The Chisholms (22 page)

She blamed him.

Blamed him for whatever it was made him decide to quit Virginia. Wasn’t nothing wrong with Virginia. Had a good home there, a
life
. Wasn’t a life anymore, the minute they left. Blamed him for not telling his sons and daughters alike to just keep their mouths shut that time in Louisville. He was the father here, he was the head of this family; if he wanted to sell his whiskey dear and head back home, why then that was
his
business and never mind voting. That’s what he. should’ve done right
then,
taken a stand, told the young’uns they didn’t like the way this family was being run, why then they could just go find theirselves a better one. But no, he got himself bullied into continuing on. Blamed him for what happened at the river, too, when they were waiting to be ferried across and anybody with a grain of sense was turning around for home. Should’ve realized that once they missed the chance there at the Kansas, why there’d be no heading back ever again. They’d be left alone at the Coast of Nebraska, and Indians would find them sure as rain.

Blamed Bobbo, too.

Supposed to be standing guard that night, yelling instead all the time about wanting to kill the wolves, like he was on a
hunting
expedition instead of out in the wilderness with Indians creeping up. Yelling back and forth to his father, Hadley still drunk. Both of them probably drunk, the one supposed to be watching for trouble, and the one supposed to be his father. Pair of worthless... Why didn’t he shoot sooner? Why’d he shoot
after
the man had... Oh, Jesus. Couldn’t he see the man was... God, God. Should’ve shot him, killed him, killed him before he could, before he... Dear, dear God. Blamed Bobbo, and blamed Bonnie Sue for being so homesick and moody all the time; hadn’t been so involved with her own misery and with pining for Sean Cassada, she would’ve maybe been able to
do
something that night, help Bobbo, help her sister.

She blamed them all.

She blamed herself.

In their corner of the courtyard, with a buffalo robe beneath them and a light comforter covering them, they whispered in the coolness of the night.

“The Hastys are leaving for Independence in the morning,” Minerva said.

“I know that,” he said.

“Be going with Major Duggan and his people... What do you think of him, Hadley?”

“Loudmouth.”

“Aye, but of what he said.”

“He seemed to know.”

“Hadley, I want to go with them,” she said, and caught her breath, and waited. “We could be back in Independence before summer’s end,” she said, and again waited. “And if we chose to go all the way to Virginia—”

“Min, it’s—”

“—we could be through the Gap by November.”

Hadley was silent.

“I want an answer,” she said.

“Min,” he said, “it’s six hundred miles to Independence.”

“Aye, and five to Fort Hall.”

“We’re halfway between nothin and nowhere,” he said. “I’m scared, Min. I don’t want to go ahead, and I don’t want to go back where my little girl...” He fell silent again. Then he said, “Forgive me, Min, I thought I was doin right. I wanted to find us land we could plant and harvest, I wanted to make a better life than we had back home. Instead, I–I seem to have done everything all wrong. Sent my two sons off to God knows where, took my family into a wilderness where — where my daughter...” He could not utter the words, he choked them back. “Min,” he said, “I’m a man can’t move for fear and for sorrow. I don’t know what to do, Min. I never been scared of nothing in my life, I never grieved for nobody this way before. I miss her so much, I miss her to death.”

“What do you want to do, Had? Whatever you want to do...”

“I want to stay here, Min. At least through the winter and maybe longer. Maybe always.” She said nothing. He waited, but she said nothing.

“There’s land up by the river, timber enough to build us a fine cabin. We could clear a field for planting; the soil’s rich, Min, we could grow things here.”

“Aye,” she said.

“Min, do you not long for a floor to sweep?”

“I do, Hadley.”

“Min, I don’t know who owns the land up there. If it’s American Fur does, then I’ll talk to Orliac about a fair price for what we’d need. If it’s public land, then we’d have to write the government, I reckon, tell them our intentions, ask what the price would be. I’m guessing a dollar, a dollar twenty-five an acre, and I think there’s a minimum you got to buy, a quarter section I think it is. We could squat, meanwhile, if it’s government-owned. Ain’t nobody going to come chase us off it. Min?”

“Yes, Hadley?”

