by Jane Smiley
I hadn’t thought of that. The Englishman walked away again, and I adjusted my braces, which I had fixed up a bit better but which were still a nuisance. I was beginning to be able to distinguish things in the dim light, but clearly this was not a saloon where men did anything but drink quietly, their glasses at their fingertips. Any of the other customary Missouri pastimes—gambling, shooting, teasing, bragging, and even spitting— would be nearly impossible in here. The bartender and another man now approached me, and the bartender said, "Allow me to present Mr. Beaumont Pollifax, who prefers the appellation ’River Snake—’ "
"I comes up quick and I comes up silent, and sometimes I passes you by, and sometimes" — he leaned close to my face—"I bites!"
"Mr. Snake accords us the honor of his custom at our establishment every day, but we are not the only ones, because he maintains what you might call a route or a round that takes in something on the order of eight or ten establishments of all varieties and characters. Mr. Snake does seem to remember two men and a boy boasting of shooting a man in Kansas Territory who held sentiments that were repugnant to their own—"
"Now," said the River Snake, "it was toward dark, because I saw them as they was goin’ in, and I was goin’ in at the same time, and I noted that the sun was a-settin’, because, you know, you got to get yourself right every day, or you can get all turned around. Once, I got to a point where I was so turned around thet I was awake when I couldn’t get no whiskey, and I swore ..." He trailed off, then looked at me, then said, "Well, if it was about dark, then I would of been goin’ into the California—"
"Which is situated down by the river," said the bartender.
"And Joab, who’s down there—"
"Employed in serving up refreshment for the patrons—"
"He been there a year or more, and you know, he never takes a drop, so he would remember everything them boys had to say. But they was pleased with themself, I’ll say!"
I must have gasped, for I felt an inner constriction that was almost a swoon at the thought of their pleasure. The bartender turned a frankly inquisitive look upon me and said, "Plenty of the rougher sort down there, you know. Some of us hesitate to go amongst them."
"Them Kickapoo Rangers they had useta come down there," recollected the River Snake. "I stayed away from them boys while they was comin’ in there. Almost decided to keep away from the California altogether, but it don’t do to change your ways. That’s how I got turned around that time."
I said, or croaked, "May I buy you a whiskey, Mr. Snake?"
"Well," he said, "anybody may buy me a whiskey. An’t often anybody does, though, haw haw!"
The bartender poured out another of those little glasses, and the River Snake picked it up and seemed to throw it into his own face, except that his mouth was open to receive it. He then said, "Whew! Well, son, I’ll walk ya down there, even though it’s early in the day. I do believe I need a change."
I said, "Thank you, Mr. Snake."
The bartender watched us hard, his eyes following us out the door.
The sunshine of afternoon nearly knocked me over. The River Snake actually staggered, but he caught himself, then said, "Son, I don’t know if I kin make it down there this time of day, but let me give it a try."
"I need to get my horse."
"That would be good. That’d be very good."
When I brought Athens over, the River Snake leaned against him, and he half turned his face into the horse’s shoulder as we walked slowly along. I would say that we made a strange picture, but that would imply that someone among the teeming busy throngs of Kansas City was looking at us.
At the California, the River Snake seemed to revive. At any rate, he woke up, told me to stay outside, opened the door, and returned a moment later with the bartender, who was all business. He certainly did remember that party of men, he said, as if he prided himself on his excellent memory and was pleased to show it off. Two bearded men and a beardless boy. "They was celebratin’ a blow struck against the evil interloper," said the bartender.
"Was one of ’em named ..." Nothing came to me, and then: "Abel?"
"Well, I don’t know about that. One of ’em called another one ’Samson,’ but I don’t know if that was the given name or the last name, and they used the name Chaney, too, I think." That could be either, also, I realized.
