Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison Pittman

  “Changed? How?”

  “First, I promised I would never fight again. I asked Katherine if she would leave me her Bible to read in the evenings after school. I read every word of it, and by then it didn’t matter if I would spend my life in jail or hang. I knew my soul was safe and my body was in God’s hands.”

  “But you didn’t hang.”

  “No. The judge ruled it an accident. Said I wasn’t a murderer. When I was released, I knew that the best way to keep the Bible was to marry the woman who owned it.”

  “How romantic,” Gloria said, smiling.

  “It just shows how God puts us where He needs us to be. I don’t know if God led me to Katherine or Katherine led me to God, but right now I’m wonderin’ the same about you.”

  “Don’t worry trying to figure that out,” Gloria said. “God doesn’t lead me anywhere. Never has.”

  “You can’t believe that.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve been in places a lot worse than a schoolhouse, places no God would ever take anyone.”

  “He would if it brought you here, to this moment.”

  “This is one moment,” Gloria said. “It’s not a lifetime.”

  She looked at the fire, now down to mere embers. At some point the evening had become quite chilly.

  “I’m tired,” she said, standing and stretching. “You must be, too.”

  He stood with her. “Gloria, you have to—”

  “I wish I could believe all of this.”

  “I wish you could, too.”

  “And it doesn’t bother me to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “About the killing. The prison.”

  “I didn’t tell you as a confession,” John William said. “I just wanted you to know the truth.”

  “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “It should.” He crossed behind her to reach into the wagon and pull out his bedroll. He shook it out and laid it down a safe distance from the dying fire.

  Gloria sat on the wagon’s back step, unlaced her boots and let them drop to the ground. “Well, good night,” she said before climbing into the wagon to the nest of blankets in the back. She thought she heard his quiet “night” behind her, but didn’t turn to acknowledge it.

  She lay there, looking at the canvas above her, imagining the stars above that. John William’s words echoed in her head. So many words. He’d never talked so much at any one time. She tried to piece them all together, but they wouldn’t form. She tried to remember his face, his mouth in speech, but she only saw his eyes, piercing, sincere. Pleading with her to listen, to hear. Bits and strands came back. A life taken. A life saved. For God so loved … what? The world? Believe. Forgiven. A promise.

  A promise.

  Gloria sat up and turned her body, careful not to jostle the sleeping Kate and Danny, worming her way to the opening at the back of the wagon. She peered out and saw him lying on his back, hands folded behind his head.

  “MacGregan?” Gloria whispered to the darkness.

  “Gloria,” his voice floated back.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” His form shifted, and she imagined he was turning toward her.

  “You were in a fight.”

  “I know.”

  “I made you break your promise.”

  She thought she heard him smile.

  “You didn’t make me do anythin’,” he said, his voice full of warmth.

  “But you were protecting me.”

  “No, if I was protectin’ you, he wouldn’t have had a chance to talk to you in the first place.”

  “Well, thank you anyway.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “MacGregan? Are you still …”

  “Still …”

  “Still … safe?”

  “What do you mean?” He was sitting straight up now.

  “You promised God you wouldn’t fight again, but you fought tonight.”

  “Don’t worry.” John William stood up and walked over to Gloria, his features getting clearer with each step. “It’s like I’m God’s child. He won’t abandon me.”

  “My father abandoned me,” Gloria said.

  “I know, and I’m sorry. But God won’t.”

  “I’m going to leave Danny.”

  “You haven’t yet.”

  “But—”

  “Listen to me,” John William said, his voice close and serious. “My life is secure not because I made a promise to God, but because He made a promise to me. Do you understand the difference?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Maybe not to you, but to God. And to me. Now let’s get some sleep. It’s late. The babies’ll be up in a few hours.”

  He dropped the canvas flap leaving Gloria in her cocoon. She lay back again, resuming her study of the canvas and her vision of the stars. Once again she tried to recall the conversation.

  Nobody had ever cared about what she believed. Nobody had ever given her anything to believe in. But now everything was different.

  Jewell’s warning about John William, the danger, his secret—tonight everything was clear and defined. If nothing else, she could believe in him. She had never considered the value of a man’s knowing God, but tonight she saw that it made him different. Made him better, kinder, steadier. John William would never let himself be like all those others. This was a man who could make a promise and keep it.

  Until he met her.

  14

  The next morning John William woke to the sounds of life bustling around him. Muted conversations drifted through the dark morning as his fellow campers loaded their wagons and harnessed their teams in an unofficial race to be the first to ferry across the Snake River.

  But John William felt no need for such haste. Getting Gloria to move in the mornings was a daily battle under the best of circumstances. Last night they stayed up talking long past midnight, and he thought he’d heard her up with the babies even after that. This morning he’d do well to get her out of the wagon at all, let alone to rush around and break camp and wait with fifteen other families for their chance to cross the river. No, today would be a day of leisure. They hadn’t spent one single day in the same place since leaving Silver Peak. As long as they stayed outside the adobe walls of Fort Hall, last night’s ugly business could be forgotten; most of the witnesses would be ferried away by noon.

