Authors: Shirley Kennedy
Bessie joined them, read the inscriptions, and sadly shook her head. “She must have died in childbirth and the baby next day.”
Martha laid a hand over the slight bulge of her stomach. At four months, she was beginning to show. “I do worry so. I send up prayers each day that we’ll get to California before my baby arrives.”
“
I know I won’t be that lucky,” said Bessie. “Oh, dear.” Frowning, she addressed Lucy. “I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t be talking about our babies when you’ve just lost yours.”
“
Don’t worry about it. I’d have to go around blindfolded not to see the number of babies on the way. I can’t just ignore them, can I?” Lucy knew she’d grieve for her stillborn child until the day she died, but she wouldn’t burden others with her sorrow.
“
Martha! Lucy!” Abner shook the reins with impatience. “You’ll see plenty more graves before we’re done. Get back now.”
Lucy returned to the wagon, tears welling in her eyes. Harriet Susan Welsh must have set out for California with her hopes high. Now she and her baby were buried by the side of the road, alone forever in the empty prairie.
She thought of her own lost child, buried in a grave she could never find again. Martha ... Bessie ... pray to God they survive, and their babies, too.
That night, after they parked the wagons in the usual circle, Lucy saw her first Indians. With Martha at her side, she was bent over the campfire by Abner’s wagon, baking biscuits, when ten or twelve Indian braves rode into camp. Martha let out a frightened squeal, dropped her cooking spoon, and scampered up to the wagon seat where Abner sat. All around, women were screaming. Men were rushing to their wagons to retrieve their rifles.
“
Dad burn it!” Charlie Dawes strode to the center of the campground, waving his arms. “Don’t get excited, folks. They’re friendly.”
Clint followed at his usual easy pace. “They’re Sioux, come to trade. Put your guns away. They want bread in exchange for beads and moccasins.”
When the camp settled down, the Indians began making the rounds of the wagons. Lucy’s heart jumped in her chest when five or six of the tall, copper-skinned savages approached Abner’s wagon. What a strange, frightening lot they were with their scowling faces painted in different-colored stripes and elaborate headdresses of feathers and fur. Brass rings hung from their ears and around their wrists and bare arms. She stood frozen, struck by their strange smell, while they milled around her, pushing, getting right in her face, so close that despite Clint and Charlie’s reassuring words, she very much feared she’d be attacked and scalped. Even so, she stood firm by the campfire, resisting the impulse to run and hide. She wished Abner was standing beside her, but oddly enough, he chose to remain seated on the wagon seat, rifle across his lap, Noah on one side, Martha on the other. “Give them what they want. Don’t let them see you’re scared.”
Easy for him to say. Abner sat high up, relatively safe. Shouldn’t he be down here? Just why was she the one who must deal up close with these frightening savages? “Good evening.” Her voice quaked. “Would you care for some bread?”
She offered her pan of newly baked biscuits. The Sioux accepted with a series of grunts and guttural words she couldn’t understand. They all seemed pleased, though, and one held out a pair of beaded moccasins in return.
Clint appeared. She felt a flood of relief just knowing he was there. He took the moccasins and held them out to her. “Take them.”
She accepted the moccasins and ran her hand over the soft buckskin. How soft and well-made they were. “Why, they’re lovely.”
“
Save them. You’ll have quite a story to tell your grandchildren.”
She returned a wry smile. “Then is it your considered opinion I’m not going to get scalped tonight?”
“
The odds are you’ll survive.” His light words reassured her, especially when she caught the glint of understanding deep in his eyes and knew he was well aware of her fears.
Soon the Indians moved on to the next wagon, Clint following. Abner finally climbed down from the wagon seat. “Thieving beggars.”
She didn’t care for his remark. “It’s their land. They didn’t invite us here.”
Abner snorted with disgust. “A good Indian is a dead Indian.”
A rather uncharitable opinion for a man of God. No sense arguing. She had yet to see Abner change his opinion on any subject. One question burned in her mind. Why had he not rushed to her side when the Indians came calling? Until Clint came along, she’d had to deal with them alone while the supposedly brave captain of the wagon train remained relatively safe sitting high on the wagon seat.
