We could all see that there was no flatboat waiting for us.
Uncle Seth was as startled as anyone to discover that our boat was missing. There were usually several boats in sight, going upstream and downstream, big boats and small, barges and steamers of various kinds. Sometimes Neva and I would sit on the dock most of the day, just watching boats. If they were going downstream they were bound for St. Louis, where Neva and I planned to go someday—that would have to be when we were grown.
This morning, though, there were no boats on the river at all. A canoe with a few blankets in it was pulled up onshore and an Indian in an old hat, wearing leggings and a thin shirt, stood by it, untangling a fishing line.
From the docks we could see a long distance, up-and downriver, but no boats were in sight.
“This is a vexation for sure,” Ma said to Uncle Seth. “You told me they’d be here.”
“Well, they’re late, the scamps,” Uncle Seth said, with an embarrassed look. Here we were ready to travel hundreds of miles and find our pa—only there was no boat, or even anyone to ask about the boat except the one Indian man.
“Ask him if he’s seen our boat, Seth,” Ma said.
“Why would he be able to see something that we can’t see?” Uncle Seth inquired. I thought it was a good point. There was just no boat in sight—the Indian couldn’t change that.
Four mules, a gray mare, and a wagon full of people make a certain amount of noise, and the Indian naturally heard it. He turned and looked at us—his look was not unfriendly, nor was it friendly, either. He was more interested in getting his fishing line untangled than he was in us—I suppose that was normal, since he’d never met us.
“If you don’t ask him I will,” Ma said. “Here we are ready to go and our boat’s lost.”
“People who work on water don’t keep time as well as people who work on land,” Uncle Seth explained.
“Well, they should!” Ma said. She stared down the river, as if she could make the boat appear just by staring—only she was wrong.
“I expect they’re just stuck on a sandbar, around the curve, and will be here as soon as they get unstuck,” Uncle Seth said. He knew how impatient Ma was, and how vexed she got when events didn’t go off on time. It even happened with baby Marcy, who had been in no hurry to be born. Ma finally got tired of waiting and went off in the woods to the cabin of an old medicine woman—Choctaw, Uncle Seth said. She must have been good at her medicine because Ma took a potion of some kind and delivered baby Marcy that night.
Of course, baby Marcy was already there—she just happened to be inside rather than outside. The boat was different: it wasn’t there.
“I expect it’ll show up within the next few minutes,” Uncle Seth said, uneasily.
“He’s a cheerful one, ain’t he?” Aunt Rosie said. “My bet would be that it never shows up.”
“Of course it will—I paid our passage,” Uncle Seth said.
“All of it?” Ma asked.
“No—I ain’t a fool. Half of it,” he said.
“Neva, go ask the Indian gentleman if he’s seen a boat,” Ma said.
“A flatboat,” Uncle Seth said. “It had a fence around the deck to keep the animals from jumping off.”
I was shy around strangers, and Neva wasn’t, which is why Ma asked her to go quiz the Indian. Even so, my feelings were hurt—I was the oldest, and it should have been my job. But Neva trotted right down to the Indian, a medium-sized man. Probably it was his canoe pulled up on the bank. Neva asked her question and the man, who had finally got his line untangled, listened to her patiently. When Neva came back he followed, a step or two behind her.
“It burnt—that’s that,” Neva said. “I guess we’ll have to go back home.”
“I thought Seth was being too cheerful,” Aunt Rosie said.
Sally, Uncle Seth’s mare, whinnied again, and Mr. Hickok came loping up.
“Here’s Bill—I guess he finished his toddy,” Uncle Seth said.
“Why hello, Charlie, hoping for a perch for breakfast?” Mr. Hickok said, speaking to the Indian man. He tipped his hat to Ma and Aunt Rosie.
“I may find a fish a little later,” the man said. “Right now I was going to explain to these people that the boat they were expecting burned last night. I think all the people on it made it to shore. I was passing and helped two of them who were tired of swimming.”
“Damn the luck!” Ma said. I had never heard her curse before.
“Yes, it was bad luck,” the Indian said politely.
“You could introduce us, Bill, since it seems this gentleman and you are friends,” Uncle Seth said, in an amiable tone. I believe, with Ma so angry, he was glad of the company.