  Perhaps today he would follow Gloria’s decadent example and sleep past dawn. The ground here wasn’t any more comfortable than the ground anywhere, but he turned on his side, shifted around a bit, and waited for the noise around him to drift away. Maybe this was the morning she would get up first, get the coffee going, walk over and nudge him awake with the toe of her little black boot.

  He opened his eyes for one last look and realized something was wrong. He raised himself on one elbow, rubbed the last of the bleary sleep from his eyes. Maybe it had been just a trick of the shadows. He sat straight up and looked again. Gloria’s boots were gone.

  He flung off his blanket and walked over to the back of the wagon.

  “Gloria?” he whispered through the narrow canvas opening, just as he had countless mornings. But this morning there was no grumbled reply. He drew back the flap and looked inside. She wasn’t there. He placed one foot on the step and leaned in, reaching into the dark until his hand landed on the soft head of one of the babies, warm with sleep. He groped around until he found the other, also sleeping. Left undisturbed, they might not wake for a couple of hours.

  John William took up his bedding and snapped it, scattering particles of dust and grass, before rolling it up and tucking it just inside the back of the wagon. He built up a small fire and got some water boiling for coffee—she would want a cup when she came back—and took down the basket of Indian flat bread he’d traded for last night. Between each little chore, he alternated between checking on the babies and scanning the area for any sight of her,
nodding a silent “good morning” to anyone who chose to do the same.

  He’d been up for nearly an hour when he saw the boy who had offered to water his horses the day before. This morning the boy was hitching teams and seemed uninterested in coming over to John William—obviously not in need of his services—until John William held up one impressive silver coin.

  “Ya need something, mister?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the coin.

  John William bent his knees until he was eye-level with the boy. “Go down to the ferry landin’. Find out if they’ve made any crossin’s yet this mornin’.”

  “That it?”

  “For now.”

  The boy took off toward the river. John William checked in on the children one last time. Confident they were soundly sleeping, he headed toward the fort’s large wooden gate. Just as there had been the night before, a slovenly soldier reclined at his post.

  “State yer business here,” the soldier said, giving John William a disinterested sideways glance.

  “You been here all night?”

  “Mostly.”

  “You see a woman come in here? Maybe a few hours ago?”

  The soldier cocked back his head to look John William straight in the eye and smiled. “What kind of woman?”

  “Blonde hair, wearin’ ”—he closed his eyes “—a blue dress.”

  “Blonde hair, blue dress? Nope. Think I’d remember that.”

  “And you been here all night?”

  “Like I said. Mostly.”

  He was lying, John William was sure, and nothing would feel better than to slam him up against the crumbling wall of the fort and pound the truth out of him. His fists clenched and unclenched at his side, but the memory of Gloria last night, distraught at being the cause of his violent outburst, quelled his anger. Without another word, he returned to his wagon to wait with the children.

  Danny was awake first, as usual. He wasn’t crying, but when John William lifted the flap, he noticed the boy’s feet kicking through his covers, and when he whispered “Good mornin’, Danny boy,” the infant turned and looked straight at him. “Your ma’s not here right now, son, but I’ve got you.”

  He lifted the child out of the wagon, sat down on one of the campstools, and relieved the baby of his soaking diaper. For a few minutes it was just the two of them seemingly alone in the world. John William looked into Danny’s brown eyes and wondered how Gloria could ever bring herself to abandon this child. “Don’t you worry son,” he said. “I’ll find her.” Then he closed his eyes and prayed, Father, let her be safe.

  “Hey, mister?” John William opened his eyes and saw the freckle-faced boy standing, breathless, as if he hadn’t stopped running since being dispatched on his errand. “The first ferry’s just now leavin’.”

  “Thank you.” John William gave a curt nod and stood.

  “But she weren’t on it. I asked, and the captain said there wasn’t no ladies goin’ alone. And she ain’t standin’ around waitin’ on the next one, neither.”

  “How did you—”

  “I saw you was walkin’ around like you was lookin’ for somethin’. Didn’t see her, so I figured that was it. Now I gotta go or my pa’ll skin me!”

  John William cradled Danny in one arm and reached the other out to grab the boy by the shoulder. “Did you talk to anyone else?”

  “Nah,” the boy said, shrugging. “Don’t figure it’s any of their business.”

  “Thank you, again,” John William said. He let go of the boy’s shoulder and extended his hand. Beaming, the boy took it, and they solemnly shook hands before he turned and tore back toward the river.

  So she hadn’t crossed. And she was nowhere in the surrounding campsite. John William looked at the worn path that led up to Fort Hall. Certainly she wouldn’t have gone off on foot; Gloria could be coaxed off her wagon seat for only about a half a mile a day. He smiled, remembering her laziness, now grateful for it. There was only one answer, and he wouldn’t ask the guard at the gate.

  The same blind Indian woman was sitting just inside the gate when John William barreled through, a baby clutched in each arm.

