The Indifference of Tumbleweed

by Rebecca Tope

  Abel looked up and I could not escape his eye. ‘You want me?’ he asked and I denied my body’s urgent messages by shaking my head.

  ‘You’re welcome to him,’ said Fanny, which only deepened my horror. ‘I claim no ownership.’

  I had heard faint whispers of women who permitted great numbers of men to take liberties with them, in exchange for payment. It was a topic redolent with disgust and contempt amongst decent people and never had I imagined I could meet such a woman. Now I looked at my sister with a suspicion that swelled within me. ‘Does he pay you?’ I asked her.

  ‘He does not,’ she returned, with a puzzled frown. ‘Am I worth payment?’ she asked Abel.

  ‘With what?’ he asked, spreading his hands.

  My sister, some years my junior, took a deep breath and began to explain herself. ‘Charity, the thing is a great pleasure. They have told us, again and again, that it is forbidden, that it leads to trouble, that it is base and wicked and against God’s Law. Perhaps I am monstrous, though I fancy not. It delights me. It has deeps that no-one speaks of. Abel might be a monster also – he has a certain skill in the matter that I find a considerable surprise. He wastes no time in words, but uses the flesh to give relief and enjoyment. That is all,’ she finished with a sigh. ‘We ask you to guard the secret and in return we offer you entrance to the same pleasures we have discovered.’

  Again I thought I must be dreaming. This was my giddy singing sister, turned foul? The foulness was what struck me most forcefully, as she spoke. It was as if she declaimed the virtues of some desperate poison that could only lead to degradation and death.

  ‘No,’ I said. Without warning I broke into racking sobs. ‘You are fallen. Lost. You will never find a good husband now.’ I raised my head, gulping for breath. ‘You must marry Abel.’

  Abel would not make a bad husband, as I had already concluded. His family was prosperous and decent. The idea that he should wed my sister was self-evident, once I had grasped it. And yet it stabbed me to contemplate it.

  Fanny laughed. ‘But you said he was thine,’ she reminded me, repeating the old word that few people still employed.

  ‘I knew not what I was saying. I was mad – I am still mad. You have made me mad,’ I said, including them both in my accusation. ‘This is sheer madness.’

  We were interrupted then by the approach of my mother and grandmother, walking together in a harmony we did not often see in other families between a wife and her husband’s dam. What would these two grown women think if they knew what had taken place? Fanny hurriedly stood and flounced her skirts, which were not full enough to form folds to hide the stains made by Abel. The glistening splashes glowed luminously in my sight, seemingly impossible to overlook. The material was a brownish hue, but the dye had faded in some places where the bright sun had done its work during the many dryings it had undergone over the past months. Perhaps, after all, the horrid marks would go unnoticed.

  ‘Past time for our nooning,’ said my mother gaily, when she came closer. ‘Do I have hungry daughters awaiting their meal?’

  ‘Ravenous,’ I said, hoping there would be no traces of my recent tears. Our faces were seldom entirely clean and I guessed the smudges would not be seen as unusual.

  My grandmother, however, noticed something amiss. She narrowed her eyes at Fanny and me, and Abel who had moved away a little, and was idly making criss-cross lines with his toe in the sandy soil. ‘Fighting, is it?’ she asked. ‘You girls are proper little cats, seems to me.’

  It was an unjust remark, since Fanny and I almost never disagreed. We had always been too unlike each other for any serious falling-out. Until this day, we had found little to compete for, having very different inclinations. But there had been moments when I had made fun or snapped unkindly, accusing her of ignorance and selfishness. And she had more than once drawn attention to my blemished skin and over-large feet.

  ‘Not fighting a bit, Grandma,’ said Fanny lightly.

  My mother lugged the Dutch oven to the ashes of a fire that we had lit earlier. A pile of buffalo dung stood close by and was quickly added to the embers. It burned up in a few moments, and the oven was warmed in no time. Inside was a substantial stew of deer meat and potatoes – too much for the hot weather, and already past its best, having been rewarmed too many times. Coffee was brewed and dumplings mixed and thrown into the stew.

