by Jane Smiley
"Why?" I said, thinking distractedly of Frank still.
"Because you have a plain, honest look about you, which is more pleasing to a loving father than all the beauty in the world."
In short, I looked like a governess or a schoolmistress, and so could be relied upon to act like one.
Papa said, "Go to her, please!" And then he turned and went out.
I found Helen in the kitchen, crying by the stove, where Delia was brining some pickles, and not long after, Papa and one of the Negroes, whom I didn’t recognize, galloped away. From time to time, Delia stroked Helen on her yellow hair, and then Lorna came in, carrying a large basket of white washing that she’d been doing over a fire in the yard. Her face was dark and steamy, and clearly her temper was short. She glanced at Helen and said, "De trouble of de world ain’ touched you yet, so why you bawlin’?"
"I—" But remembering, I think, what her father had said to her two nights before, Helen simply wiped her tears away and sat up.
Now Delia spoke in a low voice. "Men is rushin’ ’round wid guns and thangs. Nobody knows what gone happen, Lorna. You done got ta be a hard woman."
"Let’s see what dey is to carry on about before we carries on, dat’s what I say."
"You kin be a hard woman in good times, and you kin be a hard woman in bad times, and you always got a reason to be a hard woman, but it don’ do you no good in the end. Dat’s what I say," said Delia. Then she turned to Helen and said, "You eat some biscuit wid butter and honey on it, child, and you be better prepared fo’ what’s ta come." Then she made us places at the deal table where she had been working on the pickles and gave us each a plate. Lorna sniffed and went out.
Well, Jim Lane and his army got to Fort Saunders, sure enough, and they mounted an attack and went in shooting, but as everyone knows, they discovered rather soon (not right away, though) that the fort was undefended, unoccupied by a single soul. They then left a skeleton force to maintain Free State control of the place, and then Lane took some of the men and went off to Nebraska. Thus he was not even present when an actual engagement happened to take place the next day. Of course, I heard nothing of Frank, but the intelligence seemed to be that there were no casualties. I took solace in that.
There was a man, Sam Walker, who had a claim right outside Lawrence, and also a ruffian named Titus, who was a great bully, much hated by the Free Staters, because he was always bragging and making threats. As I was able to piece the story together in the days to follow, from what I heard from Papa and some of his friends (who considered Titus a rough enough fellow, but right-thinking, and who spoke of Sam Walker as one of the criminal leaders whose traitorous perfidy to the Constitution put him outside the pale of civilization), Sam Walker and his men were heading north toward Topeka, looking for a fight, and Titus and his men were heading east, likewise looking for a fight, when they happened upon one another in the dark and skirmished in some woods. After the skirmish, in which no one was badly hurt, Sam Walker went to his claim, which wasn’t far off. He woke up later in the morning to the sound of pounding on his cabin door, and when he opened it, a man he had never seen before declared that he had Titus’s wife and two children with him on the Lecompton— Westport stage ("Oh, the cruelty of it," harangued Papa. "So typical of them!") and that if Sam Walker wanted Titus, he’d better do something about it now. So Walker and his men took over the prisoners and held them until a runner could get to Lawrence and summon the six-pound cannon they had there. Fifty horsemen then gathered near Titus’s place (which Papa insisted upon calling "Fort Titus") and attacked at dawn on the morning of August 16. A Free-Soiler was killed, then the cannon leveled a wall of one of the buildings, and then Titus surrendered. When Walker went in, he saw a printed handbill hanging on the wall, advertising a five-hundred-dollar reward for his own head, to be paid by Titus! Then, according to Papa’s reports, there was a great deal of fighting among the Free-Soilers about whether to kill the gallant Titus, but they hadn’t the manhood to do it, and so he and some of his cronies ("gallant allies," said Papa) were carted off to Lawrence and imprisoned. A mob of Lawrenceites tried to get to him and hang him, but Walker or someone managed to preserve him, saying that war must be carried out by rule, and what we had here was a war. Papa agreed. All of Papa’s friends agreed. What had been, on the one hand, a