Missy was never sure that Dove understood that she and Chris were to have been married. But if anyone had mentioned the fact to her, the small, thin woman never alluded to it. Well—once, perhaps, Missy conceded. Late one afternoon they had been sitting alone in the wagon while Chris and the boys were ahead hunting. Missy had been half asleep, lulled by the rocking of the wagon, when Dove said softly, “Your God will give you a good man, Missy, for the one you have lost.”
Startled, Missy turned to look at Dove, and saw a certainty in the dark eyes, a kind of wisdom that she’d never seen before. So, she knows about Chris and me. It occurred to her that there might be tension over the knowledge, but she was mistaken. Dove never again mentioned it, and spent most of her time talking about Sky and what could be done to help him.
“He will be neither white nor Sioux,” she whispered to Missy once. “Neither will claim him.”
“Oh no!” Missy said quickly. “Chris is a noted warrior, isn’t he? Sky will be accepted because of that.”
Dove shook her head. “He says that Black Elk is his father. The Pawnees taught him well to hate Bear Killer.”
“We must pray that he will learn to love his real father, Dove.”
There was a silence and Missy saw that Dove was considering her through half-closed eyes. “How I wish all Christians were as kind as you—but they are not.”
This was the first time Missy had heard Dove hint about how much the rejection of Chris’s congregation had hurt her. Laying her hand on the thin arm, Missy said, “I know. It’s not right—but listen to me, Dove. Anyone who really loves God would love you, too.”
With all her heart Missy longed to win this woman to the Lord, to convince her that all Christians were not like the ones she had met so far. But she knew that words were useless, and wisely did not press the point, praying for the day when Dove would see the reality of Jesus acted out in the lives of His followers, and respond. As she drove she continued to pray silently for Dove and Sky, and urged the horses forward when she saw Chris and the boys ahead.
Two days later they reached St. Louis, a bustling town on the banks of the Mississippi. Chris inquired the way to the Methodist church, and found it without difficulty—a two-story red brick structure with a high steeple and the first stained-glass windows Chris had ever seen. A lanky man was cutting grass in the front and he looked up as the wagons stopped.
“Expect you must be Rev. Winslow,” he said. He pulled his shapeless felt hat off in greeting, exposing a homely face. “Rev. Small told me to wait till you came.” He put a hand out, and though he was thin as a rail, the meaty hand that took Chris’s closed with a tremendous grip. “I’m Barney Sinclair, Reverend.”
Chris liked the face, plain as it was. Sinclair was about thirty, with a receding hairline, large ears that stuck out, and a pair of faded blue eyes. “Are you one of the missionaries?” Chris asked.
“Oh no!” Sinclair said quickly, shaking his head. “I’m just goin’ along to help Rev. Small out.” The thought of being taken for a minister seemed to embarrass him. “The pastor of the church, he had to go out of town, so I’ve been waitin’ to show you our camp, Reverend.”
“Is it far, Barney?”
“Down by the river,” he nodded. “ ’Bout two sightings and a dog bark. Mebbe I can drive that team for you?”
“Sure.”
Sinclair followed him to the wagons and ducked his head when he was introduced, not looking either Missy or Caroline in the eye, but gave Asa and Sky a big grin. He climbed onto the wagon and Chris sat between him and Dove. When Chris introduced him to Dove, Barney pulled his hat off again and gave her a smile and a nod. “Real pleased to know you, Miz Winslow.” Sinclair was, Chris saw at once, an expert driver, with a look of capability in the large hands that belied the apparent frailty of his lath-shaped frame. Tough as a buffer hide! Chris thought. If the rest of them are like this, we might make it. “Where you from, Barney?” he asked aloud.
“Well, I guess I’m from all over more than I am from any particular place.” Barney flicked the reins, adding, “Spent the last five years on a two-hoss farm on the backside of Virginia.”
“How’d you get yourself in with this missionary crowd?”
The question seemed to bother the lanky driver. He shifted on his seat, considered the sky, then shrugged his bony shoulders. “Well, Reverend, to tell the truth, I always liked church, even when I was a sinner. Went to meetin’s every chance—even was a feeler fer a spell.”
