The Misadventures of Maude March (18 page)

“I read
Wild Woolly,
” I told him, hoping to interest him in
something besides our education. “That's the very thing he has to do.”

He gave me an impatient look and said, “Here's what to do if you meet up with Indians. Look them in the eye, and go about your business. Don't be bullied into trading. In the old days they didn't know any better, but now they know the white man trades with money.”

I mentioned another dimer, one that told of renegade Cheyennes that were a present danger on the Kansas frontier. But neither Marion nor Maude understood the value of a good book.

Marion said, “Most Indians that you might run into these days just want to know that you don't mean harm either. The ones you had to worry about have been sent to Oklahoma or further west or north.” It seemed to me Marion worried about us a lot. But he was still going to send us on our way. I was sorely tempted to point this contradiction out, but chose silence as the wisest course.

It was still daylight when we settled down to camp. Maude had popped some prairie chickens, and Marion had it in mind to fry them up. He was laying wood for a fire when he told us to stop moving around. He put his ear to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Maude asked.

“Shh,” he told her.

Maude looked the question at me: what is he doing?

“It's an Indian trick,” I whispered. “He's listening.”

“Listening to what?”

“Riders,” Marion said. “Several riders. I want you girls to
get on your horses and keep riding south. Due south, you hear, till you reach Independence. Go on now,” he said as Maude and I stared at him.

He gave Maude a little kick at the side of her boot, and sure enough, we both got moving. I picked up the chickens. I'd nearly plucked them clean. No sense in wasting them.

“Where are you going to be?” I asked him.

“Leading them in another direction. Then I'll lose them.”

“Don't do that,” Maude said, surprising me and Marion, both.

“Go. There isn't time for talk,” he said. “I won't try to catch up to you, so don't look for me. Remember all the things I told you.”

“We were going to ride together till Missouri,” Maude said.

“No, we weren't,” Marion told her, eying the dust cloud we could see just rising in the distance. “But if we were, our time is up. You're standing in Missouri. Now ride. Ride!”

“Good-bye, Marion,” I shouted as he slapped my horse's rump.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Marion riding straight toward the dust cloud. At first this confused me. After I thought about it for a while longer, it saddened me.

W
E RODE. WE RODE FAST. DUE SOUTH.

We rode that way for nearly an hour before we let the horses slow down. Our horses weren't so fast as Marion's, but it wouldn't do to run them into the ground.

“What do you think?” Maude asked me, now that we'd slowed enough to talk.

I told her the truth. “I think Marion was afraid a posse was catching up to us, and he didn't even lead them a chase. I think he gave himself up.” I thought it ought to sadden her a little too.

“He's been too smart for them before,” she said. “Too smart and too fast.”

“He never had anybody else to worry about before,” I said.

There was a question that had been knocking around in my head for days, that I hadn't dared ask her. If there was ever going to be the right moment, this was it. “What if Uncle Arlen isn't the kind of man you think he is?” I asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“It might be like you said to Marion. Maybe he won't want us.”

“We're his blood kin,” Maude said.

“So was Aunt Ruthie, and this is nothing against her, but she was much different from our momma, right?”

“Well, she turned out to be good enough,” Maude said.

“What if Uncle Arlen turns out to be a lot like Marion, unpredictable-like? Are we going to stay with him? Or do we keep on going?”

“When did you turn into such a question box?” she said to me. “I don't remember you ever asking so many questions.”

“I never had so many questions staring me in the face.”

“I don't know why they would still be looking for him after all this time,” she said.

“Looking for Uncle Arlen?”

“Marion. I don't think a posse would follow him all the way into Missouri.”

“Not all posses are made up of lawmen,” I said.

“Who, then?”

“Men whose money he took.” I was sorry as soon as I said it. Maude would never have thought of that. I could see right away she was unhappy to think it could really be a posse of angry men that was chasing Marion.

“We should go back,” she said without turning her horse.

“No, we shouldn't,” I told her. It was too late to do anything for Marion. For once, I kept my big mouth shut.

The night came on cold, making me think about the fact that it could get colder yet. Riding at a trot got our blood moving. We headed due south until the moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds.

We'd hit a wide piece of pastureland, from the looks of it, which made us feel like we could see for miles. So it was just as well we didn't feel up to cooking the chickens by the time we stopped for the night. I set the saddles over them, hoping they might not get carried off in the night by a fox. We shared a can of beans.

We no longer had Uncle Arlen's letters, which Maude felt pretty bad about. “I wish we had them so we could give them to him, that's all. It would show him Aunt Ruthie cared enough about him to keep them.”

“If he's there, we'll find him,” I said, hoping she would tell me that she still felt confident of finding Uncle Arlen. She didn't. We didn't mention Marion to each other, either, although we slept under his blanket, huddled together for warmth.

In the morning, we saw what Marion would have called a bump on the flat. It was much nearer than the wagon Marion had pointed out, though, and we could see it was a house.

“We'll just ride in and ask if we can't buy another blanket. How's that?” I said, thinking of how cold we had been during the night. I kept waking up to wish we had one of Aunt Ruthie's quilts to throw over the blanket.

