Chapter 9
Dec. 23, 1862
Half Breed Reservation, St. Deroin, Nebraska
Jamie Quinn woke when strong arms bent him from the waist and propped him up. “You sit up now and drink. See if you can do that.” He felt a cup against his lips and water pour into his mouth and out the sides. He closed his lips and swallowed. “There. Now, again.” Quinn drank. “Now we’ll have you sit way up. Here we go…up…and up!” The arms raised Quinn more. The pain in his head throbbed and his face glowed hot. “Now, drink some more.”
The next time Quinn woke, the woman came again with powder for his lips. He ate it and was eased back down and he slept some more, and when he woke next he was aware of light that came through his bandage and that his head was wrapped. He heard the rustle of skirts. He moved his head and moaned.
A hand rested on his chest. “You’ve been shot. But don’t you worry. You’re OK. Just rest. Let me put your hands up over the quilt.”
Quinn turned his head and moaned.
He went back to sleep thinking about his name and her name.
In his dream he was back home listening to his mother and his sister talk, waiting for them to say his name. He couldn’t speak, because he wanted to remember their names, but he couldn’t. The dream was peaceful otherwise and stayed a long time. When he woke from that dream into another he figured it would be simple. He would just ask what his mother’s and sister’s names were and he’d be OK. Then he slept peacefully for a long time.
When he woke he was lying with his head propped up slightly and it hurt when he moved. He remained still and tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t. He let thoughts come as they would and didn’t try to connect them. When the light came back he would think clearly and he drifted in and out of dreaming and waking. Light came back and he was aware for the first time of the sounds of low talking and some banging.
He raised his hands to his face and felt gingerly over the bandage. He hurt himself and the pain went down through his teeth and back to his throat. He couldn’t swallow and he choked and coughed.
“So you’re up!”
He touched his cheek and made a sound.
“Let’s bring him up a bit. Just lay back and we’ll prop you up.”
He felt arms on either side raise him. “That’s it. Now the blanket. There. A little drink and then. Some more medicine.” He felt the cup at his lips and he drank. “Now, open a little and…” He felt the grains on his teeth and lips. “Now, swallow. Here’s a little more water.” He worked the powder back and took a drink. “We’ll let you sit up for a while. I’ll be back.”
Quinn moaned and brought his hand to his face. “It’s OK,” she said and she took his hand, placed it on his chest and patted it. “You’ll be OK.”
Later she changed the bandage on his face and he screamed. She covered both his eyes and gave him morphine and he slept. In the dream he saw his mother and his sister and he called out to them and they answered, but when he awoke he couldn’t remember their names.
When he awoke, no light came in through the bandage. He waited for her and when he heard her, he tried to speak. He didn’t recognize the croak and she came over. “Let’s have some water, now. Let’s see if you can help me raise you up.” He struggled to get up on his elbows and she raised him from there. “Good! Today we’ll give you some food and you’ll get your strength back. And then you’ll be up and about.”
Quinn put his lips together and tried to speak. “Let’s drink first.” After the water Quinn tried again to say ‘thank you’ and it sounded more human. His face and his throat were swollen and breathing through his mouth had dried everything.
That afternoon he said ‘thank you’ and he laughed when she fed him applesauce and he smacked and licked his lips when she fed him mashed carrots and potatoes flavored with salt and butter. When she wiped his mouth, he smiled.
When he awoke next she came and knelt next to him. “You’re going to have to help me with this. We’re going to get you up to the table and take a look at your eye. First we sit you up.” She helped him sit. “Now, roll over this way, and if you can kneel up I’ll help you into the chair.”
The move was slow and awkward, but when Quinn was seated, she wheeled him into the next room.
“I’m going to bring you over to the table and we’ll go to work from there.” He was aware of the smell and flicker of candles. She took his left hand and set it flat on the table. “Here’s the table. I’m going to take off the bandages and take a look. Don’t try to open your eye.” She cut the bandage behind his head and began unwrapping and it hurt when she pulled it away. That done, she put a warm cloth in his hand. “I want you to hold this over your right eye. Keep it closed. And I want you to leave it there until I come back. Hold it there lightly. There.”
