When Winter Comes

by V. A. Shannon

  We lived close by the river, in the stench and filth of fish heads and pig muck and rotting vegetables and with the scutter and mess of immigrants all piled in on top of one another, with virtually no sanitation and no common language. Most of the men worked the wharves, loading and unloading the great steamboats. They spent their nights in the alehouse, and were always with an eye to the main chance, wanting to make as much cash as they could by doing as little work as possible. Most of the women made a living selling themselves in some alleyway. My parents were the same, with thievery and whoring their trades when they were sober enough. I was no different. Other girls my age were apprenticed out as milliners, or worked from dawn to midnight in the factories, but I had mastered the easier art of coin-from-pocket at an early age. And now it seemed it was time for the whoring.

  Late one night in early spring, Pa staggered home with a man who stank of the drink, and had a sly, sideways look to him. He was dressed real sharp, with a fancy hat and waistcoat. I reckon he was a passenger on one of the steamboats come ashore for a night of low roistering, and had fallen in with my pa on his way.

  Pa shouted me downstairs, and told me that now I was grown enough, I could earn my keep. He sent me into the privy outhouse, no more than a rotting shack that we shared with half a dozen other families, with this man. He was drunk, right enough, but it didn’t stop him being lustful. As soon as he had shut the door behind us, he was fumbling in his pants with one hand and grabbing at my hair with the other, forcing me to my knees.

  I knelt in front of him, shaking all over. I was right sickened to do it, and too afraid not to. This moment’s hesitation was enough to make him land me a sharp crack across the ear. That decided me; I leapt to my feet and gave him an almighty shove. He staggered back, and lost his balance, catching his head on the wooden door where a big nail stuck out hung with scraps of paper, and then he fell down in a heap across the privy.

  I pressed myself back against the wall, fearful for what I had done. I thought that any minute he would rise to his feet and land me one before carrying on what he had started. Worse, he’d tell Pa. I didn’t want to think what Pa would do to me. It wouldn’t be just his fists, it would be his buckle-belt at least. My back was already crisscrossed with scars; the last time he’d thrashed me it had been days before I could stir from my bed. But the man didn’t move, not a twitch. After a while I reached out my foot and kicked at his leg.

  “Mister. Hey, Mister. Wake up.”

  There was no reply, not even a groan or a sigh. His eyes were half-open, gazing milky up at the roof, and a little trickle of blood slid across his forehead. I stood there, staring down at him, dreading the thought of Pa coming to see what we were about. And then I had the sudden thought that perhaps he was dead. If so, Pa’s buckle-belt was the least of my worries.

  A great rush of fear made me spring away from the door. Without a second’s thought I set to rummage through the man’s clothing to see what he had about him. In his pants pocket I found some coin, and in his waistcoat pocket a silver watch on a heavy chain. Then I legged out of there as fast as I could run, out of the privy outhouse, out of our street, and out into the maze of alleyways that led down to the river.

  It was getting on toward dawn, and a cold gray mist was rolling in off the water. Most of the night’s revelers were gone, so the streets were as quiet as ever they got. There was a drunkard spewing up his guts in a doorway, and two women passed me, one with an eye that was beginning to black up and blood on her bodice, her friend holding her up as she wept her way along the street. Other than that I saw no one, and no one spoke to me. I ran as fast as I could through the narrow alleyways that led to the water’s edge.

  One of my shoes was losing its sole, and at every step it flapped and caught, causing me once to fall and gash my hand. I kicked it off, and its broke-down fellow, too, and ran faster, stumbling on the uneven ground in my bare feet. My breath was coming in great ragged gasps, and I thought that any minute the hangman’s hand would reach out and grab me.

  Eventually I could run no more, and stopped to catch my breath. I was out on the wharves by now, among the warehouses that lined the waterfront. There were some wooden crates piled up, and I found a space between them and crept inside.

