Gone West (2 page)

“You’re late for your morning lessons, young man. And for heaven’s sake, shut that door~” she stopped. Jamie wasn’t alone.

“I brought some new friends home, Ma. Didn’t think you’d mind.” He turned to beckon at two figures behind him. They came slowly. By the time Jamie finally had the door shut, Maggie had dropped the cornbread on the table and was pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and giving the baby worried glances, thinking about chills. But Charlotte slept on in the new crib Johnny’d bartered for her.

“Ma?”

“Yes?” Her eyes rose from the cradle.

“This here is Straight Arrow and Running Bear.”

“Oh. My.”

“They’re of the Kansas tribe, and they’re gonna teach me how to use a bow and arrow.”

The two small boys were almost cowering against the cabin walls. They wore greasy deerskin tunics and trousers, and looked cold and hungry.

“Well. It seems as if all three of you could do with some hot broth and a taste of my fresh batch of cornbread.” Maggie smiled and cut into the steaming bread. In a few minutes the boys were dripping butter from their chins, all squatting on the floor, because Jamie’s friends seemed uncomfortable with the table and benches.

That was the beginning. After that Straight Arrow and Running Bear knocked politely on the cabin door each morning~just in time for breakfast. Johnny got used to moving over a few places as the Indians got used to the table. Then Johnny would throw on his greatcoat and head out to the job he’d found as a printer’s devil for the town’s only paper. He’d pause at the door to give Maggie a kiss, and smile on his enlarged family.

“Have fun with all of God’s children today, Meg love.”

“I will, Johnny.”

The lessons would start. Maggie carried on with Jamie’s education as if nothing were different. The newcomers listened with wide eyes, slowly becoming brave enough to ask questions. After a few days Maggie had no choice but to give them their own class on the alphabet, since Jamie had been reading already for two of his six years.

Sometimes Charlotte would sleep through the lessons, and sometimes she would wake to kick in Maggie’s arms and reach for Straight Arrow, whom she particularly liked. He would giggle and let her pull at his dark fingers and poke at his eyes. After the lessons were finished for the morning, Jamie would run off to study the mysteries of the bow and arrow and the cabin would become quiet again.

Well into December a knock came on the door when least expected, after the lessons were finished and the quiet had set in. Maggie put down her sewing and opened the latch. It had begun snowing again. A blast of fine powder struck her as she stared at the figure so patiently waiting. It was swathed in blankets already inundated with snow. The face peeping out of the wrappings was young, pretty, and Indian.

Maggie recalled the courtesies. “Come in. Please. Come out of the cold.”

The woman hesitated, but entered. She stood shyly by the fire, thawing, before she finally turned to speak.

“You good woman. Teach Indian boys white man’s words.”

Maggie smiled. This could only be~

“Straight Arrow and Running Bear my sons. Is good they learn. I come with thanks.” She burrowed out of her blankets and presented two furry lumps. Maggie accepted them gravely.

“Rabbit. Good food.” The Indian woman’s eyes were slowly taking in the cabin. They stopped at the cradle, suddenly bright.

“Baby!”

In a moment she was kneeling next to Charlotte, cooing softly. Charlotte opened her eyes and smiled. “Strong baby.” The red hair was touched wonderingly. Then she was on her feet, walking to the two rabbits Maggie had set on the table.

“Pelts. For girl child. Keep cold away from her.”

Maggie fondled the soft fur. “How? How to cure skins?” She spoke slowly, hoping the woman would understand. She did.

“My white name Flower Blossom. I teach, as you teach my sons.”

Maggie poured Flower Blossom a cup of hot coffee. “That would be marvelous!”

Flower Blossom appeared the next day, directly after lessons. Maggie fervently hoped she hadn’t been hovering outside in the snow, waiting. She feared the woman had. Maggie offered coffee and set freshly baked bread on the table while Flower Blossom removed her blankets and opened a small cloth filled with tools.

“Rabbit?”

Maggie presented the skins and had her first lesson in scraping and cleaning. It was the beginning of a friendship.

Flower Blossom came each day, earlier and earlier, until she was sitting in on some of the lessons. Her English began to come more readily, although she never could get closer to “Maggie” than “Ma-gee”. Johnny had purchased his westering rifle and went off practicing with it when work was slow. Fresh meat began to fill the Stuart table, and Maggie and Flower Blossom had more skins to practice upon.

The winter days went faster with Flower Blossom’s company as the two women traded recipes and skills. Moccasins were constructed for the Stuart’s feet, and snowshoes for the weather. Other information was traded, too. Maggie learned that Flower Blossom’s family was nearly destitute. They had lost their ancestral lands and were caught between two worlds, struggling to survive with honor. It was a new concept for Maggie, and she, in turn, struggled to grasp it.

The white neighbors had not gone long in noticing this interchange. One evening just before Christmas a delegation banged on the door after the children had fallen asleep. Johnny was cleaning his musket and set it on the table with a questioning look at his wife as he crossed the few yards to the entrance. Four men barged in, blowing frost and snow into the cosy room.

“Evening, gentlemen. To what do we owe this honor?”

Maggie was already up from her chair, reaching for the coffee pot on its tripod over the fire. “It’s a cold night. May we warm you?”

“Thanks, but no,” the leader spoke. Then he remembered to remove his hat. “I’m Phil Walters, and these here are some of your other neighbors hereabout.”