The cloth was soft and the water was warm and while she was gone Quinn ran the fingers of his left hand over his brow and then lightly down the side of his face. When she came back she took the cloth. “Now open your eye.” He opened his right eye and it burned on the outside and ached at the root and it was a blur. “The eye is not damaged. It’s dry and it’s sensitive to light. Close your eye. Close it now. Rest it for a minute.” She took the cloth from him and wiped around his eye. “Now, open it and exercise it a little--blink and look from side to side.” She stood in front of him.
“Now look at me.”
“It hurts.” He blinked. He saw her in a blur. “What’s in there?” He cupped his left hand over his left eye. “In my bad eye?”
“It’s packing. It needs to be changed and the socket needs to heal.”
He dropped his hand. “And my nose.”
“The bullet took a piece of bone out of the bridge. We don’t know whether a fragment from the nose or the socket pierced the eye, but it was a piece of bone that did it. I’m going to first remove the packing and inspect the wound. Are you ready?” Quinn nodded. “Lean your head back just a bit.” She pulled the lamp on the table close. “Now close your eye. Keep your head back.”
He felt her palm cool and dry on his forehead, and at first he felt pressure and then a deep pain that pulled from the back of his head and he gasped. She moved her hand from his forehead to the back of his neck and pushed him forward. “Sit up now. Don’t open your eye yet. We’ve got one more. You’re doing fine. It looks good. Are you ready?” He grunted and nodded and she gently pushed his head back and this time he was ready and took a deep breath and didn’t let it out until she sat him straight.
“You can open your eye now. We’ve got one more thing to do and then you can go lie down.” He turned and looked down at the clotted lumps in the basin and leaned over and smelled. “Now sit straight.” She brought the lamp close to his face and leaned over and brought her face close to his. “It’s not bad. It’s angry, but it’s healing. We’ve got to wash it out now and keep it open to the air for today. There’ll be more pain, but this’ll help it heal.”
When she came with the water she said, “This is warm salt water. I’m going to pour it over your wound and it’ll be a little messy and it’ll sting a little. Ready?” She held the back of his neck with one hand and he shut his eye and leaned back and she poured. He held his breath and at first it burned and then felt warm and ran down his face. “There.” She put the pitcher on the table. He sat up, opened his eye, and leaned over. When she came back with a flannel, he sat up and she wiped his face and patted around the socket.
“Can I see it?” he asked.
“I think we’ve done enough for today. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Is it bad? Please. I want to see.” He ran his hand gingerly over his face.
“No, it’s not bad. You can see it tomorrow before I dress it again. It can wait.”
In the morning he was awake when she came to him. “Now? Can I see it?” He raised himself on his elbows.
She knelt down next to him. “Today we will let you look at yourself before I dress your wound and cover it. But I want you to be prepared. You’re no
t pretty.” She smiled down at him. “Before you do that, I want to tell you some things and then maybe answer some questions. Let me go first. You were brought here by our friend Marion. She saved your life, you know. You were pretty bad.”
“I thought I remember hearing her voice, but I wasn’t sure I remembered right.” He rolled over on his side. “Can you help me sit up?” She propped him up. “She brought me here? Did she say what happened?”
“She did. You were shot in the face and left for dead. She got you in a boat and took you downriver. This is St. Deroin, part of the Half Breed Reservation.”
“Nebraska or Kansas?”
“Nebraska. Down in the corner. My name is Lucy Faw Faw. I was born Lucy Deroin. My grandfather started the town.”
“And my name is Quinn. I think you know that. Jamie Quinn. My memory is a little foggy, but I know who I am.” He sighed. “I think I know who I am. If this is a half-breed reservation, then you must be…”
“I am part Ioway, and part white American. It’s complicated, but this place has been set aside for us misfits and we’ve built a pretty good place here. I’ve left and gone other places. This is my home now.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing it. And thank you again, for taking care of me. If Marion saved my life, I think it’s you who kept me all along from dying. How long have I been here?”
