A Reckoning

by Linda Spalding

  Lavina decided that Mister Kirk would determine her future. Because, had she ever determined it?

  67

  Nistschu. She kept her face smooth, moving only her mouth. Bry tried an answer. Nitsu. He was awake. He smelled wild onions and mint and meat. It wasn’t Emly’s house. It was a strange bark hut where he was lying on a mattress of grass and cattail fluff, covered with a blanket that had known other bodies over time.

  I crossed the river? This the north side?

  You almost dead. Here is south.

  Where is here?

  She laughed, making a sharp sound in her nose. I am here.

  I need to go north. If they catch me again…

  Hah. I too.

  Bry crawled out of the warm bed, but he could not attain his full height until he bent down and went through the door frame. Outside, he held his arms out shoulder-high. He was healed if a man who is not a man can ever be healed. A woman had offered her bed and crouched to one side of it to feed him broth. She showed him how she had pulled him out of the river after he got dragged eastward by the current, losing all the distance he’d traveled on foot. Her laugh was unlike any he had heard, like blowing through a wide-open pipe. He had nothing to offer but the muscles he flexed, old man that he was. He saw by the cook fire the metallic gleam of a gun. He saw by the sun the late time of day, although he wasn’t certain where he stood in relation to the river. He sniffed deeply, trying to smell running water. He sat down in a heap, suddenly tired again, but she brought him food after which he picked up the gun and studied it. Take, she said. We go? She made some paddling motion with her arms and watched his face.

  He finished the last of her meat supply that day, a meal of squirrel and onion and pounded acorns and mint. It meant using fingers and wondering what would come next, but while he ate, she began packing things in a deerskin parcel. He watched her wrap up roasted kernels of corn, seeds of the sunflower, acorn meal and corn meal and pemmican, which she brought forth from some hole in the ground of her house. He believed all of it was a gift for his journey but she stood in the late-afternoon sun and tied her hair in a knot and said: We go, and they then walked through fields white people had cut from the forest along the path she had dragged him over in an old buffalo skin. His boots had been lost in the killing river and there was first a cornfield, then a small creek, then a field plowed under that hurt the soles of his feet, then the river, which was only a mile from her camp by which time his feet were blistered and cut. Goodbye home, she said, waving her arm over her head.

  Under a clump of bush and bracken, she kept a canoe made from the trunk of a tree. As he brought it out into the lowering light she sang something not in words that Bry could recognize and he pushed the big canoe into the shallows and she climbed in very confidently, balancing on her knees and pointing at the prow. You.

  Bry had that memory of the river that had tried to kill him, and as he climbed over the gunwale, his trembling and shaking made the canoe rock dangerously but he managed to get down on his old sore knees as she pushed her paddle against the shore. Her first strokes against the current were cautious, as if she did not have the knack of paddling, and he wanted to help but he sat looking ahead, straight of back and afraid to turn. This was the only way to cross the Missouri and if he held himself very still, hardly breathing, he might survive it. But suddenly she stopped her strange whistling song and yelped: You work! And he touched the second paddle, which lay mostly behind him in the belly of the dugout and after some minutes of finding his balance he yanked it and lifted it and slid it into the water and the old canoe lurched and twisted until she showed him how to pull his paddle through water strewn with this and that. Showers and sun, showers and sun, and the air held more smell than color, the bottomlands with their cottonwoods leaking and Bry sneezed, rocking the dugout again so that it almost spilled them into the river. She kept a tuneless chant going until at last he crawled out of the dugout on the north side of the Missouri a few minutes after dark. I can make my way now. I thank you with all my heart. He put his hand over the central part of his chest.

  No! she said, laughing her piping laugh. You my slave they no stop you. You be safe with me. In canoe.

  He knew that even north of the river anyone could take him, report him, sell him back to the South, and slowly he began to see that her claim of ownership might help him proceed although it was a bitterness in his ears to hear the word slave spoken out loud. She said it again: My slave, and brought out a little of the pemmican to give him strength as the stars appeared to remind them of guidance. They slept curled apart in a small skin tent she had brought in her bundle. No dreams.

  Bry had not curled around a woman since his afternoons with Jemima and even in this close company, his sleep lasted only a few minutes at a time. When he opened his eyes, he could not believe the starlight that leaked through the skin stretched above him, and in the morning the half-tree floated and swam through the land when he paddled, dabbing at the foam on the river’s skin.

  Sometimes in the first days, they passed campsites full of wagons such as the one that had hidden Bry on the steamboat ride. To ride a wagon on a boat. To be boatsick in a wagon. Now he was in a boat going east instead of west with this woman, Nistschu. He was bitten by insects and he scratched himself raw. The morning sun hurt his eyes and he wished the woman would sing something other than her dirge. Delaware, she told him on the second afternoon. She said it clearly. Del-a-ware. Lanape, she said next. She anointed him with bear grease and he got no more bites. On the third day they went for some miles on the Missouri and then took a narrow passage up to the Mississippi, which was not difficult if they worked together against the current. Three long days to reach the Macoupin Creek and then only five miles to the Illinois River. Was Mama Bett alive? Does a man feel mother love or does he only know the want of it?

