The Indifference of Tumbleweed

by Rebecca Tope

  Henry Bricewood spoke to me briefly, with a dignified smile. He had, he said, formed a different ambition from the banking plan: he would open the first book store in the new state. He was in communication with a ship captain who would undertake commissions to purchase quantities of volumes on the east coast and bring them around the endlessly long coast to the port at San Francisco. ‘In a year’s time, it will be firmly established,’ he boasted.

  ‘And at the head of your list must be Paradise Lost,’ I said. ‘I shall come and buy a copy myself.’ Then I heard my own words inside my head. Paradise had indeed been lost through the foolishness of the first people, but here we were, in a land that was already beginning to flow with honey and apples and not a little milk. There was always hope of a new start, I thought. Mankind was forever venturing into new parts of the world where they could finally master their own folly and greed and make decent lives for themselves. ‘I wish you luck, Henry,’ I said.

  But there was still a family that had not found a place to call Paradise. Mr Fields and the children wandered through the mud, trying to appear brave and purposeful, but really more and more desperate. The rain had lessened, but it was still very chilly and damp. The hundreds of oxen, cattle and horses had made a quagmire of the pasture they had been allotted. Our own beasts were miserable in this change of circumstance. They had grown accustomed to working day after day, and the inactivity confused them. Mr Fields had something of the same look.

  I spoke to him on the day before my father had ordained that we should finally leave the camp and begin the work of constructing a home for ourselves. The hesitation was typical of him – the need to talk everything over a dozen times before taking action. The numbers of families and wagons had dwindled to a tenth or less of those who had arrived a week or more since. It made it all the harder to ignore the wretched Fields.

  I approached him with eyes averted, as habit continued to insist. Little Ellie came to me slowly, a hand outstretched. The child was plainly cold and hungry. ‘Are you not getting enough to eat?’ I asked her.

  She glanced up at her stepfather and gave a tiny shake of her head.

  ‘What are you to do?’ I asked the man. ‘Have you nowhere to go?’

  He frowned and drew a hand across his brow. ‘The regulations are against us,’ he said, as if bemused. ‘We appear to be stuck for a while.’

  ‘Stuck? How so?’

  ‘No land. No money. A single man with two children is anomalous here. I have been careless, it seems, in losing my wife. Without her, I lose many of my entitlements. They have followed her into the grave.’

  He was gaunt and angry. The trailing children were a drag on him, following in his wake like bedraggled ducklings. It was pitiful to see. And yet there was a lingering spark in his eye that persuaded me that he would not give up. He needs a wife, said a voice in my ear. I heard it clear and never questioned who might be speaking.

  The Collins wagon was crowded, damp, discordant. My father’s prevarications were increasingly annoying to his wife and mother, as well as his daughters. He was, in his way, not so very different from Mr Fields. If I were to swap one for the other, I should not be so very much out of my element.

  ‘You must have a wife,’ I said, swallowing the alarm at my own boldness.

  ‘I should perhaps advertise,’ said Mr Fields with a tight smile.

  ‘No need.’ I reached out a hand, and placed one finger on the sleeve of his thin coat.

  He looked down at it with no sign of comprehension. It was Ellie who did the explaining. ‘Miss Collins can be your wife, Dadda.’

  His face showed a flash of horror at the impertinence of the suggestion. Then he caught my eye. I smiled. I nodded. ‘Why not?’ I said.

  ‘You do not know me. I am a half-breed. Your father…your mother,’ he stuttered.

  ‘I know you,’ I said with perfect confidence. I had known him from that first moment, when Fanny and I overhead his whining wife, in the tent in Westport. I had grasped the tangles of his character, his wish to do right, his impatience and frustration, in those few minutes. I had heard his thoughts and read his heart for the long months of our migration. I had nothing to fear from him, and everything to offer. Mr Moses Fields could give me a cause and a purpose.

  ‘And I know you,’ he muttered. ‘I have watched your confusion and uncertainty, with pain. I have seen you searching for a place in this world. I have admired your strength and enjoyed your beauty.’

  ‘Beauty!’ I laughed. ‘Be careful what you say, or I shall revise my opinion of you as an honest man.’

  ‘It is no lie. You are truly a beauty.’

  ‘And you are the most handsome man in the entire train.’ His mahogany colouring and thick black hair had indeed appealed to me in a way I had tried not to notice for months. Something inside me was expanding and rising like a lump of well-kneaded dough. ‘I should so much like to marry you,’ I insisted.

  Ellie grabbed my hand and swung around in a crazy arc of delight. ‘Yes!’ she shrilled.