But I was amazed at the success of my investigation. I had the wit to put a few coins in the bartender’s hand, as a gesture toward the River Snake, and then to croak out my thanks, but after that, all I could do was get on Athens and give the old boy a kick. We trotted. Samson and Chaney! Samson and Chaney! Yes, of course! I could see them all the better now! I expected them to rise up in front of me on the street, their misdeeds written all over them, and recognition of me, the pale and screaming wife (Had I screamed? Had I not screamed? Perhaps only they knew), transforming their pleasure in themselves into fear and guilt. Ha! Or, as the Missourians said, haw haw!
Back at the newspaper office, I sat quietly at a desk and wrote my article. From time to time, I referred for stylistic models to the copies of old papers that were lying about in stacks. My article ran as follows:
As our friends are aware, our struggle against the thieves and murderers of the so-called Free State party takes many forms. Though most southern-rights sympathizers are good law-and-order men (however their patience is tried by the creeping slowness of the judiciary in Kansas), extreme elements do and must exist, for the sentiments of active and loyal southerners must have their outlet. Everyone knows that vigilance committees, who would seize the law and make righteousness their own, are frequently proposed by even the soberest men, whose patience has been sorely tried by the devilish antics of the so-called Free State party. Few should be surprised, then, that certain small groups of men, young men, have formed themselves around the territory and that they are only waiting for the opportunity of making a name for themselves.
Your correspondent, himself a young man, went out recently and beat the countryside in search of one of these elusive bands, in order to bring you news of their doings and of the sort of lives these young soldiers of the southern cause have been leading. We are not aware that any news of these young men has been printed in any other newspaper in the territory, and so all of their doings have the added interest of mystery.
I found five men, I will not say where, I will not say how, except to remark that their neighbors knew them, and were grateful for the protection their presence in the neighborhood afforded. I understood that a sixth was away from the camp on a provisioning expedition. Of the five present, Captain Joseph Mabee was clearly in command. Captain Mabee is a tall son of the deep south, Louisiana to be precise. Both circumstance and conviction brought him to our area—the circumstance being employment on a riverboat, the conviction being loyalty to honorable southern principles of freedom under the law. A fine horseman, Captain Mabee was especially grieved at the recent loss of his lovely mare to a ball from the gun of an abolitionist thief. He averred that he would most likely not be able to find or afford such a mount again, in spite of the excellent reputation of horseflesh in our area.
The other four members of the party shall remain nameless, in accordance with the demands of their chosen field of battle. Suffice it to say that of these men and boys (two were not above eighteen years old), two were native Missourians, one was a son of our sister state to the south, Arkansas, and one, a native Ohioan, came over to the pro-southern side because he was so disgusted with the deeds of the so-called Free State party. He said to me, "They call themselves Americans, but I don’t see it." None of these young soldiers could be said to be possessed of an education, but all have a rough eloquence as they discuss their adventures so far.
The group has been together since the Pottawatomie massacre in Kansas Territory, which all men know took place in May, shortly after the successful campaign of our forces against the abolitionist hellhole of Lawrence. These honorable young men were so outraged by tho
se Pottawatomie murders that they felt they could not live without acting against the sort of criminals and madmen that were coming into the territory from the northern states. They therefore left their happy homes, much to the distress of each of their mothers, knowing that perhaps they would not soon see their families again but that the cause was a just one and that, at any rate, it had gotten their blood up so that they could sit by no longer. Three of the young men were friends, and two came in later.
As to their present style of life, it is, of course, rough and not without deprivation. From time to time, their neighbors offer them a good meal. Otherwise, they fall back upon their own cooking. They have been given shirts, boots, and even a pair of pants by grateful southerners, and the captain has been promised another mount to replace his much-lamented long-legged bay mare. In the meantime, the camp is full of the excellent fellowship that grows out of an active conscience satisfied by an active life. And the band is making plans to move against the enemy in the enemy’s own territory, though how soon this will take place, your correspondent is not at liberty to reveal.
