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That was the God’s truth, too, as I explained to Spring half an hour later, for while he wasn’t the man you’d seek out to discuss your affairs of the heart, it was our necks that were concerned here, and he had to be kept au fait. He gaped at me like a landed shark.
‘But you’re married!’ cries he.
‘Tut-tut,’ says I, ‘not so loud. She doesn’t know that.’
He glared horribly. ‘It’s bigamy! Lord God Almighty, have you no respect for the sacraments?’
‘To be sure – which is why I don’t intend our union to last any farther than California, when I’ll—’
‘I won’t have it!’ snarls he, and that wild glitter came into his pale eyes. ‘Is there no indecency beneath you? Have you no fear of God, you animal? Will you fly in the face of His sacred law, damn your eyes?’
I might have expected this, when I came to think of it. Not the least of Captain Spring’s eccentricities was that while he’d got crimes on his conscience that Nero would have bilked at, he was a fanatic for the proprieties, like Sunday observance and afternoon tea – he’d drop manacled niggers overboard at a sight of the white duster, but he was a stickler when it came to lining out the hymns while his equally demented wife pumped her accordion and his crew of brigands sang ‘Let us with a gladsome mind’. All the result of boning up the Thirty-nine Articles, I don’t doubt.
‘What else could I do?’ I pleaded, while he swore and stamped about the room, snarling about blasphemy and the corruption of the public school system. ‘The old faggot as good as promised that if I didn’t take her, she’d whistle up the pigs.
Don’t you see – if I jolly her along, it’s a safe passage out, and then, goodbye Mrs Willinck. Or Comber, as the case may be. But if I jilt her, it’s both our necks!’ I near as told him I’d done it before, with Duchess Irma in Strackenz, but from the look of him he’d have burst a blood vessel, with luck.
‘Why in God’s name did I ever ship you aboard the College?’ cries he, clenching his hands in fury. ‘You’re a walking mass of decay, porcus ex grege diaboli!’
But he wasn’t too far gone to see reason, and calmed down eventually. ‘Well,’ says he, giving me his most baleful glower, ‘if your forehead is brazen enough for this – God have mercy on your soul. Which he won’t. Bah! Why the hell should I care? I can say with Ovid, video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.
Now, get out of my sight!’
He’d given me a scare, though, I can tell you. Even now, I couldn’t be sure that some quirk of that diseased mind wouldn’t make him blurt out to Susie that her intended was already a husband and father. So I was doubly uneasy, and puzzled, when Susie bade the pair of us that night to a supper party à trois in her salon – we’d had our meals on trays in our rooms since our arrival, and besides, I knew Susie’s first good opinion of Spring had worn thin. I’d given her a fair notion of the kind of swine he was, and since he could never conceal his delightful nature for long, she’d been able to judge for herself.
‘A small celebration,’ was how she described it when we sat down in her salon. ‘I daresay, captain, that Beauchamp ’as given you our happy news.’ And she beamed on me; she was dressed to her peak, which was dazzlingly vulgar, but I have to say that she didn’t look a year more than her pretended age, and deuced handsome. To my relief, Spring played up, and pledged her happiness; he didn’t include me, and he wasn’t quite Pickwick yet, but at least his tone was civil and he didn’t smash the crockery.
Mind you, I’ve been at dinners I’ve enjoyed more. Susie, for once, seemed nervous, which I put down to girlish excitement; she prattled about slave prices, and the cost of high-bred yellows, and how the Cuban market was sky-high these days, and the delicacy of octoroon fancies, who didn’t seem to be able to stand the pace in her trade at all; Spring answered her, more or less, and they had a brief discussion on the breeding of sturdier stock by mating black Africans with mulattos, which is a capital topic over the pudding. But by and by he said less and less, and that none too clearly; I was just beginning to wonder if the drink had got to him for once when he suddenly gave a great sigh, and a staring yawn, caught at his chair arms as though to rise, and then fell face foremost into the blancmange.
Susie glanced at me, lifting a warning finger. Then she got up, pulled his face out of the mess, and pushed up one eyelid. He was slumped like a sawdust doll, his face purple.
‘That’s all right,’ says she. ‘Brutus!’ And before my astonished eyes the butler went out, and presently in came two likely big coves in reefer jackets. At a nod from Susie, they hefted Spring out of his chair, and without a word bore him from the room. Susie sauntered back to her place, took a sip of wine, and smiled at my amazement.
‘Well,’ says she, ‘we wouldn’t ’ave wanted ’im along on our ’oneymoon, would we?’
