Crossing Purgatory (31 page)

“Nothing much of interest to the ladies,” Foster said. “Politics, mostly. Bigwigs met in Wyandotte and drew up a new constitution for the Territory. Said it's sure to get us statehood.”

“Free state or slave?” Joseph asked, loudly. It was the first he'd spoken and the only indication to Thompson he'd even been following the conversation.

“Free,” Foster said.

“Will that stir up trouble again?” Thompson asked.

“Might,” Foster said. “Ratification is certain by all accounts. Talk is the governor will form a militia as soon as the vote decides the issue.”

“When is the vote?” Joseph asked.

“As we speak,” Foster said. They went on for some minutes, Joseph more engaged than Thompson remembered ever seeing him. He wanted to hear any rumors of border clashes, any inflammatory news at all, peppered Foster with questions.

Partly to re-direct the conversation, Thompson finally broke in. “What brings you west, Mr. Foster? What is your business?” Foster appeared neither a prospector nor an immigrant. His frame was too slight for heavy work, and he wore eastern attire, a frock coat over a collared vest and a white shirt. A red cravat was loosely tied at his neck. He sported heavy side-whiskers, well-trimmed, and no beard. A respectable gentleman, Thompson judged, and out of place as a silver tea service.

“I am a surveyor, Mr. Grey.”

Thompson looked to Upperdine.

“Mr. Foster was laying out town sites, homesteads, farms, public lands, you could almost see the cities sprouting from his lines and stakes,” Upperdine gushed. “I lured him here.”

“To what purpose?” Thompson asked.

“Arkansas City,” Upperdine said, and reminded them of his proposal to lay out a settlement on his holdings downriver, near the confluence. “A ready-built market for trade goods. We'll plat building sites on a fifty-acre grid, and fields in quarter-section parcels radiating out from it.”

“Who will come to this Arkansas City?” Benito asked.

“Trail is thick with emigrants,” Upperdine said. “Coming and going both. At present, mostly prospectors, discouraged ones flowing out, hopeful ones flowing in, and more and more with families in tow. I've already posted flyers in Westport and Council Bluffs.”

“A town,” Teresa said, her voice trailing as if attempting to formulate the idea. “People. Neighbors.”

“Not our people,” Paloma interrupted.

“Yes,” Teresa said. “People just like us, in search of a new home.”

“Is there land enough?” Benito questioned no one in particular. “The right kind of land, with water? Too many people demanding too much can wear out a place.”

Thompson listened in stunned silence. He did not take in half what was being said. Land. Would they come? Would the choice cropland be claimed before he raised sufficient funds to lay stake? Lay stake? The notion hadn't occurred to him before this moment. Or, if it had, he unconsciously suppressed it. He remembered the collection of abandoned shacks on the convergence of the rivers when they'd first come into the valley. Could he acquire land ahead of the emigrants? And, even if somehow he were able, if he grew wheat, what might his market be? Would water flow prove sufficient to power a flour mill? Who would provide oxen or horses in sufficient quantities for the plow? Conversation buzzed without his hearing, without his being aware of the others at the table.

Upperdine blustered on for some time, the brandy flowing. Thompson sat with the others, but his mind drifted out into the valley, mentally laying out his acreage. A full section, steel breaker plows to turn the matted grass, and hired field hands. But even in his dreams, he knew he'd never be able to raise in one piece the money such ambitions required.

“I'll lend a hand,” Joseph said. Thompson's attention focused back on the conversation. Joseph's head bobbed, a nervous eagerness.

“I do need someone to run the chains,” Foster said.

“Well, then,” Upperdine said, “the boy will assist you. When can you begin?”

“We'll have a look tomorrow,” Foster said. “Begin laying it off.”

Again, Thompson retreated into his thoughts. He heard the others but it was as if his ears were stopped. He registered only low, mumbling sounds, like the advance of a distant storm.

29

T
hompson slept little. The events of the previous day weighed on him. He regretted his behavior with Hanna. His flesh had responded immediately to her touch, but he knew with certainty an emotional chasm separated them. She seemed anxious to move on with her life. A part of Thompson, however, remained in Indiana. Memories he held on to like a lifeline. A past he refused to let go.

But part of him also resided in the present and looked to the future. The arrival of Ansell Foster crystallized in him the desire for a stake in the valley; he felt he'd earned it, and he spent a good part of the night formulating a plan to secure it.