The word “coward” came to mind.
The Indians wouldn’t leave. All evening they wandered from wagon to wagon. They begged for food, offering beads and moccasins in return. After supper, everyone, including the Indians, gathered around the large fire in the center of the campground. Everyone except Cordelia. Despite Lucy’s advice, she hadn’t abandoned her “Southern lady of quality” pose and remained aloof as ever. Lately she’d chosen to remain in her wagon, apparently to avoid those-of-a-lesser-standing, although her husband and son always joined in with the rest.
A tenseness hung over the campfire, everyone heartily wishing the Indians would leave. Clint and Charlie advised the jittery group to act normal, as if this were just another evening. As usual, the rowdy Butler Brothers, by now roundly despised by all, annoyed everybody with their crude jokes and drunken laughter. At least one of the brothers, Erasmus, could play a mean fiddle. For a while, he entertained, pleasing the crowd with lively versions of “Rose on the Mountain” and “Billy in the Woods.”
After Erasmus, Benjamin sang and played his guitar, an adoring Roxana by his side. Halfway through “I have Something Sweet to Tell You,” a piercing scream brought his music to a halt. All eyes turned to the Benton wagon, where Cordelia suddenly appeared through the front opening. With no regard for her customary dignified demeanor, she jumped onto the tongue with lightning speed and leaped to the ground. With a horrified expression on her face, she headed straight for Clint and Charlie.
“
Mister Palance, Mister Dawes, do something!” She turned and pointed a shaking finger. “One of those savages climbed right into my wagon.”
“
Are you hurt?” Clint asked.
“
No. I immediately escaped out the front, but I certainly could have been hurt.” Cordelia drew herself up. “What gall to enter my wagon without so much as a knock. Have they no manners?”
Charlie let out a hoop. Clint suppressed a smile. “Indians aren’t noted for their manners, ma’am.”
“
Then they shouldn’t be allowed in decent society!”
Before Clint could answer, the subject of Cordelia’s wrath stepped from around the back of the Benton wagon and walked toward them. As he grew visible in the firelight, Lucy heard a low murmur of laughter. The murmur turned to a roar when the Indian reached the full light of the campfire.
He was wearing Cordelia’s hoopskirt.
Oh, what a funny sight! Never had Lucy seen anything so amusing as that painted-faced Indian strutting around the campground, feathers and fur atop his head, buckskin loincloth and bare legs clearly visible beneath the whalebone rings of Cordelia’s hoopskirt.
Watching Cordelia provided even more hilarity. First, her mouth dropped open. Next, her face froze in horror mixed with astonishment. Soon, amidst the laughter, her expression began to soften until finally her lips curved into a smile, and she, too, joined in the laughter.
Clint’s eyes were openly amused. “Mrs. Benton, do you want your hoopskirt back? If you do, I’ll—”
“
Oh, no!” Cordelia waved him off. “Let him keep it. Do you think I’d ever wear it again after this?”
Clint called to the Indian in his own language, then addressed Cordelia. “I told him to take it.”
The Indian replied in words Lucy couldn’t understand.
Clint grinned. “He says thank you. He also says he likes you very much and will visit you again.”
“
Oh, surely not!”
Lucy joined in another roar of laugher, this time at Cordelia. She watched the Indian, well aware he was the center of attention, prance about with a big smile on his broad face, making the hoopskirt tilt this way and that. Oh, hysterical! Tears streaked down the cheeks of many in the crowd, Lucy included, as well as Bessie, who surely needed a good laugh, and grouchy Agnes. Even Nathaniel Beauregard Benton was guffawing, his manifest destiny for the moment forgotten. His son, Chadwick, laughed so hard he rolled on the ground, his twelve-year-old funny bone tickled beyond all measure by his mother’s part in the humorous scene.
One of the Butler Brothers laughed so hard he fell off his seat and spilled his jug of whiskey. Even Abner’s and Martha’s ever-sober faces cracked smiles.