  I could eat barely a few mouthfuls when it was placed before me on the tin plate. My thoughts were mere shreds of bewilderment and horror. My sister had been seduced by the devil, I concluded. Was Abel the fallen angel in disguise? Had there been some great lack in Fanny’s education that had gone unnoticed? Or had I been misguided myself? Was I an utter fool to have swallowed the Sunday school instructions with very little question? I had never once spoken of such matters with a single person, and could see no prospect of amending this. There was no-one I could trust enough to broach something so private and terrifying. I could not even trust my own interior self. Had my body not thrummed at the very sight of Abel’s skin? When his eyes met mine, something within had dissolved into molten wax and a touch from him might have had the most drastic of consequences. Is that how it had been for Fanny? Were there other girls amongst the emigrants who were equally in thrall to him?

  And what of his moral education? Whilst the Tennants made no outward display of religion, I knew they engaged in Bible readings on occasion, and were decent Protestants in their way.

  I was being torn in two entirely different directions until nothing was sure. It was as if I had stepped into a void, thinking myself on solid ground. I had believed myself to be an ordinary young woman, following the same God-given laws as everyone else, with the strength to resist an alarming bodily temptation with no great difficulty. There were remedies apparently open to me, after all: I believed I could marry Abel Tennant, if his smouldering glances carried the intention that I thought they did. Or I could find myself another mate amongst all the young men in the wagon train. I was of an age and more where a girl generally married, and once arrived in Oregon, it would be considered quite normal for this to occur.

  And once married myself, it would then in time be Fanny’s turn. Fanny, so much prettier and merrier than myself, would understandably attract a handsome and prosperous young farmer or businessman. And Lizzie, with her damaged foot and intense ways, might find herself a lifelong spinster, remaining with our mother as helpmeet. She could divert herself with reading, drawing, fostering a garden or raising livestock. In the tent at night, we sisters had dreamed aloud along these lines, from time to time, and never once had I guessed that Fanny was taking such matters many steps further than she should.

  It all fell to bitter crumbs in my hands, now. As I forced myself to live through the remainder of that day, keeping my head down and turning my back on the family, I felt a crisis building. I relived the sight of my sister conjoined to young Tennant, only to discover my body reacting so powerfully I thought it must be obvious to all around me. Had I been a fool not to have put myself in her place when I had the chance? In those first weeks, when Abel’s look had pierced me almost as effectively as his member pierced Fanny, I had failed to act. I would not have known how, would have been far too terrified to engage in something so forbidden. And Abel had perhaps lacked the persistence and determination necessary to cajole me. Instead he had turned to my sister and found her much more willing.

  And still those words He’s mine! echoed in my ear. She was lying where I should have been lying, and enjoying the sensations that I knew, deep down, I too would have found delightful.

  Was it Fanny, then, who was an aberration, and not me? A murky mysterious memory floated up, where my parents were whispering urgently about their second daughter, in the doorway of our bedroom. ‘You must prevent her,’ my father said. ‘It is shameful the way she acts.’

  My mother had come into the room, and wrapped Fanny’s arms tightly in the bedclothes, hissing at her to keep still. And another time came to
mind - one day Fanny was sitting astride the arm of a stuffed chair, rocking to and fro, humming to herself in a rising song. She must have been no more than four years old, but there was a quality to her behaviour that attracted the attention of us all. My mother grabbed her roughly and pulled her off the chair. The child wailed and kicked, but I recalled thinking it was right that she be stopped. In time, I found myself connecting Fanny’s singing with something close to bad behaviour, something we could not entirely admit had taken place. The very blitheness of her approach to life gave rise to an unspoken unease that only now made some sense to me.

