Major Reno's Romance

WAS SHE SMILING AT him? At him, Major Marcus Reno? A hot wave of excitement coursed through him, a sensation he had not known for years. Before responding, he glanced quickly over his shoulder, to be sure that glorious smile was not meant for a handsome young officer standing behind him. Indeed, there was no mistake. Ella, beautiful Ella, belle of the garrison, was looking at him. At him, and no other.

He inclined his head in a courtly manner and tightened his stomach muscles, keenly aware of the roll of fat that hung over his belt. He felt almost bashful, unsure of how to comport himself, because it had been such a long time since a woman fine as this one had shown him favor. There had been women--a man has needs after all--but none like Ella, with her slender figure, dark, luxuriant hair and luminous gray eyes. This flirtation, if that is what it was, was all the more wondrous as he was a man twice her age with—the Major did not deceive himself—a reputation dark as his complexion.

Their eyes held across the dance floor and Reno felt his heart thumping against his ribs like a bat in a barrel. He scolded himself. Get a hold, man! Ask her for the next waltz, bring her a cup of punch. In the end, he did neither of these things. Her father, the colonel of the regiment, appeared at her side to say it was time to leave, so the major retired alone to his quarters where he poured himself a half-tumbler of whiskey and stretched out on the narrow bed. He was too excited to remove his boots, let alone sleep. Could it be the future still held promise for Major Marcus Reno after all? Was it possible that disastrous June day, the events that had poisoned his life every waking moment since, would not follow him into eternity like a malodorous ghost, tainting the very air he breathed and turning others from him before he had a chance to make known his true self? Might he, at last, be free? He fell asleep, tumbler in hand, and, for the first time in many nights, experienced a sweet and deeply satisfying erotic dream.

The next day Reno went about his work with uncharacteristic cheer and vigor. He was cordial to colleagues, patient with the men. All the while his dark, protruding eyes searched the post’s dusty streets and boardwalks for a glimpse of her. Finally, in the late

afternoon as he walked alone to the officers’ mess, he was rewarded. Ella happened by with her younger sister and dropped a small white glove in passing. Thrilled beyond measure, Reno bent to retrieve it. As he did so, the major audibly broke wind. He stood, his face hot with shame, but Ella took the glove with a dimpled smile and gave no sign of noticing.

“Thank you, Major Reno,” she said. “You are kind.”

“Not at all.” He returned her smile. Oh, she was lovely, her pale skin smooth and flawless as that of a Dresden shepherdess.

“Mary,” Ella said to her sister, “run along and tell mother I’ll be home directly. There’s a good girl!” The child obeyed, leaving Reno and Ella alone. “Major,” she said, lowering her eyes, “I was wondering if tomorrow—if you are free—perhaps you might care to stop by the house?” She peered up at him most fetchingly. “I’ll make lemonade, or maybe you’d prefer something stronger.”

He was delighted, almost beyond the power of speech. “Why, yes.” He cleared his throat. “That is, yes, I believe I am free.”

“Splendid! Shall we say 2 o’clock?”

That evening, in a celebratory mood, Major Reno rode the fifteen miles to Deadwood. The November night was cold and windy, and he soon regretted his decision though he pressed on. Once arrived, he went to the bar of the Welch Hotel where he met Lieutenant William Nicholson who promptly challenged him to a game of pool. Reno accepted. He planned to take no whiskey, wanting to be bright-eyed and fresh for his appointment the following day, but Nicholson was drinking, and Reno decided one would not hurt. Then he could see no harm in another and another. Before he knew it, he owed the bartender twenty-five dollars and Nicholson fifty.

“Uh, say, Mr. Nicholson,” Reno was annoyed to find his tongue somewhat thickened. “I seem to be a bit short. Please allow me to pay you on account. I shall put it in writing if you wish.”

Nicholson waved his hand dismissively. “No need for that, Major,” he said. “I’ll trust you for it.”

An onlooker, a civilian friend of Nicholson’s, laughed loudly. “I don’t know about that, Bill,” he said. “I hear our friend the Major here ain’t exactly a man of his word. Just ask George Custer, why don’t you?” He slapped his head in mock confusion. “Damn! I forgot—you can’t! Well, ask my old friend Myles Keogh then.” Another slap to the forehead. “Why, you can’t ask him neither! On account of they’re dead! They’re all dead—Custer, Keogh, all of ‘em, thanks to our brave man, Major Marcus Reno! Pride of the Seventh Cavalry!”

