Rodzina

by Karen Cushman

  Mr. Clench let go of me. I think like the rest of us he was shocked to see Mrs. Clench standing up and not just lying there like she was dead already. He stalked outside and never came back all that night. I sat on the bed, huddled against Mrs. Clench, until morning, when Clench came stomping in. "Git your suitcase and git in the wagon," he said to me. "I don't want to waste any more time on this trip than I have to."

  Was he really going to take me back? I looked at Mrs. Clench. She nodded. "Go on," she said, "and find someone to boil Easter eggs for you."

  I grabbed my suitcase and climbed up out of the dugout and into the wagon. We started off. The last I saw of the Clench youngsters, they were sitting in that poor patch of dirt they called a garden, breaking up dirt clods with sticks, knives, and their bare hands. Big Bob was crying. Only Sarah Dew waved goodbye.

  The whole way back to Cheyenne I sat stiff, my suitcase on my lap, ready to jump down and run if Mr. Clench seemed liable to grab me again. He didn't. He didn't look at me and he didn't say a word. That was just fine with me. I kept searching the distance, straining to see the first lights of Cheyenne shine out across that lonely prairie.

  By nightfall I was again at the hotel. The desk clerk took me into the parlor, where Miss Doctor was drinking a cup of tea and Mr. Szprot a beer, just as we orphans had suspected.

  "He didn't want a daughter," I told Miss Doctor, who shielded me from the Szprot's fury. "He just wants a new wife for when the old one goes."

  "I'm sure you're mistaken," she said to me as she led me from the parlor and up the stairs. "Certainly he could see you're much too young to be someone's wife."

  I looked her in the eyes but said nothing for long minutes. Finally her face grew red. Maybe she was beginning to believe me. "The old coot," she said. "I'm sorry we got you into that. I never thought that ... Well, I never thought. He'll never get his hands on another orphan, I promise you." I nodded at her to let her know she was forgiven and that I trusted her to keep her promise. "Now get into bed with Lacey. We will figure out what to do with you tomorrow."

  It was my first night ever in a hotel. The mattress was thin and lumpy, but the room didn't rattle-rattle-rattle all night, no one snorted or snored, I wasn't going to be anyone's new mama, and the bedbugs were just regular size.

  Lacey pressed herself up against my side. I could see her smile in the moonlight. "I was lonesome when you went," she said. "I don't like to be lonesome."

  "Seems to me there's a mighty lot of things you don't like," I said. "You don't like to be lonesome; you don't like to be scared. What do you like to be?"

  She thought for a minute, her face all scrunched up, and then she smiled even bigger. "Full of pie," she said.

  8. Wyoming Territory

  WE SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM at the depot, kicking our feet against our suitcases while Miss Doctor and Mr. Szprot sent and received telegrams. Once in a while I scratched my knees. Nobody said anything. The unclaimed orphans—Sammy, Joe, Lacey, and I—were being sent back to Chicago, to a workhouse, where we would work for our keep. Mr. Szprot was grumbling about having to take us all the long way back to Chicago. Sammy, Joe, and Lacey weren't any too happy about it either. Me, I didn't think a workhouse sounded very good, but no worse than being sold to some farmer. Or married to Mr. Clench. I was feeling awfully low. Was there no place for me, safe and a bit cheery, with a family who wanted a daughter and had plenty to eat?

  I wondered how the rest of us were, those orphans who had been taken by families. Were they merely servants washing dirty laundry and digging in the fields? Or were some of them happy with their new families? Did they have soft beds and porch swings and kisses good night? I hoped Nellie did. And Chester, Spud, and Mickey Dooley. I missed Mickey Dooley. I could have used a joke right about then.

  We sat kicking our suitcases until Miss Doctor and the Szprot came over leading a big fellow, wide as a door, in overalls and leather boots the color of dried blood. "This gentleman," said Mr. Szprot, "has agreed to take our Sammy and give him a good home. Come forward, fortunate boy."

  Sammy jumped up and tried to run, but the fellow grabbed him and smacked him on the head. Sammy skidded across the floor, right into the woodstove. We all jumped to our feet, but no one said a word. There was an awful silence, like the whole world was waiting to see what would happen next.