Early in the afternoon, from the field, Thompson saw Upperdine riding upriver toward his house. Thompson started out to meet him at the tack shed, but the Captain noticed him and turned his horse.

“Walk with me a ways?” Thompson asked.

“I'm used up,” Upperdine said, glancing back toward his home. “To what purpose?”

“A business proposition,” Thompson said, leading Upperdine. Upperdine grunted and followed on horseback. He was constitutionally unable to resist the lure of commerce. They reached the stubble of the wheat field and continued past for a quarter-mile. Finally, Thompson turned to Upperdine.

“This land, from the wheat field to here and up to that rise,” Thompson said, pointing across the flat floodplain to a low crest.

“What about it?” Upperdine asked.

“I want it.”

Captain Upperdine smiled. “This is, what, a couple hundred acres?”

“Closer to four hundred,” Thompson said. “I've paced it off.”

“I was not aware you are a man of such means,” Upperdine said.

“I think this section will yield abundantly,” Thompson continued.

“Benito grazes his goats on that hill,” Upperdine said.

“Yes, but he has told me he has no wish to grow his cropland beyond the irrigated parcel he now holds.”

“Still, this is fine natural pasture.”

“Passable,” Thompson said, “when rain falls. That is what gave me the idea that it might produce wheat as well.”

“And Benito's goats?” Upperdine asked.

“Goats can make do on most any forage,” Thompson said, brusquely. “His herd is small. Open range abounds.” Even as he spoke, Thompson sensed, and as quickly dismissed, the minor betrayal.

Upperdine chuckled. “A future land baron, here. Corner the market on wheat.” Then his expression hardened. “Do you have the funds? One-twenty an acre.”

“I will pay over time, as the crops come in.”

Upperdine chuckled again, but his tone conveyed no humor. “I'm not a banker, Mr. Grey.”

“You've seen how wheat takes to this land. You know my work. My word,” Thompson said. “Give me three years.” He did not like looking up at Captain Upperdine, who had remained in the saddle. “I'll expand the acreage each year and be turning a profit in three.”

“I have no doubt concerning your ambition,” Upperdine said. “I recognized it long before you did. But this is a hard country and has broken better men than the both of us.”

They fell silent, looking over the land. A muddled sky produced thunder. Upperdine turned his eyes upward.

“Wouldn't do to be hailed out,” he said.

Thompson recognized the false promise of rain, the lack of humidity, did not answer. An antelope showed briefly on the rise but sensed them and dropped back out of sight behind the far slope.

“How much have you?” Upperdine asked. Thompson retrieved the coins from his pocket and opened his hand. Gold, and silver.

“That will see you twenty-five acres,” Upperdine said. “A good start.”

“A dollar and twenty is what the best land commands,” Thompson said.

Upperdine regarded Thompson with narrowed eyes. “Forty acres,” he said. “More than you could put up in crops. Take your pick of the land.”

“Will you hold the acreage around it in reserve for me?” Thompson asked.

“I can't promise that,” Upperdine said.

Thompson closed his fingers over the coins. “I'll give it some thought,” he said.

“Don't think on it for too long,” Upperdine warned. “My generous nature is vaporish.”

A
LMOST DAILY
, T
HOMPSON FOUND EXCUSE
to walk to the town site. From a distance he observed Ansell Foster set his ranging rod and direct Joseph to make perfectly straight the chain. Whenever they paused for Foster to make notations in his chart book or to change locations, Joseph approached the surveyor, animated. Several days into the effort, Thompson intercepted Foster returning from the site.

“Joseph working out?” Thompson asked, after pleasantries.

“Raw, but eager,” Foster said. “The boy is inquisitive. To a fault.”

“I'd not realized his interest in surveying,” Thompson said.

“It's not so much the work he's interested in,” Foster said. “He wants to know everything about Kansas. Who will run for governor? Who heads the militia? Any recent conflicts between pro-slave and abolitionists? Where? On and on, to distraction.”

“He's left relatives there,” Thompson said.

S
LOWLY
,
THE PINS
F
OSTER AND
Joseph had sunk into the ground began to define a shape to the town, building lots set along two bisecting streets. The town took form in Thompson's imagination, and he grew increasingly anxious. Captain Upperdine grew anxious as well, but with impatience. At the beginning of the second week of surveying, Upperdine rode out to Bent's Post to recruit additional crew for Foster. Midmorning the following day, Foster searched out Thompson, who was turning water into Benito's orchard. The last irrigation of the season. The river ran slow.

