The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (39 page)

"You’ll find it in your cabin."

"Which is?"

"Number seven."

And now, now at last, I came to bidding farewell to Mr. Graves. We stood on the deck, and he worked himself up to his highest state of oratory. He took my hand. "Ma’am, Mrs. Newton, I say this openly, with no thought to my own preservation or the opinions of my fellowman: You and your late husband were fine folk, who came here with the purest of motives, no matter what our scribblers of the presses aver. I consider myself privileged to have known you, and especially privileged to have had such a lengthy and enlightening conversation with your husband, that time we passed between this town, Kansas City, though hardly a city then, and your destination, which, in consideration to the feelings of passersby, I shall not name right now. We talked, as I remember, about the broad breast of the ocean, whereon Mr. Newton had made his fortune, such as it was, and about certain medical and educational matters. These medical matters, I recall, had a favorable outcome, which I then attributed and now attribute to the pleasant circumstances of our journey. And I say this, too: that I was struck at the time by the contrast between a threesome of our local citizenry and your husband—the one set was low in their appetites and belligerent in their actions, while your husband was a man of enterprise and wit. The contrast struck me sharply, though I didn’t mention it at the time, and I said to myself, ’Well, these New Englanders aren’t all bad,’ and I date my period of enlightenment from that evening. Let me say this, that in my travels back and forth between that nameless town and this so-called city, my eyes have been opened to the worthy men of both sides of this tragic conflict. What will happen I of course cannot predict, but every day the contrast between what men might be and what they are grows greater. I wish you the best of luck far from these scenes of thievery and mayhem. I count the evening when I found you on the prairie and aided you in my humble way as one of the most significant of my life, and I will never forget it, or you, or your departed husband, and so good-bye." Here Mr. Graves kissed my hand and then let go of it, and I saw that there were tears in his eyes. In front of all the world, I stepped over and kissed him on the cheek, and I said, "You are certainly a dear man, Mr. Graves, and I will always think of you as a friend."

I stood by the railing as he departed down the plank, and I watched him until he was well out of sight. Then I ran back to my cabin to get my bag, thinking I would make my own departure. My forty dollars was intact, thanks to Mr. Graves’s friendship; I was full of food; I could carry my bag off and find a hotel, then make inquiries here and there. When all was said and done, freedom was everything wasn’t it?

I went into the red-and-gold saloon, then made my way down to cabin number seven. My heart, strange to say, was lighter than it had been in weeks, as if my plan were to meet Thomas, not to avenge him. I pushed back the curtain of my cabin and saw at once the back of another woman, a small woman with a cap on her white hair. She turned right around and said, "Ah! You’re Mrs. Newton! I am Miss Emily Carter, schoolteacher. The captain sent me over to chaperone you to Saint Louis. I’m sure we will have a lovely journey. I am well known on the Missouri Rose. I go back and forth from Kansas City to Saint Louis four times a year, and I always take the Rose. Isn’t the new ladies’ saloon inviting?"

I was so shocked that I could barely keep a friendly countenance. It took significant effort to transform my gape into a smile, to hold out my hand, and to say to Miss Carter, "Oh, how lovely. I knew Mr. Graves would take care of me."

"Oh, Mr. David B. Graves and I are old friends."

"It’s hard to distinguish them, isn’t it?"

"You mean the cousin? I don’t think of him as Mr. David B. Graves at all. He has a much more troubled reputation, don’t you know? No, whenever you hear the name Mr. David B. Graves, most folks know who you’re talking about. The one and not the other. Isn’t that funny?"

"Yes, it is." I had regained a bit of my composure, but I was panting just a little. Miss Carter said, "Oh, my dear. You seem hot. I have just the thing. You recline a bit here, and I will fix you right up."

I did what she said, at the same time furiously attempting to come up with a plan.

"Now close your eyes, dear."

When I did, she laid a folded handkerchief dipped in witch hazel across my forehead.

