Through Rushing Water

by Catherine Richmond

  No, she had not. She had studied to please Rexford Montgomery, had studied to be mistress of Montgomery Hill. And all along he had thought of her not as a prospective bride, but merely as a convenient chaperone for Annabelle.

  How foolish to look to a man for approval.

  “How will they know lest we tell them?” the missionary went on. “Someone must share the Good News. Someone must speak the truth.”

  The truth. Pravda. Sophia’s father always spoke the truth. His military advice had earned him a place close to the tsar. Alexander had even listened to Father’s advice on freeing the serfs. But when the tsar took Sophia’s classmate as his mistress, the truth endangered her father’s life.

  The missionary continued. “How many Chinese will be consumed by hell’s fire, because you would not leave your hearth fire? How many Chinese will die in ignorance and darkness because you were too afraid of the unknown? What will you give, out of your comfortable life, so that another may live?”

  Sophia was the daughter of Constantin Ilia Makinoff, Master of the Horse Guards and Speaker of Truth, may he rest in peace. She was not afraid. She would speak the truth.

  Her back straightened, resisting the lure of repose. Perhaps her work would not be so earthshaking as her father’s, but it might be more meaningful than teaching wealthy young women to better themselves with French.

  And might she accomplish more as a missionary than as a congressman’s wife?

  “Who among you,” the speaker continued, “is ready to go where the Lord sends? Who is willing to give up her life of ease for the rigors of mission work?”

  China bordered Russia. Sophia could serve out her term, then return home. Surely the tsar would have forgotten her father’s denouncement by then. Surely he did not blame Sophia. He was nearly her father’s age; he, too, might die.

  Besides, what other choice did she have? Stay and watch Annabelle take her place at Montgomery Hill? Unthinkable.

  The speaker raised her arms and her voice. “Who will go?”

  For the second time that day, Sophia stepped forward.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The steam engine banged to life. Chains rattled and the stern-wheeler creaked ominously. The boat jerked, throwing Sophia off the bunk. Muttering imprecations that would discredit her both as a missionary and as a lady, she opened her eyes. Dim light from the window announced the sun had begun its rise. Further attempts at sleep would be futile.

  Sophia pushed upright. Her valise and Catharine Beecher’s Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions were still wedged against the door with its broken bolt. She pried her hairbrush, a poor substitute for a weapon, from her clenched fist. At the College, she had never locked her door. And now on this boat full of crude and dangerous men—Enough. Better a hundred sleepless nights than one more word from Annabelle about her wedding.

  She peered through the curtain. A haze of humidity blanketed a mud-choked river. Misshapen trees, like those securing the boat last night, stippled eroded riverbanks.

  Did her prayer book have a confession for impetuousness and rash decisions?

  If she had been patient, or tolerant, or even deaf to Annabelle’s constant babbling, Sophia might have waited for the Mission Board to send her to China. Instead she had accepted their first assignment, and now, less than a week later, here she was in the Dakota Territory.

  The frontier would offer no opportunity to be a woman of influence. Perhaps God was disciplining her for her ambition to marry a congressman.

  Very well then, she had learned her lesson. God could recall her from the Wild West and send her to China anytime.

  At the tiny washstand Sophia poured water from an ironstone pitcher onto a cloth too thin to be called a towel, and washed the unclothed parts of her bruised and insect-bitten body. Considering the heat and humidity, the effort was woefully inadequate. She pinned a sachet to her neckline and consoled herself with the thought that she was not the worst-smelling person on the Benton IV. Unfortunately there was plenty of competition.

  She gave herself a shake. “Think on whatsoever things are lovely . . .” or however that verse went. She must work harder for God’s approval or she’d never be called as a missionary to China. Morning prayers would be appropriate.

  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

  What came next? Unfortunately she had packed her prayer book. How could she forget the prayer that began every morning of her twenty-eight years?

  Sophia retied her corset, buttoned her skirt, and attempted to smooth out the wrinkles. She had altered her navy dress, turning the bustle into a pleat so that it would fit the confines of a rail car and stateroom. But she never imagined herself sleeping in it.

