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

“Aye,” she said.

“Min, do you not long for a floor to sweep?”

“I do, Hadley.”

“Min, I don’t know who owns the land up there. If it’s American Fur does, then I’ll talk to Orliac about a fair price for what we’d need. If it’s public land, then we’d have to write the government, I reckon, tell them our intentions, ask what the price would be. I’m guessing a dollar, a dollar twenty-five an acre, and I think there’s a minimum you got to buy, a quarter section I think it is. We could squat, meanwhile, if it’s government-owned. Ain’t nobody going to come chase us off it. Min?”

“Yes, Hadley?”

“Would that suit you, Min?”

“If it would help you to mend again, it would suit me.”

“I only know I can’t leave here now,” he said.

“Then we’ll stay, Hadley.”

“I’ll talk to Orliac.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Min,” he said, “I love you, Min.”

“And I love you, too,” she answered.

The surveyors had packed their instruments into the wagons, and now they stood in the morning sunshine, waiting for the Hastys to say their farewells. The day was clear and hot. Captain Kelsey had taken off his hat and was wearing a blue bandanna around his forehead. It gave him a devil-may-care look entirely out of keeping with his prissy nature. Major Duggan stood with one hand on his horse’s bridle, chatting idly with Orliac. A dozen or more Indians were standing against the adobe wall, watching the leavetaking.

Minerva recognized among them the one who’d accosted her shortly after their arrival at the fort. Despite the heat, he was still wearing the white buffalo robe. His face was painted black; it glistened greasily in the bright sunshine. His eyes found hers. He grinned toothily, and then shoved himself off the wall and came toward where she and Martha were talking. Minerva was already starting to back away. But the Indian thrust out his hand to Martha instead. “Un-p’tee-plez,” he said, his voice demanding and somewhat threatening. Martha giggled nervously, and then shrugged. Orliac turned from the major.

“Allez! Allez!” he shouted, and shooed the Indian away with his hands. The Indian grasped his nose between thumb and forefinger. Apparently thinking better of what he was about to do, he turned away sullenly and went to stand against the wall of the fort again.

“He wants a favor, un petit plaisir,” Orliac said, and shrugged. “They are spoiled by emigrants all the time, eh? They want only a biscuit or two, a cup of coffee — but they are nuisances. You must never show you are in the slightest afraid. They can read faces; I sometimes think they can read minds.”

“Minerva, will you be all right?” Martha asked, and took her hand between both her own.

“I think so, yes.”

“We’ve scarcely met,” Martha said.

“I shall miss you,” Minerva said.

The women embraced. Jeb Hasty shook hands with Hadley, and then climbed up onto the wagon seat. “Tommy?” he said.

“Yes, Pa.”

How much like Gideon he looked. She was about to weep again; she wished she could learn to control these sudden fits of weeping that came upon her. She bit her lip. Kelsey wheeled his horse about; the crowd of Indians back away.

“Let’s move it then!” Major Duggan said, and pointed sharply eastward with the same forefinger he’d used to tap the air.

They watched the wagons and horses departing. Martha waved from the seat. Surprisingly and unexpectedly, the Indian with the painted black face stepped out from the others and waved back. He kept waving. The wagons moved into the distance. Far out on the horizon, Minerva saw dust rising, moving. She watched. Horses and riders coming from the east, closing the gap between themselves and the wagons. The horses stopped alongside the lead wagon. The dust settled. And now again the horses were in motion. A pair of riders. One of them astride a piebald. The other on a black...

Gideon, she thought.

Will, she thought.

Aloud, she shouted, “It’s them, Hadley, they’re here!”

Arms wide, skirts flying, she ran to greet her sons.

The night had turned cool.

Outside the fort, the open tops of the Indian tipis glowed with fires from within, triangular patches of light on the rolling hillside. Occasionally a dog barked, and was answered by another, and yet another, the final bark sounding before the echo of the first had died.

Will was drunk.

He sat against the outside wall of the fort, the baked clay bricks still warm from the day’s sun. There was a bottle of wine in his hand, the third one tonight, most of it already gone. He lifted the bottle to his mouth, and drank from it, and tried to make sense of what had happened, and could make no sense of it. Hell with it, he thought, and drank again, and shook his head, and said, “Shut up,” when a baby down below began crying. He listened to the baby crying.

Cried like a baby himself when they told him. Didn’t suspicion nothing at first. Him and Gideon riding up this morning, Ma running down from the fort, looking like a girl half her age, didn’t even recognize her. Grabbing Gideon to her, and then stretching out her hand: “Will, Will, darlin!” All of them up at the fort later. Pa looking a bit strange. Bobbo sort of standing off to one side. Bonnie Sue hugging them both. It was Gideon who said, “Where’s Annabel?”

He lifted the bottle to his lips again.

He could remember Annabel asking him how was the fighting in Texas. He had been planing a door out back. Had taken it down cause it was sticking in the August heat. Had it set up between two big rocks and was planing it. Curls of white wood coming up from it.

“Well, it wasn’t much good,” he’d said.

“What’d you do there?”

“Just yelled and hollered and shot at people.”

“That don’t sound fun, Will.”

“It wasn’t,” he said. “Much rather go cat-fishin in the Clinch.”

“Then why don’t we?” Annabel asked.

Big grin.

“Why don’t we just?” he said, and put down the plane.

Shit.

You...

You get here and they tell you your baby sister...

The Indian woman came out of the night silently, startling him. His hand jerked. Wine spilled from the bottle tilted to his mouth, dribbled over his chin, splashed onto his shirt. He brushed at the shirt, and looked up at her. “What do you want?” he said...

She was tall and slender, wearing an elkskin dress, the sleeves open and hanging, no beads or quills or ornamentation of any kind, fringed at the bottom where it came to just below her knees. She wore unbeaded moccasins, soft upper flaps turned back like cuffs. Black cotton stockings showed above them, one pulled to her shin, the other falling to her ankle, bunched there above the moccasin cuff. Her hair was black and plaited on either side of her head, the braids held fast with leather thongs. She had high cheekbones painted with solid circles of vermilion. In the moonlight, her eyes were luminous and black.

Approaching him silently, she stood before him and grinned, head tilted to one side, teeth flashing. She put her hands on her thighs as if to dry the palms on the treated hide, but then bent slightly at the knees and grasped the fringed bottom of the skirt in both hands. Standing erect again, she pulled the skirt up over her waist. She was naked under it; he saw the tangled blackness of her crotch an instant before she lowered the skirt again. She smiled in invitation, her brows rising in silent inquiry. Then she extended her hand to him, the fingers curled into a beggar’s bowl.

“Why the hell not?” he said.

There were dogs barking outside the tipi. He watched them warily. Shouldn’t never show your teeth to a dog. Nor any wild animal. Think you were going to attack. Never smile at them. There’s a nice boy, but no smile. She’d been in there four, five minutes already. He’d give her just till he finished the wine, then he’d leave. Chilly out here; no sense waiting in the cold for a whore. No sense to nothing, you wanted to know.