For a moment I was appalled. ‘You’re not letting the bogies have him? He’ll peach! For God’s sake, Susie, he’ll—’
‘If he does any peachin’, it’ll be in Cape Town,’ says she. ‘You don’t think I’d be as silly as that, do you – or serve ’im such a mean turn?’ She laughed and patted my hand. ‘’E don’t deserve that – anyone who put out Peter Omo’undro’s light must ’ave some good in ’im. Anyway, if it wasn’t for the likes o’ your Captain Spring, where’d I get my wenches? But I didn’t fancy ’im above ’alf, from the first – mostly ’cos ’e didn’t mean you no good. I seen ’im watchin’ you, an’ mutterin’ ’is Italian or wotever it was. So,’ says she lightly, ‘I just passed the word to some good friends o’ mine – you need ’em in my business, believe me – an’ by the time ’e wakes up ’e’ll ’ave the prospect of a nice long voyage to cure ’is poor achin’ ’ead. Well, don’t look so shocked, dearie – ’e’s not the first to be shanghaied from this ’ouse, I can tell you!’
Well, it was capital – in its way, but it was also food for thought. Offhand, I couldn’t think of a better place for J. C. Spring than a long-hauler bound for South Africa, with a bucko mate kicking his arse while he holystoned the deck (although knowing the bastard, by the time they made Table Bay he would probably be the mate, if not more). He’d have been better fed to the fish, of course, but we must just take what benevolent providence sends us, and be thankful. On the other hand, it was a mite disturbing to discover that my bride-to-be was a lady of such ruthless resource. There she was, all pink and plump and pretty, selecting a grape, dusting it with sherbet, and popping it into my mouth with a fond smirk and a loving kiss that was like being hit in the face by a handful of liver – and not two minutes earlier she’d had a dinner guest trepanned before he’d even had his coffee. It occurred to me that severing our marriage tie in California would call for tactful management; hell hath no fury, and so forth, and I didn’t want to find myself bound for Sydney on a hellship, or dropped into Frisco Bay with my legs broken.
No, it bore thinking on. I’d always known that although Susie was a perfect fool for any chap with a big knocker, she was also a woman of character – she managed her slave-whores with a rod of iron, kindly enough but standing no nonsense, and the cool way she’d taken Omohundro’s demise, and seen Spring outward bound with a bellyful of puggle just because he was in the way, showed that she could be even harder than I’d have believed. But I was committed now – it was California or bust with a vengeance, and the only safe way when all was said. If I played my cards cleverly, I might even come out with a neat profit which should see me home in style, there to enjoy the fruits of the late unlamented Morrison’s labours. With luck I’d be back with my loving Elspeth after a total absence of about eighteen months – just nice time for the Bryant scandal to have died down. And there was no possibility that Susie would ever be able to trace her absconding spouse; she knew I was English, but nothing more, for Spring had naturally backed up my imposture as Beauchamp Millward Comber. I was clear there.
So now, once I’d put behind me the uncomfortable recollection of Spring with his beard soaked in custard being whisked off by the crimps, I gave my full attention to my betrothed, congratulating her on the smart way she’d recruited him back to the merchant marine, and regarding her with an admiration and respect which were by no means assumed.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ says she. ‘I know it was a bit sudden-like, but I couldn’t ’ave abided ’avin’ ’im along, with that ugly phiz of ’is, an’ those awful creepy eyes. Fair gave me the shakes. An’ Jake an’ Captain Roger, they’ll see ’im well away, an’ never a word about it. An’ we can be just the two of us, can’t we?’ She subsided on to my lap, slipped her arms round my neck, pecked me gently on the lips, and gazed adoringly into my eyes. ‘Ow, Beechy, I’m that ’appy with you! Now, ’ave you ’ad enough to eat? Wouldn’t fancy a nice piece of fruit for dessert? I think you would,’ she giggles, and she took a peach, teased me with it, and then pushed it down the front of her dress between her breasts. ‘Go on, now – eat it all up, like a good boy.’
We started upriver two days later, and if you haven’t seen a bawdy-house flitting you’ve missed an unusual sight. The entire contents of the house were shipped down to the levee on about a dozen carts, and then Susie’s twenty sluts were paraded with their baggage in the hall, under the stern eye of their mistress. I hadn’t been invited to be on hand, but I watched through the crack of the salon door, and you never saw anything so pretty. They were all dressed in the most modest of crinolines, with their bonnets tied under their chins, like a Sunday school treat, chattering away and only falling silent and bobbing a respectful curtsey as Susie came opposite each one, checking her name and that she’d got all her possessions.
