Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison Pittman

  “Exactly, Gloria. What you were. In the past. But this,” he waved toward the bed, “this was your choosin’. This wasn’t no mother forcin’ you to sell your body, or some piece of dirt bringin’ up bad memories. This was you, Gloria. This was you walkin’ away from your child. Tradin’ everythin’ I’ve tried to give you. And for what?”

  “To show you the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “That people don’t ever really change, John. I can’t ever be anything different.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gloria! I’ve told you, with God’s help—”

  “Stop with that!” She balled up her fists and hit him square in the chest, surprising him with her strength. “Just stop it! You proved it last night. God never really changes a person.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “He doesn’t! You said so yourself. You promised never to fight again, that God had changed you. And then last nights …”

  “I explained—”

  “All it took was me. You abandoned a promise you made to God because of me. How can I live with that?”

  “And how am I to live knowin’ I brought you here?”

  “You can’t save me, John. You never could.”

  He looked at her, standing in the perfect square of morning light, and realized she spoke the truth. He’d taken her away from Jewell’s, treated her with respect, fought for her honor, and the first chance she got, she’d thrown it all straight back in his face.

  “I won’t force you to come with me, Gloria.”

  “You couldn’t if you wanted to.”

  “And Danny?”

  “You made a promise to me, remember?”

  He did. Now, John William searched Gloria’s face for some hint of the same defiant spirit that had fueled her that day in Silver Peak when she had bargained so valiantly for the future of her child. But it was gone. Though her gaze held his, her eyes were devoid of their usual spark of humor. Her face was set in a grim, passive expression, lips closed but not pursed. It seemed the few hours spent in this room had slowly drained the life out of her, and her outburst against him was her final gasping breath. If, after all he’d done, she could resign herself to this fate, so could he.

  “Good-bye then.” He opened the door and stepped out onto the suspended walkway, finding it much easier to hold his balance when he wasn’t striding in a blind rage. The crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs had dispersed, but had not disappeared, and John William found himself the subject of scrutiny and whispers as he walked toward the gate.

  The old Indian woman was still there, holding her court at the fort’s entrance, but she was not alone. Danny lolled contentedly in the woman’s lap, and several little naked, brown children scampered all around and over her. Next to her sat a younger woman, beautiful with her rich black hair and distinct Shoshone features, with a colorful blanket draped over her shoulders.

  “You are back?” the old woman said at the sound of John William’s footstep.

  “I am.”

  “And did you find your woman?”

  “I did.”

  The old woman closed her eyes and nodded her head. “This,” she said, gesturing to the younger woman beside her, “is my granddaughter. These are her children.”

  “And Kate? My daughter? Where is she?”

  The old woman reached over and pulled the blanket from her granddaughter’s shoulder, showing her to be bared to the waist, with Kate nursing at her breast.

  John William averted his eyes, turning his head toward the barracks behind him just long enough to see Gloria’s face disappear from the window.

  “She was hungry,” the old woman said.

  John William ventured a glimpse through hooded eyes and, seeing the blanket fully in place, offered his thanks to both women, amazed at how quickly the Lord provided.

  Gloria watched the whole scene unfold from the little square window cut into the barrack wall. She was surprised when John William hadn’t come for her at the break of dawn. And when she first heard his voice calling out her name, she was even more shocked to hear the level of anger in it. The pounding on the door, now that was to be expected, though she had hoped to see the man in the room with her thrown out over the walkway’s railing. But she was prepared to settle for a simple toss out the door before John William scooped her up off the bed and carried her back to the wagon.

  Instead, he politely stood aside and let the man go. He offered her no pity, no chastisement. Only his pious disdain and then … acceptance? Almost as if he wasn’t surprised at all.

  She watched him now, still walking. Not one glance over his shoulder. He meant to leave her here.

  Gloria leaned against the window and drew back in pain. Hours past time for her to nurse, her breasts swelled uncomfortably against the fabric of her blue dress.

  John William was now at the gate, talking to that same old Shoshone woman who cared for the children last night. She saw one of the babies—Danny, she thought—nestled snugly in the woman’s lap, but Kate was nowhere to be seen. Then the old woman whisked the blanket off the shoulders of the younger woman next to her, and Gloria grabbed the open shutter to keep from collapsing. Even from here she could see Kate’s tiny pink mouth latched onto the Shoshone woman, and the sight of it brought a new rush of milk to her already engorged breasts. For a brief moment, John William turned, looked straight at her, and Gloria knew she had been replaced.

  She crumpled to the floor. The room, though full of fresh morning air and quite chilly just a while ago, was suddenly insufferably hot. She had to get out. She crawled over to the little green case she’d brought with her and took out her hairbrush. Loosening her braid, she raked her fingers through the plait and brought the brush up to smooth the curls. Lifting her arms above her head proved too painful, however, so she settled for two long braids resting over her shoulders.

  “Like a little Shoshone myself,” she said, dropping her brush back into the case and snapping it shut.

