A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel) (22 page)

“’Cause he didn’t save me from no Indians. Now, read.”

Thad opened the Bible, holding it reverently, and then began to read: “‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth....’”

QUAID WAS LIFTING THE yoke to put on two of the oxen when a voice behind him said, “I’ll help do that.”

Turning quickly, Quaid saw that Thad had dressed and was walking toward him. They were a week out of Fort Kearny now and had left the Platte. The country changed more as they turned south, and wagon trains were fairly common.

“It’s OK. I can do it.”

“I’m sick of doing nothing.”

Quaid started to argue, but he saw the set look of determination on Thad’s face. “I think I know how you feel,” he said. “When I broke my leg that winter up on the upper Missouri and couldn’t do anything, I was ready to blow my brains out by the time spring came and I could get around. It goes against the grain doing nothing.”

Thad picked up one end of the oxbow and Quaid the other. They laid it over the necks of two oxen and fastened it. They soon had the animals ready to go, and Thad gave Quaid a look of determination. “I’m going to ride Judas this morning.”

“That’s a pretty lively animal, Thad.”

“I can handle him. If you’d saddle him for me, I’d appreciate it.”

Reluctantly Quaid went to where the animal was staked out. He carefully approached the big stallion, for Judas was
moody. Fortunately, on this particular morning, he seemed to be agreeable. Still, that meant nothing with the big horse.

After Quaid had saddled the animal and put the bridle on with nearly no struggle, he turned to find a small audience watching him.

“Why are you saddling Judas?” Temperance asked.

“Thaddeus aims to ride him.”

Thad had come up and now settled his hat down over his head. He still looked raunchy and rather strange. He wore his dirt-encrusted pants but Quaid’s fancy silk shirt.

“That’s too dangerous, Thad. You’re not ready yet,” Temperance said.

“I reckon I can do what I want to,” Thad said. He advanced toward the horse, took the lines from Quaid, and moving cautiously, put his foot in the stirrup. As he mounted, he felt pain across his wounds but nothing as it had been. He had healed well and knew it, and now as he sat there, he said, “Sorry to disappoint you. I’ve got this horse’s number.”

“I think that horse has got religion like you, Thad,” Belle grinned.

Thad was hurting but wouldn’t let on. He said, “I’m going to go on ahead.”

“That’s right. You wipe out all the hostiles waiting for us up around Fort Leavenworth,” Quaid grinned.

Temperance watched as he rode off, sitting loosely in the saddle. “I wish he wouldn’t do that.”

“He’ll be all right. He healed up well.”

Temperance shook her head. She said, “I’m going to go after him. Can I ride your mare, Quaid?”

“Sure you can. I’ll saddle her for you.”

Fifteen minutes later Thad looked around to see Temperance ride up beside him on Quaid’s mare. “I been worried about you,” she said.

“A man can’t be a baby forever.”

She said nothing but rode alongside him. They passed a wagon train headed West—only ten wagons—and the people in the wagons waved as they moved by.

“They seem so fresh, and they don’t know what they’re looking for. They don’t know how much trouble they’re headed into,” Temperance said.

“I guess that’s the way with all of us. If we did, I don’t guess we’d ever go anywhere.”

The two rode past the last of the wagons, looked back, and saw the oxen plodding along.

“We’ll be in Independence in less than a week, Quaid tells me.”

“Reckon that’s so.”

“It’ll be the end of something when we get there, won’t it?”

“Well, it means we got there with our hair in place.” He turned and smiled at her. His beard had grown and had a scraggly look, and his hair hung down over his collar.

She wondered what he would look like all barbered, for she had never seen him when he wasn’t rough-looking. “I know you’ve been reading the Bible,” she said.

“Rena tell on me?”

“Yes, she did.”

Indeed, Rena had come every night to Thad as he read the Bible, and after a few nights she seemed to find intense pleasure in it. “She thinks it’s wonderful.”

“Well, it’s got me buffaloed, and I can’t understand much of it.”

“What part are you reading now?”

“I started out to go right through it, and I made it pretty good through Genesis and Exodus, but that Leviticus has got me plumb bogged-down. I can’t make any sense out of it.”

“I know how you feel. Leviticus is hard for anyone. All those Jewish laws and rules.”

“It tells about animals you can’t eat. You know it says we can’t eat a catfish? I can’t understand that. I don’t see what’s wrong with a catfish.”

“To be truthful, neither do I. Why don’t you try the Gospels. I think that’s what you need.”

“Maybe I will.”

As they rode, Temperance marveled at how the big man had changed. It was not so much in what he said as in his whole attitude. Since she had known him, there had been an explosive quality to Thaddeus Brennan. He had seemed to be filled with anger, but that was gone now, and he was quiet most of the time. She asked him suddenly, “How do you feel about killing all those Indians, Thaddeus?”

“Wish it hadn’t happened.”

Temperance was startled. “But you didn’t have any choice.”

“No, I didn’t. Still, I can understand the Indian’s point of view. I killed that chief’s son. For an Indian that’s the worst insult a man can give them. I would have done exactly what he did, I guess, if I’d been born in a teepee instead of a house. You reckon God will forgive me for that?”

“If you do ask for forgiveness, don’t keep digging it up.”

He suddenly turned to look at her. “What do you mean digging it up?”

“I mean there are times when we do a wrong thing and we know it.” Her voice was even and her eyes thoughtful. “We ask God to forgive us, but the next day we ask Him again because we still feel bad.”

“You think that’s wrong?”

“How would you feel if you did something wrong to me and you asked me to forgive you and I did, and then the next day you came again and asked me again? What would that be like?”

“I guess it’d be tiresome.”

