How the West Was Won (1963) (2 page)

He counted on the sudden attack, which he had tried to make appear as coming from several men, to surprise the Utes into giving him a running start. Astonished by the attack, the Utes fled for the brush, and as Linus dashed by the buffalo wallow, he saw the trappers on their feet, firing at the retreating Indians. Drawing up among the trees, Linus saw a lean, powerful man with slightly stooped shoulders drop from a tree.

Waal, Linus, the man said as he came toward him with a broad grin, you showed up when the squeeze was tight. Where you come from? Over on the Green.

The other trappers had come in, and they began to mount up. Their pack horses were heavily loaded.

You took a sight of fur, Linus added.

Bad year, Williams said, and then a few weeks back we found us a mountain branch an' took more fur'n we'd took all year. Williams swung his leg over the saddle. We're followin' the Rio Grande down to Taos.

Linus moved alongside him. I'm for the East Down the Platte and the Missouri, then up the Ohio. I've taken urge to see the ocean water. Fancy gals, more'n likely.

Sure enough. It's a coon's age since I've seen a woman all frilled out an' fussed up. And I aim to. But that there ocean water's been on my mind. I got to thinkin'-a man as old as I am, and I ain't seen nothin' but Indians, mountains, an' fur.

You'll see water ... a sight of it. Raised up in North Carolina myself. Never did see the ocean back thataway, but I seen the Pacific. Ain't like mountains, though. You seen it once, you seen it all.

Most water I ever saw was Salt Lake.

Folks do say that country back yonder is fillin' up. No time at all, folks say, until they are comin' thisaway. I hear talk of steam cars and a railroad clean to Californy.

Fool talk, Linus commented. Who would be fool enough to bring his womenfolk into Injun country? Besides, what's to bring em? Fur's gettin' scarce, and there ain't nothing else. Not to speak of.

Land ... folks want land.

The Sioux will have something to say about that, the Sioux an' the Cheyenne, and the Arapahoe.

You step light back east, Williams warned, or you'll lose your hair. More devilment back east than in all these mountains. I hear tell the women folk really lay for a man back there ... ain't like Injun country where you swap a buck a couple of blankets and two, three ponies for a squaw. Linus traveled with the trappers for two days. The wind blew cold when he parted from them, but the flush of green was on the hills and the trees were leafing out. Here and there were dark patches where the earth was still damp from the melted snow.

Linus Rawlings rode with care. After all, this was Ute country. If all the Indians were like the Shoshones, Nez Perce or the Flatheads, it would have been different. A man could get to know them; to know them was to like them. The Nez Perce made the boast that no warrior of their tribe had ever killed a white man, and Linus was ready to believe it. But this was Ute country and next to the Blackfeet no tribe was more trouble to the white man, and beyond the Utes were the Arapahoe.

Chapter
2

Eve Prescott stood alone, a few feet back from her family, watching the boats that thronged the Hudson River and the Erie Canal. The shore was piled high with bales, barrels, and crates, merchandise and household goods, all awaiting shipment to the West. Nothing on the farm where she had lived until then, or in the tiny village nearby, had prepared her for this. Big, roughly dressed men pushed back and forth, shouting, wrangling good-naturedly, loading or unloading boats and wagons. Huge drays rumbled past, drawn by the largest horses she had ever seen, big Percherons or Clydesdales. On the river there was the shrill piping of whistles, the clang of bells, and the sound of steam exhausts.

