For a moment Charles saw nothing but the wound, a wet red hole in the upper sleeve. Then he took notice of the man. Saw a fine-featured face with glacial blue eyes and russet-colored mustache and beard. Because so much had happened, recognition was a second slow. It hit him as he started to kneel.
"Main," said the officer. "Or is it May?"
"My name is —" He stopped. What was the use?
In the aisle the conductor said, "This man's name is Lieutenant August."
"Hell it is."
"I'll have a look at your wound —" Charles began.
"Don't touch me," said Captain Harry Venable. "You're under arrest."
37
Major General Philip Henry Sheridan, Department of the Missouri, summoned Grierson to Leavenworth. The two met on the day of Sheridan's departure on extended leave.
Grierson walked in while Sheridan was still conferring with his aide, Colonel Crosby. Sheridan was thirty-six, single, with a Black Irish swarthiness and a tough air enhanced by a Mongol mustache and soap-locked hair. He intimidated Grierson; it was more than rank, or the traditional tension between officers who'd graduated from West Point and those who hadn't. Sheridan was famous for being opinionated and ruthless.
"Just finishing with the report on the train fight," he said after returning Grierson's salute. "Have a chair." He shoved a sheaf of papers at his aide. "Telegraph the railroad and tell them to get this dog-fucking idiot Hartree out of Kansas. I won't have vigilantes interfering with the United States Army."
Colonel Crosby cleared his throat. "Yes, General. It's delicate, though. The railroad stockholders are still very upset about the Indian threat."
"Goddamn it, Sam Grant and Crump Sherman put me here to take care of the whore-kissing Indians, and I'll do it. I have no sympathy for them. The only good Indians I ever saw were dead. Follow my instructions. Hartree goes."
The aide saluted and retired. When the door closed, Sheridan went to warm his hands at the iron stove. It was late November, gray and bleak.
"Grierson, there is absolutely nothing I can do for Charles Main. Harry Venable came over to Departmental staff to serve with Winnie Hancock last spring. I don't like the little shit, but he's a competent soldier."
"Main is an outstanding one."
"Yes, but he's also an unpardoned reb who lied about his war record and the Academy. Twice."
"I encouraged him the second time, General. I thought he looked first-rate and I wanted him for the regiment. I'm as much to blame as —"
"Don't say another fucking word. I didn't hear those last ones, either. I'm well aware of Main's ability. He came to summer camp just before I graduated. A year or so later I was told that Bob Lee, who was the supe, thought him the finest horesman in the cadet corps. But he's got to go."
"They're only suspending Custer from duty for a year, and look at all the charges brought against —"
"Colonel, I don't want to hear any more," the little commander said, leaning on his desk. His black eyes bored into the unhappy cavalryman. "Curly Custer fought for the Union. I'll tell you something else. He's a goddamn magnet for men. They'll slit each other's throats to serve with him."
"Some of them. Not the men who testified against him. Not his own commanding officer —"
"Will you for Jesus Christ's sake shut up? I can't save Main's balls on the basis of what happened to Custer. Furthermore, I'm going to drag Curly's ass back here as soon as I can. I want him in my department, because that pissant treaty will never hold. Now you go back to Main and you tell him I'm sorry but he ought to be grateful that I was able to slide him out with just a bobtail discharge instead of three years' hard labor with a ball and chain to keep him company."
Grierson rose, his face showing strain. "Yes, General. Is that all?"
Sheridan's expression softened as he rolled a cigar between his palms. "It is. Isn't it enough? Dismissed."
At Harker next day, Grierson delivered the verdict to Charles, who stood before him in stoic silence. Ever since he'd come upon Harry Venable in the passenger coach, he'd known this moment was inevitable.
"I told you early that I couldn't save you if someone caught you, Charles. I tried. I tried damn hard. You're the only one-hundred-percent cast-iron rebel in the regiment, yet you're the strongest partisan of those Negroes."
"I don't do them any special favors, sir. With a couple of exceptions, they're fine soldiers. They try harder than most."
"That's true. During our first year we've had the lowest desertion rate in the entire Army, and the lowest rate of disciplinary infractions. I told you I had a vision for the Tenth, and you helped make it work. I'm just sorry as hell things didn't work out right for you."
"I guess a man can be forgiven almost anything these days except being a Southerner."
"Your bitterness is understandable." He was silent a moment. Charles watched night settling on the post outside Grierson's window. The office was freezing. Snowflakes were starting to fall. "What will you do?"
"I don't know. Get drunk. Find work. Kill some Cheyennes."
"You're not over that yet?"
"I'll never be over that."
"But you saved the Arapahoe prisoners." One had died the day after being locked in the Fort Harker guardhouse. The other was comatose in the dispensary, refusing to eat.
"I said kill, sir. I didn't say torture. There's a difference."
Grierson studied the tall, faintly menacing soldier with the furious eyes. In Charles's case, he thought, the difference was slight. He didn't say it, however. Stroking his immense beard, he asked, "What about your son?"
"He'll have to live on Jack Duncan's charity a while longer."
"Well, keep in touch with him. A man can stand to lose a lot of things, but not his loved ones."
Charles shrugged. "Maybe it's already too late. God knows I've lost everything else."
Another silence. Grierson could barely stand it. He avoided Charles's eyes as he said, "You're to be off the post by morning. But no one will protest if it takes you a little longer to say goodbye."
"It won't, Colonel. A quick and clean cut's always the best kind."
"Charles —"
"Do I have the colonel's permission to go?"
Grierson nodded. He returned the salute and watched Charles pivot, leave, and shut the door. Then he slumped in his chair and looked at the cased photograph of his wife. "Alice, I hate this goddamned world sometimes."
The snow fell harder. Charles collected his few belongings and went on his round of farewells. The sentries on duty in the icy dark still snapped to with salutes; indeed, they seemed more respectful than ever.
In the bachelor officers' quarters he said goodbye to Floyd Hook. Floyd was unkempt, unshaven. He'd returned from a patrol a week ahead of Charles to discover that his wife had run off with a driver for the Butterfield Overland Despatch line. She'd taken their three-year-old daughter, too. Charles had heard that Dolores Hook had tried to kill herself by swallowing something last year. Some Army wives just buckled under the worry and loneliness. Floyd looked like he was starting to buckle, too. He reeked of beer. Charles spent ten minutes trying to cheer him up and failed.
In the married officers' quarters he said goodbye to Ike Barnes and little Lovetta, who wept and hugged him like a mother. The old man, always less than loquacious and ever fearful of showing sentiment, nevertheless squeezed Charles's arm repeatedly and kept his head turned away, unwilling or unable to speak.