Grady was saying, “I’ll leave your words with Mary, she’ll see to it they get to the post office by morning’s light.”
“You trust her?” I asked, looking over the fire at him.
“I do,” Grady confirmed and his grin reappeared as he winked. “This here gives me a good excuse to see her once more before we leave town. It’s a long, hard winter otherwise, if you take my meaning. You joining me, Virg? Isobel has a hankering to see you again, Mary told me, and you ain’t been to town since Emilia run off.”
Virgil took a long pull from the jug, eyes in the flames. “I ain’t spending my last dollar on a whore. Besides, I got watch.”
Grady cajoled, “Last chance to see a lady in months.”
Virgil snorted. “I’d hardly call any of them ladies. They’re whores.”
Before I could think to stopper my mouth or tamp down the fire therein, I challenged, “Meanin’ what? That they ain’t got no feelings?”
There was a prickly lull. All eyes had swung my way but I wouldn’t wriggle; Malcolm’s forehead crinkled, forming horizontal furrows along his brow. I thought of sweet Lorie being spoken of so coldly, like she weren’t even fully human. I knew what Sawyer would say, were he here with us. Many a night along the trail, sitting alone at the fire while the boy slept, I’d thought hard on the terrible power of name-calling. Reb or whore, it didn’t matter; the derision in the voices of those who’d call us such things made the two words nigh indistinguishable. This very afternoon I’d been derided for my roots and damned if I’d be ashamed for speaking up just now.
“Carter has a point,” Grady finally acknowledged, and I released a tense breath; more slowly, hoping they wouldn’t notice, I let my hands relax from bunched fists.
Virgil muttered, “Whores are whores. I don’t know what’s wrong with me speaking the truth.”
“You and the boy can sleep beneath the wagon,” Quill said after Grady and Virgil rode out, in different directions. “My old bones prefer to stay near the fire.”
Malcolm tucked close to my side once we were situated, as was customary. I’d never let on that this habit comforted me as well; in our tent, he couldn’t sleep unless he stuck out a foot to touch my leg. Quill stretched beside the banked fire and was soon snoring. In the near-distance, the cattle made their low, moaning sounds and horses stomped and shuffled at their picket line, settling in for the night.
Malcolm was quiet for a full five seconds before whispering, “What do you think Sawyer an’ Lorie will say?”
“They’ll be a mite surprised,” I acknowledged quietly. I lay on my back, rifle within reach, hands stacked under my head instead of a pillow. Quill had proved kind enough to give us an additional blanket. Our boots stuck out from beneath the wagon; I hadn’t slept without wearing my boots since we’d left Iowa City. No more than a dozen inches above my gaze was the hard wooden crosshatching which made up the underside of the wagon – if either of us sat up too fast, we’d have a goose egg for days. Malcolm faced me, his knees bent against the ground.
“When will we meet up with them?” he wondered.
“That’s a good question. Depends on whether we spend the winter in the Territories or journey back to Minnesota. My hope is that they’ll meet us in St. Paul early next spring, an’ we all four ride on north together, like we been.” This thought cheered me, if only slightly; just now, I wasn’t sure I could make it until then without them. I draped the base of both palms over my closed eyes and pressed hard, seeing swirling patterns of dark red and muddy yellow.
“I’d like that,” Malcolm murmured. He seemed to be thinking hard; I could almost hear his mind churning. At last he whispered, “It’s kinda funny there’s a girl right above us.”
I uttered a low laugh, opening my eyes; the child Grady had mentioned was the last thing on my mind, too mired as it was with my own troubles. I agreed, “It is, at that.”
“Grady said her name is Cora,” Malcolm went on, almost too faintly for me to hear; my eyes drifted closed again. Exhaustion made dense my arms and legs. After a spell he whispered, “You think we’s doing the right thing?”
“I do.” I mustered all the confidence I could. “We’ll have a good thirty dollars to our name when we return this way. We won’t have to be dependent on Uncle Jacob. That always rubbed me wrong, as you know.”
“I do. I truly do, Boyd. I think you’s brave. Brave as Daddy.”