There are those among us who revile and deplore such groups as these, and it is true that they stand outside the law, but do they stand outside of moral righteousness? No one can deny that they answer a need felt in every breast for some stronger reply to the depredations of the so-called Free State party. We may wish the necessity for them gone, but in the meantime, we certainly wish them well!
Mr. Morton read this through, holding the paper close to his face and tapping his spectacles on the desk instead of positioning them on his nose, and afterward pronounced the writing "satisfactory but not bold enough. However, it will do for a first effort. Franklin can set it in type. He’ll show you that part of the business one of these days." He patted me on the back. I smiled and nodded, and went outside.
I have to say that the composition of this piece put me into a welter of strong feelings. I had taken it up, still pleased with my discovery of "Samson" and "Chaney," in something of a playful humor. What you’ve got when you go in disguise are some feelings that belong to your original self and some feelings that belong to your new self and are feigned feelings in many ways, but some of these feelings overlap, and it’s a job trying to keep them separate and identified. I thought my disguised self could go ahead and write up those boys’ story in the style of Mr. Morton’s paper and that it would remain outside of me, like the hat or the boots I had stolen on the boat. But what I found out was that my piece had a way of talking back to me. Every lie I put down on the paper made a claim, and every claim those lies made, made me mad. But I couldn’t seem to stop them. They ran right down the pages, one after another, each sentence that was a lie bringing forth the next one, until I got to the end. The truth seemed to protest, but it couldn’t really get in there. There wasn’t a place for it, for one thing, and my project couldn’t afford it, for another. I had to grip Thomas’s watch pretty strongly while I was writing the second-to-last paragraph, and pull it out and set it on the desk, right under my gaze, while I was writing the last paragraph. And then, to make it all the more complicated and hard to take, when I reread the piece I couldn’t help being a little proud of it. It didn’t tell much of a story, but there were some nice turns of phrase in it, and I was a bit insulted at Mr. Morton’s estimation of it. But then, after what you might call the flood of writing had ebbed a bit, I was ashamed of the sentiments it portrayed and also of how I thought it would make people feel when they read it. But then, after that, I was still a little proud of actually having written something other than a letter, and even of knowing that it was going to be set in type and printed out. Ah, it was all a tangle, and it made me want to run off to get away from it, but I couldn’t even do that, as I still had "Samson" and "Chaney" to uncover before Mr. Morton asked me to write him another piece and get myself into an even thicker tangle.
I felt very heavy and tired as I mounted the stairs to the newspaper office yet again, and thoughts of Thomas kept at bay by the perturbations of the day flooded over me. They were not good thoughts. What I saw was him turning away, him disappearing, him refusing to favor me with any conversation. It didn’t matter that I had experienced such a thing only once, the evening of the horse race. Now I could not stop thinking of it.
It was late in the day, almost suppertime, and I was hungry, but there were quite a few men around the office and I wanted to mingle with them in spite of my low spirits. There was the chance someone might mention Samson and Chaney, but in addition to that, there was the news from K.T. I should say that I had my days in Kansas City right at the end of July, and so, while much was brewing that would boil over two or three weeks later, just at that time folks were more occupied with threats than they were with actual fighting. The threats always gave you the feeling that fighting could commence at any moment, so for a certain sort of fellow, there was always, in that humid air, the invigorating tingle that comes of anticipation. Men kept their weapons right beside them, loaded. They took their pistols into their hands, looked at them, cocked them, gave themselves up to the thought of shooting them off, or did shoot them—out the window, into the sky. I hadn’t seen this sort of behavior in Lawrence, and I recognized how my old friends like Mrs. Bush would nod their heads knowingly: just the sort of thing she would expect of the Ruffians. The noise of these shots, which punctuated the otherwise noisy passage of the day like random strikings of a town clock, made everyone both irritable and exhilarated. "Haw, ya missed!" someone would shout, or "Save it for them abolitionists!" or just "Hey!" If the shot was close at hand, well, you had to recoil, but sometimes, if you were engrossed in something, you would just know that there had been a shot, but you wouldn’t yourself have heard it. In short, we got habituated to it but were stirred up all the same. However, Mr. Morton didn’t like anyone shooting off his pistols in the office, because it hindered the concentration of the typesetters and made them drop their forms.
