The Homesman (15 page)

“Whooeee!”

Her back was to the fire, and she whirled over to see an astonishing sight. Strong drink, she supposed, affected different men differently. Briggs had built up the fire and was on his feet by it—dancing. Of all things, of all people, George Briggs was dancing. And unlike the recital of the dragoon story, this seemed to be a performance for his own pleasure. It was a kind of jig, or hoedown, and he pounded his energy into it without stint. He banged his boots, he clapped hands, he flapped his arms like wings around himself, and as he danced began to sing some words of “Weevily Wheat” in a loud, besotted voice:

I don't want none o' your weevily wheat,

An' I don't want none o' your barley,

Take some flour'n half an hour

An' bake a cake for Charley.

The higher up the cherry tree,

The riper grows the cherry,

The sooner that you court a gal

The sooner she will marry.

O Charley, he's a nice young man,

An' Charley he's a dandy,

Every time he goes to town

He brings the girls some candy.

Mary Bee turned over. The women were awake. They lay on their sides under the wagon watching the dancer. In the firelight their eyes glittered.

•   •   •

Spring sent winds to bluster the face or sail a slouch hat from a head.

Spring scudded the clouds or let them graze like sheep a new blue sky.

Spring dropped dark veils of rain in the distance or flattened the mules' ears with a flood.

Spring damned the plains with thunder and lightning or blessed them with sunny hours so sweet the heart gave thanks.

The snow melted. The gray wagon splashed eastward through puddles. Briggs pushed the party harder.

Late one afternoon they saw, a mile or two to the south, an emigrant train headed west, a short train of six ox-drawn wagons and a small herd of perhaps fifty head of cattle. As they watched, the train commenced to circle for the night, and Mary Bee had an idea. She'd saddle up, ride to the train, and ask if they couldn't camp with the emigrants. It might do the women good, she thought, to spend a few hours with women who were normal, who'd treat them with compassion, it might have a wholesome, healing effect. Briggs said no. In the first place, he didn't care to rub shoulders with any damn pilgrims, and in the second, their four women wouldn't be welcome. Mary Bee wanted to know why in the world not. Because, he said. Because the husbands would say a flat no to having their wives see what could happen to the wives of sodbusters down the road, that they could go crazy. Mary Bee declared she wasn't concerned what the husbands said. With examples like these set before them, they might take better care of their wives, not use them like slaves and brood sows. And so declaring, she saddled Dorothy and rode off toward the train. She looked back once, and Briggs had started the wagon again. He was not a man to wait upon time, tide, or women with vipers in their mouths.

The ox-drawn wagons were circled now, the cattle herded inside, and a man rode out to meet her. They introduced themselves, and in the custom of the West, exchanged information. His name was Henry Trowbridge, and he had been elected train master by this company of Congregationalist families from Massachusetts. Except for household goods they had outfitted themselves and crossed the Big Muddy at Kanesville. They numbered sixteen adults, twelve children, and two infants. They were twenty-five days out from the river today. The weather had been tolerably good, and praise be to the Lord, there had been no sickness among them, nor had they encountered any Indians. Henry Trowbridge had taken off his hat, and Mary Bee told him it was a pleasure to converse with a gentleman again. There were only six in her party, she said, five women including herself and one man, traveling by frame wagon, and they were eleven days out of the neighborhood around Loup, in the northwest corner of the Territory. They had survived a fierce ice storm but had seen no Indians. Small game had been plentiful. She said she had ridden over on impulse, thinking it might be mutually enjoyable if her party camped this night with his. Had he any objection?

He smiled. “None at all, ma'am. It would be our privilege.”

“I should tell you one thing, though,” she said. “The other four women have lost their minds.”

He stared. “Lost their minds?”

“I'm sorry, yes. There is no asylum in the Territory. Mr. Briggs and I are taking them to a Methodist society in Iowa. From there they'll be escorted to the homes of relatives.” Trowbridge put on his hat and pulled down the brim so far that his face was half-hidden. “I thought it might be beneficial for them to mingle with the women in your party.”

“The sane women,” he said.

“Yes.” She bent, peering under his hatbrim, trying to look him in the eye. “Does this alter your position, Mr. Trowbridge?”

He met her look, and his was honest. “Miss Cuddy, I'm afraid it does. At least I should talk it over with the men in my company, the husbands. Will you give me a few minutes to do so?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you.” He wheeled his horse, then wheeled again. “Are they harmless?”

