The Chisholms: A novel of the journey West

VII Gideon

Will was sitting there with his two women, one on either side of him. Fire in the middle of the tent. Place smelled awful, made Gideon want to retch. Some kind of food cooking there in the pot. Some kind of animal. Lots of Indians ate dog meat. He looked at his brother and wondered if he’d taken to eating dog meat now that he was sleeping with Indians. The squaw looked like the hog Gideon’d carried in the house that time. The other one was supposed to be white. She was wearing an old calico Will had bought from a trapper coming through. Hem had been let out cause she was so tall; you could see plain as day where the faded dress’d been made longer. Wore it with black cotton stockings to her shins. Moccasins, too. Still looked like an Indian; Gideon couldn’t believe she was white.

“Will,” he said, “you remember we were talkin about Fort Hall...”

“I remember,” Will said.

“If we’re to go,” Gideon said, “we’d best do it soon. This is now the middle of August. We—”

“I’m thinkin of waitin till spring,” Will said.

“We could still make it before—”

“No, I’m thinkin we’re late. The snow’d catch us. Anyway, Orliac’s prob’ly right about the Indians out there. I don’t want to chance it, Gideon.”

Had nothing to do with snow. Nor Indians, neither, except for the two Indians right here — if she was white, then Gideon was Chinee. The fat one leaned over, said something to the other one. Her hands began moving. Will watched like he understood. Gideon said, “Well then...” and shrugged, and left the tent. Outside, he could still smell whatever was cooking in the pot. Up above the fort, he saw his father and Bobbo working on the cabin. The trees were already losing their leaves. He thought: I’m trapped here for sure, and then sighed and went on up to help them.

It took them less than two weeks to raise the cabin. Beginning of September, they moved into it lock, stock, and barrel, made it a twin to the one back home. Minerva’s cherrywood dresser there against the wall, split-bottomed chairs on the same wall and the one opposite, benches either side the table. On shelves in all the corners, the family’s pewter plates and utensils, tin cups and water pails, wooden bowls. Hanging on pegs all over the room was clothing and guns, cotton cards, handsaws and bridles. Same as back home. Even to the clock on the mantel. Its crystal had been smashed that time the mules bolted with Bonnie Sue, but otherwise it ticked off minutes just the same. Ticked. And ticked.

He sat by the fire and puffed on his pipe. He’d taken to smoking a pipe; kept him from getting too fidgety. There was an Indian at the fort always had tobacco to trade. Gideon figured he’d buried a cache of it in the hills someplace. Whenever he saw Gideon, he made a pipe bowl of his fist and pretended to be filling it with tobacco.

“Tabac?” he asked, grinning like he was selling a woman. “Voulez?”

“Tabac, aye,” Gideon said.

He sat before the fireplace, rocking. Bonnie Sue was just the other side of it, a shawl on her lap. Gideon puffed on his pipe and looked into the flames. On the mantel, the clock ticked.

And ticked.

“Yep,” Gideon said.

Across the room, behind the blanket, Minerva was preparing for bed. He could hear her bustling about.

“Yep,” he said again.

Bonnie Sue looked at him, annoyed, and then went back to writing in her diary, or whatever it was she called it. Her pencil scratched into the stillness. The fire crackled. The clock ticked. Gideon sighed.

“Person could get fat and lazy around here,” he said.

Bonnie Sue jumped up out of her chair. His jaw fell open. The pipe slipped from his mouth and spilled glowing little tobacco cinders onto the front of his shirt. He caught for the pipe and missed it, and it went crashing to the floor. Brushing at his shirt, he jumped up and started stamping at cinders on the floor, wondering what had got into her.

“You mind your own damn business,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“You heard me! It ain’t none of your business how fat I am or how lazy neither. You just keep your nose—”

“What?” Gideon said. “What?”

“You just — you just shut up!” Bonnie Sue said, and burst into tears.

His mother poked her head around the blanket. There was a peculiar look on her face. She walked past Gideon to where Bonnie Sue was sitting at the table, her head on her arms, bawling. Gideon stood there feeling like a dummy. He picked up his pipe. His mother was stroking Bonnie Sue’s hair.

“I didn’t say nothin, Ma,” he said.

“You go take a walk outside.”

“Ma, I really didn’t...”

“I know, son. Go on take a walk.”

There were times he didn’t know what in hell was going on.

Next day, she sent him down to where the Indian tents were, told him to go fetch his brother Will. Wasn’t but a handful of tents down there now. Most of the Indians who’d come to trade had already moved on again in search of more buffalo. Will came out in a buckskin shirt and leggings, moccasins, beaded band across his forehead. He’d started growing a beard, and it was coming in scraggly and patchy. He asked Gideon what Ma wanted. Gideon said he didn’t rightly know.

It was a bright windy day. Leaves darted on the air, rattled underfoot. She was sitting on the porch with a shawl around her, seemed lost in thought as they came up. She motioned for Will to take a chair, and then told Gideon to go on inside. He went in the cabin, but he could hear every word they said.

“Had a long talk with Bonnie Sue last night,” his mother said. “Told me she’s carrying Hackett’s child, said you’ve known about it since the day he was hanged.”

“That’s right,” Will said.

“Whyn’t you tell somebody?”

“I figured you’d have noticed by now, Ma.”

“She ain’t but in her fourth month, and carryin small as a walnut.”

“Anyway, Ma, it’s Bonnie Sue’s own business, ain’t it?”

There was a note of warning in his voice. Gideon heard it and supposed his mother had, too. She was quiet for a minute, maybe trying to figure whether or not to let the challenge pass. Instead, she said, “Seems everybody in this family got his own business anymore.”

“Meanin what?” Will said.

“Meanin you go figure it out, son,” she said. Gideon heard her chair scraping back. Next thing he knew, she was in the cabin, walking straight to the fire. She picked up the poker, seemed not to know what she’d intended doing with it, and set it right down again. Will came in, stood just beside the door.

“You got somethin to say to me, Ma, I’d appreciate your—”

“I got nothing more to say to you,” she said. “Go on back to your squaws down there, go on.”

Will looked at her. “Ma...” he said.

“Just go on,” she said.

“I’m a grown man.”

“I know you are.”

“If I choose to care for—”

“Your sister was killed by an Indian,” she said flatly.

“Catherine ain’t no Indian.”

“She’s as Indian as the other one; I see scant difference.”

“Anyway, that ain’t even the point. They’d die without me to care for them. There’s just the two of them alone...”

“They seemed to be doin fine before you got here.”

“Ma, they’re people same as you and me.”

“They’re people same as who killed your sister! Will,” she said, “you’d best go, fore we say things there’s no turnin back from.”

