“I seen thar sign last night, an’ figgered they’d show today. Huntin’ party – fust time I ever see Brulés east o’ the Neosho,” says Wootton. “In course, they dog the buffler – but since they say tharselves that thar’s heap big herds all along th’ Arkansas, my guess is thar takin’ a lick at the Pawnees. That a powerful lather o’ vermillion thar wearin’, fer hunters – an’ I read sign o’fifty ponies last evenin’. Yup. I rackon thar be a few Pawnees talkin’ to th’old gennelman ’fore long.”
Which meant the Pawnees would be dead and in hell. But were the Sioux liable to attack us? Wootton considered this long enough to give me the shudders.
“Cain’t say, prezackly. Spotted Tail has a straight tongue; then agin, Sioux kin be mean varmints – ’thout I wuz here, they’d ha’ had yore hoss an’ traps for sho’, mebbe yore ha’r, too. But I guess tha’r peaceable ’nuff. Uh-huh. Mebbe.”
Now, this had me in a rare sweat. I don’t suppose until that day I’d given Indians a thought, not seriously – it had been such a pleasant jaunt so far, and everyone in Westport had been so jolly and confident, and we still weren’t more than a few days away from civilisation, with its steamboats and stores and soldiers. And then, suddenly, those three painted devils had been there – and they were the peaceable ones, Wootton reckoned – and there were a thousand miles of wilderness between us and Santa Fe, crawling with tribes of the dangerous bastards who might be anything but peaceable. Stories and rumours and tall tales – you can take those with a pinch of salt, and remind yourself that your caravan is well-armed and guarded. And then you see the living peril, in its hideous paint and feathers, and your dozen rifles and revolvers and eight frail wagons seem like a cork bobbing out on a raging ocean.
So I put it to him straight – what were our chances of winning as far as Santa Fe without serious … interference? Not that it could make a dam’ bit of difference to me now – I was launched, and I daren’t have headed back to be hunted in the Mississippi valley. He scratched his head, and asked me if I had my map.
“Look thar,” says he. “Clar across to th’ Arkansas we kin rest pretty easy – Spotted Tail sez thar plenty Cheyenne an’ ’Rapaho lodges at Great Bend, an’ thar not hostile, fer sartin. But he talk of Navajo, Cumanche, Kiowa war-parties in the Cimarron country to th’ west – sez thar be ’Pashes up as fur as th’ Canadian, an’ Utes on the Picketwire. Even talk o’ Bent an’ St Vrain leavin’ the Big Lodge. I b’leeve thet when I see it. But it’s all onsartin; we cain’t tell hyar.”
Jesus, thinks I, so much for our picnic on the Plains. But he cheered me up by remarking that Spotted Tail might be lying, it being well known that no Indian told the truth unless he couldn’t avoid it;16 also, we would be part of a much larger caravan from Council Grove onwards, and too powerful for any but a very large and reckless war party.
“We see when we git ter the sojers’ new place, at Fort Mann. Then we tek a sniff at the wind, an’ decide whether we go across the Cimarron Road ter Sand Crik an’ th’ Canadian, or cairry on west fer Bent’s and down th’ Ratone.” He raised the blue eyes and suddenly smiled. “Made the trip ter Santy Fee more times’n he recollects, this chile has. An’ ev’y time he got thar – an’ cum back. If he cain’t make it agin this time, cap’n, he kin slide!”17
Chapter 5
There were three caravans waiting when we reached Council Grove, which proved to be simply a wood with a few shacks and a stable for the new stagecoach line. One of the caravans was a twenty-wagon affair of young fellows, Eastern clerks and labourers, calling themselves the Pittsburgh Pirates; another was a train of some thirty mules and half a dozen emigrant families, also bound for the diggings; the third – and you may not believe this, but it’s gospel true – consisted of two ancient travelling carriages and a dozen middle-aged and elderly valetudinarians from Cincinnati who were making a trip across the Plains for their health. They had weak chests, and the pure air of the prairies would do them good, they said, clinging to their hot water bottles and mufflers and throat sprays as they said it.18 Well, thinks I, captaining a brothel on wheels may be eccentric, but this beats all.
