Bugles in the Afternoon

Ernest Haycox

• Publisher: Borodino Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781789120943
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Sozialwissenschaftliche Biographien

WAR DRUMS ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER1875—throbbing war drums and distant signal fires told of deadly danger. The Sioux were gathering, moving in...That year Kern Shafter joined the sun-scorched Seventh Cavalry, a proud and bitter regiment led by an officer named Custer. That year Shafter met a woman he had to have—and a man he had to kill!Here is Ernest Haycox at his best, with an unforgettable drama of violence and high courage during the battle for the Western plains.A BLOOD-MADDENED INDIAN HORDE…A REGIMENT OF DOOMED MEN…TWO MEN SWORN TO HATED…and the woman they wanted…Here are the brawling, hard-bitten cavalrymen, the pounding excitement and raging passions of frontier men and their women. Here is silent kern Shafter's fiery story, an epic of the plains told by the great Ernest Haycox.

VII—Of Many Incidents

AT ONE O’CLOCK Shafter brought the light wagon before Captain Benteen’s door, gave Josephine a lift to the seat and stood by while Benteen arranged the robe around her with an old man’s motions of gallantry. The captain looked at the sky a moment, suspecting the weather. “Sergeant,” he said, “waste no time in returning to Lincoln. Do you know what an oncoming blizzard smells like? Do you know the signs?”

“Yes sir.”

“If bad weather blows up before you reach the Little Heart River bridge, turn back to this post. If you should be unable to return, take cover in the bridge. It has served such purpose before.”

“You mustn’t worry,” said Josephine. “I have been out in many a storm.”

There was a wind, and the wind ruffled the captain’s white mane when he removed his garrison cap. He gave the girl a hard smile. “A blizzard is not a storm. A blizzard is the world upside down. It is the wind gone mad and the world drowned out. It will drive the breath from your lungs and the heat from your body. When the blizzard blows it brings on a fury that will pound the reason from your head. Nothing stands against it—nothing at all. You know that. However, I am merely cautioning you against a remote possibility. If I thought a storm likely I should not permit you to return to Lincoln. I think it is too early in the winter. But don’t waste time, Sergeant.”

“It has been most pleasant,” said Josephine. “I shall tell the Custers how kind you were.”

Ben teen gave the girl an oblique glance. “Convey our regards to the general and his lady,” he said and turned away. It had not been an effusive message.

Shafter rolled through the guard gate at a trot, facing a gray plain upon which the winter fog pressed and thickened and was churned by the stiff wind moving out of the north. It was colder than the day before and the sun was a thin refraction of light above the overcast. Summer and fall had departed from the plains in the space of thirty-six hours and the smell of the air was raw, almost dangerous. Shafter was smiling. “What is amusing?” asked Josephine.

“Benteen’s reluctant courtesy to Custer.”

“It was rather wryly given. I noticed it.”

“Have you heard the story?”

“Not all of it.”

“About seven years ago the Seventh had a battle down on the Washita in the dead of winter and wiped out Black Kettle’s band of Cheyennes. It was somewhat of a fight and a small detachment under Major Elliot wandered off and didn’t come back. Custer considered himself in a tight fix—other bands being in the neighborhood—and spent a couple days getting his regiment and supply train together before looking for Elliot. He found Elliot and nineteen men dead. Benteen considered Custer had exhibited complete callousness in the matter and wrote a letter about it to the newspapers. It was quite an affair. Benteen despises Custer. If you consider the man’s face you can see he would be capable of a good robust hate.”

“The regiment seems a very close and agreeable family.”

“You can’t put a group of men—and their wives—together over a period of years without having animosities. This regiment has its factions. The general is an extremely dashing man, very proud of his abilities. You will remember he was a boy general in the Civil War. He hasn’t forgotten it and neither have some other officers who are serving under him, twenty years older than he is. Some of them feel he has too much dash and too little judgment. Others would follow him into pointblank artillery fire if he ordered it.”

“I admire him,” said Josephine. “Very much.”

“He is either loved or hated. He commands no lesser feelings in men.”

“How do you feel about him?”

He gave her an easy, half-smiling glance. “I shall reserve my judgment until I serve my first campaign under him.”

She said, very soberly, “Are you that sure there will be fighting?”

“Yes,” he said, “I’m very sure there will be.”

He rode along in silence, not thinking seriously of very much but simply sitting by while the day touched him with its fingers. The damp fog moved over his face like soft fine bristles and a smell, slightly rank and rotten, came from the near-by river. High up beyond the overcast was the subdued murmuring of geese, scudding delayed before the onset of winter.

“Sergeant,” she said, “I’m glad to be riding back with you.”

When he turned he saw that she was smiling at him and then he remembered how blunt she had been with him the day before; and was struck by the change. She had drawn the curtain of reserve away and seemed to like him and seemed to wish to be liked by him. She had a teasing expression of gaiety in her eyes; she had a provocative challenge in them—and all this made her a more complex and unfathomable woman, and a more striking woman.

“I appreciate the honor,” he said. “It was different yesterday.”

“Ah,” she said, and didn’t bother to explain the change. “Isn’t it a wonderful day?”

“When you feel good,” he said, “any day is good.”

“It is the country,” she said. “It makes you spread out inside. It makes you giddy. It even makes you reckless. It is easy to cry or laugh here. Or to love, or kill.”

“Killing and loving are close together sometimes.”

They rolled on over the prairie, jarred steadily by the dry-baked ruts. There was a sound ahead of them, of riders moving fast through the thickening mists, and presently a lithe little officer sitting forward on his horse like a jockey darted out of the haze with a file of six troopers behind him; they fled by, one shout dropping from them, and faded into the haze again.