  68

  The Arabia stopped in Independence, or Independence Landing as it was sometimes called, with its blustering frontier market. A good part of the freight was then unloaded below the quay, which sat high up on bluffs that came right to the river’s edge and then dropped sheer-sided to water level. The unloading made for the usual racket of braying and squealing and cussing, while passengers stood on deck and pointed at what was left of the steamboat Saluda that had exploded six years before with upper parts still visible. Two hundred people dead, they said and the Bostonian, who had first spoken to Lavina days before about the drowned boy, declared that the paddle-boats should be inspected regularly.

  Wouldn’t account for the boilers, said Mister Kirk, the man who was heading to the promised land of K.T.

  A sandy island sat in the middle of the river, causing traffic to choose between left and right sides, but the passengers stood firm, and the river went on pouring itself eastward to the Mississippi, still in some hurry, and finally at the quay, people unloaded the wagons that would carry them west or southwest in search of glory. Independence was as far as most people would go by boat because it was the beginning of both the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. Most groups started out on a trail in the company of seven or eight wagons. Two or three families, a few single men. They would find a longer train and join it, elect a captain. They were seekers. They were religionists. They were off to make their way in the world. A few young men had been sold to a company. Show him the ropes. Get him out where the land is clear. There were frontiersmen, French Canadians, old voyageurs who knew the West like civilized people know cupboards. There were adventurers, gamblers, fur traders, Mexicans, discharged soldiers, and criminals running away from whatever was chasing them. The women were reckless, hard, frightened, Irish and motherless, missionaries and harlots. They were Quakers and Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians, daughters and servants, grannies and aunts, nursing mothers and virgin brides. Each of them stopped at the famous lucky spring in the center of Independence to fill their water casks and drink to success. Then, eventually, after outfitting themselves as they collectively or individually saw fi
t, they set off in their huge, rumbling wagons, tall ships pressing against the prairie winds, passing graves that were quick to accumulate, averting their eyes or bowing their heads.

  John and Lavina and the girls stayed on board. He had brought Beulah to the upper deck to help someone unload a heavy packet but there had been no meeting with Patton, which meant he was waiting for them in St. Jo. Dinner was called soon after they left port and he left Beulah tied and went into his meal.

  After that unloading at Independence, the Arabia puffed its way upriver in the late afternoon of September 5th above a fallen walnut tree that lay just below the surface, branches twisting in all directions like hidden fingers with long claws. In the galley the cook was serving cutlets on plates stamped with the Arabia’s motto: Never Too Far. In the salon, the diners were chatting, asking their children to sit up straight and ignoring the sins of children who were not their own. Travel required social generosity. John was seated with his family at a table set for twelve. When he felt the boat lurch, he reached for Gina. Then they all knew a hard shock through their backs and legs as the submerged walnut tree pierced the lower deck and the great Arabia shuddered. In a matter of minutes water was rushing across the main deck.

  Oh dear God help us!

  The cook dropped a plate and rushed to the salon, where diners were falling off chairs or grabbing each other as the boat listed to its port side, men cursing loudly and women screaming such shrill screams that they could surely be heard on shore. A few of the men grabbed the only lifeboat, lowered it, jumped in, and started rowing in haste. They might have been disciples, fishers of men going for help, but Lavina grabbed Gina away from John, who was still clinging to the edge of the table, and carried her straddled at her waist straight to the rail where she could see the lifeboat disappear in a lowering mist. Come back here! she yelled as she had so often done when her boys went slinking off after a petty household crime. She wanted to throttle the escaping men and there was that unlikely, unfeminine surge of rage again. Come back here this minute! A few passengers joined her at the rail and added more yells, a few of them insults, and the Arabia continued to list, as if the river had forgotten how to balance a floating object and the packed lifeboat swung around awkwardly as the men took heed of the shouting and sheepishly rowed back to the sinking ship, climbing up to the deck where they began lowering women and children into the rocking lifeboat as if that had been their first and foremost intention. They called for a small man and Mister Kirk volunteered. He climbed into the lifeboat with the women and children. He rowed with all his vigor and the little boat pushed along toward shore, where there was a small stretch of cabins thrown up namelessly against wandering tribes and bushwhackers and bandits. Chunks of the riverbank had been caving off and it was too steep to climb, but Mister Kirk managed to ascend by docking the lifeboat and carefully clinging to outcropping tree roots. It was a struggle since some of the roots loosened when he pulled and he slipped backward, grabbing and poking at the earth with his pointed shoes. At the top, he was able to reach down with a long branch and help the women up and they, in turn, helped the children. Lavina was still clutching Gina to her waist. Electa was crying about her belongings. Papa? Is he coming? It was a filthy scramble, not easy on shoes and skirts, but the women were soon on high ground holding the hands of children and tucking babies under their breasts, watching the boat roll over with all its remaining contents. The animals had been freed except for a frightened mule that began to bleat. Poor Beulah was tied and no one remembered to release her.

  The lifeboat was then sent back for the men who clung to the rail on the high side of the boat, the only part still above water. It picked up the men and a few trunks and valises, which were carried to shore and stacked in the woods, although the crate on the upper deck that had served as John’s bench joined two hundred tons of cargo on the river bottom.