“Let’s get them said then.”

“I said all I got to say. Your sister was killed by an Indian, and you’re livin with a pair of them.”

“One thing’s got nothin to do with the other,” Will said. “My grandpa was killed by an Indian, too. What’s—”

“Yes!”

“What the hell’s one thing—”

“You cuss in this house!”

“Shit, Ma!”

“Go cuss with your squaws!” Minerva said. “Go cuss with them...” She clamped her mouth shut, folded her arms across her waist, turned her back to him.

Will stood inside the door just a moment longer.

“I miss Annabel as much as you do,” he said. “I loved her, too,” he said, and went out of the house.

She was still standing at the fireplace, her back to the door. Gideon went swiftly to the window. His brother was walking down toward the tents again. His hands were in his pockets. His shoulders were hunched against the wind. Winter was coming.

The first snow fell early in November.

The woods were still and white. Gideon worked in them silently all morning, and by noon had chopped enough wood to last through Christmas anyway. He was bone weary when he finished. Slung his ax over his shoulder, started down through the cleared field toward the cabin. His father was there in the middle of the field, talking to Schwarzenbacher, the snow falling all around them. Schwarzenbacher was swathed in fur from head to toe, a fur hat and a fur coat and fur boots and fur mittens. He looked more like an animal of the forest than the living animals the hides had been taken from. He waved, and Gideon waved back, and walked to where they were standing.

“I brought you some tobacco,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“Thank you,” Gideon said.

Schwarzenbacher took off one of his mittens, began digging into the huge pocket of his coat. Hadley watched impatiently; Gideon figured he’d been in the middle of something. “It’s supposed to be very good,” Schwarzenbacher said, and handed him a folded oilskin. Gideon rested the ax against his leg, unwrapped the oilskin, sniffed the tobacco inside.

“Ahhhh,” he said, and nodded appreciatively.

“Yes?” Schwarzenbacher asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” Gideon said. “Thank you very much.” He shivered suddenly. “Sweat’s turnin to chill,” he said. “You’ll have to pardon me.” He nodded to Schwarzenbacher and then to his father, and walked up to the cabin. His mother was at the table, kneading dough.

“You’ll be wantin a hot tub,” she said.

“Aye.”

“I’ve heated water; it’s ready behind the blanket.”

“Thank you,” he said, and went to take off his clothes. Cabin felt toasty warm, firelight flickering from around the edges of the blanket, steam rising from the water in the wooden tub. He climbed in, sloshing half of it all over the floor — nobody ever could get it in their heads just how big he was. Made him feel like a dunce sometimes, being so big. “When you gonna quit growin, Gideon?” Har-har-har, nudge in the ribs. “Gideon, you’re lookin more like an oak forest every day.” Har-har-har. He hoped the men out west were big, he ever got there. Felt comfortable with big men. Loved to rassle with his brothers. Will especially, even though he was a mite shorter than Bobbo. Knew more tricks, Will did. Grab your head, you’d think you was caught in a bear trap. Wasn’t Will about to go west, though. Wasn’t none of them, you wanted to know. They’d settled in for sure. They’d be here come spring and beyond, and forever. Wasn’t no moving any of them out of here. On the other side of the blanket, Minerva was humming, slapping dough on the tabletop. Gideon sighed, savoring the steam that rose around him. He heard the front door opening, heard Hadley and Schwarzenbacher coming in, stamping snow from their boots.

“Whooooo!” Hadley said.

“Whooo-eeeee!” Schwarzenbacher said.

“What you doin there, Min?” Hadley said. “Fetch us some whiskey.”

“Fetch your own whiskey,” Minerva said.

“You want some whiskey, Schwarzenbacher?”

“Yes, thank you,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“Made it myself. Plan to do the same here, once I get my corn planted and picked.”

Gideon heard the tin cups being set down on the table, heard the cork being pulled from the jug, the whiskey being poured.

“To your health,” Hadley said.

“Your health, sir.”

“Pour some for me, too, Pa,” Gideon called from behind the blanket.

“What’s that, eh? You hear something, Min? Must be a critter in the house.”

Gideon laughed.

“You hear it, Schwarzenbacher?”

“Yes, sir,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“No matter how you chink a place, they get in anyhow,” Hadley said.

“Come on, Pa,” Gideon said, laughing.

“There it is again!” Hadley said. “My, my, my. Schwarzenbacher,” he said, “when I was a lad, the Indians’d steal the corn soon as it was ready to pick. Will they do the same here?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“There’s patterns, don’t you think?”

“Pa?”

“Come get your own damn whiskey, son! What’re you doin behind that blanket anyway?”

“Havin a tub,” Gideon said.

“Well, dry yourself off and come have a drop of whiskey. I find it cold here, Schwarzenbacher. This time of year, it wasn’t so cold back home. Makes me wonder will the plantin season be different? Do you know anything about that?”

“No, sir; I’m sorry.”

“Where are you from anyway?”

“Yonkers, New York.”

“Here you go, you lummox,” Hadley said, and handed a cupful of whiskey around the blanket.

“Ah, thank you, Pa,” Gideon said.

The whiskey was good. It ran fiery hot down his gullet to the pit of his stomach. The steam rose, drifting. Outside the window, the snow was thick enough to churn.

“You’d best go fetch your daughter,” Minerva said.

“Where is she then?”

“To the fort, tryin to trade what you and your sons shot yesterday.”

“I’ll need a sled, this weather.”

“You’ll have to build one then,” Minerva said, and laughed.

“I’ll go with you, sir,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“Stay, finish your whiskey. The chimney’ll be out of his tub soon. Ain’t that right, Chimney?”

Gideon grinned, and sipped at his whiskey. In a moment, he heard the front door opening and closing. A cold wind swept across the cabin floor and into the space behind the blanket. He hunkered down lower into the tub.

“... in Yonkers this time of year,” Schwarzenbacher was saying.

“Yes. Now you’ll just have to get out of my way,” Minerva said, “if I’m to get this bread baked.”

“Sorry, ma’m,” he said. “I was saying how different it is in Yonkers. This time of year.”

“Aye, it is, I’m sure,” Minerva said.

“Not that I miss it,” Schwarzenbacher said. “Do you miss Virginia, ma’m?”

“I miss it still,” she said. “Aye.”

“I was glad to leave Yonkers, in fact,” he said. “I came here to learn a trade, ma’m. There’s a brisk market in furs back east, you know. My father’s a lawyer, he wanted me to study for the bar. I told him I’d prefer going into business. He was very decent about it, contacted a client in Winnipeg...”