  With a sigh of frustration, Sophia swept her hair into a knot and tied on a straw hat. Armed with Miss Beecher’s book, she made a foray into the thankfully deserted dining salon. She managed to consume most of her biscuit and tea and read three pages before her peace was invaded.

  An officer, whose mustache would do a Cossack proud, clomped in on mud-caked cavalry boots. “How do, ma’am?”

  Sophia gave a pointed stare at the black felt flopping on his head. He snatched it off, revealing matted blond waves. Could this be the famous General Custer?

  Sophia extended her hand. “Miss Makinoff.”

  “Lieutenant George Higgins, at your service.” He piled a plate with ham, biscuits, and gravy, and poured coffee into a chipped mug. “So where you hail from?”

  Sophia never knew how to answer the question. Russia? France? “Lately, New York.”

  He tilted his head, studying her as if she were an exotic species in a museum. “New York, eh? You one of those society ladies taking tea with Mrs. Astor?”

  “Hardly.” Sophia suppressed a laugh. “I am not Dutch or English, nor do I live on inherited wealth.”

  “So what brings you out this aways?”

  “I am to be the missionary teacher at the Ponca Agency.”

  He raised his eyebrows and mug in a toast. “I’ll be your neighbor, up the river at Fort Randall.”

  Hopefully not close enough to become a regular nuisance. “How far away is the fort?”

  “Twenty-five, thirty miles or so.” He refilled her tea. “Lucky for you the Dakota Southern laid tracks Sioux City to Yankton, else you’d be steaming twice as long.”

  His evaluation of improved travel conditions in Dakota Territory did little to encourage her. Sophia had embarked from the railhead with the hope of arriving within hours. Now she wondered if they would reach the Agency before Christmas.

  The officer gestured with his utensils, leaving a spatter of gravy on his dark-blue uniform shirt. “Good thing you came out when the river’s high, or this would be a real slow journey. My first trip out west just after the War, I rode the Missouri all the way up from St. Louis. Took seventy-five—”

  The boat lurched to a halt. Again. Sophia slid a ribbon into her book and stepped outside. Lieutenant Higgins followed.

  The fog had dispersed, revealing grass-covered hills running parallel to the river. The Missouri carried a thick load of mud and tree parts, but smelled cleaner than the Hudson. A battalion of swallows fought a losing battle with a cloud of insects. Several dozen men, most in red shirts and canvas pants, clustered around the paddle wheel.

  “You miserable, empty-headed sons of—”

  Sophia opened her fan with a snap.

  The mate noticed her and changed his tune. “Lady.”

  Lady. The word raced through the crew.

  Was this her calling as salt and light, a city on a hill, to dampen swearing? No, it would take more than a snap of her fan to please God.

  Without profanity the crew resorted to work, leaving only blackbirds to squawk about the proceedings. Apparently one of the many stumps hiding in the Missouri’s mud had entangled itself in the paddle wheel.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” The officer returned his hat to his head. “I’ll see if I can be of as
sistance.”

  Sophia doubted anyone could save the Benton IV. But an extended session of grunting, muttering, and whacking with a variety of tools led to a victory shout. The boat escaped the evil clutches of the submerged tree and resumed its noisy progress upstream.

  At the bow two sailors took soundings and called the depths to the pilot. They entered a maze of sandy islands that changed shape as she watched.

  Back at the College, Sophia had gone for boat rides on the Hudson—sedate afternoons gliding past mansions with manicured lawns. Wooden filigree-work touched with gilding decorated every surface of the boat. Uniformed waiters delivered cold lemonade on silver trays to guests seated in Windsor armchairs.

  Completely unlike this precarious journey.

  The boat jerked backward. Sophia took hold of the nearest support.

  “Easy there, girly. Don’t want to have to haul you out of the river.” A thin man who reeked like decaying meat grabbed her elbow.

  “Thank you, sir.” Sophia lifted her chin, freezing him with a look that would do the tsar proud. He withdrew his hand.

