by Alan Lemay
The others followed Seth, walking their horses slowly, their backs exposed arrogantly to the carbines in the house. Andy softly lifted the bar, and Ben slid inside. The Kiowas jumped their horses out of sight over the cutbank of the Dancing Bird.
“That may be all, for now,” Ben said; but he kept Andy and the hands on watch for a long while more. Nobody on earth was Indian-wise enough to say for sure whether an attack would come, or when.
“We’re getting kind of low on metallic,” Andy said, and it was a question.
“I told them to use those when they came again,” Ben answered him.
Mama let her lip tremble, now that it was over. She whimpered, “I only wish those people would stay away.”
Ben said, “There weren’t any people here, Mama. Those were Indians.”
Rachel moved close to Ben, so that she could make her tone low, yet urgent, demanding. “What did Seth want of us?”
He turned to her slowly, took her face between his two hands, and for some moments looked straight down into her eyes. He had never done that before; and, though she met his gaze steadily, the unaccustomed fixity with which his eyes probed into hers so flustered her that her mind would not work. She had long had a notion that she could tell what he was thinking, if he would meet her eyes, but this did not work for her now. It came to her that she could not read his mind because he was trying to read hers, so that all she could see was the questioning at the front of his mind.
Then a twinkle appeared, and his face softened with the first warmth before a smile. “They were trying to buy you,” he told her.
It seemed so far-fetched, so unexpected, that she couldn’t tell it from the kind of foolishness with which he often put people off, when he didn’t want to answer them. She heard herself reply nonsensically, in kind. “Well, did you sell me?”
“I held out for more horses.”
But later she saw that she had no real reason to disbelieve his statement of Seth’s purpose. She was chilled, and shaken. There was something dreadful about the impassable gulf between the Kiowa ways of thinking and those of her own people. Sometimes it was hard to believe that this strange bloody-minded red race was human at all. It was as if giant lizards had come here on horses, mouthing and grunting their unearthly language that so few white men had ever understood.
And there was something else. If Seth was determined, or believed himself humiliated before the other war chiefs, the hard strike of his answering raid would be the same as if sense and reason were behind it; and the unbelievable cruelties in the event of victory would be no different.
Mama suddenly exclaimed, “Ben! Take that dreadful thing off!” He had forgotten Seth’s gift, but now he took the gold chain from around his neck, and looked at the dried human ear it carried as a trophy. Then he threw it in the fire.
Chapter Nineteen
Two days passed, and the moon was dead full, but Seth did not return. No new Indian trails appeared upon Dancing Bird land. For the moment the country seemed to have emptied of Kiowas. Ben doubled his precautions, turning more irritable every day over the time lost from the work while they scouted the terrain. But the prairie remained blank and still.
Unexpectedly, on the sixth night of the Kiowa Moon—in the very heart of danger—Effie popped up in the foreground of their lives again. Ben brought the word when he came in at nightfall, the Rawlins split of the crew having been joined up with his own early that morning. It seemed that a rider had reached the Rawlinses pretty late the night before, and hollered them up. His news was that Effie and her promised young man—his name was Harry Whittaker—were only one day behind him. The messenger had left them at Fort Richardson, when he was sent on ahead with the word. They meant to come right on.
“Why, she must be home right now!” Matthilda marveled.
Ben supposed they were. The rider, whom Ben knew only as Gus, had come from Fort Richardson in a day, having changed horses at the Rountree ranch, forty miles out. Gall it about seventy-five miles from Fort Richardson to the Rawlinses, with a road of sorts for fifty miles of the way—Effie’s spring buggy should make it with fair ease in two days, stopping overnight with the Rountrees.
These times and distances became of sharp interest, a little later.
The wedding was to be in four days, giving Effie three days with her family, during which the family could get acquainted with their new in-law. Matthilda was mildly shocked by what seemed to her an un-seemly haste about these arrangements. She was not at all sure it was decent.
“So long as that’s all you see to worry about,” Ben grumbled.