Gideon got out of the tub. He felt warm and lazy and mellow and relaxed. He dried himself, and then put on the clean clothes his mother had set out for him. When he came around the blanket, she was carrying her oven to the hearth. The coals she’d raked onto it were glowing red.

“Now just move away from the lire entirely,” she said to Schwarzenbacher. “You, too,” she said to Gideon, though he was nowhere near it.

“My fiancée’s still there, you know. In Yonkers.”

“I didn’t know you was betrothed,” Minerva said, kneeling.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Minerva said, and set oven and lid on the coals.

“Miss Loretta Hazlitt.”

“Eh?”

“My fiancée.”

“How was your tub, Gideon?”

“Nice, Ma.”

“You’re not going to light that pipe again, are you?” she asked, and shook her head.

“Schwarzenbacher brought tobacco.”

“Did you now?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “She’s twenty-one.”

“Who is?”

“Loretta. Closer to my age than... well... Bonnie Sue, for example.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I think your daughter’s very courageous,” Schwarzenbacher said, and cleared his throat. “Very courageous, ma’m.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, ma’m. To have defended him that way. It couldn’t have been easy for her, ma’m. I admire her for — for what she did, ma’m. I do.”

Minerva looked up at him.

“I do, ma’m.”

She was still looking at him.

“She’s only sixteen, you know,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“Yes, I know that.”

There was something in her voice, something... Gideon couldn’t fathom what. He shrugged and lit his pipe.

Kind of liked Schwarzenbacher. The man was totally ignorant of anything a body needed to know, but he liked him anyway. Sort of took pleasure teaching him little things.

“You never ate squirrel, huh?” Gideon said.

“No, never. And don’t intend to either.”

“You’re missin something fine, Schwarzenbacher.”

The dead squirrel was resting on a flat rock out back. Gideon had dusted the rock free of snow, and was now skinning and dressing the animal. Schwarzenbacher watched as he ringed the back legs with his knife and then cut around the base of the tail.

“You ought to learn how to do this,” Gideon said.

“Why?” Schwarzenbacher asked.

“Well... out here,” Gideon said, rolling the animal onto its back.

“I don’t plan to be out here much longer,” Schwarzenbacher said, and immediately lowered his voice. “This is confidential, Gideon.”

Gideon nodded. There was nothing he liked better than a secret. He stepped on the squirrel’s tail with his foot, and then yanked on the back legs. The animal came almost free of the hide. He cut off the paws and sliced the rest of the skin loose at the throat.

“I’ve been thinking of moving on to California,” Schwarzenbacher said. “I feel there’d be more opportunity for me there.”

“I’ll be heading there myself come spring,” Gideon said, and cut off the head. “When do you think the wagon trains’ll start coming through again?”

“Sometime in June.”

“Be lots of them?”

“Enough.”

“You think they’d be partial to company?”

“You’d make a welcome addition to any party, I’m sure.”

“As late as June, huh?” Gideon said, and cut off the back feet, and then began gutting the animal. Schwarzenbacher turned his head away. “I was hoping to leave earlier.”

“June is when they arrive.”

“Mm,” Gideon said. “What you do, you cut it in little pieces and dip em in flour and salt and a little pepper. They fry up just delicious.”

“Do you think Bonnie Sue might like California?” Schwarzenbacher asked.

“Bonnie Sue?”

“Yes, your sister.”

“Well, what...?”

“After the baby is born, I mean. Do you think she might consider moving west?”

Gideon looked at him.

“Well, I don’t rightly know,” he said.

“I thought to start a hardware store there,” Schwarzenbacher said.

“Hardware’s good business,” Gideon said, and wondered what in hell hardware had to do with Bonnie Sue. Why was...?

Oh, he thought.

They had cut a pine tree in the forest and decorated it with berries and candles. The scent of it filled the cabin. Beneath the tree there were presents wrapped in colored cloth and tied with ribbons. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace. There was the aroma of baking bread; it suddenly caused Schwarzenbacher to feel heartsick for the house in Yonkers. Bonnie Sue bustled about the cabin, the baby huge within her, and Minerva shouted to her to see to the grouse and the sage hen Gideon had shot the day before.

They’d fashioned the gifts themselves, or else acquired them in trade from the Indians. Schwarzenbacher was laden with presents he’d been hoarding like a squirrel, and he doled them out like a blond Santa Claus, beaming at each recipient. When he handed Bonnie Sue her gift, he said, “It isn’t much,” and she answered, “But I have none for you, Schwarzenbacher.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Please open it, and watched as she unwrapped the gift. It was a seventeenth-century toadstone ring that had belonged to his mother before her death. “I hope it fits,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, and did not look up from the carved frog on the face of the ring, and did not try the ring on.

“It was my mother’s,” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. And still did not put the ring on her finger.

Minerva was unwrapping her gift from Hadley. He had purchased it from the Indians, a necklace made entirely of shells. She thanked him, and kissed him, and slipped it over her head. There was a beaded jacket for Bobbo and a pipe Bonnie Sue had paid an Indian to carve for Gideon. There were leather vests and belts and buckles and bonnets and dresses hand-sewn, and a rattle Bobbo had fashioned from a gourd and given to Bonnie Sue for the baby that was coming.

Schwarzenbacher could not take his eyes from her. She still had not put the ring on her finger. He thought for a panicky moment that she would return it to him, but he saw her put it in the pocket of her skirt and remembered her ancestry, and knew she’d convince herself it was rude to turn back a gift. She was at the fire now, tending to the birds, the flames flickering on her golden hair.

“Won’t you open your gift from the Chisholms then?” Hadley asked.

“Sir?”

“Sitting there on the mantel, Schwarzenbacher. If it were a snake, it’d bite you.”

“Thank you,” Schwarzenbacher said, and went to where a small package stood on the fireplace mantel alongside a pewter candlestick. The package was wrapped in green cloth, tied with a red ribbon. His name was on it, Schwarzenbacher, and beneath that, Merry Christmas. From the heft of it and the shape of it, he suspected it was a pocket watch, and was fearful they’d given him something too valuable, an heirloom perhaps, something he did not deserve, something that would embarrass him. His hands trembling, he slipped the ribbon off the package without disturbing the bow, and then unwrapped the cloth from it. In a small oval brass frame that had undoubtedly been carried all the way from Virginia, they had placed a delicate pencil drawing of Bonnie Sue.

“Fellow guided us to the Platte drew that,” Hadley said. “Name was Timothy Oates.”

“A better artist than George Catlin,” Bobbo said knowledgeably.