  Gloria grabbed the windowsill and pulled herself up. She bent to pick up the green case, stood straight again, and realized it hurt much less to slump a little. She gripped the door latch, took a deep breath, and let the door slowly drift open. The first step over the threshold was fairly simple, once she grabbed the handrail to steady her step. She continued down the walkway and the stairs, ignoring the comments from the men gathered underneath.

  At the last step, she set a straight course for John William and the babies, never looking back.

  The old woman must have heard her steps, for she said something to John William, who turned and met her gaze, pulling her toward him with what she hoped was a genuine smile. He was holding one of the little Native children, and as Gloria drew closer, the child reached out and touched one of Gloria’s braids.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” John William said, and all the lewd comments of last night and this morning disappeared.

  “Please,” Gloria said, dropping her case at John William’s feet and reaching for Danny, “I need my son.”

  The old woman smiled and held Danny up.

  Grimacing, Gloria shifted Danny’s weight to one arm and reached into the pocket of her skirt. The old Shoshone woman’s hands were still outstretched, and Gloria placed a handful of coins in the open palm. “Here,” she said. “For your trouble.”

  John William returned to the wagon, holding Kate in one arm and Gloria’s green case in the other. Strapped to his back were the supplies he’d just traded for—flour and coffee, potatoes and salt pork. Enough to last them a few more weeks, anyway. He stopped short when he got to the campsite, a little surprised himself at the comfort he felt at the sight of Gloria’s boots dropped on the ground. He deposited his bundle right next to the boots before picking them up and placing them on the wagon step.

  “Is that you, MacGregan?” her voice called from behind the canvas.

  “None other.” He lifted the flap a bit and peered inside.

  She looked better, rested
. Danny was sleeping, curled up against her.

  “Is this what’s goin’ to happen then, Gloria? Am I just goin’ to wake up every mornin’ or so and wonder where you’re off to?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was worried.”

  “I know.”

  He dropped the flap and started to open the bundle of supplies, but her voice beckoned him again. He couldn’t make out the words muffled through the canvas, so he stood straight and opened the flap.

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked if you would ever forgive me.”

  “You don’t have to ask that, Gloria,” he said. “It’s not for me to forgive.”

  Let not conscience make you linger,

  Nor of fitness fondly dream,

  All the fitness he requireth

  Is to feel your need of him.

  15

  The coffee was weak, but John William took no notice. He sat on his little campstool, as he had for countless mornings, surrounded by this latest variation of God’s creation. He’d had breakfast in the shadows of mountains and had slept beside lapping lakes and roaring rivers. But this morning, this landscape, was different.

  Gloria hadn’t roused yet, and he felt no compulsion to call her from her slumber. The sun was not quite up; the silence settled his soul.

  Well, not complete silence.

  The sounds of the Umatilla River had lulled him to sleep, and now it serenaded him across the dawn. Umatilla. “Rippling water.” The Indians named this land for its sound. After years of whistling Wyoming wind and months of heavy-summer-air silence, the sound of the river called to him and gave him the message he’d been waiting to hear.

  Home.

  He’d left Silver Peak with a vague notion of Oregon. He knew about the floods of people fighting their way across the country to make a home in this new Promised Land. He himself felt the thrill of accomplishment at the first step after crossing the Snake River. But he hadn’t arrived with a plan. He had no destination in mind. He likened himself to Abraham, content to journey with faith and diligence until God saw fit to tell him to stop. This morning, the song of the Umatilla River and the gray outline of the Blue Mountains served as God’s missive.

  John William set down his coffee and went to his knees, elbows braced on the seat of his campstool, immersed in prayer. Silent, at first, but at some point he spoke aloud.

  “Lord, I ask for your guidance. Give me direction. Give me wisdom. Give me—”

  “Coffee,” her voice invaded.

  “Patience,” he finished. “Amen.”

  She hadn’t yet emerged from the wagon, and by the time Gloria popped her head through the canvas opening at the back, John William was back on his feet, waving his cup under her nose.

  “Does it ever occur to you to pray to yourself?” she asked, her voice cranky and dry.

  “Good mornin’ to you, too.”

  “G’morning,” she said with a self-conscious smile, her crankiness apparently short-lived this morning.

  “Get up,” he said. “I have good news.”

  “Is it coffee?”

  “It might be, if you get up. But there’s not much left, and I’m feelin’ a little greedy.”

  Gloria scowled and dropped the tent flap. Moments later she emerged, her hair pulled back and loosely tied at her neck. She brought with her a snuffling, stretching Kate, who was immediately traded for a steaming cup of coffee. Gloria inhaled its fragrance, took a sip, closed her eyes, smiled and sipped again before turning her full attention back to John William.

  “So what is it?” she asked. “What’s the good news?”

  “We’re here,” he said, beaming a smile back and forth between his daughter and Gloria.

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  “Where exactly is here?”

  “That,” he said, cupping his ear to indicate the sound of the river, “is the Umatilla River. We are, according to the last map I looked at, in Umatilla County. We’re home.”

  “Home? Home? You can name a county and decide it’s home?”

