The Last Crossing (20 page)

Granny Timmin, who dowsed lost things. All of the neighbours coming to her from miles around, asking her to help recover their valuables, rings, cufflinks, pocket watches, brooches, earrings, cash money – any variety of metal truck gone missing. That old woman in her best black dress and a white hanky on her head, walking through
front parlours, through barns, through ploughed fields with the wishbone stick in her hands until it went on point like a hunting dog, the sap in the green limb all aquiver with the tug of lost silver, lost gold.

Mother’s gift was of a different kind. Precious metal did not answer to her, but water did. All about the county she witched wells and springs, water bending her bough.

I know Abner hoped to profit by me. He was sure witching was in our family, and he aimed to turn me loose to find lost trinkets, or water for a fee. But I never turned up so much as a penny coin or a cupful of brackish water. It mightily displeased him.

But, laying there mournful and sad in that wagon three nights after Madge’s funeral, tossing and turning in a muddle of blankets, the notion took hold of me that if water and metal could be witched, why couldn’t flesh?

I pitched out of my bed, took up a knife, and ran for that clump of bush growing hard by my wagon, hacked off a pincherry wishbone. A big old swollen moon was spreading a chilly, quicksilver light so bright I could see my bare feet brushing through the dew-soaked grass. A cur howled some complaint to the town, a tinny piano knocked out music, drunks were raising a ruckus in the street. It felt like a swoony spell.

Did it just as I’d seen Granny and Mother do. Slow, I turned to the east, elbows set on my hips, tip of the pincherry sniffing for scent of my sister’s murderers. Nothing answered. Straw had said the Kelsos had come from Kansas, so southward I shifted. The wand stood firm. I shuffled to face west, and the green stick stayed just the same in my hands.

I swung my shoulders north, threw my eyes up to the pole star, and a tiny trembling ran through the pincherry, came stronger and ever stronger, the wishbone leaping, jumping, wrestling about in my hands so’s I could hardly hold to it. It frightened me to see the tip of the wand twitching with a horrible palsy in the cold, blue moonlight. And the palsy ran up my arms, tremors spreading, my whole body quaking like it was beset with St. Vitus’s dance, my skin all gooseflesh. And then my mouth snapping open so wide I feared the joints of my
jaws would crack, and my tongue tapping the roof of my mouth, stuttering fast as a telegraph key. And a strange voice groaned far back in my throat, a deep voice, a man’s voice foully cursing Titus and Joel Kelso. I fainted dead away then, but I woke up fresh and filled with purpose, near bursting with it. The stick had pointed north. I had the promise I would find my sister’s murderers there.

CHARLES
Tonight I wrote, not for Father’s sake, but for myself. I recorded the splendid endurance and tenacity of the remarkable Mrs. Stoveall. For days she has obdurately insisted on hiking behind the wagons from dawn until dusk, no reasons for her stubbornness supplied, never yielding when I importuned her to ride. Now at the end of a taxing, arduous day, she has gathered dried buffalo dung for a cooking fire, dressed the antelope Addington killed, and prepared a delicious repast of steaks and “corn dodgers” smothered in molasses. My brother could not get enough of this American sweet. She may be cooking them for an eternity.

Our evenings have assumed an unvarying pattern. Mrs. Stoveall drudges like a slavey, cooks, serves, washes up. Mr. Ayto and Addington guzzle wine. This open-air life has invigorated Addington, he is completely in his element. Six months ago he was liverish and out of sorts, complexion poor, teeth strangely discoloured; he constantly sponged saliva from his lips with a handkerchief. But now he appears to be in the pink of health, the only one of us whose energy is a match for the indefatigable Mrs. Stoveall.

Even now, despite the lateness of the hour, my brother’s high spirits blow gale force. Like a pampered child, he desires to be the centre of attention, is voluble and demanding, greedy for admiration and esteem, particularly that of our guide, Jerry Potts. But the taciturn native refuses to tip his hat to my brother’s antics. Last night, when Addington played gymnast, stripping to the waist and walking a circle around the fire on his hands, sparks raining down on his bare back, a truly embarrassing display, Mr. Potts sat with a blanket drawn around his shoulders,
impassive as an owl. Not so much as a hoot of approbation from him. His failure to applaud Addington’s athletic prowess put a painful thorn in my brother’s paw which even fawning Mr. Ayto could not draw, no matter how lavishly he praised him. If Mr. Potts is not careful to mend his ways, he shall find he has made an enemy of Addington.

Having failed once to impress our scout, tonight Addington broke out his beloved longbow, and regaled his captive audience with tales of the brave English archers at Crecy and Agincourt whose strong arms drove shafts through the plate armour of French knights, sent arrows whistling clean through the bellies of their destriers. I suppose we were to infer that Addington is their equal. He stood by the fire, flexing the bow to its utmost, bending it to the breaking point, and boasting he would soon bag a grizzly bear with it. When he invited Mr. Potts to see if he was strong enough to draw the string to his ear as Addington had, the half-breed walked off into the night without a word. My brother and Mr. Ayto found this extremely amusing, but I saw Grunewald and Barker exchange anxious glances. Certainly Addington would argue that the opinions of hirelings matter not a whit, but we are all dependent on one another in the wilds, and it does not do to sow dissension in the ranks. Grunewald and Barker owe allegiance to my brother, but there is no doubt that our scout is the man the teamsters truly fear and respect.

Mr. Potts has assured us that one day more of travel shall bring us to the Whitemud River.

Tomorrow, I will walk the banks of the river, wander the copses, comb the prairie grass for my brother’s body. How can I measure which part of me is filled with hope of discovery, to put to rest the matter, against the fervent prayer that our search will yield nothing at all.