“Would that suit you, Min?”

“If it would help you to mend again, it would suit me.”

“I only know I can’t leave here now,” he said.

“Then we’ll stay, Hadley.”

“I’ll talk to Orliac.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Min,” he said, “I love you, Min.”

“And I love you, too,” she answered.

The surveyors had packed their instruments into the wagons, and now they stood in the morning sunshine, waiting for the Hastys to say their farewells. The day was clear and hot. Captain Kelsey had taken off his hat and was wearing a blue bandanna around his forehead. It gave him a devil-may-care look entirely out of keeping with his prissy nature. Major Duggan stood with one hand on his horse’s bridle, chatting idly with Orliac. A dozen or more Indians were standing against the adobe wall, watching the leavetaking.

Minerva recognized among them the one who’d accosted her shortly after their arrival at the fort. Despite the heat, he was still wearing the white buffalo robe. His face was painted black; it glistened greasily in the bright sunshine. His eyes found hers. He grinned toothily, and then shoved himself off the wall and came toward where she and Martha were talking. Minerva was already starting to back away. But the Indian thrust out his hand to Martha instead.
“Un-p’tee-plez,”
he said, his voice demanding and somewhat threatening. Martha giggled nervously, and then shrugged. Orliac turned from the major.

“Allez! Allez!”
he shouted, and shooed the Indian away with his hands. The Indian grasped his nose between thumb and forefinger. Apparently thinking better of what he was about to do, he turned away sullenly and went to stand against the wall of the fort again.

“He wants a favor,
un petit plaisir,”
Orliac said, and shrugged. “They are spoiled by emigrants all the time, eh? They want only a biscuit or two, a cup of coffee — but they are nuisances. You must never show you are in the slightest afraid. They can read faces; I sometimes think they can read minds.”

“Minerva, will you be all right?” Martha asked, and took her hand between both her own.

“I think so, yes.”

“We’ve scarcely met,” Martha said.

“I shall miss you,” Minerva said.

The women embraced. Jeb Hasty shook hands with Hadley, and then climbed up onto the wagon seat. “Tommy?” he said.

“Yes, Pa.”

How much like Gideon he looked. She was about to weep again; she wished she could learn to control these sudden fits of weeping that came upon her. She bit her lip. Kelsey wheeled his horse about; the crowd of Indians back away.

“Let’s move it then!” Major Duggan said, and pointed sharply eastward with the same forefinger he’d used to tap the air.

They watched the wagons and horses departing. Martha waved from the seat. Surprisingly and unexpectedly, the Indian with the painted black face stepped out from the others and waved back. He kept waving. The wagons moved into the distance. Far out on the horizon, Minerva saw dust rising, moving. She watched. Horses and riders coming from the east, closing the gap between themselves and the wagons. The horses stopped alongside the lead wagon. The dust settled. And now again the horses were in motion. A pair of riders. One of them astride a piebald. The other on a black...

Gideon,
she thought.

Will,
she thought.

Aloud, she shouted, “It’s them, Hadley, they’re here!”

Arms wide, skirts flying, she ran to greet her sons.

The night had turned cool.

Outside the fort, the open tops of the Indian tipis glowed with fires from within, triangular patches of light on the rolling hillside. Occasionally a dog barked, and was answered by another, and yet another, the final bark sounding before the echo of the first had died.

Will was drunk.

He sat against the outside wall of the fort, the baked clay bricks still warm from the day’s sun. There was a bottle of wine in his hand, the third one tonight, most of it already gone. He lifted the bottle to his mouth, and drank from it, and tried to make sense of what had happened, and could make no sense of it.
Hell with it,
he thought, and drank again, and shook his head, and said, “Shut up,” when a baby down below began crying. He listened to the baby crying.

Cried like a baby himself when they told him. Didn’t suspicion nothing at first. Him and Gideon riding up this morning, Ma running down from the fort, looking like a girl half her age, didn’t even recognize her. Grabbing Gideon to her, and then stretching out her hand: “Will, Will, darlin!” All of them up at the fort later. Pa looking a bit strange. Bobbo sort of standing off to one side. Bonnie Sue hugging them both. It was Gideon who said, “Where’s Annabel?”

