I knew to break the dam was to flood her heart.
I did not want to drown.
CHAPTER 9
Contrary to the sailors’ proverb professed and agreed upon the night before, the morning brought rain. The privy’s seat was wet and drops fell through the roof, drizzling my head and shoulders. Instead of feeling a deep satisfaction with the last evening’s affair, I sat with lingering doubt and confusion. I finished my morning constitutional and with Rascal slowly walked back to the cabin.
Anna stood with her arms crossed, on the porch by the door. Rather than pants and smock, she wore a plain blue gingham dress; her blonde hair hung loose, brushing her shoulders.
I smiled and said, “You didn’t come check on me.”
“I knew you didn’t need help.”
I could not tell if she smiled back.
She followed me in and we sat down for breakfast. I nervously rubbed my fingers over the smooth, dark wood of the oak table then reached across for one of her hands. She pulled both away and placed them in her lap. “Papa will be home soon. When he’s away all night to Boonville or Arrow Rock, he returns by midmorning.”
I finished the stew and used a biscuit to wipe the bowl.
“You look mighty pretty in that dress.”
She did not respond and continued to stare out the door. I could not stand the silence between us.
“I thank you for helpin’ me yesterday, with my brother . . .”
Anna gave me a slight smile. “I’m obliged to help, Mr. Creed. Do you feel better about your plight?”
“My plight . . .” I paused, thinking how to answer. “I lost all I’ve owned and loved.” I paused again and looked her in the eyes. “But I suppose I’m feelin’ gratitude for bein’ alive. Now, I’ll ask you the same question. How do you feel?”
Her smile disappeared. “I won’t presume what matter you ask about, Mr. Creed.”
“Last night?”
She cleared the table, dropping the bowls and spoons into the wash pot with a splash. The last of the stew still simmered in the Dutch oven. She leaned over and stirred it with slow, deliberate strokes. With her back to me, she straightened up and stood motionless, holding the dripping spoon. The sudden sizzle of liquid hitting red, hot coals startled her awake.
“I’m no whore.”
“Of course you ain’t.” I exclaimed, maybe a little too quick and loud. “Nor have I thought of you as one.” I pushed away from the table and stood up.
Anna turned and was in tears. “When you took me in your arms, I felt overwhelmed and, and well, flushed and, and then we kissed and . . .”
I reached for her hand and she allowed me to draw her in again. She wiped her cheeks and tried pushing me away. I held her tight until she melted in my arms. The rough cloth of her dress rippled as I caressed her back and shoulders. My fingers touched her bare neck and she quivered, then pushed hard against my chest and began beating me.
I let her go and stood alone in the middle of the floor. “Last night, I chose restraint. I felt your passion, our passion an’ something happened. I so wanted to join you in your bed but, I could not on account a’ my respect for you and your papa.”
She cried, as if in anguish, sending both dogs to barking. I took a step toward her and Juber snapped at me. Then Rascal growled and snapped at him.
“Now look at what I’ve done, I’ve called the dogs to fighting!” She sat down at the table then turned her chair away with elbows on her knees and head in hands, gently sobbing. I chased Juber onto the porch with a broom and shut the door. Again, I sat across from her. She sat up straight, rubbed the wrinkles from her dress, and pulled the chair back to the table.
Anna slowly reached across and touched the tips of her fingers to mine. She was flush in the face and smiling. I was flush somewhere else.
She jerked her hand away as footsteps sounded on the porch. The door swung open and Juber bound into the cabin, shaking himself nearly dry. Right behind strode Doctor Keynes.
“Must the dog stay alone in the rain?”
Anna jumped up and threw her arms around her father.
“Oh Papa, you’re home and safe!”
“Well, of course, dear, did you expect me not to be?” he said and held her back. “Careful, your dress will get soaked.”
He paused and looked at Anna up and down, then glanced past her shoulder to me.
“Mr. Creed, you are feeling much better I see.”
