The Diary Of Mattie Spenser (4 page)

After we’d supped, we sang “Cross Over the River” and all other songs about water until far into the night. Then Husband christened this stopping place “Camp Noah.”

Luke was pleased with my obvious surprise and heartfelt delight at his gift this morning, and he said slyly that he hoped I was not disappointed that I had not received a butter churn instead. I replied, in the same manner, that a butter churn had been my heart’s desire, but I would make do with the gold breast pin. Then I threw my arms around him and kissed him, which he seemed to enjoy as much as I did. I shall yet bring him around to my way of affection.

While it is our habit to rest on Sunday, Luke proposed that we do so across the river, hoping the line at the ferry would be shorter on the Sabbath. The travelers’ tents here are as thick as at a camp meeting. But many are waiting at the ferry after all. We may not cross the Missouri until midday. The waters are the color of clay, a wide river, but not so noble as our Mississippi. I think the rivers in Colorado must be more like this one than the Old Miss at home.

Luke is off talking to other emigrants, and I am left with these great dumb brutes of oxen—which Luke has named Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Lee—the last being the obstinate one. Luke said I might choose a name for the Alice Ann. I thought “Miss Givings” to be appropriate but prudently selected “Traveler” instead.

The oxen are more content than I am to stand in the sun and let themselves provide a feast for mosquitoes, which exceed in size any I ever saw. A few minutes ago, I took out the ugly sunbonnet and put it on. Even so, my head has begun to hurt from the sun and the glare of the white wagon covers, and I fear I will come down with one of my headaches. That worries me more than anything Luke would say about the bonnet. The wind is fierce, and I write with my little book held firmly on my writing desk in my lap while the wagon rocks back and forth in the blow.

Luke intends to inquire of the ferryman about the Red Indians. He heard warnings in St. Joe that they are bent on mischief. I observed several of them during our stay there. They are not red, but brown, not as dark as the Negro, but cursed with the same broad face. Some were vain fellows, who raced their horses back and forth on their parade ground across the river from our camp. Others are “Lo, the Poor Indian,” sitting in the mud with their hands out, too lazy even to move to a dry spot. We passed one miserable beggar who looked so woebegone that I asked Luke to give him our leftover biscuits, but Luke refused because the savage was drunk. I do not think we have much to fear from Mr. Lo and his friends on our journey.

June 18, 1865. Overland Trail, Kansas. Sixty-six miles west from St. Joseph.

After crossing on the ferry, I suggested that we should wait to form a traveling party, but Luke discounted the threat of the Red Men, saying he did not believe they were “on the warpath,” as the people along here say. He also did not want to get close to other emigrants for fear of catching the cholera, which had already attacked our camp at St. Joe. I saw a man doubled up with cramping, his pulsing veins engorged with purple blood. His wife halloed and prayed whilst the children cried piteously. I proposed to aid them, but Luke forbade it for fear I would contract the malady myself. Besides, there was nothing to be done beyond the mustard poultice his wife had applied, and even so, the man was dead by nightfall. So I left them fresh-baked biscuits on a rock and will remember them in my prayers.

Luke says we are likely to see more of the dreaded disease before we reach Colorado. I consulted Dr. Chase’s Recipes, and, using the contents of the medicine chest, I mixed us a preventative tincture of spirits of camphor, ginger, and essence of peppermint. We take a spoonful each morning.

So we have left St. Joe behind but we no longer go as the wind, for the oxen travel barely a mile in an hour, plodding instead of walking.

The fifth day out, we spotted several of the savages to the rear of us, mounted on ponies. They did not specially alarm me at first, as I thought them to be indolent, like their brothers in St. Joe. Luke smartly cracked his whip over the oxen, which had no effect on the animals at all, for nothing can induce them to hurry. Then he told me to take charge of the animals whilst he made a great display of taking out his pistol, shotgun, and rifle, which is one of the new repeating kind that does not have to be reloaded after every shot. This was to show the savages we were well armed and not in the least afraid of them. They made no move to catch up with us, but neither did they disappear. I worried they would wait until dark to accost us, and perhaps Luke agreed, for in midafternoon, finding a suitable site, we stopped to make our camp.