  Here I stayed for a while, trying to quiet my heaving gasps for air, and listening fearfully for the sounds of pursuit. All was quiet but for the heavy slap of the water against the sides of the ships, and the slow creak of their timbers, and the rats scuttling in the shadows beside me.

  After a while I grew a little calmer, and tried to think what to do next. I supposed I’d run away from home, quite without meaning to. Where I would go, I had no idea. I had never thought about leaving Cincinnati, it had never crossed my mind that I could. But indeed, there was a great leaving of the place, especially by the Germans.

  The Germans had been among the first to arrive and settle in the area, and I guess in the early days they were as accepted as any other. But as time wore on, feelings began to build against them. The German wharf-men worked cheaper and harder than the rest, and went home to their families at the end of the day, which caused great ill feeling among the men lingering in the alehouses. And their wives were neat and clean, scrubbing their doorsteps down and planting up their little gardens, which riled the slovenly women of our neighborhood.

  This resentment was not confined to the river folk, but ran high in all parts of the town, the rich as well as the poor. The Germans had a great love of music and theater and gaiety of all kinds, and thought nothing of indulging themselves with these treats on a Sunday; and as well, a goodly number of them were Catholics. All in all, the pious folk of Cincinnati came to consider them unsuitable inhabitants of a God-fearing city.

  The more that feelings grew against them, the more they were forced to live among their own kind. This meant that as more and more new Germans settled in, so the town became more divided, the Germans in one part, and everyone else in another. Laws were passed to keep them from some types of employment, and soon moves were afoot to drive them all out, if possible, for it was feared that they would come to overtake the place entirely. So, just as fast as new folk rolled in off the boats, clutching their baskets of sausage and black bread close to them and looking bewildered about them and not a word of English to be heard, so others rolled out in their wagons.

  I am sure that the same was true in many of the towns in the East. It was the foreigners, Germans and Irish the most, who made up the main part of the wagon trains heading west, inspired by the tales of great forests ripe for the felling and with good hunting, rich meadows stretching to the horizon, with herds of wild horses running free, and anyone’s for the taking. There was talk of slow-moving rivers and fast-running streams, clean air and cloudless blue skies and the chance for every person, young or old, rich or poor, to make something better of themselves. It was no wonder that so many folks scratched together their few possessions and set off in pursuit of this dream, eager to escape the nightmare of the squalid struggle for survival in the backstreet slums.

  It struck me now, that this was just the time of year when the wagons departed on the trail to the West. Their gathering point was some meadowland on the outskirts of the city, where they made ready to start on the first part of their journey to Independence, Missouri, a journey of some five hundred miles.

  I had heard tell that in Independence the wagons collected in their hundreds, the little trickles of travelers from every town in the East joining together to form a great river that swept across the plains toward Oregon and California. I longed to see this great sight, for even with only a dozen or so wagons departing from Cincinnati, during the first week of spring our little stretch of meadow turned into a bustling marketplace.

  Stalls set up with dried goods for purchase, peas and beans and rice, and there were drapers with silks and calicos, and wool merchants with bales of cloth, and trinket stalls with beads and other gewgaws that could be traded with the Indians on the way,
or the Mexicos on arrival in California. The tallower was there with candles and lanterns and axle grease in buckets, and the cooper, to make or mend barrels. There would be a blacksmith sharpening knives and shoeing horses, cursing and yelling in the heat of his forge, and the clang of the hammers and the sparks flying up; and drovers with beeves and cows and mules for sale, all bellowing and braying and neighing. And there were cages filled with chickens, the hens clucking and squawking and the roosters crowing fit to burst, and dogs reputed to be fine ratters, and cats said to be great mousers.

  Over all, a preacher yelling like enough to raise the dead in one corner, and the medicine man in another, offering Dr. Cooper’s Tonic and Mrs. Madison’s Liniment, guaranteed to mend everything from a fever to a broken leg. He made good money, for most women bought a bottle or two of his cure-all. No woman wanted to birth a baby on the journey, and it was well known that if you took a spoonful or so the early morning grips that showed a baby was started would disappear, and the baby with them.