“Yes . . . Yes, sir.”
There was an awkward silence as the doctor leaned his walking stick into the corner near the door and peeled his pack off his back. He let out a deep, exhausted sigh then a cough. His age shone on his haggard face and slumped shoulders.
“Is there no more stew, my dear? I am famished. I shall eat and rest and then we must discuss a number of issues that relate to you, Mr. Creed, you and your brother.”
Anna and I still stood motionless. As he turned his back to us, she glanced at me, letting out her own silent sigh. As Dr. Keynes sat down at the table, she dished out the last bowl of the stew. Within seconds, his chin touched his chest and he was sleep.
I stepped outside onto the porch for fresh air as the sickly sweet smell of the stew collided with whiffs of beer breath. The first crack of thunder must have startled the doctor awake. The door stood partially open. I listened for a while to the quiet murmuring between Anna and her father, then silence except for the rain.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Mr. Creed, would you care to join us in conversation?”
I stretched, breathing in the damp air. A couple of breaks in the clouds allowed streaks of sunlight to shine through the elm trees in front of the cabin. I looked around for a rainbow and there was none. Another clap of thunder sounded farther off in the distance. With the scrape of chairs against the wooden floor, Dr. Keynes and Anna turned to face me as I walked back through the door, into shadow, and sat down.
“You are healing quite nicely,” he said.
“Yes, sir. And I thank you, sir, for what you have done, savin’ my life.” I glanced at Anna. “And of course, your daughter helping . . .”
For a short while, there was silence between us, as if the doctor was collecting his thoughts.
“You and your brother have not been the only victims on the river.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve been told of, as you say, a bushwhacking east of here, downriver past Boonville, not but a day after your tragedy. Over four hundred pelts were stolen and another, the day after, closer to the Mississippi. That take was almost six hundred pelts.” The doctor removed his glasses and wiped them clean with his smock. I sensed him choosing his words carefully. “Seems like an ambitious lot to me, and well organized.”
“My brother,” I said, “left two of three standin’ before he was finished off. There can’t be that many pelts stolen by them two. If there were more pirates, they didn’t show their faces.”
The doctor continued, “Well, the word I received was that there may be some roguishness going on within the American Fur Company itself, though this talk was certainly spoken behind the cloak of secrecy.” He turned away and took a drink from his cup. I could still smell beer on his breath, which led me to wondering where he had done his ministering the night before. The information he was lending me sounded like tavern gossip.
I stood and went to the door. The rain seemed to have lessened. Though after only a lull it fell even harder, making the sky above the trees seem dirty, like riverbed gravel seen from the side of a keelboat.
Without turning around, I said, “The Company holds most of the fur business, least west a’ here through the Rockies north to the Columbia. There’s no rhyme or reason to think they would steal from themselves.” I took a breath. “How many men did you say were in this gang of thieves?”
I could hear the doctor rustle in his chair, hesitating. “Four or five, I suppose, maybe more. Certainly more than one man can take on.” He paused again. “Surely they’re on to St. L
ouis by now.”
Standing with my back to both of them I wondered why he offered this information, which may or may not have been true. “The night of our bushwhackin’ the thieves mentioned an Englishman, said he lives in New Orleans. Even gave up his name as a Mr. Benjamin Brody; claimed he was the ringleader of the gang, though the murderer Baumgartner seemed to share this information with some bitter resentment.” I swallowed. “Sir, the one that hit me with a tomahawk and the other who killed my brother indeed may be in St. Louis but not for long, they are headin’ to New Orleans ’fore winter sets in.”
I felt Anna’s stare upon me. I did not turn around.
“That is where I must go.”
“But, but . . .” Anna began then cut herself off, as if she knew not what to say.
“Mr. Creed,” the doctor said quietly, “we thought you might like to stay here with us for a while longer.”
The scrape of a sliding chair broke the silence. I swung around to face Anna standing not two feet away from me.