He lifted the bottle to his lips again.

He could remember Annabel asking him how was the fighting in Texas. He had been planing a door out back. Had taken it down cause it was sticking in the August heat. Had it set up between two big rocks and was planing it. Curls of white wood coming up from it.

“Well, it wasn’t much good,” he’d said.

“What’d you do there?”

“Just yelled and hollered and shot at people.”

“That don’t sound fun, Will.”

“It wasn’t,” he said. “Much rather go cat-fishin in the Clinch.”

“Then why don’t we?” Annabel asked.

Big grin.

“Why don’t we just?” he said, and put down the plane.

Shit.

You...

You get here and they tell you your baby sister...

The Indian woman came out of the night silently, startling him. His hand jerked. Wine spilled from the bottle tilted to his mouth, dribbled over his chin, splashed onto his shirt. He brushed at the shirt, and looked up at her. “What do you want?” he said...

She was tall and slender, wearing an elkskin dress, the sleeves open and hanging, no beads or quills or ornamentation of any kind, fringed at the bottom where it came to just below her knees. She wore unbeaded moccasins, soft upper flaps turned back like cuffs. Black cotton stockings showed above them, one pulled to her shin, the other falling to her ankle, bunched there above the moccasin cuff. Her hair was black and plaited on either side of her head, the braids held fast with leather thongs. She had high cheekbones painted with solid circles of vermilion. In the moonlight, her eyes were luminous and black.

Approaching him silently, she stood before him and grinned, head tilted to one side, teeth flashing. She put her hands on her thighs as if to dry the palms on the treated hide, but then bent slightly at the knees and grasped the fringed bottom of the skirt in both hands. Standing erect again, she pulled the skirt up over her waist. She was naked under it; he saw the tangled blackness of her crotch an instant before she lowered the skirt again. She smiled in invitation, her brows rising in silent inquiry. Then she extended her hand to him, the fingers curled into a beggar’s bowl.

“Why the hell not?” he said.

There were dogs barking outside the tipi. He watched them warily. Shouldn’t never show your teeth to a dog. Nor any wild animal. Think you were going to attack. Never smile at them. There’s a nice boy, but no smile. She’d been in there four, five minutes already. He’d give her just till he finished the wine, then he’d leave. Chilly out here; no sense waiting in the cold for a whore. No sense to
nothing,
you wanted to know.

She was coming out of the tipi now. Fat squaw with her. Squaw looked annoyed, like she didn’t want to be chased out here in the cold while the whore entertained a customer.
Too bad about you,
Will thought, and almost grinned, and remembered the dogs. The dogs were still yapping. Squaw said something to them, didn’t bother them a jot; they just kept at it. She slapped one across the snout. He began whimpering and then shut up. She said something in Indian to the whore then, and the whore nodded. Fat squaw pulled her robe around her, called to the dogs, and went walking over to another tipi. She said something else in Indian and then went inside. The whore was holding open the flap of the tipi here. Will nodded, finished the wine in the bottle, and then crouched and went on in.

There was a fire in the middle; he went to it and held out his hands to the flames. Smoke going up through the hole there in the ceiling or whatever they called it. Painted shield hanging there from one of the poles. Couple of lances. Buffalo robes all over the dirt floor.

“How much’s this gonna cost me?” Will asked.

The woman held up a finger.

“Shit,” he said. “I can get a
white
woman for that.”

Wasn’t half bad-looking here in the light, though. Wasn’t half
good
-looking neither. Brown like any other Indian he’d ever seen, lips parched and cracked, sore in the corner of her mouth. Looked like good tits under the elkskin dress.

“I’ll give you half a dollar,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Hell with it then,” he said, and turned to go, and couldn’t find the flap he’d come in by. “Now where...” he said, and realized he was still holding the empty wine bottle, and tossed it aside angrily. Feeling his way around the tipi hand over hand, touching the warm hide walls, he found the opening at last and was crouching to go out when he felt her hand on his shoulder. He looked up. She nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and let the flap fall again. He staggered to his feet and clutched one of the lodge poles for support. “Half a dollar, right?” he said.