Well Traveled

by Margaret Mills

  Jed’s lips pursed and his fine brows drew together briefly, but he nodded and lifted his head. “You are very generous. I’m sure any man could have followed the trail they left.”

  “Maybe,” Bishop shrugged, “but you’re the man who did.” He didn’t say anything else about it, and Gideon was grateful.

  “Suppose we’d best get a move on,” Gideon said, because someone had to say it. “Mrs. Hennessey, I’ll remember your chicken for a long time to come.”

  She looked startled then dimpled. “Good thing you said that,” she said, “because I cooked up some lunch for you boys when I made breakfast this morning. Nothing much, just bread and chicken, but it’ll keep you from having to buy a meal today. It’s in that sack on Jed’s horse,” she said, pointing.

  Jed handed Gideon his new horse’s reins and stepped up onto the porch. “May I?” he asked, pointing to the little table where she’d laid the spatula. Other utensils, including a sharp butcher knife she or George had used to dress the chickens, sat on it.

  She nodded, looking confused, but Jed just picked up the knife, tilted his head sideways, and cut off a hank of his hair, from underneath toward the back. He set the knife back down and held out the long lock to her. “Among my people, it is a sign of strength and honor. You are strong.”

  Tears welled, making the green of her eyes shine in the morning sun, and she reached a tentative hand to take it from him. “That’s… I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then say nothing,” Jed said, and smiled. He stepped off the porch with a nod for George and Sheriff Bishop, took his horse’s reins from Gideon, and led the way off the homestead.

  They mounted up at the edge of the cleared land, and Gideon turned to wave a last goodbye from Star’s back. He leaned down close to her ear to give her a command, backing it up with a lift and touch of his knee to her withers, centering himself as she rose on her back legs and pawed the air with one hoof. He could hear George’s laughter all the way out here, and ahead of him, Jed shook his head.

  “Always the showman, Gideon?” he chided.

  Gideon smiled as they rode out.

  Chapter 9

  THE morning was sunny and cool, with an easy grade downhill most of the way, and as the day wore on, Gideon’s spirits tried to lift with the temperature. It was more settled here, the land no longer wild but giving way regularly to farms and fenced pastures, mills and old mining operations along the river. They couldn’t go far at all before seeing signs of people, either smoke from a hearth or cultivated fields, cattle herds or orchards. It made him realize just how barren the Midwest still was, outside the mining towns, rail stops, and state capitals, and how heavily peopled California was. No wonder the show had so many stops in this state. Them that had come for the dream of gold had stayed on for rich soil and good weather, finding their fortunes however they could. San Francisco really wasn’t that far away anymore.

  This adventure would be over, and soon.

  In the past when he’d separated from his family and Bill Tourney’s show, he’d always been happy to get back to it, and them. He’d never felt this disheartened at the idea of meeting up with them, but rejoining them meant losing Jed. He’d carried that knowledge this whole trip, but only now did it feel real to him.

  They stopped for lunch at a creek crossing as the sun reached its zenith, and Gideon ate more than his fair share of Mrs. Hennessey’s chicken, mostly at Jed’s urging. His musings had left him without much appetite, even comforted as he was by Jed’s quiet chanting, but he ate what Jed pressed on him, dredging up the will to appreciate her good cooking.

  “You ever lived in a city before?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jed said, surprising the hell out of him. “I lived in Laramie, Wyoming, for two years when I first left the reservation.”

  Gideon whistled. Laramie was big enough that Bill Tourney ran the show through there when he could. “Huh,” Gideon said. “Somehow, I can’t picture that, with you hatin’ white folks like you do.”

  “I do not hate white people,” Jed said, chiding him a little. More quietly he added, “Mostly I just fear them. They are not consistent, not in their beliefs or in their behavior. The Christian Bible says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” he mused, “but many white people, even the Christians, do not. They do to others as they wish, as their white laws allow, and at great cost to their spirits and the land.”