“Hear my words, Zebadiah Creed, you are not going anywhere! Why, you could hardly walk to your brother’s grave without my helping hand and arm around your waist. And, and besides, you have no weapons to defend yourself. Papa took them all away.”
“My weapons?” I gasped. “I thought the thieves stole them along with everything else I own.”
Dr. Keynes stood and placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders and gently moved her aside. Though slightly shorter than me, it seemed we stood eye to eye.
“Sir, we found only a knife and pistol in the brush. There was nothing left near you, I’m afraid.”
“I am now mighty confused, sir, as to why you haven’t told me this before now. Those would be my brother’s knife an’ pistol, where are they now?” I glared at the doctor then shot a glance to Anna as she stood by the fire.
“Mr. Creed, we are a family of peacemakers. We do not impel violence unless absolutely necessary.” He paused again, not drawing his stare from me. “We sir, are very proud Quakers.”
“Quakers?” I cried.
“Yes, Mr. Creed.”
I stared back at him, unable to turn away. As soon as he said that word, Quaker, my gut tightened more and it seemed a hand reached up to clutch my throat.
“I have but one question for you, sir.” I choked out, “Did you hear the first shots the evening before that bastard murdered my brother?”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing . . .”
“We pray for whoever is fighting,” he said with quiet conviction. “And save every life we can.”
“My mother and father were Quakers.”
His eyes lit up. “Then you must be Quaker also!”
“No! My folks were missionaries, an’ because a’ not defending themselves or their children, they died at the hands of the Lakota, leaving Jonathan and I to become slaves.”
“Yet, you rose above your own fate to become a warrior.”
“How do you know this?”
“The scars on your chest tell the tale.”
“And what tale is that?” We stood toe-to-toe.
“I heard it called Sun Dance from a fellow Quaker who’s served in the north. He tells of men hung from thongs tied to pieces of antler pierced through their skin, like meat on a stick. For three days and nights you must’ve hung.”
“Wiwanyang Wacipi . . .” I whispered under my breath. Then, “You’ve known this the whole time.”
“Yes, I suspected as much the day I pulled the ball from your shoulder. Today you have confirmed my suspicions.”
I rubbed my shoulder where there used to lie a musket ball, feeling the beginning of a new scar. Anna still stood silent near the fire.
“Dr. Keynes, I have one more question . . .” I lowered my arm and squared back up. “Why have you given me this information, ’bout the robberies?”
“As I said, we wish for you to stay here, with us. Nothing more . . .” He paused and looked down at my clothes, his clothes and boots, then to Anna and back to me. “. . . That if you knew the full rumors of conspiracy, to include far more than the two thieves you faced, you might think twice before seeking your revenge against these men.”
“An’ what did I give you before now to think I was on my way to find the two?”
“Mr. Creed,” he sighed, “I’ve known men like you, ones who cannot let God do the sorting and the punishing. They feel compelled to sneak around the lord and take lives into their own hand.” Again, he looked me in the eyes. “If your brother killed a man and then was killed, the sin has been served. There is nothing by your hand that can be done to change this fact.”
“Sir, I don’t sneak around nobody, especially a god I left behind years ago, buried on the north plains.”
He raised his hand in defense. “Mr. Creed, I mean nothing by this other than to say . . .” The doctor cleared his throat. Then, for the first time of me being there, he coughed deep from his chest; a cough with which I was familiar. He whispered, “Courage is shown through many different acts.” He coughed again and sat back down in the chair. Anna went to his side as he bent over, elbows to his knees. She stroked his hair and looked to be in tears. The coughing fit subsided and he slowly sat up straight. “Sometimes, my young friend, the most courageous of men do nothing at all.”
I could not listen anymore. No matter what Dr. Keynes said to try to persuade me, my mind was made. I did not believe in destiny, I knew what I was to do.
“I will be leavin’ tomorrow,” I announced and turned to walk out the door. Anna remained standing at the table, beside her father.
