A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel) (15 page)

With some apprehension Bent looked at the big horse. He knew that Judas was known for biting Thad every chance he got or kicking him, whichever was easiest. “He might bite me.”

“Nah, he won’t do that. It’s me he likes to chew on.” Thad pulled out his big Henry, checked the load, then threw the gun up. The explosion came with no hesitation, and Bent watched, then said, “You missed him, Thad.”

“No, I didn’t. Just watch that big one over there to the left.”

Bent watched as the big buffalo seemed to be ambling away. He took four or five steps and then suddenly started to collapse. He hunched up in the middle and went down in a heap, his feet kicking.

“The rest of them didn’t even run away.”

“Buffalo ain’t very smart. Come on, we’ll shoo them off. Keep the wolves and the coyotes and the vultures off until the wagon gets here.”

The two of them wandered over, and Bent edged closer to the dead buffalo. “I got him right there, right behind his front leg. See where the bullet went in?”

“I wish I could shoot one.”

“You’re a might small for a big buffalo gun like this Henry. When you get a little older, though, you’ll try it.”

Bent suddenly turned, and the words seemed to spring out of his mouth. “Do you like me, Thad?”

Thad was reloading the Henry. He stopped and turned to half face the boy. “Why, I reckon I do. What makes you ask that?”

“I just wondered.”

Thad was studying the boy hard, wondering what prompted the question. He was thinking,
I guess he’s had a hard time just
like I did. I hope things go better for him.

“Well, let’s take the hide off this fellow and cut up some steaks. We can gather some firewood too. I’m mighty hungry for buffalo.”

Bent watched for a time as Thad butchered the buffalo. It was hard, heavy work, and Thad shook his head and looked at the big knife he carried at his side most of the time. “Nothing like a buffalo hide to dull a knife.”

He continued working and sweating profusely. The sun was easing down in the west as the wagon came lumbering over the broken ground. When it pulled up, Belle came running forward. “You got one!” she said.

“Why, my mama didn’t raise no bad shots. ’Course I got one.” He winked at Belle then reached down and pulled something from the sack of meat he had stacked on the hide. “Here you go, Peabody, just for you.”

Temperance stopped, turned quickly and saw he was holding a mass of raw meat. “Fresh liver,” he grinned. “Just take a bite of that.”

“I won’t do it.”

“Would you do it, Thad?” Belle challenged, her eyes dancing.

For an answer Thad took a healthy bite and shook his head as he chewed. “Good stuff. Help yourself, Belle.”

“No thanks. I’ll take mine cooked.”

“Well, if you’re going to be that way, then here’s the tongue. Cook it if you want to. It’s almost as good as the liver.”

The two women began cooking the steaks, and soon the juices dripped into the fire, lacing the air with the smell of roasting meat. They ate the steaks hungrily, and Thad said, “Eat all you want to. Buffalo steaks don’t set heavy on your stomach. You can eat until you can’t hardly walk, and an hour later you’re hungry again.”

“It is good,” Temperance said. “A little tough.”

“This was an older fellow. There wasn’t no young ones with it, or I would have got it. This meat won’t keep in this heat long. Maybe a day or two. We’ll sure eat good until it’s gone though.”

* * *

AFTER EVERYONE HAD FINALLY gone to sleep, filled with buffalo steaks, Temperance was holding Timmy, who had a tummy-ache or else was getting a tooth although she could not find one. She was sitting beside the fire, satiated with the full meal, and Thad was sitting with his back to the left rear wagon wheel. He took a drink from the jug and set it down carefully, and she asked suddenly, “Why do you drink so much, Thaddeus?”

“Because I want to.”

“It’s not good for you.”

“It tastes good though. It makes you feel good—”

“I’ve seen you on some mornings when you didn’t feel all that good.”

“That’s the way it is with life, Peabody. You do something that feels good, you have to pay for it the next day.”

Temperance rocked Timmy gently and then said, despite her apprehension, “Bent looks up to you. He wants to be your friend.”

“He ought to know better.”

“He’s six years old, Thaddeus, and he’s had no love from anyone—except Rena.”

“Well, he better go look somewhere else for it.”

Temperance did not answer, but the displeasure was obvious in her face.