‘Claudia … got your portmanteau an’ your bandbox? … good … brushed your teeth, ’ave you? Very well … let’s see, Marie … are those your best gloves? No, I’ll lay they’re not, so just you change ’em this minute – no, not your black velvet ones, you goose, you’re goin’ on a steamboat! Now, then, Cleonie … oh, I declare white does suit you best of anythin’… why, you look proper virginal … wot are you now – thirty dollars, isn’t it? Well, I must be goin’ simple, you’re a fifty if ever I saw one. Ne’er mind … no, Aphrodite, you don’t wear your bonnet on the back of your ’ead … I know it shows you off, but that’s not what we want, dear, is it? You’re a young lady on your travels, not summat in a shop window … that’s better … stand up straight, Stephanie, there’s nothin’ becomes a female less than a slouch … Josephine, your dress is too short by a mile, you’ll lengthen it the minute we’re aboard. Don’t pout at me, miss, your ankles won’t get fat just ’cos they’re covered. Now, then, shoulders back, all of you, duck your heads just a little, hands folded, that’s right … eyes down … very pretty indeed. Good.’
She walked back along the line, well satisfied, and then addressed them.
‘Now, I want you gels to pay careful heed to me. On the boat, and indeed all the way to California, you’ll behave yourselves like young ladies – an’ I mean real ladies, not the kind of young ladies we talk about ’ere for the benefit of gentlemen, you hear? You’ll go always two an’ two, an’ you will not encourage or countenance the attention of any men you chance to meet – an’ there’ll be plenty of ’em, so take care. You won’t heed any man if he addresses you, you won’t talk to ’em, you won’t look at ’em. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Miz Susie, ma’am.’ It was like a chorus of singing birds, soft and clear.
‘Nor you won’t stand nor look nor even think so’s to attract a man’s attention. You know what I mean. An’ bear in mind, I’ve forgotten more about takin’ a man’s eye than you’ll ever know, an’ if I catch you at it, it’s six of the cane, so there! You’re not workin’ till we get to California, none of you – an’ you’re not flirtin’ private, neither. Well?’
‘Yes, Miz Susie, ma’am,’ very subdued this time.
‘Now, you’re all good gels, I know that. It’s why you’re ’ere.’ Susie smiled as she looked along the line, for all the world like a head mistress at prize-giving. ‘An’ I’m pleased an’ proud of all of you. But none of you’ve been outside Awlins in your lives – yes, Medea, I know you an’ Eugenie bin to ’Avana, but you didn’t get outdoors much, did you? But where you’re goin’ now is very different, an’ I daresay there’ll be trials an’ temptations along the way. Well, you must just bear with ’em an’ resist ’em, an’ I promise you this – when we get to California you’ll ’ave nothin’ but the best gentlemen to accommodate, an’ if you’re good an’ do well, I’ll see each one of you settled comfortable for life, an’ you know I mean it.’ She paused and drew herself up. ‘But any saucy miss that’s wilful or disobedient or won’t be told … I’ll sell ’er down the river quicker than look – an’ you know I mean that, too. Some of you remember Poppaea, do you? – well, that contrary piece is bein’ whipped to hoe cotton on the Tombigbee this very minute, an’ ruin’ the day. So take heed.’
‘Yes, Miz Susie, ma’am,’ in a whisper, with one little sob.
‘Well, we’ll say no more about that … now, don’t cry, Marie – I know you’re a good gel, dear.’ Susie clapped her hands sharply. ‘Into the carriages with you – don’t run, an’ don’t chatter, an’ Brutus’ll see your bags on to the wagon.’
No doubt it was the vision of all that enchanting tail lined up in the hall below that had drawn me through the salon door during Susie’s address; one of the sluts, Aphrodite, I think, a jet-black houri with sinful eyes, had caught sight of me and nudged her neighbour, and they had both looked away and tried not to giggle; it wouldn’t do to draw back, so I sauntered down the stairs and Susie saw me just as she was dismissing them.
‘Wait, gels!’ she beamed and held out a hand to me. ‘You should know – this is your new master … or will be very soon. Make your curtsies to Mister Beauchamp Comber, gels – there, that’s elegant!’ As she passed her arm through mine I nodded offhand and said, ‘Ladies’ as twenty bonneted heads ducked in my direction, and twenty graceful figures bobbed – by George, I daren’t stare or I’d have started to drool. Every colour from ebony and coffee brown to cream and all but pure white – and every size and shape: tall and petite, statuesque and slender, lissom and plump, and all of ’em fit to illustrate the Arabian Nights. They fluttered out, whispering, and Susie squeezed my hand.
‘Ain’t they sweet, though? That’s our fortune, my love.’
One of them lingered a moment, telling Brutus to mind how he carried her parrot’s cage ‘—for he does not like to be shaken, do you, my little pet-pigeon?’ She had a soft Creole accent, well-spoken, and just the way she posed, tapping the cage, and the little limp gesture she made to Brutus, told me that she was showing off for the new boss: she was a creamy high-yaller, all in snowy crinoline, with her bonnet far enough back to show an unusual coiffure, sleek black and parted in the centre; a face like a wayward saint, but with a slow, soft-footed walk to the door that spoke a rare conceit.
