The Crossed Sabres (24 page)

As the wind crept around the tiny cabin, the fire in the stove cracked and popped and the green wood cried as the sap ran out. The yellow light of the coal-oil lamp lit up their kitchen, and Laurie said, “I wish we’d get snowed in, Daddy. This is nice!”

“We’d get pretty hungry,” he smiled. “I got snowed in once on a hunting trip to Colorado. It was all right for a week, but my partner was an old mountain man who was pretty rough. We got so touchy we wouldn’t even speak for days.” A smile curved his lips at the memory, and he added, “If we hadn’t gotten out when we did, I think one of us would have shot the other.”

“But we’re not like that, are we?” Laurie demanded.

“No. We get along better than anybody.”

His answer satisfied her, and he thought,
I need to tell her things like that more often.
He sat there listening as she read him a story from a dog-eared book. When she finished, he said, “Know what I’ve been thinking? We ought to drive out to Miss Faith’s mission. I’ll bet she’s getting lonesome out there all alone.”

“Oh, Daddy, can we?”

“Sure. Tell you what, we’ll pick up some goodies in town for her and the students. Be a nice surprise for them.”

“Can we stay for church? I promised her I’d bring you.”

“This is Friday, isn’t it? I guess it’ll work out. We’ll go tomorrow and come back after the service Sunday.”

Laurie was up early the next morning anxious to start, and when they went to the general store in Bismarck, she scurried around bright-eyed with excitement, picking out some cans of food and some sweets for the Indian youngsters.

He finally had to say, “Whoa, now, Laurie. You’ll make them sick with all this rich stuff!”

When Winslow went by the fort to tell Sergeant Hines of the outing, Hines looked at the sky’s dull lead color and said doubtfully, “Don’t like the looks of that sky, Tom. Don’t fool around. Could turn into something bad.”

“I’ll hole up if it gets rough,” Winslow nodded. He left the office and climbed up on the seat of the wagon next to Laurie, who was bundled up to her eyes. “All right?” he asked, and when she nodded, he flicked the reins and the horses started forward. The river they had to cross was swollen from the late rains. They drove their wagon onto the ancient ferry, not certain of its safety. The ferry skewed across the current, then fell five hundred yards downriver as the power of the water took it. Winslow hung on to the wagon and Laurie, worried about the danger, but then the engines revved up and the ferry slowly worked its way upstream and nosed into the slip. Relieved, Winslow picked up the reins and drove the wagon ashore.

They saw almost no one on the road, and the cold seemed to have brought a silence on the land. As they rocked along the rutted tracks of the road, their voices sounded loud as they talked and Laurie sang some of the songs she’d learned from Eileen. Her flute-like young voice rang out in the clear air. Once she stopped and said, “It’s a lonesome time, winter is. I like summer better.”

They arrived at the mission at noon. Faith grabbed Laurie and hugged her. “What a nice surprise!” she cried, then turned to Tom. “Nice to see you.” She was wearing a heavy black wool skirt, a checkered blouse, thick-soled boots, and a short fur jacket, which made her seem bulky. Instead of a braid, her thick auburn hair hung loose down her back, almost to her waist.

Laurie tugged Faith’s hand, pulling her to the back of the wagon bed. “Look—we brought some good stuff to eat!”

“Bless you both!” Faith said, looking at the wooden box filled with canned goods. “I’m so hungry for something different I could eat anything!” She hovered close as Winslow
brought the box, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she pulled out each can, reading the labels. “Smoked oysters!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never tasted them, but I’ll bet they’re better than the tough old ham I’ve been living on.”

Nothing would do but that she fix a dinner right then, and Winslow noticed how she drew Laurie in, letting her help with every aspect of the meal. “I’ll have a go at that woodpile, Faith,” he announced. “You’re going to need a big stack if that storm hits.”

He found two short lengths of an oak trunk, and for the next hour he sawed lengths of the oak, split it into wedges, and stacked it against the side of the house, handy to the door. When Laurie stuck her head out the door, calling, “Daddy—come and eat,” he put the axe down and went into the house.

Faith said, “This may not be the best meal you ever had, Tom, but I’ll bet it’s different!”