I felt the weight of responsibility crushing my chest at his innocent words. “Thank you, Malcolm.” I rarely used his given name.
He shifted, nudging my leg with his toes, leaving them pressed against me; he had removed his boots, as was his habit. He whispered, “Boyd?”
“Huh?” Sleep served to smother my senses.
“That woman who done sat on your lap at The Dolly Belle…”
Dammit, I thought, coming awake as though to a rasher of cold water upturned on my head. I ordered, “Time for sleepin’,” even as I realized there wasn’t a chance in hell the boy would let it drop so easy.
And then, out of the clear blue, he inquired, “Do ladies like it when a man puts his tongue in their mouth? I mean, right in it?”
“Jesus Christ,” I uttered. Had he somehow seen that very thing at the saloon? I’d explained the rudiments of lovemaking to him earlier in the summer, considering it my duty, but purposely avoided details for such awkward reasons. But, I reflected, even though we’d stayed on the ground floor we had just come from a whorehouse. I felt like a crook.
“Well, do they?” he persisted.
“What makes you ask?” I demanded, hedging.
Malcolm caved as would a collapsing root cellar, and began fast-talking. “I seen Lorie an’ Sawyer, that’s why.” Hearing my indrawn breath, ready to scold, he raced on, “I weren’t spying, I swear on a stack of bibles, Boyd. I heard me strange sounds, is all, an’ I come upon them twos out behind Mrs. Rebecca’s corral, of an afternoon before we left Iowa City. I seen Sawyer runnin’ his hands all along her back, an’ Lorie had her hands all up in his hair, an’ they was kissing. That’s why I wondered…”
“About tongues,” I finished for him, releasing a sigh that was part exasperation, part amusement. I could hardly scold; I’d stumbled upon the two of them making love in the barn, of all places, late one evening not long before we left. I glimpsed my best friend’s bare backside, moving with energetic rhythm, Lorie’s slim legs wrapped about his hips as they lay together on a quilt spread over the hay in an empty stall, and could not decide whether to laugh and cause a scene, or slip quietly away; being such a gentleman, I let them alone. I even refrained from teasing Sawyer the next day. I finally said, “Well, I s’pose that depends altogether on the woman’s opinion of the man.”
“It appeared Lorie-Lorie’s opinion of Sawyer is right good,” Malcolm said, muffling a giggle, and his tone was an equal mixture of sincerity and downright waywardness. He issued a snort trying to restrain laughter, bunching his knees, holding the tops of them as he wheezed, “What if…what if you’d been eatin’ something disagreeable, just before kissing, an’ then you let out a burp while you was –”
“Sleep,” I growled, heading off this trail of thought right at the pass.
All was quiet for roughly the time it took a secondhand to tick once around a clock face. But then, in a tone very unlike the one he’d just been using, Malcolm whispered, “That woman on your lap…she was a whore?” He spoke the word with curiosity and hesitance, surely thinking of the earlier exchange between me and Virgil.
I sighed again, ashamed to recall the many times I’d used the word without a wisp of guilt. “That she was.”
“Was that…” He trailed to silence and I looked his way in the dimness, the familiar slender outline of the boy I would do anything for. He gathered courage and asked, “Was that what Lorie-Lorie…”
My heart sank like a ripe plum dropped in a creek. I kept silent, not sure how to answer what he intended to ask. When it was clear Malcolm could not finish th
e sentence, I spoke low and solemn. “Lorie was forced to do the things she did. She didn’t want to work as a whore. It was the last thing she wanted, or ever figured would happen to her. She was just a young girl when the War come along.” Coldness settled along my spine and I drew my forearms closer to the warmth of my chest. “She lost her entire family. I don’t rightly know the whole story of how she came to be in the saloon in St. Louis where we found her that night. Thank the Lord we did find her.”
“We’s her family now,” Malcolm whispered. “Us an’ Sawyer. Damnation, I miss them.”
