The Spoils of Sin

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I was for bashing in they ’eads with a rock, but tidn my way,’ he spluttered. As far as Fanny could see, it was exactly his way of dealing with any nuisance, but she supposed that his womenfolk might have raised objections, as with the previous caller.

  ‘’Tis for ye to pay compersation for the loss,’ he persisted. ‘They ’as to be fed.’

  ‘I regret the inconvenience,’ said Fanny, instinctively adopting a superior tone. ‘But I believe you will find it a simple matter to sell the pups when they’re weaned.’

  ‘Sell? How, pray?’ It was the woman, speaking up for the first time. ‘Ye think we’ve the time to traipse around town like gypsies, looking for customers?’

  Mention of gypsies gave Fanny pause. She scarcely recognised the word, and certainly had no direct experience of any such people. She could find no appropriate reply.

  ‘If we were back in Flathead country, we could trade them with the Indians. They make a fine stew from a young pup.’ The woman looked her in the eye, hoping for a reaction.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Fanny, making sure she showed no signs of disgust or alarm.

  ‘As ’tis, we’m out o’ pocket,’ pressed the man.

  Fanny bade them wait, and quickly went into the house and extracted five dollars from their cash store. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘This will pay for a good deal of bones and meal for the pups. I’m sorry for your trouble, but I believe it is the general custom to keep your dog secure when she is on heat. Our Hugo is not the only one you have to fear.’ With difficulty she refrained from enquiring as to the eventual fate of the pups. The answer could only be upsetting.

  The little family withdrew, grumblingly. When Carola heard the story, she gave Fanny a sceptical frown. ‘It’s my belief they’re visiting everyone they can find in possession of a male dog, and demanding payment from them all. What’s to prove it was Hugo who sired those pups? Indeed – how do we know there are any pups at all?’

  Fanny had to give this some thought. ‘Because those people lack the wits for such a deception. It takes a clever mind like yours to think up such a thing.’

  Carola laughed, more than content with the compliment. ‘Hugo will acquire a reputation as a menace,’ she warned. ‘Yet I see no way we can confine him. It would not be kind.’

  ‘It is assuredly the responsibility of the owners of the bitches to keep them close when they are on heat. The risk is all theirs, in the nature of things.’

  ‘You cannot carry the comparison too far.’

  ‘Which comparison?’

  ‘You are thinking of young men wandering abroad and spreading their seed,’ Carola accused. ‘Just as dogs do. And, I suppose, all kinds of other animals.’

  Fanny’s gaze rested on Carola’s abdomen, an image of a turbulent litter of unborn puppies filling her imagination. ‘The comparison does not hold,’ she acknowledged. ‘In the matter of humans, there are times when the females are the wanderers.’

  Carola sighed. ‘And reaping the results of going against nature, perhaps.’

  They had very seldom spoken of Reuben Collins and his part in the conception of the child. The fact of his relationship to Fanny acted as an inhibitor to frankness on the subject. Carola had implied that she had been doing him a kindness, but also that her own inclinations were involved. She had liked him, pitied him and now seemed to wish to protect him. Not once did either of them raise the suggestion that he might, after all, make a possible husband for Carola. There would be no more visits to the homestead, except by Fanny alone. And the difficulty of travelling in solitude was such that the prospect was highly remote. She wrote brief letters to her family, sending them with a carrier who might take a week or more to reach the address. Replies were brief, but amiable. The crops were adequate, despite the lack of rain. Grandma was slowly failing. Nam had grown over an inch since winter.

  And beyond and through and around everything they talked of, there was the gold. The word was used ten times as often as any other by the population of Chemeketa and every other settlement in Oregon. Stories that could not be credited flew from mouth to ear with every encounter. Palaces were being erected with the proceeds. Ships full of Irish and Scots were arriving. Adventurers were crossing the narrow piece of land between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, where it was tropical and disease-ridden, hiring all manner of vessel to bring them northwards to California. And always there were preachers and doom-mongers, uttering threats and warnings against this greedy pursuit of treasure.