  “That they do,” Gideon agreed. Hell, he couldn’t argue it. He’d seen all kinds of people in his travels with the show. He’d grown up getting to know folks from all walks of life—farmers and shopkeepers, politicians and immigrants—and liking most of them. The differences were what made folks interesting, what made them unique, and what kept him from getting bored with meeting so many of them. The show moved regular, and the only place he’d ever lived for any length of time had been New Orleans, the big port city in the deep South where the show wintered. Bill had a rambling old farm there that his mother had left him, and those in the show who didn’t have families waiting for them lived on the property, working on new acts. Those that didn’t travel stayed on the farm, caring for what animals weren’t going with the show that season, celebrating Christmas—generally behaving as any big family did.

  Until he’d traveled this land with Jed, he’d seen cities and mines, forestry, Franklin stoves, gaslights, railroads, and all the conveniences of civilization as benefits, as folks just making good use of the land. Seeing the country through Jedediah’s eyes, though, and watching him walk through it without leaving much to show for his passing, Gideon could understand better how progress might not be an entirely good thing. Still, from all the stories he’d heard, it wasn’t like the Indians were much better. “Indians ain’t that way, too? Inconsistent?”

  Jed frowned as he chewed on a hunk of bread. “They are,” he said slowly, “but not so much. My people—not just the Lakota, those you call Sioux, but most natives of this continent—they seem genuinely more willing to allow others to be who they are, instead of what they think a people should be. Before many tribes were forced onto each other’s hunting grounds, there was very little conflict between them.” He shrugged. “Conflict always comes when resources are scarce.”

  “Guess I never thought about it that way,” Gideon admitted. “You hear all kinds of stories, about Indians fighting white folks but fighting amongst themselves, too.”

  “Those stories are true. But they are not old stories.”

  Gideon nodded as he sucked the last bits of meat off his chicken leg. “We got stories—history, I mean, that go back to before Jesus was born, and it seems like we were always findin’ somebody to war with.”

  “I have read many works of white men,” Jed said, “and not all of them are about war. Many of them are about your god, and those works especially I was forced to read at the school.”

  The mention of the school reminded Gideon of Jed’s face back in Carson City, when Mrs. Edmundson had told of the school there. “You didn’t have a choice about that school,” he said, tentative. He’d shared such tales from Harold Crowe and the other Indians in Bill’s show, but he’d never had cause to have this conversation with someone he hadn’t been raised up with.

  Jed looked up at him as he wiped his fingers on a cloth. “We did not,” he answered quietly.

  Gideon tried to imagine what it would have been like for him, if someone had come and taken him from his parents, from the show. There’d been murmurs from time to time, from folks thinking that the road and a traveling show was no place to raise kids, but twenty or more children traveled with the show just about all the time, and Gideon had grown up with it. More stayed with their folks back on Bill’s spread in New Orleans, those whose parents didn’t want to travel while suckling babies—Gideon’s own folks had done that, with him, but not with his younger brother or sisters. Those parents were as important to the show as the people on the road, tending and schooling the foals, pups, and buffalo calves, living a mo
re settled life until they decided their kids were old enough to travel.

  His ma taught all of the kids their letters and numbers, and she always found plenty of books or newspapers for them to study, and scoffed at the idea of leaving them with somebody not their own kin. “How will you kids learn a trade if you don’t learn it from your folks?” she’d asked. Besides, most of the people who said that it wasn’t right for children to be traveling with the show were ignorant hicks in his opinion, farmers and churchgoers mostly, and he hadn’t thought their kids were any better off than him. Them that were better educated and held the same opinion, he’d seen his ma talk to, telling them that she was the show’s schoolteacher, and mostly that had settled those kinds of people down.