problem of governing and, on the other, a fight was now clearly rising up the scale and would soon be, if it wasn’t already, an actual war. The hardest piece of all this intelligence, for me, was when Papa declared that the prisoners in Lecompton—that is, Governor Robinson and his associates—were to be summarily hung in retaliation for all of this. I will say that I felt my face go white and my body go cold when he said it, but I was so used to dissembling by now that I only smiled and said, "Surely that couldn’t be according to the law," and then Papa said, "What law is there in Kansas?" and then it turned out not to be true. Those prisoners remained where they were, and other prisoners, taken in all of these skirmishes, were exchanged, and so hostilities, at least around Lawrence, ceased for the time being. Soon there were other rumors: Proslave households around Tecumseh were attacked and all their goods stolen and taken to Topeka, where the Free Staters divided them up and took them home. (Papa believed this one, but I didn’t.) A man in Leavenworth made a bet that he could scalp an abolitionist before sundown, and won it. (I believed this, but Papa said he didn’t think any southerner could do such a thing. I kept my beliefs to myself; Papa did not. Helen believed every bad thing she heard.) Many names came up, but Frank’s wasn’t among them, nor Charles’s nor any other that I knew. That was my only comfort.
I summarize these events because at the time they were extraordinarily hard to understand, what with the comings and goings of Papa and his friends, the dislocations of the housekeeping and farming at Day’s End Plantation, and my own confusions and frights, not to mention Helen’s. I could not help worrying about Louisa and Charles and the Bushes and my other friends in Lawrence, especially as Louisa was approaching her time, and there was no telling what the Missourians were planning to do to Lawrence should Lane be unable to defend the town (and he was surely unable to defend the town). In Papa’s normally neat and orderly house, the unfinished canvas lay on the hall floor for three days before Lorna and I rolled it up and set it off to the side. The pots of paint and brushes somehow got out onto the porch railing, where they were still sitting, untouched, when I left Day’s End Plantation for good, some time later. For me, these things were the emblem of all the order that ended then and all the disorder that began.
One of these days, toward supper, Helen and I were up in her room, sorting through her gowns, as she had decided that she would make do with what she had for the winter and not ask Papa for anything luxurious until, should it happen, she was ready to put together her wedding clothes. Minna’s wedding, to take place in October, had come in for much discussion, also, and Helen was trying to be sweet and judicious at the same time. "I don’t think," she said, "that Minna really understands what we are having to put up with."
"Have you written to her?"
"Not in a week."
"Then how could she understand? The letter you read me about the linens was written two weeks ago or more."
"Is nothing going on in Lexington? They’re right on the river. They must know more than we do, even."
"Has your papa written anything to her?"
"Papa is very indulgent of Minna, far more than of me, if you must know the truth. It’s because she’s, well, plain. He feels sorry for her."
"Does he?"
"No one speaks of it, of course. But I guarantee you Minna is not planning to make do with all her old dresses."
"She is getting married."
"Yes, she is." She said this with decided sharpness, not at all the tone she had used about the subject before. I smiled and we were silent for a moment. Then she said, "I suppose Papa will bring all those men home tonight. It’s terrible for Delia to have to make such a large supper, but I
feel better when they’re here, I must say. I always think, Go ahead, let them attack tonight, and they’ll see what they get!"
"What men?"
"Oh, let’s see. I guess Mr. Perkins and his nephew and Mr. Harris, of course, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Chesbrough. He has a brother, I think, but I don’t know if he’s coming. Possibly Mr. Long and a friend of his who lives over there whose wife died—what’s his name? oh, Mr. Oleander Jackson; isn’t that an amusing name? But he’s ever so sad and serious. Mrs. Harris says he’s looking for a new wife, and I surely hope he doesn’t look in my direction! Some others have recently come into the neighborhood and are drilling with Papa. I surely hope he brings a few of them home; I surely do."