  It was a sight to see the wagons arriving day by day. They’d have their teams of heavy beeves pulling, with another yoke or two roped behind, and maybe a goat or a milk cow and a calf or two. The women in their caps and bonnets would be helped down from their high seats in front and they would go from stall to stall, fingering the goods and bartering, and their teamsters would load their purchases into the wagons. There would be some down-at-heel folks, looking to work their passage, and a few single men up on their glossy horses, intending to join with a train. These men would strut about with their fingers stuck in their waistcoats, stiff new-leather gun belts with shiny-handled guns in the holsters slung casually over their hips and cigarillos perched in the corners of their mouths, talking in loud voices of their plans for getting rich in California, at the same time pulling their hats low on their foreheads, to hide their assessing glances at the plump matrons and the pretty daughters.

  It was possible to join a wagon train, even if you had no horse or wagon of your own. They went at walking pace, and if you could find someone to take on your belongings for a fee you could walk the trail with them. I felt in my pocket, and pulled out the coins I had taken. There were some dimes and quarters, and five silver dollars, too. I had never seen so much money in my life before. I had no belongings, but I had the fee right enough.

  I poked my head cautiously out of my little hidey-hole, and looked to left and right. There was no one to see me.

  I got to my feet, and set off, my legs shaking beneath me. I had decided. I would leave Cincinnati for good, and make the journey to the West.

  3

  It was a long walk out of the city. By the time I arrived at the meadow, near to fainting with hunger, the sun was well up, and all in fine swing with five or six wagons already arrived.

  The air smelled of new bread and hot fat, making my mouth water and my stomach ache. Close to me a man was selling doughballs, four for a dime, hot from the pan and sprinkled with sugar. Being hungry was nothing new, but for the first time in my whole life, I could buy anything I wanted. And now I thought of my little brothers. I imagined saying to them, “Choose what you want, and eat as much as you like!” and their faces lighting up at the notion. I turned my money over and over in my pocket and my fingers knocked against the silver pocket watch.

  I had all but forgot the watch, and how I had come by it. No one could prove where I got the coin from but a silver pocket watch was a different matter, and I thought I was a fool to have took it. I looked around me real quick and sharp. There was no one looking toward me in any particular manner. Casual as could be, I sauntered across the grass to where I had spied a ragged little lad, who I half knew. As I went, I took off my neckerchief, and folded the pocket watch into it, and held it in one hand, with a dime in the other.

  When I reached the lad, I held out the dime and asked him if he wanted it. He nodded, yes, of course, and reached out to grab it, but I was quicker than he, and held it out of reach.

  “You know my brothers, don’t you? You know where I live?”

  He nodded.

  “You take this”—I handed him the little package—“and give it to my ma. Just my ma, mind!—not my pa, you understand?”

  He nodded again.

  “And then you come back here, and I will give you this dime, and another one as well.”

  Maybe he’d deliver the watch safe, and maybe he wouldn’t. Ma could hock it in the pawnshop and buy some food for the little ones, or she might use it for drink, I didn’t know. But at least, I thought, I had done my best.

  He seized the parcel and sped away, excited at his task and the promise of a reward. I felt bad for a minute, for of course I was never going to give him one dime, let alone two. I used that dime to buy myself a bagful of those doughballs, and they tasted just as good as I thought they would.

  After I had eaten, I went to the pump and washed my fingers and wiped over my face as best I could with the dampened hem of my skirt. Then I straightened my back and set off to the first wagon to ask if they would take me with them. I was refused there, and then at all the others, the women taking but one look at me with my rattail hair and my bare feet and my hand-me-down clothes from my mother. Gaudy bits of things they were, and I reckon they thought me no more than a harlot, come to tout for business.