“You knew what I was when you asked me to take you over the trail.”

Temperance shifted Timmy to her other arm and looked across at Thaddeus. He was sitting in the semidarkness, but the light flickered over his lean features. He had not shaved for several days, and he was a rough sight. “Maybe I thought you’d change.”

“Well, I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too late for me to change.”

“That’s not so. It’s never too late for anyone.”

Somehow, the words irritated Brennan. He had thought about Bent’s question asking if he liked him, and it disturbed him. He lashed out angrily. “What do you know, Peabody? Why, you can’t even catch a man!”

There was no argument. Temperance had heard the same remark from people or seen it in their faces for a long time. She could not answer him, and Thad, in his drunken state, was
pleased she was hurt. “Never make me into what I ain’t. You can be a preacher if you want to, but just leave me alone.”

The fire crackled and a log shifted, sending a myriad of flaming orange and red sparks. They rose in the air and almost seemed to mingle with the real stars overhead. The two of them looked at each other, and then Temperance shook her head, rose, and took Timmy away to put him down. She lay down beside him, and Thaddeus took another swig from the jug. He muttered rebelliously, “That woman better leave me alone, that’s all I got to say!”

BY THE NINETEENTH OF June, Temperance was tired of gathering buffalo chips for fires. So was everyone else, and both Bent and Rena complained about having to pick up the chips that littered the ground. The buffalo were abundant there. Twice they encountered huge buffalo herds, and the great beasts made a roaring noise as they trampled the earth beneath their feet.

“Better be happy they didn’t stampede,” Brennan said. “That can be downright pesky.”

They camped early, and Thad disappeared, claiming to be hunting, but Temperance suspected he was trying to avoid work. She organized a work party to collect the buffalo chips. She had, after a fashion, mastered the art of burning the unusual fuel. They could be brought to a blaze only in a fire pit that Brennan had showed her how to build. It had to be well drafted, and the day before she had had to knead her dough, nurse the fire, and hold an umbrella over it and her skillet for nearly two hours, but she had been determined to bake bread.

Brennan timed his return when the supper was cooked, and Temperance gave him an irritated look. “I might know you’d come in when there wasn’t any work to be done.”

“I learned that from the Indians,” Brennan said, tying Judas to a wagon wheel. “They can’t be bothered with women and kids. They’ve got important things to do like—”

“Like what?” Belle demanded, knowing that Brennan was deliberately aggravating Temperance.

“Why, they’ve got to smoke their pipes and sit around campfires and tell their lies. Sometimes they play games with a ball of some kind or other. Oh, they’ve got lots of important stuff to do. They can’t be troubled with a bunch of kids and women.”

“What’s that big rock over there?” Rose interrupted, pointing at an enormous granite monolith that dominated the entire landscape.

“That there is Independence Rock. The most famous rock I know of, I guess,” Brennan replied.

“I remember that,” Temperance said. “I carved my name on it when we came out headed for Oregon.”

“Most everybody does.”

Instantly Belle said, “That’s what I want to do. Take me up there, Brennan.”

“Oh, I’ve got more important things to do.”

“No, you don’t,” Belle said. She grabbed a handful of his thick, coarse hair and yanked it. “You’ve got to take me.”

“I want to go too,” Rena said. And, of course, as soon as she did, Bent chimed in.

In the end they all went except Temperance, who volunteered to keep the younger children. Brennan led Belle, Rena, and Bent out of camp, leaving Temperance alone at the wagon.

“Why didn’t you go with them, Temperance?” Rose asked.

“Oh, I’d rather stay with you and Timmy and Bess.”

Rose smiled shyly. She had blossomed on the trip and had grown very fond of Temperance. She was watching Timmy, who was crawling industriously around in a circle, to be sure he didn’t put anything bad in his mouth. She obviously had something on her mind and finally she said, “I’m afraid of
what’s going to happen when we get to where my grand parents live.”

“Why, what could happen?”

“They might not like me and Billy.”

“Don’t be foolish! They’ll love you.”

“They might not.”