Schwarzenbacher’s heart leaped with elation; they were telling him they approved of him. And suddenly he began to quake inside. Acceptance was still forthcoming from Bonnie Sue. His rehearsed proposal all but vanished from his head. He wanted to blurt it to her now and at once, before it disappeared entirely — “Marry me, I love you!” But instead he turned to her where she was setting the table with pewter, and said, “Have you seen this, Bonnie Sue?” and she looked at the framed pencil drawing and said, “Aye. It favors me, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he said. “Bonnie Sue,” he said, “I wonder if I might have a word in private with you.”

“What about?”

“Well,” he said, “could we sit there in the corner? I don’t want you puttering around while I make my speech.”

“Is it to be a speech?” she said.

“Sort of,” he said.

“Then by all means let’s sit,” she said, and put down the pewter plates and led him to where a puncheon bench rested against the wall. Sitting, smoothing her skirt, she turned to face him. Schwarzenbacher sat beside her. He cleared his throat.

“Bonnie Sue,” he said, or thought he said, and then cleared his throat again, and said it too loudly this time, “Bonnie Sue,” and lowered his voice and said, “I want to tell you a little bit about myself first.”

“All right,” she said.

“You may or may not know,” he said, beginning the rehearsed speech, “and perhaps may not even care to know that my plan in coming here to Fort Laramie was to learn the fur trade, starting at the basest level, the acquiring of hides from trappers and hunters. I’ve changed my mind about furs, for to tell the truth there’s nothing too stimulating about the skins of dead animals, and I’d as soon they kept their hides as parted with them.” He nodded, rather pleased with what he’d just said. He looked into her eyes. Wide and green, intelligent and alert, they were studying his face. He suspected she was far ahead of him already, and cursed the cumbersome speech he’d memorized, but plunged ahead with it nonetheless. “I plan to leave for California in the spring,” he said, “when my contract with the American Fur Company expires. I plan to seek my fortune in the west. I’ve talked with Gideon, your brother Gideon...”

“Yes,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Yes, and I know something of his own plan to leave for California, and I thought we might make the journey together. I thought to convince Bobbo to come along as well, leaving the cabin here to your parents...” He had departed from the planned speech; he was rambling. “Orliac is correct on that one matter, Bonnie Sue...”

“What matter is that?” she asked.

“Of there being little danger of Indian attack here since the fort is a place of business, and Indians are as smart as any other men when it comes to trading. I’m saying your parents would be safe here should both your brothers decide to leave and — and you and the baby with them. The baby’s coming in March—”

“In February, I reckon,” Bonnie Sue said.

“That’s better yet,” he said, “which means by June you’d be strong enough to travel, you and the baby both. I’m asking you to go with me when I leave, Bonnie Sue. As my wife, Bonnie Sue.”

He went back to the prepared speech again, picking it up not quite where he had lost it, but raveling up the yarn nonetheless, telling her how much he admired her, and of how his admiration had started that day of the courtyard trial when she’d nobly come to the defense of Lester Hackett, all of which he’d thoroughly rehearsed, and which he told her now with practiced ease and studied sincerity even though he meant every word of it. He told her, too, that he loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone in his life, loved her more than life itself — why, he would lay down his life for her in a minute if she asked that of him, without hesitation and without remorse. He told her he’d broken his engagement to Miss Loretta Hazlitt in Yonkers, New York, had dispatched a letter to her via some trappers who’d been at the fort, perhaps she recalled having seen the trappers, one with but a single ear, the other constantly drunk, he was sure Loretta had received it by now. He had, in short, performed his gentlemanly duty by releasing her from her vows, and he was free now to ask Bonnie Sue for her hand in marriage, which he was now doing. He wished to assure her that he would accept the baby as his own and love it as his own, be it boy or girl, it made no matter, he would love the child as deeply as he now loved its mother.

“If you’ll have me,” he said, “we could marry at once and move into my apartment at the fort, which is neither sumptuous nor grand, but which will serve us well till we leave for California in June. Will you marry me, Bonnie Sue?”

“I don’t love you,” she said.

“That will come,” he said. “In time.”

“No,” she said.

The night was cold and sharp. Clouds of vapor puffed from their mouths as they came down the hill toward the fort, their arms laden with gifts for Will. Bobbo was drunk and singing. Gideon kept trying to shush him. There were only two tents outside the fort now, both of them sending up smoke to the crystal night. Will heard them coming, poked his head out, and then stepped into the cold.

“Hey, how you doin?” he said. “Merry Christmas! “

“Merry Christmas, Will,” Gideon said, and took his hand.

“Hey there!” Bobbo shouted, and hugged his brother close. “Merry Christmas there, Will!”

“Come on in, you two! Hey, Catherine!” he yelled, and threw back the flap to the tent. “Look who’s here!”

There was a fire burning inside. The two women were sitting near it. They got to their feet at once, both of them smiling welcome. Catherine gestured to one of the robes, and Gideon said, “Thank you,” and put down the gifts he was carrying. Bobbo sat cross-legged. There was a strained moment of silence, and then Gideon said, “Hey, Will, we missed you today.”

“Yeah, I missed y’all, too. Hey, wait’ll you see what we got for you. How’s Ma, is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Gideon said. “Pa sent you this gallon of whiskey; it’s most the last of it, Will. He’s doling it out like it was gold these days.”

“Hey now,” Will said. “Hey, let’s all have some whiskey. Sister, have some whiskey. Tell her whiskey, Catherine.”

“Is that her name?” Gideon asked. “Sister?”

“Well, that’s what Catherine calls her,” Will said. “She’s her sister-in-law actually. They used t’be married to the same fella. Here we go — ah, good,” Will said, and picked up one of the hollow gourds Catherine put on the ground beside him. “Made some nice things for you,” he said, and then said to Catherine, who was starting across the tent again, “No, honey, let it wait, have some whiskey first. Ask Sister if she wants some. Whiskey,” he said to Sister, and nodded. Catherine’s hands moved. Will passed the filled gourds around.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” his brothers said, almost together.

Catherine nodded.

“Mair-creez,” Sister said, and drank.

“Bonnie Sue would’ve come down with us, Will, but the snow’s deep and she’s big as a house.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “Sister made a nice comb for her, didn’t you, Sister? Comb,” he said, and made a sign with his hands.

“Comb,” Sister said, and nodded.

“She’s learning a little English. Catherine can’t talk, you know, sons of bitches cut out her tongue when she was just comin along.”

“Do that again, Will,” Bobbo said.

“What you mean? This with my hands? This means comb,” he said, and again made the sign.

“Looks like a comb, sure enough,” Gideon said.

“It sure do,” Bobbo said. “Will, what’s her name again?”

“Sister,” Will said.

“Hey, Sister, how you doin?” Bobbo said, and held out his hand to her.