“Jude and Charlie turned right around and high-tailed for home, soon as they give—gave us the word,” Andy complained. “Let theirselves right out of a full day’s work.” Ben had been setting a furious pace, and Andy had been trying to outdo him. Trying to get their pay raised, it looked like to more easy-going men, who saw no call to get in a frenzy. “Not that Jude and Charlie are any good around cattle. But they could anyway try, couldn’t they? Effie wasn’t even looked for, until way late. They could just as easy have put in a short ten-hour day—”
“They had to ride to meet their sister, of course,” Mama told him. “It’s the least they could do.”
“Trust them to do the least,” Andy commented.
“Ben!” Mama rebuked them. “He’s picking up all this unneighborliness from you!”
Ben denied this. He didn’t hold with all this galumphing around the country in raiding season—with the moon right smack on the full, at that. He understood this Whickaty, or Whittaker, or whatever his numpish name was, had some side riders with him—didn’t know how many. But the fact that he had sent his rider, this Gus, riding far into the night all alone, proved he didn’t know what he was doing. “Her brothers should have met her in Fort Worth, if you ask me,” Ben gave his opinion. “And then kept her where she was!”
But he hadn’t found out who the preacher was to be, though Harry Whittaker surely must be bringing one. Didn’t even know who-all was coming. The Rountrees, doubtless—about six of them—but how many more? How were his womenfolk to know what-all to bake, if he didn’t even get the main facts? Ben had made a failure of it, they made plain to him.
Ben grumped and complained. He supposed they would make him responsible for getting them over there somehow, if they had to fight every foot of the way. Needn’t blame him if it cost every scalp in the dang family. He saw himself called on to whup the whole Kiowa nation, like as not, with only five carbines including Rachel’s—Mama would have to take the driving lines, soon as they were jumped. She’d better get some practice with the four-horse team, for she’d have to flog full stretch, when they made their run for it. If anybody got through alive they’d be lucky. “But of course all that means nothing to you folks. Not if some jug-haid female is shot-gunning herself a man. Damn those people anyway!”
They were paying no attention to him. The Zacharys, by previous arrangement, would go over the day before—which left them only two days to get ready. They were in a panic over all the baking they must do. And when it came to what they should take to wear! Weeks of forewarning apparently had not readied them at all.
Rachel was excited for a little while, or thought she was, because she had expected to be, once. But presently she became aware that the events between had given the long-anticipated occasion too much chance to go stale. Effie’s wedding was only something that had happened to most of the people in the world, up to now, and would go on happening forever probably, to generations unborn. Too little had been said about whether the Rawlinses really did want them, after all the coolness there had been. And they were overriding Ben, again, on the subject of precautions, which was exactly how people who should know better lost their hair.
Matthilda, though, had a theory that if you worried enough about something it didn’t happen, and this often seemed to work. This time, as they came in sight of the Rawlinses’, it seemed to have worked again, up to here, for they had met
with no alarms on the way.
In dry seasons the Dancing Bird was no more than a few hundred yards of stagnating slough, where the Rawlinses had built. They called it “The Branch.” The trees that had once fringed the water had gone into the cabin, a considerable barn, and a line of stock shelters, and the brush had been burned off to help the grass; so the whole place could be seen in virtually naked detail, from a long way off. The peeled-log house with its shake roof made the Rawlinses feel better-fixed than the Zacharys, who lived in a hole in the ground. At the same time, the Zacharys felt above the Rawlinses, who had no wooden floor, but lived on dirt, like pigs.
Both families had hauled their few window sashes, hinges, and such like, from the ruins of a hamlet twenty-five miles to the east. Its name had been New Hope, before its abandonment under the Indian threat, during the war; everybody called it No Hope, now. No one ever expected its people to come back. But Zeb Rawlins had a rigid puritanical streak in his honesty. He searched out people who claimed to be property holders in No Hope—including some who had never heard of it before—and paid them off. While doing so he learned that the Zacharys had never taken this trouble; and he had distrusted them, as on the shifty side, ever since. The Zacharys, who took pride in the belief that their word was hard money anywhere in Texas, would have been dumb-founded had they known.
