I padded to my small nest of blankets. “Goodnight.”
*
The next morning we were obliged to go downstairs and breakfast with the rest of the inn’s guests. This included; three rough looking men all sharing a room on the bottom floor, talking loudly of their intention to head north and trap bears, two well-dressed men who I took to be investors or businessmen of some kind, and a newly wedded couple who had eyes only for each other. Breakfast was oatmeal, under-salted and watery, but the coffee was hot and plentiful.
I was pleased to see that Laura looked a little more present. She ate the oatmeal hungrily and glanced about her to take in the measure of the other guests. At particularly loud and foulmouthed exclamations from the would-be fur trappers she raised her eyebrows at me and her mouth seemed to bear the shadow of a smile. Tom and Rachel too looked better for a good night of sleep in a solid bed and a wash. I noticed that they sat close together, like birds huddled out of the rain.
“I don’t believe we’re allowed to stay in the room during the day,” I said, watching the barefooted girl drag a heavy pail and a mop up the narrow stairs. “Perhaps you three can find a nice spot to sit outside and I can join you with some lunch once I’ve looked about the place?”
“I think that would fine,” Laura said.
“Can I go with you?” Tom asked.
“Me too,” Rachel added quickly.
“I think it would be best if you stayed with your mother.”
Both children sagged and I felt bad for denying them the excitement of the town after they’d been isolated for so long.
“You may come with me to the store for a short while,” I relented, “just to look.”
“I’ll come as well then,” Laura said, “to keep you both out of trouble.”
We had put on the clothes from yesterday to go down to breakfast and I looked longingly at our cleaned clothes hanging on the line behind the inn. My own dress was a cast-off of Jamison’s woman, cheap and much repaired, now very creased and with dust ingrained into the faded cotton.
We went to the store first and I thought it was a sight better than any of the other stores I’d been into on my way to the frontier. For starters it was clean; too often I’d seen dust on the food stores and evidence of rodent droppings, not to mention rodent gnawing. One store had not even had a puncheon floor, just sacks and boxes set on the dirt floor to grow damp and rotten.
This store had neat shelves, purpose built to house packets and boxes of the exact shape to be squirrelled away. Barrels, boxes and crates were all labelled with pasted on paper in a neat hand: nails (¼ inch), sugar (brown), tobacco (chewing), poison (rat). The floor was waxed wood, swept and mopped, and on a rough wood counter stood a gleaming lamp and a ledger in which to record sales.
A bell rang as we entered and a young woman came out from between two sets of shelves, still tying on an apron which matched the cap on her black hair.
“Morning,” she said on her way to the counter. “Let me know if you need a hand. I’ve got yesterday’s bread on special and a rack of clothes just got traded in, over in the back.”
“Morning,” I said.
We looked about and I saw Laura brightening just a little at the new sights to see, though I saw the gleam of tears in her eye as she looked upon a small basket of coiled hair ribbons. I touched her hand and she squeezed my fingers for a second before turning away and hiding her sorrow.
The store, it appeared was not only a place to buy supplies, but to trade them. At the rear of the place were shelves and racks bearing such things as I would have expected to see in a pawnbroker’s window; a watch, several pairs of ‘best’ shoes, a handsome mantle clock, candlesticks and various pewter and silver household items. Evidently these were things that people had brought west with them and had to part with on their way to their new homes.
The shop woman appeared at my elbow, unloading a small box of jewellery onto the shelf, mostly cheap items made of copper or brass with gaudy glass gems on them.
“Tat mostly,” the woman said, as if reading my mind. “But it was cheap and there’s plenty of farmers about with vain daughters, or trappers with soft hearts for whores.”
“Do you buy a lot from people?”
She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Bits of this and that. Most families have things they don’t strictly need, and when times are hard, as they usually are by the time they’ve travelled this far, they’re wanting cornmeal more than their grandmother’s brooch.