Sister took the hand.

“She knows about shakin hands,” Will said.

“Shake,” Sister said, and nodded.

“Right,” Bobbo said.

“Ain’t you gonna open what we brought, Will?”

“Sure I am, you bet I am. Here now, let me get — no, sit down, Catherine, I’ll get it. How was your dinner? Did you have a nice Christmas dinner?”

“Oh, yeah, it was real nice,” Gideon said. “How about you?”

“I shot us some fine birds—”

“Hey, so did I,” Gideon said.

“Yeah?” Will said. “Now how about that?” and he laughed and went to the other side of the tent, where he picked up a basket brimming with gifts. Carrying it back to the robe, he set it down before his brothers and said, “I marked all these with your names. This one’s for you, Gideon, and let me see... Catherine, where’s — wait a minute. Is this the one for Bobbo? Wrapped here in hide? With the blue thong here?”

Catherine nodded.

“Yeah, take a look at this, Bobbo,” he said. “Catherine made it. Well, go on take a look at it. Gideon, open yours, go on now.”

“We brought some things for your — for the women, too,” Gideon said.

“Thank you, I appreciate that,” Will said.

Bobbo slipped the thong off the hide wrapping. The wooden flute was delicately carved, decorated with paint in orange and blue. He looked at it and felt the way he had that time he’d seen Timothy’s drawing. Tears suddenly brimmed in his eyes.

“Hey,” Will said.

“It’s beautiful,” Bobbo said. “Thank you, Will. Thank you, Catherine. Sister.”

“Will, you got to forgive Ma not...”

“I understand,” Will said. “I really do.”

“Open your presents, Will. We want you to please open your presents.”

“Yes,” Will said, and lifted his drink again. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” Gideon said. “Catherine, you too. This one’s for you, wrapped here in the polka dot. And Sister...”

“Mair-creez,” Sister said again, and drank.

“Case you don’t know it,” Will said, “that’s ‘Merry Christmas.’ ”

“In Indian?” Bobbo asked.

“Hell, no. In English!” Will said.

Catherine laughed. Sister laughed with her. And suddenly, they all were laughing.

Gideon was alone with Bonnie Sue when the first pains came. He’d sprained his ankle in the woods the day before, tripped over a damn root hidden by snow. Hurt like hell now. Bonnie Sue was rocking by the fire. On the mantel the clock ticked. There were times he wanted to pick up that damn clock and hurl it across the room, finish the job the mules had started.

“You’d think he’d have been discouraged,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Yeah,” Gideon said, and got up, and began limping around.

“Or angry, or whatever.”

Still hurt like hell.

“But no, he’s been coming back up here every day since Christmas.”

“Well, maybe he’s daft,” Gideon said.

“Do you know what he said just the other day?”

“No, what’d he say?” Gideon asked. Hated not being able to move like he normally did.

“He said it was my pride made me refuse him.”

“Yeah, he is daft,” Gideon said.

“Said I thought he’d proposed out of pity, and my pride wouldn’t let me accept. I told him it had nothin to do with pride, it had only to do with not loving him. You think it’s got to do with pride, Gideon?”

“I don’t know what it’s got to do with. It’s you he’s asking; how should I know?”

“Hobbling around that way ain’t going to help your ankle none,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Well, your chatter ain’t helpin it none either,” Gideon said. “You want to marry the man, then why don’t you just up and marry him, stead of—”

“I don’t want to marry him. I’m only askin do you think it’s pride or not.”

“What’s my opinion got to do with it?” Gideon said. “Ain’t me has to love him, it’s—”

“Oh!” Bonnie Sue said.

He turned to her at once. Her eyes were opened wide in surprise. She grimaced, and then clutched for her belly, and then said, “Oh” again, and sat with her arms crossed over her belly, looking straight ahead of her into the cabin.

“Sis?” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“Sis?”

“It’s all right, Gideon. Run on down the fort, go fetch Mama.”

“Sis?” he said. He was on the edge of panic now.

“Do what I say, Gideon! Fast!”

He went out the door without putting on a coat. He went limping through the woods on his swollen ankle, stabs of pain shooting up into his leg each time he put the foot down, tripping once in the snow and almost twisting the other ankle, getting to his knees, and catching his breath, and then standing up straight, testing the ankle, and beginning to run for the fort again. He passed the tree where they’d hanged Lester Hackett, whose baby it was, the branches spreading bare and black against the gray winter sky, the sun barely showing as a white ball hidden in the gray.

The river was frozen over almost completely, save for patches here and there where the water ran black through chunks of ice. The trees looked like pencil sketches, black scratchy lines against the gray, everything quiet around him, his footballs cushioned by the snow till he began climbing a small hillock that the wind hit full, and there he broke through crusted snow with each step, crashing into the stillness. He came over the top of the hill and started down toward the fort again, his ankle hurting something fierce, his heart pounding in his chest to burst through his ribs.

The postern gate was open. He came in through the back of the fort and ran past the mules and horses in the corral and then across to the other side, where the kitchen was, and where he guessed he’d find his mother. The cook was dozing on a barrel turned upside down, his back against the kitchen wall, his feet up on a smaller keg. Gideon came in yelling, and the cook sat upright and said in alarm, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” his voice coming out like a squeak, his eyes opened wide in fright, as though he’d been dreaming of marauding Indians.

“Where’s my mother?” Gideon said.

“Ta mère?” the cook said.

“It’s my sister’s time!” Gideon said.

“Ta soeur?” the cook said, and finally made the connection. This was the brother of the one who’d been made pregnant by the horse thief. He got up off the barrel at once, and looked around the kitchen in bewilderment, as though he’d put Minerva away someplace, perhaps in a bin or a drawer, but could not remember exactly where. Gideon, breathing raggedly, his chest afire, his ankle swollen and throbbing, looked at the man helplessly, waiting for him to say something, to do something. Schwarzenbacher burst into the kitchen just then, having heard the commotion from his office next door. When he saw Gideon, he asked immediately, “Is it Bonnie Sue?”

“Yes!” Gideon said.

Schwarzenbacher ran out of the kitchen.

In the courtyard outside, Will was holding up a pair of dead rabbits to an Indian woman who sat cross-legged before a goat. The woman had milk and cheese to sell, and Sister was negotiating with her. The woman shook her head, said something to Sister, shook her head again. Her attention was suddenly captured elsewhere; they turned to follow her gaze. Schwarzenbacher was running wildly across the courtyard, Gideon limping along behind him.

“Will!” Schwarzenbacher shouted. “Where’s your mother?”

“What?” Will said.

“Your mother, your mother! She was here a minute ago. Where...?”