With the shotgun in easy reach, I prepared biscuits in the Dutch oven, which I set upon the fire. Luke sat with the rifle on his knees, watching as the savages came near the wagon.

Luke let them get a hundred yards from us before he stood up. Cradling rifle in arms, he went to meet them. They were six—two braves, as the Indian men are misnamed, one of them young, and the other as old as Methuselah, a squaw with a papoose on her back, and two little boys, dressed a la Adam. When they dismounted, I took up the pan of biscuits and greeted our visitors. The younger brave reached out as if to take them all. So I snatched them away, offering them to the woman first. From the looks of her, I thought she must starve whilst her lord and master eats his fill.

When the Indians had finished the biscuits, the squaw sat, happily picking the lice from the head of her papoose and cracking them between her teeth. One of the men pointed at me and said something in Indian to Luke, but Luke only shook his head. I wondered if Husband knew a few words of Indian from his previous trip across the plains, but this was not the time for chatter. So I kept quiet, later finding out the impudent man had attempted to negotiate a trade for me!

Whilst the Indians watched us, Luke muttered for me to take hold of the shotgun, which was loaded, and to act as if I knew how to shoot it. Then Luke took a small mirror and a penknife from his pocket and tossed them to the two men, indicating with a wave of his hand that they were to be off.

One of the men saw the coffeepot next to the fire, pointed at it, and said, “Ko-fee. Ko-fee,” thinking himself conversant in our language. Unlike his squaw, who was old and careworn, he was a handsome specimen, with the pronounced high cheekbones and glossy black hair of his people. He wore only a pair of Indian trousers, which do not cover him up as well as they might, and his strong legs and bare chest, which were the color of a copper penny, showed him to be a manly specimen.

The Indians walked toward our wagon until Luke called, “Halt!”—a word they seemed to know, because they did as they were ordered. The young Indian now turned to smile at Luke, pretending friendship, but knowing a member of that race would steal a dying man’s shoes, Husband pointed his rifle at the Indian, motioning for him to step back. The man let loose a line of gibberish, gesticulating wildly with his arms. He captured all of Luke’s attention, but fortunately, not all of mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the old Indian step quickly behind Luke and raise his arm. There was not time to give warning. Instead, I raised the shotgun and fired, hitting the Indian in the hand, and he yelped. Never in my life have I seen a man whose nerves were as steady as Luke’s. Instead of looking behind him, he gazed steadily at the young Indian, his rifle raised, and ordered, “Git!”

The old man cried pitifully from the wound, and he needed the aid of the squaw to mount his horse. When he was atop the animal, the others scrambled onto their ponies. Luke kept his rifle on them until they had made good their exit. Then he told me, “You saved the day. That was a lucky shot.”

“It wasn’t altogether luck,” I told him, not without a little bragging on my part. “Father says I’m a better marksman than my brothers.” My brothers say I’m as true a shot as Father, but as I know Luke is proud of his own ability with a weapon, having proved himself in the war, I said no more on that subject.

Neither of us slept much that night, but the savages did not return.

July 3, 1865. Fort Kearney, Nebraska Territory. Two hundred ninety-four miles west of St. Joseph.

The morning after last I wrote, we came across an empty trunk, whose contents were scattered about the prairie. Just beyond was a wagon, or what was left of it after its combustible parts were burned. Nearby was a fresh grave. As we had no way of knowing what had happened, Luke and I assured each other that the occupants of the wagon had met with a commonplace accident, such as a broken wheel or an everyday illness—measles, for instance. We checked our wheels, finding them in good condition, and each told the other of having measles as a child, but we did not fool ourselves. The sad state of the wagon was due to foul play by Indians, Perhaps those very savages we had encountered earlier, and so, anxious as we were to reach our new home, we agreed it would be prudent to wait for a wagon train before pulling out.

One arrived whilst we nooned, and its members were pleased to add another rifle to their arsenal. Luke told the men about our visitors and said he did not think they would give us any more trouble because “we” had shot at one and hit him. The men congratulated Luke, who did not apprise them of their error, and I kept my mouth shut. It is said a true woman would rather hear even the faintest praise of her husband than hosannas to herself. The poet who wrote that, I think, was a man.

