The Last Crossing (47 page)

Ayto was already here from Fort Whoop-Up with Barker and Grunewald and the wagons. He had the worst news for Charles. His brother was dead, killed in “a hunting mishap.” Ayto blamed Mr. Potts, said the half-breed proved himself a coward during the bear attack that destroyed Charles’s brother, and he was too ashamed to show his pusillanimous face in Benton. Jerry Potts was still at Fort Whoop-Up, “sunk in debauchery to the point of insensibility,” according to Ayto. He went on and put himself in a good light, assuring Charles that he had seen to it that the Captain was buried with fitting dignity and solemnity. Right after he finished praising his own good conduct, Ayto asked for money to get him to Helena, where he says he’ll look for work. Charles gave it to him. You ask me, it was a small price to pay for a view of that man’s back going down the road.

All this misfortune has most naturally thrown Charles into a state of sorrow and confoundment. I have to coax him to take the smallest morsel of food. He says his brain aches from worry and sleepless nights.

Now word has come to Fort Benton that low water on the Upper Missouri means the end of steamboat traffic for the season. If Charles wants to get back to England before winter sets in, he’ll have to make his way overland down to St. Louis. Still, he takes no steps to get himself there. No matter how I dread our parting, I thought it only right to make mention of the situation. “Time is passing, Charles,” I said. “Oughtn’t you to speak to somebody about taking you to St. Louis?”

“I speak to no one but you,” was what he said. Then he added, “Let time pass. I care nothing for minutes, hours, or days.” The look of despair he wore stopped my mouth. I left it there.

I know Charles fears to face his father. He says the old man will charge him with Addington’s death, and will never forgive him for failing to find Simon. The more I have tried to make my Charles see these are foolish thoughts, the angrier he becomes, because, in his heart, Charles does believe the blame is his. Yesterday, contradiction made him roar like a madman. I never believed he could fling such hot and furious words at me.

“Do not speak of my situation!” he shouted. “You understand nothing of my father, the hold he has on me, the power he exerts over me! You cannot comprehend how he would have me grope about in his shadow! So do not speak of it!”

I knew how upset he has been, but pride oftentimes gets the better of me. It came as a shock to be lashed that way by sweet Charles when what I sought to do was help him best as ever I could. My feelings were sore wounded, and, before I lost hold of my own tongue, I marched off to my room here in the Overland Hotel. But then I thought of how he had rented me this room to keep me near him, to keep me from going back to that broken-down wagon with its sad memories. Charles had struck out because he was most frightened and bewildered. Hadn’t I been just the same after Madge died? Full of bitterness and spite? Only kindness opened my heart. Charles’s kindness.

And, thinking of kindness turned my mind to Custis Straw – a man who once tried to comfort my tribulation, who brought justice to my sister’s murderers. He went sick so sudden I never had a chance but
to mumble a few words to him. I saw it was time to clean my own slate of rudeness and debt.

My mind so set, I brushed one of my old dresses and made myself respectable and tidy. Leaving my room, I chanced on Charles in the passageway. His sketchbook was under his arm. He asked, “Are you going out, Lucy?” I told him I was off to pay a visit to Custis Straw to see how his recovery was coming along.

“Yes,” he said, “I must do the same. Soon.” He dropped his eyes to his shirt front and said, “I am most dreadfully sorry for how I just spoke to you.”

I told him all was forgiven. Lingering, he looked up and down the corridor. “Well, I will not detain you any longer,” he finally declared, and hurried away. Only then did I realize that he had been waiting for me to offer to keep him company while he drew. I was sorry and troubled for not understanding him. But it was too late, he was already gone.

If Custis Straw was back on his feet, I figured to find him in the Stubhorn. When I went in the door, there were four or five customers at the bar, Dooley serving up drinks to them. I hailed him. At once, I noted Dooley wasn’t pleased to see me. He held himself poker-stiff and was grudging in his manner. I asked how Straw was making out.

“He’s inching along. Improvement is mighty slow. He’s up and about some since last week. But Custis ain’t himself.”

“Is he in his room upstairs? I’d like a word with him.”

