The Homesman

by Glendon Swarthout

  “I am sorry.”

  “I should have big, strong boys to help me. You should have girls. Soon it is too late. Soon we will be old. What then?”

  She would bite her tongue.

  “All have children. All but you.”

  After a time she would say, “I am as God made me.” And add, “As you married me.”

  He would look away, but they took his bitterness and her sorrow to bed with them.

  And so to atone, to prove to him she was not a good-for-nothing, Gro Svendsen did the work of three, a mother and two of the daughters she could not have. She worked in the fields with Thor when he could use a hand. Often she fed the stock and forked out the stable. She planted and tended a vegetable garden. She mended bedding, kept them in candles, baked, made her own clothing from yardgoods, washed outdoors and ironed in, fried, made soap from wood ash and grease drippings, dried corn and beef, salted pork and cucumbers, patched overalls and jeans, stewed, churned butter, stuffed fresh ticks for the bed, kept the house clean, swatted flies, gathered herbs for medicines, battled bedbugs in the walls, and opened her door and larder to hopeful wagoners headed west as well as the sad folk headed east, homeward, in defeat. In between she did her utmost to keep herself presentable. She prized a small mirror and stared into it when Thor was gone, trying to recall the bride to whom it had been given, and was every time inclined to cry.

  She did cry, frequently, when alone, but tears could not relieve her. Thor spoke the truth. She must be to blame. He gave her the gift of his manhood, and her body would not accept it. Over the years guilt grew in her like a gross, unwanted child. Guilt made her heavy. Guilt waddled with her. Her stomach went sour. She vomited often in the morning. She had headaches. She was without hope. Time would not deliver her of the abomination in her womb, she was certain, no matter how unsightly she became, no matter how long she lived. And as guilt must be her only child, so must it be her secret. She would bite her tongue through before she breathed it to her husband. She thought of killing herself.

  Then, in Minnesota, in the early autumn, her father, Syvert Nordstog, died, and Netti, her mother, wrote saying she couldn’t manage the farm by herself, she was too old and lonely. She proposed selling it and coming to the Territory to live out her life with her daughter and son-in-law. She would turn her savings over to them and help Gro all she could. The Svendsens had to decide.

  Gro was in favor. “She has no one else, poor soul. And she will have three, four thousand easy.”

  Thor pushed up his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Where will she sleep?”

  Gro knew at once what he meant. “In the loft. She sleeps sound.”

  Over the rear half of the sod house there was a loft floored with poles where they stored things, and a ladder. Gro could stuff another tick.

  Netti Nordstog came to them with the first snow. How changed she seemed from the mother Gro had known, how frail she was, how old. She couldn’t climb the ladder to the bed made for her in the loft, and had to sleep with Gro while Thor roosted overhead. She was a comfort, though, to Gro, and another pair of hands. She could cook and clean and sew and add a new voice and presence in the evenings when sycamore logs snapped in the stove and wind raged about the corners of the house. She was like a second candle burning. Mother and daughter had never been as close.

  It was the most savage winter any of them had known, even in Minnesota. As the days dragged and blizzard followed blizzard and snowdrifts piled as high as his head, Thor piled resentment within himself. Gro understood. An old woman had got the best of him in a bargain. She had jumped his claim to his own bed and cheated him out of his manhood. Granted, she had given them good money, but more greenbacks in the bank were not worth a single hair of a child’s head. Sometimes, at night, as her mother slept at her side, Gro could hear him toss and grumble in the loft. It was more than dreams of trolls. If he had grudged Netti Nordstog in the beginning, he hated her now. Gro dreaded an explosion.