Bewildered, Will opened his hands, shook his head.

“Bonnie Sue’s having the baby!” Schwarzenbacher yelled, and seized Sister’s hand and pulled her toward the main gate.

There should have been a hut apart from the house; that was where the baby should have been born. Or lacking such a hut, there should have been a part of the house separate from the rest of it, with a screen of wood and hides constructed to protect the others from the glances of the woman giving birth. It was not permissible for men to be present in the hut or in the house, but here in the cabin were Will and his brother and the clerk from the fort. Sister would not permit it. She went to them at once, and pushed them out, and closed the door behind them.

On the bed against the eastern wall, Bonnie Sue lay on her back. This, too, was wrong. The proper position for a woman in labor was not flat on her back, where she could do nothing but writhe and squirm against the pains that rippled through her. She should have been kneeling instead, so that she could squeeze the infant from her loins. There should have been a rope attached to one of the ceiling beams, and she should have been holding tight to it, so as not to fall over. Or else there should have been a pair of stakes driven into the floor, one for each hand, to which she could have clung while squatting. But no, she lay on her back jerking with each new pain. Sister marveled at the stupidity of it. She went to her and held out her hand.

“What is it? What...?” Bonnie Sue said. “Oh, Jesus!” she screamed, and twisted again in pain.

“Up,” Sister said.

“What?”

“Up,” she said, and made a rising motion with her hands, lifting her palms toward the ceiling. “Come, up.”

“You want — ow!” she said, “Ow!” and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Come!” Sister said, and grabbed both her hands, and pulled her off the bed. Bonnie Sue clung to her, puzzled, and then realized the woman wanted her to squat, was gently easing her into a squatting position. Sobbing, her nose running, her hair wet with tears and perspiration, she knelt before her. Sister pulled on her hands, grunting, grimacing, trying to indicate what she must do to force the child out of her. Bonnie Sue said, “Jesus!” and then, “Oh, Christ!” and then, “Oh, sweet loving mother...” and Sister squeezed her hands hard and said, “You!”

“What?” Bonnie Sue said, and looked up into her face. “Where’s my mama? Please get my — oh, Jesus! Jesus!”

“You,” Sister said again, and shook her head in anger and again tugged at Bonnie Sue’s hands, and at last Bonnie Sue pulled back against them. “Ah!” Sister said sharply, and “Ah!” again, and squinched her face and made the grunting sound again, and said, “You, you,” and now Bonnie Sue began to squeeze, screaming, “Jesus, Jesus,” pushing. “Ah,” Sister said, nodding encouragement, “Ah, ah,” and Bonnie Sue said, “Yes, please help me,” and pushed again, harder this time. Sister knelt before her, one hand extended to hold both of Bonnie Sue’s, the other beneath her to cradle the baby’s head as it began to slide from her womb. “You!” Sister shouted, and Bonnie Sue gave a fierce push below, fearing she would soil herself, embarrassed, sobbing, clinging tightly to Sister’s hand, and feeling the baby slipping from her loins, feeling suddenly exuberantly joyous, and hearing the baby’s triumphant squawl like a bugle on the air.

When Minerva got to the cabin, she found Bonnie Sue in bed with the baby on her belly. Will’s Indian woman handed her a rag upon which was the afterbirth, and Minerva immediately threw it into a slops bucket. The Indian woman shook her head violently.

Minerva didn’t know what she was trying to say. She knew only that Bonnie Sue and the baby both needed washing, and she began immediately to do that. The Indian woman stood by watching, seemingly appalled, shaking her head. Minerva took the bloodstained bedclothes from the bed and replaced them with clean ones. The woman scowled. Minerva wrapped the baby in a blanket and handed it to her. “Here,” she said, “hold the child,” and then helped Bonnie Sue into a clean nightgown, and combed her hair. She took the baby from the Indian woman, and put it into Bonnie Sue’s arms. Bonnie Sue smiled wearily.

“That was the hardest thing I ever done in my life,” she said.

“And me not here to help,” Minerva said, and clucked her tongue.

“I sure did wonder where you were,” Bonnie Sue said.

“Took it in my head to stroll up the long way. Came over the hill past where the river—”

“Ma,” Bonnie Sue said. “Is the baby...?”

“Sound as can be, child.”

“Thank God,” Bonnie Sue said, and turned to look at Sister. “Thank you,” she said. Sister looked at her blankly. “Thank you for what you done,” Bonnie Sue said.

Minerva went to the door and opened it. Schwarzenbacher looked scared to death. Gideon and Will stood with their hands in their pockets.

“It’s a baby girl,” Minerva said.

Schwarzenbacher nodded. “Is Bonnie Sue...?”

“She’s fine,” Minerva said. “Come in.”

Will hung back.

“Come in,” she said, and took his hand. “You must help me thank Sister — is that her name, is that what you call her?”

“Yes, Ma,” Will said.

“Come in, son, please,” she said.

He went into the cabin and his mother hugged him to her.

Schwarzenbacher was back the very next day.

Bonnie Sue sat up in bed, the baby in her arms. Sunlight streamed through the window, touching her golden hair with a paler wintry light. She asked whether he thought the child was beautiful and he said indeed he thought so. She asked if he thought the child favored her, being quick to add she was not seeking flattery, but thinking only of the fair hair and blue eyes; her own eyes had been blue at birth. He said he thought the child did indeed favor her, in coloring and in beauty, and then asked her what she thought to name her.

She said, “What do you think?”

He said, “I thought after your sister, unless that would cause the family pain.”

“I’ll ask them,” she said.

They talked of the weather then, of how mild it was for the last week in February. He told her he’d seen wildflowers blooming in the snow by the river, and ventured the opinion that spring would come early this year.

“Bonnie Sue,” he said at last, “have you given any further thought...?”

“I don’t yet know your name,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“Your Christian name.”

“Ah,” he said.

“What is it then?”

“Franz.”

“Franz,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Franz Schwarzenbacher,” she said.

“Even so.”

For some reason they both laughed. And then fell silent.

“Further thought...” she said.

“Yes, I wondered...”

“To what?” she said.

“To what was discussed at Christmastime.”

“Ah,” she said. “That.”

She was silent for a time. She touched the baby where it lay sleeping against her breast. Then she said, “The child’s not yours. I don’t see how you can...”

“I can,” he said firmly.

“Won’t it trouble you?”

“It will,” he said. “It troubles me even now that there’s been someone before. And I’ll tell you, Bonnie Sue, should there be anyone after, I’ll kill him and you besides. But I love you, and I’d have you if there’d been an army, that’s the truth. Now what do you say? I’ve asked you once, and I’m asking you again. If you refuse me this time...” He hesitated. Then he said, “I’ll ask you again next week,” and smiled so suddenly and so boyishly that he captured her heart in that instant. “Will you marry me?” he said.

