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

“Be still.”

“Wi tan-yan...”

“Shhh, shh.”

“Learned it from the Sioux,” Timothy said, and suddenly began singing it in English, bellowing it as before, but at least making sense now. “May the sun rise well,” he sang, “may the earth appear, brightly shone upon,” and was suddenly silent while the rain poured down as before. A lot of good his fair-weather song had done. Bobbo walked him around in the storm, hardly looking for Indians at all now, though half convinced that Timothy’s song would have drawn raiding parties of whatever tribes were currently warring with the Sioux. Bobbo had no idea who those might be, nor even any idea whether this was Sioux country or Cheyenne or whatever; only Indians he’d ever seen were the handful of Cherokee, Creek, or Chickasaw in Virginia. Them and the woman silent now under Timothy’s cart.

“Do you know why I drink?” Timothy asked.

“Why?”

“I drink, that’s right, Bobbo.”

“I can see that.”

“You know why?”

“Why?”

“Catlin,” Timothy said.

“Cattle?”

“Catlin, Catlin.”

“What’s catlin?”

“It’s who ,” Timothy said.

“Make sense, man.”

“George Catlin.”

“Who’s George Catlin?”

“An artist.”

“What’s he got to do with your drinking?”

“Never mind,” Timothy said. “Let’s go back under the wagon. It’s wet out here, Bobbo.”

“Timothy, you’ve put the party in danger, getting drunk this way.”

“That’s right, I’m a drunk.”

“I don’t know as you’re a drunk, but you’re drunk for sure tonight.”

“It’s Catlin.”

“Sure, sure,” Bobbo said.

“Who’s better?” Timothy asked. “Catlin or me?”

“I don’t know the man. Now hear me well, cause—”

“Bobbo, let’s get out of the rain. Jt’s cold out here, Bobbo. What are we doing marching around in these puddles?”

“We’re sobering you up, is what we’re doing. Now listen to me, Timothy. If we’re to trust you to lead us west—”

“You can trust me. Do you know how many times I’ve traveled to the Rocky Mountains and back?”

“How many?”

“Ten times, that’s right. With the military,” Timothy said, and nodded. “But not a soldier, nossir. An artist!” he shouted, and raised his right hand, the forefinger extended as though proclaiming his profession to the night, and to the raging storm, and perhaps to God Almighty Himself. “ Better than Catlin, you want to know. No matter what you may say or think, I’m the better artist. That’s a fact, Bobbo.”

They marched about in the rain from wagon to wagon, drenched to their bones now, boots and trousers thick with mud, clothes hanging sodden and limp, the normally stiff brim of Timothy’s flat black hat flopping loose around his ears and his forehead and the back of his head, his rusty beard bedraggled.

“Know this trail like my own backside,” he said, “can navigate it blindfolded, been back and forth ten times. Know Indians, too, better’n that fuckin Catlin, can draw and paint em better’n he can. But who gets all the glory, eh?”

“Catlin,” Bobbo said.

“Catlin, right.”

Catlin was his subject, his cause, and his passion. It was Catlin finally sobered him up, but it was Catlin’d no doubt cause him to drink himself drunk again. Bobbo now understood that Catlin was an artist who painted Indians, same as did Timothy. Practiced law in Philadelphia for a few years and then gave it up to study art. Became a portrait painter in New York before he headed west some twelve years back, to live with Indians and paint them. That was two years before Timothy himself got the idea of doing the very same thing.

“Too late ,” he said. “Got back to Philadelphia, dealers said it was divitive.”

“Was what?”

“Drivitive.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“My work! Divitive. One publisher... Jesus! Said I’d copied Catlin’s painting of Laramie! More mistakes in it... laughable. Said I’d copied it. Hadn’t even met the man! Didn’t know he existed! Ah, shit, Bobbo,” he said, and began weeping.

His rage was exhausted before it was time to wake the next watch. Exhausted but not vanquished; it would never be that, Bobbo suspected, though drown it over and again Timothy might. He helped the man back to his wagon, where the Indian woman undressed him, and dried him, and put him to sleep. The rain had stopped, the wagon covers were sodden. The ground he and Timothy had traversed back and forth through half the night looked as though a herd of cattle had stampeded through it. Bobbo went to rouse his father and the Baltimore carpenter, and then went to sleep himself. When he wakened again at sunrise, the first thing he thought was that he’d have to look at Timothy’s pictures one day.

The Comyns lads, whose task it was, led the animals outside the circle of wagons, hobbling them where they might graze till it was time to move on. The aroma of coffee filled the morning air, setting to rumble stomachs empty since the night before. In Independence, the party had pooled its resources to purchase the stores needed for the long journey. There would be game ahead, Timothy told them, and friendly Indians wanting to barter fresh vegetables and fruit. But they stocked the wagons with staples nonetheless, and were carrying in addition such luxuries as coffee, bacon, and eggs. The bacon was packed in barrels of bran to keep it from rotting in the mid-June heat. The eggs were similarly packed in meal, which would be used for baking bread once the eggs had been eaten. Coffee was the most expensive luxury, but Timothy told them it would disguise the bitter taste of water that had alkali in it. Bacon sizzled in the skillets now, and eggs were dropped into the pan, and soon were crackling in the bubbling grease. They finished breakfast by six-fifteen on that morning of the eleventh, and were on the trail again not ten minutes later.

Minerva hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been for the companionship of another woman. They had left Independence only yesterday morning, but now with the new day stretching ahead as endlessly as the prairie itself, she turned eagerly to Sarah Comyns.

“I’ve never been to Baltimore,” she said. “What sort of place is it?”

“Oh, it’s very nice,” Sarah said.

Silence.

They were sitting together inside the Comyns wagon, sunlight illuminating the cover so that everything within took on a golden glow. The wagon was packed even more tightly than the Chisholms’ own. They sat on stools the carpenter himself had made, swaying with the roll of the wagon, bouncing whenever it hit a ridge or a rut. The baby was asleep on Sarah’s lap. This morning she’d suckled the child in the privacy of her own wagon; Minerva guessed the carpenter had spoken to her about showing her teats to all and any.

“Big city, is it?” Minerva said.

“Oh, yes,” Sarah said.

“About the size of Louisville?”

“I guess,” Sarah said.

Silence.

“Did you live in the city itself?” Minerva asked. “Or outside of it?”

“Yes.”

“In it?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Husband have a shop there?”

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“Must be interestin being married to a man can fashion things with his own two hands.”

“Yes, it is,” Sarah said.

“Hadley puts his hand to making a table or chair, it comes out all catty-wampus.”

“Oh, yes,” Sarah said, and laughed.

“My Gideon’s the one has a sure hand with a hammer and nail,” Minerva said. “You haven’t met him; he’s off with his brother in Illinois. Man stole my eldest son’s horse, big raindrop gelding, beauty of a horse. Just rode off with it one night. I miss him somethin fierce,” she said, and found herself confiding to Sarah that Gideon was her favorite, had been from the minute the granny woman laid him puny and wet across her belly. Loved them all to death, she did, but for Gideon she felt something special, a kind of... joy, she supposed it was, every time she saw him. She knew it was wrong worrying about them the way she did; they were both grown men and knew how to take care of themselves. But they’d been gone more’n three weeks already. Last time she’d seen them was on the twentieth of May, Gideon waving from his saddle, big grin on his face.