The Indifference of Tumbleweed

by Rebecca Tope

  And yet it was an awful day. Our wagon went after Mr Franklin and ahead of Mr Fields. In every case, there were insufficient men for all the tasks, so wives had to push if the wheels encountered a rock. In our case, I led the oxen, and my parents walked alongside a wheel each, putting a shoulder to work when we were obstructed. They could not see each other, and it was not always apparent which wheel was causing the problem. Those ahead who had achieved the crossing – or those still waiting their turn - could be called upon to come and assist, but it was generally held that each family fended for themselves. When Mr Franklin’s wheel came off, there was a great deal of shouting for help, from Mr Franklin himself and young Billy who were both striving to prevent the whole wagon from tipping over by holding the axle as horizontal as they could. The water was of some small help in buoying up the heavy vehicle, but the danger was nonetheless extreme. Henry Bricewood was the first to join them, and then my father made haste to add his strength. Billy was told to haul the loose wheel clear, which he managed to do. The oxen were up to their shoulders in water, and intent on dragging their burden onto dry land, whatever their master might say to the contrary.

  Without thought I followed my father, trying to ignore the sodden clinging weight of my skirts that made it impossible to move quickly. An Indian man was coming from the far bank, and we met at the heads of the two oxen, both instinctively aware that any further pulling by them would throw lives and property into danger. As it was, Mr Franklin slipped and the wagon lurched heavily. A barrel that had already been thrown violently to one side, toppled out of the wagon entirely, narrowly missing Billy and Henry’s heads, before bobbing merrily downriver, never to be seen again. At least not by any white man.

  The canvas siding had been torn from its fixing by the barrel, making an easy exit for other goods that had tumbled from their places. A cardboard box toppled through, followed by a pair of good leather boots. Mrs Franklin, standing up to her knees in the water, twenty yards away, screamed hysterically that her two best frocks were in the box, and someone had to save them. But nobody did. The current was rapid enough to swirl them out of reach in less than a minute.

  The Indian and I subdued the well-schooled oxen without too much trouble. The wheel was somehow reattached to the axle in a temporary fashion, involving wooden wedges and a lot of rope, a procedure that took almost two hours to accomplish. In all that time, we kept hold of the beasts, which grew increasingly impatient before resigning themselves to the watery wait. My companion began to take an interest in me, after a half hour or so. He scanned my body, which was immodestly visible through the soaked garments. Then, shielded by the bodies of the oxen, he deliberately, and with a smirking smile on his face, he reached behind me and rammed a long hard finger between my legs. Our lower bodies were under water, making the assault invisible. The wet cotton skirt gave way and the thin petticoat beneath. The finger, which seemed like an independent creature, slid readily inside me, into an orifice I hardly knew existed, except to issue a monthly blood flow and to throb when Abel looked at me. The man’s body did not touch me, but there was only an inch of space between us. He was well clothed himself, although his fellows mostly had naked torsos, and the children wore nothing at all. His finger thrust in and out, causing me no pain but only the greatest imaginable alarm. I dared not scream, for fear of distracting the men from their delicate task with the wheel. Or, if I alerted others not involved in the restoration of the wagon, they might try to shoot the man, with unthinkable consequences.

  ‘Stop it!’ I hissed at him, trying in vain to twist away. My whole body felt hot and wet, except for my feet, which had turned numb with cold some time earlier. His face adopted a sneer, which reduced me to helpless silence, as well as a disgust that was much increased by the sight of his stumpy black teeth. His contemptuous expression recalled to me all the stories of fiercely murderous Indians, who would torture white people before leaving their bodies to rot in the hot sun. He was utterly terrifying, disgustingly dirty and as strange to me as a wild animal would have been. I felt like his helpless prey, despite the presence of my family and dozens of white men who would rush to rescue me if they had grasped what was happening.

