A Man for Temperance (Wagon Wheel)

by Gilbert, Morris

  * * *

  AS SOON AS BRENNAN entered the house, Temperance saw that he had not changed his clothes and had not washed. She knew he was trying her out. “Brennan, get out on the back porch. There’s a wash basin and a pitcher of fresh water. Wash your face and hands and comb your hair. If not, you can do without supper.”

  Brennan glared at the woman. She was not tall, and he towered over her. But she was not intimidated by the difference in size. “I guess I’m clean enough.”

  “You might be clean enough for that jail, but you’re not clean enough to share my table. I’ve got chicken, beets, green beans, fresh biscuits, and I made a sweet potato pie. You don’t get any of that unless you act like a human being. Which will it be?”

  Brennan was strongly tempted to turn and walk away, but the delicious smells from the kitchen weakened him. “All right,” he muttered, cursing under his breath. He slammed the door and went out, which caused Temperance to smile. “Slam the door all you want, but you’re going to do what I say.”

  Five minutes later Brennan came in. His face was red from the exertion and his hands were clean, and he had evidently used his fingers for a comb. His coarse, black hair was too long, and she made a note of that. “You can sit right there. I’m not going to have this discussion every time we eat. If you want to eat at my table, you’ll wash first.”

  Brennan opened his mouth to argue, but then the smell of the food got to him and he nodded in a surly fashion. As soon as he seated himself, he reached for the chicken, but her voice caught him. “We’ll thank the Lord for the food, Brennan.”

  Brennan stared at her, then slumped down and refused to shut his eyes. Temperance shut her eyes and said, “We thank Thee for this food and for everything which You provided. In Jesus’s name we’re grateful. Amen.”

  “Is it all right if I eat now? Or are you gonna preach a sermon and take up a collection?”

  “That will do!”

  Brennan loaded his plate until it would hold no more. It looked like a small mountain. He worked his way through the food, eating like a starved wolf, and his manners were the worst Temperance Peabody had ever seen. He snorted and groaned and grunted and even paused once to spit something onto the floor. Twice she started to call his attention to his manners, but then she decided any hope she had of improving this wild man would come slowly.

  She tried to carry on a conversation, asking him about his past, but got only monosyllable answers and grunts or shakes of the head. Finally, when he had demolished half of the sweet potato pie and washed it down noisily with coffee, she said, “Come on. I want to show you the work to be done.” He got up and followed her outside. She watched as he rolled a cigarette expertly. He did it with one hand, it seemed, licked the middle, and twisted the ends in one smooth motion. Pulling a kitchen match out of his shirt pocket, he lifted his leg and struck it on the outside of his thigh, then threw the match on the ground. “All these fences are going to have to be repaired. They all need work. The troughs are leaking. Tomorrow you can work on that, but the main thing is spring plowing.”

  She turned to him and saw resentment in his eyes. Something had painted shadows on his face and had laid silence on his tongue. It had branded his solid face with rebellion and loneliness. “You do know how to plow, don’t you?”

  “Spent the first ten years of my life looking at the hind end of a mule. Thought I’d seen the last of it, but here I am again.” He drew on the cigarette, blew a perfect smoke ring, then dropped the cigarette and ground it into the earth with his boot heel. “Here I am doing what I said I’d never do.”

  “One more thing,” she said. “I don’t like my help drinking during working hours.”

  Brennan turned to face her, looking down at her with a strange expression on his face. “You ever been married?”

  The question caught Temperance off guard. “Why—no, I haven’t.”

  “I didn’t figure so. Easy to see why.”

  His words angered her. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “You like to push at a man, Peabody.”

  “Most of the men I’ve seen need pushing.”

