I considered myself a fair judge of folks. Grady talked fast but even with the scarlet lanterns oddly highlighting his pale eyes, I sensed he was a trustworthy fellow. I calculated rapidly, the bourbon haze receding. That was thirty dollars, but meant another delay in our arrival at Jacob’s; I clamped down upon the words ill luck as they resounded in my head, with some effort. If we accompanied Grady, by November the first I could have the filing fee, plus some twenty dollars for supplies. And by next spring, the latest I was willing to concede arriving, I would get us to Jacob’s, and without empty hands. It would be a far better start than I’d figured. I tried to convince myself that a few more months was not much in the span of things, that Malcolm and I could manage this unexpected westward detour in our journey; a dizzy rush, same as earlier, flowed across my vision. I closed my eyes to clear it away.
“You said you need a wrangler?”
“I do. You’d drive our spare horses, a dozen head. I ride point and Virgil is the night watch. I got Quill to cook and I need another man to manage the remuda – that’d be you, if you take the job.” For the first time he looked toward Malcolm, who sat eating the gooseberry crumble Isobel had placed before him, lips decorated by crumbs and shiny with fruit juice. Grady said, “And I don’t mind the company of this here boy. Got me an unexpected sprout on this run, Dyer Lawson’s little girl. She ain’t got anyone now that her pa was kilt, and he was my employer’s brother, like I said. Dyer planned to bring her along with us so I figure I oughtn’t to leave her behind. I don’t relish having to deliver the news of Dyer’s death to Royal. He and Royal was close.”
“You’s familiar with the route?” I asked, trying to keep up with his swift explanations.
“I am. Rode it many a time now since the War. I served under Royal Lawson until I was mustered out. I trust him, and he trusts me to get his livestock to his ranch. He aims to grow his herd with the heifers and bulls in this bunch, and sell the steers to the mining towns. Royal and his brother planned to go into business together, but now that Dyer is gone, his plans’ll change. Damn shame he got kilt. Horse-kicked, of all things, and him so good with horses. I still can’t hardly believe it.” Grady sighed, lifting his hat to plunge a hand through his hair. “I tell you, beef is in demand in the Territories and the demand is only increasing now that the country is finally moving on from the blasted War. I include myself in that sentiment, if you take my meaning, Tennessee. And with the way grain prices have soared these past two years, folks’ll spread westward like ticks on a hound, see if they won’t.”
“Thirty and grub?” I repeated; I didn’t want him to think I was a dolt, but I needed this confirmed. I quieted the word Federal that snarled, beast-like, in my mind.
“And we’ll even feed the boy,” Grady said, with another grin. “I don’t recollect if I got your name, little feller…”
“Malcolm,” he said, nodding politely, tugging a lock of hair over his forehead in place of his hat.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, young Malcolm. Maybe little Cora will talk to you. Poor thing ain’t hardly said a word since her pa died,” Grady said. And then he slapped the tabletop in a friendly, conclusive way and inquired, “Might I buy you a drink to seal this here deal, Mr. Carter?”
I stood at the edge of a cliff, peering down. The dizziness, the sense of hell, the fear of someone trailing us even now all collided in my mind, causing me to question every choice I’d ever made. Each and every one seemed wrong. I felt crippled by the sum total of my poor decisions. Surely there was a decent goddamn explanation for why I sat here this night in the company of strangers, long gone from the holler I once thought I’d never leave.
I found my gaze returning to the nude painting on the opposite wall; I battled the urge to drape my jacket over the frame, to hide and therefore protect her naked, sprawling limbs, the appalling sense of her vulnerability. There was a familiarity to the feeling, a raw helplessness I’d first encountered during the War but that plagued me ever since in those defenseless gray moments between waking and sleeping; so many unprotected innocents, the earth seemed covered with them, above and beneath. It was more than a solitary man could grapple with.
What do you want? What choice do you have?
What the hell is there?
I felt hollow as a dead tree.
Malcolm said faintly, “Boyd…”
I cleared the ache from my throat and addressed Grady. “I’ll take that drink, thank you.”