  Gideon couldn’t think of a better or more interesting life than the show, couldn’t imagine a better family—not his own, and not the three hundred or so people who called the show home. But plenty of young folks left it when they reached marrying age. He’d seen them in towns they passed the next year or the year after, usually running stores or working the land with families of their own. Gideon’s younger brother lived in Ascension Parrish, west of New Orleans near Baton Rouge, with his young wife and her folks. He’d met her one winter and stayed for good the next, worried that he’d lose her to a local boy, and Gideon was sure they’d be starting a family of their own soon. He couldn’t see his sisters settling quite so easily, but maybe Grace would be one of them that stayed at Bill’s place and kept the home fires burning, if she and her beau decided to marry. Maybe Gideon would one day himself. Working in Livingston had given him a new perspective on the things he could do other than traveling, if he found a reason to settle down.

  “Sometimes, people told my folks—and Bill Tourney gets an earful, too, from what he’s said—that the show wasn’t a proper place to raise children, but my folks never took them seriously. They love to travel, and my brothers and sisters were all born on the road.”

  “My parents wanted us to stay with them also, but your government did not ask what they wished,” Jed answered. “We were handed over to the missionaries when the missionaries came for us, and tribes who resisted stopped receiving the supplies from your government that they needed to survive. It is the rule of the day, that we should be educated by white men and women, that we will be better off with white ways.”

  Gideon chewed on that for a long moment. “What do you think, Jed? Are you better off?” he asked, wondering how different he’d be if his folks had been forced to give him up.

  “I… do not believe so,” Jed said slowly, like he’d given the question a whole lot of thought. “I can read your books, which is probably good. There are some whites who are very wise. And I know your God.” He looked down at his hands, seeming terribly preoccupied with the cloth he’d been using to wipe his greasy fingers on, but his voice was even as he went on. “The missionaries, the representatives for your white god, even they did not embody the ways of nature or of Him.”

  Gideon bit his lip to keep from pointing out the obvious, that judging a whole people just because their skin was white wasn’t much different from what Jed accused whites of doing. Besides, while the thought of Jed’s fear made him ache, this piece of Jed, like the other ones he had learned along the way—about Jed’s mother, about his sexual leanings, about his killing—all of these were things that Jed was trusting him with. Despite the fact that Gideon was white, and despite everything Jed had just said, he was giving pieces of himself to Gideon.

  That seemed important enough that Gideon decided to honor it by keeping his damned questions to himself. “So tell me,” he said, changing the subject, “the stories of Indians stampeding buffalo herds off cliffs to kill ’em easier, is that true?”

  Jedediah snorted. “Yes. Twenty buffalo, or fifty, for food and shelter, teepees and clothing, rope and bow strings.” He looked Gideon squarely in the eye. “We Sioux do not kill for sport.”

  Gideon set his food aside and rubbed his hands in the grass to get some of the grease off them. Killing for sport… that was what those bastards had done. It was what plenty of folks did.

  “Why so sad, Gideon?” Jed asked him. When Gideon frowned confusion at him, Jed gestured with his bread. “You usually speak of good things, of love and adventure and family, or tell tales that amuse you.”

  Gideon shrugged. “Guess I ain’t feeling particularly happy today.”

  “Why?”

  Because you’re leaving soon. “Hard to, thinkin’ about what them animals did to the Hennessey family and plenty of others, I reckon.”

  Jed nodded, taking his words at face value, and Gideon made an effort to cheer himself up. It’d be a damned shame to waste what few days he had left with this man. “What kind of story would you like to hear today, Jed?” he asked.

  Jed smiled, and Gideon fancied it was fond. “Any story you would like to tell.”

  Gideon told Jed about his twin sisters, little terrors the pair of them, one as tomboy as she could get and one who loved frills and lace, but they were as close as two people could be. They’d turned twelve this summer, and he was lonesome for them, so the stories came easy.

  He and Jed had been making good time following a well-traveled road most of the day, and they’d passed plenty of travelers along the way. Every time they met a farm wagon or group on horseback, Gideon would smile and wave, while Jed would tug his hat lower on his head and stare at the ground along the side of the road. Gideon had seen this before, Jed’s natural effort to avoid trouble with white folks who might not take kindly to an Indian off a reservation. But here in California, folks seemed a little more settled about the idea of Jed’s dark skin and long hair. Gideon wondered if it was just because Indians had been converted long enough ago that they were more a novelty now, or if the folks they passed just had more sense than to annoy a stranger on a fit horse with a good rifle tied to his saddle. Either way, Gideon was glad that they didn’t have any trouble.