  At last I turned away, much cast down, and leaned against a fence post, watching as two more wagons came up and stopped by the others.

  The first was pulled by a team of six beeves. Walking along of the team, with the guide rope in one hand and a long whip in the other, was a tall, broad-shouldered man.

  The sun was full overhead now, but it was not that warm. Even so he wore no coat—I could see it heaped, careless-like, on the wagon seat. His pants and waistcoat were in some dull stuff, but his shirt was blue as the sky above. Abandoned along with his coat was his hat, and his hair—cut shorter than was the fashion, and just curling over his ears—was the milky color of the butterweed flowers that grew in the grass along the foot of the fence posts, where the ground wasn’t too kicked up by the animals and wagon wheels.

  I stared at him, I could not help myself.

  After a moment, as if he felt my eyes on him, he turned his head.

  His gaze locked onto mine. His eyes were the self-same shade of blue as his shirt and the sky. He smiled straight at me and I smiled back. I could not help it—I thought I knew him. Then someone spoke to him from inside the wagon, and he turned away.

  * * *

  The second, smaller wagon was pulled by a couple of mules with another yoke of beeves roped up to walk behind. Up on the driving board was an older man, the reins in his hands and a small clay pipe clamped between his lips. He pulled to a halt, and climbed down with some difficulty. Throwing the reins over the fence post, and nodding at me as he did so, he went to join his fellow.

  Between them they unhitched one of the beeves; I could see it had cast a shoe. The elderly man led it away in the direction of the blacksmith, and the first man went round the back of the first wagon and helped down a woman green about the face, who sat down heavy on the ground, faint and sweating. He swung down a little girl, with pretty fair hair in little braids looped up with ribbons, and dropped a kiss on her forehead, then left them and went across to the ale stall.

  They were Germans, I could tell from the few words they exchanged, and you couldn’t grow up where I did without learning something of their speech. I looked away from them, too tied up in my own thoughts of what I was to do to take much notice, but after a little while I began to feel sorry for the little girl. She was crying for the privy, and pulling at her ma, but the poor woman was heaving with sickness and in no fit state to look to her. I had seen Ma so, when a baby was started, and knew it was a bad way to be in.

  With a sigh, I pushed myself upright and stepped over to them, and offered to help with the child. The woman was so beyond anything that she was grateful for this small kindness. I took the little girl’s hand and asked her name:
Ada Keseberg.

  I walked her to a quiet spot away from the crowds and helped her do her business. Then I fetched one of the tin cups hanging on a nail at the side of the wagon, and took the little girl with me again. We were only to go to the pump for a cup of water, but of course the little girl wanted to see the sights. There was a juggler doing tricks with colored balls, and we passed someone selling puppies from a box and had to stop and pet them.

  When we finally returned with the cup of water it was to find the elderly teamster hitching up the new-shod animal. The little girl’s pa—Mr. Keseberg—was in a right taking, shouting round him, “Ada! ADA!” and berating his wife for her foolishness in letting the child go with a stranger. He seized the child from me, grabbed the water from my hand and gave it to his wife, and dismissed me with a curt nod. I guess his temper had wiped the smile off his face.

  The teamster winked at me as he climbed back onto his driving seat and set to work with his pipe and tinder box. The woman, still green in the face, was assisted back into the wagon, and Ada lifted in after her. Then the bugle blast sounded, to warn the wagoners to be ready to move out. The beeves leaned into their traces with a snort and a grunt, and the wagons began to move off.

  I seized the moment, and set off to walk alongside, calling across the beeves’ broad backs, “Sir, oh sir, take me with you! I have money, I can pay for my passage! And I could help with your little girl—Ada.” He turned his head, and looked me up and down.

  The woman poked her head out of the canvas. She only leaned out to sick up, but she caught the end of this exchange.

  “Oh, Louis! Let her come, I beg of you! She can help with Ada, and I—” But at that, she was seized again with the sickness and could not speak for retching.