“Oh, ain’t you met?” Mr. Hickok said. “This is Charlie Seven Days, of the Lemhi people, from up near the Snake River, I believe—Charlie’s a far piece from home.”
“What people?” Uncle Seth asked, stepping down from the wagon seat.
“Lemhi—Shoshone,” the man said in a careful tone, nodding to us all.
“I’ve heard of the Snake River, but it’s out of my territory—so far, at least,” Uncle Seth said.
“Charlie has the knack of turning up just when you need him,” Mr. Hickok said. “He got me across a patch of thin ice once, during the war, and if he hadn’t, I believe the Rebs would have caught me.”
“Well, if he had a boat, we’d need him,” Ma said. “We can’t all fit in that canoe.”
“Seen any boats, in your travels?” Uncle Seth asked.
“There is a steamboat tied up at Glasgow, which is not too far, but I don’t know if it is a good boat, or if you could hire it,” the Indian said.
Glasgow was several miles up the river—if we were going to take our wagon across the plains we ought to at least be able to take it that far.
“What brought you this far south?” Mr. Hickok inquired. “I thought you usually favored the northern climes.”
“The Old Woman sent me to find her son,” Charlie Seven Days said. “She thought he might be in St. Louis—but he’s not in St. Louis. I think he may be in California, but I’m not sure. Now I have to go back and tell her he is still lost.”
“What’s he talking about?” Uncle Seth asked. “What old woman?”
“The Old One—the one who went with the first captains,” Charlie said.
“Lewis and Clark, the woman who went with them—I forget her name,” Mr. Hickok said. “I believe she lives on the Snake River somewhere, which is where Charlie’s from.”
“Is that in the direction of Wyoming?” Ma asked.
“Yes,” Charlie said.
“Then you’re going the same direction we are,” Ma said. “Why don’t you come with us? I’d feel more comfortable if we had a guide who knew the country.”
That proposition didn’t seem to surprise Charlie Seven Days, but it sure surprised Uncle Seth.
“A guide?” he said. “What do you think I am, if not a guide?”
“My brother-in-law,” Ma said.
“But we just met this fellow,” Uncle Seth said. “He may have plans of his own.”
Ma’s proposition didn’t seem to faze Charlie Seven Days at all.
“I could take you as far as South Pass,” he said. “That is where I must go north, to find the Old Woman. She is afraid her son might have died.”
“What do we do about your canoe?” Ma asked Mr. Seven Days.
“We could just go back to the cabin and wait until the next good flatboat shows up,” Uncle Seth said. I don’t think he liked the quick way Ma took to Charlie Seven Days.
“No,” Ma said. “We left. We’re gone. I’m not going back. If I have to drive this wagon every step of the way to Wyoming, then I will.”
Charlie Seven Days was considering the question of his canoe, which sure wouldn’t fit in our wagon.
“I don’t want to leave this canoe,” Charlie said. “We might need it up the river—sometimes the big boats get stuck. I will paddle up t
o Glasgow and meet you there—it’s only a day, for you, if you travel steady.”
“You don’t have to worry about the steady travel,” Uncle Seth said. “If there’s one thing I know about Mary Margaret, it’s that once she starts traveling she’ll travel steady.”
“Getting her to stop long enough for my naps, that’ll be the problem,” Granpa said.
“I ain’t able to sleep sound in a moving wagon,” he added.
“I will meet you at the dock in Glasgow,” Charlie said. “You should be there about sundown.”
Then he got in his canoe and paddled away.
“This is your doing, Bill,” Uncle Seth said, still exercised about Ma’s decision. “Now we’re saddled with an Indian we don’t know a thing about.”
Mr. Hickok was not disturbed.
“Seth, I done you a favor—there’s no better man to travel with than Charlie,” he said. “They say he knows every creek and varmint den in the west, and I believe it.”
“Thank you for your introduction, Mr. Hickok,” Ma said. “We had better be on our way now—I mean to make Glasgow by sundown.”
Ma clucked, and the mules moved. In a minute she had the wagon turned and we were on the north road. As we passed Mr. Hickok he tipped his hat three times, once to Ma, once to Aunt Rosie, and even once to Neva, who blushed when he done it.
