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‘We see when we git ter the sojers’ new place, at Fort Mann. Then we tek a sniff at the wind, an’ decide whether we go across the Cimarron Road ter Sand Crik an’ th’ Canadian, or cairry on west fer Bent’s and down th’ Ratone.’ He raised the blue eyes and suddenly smiled. ‘Made the trip ter Santy Fee more times ’n he recollects, this chile has. An’ ev’y time he got thar – an’ cum back. If he cain’t make it agin this time, cap’n, he kin slide!’
There were three caravans waiting when we reached Council Grove, which proved to be simply a wood with a few shacks and a stable for the new stagecoach line. One of the caravans was a twenty-wagon affair of young fellows, Eastern clerks and labourers, calling themselves the Pittsburgh Pirates; another was a train of some thirty mules and half a dozen emigrant families, also bound for the diggings; the third – and you may not believe this, but it’s gospel true – consisted of two ancient travelling carriages and a dozen middle-aged and elderly valetudinarians from Cincinnati who were making a trip across the Plains for their health. They had weak chests, and the pure air of the prairies would do them good, they said, clinging to their hot water bottles and mufflers and throat sprays as they said it.
Well, thinks I, captaining a brothel on wheels may be eccentric, but this beats all.
Wootton thought that among us we made a pretty fair train – not as many guns as he would have liked, for the young fellows had set off in the crazy, thoughtless spirit that so many seemed to be possessed by in ’49, and had only about a score of weapons among them, and the emigrant families, although well-armed and with four guards, were few in numbers. The invalids had one fat drunkard of a driver with a flintlock musket; if attacked, they presumably intended to beat off the enemy by hurling steam-kettles and medicine bottles at them. Our own caravan had more firepower and discipline and general good order than all the rest put together, so they hailed us as they might salvation – and elected me captain of the whole frightful mess. My own fault for being so damned dashing in my buckskin shirt and whiskers, no doubt; look the part, and you’ll be cast in it. I demurred, modestly, but there was no competition, and one of the Pittsburgh Pirates settled the thing by haranguing his fellows from a tailboard, crying that weren’t they in luck, just, for here was Captain Comber, by cracky, who’d commanded a battleship in Her Majesty’s English Navy, and fought the Ayrabs in India, and was just the man whose unrivalled experience and cool judgment would get everyone safe to California, wasn’t that so? So I was elected by acclamation – none of your undignified running for office
– and I read them a stern lecture about trail discipline and obeying orders and digging latrines and keeping up and all the rest of it, and they shook their heads because they could see I was just the man for the job.
Susie, of course, was well-pleased; it was fitting, she said. Wootton knew perfectly well that he was going to see the caravan through, anyway, and Grattan and our crew were all for it, since it meant we could take the van, and wouldn’t have to eat the others’ dust. So that was how we headed into the blue, Flashy’s caravan of whores and optimists and bronchial patients and frontiersmen and plain honest-to-goodness fortune-seekers – I don’t say we were a typical wagon-train of ’49, but I shouldn’t be surprised.
Now, I promised to skip the tedious bits, so I’ll say only of the prairie trek in general that it takes more weeks than I can remember, is damnably dull, and falls into two distinct parts in my memory – the first bit, when you haven’t reached the Arkansas River, and just trudge on, fifteen miles a day or thereabouts, over a sea of grass and bushes and prairie weeds, and the second bit, when you have reached the Arkansas, and trudge on exactly as before, the only difference being that now you have one of the ugliest rivers in the world on your left flank, broad and muddy and sluggish. Mind you, it’s a welcome sight, in a dry summer, and you’re thankful to stay close by it; thirst and hunger have probably killed more emigrants than any other cause.
