The Chisholms (29 page)

“Is it to be a speech?” she said.

“Sort of,” he said.

“Then by all means let’s sit,” she said, and put down the pewter plates and led him to where a puncheon bench rested against the wall. Sitting, smoothing her skirt, she turned to face him. Schwarzenbacher sat beside her. He cleared his throat.

“Bonnie Sue,” he said, or thought he said, and then cleared his throat again, and said it too loudly this time, “Bonnie Sue,” and lowered his voice and said, “I want to tell you a little bit about myself first.”

“All right,” she said.

“You may or may not know,” he said, beginning the rehearsed speech, “and perhaps may not even
care
to know that my plan in coming here to Fort Laramie was to learn the fur trade, starting at the basest level, the acquiring of hides from trappers and hunters. I’ve changed my mind about furs, for to tell the truth there’s nothing too stimulating about the skins of dead animals, and I’d as soon they kept their hides as parted with them.” He nodded, rather pleased with what he’d just said. He looked into her eyes. Wide and green, intelligent and alert, they were studying his face. He suspected she was far ahead of him already, and cursed the cumbersome speech he’d memorized, but plunged ahead with it nonetheless. “I plan to leave for California in the spring,” he said, “when my contract with the American Fur Company expires. I plan to seek my fortune in the west. I’ve talked with Gideon, your brother Gideon...”

“Yes,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Yes, and I know something of his own plan to leave for California, and I thought we might make the journey together. I thought to convince Bobbo to come along as well, leaving the cabin here to your parents...” He had departed from the planned speech; he was rambling. “Orliac is correct on that one matter, Bonnie Sue...”

“What matter is that?” she asked.

“Of there being little danger of Indian attack here since the fort is a place of business, and Indians are as smart as any other men when it comes to trading. I’m saying your parents would be safe here should both your brothers decide to leave and — and you and the baby with them. The baby’s coming in March—”

“In February, I reckon,” Bonnie Sue said.

“That’s better yet,” he said, “which means by June you’d be strong enough to travel, you and the baby both. I’m asking you to go with me when I leave, Bonnie Sue. As my wife, Bonnie Sue.”

He went back to the prepared speech again, picking it up not quite where he had lost it, but raveling up the yarn nonetheless, telling her how much he admired her, and of how his admiration had started that day of the courtyard trial when she’d nobly come to the defense of Lester Hackett, all of which he’d thoroughly rehearsed, and which he told her now with practiced ease and studied sincerity even though he meant every word of it. He told her, too, that he loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone in his life, loved her more than life itself — why, he would lay down his life for her in a minute if she asked that of him, without hesitation and without remorse. He told her he’d broken his engagement to Miss Loretta Hazlitt in Yonkers, New York, had dispatched a letter to her via some trappers who’d been at the fort, perhaps she recalled having seen the trappers, one with but a single ear, the other constantly drunk, he was sure Loretta had received it by now. He had, in short, performed his gentlemanly duty by releasing her from her vows, and he was free now to ask Bonnie Sue for her hand in marriage, which he was now doing. He wished to assure her that he would accept the baby as his own and love it as his own, be it boy or girl, it made no matter, he would love the child as deeply as he now loved its mother.

“If you’ll have me,” he said, “we could marry at once and move into my apartment at the fort, which is neither sumptuous nor grand, but which will serve us well till we leave for California in June. Will you marry me, Bonnie Sue?”

“I don’t love you,” she said.

“That will come,” he said. “In time.”

“No,” she said.

The night was cold and sharp. Clouds of vapor puffed from their mouths as they came down the hill toward the fort, their arms laden with gifts for Will. Bobbo was drunk and singing. Gideon kept trying to shush him. There were only two tents outside the fort now, both of them sending up smoke to the crystal night. Will heard them coming, poked his head out, and then stepped into the cold.

“Hey, how you doin?” he said. “Merry Christmas! “

“Merry Christmas, Will,” Gideon said, and took his hand.

“Hey there!” Bobbo shouted, and hugged his brother close. “Merry Christmas there, Will!”

“Come on in, you two! Hey, Catherine!” he yelled, and threw back the flap to the tent. “Look who’s here!”