  Her words touched him, and there was a feral wildness in him. For a moment something like fear came to Temperance. She was alone with this man who had a violent streak in him. Her eyes widened, and she had to resist taking another step backward. He was a limber man with amber eyes half-hidden by the drop of his lids. He had a looseness about him, and the sun had scorched his skin, putting layers of tan smoothly over his face. All his features were solid, and his shape was the flat and angularly heavy build of a man turned hard by time and effort. She could not read his eyes for they were empty mirrors looking out at nothing. He made Temperance nervous, and she said, “Breakfast will be on the table at five o’clock. Remember, I’ll expect you to do no drinking on the job.”

  Brennan watched her go and, when she was out of hearing, muttered a curse. “What you expect and what you get might turn out to be two different things, you dried up old maid!”

  * * *

  TEMPERANCE HAD COOKED BREAKFAST, but no Brennan came to eat it. She waited ten minutes, then left the kitchen. Going at once to his room, she banged on the door and heard a muffled voice cursing. Shoving the door open, she saw he had the covers pulled over his head. “Get out of that bed, Brennan. You’re late for breakfast.”

  Brennan came out cursing. He had been sleeping in his underwear, which was dirty and filled with holes. The hair on his chest curled through the front of it. “Get out of here!” he yelled.

  When Brennan plopped back down and closed his eyes, Temperance picked up the pitcher of water from the washstand and poured it over his face. Brennan sputtered and cursed. He came out of the bed, and she saw that the bottom part of his underwear was in worse shape than the top. He started for her angrily, but she did not move. She looked up at him and said, “If you’re not cleaned up and ready for work in half an hour, I’ll have Marshal Meek come and see what he can do with you.” Without another word she whirled and left the room.

  Brennan glared after her and more than anything he had wanted in a long time, he wanted to get dressed, ride out, and never see this woman again. He knew, however, that he was in a bind. “Building roads,” he muttered, “can’t be much worse than her.” He knew better, however, and began pulling on his pants.

  * * *

  THE BREAKFAST WAS HUGE. Brennan ate six eggs, so runny he had to eat them with a spoon, and fried ham and biscuits seemed to flow down his throat. He used the fine, fresh butter to layer the biscuits, dumped the peach preserves on them, and washed it all down with fresh milk. Finally, when he was so swollen he had to undo his belt, he looked over and said reluctantly, “That was a good breakfast.”

  “My mother taught me to cook, Brennan.”

  She had eaten probably a fifth of what Brennan had eaten, and now he seemed to be in a receptive mood, at least for him. “What about your people?”

  Brennan took a swig of coffee, then pulled the makings out and made a cigarette. He was half expecting her to tell him he could not smoke in the house, but she said nothing. He twisted the ends, lit it, drew the smoke deeply into his lungs, and finally shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Things happen.”

  “Who raised you?”

  “I did.”

  The two sat there uneasily. Conversation with this man was merely impossible, and finally Temperance said, “I’m going to see a family that’s been hard hit by cholera. You can start the plowing. I’ll be looking to see how much you’ve done by the time I get back.”

  “Better stay away from the cholera. It’s a good way to get sick yourself.”

  “I trust God to keep me from that.”

  “Well, God sometimes makes mistakes, or so I hear.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A Pawnee war chief.”

  “He didn’t know God.”

  “He knew his god.”


  Temperance did not want to get into an argument over the differences between the god the Indians knew and the God she knew. She got up and said, “I’ll clean up the dishes. You can go on and start on the fences. I warn you, Brennan, you’ll have to work even when I’m not watching.”

  “You’re worse than Marshal Meek!”

  * * *

  TEMPERANCE HAD MADE THE Duttons as comfortable as she could. Their cabin was poorly built, and the wind sifted through the crevices and cracks between the logs. She had brought food, had done their washing, and now she was holding two-monthold Timothy. She loved children, and Timothy was a charming baby, fat and healthy with an unexpectedly cheerful smile at the oddest times.

