'I'm not satisfied with the reports the cavalry is bringing us from western Kentucky,' Custer declared, 'not satisfied at all. By God, Major, they call that scouting? They call that gathering intelligence? Why, when I was in a blue uniform instead of this moss-colored monstrosity-'
Dowling inserted a couple of mental earplugs as his commander ranted on. Most of the men who'd fought in the War of Secession were dead, and just about all the ones who weren't dead had long since been put out to pasture. Custer should have been, as far as Dowling was concerned, but he hadn't. He'd flourished, albeit more on account of persistence and luck than any military virtue past blind aggressiveness.
He'd been on the plains when the Second Mexican War broke out, and spent that conflict, the graveyard of so many U.S. military reputations, using Gatling guns on the Kiowas and then on a division of Canadians led over the border by a British general even more blindly aggressive than he was. Having made himself a hero in two wars conspicuously lacking such-and having made sure the newspapers let the world know just what a hero he was-he'd assured his rise to lieutenant general's rank and his tenure in the Army for as long as his bloated body would endure. It hadn't given out yet.
The real problem was that he'd had only a couple of new thoughts since the 1860s, and none since the 1880s. Gently, Dowling tried to bring him up toward modern times: 'Much harder for cavalry to move now, sir, than it used to be. Machine guns have been hard on horses, you know. Our aeroplanes have brought back excellent sketches of Confederate defenses, though, and with them-'
'Machine guns are all very well for mowing down savages, but properly trained and disciplined troops shouldn't be so leery of them,' Custer said. 'Our troops are shying from them like so many virgins at the touch of a man. And as for aeroplanes-' He snapped his fingers. 'They're all very fine for impressing yahoos at county fairs, but you can't take them seriously as weapons of war. Mark my words, Major: in five years' time the newfangled contraptions will be as forgotten as Ozymandias.'
'Yes, sir,' Dowling said, that seeming a safer course than asking who Ozymandias was and having to sit through a lecture that had nothing to do with the war. Still trying valiantly to remind Custer that they had reached the twentieth century, he went on, 'The couple of armored automobiles we've been able to deploy have also given good service.'
'Newfangled contraptions,' Custer repeated, as if scoring a point. 'I know what we need to do, Major. I merely need to ensure the Navy's cooperation before we undertake it. If we can throw a strong force of infantry into Kentucky, they'll beat down the Confederates' defenses there, allowing our cavalry to get into the enemy's rear and complete his destruction as he flees. If the sailors can hold off the Rebel river monitors-'
'Yes, sir-if,' Dowling said. If, on the other hand, one of those heavily armed, heavily armored craft got loose among the barges and such shipping Americans across the river, the slaughter would be horrendous. And, since the monitors were so heavily armored, holding them away from the landing force would be anything but easy-no wonder the Navy was shilly-shallying about that.
'I shall go to the front,' Custer said suddenly, catching Dowling off guard. 'Yes, that's what I'll do. My presence there will surely inspire the men to give the utmost effort. And,' he added with an angry snort, 'I am sick to death of being bombarded with telegrams demanding that I move faster.
Roosevelt delights in having the War Department nag me. He has delighted in making my life difficult for more than thirty years.' The general commanding First Army and the president had fought the British together during the Second Mexican War. By all the signs, neither had enjoyed the experience. Custer went on, 'We are punching into Canada, I hear-but that is all Roosevelt will let me do: hear about it, I mean.'
'Yes, sir,' Dowling said in his most placating tones.
That did no good. Custer was off to the races: 'Damn it to hell and gone, I should be the one punching into Canada. Roosevelt knows what I owe the goddamn Canucks. They murdered my brother-shot him down like a dog in front of my eyes. I deserve that command, and the chance to take revenge at last. But do I get it? Have I any chance of getting it? No, by jingo! Roosevelt has had it in for me since 1881, and he will not give it to me-not till my dying day, I wager. The one thing I want more than any other in all the world, and I cannot have it. Do you know- have you got any idea-how maddening that is?'
