Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  ‘Are you looking for the word “betrothed”?’ asked Jake. She snatched a little handkerchief out of her cuff and put it to her mouth with a sob. ‘Well, why did you take it, then? And why, now that we come to it, do you come over here alone all the time if you’re so damned proper and I’m so dangerous?’

  ‘Are you accusing me of coming in here just to—’

  ‘Oh, hell, Carrie!’ he shouted, and she subsided into fresh tears.

  He had begun to feel he might be able to get up, but he stayed where he was, watching her. He felt certain her panic had nothing to do with fear of assault. He was almost as certain that she was beginning to realize it, too. Her tears had taken on a different tone; less defensive, quieter. She was ashamed of herself, and it wasn’t because she had broken the rules of deportment, or kneed him like a swamp fighter, or made a scene.

  ‘I’m sorry if I upset you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have any base motives at the moment. If it doesn’t make things worse to say so, I was a little surprised myself. I just saw a pretty face and kissed it, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m not pretty,’ she mourned, mopping her eyes.

  ‘You were a minute ago.’

  She shuddered a lost sob and sighed. They sat looking at each other from opposite sides of the narrow room. Then she turned pink again.

  ‘I — said something a moment ago, when I was upset, that I didn’t mean to say. I hope you’ll forget it.’

  He was puzzled, then remembered. He looked at her levelly.

  ‘I guess I was too busy trying to defend myself. I didn’t hear what you said.’

  She looked at him over her fingertips as .she finished mopping her nose, then let her hands fall into her lap. ‘Thank you. May I go now?’

  He got up, rescuing the shawl from the floor, and held it out to her again. After a slight hesitation, she stood and took it, folding it over her arm.

  ‘Well,’ she whispered in a shaken voice that tried to make itself sound amused. ‘We both seem to have misunderstood each other pretty thoroughly, don’t we? If the children were still here none of this would have happened.’ Her head drooped over the bundled shawl. ‘Then I wouldn’t be feeling like such a stupid, foolish old maid.’ There was a loose strand of hair by her cheek that had escaped the rest in the struggle. For a brief second he felt all the sensations of touching her again to brush that pale straggler back into the fold, but he didn’t move.

  ‘You ought to get out of here,’ he said suddenly. ‘I don’t mean the jail; I mean the town. There isn’t anything for you here, and there never will be.’

  She sighed, fingering the shawl. ‘Thank you for your concern, but we’ve already been to so many other places. None of them were much different.’

  ‘I’m not talking about your brother, just you. Let him stay here and run his own life. He can do it. You get out and live yours.’

  She looked at him slowly. ‘Without Clem? Where would I go, what would I do, without him?’

  ‘You’ve got brains and spirit. Teach school, keep books, run somebody else’s paper. Make hats. Get married. Have kids. Live your own life before it’s too late.’

  Her eyes clouded. ‘You said something like that once before. Did Clem ask you to make the suggestion?’

  ‘Oh, my God, no. It just seems like the only sensible thing, for a woman like you.’

  ‘A woman like me.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I see. And where should I go to do all these wonderful things?’

  ‘Anyplace you like. St Louis, New Orleans, Denver, San Antonio — El Paso.’

  She studied him gravely now. ‘Have you been to all those places since you left Willow Bend, Jacob?’

  ‘Most of them.’

  ‘But they weren’t good enough to keep you.’

  ‘They were for a while. The thing is, you’re free to do things there that you can’t do here. And you’re free to go if you don’t want to stay any more. Nobody’s hurt.’

  She nodded. ‘Freedom must be a fine thing for a man. For a woman it’s different. I’m afraid I’d only be thinking about how lonely I’d be there, not how free. Or is it enough just to be there, even if you have no friends or family?’ He was silent. Her eyes held him. ‘Say it, Jake, why don’t you? It’s the only point this conversation has, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you went to El Paso, you’d know me.’