  Mr. Szprot chewed on his cigar a time or two, then hauled off and punched the man so hard in the nose I thought his overalls would fly off. The big man hit the ground. "These kids is in my charge," Szprot said. "I smack them when they need smacking." Then he grabbed the leather boots and dragged the man outside, without disturbing his cigar one whit. He dusted off his hands, pointed to us, and said "Sit!" You can bet we sat.

  Szprot and Miss Doctor went back into the telegraph office, where they shouted at each other, waving their arms around furiously as if shooing invisible pigeons away. Finally we saw him tip his hat to her and leave the depot.

  We waited a long while. I got tired of kicking my suitcase and got up to read the notices posted on the walls:

  J. WHITE AND COMPANY.

  27 Prairie Street. Photographs 25 cents.

  NEW METHODS. NO HOLDING LONG POSES.

  This establishment has the best

  arranged light in the Territory.

  Up one flight of stairs only.

  KNOW THYSELF!

  HEATHCLIFF M. PIDDLEMAN,

  Professor of Phrenology,

  will examine the 37 organs of your brain

  and indicate your character and talent.

  RECEIVE A WRITTEN RECORD OF YOUR EXAM.

  THE LATEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL

  REMEDY FOR CONSUMPTION, COUGHS,

  AND COLDS—WILBOR'S COMPOUND

  OF COD-LIVER OIL AND LIME.

  THE WESTERN PALACE THEATER,

  * 8 PM this evening *

  the IRVING BRIGGS Company of Thespians

  will perform a new play in two acts,

  MAID OR WIFE?

  OR, THE DECEIVER DECEIVED.

  The principal characters will be played by

  Mr. Briggs, Mr. Loblolly, Miss Hartley,

  and Miss Copeland. Overture Composed

  and Conducted by Mr. Briggs.

  The morning was nearly gone when Miss Doctor came back. "I telegraphed a friend of mine from Chicago who now lives in Ogden, Utah Territory," she said, "where she and her husband run a hotel. And I have received her answer. She thinks some folks there would be willing to take in orphans. So you will not be going back to Chicago. We will go on to Utah." Joe and Sammy and Lacey gave a big cheer, but I was too worried about who would want me and for what. "You must behave yourselves and be agreeable and not trouble me. Do you understand?"

  We all nodded. "Can we say goodbye to Mr. Szprot?" I asked her. I never liked the old sourface much, and he sure didn't seem to like me, but he had been with us since Chicago, and he had stood up for Sammy when it counted. I thought he deserved at least a goodbye. But Miss Doctor said he was already on his way back to Chicago for another bunch of orphans.

  "Here," she said, handing us some bread and apples, "go and eat while we wait for the train."

  Although it was bitter cold outside, the sun was shining. I could see what looked like storm clouds in the distance. "Is there a thunderstorm out there?" I asked a man loitering on the platform.

  He looked to where I pointed. "Why, missy, those are mountains. The Rocky Mountains."

  I could not imagine hills stretching so far into the sky, farther even than the grain elevators on Chicago's River Street. But it didn't surprise me. I had seen so many strange things on this trip across this big country that very little would surprise me anymore.

  "Those clouds are the Rocky Mountains," I told Sammy and Joe and Lacey when I joined them. Sammy had taken off his cap. He wiped his head with his handkerchief, spread the handkerchief on his lap, and put his bread and apple there.

  "Watch out!" shouted Joe, but too late. A rat near the size of an
alley cat ran up and grabbed Sammy's cap. Well, Sammy took out after that rat while we all laughed like to fall right off the platform. The rat ran north and south, Sammy ran north and south, the rat ran back and forth, Sammy ran back and forth. Finally the rat dropped the cap off the end of the platform into the dirty snow. While Sammy climbed down to get it, the rat doubled back, picked the hunk of bread off Sammy's handkerchief, and ran the other way.

  Why, that rat knew just what he wanted and figured out how to get it. I found myself admiring him, and things got to be real bad for a body to admire a rat.

  Finally we stopped laughing, and Sammy stopped fuming and sputtering. Lacey shared her bread with him and we all ate.

