The Indifference of Tumbleweed

by Rebecca Tope

  We both bent over the exposed teats, the skin between them tightly stretched. Small bumps rippled beneath the skin, as we watched. ‘That’s the little paws of a litter of pups,’ the man told us. ‘Seems a good number, I’d say.’

  Lizzie clasped her hands together in ecstasy. ‘Oh!’ she trilled. ‘How wonderful!’

  ‘Awkward,’ Mr Fields corrected her. ‘Have to keep them in the wagon – if your Da doesn’t drown them all.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t do that,’ Lizzie gasped. Then she looked at me ‘Would he?’

  I shrugged. We had never owned a dog. I had never seen a litter of new puppies. ‘What will we do with them?’ I asked her.

  ‘The father must be that Melchior,’ said Mr Fields. ‘I do recall he was paying her some attentions, back along the way. Somewhere around Independence Rock, maybe.’

  ‘Two months ago exactly,’ I said, with the pang I always felt at any mention or even thought of that rock.

  ‘Makes her due in three or fours days’ time, then,’ he said. ‘She’ll be building a nest any time now. Have to watch her. She’ll get under a bush somewhere and let the wagons move on without her.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Lizzie knelt over the foolish dog and grabbed its head. ‘Bathy, what have you done?’

  ‘It’s all right, Liz,’ I said. ‘We won’t let the Indians eat her pups.’

  ‘What?’ She frowned up at me with incomprehension.

  ‘Haven’t you heard? The savages eat young puppies as a delicacy. One of the scouts told Henry, in Laramie. I thought you knew.’

  ‘Stop it, Charity. You’re just trying to upset me. Nobody will eat your babies, my darling.’ She crooned over the dog like a madwoman.

  Mr Fields caught my eye with a look of reproach. I forced a laugh. ‘Ugly things they’ll be, if Melchior is the sire,’ I joked.

  The realisation was slow to dawn that there had been two fornicating couples at Independence Rock, then. Had there been some magic midsummer spell to the place, designed to heightened sexual urges?

  ‘Big, most likely,’ added Mr Fields.

  Another memory flashed into my head, of the birth of the man’s dead child. The dog would have to pass a whole litter of big pups in the same way. The idea repelled me. The prospect of a bunch of unwanted dogs was an annoyance. Lizzie would name them all and insist on keeping them, and neither parent would wish to enforce any edict that they must be disposed of.

  I was unsure as to how much this sister understood of the birth process. Lizzie was often inclined to ask questions, but they were generally on such matters as the causes of various types of weather, or how to make a tidy cuff. I had never noticed a curiosity about the more physical and personal aspects of life. Lizzie was self-contained in a way I hoped I was myself, but suspected was not the case. I was anxious too much of the time, and afraid. I had no older sister to learn from, after all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  10th September

  Today we discovered that my sister’s dog gave birth to ten pups, beneath the wagon during the night. My father crawled to her and carried them all out in a bag. He is allowing her to keep them all, which Mother says is madness. She had to move boxes to make space in the wagon for them. Dadda claims that good dogs will be in demand in Oregon City, and we might sell them for a decent price. Mr Bricewood has already said he will take one as a successor to Melchior.

  We are five or six days away from The Dalles now. The air is so clear we can see a strange shape, which the scout says is Hat Rock, twenty miles distant.

  The oxen are more biddable, at last, and yesterday we managed thirteen miles, which is the most for many weeks. We are in an open plain, but with more mountains yet to cross. Mrs Fields is failing more each day, and we seldom set eyes on her any more.

  The pups were at first no more than squirming squeaking grubs, with bright pink noses and red feet. They did nothing but suckle and sleep. Four were the same brown brindle as their sire, two were all over black and another four had patches of white, black and brown all over. I agreed with Mother that ten was far too many to keep. It would be hopeless chaos once they began to wander. They were sure to fall out of the wagon, as well as making a nasty mess amongst all our things.

  ‘They will not leave the nest until they’re three weeks old,’ Dadda said. He smiled, with his charming Irish twinkle, and added, ‘And where d’ye think we’ll be by then, woman?’

  She gazed at the mountains ahead, which were nothing more than a blue silhouette, and widened her eyes. ‘So soon?’ she breathed. ‘I can scarcely credit it.’

