will get me married off yet, won’t you?”
“I promise, Tom.” And she laid a lovely white hand over her heart in oath. “You’re next. Then Boston and nephew Harry. I keep trying—”
“Oh, you must keep trying,” he begged, smiling larger than life as he gazed into her teary eyes. “Later this summer, after we return from whipping these damned Indians—excuse my swearing, sisters—but you must have some of your lady friends come back out west and join us for vacation. Perhaps Emma Wadsworth or Agnes Bates. I’ll have to get truly serious about this marrying matter this summer, old lady. Will you still help me, sister? Promise?”
She gazed into her brother-in-law’s eyes, that scarlet spot on his cheek from the bullet wound at Saylor’s Creek still very much a rosy birthmark. “You silly man. You’re everything your older brother is not. Of course, I’ll help see you married off to a fine young maiden from Monroe.”
Tom stepped back, sighed, and swept her hand up for a chivalrous kiss. “Thank you, lady fair. If you find for me but half the lady my big brother married, I shall reside in heavenly bliss for the rest of my days on this mortal plane.”
“You’re an errant knight, Thomas Ward Custer.”
“Farewell, m’lady.” And he swept his hat across the ground in a grand bow, then plopped it back atop his head. “I must be off to the Indian wars. Be-damned—appears my company leaves without me!”
Tom scrambled off downhill, turning once as he dashed through the scrubby brush to wave a farewell to his sister and sister-in-law. “I’ll take proper care of James for you, Maggie!” he hollered back to the little group atop the sun-drenched slope.
“I have no fear you will, you naughty boy!” Margaret teased at her brother.
At that very moment the regimental band struck up the plaintive chords of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
The hour was sad I left the maid,
A ling’ring farewell taking;
Her sighs and tears my steps delay’d—
I thought her heart was breaking.
In hurried words her name I bless’d,
I breathed the vows that bind me,
And to my heart in anguish press’d
The girl I left behind me.
Maggie went to Custer. Placing her hands alongside his ruddy cheeks, she boosted herself up on her toes, planting an uncharacteristic kiss on his lips.
“Until I see all those lovely freckles again, brother dear.” Her hands slipped away, swiping at the tears caught in the corners of her eyes.
“Freckles again?”
“You can’t help the sun, Autie,” Libbie remonstrated as she slipped an arm in his.
“I suppose I can’t. A man whose life is outdoors, and me cursed with this fair skin.”
“Just make certain it’s a thick skin, dear,” she reminded, leading him over to her horse. “Able to turn any warrior’s arrow, do you hear?”
He stopped her, turning her round to face him. “The problem I’ll face is not arrows, Rosebud. My main concern is to keep the Indians from running on me. My only fear is that they won’t stand and fight. I don’t want to be left holding onto an empty village again … a hollow victory. If only they’ll stand and fight.”
“Well,” she cleared her throat, thick with sadness, “I myself can’t stand here any longer, dear.” She pressed against him with a fierce, clinging embrace, the way ivy clings to the oak.
Custer himself stood like a plank of rough-hewn timber, arms nailed at his sides, while she hugged him. It was so uncharacteristic of her. In fact, this whole morning had been unlike Libbie. Last night, while she drifted off to sleep with her fragrant chestnut hair spread across his bare chest, he loved sensing her bare breasts rise and fall against his own cool flesh. The closeness of her naked, heated skin … and not being able to have her. All these years—she denied them both their intimacy because it was too painful a reminder. Unable to conceive children, she saw no sense in any intimacy between them at all.
But last night. After all those years.…
Libbie pulled away, running the back of her hand under her nose, and yanked on that scarlet hunting cap he liked her to wear. When she had a bow in the ribbon beneath her chin, right near the ever-present cameo brooch, Elizabeth finally turned to her horse, allowing John Burkman to cup his hands and boost her to the saddle.
For a long, pensive moment, she peered down at the young striker, looking all the shorter against the massive backdrop of tall George Armstrong Custer and the mountainous James Calhoun.
“Good-bye, John.” She finally scratched the words out of her dry throat, wearing a sad smile. “You’ll look after the general for me, won’t you?”
“Why, yes ma’am. I surely will.…” He wrinkled his brow at her woeful expression and was fixing to ask her why she thought her husband needed someone to look after him, but Libbie suddenly whirled away, tapping her high-buttoned boots against the army mount to speed away. She was leaving Dandy behind with her husband. He would take both Vic and Dandy to the Yellowstone.