“Myself, as well,” I whispered, praying, Let the year pass quickly, oh Lord. If I thought too long about the coming winter months apart from them the despair weighting my chest only gained in mass. I closed my eyes and was belted by a sudden picture, as starkly defined as if unfolding a few yards south rather than many hundreds of miles. I lay as still as a felled tree, witnessing Rebecca’s dooryard back in Iowa, the selfsame lopsided moon low in the night sky, rising to adorn the eastern horizon. Rebecca stood framed in the wide double doors of the barn, wrapped in her shawl, watching the pale moon. Her abundant hair was loose, falling over her shoulders and down to her elbows, which she kept clutched close to her waist. Tears streaked her upturned face like summer rain.
My heart lurched, becoming a hot coal behind my ribs. My lips pursed up as though to speak her name.
Beside me, Malcolm shifted with a restless sigh. “But why did someone make Lorie do them bad things? Why would someone try to hurt her? Why would someone want to hurt her?”
Angry righteousness threaded his questions and I was forced to reconcile this moment with the one in my head. Rebecca seemed so very near I couldn’t bear to open my eyes and lose the sight of her. Before I answered my brother I offered up a second silent prayer. Lord, protect Rebecca Krage. Oh Jesus, protect her for me. I can’t be there to protect her no more.
I fought off an onrushing sense of panic.
“Why would someone hurt any girl, Boyd?”
I drew a breath and opened my eyes. I put my hand over his shoulder, just like I figured Daddy would have done. “Listen here. You’s a good-hearted boy an’ I know it pains you. It pains me.” My heartbeat hadn’t yet calmed. “There’s all manner of terrible things in this world. I seen many of ’em when I soldiered. Things I pray you won’t ever have to see. Things I wish you never had to know. But you’s on the way to being a man an’ I can’t shelter you for always. Shit, you’s seen more by this age than I ever dreamed of. The truth is, sometimes women ain’t got a choice but to work as whores, to survive. But Lorie is a strong woman, stronger an’ braver than I ever knew a woman could be. She loves Sawyer. An’ he loves her like I ain’t ever seen. Them two can move on from what was, do you understand?”
I sensed him nod.
I squeezed his shoulder and concluded, “There ain’t nothin’ more important than protecting those you love, boy, especially your womenfolk. That’s a man’s job in this here world, you see? Protecting his kin from the terrible things out there.”
Malcolm was silent for so long I figured him asleep; I was almost so myself. But then he murmured, “You shouldn’t have left her behind.” Hardly had the words cleared his mouth before he gave over to snoring.
I gritted my teeth.
Rebecca is better off without me, boy, that’s God’ truth. That’s what being an adult is, and what you ain’t learned yet. Doing what’s best for someone else.
But it was goddamn cold comfort.
MORNING PAINTED the air a muted gray. I woke from a hazy muddle of bad dreams and to observe that I lay alone beneath the wagon; Malcolm was not in sight. I sat without thinking and the crack of my forehead meeting the undercarriage shuddered through the entire frame of the thing. I groaned as I rolled from beneath, staggering to my feet and stumbling forward, shouting hoarsely for the boy. My eyes bumped and strained over the sights before them – the smudge of yellowing sky to the east, the ever-waving tips of the prairie grasses. It appeared I was alone but for the livestock; though coffee boiled in a kettle hanging over the fire, no others were in view.
“Malcolm!” I bellowed, bending forward in pain, clutching my forehead. “Answer me!”
“I’m here!” I heard the faint reply, upwind of my position, and my shoulders sank in immediate relief.
Seconds later he appeared as a stark-black figure against the rim of the eastern horizon, none of his features perceptible as light washed him from behind. He waved one arm and I clenched my jaw against the rush of angry words I wanted to direct his way; it was not his fault I was tetchy as a mother hen these days. He ran near, hatless and breathless, and explained, “Me an’ Quill was out gathering eggs for breakfast.” He showed me the small burden of quail eggs held carefully in the hammock he’d made of his shirt, then looked closer at me and observed, “Why, you’s bleeding.”
“I bumped my damn head,” I mumbled, withdrawing my hand to see a dark smear of blood. Another streaked along the side of my nose, unpleasantly warm.