  “Aren’t you a handsome one?” she said. Timothy gurgled, reached out and caught her finger, and stuck it in his mouth. She let him bite it for awhile and then got the store-bought nipple that his mother had used. Martha Dutton was a small woman and did not have enough milk for the baby, so she kept goats for milk, which seemed to satisfy Timothy. The two women sat together, and before long, as she had expected, Martha began expressing her doubts. “We should never have come to this awful place. I never wanted to come to Oregon. It was Clyde. He had this dream of owning land, but we would have been better off renting it back in Missouri.”

  “You’re going to be fine. You’ve got a good place here.”

  Martha looked toward the single bedroom the cabin afforded. “Clyde’s so sick.” Fear washed across her face. “What will happen if he dies? I couldn’t take care of my baby or myself.”

  Temperance knew this woman was not strong in body or in will. She belonged back East where life was more settled. For a long time she encouraged the woman and finally said, “You’ve just got to trust God. Clyde’s going to be all right. I’ll come early tomorrow and get the rest of the clothes washed. I’ll cook something that Clyde will like. You just rest and try not to get sick yourself.”

  As she left the cabin and headed back to her own homestead, she was wondering how long the woman would last. Clyde Dutton looked like a dead man to her. She had had enough experience with cholera to recognize the final stages of it, and she would not be surprised if Clyde was one of those who didn’t make it.

  When Temperance got home, the late afternoon shadows were already beginning to draw their long shapes outside the cabin. She made a quick tour and found that most of the fences had been fixed. Part of the field next to the cabin had been plowed, but the animals were put up now and there was no sign of Brennan. She went at once to his room, calling out, “Brennan, are you there?” But when she looked inside, she saw that his things were there though he was gone. Returning to the barn, she noticed that his horse was missing. A disgust came to her. “He’s probably gone back to town to get drunk.”

  The struggle to stay alive in Oregon country in 1850 took all the strength a man or a woman had. It was hard on any human being, and Temperance was not as strong as some of the pioneer women. Now as she went to the house, she suddenly found it difficult to climb the steps. She made it to the top and then sat down in one of the white oak rockers her father had made. She began rocking, and Gus came at once and jumped into her lap, purring like a steam engine. She rubbed his chin, which he loved, and murmured, “I wish I didn’t have any more worries than you, Gus.”

  Gus responded by digging his claws in and releasing them. He loved to trample her, not that he ever punctured her with his huge claws, but it seemed to give him pleasure to shove them down and back and forth.

  The struggle of life caught up with Temperance Peabody. She was tired, exhausted. She was seeing sick people every day, knowing that many of them would not live. Her family was gone, and she had the sense of total isolation. Now her hired hand was probably in town getting drunk, probably would quit, and she had no one else to help.

  She was not a crying woman as a rule, but she could have cried as she sat there. Finally she heard the sound of a horse approaching. Eagerly she looked up and saw Brennan on his stallion. It was getting dark, but she saw that he had a large deer tied down on the horse. He pulled up, and she said, “I thought you’d gone to town.”

  “There you go, always thinking the worst of me.” He came off the horse and gestured toward the buck. “I hit him but not dead center. Had to run him down.”

  Quickly, she tried to think of something pleasant to say. “Some fresh venison would go down good. I’ll show you where to dress him.”

  “I seen the place. I’ll go cut off some steaks, and you can cook ’em while I do the rest.”

  He started to turn the horse away, and she said, “I thought you had run away.”

  Brennan somehow found that amusing. He smiled, and when he did, the two creases beside his mouth became more prominent. “Peabody, I’ve run off from more places than you can think of, but I’ll let you know when I run off. I won’t sneak off in the night.”

  She thought this was a strange thing, but she didn’t ask any more questions. She walked out with him and watched while he strung the deer up and quickly cut the two steaks out. He said, “We’ll save the hide. It might be a good rug.”

  “You can always use another rug.” She hesitated, then said, “I saw the fences. They look good.”

  “Ain’t hard to fix a fence.”

  “The plowing looked good too.”