"Have you ever heard of any men named Mr. Samson and Mr. Chaney, from Blue Springs?" To tell the truth, my heart was suddenly pounding, though whether my fright came from anticipating how she might answer or simply from pronouncing the names of these devils aloud, I couldn’t have said.
"No," said Helen, shaking out a particularly lovely pink silk gown and then inspecting some loose stitching at the waist. "I suppose Isabelle will have to look at this. It’s always been one of my favorites, and I’m happy to keep wearing it, but I went to a dance in it, and don’t you know, one of my partners stepped right on the skirt! Ugh! That’s just the sort of suitor that’s all around here. And then, of course, he was terribly sorry and went all red in the face. And his ears were nearly purple! That put me off even more than his clumsiness did, I swear!"
I had just about regained my composure when she said, "Oh, unless you mean Samson Perkins. His nephew is named Samson, too, though they call him Sam. And Chaney Smith is their friend. He’s rather a rough character, and Papa doesn’t really like him, but he’s never done anything to require Papa denying him the house. We’ve heard things— What’s the matter?"
By now I was lying back on the bed, as weak and faint as ever I’d felt in my life. The shock of knowing that Samson and Chaney were at hand, and had been in the house a few nights before, was more than I could stand. The fact is that ahead of time, you always think you are going to approach something gradually, with plenty of time and foresight to prepare yourself, but really everything is sudden, even those things you expect.
I saw that I might miss my chance if I didn’t improve upon the evening’s opportunity. To Helen, I said, "I think the heat must be affecting me. I didn’t nap at all this afternoon."
"Oh, you must, then. Now that you have that green gown to wear, you’ll be having supper with us, and it will be so lively! You certainly should rest beforehand. I had a lovely nap, and I feel so fresh! The heat isn’t bothering me at all!"
Thus dismissed, I went to my room and closed the door. After sitting on my bed for a minute, I leaned down and dragged my case out and opened it. There wasn’t much in it except the pistol, a tin of percussion caps, and some cartridges I had made weeks before and wrapped in a square of cloth. Here is what I did: I loaded the cartridges, six of them, into the cylinder. Then I loaded six percussion caps onto the cones. Then I laid the weapon on the neatly made bed and gazed at it for a long time. Everything about the black dragoon proclaimed something new, something entirely different from what had gone before. Thought had gone into its engineering, but no flourishes had gone into its decoration. It was not to be, as many guns I had seen over the years were, picked up and admired, even fondled. Men, I knew, named their rifles, cleaned and oiled them with pleasure, took as much pride in their workmanship as they might in a fine dog or a graceful picture. The black dragoon didn’t invite that: it was so manufactured, so purely an object designed for a particular use—killing men—that it was impossible to feel affection for it. But with all that, here it was, and across the hall or across the best parlor, it was certainly capable of doing the required damage to Samson Perkins, his nephew Sam, and their friend Chaney Smith, especially if I took them by surprise, which I intended to do. How I imagined it was this: Their faces, the very ones I had seen on the Lawrence road, would turn and look at me just as they had that day, but this time I would raise my black dragoon and fire right into their laughter.
I turned my gaze from the gun on the bed and looked around the room. The windows looked outward; from where I was sitting, I could see only the tops of a few trees and the sky, which was hazy with heat. Even though I had made my own bed and hung up my clothes, Lorna had filled my pitcher, taken away the chamber pot, and pushed the net bed curtains back, not forgetting to arrange them in a graceful drape. The bureau was polished, and its small mirror shone. The pictures on the walls, of flowers and girls in white dresses standing in gardens, were pleasing enough, if a tad over-English and silly.
I looked at the gun again, dark against the white counterpane. The afternoon was drawing on, and soon enough I would hear the clatter of men and horses coming in. My plan was simple enough; if you were intending to commit what those around you considered a crime, but were not intending to get away with it, then that reduced the number of contingencies that you were required to foresee. I went around the bed to the lit- tle table where Thomas’s watch lay, and picked it up. It was warm because the long rays of the sun had been shining on it, but the warmth seemed to come from somewhere else. I let myself think that it came from Thomas himself. I held it in my hand, stared out the window at the sky, and waited.