‘M’m,’ says Susie. ‘That’s Cleonie – if she ’adn’t turned back I’d ha’ thought she was sickenin’ for somethin’. I may ’ave to think about takin’ the cane to ’er – yet you can’t blame ’er for doin’ wot makes ’er valuable, can you? Know wot she can make for us in a year? – fifteen thousand dollars an’ more – an’ that’s workin’ ’er easy. Now then …’ She pecked me and winked. ‘Let’s be off – we don’t want to keep a very important gentleman waitin’, do we?’
Who that gentleman was I discovered when we boarded the Choctaw Queen at the levee just as dusk was falling – for we’d agreed I must run no risk of being recognised, and that I’d keep out of public view in daylight until we reached Westport. Susie had bespoken the entire texas deck on the steamboat, which was one of the smaller stern-wheelers, and when we’d made our way through the bustling waterfront and its confusion of cargo and passengers milling under the flares (me with my collar well up and my hat pulled down), up the gangway past the saluting conductor, to the texas and its little private saloon – there in the sudden light of chandeliers was a table spread with crystal and silver, and nigger waiters in livery, and a band of fiddlers scraping away, and the big red-faced skipper himself, all consequence and whiskers, bowing over Susie’s hand and clasping mine heartily, while a little clergyman bustled up, solemnly asmirk, and a couple of sober coves behind looked wise and made play with pens and certificates.
‘Well, now, that’s just fine!’ cries the skipper. ‘Welcome ’board, Miz Willinck, ma’am, an’ you too, suh, kindly welcome! All ready, ma’am, as you see – Revn’d Hootkins, an’ heah Mistah Grace, the magistrate, an’ clerk an’ all!’ He waved a great hand, and I realised that the crafty bitch had brought me up to scratch all unawares – she was smiling at me, wide-eyed and eager, and the skipper was clapping my back, and the magistrate inquiring that I was Beauchamp Comber, bachelor of sound mind and good standing, wasn’t that so, while the clerk scribbled away and blotted the page in haste, and had to start again, and we both wrote our names, Susie’s hand shaking as she held the quill – and then we stood side by side while the little sky-pilot fumbled his book and cleared his throat and said shet the doah, there, an’ keep them fiddlers quiet, till we do this thing solemn an’ fittin’, now then … Susan Willinck, widder … an’ Bochump, how you say that? Bee-chum, that a fact? … we bein’ gathered in the sight o’ God an’ these heah witnesses … holy matrimony … procreation, yeah, well … long as ye both shall live … you got the ring, suh? … you hain’t? … lady has the ring, well, that’s a new one, but pass it over to him, anyhow, an’ you, suh, lay a-holt the bride’s hand, that’s it now …
I heard the bells boom over Strackenz Cathedral, and smelt the musk of incense, and felt the weight of the crown jewels and Irma’s hand cold in mine … and then it was Elspeth’s warm and holding firm, with little Abercrombie watching that I didn’t make a bolt for the abbey door, and Morrison’s irritable mutter that if there wisnae suffeeshent carriages for the aunts and cousins they could dam’ weel walk tae the weddin’ breakfast … and I was at the peephole looking down on Ranavalona’s massive black nakedness while her handmaidens administered the ceremonial bath – not that there’d been any wedding ceremonial there, but it had been a ritual preliminary, in its way, to my union with that ghastly nigger monster … Irma’s face turning, icy and proud, her lips barely brushing my cheek … Elspeth glowingly lovely, golden curls under her bridal veil, red lips open under mine … that mad black female gorilla grunting as she flung off her robe and grabbed my essentials … I don’t know what conjured up these visions of my previous nuptials, really; I suppose I’m just a sentimental chap at bottom. And now it was Susie’s plump face upturned to mine, and the fiddlers were striking up while the skipper and magistrate applauded and cried congratulations, the nigger waiters passed the plates with mirthful beams, with corks popping and Susie squealing with laughter as the skipper gallantly claimed the privilege of kissing the bride, and the little clergyman said, well, just a touch o’ the rye, thank’ee, no, nothin’ with it, an’ keep it comin’ …
But what I remember best is not that brief unexpected ceremony, or the obligatory ecstatic thrashings on the bed of our plushy-gilt state-room under the picture of Pan leering down appropriately while fleshy nymphs sported about him, or Susie’s imprisoning embrace as she murmured drowsily: ‘Mrs Comber … Mrs Beauchamp Millward Comber,’ over and over – none of these things. What I remember is slipping out when she was asleep, to stand by the breezy texas rail in the velvet dark and smoke a cheroot, looking out over the oily waters as we ploughed up past Baton Rouge. The great stern wheel was flickering like a magic lantern in the starshine; far over on the east shore were the town lights, and from the main saloon on the boiler deck beneath me came the sound of muffled music and laughter; I paced astern and looked down at the uncovered main deck – and that’s what I can see and hear now, clear across the years, as though it were last night.