  It began to rain and on the shore the passengers watched the tied-up mule lift her nose and bray as the boat pulled her underwater.

  The next morning, after a cramped night in several donated shelters, all anyone could see of the Arabia was the top of her pilothouse and Beulah’s floating corpse. The trunks and valises left under the trees had been stolen while the owners were asleep. The Arabia had gone down with everything the Dickinsons had saved after bankruptcy and public shame. Weighing four hundred tons, she had steamed away from St. Louis with a hundred and thirty passengers and now the river would move slowly northwest and then northeast, leaving her buried under silt and then dirt and then a stand of cottonwoods that would disappear when the covering land was planted in corn. The bowls and boots and floor joists, the glass beads and guns all lost.

  69

  John found his cows. He found the pony, the horse, and Beulah’s frightened mate. He had an impulse to mount his old nag and ride away from the nothing that was left to him, the hand of the Lord having once more descended, but he joined what was left of his family and the other Arabia passengers who opted to board the steamboat John A Lucas, which would take them straight back to Independence to replenish their supplies. John did not speak to the other men nor to his wife. He was beyond words. Everything that counted was gone. The Arabia passengers stood at the rail of the sidewheeler John A Lucas and stared at the hills they had passed going the other way. They were on a clock running backward. Close to the finish line, they would now have to start again. How would they find the faith for another beginning? John was not standing and staring. He was circling the deck. He was thinking of the three hundred dollars he had sewn into the lining of his jacket, money stolen from his wife and children, and it should have cheered him, but how was he to explain such an unspent sum? He had enough cash to purchase a good wagon and plow, also another mule, but such buying would expose him to questions. He had stayed back. He had let them go off unprotected. He had not gone with his family when they left Jonesville and he had held on to a sum of cash. He wrung his hands, unable to explain the money even to himself. He would have to keep the dollars in the lining of his jacket now and for all time. It was lost, just as Emly was. Lost for good.

  On that ship of rescue, Lavina watched her husband circle the deck. He circled for two or three hours – the length of the journey down river – without ever sitting down. To Lavina, it seemed possible that he might circle one place or another for the rest of his days. She stood up, meaning to go to him, but then sat down again.

  70

  Pure drugs, chemicals, fancy and toilet articles. Patent medicines. Low Prices. In Independence signs offering comfort and temptation assailed them. They were passengers ruined by a river and they were in a hurry to purchase all manner of things. This time they disembarked. They stood speechless as huge Conestogas rumbled past, some of them pulled by six or eight yoke of oxen. The oxen were bellowing and the disembarked humans wished to cry out as well. How are we to go on? Men on the street cracked whips and the shipwrecked passengers stood watching people who knew what was next, where they were going, and why. Teamsters were putting freight on their wagons, arguing their concerns, and there was the incessant banging of hammers in blacksmiths’ sheds where wagons were being repaired and mules and oxen shod. What could explain such presumption? One man burst into tears. It was suddenly clear to each of them what they had lost. John must continue on as part of the whole, never admitting his sins. He must purchase a vehicle, a plow, some bowls, an iron pot, spoons, and a scythe. Seeds. Gone the iron stove. Gone the medicines and apple tree and hope. Where was Patton? Where was Martin? Where was the protection that parents provide their daughters and sons? It would take three days or four or eight to make preparations for further travel and Lavina and the girls took cots at the unworthy hotel while John stayed at the stable with the horse and pony and mule and cows. He was leading them there when a storm broke over the whole of Independence with hard rolls of thunder such as he had never heard in any place or part of his life. He was immediately drenched but he got the animals under the stable roof and stood watching
the sun reappear as suddenly as it had disappeared minutes before. This was punishing weather, primitive weather, but a train of wagons set off just then on the muddy road in front of him with laughing children sticking fingers out from under the oiled coverings to feel for raindrops. A full-skirted girl rode by on a horse while holding a fringed parasol over her head. Three old men discussed the doctrine of regeneration loudly while sheltering under the stable roof. A soldier walked by holding a revolver pointed ahead. Is Santa Fe worth the trouble? John asked the stableman while he was bargaining for a cart that bore no resemblance to the wagon he had lost or even to the wagon he might have bought with some of the three hundred dollars in his jacket lining. Hadn’t his been the finest wagon he could remember ever seeing? And wasn’t it built by his own young son? Such a surprising child, wise well beyond his years. Thinking back, John could hardly believe the patience and skill of his boy and now that beautiful wagon was lying at the bottom of the mad Missouri and its flimsy replacement was a cart held together by wire and rope with a shaft too short for a team. He thought of old Reuben. He could not remember where he had lifted the old slave down from the mare and put him in a mule cart he had bought on that final day of the world. The day he had meant to end his life with three hundred dollars in his jacket. You’re a French settlement, I hear, he said to the stableman in order to hang on to reality, any word now being better than none.

  The stableman licked his mustache. Old Robidoux pere, pure Canadian French, him and the son traveled up the river dealing to the Indins and speaking their putrid tongues. Got reech enough to start thes town.