GRADY AND HIS men were bivouacked west of town on a small rise overlooking the Mississippi. Malcolm and I followed him to this camp, leaving behind the pulse of activity along the river, the arrayed steamboats’ many deck lanterns and the flickering streetlamps becoming as tiny as the dots of fireflies as we rode out of St. Paul, following a rocky outcropping. Two men sat near a small, crackling blaze, over which hung a kettle. One of them was sopping a biscuit through gravy and both their heads lifted at our approach; the biscuit didn’t make it to the man’s mouth as he watched us draw near. Behind them was a large covered wagon much like the one we’d brought along from Tennessee.
“What’s that groaning sound?” Malcolm asked as our horses climbed the rise.
“It’s the cattle,” Grady explained. “‘Lowing’ is what you’d call it. They make the sound much of the time but you hear it more at night, when everything is still.”
“They don’t run off?” Malcolm wondered, and I was glad he’d asked. I wondered the same, but felt foolish voicing the question.
“We chase a few strays now and again,” Grady said. “But they don’t get far, most usually, and they’re tired after a day spent walking. Though, we do keep the horses on a picket line.” He called a greeting to the two men seated about the fire. “Got us a wrangler!”
“And another young’un?” asked the one with the biscuit, setting aside his plate.
The older of the two chuckled. “We’ll need us a schoolmarm next thing, Ballard.”
Grady laughed, tugging his palomino mare to a halt and dismounting with nimble grace. I followed more slowly, Malcolm sticking near me as we approached; Grady was a companionable fellow from what I could tell so far but all of these men were strangers to me, and I was wary. Tired and wary, but at least the boy and I had been fed, thanks to the generosity at Jean Luc’s établissement; I tried to count our blessings, even as amusement colored the garble of hoity-toity French words swirling through my mind.
“Quill, Virg, I hope you two ain’t too drunk to greet Boyd Carter and his little brother, Malcolm,” Grady said, in the cheerful manner which seemed well-suited to him. “Fellas, this is Quill Dobbins and Virgil Turnbull.”
They stood. The one called Quill was elderly, wrapped in a fringed woolen blanket and with a thick white beard, sturdy but short, barely reaching my shoulder, while Virgil was closer in age to me and Grady, wiry of build and with a drooping mustache that ate up the lower half of his face. There was a jug situated on the ground between them, on which they’d been pulling, but they regarded us soberly enough.
I offered a hand to shake with them; Virgil’s mustache twitched as he extended his left hand instead of his right, muttering, “Lost it in the War.”
Grady said, “But you kept your life so you oughtn’t to complain, I figure.”
“It’s clean gone?” Malcolm inquired in his usual curious fashion, bending closer to examine the arm with its missing appendage, even though Virgil kept it tucked close to his ribcage.
“One fell-swoop of a cutlass,” Grady answered for his friend. “But as luck would have it, Virg has always favored his left side.”
“Did you save the hand? Got you a hook to tie over the stump?” my brother asked, peering at the man’s forearm, not seeming to realize these questions pestered Virgil.
“Boy,” I muttered in warning.
“I did not,” Virgil said shortly.
“You shoulda kept it. You might’ve made a finger-bone necklace like them Ojibwe fellas wear,” Grady said, with pla
in amusement. “You’d clatter when you walked along, so we’d know you were coming.”
“You boys hungry?” asked Quill, gesturing at a kettle hanging over their fire, and his tone reminded me of the way Daddy would stave off bickering between my brothers and me. “We got beans and biscuits and there’s a wee bit of bacon left. Coffee and a whiskey jug, too.”
“We ate at yonder saloon, but I thank you kindly,” I said, wishing to be polite, even though I could have downed a second plate with no trouble. I tried not to stare at the whiskey, reminding myself the last thing I should do just now was proceed to get lit.
“What did you think of The Belle, little feller?” Grady asked Malcolm, removing the kettle’s lid. The iron spoon within it clacked against the tin as Grady loaded his plate, sending a merry grin in Malcolm’s direction. “I reckon it’s an eyeful for a sprout.”
“My daddy would thrash me for lookin’, but I sure looked,” the boy said, and even I had to smile, imagining Daddy’s response to the cavorting in the saloon. The others had a laugh and Grady elbowed Malcolm’s ribs as we all sat around the fire, the men reclaiming the hewn logs they were using as seats. Virgil hooked a finger in the jug’s round handle and took a long pull.