From rail to rail the great deck was packed with gear and people, all shadowy under the flares like one of those Dutch night paintings: here a couple of darkies crooning softly as they squatted in the scuppers, there a couple of drummers comparing carpetbags, yonder some rivermen lounging at the gangway and telling stretchers – but they were just the few. The many, and there were hundreds of them, were either groups of young men who gossiped eagerly and laughed a mite too loud, or obvious families – Ma wrapped in her shawl beside the children huddled in sleep among the bales and bundles and tied wagons; Pa sitting silent, deep in thought, or rummaging for the hundredth time through the family goods, or listening doubtfully near the groups of the noisy single men. Nothing out of the way – except for a strange, nervous excitement that rose from that crowded deck like an electric wave; even I sensed it, without understanding, for I didn’t know then that these ordinary folk were anything but – that they were the emigrants, the vanguard of that huge tide that would pour into the wilderness and make America, the fearful, hopeful, ignorant ones who were going to look for El Dorado and couldn’t for the life of them have told you why, exactly, except that Pa was restless and Jack and Jim were full of ginger. And Ma was tired – but they were all going to see the elephant.
He was crowded two deep along the port rail, was Pa, soberly looking west as though trying to see across the thousands of miles to where he hoped they were going, wondering what it would be like, and why hadn’t he stayed in Pittsburgh? The single fellows had no such doubts (much); beneath me a bunch in slouch hats and jeans were passing the jug around boisterously, and one with a melodeon was striking up:
Oh, say, have ye got a drink of rum?
Doodah, doodah!
I’d give ye a taste, if I had some,
Doo-doodah-day!
and his mates clapped and stamped as they roared the chorus:
For it’s – blow, bully-boys, blow!
For Californeye-o!
There’s plenty of gold as I’ve been told
On the banks of the Sacramento!
You never hear it now, except maybe on a sailing ship when she’s upping anchor, and I doubt if it would have the same note of reckless hope that I heard off Baton Rouge – it wasn’t too well received then, either, with cries of shet-up-cain’t-ye? from the sleepers, and damn-yer-eyes-I-reckon-we-kin-sing-if-we-want-to from the optimists, and then a baby began to wail, and they piped down, laughing and grumbling. But whenever I remember it, I have an odd thought: I never suspected that night that I – or Susie and the sluts, for that matter – had the least thing in common with those folk down on the main deck, but in fact we all belonged to a damned exclusive company without knowing it, with a title that’s a piece of folklore nowadays. Millions came after, but we were the Forty-Niners.
That claim to immortality lay ahead in the unseen future; as I pitched my cheroot into the river I was reflecting that wherever the rest might be going, I was bound for home, admittedly the long way about, and they could keep Californeye-o for me. If there were pickings to be got along the way, especially from the overfed trollop snoring and sated in the state-room, so much the better; she owed me something for the amount of tup I’d given her, and no doubt would give her again before the journey’s end. There were worse ways of crossing America – or so I thought in my innocence. If I’d had any sense I’d have followed my cheroot and taken my chance among the enemies hunting me along the Mississippi valley.
Fifteen dollars a bottle they were charging for claret at the Planters’ Hotel in St Louis that year, and it was like drinking swamp-water when the mules have been by; I’ve tasted better in a London ladies’ club. But you daren’t drink anything else because of the cholera; the good folk of St Louis were keeling over like flies, the whole town stank of camphor and burning bitumen, you could even find bodies lying in the street, and the only place more crowded than the Planters’ must have been the cemetery – which was probably as comfortable.
It wasn’t only the plague that worried me, either; St Louis was the town where a few weeks earlier they’d been posting rewards of a hundred dollars for my apprehension, describing me to a T and warning the citizenry that I had Genteel Manners and spoke with a Foreign Accent, damn their impudence. But the Choctaw Queen went no farther, and we had to wait a day for a vessel to carry us up the Missouri to Westport, so there was nothing for it but to venture ashore, which I managed in safety by purchasing one of the new ‘genuine cholera masks, guaranteed to prevent infection’ for two bits, and sneaking into the Planters’ looking like a road-agent.
There I had further proof, if I’d needed it, of my new wife’s strength of character, and also of the length of her purse. Would you believe it – she had bespoken half a dozen rooms, and when the manager discovered that four of them were to be occupied by twenty nigger wenches, he had the conniptions; by thunder, he’d swim in blood before any black slaves stank up his rooms, no matter their airs and refinements. Unfortunately for him, Susie had the girls settled in and their doorkeys in her reticule before he realised it; he and she had a fine set-to in our parlour, while I kept safely out of view in the bedroom, and she told him that since her ‘young ladies’ were on no account going to be herded in the pens with fieldhands and such trash, nor in quarantine neither, he’d better put a hundred dollars in his pocket and forget it. I’d have let ’em go to the pens myself, but it was her money, and after some hem-haw he took it, and retired with a grovelling request that the ‘young ladies’ keep to their rooms, for his reputation’s sake.