“I think I shall,” she said.

The way they kept reading from their charts, it sounded almost religious to Hadley. Like in Genesis, where all the descendants of this one or that one were listed. His sons weren’t calling off any Schechems or Shobals, though; they were instead naming places and distances from place to place, as if by dividing the trip into segments it would become shorter than it was.

It was thirteen hundred miles, that’s what it was.

You couldn’t change that by breaking it in half or in quarters or in little bitty inches. It was still thirteen hundred miles to California, and that was twice again what they’d already traveled from Independence to here. So when he heard Gideon saying it was only a hun’ thirty, a hun’ forty miles to the North Fork of the Platte, and Bobbo saying they could make it to the upper crossing in ten days or a bit more, he found himself thinking: That still leaves more’n eleven hundred miles to go, lads. And when they talked about Independence Rock being a scant fifty miles beyond the river, and South Pass but a hundred after that, he realized that in their minds they were already through the pass and traversing the three hundred and more miles to Fort Hall, and were past that to Raft River and Goose Creek, and Mary’s River — and that was where it began sounding Biblical to Hadley.

Not because of Mary’s River, which he didn’t think had been named after the Virgin Mother, but only because the names and the distances tumbled one after the other like all the sons of Jacob and Leah: fifty miles to the Truckee, and then across the Forty-Mile Desert, through Dog Valley, Bear Valley, Emigrant Gap, the Sacramento Valley, Sutter’s Fort... ah, there was the end of it, praise the Lord. But here they went at it again, this time naming the Indians they might meet along the way, Sioux and Snake in the desert beyond Big Sandy, hostile Bannocks beyond Fort Hall, Shoshones on the way to Mary’s River, Paiutes beyond that, and afterward only the devil knew what!

It was Gideon alone planning to go at first, and then Schwarzenbacher told them all (as if they didn’t know it was coming to pass anyway) that he and Bonnie Sue would be getting married and moving west, and then Bobbo mentioned that he might go along, too. By the second week in March, they were all four of them reciting the route and the distances on each segment, and the names of the Indians, and Hadley said to Minerva he wished to hell they’d hurry up and get going.

“No, you don’t,” she told him.

In the woods, the snow began to melt. Patches of earth appeared, spreading like stains. The ice on the river broke away in chunks that rushed downstream on waters running swift and black and icy cold. In the winter, you could plainly see the cottonwood from which Lester Hackett had been hanged, but the trees around it now were in bright green leaf, and it blended with the rest of the forest, and was invisible.

She walked Hadley down by the river.

She said, “Had, I keep worryin if I done the right thing about the baby’s name. I keep thinkin I’m doing all the wrong things lately. I’m worried to death I maybe hurt Bonnie Sue’s feelings. I tried to explain, but I’m not sure I... Had, I couldn’t let her name the baby Annabel.”

“I think she understood.”

“You think so? She talked it over with Franz... can you get used to callin him that?”

“It’s hard,” Hadley said, and smiled.

“Aye, it is. Franz,” she said, shaking her head. “I think namin the baby for your mother’s a better idea, don’t you?”

“Yes, Min.”

“But I keep thinkin I hurt her feelings. I told her I wouldn’t hurt her for nothin in the world, but I wished she wouldn’t name the child for her sister cause... Hadley, my grief’s still... Had, I can’t think of her yet without wantin to weep.”

They walked silently by the river.

Mallows were growing along the banks, scarlet and pink, purple and white. There were wood sorrels yellow as Eva’s fine hair, hyacinths as blue as her eyes. Birdcalls carried liquidly on the soft new wind.

“I wish they wouldn’t go,” Minerva said. “I have the feeling I’ll never see any of them again.” She turned and looked directly into his eyes. “Had,” she said, “do you think we might go with them?”

“West?” he said, surprised. “West, Min?”

“Aye. I’m thinkin you were maybe right. I’m thinkin that’s where the dream is, west. Are we yet too old to chase it, Had?”

“I sometimes feel a hundred,” he said.

“I know the field’s waitin to be plowed...”

“It is,” he said.

“And I know you’re anxious to start growin things again...”

“I am.”

“But, Hadley, I’d like to go with them. I’d like to move on again.”

“I’m thinkin it’s time myself,” he said, and nodded.

They came now with buffalo robes to barter.

They came by the hundreds, on horseback or on foot, the hills alive with them. They came noisily, entire families of them, villages of them, braves and their painted squaws, young children, old men, stray horses and colts, dogs and puppies, descending to the river on the opposite shore, and then crossing close by the Chisholm cabin, pointing their fingers, turning their heads — the cabin had not been here the year before. Seasoned lodge poles trailed behind the horses, robes stacked high on woven baskets hanging between them. The river was running swiftly and children tumbled from their perches atop pyramids of robes, to be rescued by mothers or aunts or scolding older sisters. Yapping dogs reached the shore on which the Chisholm cabin stood, pissed against trees and shrubs, ran barking down to the water’s edge again to await the rest of the caravan. The Indians buzzed through the woods like a swarm of bees, their sound moving farther and farther away till they emerged — still noisy, but seemingly silent from a distance — upon the plain behind the fort. The tipis went up, lodge poles first, three of them to form a tripod, the others placed in a circle against the supporting triangle, a dozen or more cut fresh in the forest. Buffalo hides were lifted into place over the skeletons, woven mats scattered, fires started, kettles put to boil. Where an hour before there had been an empty plain, there was now a village bustling with life.

Among the Indians who came to trade buffalo robes that spring was a young brave of the Dakota tribe.

He was there at the fort a full three days before he spied the horse. There was a white man’s saddle on it now, but Teetonkah recognized the stallion at once. It belonged to his cousin Otaktay, who had been killed last year during the Moon of Moulting Feathers.

There were several of his nation among the Indians who had camped behind the fort. He went to them now, and invited them to hear him. He talked of a war party. He spoke eloquently and earnestly, and they listened with respect. He told them of what had happened the year before, when he and three others had come across a lone wagon while riding against the Pawnee. He spoke openly and honestly of defeat and disgrace, his cousin and his two close friends slain, three horses captured, he himself managing to escape with both his eyes, though they had tried to pluck them from his head. He had been ridiculed by those in his village, and had thought more than once of taking his own life, so shamed had he been by his failure.

He now wished to regain his lost honor.

He had seen his cousin’s stallion, and also the other horses captured that night. There were more horses besides, three belonging to the white men, a total of six horses to be had. He asked now that these warriors of his nation, though not of his village, assist him in restoring his honor.