“This departure is sure a heartbreaker for good old Boone’s Lick,” he said. “There’ll be a drastic shortage of pretty ladies, now that the three of you are taking your leave.”
“Well, Bill, at least you got a horse,” Aunt Rosie said. “I guess you can just ride off yourself, if you’re so lonesome.”
17
I DOUBT we’ll ever see that Indian again,” Uncle Seth said, when we were a mile or two up the north road.
Nobody answered him.
“He may have fooled Bill Hickok but he didn’t fool me,” he went on. “I suspect that story about the boat burning, too. That boat was floating on water—they could have just splashed water on it, if it was afire. For all we know this Charlie Seven Days could have massacred the boatmen—that boat’s probably drifting down toward St. Louis now, with everybody on it scalped.”
“I didn’t see a knife,” Aunt Rosie said.
“Oh, an Indian’s always got a knife about him somewhere,” Uncle Seth said. “Mary Margaret, I wish you’d let me drive these mules.”
Ma wouldn’t, though. She just ignored Uncle Seth, and when Granpa Crackenthorpe tried to get her to stop the wagon under a shade tree for a few minutes, so he could nap without being jostled, she ignored him too.
“We’ll never get to Wyoming if we stop all the time,” she said. “What’s the matter with you, G.T.?”
He had been looking down in the mouth all day—I think leaving home had upset him.
“He’s homesick, the oaf!” Neva said.
G.T. tried to slug her—they tussled for a while. G.T. was having to sniff back tears.
“I didn’t know you were such a homebody, G.T.,” Aunt Rosie said.
“Didn’t neither,” G.T. said, still sniffing.
“Well, if I ain’t even gonna be trusted to drive the team there’s no reason for me to bounce along in such a rude conveyance,” Uncle Seth said.
He jumped down, unhitched his gray mare, and rode off.
“You’re too rough on Seth,” Aunt Rosie said, to Ma.
“Think so? I don’t,” Ma said.
Actually I agreed with Aunt Rosie. Ma was real short-tempered with Uncle Seth—we all noticed it.
“I hope Seth comes back, but I don’t know why he would, the way you treat him,” Granpa said. “A brother-in-law will only put up with so much at the hands of a woman.”
We left the docks in Boone’s Lick not long after sunup, but the sun just kept on climbing. Soon it was right overhead. Aunt Rosie handed Marcy to Ma, who nursed her while we were clipping along—not fast, of course, but steady.
“When do the rest of us get to eat?” G.T. asked—he was still looking low.
“I’ll feed you,” Aunt Rosie said, since Ma had her hands full with the mules and the baby. A little horse meat jerky and a spud was all we got.
By then Uncle Seth had been gone three hours and there was no sign of him. The north road passed some pretty heavy woods, a fact which made G.T. nervous.
“There could be a whole crowd of bears in woods that thick,” he commented. He was squeezing his rifle hard, as if it were a live thing that might slip away.
I didn’t care for thick woods either, though it was bandits I mostly worried about. Several people had been robbed on the Glasgow road—if some of the Millers came at us I didn’t know what I would do. Mule travel was monotonous, though. Despite his need not to be jostled when he slept, Granpa Crackenthorpe was sound asleep, snoring his scratchy snore. Aunt Rosie was nodding too. Neva crawled up by Ma, who let her drive the team for a mile or two, while she nursed the baby a second time. That struck me as unfair.
“I guess I can drive a team,” I said, to remind them that I was still the oldest boy.
“I know that, but right now I’m training your sister,” Ma said. “You’re the lookout—I’m counting on you to warn me if you see anything out of the ordinary.”
Ma had barely finished appointing me lookout when I saw something pretty out of the ordinary: a large man with a frizzy beard nearly down to his waist was sitting on a stump by the road. He was dressed in a brown robe, like priests wear, and was trying to get a sticker or something out of one foot. So far as I could tell he was barefooted—I didn’t see any shoes. In fact I didn’t see any kind of satchel or bag anywhere or anything: the man was just carrying himself. He wasn’t quite as old as Granpa, but he wasn’t young either.
