Edge of the Wilderness (8 page)

He looked down at her. Taking a deep breath he said, “When I look at you I think I must have been truly insane to suggest even such a ridiculous thing as marriage.” He swallowed hard and plunged ahead, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. How could I have thought—” He stopped abruptly and brushed his open hand across his head. “I’ve lost nearly all of what little hair I ever had. The remains are turning gray, so that I look older than I feel. My nose is too big. My eyes are too small. I’ve failed more than once in various aspects of life, and have little to show for my thirty-some years of life other than my children and Hope.” He gripped the leather strap connecting his saddlebags so tightly his knuckles turned white as he rushed to say what had been on his heart for weeks. He sighed and shook his head, “I keep my distance because I promised you I would. Because it would be ridiculous for me to expect a woman like you to feel anything for this—” He hit his chest once and looked away again. He laughed sadly. “I’m not the kind of man women like you fall in love with, Genevieve.” He blinked and then looked back at her, smiling kindly. “But I am grateful to you for making an attempt at friendship.”

Gen clenched her fist and gently pounded on his chest. “I do want to be your friend, Simon. But—but friendship isn’t enough. I don’t want a marriage of convenience. I don’t want us to marry simply because it’s the right thing to do for the children. It
is
the right thing for the children. But I want it to be right for
us
as well.” She looked up at him. “I want passion in my life, Simon. We are going to be man and wife long after Aaron and Meg and Hope grow up and leave us to each other. I don’t want to look across the breakfast table the morning after Hope’s wedding and wonder who that stranger is. I don’t want either of us to think the reason for our marriage has expired once the children have lives of their own.”

Her voice gentled as she continued. “What if you aren’t the most handsome man in the state? So what? When you take Hope or Meg on your lap and snuggle with them, it’s completely charming. Your voice has taken on a depth—a tone that I love. You aren’t
scrawny,
as you put it when you proposed to me. You’re—
wiry.”
She caught one of his hands in hers. “And I like your hands. They used to be soft and almost feminine. But after your time with the army and driving relief wagons all over the countryside, they’ve become callused and rough—and I like it.” She didn’t let go of his hand when she looked up at him. “And women don’t mind bald heads nearly as much as most men think.”

She reached up and turned his face back toward her. Searching his eyes, she finally saw the feelings he had tried so carefully to hide.

He surprised her by bending down and touching his lips to hers. She closed her eyes. As quickly as it had begun, the moment dissolved. Simon pulled away.

“I’m sorry, my dear—I didn’t mean—”

But Gen reached up and, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulled him toward her. She kissed him again and still didn’t release him, but instead laid her head on his chest. “You proposed marriage and then it seemed you moved away. I needed to know—”

“Well now you know. I love the way your hair glistens in the firelight when you sit in the parlor reading to the children. I love the sound of your laughter.” Simon chuckled and held her close. “You are, all in all, a terrible distraction for this old missionary.”

Gen looked up at him. “Miss Jane said I should wait and pray. I’ve been praying. Obviously I’m not so very good at waiting.”

“And this trapping me into a blatant display of my carefully concealed emotions,” he asked, “whose advice was that?”

“If you’re talking about one-and-a-half kisses, Reverend Dane,” she answered, “I came up with that on my own.”

He smiled at her and cupped his hands around her face. “If that’s the case, my dear Miss LaCroix, I’d say you should take your own advice more often.” He sighed. “And now I don’t want to go to Camp McClellan.”

“Nina said that hers and Mr. Whitney’s courtship was con-ducted almost entirely through the mail.”

Simon cleared his throat nervously. “I’m not very good at courting, Genevieve.”

Gen raised one eyebrow and looked up at him. “I suspect you could learn, though, Simon.”

“Yes,” he replied, smiling, “I suspect I could.”

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

—Proverbs 30:18–19

July 4, 1863

My Dear,

I begin this letter with a term not meant to patronize, but rather to remind you my heart holds you dear . . .

Simon read the words he had just written, exhaled sharply, crumpled the piece of paper, and sent it the way of its predecessors into the small stove in the corner of his room. He struck a match and dropped it in the midst of several wads of paper. Closing the stove door, he crossed the room to stand looking out the window as dawn illuminated the river town of Davenport, Iowa. He had been here several weeks but thus far had sent only one letter—a pitiful missive in what he had come to think of as
Old Simonese
formal, distant, cold. It would not do to send Genevieve another like it—not when she had smiled up at him with those eyes and said she would like to be courted through the mail.