Bunched about the Prescotts were other emigrants like themselves, huddled about their goods and clothing, waiting for the call that would take them aboard a canal boat. They, too, were cutting all their ties, leaving all that was familiar behind, venturing into a new and frightening country. Looking about her, she saw other men like her father, men who talked loudly of the Ohio country, of taking up new land, of opportunity, the black earth, rainfall, and the wild game to be had for the hunting. They talked loudly to cover their own dismay; for it is one thing to talk of and plan a venture-there is room for excitement, enthusiasm, and conjecture-but it is quite another thing to actually begin a new life, to take one's family and step off into the nothingness of the unknown as these men were doing. They had been bold before, and Eve, knowing such men, knew they would be bold again, but now they were frightened, as she was. Now she felt her heart pounding, and she seemed to have difficulty in breathing. All this activity was so impersonal. These bold-eyed men shoving past her, shouting at their work-what could they care about her, about her family? Yet here and there her eyes intercepted a bold, appreciative glance that warned her these men could care ... on one level, at least. She was surprised to find that she was excited and pleased by such glances rather than repelled. Back home every man had been catalogued; she knew the ones who were married, and therefore ineligible, and those who were single. She knew exactly how to gauge each man's interest in her, and what it meant or could mean-and she had not been interested in any of them.

Also, they knew her. They knew she was not to be lightly had by any man, and they found her stand-offish when they came courting with marriage in mind. She felt no real regret for what she was leaving behind, other than the fact that she was leaving all that was familiar, all that she had known. She was leaving the familiar fields and trees, the school where she had learned to read, write, and work sums, the house where she knew every board that creaked, and could tell how the fireplace would act on clear or cloudy days, or when the wind was strong.

Inwardly she shrank from the dust, the coal smoke, and the confusion of Albany. The green fields of her upstate home had been fresh and cool. They had been home-but they were home no longer.

The farm had been sold. Other feet trod the boards of the house now, and it was just as well. She felt that there was nothing for her. You dream too much! Her father often told her that in his half-irritated yet affectionate way, and it was true. Now her dreams lay westward, somewhere down the Ohio.

She knew only vaguely where the Ohio River lay, or the lands to which they were going, those uncertain lands, theirs for the taking, which no one had seen. Her father had not even seen a map, if any existed. All they had seen was some scratchings in the dirt near the back stoop as a drifter traced with a stick the course of the Ohio River and pointed out the lands that lay open to taking. The Ohio country was the wild west, the wilderness. And that was where they were going.

For several years now she had been hearing that name ... the Ohio ... until it was burned into her consciousness. Men talked of it as they talked of the Promised Land.

Nearby a bearded man talked knowingly of the Missouri and the Platte, of keelboating and the fur trade. He was talking to two drunken Carialers about the Indians in the wild lands along those rivers. She had never heard of either of those distant rivers-the Ohio was far enough west for her. A self-contained girl, she quietly watched the movement about her, but her thoughts were far away in that yet unknown Ohio country. If she had met no one here, how could she expect to find anyone out there where there were even fewer people? More than one of her friends had settled for less than they wanted. When a girl passed eighteen she began to feel a little desperate. Her face, though, showed none of the thoughts that was held tightly within her. Her sister Lilith, slender, pretty, and sixteen, turned swiftly and came to her side. Oh, isn't it exciting, Eve? But I don't understand why we have to go west. Why can't we stay here?

Pa's a farmer. He's got to go where there's land to be taken. Besides, you'd soon find this very dull. Things are only exciting until you get used to them, until you know their pattern, and then it all becomes humdrum. But don't you ever want to do anything different? Eve, I just don't understand you at all!

Why should you? Sometimes I think you don't even understand yourself. Lilith glanced quickly at her sister. But you do, don't you? I mean, you know what you want, and everything. I wish I did. Her brow furrowed. Eve, I don't know what's the matter with me. All I know is that I don't-I just don't want any of this ... of the farm, either. She looked out over the crowded river. Am I bad? Or just a fool? I mean, I dream about so many things ... impossible things.

Are they impossible, Lil? If you can dream of them, maybe they are possible.

And in the meantime they help you to be happy. It helps ... I know it helps. It's easier for you. You know what you want. You want a man, and you even know the kind of man ... and you want a home. That ... that isn't what I want at all. Not for a while, at least.

I know.

Eve ... what if you never find him? After all, you're twenty and an- And an old maid? Eve smiled. Don't be afraid to say it, Lil. But I know I'll find him. I just know I shall.