  All of which served to make me feel somewhat better. It was patently clear that my way of thinking was the generally approved way. I had nothing to reproach myself for. Fanny, by contrast, was certain to receive reproach, censure, ostracism and punishment if her activities were made public. If the puritanical societies of New England, which we had seen at close quarters, were to discover such a wicked girl in their midst, she would have been paraded for universal scorn and worse. The Irish priests that my grandmother and father remembered as such tyrants would have prayed urgently for her immortal soul and required sincere and prolonged penance from her.

  But here on a wagon train, approaching the summit of a vast mountain range, without a priest or a Puritan to judge us, I was quite unsure of what the reaction might be. Was it possible that I had failed to observe a silent consensus whereby single men and women were permitted to come together, on condition they did it discreetly? There were definitely laws – I had listened to their proclamation a short time before our journey began – which specified adultery amongst the crimes warranting harsh punishment. But fornication had not been included, and my hazy understanding gave Fanny and Abel’s conduct this label rather than the other. There was a freedom that had become so natural to us that it was perhaps not really surprising if bodies took control over scruples. We were surrounded by wild animals and savage natives, prone to accidents with no hope of outside assistance. We were forced onto our own resources with very little preparation. And several of our strongest young men had been removed by recruiting officers.

  I lay awake throughout the night, sorting and sifting these thoughts, with Fanny only inches from me. She had said nothing about what had happened and acted entirely as usual for the remainder of the day – a day that had been spent in celebration. We had taken to our beds later than normal, being less fatigued than we would have been after fifteen miles of walking. I struggled to remain still, as if sleeping, but often the urge to roll from side to side and to flatten my pillow or fold back my covering became irresistible. Lizzie, on my other side, was awoken twice by this restlessness, but Fanny slumbered peacefully, like an innocent babe.

  Chapter Twelve

  12th July

  This afternoon we came to the edge of the South Pass, as far as may be judged. It is a broad stretch of land, presenting no difficulty whatever to the oxen, and hard to reconcile with the fact that it comprises perhaps the only way a wagon may cross the Great Divide. Mountains lie behind, ahead and on either side, but a good distance off. The scouts insist that we are at no hazard for the remainder of our journey, if we follow their guidance, and turn northwards to Fort Hall after Fort Bridger. There is a growing body of opinion to the effect that it would be far quicker to turn southwards instead.

  My small sister Naomi (known as Nam) has earache and is distraught with the pain. My grandmother has twisted her back and rides in the wagon. Mr Franklin butchered a buffalo calf in under an hour, which he says is a record, and should be noted. Bathsheba is a discontented creature, whining at night and refusing to do as she is bid.

  This journal entry was none of my own invention. My father dictated the first part, and a number of others contributed their news, upon my request. If not for them, the journal would have remained blank, since I had no further interest in it. I had spent many days in a state of such shock and confusion that the family assumed I must be ill. I scarcely ate anything, and was so lethargic in my duties that my father took over the care of the oxen from me. The days became hotter, which slowed the whole train, with regular need to stop for water from the river that we were following.

  Fanny was quick to observe the consequences of my discovery and showed great anxiety. This was taken to be a concern for my welfare by other members of the family, but I presumed it was chiefly a worry for her own self. It could hardly be otherwise, and yet she covered it well. There was one early opportunity for conversation between us, which only served to increase my sickness of spirit.

  ‘Have you no fear that I might tell on you?’ I hissed at her, as we washed in a quiet stretch of the river one evening. I had deliberately followed her, wading into water a foot deep and carelessly splashing myself with it, for the cool relief it brought.

  She fixed her clear blue eyes on me and said, ‘Tell who, Charity? Or should that be “whom”?’

  ‘Father. Mother. Grandmother. Mr Tennant.’ The list seemed to me obvious and rather long.

  ‘How would you phrase it? What words would you employ?’

  I hesitated. ‘Fornication,’ I said bravely. ‘The word used in the Holy Book.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded slowly. ‘You could say that. To what purpose would you tell them?’

  ‘To save you! You are on the road to damnation, you must know that. What if you…get with child? What then?’

  ‘That is unlikely,’ she assured me. ‘The Holy Book has something to say about that – did you know? Genesis, Chapter 38, verse 9. Go and read it for yourself, if you have not done so already.’

