Paulette Jiles - News of the World

We cannot have this! the woman cried. She stood up to her knees in the current and her dress skirts billowed up with trapped air. She was young and properly attired and outraged. We cannot have naked bathing here! She jerked off her bonnet and beat it on her thigh in frustration. The big live oaks lifted and sighed in exasperated sounds and from the town came the sound of choral singing—Wednesday, choir practice.

Ma’am, said Captain Kidd. He saw the wedding ring. Please. She was merely bathing.

In public! The young woman cried. Unclothed!

Not entirely, said Captain Kidd. He waded into the shallows of the Bosque, boots and all, and threw the blanket around the girl. Calm yourself, he said. She doesn’t know any better.

Across the river was the wagon yard, where the freighters camped, and several of the drivers had come to stand and watch and lean on their wagon boxes. Leaf shadows like laughter ran over their faces.

Captain Kidd said, She was a captive. An Indian captive.

We can’t have this, said the young woman. She held on to the rope bucket handle with both hands. I don’t care if she’s a Hottentot. I don’t care if she’s Lola Montez. She was parading her charms out there in the river like a Dallas huzzy.

Captain Kidd led Johanna out of the water. He said, I am returning her to her people by contract with the Indian Agent Samuel Hammond of Fort Sill. Official government business, Department of War.

Johanna sobbed and leaned against him, ankle deep in the green water of the Bosque. He said, Torn cruelly from her mother’s arms at the tender age of six, her mother brained before her eyes, starved and beaten, she has even forgotten her own language and the proper modesty of civilized peoples. Her sufferings were beyond description.

The young woman paused, then fell silent. Finally she said, Well. But she must be corrected. She must have this forcefully impressed upon her. About modesty while bathing.

Johanna put her hands over her eyes. She could think only of her Kiowa mother, Three Spotted, her mother’s laughter and how they had all dunked each other in the clear water of Cache Creek in the Wichita Mountains, and screamed and fell backward straight into the water, and far up the mountainside a group of young men drummed for the fun of it. They had waded and splashed down the clear currents, four, five girls with strings of vermilion beads in their hair. She wept for them and for those mountains, a strange adult weeping with open hands and a bowed head. For all her terrible losses, which of a sudden had come back to her in a painful wounding rush.

Well, I am sorry to hear it, said the young woman. Her voice grew softer. And then after a moment she bent to Johanna and said, My dear, I am very sorry.

Leave her alone, said the Captain in a stiff voice. He lifted his hat to the young woman and took Johanna’s hand. And if you were to call yourself a Christian you would find shoes and clothing for this girl, to supply her on her journey.

They returned to the wagon, his boots full of water making squidging noises, Johanna a dripping wad of coarse blanket and wet drawers bunched in her hands, barefoot, hurt, angry, despairing.

BY EIGHT O’CLOCK it was dark in Durand and he made sure she was bedded down in the wagon and in her nightgown and the lantern lit. She hummed a slow and comforting song to herself and sat wrapped in the jorongo, for which she had developed a strong attachment, and took up the task of sewing up the frayed edge of the gray wool blanket. She had put his blood-spotted shirt to soak in salty water. The Captain went back to one of the stalls and pulled off his boots and spurs, changed into his reading clothes, put on the black lace-ups, and shaved.

Bekkin, she looked up when he walked out. Haina bekkin.

How very astute of you, he said. I am, in fact, going to bring home the bacon. He put his portfolio under his arm. I will astound the citizens with my informative readings concerning the Hottentots and Lola Montez and the Illinois railroads. They will pour out both silver and gold at my feet and we will have not only bekkin but eggs. How about that? First thing tomorrow we will patronize the local establishments.

He bent his head and regarded her with concern and some tenderness. It seemed his small warrior burst so easily into tears from time to time and was soon afterward bright with energy and laughter. So it was with children. May she always be so. He arranged his black ascot and shot his cuffs. She nodded and sewed and raised her dusty blond eyebrows a fraction as the gesture of a smile. Her freckles looked dark in the lantern light.

He would have liked to kiss her on the cheek but he had no idea if the Kiowas kissed one another or if so, did grandfathers kiss granddaughters. You never knew. Cultures were mine fields.

He patted the air with a gentle motion.

Sit. Stay.

THE MERCANTILE FILLED up early. A U.S. Army soldier stood outside the door and required each man to open his coat and show he was not carrying a handgun. Some were. They were illegal but the sergeant said nothing, only gestured toward a bench. By the time the Mercantile was filled there were seven or eight revolvers and one little two-shot Sneaky Pete on the bench.

Men and some women sat in stiff-backed wooden chairs or stood leaning on the counters and were prevented from slouching against the glass cases by J. D. Allan, Proprietor. Captain Kidd did not stand searching the faces of the crowd but he saw them nonetheless at the edge of his vision. He laid out his newspapers and the AP wire sheets. He saw how they divided themselves, one group from another, and stared at each other with looks like warning flares. They sat and leaned and smoked, hatless among the articles of mechanical manufacture sent from far places. There were boots and shoes and suspenders and hair dye and buttons and ironstone plates from England. Kerosene lamps with green shades hung swaying from overhead chains and in the distance thunder came toward them with threatening rumbles. The storm was coming from far beyond the hundredth meridian.

He began as always with his greetings to the establishment of the town and a brief comment on the roads. People always liked to hear about the condition of the roads from travelers. The Captain said the roads along the Red were all good, he did not know about the Little Wichita, he had crossed it more than a week ago but it might be up again. The Brazos ferry was not operating; washed away perhaps, but the landings on both sides were good. The road from the Brazos to here was in good condition. He paused and with one veined hand flattened his papers, waiting to hear if anyone would mention an altercation there involving firearms, but that was not what was on the minds of several of his listeners.

A hatless man stood up and cried, When Davis gets done there’ll be a paved road to the house of ever damn one of his cronies in the legislature!

The Captain’s head came up.

Silence!!

He had a very strong voice for a man his age, and he was over six feet tall and imposing in his crow-black clothes and his angry dark eyes, his brilliant moon-silver hair. His reading glasses flashed with gold rims as he stared around at his audience. The long narrow room smelled of trouble. He said, Sir, the people here assembled did not pay good money to come and sit here and listen to your complaints. I would suspect they have heard them before.

Laughter.

Captain Kidd cleared his throat, pressed back his glasses, and brought out the Inquirer to read of Lemon Hill. He slid out pages of the Tribune and its news of railroads, reading steadily, reading like a broom-making machine and sweeping all before him except for a man who called out,