Wootton thought that among us we made a pretty fair train – not as many guns as he would have liked, for the young fellows had set off in the crazy, thoughtless spirit that so many seemed to be possessed by in ’49, and had only about a score of weapons among them, and the emigrant families, although well-armed and with four guards, were few in numbers. The invalids had one fat drunkard of a driver with a flintlock musket; if attacked, they presumably intended to beat off the enemy by hurling steam kettles and medicine bottles at them. Our own caravan had more firepower and discipline and general good order than all the rest put together, so they hailed us as they might salvation – and elected me captain of the whole frightful mess. My own fault for being so damned dashing in my buckskin shirt and whiskers, no doubt; look the part, and you’ll be cast in it. I demurred, modestly, but there was no competition, and one of the Pittsburgh Pirates settled the thing by haranguing his fellows from a tailboard, crying that weren’t they in luck, just, for here was Captain Comber, by cracky, who’d commanded a battleship in Her Majesty’s English Navy, and fought the Ayrabs in India, and was just the man whose unrivalled experience and cool judgment would get everyone safe to California, wasn’t that so? So I was elected by acclamation – none of your undignified running for office19 – and I read them a stern lecture about trail discipline and obeying orders and digging latrines and keeping up and all the rest of it, and they shook their heads because they could see I was just the man for the job.
Susie, of course, was well-pleased; it was fitting, she said. Wootton knew perfectly well that he was going to see the caravan through, anyway, and Grattan and our crew were all for it, since it meant we could take the van, and wouldn’t have to eat the others’ dust. So that was how we headed into the blue, Flashy’s caravan of whores and optimists and bronchial patients and frontiersmen and plain honest-to-goodness fortune-seekers – I don’t say we were a typical wagon-train of ’49, but I shouldn’t be surprised.
Now, I promised to skip the tedious bits, so I’ll say only of the prairie trek in general that it takes more weeks than I can remember, is damnably dull, and falls into two distinct parts in my memory – the first bit, when you haven’t reached the Arkansas River, and just trudge on, fifteen miles a day or thereabouts, over a sea of grass and bushes and prairie weeds, and the second bit, when you have reached the Arkansas, and trudge on exactly as before, the only difference being that now you have one of the ugliest rivers in the world on your left flank, broad and muddy and sluggish. Mind you, it’s a welcome sight, in a dry summer, and you’re thankful to stay close by it; thirst and hunger have probably killed more emigrants than any other cause.
There’s little to enliven the journey, though. River-crossings are said to be the worst part, but with the water low in the creeks we had little trouble; apart from that we sighted occasional Indian bands, and a few of them approached us in search of whatever they could mooch; there were a couple of scares when they tried to run off our beasts, but Grattan’s fellows shot a couple of them – Pawnees, according to Wootton – and I began to feel that perhaps my earlier fears were groundless. Once the mailcoach passed us, bound for Santa Fe, and a troop of dragoons came by from Fort Mann, which was being built at that time; for the rest, the most interesting thing was the litter of gear from trains that had passed ahead of us – it was like all the left-luggage offices in the world strewn out for hundreds of miles. Broken wagons, traces, wheels, bones of dead beasts, household gear and empty bottles were the least of it; I also remember a printing-press, a ship’s figurehead of a crowned mermaid, a grand piano (that was the one stuck on a mudbank at the Middle Crossings, which Susie played to the delight of the company, who held an impromptu barn-dance on the bank), a kilt, and twelve identical plaster statues of the Venus de Milo. You think I’m making it up? – check the diaries and journals of the folk who crossed the
Plains, and you’ll see that this isn’t the half of it.
But it was always too hot or too wet or too dusty or too cold (especially at nights), and before long I was heartily sick of it. I rode a good deal of the time, but often I would sit in the carriage with Susie, and her chatter drove me to distraction. Not that she moped, or was ill-tempered; in fact, the old trot was too damned bright and breezy for me, and I longed for Sacramento and good-bye, my dear. And in one respect, she didn’t travel well; we beat the mattress regularly as far as Council Grove and a bit beyond, but after that her appetite for Adam’s Arsenal seemed to jade a trifle; nothing was said, but what she didn’t demand she didn’t get, and when I took to sleeping outside – for the coach could be damned stuffy – she raised no objection, and that became my general rule. I gave her a gallop every so often, to keep her in trim, but as you will readily believe, my thoughts had long since turned elsewhere – viz., to the splendid selection of fresh black batter that was going to waste on our two lead wagons. Indeed, I’d thought of little else since we left Orleans; the question was how to come at it.
