As fast as he'd got out of his uniform, Custer got into it again. As he'd helped Katie undress, he helped her dress, too. When they were both fully clothed once more, he said, "My brother thinks I'm out hunting John Taylor." He found that deliciously funny; a reputation for single-minded devotion to the task at hand was a disguise as effective as false beard and wig. There were tasks, and then there were tasks.
"Well, when you're not here, that's a good thing for you to do," she answered seriously. "The sooner he's on the end of a rope, the better off this place will be." Custer had never yet heard any Gentile with a good word to say about the Mormon president.
"Now I've got to go," he told her. He kissed her and caressed her and pretended he didn't sec the tear slide down her cheek. He'd never told her he was married, not in so many words, but he hadn't pretended to be a bachelor, either. He said, "I'll see you again as soon as I can."
"What if I have a customer?" she asked with a sly little smile.
"I'll be disappointed," he answered, which changed the smile to a different sort. She hugged him one more time, fiercely, then let him go-No one paid any more than the usual attention to him as he rode back up to Fort Douglas. He whistled "Garry Owen," as he might have done going into battle. But he'd fought his battle here, fought it and won it.
When he got back to the fort, his younger brother collared him at once, as he'd known Tom would. "Any luck?"
Yes, but not the sort you 're thinking of. "Not so much as I should have liked," Custer said, and made himself look unhappy with the world.
"They're wily devils, the Mormons," Tom said sympathetically. "But you have more luck than you know, as a matter of fact."
"Do I?" Custer looked up his sleeve, as if hoping to find it lurking there. As his brother laughed, he asked, "Whereabouts?"
To his surprise, Tom turned and pointed across the parade ground. "Here it comes now," he said.
"Hello, Autie, darling!" Libbie Custer waved to her husband. "They finally let me escape from Fort Dodge, so here I am, with all the animals in tow. I expect they're unpacking the trophies even now." She hurried forward to give Custer a hug.
He had faced death more times than he could count, against Confederates and Indians both. What he did now, he thought, took more courage than any of those desperate fights. He threw his arms wide. "Ah, Libbie, my very dear!" he said enthusiastically, and smiled a big, broad smile.
" Tombstone is still ours," Theodore Roosevelt said, the name tolling like a mournful bell in his mouth. "Let's hope plenty of Rebel tombstones will go up there if General Stuart does choose to attack it."
"Hasn't happened yet, like I told you," the courier from Fort Benton said.
"I pray to the Lord it does not happen," Roosevelt declared. "I pray to the Lord that we instead attack the Confederate forces in New Mexico Territory and drive them from our soil."
Lieutenant Karl Jobst had been taking a swig of coffee. When he lowered the tin cup from his lips, he said, "We already tried that, sir, and got licked. That's why Tombstone is in so much trouble now."
"A shame and a disgrace," Roosevelt growled. "Wherever the fighting truly matters-wherever it's bigger than I'll raid your farms and you raid mine-the damned Rebels have the bulge on us."
"There's a reason for that, sir," Jobst said. Roosevelt raised an eyebrow. His adjutant went on, "Wherever the fighting matters, it's fighting between enough men on each side to have a general commanding them. Our generals fought in the War of Secession and lost. Theirs won. Need I say more?"
"That's pretty damned cynical for so early in the morning," Roosevelt said. Lieutenant Jobst grinned at him. His own smile was on the strained side. "It also has the unpleasant ring of truth."
The courier spoke up: "Sir, have your men seen any sign that the British are likely to move soon? Colonel Welton asked me to ask you special."
"Nary a one." Roosevelt sprang to his feet and paced around the cook fire. When he'd recruited the Unauthorized Regiment, his head had been full of the rasping roar of the rifles and the fireworks smell of burnt gunpowder. He'd wanted battle. What he'd got was boredom, and he was beginning to chafe under it. "If he hadn't told me they were in Lethbridge, I'd have guessed they hadn't come any closer than Labrador, or maybe London."
"Yes, sir. That's right good, sir." The soldier chuckled. "Sir, if it's like you say and them bastards are being quiet, Colonel Welton asks if you reckon you can leave your command for a couple-three days, come down to the fort and talk things over: how it's all working out up here and what you'll do if the limeys ever should decide to get off their asses and try something."
"Yes!" Roosevelt sprang into the air. This was action. If not the action against the British his heart wanted as much as his body craved a woman-which was no small yearning-it was something different from what he was doing now. After sameness that seemed unending, that drew him like a magnet. "Let's be off. I can leave as soon as I saddle my horse. We'll get you a fresh animal, so you won't slow the journey with your worn one. Aren't you done with that coffee yet? Good heavens, man, hurry!"
That was pushing things somewhat, but when any idea bit Roosevelt , it bit him hard. Inside half an hour, he and the courier, him with a Winchester on his back, the other man with a Springfield, were riding south toward Fort Benton. Roosevelt pounded a fist down onto his thigh in anticipation of his first return to the civilized world since taking the field. Then he laughed at himself. If Fort Benton counted for civilization, he'd been out in the wilderness too long.
Walk, trot, canter, walk, trot, canter. The two men kept their horses as fresh as they could by varying their gaits. Roosevelt held his mount to a canter longer than usuaclass="underline" as long as his kidneys could stand the jarring. No matter how rough it was, it ate up the miles.
He got into Fort Benton a little past sundown, riding along the Missouri the last few miles. When he dismounted, he discovered his own gait resembled nothing so much as that of a bear with the rheumatism. As a couple of enlisted men took the horse away to be seen to, he stumped across the parade ground to Colonel Welton's office.
"My dear fellow!" Welton exclaimed. "You look as if you could use a good brush-down and a blanket across your back, and to the devil with your horse." He reached into a desk drawer. The kerosene lamps that lighted the chamber sent shadows swooping in every direction. Welton pulled out a corked bottle full of tawny liquid. "Can't give you that, I'm afraid, but what do you say to a small restorative?"
"I say, 'Yes, sir!' I say, 'Thank you, sir!' " Roosevelt sank into a chair. Sitting hurt as much as moving did. "Oof! I say, 'Good God, sir!' "
"Don't blame you a bit." Welton poured him a restorative that might have been small for a rhinoceros. "I didn't expect you till tomorrow morning some time. That's a long ride for one day, but you are a chap who takes the bull by the horns. Wouldn't have eagles on your shoulder straps if you didn't, eh?"
"That's about the way I see it, sir." Roosevelt drank. Fire ran down his throat and exploded into contentment in his belly. "Ahh. I say, 'God bless you, sir!' You're right. A man without pluck goes nowhere."
Henry Welton sipped at his own glass of whiskey. "If that's the measure of success, you'll go far-and heaven help anyone who stands in your way." He took another sip. He was still behind Roosevelt, but he didn't need the drink so badly and was wise enough to remember he carried twice his guest's years. "So the British are quiet, are they?"