“Nearly two weeks. You were unconscious when you came and I was afraid the brain swelling would take you. We kept giving you water and letting you sleep and gradually you came around.”
“I remember I kept wanting to go back to sleep. I didn’t want to wake up. Because of the pain.”
“We were lucky we had the morphine. It was Marion, me, and Miss Morphine that saved you. I think maybe without her the pain would’ve killed you. That, and you’re a tough man, Mr. Quinn, so let’s say it was the four of us saved you.” She smiled.
“So I’m going to live.” He gave a short laugh. “Where did you learn to take care of men with broken eyes?”
“That’s a nice phrase. In Otoe your name might be ‘Isdani Nadoxe.’ Broken Eye. Indian names are so much more interesting than European names.”
“You are Ioway and speak Otoe.”
“Otoe, Ioway, Missouria--same language, different dialects. We’re all half-breeds here together now. And we all speak American.”
“What is your Otoe name? What do they call you here?”
“They call me Lucy. Lucy Faw Faw.” She laughed. “We are quite white here in the Tract. We are the survivors.”
“What name were you born with, then?”
“My Eagle Clan name is Marata. Some say it different--Morata. It means Echo Woman.
“English names used to have meaning. Yours still does. Lucy means ‘light.’”
“And my namesake is the patron saint of blindness. Did you know that? If I’m named for St. Lucille, that is, and not for Lucifer.” She put her chin to her chest and laughed.
“You didn’t tell me where you learned doctoring, Ma ra ta.”
“I have learned many things. I learned early to care for the sick.”
“You are something, Mrs. Faw Faw.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Then you are married?”
“Yes, but I’ve never been called Mrs. Faw Faw. Even with the Agency, I’m listed as Lucy Deroin Faw Faw.”
“Then I’ll call you Lucy. Lucy, I’m impressed with your skill. You must have seen surgery.”
“You expected to be treated by a medicine woman on a dirt floor in a tipi, Mr. Quinn?”
“I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t want to die, I know that.”
“As you will see, we don’t have tipis here. We have houses and a few lodges. My grandfather was an educated man.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“I’m not insulted. I was the one who brought it up. I got sensitive to the white man’s attitudes toward Indians when I was sent back east. My grandfather sent me back to Boston to school when I was eight. I came back here five years ago to teach in the school and to help the sick. I have spent the last year and a half in field hospitals, so my training was there. That’s my brief experience. I returned home for what the military courteously calls a ‘leave.’ And you can thank the Union Army for the morphine. You’ll be glad to know there’s more where that came from.”
She laughed and patted his hand. “Right now, though, I need to tell you about your eye.”
He nodded.
“We took it the night you were brought here. I was confident--hopeful, anyway--that we could do it without complications. My biggest fear was that you would thrash about and do more damage to your brain. We iced your head and face and gave you chloroform and it went smoothly. What you are going to see is not terrible. I just want to prepare you.” She held up the mirror.
Quinn took it and saw a ruined face, swollen and discolored with an angry hole half covered by a flap of skin. He didn’t want to focus on it. His beard was a patchy stubble, as was the left side of his head. And his left eyebrow was gone. His head was misshapen, out of balance. He held his left hand over the left side of his face to see if he could recognize himself and he couldn’t. He dropped the mirror to his lap and muttered an oath. Then he eased himself back and dropped his head to his chest.
“You will heal and you will be fine,” she said. “The swelling will go down and your face will adjust. It will. I’ve seen it.”
He didn’t look at her. “You’ve seen it,” he said.
“Yes. I’ve seen this and worse, Mr. Quinn. The war is horrible. You’re going to be all right. The socket looks good. We’ll cover it today and tomorrow we’ll give you a patch you can take off and put on, and I’ll show you how to care for the wound. Then you’re on your own.” She took the mirror from his lap and stood. “I’ll be back in a little to dress the wound and maybe then you can get up and…” She paused and searched for a good phrase. “…and we can take a walk.”