Our tattered gloves and scratchy scarves were going to be missed, unless we bought some others. It seemed to me a woman might be willing enough to sell an unused item if she could add some coins to her sugar bowl.

“Fine with me,” Maude said in a tone that meant it wasn't. She went along with me, though. We rode in, slowing our pace as we got nearer.

“Something's funny there,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just let me figure it out,” I said, pulling my horse to a stop.

The house was real nice, painted white, and kept up the way Aunt Ruthie wanted to keep ours, but never could. Lacy curtains in all the windows. Porch on the near side. Big barn out back. Chickens scratching around in the yard. “Is there anything that doesn't look right to you?” I asked finally.

“Wood smoke,” Maude said after a moment. I had to hand it to her. Maude was quick. “There isn't any. It's cold out here and there's an awful lot of wood stacked right there on the porch.”

“You think nobody's home?” I started forward again.

“Sallie—”

“Right back.”

I meant it when I said it. That was before I heard cattle lowing in the barn. And there was something else, something heard so low I couldn't know what it was, but it raised the hair on my arms.

T
HE CLOSER I GOT TO THAT HOUSE, THE MORE I DIDN'T
see any sign of things happening the way they should— no one came out to meet me. I knocked on the door and went in.

Behind me, Maude yowled. I heard the hoofbeats that meant she was coming after me. Which was fine by me all over. Maybe I should have headed back to Maude instead of going into the house. That would have been the smart thing to do. The kind of feeling I had always made a range rider take warning. But I figured if I wasn't going to be the kind of range rider who was smart, I'd have to be the one who was brave.

The kitchen was real cold. No one had made a fire in here for a day or more. It wasn't so tidy as I expected it to be either. It looked like people had been eating here but not cleaning up after themselves. The sour smell in the room didn't have anything to do with dirty dishes.

A small sound shivered the hair on my arms. I stopped cold.

When it came again, “Help,” I realized it was a woman's voice, weak and low.

“It's just me,” I said, feeling a sight better than the moment before. “Don't be afraid. I'm looking for you.”

“Here, in the parlor.”

The smell was worse there, much worse, so bad my stomach turned over. A woman lay stretched out on a davenport, covered with several blankets. Her white hair stood around her head like a messy bird's nest. “Don't come too near, child,” she said. “I'm ill. Influenza, I think.”

Maude came into the kitchen then, shouting, “Where are you?”

“Here,” I called back.

“It's my animals I'm worried about,” the woman said as Maude came in and started opening windows. “I haven't been able to tend to them for two days.”

“Cows and chickens?” I asked her.

“And three sows out behind the barn. A mule. Could be anywhere. The ox out in the pasture should be fine.”

“Stay deep under your blankets now,” Maude said. “We have to air this room.”

“Don't bother looking for the mule. He'll come as soon as he hears a bucket rattle. You shouldn't be in here. You're likely to get sick yourselves.”

“We can't leave you like this,” Maude said as I took away the smelly slop bucket. Maude brought in a load of firewood, and I pumped some water.

“We'll need to see to your cows first,” I said when we got the fire going good.

“Now if you girls are going to act like farmhands,” she
said, making Maude and me shoot looks at each other, “there are some heavier gloves in that boot box under the window. See if there isn't something that works for you.”

“I'll get started in the barn,” I said.

We milked the cows, tossed hay for them and the mule. We set our horses out to pasture with them. We fed corn mush to the pigs, made with most of the milk, saving only enough for gravy. We spread gravel for the chickens.

We got the fires going and put our chickens and some potatoes on the boil. We tidied the kitchen, sweeping the floor and wiping down the wood-block table. When the house was warm enough, we sponged down half the woman's bedding and hung it on the line to dry.

In that time, we learned her name was Cleomie Dow, and we told her ours. We didn't bother with aliases. She was already on to us. “How did you know we were girls right away?” I asked her when we had ease enough to talk.

“It takes one to know one, I guess,” Cleomie said with a little shrug. She was sitting with her back to the wall, sipping at the chicken broth.

I tried not to show it, but I was some bothered. Twice our disguises hadn't worked. If Marion hadn't stood up for us with the railroad men, it might've been three times. I didn't know how two skinny girls were supposed to pass for boys if no one even noticed that's what they were trying to do.

“You're smart to travel that way,” Cleomie said. “You're all the safer for it. It's not but a thin line between Missouri and the wilderness.”

“No, ma'am,” Maude said, looking none too happy at a mention of the wilderness.

“Hair grows back,” Cleomie said stoutly.

“Yes, ma'am.”

It took most of a day's effort to set the place to rights, and then it was time to start all over again with bringing in the cows. When we finished, we ate the last of the chicken and potatoes.

“What now?” I asked.

“We'll sleep in the hayloft once we've settled her,” Maude said.

I groaned.

“I'm sorry, but she's right; we shouldn't take chances. People have died of the influenza.”

“I bet they died of the work,” I said, thinking of Aunt Ruthie. I had a better idea of why Aunt Ruthie worked us so hard. She could never have done it all alone. She taught school too.

“Sallie.”

“She didn't die, and she's old,” I said, coming back to the subject of Cleomie. “Maybe she's wrong about what made her sick.”