Reno felt the familiar squid juice rise within him, black and inky.

Nicholson turned on his friend. “Shut up, Frank! No one wants trouble!” He smiled at Reno. “Don’t mind him, sir. He’s drunk. Forget it.”

The crowded room had gone quiet.

Reno struggled to compose himself, aware of the eyes on him. “As a favor to you, Mister Nicholson, I will let this pass. Otherwise I would pound this wastrel’s head in!” He spun on his heel and quit the room, followed by the stinking ghost and Frank’s laughter.

Halfway back to the post Reno became ill. Unable to dismount, he vomited from the saddle, soiling his right trouser leg and boot. He was disgusted with himself, but there was nothing for it but to continue. After what seemed an eternity, the lights of Fort Meade came into view. Reno hated the place. A backwater garrison if ever there was one, a blister on God’s green earth. Oh, it was a bitter pill to swallow, this billet. Bitter as quinine. Was he not a West Point graduate? Had he not comported himself with distinction during the late war, at Antietam, Cedar Creek and against John Mosby’s guerillas and elsewhere? Had he not been brevetted brigadier for meritorious service? Yes, he deserved better—would have better—if not for that wretched June day three years before on the banks of the Little Bighorn. The horror of that day and the day that followed—a perfect hell, sulfurous, burning, conjured by the devil—was not of his making. It was in no way his fault, yet he, and only he, had been persecuted for it. The injustice! In his mind’s eye he again saw the civilian’s sneering face and heard his contemptuous words. Unfair! He, Marcus Reno, brevet brigadier, had been vindicated by a court of inquiry. Yet, still he was maligned, forced to suffer for the failings of another.

Reno continued toward the post, trying to redirect his thoughts, but, like a horse to its stable, they returned to the foul, familiar place. It was all down to Custer, the rooster, the charlatan, the vainglorious butcher! It was Custer, the cinnamon-scented, tooth-brushing, hand-washing dandy, who failed that day, not Marcus Reno. Had Custer not vowed to support Reno’s attack on the Indian village with the full force of the regiment? When Custer failed to do so, Reno had no choice but to order a retreat. Otherwise, they would all have been butchered, to a man. This would be clear to everyone by now if not for Custer’s widow, a shrill harridan whose heart would get lost in a thimble. It was funny, really. Custer was unfaithful to her, betraying his wife with squaws and Negresses at every opportunity, yet she lionized him.

The Coward of the Regiment, that’s what the harridan called him, thereby branding him in the eyes of the world. Reno waved his hand before his face, trying to dispel the unwelcome images as if they were flies, but the faces of the dead rose up to meet him. More than three years gone and still the horror of that day, June 25, 1876, wrapped him like a shroud. Even the smells stayed with him: ripe and rotting flesh, blood and brain matter, fear and excrement.

—

THAT NIGHT SLEEP ELUDED him. He stared at the moon, white as bleached bone, in the single window. It was early November and already cold enough to form a thick crust of ice on the water bucket overnight. This was the month the Sioux called Deer Rutting Moon. The savages had names for every time of year; December was Moon When the Deer Shed their Horns, January was Moon of Strong Cold.

June was Moon When the Green Grass is Up. As a young man he had loved that sweet time of year. Now he doubted if he would ever experience a soft summer evening without seeing the white bodies of his fellow soldiers bloating in the sun.

The image of his dead wife, Mary Hannah, came to him. How it would pain her to see him so maligned and mistreated! How she enjoyed the verse he wrote for her in the evening, rhyming lines rich with emotion, he would read aloud over glasses of wine. “Oh, Marcus,” she would say, with shining eyes, “you are such a sensitive man.” Even now he composed for her, letters and poems he later destroyed, though the act itself gave him release. If Mary Hannah had lived, things would be different. Her passing had worsened his dependence on drink. It had separated him from their only child, a son he seldom saw.

He woke with a throbbing head and a mouth tasting of vomit. In the shaving mirror he saw a swollen forty-year-old man with dark-rimmed, bulging eyes and sallow skin. What did Ella Sturgis see in him? Why did she want him to call? He dreaded the day that lay before him.