You’ve learned enough of our travel arrangements to see how difficult it was; indeed, if I had to choose the most inconvenient place I’ve ever struck for conducting an illicit amour in privacy and comfort, a prairie wagon-train would come second on my list, no question. An elephant howdah during a tiger-hunt is middling tough; centre stage during amateur theatricals would probably strike you as out of court altogether, in Gloucestershire, anyway, but it’s astonishing what you can do in a pantomime horse. No, the one that licked me was a lifeboat – after a shipwreck, that is. But a wagon-train ain’t easy; however, when you’ve committed the capital act, as I have, in the middle of a battle with Borneo head-hunters, you learn to have faith in your star, and persevere until you win through.
My first chance came by pure luck, somewhere between Council Grove and the Little Arkansas. We’d made an evening halt and laagered, as usual, and I had wandered out a little piece for a smoke in the dusk, when who should come tripping across the meadow but Aphrodite, humming to herself, as usual – she was the big shiny black one who’d spotted me that day back in New Orleans; I’d thought then that she was one of those to whom business is always a pleasure, and I was right. What she was doing so far from the wagons unchaperoned by one of her sisters in shame, I didn’t inquire; you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, or a gift mare, either.
She stopped short at sight of me, and I saw the eyes widen in that fine ebony face; she glanced quickly towards the distant wagons, where the fires were flickering, and then stood head down, shooting me little glances sidelong, scared at first, and then smoky, as she realised that, however terrible Susie might be, it might be no bad thing to satisfy the lovelight in Massa’s eye. I nodded to a dry buffalo wallow under some nearby bushes, and without a word she began to undo her bonnet strings, very slow, biting her lip and shaking her hair. Then she sauntered down into the wallow, and when I came ravening after her, pushed me off, playful-like, murmuring: “Wait, Mistah Beachy; jus’ you wait, now.” So I did, while she slipped off her dress and stood there naked, hands on hips, turning this way and that, and pouting over her shoulder. She was well-named Aphrodite, with those long black, tapering legs and rounded rump and lissom waist, and when she turned to face me, wriggling her torso – well, I’ve never looked at a pumpkin since without thinking: buffalo wallow. Pretty teeth she had, too, gleaming in that dusky face – and she knew how to use them. I drew her down and we went to work sidestroke-like, while she nibbled and bit at my ears and chin and lips, gasping and shuddering like the expert trollop she was; I remember thinking, as she gave her final practised heave and sob, Susie was right: with another nineteen like this we’ll be able to buy California after a year or two; maybe I’ll stay about for a while.
She was too much the whore for me, though; once was enough, and although she shot me a few soulful-sullen looks in the weeks that followed, I didn’t use her again. I’m not just an indiscriminate rake, you see; I like to be interested in a woman in a way that is not merely carnal, to find out new fascinations in her with each encounter, those enchanting, mysterious, indefinable qualities, like the shape of her tits. And having studied the other nineteen, as opportunity served, weighing this attraction against that, considering such vital matters as which ones would be liable to run squealing to Susie, and which were probably the randiest, I found my mind and eye returning invariably to the same delectable person. There wasn’t one among ’em that wouldn’t have turned the head of the most jaded roué – trust Susie for that – but there was one who could have brought me back for a twentieth helping, and that was Cleonie.
For one thing, she had style, in the way that Montez and Alice Keppel and Ko Dali’s daughter and Cassy and Lakshmibai, and perhaps three others that I could name, had it – it’s the thing which, allied with ambition and sense, can give a woman dominion over kings and countries. (Thank God my Elspeth never had the latter qualities; she’d not have married me, for one thing. But Elspeth is different, and always will be.)
Also Cleonie was a lady – and if you think a whore can’t be that, you’re wrong. She was educated – convent-bred, possibly – and spoke perfect English and better French, her manners were impeccable, and she was as beautiful as only a high-bred octoroon fancy can be, with a figurehead like St Cecilia and a body that would have brought a stone idol howling off its pedestal. Altogether fetching – and intelligent enough to be persuadable, in case she had any doubts about accommodating de massa wid de muffstash on his face. But I would have to go to work subtly and delicately; Spring’s pal Agag would have nothing on me.