Andy rode to the wheel of the democrat wagon, as they came in view, and offered to pick up some mullein leaves for Rachel. Girls rubbed their cheeks with these leaves, to bring out a glow. It worked better for other girls than it did for Rachel. Her skin was the even, biscuity tint of a Plymouth Rock egg; a flush came slowly to it, and was soon gone. But she was going to accept, when Andy added, “Charlie’s home, you know.”
“What’s that to me?”
He pretended surprise. “Why, I’ve kind of been looking for you two to run off, ’most any time.”
Matthilda made it worse by saying, “Now, don’t tease her, Andy.”
“What’s wrong with Jude?” Rachel demanded. “You all holding him in reserve?”
“It’s only,” Matthilda fumbled, “Charlie seems more your age. There aren’t so very many boys, out here on the—”
Rachel was furious. “I’ve got no more choice in the matter than a heifer pent up with two bulls!!”
“Rachel!”
“Well—two, he-cows, then. What one won’t rise to—”
“Rachel, that’s enough! Shockin’!”
Still beyond sound of a hail, they saw Georgia come out of the house. She gave them a sketchy wave, as if uncertain it could be seen, and trotted for the corrals. Rachel knew Georgia would be entirely game to straddle a bareback horse, skirts and all, and come walloping out to meet them. But another figure appeared in the doorway of the cabin, and Georgia stopped.
Rachel restored herself by filling in the inaudible exchange. “ ‘Georgyaw!’ ” she imitated Hagar. “ ‘You git back yar!’ ‘Naow, Maw—’ ” she switched tones, as Georgia was seen to answer back—“ ‘I got a call to the—’ ‘georgyer!’ ” They saw Georgia turn back. “ ‘Aw, dern it, Maw, heck,’ ” Rachel finished for her as she disappeared into the house.
Ben and the hands were riding the ridges far out on either side, and Rachel’s show went kind of flat. Andy seemed not to have heard, and Mama just looked pleasantly good-natured and vague. Matthilda was often smiling, often gay, but when you tried to remember when she had laughed out loud, you couldn’t think of any time. Oh, well—Ben would have laughed. It was the last, nearest thing to a light or trifling moment that they had.
Effie had not come home. Her brothers had expected to meet her only a few hours out, but no one had come in that night. When there was no sign of them next day, Gus and the two cowhands assigned to the Rawlinses had been sent to search the road. But three days had now gone by, and no word had come.
Chapter Twenty
A hot sun had come out—and to stay, though they didn’t know that yet; it had quickly dried the prairie. But Ben recalled that it had rained pretty much all day and all night, while Gus was riding from Fort Richardson, and most of the next day, too. Effie’s party must have laid over where they were. Even if they had started from Richardson, the hub-deep mud might have turned them back. Some of that red clay took time to dry. And if they lamed a horse…
Hagar said, “Yes, we thunk of that.” Her deep-set eyes had receded into her head, and she looked hollowed everywhere, as if she had not eaten or slept.
“I’m sure they’re all right,” Matthilda said. “They’re bound to get here. I know they will.”
“Yes,” Hagar said without emphasis. “I expect they’re safe somewheres, Mattie.”
Zeb had welcomed them quietly and gravely, and since had sat staring into the fireplace. Once he said, “Being’s Ben and Andy are here now, I believe I’ll just hitch up and—”
But Hagar said, “I’m going with you, if you do.” And that was the end of it.
Nobody could find much to say more. They had expected to find the cabin thronged, but it had become a sad and awkward place to be. Rachel and her brothers took time carrying in all the fancy cooking they had brought. More stuff piled up inside than there was any place for, and every added hamper made plainer how different things were here than they had expected. Hagar sat inert, looking cadaverous, even failing to protest when Matthilda and Rachel got supper on.