  “You have come for your woman?” she said, causing him to stop dead center in front of her.

  “What did you say?”

  She beckoned him to come closer, and as he leaned toward her, she reached up and took Kate out of his grasp. When she was settled in the woman’s lap, he handed over Danny.

  “Now you can go get her.”

  “Is she safe? Is she all right?”

  The old woman shrugged. “I just hear talk about the pretty lady. Not good talk.”

  “Where should I look?”

  “The big cooking fire.”

  John William stood and looked around the inside of the fort, seeing it for the first time in daylight as the sun was just now streaming over the eastern wall. There was no fire, but in the far southeast corner of the fort he did see a large ring of stones containing what must be the charred wood and ashes from last night’s feast. The wall behind it was lined with a long, narrow two-story structure made of tightly fitted logs. Every few feet, the logs had been hewn to accommodate a door, and a wooden walkway, suspended by ropes attached to the walls, allowed passage to the single door on the second floor.

  A small crowd of men stood just outside one of the doors, laughing and jabbing each other. John William headed straight for them. With each step their conversation became less animated, and when he was fully in their midst, they did little more than stare at their boots.

  “I’m lookin’ for the woman I came in here with last night,” John William said.

  “Ain’t seen no woman,” one of the men said, not looking up from the steaming mug he held in his hand. “She has blonde hair. Wearin’ a blue dress.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s your wife,” another man said, sending the others into a fit of laughter barely stifled behind their dirty hands.

  John William stepped back from the group and surveyed the building. “Gloria!” he shouted, fully expecting her to come to one of the doors. When she didn’t, he stepped back a little farther and shouted a little louder, “Gloria!”

  “Ah, now ain’t that a shame,” the man with the steaming mug said. “He ain’t taught her yet to come runnin’ when he hollers. He oughter try whistlin’ her up a bit.” He brought his fingers to his lips, but before he could produce the first shrill note, John William shoved him aside, knocking him and his mug to the ground.

  John William knocked exactly once on the first door before grabbing the handle and throwing it open. Inside, the walls were lined with bunk beds, stacked two high, and nothing else. He strode to the next door, opened it, and found it to be identical, except for the one man sleeping on the bottom bunk who cursed the intrusion and turned his back to the door. The third room was the same, empty, as was the fourth. He had reached the end of the building and was standing underneath the wooden stairs that led to the second floor. He took to the stairs, grabbing the handrail to steady himself as he felt the flimsy structure sway beneath his heavy step. The walkway proved to be equally unstable, and he feared that ripping open the door would send him falling over the railing. Instead, he gripped the latch tightly and pulled; this one was locked.

  “Gloria!” he shouted again, leaning one hand on the wall to steady himself as he pounded the door with the other. “Open this door!”

  He continued to pound, not caring about the pain shooting through his hand each time his fist hit the wood. He hated the ridiculous little walkway that held him there, suspended, unable to rush at the door and break it down. All he could do was stand and shout and knock, the strength of his voice and his fist soon depleting.

  John William was just about to deliver another blow when the door swung open, barely giving him enough time to stop his fist from colliding with the pale young face of the man who stood on its threshold.

  “Listen here, fellow,” he said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, “sh
e didn’t say nothing about being nobody’s wife.”

  “Get out,” John William growled. He stepped aside to allow the man through the doorway, before going into the room.

  This one was larger than the others downstairs, running the entire length of the building. Four square windows were cut into the longer walls, and though they were covered with ragged shutters, piercing streams of morning light shone through. Bed frames, probably long unused since none of them had any sort of mattress or bedding, lined the walls. Up against the short wall at the end of the room, just behind the door, was another bed. Still no pillows or blankets, but there was a mattress. And Gloria was on it.

  “Go away,” she said. She was lying with her back to him, and she didn’t turn when she spoke.

  “What are you doin’ here?”

  “What does it look like?” She sat up and turned to face him. Her hair was loose, not soft as it usually was in the mornings, but as if it had been torn from the remnant of the braid that trailed down her back. Her lips were swollen, her whole face somewhat distorted—partly due to her sneering expression, but there was something else, too. The blue dress was wrinkled, the top buttons undone and the skirt matted as if—

  Hours ago he was sitting with this woman, holding her hands, praying for the right words to speak to her soul, praying in the next breath that God would keep his thoughts pure, guard him from ever thinking of her like this. He felt bile rise up his throat, and he turned and spat on the floor.

  “Those men down there,” he said, choking on the words, “were they already done with you? Or just waitin’ their turn?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “No. No, I don’t.” He went to one of the windows that faced the interior of the fort and opened the shutter, bathing the dark room in new light. “They’re all gone now, anyway.” He walked back to her and held out his hand.

  “I’m not leaving, MacGregan.”

  “Stop talkin’ such nonsense.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Gloria stood to face him. “This is what I am, MacGregan. This is what I was born to be. You saw that last night. I wasn’t alone for two minutes before that man knew exactly who I was. What I was.”