  ‘They have some right in what they say,’ remarked a man of middle years who was in no apparent rush to take Fanny upstairs. ‘I was raised to believe in an honest wage for honest work, earning a living by your own hands. This crazy scramble for easy wealth can come to no good, so far as I can see.’

  Fanny smiled accommodatingly, and asked him what his line of work might be.

  ‘Trapper for a time, and then when the settlers began to arrive, five or six years since, I made myself handy as a fencer. Good fences are just about the most important place to start, when it comes to settling. No matter whether it be the square mile of land or an acre of backyard – the fence is the thing.’ He laughed. ‘You’d not credit how ignorant men can be as to the best way to set up a good fence. A coyote can jump a fair few feet, not to mention the critters that dig away to burrow beneath it, and the bears that just push it aside with a single blow.’

  Fanny could understand why he saw no need to rush off in the search for gold. He had made himself indispensable, and was doing well enough as it was. But he was yet to find himself a wife or even a permanent home, and she wondered what he would do when his muscles slackened from age, and he lost the necessary strength for fencing.

  He was an easy man to satisfy, in the event. Quick, uncomplicated and grateful. He saw no need to speak of it afterwards, but merely buttoned his clothing and sighed with something that resembled regret. Fanny supposed that his opportunities for relief and the touch of female skin were limited, and wondered that he did not linger over it a trifle longer. She had no objection to his remaining with her for a few more minutes, but he seemed intent on leaving. She had heard another male voice downstairs, and it would seem that her considerate customer was making way for a newcomer.

  The face of the man in the boudoir’s main room was instantly familiar, and yet completely out of place. ‘Mr Fields!’ Fanny cried in amazement. Her immediate thought was that her sister’s husband had come for the usual reasons and the flicker of glee this elicited was worse than shameful. Then she looked more closely at his odd-coloured face, revealing his mixed parentage. A beak-like nose, lank black hair and close-set eyes made him far from handsome. Now he was standing awkwardly, holding a greasy hat in his hands.

  ‘He brings news from your family,’ said Carola, who was sitting by the piano, very pale, with a hand to her throat.

  ‘What?’ cried Fanny, rapidly visualising each of her relatives in turn, and trying to guess what might have befallen one of them. Or had the entire homestead burned down, killing them all at once? ‘Tell me! Quickly!’

  ‘Your brother,’ said Mr Fields. ‘He had a dreadful accident, and is…’ He looked at Carola, as if for assistance. Fanny frowned. Had he already told her the whole story, then?

  ‘Dead! Reuben is dead,’ said the pregnant girl.

  ‘I have not yet said so, but I fear it is true. He was trampled by the oxen, when they were set to stampeding by a bear. He did not suffer,’ he finished.

  Fanny sat down in a heap, unaware of anything but shock. Poor Reuben! First a horse throwing him and now the cattle had slaughtered him. It was as if fate had picked him out from the start as a sacrificial member of the Collins family – a payment of some kind for the hubris of thinking they could have everything go as they wished. ‘Poor Reuben!’ she said aloud. ‘He never deserved such a thing.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ agreed Mr Fields robustly. ‘He was a fine lad, without vice of any sort.’

  Vice? The word rang a small bell in Fan
ny’s mind. She raised her head and looked around her. Her sister’s husband now knew the secret of how she earned her bread. He would also have observed Carola’s condition. He would take back a comprehensive report that would taint her forever in her family’s eyes.

  ‘Charity is not with you?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘She has a new babe to tend. Another little lad. We had already selected your brother’s name for him. There is a second Reuben in the family.’ He looked as if thought this might provide some consolation.

  Carola made a small noise, and Fanny threw her a repressive look. This was most certainly not the moment – if such a moment there could ever be – to reveal the paternity of her unborn child. But there were implications swarming at her, more than she could deal with at one time.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Fanny asked.

  He shrugged, as if this were a useless question. ‘It took me barely an hour. You are well advertised.’

  And he is an Indian, she thought idiotically. Perhaps he had special tracking abilities, thanks to his mixed blood.