"I will tell you right out, Mrs. Newton, that Mr. Graves told me a bit of your story, because he felt he could confide in me, though he did not tell the captain a word. Captain Smith is a very partisan man, I am sorry to say, and we all know the sort of things he’s done in what I call the goose cause. It’s a shame!" She clucked disapprovingly. "But I’m sure we will get down to Saint Louis with no problem. The lovely thing about the Missouri Rose is that it’s a safe and well-run boat, perfect for the Missouri River, just a first-rate craft. And Captain Smith has enough backing, my dear, so that he doesn’t run in an unsafe way—you know, trying always to get up more steam, or risking the sandbars. Oh! My land o’ mercy! You may not know it, but the Missouri River was not designed by the Lord for steamboat travel, but men will defy Him! The key thing is always to find a boat with more than enough boiler capacity, so that going along does not in any way test the boiler, because a boiler is just the sort of thing to fail the test!" She laughed, then felt my cheeks. "There we go, dear. You’re much cooler now, and your cheeks aren’t nearly so red." She removed the handkerchief. "Well, I am sorry to laugh, because the tragedy when a boiler fails is beyond thinking about! But my own brother is an engineer, and he said to me, ’Emily, dear, I have gone over the Missouri Rose from stem to stern, and looked over the boiler, too, and I declare she’s as safe as a boat can be, which isn’t all that safe, but the alternative is Missouri roads!’ "

I sat up and declared that I felt better. Then I said, "Do we stay all night on the boat, then? I’m new at these things."

"Well, I do, Mrs. Newton. I didn’t use to, when I was teaching in Lexington, because Lexington is a fine old town, as civilized as Lexington, Kentucky, where I was brought up. But these western towns, especially since those abolitionists got in here! In these circumstances, staying on the boat is a lady’s best course of action. The captain has agreed to give us our supper—he really is a good man underneath, you know—and I think we can make ourselves quite comfortable here! The saloon is lovely, and our cabin is very roomy for a steamboat cabin."

I forced myself to cool my impatience by making up alternative plans in my head: I could sneak off the boat at Westport or Lexington and make my way back if I had to. Wasn’t revenge a dish best eaten cold, even in K.T, where most tempers were hot? But I couldn’t raise much of an interest in Miss Carter, and so I didn’t respond in a very lively fashion to her conversation, and after a bit she fell silent and took out her work, which was some tatting. I watched her out of the corner of my eye—her thread was impossibly fine, and the lace she made was intricate and filmy. Watching her put me into a sort of dream, which passed the time until supper.

We went on in this fashion for the rest of the day and into the evening. Our supper of steak and pickles and cherries and corn bread was brought to us in the ladies’ saloon by a Negro boy, and it was accompanied by the usual glass of river water—cloudy on top, thick at the bottom. Miss Carter drank hers right up, saying, "I’m told that in the baths of Europe, only the wealthiest can afford such a glass. We in America are more democratic!" I couldn’t be so enthusiastic—I sipped the top inch or so and then set mine aside.

It would have been the end of July, and so dusk was late and prolonged, but finally I saw that Miss Carter was making her preparations for rest. In all of this time, since our first meeting, she had not left me for even a few minutes. I hoped she was a heavy sleeper. I made my preparations for rest, too, though when I opened my bag, I was careful to hide it with my body from her sight and then to leave it open, with my shawl draped over it, so that I wouldn’t have to risk the sound of the hasp later on. At last we were ready. I eased myself into the lower berth, which, fortunately, I had been lying in before. I said, "Good night, Miss Carter. I hope you sleep well."

"Oh, my land o’ mercy. I will!" she exclaimed. "Have you seen these drops? I got them from a wonderful man, three-quarters pure Indian, knows all the Indian secrets! Everyone here in Kansas City swears by him. His name is John Red Dog. I can’t do without these drops!" And she put a bit on her tongue, then climbed into the upper berth. Sure enough, by the time it was fully dark, she was snoring, long, deep, ruffling snores, as regular as the ticking of a clock.

I sat up and removed my shawl from my bag, at the same time making sure that the curtain of our cabin was completely closed. Then I stood up and looked, smiling in case she awakened, at Miss Carter. She was far gone in slumber, undoubtedly thanks to the drops. Her workbasket sat at the foot of her bed, and I opened it and took out her scissors, which were of only moderate size but large enough. Then I laid out my shawl and, kneeling, bent my head over it and cut off my hair. It fell in dark hanks, rather surprising me with its length and weight. But I felt no grief at cutting off my only beauty, merely a lightness and relief. Somehow, my hair had become Thomas’s, and now he was requiring me to cut it. It would grow back. I wrapped it in my shawl and laid the shawl aside.