  It was over eventually. He withdrew his finger, and I pulled the petticoat material out of myself with a frantic wriggle. For many minutes it felt as if he was still there, and my whole self was concentrated on those few inches of flesh. The oxen were as indifferent to my plight as were the trees on the riverbank and the dreaming mountains in the far distance. I looked around for anyone who could chase away the man who remained impassively standing at the head of Mr Franklin’s patient ox. There was no-one. Every face was turned towards the battle to replace the lost wheel in the middle of the river. ‘Go!’ I told him, in a weak voice. ‘I can manage the beasts myself.’ I waved a hand to convey my meaning.

  He widened his eyes, raising his delicate eyebrows, and repeated the sneer. Then he lifted a shoulder and turned to leave. Another Indian shouted something to him and he laughed. I felt a terrible dread that this second man had witnessed what had happened. They would talk about it together and make fun of me. I was humiliated and demeaned, the outrage somehow lost in the power and knowingness of the man. He could have done so much more to me, dealt with my body as he wished, and nothing would have stopped him. I recalled how Henry had repeated the Parkman person’s account of the Indian men as respectful of women, and almost spewed from my sense of betrayal. I could not depend on my father or male friends to keep me safe. They had more important calls on their attention – and they were too ignorant themselves to warrant my trust.

  I stood there in front of the two oxen until told to let them move. Slowly, they pulled, in that easy steady fashion that made them so good at the work. A horse would take short plunging jerks when pulling a load, but oxen moved smoothly, their muscles tightening against the resistance behind them. The wagon moved, with anxious hands ready to keep the wheel in place. It was past noon, and still our wagon and that of Mr Fields remained on the eastern side of the river. I was cold, nauseated, ashamed and frightened.

  I did not return to my own wagon, but remained on the western bank, having led Mr Franklin’s oxen there. Let Fanny lead Cloud and Thunder, or my mother. I was all done, and sat aside in a shady spot, hoping I might remain invisible.

  I had never explored that part of my own body, never felt inclined to probe. Even after the awakening brought about by Abel, and the shocking scene I had witnessed between him and Fanny, I never thought to involve my physical self in any active sense. There was, in any case, very little opportunity for such experiment. That area was known as ‘the privates’ and private it remained, even to myself.

  The Indian had been a mature man, most probably in possession of a wife and children. He ought to have known how to control himself. I attempted to feel angry as a means of recovering my dignity, and when that failed at that I imagined him as a subhuman creature with none of the laws of civilisation to moderate his behaviour. He was a helpless savage, following his instincts like an animal. But the unavoidable sneer on his lips made that impossible, too. He had been deliberate in his actions, fully aware of its effect on me, and pleased about it. White men might take an Indian wife, but when it happened in reverse, the woman must be dominated and subdued and treated, in all probability, worse than a native squaw.

  The day passed in a blur of disgust and confusion. For hours I could feel the invading finger, and when I needed to relieve myself in the sagebrush, I rubbed at myself with a cloth, hoping to dispel the lingering sensation. I was to some degree successful, and by nightfall I was repeating to myself, You are not hurt, as an attempt to recover. I had a glimmering notion that my first goal was to shake off the sense of humiliation. The fact that nobody from our party had observed the incident was a help in this. I could pretend that it had never happened, store it away in a closed corner of my mind and never think of it again.

  The confusion persisted, though. It had much to do w
ith Fanny, and how she claimed to enjoy the business so much. How had she ever managed to overcome the shock and fear involved? My earlier idea returned - that she must somehow be made differently from me. There must be something I lacked, which would prevent me from ever enjoying married life or having children.

  I suffered in silence for many days, never contemplating a disclosure to a soul of what had happened. It never crossed my mind that I could find somebody to question about such intimacies. Only Fanny herself had ever shown the slightest inclination to partake in such a discussion, and I had long ago dismissed her as a confidante. I could not trust her to be kind or understanding. And besides I was almost four years her senior. It would be demeaning to go to her for advice or information.