I was glad to have the companionship of others of my sex. One of them wore the “bloomer costume,” which Luke said was every bit as scandalous as a man wearing a dress, but I do not agree. After dragging petticoats and skirts, even shortened ones, over many miles of prairie, I should find trousers much less incommodious.

Our decision to join the wagon train was a wise one, because Indians soon became a commonplace sight. One group followed us for two days, coming and going, sometimes disappearing for hours at a time. Foolish girl that I was, I wondered if they wanted to keep out of range of my shotgun. I fancied myself something of a legend among the Indian braves.

Shortly after we added our wagon to those of our fellow travelers, our party was joined by Mr. Benjamin Bondurant, an old prospector headed for the Colorado gold fields. He affixed himself to Luke and me, saying we were his choice because Luke had been elected by the others to be the captain of our train—the previous captain having been dismissed due to a dispute among the emigrants prior to our arrival.

Luke thought the real reason Mr. Bondurant invited himself to our campfire was that he prefers to “mess” with us instead of batching. While many of the fellows of our party live on bread and bacon, bacon and bread, we vary our meals with wild onions, prairie peas, and sweet red currants that I find as I walk along with my bag in search of buffalo chips. (Yes, I know I vowed never to stoop for them, but they are much preferred to the alternative, which is no fuel at all. The aforementioned circles of dung, also known as “meadow muffins,” serve another purpose. Two men of our party got into a “snowball” fight, flinging buffalo chips at each other, until each was covered with an odoriferous gray powder.)

The cow is still fresh. So we have butter, which makes itself. I put milk into a pail of a morning, and by day’s end, the movement of the wagon has churned it into butter as neat as you please, and we have refreshing buttermilk for our supper, too. We exchange butter for antelope, which is more than equal to the best beef in the world. Once we traded for buffalo so tough, it must have been the father of all buffaloes. I think the flesh to be the chef d’oeuvre of Lucifer’s kitchen.

Mr. Bondurant is a bugle-bearded man with a bulbous nose the color of a plum, and but one eye, and a rheumy one at that, although it does not seem to affect his vision. He dresses in butternuts and buckskins, with a pistol strapped to one side of his belt, and a long knife, which he calls an “Arkansas toothpick,” to the other. He smells strongly, but then, I smell strongly myself these days. So I do not hold it against him. He repays our hospitality by playing his Jew’s harp whilst we sing, and telling us stories of his life on the Great Plains. Our first night, I told him of our experience with the Indians, and concluded that with so many of us banded together now, I, for one, was not afraid.

“Then ye not be perspicacious,” said he.

I thought Luke would rebuke him, but instead, Husband asked why that was so.

“Because what you pilgrims run into was a family. Just now, we got a war party behind us. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. You bet. They’re all painted up, and they don’t have their women and little ‘uns along. They’re damned rascals, bidin’ their time, waitin’ till us’ns get careless.”

Hearing that, Luke called a parley, and Mr. Bondurant informed all that we must keep together as we travel during the day, allowing neither children nor animals to wander off. The animals are to be pastured inside the circle of wagons at night, and we were told to double the guard. In the event of an Indian attack, we are to corral our wagons as quickly as possible. The men will shoot to kill. Women and boys are to reload the guns, allowing the shooters to keep up a steady fire. If the savages get the upper hand and all is lost, Mr. Bondurant warned, the men are to shoot first wives and children, and then themselves.

One woman whimpered, her husband saying, “Here, here, Mr. Bondurant. There’s no reason to scare the ladies.”

“You ought not to say that, for you ain’t seen what they do to white womens,” said Mr. Bondurant.

“Well, I, for one, refuse to be frightened,” spoke up a woman. “I’m from Gettysburg. There’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

“Them was Christian soldiers at Gettysburg, even if they was Johnny Rebs. You ain’t seen Indians at work, ma’am. Indians ain’t Christian. By ginger, they ain’t human,” replied our Mr. Bondurant.

He guessed the savages would attack in the next day if they could catch our emigrant party unprepared. They lack patience for a sustained stalking, and like children, they allow their attention to be easily diverted. Mr. Bondurant explained that the Red Men do not work together as a fighting unit under the command of a senior officer, as do our soldiers. Instead, it is each man for himself. Here is an odd thing: They often prefer to strike the enemy with a stick than to kill him.