This fourth day of travel began in darkness at Mr. Potts’s insistence, stars simmering in the sky, land humped dark and foreboding under the paler firmament. I had been awake for hours, lying in my blankets, impatient for his summons. My mood lightened as our scout led the way, swinging a lantern, a beacon to guide the drivers. After an
hour’s journey, a spectacular mulberry dawn dyed the billowy cloud which lay about the sky in fluffy mounds like wool at an English sheep shearing. If only I could have gathered it up in sacks to paint later. Such clouds that perhaps only Turner could have done justice to their livid majesty. Nevertheless, my fingers itched for a brush.

We rumbled on, Grunewald breaking wind expressively, spitting, and hugging his thoughts to himself.

Now it is noon, and after eight hours of journeying, Addington has decreed a halt. He and our guide are in dispute. The half-breed keeps pointing off to the northeast and repeating emphatically, “Couple more hours, Whitemud. Water and wood. We rest then.”

Addington adopts a firm hand. “My good man, the decision is not yours to make. I am in command and I say we do not take another step until we have eaten and rested. Is that clear?”

“Addington,” I say, “reconsider.”

“And you be quiet, Charles. I shall not brook insubordination from whatever quarter it comes.”

The inscrutable Mr. Potts shrugs. “You stop here. I go on,” he blithely announces and trots off, setting a spark to my brother’s fuse. “Potts! Come back, damn you! D’you hear!”

Our guide’s abrupt departure produces a ripple of consternation. Grunewald’s hands twitch on the reins. “It ain’t much farther, Cap’n. We better follow him.”

Barker simply cries, “Step up!” and his team rattles after the rapidly dwindling figure of our guide. Alarm infects Grunewald, who lashes his horses, jostling aside Addington. I throw a questioning glance back to my brother, who holds himself stiffly erect in the saddle, like a witness to a shameful battlefield rout.

But then he collects himself, decisively spurs his horse and overtakes us. “Press on, men!” he shouts above the din made by the careering wagons. “Show the half-breed your mettle! Press on!” If panic cannot be suppressed, it must be bent to Addington’s will, made to seem something other than what it is.

All at once, I recall Mrs. Stoveall, and twist round on the wagon seat. There she stands, staring after us, camp follower abandoned by
the fleeing troops. I shout at Grunewald to stop, but he doesn’t heed me. Scrambling into the back, I frantically wave and cry out, “Mrs. Stoveall! Mrs. Stoveall! Hurry!” There is an instant of hesitation on her part, then she kicks off her preposterous boots, snatches them up, and flies after us, skirt fluttering, white feet flashing as she leaps sage brush, bounding like a deer. I drop the tailgate, stretch out a hand, give her arm a tug, pull her on, and we fall in a heap on the floorboards of the wagon.

My hand inadvertently grazes a plump breast as we struggle to our knees, swaying wildly from side to side. She catches hold of my shoulders to prevent herself from toppling over. Locked face to face, I confront the most marvellous eyes, a deep brown, the irises flecked with tiny grains of gold. Her face is flushed, hair in fiery disarray. “How swift you are! A veritable Amazon!” I shout, dreadfully excited by my part in her rescue. “A very near thing!”

Lucy Stoveall laughs with an unladylike, animal exuberance. But then I wonder if she isn’t laughing at asinine me, hat ludicrously askew, stirred up by the most piddling of adventures and shouting like an inmate of Bedlam.

LUCY
All sheepish he says, “Excuse my outburst, Mrs. Stoveall. All the Gaunts are mad. Although I daresay Addington is the maddest of us all, madder than Caligula.”

How like a boy Mr. Charles looks. Nose burned red as a cherry, eyes blue as a cornflower. I take my hands from his shoulders, lean back against the wagon box. Pulling off his straw Panama, he fans himself, showing his fine brown hair, all damp, plastered tight to his skull.

“You all can’t be crazier than this. A galloping pantry beats all for craziness.” I point to the provisions threatening to crash down on our heads, cases of corned beef, Borden’s condensed milk, Van Camp’s beans, never mind the toothsome English dainties. I didn’t believe my eyes the first time I poked my head into the glory of this supply wagon.

“Ah, yes,” says Mr. Charles, helping himself to a jar of orange marmalade rolling loose about the floor. He waves it under my nose. “Addington, like Napoleon, believes his army marches on its stomach. But he gives so little credit to you, who keeps us content with your kitchen.”

It’s the first word of thanks or praise I’ve heard from the lot of them. I reckoned Mr. Addington, an expansive man in every way, would be the one to pass out compliments, not Mr. Charles, who’s mostly still as a mill pond. “Well, the makings are fine. It’s hard to put your foot wrong when you start with quality scratch,” I tell him.

Mr. Charles unscrews the marmalade jar, dips his fingers in it, and sucks a dollop into his mouth. “My brother’s personal store. He’s addicted to his marmalade. I commit noblesse oblige. Is my secret safe with you?”

He offers the jar, but I’m shy to sample. Mr. Charles’s brother strikes me as a fellow who might not want strange fingers mucking about in his jam. But Mr. Charles keeps tempting me. “Just a taste, Mrs. Stoveall. Share my guilt. Otherwise, I fear you will report my crime.”

I don’t want to spoil his lark, so I take a scoop. It tastes wonderful strong of orange, sweet and bitter both. “I ate an orange last Christmas,” I blurt. “Took a quarter from my husband’s pocket, and bought me and my sister two. Never had an orange before. That was St. Louis. Seems a long time ago.”

“I am no corrupter of innocence then. It appears, Mrs. Stoveall, that you are already a hardened felon.”

I’m not sure of his description of me, not sure whether he means to chastise me for pilfering Abner’s pockets. “If you’re calling me a thief, you’re wrong. Every nickel that old rake jingled in his pockets came from me and my sister’s sweat. He owed us our treat.”