  ‘Did you know – does the family know – how we live?’ asked Carola in a small voice. ‘That is - ?’ she faltered. Despite their daily experiences, their familiarity with the taboo, the words some of the men used with them, it was still impossible to speak plainly.

  ‘Not a notion,’ he assured her. ‘I confess it came as a surprise to me. Although…’ he looked at Fanny. ‘Your sister has mentioned certain episodes on the Trail, which might suggest something of this sort. And she gave me some meaningful clues as to how I might locate you.’

  ‘Charity will find it entirely as she expected,’ said Fanny drily.

  ‘My wife is content with the life we have,’ he said, a little defensively. ‘She endured the migration with difficulty. Many times I wished I could protect her from the things she witnessed. She was never meant for adventure.’

  They had already drifted away from Reuben and his terrible death, Fanny realised. It was as if they could not dwell for long on the sadness of it. But she dragged herself back. ‘My mother,’ she said. ‘How is she taking the news?’

  Mrs Collins had doted on Reuben from the first. She would occasionally reminisce over the delight she had found in taking on her husband’s infant son after the death of his first wife. Even when Fanny arrived, barely a year after the marriage, Reuben remained her special lamb.

  ‘She is broken,’ he said. ‘You must recall that day when he returned from soldiering, with his shoulder all twisted. Such relief and delight and celebration.’

  Fanny did indeed vividly remember the muddle and bustle of their arrival at Oregon City, with every family jostling for the best parcels of land, and trying to acquire the essentials for their new lives. Into all that had ridden her missing brother, damaged but valiant. Everything had fallen into place with his return, both his parents radiant with gladness. When Charity suddenly married Mr Fields, nobody felt much sense of loss – didn’t they have their boy back with them? And wasn’t that the most important thing of all?

  Without Reuben, the only son, how would Patrick Collins manage his acres? He was already struggling to combine farming with his business before this disaster. She asked Mr Fields what he thought would happen now.

  ‘Your father is talking of selling his business in town, and concentrating on producing crops. The sale would bring him income enough to acquire seed and equipment necessary to expand his endeavours. This will be the third year on the homestead, and much is already established – as you will have seen for yourself.’ He sighed deeply. ‘And Reuben’s shoulder had been improving in recent months. A new harness was fitted which was pulling him into a better shape. Although I believe he suffered a deal of pain from it, too.’

  ‘Oh, poor Reuben!’ Fanny howled again. The misery of it was still sinking into her consciousness, the inescapable truth of it not yet quite rooted. Never to see him again, to laugh and remember their early years, to watch him turn to full manhood. Never mind that such meetings might be barely once a year – it had been enough to know he would always be there if she wanted him.

  Carola had said nothing since her incoherent question. Only now did Fanny remember that they still had something of Reuben, a permanent reminder, due to be born in another three months or so. And this would surely be a comfort to her parents, if they knew. How could they conceal it from them now? She opened her mouth to explain to her brother-in-law, sending him back with news they might find consoling, quite changing her earlier opinion that to mention it would be both ill-timed and unwise. But then she saw her friend’s face, and knew she had read her mind and was very much against making the revelation. At some point their positions had been reversed, and Fanny took due note of the uncertain implications of disclosing the truth.

  ‘Well – I should be getting back,’ said their visitor, somewhat awkwardly. ‘It is a long ride.’

  ‘Oh! How remiss we have been,’ cried Fanny. ‘Stay and eat. Refresh yourself. How long have you been travelling? You must stay here for the night. Of course you must. You cannot ride directly home in the dark. We can fashion a bed for you here on the couch.’ She began to bustle around, uselessly tugging at a cushion, trying to think where there might be a coverlet for him.

  ‘Fanny,’ said Carola. ‘Let me.’ With unnerving efficiency, she collected bread, cheese, fruit and beer, and arranged it on the table. She prepared fresh coffee and set it to heat on the stove.