Instantly Temperance came over, sat down beside the girl, and put her arm around her. She hugged her tightly and said enthusiastically, “There’s a foolish girl, you are. You’re going to love it there. You’ll go to a nice school, and you and Billy will have good people to take care of you. I read some of the letters that your people wrote to your parents. They were always asking about you and saying how they would love to see you, but it was just too far.” For a long time she sat there encouraging Rose, wondering what kind of people Luther and Rachel Norris were. She felt more secure about them than she did about the Overmeyers’ people, and finally she challenged Rose by saying, “Let’s you and me cook something fancy tonight.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” Temperance smiled, “let’s make my specialty. I call it Mary Magdalene’s never-fail potato rolls. We’ve got enough potatoes left to make it, and it’s fun. I’ll teach you how.”

“Why do they call it Mary Magdalene’s?” Rose said.

“I don’t know. That’s what my mother called it. It’s good though.”

For the next half hour the two were busy mixing the goat’s milk, potatoes, and plover eggs they had found on the trail. Temperance let Rose do as much as possible. Finally they added enough flour to make a soft dough and rolled it out half an inch thick and cut it, using an empty can for a biscuit cutter.

“There we go,” Temperance said as she shoved the potato
rolls into the Dutch oven and heaped the fire around it. “We let it cook there until they get all done. We may eat them all up, not leave any for the others.”

“I like to cook with you, Temperance. I want you to teach me how to make other things.”

“I sure will, honey. You’ll be an expert cook by the time you get to Fort Smith.”

* * *

BY THE TIME THE four had got halfway up Independence Rock, most of them were well winded.

Rena said, “Look at all the names that have been carved.”

Indeed, the face of the rock was carved with literally hundreds of names. They all moved around, examining them. Some were marked with dates and others had messages, some of them misspelled.

“I want to carve my name, but I don’t have anything to do it with,” said Bent.

“Sure you do.” Thad reached into his hip pocket and brought out a coal chisel and a hammer hanging from his belt. “Carve away, boy,” he grinned. “I’ll just sit here and watch.”

Bent, after a great deal of rather inept work with the chisel, did manage to put his initials in. Thad took the chisel and said, “Here, it’s your turn, Rena.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Oh, shoot. Go on and carve your name.”

“I won’t do it.”

“You’re as stubborn as a blue-nosed mule! One of these days you can bring your kids back here to this rock, and you’ll remember the good-looking guide you had.”

Rena glared at him. “You don’t care whether I carve my name or not. You don’t care about anything.”

“Why, sure I do.”

“No, you don’t. All you care about is yourself.” She grabbed Bent by the hand and pulled him back down the trail. “We’re going back.”

“Wait a minute. Don’t run off.”

“You’re just like my ma and pa,” Rena said, glaring back at him. “All you want to do is get drunk.”

“Well, ain’t that a pretty come-off!” Thad exclaimed, watching the two as they left.

“Will they be all right going back?”

“Why, sure. You can see the wagon right down there. Don’t see no Indians about.” He was watching the girl with a puzzled expression. He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I wonder what brought that on?”

“Well, she’s pretty good at reading people,” Belle said. “I was like that when I was her age.”

“Why shucks, I drink a little, but I’d never hurt her. I’m getting them to their people just like I said I would.”

Belle shook her head. “She’s scared, Thad. Don’t expect too much from her.”

“Well, I ain’t scared,” he said.

The remark intrigued Belle. “What are you afraid of?”

“Lots of things—Cheyenne Indians cooking me over a fire, rattlesnakes, bossy women.”

Belle laughed and sat beside him. He was cross-legged, and she moved close enough so that her body was pressed against his. She took his hand and studied it intently. He had strong hands with blunt fingertips scarred by a lifetime of hard work.
“We know life is hard, you and me. Rena knows it too. She’s afraid of those people she’s going to.”

“Well, maybe they’ll be better than she thinks.”

A bitterness came then to Belle’s generous mouth. “How many things have turned out better than you thought they would, Thad?”

“Well, not too many to be honest. Reckon you’re right.”

“We’re alone up here. I thought there’d be lots of people.”

“Sometimes there is. I came through here once when a hundred wagons pulled up down below by the river. You couldn’t stir people with a stick. I’m glad they’re not here now though.”

