The Indifference of Tumbleweed

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘He wants to marry you?’ she asked, her little voice piping shrilly. ‘And you told him no.’

  ‘Hush,’ I told her. ‘You’re too young to know about such things.’

  ‘I know them very well,’ she argued. ‘It was the same when Pa married my Ma.’

  Mr Fields was considerably less calm when I ventured a glance at him. Nobody said any more until Henry had taken himself off, walking stiffly into the crowd of excited migrants. ‘Marriage?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Much to my surprise,’ I confirmed. My certainty was leaking away under his gaze, and a warm embarrassment afflicted me, every bit as strongly as it had troubled Henry.

  ‘And you refused him?’

  ‘As you heard.’

  ‘Poor man. You could do very much worse than Henry Bricewood. He has a good head on his shoulders.’

  I smiled at that. It was a platitude the like of which I seldom heard him utter. ‘I shall be sorry to lose his friendship,’ I said, with a pang. Would I never see Henry again? Or if I did, would he be cold and distant? My smile disappeared. ‘Oh, it is all changing much too quickly. I feel as if we are in a dream. How can the journey be finished so easily?’

  I had said something of the sort to him before, and he winced again now, as he did then. ‘Oh! Your wife,’ I remembered with a wretched feeling of shame.

  ‘My wife has been universally forgotten,’ he said. ‘And you could say, I suppose, that she died easily, compared to many. Now she must be buried, and that, I fear is far from easy. This new city boasts a cemetery, right enough, but no one can direct me to an official who might furnish permission and guidance for the procedure. They merely speak of ministers and priests who must be consulted.’

  ‘You would not proceed without benefit of religion?’ Despite his assertion as to his lack of faith, this could surely not extend to such a serious moment. ‘You owe it to her children…’ I faltered over the words, afraid of causing offence.

  ‘Perhaps I do, at that. Jane was a chapelgoer until she was widowed. Her children were all to have been baptised when they reached the appropriate age..’ He sighed. ‘And such is the urgency of the matter, I cannot let scruple cause further delay.’

  ‘Were they not baptised as infants?’ I wondered.

  ‘In the Baptist doctrine, an individual must have reached the age of reason before such a ceremony carries any meaning,’ he said. ‘Or so my friend led me to understand. I would have carried out his wishes. Perhaps I still might.’ He looked at the scrawny youngsters and sighed.

  I pointed out a half-built church, with a wooden cross standing before it. ‘There is your objective,’ I said.

  ‘Would you come with me?’

  ‘Of course.’ There was a natural inevitability to it which only Ellie seemed to understand.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We found a minister inside the roofless church, directing three men in the positioning of a screen halfway down the body of the building. The scent of new-cut timber drowned everything. The screen, however, looked old – and beautiful.

  ‘Brought it by ship from Italy,’ said the minister shortly, seeing my admiration. ‘Carved by craftsmen a century since.’

  ‘Italy? Then might you be a Roman?’ I asked, eyeing his garb doubtfully. He wore a black shirt and cotton pants – in no way consistent with the cassock of the priests I had known in Boston and Providence.

  ‘Out of costume,’ he smiled. ‘Father Benedict Forenzi, at your service.’

  ‘We have need of your services,’ I said boldly. ‘My friend’s wife died, six or seven days since, and needs burial immediately. Are we permitted to use the town cemetery?’

  The man turned to Mr Fields, and for the rest of the conversation I was ignored. Ellie and I wandered outside, searching for Jimmy. The child was no more or less pale than usual, but her lip was unsteady and she would not speak to me. I glimpsed her fears and sympathised. ‘A new life,’ I said. ‘We none of us knows what lies ahead of us now. But this land is good.’ I waved an arm at the green hills, and sniffed at the air. Despite all the vaporous people and their stock, there was yet a scent of freshness. The ocean was not so distant and I fancied I could detect the sharp tang of it. On trees the leaves were showing their autumn shades, amongst the persisting green. There were others like me, simply standing and gazing around themselves, as if trying to imagine Oregon as their permanent home.

  ‘My poor mother,’ Ellie whispered. ‘She was always so sad, and Mr Fields was only meaning to make her happy.’