She paused. “They are wives and mothers.”

His face flushed a deep red. “I regret I asked the question. I apologize.” He wheeled again and rode away toward the train.

Mary Bee dismounted and let her mare graze, and presently a boy and girl, brother and sister by their likeness, wandered out from the wagons to see the stranger. They were followed at intervals by two more, then five, then three youngsters. Some walked out warily, some skipped, some ran. A lady in a rabbit hat materializing out of thin air was an object of considerable curiosity, and she was soon surrounded by boys and girls big and small, dark and fair, boisterous and shy, a dozen of them, and all of them, plus herself, jabbering away at a great rate and swopping whoppers. They told her about fording a river and how they all nearly “drownded.” She told them about the ice storm. They told her how tiresome it was to herd cattle after the wagons all day, which was their chore, and how dangerous—they'd seen hundreds of savage Injuns lurking everywhere. She told them how she had shot and killed a rattlesnake in her schoolroom. Their eyes popped. Her schoolroom? Yes, she'd fess up, she had once been a teacher. Oh, they said, shame on her, but they were out of school now for good, they'd never, ever have to go again. Mary Bee begged to differ. The fact was, as soon as their parents settled somewhere, one of the first things they'd do was build a school and hire a teacher. And speaking of that, she teased, they'd played hooky long enough, and this was a perfect opportunity. Why didn't she drill them right now, right here, on their multiplication tables? They groaned. All right, what about a spelldown? They pretended to be sick at their stomachs. All right, then, what about a game of Pass-the-Shoe? Hooray, they cheered.

The eldest was nine or ten, the youngest four or five. Mary Bee seated them in a circle on the grass, side by side, cross-legged, and had each one remove a shoe or boot. Several didn't know the game. Circling behind them, teacher explained it. Someone would chant a count-out rhyme. On each beat, everyone was to bang his shoe or boot on the ground before him. On the last beat, the shoe or boot was passed to the person on his left. So on and so on, shoes and boots moving around the circle. But as soon as a shoe or boot was passed to its rightful owner, the game was over, that person was the winner and received a prize. Did everyone understand? All right, get ready, get set, who'd sing out the first rhyme?

It was a stout boy with a muddy face. “Oneso, twoso, zickasi zam,” he declaimed as boots and shoes were banged. “Poptail, vinegar, pickle in the pan / Ram, scam, birds anam / Tee, taw, buck!” And on the shouted word “buck,” boots and shoes were passed and grabbed and someone else began to chant, a small girl with a runny nose. “Eerie, orie, ickery Ann / Phylisy, phalisy, Nicholas John / Queery, quary, English Navy / Stinkum, stankum, buck / You're out!” Several passed to the right rather than the left and tangled arms, and the rest fell over backward, laughing. Everyone had a repertoire of count-out rhymes, so there was no lack of volunteers. “Peter Mutrimity Tram,” chanted a girl with pigtails, “He is a good water man / He catches hens / And puts them in pens / Some lay eggs and some lay none / Wire briar limber lock / Three geese in a flock / O-U-T spells out!” Then two boys counted out together at the top of their lungs. “Ibbity, bibbity, ibbity sob / Ibbity, bibbity, vanilla / Dictionary down the ferry / Tun, tun, American gun / Eighteen hundred and fifty-one!”

“Miss Cuddy!”

It was Henry Trowbridge on horseback. She broke up the game by clapping hands and saying she must talk with Mr. Trowbridge, but they'd finish the game and get a winner some other day, the next time they crossed paths on the prairie.

“Shucks,” said the boy with the muddy face. “We won't never see you again.”

“Ever,” she corrected. “Why, of course you will—it's a small world,” she assured them. “But until you do, just remember: be good boys and girls, mind your parents, say your prayers, do your homework, don't have bad dreams, be nice to your teachers, wash behind your ears, and Merry Christmas when it comes!”

Two girls hugged her and they all put on boots and shoes and mogged away to the wagons. Mary Bee hated to part with these children, to let them go to the future. How would they fare? What fate awaited them in the West? She wished them God's speed and God's love.

She went to Trowbridge and had only to see his face to know his message. “It's no, isn't it?”

He took off his hat again. He nodded.

She turned away from him and walked to Dorothy and mounted. The afternoon had waned, and it was almost dusk. Lines of cooking smoke rose from the wagons as the women got supper for their families. She rode back to Trowbridge, her eyes full of tears.