  10th August

  We are on the Columbia Plateau, and taking a northerly direction, towards the Nez Percé Fort. (The name is French for ‘pierced nose’ which is a feature of the Indians hereabouts) It is still a week or so distant. We manage less than ten miles each day in this terrain. The constant upwards climb on uneven ground has badly exhausted the oxen. Thunder has a loose shoe, which causes him discomfort. There is almost no pasture for them, so we gather leaves and shoots to feed them. The ground is pitted with countless holes, which we have to weave around and between. There has been no rain, but in spring these holes must all be full of water from the snow melt.

  Mr Tennant’s foot has improved, but he still cannot walk. Mr Bricewood has been unwell, and Mrs Fields has pneumonia.

  The weather had turned excessively hot again since we crossed the Snake, with a shimmering haze concealing the way ahead each morning. Mr Bricewood’s malaise had come upon him gradually, and was difficult to explain. My grandmother guessed it was congestion of the heart, but she could neither be sure of the diagnosis nor offer any sort of treatment. His face was red and his breathing laboured. One day he simply collapsed onto the ground, sitting in a crumpled heap with his legs folded beneath him. With no dignity whatever he crawled to his wagon, where Henry and his mother managed to haul him inside. He gasped and flapped his hands for a while, but then seemed to recover. The scare turned us all pale and worried, though. We had passed graves along the way, giving proof that people on earlier wagon trains had died and been buried without ceremony in the wilderness. Such a fate was too dreadful to speak of or contemplate for more than a few seconds. It was worse now, for having left little Susanna in a grave of her own, two days before we crossed the Snake. At least, I thought, it would be better to have a resting place at one of the forts, where someone might say a prayer now and then or leave a nosegay of flowers. At least then the family could readily locate the grave again, if they wanted to. If Mr Bricewood died, perhaps he could be kept in the wagon until we reached Fort Nez Percé, a week or ten days away.

  But he did not die. He suffered sharp pains in his chest, which my grandmother claimed was confirmation of her diagnosis, but his colour improved and he ate well. We killed one of the remaining bullocks for fresh meat, and the whole party enjoyed good steak for a few days. The leading wagons, hearing of our trouble, decided to set a faster pace, hoping to reach the next fort before things grew worse.

  We had left the Snake after the frightful crossing, and the smaller rivers we encountered were all but dry. Water became scarce on that high plateau; the beasts competing with us for it. The few horses brought along by various families were kept back, since they were of little immediate use. Many were there simply because they had belonged to their family for years and were pets in much the same way that dogs were. In principle they were potential trading goods or gifts for hostile Indians. If they remained with us to the end of the journey, they would return to their normal role, as a means of transport. Everyone needed a horse, and it was assumed they would be limited in availability out on the west coast. Anyone lucky enough to retain four or five in their possession for the entire trip would be well rewarded at the end.

  And so, despite the relatively minor nature of our troubles, the mood of the whole party darkened. My mother had taken to fretting about Reuben, in the absence of any fresh news. Lizzie insisted something was wrong with her dog, which had been refusing the food she made such efforts to provide for it. Mrs Fields had become all but invisible, so that we forgot her and her recurring ailments. She had been impolite in some way to my grandmother on her last visit and was therefore shunned. Her husband tended his oxen, helped young Ellie with food preparation, sent Jimmy out with baskets to gather all the berries and nuts he could find – which were far more meagre than they had been down at Fort Boise.

  For hundreds of miles we had been surrounded by sagebrush, with brief interludes where other plants predominated. The smell of sage would be forever associated with our trek, and the silvery-green colour of the leaves a backdrop to our memories. Up on that plateau, I for one felt almost desperate for a change of scene. I was tired of mountain ranges, dusty tracks, smoky cooking fires and the same familiar faces around me. Recollections of normal living in a house with doors and windows and kitchens with large fixed ovens had grown dim over the months of walking, and I worried that we might never adapt to them fully again. Would we find ourselves walking in our sleep, or absently picking up cow dung any time we saw it? What would we do with our oxen, who had become such essential members of our team?