I looked sadly at the museum of pawned items, family treasures left behind on the way to some unknown destination. Not for the first time I thought of our wagon of goods, some Laura’s, some mine and still more taken from her dead neighbour. Would we have to sell those things when my brother’s money ran out? How far would we get on what we had?
“I do good deals, if you’re interested. But you’ll get more in goods than for just coin.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, “is there anything you don’t take?”
She considered. “Had to stop taking Bibles.”
Once we’d looked around a while, I bought a few cents worth of candy, some of the previous day’s bread and a bit of cheese to have with it. While I settled up, the storekeeper asked where we were staying and tutted when I told her. Our landlady was well known to her, as was her poor cooking. The shopkeeper told me she baked bread herself, and each afternoon she sold stew out the back, eating anything leftover for her supper. We’d be welcome to come by for a cheap meal.
“Is it just you here?” I asked.
“Was me and my man, but he died bringing logs downriver after the ice broke up,” she handed me my change with a look of someone who has known their share of loss and come to terms with it. “We were gonna have a store further north once the lumber camp paid him, but, when I lost him I thought I’d settle here where I already knew people.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is what it is. Better here than further north. It’s lawless up there. Folk get away with anything.”
With those words an idea that would take us further than I’d ever thought to go blossomed in my mind. A land where one could get away with anything sounded like just the place for us.
Chapter Three
Laura
Cecelia left us to go and look about town, reading the notices pinned up outside the store and engaging people in conversation. I let her do as she wished. I did not have the will for it.
I found a place in the sun, where some grass was growing, and sat myself down with the food we’d bought for our lunch. Tom sat by me and Rachel sat with him. She was keeping close to Tom, I’d noticed. I wondered if losing her sisters had made her fearful of losing him? More likely she was determined to see off any threat. Like a furious guard dog. I watched her as she looked down the main street and towards the road, glancing back at Tom. For a moment I tasted tenderness on my tongue.
“Did you see all the things they had Ma? There was a real buffalo robe at the back,” Tom said.
“I did see. That would be a warm bed cover indeed.”
“I’m gonna shoot a buffalo one day, and make a cover out of it,” Tom said, “and I’ll have the horns carved and the bones made into a gaming set like that one I saw in Ohio. I’d use every bit of that buffalo so people knew what a good hunter I was.”
“I’m gonna shoot one too,” said Rachel, “sell the hide and get myself a good horse. I’ll learn to ride faster than anyone.”
“You can’t shoot,” Tom reminded her.
“Well, you’ll have to teach me and then I’ll get better at it than you,” she said stubbornly.
“I will do.”
“Ma,” Rachel said, turning to me, with that same fierceness in her eyes I had seen before. “When we get out of town again, will you let Tom teach me to shoot?”
It occurred to me to say no. True, it was something worth knowing but she was only eight and guns were the most dangerous thing for her to be handling – more so even
than the stove. No fool ever shot his foot off with a hot pan. But for a moment I saw the woman she’d become, full of fire and anger and sharp as a knife. While Tom dreamed of killing his buffalo, like a boy dreams of being a soldier, she had set her mind to this and would not let go until she had what she wanted. Just as she had, only months ago, set her mind to getting sticks of candy like the ones sitting uneaten in her lap.
“When we get out of town, I’ll teach you myself,” I said, and she nodded, without a smile.
Cecelia joined us and relayed her news as she ate a piece of the candy.
“There’s no land nearby for sale, not of any worth. There’s a few postings relating to fledgling towns, but they’re mostly back south, where we’ve come from. I saw those men from breakfast – the trappers, and they say they’re on their way to join one of their brothers who’s making his fortune up in Minnesota trapping animals.”
“Minnesota?” I said, “That’s the other side of the country, all the way across Indian Territory and then some.”
She seemed to flag a little, and I wished I’d bitten my tongue, to soften the blow I added, “What’s in Minnesota? I confess it’s not a place I know much of.”
