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

Trembling in the night, troubled, he moved closer to the squaw for warmth, and finally fell asleep.

By morning, he’d forgotten what he’d almost understood.

Will was sitting there with his two women, one on either side of him. Fire in the middle of the tent. Place smelled awful, made Gideon want to retch. Some kind of food cooking there in the pot. Some kind of animal. Lots of Indians ate dog meat. He looked at his brother and wondered if he’d taken to eating dog meat now that he was sleeping with Indians. The squaw looked like the hog Gideon’d carried in the house that time. The other one was supposed to be white. She was wearing an old calico Will had bought from a trapper coming through. Hem had been let out cause she was so tall; you could see plain as day where the faded dress’d been made longer. Wore it with black cotton stockings to her shins. Moccasins, too. Still looked like an Indian; Gideon couldn’t believe she was white.

“Will,” he said, “you remember we were talkin about Fort Hall...”

“I remember,” Will said.

“If we’re to go,” Gideon said, “we’d best do it soon. This is now the middle of August. We—”

“I’m thinkin of waitin till spring,” Will said.

“We could still make it before—”

“No, I’m thinkin we’re late. The snow’d catch us. Anyway, Orliac’s prob’ly right about the Indians out there. I don’t want to chance it, Gideon.”

Had nothing to do with snow. Nor Indians, neither, except for the two Indians right here — if she was white, then Gideon was Chinee. The fat one leaned over, said something to the other one. Her hands began moving. Will watched like he understood. Gideon said, “Well then...” and shrugged, and left the tent. Outside, he could still smell whatever was cooking in the pot. Up above the fort, he saw his father and Bobbo working on the cabin. The trees were already losing their leaves. He thought: I’m trapped here for sure, and then sighed and went on up to help them.

It took them less than two weeks to raise the cabin. Beginning of September, they moved into it lock, stock, and barrel, made it a twin to the one back home. Minerva’s cherrywood dresser there against the wall, split-bottomed chairs on the same wall and the one opposite, benches either side the table. On shelves in all the corners, the family’s pewter plates and utensils, tin cups and water pails, wooden bowls. Hanging on pegs all over the room was clothing and guns, cotton cards, handsaws and bridles. Same as back home. Even to the clock on the mantel. Its crystal had been smashed that time the mules bolted with Bonnie Sue, but otherwise it ticked off minutes just the same. Ticked. And ticked.

He sat by the fire and puffed on his pipe. He’d taken to smoking a pipe; kept him from getting too fidgety. There was an Indian at the fort always had tobacco to trade. Gideon figured he’d buried a cache of it in the hills someplace. Whenever he saw Gideon, he made a pipe bowl of his fist and pretended to be filling it with tobacco.

“Tabac?” he asked, grinning like he was selling a woman. “Voulez?”

“Tabac, aye,” Gideon said.

He sat before the fireplace, rocking. Bonnie Sue was just the other side of it, a shawl on her lap. Gideon puffed on his pipe and looked into the flames. On the mantel, the clock ticked.

And ticked.

“Yep,” Gideon said.

Across the room, behind the blanket, Minerva was preparing for bed. He could hear her bustling about.

“Yep,” he said again.

Bonnie Sue looked at him, annoyed, and then went back to writing in her diary, or whatever it was she called it. Her pencil scratched into the stillness. The fire crackled. The clock ticked. Gideon sighed.

“Person could get fat and lazy around here,” he said.

Bonnie Sue jumped up out of her chair. His jaw fell open. The pipe slipped from his mouth and spilled glowing little tobacco cinders onto the front of his shirt. He caught for the pipe and missed it, and it went crashing to the floor. Brushing at his shirt, he jumped up and started stamping at cinders on the floor, wondering what had got into her.

“You mind your own damn business,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“You heard me! It ain’t none of your business how fat I am or how lazy neither. You just keep your nose—”

“What?” Gideon said. “What?”

“You just — you just shut up!” Bonnie Sue said, and burst into tears.

His mother poked her head around the blanket. There was a peculiar look on her face. She walked past Gideon to where Bonnie Sue was sitting at the table, her head on her arms, bawling. Gideon stood there feeling like a dummy. He picked up his pipe. His mother was stroking Bonnie Sue’s hair.

“I didn’t say nothin, Ma,” he said.

“You go take a walk outside.”

“Ma, I really didn’t...”

“I know, son. Go on take a walk.”

There were times he didn’t know what in hell was going on.

Next day, she sent him down to where the Indian tents were, told him to go fetch his brother Will. Wasn’t but a handful of tents down there now. Most of the Indians who’d come to trade had already moved on again in search of more buffalo. Will came out in a buckskin shirt and leggings, moccasins, beaded band across his forehead. He’d started growing a beard, and it was coming in scraggly and patchy. He asked Gideon what Ma wanted. Gideon said he didn’t rightly know.

It was a bright windy day. Leaves darted on the air, rattled underfoot. She was sitting on the porch with a shawl around her, seemed lost in thought as they came up. She motioned for Will to take a chair, and then told Gideon to go on inside. He went in the cabin, but he could hear every word they said.

“Had a long talk with Bonnie Sue last night,” his mother said. “Told me she’s carrying Hackett’s child, said you’ve known about it since the day he was hanged.”

“That’s right,” Will said.

“Whyn’t you tell somebody?”

“I figured you’d have noticed by now, Ma.”

“She ain’t but in her fourth month, and carryin small as a walnut.”

“Anyway, Ma, it’s Bonnie Sue’s own business, ain’t it?”

There was a note of warning in his voice. Gideon heard it and supposed his mother had, too. She was quiet for a minute, maybe trying to figure whether or not to let the challenge pass. Instead, she said, “Seems everybody in this family got his own business anymore.”

“Meanin what?” Will said.

“Meanin you go figure it out, son,” she said. Gideon heard her chair scraping back. Next thing he knew, she was in the cabin, walking straight to the fire. She picked up the poker, seemed not to know what she’d intended doing with it, and set it right down again. Will came in, stood just beside the door.

“You got somethin to say to me, Ma, I’d appreciate your—”

“I got nothing more to say to you,” she said. “Go on back to your squaws down there, go on.”

Will looked at her. “Ma...” he said.

“Just go on,” she said.

“I’m a grown man.”

“I know you are.”

“If I choose to care for—”

“Your sister was killed by an Indian,” she said flatly.

“Catherine ain’t no Indian.”

“She’s as Indian as the other one; I see scant difference.”

“Anyway, that ain’t even the point. They’d die without me to care for them. There’s just the two of them alone...”

“They seemed to be doin fine before you got here.”

“Ma, they’re people same as you and me.”

“They’re people same as who killed your sister! Will,” she said, “you’d best go, fore we say things there’s no turnin back from.”