“Is Joseph about?” Foster asked, agitated.

“He's not with you, I take it,” Thompson said.

“Been waiting half the day. Not a damn thing to be done without a chainman,” Foster said.

Thompson left Foster at his cabin with a cup of coffee and went to Carlos's camp by the river. No sign of habitation, the fire pit cold. He rejoined Foster and together they walked to the placita and questioned Hanna. She'd not seen Joseph since they'd all shared supper upon Foster's arrival.

“He's timed it for Upperdine's absence,” Thompson said.

“Timed what?” Foster asked. Hanna's face went blank. She knew, Thompson saw, but was unwilling to express her emotions.

“There will be a horse missing from Captain Upperdine's stock,” Thompson said. “And tack as well, I fear.”

“You confound me,” Foster said.

“Joseph. He's off. Wyandotte. Or Council Grove, perhaps. Wherever he might find a militia to join.”

C
APTAIN
U
PPERDINE RETURNED DURING THE
evening with two men sitting in the bed of his wagon. They appeared ragged, red-eyed and surly. Upperdine, by contrast, was in high spirits. Hanna and Thompson stood with Foster and Genoveva on the porch to greet him.

“Got you some help,” he said to Foster, and, turning to Thompson, grinned.

“Stood these men some whiskey. Now they get to work it off.” Upperdine climbed down and motioned Foster aboard. “Take them to the site. They can pitch camp there with you.” As Foster drove off, Upperdine called out, laughing. “Best keep them downwind until they sweat it out.”

When the wagon had pulled away, Thompson said, “I've news,” and watched Upperdine's mood darken as he recounted Joseph's theft.

“Which horse?” Upperdine asked, pacing the yard, enraged.

“The sorrel with the white blaze, I believe,” Thompson said.

“Damn him, that's a fine animal. When?” Upperdine asked.

“Not sure,” Thompson said. “Sometime yesterday evening, I'd guess.”

“I can overtake him,” Upperdine said.

“Wait!” Hanna said. Her eyes had been darting between Thompson and Upperdine. “Captain, I ask you, let him be.”

“Be?” Upperdine shouted. “What kind of man would accept my hospitality, come into my home, and then steal my property?”

“He's a boy yet,” Hanna said. “Impulsive.”

“He's a man now,” Upperdine said. “A man who has gravely miscalculated my nature.”

“Please,” Hanna said, and now she looked directly at Thompson. He felt her desperation.

“It's better that he's gone,” Thompson said, and even as he spoke he believed it. “He's a troubled sort. Of a mind to avenge his father's murder.”

“He'll never come across those men,” Upperdine said.

“Close enough kin to them, I suspect.”

“He has my horse. My gear,” Upperdine said.

Hanna continued to hold Thompson with her eyes. He felt trapped.

“I'll pay for them,” Thompson said, retrieving the gold coins from his pocket, holding them out. Upperdine examined the coins as if unfamiliar with the shiny trinkets.

“A fine animal,” he said.

“You well know this is all I possess,” Thompson said.

Upperdine looked across the yard toward his livestock, measuring worth against the inconvenience of giving chase. Finally he accepted the coins.

“If ever he shows himself, he'll be the worse for it,” Upperdine said.

“He will not return,” Hanna said. “Nothing remains for him in this place.”

I
N THE MORNING
, T
HOMPSON DID
not go to the fields directly. He sat outside his cabin on the stump and built a fire in the stone ring and made coffee and thought about things while absently whittling. A part of him felt released finally from any sense of obligation toward Hanna Light. He'd traded gold for Joseph's unhampered escape. Into what future, Thompson had no clue. Could he even make it unmolested to eastern Kansas? And if he did, could he find peace? Thompson doubted it, but felt relief. If Joseph was destined for a life of confrontation and conflict, at least it would not play out here in the valley. Thompson had tried to help the boy, failed, but at least he'd brokered a resolution. A burden lifted. But with gold intended to secure his initial foothold in the valley. One debt to Hanna paid, but his craving for the land unabated for lack of funds. Thompson considered Upperdine's offer, turning it over in his mind, searching for any positive slant.