Malcolm’s eyes jerked to something beyond my right shoulder and his face went blank. He said, “Well, hello,” and his voice, which had deepened a little with every passing month, rang high with surprise.
I turned to see a small figure standing silent as a wraith near the tailgate, which she’d used to climb to the ground; not having heard a sound, not even a jingle of the linked chain dangling from the tailgate, a twitch nudged my spine at the sight of a little girl where there hadn’t been one only a second ago. She was a tiny thing, ragged in appearance, with long, tangled hair no one had bothered to comb or braid for her. There was something strange about her face but I couldn’t tell just what in the early morning light.
“You must be Cora,” he went on, with his usual cheeriness. “I’m Malcolm Carter. This here is my brother, Boyd.”
There was no reply from the child. She simply studied us, hands hanging at her sides, unmoving as a threatened deer. Maybe she was half-witted.
“Me an’ Quill been gathering breakfast,” Malcolm explained, untroubled by her continued silence. “He was telling me a bit about you. I hope you don’t mind none. He said you was a mite shy but that you like eggs cooked up in a pie.” He rambled on, “My mama used to make egg pie for me when I was a sprout.”
He might have been speaking to a carving. When Cora suddenly pointed my way a jolt of pure trepidation shot through my gut. But then my heart went soft – the little thing was crying. Quiet as a field mouse, but most assuredly crying. Malcolm dropped the eggs, which landed with a dull splat, and went straight to her. He was head and shoulders taller than she, but he bent his face to hers and took her elbows in his hands. He murmured, “Hey there, it’s all right.”
“My pa,” Cora moaned.
I felt like a lout for thinking she was half-witted. The blood on my forehead frightened her. Of course it did; her daddy had been horse-kicked. Likely he bled over his face before he died and she must have witnessed it. I hurried to use my sleeve to staunch the flow. I thought of Cort and Nathaniel as I said, “It’s all right, little one. I ain’t hurt bad.”
Malcolm hugged her, just as he so often hugged Lorie, the unconscious tenderness as natural to him as breathing. He rocked her side to side; her tears were muffled by his dirty shirt. I hurried to dip my hands in the basin near the fire, seeing Quill headed our way with a basket, using a walking stick to aid his progress. I scooped water to clean my face, scrubbing over what felt like a hell of a welt.
“Little Miss Cora,” Quill said, sounding downright stunned as he slowly approached the camp. “Whatever is wrong?”
“She was scared of the blood,” I explained, gesturing at my forehead.
“She spoke?” Quill set aside his walking stick. “Well, I’ll be.”
Cora clung to Malcolm, who looked at me with his eyebrows raised, plainly asking what to do next.
Quill said in the calm manner of a father, “If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll have a fine brea
kfast for all of us. Miss Cora, would you like to crack these eggs into the pan?” He scrutinized my wounded forehead and indicated his haversack. “I’ve a leather needle you could use to stitch up that gash. Someone try to scalp you while we was gathering eggs?”
I had to chuckle at this, after our talk of Indian folk last night. Embarrassed at my own clumsiness, I said, “No, I done sat up too fast and smucked my head.”
The four of us were momentarily joined by Virgil, in from his night watch, and Grady, just returning from town. Both men had the look of a long night, though for different reasons. Grady called good morning, making a point to address Cora; Virgil ignored everything but the coffee. Grady joined us first at the fire, eyeing the heavens and deciding, “Looks like a fine day headed our way.”
“And I’ll be enjoying it with my eyes closed,” Virgil muttered, scraping a knuckle under his nose.
“Cora’s been speaking to young Mr. Carter,” Quill said, serving each man a plate of the egg pie, which he’d cooked up with salt and dried green onions. After weeks of what amounted to hardtack for breakfast, I restrained myself from scraping the leavings from the pan.
Virgil and Grady each registered surprise at this statement, looking at Cora with near-comical unison; I figured they were so accustomed to her silence they hardly noticed her presence at all. Grady’s caterpillar eyebrows lofted high and a look of approval crossed his features as he regarded Malcolm. He murmured, “Good for you, little feller. I was hoping she might.”
Grace of a Hawk Page 13