  ‘You do have truly generous instincts sometimes, don’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not being sarcastic. You’ve just been good enough to offer me the sort of gallant proposition you think every hopeless spinster needs to press to her heart, so she can say in after years, “I was asked, though of course I couldn’t accept.” Thank you for the shawl, Jacob.’ She slipped past him and out the door.

  He let the latch fall and hit the closed door with his fist, doubling over clutching his bruised knuckles in the other hand a second later. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus!’

  He felt as if he had been squeezed dry and sucked out hollow like one of Delia’s breakfast oranges, and the only thing that rushed in to fill the void was contempt for himself for not seeing what had been so plain. He’d been conning himself all afternoon. He’d bought that damned shawl for her in the first place!

  He paced the jail nursing his injured hand, then went out to walk the streets, trying to turn his anger with himself to some account. He needed a drink, but didn’t buy one. The town was still awake and lively, but he was as blind to the activity as if he had been alone in Arredondo. Friendly greetings went unheard, and the look on his face was enough to quell any further approaches.

  He returned to the jail determined to dismiss the whole memory of his self-betrayal and get some sleep. But he wasn’t able to con himself into that. Sleep stayed at a safe distance while he lacerated his imagination with all the things he should have said or done in the last two or three days.

  He should have told her about her sniveling, cheating brother, who had let her waste herself mothering and pitying him; who was out using what he wasn’t supposed to have on Delia Moon while Carrie sat home lighting candles for the dear departed.

  He should have balled Delia himself, first thing this morning. That was all that was wrong with him. All he would have needed for her forgiveness was a little money to dangle under her nose. She’s been giving it away free to that smug little bastard, from the way it sounded. It would have been a useful education to Clem to see how forgiving money could make a damned woman feel.

  But Delia wasn’t the core of his rage with himself. It was that charade with Carrie. He should have put a stop to that before it got started. It was bad enough that he’d gulled himself, but he’d let her do it, too. Who the hell did she think she was? She had more brass than a Spanish cannon, trying to act shocked and insulted just because he’d kissed her. Since the moment he had touched her, Willow Bend was as clear in his mind as yesterday, and she hadn’t forgotten it, either. If he’d listened to what her mouth and body were telling him, instead of her conventional little conscience, he’d have settled the matter in a way that would have done them both good.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time. He was supposed to forget about that. That was her big secret. That was why she’d been afraid to accuse the men who’d trapped her in McNaughton’s barn. They’d have said the same thing, and her cowardly little mind would have turned against her and confessed. Now she had the gall to act like the grand duchess of all the virgins with him!

  But castigating her didn’t make him easier. He began to suspect that even his anger was only another self-deceit. His churned and muddled mind, half asleep, wouldn’t focus on that matter. Instead, he plowed up ancient fields of trouble in Willow Bend and elsewhere, putting Carrie in the place of other women he had known; finding her at fault each time and leaving her for it, again and again.

  He fell asleep at last with a score of uncommitted sins fresh on his head, a prey to anxious dreams until dawn; then he lay in oblivion until late in the morning.

  He woke because of some noise he couldn’t
identify at once and sat on the edge of the bed feeling sour, tired, and old. There was another feeling, nastier than the rest. He mistook it for stale disgust and dismissed it as he started to shave.

  He noticed the outside noise again and knew it now for the creaking of heavy wagons in the street. There was a clatter of horses and men’s voices raised in excitement. He put down the razor and went to the door to look out.

  He could not have been in worse condition to face the coming of the mail-order brides to Arredondo.

  *

  He came out of the jail, still unshaven, tucking his shirt into his pants. Two wagons had stopped in front of the cantina, and the women were getting out. The street was filling up with people coming to greet them. Clement Hand was already there, handing them out of the wagons and trying to look happy. He didn’t have much cause for rejoicing. It was plain at first sight that there was going to be trouble over them.

  They were pitifully few to begin with, compared with what had been expected. They had come in with a military escort of twelve dust-caked, thirsty troopers from Fort Cummings.

  ‘Where are the rest of the ladies?’ Clem asked the corporal in charge of the expedition.