  “Be glad to fish her ladyship outta the drink,” volunteered a thicker cad.

  “I trust that will not be necessary.”

  “I’ll hang on to you.” A soldier swept off his hat, showing greasy ropes of hair. His wrinkled and patched uniform gave no indication of rank or unit. Grimy toes poked from one brogan. Was there no soap west of Chicago?

  Her father would have had him flogged, but perhaps he was the best this young country could muster or afford.

  Most of the ship’s occupants milled about the deck and engaged in a deafening debate about the cause of their delay and several possible cures. Unfortunately Sophia’s trio of admirers were more interested in her, the only woman aboard.

  But she was a missionary now, she reminded herself. She should see Christ in every man.

  She shifted her position, wondering briefly if Christ ever maneuvered himself to stay upwind from the unwashed. “Where are you men headed?”

  “Gold fields,” the civilians replied. “Custer found gold up in them Black Hills and we aim to get us some.”

  “Will the Indians object to your mining enterprise?”

  “Well, if’n they do, we’ll just bore ’em full of lead.”

  “Them Injuns just sitting on that gold. Not doing nothing.”

  “So, you out here visiting?” The soldier had a freshly blackened eye.

  “No, sir. I am a missionary to the Poncas.”

  “Well then. God be taking care of you.”

  “And you, sir?” she asked the soldier.

  “I’ll be over to the fort, protecting you from the Brulé.”

  Surely he was incapable if he couldn’t hold his own in fisticuffs.

  Then the word registered, and Sophia’s breath caught. Brulé meant “burned” in French. Did they burn as well as scalp? “The Brulé?”

  “Fierce band of Sioux warriors. Ancient enemies of the Poncas. The Brulé swore death to them for signing a treaty with the Great White Father. They scalped a Ponca buck last week, out working in his cornfield.” His eyes gleamed like the villain in a melodrama. “A few winters ago Brulé caught a family between here and the Omaha Agency downriver, killed ’em all. Only a little boy survived, ran across the ice naked, to tell the story.”

  One of the prospectors objected. “Hey, I hear tell it were soldiers done it. Raped the sq—”

  The other slapped his bony hand over his companion’s flapping beard. “Can’t talk that way front of a lady.”

  “Nothing was ever proved.” The soldier glared. “Them was from Iowa, anyhow.”

  Lieutenant Higgins charged up the companionway, halting the argument before it progressed to fisticuffs or knifings. “Hey, take that fight down to the deck,” he said. “Maskell, you show your ugly mug up here again and I’ll throw you overboard.”

  The Benton IV made a brief stop at the Santee Agency, a tidy community with a church, hospital, and school. Indians neatly dressed in citizens’ clothes engaged in productive labor: tending gardens, planting fields, and carrying deliveries from the boat to their warehouse. Perhaps this assignment would not be so onerous after all.

  Upstream tall, plumed stalks and an occasional tree grew on the sandbars. A lively river burbled into the Missouri from the south. White birds stood in the shallows.

  “The Niobrara River and its town, nearest outpost of civilization to the Ponca Agency, where you get mail and such.” Lieutenant Higgins pointed to the southeast bank where a cluster of two-story wooden structures lined a muddy street. Nearby fields showed signs of cultivation. “Some of the Poncas live across the river in Point Village.” He pointed at the western bank, a buff and white cliff devoid of any sign of habitation.

  He folded his gauntlets into his belt and clasped Sophia’s gloved hands. His mustache trembled with earnestness. “Miss Makinoff. Any day I expect the Brulé to unleash their anger against the white race. Take care.”

  “Where might I buy a pistol?”

  He laughed so hard his hat fell off. He retrieved it before it blew away. “Oh, Miss Makinoff. Never fear. One of the duties of Fort Randall is for me and the US Army to guard you.”

  At the present rate of travel, it would take two days for the fort to learn of and respond to any attack on the Agency. “Is there a telegraph line? Or do you use heliography?”

  “He-le-og?” He blinked.