But what with the din of the overcrowded hotel, the stink of sulphur smouldering in the fireplace, and the fear that some sharp might discover Mr Comber was the notorious slave-stealer Tom Arnold, I was mightily relieved when we boarded the Missouri packet next evening, and I felt it safe to drop my cholera mask over the side – the passengers included sufficient tall dark strangers with every kind of accent, whether their manners were genteel or not. She was a smaller and much dirtier vessel than the Choctaw Queen, and the girls had to make do in steerage among all the roughs and roustabouts and gamblers and frontier riff-raff; Susie just singled out the four biggest and ugliest and paid them handsomely to keep the wenches safe in a corner – which to my astonishment they did, for four days up to Kanzas Landing. The first drunk who tried to paw a crinoline was tipped over the side without ceremony, and the gamblers haw-hawed and laid bets whether he’d float or sink. After that our Magdalenes were left alone, but they had a miserable passage of it, even under the lean-to which the toughs rigged up to keep out the fog and drizzle, and they were a doleful and bedraggled jam of tarts by the time we tied up. Susie and I shared a cramped and stuffy saloon on the texas with about seventeen snoring merchants and dowagers with bad breath, but for once I didn’t mind the lack of privacy; I needed the rest.
They tell me that Kansas City nowadays covers the whole section, but in those days the landing and Westport and Independence were separated by woodland and meadow. And I wonder if today’s city contains more people than were crowded along the ten miles from Independence to the river when I first saw it in ’49: there were thousands of them, in tents and lean-tos and houses and log shacks and under the trees and in the few taverns and lodging-places; they were in the stables and sheds and shops and storehouses, a great swarming hive of humanity of every kind you can imagine – well, I remember the Singapore River in the earlies, and it was nothing to Westport-Independence. The whole stretch was jammed with wagons and carts and carriages, churning the spaces between the buildings into a sea of mud after the recent rain, and through it went the mules and oxen and horses, with the steam rising from them and the stench of hides and dung and smoke filling the air – but even that was nothing to the noise.
Every other building seemed to be a forge or a stable or a warehouse, a-clang with hundreds of hammers and the rasp of saws and the crack of axes and the creak of wheels and the thump and scrape of boxes and bales being loaded or unloaded; teamsters snapped their whips with a ‘Way-hay, whoa!’, foremen bellowed, children shrilled, the voices of thousands of men and women blended with it all in a great eager busy din that echoed among the buildings and floated off to be lost in the surrounding forest.
I daresay it was nothing to what it must have looked like a year or two later, when the gold-fever was at its height and half Europe came pouring to America in search of fortune. But in that spring every human specimen in North America seemed to have assembled at Kanzas Landing for the great trek west – labourers white and black and olive, bronzed hunters and pale clerks, sober emigrants and raffish adventurers, harassed women with aprons and baskets prodding at vegetables set out before the store-fronts and slapping the children who bawled round their skirts; red-faced traders in stove-pipe hats and thumbs hooked in fancy weskits, spitting juice; soldiers in long boots and blue breeches, their sabres on the table among the beer-mugs; Mexicans in serapes and huge-brimmed sombreros leading a file of mules; farmers in straw hats and faded overalls; skinners with coiled whips, lounging on their rigs; bearded ruffians in greasy buckskins bright with beadwork, two-foot Bowies gleaming on their hips, chattering through their noses in a language which I recognised to my amazement as Scotch Gaelic; bright-eyed harpies watchful in shack doorways; Spanish riders in ponchos and feathered bonnets, their sashes stuffed with flintlock pistols; a party of Indians beneath the trees, faces grotesquely painted, hatchets at their belts and lances stacked; silent plainsmen in fur caps and long fringed skirts, carrying buffalo guns and powder horns; a coach guard with two six-shooters at his hips, two five-shooters in his waistband, a slung revolving rifle, a broad-sword, and a knife in his boot – oh, and he was gnawing a toothpick, too; an incredibly lean and ancient hunter, white-bearded to the waist, dressed in ragged deerskin and billycock hat, his ‘nail-driver’ rifle across the crupper of his mule, staring ahead like a fakir in a trance as he rode slowly up the street, his slovenly Indian squaw at his stirrup, through the crowds of loafers and porters and barefoot boys scuffling under the wagons, the swaggering French voyageurs, gaudy and noisy, the drummers and counter-jumpers and sharp-faced Yankees, planters and crooks and rivermen, trappers and miners and plain honest folk wondering how they’d strayed into this Babel – and those are only the ones I noticed in the first mile or so.
