The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (28 page)

She stopped, glancing all around, and sure enough, here came that woolly-headed Brice, hatless, sleeves rolled up, hands in pockets, muttering to himself. I figured he was probably sawing ice and that unless stopped he would keep on walking until he fell in the river.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Brice,” said Jennie, stepping forward. Her voice was soft and she had put on a frock that my mother would have called scandalous because it drooped so low in front. She was practically bulging out of it, up there, and for a slim girl, there was a disgusting amount of her to bulge, in that particular way. But if she was hoping to lure Brice, she’d made a mistake because he paid no more attention to her than he would a Jersey
cow, though there was a pretty strong resemblance if you cared to look them over, which I didn’t.

“Miss Jennie?” he whispered, peering around in his idiotic way.

She wiggled up closer, bulging even worse. “I wanted to talk to you—about your wagon.”

“I haven’t had a chance to say thanks. What you’ve done, looking after things, has been a real godsend, now my wife’s gone.”

“Mr. Brice, I’m just as interested in your home as if it was my very own.”

“You’ll have your own one day soon, Miss Jennie.”

“Oh, no—not unless someday, years and years from now, I got married. It wouldn’t be respectable for a single girl to keep house. People might think she was—fast.”

Right here was when I should have stepped out and spoken my piece. This Brice was already in over his head, and it was my duty to toss him a rope. But I was struck dumb to see just how low-down she could work it.

“I meant marriage, of course, Miss Jennie. Any man would be lucky to win you.”

“Mr. Brice, you make me giddy. I don’t know as I truly understand you.”

“What I meant,” said Brice, trying to collect his poor wits, “was that you
ought
to be married, of course, before you, before—”

“Do you really feel that way? Are you
sure?”

“I’ve never been surer of anything. Why, marriage is a sacred institution—”

“Mr. Brice,” said Jennie, stepping up so close he could look right down on her, “you’ve set my heart hammering. You’re so impulsive it—it scares me.”

“I certainly don’t mean to scare you,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, but still trying to avoid the bulge. “Why, you’re shaking!”

I’d like to bet she’s laughing herself sick, I said, but to save my life, I couldn’t seem to budge. I never before realized just how
stealthy that girl could be. I almost admired her, she was so treacherous.

“Mr. Brice—Adam—what can a girl do but say yes? You’ve swept me right off my feet. And all the time, I thought you were dodging me. You strong, silent men are
deep.”

“Why, Miss Jennie,” said Brice, trying feebly to unhook himself a little, because she had grappled him around the waist, being helpless and scared, you know, “I hadn’t thought, that is, up until now it hadn’t occurred—”

“Don’t say another word”—and she made a teasing motion of putting her hand over his mouth. “You aren’t going to talk me into any more foolishness tonight. My knees are so weak I want to go lie right down, but I’d better do it in
my
tent.” She gave a saucy little laugh.

From where I crouched, Brice looked warm and stupid in that bear hug. It was odd he didn’t fight his way out. Being considerably taller, he could have got a headhold on her and wrestled free, easy. On the other hand, he could have kneed her in the crotch. Or if nothing else worked, he could have tripped her over backwards and run for it. Then, by appealing to Coulter and the others, he might have got a guard put on his tent and been tolerably safe for a while. But he just stood there; and he’d even come to look as if she wasn’t unenjoyable, bulges and all. It was nauseating. I made up my mind to wash my hands of him.

The way it turned out, I broke things up, but not the way I planned; besides, it had gone too far for human aid. She was mashing herself up against him so shameless that I got embarrassed and looked away, toward the wilderness. And there, plain to see, framed against the sky, were two wolves creeping up on us, not thirty yards away. They had a funny gait, though, more jerky than is common among animals. I opened my mouth and yelled as loud as I could: “Injuns!” and the camp, silent before, turned into a perfect cyclone of noise and confusion.

It couldn’t have been over a minute before Coulter came riding down, but by then three or four men had run out with lanterns.

“Over there! Two men in wolf skins; they’ve cut for the river.”