  I waved this piece of cleverness aside. ‘You must marry him. There can be no choice but that for you.’

  ‘Be quiet, Charity. I have no concern for consequences, out here in the Land of Nowhere. Look at it! We are like butterflies fluttering thoughtlessly amongst the flowers, never knowing there are but a few days to live. We could all be killed before the month is out. The river might flood and wash us away, wagons and all. Indians might rise up and slaughter us. Buffalo might turn in a great mass and trample us to pulp. There is nothing safe here, no promises for a golden future. It is based on dreams and stories and nothing more.’

  ‘So you have become a butterfly.’ It was a fitting comparison. Fanny was certainly as pretty as a butterfly.

  ‘You are refusing to listen to me, as always. I am sixteen years old, Charity. I have done my lessons and heard all the talk from our elders. I understand the world and my own place in it. I think myself fortunate in that regard. I am tasting freedom, as all Americans believe they have a right to do. If you were to tell all those people what you witnessed, you would be doing nothing more than burdening them with a matter that is not their concern.’

  ‘They would curtail that freedom you value so much.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Her face grew serious. ‘And I would wither and die as a consequence, like a butterfly in a belljar. Is that your desire?’

  ‘Perhaps it is,’ I muttered angrily.

  ‘You have always been deficient in love, Charity. You were wrongly named by your poor mother. There is precious little charity in your nature.’

  Reference to my mother, who had died when I was well below two years in age, to be replaced within months by the woman I had regarded as my parent ever since, was so shockingly uncommon that my mouth dropped open. I was stunned, not least because I had never been quite sure that Fanny and the others knew that I was in reality only half a sister and Reuben half a brother. My father had taken me aside when I was seven and briefly told me the facts, which I had stored away as being somehow special. My mother had been nineteen years old when she died, was named Sadie, and I had her large feet and sallow skin. She had been much mourned when she died and lay buried in Massachusetts, where she had no-one to grieve for her any longer. Her Irish origins were much the same as my father’s second wife’s, and indeed there were some Wicklow cousins in common, as far as he could understand it.

  ‘You know nothing o
f my mother,’ I stammered, feeling unpleasantly wrong-footed by this turn in our argument.

  ‘I know as much as you do yourself. Perhaps more, since my mother has told me about her.’

  ‘Why would she tell you and not me?’

  Fanny shrugged. ‘Thinking it may upset you, perhaps.’

  The diversion had no possible relevance, but I could not pull myself away from it. ‘And does your mother also think I lack charity?’

  ‘I have never asked her. We have never discussed your character. I am speaking of how it is now between us. You can do nothing but harm by speaking out, harm to yourself and others. My soul is not for the saving. My soul soars and sings, thanks to Abel’s magic. Go your own way, sister, and leave me to mine.’

  For the hundredth time, I saw again the moments in the sage-filled hollow with male nakedness all too grossly evident. Again I felt the painful mixture of excitement and revulsion – but with each revisit the revulsion gained sway over the thrill, until I had changed my own reaction considerably. ‘It is the way to damnation,’ I repeated, feeling a deeper certainty than ever before that this was truly the case. And then a new thought hit me. ‘And they would hang Abel if the truth were known,’ I spat, with a venom that felt good.

  She forced a defiant laugh, but I saw the flash of fear in her eyes. ‘They would not!’ she said.

  ‘They hang a man for stealing a sheep in the Old Country. They hang them here for less than that.’

  ‘You would have that on your conscience?’

  ‘The sin is not mine. By remaining silent I strain my conscience, too.’

  ‘My heart bleeds for you,’ she said bitterly. ‘You stand there in judgement over something you do not understand. Yet you envy me in your heart. I do not forget your first words when you discovered us. I was in the place you thought rightfully yours. I am the winsome young sister and you are the dry elder, of whom there are so many high expectations. It is the natural order and we cannot change it. My freedom was always of a different order from yours.’