  "That rat sure outsmarted dumb old Sammy," Joe said. "But I won't tell no one. It'll be my secret."

  Sammy frowned at him. "You ain't one that ought to make jokes about secrets."

  Joe jumped up, his hands balled into fists.

  "I think animals are smarter than people sometimes," I said, anxious to avoid another fight. "Papa told me about a mule at the stockyards. That mule knew exactly how many wagon loads he should pull from the killing shed to the yard in one day, and when that number was pulled, be it noon or nine, he would pull no more. And never would he pull a load on a Sunday."

  Sammy nodded. "Lions in Africa attack only men, never women and children."

  "That ain't so," said Joe.

  "It is."

  "How do you know?"

  "Just know, that's all."

  "Birds who live on the side of a hill lay square eggs so they don't roll away," I said.

  "That sounds like hogwash to me," said Sammy.

  I looked up from my apple and saw, on the far end of the platform, my first Indians. Such a sight to remember and tell to ... well, I had no one to tell, but it was a sight anyway. Real Indians, in faded pants and blankets, calico skirts, some with beads and feathers in their hair. For sure I wasn't in Chicago anymore.

  Slowly the station grew crowded. High-booted, shaggy-haired men in overcoats made of woolen blankets or wagon rugs, wrapped around with ammunition belts, washed themselves under the pump. Faded, worn, anxious women bounced chubby children in their arms. There were men in spectacles, women with lunch baskets, pretty girls and wailing babies.

  "Lookit all them guns," said Joe. He was right. Seemed like everyone but the babies had guns.

  "That's because of Big Nose George," Sammy said.

  "Who's he?" Lacey asked.

  "You don't know about Big Nose George? Why, he's the most fearsome train bandit riding the rails today. Robbed some four hundred trains and got away each time. Killed three men in Texas for looking at his nose. Threw an old lady off a train in—"

  Lacey started to cry. "Oh, rubbish," I said. "It's only a story of Sammy's. If Big Nose George were real, I would have seen a wanted poster for him, familiar as I am with the notices hung in train stations, and I have not."

  Lacey looked up at me and smiled. Her tears flashed on her face like diamonds. What a face she had. No one would ever call her Big Nose Lacey or Potato Nose or some other ugly name.

  I put my hand over my own nose, walked to the edge of the platform, and stared at the empty tracks pointing west toward the mountains. Behind me I could hear the moaning of the train whistle. I turned toward the sound. A little black dot grew bigger and bigger as the clanging and tooting got louder and louder until, with a burst of sound and steam like a hot Chicago summer, the train pulled in.

  We boarded with everyone else and found seats in what Miss Doctor said was a third-class car. It seemed first-class to me—few orphans to tend, no jelly sandwiches, no Szprot.

  Sammy and Joe sat together. I sat behind them with Lacey. And behind us Miss Doctor took a seat next to a lady in a red coat and a hat with cherries on it.

  The seats were only hard wooden benches, but Miss Doctor got us each a straw cushion for sitting and sleeping on. They were two dollars each. Doctors, even lady doctors, must make a powerful lot of money, I thought.

  The Indians did not enter the cars but stood on the landings between them. Maybe they liked the fresh air and didn't mind the almighty cold and wind. Whatever the reason, I was just as glad not to be too close. I didn't know what Indians were likely to do. I kept my stink face on awhile, just in case.

  As the train started, Lacey jumped and ran up the aisle as if her feet were on fire. She scooped up a fat gray cat and carried it back to our seat, where they snuggled together like potatoes and gravy. The conductor, coming by to check our tickets, said with a wink that the cat was employed by the railroad. "To keep down the mice," he said.

  "Does she have a name?" Lacey asked.

  "Just cat, I reckon," the conductor answered her. "And she's a he."

  "Well, he's got to have a name. Ro, what should his name be?"

  "Let's see, he's so round and plump and soft," I said, "I think you should call him Dumpling."

  "What's dumpling?"

  "A dumpling is a fat ball of dough boiled and served with Mama's pork roast and sauerkraut," I said. "A dumpling is the best thing in the world."

  "Then he is Dumpling," Lacey said.

  I looked around the car at all the people going west. Or wester, since it seemed to me we were already in the west here in Wyoming Territory. What were they looking for? And why did they think it was way out here?