  There was much about Mrs Fields that I preferred not to contemplate. Primarily, the terrible fact that her husband had kicked her and caused her to abort their child, which still made me shiver.

  ‘Really?’ I muttered.

  ‘She would not be cheered,’ sighed the little girl.

  Her stepfather found us then, and despite my attempt to change the subject, he seemed to know what we’d been saying. ‘I was a savage beast to her,’ he admitted. He looked down at Ellie, still hanging onto my arm. ‘As the child will confirm.’

  Ellie met his eyes with no sign of fear or accusation. ‘The devil was in you,’ she agreed.

  ‘Have I ever kicked you or your brother?’

  She shook her head emphatically. ‘Nor slapped us,’ she said. ‘The devil is gone away now.’

  I spoke up falteringly. ‘I heard her complaining, in your tent one night at Westport. She never wanted to make this journey, to be an emigrant. She was afraid of what might happen to her. She must have been very unhappy. Ellie tells me that she was.’

  ‘She would have been unhappy in any event,’ he said dourly. ‘And yet she sincerely wished to marry me. The idea was hers. I did my poor best with her.’

  I had nothing to say. His face seemed to fill my gaze, crowding out the busy scenes on all sides of us; his voice drowned the shouts of men and bawling of oxen and squealing of children. His eyes, the colour of new-shucked chestnuts, remained on my face for a long minute. His skin, weathered to a hue not far from that of his mother’s people, was no long ugly with the smallpox scars. His bones were sharply visible along his jaw and cheek, his black hair alive-looking. Here was a man entirely different from all others I had met. I had known it from the start. Soft-footed, sharp-tempered, deeply-rooted – he was an archetype of a true American. He knew his land from the two sides, thanks to his parentage. Poor in money terms, encumbered with two young children, he had abilities I could still scarcely guess at.

  I thought fleetingly of the face of Abel Tennant, with his sly good looks and wicked teachings. Abel would most likely become a man of few dimensions, a gambler or a drunkard, devoting himself to bodily sensations with no understanding of the deeper aspects of life. And Henry Bricewood, in such stark contrast, would be forever prevented from a normal existence by his own intellect and unnatural stature, however hard he tried to achieve it.

  Insights such as these popped in and out of my head as I watched thoughts flicker across Mr Fields’s face, mirroring my own. Ellie waited quietly, a picture of contentment. Absently, I stroked her hair.

  ‘We are to have a burying an hour shy of sundown,’ the man said. ‘Would you do me the kindness of attending?’

  ‘Of course! And I shall fetch my family too. The Bricewoods and Franklins will surely wish to pay their respects, as well. I shall find them all and make sure of it.’ The mission seemed to me a serious one, full of ceremony and importance. ‘Should I request my grandmother to perform the laying-out?’

  He grimaced. ‘I fancy we might omit that aspect of the process, under the circumstances. It has been a week, remember.’

  The body had been well wrapped, but even so, there had been a noticeable increase in flies in its vicinity, and I shuddered to imagine the state of the dead flesh after so many days. ‘As you wish,’ I nodded.

  ‘But I should be grateful if you were to act as my messenger. That would be a kindness.’

  I smiled, and he smiled back, looking young and lost.
His exact age was still unknown to me, but at that moment he seemed a boy, overburdened by responsibility. In my rough calculations, I had guessed from what he had told me that he must have been born not long after the completion of the Lewis and Clarke explorations, which would place him well into his thirties. But perhaps his father had delayed the establishment of a family by some years. Perhaps he was only eight or nine years my senior. Why it should be a matter of interest to me, I could not have fully explained.

  With a sense of adult solemnity, I left him and his little girl, in order to fulfil my mission. Already I had been instrumental in bringing together the man and the priest. Clearly I was useful in ways formerly unanticipated. But when I paused and stared around at the myriad activities on all sides, I realised that my task would not be easy. People were already dispersing, like flakes of burnt paper from a bonfire, spinning away on the breeze, following their own separate identities. Even my own family’s wagon had shifted since I left it an hour before. The oxen were yoked and standing ready for further progress. My mother was standing with Lizzie and Nam, frowning down at a sheaf of papers in her hand.

  ‘What are they?’ I asked, when I drew close enough.