“Aw, it’s only natural to look,” Grady said. “The nude on the wall is something else, ain’t she? And the gals at The Belle are pretty and clean, which ain’t always the case. ’Course, some men don’t mind if they ain’t clean.”
Quill observed Malcolm eyeing the food; he fetched a plate and passed it to my brother without a word, nodding at the kettle.
“Might’nt I?” Malcolm asked and I nodded permission; the boy made short work of a second helping.
“How about you, son?” Quill offered me.
“Thank you kindly, but I’m full up,” I lied. I longed for a smoke. My fingers twitched with wanting one, but the goddamn twister had eaten all my tobacco.
“These fellers are headed into the Northland,” Grady explained. “You said your uncle lived up there somewheres?”
“He does.” I nodded with a slow movement, gaze stuck in the fire, picturing Jacob as I’d last seen him; I’d spent plenty of time wondering on how he might have changed since. Moreover, how I’d changed since. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jacob failed to recognize me upon first sight. The boy Uncle Jacob remembered was green as grass shoots; that green boy had never been to War, had never imagined such horror existed. “He homesteads west of the headwaters of the Mississippi near a lake called Flickertail. He left Tennessee when I was just a young’un. We ain’t yet met his wife or our cousins.”
“Mostly In’jun country up that way,” Virgil commented, resting his forearms on his thighs, the jug dangling from the crook of his remaining index finger.
“That’s right.” I heard a cantankerous note in my voice; I found I didn’t like Virgil’s presumptuous tone but bit back my irritation as I explained, “My uncle was raised in Tennessee, same as the boy an’ me. He left home some ten years back. Favors the North now. He’s wed to a Winnebago woman, name of Hannah.” I kept a side-eye on Virgil as I spoke, wondering just what it was about him that served to stir my ornery side. He appeared harmless enough, skinny as a string bean. I could take him in any sort of fight. His gaze, I decided. I figured he was half-drunk and that this was contributing to the unpleasant set of his features. Peevish, Mama would have called him.
“One of my brothers married a Paiute gal back in the ’forties when he was panning for gold out California way,” Quill said. “The two of them have a passel of young’uns I ain’t ever met. I do believe they’re right content, but our ma, God rest her, would’ve had conniptions to know Robert took up with a woman who weren’t Christian.”
I allowed, “My mama had much the same to say about Uncle Jacob.”
Mouth full, Grady said, “They all but cleared the Winnebago people out of Minnesota, to my understanding. After the Dakota War there was a big push to get the red folk relocated.” He paused to swallow. “I ain’t no philosopher, but it don’t seem quite right to me, running folks off their land like that. That’s all the army does nowadays, it seems, since the War ended.”
“Rightly so.” Virgil’s expression became outright hostile. “The red folk are a brutal lot. They’re best cleared out, in my opinion.”
Grady’s brows lifted in an earnest fashion, reminding me of a school-teacher I recalled from childhood. “That ain’t the point, Virg. They’ve been driven from their homes, their hunting grounds. What man wouldn’t fight back in such a situation?”
“Sending raiding parties to scalp innocents is what you mean,” Virgil bickered, his narrow cheeks taking on belligerent heat. His shoulders had squared. “Attacking in the dead of night, slicing folks up like they’re cattle for butchering. Goddamn wretches.”
I was about to object to such talk in Malcolm’s presence, stranger as I was to these men or no, when Quill cleared his throat and sent a pointed look at Virgil; Malcolm, though busy eating, was soaking up every last word.
Grady released a small sigh and sat back with the air of someone pushing a chair away from a table. “I ain’t trying to upset you, Virg. And I ain’t speaking lightly. We’ve fled arrows in our travels, as you well remember. I’m speaking of the injustice of it. I feel the army has better ways to spend its time than running men off their own land.”
“In’juns shot arrows at you?” my brother asked, and his tone was riddled with awe as he seized on this statement; Malcolm had already been in danger too many times in his young life but here was proof that he still considered peril and adventure one and the same.
