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(whose soul is sense) cannot admit
absence, because it doth remove
those things which elemented it.
—John Donne
A procession of wagons, accompanied by a contingent of cavalry, rolled through tall, waving grass and sage meadows. Soldiers rode at the front, the sides, and at the rear, their eyes constantly sweeping the land as they watched for Indians.
Mary Beth Wilson, twenty-three, and her son David, five, rode in one of the wagons. As she held the reins, Mary Beth’s long auburn hair blew back from her oval face in the gentle breeze. The bonnet she had worn only moments ago was now in the back of the wagon. Since the air was so sweet and warm on this mid-September day, she wanted to revel in it.
She wore a pretty lace-trimmed cotton dress, the design of flowers against a backdrop of white almost as delicate as the woman who wore it. Mary Beth was tiny, yet she was strong inside and out. She had learned strength as a child, living on a farm in Kentucky where she worked alongside her parents raising crops that kept them fed throughout the long winter months.
She worked even harder now at her own farm, since her husband was no longer there to see to the chores. She had not hired helping hands because she saw that as a waste of money. She loved the outdoors enough to do everything herself.
And her garden was not all that big. It was only large enough to keep her and David in food.
Her son was old enough now to help till the beans and to plant rows of corn, and then harvest everything alongside his mother.
But that garden and her home were far removed from her now. She was in a distant land, her fingers aching from holding the reins so tightly in her fear of the unknown.
She had not wanted to be the last wagon of the train that was carrying the wives and children of the men who had died in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. They were traveling to a different fort, a safer one farther from hostile activity.
No one had imagined that the Indians had such strength and determination, or that there were so many who were willing to put their lives at stake by fighting the cavalry. Mary Beth had put her faith in General Custer, who had been so victorious in his battles with the Indians.
But she had been proved wrong. They all had been.
Custer had died alongside his men that day beneath the bright sun when Indians not only outnumbered the white pony soldiers, but also outwitted them.
Yes, it had been three months since the battle, and Mary Beth had been living a life of dread at Fort Kitt where her husband had been stationed.
Since the massacre on that damnable battlefield, the widows and children had stayed at Fort Kitt while they waited for the colonel in command there to say that he thought it was safe enough to travel to another fort. From that point, the widows could continue onward, returning to their homes far from Montana and its dangers.
Tears fell from Mary Beth’s violet eyes as she fought off the remembrance of the moment when word had reached her that her husband, Major Lloyd Wilson, had died alongside Custer.
She and her son had only been at the fort for one day before he died.
The reason Mary Beth had traveled west made her heart ache even more. She had come from her home in Kentucky to tell Lloyd that she wanted a divorce. She had felt that she could not import such news by way of an impersonal letter or wire.
Her reason for wanting the divorce was not because she had found another man. It was just that she had never truly loved Lloyd. She had married him because she was lonely after her parents died at the hands of highway robbers, and because she had known him since childhood.
She had been married to him for six years, but no matter how hard she had tried to love Lloyd the way a woman should love a man, she just never got those special feelings that she had heard women speak of.
She had cared for Lloyd, but only in a sisterly, perhaps even motherly, way.
While he had been away from her and his son, she had had more time to think about things and had finally concluded that it was time to make a break. By doing so, Lloyd could eventually find true love, as could she.
But now?
All that Mary Beth felt was guilt.
She had told Lloyd her decision just before he’d left to fight alongside Custer in the battle that would claim not only Custer’s life, but also Lloyd’s.
She could not get past the feeling that she had sent her husband to his death. Surely he had been too distracted by her revelation to fight or even protect himself.
She was tormented by the knowledge that Lloyd had not been part of General Custer’s usual troops. Because of Custer’s plans
to hurry along his campaign against the Indians, he had needed additional soldiers. He had gone to Fort Kitt and asked for volunteers.