But as the hours passed, some of his spirit returned. Today was a new day. She asked him to call and call he would. After all, he was still a man and not too old to start anew. Despite the injustice done to him, he was still capable of love. Perhaps even another child? Why not?

At last the appointed hour arrived. Just before he was due, Ella sent word through the family’s serving woman that he was not to send a carte de visite, as was custom, but come straight-away to the door. He obeyed. Despite the bitter cold of the Dakota plains, he was sweating. Before knocking he wiped his palms on his blue serge trousers.

“Hello, Major Reno.” Ella opened the door to him herself, beautiful in a dress of Nile green silk. As he entered he looked about for the Colonel and Mrs. Sturgis but did not see them. Nor was there any sign of young Sam or Mary.

“Father is riding and Mother and the others are calling on Mrs. Fanshawe,” she said. “Come into the parlor. Sit there.” She indicated an upholstered settee. He perched on the edge of it, unsure if it would take his weight, as she poured lemonade. After handing him a glass, she took a chair by the window.

They chatted about this and that, little things, then she said, “You know, major, I often sit here in the evenings, reading, doing handwork. I see you passing by.”

“Do you?” He was pleased to learn she observed him on his pensive moonlight strolls. Perhaps she sensed in him the very qualities, the sensitivity, Mary Hannah once admired. “Yes, I quite enjoy that time,” he said. “It nourishes the soul and clears the mind.” In a thrust of boldness, he added, “Perhaps one night you might care to join me?”

She smiled. “Why, yes, Major, I would. Very much. Of course, we would have to be discreet, at least at first.” She added hastily, “Only because you are, well, older. Mother and father hold you blameless in that awful business of Jack’s…” Ella turned her head, the sentence unfinished.

Reno felt a flicking snake tongue of fear. Her brother, Lieutenant Jack Sturgis, rode with Custer that terrible day. His body was never found though a pair of bloody underdrawers bearing Sturgis’s name and a pot containing a boiled human skull were found in the village after the Indians abandoned it. The cavalry dug a grave and marked it with a cairn in Sturgis’s name, but this was done only for the sake of the grieving mother. Most believed young Sturgis had been captured and tortured by the savages, every man’s darkest fear.

“Let’s not speak of it,” he said firmly. “Let’s never speak of it.”

“Indeed,” she replied. “Let’s not.” She rose to refill his glass and as she poured, Reno detected a slight tremor in her hand. But her light mood soon returned. They conversed about various things, and Reno quite lost track of time. Finally, however, he perceived it was time to go. Walking him to the door, Ella touched him lightly on the arm.

“Major, I would like to walk out with you next Tuesday evening, but, as I said, we must be discreet. Come by the house, won’t you? Say, half past 10? Don’t send your man, don’t come to the door, simply tap on the window, just there by my chair. I’ll be waiting for you.” “Well, Miss Sturgis, I don’t ….” She leaned in close enough for him to smell her delicate scent. “Please, call me Ella. May I call you... Marcus?”

He reddened with pleasure. “Of course.”

“Please, Marcus, do as I ask. It will be easier that way. Mother and Father go to bed early. I’ll just slip out. I so look forward to it!”

And so he agreed. He felt light on his feet, as if he had just drunk half a bottle of Madame Cliquot. But on his way out the door he met Colonel Sturgis, who appeared not pleased to see him.

“Reno! What the hell are you doing here?”

Ella spoke quickly. “He came to see you, father. I told him you were out. He was just leaving.”

Sturgis glared at him. “Well, Major? What is it?

What did you want?” Reno’s brain raced. “I, uh, I came by to discuss today’s sick call. We have a number of malingerers.”

“Is that all?” Sturgis made a sound of impatience. “Take it up with the officer of the day.”

“Yes. Of course. Surely.” Reno saluted and beat a hasty retreat, still walking on air. On a whim, he decided to stop by the Officer’s Club for a quick game of pool. He played badly and, after too many drinks and one particularly foul shot, picked up a chair and, to his own surprise, hurled it through a glass window. Immediately remorseful, he apologized and promised to recompense the barkeep, but the man would not be appeased. Reno was arrested and confined to post.