The last giggle faded. In the quiet that followed, Lucy perceived the raucous laughter had been more than just a few moments of hilarity over the sight of the hoopskirted Indian. After facing the dangers of the river crossing, the violent hailstorm, Jacob’s death, and all the hardships of the trail, they were all grateful for the chance to laugh. What a welcome release, not only from memories of dangers past but from the worry over the uncertainty that lay ahead. Petty conflicts abounded in the Schneider party, as they did in all the wagon trains, but for one brief moment, laughter bonded them together.
When the Indians finally left, Benjamin took up his guitar again and began strumming softly. A full moon rose over the tips of the pine trees; a warm breeze blew gently. Lost in reverie, Lucy faced the truth: once they got to California, and God willing they would, most of these people would take up the same dull, unexciting existence as the farmers they’d left behind. She wondered what she’d be doing. Right now she had little desire to speculate. After losing both her husband and child, all she could do was try to get through each grueling day and not fall apart.
She’d save the moccasins, just as Clint advised. Some day when she was very, very old, she’d dig them out of some musty trunk. They would remind her of the night the Indians traded for bread and one wore Cordelia’s hoopskirt, the night she had shared precious moments of warm camaraderie with the other members of the wagon train. She’d also remember how this journey, hard though it was, had given her a taste of something more, a brief escape from her ordinary, mundane life ... given her a sense of adventure, wasn’t that what Clint had called it?
West to catch the sunset
. Now she knew what he meant.
If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never forget this night.
Next day, the Schneider wagon train began its trek along the well-marked trappers’ trail that followed the Platte River. Edged by a thin fringe of timber lining the river bank, the trail led westward across the plains. They stopped to eat and rest at noon. Lucy was standing by the Potts’ wagon, chatting with Bessie, Hannah, and Roxana, when from the distance, they heard a strange roar.
Clint rode up on Paint. “Buffalo. Something’s set them off. They’re stampeding.”
Lucy looked toward the open plain and soon saw her first herd of buffalo. What a frightening sight! The herd was so thick that it resembled a great black cloud, filling the whole prairie and advancing toward them like a moving mountain.
“
Should we run?” Bessie’s voice was panicked.
“
We’re all right where we are,” Clint answered. “Come look.”
He led them to the top of a sand hill, where they stood and watched while thousands upon thousands of the huge beasts roared by, noses almost to the ground, tails flying in midair. Lucy had no idea how many there were, but the stampede seemed endless, the animals’ wild snorts and the thunder of their hooves assailing her ears.
After the last buffalo finally disappeared over the horizon, Bessie said, aghast, “My stars, they are horrible looking creatures.”
Clint replied, “They may not be beautiful, but I’ll wager you’ll be eating buffalo steaks from now on, and happy to get them.”
“
So who’s going to hunt the huge creatures?” Bessie wrinkled her nose. “My husband can’t bring down so much as a squirrel.”
Neither could Jacob
.
Lucy felt guilty for demeaning the dead. Still, it was true, and that went for Abner, too.
“
That’s a good question,” said Clint. “It’s not easy. Takes between fifteen and twenty bullets to kill a bull buffalo, but don’t worry, you can count on Charlie and me. We’ve brought down a few. Meantime, be grateful. Wood will be scarce for a while, but buffalo chips make a good fire.”
A frown appeared on Roxana’s pretty young face. “You mean we must start collecting buffalo droppings instead of wood? How nasty!”
Clint nodded. “Chips sounds better. The time is coming soon when you’ll be grateful to have them.” He grew thoughtful. “From now on, be careful. Of all the dangers we face, there’s nothing more deadly than a buffalo stampede.”
“
What sets them off?”
“
Lightning ... thunder ... a rabbit dashing across a field ... just about anything.”
Remembering the thousands of fearsome animals that had just pounded by, Lucy felt a pang of dread. What a horrible fate to get caught in their path.
Two days later, just as Clint warned, they could find no wood for the campfires. After the train encamped at the end of the day and formed a circle by the river, Lucy, along with most of the women, walked out on the prairie, sacks in hand, to collect buffalo chips. Even Cordelia collected chips. She kept to herself, though, still determined to avoid those-of-a-lesser-standing.