  “You know I didn’t mind it as much as I did when I was a boy. I’d hate to do it for the rest of my life though. Go cook the steaks.”

  Temperance turned and headed back toward the house. When she was inside, Gus was pawing at the raw meat. “Well, Gus,” she said, a smile softening her features, “at least he didn’t run off.”

  Chapter Three

  BRENNAN DECIDED TO SHAVE, and then he decided not to.

  For a moment he stood looking at the mirror over the washstand, taking in the shaggy, coarse, black hair and the whiskers that in two weeks had become more than just stubble, and felt a perverse sense of satisfaction. Ever since he had come to work for Temperance Peabody, he had deliberately remained filthy and unshaven merely to aggravate his employer.

  “I reckon I’m just about pretty enough to make her happy,” he spoke to the mirror. He had a habit of speaking not only to animals as if they could understand but also to inanimate objects. Now he nodded toward the fly-specked mirror and grinned. “Another two or three weeks of this, I’ll be just about ripe enough for that psalm-singing preacher woman.”

  He moved across the room to a small table, picked up the jug, and tilted it. Only a few trickles were left, and with a curse he slammed the jug down and grabbed his hat, which hung from a nail on the wall. He took one look around the room and was satisfied that it was about as disreputable as he could make it. He knew this irritated Temperance Peabody, and he spit on the floor and said, “There! That ought to put the finishing touches on it.”

  Brennan left the room and saddled Judas after the usual titanic struggle. He waited for him to try to kick him, and said loudly, “Why, you’d be good for a month just to get a chance to bite me once.” Cautiously he put the saddle blanket on, then when Judas swung his big head around, teeth bared, Brennan rapped him sharply in the nose with his fist. “There, you spawn of Satan! Try to bite me again, I’ll bust your teeth out!” He waited to see if he would respond, but the stallion merely quivered his withers. Brennan, with satisfaction, slapped the saddle on, cinched it up, and then went through the usual difficulty of getting Judas to accept the bridle. “You better not mess with me today, Judas. I’m just in the mood to kick the daylights out of anything that moves and you’re closest.” The horse knew the tone, evidently, for he allowed Brennan to slip the bridle on.

  Stepping into the saddle, Brennan rode out of the barn and was headed for town when he heard his name called. “Brennan!”

  With a sigh he turned and saw his employer standing on the front porch. “Well, Judas, she caught us. I guess we’ll get another sermon now.” He did not dismount but simply rode within ten feet of t
he porch and asked grumpily, “What do you want?”

  “Where you going?”

  “I’m going to town and buy some whiskey.” He knew this would anger her, and it pleased him inordinately when he saw a cloud pass across her face.

  “You didn’t finish plowing the south field.”

  “No, I didn’t, and I ain’t going to.”

  “Why not, may I ask?”

  “Because it’s Monday.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  Patiently, as if speaking to a child, Brennan said, “Why, didn’t you know Monday’s a hard-luck day? Shucks, I thought everybody knowed that.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just another day like the other six.”

  “Not for me it ain’t. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me in my life happened on Monday.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not! Let me tell you something, lady. I was walking down the streets of Mobile, Alabama, one time, and I got shot. And guess what day it was? Monday! That’s what it was.”

  “Who shot you?”

  “Oh, I disremember his name. He was a dentist and he was drunk.”

  “Why’d he shoot you?”

  “Oh, I didn’t say he was aimin’ to shoot me. There was a lawyer named Simmons who was sleeping with this here dentist’s wife. I don’t mean when he shot me, I mean on a regular basis, and it aggravated that dentist. So he got his pistol out and waited outside the lawyer’s office. Wouldn’t you know it was just my luck to come along right then. Now, if it had been Tuesday, I’d have been gone. Or if it had been Sunday, I’d probably been in church.” Brennan grinned at this and waited for her to protest, but when she was silent, he shrugged. “If bad luck’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”