"Here, lean against this part of the wall," Cooper said to his daughter. "It's cleaner than the rest."
Marie-Louise thanked him with her dark eyes and started to change position. Just then a young man, a civilian with a boyish pale face, curling mustache, and the vivid blue eyes and light hair of a German or Scandinavian, vacated his seat. He gestured for the black woman to take it.
Over the squealing of the wheels Cooper heard other passengers mutter. The Negress shook her head. The young man smiled and gestured again, urging her. Clutching her bundle, the woman hesitantly approached the seat. The man sitting beside the window immediately vacated it. The timid black woman sat down.
The man who had left gave the younger man a glare. Another passenger across the aisle reached for a knife in his belt. His stringy wife restrained his hand. The young civilian saluted the couple with a mocking tilt of his hat and walked to the front end of the car, crossing his arms and leaning there, showing no sign of regret over his act of courtesy.
As the young man settled himself, he noticed Marie-Louise at the other end of the car. Cooper saw color rush to his daughter's cheeks. Then he saw the immediate interest on the face of the young civilian.
A thunderclap. Hard rain began to fall through the holes in the roof. "Here, stand closer," Cooper said, opening the umbrella he'd brought along for such an emergency.
With most of the passengers getting soaked, the train of the Charleston & Savannah line labored northward. Cooper stared at the back of the black woman's head. He was outraged. What next, then? Mixed marriage? Sickles and the Radicals were intent on destroying Southern civilization.
He didn't forget the young civilian. Nor did Marie-Louise, though for entirely different reasons.
Sickles is to be recalled. Perhaps it is a good thing. We have quite enough excuses for violence already.
... Since the treaty of '65 the Cheyennes have made war against the people of the United States, and having confederated with them the Apaches and Arrapahoes have in part become involved in the troubles which resulted from this course.
Their annuities have been withheld, and they were gradually sinking to their former wild and barbarous ways when they heard that a great Peace Commission was on the way to their country to settle all difficulties, and restore general harmony ...
33
It was the season of changes. The prairie grass yellowed, and leaves of the elm and persimmon trees began to flame with color.
There were changes in command. Johnson, through General Grant, ordered Generals Hancock and Sheridan to exchange posts. Hancock was being disciplined for his adventure on the Pawnee Fork, Sheridan for his too-strict enforcement of Reconstruction in the Fifth Military District in New Orleans; he was a favorite of the Radicals, but of few others in Washington.
Sheridan came to the Plains for a swift inspection, though he was due for extended leave and wouldn't assume full command until sometime in late winter. Charles knew a few things about the Yankee, Academy class of '53. He was small, Irish, ceaselessly and inventively foulmouthed. He was accustomed to waging war and whining. Charles wondered how the command change would fit with this autumn's peace initiative, what many in the Army sneered at as "the Quaker Policy."
There were changes in the fates of great enterprises. It was clear that the Union Pacific in Nebraska would reach the one hundredth meridian first, probably in October. The U.P.E.D. had lost the contest, and Charles heard that as many as twelve hundred might be put out of work. This didn't include the gun-happy security men of J. O. Hartree, some of whom rode every passenger train. Charles also heard the line might change its name to something more individual. Kansas Pacific was mentioned.
There were fundamental changes in the proud but strife-torn Seventh Cavalry. Custer was remanded to Leavenworth, and was there facing court-martial on charges preferred by one of his disgruntled captains, Bob West, and his own commandant, A. J. Smith. The charges were numerous, but the serious ones were the abandonment of his command at Fort Wallace, the dash east to find Libbie, and shooting the deserters. Charles heard that the Boy General was confident of the outcome and talked a lot about his deeply religious nature. Charles was cynical; when caught, scoundrels often mantled themselves in the flag or proclaimed their Christian conversion.
It was, most of all, a season fraught with the possibility of change for the Plains Army. They were held in confined patrol duty while the great Peace Commission, which had already failed to achieve even one successful meeting with the Northern Sioux, turned south through autumnal Kansas to try again with the Southern tribes.
The sky was the color of blued metal the day the cavalcade left Harker. Drums and fifes played one hundred fifty troopers of the Seventh off the post to the melody of their signature march, "Garry Owen." A detachment of infantry followed, then Battery B of the Fourth Artillery, hauling two of the new Gatling guns. Charles wondered if a Gatling really could fire one hundred fifty rounds a minute from its ten hopper-fed revolving barrels. Ike Barnes said Gatlings overheated quickly, and jammed. The Seventh had not tested a Gatling; Custer called them worthless toys, and A. J. Smith refused to authorize ammunition for test firing, afraid the War Department would dock his pay for it.
High-wheeled canvas-topped Army ambulances conveyed the Commissioners and their retinue of civilians. The commission numbered seven: Senator J. B. Henderson of Missouri who had sponsored the bill establishing it; Indian Affairs Commissioner N. G. Taylor; Colonel Sam Tappan, the first Army man to fight vigorously for a Sand Creek investigation; General John Sanborn, one of the authors of the Little Arkansas Treaty; fastidious General Alfred Terry, in command of the Department of the Dakotas; and General C. C. Augur, Department of the Platte, who had replaced Sherman after the latter made some intemperate criticisms of the commission and got yanked to Washington to answer to Grant. The man in charge was General William Harney, a massive white-bearded soldier with a considerable reputation as an Indian fighter. Certainly, a fine, martial lot to be responsible for damping fires on the Plains, Charles thought as he watched the caravan depart southward toward Fort Lamed.
Governor Crawford was with the expedition, and Senator Ross as well. Eleven reporters and a photographer trailed along in the ambulances and supply wagons, which numbered sixty-five. The wagons were loaded with crates of trade goods, including knives and glass beads, surplus Army dress uniforms, campaign hats, and boots, and thirty-four hundred old bugles — a brilliantly stupid inspiration of General Sanborn's.
The wagons carried less pacific gifts as welclass="underline" barrels of black powder; boxes of trade rifles, percussion caps, paper cartridges. Civilians and Army men were already at odds over distributing these presents. Olive Branchers said they would only arm the tribes for more war. Others, notably General Terry, said no present was more meaningful or necessary to nomadic people who hunted their food. It was the classic debate, which Charles had heard before, and of which he was contemptuous. The only sure instrument of peace was a gun in the hands of a U.S. soldier.
He watched the caravan disappear, wondering what kind of insolent Indians they would confront. Bands of Cheyenne military society men were still roaming Kansas, destroying the stage stations and attacking trains and work crews. Charles didn't doubt Scar and his friends were among them. Who would be left to lie to the Commissioners, saying that their few voices spoke for hundreds of others?