All the talk in the office was of Jim Lane and his army. There had been much discussion of this army back in Lawrence, too, and we had known for sure that it was a significant force—four or five hundred men, well armed and well trained and all for the Free State cause. There were even said to be some regular West Point officers ("only one or two, but that can make a difference," Charles had said) attached to this army somehow ("not exactly in an official capacity"), and folks in Lawrence had felt particular reassurance in this, as if these men were going to take over the leadership of Lawrence now that Governor Robinson and nearly everyone else we had depended upon was gone or taken. I was so certain of these particulars that I still distinctly recollect the first rumor I heard in the offices of the Freeman that challenged them. I was sitting in my former seat by the cold stove, arranging myself in an attitude of manly repose, when behind me I heard a voice scoff, "Well, they an’t much, that’s what them boys said. Half of ’em are sick with a fever and half of ’em are women and young ’uns. Some army, haw!"
"There was a boy I knew back in Indiana who knew Lane. Haw! He was the same then! All talk! And his pa, too. The two of them, they could look at two scrawny heifers in a field and call ’em a herd of milk cows!"
I sat up.
"Anyway, some boys from Lawrence went out and rode up there and parleyed with Lane and said he couldn’t bring his army—haw—into Kansas—"
"Too humiliatin’!"
"So—listen to this—he bawled!"
"Naw!"
"Yessir! He bawled like a baby and said that if the folks of K.T. didn’t want him, then he would take his services elsewhere. What do you think of that?"
The two men couldn’t stop laughing. Another man came over, chuck-ling, and said, "Yep. And now he’s gone! Left his army—haw—in Nebraska and run off!" Now there was general laughter. I managed a big grin, just to keep in with them, but I found this news unaccountably alarming. The laughter grated on my sensibility so that I had to get up and walk about. The men in the newspaper office were great ones for spit
ting, and what with that and the litter and the ink and the mud of boots, the floor of the office was filthy. But now that I was a man, I didn’t mind such things all that much anymore. I strolled around and contemplated this as a way of distracting myself from the bad news of home. The fact was, with Governor Robinson in prison, Lane had been the only one doing anything. Even folks with long-standing doubts of his competency, or his sanity, had come around to him over the summer, just because he was busy and we needed someone to be busy. But if these stories were true, then he showed himself to be a fool. And I knew they were true, because he had showed himself to be a fool before.
Someone noticed me, one of the other men who wrote for the paper. He was a wiry little man with a large head, on which he had pushed his hat far back. He said, "What’s your name, son?"
I whispered, "Arquette. Lyman Arquette."
"That’s right, you got some affliction with your voice box. Jack told me about it. Well, you done a good job on your piece, son. I read it. Now, some of us newspapermen, we take different names to write under, and Franklin wants to know what name you want on your piece, here." Franklin was the typesetter.
I croaked, "Different names?"
"Well, yeah. Now, I got three names I write under. One is my own, another is ’A Bona Fide Westerner,’ and the third is ’Irascible.’ That’s for when I really get goin’, you know, and my words are a little hot. Fact is, these three names got three different personalities, and I can get three articles into one paper if I have to, and nobody knows that I wrote ’em all. We all do. I may say that most of the time I can tell about the others, but most of the time they cain’t tell about me. I could have four or five names if I wanted, but Jack don’t like that. Anyway—"
"Lyman Arquette is fine."
"Now, boy, take it from me, you got to cover yourself a bit here. My suggestion is ’Young and Eager,’ or some such thing. ’Young and Loyal to the Cause,’ mebbe. Gives you a character, don’t ya know, and makes it easier to write your piece, if you ask me." He tucked his thumbs in his braces and rocked back on his heels. "It’s tempting to see your own name in print, but out here it’s a little dangerous."