  And then in February, as though Thor willed it, Netti was taken desperately ill. It wasn’t the ague, she did not turn yellow, there were no agonies of fever and chills, it was something inside, the failure of an organ, the liver or a kidney perhaps. She was in fierce pain down deep. The doctor was thirty miles away, and Thor could not be expected to risk the ride. Gro nursed her mother day and night, using the only specific she had, a patent medicine called “J. L. Curtis’s Compound Syrup of Sassafras,” which, according to the label, was a surefire cure for “Consumption, Hives, Bronchitis, Spitting of Blood, Whooping Cough, Lumbago, Cholera Morbus and Other Maladies Too Numerous to Mention,” and dosed her patient also with teas made from wahoo and snake roots. She tried mustard poultices, too, about the neck, wrists, and ankles. But at dawn of the third day, while yet another blizzard overwhelmed the house and Thor snored in the loft, Netti Nordstog passed away, holding on to her daughter’s hand for dear life.

  “Thor! Thor!” Gro sobbed him downstairs, and the two conferred. There could be no funeral now, for the neighbors, even the Caudills, their nearest, could not be notified in this weather, nor could they summon the circuit rider, Reverend Dowd. All that would have to be put off, but she must be buried now.

  Thor shook his head. “Ground’s too hard. Solid three foot down.”

  “Then how?”

  “I see to it. You lay her out.”

  “How?”

  “Freeze her.”

  “Freeze her!”

  Thor poked up the embers in the stove and added kindling and a log. “She can’t stay in here. Soon she will stink.”

  Gro gasped. “You wished her dead!”

  “I did no such.”

  “You hated her!”

  “Lay her out, woman!” Thor roared.

  Gro washed her mother, combed her hair, dressed her in her best silk faille dress, laid a cloth wet with vinegar over her face to deter mortification, and crossed her arms over her bosom. Thor dressed, and carried the body out into the blizzard, then returned, stomping and shaking snow.

  “Where?” Gro demanded.

  “Never mind.”

  “Where!”

  “In a drift. Near the house.”

  “Oh, God!” Gro sat down in a chair, covered her face with her hands, and rocked herself. “My mother! In the snow! Like an animal!”

  That night Thor got into his rightful bed and expected sex. Gro sprang from the covers and screamed at him from behind the stove. “No, you do not! When she is buried proper, yes! Now, not!”

  Thor sat up in bed. “It is my right! Do you not want a son?”

  Her response was to rush past him, climb the ladder, and sleep in the loft.

  And there she slept from then on. Husband and wife did not exchange a word after that.

  Then they had a thaw, and the first day of it Thor tried digging a proper grave, to no avail. Strive though he might after clearing the snow, his spade bounced off the frozen earth as though it were rock. After a few minutes of this, he saddled up and rode over to the Caudills to discuss the problem with Henry. While he was gone, Gro left the house and, shedding tears, swept at the drifts with a broom in search of her mother but could not find her.

  The next morning, after chores, Thor saddled up again and rode fourteen miles to Loup. Henry Caudill had suggested gunpowder. Ten pounds of it, in his opinion, would blow a hole wide and deep enough. To be on the safe side, Thor bought eleven pounds at the general store, and fuse, and did not reach home until two hours after dark. Gro still slept in the loft.

  In the morning, with a crowbar, Thor drove two holes three feet deep and four feet apart in the place where he had cleared the snow, and filled them almost to the top with gunpowder. Since he was a thrifty man, he saved a pound of powder and set it away in the stable. He then cut the fuse in half, ran the two lengths into the holes, tamped them shut with clods, struck a match, lit the fuse
ends, and ran for the house, making it just in time.

  There was a muffled explosion.

  Gro started.

  “Gunpowder,” said her husband. “I have made a grave with gunpowder. It is the best I can do. Now I bury her. You want to come?”

  Thor went outside and looked at the hole. It was ample for a small woman. He got a horseblanket from the stable, with a shovel located the right drift, and disinterred the body. It was frozen stiff. He rolled it up in the blanket, placed it in the hole, and went to work with the shovel.

  That night, when both were ready for bed, Gro started up the ladder to the loft, but Thor took her by an arm and held her fast.

  “No,” he said. “Now she is in the ground. Now you will lie with me.”

  She came down the ladder and got into bed. He followed, drew up her nightgown, threw a leg over her, mounted her, worked upon her, spilled his seed, and rolled away.