  ‘Deeds. See, Charity.’ She pointed out a map, marked with precise squares. ‘We have our land waiting for us, a simple 640 acres.’ She laughed. ‘I can yet recite the whole thing, from my school days.’ And she almost sang, ‘Twelve inches to a foot, three feet to a yard, twenty-two yards to a chain, ten chains or 1760 yards to a mile.’

  I knew the same chant myself, and joined in with her after a few words. A square mile, drawn on a plan and handed to us, seemed magical. We knew the figures by instinct, the ‘rod, pole or perch’ that no schoolchild properly understood. And the 4,840 square yards to an acre. All these tidy squares captivated me, and I imagined our future homestead with perfectly straight fences surrounding a handsome new house, with all the trees and streamlets somehow obeying the same rules of geometry.

  ‘Where is my father?’ I asked her, mindful of my important task.

  She waved vaguely towards the huts occupied by officials. ‘Business,’ she said. ‘He has a fancy to acquire one or two further sections, from anyone willing to sell. There are those who prefer to set up as storekeepers or manufacturers, who need money more than they need land. They are all bartering and dealing like madmen over there.’

  ‘Two or three more?’ I stared at her. ‘How could we manage so much land?’

  ‘Land is the most secure of all assets,’ she said. ‘It will wait, if it has to, until we have the hands to tend it.’

  ‘Where is Mr Tennant?’ I persisted. ‘And the others?’

  ‘The Tennants are leaving within the hour. Fanny and Abel are saying their farewells, I believe.’

  I studied her face carefully, still unsure of her feelings towards the young couple. She was not a tall woman, but lean and well-muscled. Her arms, which she would never have bared publicly back in Providence, were often revealed now, as she prepared our food or simply pushed back sleeves that were too hot. Her skin had grown a layer of roughness that was scarcely ladylike. But I took it as axiomatic that she remained a person of fine moral judgement. She would never break a law, of man of God, and – surely – would not countenance one of her children doing so. And yet, from exchanges we had already had, I knew she was willing to overlook Fanny’s behaviour for reasons I continued to find inexplicable.

  All I could find in her expression was a weary complacency, as if a battle had been won, by virtue of her own stoical patience. She had endured and come through triumphant. Fanny was bidding adieu to her fellow miscreant, and was presumed to be restored to her family with little harm done. A familiar wave of bitterness crashed through me.

  ‘And we are to pretend that nothing untoward ever took place between them?’ I said.

  ‘Charity, I beg you to leave the subject alone. We must accept what cannot be changed and look to the future now. Your father will tell you that we have need of sharp wits and nimble fingers in this new life. There is great bounty here, if we can only avoid the sharpsters and speculators who would take more than their due. There is space and opportunity for everyone capable of using it. But it will require a clear focus, without distractions and follies to lead us astray.’

  I continued to stare at her. At some point on our migration, she had transformed into a clear-headed woman of ambition. In Providence, she had seemed just like any other mother – fussing over ribbons and furniture polish, competing with other wives on matters of domestic excellence. She had made sure we attended to our lessons, said our prayers and kept away from muddy patches in the street. She had taught us embroidery and lacemaking, singing and games of patience. We had not been sufficiently affluent to employ a governess, and so our mother attended to the details of our education. In retrospect, I understood that she had subsumed her own personality and interests into this task – and was now more than ready to blossom forth in her own right.

  ‘You taught us well,’ I told her. ‘I have little doubt that we are all very well fitted to the coming tasks – all except Fanny, perhaps,’ I could not resist adding.

  She sighed. But before she could repeat her plea for me to give up that subject, Fanny herself came running up to us, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘No broken heart, then?’ I said.

  She gave me a frank look. ‘Not even cracked,’ she laughed.

  ‘And Abel?’

  ‘Abel has been roped and branded by his father already. He is to be head cowman on the Tennant estate, and has been sent to purchase as many steers as possible before the week is out.’

  ‘The very thing for him,’ said our mother brightly.

  ‘He won’t stay for long,’ predicted Fanny. ‘He likes society too much for such a life to suit him.’

  ‘Mrs Fields is to be buried later today,’ I burst out impatiently. ‘All the families from our party ought to attend to pay their respects. I have offered to pass the word.’

  ‘The Tennants will be gone,’ said Fanny. ‘And I believe the Franklins will shortly be on their way. Nobody sees any sense in lingering here.’