Chris looked puzzled. “Don’t recall hearin’ that word before, Barney. What’s a ‘feeler’?”
“A feeler, Reverend? I guess you ain’t been around Baptists much. When we go down to the river to baptize, it’s the feeler’s job to go out and feel around for a good place to baptize folks—see there ain’t no deep holes or such like.”
Chris smiled. “You’re a Baptist? How’d you get in with the Methodists?”
“Well...” Barney hesitated and turned his eyes on Chris. He studied him carefully, then nodded as if satisfied by what he saw. “To tell the truth, I guess the name don’t matter much to me, Reverend. Like I said, I always liked church. Went to the big camp meetings: after the hymns were h’isted heavenward, there was all sorts of courtin’ and horse tradin’ and such goin’s-on, whilst the blessed and the saved gorged themselves on basket dinners spread out on waist-high tables! It was a lot of fun—and two years ago I went to a meetin’ over near Lynchburg, and met the Lord somethin’ powerful.
“You were converted?”
>“Me? Oh, my Lord, I got a case of the jerks at that meetin’ that liked to have killed me!” The “jerks” occurred when worshipers were “struck down” by the power of the Holy Spirit—jerking and twisting in spasms that sometimes lasted for hours. Chris had some reservations about such things, but was loathe to say so to the lanky Sinclair. “I went out and when I come to, I was prayed for, and it was then I got all tangled up with God.”
“Never heard it put just that way, Barney,” Chris smiled.
“Well, it was the best thing that happened to me—but servin’ God ain’t no easy thing. You asked me how a Baptist got in with the Methodists. Well, don’t say a word about this to Rev. Small, but the Lord put it in my heart to go to the savages, and when I found out there wasn’t no Baptists headed in that direction—I became a Methodist.”
Chris chuckled at the simplicity of his answer. “Well, Barney, I’ll keep your secret—although I don’t think the Sioux will be particularly interested in the theological implications of water baptism.” Then he grew serious and said, “But it’s dangerous, Barney. I’m not sure any of you folks know how bad it can be. It’s hard living.”
Barney looked down at his big hands and made fists out of them. “As fer hard livin’, I ain’t never known nothing else. And no matter how dangerous it is, I reckon the Lord God can look out for me better than I can look out for myself.”
“I say amen to that.” Chris nodded. “What about the others? Are they pretty tough?”
“They act like they’re agoin’ for a picnic in a Boston city park! I tried to tell ’em different—but then I ain’t never been there myself, so it was a waste of time. Maybe they’ll listen to you. At least, Doc Spencer says so.”
“Tell me a little about them, Barney.”
“Well, Rev. Small, he’s the leader. Not a big man, but shore knows a lot. Seems pretty confident, even though he’s not been west any farther than the rest of us—’cept you, of course. He’s a bachelor. Doc Spencer is a fine man, but he was raised in Philadelphia and don’t know one end of a cow from another—and his wife is kinda dainty. Real nice, but can’t see her livin’ in a cabin with a dirt floor. There’s Karl and Ellen Shultz. He’s a big, strong man—and she’s pretty stout her ownself. Good man with tools. Got two kids, Anna and Max, ’bout fifteen. Then there’s Rev. Tennyson and his wife. He’s a furriner from over the water. Shore can sing! Him and his wife was both teachers in Boston. And last is the Moores. His
name is Thad. Hers is Bessie. Got a couple of kids. That’s it, more or less, ’cept fer me and two other single men—Neal Littlejohn and Leon Prince.”
Chris tried to imagine the group Barney had described surviving in hostile Indian country, and shook his head grimly. “Well, they’ll be in for a shock, I’m afraid. A Pawnee with his war paint on won’t see the difference between a minister of the gospel and any other white face.”
“Reckoned so,” Barney agreed. “One of the reasons I come was that folks always said I was too careless-like. Always laughing and never taking things serious.” He studied Chris a moment before he flashed a quick grin and said, “I reckon headin’ into Sioux country with this bunch is likely to add some sobriety to my moral character—don’t you reckon, Reverend?”
“Like as not, Barney,” Chris nodded, vaguely wondering if the tall, skinny fellow was indirectly trying to prepare him for something.