“I wouldn’t want to box that old priest,” G.T. said. “He’s big.”
I was hoping Ma would clip on by, in case the man was a bandit disguised as a priest, but Ma didn’t seem worried about that possibility. She stopped the wagon.
“Are you injured, Father?” she asked.
“Tacks,” the priest said. “Some careless soul has spilled tacks in the public road and I stepped right in them. Is that Hubert Crackenthorpe sitting there snoring? I have not seen Hubert since the troubles on the Bad Axe River, which occurred thirty-four years ago last month. I was young then. I had been ministering to the Sauks, but after the massacre there were not many Sauks left to minister to. I had just come from France and spoke little English. In fact I mastered Sauk and a little Ioway before I ever learned English. My great-grandfather invented the algebra, although he didn’t get the credit.”
He stood up and carefully put four or five tacks in a pocket of his robe—the tacks he had taken out of his foot seemed to be his only equipment.
“We’re on our way to Glasgow to look for a boat,” Ma said. “You’re welcome to get in and ride, since you’ve hurt your foot. Pa will be glad to see an old friend, when he wakes up.”
The priest looked up the north road toward Glasgow before accepting Ma’s offer.
“I have taken a vow to walk the earth, but I guess a wagon seat is not too far above the earth,” he said. He was so big that when he hoisted himself up, the whole wagon tipped.
“I can jump down if I see a soul that needs ministering to,” he said.
The solemn way he said it tickled Aunt Rosie, who laughed.
“If all you’re looking for is souls that need mending you don’t have to jump down,” she said. “There are several right here in this wagon that could use a little mending.”
“Oh my Lord, it’s Père Villy!” Granpa said—he had just woke up.
The priest reached back a big hand and gave Granpa a good handshake. Granpa was so excited he was ready to jump up and down.
“Where are you bound for, Villy?” he asked.
“I’m on my way to Siberia,” the priest said, as if he were talking about a place we would all be familiar with.
“Is that farther than Omaha?” Neva asked. She was
now squeezed in between the big priest and Ma, but she still had the reins to the team.
The priest’s chuckle seemed to come out of the depths of his belly—it was like a sound made far underground.
“Much farther than Omaha, young miss,” the priest said. “Siberia is part of Russia, which is across the sea. I have decided to go minister to the wandering Koraks—they’re still stuck in heathenism, I hear.”
I believe that remark even surprised Ma, who is thoroughly hard to surprise. Even finding out that the elk she thought she shot was only a horse didn’t surprise her much.
“But Father Villy, there’s no ocean nearby,” she pointed out.
Father Villy chuckled again. “I believe the Pacific is less than two thousand miles west,” he said. “Possibly no more than seventeen hundred miles from the Missouri shore. I’m a steady walker—at least I am when I can avoid tacks.”
“Villy ain’t bragging,” Granpa assured us. “He had already walked down from Quebec before we got in that scrape on the Bad Axe.”
“I guess you could go on the riverboat with us—that is, if we have a riverboat when we get to Glasgow,” Ma said.
G.T. and I exchanged looks—even Neva threw back a glance. What was Uncle Seth going to think now? Ma had already invited an Indian to make the trip with us, and now she was inviting a priest.
“You’re a kind woman, madame,” the priest said. “I would enjoy a boat trip at least as far as the mouth of the Platte. Then I expect I had better walk the Holy Road.”
“What Holy Road?” Aunt Rosie asked. “I didn’t know there were any roads in that part of the country.”
“Some call it the Oregon Trail,” the priest said. “But the native peoples, which would be the Sioux and the Cheyenne, and the Shoshone, Pawnee, Arapaho, and a few others, call it the Holy Road. So many immigrants have moved along it in the last few years that there’s a fair track along the Platte.”
“I’ve heard my husband say that,” Ma said. “Have you met him, Father? Dick Cecil. He’s a wagoneer.”
“No, I haven’t,” the priest said. “But if he’s a wagon-driving man you’ll probably find him in Wyoming. They’ve put up three new forts, which is foolish—I don’t think the Indians will tolerate it—but there’s plenty of work for wagoners in that part of the country, servicing those forts.”