I thought, They ain’t the same an’ I wish it was a lesson you need never learn, boy. I swear to keep you from harm, from this night forth, God help me.
I’d kept as watchful as I’d been while soldiering the past nights pushing north to Minnesota. I’d sat up near the fire, remaining vigilant, stealing a broken hour’s rest at most, peering into the gloom, alert for any hint of someone approaching under cover of darkness, but the shooter had not returned for us. I did not, despite hours of speculation, know what to make of this fact. Malcolm had talked of nothing but the incident as we rode, until I made him stop, weary of questions when all I wanted was to close my grainy eyes. Several times I found myself riding in a daze, losing focus; I knew it frightened Malcolm if I admitted to weakness and so I shoved aside all thoughts of rest. Now, at a fire with three other grown men, I found myself able to settle a little; perhaps this night I could sleep for a few hours in a row.
Grady said to Malcolm, “To be fair, little feller, I was in their territory both times, so who’s to say I didn’t deserve to have my hide skewered? That’s not to say I wouldn’t have fought for my life, to the last. I know all the rumors about the red folk, but from what I’ve seen and heard from those who know better, scouts and trappers and such, even my own limited experience, they ain’t the savages that folks in the big cities believe them to be. But hell, even the army calls them savages. That’s what our fellow soldiers have turned to in the years since the War, cleaning out the Territories, shooting at unarmed women and children. It’s a terrible, shameful business.”
My brother nodded seriously while I considered Grady’s words, ignoring Virgil’s glowering; I’d heard rumors of the same sort and found his compassion heartening. At the same moment there was a small stirring from inside the wagon.
“Little Cora will be glad of a playmate,” Quill said, nodding towards the sound. “Come morning you can meet her, son.”
Malcolm’s gaze jumped to the wagon, his eyes curious and wide, lit by two tiny orange flames. Juice from the beans stained his mouth in addition to the gooseberry juice from the crumble. His hair stood on end; I thought of Lorie so lovingly trimming it for him and my heart bumped with homesickness, potent as a toothache.
You’ll see Sawyer and Lorie again, before you know it. Think on that.
“I thank you for the job,” I told Grady. My voice sounded harsh and I cleare
d the grit to insist, “Sincerely.”
Grady nodded a wordless smile, busy with another bite of food. There was something about him that reminded me a little of Ethan Davis, a sort of ease to his personality, no doubt spurred on by the way he’d joked and flirted so effortlessly with the girls at The Dolly Belle. I further realized, with a small twinge, that I sat at a fire in the company of at least two former Federals.
They ain’t all bad. You’s surely smart enough to understand that. Look at Charley Rawley, a fine fellow who’s helped you plenty.
“I need to post a couple letters before we ride out,” I said, at once reminded of this necessity.
“I’d best ride back to town tonight then,” Grady replied, backhanding his mouth.
GRADY LENT me a few sheets of paper from a leather-bound journal he fished from the wagon. I heard him murmur to the single occupant, low and comforting, but there was no reply. He also provided a short lead pencil and the journal itself, over which I could brace each letter in turn. I sat near the fire’s glow, Malcolm at my elbow, to compose the letters to Sawyer and Lorie, and to Jacob and Hannah, the boy adding details as he read every word over my shoulder, most aloud. The men continued their conversation as I labored over my pencil-scratching, speaking with the familiarity of longtime friends; I was either desperate or daft, or both, but I found the rise and fall of their voices reassuring.
“I’d like to leave with the dawn,” Grady said after I completed my writing. I’d done my damnedest to explain my decision to delay our arrival, wishing I possessed even half the eloquence required to do so. I knew both Sawyer and Jacob would understand my reasoning; it was logical to earn what money I could before settling to homestead, come spring. At the end of the letter intended for Sawyer and Lorie, missing them so terribly that my hand shook, I’d written, Malcolm and me are counting the days ’til we see you all again and will await with great eagerness your arrival in St. Paul, next spring. I imagined Lorie reading theirs aloud near the woodstove. I imagined Rebecca listening. There wasn’t more than an inch left at the bottom of the torn-off paper. I wrote, All my love to you and then scrawled my signature, Boyd Brandon Carter.
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