'I'm sure it must be, sir,' Dowling said with some sympathy-some, but not much, for he'd been listening to Custer on the same subject for longer than he wanted to. Custer would not let it go. He clung like a bulldog, or, considering the bare natural state of his gums, perhaps more like a leech.
He took a couple of deep breaths, then went on, 'We are fighting hard all across the plains. We have invaded western Virginia — so why, the brass hats in Philadelphia demand, don't I move? Idiots! Cretins! Imbeciles! Because Teddy Roosevelt has it in for me, they do, too. To them, Dowling, the Ohio and the Mississippi are little squiggly blue lines on a map, nothing more. I am the one who has to find the way across. Make arrangements at once to transfer headquarters to Vienna, Illinois, as soon as is practicable. Why are you still standing there gaping?'
'I'll attend to it immediately, sir,' Dowling promised. Custer had a point-throwing an army into Confederate territory wasn't going to be easy here. But if he thought his presence at the front would help things along, he was probably fooling himself. Whether he understood it or not, war had changed over the past fifty years. Most of the soldiers wouldn't know he arrived, and most of the ones who did know wouldn't care.
'And one more thing,' Custer ordered. 'Keep it secret. Half these Missourians and more than half the downstate lllinoisans wish they were Rebs. Our scouts may have trouble in Kentucky, but theirs, I have no doubt, enjoy a fine old time here.'
'I'll take care of that, too, sir,' Dowling said. 'If the Germans can keep their plans secret from the damned Frenchmen they rule in Alsace-Lorraine, I expect we can keep the would-be Southerners from getting word of ours.'
'We'd better.' Custer bared his teeth in what was meant for a fearsome grimace. Since those teeth were far too white and even and perfect to have stayed in his own mouth for three-quarters of a century, the effect was more nearly ludicrous than frightening. Dowling quickly turned his back so the commanding general wouldn't see him giggle, then hurried off to do Custer's bidding.
Baking in the late summer sun, the plains of Kansas didn't look much different from the plains of Sequoyah just to the south. 'Hellfire,' Corporal Stephen Ramsay said, 'once we got past the barbed wire, we ain't had any trouble a-tall.'
'Good,' Sergeant Bobby Brock answered. 'We want to do this quick and get the hell out.' He looked around at the two companies of cavalry. 'We ain't got the men to stand up to any big bunch o' Yankee soldiers.'
Both men-Ramsay little and lithe, Brock taller, thicker through the shoulders, and slower-moving-rode just behind the standard bearer. The Stars and Bars flapped lazily. Pointing to it, Ramsay said, 'Maybe the damnyankees up in Kingman'll think that's the United States flag till we're right up on top of 'em. They look enough alike, now don't they?'
'Sure enough do,' Brock agreed.
Ramsay liked to talk. 'Anything that makes our job easier is all right by me,' he said. 'I don't expect any trouble here. Not even the Yankees got enough men to cover all the barbed wire on all the frontier. Our boys shoot off some cannon a ways east of us, they all go runnin' over there to find out what we're doin', an' we slip across easy as you please.'
'Yeah.' Brock let his horse, a big sorrel gelding, trot on for another few paces, then went on, 'I wonder how many soldiers the Yanks got into our country the same kind o' way.'
'However many there was, only way they'll come out is feet first,' Ramsay said confidently. 'They're only Yankees, after all. We licked 'em twice running, an' we'll do it again. Hellfire, war'll be over by winter, on account of they'll have done given up.'
'That'd be good,' Brock said, and let it go, from which Ramsay concluded his sergeant had some doubts. He shrugged. Bobby Brock could be a bit of an old lady sometimes, but you didn't want anybody else along when the fighting got serious.
They rode past a farmhouse. The farmer was out in his fields. He knew right off they were from the Confederate States, and started running like hell back to his farmhouse. 'Shall we get rid of him, sir?' Ramsay asked the captain in charge of the raiders.
Captain Hiram Lincoln often made himself out to be the toughest bird around, maybe because he had such an