  ‘With God’s grace, we arrive by the end of the month. ’Twill be hard, mind you. The very hardest part is yet to come.’

  My mother sighed, but there was nothing melancholy or apprehensive in her expression. ‘We have been blessed in coming so far without misfortune. I am not inclined to lose my faith now. All will be well, I have no doubt at all.’

  Indeed, the September days had proved quite clement thus far, with no frost and very little rainfall. Henry Bricewood referred now and then to the Donner Party and their decision to follow the Hastings cut-off, wondering to himself how they were faring. He had repeatedly asked scouts and trappers what they knew of the southward trail, and how feasible it would be for wagons to get down to California. The answers were never very satisfactory. News would reach us eventually, he was told, whether good or bad.

  In Providence, we had all been avid readers of newspapers, keeping abreast of the social happenings, as well as tales of adventure from other parts of the country. My father especially missed this sense of connection, as we travelled. War was raging, laws were changing, and we gleaned only the barest out-of-date snippets at the forts. Worry about Reuben increased, as weeks passed with no word from him. We wrote letters in the evenings, so that when we reached a fort we always had a stack of them to despatch in whatever fashion might be available. Individuals travelling on horseback would take mail for a fee, but it was an unreliable and disorganised business.

  The pups and their mother were crowded into a space halfway down the wagon, between Mother’s chest of clothes and the wash dolly she used to scrub things whenever there was an opportunity to do some laundry. Lizzie begged titbits for Bathsheba from everyone in the party, and they all came to inspect the new babies, as a reward for their contributions. Mother hated them seeing the inside of our wagon – a private place for all the families, and scrupulously respected as such – but nobody could be persuaded to wait until the pups were older and could be brought out into the open. Bathsheba hated it even more and growled helplessly at every visitor. Henry brought Melchior along, but he was not permitted inside the wagon, and they went away again without the new father having met his offspring.

  It was a great relief to Lizzie that Father was so relaxed about the new additions to the family. He seemed to relish them, examining them closely and sorting males from females. It emerged over the first few days that he had owned a large spaniel as a boy, of which he had been very fond. ‘That dog had nine litters of pups in her lifetime, and my Dadda always drowned every one of them. Except the last, when I hid her in an old barn and she raised six fine dogs. I was thrashed for it, but I was glad, just the same. It broke my heart to see her crying and searching for them, all those times.’

  Such stories of his boyhood were rare, so when he did share something of this sort with us it made a big impression. Lizzie whimpered in sympathy with the cruelly-treated spaniel, and cuddled Bathsheba protectively.

  My mother was not mollified. ‘You be sure to keep them clean,’ she ordered Lizzie. ‘Dogs inside the wagon…Whatever are things coming to?’ She tutted her frustration at the weight of opinion all balanced against her. Fanny and Nam were both enchanted with the babies, too. My father handled them every day, thoughtfully musing about what they might be good for when they grew up. ‘Might get twenty dollars apiece,’ he said. ‘Speed, good hunters, easy around little’uns.’

  ‘Does anyone pay for a dog?�
�� I wondered. My impression had always been that a dog was acquired almost by accident, taken in because nobody else wanted it. ‘Did Mr Bricewood purchase Melchior?’

  ‘Ask him,’ shrugged Dadda. ‘Could be. ’Tis a fine beast.’

  September 13th

  Hat Rock lies close by the river, and is still a hundred miles distant from the Dalles. Progress has been held up by steep rocky terrain, and a river crossing. We were misled by an Indian about the depth of the water, and the steepness of the trail on the other side. The pups are doing well, but we will not see the end of our journey as soon as we hoped. We have been joined by another scout who applauds our choice of route, since all the cut-offs we might have taken are proving very troublesome. There is a man named Barlow just ahead of us, who has created a road for wagons that will take us past the Dalles. This is very fortunate indeed, and all the men are full of gladness and relief.

  The river crossing, in the presence of a number of Indians, was a nightmare for me. There had been heavy rain further upriver, and icy water was tumbling downstream as a result. The place we chose as a ford was stony and difficult, and memories of the lost wheel made others almost as nervous as I was myself. Lizzie squealed about the welfare of her dogs, as our wagon lurched violently from side to side. I was almost paralysed when two Indians suddenly appeared close by, and made as if to lead our oxen. Fortunately my father was at my side, and I clung to him like a small child.