  “Signaling with mirrors.” Apparently not. “I am asking how you know when the Indians are on the warpath.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes we see smoke.”

  So, communication depended on the vagaries of the wind. “May God keep us both safe, then.”

  The boat lurched to a halt at a broad opening in the first ridge. A roustabout splashed to shore and tied the boat to a stump. The deckhands swung the landing stage to the levee.

  “Pardon me,” Sophia called to a deckhand. “That is my trunk.”

  “Yup. And this is where you be getting off.”

  Lt. Higgins nodded. “The Ponca Agency.”

  This was nothing like the Santee Agency. No one met the boat. Two dozen frail structures, more likely to be victims of weather than protection from it, were scattered along a footpath. Weeds choked sparse gardens. A building with a bell might be a church or school.

  Her second trunk joined the first onshore. Sophia searched out the captain. “Pardon me, sir. How long will you be staying?”

  “Just long enough to unload. Got to make Fort Randall before dark.”

  Sophia hoped her face did not show her fear. “Well then. Thank you for safely conducting me to my destination.”

  “Hope you won’t be cursing me for it.” He seemed to recall her profession. “I mean, God bless you, and all that.”

  Sophia retrieved her valise from her stateroom.

  “Hey, lady,” yelled a roustabout. “Your turn.”

  He did not know he dealt with a seasoned traveler. Sophia brandished her bill of lading. “No. I have three more crates, another trunk, and two large barrels.”

  The mate spit into the river. “This here’s more’n enough.”

  Thanks to Sophia’s continuous vigilance, her luggage had made the journey by wagon to the depot in Poughkeepsie, across the country by train to the railhead at Yankton, by hired dray to the docks, then onto this steamboat. Most of it was destined for her students and for the mission.

  She planted her feet on the deck. “I am certain you will find every item.”

  With considerable muttering, her shipment was finally located and unloaded.

  “Come along, now. Can’t be waiting for the tomahawks.” The mate handed her down to the shore. Before she could thank him, he vaulted back onto the boat and swung the landing stage forward. The boat steamed into the current and headed northwest.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Will pushed the wheelbarrow filled with shingles and planks toward the house of Fast Little Runner.

  Brown
Eagle followed with the ladder and toolbox. “My sister is visiting.”

  “That’s good.” That’s bad. “Your wives need the help.”

  “My sister does not have a husband.”

  Will grunted as the wheel bumped through a hole. “She’ll find one soon.”

  “She likes you.”

  “She can do better than me.”

  Will knew it would never work between him and Brown Eagle’s sister. The strongest joints came from similar timbers with matched cuts on each end. If he ever got married, that’s the way he wanted it to be. Not the way it was in most marriages.

  Will had seen how his brother carried the load in his marriage. Harrison bore most of the responsibility, while his wife, Tilly, entertained herself with shopping and fashion and teas. With the Indians it was just the opposite—the women seemed to do more than their share.

  What Will wanted was a partnership. A joining of equals. Not much chance out here at the Ponca Agency of finding a woman who’d splice her life to Will’s with any sort of balance.

  “My brother says business is picking up in Omaha. I’ll have to go back soon.”

  Brown Eagle shook his head. “Omaha. The city took an Indian name, but won’t take an Indian.”

  Brown Eagle had the right of it. Back in Omaha his sister would be given the cold shoulder and her children shunned. Even if he were so inclined, courting now would lead to hurting later.

  Fast Little Runner greeted them, then showed them a spot across the room. “The floor is soft.”

  No surprise, given the poor shingles the government had sent. They ought to issue buckets with every hundred.

  Will crossed the floor, each squeaking step reminding him the wood hadn’t had time to season before it was put to use. He knelt and probed the floor with his awl. The plank gave easier than a rotten potato. It was a wonder no one had fallen through.

  Will handed the tool to Brown Eagle to mark where the bad boards had to be cut out, then headed out to fix the roof. As he propped the ladder, a loud thump echoed from the house. Will hurried back in as Eloise, Fast Little Runner’s wife, dashed out with her grandbaby.