“That’s right. So God says He’s buried our sins as far from us in the sea as the East is from the West. So, if we’re serious and really ask God, once we ask Him to forgive us, it’s all over with.”

The two rode on for a time, and Thad started once to warn Temperance about Quaid. He could not think of a way to say it. Finally he said, “Quaid’s quite a fellow.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Good-looking, got money. He always was good-looking, but, of course, he didn’t have any money when we was together. I guess he’s enough to turn a woman’s head.”

Temperance turned and smiled at him. “I like him a lot. I can see why you’d want him as a friend.”

“Yeah, he’s been that all right.” It was on the tip of Thad’s tongue to warn her that Quaid was a ladies’ man, but he knew that would be useless. He finally fell silent, and Temperance wondered why. It was not an angry silence but simply something that seemed to trouble him.
He’s got a long way to go,
she thought,
and I’ll have to help him all I can.

* * *

FOR FIVE DAYS THEY made good time, and finally when it was late afternoon, Thad pulled Judas up beside Temperance, who was in the wagon beside Rena. “There it is,” he said, “the Missouri River.”

“We’re there?” Temperance cried with excitement.

“We cross the river tomorrow on the ferry. We’ll camp out here tonight.”

That night everyone was excited, and it was hard for Temperance to get the children to bed. She herself had trouble sleeping, and the next morning she woke a little groggy for lack of sleep. When she got up, she saw that the men had already fixed the oxen and Belle had cooked breakfast.

“You’re getting to be quite a sleepyhead, Temperance,” Belle said.

“I’m sorry, Belle. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Guess we can go get on that ferry now,” Quaid said. “We’ll pull into Independence pretty soon.”

“What’s the date?” Temperance asked.

“July twenty-fourth.”

“We made a pretty good trip, considering everything,” Thad said. “And all of us made it. That’s a good record for a trip.”

“It is. We couldn’t have done it without you, Thad.”

Thad gave her a quick glance and seemed pleased. “Let’s get going,” he said brusquely. “I’m anxious to get to town.”

* * *

THEY HAD TO WAIT for a place on the ferry, so by the time they rode into Independence, it was growing late. They drove down the main street of the town. Independence, in essence, had grown up around its dignified, steepled, brick courthouse.
The town had all the businesses vital for a growing population. It housed, for the most part in two-story wooden buildings with steep roofs, a general store, hardware store, bank, hotel, livery stable, laundry, blacksmith shop, post office, sheriff’s office, city hall, church, dentist’s office, doctor’s office, and several saloons.

Temperance exclaimed, “There sure are a lot of people in a town that doesn’t seem that big!”

“Most of them don’t live here,” Quaid remarked. “They gather here from all over the country to start for Oregon.”

“Well, where do they stay? They all can’t stay in that hotel.”

“Oh, they live in the wagons just like we did.”

Temperance waited until they had pulled up in front of the general store, then Quaid and Belle took all the children inside to buy them soda pop. She went at once to the box she kept under the seat of the wagon, opened it, and pulled out some money. “Thaddeus, here’s the money I promised you for getting us here.”

“The job’s not done yet, not until the kids are with their people.”

Temperance hesitated, then said something that had been on her mind. “Quaid said he’d take us. If you want to leave, you can.”

For a moment Thad looked startled, then he thought of how he would have given anything for an offer like this early in the trip. But now he felt completely different. “You want me to do that?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then give me a hundred dollars. I’ve got some things to buy.” Temperance counted out the bills, and he looked at the
money as if it were a foreign substance. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and he said, “Well, Temperance, I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you later.”

Temperance watched him go, and then a moment’s worry came to her. A hundred dollars was a lot of money for a man, enough to do anything he wanted. She put the thought out of her head.
I’ve got to trust him. He’s not the same man he
was.

She went inside the store and found the children sucking on hard candy that Quaid had bought for them, and Quaid said, “Find you something pretty, a new dress or something.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Well, I could,” Belle said, smiling up at Quaid.

“Well, find yourself something nice then,” he said.

It took awhile for Belle to pick out a new outfit. She had to try on practically all the man had in stock. Finally she found one she liked along with a pair of new shoes.

“Well, I don’t have any diamonds, but I’m ready for New Orleans,” she said. “How do I look?”

“You look fine,” Temperance said.

“Let’s go look the town over,” Belle smiled.

They exited from the general store and walked down one side of the street. They had gotten only halfway to the end when suddenly Rena said, “Look, it’s Thad.”

It was Thad but a different Thad. He had been to a barber and had had a shave and a haircut. He was wearing a pair of new trousers, a new shirt, new boots, and a rolled-crown, wide-brimmed hat.

“Well,” Quaid grinned as Thad came up to them. “If you drop dead, Thaddeus, we won’t have to do a thing to you except put a lily in your hand.”

Rena was walking around Thad, staring at him. “I didn’t know you was so good-looking under all that dirt and hair.”

“Well, thank you—I guess.”

Temperance was somewhat shocked. Like Rena, this was a different Thaddeus. He stood before her loosely, a slight smile on his tanned face. He was several inches over six feet and didn’t show the bulkiness of his two hundred pounds. The shirt revealed the broad flats of his shoulders and the muscles of his chest and upper arms, and she noted that his fingers were long and tapering. He made a big idle shape as he stood there with a half smile on his lips. She stammered as she said, “You—you look fine, Thaddeus.”

“Well, that’s enough about my manly beauty. Come on. I’m taking you to eat this time.”

He led them to the café and seemed to take great pleasure in ordering a meal for all of them. Temperance was sitting next to Belle, and Belle said, “It’s his way of showing that he’s as good a man as Quaid.”

After the meal was over, he said, “I got a surprise for you. There’s a troop of actors in town. We’re all going to see the performance.”