  Mr Fields showed us where we could dig for root vegetables resembling onions, which were very palatable accompaniments for the beef, and there were early huckleberries just ripe enough to eat, scattered amongst the sage. My mother and other wives constantly baked bread from the supplies of flour obtained at Fort Boise and Fort Hall. We did not go hungry, but we sorely craved variety.

  Henry Bricewood was greatly exercised by his father’s illness. He strove to shoulder every single task, from cutting firewood to checking the condition of the wheels and axles, and ensuring the oxen were kept in good health. His brow was constantly furrowed, and the hours he had once spent sitting with a book while others worked had been quite abandoned. It became clear to us all that Mr Bricewood had done a lion’s share of the work before he fell ill. He had, we surmised, exhausted himself, and that was in part Henry’s fault. The young man himself clearly believed this, and was expiating his sinful idleness in concerted effort.

  The Franklins were in a state of perpetual dread that the wheel would come off again. They had not been able to replace the axle, which was now cracked, so metal wedges had been used to hold the wheel in place. It seemed secure, but they were afraid to put any extra strain on it, and would circumvent uneven ground if possible. This made them slow, and they fell to the back of our party, holding up the people following behind. The protocol was for parties to remain together, so that if any overtaking were to happen, a whole group of eight or ten wagons would have to pass a slower group, which was difficult and inadvisable. Better by far to wait for the next day and arrange to set out early. This was seldom done in practice, because nobody liked to fall back in line, and the sequence became a regular habit not lightly broken.

  The Franklins were also running short of some supplies, due to their lost barrel of flour. They ate potatoes instead of bread, and hardtack was broken out of store, causing some teasing as we watched them trying to soften it with gravy. While nobody in the party would let them go hungry, there was a hesitation before freely giving them a share of their own provisions. We had, after all, left the Fields family to fend for themselves, even knowing they never had quite enough to eat. Milk was sold to them, now and then, but ever since the incident over the turkey, there had been an unresolved animosity between the Tennants and the Fields, which had its roots in their personalities more than any disagreement over food.

  The sharing of meat was an easier matter than that of items that had been purchased at the forts. Wild creatures were obviously free from cost, other than that of the shot or arrow that was used to kill them. Mr Tennant’s unexpected objection to the Fields family consuming the whole of the turkey the father had shot had set a precedent
that eventually worked largely in favour of the Fields, because young Billy Franklin turned out to have a great skill with snares and traps, and would regularly present the party with a raccoon or rabbit, as well as an opossum once – which did not taste good at all. He was also clever at catching salmon. While his victims were mostly small, they were so numerous that there would often be meat to spare, even after the whole party had enjoyed a share.

  Abel Tennant made some efforts as a hunter, but somehow he managed to capture almost nothing. He was a poor shot with the rifle, and seemed to lack the patience necessary for trapping or snaring. He inspected his traps too frequently, frightening away any potential prey. Billy Franklin, so much younger, had a natural catlike manner, which included an instinct for how to behave. He would watch Abel heading out at sundown to set his traps, and deliberately direct his own steps to an area as far away as possible. My father remarked that Billy probably benefited from Abel’s awkwardness, with animals fleeing from the heavy steps of one straight into the wire snares of the other.

  26h August

  We have been on the plateau for fifteen days, and hope that another will bring us back to the banks of the Columbia River at Fort Nez Percé. Meanwhile we have followed the Umatilla River for a day and a half, and the waters, though low, are a great relief to our weary beasts. Our scout shows some ignorance as to how the rivers connect with each other, but we are assured that our way is clear to the next fort, for which we are all very thankful. The two weeks on these heights have been our sorest trial so far. We have felt strangely isolated, as if a million miles from any other human beings, and yet we have been told that there are white settlers hereabouts in increasing numbers. There is a sawmill, and a flour mill and a mission. It is the one which saved the famous Sager family, two years since.