Sinclair took them to the river and pulled up beside a cluster of several wagons. Women were busy around a campfire and the smell of cooking meat was in the air. A short man walked toward them as Chris jumped out of the wagon. “Rev. Winslow? I’m Aaron Small.”
“Glad to meet you, Brother Small.” The preacher was a short chesty man with a blunt face and a full set of whiskers. Chris turned and helped Dove down, saying, “I’d like you to meet my wife Dove.”
There was a slight alteration in Small’s black eyes that Chris did not miss. Guess he doesn’t like me having an Indian wife. Recovering, Small gave a short bow. “My pleasure, Sister Winslow.”
“And this is my son, Sky.” Again the eyes flickered. “Fine looking boy.”
“And this is Caroline Greene, and her sister, Melissa, and their brother, Asa.”
Small drew himself up to his full height, but still was not quite as tall as Missy. He smiled at them both. “A pleasure! A great pleasure! We have looked forward to this—I’ve heard such good things about your father!” He shook his head and added quickly, “Such a loss! But”—he smiled again and drew his shoulders back—”The work must go on. I’m sure he’d be pleased to see you having a part in this great endeavour to carry the gospel to the savages.” Chris winced slightly at the last word, but Dove’s face was expressionless.
He bustled around, calling the names of the rest of the party who came forward to meet the newcomers. Chris found they were pretty much as Barney Sinclair had described them.
John Spencer was a tall fine-looking man of thirty-two; his wife Lorene was younger, very small with a fair complexion and large blue eyes.
Karl Shultz was almost as tall as Chris, and much heavier. He was like a draft horse, massive and slow to move and to speak. Too big for a man—and not big enough for a horse was the way Barney had put it. His wife Ellen was a well-formed woman, tall and attractive with dark hair and eyes. At fourteen, Anna was much like her; while Max, a year older, was like his father, muscular and blond.
“And this is Robert Tennyson and his wife Helen. They are our musical arm.” Tennyson was small but wiry. He had been a coal miner in Wales, Chris learned later, and the arduous labor had molded his upper body into a compact mass of muscle. He was a fine tenor; and his wife, dark and rather plain, was a talented pianist.
“Brother Moore and his good wife Bessie.” Moore was a small, thin man with mousey hair and the squint of a nearsighted man. Been a clerk all his life, Sinclair had said, and he looked the part. His wife was overweight, and her fair skin was already burned and peeling. A good woman—but she’s got a tongue long enough to set in the parlor and lick the skillet in the kitchen! Chris chuckled under his breath, remembering Barney’s remark.
The single men came forward: Neal Littlejohn, a heavy-set man with a cheerful face—and a nose that made Chris suspect he had been a heavy drinker—and Leon Prince, a man of average height who hid his features behind a massive beard.
“Well, let’s have supper,” Small said after introductions were made, and the group moved toward the wagon. The meal was good and Small did most of the talking. He was full of “the mission,” and as he talked Chris eyed the size of the wagons, noting how heavily they were loaded.
When the meal was almost over, talk turned to the trip that lay ahead of them. “I know it will be hard,” Small remarked, and he waved toward the wagons, “but these wagons are the best that money could buy—specially built just for this mission work. Gift of a wealthy manufacturer in New York—a convert of mine.”
Swallowing hard, Chris put his plate down and stood up and stared at the wagons. He was speechless as he thought of the distances and obstacles that lay ahead of them.
“Brother Small,” he said slowly. “Let me understand you. Do you mean you intend to take these wagons overland to the Yellowstone country?”
“Why, certainly!” Small stopped and stared at Chris. “There’s never been any question about that.”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to question it,” Chris said; and instantly he saw Small’s eyes grow hard and his shoulders set defensively. “This train will never make it. Not in those wagons. We’ll never make it—it’s never been done.”
“Oh, I don’t think we need worry about that, Brother Winslow.” Small waved his hand, adding, “This is God’s work. He will see that we get there.”
Chris stared, incredulous. “When Lewis and Clark were commissioned by President Jefferson to chart the purchase this country made from Napoleon, they could have gone any way they wanted, because the government was paying all expenses. But, as I’m sure you know, they refused to go overland. They took small boats up the Missouri in 1803. And even with hardened French boatmen and little baggage, they had trouble.”
