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

She did not come out of the cabin again for the longest time. Sean lay there crouched in the bushes, wondering what she could be doing inside there, and then realizing when he saw her in the door with a broom that she was sweeping the place out before they left it. He recognized with a sickening lurch that the time of departure was nigh; they were truly leaving this place behind, and with it Sean Cassada’s broken heart. He could smell the choking dust from where he lay in the bushes. It rose from the wooden cabin floor in a smothering cloud; a lot of good a proper floor did except to keep out snakes, and even that not so well. Bonnie Sue stood in the doorway with the broom in her hands, and looked again into the bushes, and this time Sean opened his eyes wide to show the whites, and she nodded briefly, and he knew for certain she had seen him.

Gideon, the biggest of the lot, was leading the mules toward the wagon now. The wagon was painted a blue the color of chicory in bloom. Sean had never seen such a wagon before, a good four feet wide and half again as long, or maybe more, ten or twelve feet, he guessed, with iron tires on the wheels, and wooden bows above for a cover, but none in place now. A grease bucket was hanging from the rear axle, and Bobbo was filling it now with pine tar and pork fat; he could smell the tar clear over here in the bushes. Annabel Chisholm, who looked so much like Bonnie Sue that Sean could hardly wait for her to grow up, was climbing up into the wagon over the lowered tailgate and plopping down on the pile of quilts and pillows stacked inside near the butter churn. Old Hadley Chisholm came out of the cabin and tested the lashing on the plow and the other tools, and lifted the lid on the jockey box and looked on in there, and then tested the harness on the mules. Sean heard Gideon ask, “All right, Pa?” and Hadley nodded and went back in the cabin. When he came out again he was carrying four gallons of whiskey hugged against his chest, and he went in the cabin three more times and came out with another dozen gallons that he packed in the wagon.

Sean knew she was behind him there in the sumac even before she rested her hand on his shoulder. “Shhh,” she said, and lay down beside him, and moved into his open arms. His hands went at once to the cotton bodice she wore, his fingers unbuttoned it, he reached inside and cupped her right breast in his hand, and kissed her on the lips. His heart was beating wildly, he frantically clutched her to him and kissed her entire face, her cheeks, her nose, her closed eyes, fearful he was making too much noise, terrified Will would come thrashing into the bushes to separate them, but knowing she was leaving, and wanting to kiss her, to touch her, to hold her. He released her breast and then grabbed for it again and released it at once and lowered his hand to where the hem of her cotton skirt had climbed to her shin, and lifted skirt and petticoat both and slid his hand up over her legs. She would stop him at any minute, her brother would find them any minute, God would strike him dead with a lightning bolt, something would happen before he touched the silken softness of — he could not believe his hand was, he could not believe she had allowed, he felt a wild excitement he had never before known, and he rolled, he tried to roll her over onto her back, but she sat up instead, abruptly and swiftly, her hand clamping onto his wrist. Moving his hand from between her legs, she lowered skirt and petticoat, and then leaned into him to kiss him on the mouth. He brought his hand to the back of her head, and felt her long hair cascading over his fingers, and then her lips were on his for what he knew was the last time, she was rising, she was standing, she was smoothing her dress, she whispered, “Never forget me, Sean,” and was gone.

He lay there watching.

Hadley Chisholm sat on the wagon seat with Minerva beside him. Both girls were inside the wagon now, Bonnie Sue looking out at the bushes behind which he was hiding. On horseback out in front of the wagon were Gideon, Will, and Bobbo.

Sean thought: They’re going. She’s really leaving.

He wanted to step out from the bushes and stand on Chisholm land like the man he was and yell for them to leave Bonnie Sue behind. Yell that he loved her. But if he done that, why then Will would just turn his big old gelding around and come riding up to where Sean stood like a damn fool with tears in his eyes, and he’d as soon strangle Sean as spit on him. Else Gideon would raise his old rifle and take careful steady aim in his easy slow way and blow Sean’s brains to hell and gone.

He lay in the bushes instead and tried to get a glimpse of Bonnie Sue, but she was looking ahead, toward the front of the wagon, she was looking west. He knew he would never again see her as long as he lived, and he told himself it was important that he remember this departure, remember it as the night Bonnie Sue moved out of his life. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness now, he could see as sharply as a cat.

Minerva Chisholm turned her head for a look at the cabin. And brought her hand to her mouth. And held it there an instant, the fingertips gently touching her parted lips.

It was this Sean would remember.

“You think I’m going down that river, you’re crazy,” she said.

They stood on the banks of the Ohio, just above the Falls, and watched the water crashing in waves ten feet high on the rocks below. It had taken them almost two weeks to get here. They had traveled through a countryside as civilized and as settled as any back home. The trail through the Gap and across Kentucky was trafficked with farmers and merchants coming and going with produce and goods to sell. The Chisholms drank fresh milk and ate fresh vegetables. At one farm along the way, they purchased a suckling pig and roasted it that night on the banks of a stream. Wherever there was a barn, they asked a farmer for permission to spend the night in it. Sometimes they were asked to pay a little something for the roof over their heads. More often than not, the people living along the road were generous and hospitable. Two weeks to get here, Minerva thought. That meant it’d take only two weeks to get right back where they belonged.

“Person’d drown out there in a minute,” she said.

“There’re channels go through,” Will said.

“I don’t see no channels,” she said, and took a step back from the edge, refusing to look again at the river below, boiling with logs and stumps and broken steamboat paddles.

“You son’s been here, he knows this damn river,” Hadley said.

“Cussin ain’t about to get me on no vessel intendin to come down that waterfall. Wild Indians couldn’t—”

“There’s chutes, Ma,” Will said. “You go through one of the chutes.”

“I don’t care if there’s chutes or channels or secret underwater passages known only to the men who founded this garboiling town. I want to go home, Hadley. First thing in the mornin, I want to turn around and go home.”

“First thing in the mornin, we’re going west,” Hadley said.

“ You’re goin west maybe,” Minerva said.

“We’re all goin west,” Hadley said.

“You went over these falls, Will?”

“You don’t go over them, Ma. You go through them, sort of. I took a skiff downriver, and then got on a steamboat in Shippingport.”

“Then let’s us get on a steamboat downriver, too,” Minerva said.

“Cost too much,” Hadley said, and shook his head.

“How much?”

“Fourteen dollars apiece almost. Plus whatever they’d charge for the wagon and animals.”

“Doubt if they’d even take those aboard, Pa,” Will said. “Weren’t none on the steamboat to N’Orleans.”