There was a fire burning inside. The two women were sitting near it. They got to their feet at once, both of them smiling welcome. Catherine gestured to one of the robes, and Gideon said, “Thank you,” and put down the gifts he was carrying. Bobbo sat cross-legged. There was a strained moment of silence, and then Gideon said, “Hey, Will, we missed you today.”

“Yeah, I missed y’all, too. Hey, wait’ll you see what we got for you. How’s Ma, is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Gideon said. “Pa sent you this gallon of whiskey; it’s most the last of it, Will. He’s doling it out like it was gold these days.”

“Hey now,” Will said. “Hey, let’s all have some whiskey. Sister, have some whiskey. Tell her whiskey, Catherine.”

“Is that her name?” Gideon asked. “Sister?”

“Well, that’s what Catherine calls her,” Will said. “She’s her sister-in-law actually. They used t’be married to the same fella. Here we go — ah, good,” Will said, and picked up one of the hollow gourds Catherine put on the ground beside him. “Made some nice things for you,” he said, and then said to Catherine, who was starting across the tent again, “No, honey, let it wait, have some whiskey first. Ask Sister if she wants some. Whiskey,” he said to Sister, and nodded. Catherine’s hands moved. Will passed the filled gourds around.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” his brothers said, almost together.

Catherine nodded.

“Mair-creez,”
Sister said, and drank.

“Bonnie Sue would’ve come down with us, Will, but the snow’s deep and she’s big as a house.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “Sister made a nice comb for her, didn’t you, Sister? Comb,” he said, and made a sign with his hands.

“Comb,” Sister said, and nodded.

“She’s learning a little English. Catherine can’t talk, you know, sons of bitches cut out her tongue when she was just comin along.”

“Do that again, Will,” Bobbo said.

“What you mean? This with my hands? This means comb,” he said, and again made the sign.

“
Looks
like a comb, sure enough,” Gideon said.

“It sure do,” Bobbo said. “Will,
what’s
her name again?”

“Sister,” Will said.

“Hey, Sister, how you doin?” Bobbo said, and held out his hand to her.

Sister took the hand.

“She knows about shakin hands,” Will said.

“Shake,” Sister said, and nodded.

“Right,” Bobbo said.

“Ain’t you gonna open what we brought, Will?”

“Sure I am, you bet I am. Here now, let me get — no, sit down, Catherine, I’ll get it. How was your dinner? Did you have a nice Christmas dinner?”

“Oh, yeah, it was real nice,” Gideon said. “How about you?”

“I shot us some fine birds—”

“Hey, so did I,” Gideon said.

“Yeah?” Will said. “Now how about that?” and he laughed and went to the other side of the tent, where he picked up a basket brimming with gifts. Carrying it back to the robe, he set it down before his brothers and said, “I marked all these with your names. This one’s for you, Gideon, and let me see... Catherine, where’s — wait a minute. Is this the one for Bobbo? Wrapped here in hide? With the blue thong here?”

Catherine nodded.

“Yeah, take a look at this, Bobbo,” he said. “Catherine made it. Well, go on take a look at it. Gideon, open yours, go on now.”

“We brought some things for your — for the women, too,” Gideon said.

“Thank you, I appreciate that,” Will said.

Bobbo slipped the thong off the hide wrapping. The wooden flute was delicately carved, decorated with paint in orange and blue. He looked at it and felt the way he had that time he’d seen Timothy’s drawing. Tears suddenly brimmed in his eyes.

“Hey,” Will said.

“It’s beautiful,” Bobbo said. “Thank you, Will. Thank you, Catherine. Sister.”

“Will, you got to forgive Ma not...”

“I understand,” Will said. “I really do.”

“Open your presents, Will. We want you to please open your presents.”

“Yes,” Will said, and lifted his drink again. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” Gideon said. “Catherine, you too. This one’s for you, wrapped here in the polka dot. And Sister...”

“Mair-creez,”
Sister said again, and drank.

“Case you don’t know it,” Will said, “that’s ‘Merry Christmas.’ ”

“In Indian?” Bobbo asked.