Johnny nodded. “We’ve passed. I’m afraid we’ve been too busy to be as neighborly as we’d like~”

“Too busy with them heathens, is what!” growled Walters. “It’s what we’ve come about. Ain’t Christian to be opening your door to all them Injuns. Up to now we’ve kept ‘em on the edge of town where they belong. You people keep lettin’ ‘em in, next thing you know, they’ll be begging at all the cabins!”

Johnny stood by the table fingering his musket. “Our friends have not been begging. Our door is open to any of God’s people who seek our help or friendship.” His eyes met Walters’s directly. “That, sir, is Christian.”

Maggie stood rooted by the fire, still holding the hot coffeepot. “I keep a little school here of a morning. If you’ve children of that age, I’d be delighted to have them join us~”

Walters swung his attention to Maggie. “Ain’t no child of mine studying with no heathen spawn. Keep them in their place is what we need to do!”

Maggie’s cheeks flamed as red as her hair. “And where exactly is their place, pray tell? We’ve stolen their lands. We kill their game. The least we can give them in return is something to fill that gap. Is respect so costly?”

“Maggie~”

But Maggie would not be stopped. “I’ve learned more in the past month from my Indian friends than I’ve learned from the
civilized
in years. And I intend to keep learning anything that may help my own family to survive once we head West!”

Walters ignored the spate of vehemence to grasp at that last word. “So you’re heading West with the spring, are you?” He clapped his hat back onto his head. “As there’s no talking sense into you, it’ll be good riddance to troublemakers, then.”

Walters shoved the other, silent men, into the dark and the heavy door slammed. Johnny followed them to check the latch. He slowly turned around.

“I think
I
could use a cup of that coffee, Meg. And where did I set my volume of St. Augustine? I could also do with some righteous pagan baiting about now.”

Christmas passed quietly and snugly with the entire Stuart family tucked into the big bed after Maggie’s Christmas dinner. Johnny had brought the Bible in with them, and Jamie was curled into his shoulder on one side, Maggie on the other with Charlotte in her arms. Every quilt they owned adorned them, keeping them safe from the wintery chill of the cabin, while the soft halo of a lantern spread over them.

Johnny read aloud the early chapters from Matthew and Luke, stopping to let Jamie take over in the shepherd and angel parts:

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them . . .

“That’s always been one of my favorite parts, Pa.” Jamie sighed peacefully as he snuggled closer. “Feels kind of like us right here. With the peace and good will and baby Jesus arriving, just like our baby.”

Maggie swiped at her eyes and swallowed a snuffle of happiness. The snow lay heavy outside.

It was Johnny who suggested that Flower Blossom’s family be invited for a New Year’s celebration. Maggie wasn’t sure what would happen, but she asked anyway. Johnny also invited a few of the bachelor men who hung around the printing office and who’d been easy with advice on the coming journey.

The men started arriving after dark~newly scrubbed and in clean shirts~bringing presents like a slab of bacon, a few potatoes, or fiddles to play. The fourth and last, a huge, full-bearded old man, brought a hand-made whistle for Jamie and a jaw-harp for his own use.

Then Flower Blossom’s family arrived. Maggie almost quailed at the first sight of her husband, Black Raven. He came, indeed, in glory. His head was freshly shaven and painted red, his one tuft of remaining hair dangling feathers and rattlesnake tails. There was bright glass in his ears and a collar of bear claws around his neck. Flower Blossom and the two boys, proud of his elegance, respectfully brought up his rear. Everyone else faded into awed insignificance.

Black Raven’s face was fierce, but his arms were full of a deer haunch. Before too long, Charlotte was lodged in his lap, batting at his bear claw necklace. And Maggie was chuckling to herself. The ferocious brave loved babies.

The evening passed with joy, grace and music.

Spring came at last, and with it days spent in the fields around Independence, Charlotte strapped Indian-fashion to Maggie’s back. Flower Blossom and the boys were usually in attendance, everyone hunting for the green sprouts of edible roots. Flower Blossom most often found a new variety. Eyes bright, it would be flourished in an arc of thanks over the awakening prairie.

“The Great Spirit puts good things on this earth, Ma-gee. We must never starve reading His signs.”

Maggie was beginning to understand. “I think our God is the same, Flower Blossom. We just give Him different names.”

There was comfort in this shared understanding, as there was comfort in learning the Indian ways of making pemmican for travelling food. Maggie was willing to learn any new ways that would keep her family from starving on the great journey coming closer each day.

While Maggie was studying with Flower Blossom, Johnny was finishing the last chores necessary for the trip. He’d earned enough for supplies and left his job for the final work of waterproofing wagons and organizing and reorganizing the contents that must see them safely across two thousand miles. He drew steadily more excited as the leaving approached, chafing for the road, chafing for new adventure.

Maggie studied him with love and hope, but also with a touch of exasperation. Johnny. He’d always been a dreamer, his head in the clouds or a book. Would this trip get the wanderlust out of his soul at last? Others readying to leave Independence spoke of the journey as their `Manifest Destiny’~spreading out America to where it belonged. Many of the white-tops even had that phrase painted on their sides, others the slogan “54’ 40 or Fight!”. Some ignored the politics completely and just wanted fresh new lands to farm.

But Johnny was doing it for the pleasure of the trip itself. It was that pure and simple true. Not that he’d ever admit as much. His precious Ramage press and the opportunity it gave him for work when they reached Oregon was just an excuse: the final excuse to justify the two thousand miles.

“Meg,” he’d say, “Meg, there are new lands out there, places I’ve read about, dreamed about. I can’t rest till I’ve seen them.”