Rubbing his chin, Dooley made a study of the ceiling. “Don’t take this wrong, Mrs. Stoveall, but I don’t reckon a visit from you is a good idea. It might set him back in his present condition. Dr. Bengough says he needs his rest and quiet.”

Right then, I saw Dooley’s eyes do a nervous, hitchy jump. When I glanced back over my shoulder, there was Straw making for a table by the window. Dooley’s description hadn’t done justice to his miserable state. Nothing’s so pitiful as a big man wasted, and Straw was so shrunk up he looked like somebody had dressed a monkey in his clothes. An invalid’s shuffle is how he moved, dragging his boots over
the floorboards, not looking to right nor left, simply making for that table as if it was his safe haven in life.

Dooley reached down under the counter and hauled up a bottle of whisky and a loaf of bread wrapped in a cloth. “You go out the back way, Mrs. Stoveall. Custis don’t need to see you,” he hissed at me, going round the bar. I watched him deliver the victuals and drink to the table. When he did, I saw how he situated himself so as to block Straw from catching sight of me.

I wasn’t about to take orders from some trumped-up, high-handed Irishman, so I walked directly over. Straw’s face was lined, haggard, grey. A bit of colour stole into it about the time he caught sight of me.

“Hello, Custis,” I said. “How you been keeping?”

Uneasy, Dooley tarried there for a second, switching his eyes back and forth from the one to the other of us. Free and easy, Straw said, “Tolerable, Mrs. Stoveall. Take a chair.” Dooley had no choice then but to hie himself off.

Straw unwrapped the bread bundle and broke off a piece. Crumbs scattered on the tabletop, the loaf was that dry and stale.

I remarked, “That’s sorry-looking bread Dooley serves. You want, I can bake you a decent loaf.”

Straw took a salt shaker out of his coat pocket and sprinkled his chunk of dry bread, smiling to himself. “Dr. Bengough’s given instructions I’m to be kept off rich food. Aloysius watches my diet like a hawk. So I eat my bread garnished with the sweat of my brow – so to speak.” He flourished the salt shaker at me, bit into the bread. Flakes of it snowed on his black frock coat.

“What does the doctor say ails you, Custis?”

“Dr. Bengough doesn’t rightly know, but a medical man is loath to confess ignorance. He hops from one diagnosis to the other like a flea from dog to dog. Brain fever, beaver fever, Rocky Mountain fever, typhoid, cholera, enteric complaint, malaria. Take your pick. I told him to autopsy my corpse. In the interests of science, to put his mind at rest.”

“You ought not to talk that way.”

“No? Aloysius says the same.” Straw slid the whisky bottle towards me. “Pour yourself a drink, Mrs. Stoveall, if I’m not cheery and gay enough for you.”

I’d rubbed his fur the wrong way. That was the second time I’d managed to do that in one day. Still, he had no business being so saucy and I can give it back as good as I get. “No lady sits drinking in a saloon,” I snapped.

“Why that’s a nice observation, Mrs. Stoveall. I ought to be flattered you put your spotless reputation at risk by paying a visit to the Stubhorn. All on account of me.”

Heat rose in my face. “I take it you’re making mention of me and Charles. I am well rebuked.”

“Charles Gaunt and you are no affair of mine, Mrs. Stoveall.”

Straw’s hand had a tremor so lively he could scarcely pour the whisky into his jigger. I took the bottle from him and filled the glass level to the lip, and pointed at it. “You hope that poison’s going to cure you?”

“Let’s just say it helps keep me a restful patient. Dr. Bengough weaned me off the laudanum. Now it falls to me to medicate myself.”

“Whisky’ll kill you more like, the awful state you’re in.”

“Why, do I hear regret in your voice, Mrs. Stoveall? I reckoned to leave an unmourned corpse.”

Remembering my mission, I took a firm grip on my temper, said as quietly as I could, “I came but for one reason, Custis, and that is to thank you for helping me twice. I have been troubled and bitter-tongued and I never gave you proper gratitude. I ask forgiveness for that now.”

“You don’t owe me any repentance,” was all he said.