  I turned around to ask Miss Doctor, but her eyes were closed. The lady sitting next to her was youngish and plumpish. Her face was as round and rosy as a china plate with flowers painted on it, and so jolly looking that I'd bet she smiled even while she slept. She was alone, but looked much too happy to be an orphan.

  "Did you come all the way from Chicago like we did?" I asked her.

  She shook her head no, and the cherries on her hat bobbled. "From Omaha. Going to be a mail-order bride." And she laughed a great, rumbly laugh.

  "What is that? Can you order a bride from Mr. Montgomery Ward's catalogue like you do pianos and stew pots?"

  She laughed again and said it was almost that easy. "I answered an advertisement in the Omaha Herald from a homesteader in this here Wasatch, Utah Territory, looking for a wife. We wrote a few letters back and forth, and here I am, going west." She smiled, and her eyes all but disappeared in the rosy folds of her face.

  "I saw an ad like that in the Grand Island railroad station. A man in Montana wanted a wife. But aren't you worried about marrying a stranger?" I asked her. "Don't you mind leaving your home and family and all?"

  "Got no family," she said. "And home was a room in a boarding house with mildew on the wallpaper and the stink of cabbage in the halls. Didn't aim to spend the rest of my life in that room or up to my elbows in scummy water washing linen for rich ladies who didn't want to wash their own. So when I saw that advertisement, it was like God said, 'Merlene, put down them buckets, dry your hands, and come out here to my country where the air is clean, the sky big and blue, and any dirty wash you do will be your own.'"

  "What about him?"

  "Who?"

  "Him," I repeated. "You know. The man who placed the advertisement."

  "Oh, him. Name of Enoch Thompson. He sounds kind and lonely. Not too young anymore, but neither am I. I foresee we'll get on well enough. I get on with most people."

  "What if he doesn't want to marry you? What if he wants someone smaller or taller or older?" I was trying to understand this whole mail-order-bride business.

  She snorted. "Men out there got to marry anything that gets off the train."

  "What if you don't want to marry him? What if he's mean? Or ugly? Or a criminal hiding out from the law?"

  "Now, child, sometimes you got to trust and hope, not be saying 'what if' all the time. Besides, if we don't suit each other, I won't stay. I got my assets—hands and feet and a strong back. And at least I'll be out of that boarding house in Omaha."

  Miss Merlene closed her eyes. While I watched her, I thought about this mail-order husband of hers. Would he be tall and hand
some with a handlebar mustache and a horse and buggy, like the hero of a story? Could someone find all this out in advance so she would not be stuck with a Mr. Clench? Or did she have to hope and trust and not say "what if" all the time, just like Miss Merlene said?

  Her eyes were still closed, but I asked her anyway, "Don't you mind that it's all so strange and unfamiliar here? People carry guns and live in dugouts and there are Indians on the landings."

  "I like strange and unfamiliar," she said, opening her eyes just a slit. "It ain't the same old thing. And as for the Indians, poor souls, they ain't allowed to come inside, but they can ride for free out there. It's in the treaty. We get their land and they get the landings between railroad cars." She shook her head. "We white folk straight out robbed them, I reckon."

  Miss Merlene went back to her nap then, and I turned to watch Wyoming Territory go by outside the window.

  Lacey and the cat snuggled next to me. "Dumpling and I need a last name," she said. "You got a last name, and Mickey Dooley does. I reckon Sammy and Spud and Joe got last names, too. Everybody but us got two names. What could our last name be, Ro?"

  "Well, pick a name. Any name. Like off that sign there," I said, as we passed a barn with a sign painted on.

  "I can't read."

  Sighing, I read it aloud: "Connery Grain and Manure."

  "Manure," said Lacey. "It's pretty."

  I sighed again. "Sure is, but I think Connery would go better with Lacey." So then she was Lacey Connery, and the cat was Dumpling Connery, and they both sat there and purred.

  Snowflakes began to fall as the train climbed and turned. In some places we went so slow, it felt like they were laying track right in front of the train, so slow that what had been only blurs became bushes, scrub grass, and stunted pine trees poking up through the snow.