Folks wintering at the fort were a gregarious lot, as a whole, the predominant blood French or Indian, or a mixture of the two, trappers and traders, or families intending to stake homestead claims come spring. I respected Xavier’s wishes and did not again speak of the events on the prairie, except with Malcolm and Cora in the privacy of the wigwam erected for our use during the winter months. The lodge was much smaller than the one in which Xavier and Fern lived but it proved warm and snug, and I was in no position to utter a thought, let alone a word, of complaint. As the weeks ticked by I forced myself to rest and therefore finish healing, helping the Darvells as I was able; after a spell, my full strength returned. I accompanied Xavier to the river bottoms, where trees grew in greater profusion and we chopped the week’s wood supply. I hunted with the Henry rifle, bagging rabbits and the occasional deer, and spent hours under the chilly morning sun, learning to use a crossbow.
Pierpont was an expert, delighted to teach Malcolm and me; the irony of shooting lessons given by the nephew of the man who’d fired his crossbow into my leg was not lost on me. And when I envisioned Church Talk’s face as I grew ever more accurate in aim, firing upon a target tied to a hay bale, I refused to feel guilty. The desire to kill those who’d harmed my brother and Cora, who’d tried their best to kill all three of us, hibernated within me; I lay awake at night, listening to Malcolm’s snoring and Cora’s soft breathing, studying the cone-shaped peak above us in the red glow of the embers, and allowed the dark thoughts sway. I would find Fallon and Virgil, Church Talk and Hoyt Little. I would make them pay for what they’d done to us, whether I took their lives or saw them carted to their hangings. None of these men appeared at the fort during the long winter months and so I understood that justice must occur in a different place, and on my terms this time around; I would not hesitate to kill any of them, but only if there was no other choice, or if I could do so without being caught. I could not risk being hung or spending the rest of my life in jail.
I was no fool. I knew what slim chance I’d had at finding Rebecca unmarried and waiting for me in Iowa City had passed as surely as any yesterday – never to return no matter how goddamn hard I wished it – and I wished hard enough to turn my body inside out, torturing myself and further fueling the desire to kill those whose actions kept me from her. How I hated letting such dark thoughts have free reign; I’d believed the time for such darkness had passed with the War. I was afraid to let these thoughts mix with the sweetness of my memories of Rebecca, which sustained me in ways she would of course never know. Brutally honest with my pitiful self, I knew I must acknowledge that the hope of her ever being mine was surely lost – I’d ridden away from her, I’d left her behind – and the agony of this mistake coursed like poison through my body. Even had I been fortunate enough to return to Iowa last autumn and find her still waiting, all such prospect was destroyed with the passing of the winter months.
And yet I could not, would not, release hold on my precious store of memories of her, letting them overtake me as I lay there through those cold nights no matter how it tormented my heart, so goddamn lonely, missing her so bad it hurt to inhale. I recalled Granny Rose speaking of a woman in the holler who’d died of a broken heart; I could hear my granny’s voice clucking in concern over the matter.
Undone in sorrow, that’s what. Poor, poor girl.
Sending out the plea the same way I believed Sawyer sent words to Lorie, I would think, Rebecca, if you can somehow hear me please know that I pray to see your face one last time. I am alive out here and what keeps me alive is the thought of seeing you once more. Even if it’s just to hear you say you already wed Marshal Quade, I pray to see your face one last time.
And my hands would crush into fists at the thought of the wedding which had surely taken place, at Rebecca becoming the wife of another.
But it’s nothing less than you deserve, Carter. You rode away. Sawyer an’ Lorie warned you not to, an’ yet you rode away.
There was no answer but the wail of the wind, the whisper of snowfall.