  To his surprise, she left the bed by crawling over the foot and came round to stand beside him.

  “God will strike you down,” she said, then climbed the ladder to the loft.

  Thor Svendsen’s dream saved his life that night. In some small hour a troll rode a bear through the forest toward him, and he woke with a start. He heard a creak. His eyes adjusted to the dark. His wife was descending the ladder. He lay still and watched. Once down, she moved behind the stove and came out with something in her hand. As she approached the bed, even without his spectacles he could see the long blade of his skinning knife. She raised the knife high. He readied himself.

  As she plunged the knife downward, toward him, he hurled himself out of the bed against her, bulling her backward into a chair by the table, tipping it over and Gro with it, knocking the knife from her hand. He snatched it up and sat with it on the bed. His wife got up without a word and climbed into the loft. He had no sleep the rest of that night.

  In the morning they dressed, and while she got breakfast Thor went out to do the chores. When he returned and reached the door, something, an instinct, caused him to open the door slowly and to hunch as he entered. It was well he did. She had hidden behind the door, and as he passed the door’s edge, she swung at him with the hatchet kept by the stove to split kindling. The blade buried itself in the door.

  Thor Svendsen saw red. He wrestled her into a chair, held her struggling with one arm, while with the other hand he opened her trunk and found a pillowcase, then bound her to the chair by the neck.

  He stood, breathing hard and glaring at her. She glared back, her eyes glazed with hatred. It was then he realized his wife was insane.

  • • •

  They were to traverse almost the entire Territory, and Briggs set a course due east. Mary Bee preferred to follow the river valleys, which ran southeasterly, in hopes of encountering people who would aid them on their way, the more people the better. He contradicted her. The fewer the better.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re hauling an odd lot of freight.”

  “Freight!”

  “You call it what you want. It’s freight to me,” he said. “Stop to think. We can meet three kinds of people out here. Who?”

  “Well, wagon trains, I suppose.”

  “And you suppose those men’ll want their wives to see what becomes of women in these parts?”

  Mary Bee sat silent.

  “What other kinds?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Freighters. Men. Haven’t had a woman lately. Who else?”

  Mary Bee scowled.

  “I’ll tell you. Indians. After they lay me low they’ll have a high old time with the five of you.”

  He let her reflect and then, having won the argument, had the right to the last word. “So I’m shooting straight for that river, and I’ll shy away from anybody. The fewer the better.”

  But she was a woman. “They are not freight. They are human beings.”

  “They’re crazy.”

  “They are precious to the Lord.”

  “Well, they are to me, too, Cuddy. Three hundred dollars’ worth.”

  They saw, now and then, a sod dwelling or a school or the smoking stovepipe of a dugout, and Briggs avoided them as carefully as he did the bloated carcasses of cattle frozen to death in the winter.

  After three days they had established a routine. Like the horses, the mules were picketed at night, or lariated as some called it, and woke the party mornings by braying like bugles. Briggs unpicketed them, along with the mare and his roan, and let them roll and run and play bronc and try to bite and kick each other. He couldn’t feed them grain, but even damp and dead the bluestem grass had some nutriment in it. One at a time Mary Bee took three of the women away from the camp, behind bushes if there were bushes, to relieve themselves, during which Briggs got her fire going again. Having lost the use of her legs, Arabella Sours had to be carried, and he did this. Mary Bee heated water and washed the women’s hands and faces and combed their hair, then cooked breakfast. Mrs. Sours and Mrs. Petzke had to be hand-fed. After the meal Mary Bee washed dishes, packed the grub box, rolled blankets, and loaded bedrolls while Briggs harnessed and hitched the span and tied the trailers. Together they placed their passengers in the wagon and moved on. Mrs. Svendsen’s arms were still unbound. Rough riding seemed to have knocked the rage out of her.