  ‘That’s the whole shipment, as far as I know,’ the young man said, slapping the dirt off his coat. ‘Twelve of them. What’d you expect?’

  ‘Fifty. What happened? Are the rest of them sick?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask her — the señora there. She’s in charge.’ The corporal was eager to follow his men into the cantina.

  A stern-looking young woman with two gun belts strapped around her black bombazine hips climbed out of the first wagon and went straight into Hernando Sánchez’s waiting arms. They embraced and kissed as if the street were deserted. Clem waited until they drew back to examine each other with the expressionless passion of matadors before he asked, ‘Señora Sánchez, where are the rest of the ladies?’

  ‘Flew d’ coop,’ she said briskly. Then, at Clem’s blank look, she reported the rest of the tale to Sánchez in rapid Spanish, and let him translate.

  ‘Soledad says when she met the women in Santa Fe there were sixteen of them in charge of the red-haired one there. Four ladies went for walks from the hotel and did not return. The rest she escorted to Fort Cummings, where they must wait for two weeks to find someone who will bring them here. The soldiers finally do it because the ladies cause so much trouble there the comandante put them in the wagons himself.’ He looked at his wife to see if she had more to tell. She shrugged, and they fell into each other’s arms again.

  Clem turned to look at the women in despair. Some of them were sniveling with relief or disappointment to have reached their destination.

  ‘Is this it? I mean, is this really it?’ one asked.

  ‘Oh, God, don’t say it that way! I thought we’d never get here.’

  ‘But is this really the place? I thought it was supposed to be a rich town like Denver!’

  Clem pushed through the throng, with apologies, to a sturdy-looking redhead who was surveying the street with her hands on her hips.

  ‘Miss — ah, Miss—’

  ‘O’Neal. Mary O’Neal. And who might you be?’

  ‘Clement Hand. Pleased to — ah, are you the lady who was in charge of the rest of the ladies into Santa Fe?’

  ‘That I was, and not by any choice of mine, mister. That man the agency sent with us dropped off the train in Cincinnati, and nobody ever got a glimpse of the creature again!’

  ‘What happened to the rest of the ladies? I understood there were to be fifty of them. We paid — ah, fifty were expected.’

  ‘Fifty started out, too. But they started leavin’ as soon as they saw nothin’ would happen if they did. After Cincinnati, we lost some at every stop. Them as could sew or wash or keep ‘house took a fancy to different towns. There was nothin’ I could do about it.’ She looked at the remainder. ‘Sweet lot of beggar maids, aren’t they? A credit to the female race. But they came. You have to give them that.’

  ‘Ah — yes. Well, won’t you come in out of the sun and take some refreshment? My sister is supposed to be here to help you get settled. He glanced at a flaxen-haired farm girl who was examining him. ‘You, too, miss.’

  She smiled and took his arm. ‘Sure.’ They went into the cantina.

  Sánchez saw Jake standing on the corner. ‘Patrón! Come over! You must meet my Soledad, the dove of my heart.’ He took her hand and offered it to Jake. ‘Is she not beautiful? And so brave! She was a Juarista, this one. She fought the Porfiristas in the mountains for four years, until the bad ones spoiled the revolution. Then she came here, and I caught her in my arms.’ He explained Jake to Soledad, who looked at him with unblinking jet eyes, and they went into the cantina.

  The place was crowded. Prudencia was at the bar pulling draughts of beer for the soldiers. Her face fell at the sight of the well-girded Señora Sánchez.

  Two of the subtribe of lavandería children burst into the barroom and flung themselves on Soledad. She hugged and kissed them, ruffling their tangled hair fondly. For the first time since her arrival her face relaxed into a warm smile. Then she took off her gun belts, put on an apron, and went to work behind the bar, ignoring Prudencia.

  The brides weren’t going to be so easily settled. They were already complaining to whoever would listen: about the trip, the heat, the food, and the disappointing size of Arredondo. They had just discovered there was no hotel to stay in.

