The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (19 page)

The Bushes and the Jenkinses considered all the men of the southern party, top to bottom, to be liars and proud of it, either owing to the fact that their slave system was based on the lie that Negroes weren’t human, meaning that southerners couldn’t tell the difference between a truth and a lie, or owing to their determination to force the system upon others, which meant that they knew the difference and dissembled by design. Free Staters believed nothing that the other party said about Dow or his murder, assumed their every word and action was intentional deception. Was this true back in the States? I didn’t know. I’d come to think that before I came to K.T. I’d known nothing at all and that everyone still back there continued in that same state of ignorance.

The night of Dow’s murder, the sheriff, an infamous little tyrant named Jones, stayed up in Leavenworth and did nothing. Folks in Lawrence were appalled but not shocked. That the southerners who styled themselves "state officials" would let one of their own go scot-free after killing one of ours was something all my friends declared they’d expected all along. Even so, it rankled. By Saturday night, a lot of people in Lawrence had decided they weren’t going to stand for it anymore. Some men went down to Hickory Point—Mr. Bisket and one of the Smithsons among them. Thomas, whose fund of pugnacity had been used up by the incident at the Jenkins claim, stayed home but prowled our cabin and yard the whole evening. Of course, we heard all about it the next day.

"Those boys said Coleman shot poor Dow in self-defense," said Mr. Bisket. "They just looked us in the eye and swore they would lie about it. Dow wasn’t even armed, and Coleman shot him forty times in the back! Yes, that’s self-defense in K.T.! Well, they’re gone back to Missouri now."

"How’s that?" said Thomas.

"All of ’em up and left. We got our Sharps rifles, you know. Every time they turn tail and run, they say, ’Them d— abolitionists got their d— Sharps rifles, so we better get outta here!’ " We laughed, but then, of course, it turned out that three of the Missourians’ cabins were burned down. This, the Bushes and the Jenkinses felt, they had done themselves, to cast blame on the Free Staters, who would never have done such a thing. The Holmeses felt the burning was so appropriately Satanic that forces not of our world could well be at work. The story was that some men, two Free Staters, had wanted to set the cabins afire, but the others had stopped them. Maybe they’d gone back later, but if they had, they were keeping mum.

The tyrant Jones didn’t want his people threatened, so after the murderer Coleman took refuge with the governor, Shannon, he took Coleman and went to arrest Dow’s friend, Branson, because Coleman said Branson had threatened him—the sheriff went with the murderer to arrest a friend of the victim! As Mrs. Bush would say, and did say, that was K.T. for you all over—everything was turned upside down. I said, "Well, you know, to a southern man, his honor is always worth another man’s death."

"They don’t think like we do, that’s the certain truth," said Mr. Jenkins, and everyone nodded. If there was any sentiment truer than that, I don’t know what it could have been. So Jones turned up with Coleman at Branson’s cabin and arrested him. They put Branson bareback on an old mule and rode him off, but they didn’t get far before a group of Free Staters intercepted them, freed Branson, and drove Jones and his ilk off, with, of course, plenty of blustering threats from Jones. Mr. Bisket knew all about it, but by the time we heard, of course, no one who’d been in on the freeing of Branson was talking about it. Even the names of the members of the party got to be a secret. Dr. Robinson called a meeting and said that the time had come to keep to ourselves and wait. There was no talk that he had been involved in the raid, but you got the feeling that plenty more about every little thing was known than was acknowledged.

Now the Free Staters were in trouble, and we shivered with it all the way up to our place. To hear the southerners tell it, we were a band of illegitimate rebels in open defiance of the authorities—their fraudulently elected government was legal, their pernicious laws were valid, their method of using the system of laws to press forward personal feuds was the order of the day and the shape of days to come. We had laughed at them all fall, but suddenly it was much more frightening.

Jones, like all Missourians and southerners, immediately began to shout that he was going to arrest and jail every abolitionist — and treasonous son of a — up in Lawrence. He had the guns and the men, and as with all their threats, it was hard to distinguish the bluster from the intent, and a wise precaution to act as if he did mean it and would do it.