Rascal followed me onto the porch and into the early-afternoon rain.
CHAPTER 10
I wanted my buckskins. The doctor’s shirt and pants had dried small from the sun and I was miserable. Rascal seemed to love the summer rain. As soon as it stopped, he shook himself and at the open rise overlooking the Missouri, where Anna and I stood only the night before, lay down on the trail to sun dry.
I did not look west, back toward Arrow Rock and my brother’s grave, but to the east toward Boonville and on to St. Louis. The Mississippi was only a few bends away. I had traveled the river once by barge with Jonathan, to Memphis on down to New Orleans. Now alone and with no weapons or money, I did not know how to get there.
The Missouri seemed deserted, except for one lone steamboat paddling downstream with black smoke trailing behind. Boonville would be her next stop. With the shadow of Arrow Rock behind me, I whistled for Rascal and we strolled back to the cabin one last time.
I stumbled seeing my brother’s pistol and knife lying on the table. Laid alongside them were my buckskin smock, pants, and moccasins with the blood removed. Burnt sage replaced the sickly sweet smell of the raccoon stew. For an instant, I closed my eyes and could well have been standing in my Lakota father’s teepee.
Anna looked up from a shirt she was mending. “The sage was Papa’s idea. He thought we’d send you off with the right mind.”
Almost unable to speak, I whispered, “And Jonathan’s knife an’ pistol?”
“Mine. There’s a full shooting bag with plenty of powder and balls around somewhere. You can take it when you go, though I still have to find it.”
“My clothes?” I rubbed the soft material and fringe gently between my fingers.
“I cleaned them the first week you were here with the local salt from across the river. Makes for a good abrasive.”
“Where’s Dr. Keynes?”
Wearing the same black pants and smock from the day before, she rose and pulled a pan off the fire grate. “Checking his rabbit snares, I hope. He should be home soon enough with one or two for supper. He didn’t say. For now, though, would you like a biscuit?”
I stared into her blue eyes wanting so badly to reach out, to draw her in. She stayed her distance and held the pan out.
I took a biscuit.
She turned her back on me without a word.
Anna chopped wood as I sat o
n the porch step cleaning both the knife and pistol. The shooting bag was well equipped and with a few drops from a vial of whale oil, I wiped down my brother’s knife. With his handle made of elk antler rather than deer, the weight and balance were slightly different than mine. It still felt good in my hand. Anna caught me holding the knife up to gleam in the late-afternoon sun.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
She shocked me by the question though I did not show it. Most men I knew had killed, at least once and for a variety of reasons. Most men did not discuss the subject with a lady.
“I’m sorry, is that too personal a question to ask a man who holds a knife up to the sun and smiles, like he’s holding part of himself?” She laid the axe against the stack of wood and stood with her arms crossed. “Well, have you?”
“Have what?”
“Killed another man?”
“Yes . . .”
“More than one? How many?” she asked, as if I would tell her twenty or thirty.
“Three for sure. Maybe four, I don’t know if he died. I couldn’t count his coup.”
“Count his coup?”
“Take his scalp.”
Her face turned pale. I slid Jonathan’s knife into its sheath and set it down on the porch.
“Do you . . . do you have their hair?”
“No, they were stolen along with everything else I owned.” I frowned. “I hope one day to have them returned.”
“To the families of the men you killed?”
“No, no, to me, I’m the rightful owner. I killed ’em!”
She gave me the least bit of a smile. “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Show me how you take another man’s scalp. I may need to know this someday.”
I sat for a second staring at her. She turned away toward the trail and the overgrown corral and privy. In the instant it took to reach her, I pulled the knife from its sheath, grabbed a handful of her hair, and threw her down next to the woodpile. With one knee pinned between her neck and shoulder, she struggled to no avail. I slowly drew an outline with the tip of the knife, a circle on the top of her head, and then yanked.
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