A shrill, piping whistle came from a boat on the river, and then a blast from the horn of a canal boat. The boat reversed its wheels and the water flew. It isn't a place that makes you happy or unhappy, Lil, it's the people you love, and who love you.

Ma says I'm flighty. Do you think I am, Eve?

No. Eve paused. You're different from us, Lil, but in your own way you're just as steady. I never did see anybody catch on to the accordion the way you did ... Pa says you take after Aunt Mae.

The one who ran off with a gambler? Pa has never said any such thing to me! Why, he would never even mention her name in front of us! Whatever happened to her, Eve? Was she awfully unhappy?

Just then their brother Sam, a lean, husky young man of nineteen, with a quick, easy smile, came strolling up from the river and paused alongside of Zeke, who was lying on their rolled-up bedding. It will be soon now, he said. How are you, Zeke?

Zeke opened his eyes abruptly. I ain't half as poorly as ma makes out. If she'd stop spooning that medicine into me, I think I'd get well. Eve's eyes went from her brother to her parents. Zebulon and Rebecca Prescott looked every inch of what they were-sturdy, independent farmer folk ... and pioneers. At first her mother had objected to leaving a home that was becoming more comfortable year by year; but once their decision had been made, the excitement had taken hold of her too.

Zebulon's best argument was a good one. They were not getting rich where they were, which was not important, for they lived well, but there was no land for the boys-not for more than one of them, at least. Suddenly there was a surge in the crowd about them and over the confusion they heard a voice proclaiming: The Pride of Utica, now loading! All a-boarrrd for the Pride of Utica! The Ramsey family ... the Peter Smiths ... John and Jacob Voorhies ... L. P. Baker ... the Stoeger family, all eight of them ... all a-boarrrd for the Pride of Utica.

We're next, pa, Sam said, stooping to lift a trunk to his shoulder. We'd best move down to the shore.

A gaunt Scotsman in a faded homespun shirt let his glance fall to Zeke, who was struggling up from his temporary couch. The boy's health your reason for goin' west, Prescott?

Partly ... only partly. Mostly, Zebulon said gravely, our trouble was rocks.

Why, there'd be years when we'd crop a hundred bushels of rocks to the acre.

Now, Zebulon, you shouldn't lie to the man like that. Ours was good land. Lie? Now, Rebecca, you know I'm a God-fearing man, and I'd not lie. I tell the truth as I see it. Why, in that country where we lived a man never used a plow. He just blasted out the furrows with gun powder. Time came it was too much for me. When I hauled the bucket out of the well, even that was full of rocks, and I says to myself, Zeb, here you be with an ailin' son an' a twenty-year-old daughter who won't take to herself a husband- Pa! How you do go on!

-and another daughter who acts like she ain't just right in the head,' so I just made myself a vow. If I could find a man who had five hundred dollars there'd be another fool ownin' that farm. Well, sir, the Good Lord provided such a man and here we are!

Mr. Harvey, Rebecca protested, don't you believe a word of it. We had the best farm in the county. It was pa's itching foot that brought us to this, and heaven knows where we'll end up.

I'm headed for Illinois, Harvey replied, and folks say there are grown men out there who have never seen a rock.

He gestured toward the three hulking young men who lurked nearby, staring hungrily at the girls. These are my boys, Angus, Brutus, and Colin. I think they want to become acquainted with your daughters. Single, I take it.

Harvey nodded. So far ... but they're girlin'. That Illinois country sounds good to me. Lilith, take up your accordion an' strike up a tune for the lads.

I ain't in the mood, pa.

Lilith, her father said sternly, there's a time for coaxin', but this here ain't it. You play something.

She shrugged, and picking up the accordion with a disgusted glance at Eve, she started to play and sing Miss Bailey's Ghost. It became apparent at once that she both played and sang with an uncommon flair. Now, you see here, Lilith! You know better than to play that one! Play something the boys can sing.

She glanced at the three boys. What songs do you know?

I can sing Yankee Doodle,' Colin suggested.