In our little cabin, Thomas and I felt each of these bits of news as a blow. We knew right off how to think of them but not precisely how to feel about them. A danger, yes, that galvanized us, yes, but also an intrusion, it seemed to me, like an unwelcome trickle of water that looked, at first, as though it might be stanched easily enough. Mr. Bisket and others came and went. We gave them tea and corncakes or whatever we had. We listened, exclaimed, deplored. They left, and we exclaimed and deplored some more. Thomas got restless. He had taken no part in the rescue, had been to no meetings, got the news rather than made it. He repeated, "I didn’t much like driving off those Missourians."

I said, "But it’s better for everyone that they went. You yourself told me that they couldn’t live with us."

"I know."

Then, a bit later: "Driving off those Missourians wasn’t what I expected when I came out here."

"Didn’t you think you’d have some fun?" asked Frank. "I did."

"But," went on Thomas, "you have to expect that things aren’t going to be what you expect. You have to expect that your convictions will be tested."

I said, "Maybe Branson’s rescuers made a mistake. Maybe they acted too hastily."

That evening, Thomas picked up Mrs. Stowe again, but he didn’t even open the book. He said, "I suppose I’m of a reluctant turn of mind. I like to think I’m evenhanded and judicious, but perhaps I’m just reluctant. Perhaps I’m just one of those who hang back and then make up a good reason to do so. Perhaps I can’t see the moment when it comes."

"What moment?" My tone was a bit sharp. I knew he was talking himself into something, and I didn’t know myself how I felt about what he was trying to talk himself into. What I knew was that we hadn’t had quite enough of those richly married evenings yet, and even as I tried to hold on to them, they were getting away from me. This sensibility made me suddenly breathless and ill. He didn’t answer my question, only looked over at me, surprised at my sharpness and, I could tell, somewhat put off.

I suppose the people of Lawrence, or whoever were responsible, thought they had done a small thing in rescuing Branson. After the killing of Dow, no one knew what would happen to Branson once Coleman and his friends got hold of the man, and the Free Stater was reputed to be hotheaded, to boot, so likely as not he would have gotten himself killed. Therefore the people of Lawrence now did another small thing—they refused to turn Branson over to the "authorities" and also refused to say who had perpetrated the rescue. In retaliation, the Missourians poured over the border and joined the ranks of the territorial militia, which Governor Shannon, apparently in thrall to the tyrant sheriff Jones, ordered out. In other words, they did what they had been itching to do all along, which was to make war on Lawrence!

Here was the end to all the talk of killing, hanging, shooting, and clearing out—they were going to do it.

In the midst of this murder, it got to be December, and we had to admit that it was truly winter. Perhaps because we had had such faith in the advertisements that had brought us to K.T., or perhaps because, as well prepared as we thought we were, we knew we weren’t really prepared enough, we found this hard to believe. Each morning would seem colder than the previous one, and we would get up surprised, but something about the murder made us believe in the cold, too. The two seemed linked.

At any rate, with no preamble, we began discussing whether to stay on the claim or move into town. Frank, who had been home for a few days, complaining that he couldn’t get to Lawrence because the wind was going to blow him away, was all for moving, but Thomas and I were undecided, even though the Bushes and the Jenkinses had decamped a week before and, the last we’d heard, the Holmeses and the Smithsons had been talking about it. We’d heard nothing of the Jameses.

At first, I took the pro position and Thomas the con. I said, "Whatever the chances there for fighting, the only chances here are for freezing."

Thomas’s rejoinder: "The weather is just as likely to moderate as not. Everyone says Kansas has a salubrious and mild climate, but every place has spells of bad weather."

"The weather isn’t bad yet. This is good weather. There’s no snow, the river isn’t frozen, but we still can’t withstand it."

"I think we can get used to it. It’s no use moving to Lawrence; the weather’s no different there, and the Missourians might attack any time."

The next morning, we switched positions. Thomas said, "I ought to be there. Bisket and the Smithsons are there, and the Bushes and Lacey, too."

I said, "I think it’s warmer today. And the sun is shining. If we go there, where do we live? It’s one thing for us all to pile into one house in the summer, when we can spend a lot of time outdoors, and quite another now, all thrown together. And all our things are here."