  Clement Hand was in the midst of them, listening, nodding, trying to soothe and reassure. He looked as gray faced and nervous as Jake could ever have hoped, if he had cared anything about the matter that morning. Clem saw him at the bar and hurried over.

  ‘Dutch, would you come and say something to these women to convince them they’re going to be perfectly all right here when the soldiers leave?’

  ‘Which way are the troopers headed? Back the way they came?’

  ‘No, they’re riding on to Fort Bowie on some business of their own. I tried to get them to stay over until tomorrow, but they say they can’t do that.’

  ‘They’re pulling out again today?’

  ‘In an hour or so, yes. When they’ve eaten and fed the horses. But about the ladies—’

  ‘I guess that gives me enough time.’

  ‘Time? Time for what?’

  ‘To pack up and go with them.’

  ‘What? My God, you can’t do that just when we need you the most! You can reason with the boys here, the way you did the other night. Explain what happened and make them see they’re just going to have to be patient until we can decide how to do this thing.’

  ‘And how’s that going to be?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. We’ll have to have a meeting in a few minutes and discuss it.’

  Jake looked at him with disgust. ‘You’ll have another meeting. That’s fine! You had months to get ready for this. Why didn’t you have your damned meeting before now and make some plans? Why didn’t you get some of your people to throw up a barracks to put them in? What did you think they were all going to do, even if they did come? Pair up with a mucker as soon as they got off the wagon, like a reverse Noah’s ark?’ He drank the rest of his breakfast and put a dime on the bar beside the wet glass.

  ‘You cooked this mess up, Hand. You can serve it out. I wish you luck. My advice is to give each one of the “ladies” a broken bottle or an ax handle for a wedding present and let natural selection take care of the rest. Delia’s girls will take care of the leftovers.’

  Clem’s mouth tightened. ‘Listen, Jake, you took this job for a month. You promised you’d stay that long. You’ve been well paid for half that time, and you’ve had the fines, but you haven’t done much to earn the money. If your word means anything to you any more, you won’t run out on a job before it’s finished. Not if you’re the Jake Hollander I used to know.’

  Jake produced a tight roll of bills from his vest pocket and peeled off five of them.

  ‘What’s th
at for?’

  ‘That’s the two weeks’ pay you were talking about. I’ve been here close to three, but I’m willing to chalk the whole thing up to experience. Now, get out of my way. I’ve got to see the corporal about a ride back to civilization.’

  But the corporal was unexpectedly difficult. When Jake approached him he was carefully wiping his badly sun-burned young neck with a handkerchief dampened with some of his own beer. He heard Jake out respectfully, then sighed.

  ‘Sorry, mister. We’re behind two days already because of the women and all. We’ll be traveling light, and we’ll need every bit of food and all the remounts we’ve got for ourselves.’

  ‘I’ll buy my own horse and bring my own food.’

  The corporal shook his head. ‘Sir, if you want to straddle a horse and follow us to Fort Bowie I can’t stop you. But unless you have a remount and unless you’re used to riding all day, army style — walk, trot, walk — you’re going to fall behind, and I’m not going to wait for you. We tried to put up a good show for the ladies, but the fact is, all the stories they heard in Santa Fe were true, and there may be worse they didn’t hear.

  ‘There’s been three supply trains raided and two ranches burned out this month between Lordsburg and the southern border. That’s why they put us back at Cummings. Every kind of Apache you can name has put his paint on. I’ve got fifty miles of country to cover before I can call my hair my own, and all I want to do, sir, is get the hell through it as fast as I can.’

  He grinned a little at his own vehemence. ‘Now, if you had a Gatling gun instead of that old Bill Hickok there I’d make you welcome. As it is, it looks like there’s going to be a real down-home shivaree here tonight. If I was you I’d stick around and enjoy it.’

  Nor would Sánchez sell him a horse, pretending he had none to spare. Jake was seething, but when he remembered the quality of horseflesh he would be staking his life on he began to see he might as well have planned to walk.