As they gathered at the table, it was Hagar who pulled herself together in an effort to dissimulate. “Like one time in Hog Scrape,” she said. “We had this here bull goose—” She checked herself, and looked timidly at Matthilda. “He-goose—”
“Gander?” Matthilda suggested.
“This here bull gander,” Hagar accepted. The men ate doggedly, as if set on keeping up their strength, as Hagar rambled on. Hog Scrape was what Hagar called the Tennessee hill village where she had been born; actually it had some commonplace name. Willetsville? Like that. Over the years she had piled up enough anecdotes about it to fill a history book. Rachel had always thought her stories funny, and so had Ben. But most people, looking for a point and not finding one, were only bewildered by Hog Scrape. Hagar’s own family took the tales in stolid silence. Tonight Ben was preoccupied, and Rachel could not find the funny part, either, under the layers of foreboding.
It seemed the gander had settled in Hog Scrape of its own accord. Didn’t belong to nobody. Used to sally up and down the board walk like he owned it; dogs learned to slink out of his way. Got to know everybody, friendly-like, and right neighborly, too—always helping folks out. Like if a drunkard was asleep in the street, the gander would run the hogs off, and make the teams go around him. Only, there was this lay preacher they had in Hog Scrape, kept running the gander out of meeting. Claimed he wasn’t housebroken, rightly. Until finally the gander had enough, and took exception….
She trailed off, as if she judged nobody was listening, and Matthilda tried a politeness. “I used to know a…What was his name?”
“Harlow,” Hagar answered. “Only name he answered to, anyway. Though, naturally, he couldn’t tell you; small use asking him.”
Matthilda looked puzzled; she had meant the lay preacher. But Hagar’s stories generally escaped her, somewhere along the line.
“So Harlow called a feud on this here lay preacher,” Hagar picked it up again. “ ’It seemed the gander made about the worst enemy a man could have. Everytime the lay preacher come in view, Harlow taken after him, hissing, and wing-whopping, and tearing the feller’s britches; and him awhooping and acussing, and abusting in anyplace on anybody, for cover. Sometimes five times in an hour…”
She got up to fill a platter, shuffling painfully, but talking on, unwilling to be helped, as always. She said it got so everybody was throwed by such dern carryings-on, and there was talk of a law. Some wanted a law against ganders, and others wanted it against lay preachers—both had their followings. But in the upshot, one evening when a cloud set itself down on Hog Scrape, the lay preacher thrun a shot a
t the gander, and missed, and taken the constable in the leg. And the constable, he answered fire, out of anguish; and—
She was coming back to the table when she stopped abruptly, and her wandering story stopped. She stood looking downward, as if not seeing the dirt floor, but something deep beneath. Zeb bumped table and bench as he surged up ponderously, to go to her; but before he could leave his place, Hagar let the platter fall. She dragged herself to a seat by the fireplace, and there folded up.
“I can’t go on,” she said, and hid her face. “I can’t play up no more.”
Zeb came to her, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Best you lie down a spell,” he said gently. “I’ll heat up some—”
“No,” Hagar said in a dreadful voice. “No—I can’t stand it back there—all alone in the black dark—”
The Zacharys had no way to leave there. No place for them all to sleep, either, until the main room was changed around, and shakedowns fixed on the floor. The Zachary hands went out to spread their blankets in the barn, and Ben and Andy slipped away to join them as soon as they could. Georgia had a narrow bed, in a lean-to room like a horse stall, and she offered this to Matthilda, then to Rachel. But there was not room for both, and neither would desert the other. Georgia made more coffee, and withdrew. At another time Rachel would have suspected Georgia of going out a window to fool around the boys, but the notion had no interest for her now.
At last Zeb, who had been dozing in his chair, made a feeble effort to take Hagar off to bed; but retired alone when she refused. Maybe he doesn’t want to be alone with her either, Rachel thought. And after that the three women just sat, while the night dragged on.
Rachel had been asleep in her chair when she was startled awake by Hagar’s voice. There was no clock in this room, but the embers in the fireplace were low, as if the night was old.