When she came back with her hands full, Quinn was sitting atop his folded blankets at the foot of the pallet. “I’m ready. If you give me the patch I can leave this afternoon. I’ll need my clothes.”
She took his arm and helped him up and led him to the table. “Sit.” He shook off her hand. She pulled over a small crock, a pair of scissors, and a pack of rolled bandages and stood at arm’s length. “Mr. Quinn. Sit and I’ll make a bandage and I’ll show you how to care for yourself. Please sit.”
He sat.
“Yesterday we washed the socket with saltwater. This…” She dipped her finger into the crock and held it up to him. “This is an ointment from the Otoe healing.” She spread it thick on the square of cloth and gave it to him. “Here. Hold this against the socket while I wind this band around your head.”
He took the pad and looked at it. “That’s what I smelled on the stuff you pulled from my eye. I can’t smell much but that really stinks. What’s in it?”
She looked down at him. “The worst of the smell is your blood. My grandmother would say it is your dying spirit that smells. Put the pad on your eye now.”
“You mixed my blood in that stuff?” He held the pad in place.
“A few drops.” She began to wrap the bandage around his head. “Mixed with buffalo fat and gall, laced with yarrow, squirrel tail, wound wort, and garlic. There are a few other things to make it smell better.”
“Squirrel tail?”
“Those are herbs, Mr. Quinn. Purified. Used by our people for centuries. Now hold still while I pin this in the back.”
He turned his head and looked at her. “And gall? That’s an herb?”
“No. That’s from the buffalo’s stomach. The same buffalo that owned the fat. Now sit still.”
She pinned the bandage and stepped back and folded her arms.
“Jamie, your wound isn’t healed. I don’t want you leaving until it is. You get a fever in it and it’ll go directly to your brain, and then where will you be? When you leave, when you
are healed, you’ll go prepared. You’ll have salve and salt, a leather eye-patch, morphine, and directions to wherever you want to go.
Right now, what do you have? Marion brought in your rifle, and you had a knife and a few coins. You were dressed in a big old buffalo coat and cap and were wearing brogans that are too big for you. We’ve washed your clothes and cleaned your cap as best we could.” She walked to his side and put her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t even know where you are. Where will you go? From what I understand, you don’t have a home, and any plans you had were pretty much shattered by the man who shot you.”
Quinn leaned his arms on the table and put his head in his hand and wept.
She picked up the scissors, the crock, and the remaining bandages. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Come into the kitchen when you’re ready. We’ll have breakfast.”
The smell of bacon roused him from his self-pity and he went into the kitchen. He was hungry and, he thought, glad to be hungry.
She was standing at the stove forking strips of bacon onto a plate on the warmer above. “How do you like your eggs?” she asked without turning.
“Any way is good. I just like eggs. Thanks for taking care of me. I know I thanked you before, but this morning it’s not the thanks of a drowning man. I know what you did for me.”
“Let me get these eggs done. It’ll only take a couple of minutes. Sit there.”
She pulled a skillet with two thick pieces of crusty bread out of the oven and brought it to the table and slid one onto his plate and one onto hers. Then she brought the bacon, flipped the eggs, poured the coffee, and finally brought over the skillet with the eggs. She slid four eggs onto his plate and two onto hers. She sat next to him and pulled over a tray loaded with condiments. “There! Let’s eat. Help yourself.”
Quinn poured cream and spooned sugar into his coffee.
“Dig in,” she said. “You can put jam on the fry bread or pile your eggs on it. I like the jam.” She quartered the bread and dished jam onto her plate.
“You said Marion brought me here. Is she OK?”
“She’s OK now. She’s not hurt. She brought you downriver in Rafe’s boat and put in at a place called Indian Cave. She told me she slid the boat along on the ice until she got south of the island, where she found a current. When she got to the cave she left you there and came here for help.”
“Where’s Rafe?”
“They killed Rafe. The men who shot him didn’t find her. And they left you for dead.”
“Did she tell you anything about what happened?”
“She told me the whole story, but I’ll let her tell it when you see her.”
“Where did she go? Have you heard from her?”