“I am more than embarrassed,” he said simply. “I am ashamed.”

“I am naive,” she said. “I didn't realize how cruel we can be to our own kind.”

“ ‘A new commandment I give unto you,' ” he quoted. “ ‘That ye love one another.' ”

She nodded at the irony and blinked back the tears. Trowbridge reminded her of Alfred Dowd. An educated man in late middle age, his hair was white, and he wore a well-kept spade beard, also white.

“I take your cause, believe me,” he assured her. “But please look at it from the other side, the husbands'. Cruelty is not intended. They only want to protect their womenfolk. As I said, we are more than three weeks out of Kanesville, and all has gone exceeding well. Our wives sing at their work. To put before them poor lunatic women—sisters under the skin—as proof of what they themselves may come to, of how rigorous may be the life they will lead—that would be cruelty indeed. It would cast a pall. Do you not see this, Miss Cuddy?”

“I suppose so.”

Trowbridge was cheered. “But all's not lost. I am authorized to offer you whatever supplies you may need. We have ample.”

Mary Bee was not cheered. His offer had the contrary effect, and blinking could not stay the tears this time. “No!” she cried. “Tell them no! We don't want food! What we want is simple human kindness!” And she reined her horse around and put it to the trot and left Trowbridge in the lurch.

It took half an hour to find her party. Briggs had kept the wagon moving till almost dark. All he had done was picket the animals. There was no fire, and the women, poor things, were still strapped in the wagon. He leaned against the wagon enjoying the sunset and humming a tune—“Money Musk” she thought it was. Had she been male, Mary Bee would have cursed him to a fare-thee-well. But the worst thing was, he had been right about the emigrant train and she had been wrong. It seemed to her that he was beginning to be right more often than a man had a right to be.

•   •   •

Constance, the baby with the big blue eyes, four months old, the one who laughed so much and whom they loved so much, took sick in early morning and wouldn't nurse or anything.

The little boys, Clinton, three, and Denton, two, were all right, though.

As the day passed Connie got sicker. She cried. She twitched and twisted in the big bed or in her mother's arms as she walked her. Her neck swelled up. She started a dry cough. Her eyelids turned red. Her breathing was noisy, but by evening she had a terrible time drawing a breath at all, and when she exhaled, her breath smelled. Then she began to burn up with fever. They had no patent medicines. Arabella kept cold compresses on her forehead and a milk poultice around her swollen neck, but neither did her an iota of good. Garn walked her and changed Clinton's and Denton's diapers while Arabella got supper. After supper he made her go to the outhouse, and when she came back, he'd made up his mind. He handed her the infant.

“Belle,” he said, “I'm goin' for Doc Jessup.”

She shook her head.

“I don't get 'im she might die!” Garn burst out. “I might be too late already!”

She shook her head. She'd been silent a lot lately, he didn't know why, and fussed over the children more than natural, like a mother hen with a brood too big. Garn looked at her and made a face as though he might cry like a baby himself. Suddenly he jumped to her and put Connie on the bed and threw his arms around his wife and hugged her tight.

“Belle, I gotta go,” he said. “I'm scairt, honey. I'm scairt.”

He let her go and got dressed and hugged her again and kissed her. “Don't you fret,” he said. “I know the way and I'll stay to the high ground, where there ain't much snow. Be back in two, three hours if the doc's in. You pray to God he is.”

He kissed her again and was gone.

Garn Sours was twenty-one.

Arabella Sours was nineteen.

He had eight miles in front of him. Lucky for him, they'd had a three-day thaw, but Garn would have chanced the ride no matter what. He'd ride to Timbuctoo for Belle or the kids. The night was dark and no moon, and it was colding up again, and the wind, he could tell from the whistle in his ears, was fixing to blow hard. He kept to the high ground, avoiding the draws, which would be drifted full. Blunder into one of those and a whole herd of cattle might disappear without a trace till spring, much less a horseman. So they plowed through starlight and snow belly-deep now and then, and after one stretch he stopped to rest his animal, laid his left leg forward, and could feel its heart booming. It was an old horse but a brotherly horse, and up to the task. He rode on until it was past midnight, he reckoned, and soon saw far off south a star low down, which had to be a lantern. Doc Jessup had long ago put up a tall pole and lanyard, and pulled a lantern up every winter night to guide him home. Garn's heart boomed with relief. The last quarter-mile he spurred his horse into a gallop and played like he was a U.S. Dragoon chasing Indians.