So I bided my time, and established a habit of occasionally talking, offhand, to various of the tarts, in full view of everyone, so that if I were seen having a few words with Cleonie, no one would think it out of the way. I did it pretty stiff and formal, very much the Master, and even remarked to Susie how this one or that was looking, and how Claudia would be the better of a tonic, or Eugenie was eating too much. She didn’t seem to mind; in fact, I gathered she was pleased that I was taking a proprietorial interest in the livestock. Then I waited until one noon halt, when Cleonie went down to the river by herself – she was perhaps the least gregarious of them all, which was all to the good – and loafed along to where she was breaking twigs and tossing them idly into the stream.
When she saw me she straightened up and dropped me a little curtsey, preparing to withdraw. We were screened by the bushes, so I took her by the arm as she went past; she gave a little start, and then turned that lovely nun’s face towards me, without fear, or any emotion at all that I could see. I took her gently by the two braids of hair that depended from that oddly attractive centre parting, and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t move, so I kept my mouth there and slipped a hand on to her breast, to give her the idea. Then I stepped back, to gauge her reaction; she stood looking at me, one slim hand up to her lips where mine had been, and then turned her head in that languid duchess fashion and said the last thing I’d have expected.
“And Aphrodite?”
I almost jumped out of my skin. I gargled some intelligent inquiry, and she smiled and looked up at me from under her lids.
“Has Master tired of her? She will be disappointed. She—”
“Aphrodite,” says I, distraught, “had better shut her big black gob, hadn’t she? What’s she been saying, the lying slut?”
“Why, that Master took her, and made much of her.”
“Christ! Look here – do Marie and Stephanie know?”
“We all know – that is, if Aphrodite is to be believed.” She gave me an inquiring look, still with that tiny smile. “I, myself, would have thought she was rather … black … and heavy, for Master’s taste. But some men prefer it, I know.” She gave a little shrug. “Others …” She left it there, waiting.
I was taken all aback, but one thing was foremost. “What about Stephanie and Marie? I thought—”
“That they were Mistress’s sneaks?” She nodded. “They are … little tell-tales! And if it had been anyone but Master, they would have told her right away. But they would not readily offend you … none of us would,” and she lowered her lids; her lips quivered in amusement. “Stephanie is very jealous – even more than the rest of us … if that is possible.” And she gave me a look that was pure whore; by George, I tingled as if I’d been stung. “But I should not stay here,” and she was making past me when I caught her arm again.
“Now look here, Cleonie,” says I. “You’re a good girl, I see … so at the evening halt, you follow me down to the river – carefully, mind – and we’ll … have a little talk. And you tell the others that … that if anyone blabs, it will be the worse for them, d’you hear?” I almost added the threat I’d prepared in case she’d been difficult: that if she didn’t play pretty I’d tell Susie she’d made advances to me. But I guessed it wasn’t necessary.
“Yes, Master Beauchamp,” says she, very demure, and turned her head languidly. “And Aphrodite?”
“To hell with Aphrodite!” says I, and took hold of her, nuzzling. She gave a little laugh and whispered: “She smells so! Does she not?” And then she slipped out of my grasp and was away.
Well, here was capital news, and no mistake. Jealous of Aphrodite, were they? And why not, the dear creatures? Mark you, while I’ve never been modest about my manly charms, I could see now what it was: they were a sight more concerned to be in my good books than in Susie’s – being green wenches, they supposed that I would be calling the tune henceforth, and no doubt they figured it was worth the risk of her displeasure to keep in with me. That was all they knew. In the meantime, Miss Cleonie was obviously more than willing, and they’d never dare to peach … on that score, would it be a good notion to scare ’em sick by telling Susie that Aphrodite had tried to seduce me? Susie would flog the arse off her, which would be fine encouragement pour les autres to keep their traps shut. On t’other hand, Aphrodite would certainly tell the truth of it, and Susie just might believe her; it would sow a seed for sure. No, best leave it, and make hay with my high-yaller fancy while the sun shone.
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 179