“She said she was going to find the men who killed her husband and burned the hotel. I gave her clothes and food and sent her with a friend to Quindaro with the names of some men who could help her. She made it fine. She wrote and said she’ll be at the Six Mile House--it’s between Quindaro and Leavenworth--and if she’s not there, they’ll know where to find her.”
“I know I’m not ready to go, but I’d like to find the men who did this, too.”
“There’ll be time. When you’re strong enough I’ll outfit you and send you on your way. Let’s take that walk. I’m proud of what we’ve built here and I’d like to show you off.”
“Show me off?”
“Sure! Everybody in the village found an excuse to come by when you were unconscious on the floor. My reputation as a healer needs you to get up and walk around. And.” She paused. “I want to go out and see how the preparation’s coming for tonight’s festival.”
“Tell me about this place.”
“St. Deroin is a village on the eastern edge of what’s called The Half-Breed Tract. It’s a settlement for Indians who are not claimed by their clan, and they’re outcasts in white society. We are mostly children of white fathers and Otoe-Missouria mothers. We were given the land between the Big and Little Nemaha and running for ten miles in from the Missouri River. The boundary lines have been moved twice because of white squatters. We stay to ourselves. We plant and we hunt some, not buffalo anymore, but small game. Our settlement is dying out. The land we’ve been given was restructured, as they say. There are problems.”
“Is that why your grandfather sent you away? For you to learn to live in white society?”
“I don’t think so. He had his dreams. I think he wanted me to come back and help lift the whole community back on its feet. That was the unspoken message I got, anyway. Looking back, though, perhaps it was to keep me out of harm’s way, to keep me safe.”
“Life here wasn’t safe?”
“When I was young, I thought so. When I came back I found it was a different story. The border skirmishes that started soon after I left Deroin bled over into this corner of Nebraska. And I found out when I came back that for years my grandfather and many of the clan worked as the first Nebraska stop on Jim Lane’s Freedom Road.”
“I spent five years across the river from Nebraska City in East Port, Iowa,” Quinn said. “Everyone knows about the Lane trail. I was there when John Brown came through with those 12 slaves. Everybody acted as if the Mayhew cabin was a secret. Probably the only people who didn’t know about it were the two men in town who owned slaves, and if they did know, they couldn’t have done anything about it.”
“What saved us from the depredations that others on the Freedom Road suffered further south was the insulation of the Half Breed Nation. We always saw them coming. And when the slave chasers figured us out, they simply laid in wait above us up near Nemaha City. So we changed the route and started taking them across the river at Indian Cave and up to Lewis Landing and then to Civil Bend.
Nowadays, by the time the runaways get here, they’re almost home free. When I came back from Boston, getting the fugitives to the next station wasn’t so easy. In ‘58 I was 16 and full of fire for freedom, and I was a celebrity for about a day.” She laughed. “And then the next day I was just the clan’s newest abolitionist. I started a school and a clinic here and when the war broke out, I used my connections to get assigned to a field hospital in Mississippi. The army took any woman who didn’t faint at the sight of blood and sent them to follow the troops. When the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry went with Grant to Tennessee, I was moved to Leavenworth and then came back here.” She put down her fork. “I stay in contact with my friends attached to the Kansas Seventh, and that has served me well.” She went to the stove and brought back the coffee pot and refilled their cups.
Quinn thanked her and sipped from the cup. “I came over in ‘58 and kept my head down and worked hard to bring my family over. I worked wherever I could, mostly on the railroad. I worked in Iowa and Missouri, digging drainage and building roadbeds. And I worked freight transfers at Nebraska City off and on. My politics were still tied to the old country and I set my sights on freeing my own family. When you’re in Ireland, America looks pretty good.”
They both were quiet for a while.
“How long have I been here?”
“You came here the 19th. You were unconscious and unresponsive for three days and then in and out for a couple more. I fed you morphine to keep you quiet. I was afraid you’d thrash about and hurt yourself. But you’re well now. You can get up and pretty much do what you want, although I’d advise against traveling for a while. Would you like to take a walk around the place now? Just give me a few minutes to clean up the dishes.”
