hunkered right against it. Not that far away sat a cabin of peeled cottonwood logs, crudely roofed with oiled canvas that served as a photographer’s cabin, where for the nominal price of a dollar, any soldier could send a tintype home to family and loved ones.
In the early morning’s cool breezes, the stars-and-stripes swallowtail guidons snapped feverishly, popping alongside the blue regimental flag bearing the proud eagle of the Seventh. Forward of them all sailed Custer’s own personal standard—a deep blue-and-scarlet silk of his own design, crossed silver sabers nearly covering the entire field.
Two full miles of army wound its way up the hills from Fort Abraham Lincoln, twelve hundred men: Terry’s single company of Sixth Infantry, two companies of the Seventeenth Infantry, Custer’s Seventh, plus one hundred seventy-six civilians—the entire procession mounted on or pulled by some seventeen hundred animals parading out of the badlands of the Missouri River. The spectacle included one hundred fourteen six-mule-team wagons, along with the thirty-seven two-horse teams and some seventy other vehicles.
At about two o’clock Custer chose a pleasant campsite appropriate for the entire command and the grazing of so many animals on the banks of the Little Heart River thirteen miles out from the fort. With Libbie beside him he rode to a gentle swell of land to watch the columns approach, his own heart pounding with martial pride at the sight spread before him across the gold and brown and green of prairie, the great land sprinkled with a bright carpet of its spring flowers.
“They’re your soldiers, Autie. No mistake of that,” she sighed as he slid the hat from his head and rubbed at the bristles of thinning hair. “You must care for each and every one of them as your own children.”
Custer looked at her strangely for a moment. “I always put the welfare of my men first, Libbie. What a strange thing for you to tell me.”
She shook her head, not at all knowing now why she herself had said it. “Look, Bo!” Libbie pointed down at the approaching columns. “You can see dear Tom down there!”
“Sure enough!” He laughed as they both waved to that tiny figure in creamy buckskins and a white slouch hat perched astride his dun mare.
“How much he dresses like you, Autie. That man fairly worships you, like young Boston, even little nephew Harry. Big brother, brave uncle—you are every bit of that and more to the whole family now. What would any of them do without you?”
Custer stared absently at Tom, still such a tiny, almost indistinct figure among that sea of blue tunics. “After this campaign, he’ll be his own man, Libbie. No longer any need of him following on my coattails. I’ll see to it. Tom is destined to ascend the upper rungs of the army ladder. And I—I’d like to take you on to Washington, my dear.”
“Washington?” She placed a delicate hand against her breast in surprise.
“No … you might fool others, Libbie,” he chided, “but you can’t convince me you haven’t thought of it many times.”
“Why, the last time we were there together was during the war. Our abbreviated honeymoon, as I recall.”
“Just start getting used to the idea!”
He swept her chin into his cupped palm, planting a kiss on her parted lips. Custer held his mouth to hers for a long time, until he finally opened his eyes to find her staring mule-eyed at him.
“At least you didn’t pull away this time,” he said, licking his lips, tasting the tantalizing flavor of her lip rouge. “Perhaps you enjoyed my touch.”
“Y-yes,” she finally stammered. “I have … have always enjoyed your touch—oh, how I will miss you, Autie!”
Libbie raised her ivory chin and closed her eyes for him this time. Her lips parted slightly, inviting.
Custer had never refused her.
CHAPTER 3
JUST before dawn on the eighteenth, a summer squall rumbled over the valley of the Little Heart River, soaking everything that hadn’t been covered with gum ponchos or rubber sheets, leaving cargo, wagons, and tents steaming beneath the new sun.
At eight A.M. the air still hung heavy as the regimental paymaster completed his issuance to the men of the Seventh Cavalry. Custer had purposely ordered him to accompany his troops west on the first day’s march so that no soldier could be tempted to spend his meager pay with the post sutler, or with those painted prostitutes at Sadie’s Shady Bower or Clementine’s Retreat, Bismarck’s infamous fleshpots.
In addition, the general gave his troops a few minutes to write a letter home, as Custer knew many would be sending money back to family in the States.
“Mr. Cooke! Have trumpeter Voss sound ‘The General,’” Custer ordered his adjutant, Lieutenant W. W. Cooke. “Let’s be pulling for the Powder River!”
“Aye, General!” Cooke snapped his heels together, giving a smart salute.
Custer said to Libbie: “Every time I think about it, I’m glad I made Cooke adjutant before we moved the regiment to Kentucky to control those infernal sheet-draped night riders. He’s been a blessing ever since. Not that Moylan wasn’t competent. Just that, well—Mr. Cooke adds a dash of something to our corps.”
“Because he’s a Canadian?” she asked, hinting at a grin.
He shook his head. “I’m not quite sure just what it is, really. He has a way with the ladies, as does brother Tom. Why, I’d dare venture to say those two dandies have seen more—well, let’s just say those two make a rounding pair, they do. Dashing, gallant gentlemen. Exactly what I want folks to think of the Seventh when they lay eyes on officers like Cookey or Tom.”
“You’ve surrounded yourself with the very best, dear,” she reminded him, handing her empty coffee tin to Custer.
“More, Mrs. Custer?” he asked.
“No.” She rose, combing her hands down that long buckskin riding habit her husband had ordered tailored in St. Paul especially for her. “The darkest of hours is upon me, dear, sweet man. I must tear myself from you and let you go off to your other mistress now.”
Custer twitched at her sudden declaration. “Whatever can you mean by that?”
“That beautiful, dark-eyed, seductive young mistress who keeps calling you away from my arms with her siren song, Autie.” Libbie turned west, gazing down that gentle slope where the bustle of twelve hundred men and many more animals raised a deafening clamor.
As that noise rumbled up the hillside toward their informal officers’ row, she continued. “I’ve known about her for a long … long time, Bo. But, kept it to myself, not wishing to clutter up our lives with decisions … having to choose. Let’s face it—I knew I would lose if it ever came down to it. So why force you to choose between me and her?”
He had struggled to keep the young dark-eyed one out of his mind—out of his mind completely but for those long, soul-chilling winter nights when he found himself recalling a long winter gone.… Only when he was lacking what Libbie had for too long neglected to give him of herself … only when he could no longer force down that memory of the dark-skinned one he had kept hidden away inside him for these seven long years … only then did Custer admit to himself that he had always wanted to go back … back in time and—
Libbie was in his arms suddenly, spilling the remaining coffee in his cup all over a boot and a forearm. He was even more surprised by her impulsive embrace.
“You silly,” she murmured into the linsey-woolsey shirt she had personally sewn for him. “You can be so thickheaded at times.”
“Thick-headed?”
“Your mistress.” She stepped back, cocked her head at him with a stern gleam of reproachment in her calf-