I said, “I do repent. I thank you most for settling with the Kelsos.”

Straw put a finger inside his loose collar and scratched his neck. I saw how mention of his kin disturbed him. “I don’t care to speak of what happened up there. It was necessity. But I’m not proud of it.”

“It took courage, I congratulate you on it.”

“I don’t care to be congratulated for shedding blood, Mrs. Stoveall.”

I couldn’t say a solitary thing right that day. I stood and held my hand out to him. He grasped it gently, just like he was holding a tiny bird. “It’s the past,” he said. “Let us agree to forget it.”

I nodded to him and left the saloon. But I told myself, Let Custis Straw forget it, I’m not about to.

When I got back to the hotel, Charles was still out. All at once I felt melancholy, plumb worn to a nub. I laid down on the bed and, in a wink, I was asleep.

I dreamed myself running through a mighty field of corn, stalks so high they clipped the sky from sight like treetops do. Behind me, I could hear a dog baying. The blood-thirsty belling made me feel ever so afraid, like a small hunted thing.

I’m desperate-lost in the rattling leaves, a stand of corn tall and dark. The dog can’t be put off my scent no matter how I twist and double; his cry is a string tied to my heels, and I drag him along with me no matter which direction I turn.

Then, of a sudden, I come floundering out of the corn patch and into the bright light of full day.

The dog is crouched there, waiting for me, a red bone hound with a knowing look and a long-toothed grin. I can’t move nor cry out. Step by step he sidles up on me until he’s at my feet. His head drops. I hear him commence to lick the ground.

The sound he makes keeps me from looking down. It’s a sloppy, gobbling, greedy noise that sets me to shivering. On and on it goes, until I can’t stand it a second more and I have to know what he’s lapping.

That’s when I see the dark blood of my monthly raining down on the dirt, spattering in the dust. I feel the hot, sticky surge of it out of my body. I can’t bring myself to take a step. I got to stand there and watch until the hound eats his fill, until he finally slouches off, stomach sagging under his bony ribs, so full of me his belly nigh brushes the ground.

I woke up crying Charles’s name. I wanted to tell someone my dream. But there was nobody to tell it to but four walls. As I lay there, all in a sweaty panic, I came to see I would never speak a word of it to Charles.

Whatever his dreams, they are nothing like that. A fine, well-brought-up gentleman doesn’t dream a red bone hound with a taste for woman’s blood.

I understood how the signposts of each of our solitary roads can hardly be read by the other because they are so unlike. Sometimes Charles and me can scarce make out each other’s speech. Him with his high-flown turns of phrase and his high-stepping words, me with my homely country talk, all knots to him that he can hardly pick apart.

I always reckoned touch was our best true speech, but now I worry I misjudged even that, mistook gentle pity for love.

There’s a meaning to the red bone hound, but Charles wouldn’t grant it, seeing as how he has no faith in second sight. Truth be known, I can’t put the meaning to it in words, but deep down I feel it, in the very pit of my womb.

CUSTIS
If Lucy knew Joel Kelso was back in Fort Benton, she wouldn’t be talking so sweet to me, there would be no apologies for Custis Straw then. She’d hold that against me all the way to my grave. Why that brainless boy chose to come back here is beyond me. Probably the thought of being on his own in Blackfoot country scared him back here despite my warnings. Now he seems to have hooked up with that worthless Danny Rand and is just as much under his thumb as he ever was under his brother’s. Joel is deprived of a mind of his own.

Danny Rand’s uncle, the farrier Tolbert Hewitt, has brought a warning to Aloysius to pass on to me. He said the young fellows have been bandying threats about what they intend to do to me, and I ought to keep clear of them. I’d be more than happy to take Hewitt’s advice except for Lucy Stoveall. With Joel Kelso taking up residence in Fort Benton, that’s gunpowder and fire in the same room. I fear she might put herself in jeopardy again.

A fine day and a fine dinner at the Overland. Fried liver and bacon, pan potatoes, mashed turnips, soda crackers, corn pudding. If he knew, old Bengough would rant and rave, but let him, this might be my last supper.