“It looks like I missed Christmas.”
“You were in and out of it. Your Christmas dinner was mashed carrots, and applesauce mixed with grits. And a slug of my magic potion—herbs mixed with a little morphine powder and dissolved in warm apple cider.”
“I’ve still got New Year’s to look forward to.”
“That’s tonight. We’ve got a big feast planned, with prayers, followed by a bonfire, and dancing and singing. We’ve got lots to celebrate.”
“More than other
years?”
“I should say! Emancipation is effective at the stroke of midnight. It’s what we worked for.”
“Oh. I’d forgotten. I’m sure I knew that. Things are a little fuzzy and my brain’s not all that good.”
“It’s an important day for all of us, but there’s still a war to be won and thousands of freedmen to be cared for.”
“Then runaways won’t be a problem.”
“Not the same problem—maybe a bigger one than we expect, though. Lincoln’s emancipation has made holding slaves a war crime. But the proclamation only applies to the states in rebellion. Slavery is still legal in border states like Missouri that refused to join the Confederacy. The slave chasers are having a field day there. More slaves are running north and the hawks are scooping them up along with freedmen and selling them downriver. Did you know you can still own slaves in St. Louis and there’s an auction block in Lexington, Kentucky?”
She stood and began clearing the table. “But enough of that talk. Let me finish and we’ll take that walk.”
She took dishes to the sink and turned. “There’s something I have to tell you, Jamie. Marion brought you here with very little--besides your buffalo robe, a pack with a big black coat, some utensils, and some letters. That’s what I have to confess. I read the letters, so I know something about why you came back to Lewis Landing. I’m sorry about Marjorie.”
“I’m sorry about Marjorie, too. I don’t know what happened. She just disappeared. We used to joke about how we both died and came back to life. We had a lot of fun playing around with that. We even made up a religion that was open only to people who had died and come back to life. She’s gone and I keep thinking how she’d get a kick out of knowing that I did it again. Died and came back. But my mother would say, ‘Now, Jamie. That’s God’s way of punishing you for your blasphemy.’” He laughed.
“And my mother might tell you that it was God’s way of saving you for another purpose.”
“Your mother was religious?”
“She was, but not in that way.” She laughed. “I was freely translating.”
She walked with him on her arm through the village and introduced him to people along the way and she answered his questions.
At the center of the village they came to a clearing of packed dirt with a pyre in the middle ready to be lit. “This is where the important ceremony will take place. We will eat at those tables over there, and, after we eat, there will be some singing, and a member of the Fox clan that lives south of us will give a prayer and talk about the Jesus Road. He will speak in English, so you will understand that part. Then there will be an Otoe prayer, which you won’t understand. Then there will be more eating and the fire will be lit and then there’ll be a few men dancing, but after that you must go back to your pallet. I will give you something to help you sleep.” She laughed. “Lord knows, you’ll need it! The dancing and singing will go on all night.”
“I take it I am not invited.”
“I’m sorry, no. Even the Fox and Sac who have come up for this celebration will be asked to sit this one out. Jamie, I’m going to take you back now. You see? You don’t have your strength back. I’ll give you some medicine and put you down for your nap. You can sleep the afternoon away so you’ll be fresh for this evening.” She laughed. “Before you take a little rest, let’s fit you with a better patch.”
She took him into the kitchen and sat him at the table. She handed him a stitched leather patch with four rawhide thongs sewn to the edges.” I want you to wear a pad behind this, for a while, at least.”
Quinn turned it over in his hand. The convex outer surface was hard leather and the inside was lined with tanned soft leather. “How do I wear this?” He held it up by two of the strings.
“I suggest that you wear it over your bad eye.” She bent down and looked him in the face. She smiled. “Let me help you.” She took the strings and held it in front of him. “Hold the patch lightly over the eye so two of the thongs go back over the top of your head and two down low--your ear’ll be in the middle between the two. Here.” She tied the two on top. “Once you get the proper length figured out, you can tie the top strings before you slip it on, and then just reach behind your head and tie the bottom two.”
