The short, dark orderly looked at that tall soldier beside him with something akin to worship. “Yes, General.”
“So tell me what you’ve written about this momentous morning so far … a morning of which grand destinies are made, Mr. Burkman.”
The young private cleared his throat and glanced up at his benefactor nervously. “Uhhh, all I’ve written so far is
“Nothing else?” His azure blue eyes scanned the activity on the parade ground. “All this time here on the porch this morning, and all you’ve been inspired to write is the date?”
“There’s more, sir—but I’m a little at the loss for words, General. I’ve never been on a campaign before … it’s all a bit overwhelming to me right now.”
“I quite understand, Private,” the officer replied with that famous, peg-toothed smile of his, slapping his orderly on the back. “Tell me, then, have you scribbled anything else of note?”
“Only …
The officer smiled beneath the bushy mustache that hung like corn straw over his mouth. “Very good, John. I like it. But—you ought to scratch the last part of that. We’re going to put an end to the Indian Wars once and for all.”
The young private licked nervously at the dulled point of his pencil, then set it to work, scratching across the sheet of his ledger, attempting to capture more of his commander’s words for history. “Yes, sir,” he replied absently as his hand flew across the page.
“Keep at it, Striker!” He patted the young man’s shoulder again. “You’ll have much to tell your grandchildren about this campaign. There won’t be a man, woman, or child across this great republic of ours who won’t know about the glory-bidden U.S. Seventh Cavalry.”
He stepped toward the edge of the porch, eyes raking the parade ground approvingly. Finally he stuffed his pale fingers into the skintight yellow doeskin gloves and tugged at the tall fringed gauntlets as he plodded down two steps and stopped, breathing deeply of the air of anticipation that hung thick over the parade.
“John, there won’t be a soul from Washington City to St. Louis who fails to know about George Armstrong Custer when the dust settles and my personal standard flies over the battlefield.”
“Yes, General!” Burkman hopped down the steps of the Custer home constructed just west of the massive parade ground so he would stand beside the taller man. He truly idolized the dashing “Boy General,” hero of the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War.
He turned to Burkman and again smiled engagingly beneath the bristly mustache. “St. Louis is the site of the Democratic convention next month.”
Burkman was purely muddled now. “I thought you hated politics and politicians both, sir. Why, after what President Grant and the Congressional Committee did to you—”
“Power brokers, Mr. Burkman.” Some of that bright smile had drained from a face beginning to show the signs of age and the toll exacted by years lived at the mercy of wind and rain, sun and cold. The march of time was marked like a war map on that face. “Power to accomplish much of what needs to be done rests in the hands of a few power brokers … and they can select men who will grab the reins of our nation and lead it into our second century.”
“Yes! Our centennial, sir. What an opportunity—”
“Let us take that opportunity in hand—a destiny thrust on few men, Mr. Burkman, a destiny most men would shrink from. Stay at my side, young man, and I’ll take you into this great republic’s second century.”
“I’d be privileged to stand beside you under any circumstances, sir.”
“For the time being, Private Burkman, what say we just head for the Yellowstone?” Custer tugged the cream-colored, wide-brimmed slouch hat over the short, uncharacteristic stubble that covered his head. He worried the new hat’s sweatband into place. “It’ll take some time getting used to this damned haircut Libbie gave me yesterday.”
“Why so short, sir?”
“I wasn’t the only one. Lieutenant Varnum, who heads up our detail of scouts talked me into it, really. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Easier to care for and a hell of a lot cooler. So I got a pair of horse clippers from the livery sergeant and set Libbie to work in the parlor.” He yanked the hat off again and ran a callused, freckled hand over the reddish, thinning stubble. “Not a bad job of it either.”
Custer quickly added, “Not a bad job for a green recruit going west on his first campaign to fight hostiles along the Yellowstone! A dad-blamed shavetail! That’s just the way I feel with this jack-gagger haircut.”
He skipped on down the rest of the wide steps that spilled onto the parade ground from the front veranda of the second home he had built for Libbie at this northern post. Standing across the river from the frontier town of Bismarck, Dakota Territory, the first army outpost built nearby in 1872 had been christened Fort McKeen, home then for the Sixth U.S. Infantry. Not far from it the new buildings of Fort Abraham Lincoln had sprung up on the northern prairie to house some nine companies so that when Custer’s regiment arrived late in the summer of 1873 after a futile pursuit of the Sioux along the Yellowstone, this new home of the Seventh Cavalry sat ready in its fresh coat of paint. Army gray, a color known only for its distinction of losing itself against the prairie background. For some time, quarters were cramped, as the post had room enough for only half the regiment.
Winters could be murderous, with subzero temperatures for weeks at a time, brutal temperatures requiring one soldier’s full-time efforts to keep the numerous fireplaces stoked in the Custer household: six fireplaces on the ground floor and four on the second story. It had been one of those second-floor fireplaces that caused the house to burn to its foundation in the frigid month of February 1874. Just about everything the Custers owned had been destroyed in that disaster, but Libbie mourned most the loss of but one cherished item: a wig she had woven from trimmings of her beloved husband Autie’s long, curly, red blond hair.
As soon as the ground thawed that spring, a second luxurious home had risen on the same foundation. The pride not only of the Custers, but of the entire Seventh as well, it boasted a thirty-two-foot living room with a wide bay window, and a billiard room on the second floor.
No home with so much style would be complete without a library adorned with Custer’s favorite classics, along with biographies of famous generals, history texts, and a smattering of fiction. In addition, there were several rooms where he exhibited his collection of guns, Indian artifacts, and stuffed animal trophies collected over his years in the west. In that decade Custer had harvested quite a collection of trophies, each taken with a nonregulation sporting weapon. His reputation with a rifle had spread far and wide. Even Richard A. Roberts, civilian secretary assigned to General Alfred H. Terry for this summer’s Sioux campaign, had written, “Custer is the best shot with a Creedmore rifle.”
Over the door to Custer’s study, where many of his most prized mementos were displayed, hung a hand- lettered sign reading:
MY ROOM
(All hope abandon, ye who enter here)
(Beware the Dog)
In that study Custer had spent many hours toiling over his memoirs the last couple of years, insisting that Libbie be in the room with him while he wrote “Battling with the Sioux on the Yellowstone” and began his “War Memoirs” for