Though embarrassed, he was not unduly troubled. Such incidents were not uncommon, and the charges were minor. Still, there was a problem: regulations forbade an officer facing charges from calling at his commanding officer’s quarters without an invitation. Of course, Reno did have an invitation—from Ella— but the Colonel did not know of it. Reno found himself on the horns of a dilemma. He did not want to visit additional hardship upon himself, but Ella, his lovely angel, expected to walk out with him Tuesday evening and she must not be disappointed. He spent happy hours imagining the progression of their romance; walking, riding together, sharing meals, a life as man and wife. He would read to her, as he used to read to Mary Hannah. Ella would look at him with shining eyes, admiring his skillfully crafted verses, his sensitivity. Perhaps another child, a girl this time. She was a young woman and he was fully capable.

Tuesday arrived, clear and cold. At ten o’clock Reno shaved and dressed his hair with a scented Macassar purchased earlier that day, at ridiculous expense, at the sutler’s mercantile. He hummed a tune as he strolled along the darkened gravel walkway, passing several fellow officers with whom he exchanged nods and greetings. At ten twenty he stood on the parade near a cottonwood tree and fixed his eyes on the parlor window. At exactly half past ten she appeared, wearing a stylish gray poplin with leg o’ mutton sleeves. Reno was pleased to see she had dressed for him. Such things mattered.

He waited until no one was about before approaching the window. It was higher than Reno expected, and he had to stand on tiptoe to see over the ledge. As instructed, he tapped lightly on the glass, once, then again. Ella rushed to the window. Clearly, she, too, was eager for their rendezvous. To his surprise, she threw open the sash and leaned out until her face was just inches from his. Something was wrong. He saw that at once.

Something was very wrong.

“You pig!” Spittle flew from her lips as she said the words and her eyes gleamed as if a furnace burned behind them. “You filthy, farting pig! Did you really think I could care for you—a fat, drunken coward like you?”

Reno rocked back on his heels, but she leaned out even further as if in pursuit. Her head seemed to flatten and elongate and her voice was not that of his angel but the hiss of a venomous snake. “Now at last you will pay for the death of my brother. You’ll pay for Jack’s death and George Armstrong Custer’s and every other fine man who died that day because of your shameful behavior. You’ll be cashiered and drummed from the service as you should have been three years ago. Not one more man will die because of your vile, disgusting cowardice.” She threw back her head with its shining curls and unleashed a scream more blood-chilling than that of any Sioux warrior. “Father! Father! Come quick—it’s Major Reno! He’s looking in at me! He’s peering in my window!”

Reno staggered and fell back, landing on his buttocks on the frozen ground. He felt as if he had been shot through the chest. For several seconds he remained motionless, his legs splayed before him. Then, as Ella’s screams continued, he got clumsily to his feet and fled to his quarters. As he ran he heard shouts and the sounds of men rushing to Sturgis’s home. Soon, he knew, they would come for him. He was done for. Finished. She had pulled him in like a wolf to a bit of poisoned meat.

When they came, they found Reno at his desk with a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, writing a poem for the dead Mary Hannah.

—

IN 1880, MAJOR MARCUS Reno, infamous for his actions at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army for conduct unbecoming an officer. Among the charges against him was the allegation that on the evening of Nov. 10, 1879, he peered in the library window of his commanding officer’s quarters at Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis’s twenty-one-year-old daughter, Ella. Thus ended Reno’s twenty-two years of military service. Impoverished, alcoholic and alone, Marcus Reno, age fiftyfour, died of tongue cancer in Washington DC on March 30, 1889, and was buried there in an unmarked grave.

In 1967, at the request of Reno’s great-nephew, the Army Correction Board reversed the 1880 action and ordered the official record be corrected to show Reno’s discharge as honorable and at the grade of major. His remains were reinterred in Custer Battlefield National Cemetery in 1967.

Susan K. Salzer is an erstwhile print journalist and University of Missouri editor turned fictioneer. She is the author of short stories and four novels of historical fiction, including the FRONTIER trilogy published by Kensington in 2016 and 2017. Her short story, “Cornflower Blue,” won a 2009 Spur Award from Western Writers of America. The FRONTIER novels and “The Saint of Pox Island,” a story for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, were finalists in that competition. Her current project is a contemporary thriller set in the fictional town of Fair Play, Wyoming, where no one plays, and nothing is fair. Someday, she hopes to publish a collection of stories, all in the Western noir tradition. She lives in Columbia, Missouri, with her husband, Bill, and two demanding, highly opinionated dogs. “Major Reno’s Romance” is her first short story to be published in Saddlebag Dispatches.