The figures had stood up in a flash, cast off the skins, and gone knifing through the bush toward the Platte, which showed broad and pale below. Jerking out a gun, Coulter put the spurs to his horse and plunged in after them, but the growth was so dense he jumped down and clawed ahead on foot. Several others were right behind, and I was close on their heels. It wasn’t good judgment to get very far toward the front, because lead was zinging around everywhere, now: two or three hotheads blazing away at nothing, as a few always do. A person could have got shot easy, if he’d wanted to.

Just then the prowlers broke out into the open and across the muddy flats for the water. We all saw them at once; you never heard such a barrage. One fell to his knees but kept crawling, the other dived into the water and disappeared.

I got there behind two men with lanterns. This buck had been reamed through the back with a buffalo gun; the bullet had angled up to come out near his collarbone in front. He was done for. Still and all, he pulled out a knife and slashed feebly when the first of the men arrived. Lying on his side in the mud, in the yellow circle of light, he looked familiar. With one foot, roughly, Coulter rolled him over; it was one of the young men in Sick from Blackberries’ wigwam. He’d been very uppity once, kicking and slapping me around, but he didn’t cut much of a figure now. A buffalo gun is .50 calibre and makes a nice hole. You could have poured sand through this fellow as easy as you could through a funnel.

Coulter got down to inspect him, and said, “Just to settle an argument—have a look at that. Now who was it claimed I didn’t scratch pay dirt?”

So this was where they’d been the night they came into the wigwam notched up. Clutching a braid of hair, Coulter lifted the head to show a half-healed wound, a furrow still red and bare.

Seeing this, several of the men spoke up to say they had been hasty, and à big farmer offered him a plug, remarking, “When I
opined that you couldn’t hit a cow in the ass with a handful of salt, I may have stretched it some. I’ll eat them words.”

It was a handsome apology, nobody could have asked for better, and Coulter looked satisfied. He said, “We’ll leave the thieving skunk propped up on the trail. Maybe it’ll serve to show we mean business.”

They cut a pole and went back a ways, removed from the wagons, and nailed the corpse to it, upright. Coulter himself did most of the work. Some of the religious men complained a little, saying it was heathenish, and as bad as the Indians themselves, but Coulter jawed them down. There wasn’t anything shy about him while he was busy on a job. Before we turned in, he rode by Jennie and Brice, still standing side by side, and reined up a second. I wondered how much he’d seen.

“It’s a crying pity when Indians sneak around breaking up lovers’ meetings. I may have to speak to the chief.”

“It surely is crowded here tonight,” Jennie said to Brice.

I went over in the bushes and found the wolf skins. It was my intention to keep them for souvenirs, or maybe to sleep on, but my father heaved them out on the end of a stick.

“I can’t recall when I’ve encountered anything so rancid in the course of my medical career,” he said. “They’re probably infested with vermin, too. What with the denizens that normally take shelter on a wolf, plus those indigenous to the Indian, along with the hybrid produced by intermarriage, you can imagine the conditions that exist. I doubt if there’s a disease on the face of the globe that isn’t carried by one of them. The fact is—”

He would have gone ahead till he’d worn it out, but I said good night. I was sort of sore. I didn’t believe there were any bugs on those skins, and what smell was there seemed soothing, and removed your mind from other troubles. Unless I’d been living with the Indians too long, that is. I could easily have taken one of those skins back for my mother to put in her bedroom, because she generally kept the windows open all the time anyway, and besides,
Sam was tethered right below, so that the aromas would intermingle, and nullify each other out. In addition, I’d aimed to give the other to Daisy Coontz, which was a girl in my room at school who could chin herself five times. It would have made her a nice bonnet or muff, and there wasn’t any chance her parents would object, because she was always running off and hiding, and this way they could locate her in the dark.

We spent the next day approaching the fork of the Platte, and at suppertime Jennie announced her betrothment, as I believe they said, to Brice. He appeared pleased, but he had the good sense to turn red when everybody crowded around with congratulations. I stated how much I admired him for talking her into it, knowing what a job it must have been, and Jennie gave me a wicked look.

“I’ve been meaning to have a word with you all day, you bothersome scamp,” she said, but I ducked out. I couldn’t think of any handy reason why I was nearby when I yelled at the Indians.