Small settled back on his heels and rocked slightly. Clearly, this was to be a test of wills. With a stubborn set to his jaw, he said loudly, “No doubt, but there is now a way overland. You’ve not heard of it, I dare say.”
Chris thought of the miles of desert, the steep canyons, the upthrusting Tetons, and shook his head. “I don’t know who’s been talking to you, but he’s wrong.”
At that moment a horseman appeared, coming out of the grove that grew fifty yards back from the river. “Here’s our guide, Brother Winslow.” A sudden sly smile touched Small’s full lips. “He tells me you two are acquainted.”
Chris stiffened as the rider stopped his horse and slid to the ground. He was a tall man, heavy in the shoulders and in the flanks. The worn buckskins he had seemed molded to his muscular build, and he wore a trapper’s round fur hat and a pair of moccasins. He was a virile man, full of animal strength and energy that seemed to spill over as he moved. He stopped and stared across the fire, and the buzz of conversation stopped abruptly until the lastcomer broke the silence. “Hello, Winslow.”
“Hello, Ring.”
He remembered Ring Tanner well. Years ago the two had narrowly avoided a fight at his first rendezvous. Tanner had drawn a smaller man into a fight, then whipped him unmercifully. But when he started to kick at the man, Chris had offered himself as a substitute. “C’mon, Ring—pick on someone your own size,” he’d said, and for a moment he saw the desire flare in Tanner’s eyes. Only the size of Chris—and his reputation—had made Ring back down. Chris had heard several times later that the bully had boasted about what he would do to him the next time they met.
“This is the man who says he can guide you across the desert to the Yellowstone? Don’t you believe it,” Chris stated flatly, staring into Tanner’s eyes.
“He comes highly recommended.”
“You always was a sorehead, Winslow,” Ring Tanner retorted. “You got a big reputation, but at least I didn’t have to marry no squaw to get my beaver!”
For one instant a red rage flared in Chris’s eyes, clouding his judgment and inducing Tanner to unsheathe his knife. Small cried out, “Here! None of this! Winslow, I’m ashamed of you! A minister of the gospel acting in this fashion!”
Chris took a deep breath, then nodded, forcing himself to say, “Sorry.
” He looked at Tanner, determination in his eyes. “You can take your people overland if you like—but I’m going to hire a keelboat for my family.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Small said smoothly. “I have a letter for you from Bishop Asbury. He says that you will submit yourself to my orders. If you do not, you will no longer be a Methodist minister.”
Chris looked at him, stunned. “I’ll pray about it, but I can tell you now, neither Tanner nor any other guide can get these wagons through.” Then he added, “We’ll camp downstream. Perhaps we can find some way to fix things.”
He walked away, followed by his family, and as soon as they were out of hearing, a loud debate sprang up. Some were fearful of what Winslow had said, but Tanner insisted, “He don’t know nothin’. He ain’t never been through that desert like I have. But he’s a stubborn one. He won’t go.”
Rev. Small stroked his chin and nodded. “Oh, I think he will, Tanner.” He smiled, adding, “He values his calling—and Bishop Asbury made the matter clear. Winslow will go, or give up the ministry—and he’ll never do that!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
ON THE TRAIL
“I can’t make this decision alone.” Chris looked around the small fire at each face. The air beside the river was still and heavy, so that the smoke curled upward slowly as if reluctant to leave the blaze. The other camp, only a hundred yards away, was quiet. Dove usually said nothing, but she nodded slightly, and said, “The man is foolish. Even The People would not start across the great dry space now. There is no water for the horses—and the enemies are many and cruel.” Then she stopped herself. “But you know this. I will go if you say.”
“Why don’t we just let them go their way and we’ll go ours?” Asa asked. “They ain’t none of our business—”
“Asa, I think Chris feels they really are our concern,” Missy broke in. She was sitting with her legs drawn up, her chin resting on her knees in a childlike fashion. Her eyes were enormous in the firelight. “And he’s right,” she added. “Aside from the fact that Bishop Asbury has given a direct commission, they’re our fellow Christians—and I think they need Chris more than they know.”
The Holy Warrior Page 21