  It occurred to him that with all the people around here, they might have a problem finding someplace private to camp. He made mention on a quiet stretch of road. “I’m lookin’ forward to bedding down tonight,” he said, weighting his words enough that he hoped Jed would get the message.

  Jed did. His eyes crinkled at the corners with the tiny smile he offered, and he shook his head. “When are you not looking forward to a bed?” he asked, adding more gently, “And my body?”

  Gideon grinned. That was plain enough, and he was glad Jed welcomed his urge. “Think we’ll be able to find someplace private?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jed said. “I will find someplace very private.” Just the way he said the words heated Gideon up, and Gideon bit his lip to keep from suggesting that they stop early. Like, right now.

  Late afternoon sun burned hard into his eyeballs when the road widened out into a small collection of buildings that heralded a town in front of them. A wide, well-built bridge over a lazy river carried a sign: Mokelumne River, Lodi, California. “Lodi?” Gideon read aloud. “We’ve made good time today.”

  Jed shrugged. “Downhill.” Jed stayed to the road and rode straight into town, a novelty for him, keeping his eyes low while Gideon took in a busy sawmill and clean-looking buildings. He didn’t think much about their route until Jed slowed down near a big livery stable, pulling the bay to a stop before sliding out of the saddle.

  “Problem?” Gideon asked, looking around. He nodded hello when a man came out of the stable to greet them.

  Jed didn’t answer Gideon but held out his reins to the newcomer. “The horses in the back,” he said, using his chin to point to the corral. “They are not stage horses.”

  The man, a big burly guy who didn’t look all that friendly, said shortly, “Not hardly. We keep riding horses here, too—folks like touring out here, and we have couriers coming through every now and again. Why?” he asked, crossing his arms over his burly chest as he held Jed’s bay’s reins tight in one fist.

  “I want to trade,
” Jed said absently, “my horse for one of those.”

  The guy examined Jed’s horse with new interest, stepping up to tug its lip back and check its teeth, then walking backward to the end of the reins to take a good look at its body. “This is a good-looking horse,” he said, “and it ain’t even five years old yet. What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing,” Jed said. “But I see an Indian pony back there.”

  The man’s face set into a frown but he said, “Yeah. Couple of your boys came through a few weeks back, traded it for a rifle, shot, and three bottles of rotgut. So?”

  “So,” Jed said, “I am an Indian.”

  “So were they,” the man replied bluntly. “They didn’t see much reason to keep it….” Gideon grinned when the man realized he might be costing himself money and changed his tune. “Of course, that’s real good horseflesh you spotted, no doubt about that. Could be related to Frank Hopkins’ horse, the one that won that big race overseas. Them Injuns that sold it said they was from Oklahoma or thereabouts.”

  Gideon put the brakes on that tall tale as quick as he could. “Ain’t many Indians left in Oklahoma, mister,” he said curtly, “and don’t many folks believe that story, anyway. Jed here won’t fall for it.” He dismounted easily and grabbed up Star’s reins. “Hang on a minute.” He walked over to the fence, nodding to the man as he passed and pulling Star along behind him to examine the pony Jed had eyes for. Its coat, a bright bay dunskin with scattered streaks on its hindquarters, was shiny and well-kept, and he kind of liked the blaze that ran down its face. He knelt down to check its sex and stood back up, eying its form. The gelding had fine conformation, but he could see the mustang blood in its size, the high ridge of its withers and the slope of its croupe. Mustangs didn’t have a lot of room for saddlebags, back there. Mostly though, he could sense the wild in it by the way it stood apart from the other horses. “You mind, mister?” he asked, tilting his head toward the corral.