  ‘Charity, for the love of God, will you leave me go,’ he shouted. ‘What’s the matter with you, girl? The water is not so deep you need fear it.’

  With a good deal of splashing and yelling at the oxen, the crossing was made without accident, but it was slow and wearying, and I was shaking when we reached dry land again. Ahead was a steep climb to a ridge, and the trail heading everlastingly westwards.

  We covered five miles that day, and six the day after. ‘At this pace, the Dalles will be well over a week away,’ worried Mr Bricewood. ‘We have to get along more quickly.’

  But the news about the new Barlow road was a great boost to us all. Only then, when we were assured that it was true, did everyone realise how much we had been dreading the final stage of the migration, on rafts down the wild Columbia River, with our wagons all dismantled and the stock walked slowly through dense wilderness to meet us, with luck, in the Willamette. The prospect of us all remaining together, just as we had done from the start, was wonderful.

  Despite the dramatically wild scenery, with yet more high mountains all around us, and the ground so rocky, there were settlers in surprising numbers. Sturdy new cabins had been built, and land cleared for crops. It was as if we were already on the outskirts of Oregon City, as if it extended the two hundred miles or more outwards to the point we had then reached. Henry explained to me. ‘These are the people who could not contemplate the last trial of travelling by river, before Mr Barlow came to our aid. So they just stopped here, thinking it was good enough. The government calls for Americans to settle in Oregon, and this is what they have done. There is a school and a church back at the Waiilaptu mission, with doctors and blacksmiths and tanners and coopers all joining together to make a good life. I met a man at the river crossing who makes fences for a living. The Indians are to be encouraged into becoming farmers, with ploughs and cattle and all the necessities.’

  ‘And is it working?’ I wondered.

  ‘Haphazardly, I believe. It calls for a great change in their ways, after all.’

  ‘Your fencing man – was he an Indian, then?’

  ‘Of mixed breed, I fancy. A friend to both sides.’

  I nodded, trying to accept Henry’s complacency about the way things were progressing. A month earlier I would have agreed with him completely. Now I had grave doubts as to whether the two sides, the two races, would ever come together in harmony. I recalled a far distant conversation in which Henry had assured me of the decency of Indian men towards women, and how this had turned out to be false, in at least one instance. Perhaps my experience had been rare, an unlucky encounter with a single individual who lacked the normal inhibitions; whatever the truth of it, I could not imagine ever again willingly placing myself in a situation where I could be vulnerable to another such attack.

  ‘Those amongst us with a genuine faith must be convinced that God has favoured this caravan of emigrants especially,’ Henry went on, with a little smile that suggested he himself was above such superstitions, but nonetheless he was glad of our good fortune. He would tolerate ‘genuine faith’ readily enough, but I had the idea he could not bring himself to share in it.

  ‘The Barlow road,’ I nodded.

  ‘And many other things. We have had an astonishingly easy time of it, from the very start.’ He puffed out his chest, giving himself the appearance of a bantam cock. ‘We have been pioneers of the finest quality.’

  ‘And yet we lost our brothers,’ I reminded him. Silently I added the many experiences that I could in no way deem blessed. Mrs Fields and the loss of her baby, then her little daughter and finally her own sickness. Fanny and Abel’s bewildering sinfulness. Naomi’s bitten hand. Melchior’s torn ear. The Indian at the crossing. Each event would surely qualify as a setback, if not a tragedy. ‘And we are changed,’ I said, not quite sure of my meaning. I held out my roughened hands, but they did not illustrate the transformation I had in mind.

  ‘We have learned new skills and gained an acquaintance with our new country,’ he said. ‘Neither of which is cause for complaint.’

  Again I saw in my mind the nakedness of Abel, the terrible engorgement and Fanny’s casual manipulation of it. That image would remain with me for ever, with all the shock and guilt and sadness that went with it. Even one second’s flash of memory brought a throbbing between my legs. Would I never know the easy enjoyment that my sister had found? Was it the simple fact of her curly hair and milky skin that gave her such an advantage?