Brennan turned suddenly and looked at her. He focused his eyes on her lips. They were closed but without pressure, full at the center. She lifted her eyes to his, and suddenly her eyes were heavy and the veiled expression she wore at times broke. Brennan was totally conscious of the touch of her body against him and the feel of her hand holding his. She was watching him in a peculiar way. She made a round, full figure in the daylight, and she was still waiting, her breathing soft, her bosom rising and falling to her breathing.

The urges of a lone man often move like the needle of a compass to a woman, and Brennan was no different. Belle had led a rough life, but she was still attractive. She was a long, round, contoured woman, and even in the relaxed attitude there was a rhythm and a vitality about her. The fragrance of her clothes came powerfully to Brennan, and her soft fragrance slid through the armor of his self-sufficiency. She was watching him in a way he did not quite understand, watching his face in a close and private way, and suddenly she was a shape and a substance before
him and a fragrance, and the wall that he held up against most people seemed to drop away. They were alone, she was before him, and without really being aware, he reached out and pulled her close. She lay soft in his arms, her warmth a part of him, and her nearness bringing up his constant, never-lessening want. His urges made a turbulent eddy around them both, and he knew he could not hide what he was feeling from her.

But suddenly he stopped, and Belle stared at him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not afraid of what that holy woman would say about us, are you?”

“No!” The answer was sharp and short.

“What’s wrong with you then?”

“I don’t know, Belle. I get mad when things don’t work out.”

“What’s not working out?”

“Those kids. We don’t know that their people will have anything to do with them.”

She felt rebuffed and was angry, for she had meant to love him, and he had drawn back. “Things are working out. We’ll get these kids to their people. You and me will go to New Orleans, and we’ll have a good time.”

She watched his face. She saw change turn his long lips, a faint impatience seemed to stir in his eyes, and his jaw showed determination shoving squarely at the chin. There was little discipline, she could see, in his face, but then she herself had little of that quality. She sensed a rash and reckless will and a latent storminess of subdued capacity for enormous gusts of feeling that he kept well under control.

Suddenly she pulled herself up and gave him a look of disgust. “We might as well go back.”

“All right.”

Sudden thoughts came to her and her eyes narrowed. “Temperance Peabody has got some crazy ideas of how things turn out good, but she’s wrong.” She turned and started down the incline, and Brennan followed her, his face fixed in a puzzled expression.

* * *

BY THE TIME THE two got back to camp, the others had already started to eat. They ate the last of the buffalo steaks, but Thad only picked at his. He kept casting his eyes at Rena, who ignored him, and when he finally ventured, “That’s a pretty big rock over there, isn’t it?” she didn’t say a word.

After the meal was over, darkness fell quickly. Belle and Rena helped Temperance clean up, and then Rose said, “Read something to me, Temperance.”

“What would you like?”

“Read me a story out of the Bible.”

“All right, I will.” Temperance went to the wagon, fished her Bible out from under the seat, and returned. She turned a box upside down and sat on it, and Rose sat at her feet, looking up. Belle studied her for a moment, then fell silent, and Thad, who was accustomed to this, also had nothing to say.

“I’m going to read you the story of Daniel.” She read the story of the man of God who stood up against the world, and when she had finished, Rose said, “I like that story, Temperance! Daniel was a good man, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was. He’s one of the few men in the Bible who was always faithful. There’s not one time in the Scripture that he ever displeased God.”

“I wish I could be like that,” Rose said.

“Why, you can be, honey.”

Rena had been listening to the story. She was disgusted with all that had to do with religion. Now she spoke suddenly, her voice catching Temperance by surprise. “Did you ever hear God speak?”

For a moment Temperance could not answer, and then she turned to look at Rena. The girl was sitting back from the fire, her legs drawn up. Her eyes were hidden in the shadows, but she was looking intently at Temperance.

“Not in words, Rena. But when I was eleven years old, I did something terribly wrong and I felt terrible.”

“What was it?” Bent demanded, leaning forward to see her face.

“My mother had a set of beautiful ceramic figurines. They came from Holland. She kept them on the mantel. She never let me handle them. One day I took them out when I wasn’t supposed to. I dropped one and I broke it. My mother asked me if I broke it and I lied. I said the cat did it. I felt absolutely rotten.”