They sat down, and Faith bowed her head, saying, “Thank you, Lord, for this food and for those who brought it. Thank you for giving us to each other. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Tom lifted the cloth covering a platter and stared at the food. “What in the world is this?” he demanded.

“Don’t ask,” Faith suggested. “Just eat!”

The supper consisted of potted ham, smoked oysters, canned salmon, candied yams, spiced peaches, and one item on Tom’s plate that Faith wouldn’t identify until Tom urged her.

“The can said it was calf brains,” Faith said demurely, a glint of humor in her eyes. “Laurie and I decided to let you have all of it.”

Winslow gave her a suspicious look, then took a small portion of the food on his fork. When he put it in his mouth and tasted it, Laurie piped up, “What does it taste like, Daddy?”

Winslow chewed thoughtfully, then said evenly, “Taste like? Oh, kind of like pig’s lips, I guess.”

“Tom!” Faith cried out. “You never ate such a thing!”

“Sure did! Last year of the war, down in Georgia. We’d
been living on handfuls of parched corn for a week, and one of our fellows liberated a shoat. Small one, no more than thirty pounds. But when we dressed him out and started cooking, I guess every soldier in our company got a whiff of that pork and came around hoping for a taste.” He looked down at the table as the memory of that time swept over him, thinking of the wolfish faces of his friends, all of them skinny as rails and dressed in rags. Then he shook his head, forcing the memory away. “We ate that sucker, all except the hide, I guess. My share was three ribs and the lips. It was good, too, much better than mule, I always thought.”

“Daddy, not
mule!
” Laurie protested. “I don’t think it’s nice to talk about eating mule at the table.”

Winslow grinned, enjoying the discomfort of the two. “If you’re going to feed a man calf brains, you’ve got to take the consequences,” he said firmly.

After the more exotic elements of the meal, Faith removed a pie from the oven and set it on the table. Slicing it into wedge-shaped sections, she passed two of them to her guests, then took one for herself. Taking a bite of his portion, Winslow exclaimed with a note of surprise in his voice, “Why, this tastes like fresh apple pie!”

“Just dried apples, Tom, but I guess if you get hungry enough anything tastes good.”

After the meal Winslow said, “You don’t have enough wood, Faith. I’ll go drag in a couple of logs.” He sharpened the axe and rode out to a stand of hardwood two miles from the mission, cut three of them, and snaked them back one at a time. Afterward, he put in another hour cutting one of them into lengths. After he split them, he went inside and found Faith and Laurie working on a dress with needle and thread.

“Oh, Daddy, Miss Faith’s going to teach me to sew! And I’m going to make me a Sunday dress!” Laurie exclaimed. “Look what I’ve got done.”

Winslow walked over, took the cloth, and studied it. “Well,
now, that’s good-looking work, Laurie. Maybe you can sew up some of my shirts now that you’re a seamstress.”

“Sit down, Tom, and let me get you some coffee and maybe a small piece of pie to hold you until supper.” She got up and Winslow sat back, talking with Laurie as he ate the snack. Then he grew sleepy from the warmth of the stove. Closing his eyes, he put his head back on the chair and listened to Faith and Laurie chatter. He awoke with a start when Laurie touched his shoulder, shaking him slightly.

“What was that, Laurie?” he asked, looking at her grinning face at his side.

“I said, supper’s ready.”

Winslow became aware of the smell of freshly baked bread and said, “I must have dozed off.”

Faith was putting plates on the table. “For nearly two hours,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone who could sleep like that. Just like a cat.”

Winslow got up, stretched, and made his way to the table. “I learned that in the army, I guess. How to sleep in little naps—whenever and however you could. Once when Stonewall Jackson was flanking three different armies in the Valley, we marched three hundred miles or more, I guess, in a few days. It rained one night, a real toad-strangler.” The memory made him squint his eyes, and he smiled wryly. “I’d just dropped to the ground, in a little depression. When I woke up, just my face was above water! And I was too tired to move! I remember thinking,
Well, if it gets another two inches higher, I’ll drown. But then I won’t have to march anymore.
But I didn’t drown, so I had to get up and march when the order came.”

“Was Jackson a good general?” Faith asked.