The next part was more difficult. What I was engaged in now I had not planned, though I had brought along a few of Thomas’s things for remembrance—two or three books, a pair of trousers, and a coat, but, of course, no hat, no shoes. I think that I had vaguely thought that if I should end up in Boston, I would give these articles to Thomas’s mother, or father, or a brother. The trousers and the coat would now come in handy, but I had given his hat to Charles, and I had given his boots and other effects to a dealer in secondhand clothing, not three days after the killing. This man had offered me some money, but at the time I was simply horrified at taking money for them, and so I’d turned it down. Well, there was nothing for it, then, but to make the best of what I had. I cut the skirt off my cream-colored dress, below the waist, so there would be a tail, then I put Thomas’s trousers on over the bodice as if it were a shirt, with his braces holding them up as best as I could fix it. Finally, I shrugged into the jacket, which fit much more loosely than the trousers. One thing I had saved and used, which now came in very handy, was his pocket watch. I opened the crystal and felt the hands in the darkness—ten—thirty—and slipped it into the pocket of his coat. I pushed my rolled-up shawl out of the way and slipped into my berth to wait for a favorable hour.

There was no going to sleep. I neither wanted to nor could afford to. I had no idea, for one thing, of how long Miss Carter’s drops would remain effective. And I judged midnight or shortly thereafter to be the best time for departing the Missouri Rose. I knew that if I fell asleep, I would sleep through until morning and lose my chance. Lying in my berth in Thomas’s clothes made me very sad. They had been folded tightly away for many weeks—they were not what he’d been wearing upon being shot, but I had retrieved them from the cabin—and beneath their woolly, musty scent was another, fleeting and almost undetectable, which I recognized as familiar. I was eager to think that it was Thomas’s scent, that something of him still lingered around me, but when I focused my attention on it, it seemed to disappear, so that I could not say that it was really there. When I thought of Thomas, though, the pictures and the memories were striking: Thomas reading aloud by candlelight, his expressive voice bodying forth each story so that the characters seemed to be in the room, just outside the circle of the candlelight. Thomas coming in from working at the end of the day, his shoulders filling the doorway, his affectionate greeting, even though we might have seen each other only twenty minutes before. Thomas and Charles at the breakfast table, when we were living in town, laughing and regaling Louisa and me with stories of their journeys to Leavenworth to get the mail. Thomas, my husband, after the candle was blown out at night, so large a presence that I seemed to disappear into it; not something that memoirists customarily write about but, in truth, the very thing that I could not stop thinking of as I lay curled in my berth that night on the Missouri Rose.

The anguish of these thoughts eventually propelled me out of the berth at eleven forty-five or so. Miss Carter was still heavily asleep. I closed the hasp of my bag as softly as I could and peeked around the curtain into the ladies’ saloon. If the Missouri Rose was anything like the boat that had brought us upstream, male passengers would be allowed to sleep on the floor of the saloon after all the ladies had gone to their cabins, but now, before the journey, the big room was empty. I crept around the curtain and across the floor to the big double doors, which were locked. Trying not to be disappointed or daunted, I then carried my bag along the row of ladies’ cabins, looking for another way out. I didn’t find one, but I found something better, a pair of men’s boots, the toes sticking out underneath the curtain, and, when I listened, hearty snores behind it. I knelt, set down my bag, and slowly extracted the boots. They were unattached to their owner’s feet and came easily. They were not new and did not smell sweet, but I hurriedly pulled off my own shoes and put the boots on, anyway. Though a trifle too large, they were certainly good enough.

This acquisition whetted my appetite for more, especially for a hat or a cap, and I grew bolder. I began to peek behind curtains, but only if I heard evidence of sleep, such as groans or snores. Behind the third curtain, hung on a nail, was the perfect hat—soft-brimmed and slouchy, good for hiding within. I took it. It was a good hat, of a southern style rather than a northern—no doubt made in Kentucky or somewhere like that. It fit, too. I walked my bag down the length of the saloon and found a window, which I opened and climbed out of, onto the deck. I didn’t see anyone around. I closed the window behind me and adopted a nonchalant demeanor, leaning my elbows on the rail, cocking one foot across the other, and pulling down my hat, as I had seen so many men do in my twenty-one years. And it was well that I did, because just then someone rounded the end of the deck and touched the brim of his own hat politely in my direction. I cleared my throat and nodded, but didn’t alter my position. He said, "Pleasant evening," and walked on.