But soft! who is this stalwart figure with the dashing whiskers so admirably set off by his wideawake hat and fringed deerskin shirt, a new patent Colt repeater strapped to his manly rump, his well-turned shanks encased in new boots which are pinching the bejeezus out of him? Can it be other than Arapaho Harry, scourge of the plains? – that alert and smouldering eye must oft have hardened at the sound of the shrill war-whoop, or narrowed behind the sights as he nailed the rampant grizzly – now it is soft and genial as he chivvies the dusky whores into the back of the cart, an indulgent smile playing across his noble features. Mark the grace with which he vaults nimbly into the driver’s seat beside the bedizened trot in the feathered bonnet – his aunt, doubtless – and with an expert chuck on the reins sets the team in motion and bogs the whole contraption axle-deep in the gumbo. The whores squeak in alarm, the aunt – his wife, you say? – rails and adjusts her finery, but the gallant frontiersman, unperturbed save for a blistering oath which mantles the cheeks of his fair companions in blushes, is equal to the emergency; for two bits he gets a gang of loafers to haul them out. The western journey is not without its trials; it is going to be a long trek to California.
But at least it looked as though we were going to make it in some style. Once we’d got the rig out of the stew, and rattled through Westport and the great sea of emigrant tents and wagons to Independence – which was a pretty little place then with a couple of spires and a town hall with a belfry, of which the inhabitants were immensely proud – we were greeted by the celebrated Colonel Owens, a breezy old file with check trousers full of belly and a knowing eye; he was the leading merchant, and had been commissioned to outfit Susie’s caravan. He and the boys made us welcome at the store, pressed sherry cobblers on me, bowed and leered gallantly at Susie, and assured us that a trip across the plains was a glorified picnic.
‘You’ll find, ma’am,’ says the Colonel, ankle cocked and cigar a-flourish, ‘that everything’s in real prime train. Indeedy – your health, sir. Yes, ma’am, six Pittsburgh wagons, spanking new, thirty yoke of good oxen, a dozen mules, and a real bang-up travelling carriage – the very best Hiram Young
can furnish, patent springs, hand-painted, cushioned seats, watertight for fording streams, seats half a dozen comfortable. Fact is,’ with a broad wink, ‘it’s one of the new mail company coaches, but Hiram procured it as a personal favour. Indeedy – you won’t find a more elegant conveyance outside Boston – am I right, boys?’
The boys agreed that he was, and added in hushed tones that the mail company intended to charge $250 a head for the three-week non-stop run to Santa Fe, and how about that?
‘We’re goin’ to take three months,’ says Susie, ‘an’ ten cents a pound for freight is quite dear enough, thank you. To say nothin’ of fifty dollars a month for guards an’ drivers, who’ll eat like wolves if I know anythin’.’
‘Well, now, ma’am, I see you’ve a proper head for business,’ chuckles the Colonel. ‘An’ a real pretty head it is, too, if I may say. But good men don’t come cheap – eh, boys?’
The boys swore it was true; why, a good stockman could make two hundred a week, without going west of Big Blue.
‘I’m not hirin’ stockmen,’ snaps Susie. ‘I’m payin’ high for reliable men who can look after theirselves, and me.’
‘And you shall have the best, ma’am!’ cries the Colonel. ‘Say, I like your style, though! Your health again, Mr Comber! Indeedy – eight outriders, each with a revolving rifle and a brace of patent pistols – why, that’s a hundred shots without reloading! A regiment couldn’t afford better protection! A regiment, did I say? Why, three of these men rode with Kearny in the Mexican War – seasoned veterans, ma’am, every one. Isn’t that so, boys?’
The boys couldn’t fault him; dogged if they knew how the Army would have managed without those three. I remarked that so much firepower was impressive, and seemed to argue necessity – I’d been noting a bill on the store wall advertising:
Ho! Hist! Attention!
Californians! Why not take, among other necessaries, your own monuments and tombstones? A great saving can be effected by having their inscriptions cut in New York beforehand!!!
The Colonel looked serious and called for more cobblers. ‘Indian depredations this past ten years, sir, have been serious and multiplying,’ says he solemnly. ‘Indeedy – red sons-o-bitches wherever you look – oh, beg pardon, ma’am, that runaway tongue of mine! However, with such vast convoys of emigrants now moving west, I foresee no cause for apprehension. Safety in numbers, Mr Comber, hey? Besides, the tribes are unusually peaceful at present – eh, boys?’
The boys couldn’t remember such tranquillity; it was Sunday afternoon the whole way to the Rockies, with all the Indians retired or gone into farming or catching the cholera. (That last was true enough, by the way.)
Susie inquired about a guide, reminding the Colonel she had asked for the best, and he smacked his thigh and beamed. ‘Now, ma’am, you can set your mind to rest there – yes, indeedy, I reckon you can, just about,’ and the boys grinned approval without even being asked.
‘Is it Mr Williams?’ says Susie. ‘I was told to ask for him, special.’
