Evan Hunter - The Chisholms - A novel of the journey West

“This side of the Platte.”

“Pa?” Bobbo said.

Hadley knew the mileage from Carthage by heart — Gideon and Will should’ve been here by now. This was the ninth of June; they’d parted company outside St. Louis on the twentieth of May. His every instinct told him to wait here for his boys, but he knew he couldn’t delay the rest of the family any longer. Bobbo was right, this was a fine opportunity. Counting Oates here, there’d be four wagons, which maybe wasn’t a proper train, but enough of them to form some kind of circle at night, keep from getting scalped. Didn’t much like the idea of an Indian right in their midst, woman or not, but Oates seemed a decent enough fellow, and Hadley supposed you couldn’t go around blaming every redskin in the world for something had happened to your father forty-one years ago. Besides, it wouldn’t be charitable to let a man struggle across the plains all by himself, just him and his wife in a little old wagon. He sure wished Gideon and Will were here. Seemed like all he had to do anymore was make decisions all the time, each one harder than the one before. Back home, a man woke up of a morning, why the day just seemed to unfold of its own accord, and you didn’t have to go making up your mind every time you took a breath.

“Pa?” Bobbo said again.

“Yes, son, yes,” Hadley said wearily.

They left Independence shortly after sunrise the next morning. As they moved out in single file, Bobbo saw his mother look back over her shoulder. It seemed to him in that minute that she was looking clear to St. Louis or beyond. Evansville maybe, or Louisville, or straight through the Gap to Virginia. Timothy’s wagon was in the lead; they had charts, but he alone had made the trip before. The wagon behind Timothy’s was that of the carpenter, Jonah Comyns, followed by the Pennsylvania widower and his two young daughters. Last in line was the Chisholm wagon, Bobbo riding the borrowed horse beside it. The day was clear and bright; they could not have wished for better weather. They could see Independence behind them for the longest time.

Then suddenly it was gone.

This was the wilderness.

Not at all what Bobbo expected. No dense forest to hack through, no underbrush ripping clothes and flesh, no wild animals crouched to attack. Just... nothing. No houses, no fences, no barns. Emptiness. Except for every now and then an Indian going by on the horizon.

Bobbo rode up alongside Timothy’s wagon, slowed his horse.

“Is that the same Indian I see out there all the time?” he asked.

“How’s that?” Timothy said.

“See an Indian going by all the time, thought maybe he’s scouting us for a massacre.” Bobbo smiled. But he was serious.

“I think it’s several different Indians you’re seeing,” Timothy said. “They’re peaceful farmers. You needn’t worry.”

“Mm,” Bobbo said. He supposed Timothy knew; he’d made the journey west often enough. In the back of the Oates wagon, Timothy’s Indian wife huddled as if chilled. “Is your wife all right?” Bobbo asked. “She ain’t ailing, is she?”

“No, she’s fine, thank you.”

“She looks so sad all the time,” Bobbo said.

“She is sad all the time,” Timothy said.

“Why’s that?”

“Misses her people.”

“You met her out there west, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I hope she gets to feeling better,” Bobbo said.

“She will, I’m sure,” Timothy said, and smiled.

Bobbo turned the horse about, and rode back to where his father and sister were sitting beside each other on the wagon seat

“Pa,” he said, “you want to swap places awhile?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hadley said, and tugging at the reins, stopped the mules. “Backside’s beginnin to wear thin. How’s that horse, son?”

“Good one, Pa.”

“Well, get on off him,” Hadley said.

Bobbo dismounted and handed the reins to his father. Hadley swung up into the saddle and adjusted his rump to it. He said, “Come on, horse,” and clucked gently to the animal. Watching him ride ahead past the lead wagon, Bobbo climbed onto the seat and picked up the reins. “Ha-ya!” he shouted, and the wagon rolled into motion again. Beside him, Bonnie Sue was silent.

“What’s troublin you?” he asked her.

“Ain’t nothin troublin me.”

“Then how come you don’t say a word to nobody, just sit around moping all the time?”

“I ain’t moping,” she said.

“It sure looks like moping,” he said. “Looks like wilting, you want to know.”

“Bobbo, it ain’t your business,” she said.

“Well, it is my business,” he said.

“No.”

“Cause I love you half to death, and can’t bear to see you unhappy.”

She looked at him.

“That’s right,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “I ain’t unhappy. It’s... I’m scared, is what it is.”

“What of?”

“There’s smoke goin up in the distance there. I’m sure it’s Indians sendin some kind of message, tellin each other to come scalp us.”

“Bonnie Sue, that ain’t it,” Bobbo said.

She looked at him again.

“That just ain’t it, Bonnie Sue. I know you better’n I know myself, and it ain’t Indians troublin you. Now, Bonnie Sue, what is it?”

She did not answer.

“Bonnie Sue, please tell me. I want to help you, Sis. Please.”

“You can’t help me,” she said.

“What?” He’d hardly heard her.

“I said you can’t help me, Bobbo.”

“Always been able to help you before,” he said.

“But not now,” she said.

Always had been able to help her, too.

Closer to her than anybody in the whole family. Closest to her in age, and closest to her in temperament, too. Was a time, when they were both just tads, nobody in the family could bust in on one of their conversations. You come upon them talking together, you’d think it was one person talking to himself out loud. Chattered like magpies. Give Bobbo a thrashing, as Pa’d done often enough, Bonnie Sue’d bust out crying. Same the other way around. Ma said when Bonnie Sue wet her pants, it was Bobbo’s you had to change. Inside the family, they got to calling them “Them two.” You said “Them two,” you knew it was Bobbo and Bonnie Sue you were talking about and not Will and Gideon or a pair of mules. Those days, when they were both coming along, Bobbo eighteen months older than his sister, wasn’t anybody in the family could stand up to them. No way to do it. You got into an argument with them two, it was like trying to rassle a pair of bears. One’d give ground only long enough to let the other one get a hold on you, and then he’d swing you around into the grip of the second one. That was then. When they were both just coming along.

Now she was looking more mournful than even Timothy’s wife, and she’d told him he couldn’t help her nohow. He’d have given his life to have helped her. He’d have given that much.

“I’ve never made this trip before except in the company of the military,” Timothy said. “What we did at suppertime, we arranged all the wagons and carts in a rough circle, oh, some fifty to sixty yards in diameter. Pitched our tents inside, hobbled the animals outside to graze.”

It was their first night out of Independence. The men were standing around the fire. Comyns and his two young sons. Willoughby. Bobbo and his father. Timothy there, closest to the fire, the light from it glowing in his red beard, making it look like his chin was aflame. Bobbo liked the man, liked the gentle way he talked to his wife in Indian, liked his sure knowledge of the trail. Hadn’t got a chance to talk to any of the others yet, and didn’t know as he wanted to. There was a fierce look about the carpenter Comyns, and his two sons were a mite young for Bobbo. Willoughby was altogether too mournful a man; spend any time around him, you’d bust into the weeping shivers.