He sighed, oblivious to the city just outside his window. Life held so many unpredictable elements. When he had wanted to hold her close, she remained distant. Now that she was willing to cross the distance between them, had even invited it, he could not find the words to realize the goal.
Help me, Lord. I feel she is Your gift to me, but I don’t quite know how to claim her. You know me, Father. I’m from the old school. Ellen and I didn’t show our true feelings often, even in the private moments. Genevieve won’t put up with that. She’s completely different. Wonderful. Show me how to court her. Show me how to love her.
Simon’s eyes strayed to the table beside his bed where his Bible lay, yet unopened that morning.
Please look down on this poor old preacher and help me, God.
Simon went to his Bible, opened it to the Song of Solomon, and began to read.

The thunder of horses’ hooves in the distance announced Camp McClellan’s morning cavalry parade through town as the men took the first of their two daily treks to the river. It seemed to Simon that a cloud of dust had hung in the still air since his arrival. Already this morning he could feel grit collecting beneath his shirt collar. Unbuttoning the starched collar, he laid aside his Bible, rolled up his sleeves, and returned to the small desk near the window. Casting a plea to heaven for help, he wrote:

My Dear,

If all I meant to accomplish in this letter was to tell you about the city of Davenport, to describe the condition of the Dakota prisoners and the status of our work here, I would not have destroyed several earlier versions of my writing. Have you any idea how awkward I feel convincing my old self to move aside so that you can get a clear view of the man who loves you? The old Simon Dane would never have engaged in anything like a courtship by mail. But then that Simon Dane was a fool blessed by the love of a woman he did not deserve. I am amazed, dear Genevieve, at how history has repeated itself, for even as I attempt to cast aside my formal, distant self I am once again blessed by the interest of a woman I do not deserve. How is it that God has chosen to bless me in such a manner not once, but twice in a lifetime?

I pause to reread the above paragraph as I sit at my desk looking out on the city of Davenport, and I realize that this is hardly a letter suitable for the ears of my children. I entrust to you the task of interpreting this letter for their ears in a manner that protects our privacy and yet conveys my love to them. How I miss them! Just last evening when I was walking back to my little room from the prison, I glanced in at one of the hotel windows to see a family dining, and the long amber-colored curls of a little girl about Meg’s age made my heart ache to see her.

As Simon bent to the task of writing Gen, sweat collected on his forehead. He rose and lifted the window in a vain attempt to catch any errant breeze that might drift up from the river. The morning’s traffic to the river below had begun, and the noise of commerce competed with Simon’s attempts to concentrate.

If you were with me this moment we would be hurrying to escape the sweltering heat which penetrates the walls of this little room. We would descend to partake of Mrs. Smith’s boardinghouse breakfast where I imagine you would disdain her rather nondescript biscuits and long for a huge dollop of Miss Jane’s blackberry jam to increase their palatability.

However, once we exited the boardinghouse you would be treated to the sights of a rather substantial river city which, although it has existed only a little longer than you have been alive, boasts many imposing brick buildings and fine residences. We would stroll along one of the boardwalks erected to protect the fair citizens from disappearing into the endless mud that accompanies any rain. I would offer you my arm lest you stumble on one of the many loose boards that rise without warning to trip unsuspecting pedestrians. You would no doubt comment on the hogs roaming the streets at will, rooting up grass, fences, and seedling trees planted by the more hopeful citizens of this city.

Twice daily, the cavalry from Camp McClellan rides through the city in order to water its horses down at the river. The resulting cloud of dust deposits a gritty film over everything. Miss Jane and Mrs. Whitney would be driven to distraction trying to keep the furniture dusted.

The city has seen several hundreds of recruits arrive, train, and depart for the battlefields in the East. Now they are adjusting to the presence of the Dakota prisoners. The camp itself is situated on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, the railroad bridge, and the city of Davenport. A fine belt of tall trees will help shield the prisoners from winter storms, and this will be needed as the barracks in which they are housed were hastily erected and are quite drafty.

The men are confined inside an enclosure about two hundred feet square inside of which are four buildings—former soldiers’ barracks, albeit without the beds. Of these four buildings, two are occupied by prisoners, one is a combination hospital and women’s quarters (about a dozen squaws have been brought down to do the cooking and laundry—two even assist the post doctor in the hospital). All is surrounded by a high board fence, four feet from the top of which is a walkway constantly patrolled by sentries.