From the McPheeters Journals:

July 26, 1849

The wedding pair have set the locale for the festivities as Chimney Rock, a grotesque configuration of limestone that rears its head several hundred feet a fortnight ahead on the trail. Camped this day at junction of north and south forks of the Platte. All members partook copiously of the fresh, icy waters of the well here. It might be said that they partook recklessly, for the result has been an epidemic of violent retching and diarrhea. Together with Doctor Merton, I administered restoratives to slow the traffic into the brush, which has been congested, even giving rise to disputes over priority of position.

Buffalo within view in great abundance, some straying nearly close enough as to mingle with our loose cattle. Though familiar with the chips, or
bois de vache
, we have had our first encounter with the meat, which in reference to the fat young heifer seems superior to the finest beef. A Mr. Bedloe, retired with a competence from the undertaking trade, this morning shot a young straggler
that was dismembered by the versatile Coulter, in the presence of the company. In the end, only the men were permitted to remain; the business of removing the hide and intestines proved so onerous that Coulter’s speech became laced with expletives of a unique piquancy. A number of husbands were observed herding their mates, at a rapid clip, to some sanctuary beyond earshot.

Coulter at length severed the choice cuts, which included a strip of flesh along each side of the spine, from shoulders to rump, the tenderloin, the liver, heart, tongue, hump ribs, and an intestinal vessel commonly called by hunters the “marrow-gut.” Speaking anatomically, this is the chylo-poetic duct; it contains an unctuous matter resembling marrow and is unquestionably the greatest delicacy I ever tasted. Also, their genitals here on the frontier are put to excellent use. Everything, both choice and ordinary cuts, apportioned out fairly.

And what a sight that night over the campfires! Fresh meat; it quickens the spirits of all. We feasted like aldermen. We will take the trail tomorrow, along the south fork of the Platte, with revived courage.

July 27:

Buffalo everywhere, as far as the eye can see. The herds number in the tens of thousands. These shaggy creatures, so awkward and lumbering, will provision and clothe America in perpetuity; there is no doubt of it. The most confirmed pessimist could not envision a lessening of these endless black smears from horizon to horizon. The buffalo will be part of our West to the end of its destiny.

Again have been required to treat cattle. The alkali scours them sorely, as the Mormons going before us found. They (the cattle, not the Mormons) should be salted often, and if sickness develops, treated with thin slices of fat bacon dipped in salt and thrust down their throats. The dose: one pound of fat bacon per animal. Should this fail to work, add brandy and black pepper.

Traveled along south fork of the Platte, hoping to ford tomorrow. In the main, the trail has kept to the river, which narrows here. Nooning, Kissel and I found the powder kegs to be shrinking from dryness, and leaking powder. An ingestion of the spilled contents by the Kissel children, Deuteronomy, Micah, Leviticus and Lamentations,
appears to have had no ill effect; on the contrary, they are filled with crackling good spirits being somewhat more vocal than formerly. Nevertheless, I have agreed to watch them for several days, and have cautioned the Kissels to prevent their approaching any open flame. While their stomachs may be conditioned to black powder, for reasons not now understood by medical science, mechanically there may be danger of a backfire. In any case,
no one should attempt to carry powder in kegs along this route!
It should be transported in strong, tight tin cans or canisters.

Besides the disturbing number of dead cattle and oxen along the route, we now pass live animals which have been left behind, too crippled or exhausted to proceed. Poor dumb beasts; they have nothing to look forward to save poisoning in the alkali ponds or slaughter by the Indians.

Distance made this day, as recorded by the odometer: seventeen miles.

July 30:

We have forded the Platte, with no more than trivial mishap. This ford was at what they call the California Crossing, a wide traverse of the bottom in normally shallow waters. As luck would have it, the river was on the rise, making the many areas of quicksand difficult to find. Before sallying forth with the wagons, a number of men themselves waded over, seeking the best route. One horse mired down to its head in the sands, but was speedily extricated with ropes.

The actual width of the river is half a mile, while its depth seldom exceeds four feet. As a precaution, which occasioned grumbling, Coulter ordered a double team—as many as eighteen yoke—hitched to each wagon. The tedious business of hitching and unhitching has made the operation spread over a day and a half. In my opinion, he was proved right. We suffered many incidents, no serious losses.