  ‘And I should like to marry you, if such a thing were possible,’ he agreed.

  ‘Possible. Necessary. Urgent.’ I indicated the boy standing with a thumb in his mouth, trying to make sense of the scene before him, stranded in a helpless childhood that frightened him unbearably. ‘These children need a home. Together we can provide it for them.’

  Mr Fields shook his head, as if to awaken himself from a dream. ‘It is impossible to believe you,’ he sighed. ‘How can it be done?’

  ‘Come with me,’ I ordered, and led the three of them to the half-finished church. We found Father Benedict and I explained without blushes or stammers what was required of him. He looked slowly from me to Mr Fields and back again, and gave a quiet smile.

  ‘I am not surprised,’ he said. ‘I felt the current between the two of you, the first time I set eyes on you. It is alarmingly soon after the death of the first Mrs Fields, I admit – but circumstances can often overcome such scruples.’

  The arrangements could be made within a day, he supposed. The usual procedures of an east-coast wedding could be dispensed with. He was pleased to officiate, despite the groom’s lack of proper Catholic education. There was paperwork to complete, of course, in order for the marriage to be legal, but this was no impediment. We would need witnesses, and a ring. He was businesslike, but just below the surface I detected a real pleasure at this new task.

  ‘You, my dear, have brought me my first burial and my first wedding. I shall never in my life forget you.’

  ‘Nor I you,’ I said, with all sincerity.

  We were married as the sun was setting the following day. We slept chastely in the battered wagon, the children curled between us. My parents were appalled, naturally. Fanny was struck dumb, staring at me with her mouth open. Only Nam rejoiced, and set to work fashioning herself a posy of flowers for her self-appointed role as bridesmaid. For witnesses we persuaded Reuben and one of the men who had dug Jane Fields’s grave.

  Next day, we presented ourselves at the office and applied for our square mile of Oregon land. It was readily given, albeit on a less favoured section. All the best plots had long since been allotted. We were happy enough. Peering at the map, I realised I would be five miles from my family. ‘Just the right distance,’ I said.

  Fanny met us as we walked back, reading and re-reading our deeds. She scanned our faces and gave a little private nod. ‘We are leaving at noon,’ she said. ‘Where might we find you?’

  We showed her our papers, and she made a note in a small book she carried in her reticule. ‘Father and Mother are glad for you,’ she said. ‘We talked into the night about it, and could see no reason to withhold approval and so forth, now the knot is tied. We all wish you well – and Father had decided to make a settlement on you. He has two hundred dollars for you.’ She handed me a packet, which felt much too light for such a fortune. ‘I asked if I might be the one to deliver it, you see.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, wi
th my hand it the crook of my husband’s arm. Despite my continued virginity, I felt quite like a wife.

  Mr Fields bowed to her, seeing no reason at all to refuse the money.

  ‘Grandma bids me to tell you that she will visit when you have your house constructed.’ Fanny dimpled mischievously. ‘I fancy she might give herself a special shave for the occasion.’

  Afterword

  A story such as mine is never fully concluded. Suffice it to say that my experience as a wife was thoroughly satisfactory. Moses was a patient man, but it was only a week before we became husband and wife in the fullest sense. I did not enjoy it especially, but neither did I loathe it. It was strange and new and slowly thrilling. By the end of November we had a house, built hurriedly as snow fell on our heads.

  Rumours began to reach us of a catastrophe further south, where the Donner Party had encountered the full force of the early snow, and many had perished. I feared for the sweet young Virginia who had befriended me so readily. We ourselves were suffering the effects of the unseasonal cold.

  Moses brought us abundant meat throughout the winter and the children gained flesh on their bones. They both began to grow tall, with strong teeth and good muscles. We all worked ceaselessly on erecting fences and marking out the sections on our great estate. One corner of our land contained a steep rockfall, where nothing would grow. We had very little water of our own, saving rainfall in every sort of container. Firewood was readily found, and we discovered our own private ravine, close to which we built the house. Every day was a new adventure.

  I visited my family, feeling like a stranger. Grandma was distant at first, but eventually mellowed. She was convinced she had seen a leprechaun under a thicket, who had told her that she ought to trust Mr Fields rather more. Fanny had a distant sparkle in her eye, which made me think she retained her immoral ambitions, and would be off in the spring, as planned. Lizzie and Nam were expert dairymaids, while obediently studying their lessons as instructed by our mother.

  On the first day of 1847, I detected a strange metallic taste at the back of my mouth. Two days later, I was unaccountably nauseous early in the morning. It was another four weeks before I comprehended the reason for these peculiar symptoms.

  END