"At any rate, I have to get these carbines over there. We don’t know what Jones will do, or Governor Shannon."

"If you and Frank leave here and take Jeremiah, anything could happen. We’re cold here, but all in all, we’re better off staying out of it, I think."

But after I’d surveyed our stores again, I said, "Whatever happens, Thayer will make sure that Lawrence is provisioned. There’s safety in numbers. And we need to show what side we’re on...."

"There’s so much work to do around here. If we leave now, no matter what we find, we might not be able to come back during the winter. If we let everything go, there’s no telling whether ..."

I dreaded any step we made out of the cabin and away from our claim. I felt we’d hardly begun to live our life. And yet it was windy cold and discouraging.

It was said that meanwhile the Border Ruffians were massing for a fight at Franklin. The carbines were needed in town, and Thomas was, too. All the men in Lawrence were busy drilling and building earthworks and talking of strategies for defense, but Lawrence was all too vulnerable— approachable from almost any direction, and especially open from the bluff. Against a real attack, with artillery and cavalry charges, the people of Lawrence could not defend themselves. All they had were their Sharps rifles and the moral high ground.

There were thousands of Missourians massed to attack Lawrence, and the first thing they did was sit and wait, allowing their numbers to swell and the people of Lawrence to ponder their fate. Nevertheless, we both sensed that even with many of our friends around, the pondering we did out on our claim was lonelier and more fearful than what they were doing in town. What if Lawrence was sacked, burned to the ground, cleared out, our friends hanged, shot, tarred and feathered? It was not a prospect to contemplate by yourself. Had we been in Lawrence, I thought, we’d be drilling and building, digging and talking, making preparations for our own defense. It would at least be lively and invigorating. Late in the afternoon—that would have been Friday—we did what people with dilemmas always do—we tried to have it both ways. Thomas got on Jeremiah and rode into town, leaving Frank, over loud protests, with me, and carrying the last of the Sharps rifles, except for my own, in saddlebags over Jeremiah’s rump. He intended to reconnoiter the "war" and return in the morning. If he didn’t return (but of course, he would), he would send someone else, either to get me or to stay with me.

The transparency of this plan didn’t escape any of the three of us, but it allowed us to act. After he left, Frank and I busied ourselves for our evening and night as if it were the last—a project that we wouldn’t have to repeat. We allowed ourselves a good supper—corncakes and dried apples and some honey and a stew of prairie chicken and wild onions. We built a good fire in the stove—not eking out our wood supply but pouring it on. Every time we thought of what might be happening in Lawrence, we put on another piece of wood. Without mentioning it, we both sneaked glances around to the southeast, toward Lawrence, to see if the sky was alight. But the night stayed dark and crisply chill; no fires on the horizon. I lit a candle and brought down "The Song of Hiawatha" from Thomas’s shelf of books and tried to read it aloud to Frank as Thomas would have, slowly, savoring the words, letting their rhythms form a little music in the cold air. I let myself think about him already being dead, as a way of preparing for that. All over Kansas, no doubt, women were praying, and men, too. That was the way with most folks in K.T., and in the States, but Frank and I didn’t pray. It didn’t occur to us. We had swum in the ocean of religion all our lives and not gotten wet. After our reading, we went to bed, again as if for the last time, bundling into the quilts and blankets and embracing sleep as if we’d never sleep again.

In the morning, I woke up early, just after dawn, and already knew that Thomas had not returned. Whatever elevation of spirits we’d achieved the night before was utterly gone now, in the teeth of the wind and the flat gray sky and the white frost over everything, inside the cabin and out. The stove was barely warm and would gulp down much of our wood just to get hot enough to cook breakfast. My pitcher of water had a thick film of ice. Nothing, it seemed, could be touched without pain. We lay in bed, disconsolate. I asked Frank if he regretted his journey to Kansas now.

"Nah," he said. "Something might happen. Nothing’s gonna happen at home. Everything’s fixed there. Here everything’s loose."

"Loose and sliding downhill," I said.

"I’ll tell you one thing, though. Thomas an’t no farmer."

"Isn’t."