  “I don’t decide,” John William said. “God told me.”

  “Really? I must have slept right through that. All I heard was you mumbling a request for directions.”

  John William started with an equally sharp reply, but stilled himself. For just a moment, he allowed himself to feel flattered that she listened for his voice. He settled himself down on his stool with Kate in his lap.

  “It’s a feelin’ I have.”

  “A feeling?”

  “Yes. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve been prayin’ so hard for so long for God to show me where to go. Every other mornin’ I’ve had this restless feelin’, like I can’t wait to get hitched up and movin’. But this mornin’, there was just a feelin’ of …”

  His voice trailed off when he saw the look of dumbfounded incredulity on Gloria’s face. She looked like someone had just whacked her in the head and told her that black was white, and had been all along.

  “Am I to understand,” Gloria said, speaking slowly, deliberately, “that you get this feeling, decide that it’s the voice of God, and just like that we’ve arrived?”

  “Yes.”

  “No hint of civilization. No town.”

  “There must be something,” John William said. “We passed two homesteads yesterday.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured through a sip of coffee before she turned away from him.

  “What did you expect?” John William asked. “Did you think we were going to roll into another Virginia City?”

  “I don’t know what I thought.”

  “Gloria, we’re in a new territory. A new country, really. It’s a place to start life over. Nobody knows us, who we are. What we are.”

  She turned to look at him again. The sun was just coming up, and she stood, bathed in new light, the Blue Mountains a stunning backdrop behind her. John William’s breath left him, and he was grateful when Kate demanded his attention by grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking with all her tiny strength.

  “It’s a new start,” he concluded, his voice lame and flat, distracted by his efforts to wrest his hair from his daughter’s fist.

  Gloria crossed over to John William and took Kate out of his arms. Gracefully holding her coffee aloft, she sat cross-legged, nestling Kate against her. The baby turned to nurse, but Gloria entertained her by twirling long blonde locks across the baby’s face. “So, what does God’s voice sound like?”

  “This morning, it sounds like the Umatilla River,” he said. “Listen.”

  And she did. At least she seemed to. John William was faintly amused at the serious, concentrated look that came over her face as she listened.

  Lord, he prayed silently, give her somethin’ too, please. Somethin’ to hear. Give her—

  Music.

  Just over the horizon, voices carried across the morning.

  “Come ye sinners, poor and needy,

  Weak and wounded, sick and sore.”

  The song grew stronger as a wagon, pulled by a fine-looking team of horses, came into view. The first thing John William noticed was that this wagon lacked the familiar canvas cover that graced nearly every one he’d seen since leaving Wyoming. A young man and woman sat upon its bouncing seat, and the small heads of children peeped just over the open box.

  While they were still several hundred yards away, John William stood and waved his hat.

  “Hello, there!” he called.

  “Shhh,” Gloria said, the crankiness returned to her voice. “They’ll come over here.”

  “It’s called being neighborly. If this is our home, then these are our neighbors.”

  “I’m not even dressed!”

  “So close a few buttons,” John William said over his shoulder. “They’re a ways off. You have time.”

  They were the Logan family: David, Josephine, and their children James, Eliza, and Charles. Months on the trail made it nearly impossible to distinguish
one day from another, but this family said it all: Sunday.

  David Logan wore a calico shirt so starched that its creases nearly crackled; Josephine wore a crisp straw hat adorned with a wide blue ribbon tied just below her chin. The Logan children were scrubbed raw. Wet comb marks ran furrows across the boys’ pink scalps, and Eliza’s hair was drawn back into a crisp blonde braid. These were the cleanest children John William had seen since his days peeking through the prison bars. He wondered what the fans of Killer MacGregan would think if they saw their hero getting almost weepy at the sight of a wagon full of shiny children.

  “John William MacGregan,” he said, after meeting the Logan family. “And this is Gloria and baby Kate.” He was acutely aware of Gloria’s disheveled appearance and his own unshaven face.

  “Pleased to meet you,” David said. “You folks passing through or planning to settle?”

  “Wasn’t sure until this mornin’,” John William said. “Been waitin’ on the Lord’s word on that, but I think this is where He wants us to stay.”

  “It’s beautiful country,” Josephine said, speaking directly to Gloria, but when Gloria failed to meet her gaze, she turned to John William. “And it’s growing, too.”

  “Will you join us in church this morning?” David asked.

  “There’s a church nearby?”

  “Just north about three miles, in Middleton,” David said.

  “Middleton,” John William said, turning toward Gloria. “So there is a town?”

  “Town’s stretchin’ it a bit,” David said. “A post office, general store.”

  “And a church,” John William piped in, his voice full of wonder. He’d spent many Sunday mornings apologizing to Katherine for taking her away from a civilized congregation.

  “It’s quite a small gathering, really,” Josephine said. “About ten families. But we do enjoy our time together. Won’t you come?”

  “We’ve been travelin’,” John William said, gesturing around him. “We haven’t had a chance to even wash up.”

  “Well, you’re not far from the river,” David said. “Go splash around in it a minute.”