“Hell, no. In
English!”
Will said.

Catherine laughed. Sister laughed with her. And suddenly, they all were laughing.

Gideon was alone with Bonnie Sue when the first pains came. He’d sprained his ankle in the woods the day before, tripped over a damn root hidden by snow. Hurt like hell now. Bonnie Sue was rocking by the fire. On the mantel the clock ticked. There were times he wanted to pick up that damn clock and hurl it across the room, finish the job the mules had started.

“You’d think he’d have been discouraged,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Yeah,” Gideon said, and got up, and began limping around.

“Or angry, or whatever.”

Still
hurt like hell.

“But no, he’s been coming back up here every day since Christmas.”

“Well, maybe he’s daft,” Gideon said.

“Do you know what he said just the other day?”

“No, what’d he say?” Gideon asked.
Hated
not being able to move like he normally did.

“He said it was my pride made me refuse him.”

“Yeah, he is daft,” Gideon said.

“Said I thought he’d proposed out of pity, and my pride wouldn’t let me accept. I told him it had nothin to
do
with pride, it had only to do with not loving him. You think it’s got to do with pride, Gideon?”

“I don’t know
what
it’s got to do with. It’s you he’s asking; how should I know?”

“Hobbling around that way ain’t going to help your ankle none,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Well, your
chatter
ain’t helpin it none either,” Gideon said. “You want to marry the man, then why don’t you just up and marry him, stead of—”

“I
don’t
want to marry him. I’m only askin do you think it’s pride or not.”

“What’s my opinion got to do with it?” Gideon said. “Ain’t me has to love him, it’s—”

“Oh!” Bonnie Sue said.

He turned to her at once. Her eyes were opened wide in surprise. She grimaced, and then clutched for her belly, and then said, “Oh” again, and sat with her arms crossed over her belly, looking straight ahead of her into the cabin.

“Sis?” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“Sis?”

“It’s all right, Gideon. Run on down the fort, go fetch Mama.”

“Sis?” he said. He was on the edge of panic now.

“Do what I say, Gideon! Fast!”

He went out the door without putting on a coat. He went limping through the woods on his swollen ankle, stabs of pain shooting up into his leg each time he put the foot down, tripping once in the snow and almost twisting the other ankle, getting to his knees, and catching his breath, and then standing up straight, testing the ankle, and beginning to run for the fort again. He passed the tree where they’d hanged Lester Hackett, whose baby it was, the branches spreading bare and black against the gray winter sky, the sun barely showing as a white ball hidden in the gray.

The river was frozen over almost completely, save for patches here and there where the water ran black through chunks of ice. The trees looked like pencil sketches, black scratchy lines against the gray, everything quiet around him, his footballs cushioned by the snow till he began climbing a small hillock that the wind hit full, and there he broke through crusted snow with each step, crashing into the stillness. He came over the top of the hill and started down toward the fort again, his ankle hurting something fierce, his heart pounding in his chest to burst through his ribs.

The postern gate was open. He came in through the back of the fort and ran past the mules and horses in the corral and then across to the other side, where the kitchen was, and where he guessed he’d find his mother. The cook was dozing on a barrel turned upside down, his back against the kitchen wall, his feet up on a smaller keg. Gideon came in yelling, and the cook sat upright and said in alarm,
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
his voice coming out like a squeak, his eyes opened wide in fright, as though he’d been dreaming of marauding Indians.

“Where’s my mother?” Gideon said.

“Ta mère?”
the cook said.

“It’s my sister’s time!” Gideon said.

“Ta soeur?”
the cook said, and finally made the connection. This was the brother of the one who’d been made pregnant by the horse thief. He got up off the barrel at once, and looked around the kitchen in bewilderment, as though he’d put Minerva away someplace, perhaps in a bin or a drawer, but could not remember exactly where. Gideon, breathing raggedly, his chest afire, his ankle swollen and throbbing, looked at the man helplessly, waiting for him to
say
something, to
do
something. Schwarzenbacher burst into the kitchen just then, having heard the commotion from his office next door. When he saw Gideon, he asked immediately, “Is it Bonnie Sue?”