  They took turns at the reins. Briggs spoke seldom. Among other pastimes, Mary Bee counted lone trees. Stands of timber were usually found along creeks or in river bottoms, cottonwoods and sycamores, ash and elm, but occasionally a lone tree seemed to have planted itself on the plain and grown to full majesty. How it was there was a riddle without an answer, unless by bird dropping. She loved these solitary trees. They were dauntless. They comforted and inspired her. The second day she counted four of them, the third day two. They made two or three stops daily. During one the animals were watered and the keg filled at a creek or spring. During another, when opportunity presented, Briggs would take the ax and cut a supply of firewood and toss it up on the tarp. A midday stop was scheduled to permit the women, Mary Bee in charge, to relieve themselves, Briggs again carrying young Mrs. Sours and her doll. They took turns at hunting, too, she one afternoon, he the next. She saddled Dorothy, took her rifle, and rode out as free as the breeze, hoping for big game, antelope or a buffalo stray, but settling, as he did, for prairie chickens or jackrabbits, which weighed up to seven pounds.

  They camped in late afternoon, Briggs choosing the site. Mary Bee got a fire going, unloaded the grub box and Dutch oven, dressed and prepared the game. He untied, unhitched, unharnessed, and picketed the four animals. She had never seen anyone as fussy about picketing. First he looked for good grass, then walked round and round on it and stomped the earth until he was satisfied it was solid enough and would hold. Then he drove the four pins in so deep with an ax that nothing less than a hippopotamus could have dislodged them, and it was all he could manage to pull them in the morning. Once supper was eaten and the dishes done and the women taken to bushes or out behind the stock, beds were unrolled for them under the wagon box in case of rain. Every several days, when there was a stream nearby, Mary Bee put the women into clean underthings, washed their dirty, and spread them out to dry. If they weren’t dry by sun-up, she spread them on the tarp atop the wagon and weighted them with stones. From the start Briggs insisted each woman be tied to a wheel spoke by a wrist for the night. That got her dander up. These were people, she declared, not animals, no need whatever to picket them. And what, he inquired, if one or more of them set out in darkness for hearth and home? Fiddlesticks, they wouldn’t. How did she know they wouldn’t? Was she ready, in the morning, to ride to hell and gone to find them? If she could? And if she couldn’t, what then? So they were tied. Mary Bee bedded down near them. Briggs slept by the fire, and slept cold, he complained. She had dealt him two damn skinny blankets. Sometimes in the night the whicker of a mule
or horse waked her, and when she looked over at him he lay on his side, her rifle near, staring into the embers of the fire, thinking. Thinking? Was he capable of cerebration?

  Each hour of the hours each day on the wagon was long enough to go round the world at the equator.

  If only she had a fife to toot.

  If only she had Mr. Emerson to read.

  If only she had a hatpin to jab into the stick-in-the-mud beside her on the seat.

  “Why are you a claim-jumper?” she jabbed one morning.

  “It’s a living.”

  “How much of a living? How much would you have got for jumping Andy Giffen’s claim?”

  “Two hundred.”

  “That isn’t much.”

  “For laying up three, four months it is.”

  “What would have happened when Andy came home?”

  “He couldn’t drive me off. He’d have to go to the lawyer in Wamego, man I work for. Buy his own place back, maybe a thousand dollars, or get tied up so long in court he’d starve.”

  “Despicable.”

  “Dumb.”

  “Dumb?”

  “He forgot to file.”

  Another morning she tried the mules. “Will these mules make it to the Missouri?”

  “I don’t expect.”

  “Why not?”

  She’d hit his nail on the head. “They’ll lose too much flesh,” he said. “Those sodbusters who put this outfit together for you should’ve had some sacks of corn on top. There’s not enough good in this dead grass. Out here stock should have a quart or two of shelled corn every day. Some say oats, but oats’ll get musty. Not shelled corn. Best feed there is, man or beast.”

  Anything to keep him talking to hear another voice. Anything to occupy the mind. “The one twitching his ears, he knows he’s the subject of discussion. He’s the Thinker, the other’s the Worker. But they should have names. What shall we call them?”