They listened solemnly.

There was not a one among them who did not understand his request. All ten agreed to accompany him against the white man, and smoked the pipe to indicate accord.

In the woods, there was the constant drone of insects. It was too hot for the beginning of April. Sister dipped her hand into the water and wet her face and the back of her neck. She had lost sight of Will, who’d been fishing downstream of her just a short while before. An insect bit her arm; she slapped at it. She wished now that she had stayed in the tipi with Catherine. She jiggled her fishing line in the water and glanced lazily at the cabin. Will’s family were at the fort attending church services. She did not understand this. The religion was not their own, but they went every Sunday morning. She shook her head, and dipped more water from the river, and wet her arm where the insect had bit her. When next she looked at the cabin, a trail of black smoke was racing toward the sky. She dropped the fishing line, and jumped to her feet.

Flames were leaping from the window on the side facing the river. An Indian wearing a wolfskin over his shoulder was running toward the enclosure at the back of the cabin. There were six horses inside the split-rail fence there. A second Indian came out of the cabin, carrying a torch in one hand, a clock in the other. Another was behind him, wearing a white man’s coat, and yet another came out with a clay pipe stuck in his mouth. There were four of them then. Sister had counted four, and thought that was all till she realized there were at least a half-dozen more circling the cabin or coming out of it, leaping the fence to rush at the horses from every side. She became suddenly frightened, and was turning to run back toward the fort for help when someone grabbed her from behind, looping his left arm around her throat.

She saw the paint on his arm, black paint like a long glove covering the man’s hand and wrist and coming clear up to the forearm. In the instant he looped his arm around her neck, she knew she would have to kill him, and reached behind her at once with her right hand, and groped at his belt above the hanging breechclout and found the bone handle of his knife and yanked it free. He did not even know it was in her hand till she plunged it into the arm encircling her neck, plunged it again and again until, screaming in pain, he released her. He was reaching with his right hand for his tomahawk when she shoved the blade into his throat. His left arm hung in tatters; he toppled toward her with blood gushing from the open slash in his neck where she had twisted the knife and pulled it loose. Sister backed away from him and was again running for the fort when she saw Will approaching from the opposite side.

He had no rifle; they were not in the habit of carrying weapons here in the vicinity of the fort. She recognized the Indians now as Dakota, whom she hated and feared. Across the enclosure, one of them threw an elkhorn saddle onto the back of a mare, and swiftly mounted the animal. Another opened the gate. They all rode out then, save the one with the wolfskin, who was still trying to loop a thong bridle over the stallion’s jaw. The horse wheeled about, reared, pawed the air. Will grabbed the man by the shoulder. He whirled suddenly and hit Will with his closed fist, knocking him to the ground.

Sister ran to the fence and leaped it.

The Dakota was swinging his tomahawk downward at Will’s head when she stuck the knife into his back and ripped the blade down toward his waist. She stabbed with the knife again, this time cutting through his leather shirt as he turned. His face was painted with a wide vermilion band across the forehead; she could smell the medicine mixed in with the grease. The thongs of his war whistle were threaded through the nostrils of the wolf’s nose, the whistle was of eagle bone, it swung across his glistening chest as he swung the tomahawk at her. She screamed and drew back her hand, and then stared in horror at her wrist gushing blood. She heard Will shout, “Sister, oh my God!” and the Dakota struck her again, splitting her cheek with the sharp blade of the hatchet, and then again, bringing it down upon her shoulder, cracking her collarbone and opening a wedge three inches deep. He pulled the tomahawk free and was preparing to strike her again when Will seized him by the throat.

She fell to the ground, bleeding. They struggled above her as if she no longer existed, and perhaps she did not. She knew she was dying. She could hear the stallion whinnying his fright, could see the sky above, a startling blue with black clouds of smoke drifting across it, rising, drifting. One of the men stepped on her face, she did not know which of them it was. His foot slid away into the dust; she choked on the dust, rising. Her head fell limply to the side, and she could see her own severed right hand on the ground, lifeless, the fingers curled against the palm. She wanted to vomit; she felt the blood gushing steadily from her open wrist, drifting. The two men moved like shadows. She could hear them above her, struggling, grunting, the lazy hum of her blood, drifting. Within minutes, she no longer knew which of the men was white and which was Indian. Minutes after that, she was dead.

They stood about the open grave on the field they had cleared and grubbed free of stumps. Hadley spoke the words. His voice was faint, almost a whisper. He said he had searched in his memory and searched in the Holy Book for the right words to say over this woman they’d scarcely known, and had felt forsaken of the Lord, not being able to find what he’d been looking for though he’d stayed awake all night. And then he’d realized the Lord was only asking him to find for himself what was in his own head and in his own heart.

So he’d tried to do that, tried to summon up words that would express his sorrow at yet another death, searched in his heart for that, and searched in his head for the sense of it — but could find only the sorrow and not the sense. He knew it was written that all things are full of weariness and that a man cannot utter it, and that the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. And he knew, too, that what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done. He doubted none of this, all of this was written, as were the words “There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.” But it grieved him to believe that this woman they were burying today might be forgotten as if she’d never been. If that happened, then it would be true what was written about there being no remembrance of former things, which he wasn’t doubting, but only hoping to understand a bit more fully...

His voice trailed.

He seemed to have lost for a moment what it was he wanted to say. He looked into the grave. He shook his head, and put his arm around Will and very softly said, “Lord, please bless this good woman, and give us the strength and courage to continue.” He nodded as if to say he’d made his thoughts plain at last, and then gently hugged his weeping son to him, and said, “Amen,” and brushed the tears from his own eyes.

“Amen,” they said.

It was only after they had covered her over with earth that Gracieuse took her husband aside and reminded him in halting French that the Indian custom was to place the body of the deceased on a raised scaffold or in the branches of a tree. Sister might have preferred this to burial, she said, since interring a body made it impossible for the spirit to pass to the other world.

Orliac did not bother translating this for the others.

The Chisholms left Fort Laramie on the sixteenth day of June, in the company of twenty other wagons heading west. The road veered sharply away from the riverbank upon which sat the charred ruins of the cabin. Gideon rode out front on the stallion they’d taken from the Indians almost a year before. Hadley and Minerva were on the seat of the wagon, and Will sat on the tailgate with Catherine. Immediately behind was the wagon belonging to Franz and Bonnie Sue. Bobbo rode with them. Little Eva Schwarzenbacher, wearing a sunbonnet that shaded her blue eyes, sat on her mother’s lap and looked off into the distance.

“See?” Bonnie Sue said, pointing vaguely west. “That’s California there.”