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

“She’s saying she left there in the spring, which I suppose is true enough,” Schwarzenbacher said. “She arrived here sometime in May.” He looked at her hands again. She crossed her arms over her breasts, the sign for love. She clasped her hands in front of her body, the sign for peace. She made the combination of gestures meaning sunshine in the heart.

“She was very happy there,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“Why’d you leave then?” Will asked.

Her hands moved.

“Her husband died,” Schwarzenbacher said.

It was close to midnight when he went down to the camp again. Tiptoed through it like he was in a cemetery. Damn tipis all looked alike in the dark, finally found the one he guessed was Catherine’s. No door to knock on, how in hell did you let anybody know you were standing out here in the cold? He’d had a lot to drink again. Not Orliac’s wine this time, but his father’s good corn liquor. Had to be drunk even to consider fuckin a pig like this one.

“Hey, anybody home?” he yelled.

A dog began barking.

Will pulled his Mexican knife from the sheath at his belt.

Damn dog came out here, he’d slit its throat. Down the line, somebody started yelling in Indian. “Shut up,” Will muttered. The fat squaw poked her head outside, frowning. She saw it was Will then, saw the knife, too. “Come on out here,” he said, and she nodded and came out at once, smiling. She was half naked, wearing only a pair of leather breeches resembled bloomers, had to have once belonged to some fat old Indian brave. That’s all she had on. The breeches and a beaded band around her forehead. Tits hanging clear down to her waist, a true beauty, a prize.

“Where’s Catherine?” he asked.

She nodded and went back inside. He could hear her saying something inside there, could hear her voice getting louder and then a bit irritated. Catherine came out yawning, wrapped in what looked like an army blanket.

“Hey, how you doin?” Will said, and grinned.

She grinned back. Whore’s frozen smile. Paint still on her cheeks. Even slept with the fuckin paint on her cheeks. She held out her hand.

“No more money,” he said. “Uh-uh.”

The squaw came through the flap again. She’d thrown on a robe over the breeches, all dressed up to go next door.

“Tell your friend here,” Will said. “No more money. I’ve got food for you.”

Catherine turned to the squaw, talked to her with her hands. The squaw turned to look at Will. She was frowning again.

“That’s right, Fatty,” Will said. “Here, look.” He reached into a pocket of his coat. “Dried buffalo meat. Very good.” He reached into another pocket. “Turnips. Raw turnips.”

They were waiting.

“That’s it,” he said. “That’s all there is.”

The squaw was still frowning. She took Catherine aside and began whispering to her. Catherine nodded. The squaw nodded. “Big business deal goin on there,” Will said. The squaw came to him then and took the meat and turnips from his hands. Catherine pulled back the flap of the tent and Will went inside. The fire was still burning, but just barely. He took a log from a stacked pile, dropped it on the dying embers, fanned the fire to brighter flame with his hat.

“Come on over here,” he said.

She came to the fire.

“Let me see that sore again,” he said.

She knelt by the fire. He cupped her chin in his hand and studied her lip.

“Yeah, I reckon,” he said dubiously. He let go of her chin, went to the buffalo robe, dropped down on it, and began taking off his boots. She was still standing by the fire, the army banket around her. He wondered how many soldiers she’d had to fuck for that blanket. “Who’s the squaw?” he asked. “Your business manager?”

Her hands came from under the blanket. The blanket hung from her shoulders, open over her naked breasts. Her hands moved in the firelight, shadows danced. He couldn’t understand a fuckin word she was saying.

“You know how to write?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll fetch you what to write with,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

The cottonwood was huge. It had probably been here on the riverbank for a century or more. They sat beneath it side by side, shaded from the hot July sun. The river was dry; it had not rained since the beginning of the month. Will had borrowed a carving board from the kitchen, and this was propped on her knees. Her left hand kept a dozen sheets of foolscap in place on top of it. In her right hand she held a mechanical pencil he’d borrowed from Schwarzenbacher.

“You just write down the answers, okay?” he said.

She nodded.

“Okay, what’s your full name?”

She wrote Catherine Parrish.

Under that she wrote Kewedinok.

And under that, Wumin of the Wind.

“Woman of the Wind?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Is that what this... Kewe... Ke... however you say it? Is that Woman of the Wind?”

She nodded again.

“Well...” he said, and looked again at what she’d written. “Where were you born, Catherine?”

Boston, she wrote.

“How’d you get out here?”

I came west with my father and brother .

“When?”

1837.

“How old were you?”

14.

“That makes you... you’re twenty-one, is that it?”

In Octowber, she wrote.

“So... uh... you had an Indian husband, huh? How’d that happen? I mean, where’d you meet a... an Indian to marry? You know what I’m saying?”

After, she wrote.

“After what?” he asked.

Trapers .

“Trappers?” he said. “I don’t follow. Was your father and brother trappers?”

She shook her head.

Alown, she wrote. Leff me alown. Trapers came.

They had gone off hunting, expecting to find game in the woods nearby. But instead the afternoon shadows lengthened, and she was still alone in the wagon, becoming frightened. She heard the sound of horses’ hoofs, thought at first it was her father and brother returning. Voices. Men riding out of the woods. Six of them. The one riding the lead horse had a patch over his right eye. Black leather patch. Took them only a minute to realize she was alone in the wilderness. The one with the patch dragged her from the wagon. She pleaded with him to stop, begged him, but he just kept hugging her and kissing her, talking to her in French, saying over and again, “Je t’adore.” She would remember those words always though she understood no French. He forced her open, she screamed in pain. The others laughed. They took her then in turn, the other five, and then the one with the patch again. She lay on the ground bleeding. She could hear them talking to each other in French. Their voices sounded worried. The one with the patch came to her, and squeezed her chin hard in his hand and said something to her. She knew it was a warning. She nodded. Yes. Please. Yes. Go. Leave. Please. He took a knife from his belt. He forced her mouth open.

An cut out my tung.

Her hand did not waver when she wrote this. Her eyes were dry. She sat stiffly beneath the cottonwood tree, and the pencil scratched into the stillness. In the river, a fish splashed.

The warriors who found her wandering later in the woods, half-crazed and starved, were a party of eight Ojibwa braves, far from home in search of horses and scalps. They’d apparently got both, though not of the “lesser enemy” variety they were seeking; these were no Dakota horses they trailed, six of them with leather saddles. She recognized them at once as having belonged to the trappers who’d raped her. Dangling from the warriors’ belts were fresh bloody scalps. She almost fainted at sight of them, though she herself was still bleeding — from her mouth where the tongue had been taken from it, and from below where the trappers had brutally torn her. The leader of the war party threw her over his saddle and carried her north with him to his village, where she became the second wife in his tipi. She was happy there until he was later killed in battle. Then his brother took for his own not only Catherine but the other wife as well.