Quinn reached back and fumbled with the strings. “I know I’ll be able to do this. Maybe just in a knot.”
She took the strings and tied them in a bow. “A little practice. You learned to tie your shoes, you can learn to tie this.”
Despite his curiosity, Quinn slept through the singing and dancing and woke refreshed in the morning. When Lucy came in to wake him, he was sitting cross-legged on his pallet.
“Good morning! Good dreams, Mr. Quinn?
“All my dreams are good,” he lied. “Did the singing and dancing go on all night? I slept hard. I imagine that was thanks to you. Today I’d like to get my Sharps and go out and see if I can hit anything. Good thing it was my left eye.”
“After breakfast you can do what you like.”
“And maybe a horse?”
“We’ll see. Come in and sit while I fix breakfast. It’s eggs and fried grits this morning. And coffee.”
While she busied herself at the stove, she recounted the evening’s celebration. “After the gourd dance--everybody dances the gourd dance--we ended the evening with the tail dance, a ritual dance performed by only the initiated. Earlier in the evening I talked with a man who met you as we walked through the village. Do you remember? I introduced him as Cedar Tree, Par-the-me.”
“I remember that name, yes.”
“He is a cousin and taught me much about medicine. He suggested I bring you to the sweat lodge tonight. He thought it might do you good.” She held up her hand. “And before you say anything, let me tell you that it can’t do you any harm, and if you approach the experience with healing in mind, it can do wonders.”
Quinn smiled. “It might. In former days, I’d rely on a bottle of whiskey and maybe a book.”
“I’m serious, Jamie.”
Quinn didn’t reply and she continued. “The sweat lodge is a ritual cleansing. You might treat it as a healing experience both physical and spiritual.”
“Sounds like you’ve been reading my mind as well as my mail.” When she didn’t respond he said, “I’d like to go. If I stay here, this’ll be just another place. I don’t know if I can stay here and not go crazy. Just give me a horse and my rifle and a map, I’ll be going.”
“Let’s have breakfast first and we’ll outfit you, and then you can decide.”
Breakfast was quiet. “I can give you a horse and a map, Jamie, and let you go your way, or I can give you escorts to the way stations on the Lane Trail. You can take the trail to above Topeka and then over to Leavenworth and either way it’ll take you three days. I want you to take the trail and stay on it. It’s not safe to wander.”
“If you give me a map and some places to stop along the way. I’d just as soon not sleep out, but Lucy, I don’t need an escort. People got things to do other than lead me around. I’ll be OK by myself.”
“I don’t think you’re ready, but go if you want. Don’t be afraid to turn around and come back here. There’ll be a place for you sick or well.”
Breakfast ended with a detailed map and notes. Lucy listed places to stop, names of farmers, problem areas on the trail. When she was finished Quinn said, “I’ll have no trouble. I can do this and I promise I’ll be back.”
Lucy gathered his things and gave him a medicine bag. “Here’s the salt, ointment, and a packet of morphine. You know how to take care of yourself and I know you will. The extra things in the bag, just hold on to them and think of them as me traveling along with you. You can get a good day’s ride under your belt and stay at Reese’s and Bauer’s. They’ll take care of you. Just mention my name and show them this. When you get to Fort Leavenworth, ask for one of the men listed at the bottom.” She handed him a folded paper. “Consider this your ticket to ride the Freedom Road.”
Quinn opened the paper. On it were Lucy’s name and the fraction “36/40 and the names Blunt, Jennison, Hoyt, Swain. He stuffed the paper in his pocket and said nothing. “There are good people out there,” she said, “and I don’t need to tell you that there are bad people out there, too.”
She had packed food for the journey and a bag of extra clothes for him. Quinn loaded and balanced the bags on his horse and tied them behind the saddle. Then he shoved the Sharps rifle into the boot and swung onto the horse. “I’ll be back, and when I do I’ll not be the sickly, one-eyed sack I feel like today. Thanks, Lucy.”
Quinn's War Page 10