CHAPTER 24
I Am Doubly Surprised
Those, only, who are free from care and anxiety, and whose minds are mainly occupied by cheerful emotions, are at full liberty to unveil their feelings. —p. 137-38
I DIDN’T HAVE TO WAIT LONG, but as I was caught in a dreamlike state somewhere between panic and anticipation, it seemed both all too long and all too short. Only four of the men and their horses came up to the house; the rest went directly to the stables. While these four men stood with their animals and waited for Ike or someone else to come receive them, they blustered among themselves about their prowess and their intentions. Their voices were deep and carried through the open window, and all spoke in those half-belligerent, half-joking tones that Missourians seemed to specialize in.
"Them d— black abolitionists an’t seen nothin’ till they try to get our niggers. We’ll turn their heads around and show’em their own backs, haw haw!"
"H—, back when I was in Ohio a year ago, if only I’d known they was coming our way! I woulda forestalled a few, I’ll tell ya!"
"I hate goin’ back there! They always look at ya like you’re gonna eat with your knife and an’t never seen a winder before! And then, when ya go to write something, their d— eyebrows go up with every word you write."
"I jes’ stick my tongue between my lips like I ken barely form the letters, then I laugh!"
"Time for laughin’ is past, boys! I say, let ’em come!"
I looked at the pistol on the bed and reflected upon the contrast between these men, among them Thomas’s killers, and Thomas himself. That is the worst agony of a murder: that the worthy man has died and unworthy ones continue to live. The crude boasting and bragging of these four affected me like blows and left me breathless. Someone came and took away their horses, and then they came into the house. I could hear them laughing and stomping below, then I heard Helen’s voice, and then I heard Papa’s. I went over to the chest and picked up the towel Lorna had placed there for me and wiped my face with it, then I wrapped it around the pistol, leaving only the tip of the barrel showing and two inches or so of the stock. It was hard to keep in place, and I looked around the room for something to tie it, but there was nothing, unless I should elect to tear a strip off the bed curtains—but there was Helen’s knock. I sat down on the bed and arranged my skirt over the wrapped gun. Helen entered with a smile. "Are you feeling any better? They’re a little exuberant today. As Papa would say, they haven’t gone without refreshment. But Delia made a lovely supper. Lots of cucumbers!"
I pulled the pistol close to myself and stood up as gracefully as possible. Actually, it wasn’t heavy, and once I wa
s standing, I had no trouble concealing it. I said, "Are they all here, then?"
"I think so. Lorna had to set another place for Mr. Lafayette. He’s very old! I can’t believe he’s still drilling, but Papa says he won’t give up! Oh, my, he hates the abolitionists. He came from Mississippi, you know. One of the best families in Tupelo, I’m told, but he’s ever so old. Shh. He’s right there!" We came down to the landing and looked over the banister at a tall, thin man with a hatchet face and a mane of white hair. A broadsword in a scabbard hung at his side, and he affected extremely large spurs. Another man joined him, clapped him on the back, and shouted in his ear: "That’s quite a mount you’ve got, Lafayette. Want to sell ’im to someone who can actually ride ’im?"
"I’ll shoot the beast first, Chesbrough! Do ’im a kindness that way!" They laughed. Others crowded in, jangling and clanking. Almost everyone, it appeared, was wearing a sword, and now I saw the rifles jumbled against the wall by the front door with their ramrods. Some of them looked seventy-five or a hundred years old, designed to go with knee britches and pigtails. I expected, of course, that the Samsons and Chaney would present themselves, perhaps that they would light up on their own, like paper lanterns with candles in them, but all the men were alike— equally strange to me, equally familiar with one another. The only one I recognized was Papa, who hopped among the others like a robin among crows, herding them with little pokes and prods toward the dining room. I felt the pistol through my dress and pulled back the hammer with my thumb. Then I said to Helen, "Where are Mr. Perkins and Mr. Smith?"