  ‘They can linger one more day,’ I argued. The trampled ground covered in wagons, tents, cooking fires and flimsy wooden shacks was, after all, not so very different in the facilities provided by some of the forts we had used along the trail. The difference that did exist was in the atmosphere. Excited transactions were taking place on all sides. Like my mother, a great many people clutched papers, which they repeatedly consulted. Knots of men stood near the horses and cattle, evidently buying and selling the beasts. Lizzie’s pups were in a deep wooden chest, squealing indignantly at their confinement. She had painted a sign offering them for sale at $3 a piece. Tear stains on her cheeks indicated that at least one sale had been accomplished.

  ‘The Bricewoods leave in the morning. They will perhaps condescend to act as mourners,’ Fanny continued. ‘Where is she to be laid?’

  I pointed out the tiny cemetery and the half-finished church. ‘I found a priest,’ I said. ‘Father Benedict.’

  My mother’s eyes bulged. ‘A Roman? Will he hear confession? Will he take the Mass? Where might I find him?’

  Again I indicated the church. Then I looked at Fanny. ‘Confession might not come amiss for us all,’ I said. ‘Though some more than others.’

  My sister shook her head like an irritated pony. ‘Speak for yourself, Charity, and leave others to their own affairs.’

  I retreated readily enough. ‘Where is Grandma? She should know about the burying.’

  I received no answer, so went in search of her for myself. After ten minutes or so I tracked her down, sitting on a stool with her friend Mrs Wheeler from the Johnson Party. They seemed downcast. I approached hesitantly. ‘Grandma? I have something to tell you.’

  She raised weary eyes to my face. ‘Yes?’

  ‘The burying of Mrs Fields is to be later today. Her husband wishes us to attend as mourners. There is a
priest who will ensure that all is done fittingly.’

  She shrugged. ‘Poor woman. Why would she ever have married that man – that’s what I want to know.’

  ‘He is not a bad man,’ I defended. ‘He did his best. He does still.’

  ‘And what will become of those two little’uns now? Without a wife, he will get no land. Married men, and no-one else. That’s the rule.’

  ‘What?’ I felt cold. ‘They must make an exception for him, surely? Since he had a wife until a few days ago. And he has children.’

  ‘Whole and settled families is what’s needed. Not single men with another woman’s brats.’

  Mrs Wheeler nodded supportively. ‘True enough.’ She was a faded sort of a woman, without a fresh thought in her head that I had ever detected. All she did was listen to my grandmother and agree with everything she said. I could not believe that she would be seriously missed, when the ways inevitably parted.

  I lifted my chin. ‘Then he will find employment. He has skills enough.’

  ‘He will be some landowner’s servant, most likely. With a straw billet in a barn and the youngsters sent to an orphanage.’

  So much for the land of opportunity, I thought sourly, and walked away.

  Without clear intent, I found myself between the two wagons belonging to the Franklins. Hope Gordon was standing stock still, holding the baby Emily in her arms. There was a prickle in the air that told me angry words had been exchanged. I looked around and saw her brother-in-law bending over Tommy Gordon, swiping at him with his battered blue hat. ‘Charity,’ said Hope, loudly, but without expression. ‘How are things with you this fine day?’

  Mr Franklin looked up. ‘Miss Collins,’ he said politely. Tommy moved away, throwing me a grateful look.

  ‘I am to inform you that Mrs Fields is to be buried an hour before sundown. Perhaps you might wish to attend and pay your respects,’ I said quickly. The words were losing much of their meaning through repetition.

  ‘Mrs Fields,’ he muttered as if unable to recall who the woman was. ‘Burying at last.’ He sighed, with a suggestion of impatience at the inconvenience and bad management of such an event at such a time. He no longer resembled the beefy butcher he had been in Indiana, but had altered shape in subtle ways, his shoulders narrowing and his cheeks lengthening. His forearms were thinner, his hands browner. Only his mottled moustache retained its original appearance. His young apple trees had grown dramatically in their pots, scraping the canvas cover of their wagon and almost audibly begging to be planted in the good earth. I could understand his haste to get his orchard established, somewhere on a gentle sunlit slope where bees would gather to enjoy the blossom next spring.