She rallied. “Aside from trappers, the store owner tells me there’s lumber camps up north, which means plenty of men looking for supplies and women’s work – like sewing and washing.” She did not mention the other ‘woman’s work’ – the kind done on one’s back.
“But what of farms?”
“I believe,” she said, taking my hands, “that for the moment we ought to set ourselves up as a business, rather than trying to start a farm on the money we have. It wouldn’t take much to start doing laundry and sewing, maybe cook up meals and offer some goods to sell – far less than to obtain a mortgage and build a rudimentary house. With the right business and hard work we can save more money, buy land outright, and build a good strong house with space for us to live well.”
I blinked. It wasn’t something that had occurred to me. There’d been the family business in England and Will’s brother had made a fortune selling American goods to the people back home. Still, Will was a farmer, and everywhere we’d been we’d heard nothing but how good the land was and how cheap, what fortunes were to be had for the hardworking man and his family. Washing and sewing, peddling, was for poor widows or spinsters too right thinking to go into whoring.
Of course, that’s exactly what we were. I was now a widow, and Cecelia, though still married to that awful character she’d told me of, might as well be one herself. We had no men to do business or lay claims, to protect us. Though I knew we could look after ourselves well enough, that did not mean we wouldn’t get worse deals, or be refused a loan altogether.
“It’s just an idea,” Cecelia said quickly, apparently taking my silence for shock. “We can talk it over and if you decide to-”
“It’s a good idea,” I said, squeezing her hands. “We spent our money too fast, or Will did. That land was a millstone. The mortgage near crippled us, and I’ll not go for another if there’s a way around.”
Cecelia beamed. “I think there is. Like I said, we could spend Franklyn’s gift on some land, but last summer showed me that there’s too much work for just us, and we could never compete with the amount the southern slave states can produce. But we’d need more land, with a mortgage, and we’d never be done with the work on it – work that could be wiped out by a storm or a drought.”
I knew well what that was like.
“You want a store like that woman’s got here?” I asked.
“Not a store, at least, not a big one. But she cooks and we could trade a little – just coffee or tobacco, and anything else that we could charge a penny for.”
I looked at my children. It was hard work she was proposing. All life was hard work, and whether it was for coin or corn it was just as hard. I thought though, that perhaps this would be better for them. Working the land was thankless drudgery. In the years I’d been at it I had seen no fortune, only dwindling profits that soon saw us barely making enough to buy dry goods for the winter. At least this way we wouldn’t be stuck in one place, terrified to leave our claim, no matter how much it took from us.
“Alright,” I said, “looks like we’re headed north.”
Cecelia talked quickly about her plans for us, and I listened and ate bread with cheese. Her eyes gleamed when she talked and I saw in her what I had first glimpsed in young James Clappe – intelligence and breeding. She was a smart one and there was no mistaking it. I wondered if, in another life, had she really been born a man, she’d have taken over her father’s business and built an empire. Now she seemed set to turn washing long johns into our own personal goldmine.
She said we’d have to look over our wagon and sell anything that wasn’t useful to us in our new line of work. That meant the ploughs and all but one of the stoves, probably some tools as well. That was most of what we had. The clothes and cooking things would barely fill a quarter of the wagon’s space.
“Is that alright?” she asked.
“I’ll be glad to see the back of that plough.”
We stayed there a while, then walked about town to amuse ourselves. I soaked up the sun, a mellower light than had borne down on us on the prairie, and let myself think of the future. If I looked at it in short glances, it did not seem so terrible, so empty of Beth’s smile and Nora’s laugh.
We took the wagon from the inn’s care and drove to the store, where we bartered our ploughs and excess goods. For them we got more dried goods; flour, beans and cornmeal. We also got tobacco and whiskey (things I’d never have thought I’d have spent good money on without Will twisting my arm) as well as a few sets of second-hand clothes to replace the ones I’d burnt to be rid of their filthiness and the stench of sickness. When the trading was done we’d parted with only a little money, and were free of the weight of most of the things Will’d bought on our way west.