With the arrival of spring, and warmer weather, the need to move rose within everyone in the fort as palpably as the sound of voices lifted in song. Xavier and Fern, and their children, left the fort each April to travel to Fern’s family in Indian Territory, eastward and then due north as Xavier explained their annual route, and they would accompany us as far as they were able. Other than Malcolm and Cora, and the Darvells, I kept mainly to myself at the fort, even as the ground thawed and the sap rose, and the anticipation of traveling onward from the confines of the wooden walls sparked ever more rowdy nightly drinking and cavorting. I withstood Malcolm’s teasing that I looked like a black bear; I’d not trimmed my hair or shaved my face since last summer. In turn, I was fond of perusing his smooth jaws for any trace of a beard, teasing him that at this rate he’d never require a shaving brush or straight razor.
In the company of gentle Fern and her lively daughters, Cora thrived; while she’d once allowed Malcolm to do all of the talking, she now spoke and laughed with ease. I’d grown accustomed to the oddity of her eyes, seeing instead the sweetness of her entire face; it was plain she would not be separated from Malcolm, nor he from her, and I outright dreaded the attempting of it – but I had also decided I would seek out Royal Lawson on our return journey to Minnesota, even if this meant a detour from our intended route. Lawson deserved to know that his niece was alive and I was finally capable of delivering this knowledge to his homestead.
Further, Lawson deserved to know that his brother, Cora’s father, had been murdered.
Cora finally told us the story when a March snowstorm was shrieking over the fort, the three of us clustered around our nightly fire, Cora threading the day-bead necklace through her delicate fingers, Malcolm gnawing a deer rib. I sat on my haunches, painstakingly sewing together two lengths of canvas with a heavy leather needle, intent on finishing repairs to the flatbed wagon I’d been given thanks to the generosity of a family no longer requiring its service. I’d repaired its broken axle and missing bed boards, and now only the rending in the canvas cover remained. When Cora said, “I must tell you something,” I glanced up without yet interpreting the serious nature of what she meant to tell us.
Malcolm, much more attuned to her, paused in his eating and invited, “Go on.”
And so we learned of how Cora had crept from her bed in the boardinghouse the night her daddy had been horse-kicked, knowing he was in grave condition, disobeying Grady’s orders in order to see him. Quiet as a field mouse she slipped along the hallway to his room; he lay alone in the guttering glow of a single candle when Cora arrived and curled beside him on the bed, resting her head to his chest, feeling the labored rise and fall of his breathing. He could not move his arms to hold her and his eyes were covered in a length of bandage blotted by dark blood, but he knew she was there, and spoke her name. When the creak of the doorknob alerted her to another’s presence Cora slipped beneath the bed, and it was from this hiding spot she observed Virgil Turnbull enter the room. Seconds later the entire bedframe pressed upon her as she stayed hidden beneath.
“I do not know for certain but I believe he smothered Papa,” Cora whispered, her gaze entangled in the flames. Her fingers, clutching the necklace, had stilled.
Virgil left the room immediately after his grisly errand was completed, the door closing behind him with a click. Cora, too terrified to move, remained under the bed; it was not until dawn, when Grady appeared in the room, discovered Dyer was no longer breathing, and hurried to rouse the others that she dared to slip from her hiding spot. She saw her daddy’s slack face and knew he was gone. When Grady returned, Quill and Virgil along with him, they found Cora bent over Dyer, her face pressed to his neck. She did not tell them what she had seen, or what she suspected, and in fact refused to speak at all, until the morning she met Malcolm.
“I should have told Grady,” Cora said, and it was clear that no matter what we said, she would punish herself with these notio
ns. “I was a coward to hide and to keep it a secret.”
Scooting closer and curving an arm about her shoulders, Malcolm said, “You are no coward.”
“You have one of the bravest souls I know, honey,” I said to her, my mind leaping as I wondered at Virgil’s motive. No point in smothering a man already half-dead unless you’d brought him to that state in the first place, or he knew something you intended to keep quiet. Quill and Grady had believed Dyer was horse-kicked, his head crushed by the blow of a hoof. I’d considered the thought back on the trail, when Grady and Quill were still alive, that Virgil had been the one to smash Dyer’s skull and arranged it to appear as though a mare had done it, instead. But why? What sparked such a violent action? And to what end? What had Dyer, or Virgil, known and therefore had to lose?
Cora rested her cheek to Malcolm’s shoulder, her long and wild hair floating about his face and into which he sank his free hand, caressing her in a gesture far too intimate for two as young as they; and yet the tenderness of it, the depth of love it conveyed, tore at my heart. I could not help but imagine plunging my hands into Rebecca’s loose hair with no restraints, of her head against my chest, indicating a much greater need – a need for my love and comfort, for the security of my touch. I covered my face with both hands, pressing hard, damning myself for so many mistakes I’d lost all count.
MY HEART quickened its pace now, months later, on the prairie just west of St. Paul. The journey had proved muddy, the going slow, but we’d encountered little other trouble. Malcolm and I were armed to our fullest capacity, with a modest store of food packed in the flatbed I’d spent the winter repairing; Trapper and Aces High took turns pulling us along the rolling prairie. Not long after parting ways with the Darvells we’d ridden for Royal Lawson’s homestead, following the directions as I remembered Grady speaking them.
We found the sprawling ranch in isolated country, situated at the base of a towering ridge; we spent a night there, welcomed by Cora’s family – Royal and his wife, and their five children. By then it was mid-April and Royal was distressed enough at learning the truth – he explained how Virgil Turnbull had delivered his cattle, as Royal expected, but with a contingent of men he did not – that he left his ranch under the temporary care of his foreman and accompanied us to St. Paul in order to enact what justice he could manage.
Royal explained how he had paid out wages to Virgil, who arrived with men introducing themselves as Fallon Yancy, Hoyt Little, and Byron Johnston – no mention of Church Talk the half-breed – and that Virgil’s party collected wages and rode out before evening, refusing the offer of a night’s rest at the ranch. Virgil had lamented to Royal of the bad luck which stalked him on the journey, relating the news of Dyer’s death in St. Paul, and the subsequent deaths of Grady and Quill, and indeed Dyer’s girl-child, along the way. Virgil spoke of ‘others’ being killed as well, a man and boy Grady had hired; of course, Virgil failed to mention he’d done his best to kill these others, and had never expected us to arrive in Royal’s dooryard months after the fact.
“Turnbull had an answer for everything,” Royal told me. “And I had no reason to distrust him. For Christ’s sake, we served together. Had you been killed as intended, likely I would never have questioned the sad tale. But this changes everything.”
For all their kind offering and then outright pleading, Cora would not be convinced to remain at the ranch with her kin. Malcolm’s tension over the matter rendered him as rigid as a fresh-strung rope bed; he was terrified they might convince her to stay. I insisted that we loved the girl as our own kin and would provide for her a home with us in Minnesota. For all that she was his niece, Royal had not seen Cora since she was a tiny babe in Kansas, and his love for her was motivated chiefly by the fact that her father had been his younger brother.
Though Royal was plainly a successful rancher, with a wood-framed house grand in scale, there was limited space in his busy home, and at last he consented to allow Cora to remain with Malcolm and me for the time being; he did, however, insist upon accompanying us to Minnesota, and saddled a solid bay yearling in order to make the journey with the dual intent, he explained, of speaking to the law and secondarily inquiring about disinterring Dyer’s body for return to his homestead and a proper burial. I sensed he would insist at that time upon Cora returning along with him but figured we’d cross that particular bridge when we came to it, and not an ever-lovin’ moment before.
I found Royal’s presence a pleasant one in the following weeks as we traveled towards Minnesota; he was a rather solitary fellow, courteous, solemn of demeanor and prone to riding restlessly ahead of the wagon as though scouting, returning in the late afternoon. He made real effort to speak with Cora and she seemed to welcome his company. Following the same route, now in the opposite direction, we eventually came to the oak tree on the Missouri beneath which we’d played mumblety-peg that terrible night; the winter had taken a toll on the burned-out frame of the wagon, and critters upon Grady and Quill’s bodies. Royal dismounted along with me and together we collected up what bones were left behind, burying them with all vestiges of dignity we could offer. The last of the day’s fading light struck our faces as we stood four abreast at the fresh-dug graves, Cora between Malcolm and me, her arms about Malcolm’s waist; my brother rested his chin atop her head.