“The hardest man I ever knew,” Tom shrugged. “If a man fell out from exhaustion, Stonewall had no thought of him. He’d give some impossible task to his officers and men; then, if it didn’t get done, he’d be angry. If it did, the most he’d ever say was ‘Good.’ ”

“Did you ever see General Lee?”

“Oh, sure, many a time—”

Winslow rarely talked about the war, but he did that evening. Faith and Laurie sat together on a battered overstuffed chair, listening to every word, their eyes seldom leaving him. Outside the wind rose, a low keening, with an occasional roar that struck the cabin like a blow. The stove glowed, radiating a pleasant warmth—a welcome contrast to the barren cold just outside the thin walls of the house.

Laurie leaned against Faith, who had let her arm fall around the girl. She grew sleepy, but she had never heard her father say so much about the war, and she wished he would never stop. There was a curious feeling about being held by Faith, and she sat there quietly savoring it.

Finally Winslow started and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m getting to be an old bore! Next thing I’ll be sitting around the courthouse with all the other old vets telling how I showed Bobby Lee how to fight a war!”

Faith shook her head. “It was a terrible time, wasn’t it? I’m glad it’s over.”

“So am I. I left a lot of good friends on those fields in Virginia.” Then, wanting to change the subject, he asked, “How’s the school going?”

“Not too well, I’m afraid.”

Winslow gave her a quick glance, noting that her face was somewhat drawn, with a few lines etched around her eyes. “You mustn’t be discouraged, Faith,” he said quickly. “It takes a long time to get to know these people. They’ve been shoved around for so long by white people, it’s a wonder they don’t hate us all.” Then he added, “Some of them do, of course. Geronimo and Roman Nose and Victorio—the real fire eaters. I don’t think they’ll ever become tame Indians. They’re just too wild to become farmers.”

“All the papers from the East are talking about the Indian problem. And they don’t agree with each other.” Faith got up and brought a few newspapers from a table. “This is from
the
Boston Post.
” She read the item to him aloud. “ ‘The history of relations between the white man and red has been an unbroken story of rapacity, cruelty and of complete lack of feeling on the part of the white. Nothing has been constant with him except his sacred right to seize whatever land he wished from whatever Indian tribe he wished. We have no reason to be proud of our dealings with the weaker savage race. We have no right to call ourselves a civilized or cultured people with that record against us.’ ”

Winslow listened carefully, then said, “I wish more people felt like that.”

“So do I! But here’s an editorial from my own hometown paper, the
St. Louis Globe.
” She began to read, the anger noticeable in her face as she read:

“ ‘There is no use entering into a discussion of the morals of the white man versus the red man. All the debate in Christendom cannot blink the fact that the white man is a surging tide of conquest, of settlement and progress, whereas the Indian is content to roam nomadically across the land as he has done for tens of thousands of years, ignoring an earth which could provide him riches were he industrious enough to cultivate it. Primitive indolence and barbaric narrowness is his character, nor does he wish for anything we call civilization. Let us not shed tears over the ills done poor Lo. Poor Lo has been at the business of killing and raiding and stealing for many centuries—before the white man came. It is his one great objective in life. It is his profession and his pastime. Whereas, a white boy is taught to believe that the purpose of man is scientific and literary and social advancement, the one and only training an Indian boy ever receives is to go out and kill his enemy, thereby becoming great in his own tribe. Were the race of the Indian to die off tomorrow, there would be no permanent handiwork behind him, no inventions, no scholarship except a few primitive daubs on this or that rock, no system of ethics at all, not one worthy thing to justify his tenure upon the fairest of all continents. By contrast look
upon the white man’s record in a brief 250 years here. That should be answer enough to all the silly sentimentality current in the East. It is time now to end the endless marching and countermarching of skeleton cavalry columns commanded by officers who know nothing of savage warfare. It is time now to send in one large and determined expedition to crush savage resistance permanently and to confine the red man to the reservation, so that at least the white race may get on with its appointed destiny, which is to harness the continent and to build civilization’s network across it.’ ”

Faith abruptly walked over to the stove, opened the door, and with an angry gesture threw the paper into the glowing fire. Her face was flushed with more than the heat of the stove, her wide, expressive lips were drawn tightly together, and her gray eyes glinted with agitation. “I wonder what that editor would think if someone moved in and took his home away from him as he says we ought to do with the Indians!”