I chose the dried food, knowing more about value than Cecelia. Rachel stood by me, with Tom, and Cecelia smiled at her.
“Do you want to come and pick out some clothes?”
“Take Tom with you,” I said, before she could refuse. “He needs to pick out some pants that fit.”
Rachel paused, then turned to Cecelia with her chin up.
“If I stick to my old clothes can I get a rifle of my own?”
Cecelia paused, surprised. We had kept both Will’s rifle and Jamison’s in addition to Cecelia’s own.
“You can share Jamison’s rifle with Tom, once you’ve learned to shoot,” I said.
Rachel huffed, but said no more. At any other time she would have leapt at the chance to choose clothes without me looking over her shoulder, tutting at the cost of fancy buttons and edges. I remembered how she had placed her hair ribbons with Beth before we buried her and Nora. Perhaps I was not the only one with a hole in my chest where such trifles used to live.
Cecelia beckoned to her. “We’ll find something nice for you.”
Rachel and Tom followed Cecelia to the rear of the shop and I returned to my
business with the dried goods. A small part of me had thought Cecelia a touch foolish when she promised to be as a mother to my children. Yet as I found my way through the cold fog of loss I saw more and more that she cared for them and had some of their trust. She had tamed Rachel like a wild horse and Tom had warmed to her since the first moment she appeared in our lives.
At last we finished our business and with the wagon neatly packed we returned it to the inn. It was our last night there, and we had a long journey ahead of us. Our clothes had been washed and dried, and I checked them over and put aside those in need of mending. It was the first time someone had done my laundry since I was a baby, and probably the last time someone would do it until I lost my wits to age.
Rachel sat on the floor, in the circle of lamplight. In her lap she had her ‘present’ from the store. Cecelia had allowed her to pick out a pocket knife from the selection of
pawned goods. It had a smooth wood handle and a steel blade, a plain little thing, but she had the whetstone from the wagon and was sharpening it with purpose. I didn’t want to ask what her plans were for it, but assumed she meant to use it, like the rifle, for hunting.
We didn’t want to venture out again and so ate the dinner cooked up by the stony faced landlady, a watery stew with very little meat and lots of potato. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d eaten, but I knew I could do better.
Chapter Four
Cecelia
Though I had outlined my plan to Laura in detail and brought her around to the sense of it, my heart was in my mouth as we drove away from town and towards the uncertainty of Minnesota. I had wagered the ploughs and tools against our future, and I could only hope it would pay off.
Through the interminable hours of driving the wagon I worried too about Rachel. I had not forgotten, though I wished to, the sight of her poor, rope torn hands. Or the rope marks around her father’s throat. I tried, many times as we drove, to tell myself that Rachel was too young and too innocent to do such a thing, much less keep it secret. As we travelled however, I came to the conclusion that Rachel was beyond her years in terms of suffering, and that from suffering could come the desperation and determination to act in such a drastic way.
I decided that I would not mention to Laura what I had seen of William’s end. It was Rachel’s secret, and I promised myself that if she ever wished to share it, I would be there for her. If the weight of it wore on her, she would perhaps confide in Laura, in her own time.
I could not pretend to be unhappy that William Deene was dead. Neither could I say I did not understand why she had done it. There was to be no trial, and I did not wish to be Rachel’s judge on the matter. Though I did find her sudden interest in guns, knives and hunting to be slightly troubling. I could see she wanted to put aside childish things and girlish concerns, though it saddened me to see it, as she was still so young. I think such things were soured for her, knowing as she did that Beth and Nora would not have the chance to enjoy them. Still, I wondered if she now considered herself hardened enough to protect her family from further attack by men like her father, and I hoped her heart was as yet not cold enough to find killing another person a simple thing, in all but the direst of circumstances.
Smoke Through the Pines Page 2