He remembered, suddenly, that she had fallen long silent and turned to see darkness on her face. She said: “That was a strange remark. It came out of experience.”

“Yes.”

She looked at him as she had the previous afternoon—judging him. “You should not permit your experiences to sour you.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is a nice day.”

She was wholly mature at the moment, alert enough to understand the undercurrent between them, to fathom his desire to push her away from his secret. She said: “That was a rebuff wasn’t it, Sergeant?”

“There is no real gallantry in me.”

She thought of it, and watched him with a half-lidded attention. She was very cool, and very frank with her eyes. “It was unnecessary to warn me. You see, Sergeant, I was brought up to believe that each person must stand the consequences of his own actions. I never could expect sympathy from my people when I hurt myself doing some foolish thing. So, if I do a foolish thing now, I shall not cry. You needn’t worry.”

“What is the foolish thing?”

“I have decided I like you.”

He gave her a half-embarrassed and half-astonished glance, whereupon her soberness unexpectedly left her and she put a hand lightly on his arm and laughed. She had a way of laughing that was extremely attractive, her chin tilting up and her lips curving in pretty lines. A small dimple appeared at the left of her mouth and light danced in her eyes.

He said brusquely, “You’re a damned strange woman.”

“The simplest kind of a woman. There is no complexity to a woman until a man puts it there.”

He shook his head and let the talk drop, but he thought about it through the long stretch of following silence. The Little Heart bridge shaped up through the fog murk. They passed it and dropped their booming echoes behind; the horses, sensing home, stepped briskly through the chilling wind.

“Have a nice visit?” he asked.

“Yes. All officers of this regiment are gallant. There was one young lad newly from West Point—the colonel’s son. Sturgis. It is confusing. Do you suppose Colonel Sturgis will ever return to take the command from Custer?”

“I doubt it. The War Department seems to regard it as Custer’s command. He’s been in charge of it for ten years or so—except for a season when he was court-martialed and deprived of authority.”

“What was his transgression?”

“Rode a hundred miles to see his wife—and wore out his escort troopers getting there. All this without permission to leave his post.”

“It was a romantic gesture,” she murmured.

“It was something he would have arrested one of his own officers for doing. He is a man with violent swings of temper. Inconsistent and unpredictable. You can never know for a certainty what he’ll do next. That’s been his history. Steadfastness is not one of his virtues.”

She said unexpectedly: “Did I see you strolling through the dark last night, past Captain Benteen’s quarters?”

“Yes.”

“Smoking your cigar. I understand a cigar and a woman go together in a man’s mind. Was there a woman in your mind?”

“I wondered,” he said, “if you were enjoying yourself.”

“I was also thinking of you,” she murmured.

He looked at her and noticed the sweetness of her expression and was greatly troubled. He had started out with this girl pretty much as a stranger; and found himself now somehow engaged in her emotions. It threw him back on his honor, and he searched himself carefully, wondering if he had given her encouragement. He thought: “She’s old enough to know her mind, she knows what she’s doing.” But he was uneasy with the responsibility which lay with him. It bore hard against him, the more he thought of it, the farther he silently traveled, until he came to his abrupt conclusion. “It will have to be settled,” he thought.

He stopped the team and wrapped the reins around the brake bar, turning to her. Her eyes lifted to him, narrowed and watchful, but she made no motion when he bent and put his arms around her; for a small moment he hesitated, looking carefully at her lips and the expression in her glance, and saw nothing but the layered darkness in her eyes. He bent down and kissed her, and held the kiss longer than he intended, and drew away. She had made no gesture and no sound; she had put no resistance against him. But now she said, in a curt, precise voice: “I think I heard the general say we should be home by supper-time.”

He sent the team on at a faster clip, much more uncertain than he had been. He thought with some self-disgust: “There is no such thing as a study of women. Nothing is to be learned from them. A man gains no permanent wisdom.” It was then past the middle of the afternoon, and the sky turning gray; at five o’clock he passed through Lincoln’s south gate, and drew before Custer’s house. He got down to give her a hand, and felt the weight of her body momentarily spring against his arm. She had a light perfume that drifted to him—a sudden, disturbing fragrance. He started back around the horses and was halted by her clear, sharp voice:—

“One moment, Sergeant.”

He turned and watched her come forward. She was on guard, she was cool and quite self-assured, and smiling. It was not a soft smile, not tender or indulgent; it came out to him as the reflection of tumult and stirred emotions.

“You meant to frighten me away, didn’t you?”

“To show you that your knowledge of me was incomplete. You must not take men at face value.”

He saw the fire and the...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• WAR DRUMS ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER
• I-That Bright Day-That Far Land
• II-West of the River
• III-The Ritual of Acceptance
• IV-On Officers’ Row
• V-Rehearsal for a Tragedy
• VI-The Ride to Rice
• VII-Of Many Incidents
• VIII-At the Stud Horse
• IX-Word from the Past
• X-Mr. Garnett Tries His Luck
• XI-Memory of a Woman
• XII-The Gods Cease to Smile
• XII-The Past Comes Forward
• XIV-A Sinner Turned Holy
• XV-Boots and Saddles
• XVI-Westward March
• XVII-Custer Pulls Away
• XVIII-The Ordeal Begins
• XIX-Charge and Retreat
• XX-Farewell to Glory
• XXI-Bugles in the Afternoon
• XXII-“It Was Written in the Book”
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER