“Called a ‘frame wagon,’ ” said Buster. “I swapped a Moline for it last year, then didn’t know what to do with it. Just set here in the snow. So them two clodhoppers come along, Petzke and Svendsen, lookin’ for a wagon, an’ I thought, just the ticket for them wimmen. Sold it to ’em cheap. Set some new spokes, coupla new felloes, put on one new tire, cut the windies bigger so’s the passagers can take notice, greased ’er up, an’ she’s ready t’go, round the world.”
Mary Bee wasn’t having a fit, she was moving slowly round the wagon in search of a reason to refuse it. The box was perhaps twelve feet long and five wide and eight high off the ground, its top, bottom, and sides framed entirely of three-quarter-inch hardwood plank which had weathered dark gray and smooth. Up front was a footboard and a seat with a storage compartment beneath. The top was set up for storage of bedrolls, provisions, and such, with a folded canvas tarp and a coil of rope and tie rings. Into each side of the box two windows a foot square had been cut. At the rear were double doors and a step, on one side of which was lashed a six-gallon water keg. There were tie rings at the rear, too, in case other animals had to be trailed. And this whole rig rolled on sixteen-spoke, iron-tired wheels as high as carriage wheels. When Mary Bee had circumnavigated it once, she opened the doors at the rear and stepped up into the box.
Buster backed the mules into place, hooked up the shafts, ran the traces from the collar hames through the fills back to the doubletree, pulled the reins from the bits through the rings and tossed them over the footboard, then went to the rear of the wagon and climbed in to join Mary Bee. A plank bench with hinged top and storage space underneath was built into each side of the wagon. He slid along beside her while she inspected the grub box, essential to travel. She found most of what she would need: tin cups and plates, forks and spoons, matches, salt and pepper, saleratus, butter and grease in closed cans. She missed a spider, pots and pans, a coffee pot. Buster said she was sitting on them, under the bench. Oven? Up top, he said. Toward the front, between the benches, was an assortment of sacks and one large closed can. In them, he said, were cornmeal, beans, potatoes, salt pork, and in the can, molasses. He pointed at the open doors. “I put a slide-bolt on them doors.”
“Why?”
“To lock the ladies in.”
“Why would I have to?”
“Stop an’ think.”
She thought a moment. “Oh,” she said. Then she thought of something else. “Picket pins.”
“Four of ’em. Under the seat up front.”
She leaned back against plank and looked around the interior of the wagon. The gray wood walls seemed to imprison her. “Oh, my,” she said.
“Oh, my what?”
“It’s time. So suddenly. To start. I’m not sure I’m ready.”
Buster leaned forward and looked out the window opposite at the sunny morning. “You scairt?”
“A little.”
“Mar’ Bee, listen,” he said. “You’ve got a passable rig an’ mules an’ you yourself. You’re as good a man as any man hereabouts. An’ you’re doin’ a hell of a fine thing. So do it.”
“I will.” She looked out the window opposite her at the sweet sunny morning. “Does everybody know?”
“Yup.”
“What do they say?”
“They don’t. People’ll talk about death an’ taxes, but when it comes to crazy, they hesh up.”
Both reflected. Buster stuck a finger in his mouth and moved it around as though tallying how many teeth he had left and calculating how long they were good for. Then he slapped hands on leather knees, got up, and backed out of the box and down the step. She did likewise. He closed and locked the doors. He went up front and took the nigh mule by the bridle and led the span and wagon out from behind the shed, tied her mare to a ring at the rear, came round front, gave Mary Bee a boost up to the seat, and handed her the reins.
“Goodbye, Mar’ Bee,” said Buster Shaver. “Folks ask me why I never did marry. Well, I never did marry due to I never met one like you.”
He turned abruptly and headed into the smithy as though he didn’t trust himself to say more or stay longer.
Mary Bee tightened the reins and clucked and waited and clucked again and this time the mules put shoulders to collars and moved.
On the way out of Loup she met and passed two town women walking in, hoisting their skirts above the mud. She might have nodded, or spoken, but they took one long look at the frame wagon and, knowing where it was going and what it would carry, their own kind, turned their faces from it.
• • •
She stopped at the Linens place. Charley and Harriet knew what she was up to, everyone did. She told Charley she would start the gather in the morning, she expected to be gone four or five weeks, and would he please tend her stock? He said he’d be glad to, he’d look after her place like it was his own, and by the way, he wanted her to know how much he admired her sand. He’d never set eyes on a frame wagon. He looked inside and asked if he couldn’t stow the provision sacks on top for her, and she said she’d be grateful. While he was busy Harriet came out to say goodbye, and when Charley finished loading and covering with canvas and tying down, Harriet suddenly put her arms around Mary Bee and hugged her hard and retreated into their sod house in tears.
Mary Bee drove on, and within a mile of home it struck her that this was her last day to be free for a long time. She changed direction. She thought she’d have a look at the gunpowder damage done to Andy Giffen’s dugout. It was only three miles out of her way, and the spring day still sparkled.
She took an immediate liking to the mules. The off mule, the thinker, who twitched his ears often, was the more interesting, but the nigh mule was the worker. His nose was always an inch ahead of the other’s. He’d be the one she could depend on.
She stood up once and looked behind the wagon at poor Dorothy being hauled along willy-nilly by the bit in her mouth, a new experience for her and surely a mortifying one. Then it struck her she was in the same fix, being hauled along by a wagon and women gone mad and a husband who wouldn’t do his duty and her own foolish heart rushing in where angels feared to tread. A new experience, yes, but scarcely mortifying. Terrifying was the apter word.
She reached Andy’s stovepipe and held the mules under tight rein down into the ravine, along it past the stable, and pulled the span up before the wreckage of the dugout. She was appalled. To save Andy’s claim from the jumper they had had to destroy his dwelling. Lynching was too good for the man—she thought Buster had called him Briggs. From a coat pocket she took out the dime’s worth of cheese and crackers bought in town and ate her lunch. Somehow, sitting on the high wagon seat, eating, reminded her of the night last September she had given Andy dinner at her place, inviting him especially, gussying up in her maroon taffeta, putting together a sumptuous repast, and afterward, daring to get out her muslin keyboard and play and sing for him. Rocking in the Boston rocker, drawing now and again from the jug of whiskey he had brought, her guest seemed to enjoy himself. She could have loved Andy Giffen. He had beautiful black eyes. He was tall and strapping. He was twenty-nine, he’d said so, and the difference between that and thirty-one was nil. Then she ceased to sing and made him a proposition. Why not marry her? Why not throw in together—land, animals, implements, lives—the whole ball of wax? Why not use her capital and know-how to improve his claim as she had hers? As partners, they must prosper. If there were children, so much the better. Looked at from any angle, it made sense, so why not marry? She waited, breath held. Andy had a long pull from his jug. He said he intended to go back east for a wife. She would not take no for an answer. She pressed on, pleading a case, biting her lips, humbling herself. Andy stood up, unsteadily, and put jug down on table hard. He was a little drunk. “Miss Cuddy,” he said, “I ’preciate the offer. And supper. And concert. And all. But I can’t marry you. Will not. Won’t. I ain’t perfect.
But you are too bossy. And too plumb damn plain.”
The sound of ripping startled her. It came from down by the Kettle. It was like the sound of a length of fabric, silk or taffeta, being torn end to end. Or the sound of river ice splitting bank to bank. On impulse, mouth full of cheese and crackers, she took up the reins and wheeled the mules and started down the widening ravine for the river. For one thing, she wanted to put Andy’s house and bride behind her, and the shame of that evening. She had been heartsore for weeks. For another, she wanted to see the ice split, a sure sign of spring. For still another, she longed to see trees, many trees, miraculous trees.
The wagon reached the river bottom and the stand of sycamores and cottonwoods. Suddenly, nearing a great sycamore, the mules dug forefeet in and stopped, ears forward. They wouldn’t budge. They alarmed her. She jumped down from the seat, slipped back to Dorothy, got her rifle, and walked, rifle ready, step by cautious step around the tree. Then she stopped, rooted to the snow. A puppet on a string on a horse.
• • •
It seemed to take her forever to comprehend—the man, the horse, the rope.
The man sat shoulders slumped but head unnaturally erect, held so by the noose, with bare blackamoor face and hands and feet, hands bound behind him, feet tied under the animal’s belly. Face, hands, and feet had been blackened by smoke.
The horse was plug-ugly, a roan with a rat tail, its face and four stockings speckled white. It looked Indian. Head down, fore- and hindquarters sagging, it seemed about to founder, as though all that held it up was the loop of its rider’s tied legs.
Finally the rope, taut up to a limb and through the fork down to the trunk and around the trunk thrice to a slipknot. Now she understood. This must be the jumper, and the men last night, whoever they were, had not in the end lynched him. They had determined he would hang himself, or the horse would. When the horse moved out from under him, he would hang. Or the horse would die and fall, and the man would fall and die. Last night! It must be noon now, or later. Hours! He should be dead now. He might be.
“You,” she said.
His eyes opened, then his lips.
“Help me.”
“You’re not dead.”
“Help me,” he rasped.
“Why should I? You tried to jump Andy Giffen’s claim. You deserve to hang.”
He closed his eyes.
She moved a step closer, into the shade of the tree, considering what to do, and then, as though suspended herself, was dropped down, down, by an idea.
“Suppose I do,” she said. “Suppose I save your life. What will you do for me?”
His eyes opened. “Any. Thing.”
The more she thought, the more possible it seemed, and the more it seemed she had no choice.
“If I set you free, you’ll do anything I ask. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“So you say. Swear it.”
“Swear.”
“Swear to Almighty God.”
“Swear to God.”
She stood a minute more, shaken by the risk, angry that she had no alternative. “All right,” she said. “I’ll save you. I have a job of work for you. But if you make one move to harm me, I’ll shoot you.”
It was said. She circled him to the sycamore trunk, stood rifle against it, slipped the knot, and unwound the rope. At the release, the jumper’s chin dropped. She moved out from the tree and eased the rope down from the fork until it was free and on the ground. She approached horse and rider, and squatting, rifle propped against her, untied his ankles, then rose and untied his wrists, then backed off quickly, rifle up.
“Take off the noose,” she said.
He raised one arm, and the other, awkwardly, as though it pained his joints, and fumbled at the noose until he could lift it over his head and let it slide. His horse had not moved. Next he tried to dismount, but raising his right leg unbalanced him and he toppled off the horse and crashed into the snow and lay as though unconscious. She waited. After a bit, still on his back, he moved arms and legs up, down, and sideways to restore circulation, and when he had, dragged himself onto his knees and with a hand on the horse’s flank helped himself to his feet and stood turning his head to get the kinks out of his neck.
Mary Bee watched him like a hawk.
He did a strange thing. He coiled the rope. Either he was not a man to waste good rope or he wanted this as a memento.
“Need to go house,” he said hoarsely, hanging the coil over a forearm. “Find some things.”
“Go,” she said.
“Get your wagon,” he said.
She frowned but started out and around the tree and after only a few steps heard him. He was passing water on the sycamore trunk. Either he had to or he wanted to show contempt.
By the time she got up on the wagon, rifle on the seat beside her, and had the mules moving again, he was leading his horse by the halter up the narrowing ravine, plodding barefoot through the snow. Twice he stopped to have a coughing fit and blow his nose with his fingers, a man’s habit she hated, that and spitting. When they reached Andy’s place he led his horse on into the stable, presumably to give it a feed, then returned to the ruined dugout. She sat on the wagon waiting, rifle across her lap, and watched him hunt around beyond the half-wall of sod for whatever useful he could find. She couldn’t believe herself. What in sin and salvation had Mary Bee Cuddy gone and done? What did an oath sworn on a stack of Bibles mean to a claim-jumper? Only the Lord knew how many other kinds of criminal he was. Would he rape her or kill her or both? Or simply leave her with a laugh? What might he do when she had to tell him, eventually, where they were going and why? Should she whip the mules away, now, and pay alone, on the trail, the price of her idiocy? The sun passed beyond the western rim of the ravine and she sat in shadow, shivering.
He came out of the dugout dressed, his face as smudged as ever. He had found a slouch hat, boots, a ragged red scarf to sling around his neck, a coat of cowhide worn in places down to the leather, and something in each hand. He came toward the wagon, dropping what appeared to be a tin of sardines into a pocket, and then, opening his coat, shoved under his belt a big repeating pistol with a blackened wooden grip.
“You can put away the rifle,” he said. “I can blow you off that seat anytime I’m a mind to. What kind of rig is this?”
“A frame wagon. For passengers.”
He turned and walked away to the stable and returned leading his horse, saddled, and slung the coil of rope on top of the wagon, then mounted up and looked straight at Mary Bee. He had eyes as brown and bottomless as ponds in a marsh.
“Well?” he said.
“We’ll go to my place. Is your name Briggs?”
“Might be.”
“We’ll stay the night there and set out first thing in the morning.”
“You said a job of work.”
“I’ll tell you when I’m a mind to.”
• • •
If she did once, she looked back over her shoulder twenty times to see if he was still there, following, riding that rat-tailed roan, and every time, he was.
When they topped the rise to her place she told Briggs to unhitch the mules and stable and feed them, and also her mare and his horse, and also see to her other stock.
He sat his horse and stared at her. She might as well have been talking Hottentot. She knew a loner when she met one. Of course a loner wouldn’t understand an order, or even a suggestion, but what was exasperating, he had never heard of cooperation either. Such a man lived by himself on the globe and believed it turned for his comfort and convenience. She jumped down.
“Or if you don’t care to, I will,” she said. “And then your supper’ll be an hour late.”
She took her rifle and went on into the house, and from a window watched him unhitching the mules. When he led them to the stable, she went to th
e outhouse. By the time he came back for the other animals, she was busy at the stove. When, later, his chores done, he started toward the house, she met him at the door, barring his way with soap, basin, and a towel. He washed, but triumphed—he went to the outhouse after washing rather than before. Entering the kitchen, he handed her basin and towel ceremoniously, and took off scarf and cowcoat to reveal a black, rusty suitcoat ripped at one sleeve and two sizes too big for him. This he left on, as though he were dining formally, and pulling the pistol from his belt and placing it on the table, he sat down, ready to be served.
She gave him a decent supper: fried salt pork, green beans she had grown and dried, corn bread and sorghum, and coffee, which he sipped repeatedly to convince himself it was real, then gulped down and pushed his cup at her for more. He wolfed his food. He had abominable manners, using only his knife and fingers, spilling beans on the floor and eating them anyway, and when his plate was empty, and he had sopped it with bread and eaten that, he tilted onto the back legs of her good chair and belched.
It was darkening. She lit a candle and finished her own meal while the jumper appraised the furnishings of her house.
“This job of work,” he said as she put down her cutlery. “Time I knew what I’m in for.”
“I’d be grateful,” she said, “if you’d not use my good chair that way.”
He let the front legs down with a thud and planted elbows on the table. “Well?”
“My name is Cuddy. Mary Bee Cuddy.”
“Where’s Cuddy?”
“I am single.”
He discovered something between his teeth, dislodged it with a fingernail, decided it was edible, and added it to his supper. “The job.”
“Very well. Over this winter, four women, wives, in the neighborhood have lost their minds. Their husbands can’t care for them properly. They must be taken to Iowa, where some church people will take them on to their families. It—it’s a very sad situation. They were fine women, they still are. It’s just that, well.” She reproved herself with a frown. “Well, anyway, I offered to take them across the river. The husbands went in together and provided me with the mules, the frame wagon, and supplies for the trip. I plan to start in the morning.”
The Homesman Page 6