  Stop it, I silently ordered myself. I was days away from my twentieth birthday and behaving like an ignorant child.

  ‘We have learned to live like savages,’ I said sourly. ‘We have become abased, on this long journey.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He was plainly shocked. ‘We have achieved a true democracy, a real harmony. We have shared the labour, tolerated differences, worked with real cooperation. Nobody has been enslaved or ostracised or allowed to go hungry.’

  ‘Not even the Fields family?’

  ‘Not even them. They have been the test, and it seems to me that we all passed it quite satisfactorily.’

  ‘We have been tolerant and virtuous, then?’

  ‘Have we not?’

  I sighed. ‘Perhaps,’ was all I would admit. Then I rallied. ‘Our positions have reversed since the crossing of the Divide, I fancy. Then, you were all pessimism, seeing the dark side of man’s nature. Now you say the very opposite.’

  ‘I have learned better. I confess I never expected it to turn out so well.’

  ‘We are not yet done,’ I reminded him. ‘Many a slip – is that not what they say?’

  ‘Whatever might befall us in the final days, we may still take pride in our performance over the long months of travel. Any accident or disaster now cannot be laid at the door of our natures. We are most evidently good people.’

  ‘Even Fanny and Abel?’ I demanded bitterly.

  ‘They are not as wicked as you appear to believe. They have done no harm.’

  Henry’s focus on the abstract was tiring and irritating. While seeming to give consideration to the facts of our daily lives, he never quite did. His words grew longer, his remarks more convoluted, but he failed to see the solid reality of it all. He knew about Fanny and Abel, and yet he could not know how it truly was with them. It was as if the heat and perspiration of life was beneath his elevated plane, irrelevant to his lofty thoughts. I felt an urge to shock him – perhaps by ripping off my own clothes and confronting him with actual warm skin. Perhaps by taking his face and pushing it into a steaming pile of fresh buffa
lo manure. Perhaps even by kicking his shin. His small stature ought not to furnish him with such a protection as it did. Or had it somehow worked the opposite way? Had years of teasing and belittling caused him to exercise his brain to the exclusion of his body? Had he removed himself from the physical world precisely because he could never find a comfortable place in it?

  I sighed again. ‘We are weary,’ I said. ‘So close, but yet still some weeks distant. There is yet time for a dreadful accident to befall us,’ I repeated, hoping to outwit fate by taking nothing for granted.

  ‘We follow Mr Barlow and his men, close on their heels,’ he said. ‘A new road made exclusively for our use. There will be no accidents.’

  I winced at this flagrant challenge, while somehow knowing that he was right.

  25th September

  My birthday. Grandma, Mother and Fanny made me a special cake, and everyone made much of me. We have been one day on the new road, which is a raw thing, with burnt stumps and marks of axe and saw on the trees either side of us. We are to pay a toll at a place they call Rhododendron, which Mr Tennant promises to donate for our entire party. The road goes south, where the Columbia River loops northwards. A great mountain lies between here and Oregon City. The way is steep and narrow, with gorges cut into the mountainside by rushing rivers. Already we have been forced to tie back the wagon as we descended a sharp slope, with a rope around a stout tree. Progress has been very slow.

  I had difficulty in selecting suitable details to record from that day. The road was at first a triumph, but after a few miles it became narrow, steep and twisting. It went around large obstacles, and was crudely laid without any digging. A constant refrain developed, to the effect that it had to be better than using the river would have been, especially as there remained a stretch of wild country somehow to be crossed between the river and Oregon City. I learned that the great mountain ahead was Mount Hood, and the road was officially entitled the Mount Hood Toll Road, although nobody used that name for it.

  From The Dalles to the end of the new road was a considerable distance o over one hundred miles - which we would traverse before payment of the toll. Plainly, there could be no turning back at any point, which justified placing the toll gate so far along the road. The weather remained benign and we saw numerous snakes and lizards, still unused to the presence of humankind, lazing in the sunshine on the warm black rocks. There was scant grazing for the stock, a factor that Mr Sam Barlow appeared to have overlooked in his road construction. On either side of us was dense forest, and the beasts were forced to adopt a diet comprising more leaves and creepers than grass.