‘Well, now ma’am, I’m afraid Old Bill doesn’t come out of the mountains much, these days.’ The boys confirmed that indeed Old Bill was out west with Fremont. ‘No, I’m afraid Fitzpatrick and Beckwourth aren’t available, either – but they’re no loss, believe me, when you see who I’ve engaged – subject to his meeting you and agreeing to take the command, of course.’ And he nodded to one of the boys, who went out on the stoop and bawled: ‘Richey!’
‘Command!’ says Susie, bridling. ‘Any commandin’ that’s to be done, my ’usband’ll do!’ Which gave me a nasty start, I can tell you. ‘He’s in charge of our caravan, and the guide’ll take ’is pay ’an do what he’s told! The idea!’
The Colonel looked at the boys, and the boys looked at the Colonel, and they all looked at me. ‘Well, now, ma’am,’ says Owens doubtfully, ‘I’m sure Mr Comber is a gentleman of great ability, but—’
‘’E’s an’ officer of the Royal Navy,’ snaps Susie, ‘an’ quite accustomed to command – aren’t you, my love?’
I agreed, but remarked that leading a caravan must be specialised work, and doubtless there were many better qualified than I … which was stark truth, apart from which I’d no wish to be badgering roughriders and arguing with drunk teamsters when I could be rolling in a hand-painted, watertight coach. Seeing my diffidence, she rounded on me, demanding if I was going to take orders from some grubby little carter? I said, well, ah … while the Colonel called loudly for cobblers and the boys looked tactfully at the ceiling, and just then a burly scarecrow came into the store – or rather, he seemed to drift in, silently, and the Colonel introduced him as Mr Wootton, our guide.
I heard Susie sniff in astonishment – well, he was grubby, no error, and hadn’t shaved in a while, and his clothes looked as though he’d taken them off a dead buckskin man and then slept in them for a year. He seemed diffident, too, fiddling with his hat and looking at the floor. When the Colonel told him about my commanding the caravan he thought for a bit, and then said in a gentle, husky voice:
‘Gennelman bin wagon-captain afore?’
No, said the Colonel, and the boys looked askance and coughed. The clodpole scratched his head and asks:
‘Gennelman bin in Injun country?’
No, they said, I hadn’t. He stood a full minute, still not looking up, and then says:
‘Gennelman got no ’sperience?’
At this one of the boys laughed, and I sensed Susie ready to burst – and I was about fed up being ridiculed by these blasted chaw-bacons. God knows I didn’t want to command her caravan, but enough’s enough.
‘I’ve had some experience, Mr Wootton,’ says I. ‘I was once an army chief of staff—’ Sergeant-General to the nigger rabble of Madagascar, but there you are ‘—and have known service in India, Afghanistan, and Borneo. But I’ve no special desire—’
At this Wootton lifted his unkempt head and looked at me, and I stopped dead. He was a ragged nobody – with eyes like clear blue lights, straight and steady. Then he glanced away – and I thought, don’t let this one go. It may be a picnic on the plains, but you’ll be none the worse with him along.
‘My dear,’ says I to Susie, ‘perhaps you and the Colonel will excuse Mr Wootton and myself.’ I went out, and presently Wootton drifts on to the stoop, not looking at me.
‘Mr Wootton,’ says I, ‘my wife wants me to command the caravan, and what she wants she gets. Now, I’m not your Old Bill Williams, but I’m not a greenhorn, exactly. I don’t mind being called wagon-captain – but you’re the guide, and what you say goes. You can say it to me, quietly, and I’ll say it to everyone else, and you’ll get an extra hundred a month. What d’you say?’
It was her money, after all. He said nothing, so I went on:
‘If you’re concerned that your friends’ll think poorly of you for serving under a tenderfoot …’ At this he turned the blue eyes on me, and kept them there. Deuced uncomfortable. Still he was silent, but presently looked about, as though considering, and then says after a while:
‘Gotta study, I reckon. Care to likker with me?’
I accepted, and he led the way to where a couple of mules were tethered, watching me sidelong as I mounted. Well, I’d forgotten more about backing a beast than he’d ever know, so I was all right there; we cantered down the street, and out through the tents and wagons towards Westport, and presently came to a big lodge with ‘Last Chance’ painted in gold leaf on its signboard, which was doing a roaring trade. Richey got a jug, and we rode off towards some trees, and all the time he was deep in thought, occasionally glancing at me but not saying a word. I didn’t mind; it was a warm day, I was enjoying the ride, and there was plenty to see – over by the wood some hunters were popping their rifles at an invisible target; when we got closer I saw they were ‘driving the nail’, which is shooting from fifty paces or so at a broad-headed nail stuck in a tree, the aim being to drive it full into the wood, which with a ball the size of a small pea is fancy shooting anywhere.