Hat held to his chest, Royal spoke with solemn dignity. “Grady Ballard and Quill Dobbins were good and decent men, and I aim to see justice served in their stead.”
I thought of what Grady had once said about the violets in the buffalo wallow and what Quill told me about Ellie, the woman he’d left behind, the one he’d loved to his final breath, I had no doubt. I said aloud, “We don’t know just when our life will be taken, but if I learned anything from these two men it was to value what we have in this life, while we’s living it.”
Malcolm reached for my hand and I threaded together our fingers.
“BOYD, DO you think we might find Sawyer an’ Lorie-Lorie? Do you think they might be there in town?” Malcolm rode near on Aces High to direct his question my way; saddled and ready to ride, the boy had been up and about camp since dawn on this May morning. I was too cautious to allow for as much eagerness but felt a spike of hope pierce my heart nonetheless at the idea that my oldest friend and dear Lorie had perhaps arrived ahead of us. I prayed they’d received my letter last fall and expected us to be in St. Paul as planned; I felt as though two hundred winters had passed since last I’d seen them.
All I would say was, “Soon enough, we’ll find out.”
Malcolm’s sweet-talking had finally worked its wiles on Cora; she sat in front of him atop Aces High, clad in buckskin trousers once belonging to Pierpont, with which he’d gifted her before we parted ways. The Darvell children promised Malcolm and Cora their paths would cross again, and all five had plied one another with gifts, raiding their own belongings in order to provide these offerings. Cora’s leather pouch, tied to her waist with a length of ribbon, was plumb full of beads, a coiled length of sinew, pretty pebbles, and snail shells she and Malcolm plucked from the banks of creeks we forded. She also collected feathers she found, crow and hawk, mainly, as these were large and stood out against the green of the spring prairie. Malcolm picked flowers for her as the days lengthened and blossoms grew in abundance; a week or so ago, Royal, observing this, had muttered to me, “I don’t know that I presented my wife so many flowers even when courting her. I suppose I’m not above learning a few lessons from the boy.”
Sitting near the evening’s fire we’d watched with wry amusement as Malcolm helped Cora to bundle the stems with a bit of sinew from her pouch, the two of them sitting on the grass near the wagon, as content in each other’s presence as any two people I ever saw. I looked then to Royal, whose stately and expensive garments seemed hardly worse for the wear even after weeks of travel. He kept his beard and mustaches trimmed, using a small handheld mirror which reminded me of the one Sawyer and I had once shared. I intended to take ca
re of shaving once we reached St. Paul; my hair was unruly with curls all over my body – head and beard and torso. I’d almost forgotten what my chin felt like.
I said to Royal, “The two of them’s kindred spirits, I reckon.”
Royal sighed and sipped from his coffee, a tin of which he’d stowed in the wagon. “Your brother is blessed with a kind soul, that’s evident. My brother was a similar sort. Dyer cared for Cora’s mother, Millie, very tenderly. I see Millie in Cora, though I do hope the girl is possessed of a stronger constitution.”
I thought of the way Cora had wrapped about Malcolm’s kicking legs, attempting to save him from strangling, her hands bloody and a length of rope still tied about her neck. I gritted my teeth before saying, “I’ve known few stronger.”
“Dyer would wish for the girl to live with kin,” Royal said quietly, and I met his somber gaze. There was no challenge present in either his eyes or tone; he simply spoke the truth.
I said, on a sigh, “Any daddy would.”
“I would like for you to know I have given the matter much thought. Young Malcolm may court her when she’s of an age,” Royal said. “He strikes me as the sort destined to roam before settling. Might be that he’ll ride westward again, once a few years have passed.”
I felt like a right traitor as I murmured, “I figure you’s right.”
I’d not yet spoken of this conversation to Malcolm.
“A fine morning,” Royal commented just now, taking up the reins of his bay.
We’d been plagued by poor weather the past two days. Though not heavy, the misting rain served to dampen clothes and spirits, both. I tried to see the fair morning and the promise of sunlight as a sign that all would be well.
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