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

“There’re two tribes who’ve been at war with the Pawnee since last spring,” he said. “One’s the Dakota, beyond and to the north. The other’s the Kansas, right here and now.”

“You think they saw her?” Bobbo asked,

“I don’t know,” Hadley said.

“Cause, Pa, if they did ...”

“I know what you’re thinkin.”

The wagons were drawn up on either side of the fire, thirty feet between them. One end of the camp was against the river; the sound of splashing water would serve as an alarm if anyone approached from that side. In the open end of the U formed by wagons and river, Bobbo and Hadley stood guard.

“They’ll come get her, Pa,” Bobbo said. “Them people are enemies .”

“Same as us and the Cassadas.”

“Worse’n that, Pa.”

“I’m wonderin about the one spoke a little English,” Hadley said. “He seemed to want them mules real bad. Kept eying them all the while we were tradin for butter and milk.”

“I saw him,” Bobbo said.

“Had to have seen how small a party we are.”

“Blind man would’ve seen that,” Bobbo said. “Pa, he might come back tonight with a whole damn tribe! ”

Hadley didn’t answer.

“Pa?”

“Yeah, he sure enough might,” Hadley said.

At the fire, Timothy was reading to the women. In a voice deliberately hoarse, he whispered, “ ‘During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low...’ ”

They left the river bottom on the morning of the nineteenth, following the trail to higher ground. In the distance, ten miles or more away, they could still see the Kansas flowing eastward to Missouri, blue against a lush surrounding green. The hills through which they traveled now were consistently verdant. Red sandstone boulders erupted from the vegetation like huge blood blisters. Thickets of willows filled the ravines. Even in creeks run dry there were natural springs. Antelope raced through the woods.

Each time one crossed the trail, Bobbo thought it was Indians.

They came upon the village by accident.

It had been burned to the ground.

The wilderness claimed whatever had been consumed by fire, weeds and grass encroaching to the doorsteps of blackened lodges.

“Kansas village,” Timothy said.

On the ground there were shields marked with Pawnee symbols, broken Pawnee lances. Strewn everywhere about in scorched garments were the skeletons of Kansas women and children. The skies were gray. There were ghosts in this place. They moved through it and past it swiftly.

The temperature that night dropped to forty-nine degrees.

The road northwestward to the Platte took them through shaded forests and glittering shallow pools, crossed them over streams that rushed as swiftly as rivers or dribbled away to nothingness. Amorpha was in bloom everywhere on the sun-washed hillsides, purple clusters bursting against soil almost black... and now there were roses!

Roses blooming on the prairie in small bunches, like unexpected cries of welcome. Roses thicker yet, spreading wild across the meadows, wafting a thick sweet scent on the southerly winds. Hadley picked a bouquet for Minerva, and she blushed as pink as what she held in her trembling hands.

Roses.

But not a sign of an Indian anywhere.

Timothy said the Indians were busy with their own problems, but Bobbo still feared that the ones who’d come to trade had spied a glimpse of his wife in the wagon, and would eventually come get her. Either that or her own damn people’d think she was being held prisoner, come raiding to rescue her. This was Pawnee country, Timothy said, as if that would keep them safe from attack.

The landscape kept changing.

The soil was coarser, red rocks mixed with some a sick yellow color, others gray as death. Big black boulders in the creeks. Bobbo worried about Indians all the time, worried, too, about catching up with the Oregon train. If just they could catch up, he’d stop worrying about Indians altogether. But the train were always just ahead.

“They’re just ahead,” his father kept saying.

Just ahead. Find traces of their fires. Pair of spectacles in a creek run dry. But never them . Like chasing a dream, Bobbo thought. You reach out for it, all that happens is you wake yourself up.

On the twenty-fifth, they made camp near where a Pawnee party had been hunting sometime past. There were still buffalo bones on the ground. A broken knife. Wooden frames upon which the Indians had stretched their hides to dry. The river bottom was covered with thistle, and the scent of something sweetish filled the woods.

“Pa,” Bobbo said, “I got to tell you what’s troublin me.”

“Same thing that’s troublin me,” Hadley said.

“We’ll be reachin the Platte sometime tomorrow,” Bobbo said.

“Aye.”

“Timothy’ll be leavin us.”

“I know that.”

“We’ll be alone, Pa.”

“We’re just as near alone now,” Hadley said.

“Pa, how we gonna stand guard just the two of us the livelong night?”

“Son,” Hadley said, “what do you want me to say? You think I don’t know we’re out here in the middle of goddamn nowhere ? You think I don’t know that?”

“It’s... Pa, I’m scared.”

Hadley put his arm around him. “Bobbo,” he said, “maybe Timothy’s right — maybe they’re too busy fightin each other to pay us any mind. What we’ll do anyway, we’ll start movin a little faster each day, how’s that? Try to pick up a few miles each day, close the distance ’tween us and the party ahead. They’re just ahead, son,” he said. “We’ll catch em, don’t you worry.”

Timothy’s wife came up from the river. She was singing. It was the first time any of them had heard her sing. Her voice was small, the Pawnee tune scarcely melodic. She had picked milk plant below. She boiled the pods now and offered them to the rest of the party, moving from one to the other, smiling and saying over and again in English, “Taste, please.”

Her face was radiant.

She was almost home.

Ahead was the Coast of Nebraska.

“It’s from the French,” Timothy said. “Trappers named it la cote de la Nebraska . The Nebraska’s the river, also known as the Platte. Those bluffs mark the bank on this side — the French were saying ‘the hills of the Nebraska.’ ”

There was cactus growing on the bluffs, a pale bristling green against the royal purple of the amorpha. The hills were perhaps fifty feet high, the grass upon them thick and luxuriant. An early morning rain had washed the skies clean. They moved through the wide level valley and came at last to the shore of the river, got out of the wagons.

“Well... “ Timothy said.

“Well then,” Hadley said, “you got us here. We thank you, Timothy.”

“I’ve got something for you,” Timothy said, and went to the wagon. His wife watched as he rummaged through his things. “I hope you like these,” he said. “They’re not worth much, I know.”

Along the way, he had made drawings of them all.

He presented these almost formally, seemingly embarrassed, shaking hands with each immediately afterward. His wife followed him, clumsily imitating the white man’s custom, nodding and smiling as she gripped each hand in turn. She hurried Timothy back into the wagon then, eager to move on.

From the wagon seat, Timothy waved. “Goodbye!” he shouted. “Good luck!”

“And to you!” Hadley called.

“Didn’t even know her name,” Minerva said, almost to herself.

“Hope she finds them,” Annabel said.

“She’ll find them,” Bobbo said. “This is Pawnee country both sides of the river here.” He looked at his father.