  Fanny and Moses watched her wordlessly. The situation was one that neither had experienced before. They did not know each other well, and Fanny found herself wondering how much detail Charity had revealed of her sister’s debauchery. Did all wives disclose everything in their minds and hearts to their husbands? Did they discuss and analyse and comment on every small detail of their experience? She suspected not – but it seemed to her that her story might well make for entertaining conversation in the privacy of the bedchamber.

  None of this mattered, of course. The man had undertaken the arduous task of riding fifty miles to take tragic news to a little known sister. He had earned gratitude, at the very least.

  ‘I can warm some water for you,’ Carola offered. ‘So you might wash.’ He was dusty, but otherwise fairly clean. He held out his hands like a child offering them for inspection, indicating that he believed a wash might wait until a later time. Basins and ewers were kept in the upstairs rooms. Only a shallow tin bowl stood on a box in the back scullery, holding cold water for sundry uses. Hugo regarded it as his personal drinking bowl.

  The dog had been shut out by Carola when Mr Fields first arrived. He was now pawing insistently at the back door, and Fanny went to let him in. ‘You remember our Hugo?’ she asked. ‘You met him at the homestead.’

  The half-breed paid the animal little attention. ‘You admit him to the house,’ he observed.

  ‘He acts as a guard and protector. Our work has its hazards,’ Fanny told him.

  ‘I imagine it does. But we must not speak of your work. I am under the strictest instruction.’ He smiled and scratched his head. ‘My wife is afraid I might find myself…tainted.’

  ‘That is precisely what she would fear,’ said Fanny drily. ‘It surprises me that you were spared for the errand at all.’

  Again he smiled. ‘There were reasons,’ was all he said.

  Carola bade him sit at the table and eat. The front door had been closed behind Fanny’s customer, and nobody had come to bang on it. The procedure was well enough understood that the Misses Francesca and Carlotta were not receiving visitors if both doors were closed.

  Mr Fields had made not the slightest acknowledgement of Carola’s pregnancy, by word or look, and yet there could be no doubt that he was aware of it. So many men had joked about it, seeing it as a risk that such women took, and having not the slightest idea that the man who had of necessity shared in the conception might carry some responsibility for the consequences. They took it as self-evident that the identity of the sire coul
d never be discovered, unless the resulting child showed the most extreme likeness to a man they remembered. Such an eventuality was so improbable as to remain unvoiced or even unthought.

  Carola herself never hinted that she saw any justification in seeking any assistance in the expense and inconvenience of rearing a child. Knowing who to approach, as she did, made no difference. The child was hers, and hers alone.

  Except that now, Fanny saw all too clearly that this need not be so. Her parents would be overjoyed to discover a grandchild, ready to adopt and raise him as a replacement for Reuben. And Carola had very likely understood this an hour past, and be fiercely determined not to be separated from her babe.

  The dilemma thus recognised grew larger and more insistent in Fanny’s mind. She herself had no wish to share their home with a squalling infant. There were people – people of the same blood – who would gladly take it. Naomi and Lizzie would take their share in the care and nurturing required, and the open air and freedom of such a life would be incomparably better than growing up in a whorehouse, however civilised and careful it might be.

  But she said nothing, climbing the stairs for an early night, and sadly thanking her brother-in-law for all the trouble he had taken.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mr Fields left early the next morning, visibly eager to return to his family. The girls were barely awake, still too shocked by the news to trust their own reactions. The answers to a few further questions had increased their dazed condition. Reuben’s death, which Fanny had imagined took place only a few days past, had in fact happened in the early days of July. Not until the Fields family drove over for the burial and to help with the trouble arising from the unforeseen tragedy, had someone thought of the necessity to inform Fanny. A letter, they agreed, would not do. It had to be a gentle personal encounter. Only two possible messengers could be identified: Patrick Collins and Moses Fields. Collins, the patriarch, had far too much to do to be spared. Moses, never fully accepted by his wife’s parents and sisters, had offered himself without hesitation. But it took time to return his wife and children to their own homestead, arrange for his work to be postponed for a few days, and adequate provision be made for Charity, who would be left without any means of transport. ‘We only have the one horse, you see,’ he explained.