The average age of the Dakota men here is about thirty, although we have a few very old men whose health is in such a precarious state I do not expect they will survive the winter next.

I long to tell you more, but the sun shining in my little window reminds me that my duty is up the hill inside the board walls I have been describing.

I miss you terribly. My love to the children.

We hold religious meetings three times each day. God is doing a great work here and has certainly remembered His children in their affliction. Chaska, a new convert, speaks at many of these meetings. He is a gifted orator and dispenses the gospel in a very fluent and impressive manner. His audience listens with profound respect, and more than once I have seen a time of spontaneous encouragement break out as the men speak of the freedom they have found in Christ and what His promises mean to them.

When not in religious meetings the men write to their friends at Crow Creek, play games, sing, or make bows and arrows or other trinkets for which there has sprung up a lively market in Davenport. There is talk of allowing groups of the prisoners under guard to be employed by neighboring farmers for the fall harvest.

New recruits to Camp McClellan usually begin by being quite harsh with the prisoners. However, after a few days their’ opinions inevitably change and the treatment mitigates. I have observed nothing so harsh as to compare with what these poor souls endured at the hands of the citizens of Minnesota and thus I have concluded that the Lord has been gracious to bring them here where they can serve whatever term of imprisonment the government sees fit to impose. The men seem resigned to their lot. Yesterday one even said to me that for all the whites that were killed he supposed someone must pay a price, and that if being held in prison would be accepted as payment for his brother’s crimes, he was willing to do it.

I am gaining more than I am giving while I serve among these men. Their resolute faith humbles me. I would wish that I could be so content as they. And yet I am not, because I am removed from the one my heart holds dearest of all. Please write every word Hope speaks, every lesson Meg recites, and tell Aaron that if he dares grow taller than his father during his absence, he will have some very serious explaining to do when I return.

I miss you terribly. And yet I am where the Lord wishes me to be. Tell me, Genevieve, does absence make the heart grow fonder?

As time went on, Simon Dane grew more and more astute in the finer points of courting by mail. He began to take risks, sharing observations and feelings about life that he would have avoided in Gen’s presence.

Gen faithfully responded to each letter with anecdotes about the children, news from St. Anthony, and nonjudgmental acceptance of Simon.

When the war chief Little Crow was killed while picking raspberries in a thicket north of Hutchinson, Minnesota, Gen expressed outrage that the chief’s body was thrown on a heap of entrails at a slaughterhouse.
Whatever crimes he may have committed,
Gen scribbled angrily,
he deserved to be treated with the dignity owing any human created in the image of God.
Simon agreed.

A seventy-five-dollar bounty was offered any man in Minnesota who could prove he had killed a Sioux warrior. Gen wrote,
Do you not find it ironic that Dakota scouts—men who accept the duty of scouting for the white army and may find themselves forced to act against their former friends and brothers—are offered only twenty-five dollars for the same scalp! I shudder to think of it.

Reports of General Sibley’s campaign against the “savages” filled the newspapers. Amid the reports of battles at Stony Lake, Big Mound, and White Stone Hill, Gen and Simon kept up a lively correspondence in which they wondered about their Dakota friends and church members.
Samuel Whitney says that a church has been formed at the scouts’ camp. I like to think of Nancy and Robert Lawrence being reunited there and having some semblance of a happy life.

Small parties of hostile Sioux continued to participate in violent raids in isolated parts of Minnesota. A soldier of the Second Nebraska lost his entire family when they were massacred while he was away fighting with Sibley.

Gen and Simon discussed all these events in their letters, and as they discussed and shared their thoughts, little by little, their hearts began to come together. Simon began reaching out by asking her to pray for him. Eventually he shared his innermost thoughts in a way that might never have been possible except for the safety of physical distance. Little by little, Simon and Gen opened their inner selves to one another until one evening Gen wept as she read aloud Simon’s account of the death of one of the older men. She replied,
As I reread your letter alone in my room, I weep with you at the loss of the dear old man. It is as if I can feel your heart breaking, even though you know he has entered the eternal kingdom where none can do him harm. How I wish that even now I could put the children to bed and come sit beside you and mourn with you and yes, hold you while we cry together.