There’s little to enliven the journey, though. River-crossings are said to be the worst part, but with the water low in the creeks we had little trouble; apart from that we sighted occasional Indian bands, and a few of them approached us in search of whatever they could mooch; there were a couple of scares when they tried to run off our beasts, but Grattan’s fellows shot a couple of them – Pawnees, according to Wootton – and I began to feel that perhaps my earlier fears were groundless. Once the mailcoach passed us, bound for Santa Fe, and a troop of dragoons came by from Fort Mann, which was being built at that time; for the rest, the most interesting thing was the litter of gear from trains that had passed ahead of us – it was like all the left-luggage offices in the world strewn out for hundreds of miles. Broken wagons, traces, wheels, bones of dead beasts, household gear and empty bottles were the least of it; I also remember a printing-press, a ship’s figurehead of a crowned mermaid, a grand piano (that was the one stuck on a mudbank at the Middle Crossings, which Susie played to the delight of the company, who held an impromptu barn-dance on the bank), a kilt, and twelve identical plaster statues of the Venus de Milo. You think I’m making it up? – check the diaries and journals of the folk who crossed the Plains, and you’ll see that this isn’t the half of it.
But it was always too hot or too wet or too dusty or too cold (especially at nights), and before long I was heartily sick of it. I rode a good deal of the time, but often I would sit in the carriage with Susie, and her chatter drove me to distraction. Not that she moped, or was ill-tempered; in fact, the old trot was too damned bright and breezy for me, and I longed for Sacramento and goodbye, my dear. And in one respect, she didn’t travel well; we beat the mattress regularly as far as Council Grove and a bit beyond, but after that her appetite for Adam’s Arsenal seemed to jade a trifle; nothing was said, but what she didn’t demand she didn’t get, and when I took to sleeping outside – for the coach could be damned stuffy – she raised no objection, and that became my general rule. I gave her a gallop every so often, to keep her in trim, but as you will readily believe, my thoughts had long since turned elsewhere – viz., to the splendid selection of fresh black batter that was going to waste on our two lead wagons. Indeed, I’d thought of little else since we left Orleans; the question was how to come at it.
You’ve learned enough of our travel arrangements to see how difficult it was; indeed, if I had to choose the most inconvenient place I’ve ever struck for conducting an illicit amour in privacy and comfort, a prairie wagon-train would come second on my list, no question. An elephant howdah during a tiger-hunt is middling tough; centre stage during amateur theatricals would probably strike you as out of court altogether, in Gloucestershire, anyway, but it’s astonishing what you can do in a pantomime horse. No, the one that licked me was a lifeboat – after a shipwreck, that is. But a wagon-train ain’t easy; however, when you’ve committed the capital act, as I have, in the middle of a battle with Borneo head-hunters, you learn to have faith in your star, and persevere until you win through.
My first chance came by pure luck, somewhere between Council Grove and the Little Arkansas. We’d made an evening halt and laagered, as usual, and I had wandered out a little piece for a smoke in the dusk, when who should come tripping across the meadow but Aphrodite, humming to herself, as usual – she was the big shiny black one who’d spotted me that day back in New Orleans; I’d thought then that she was one of those to whom business is always a pleasure, and I was right. What she was doing so far from the wagons unchaperoned by one of her sisters in shame, I didn’t inquire; you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, or a gift mare, either.
She stopped short at sight of me, and I saw the eyes widen in that fine ebony face; she glanced quickly towards the distant wagons, where the fires were flickering, and then stood head down, shooting me little glances sidelong, scared at first, and then smoky, as she realised that, however terrible Susie might be, it might be no bad thing to satisfy the lovelight in Massa’s eye. I nodded to a dry buffalo wallow under some nearby bushes, and without a word she began to undo her bonnet strings, very slow, biting her lip and shaking her hair. Then she sauntered down into the wallow, and when I came ravening after her, pushed me off, playful-like, murmuring: ‘Wait, Mistah Beachy; jus’ you wait, now.’ So I did, while she slipped off her dress and stood there naked, hands on hips, turning this way and that, and pouting over her shoulder. She was well-named Aphrodite, with those long black, tapering legs and rounded rump and lissom waist, and when she turned to face me, wriggling her torso – well, I’ve never looked at a pumpkin since without thinking: buffalo wallow. Pretty teeth she had, too, gleaming in that dusky face – and she knew how to use them. I drew her down and we went to work sidestroke-like, while she nibbled and bit at my ears and chin and lips, gasping and shuddering like the expert trollop she was; I remember thinking, as she gave her final practised heave and sob, Susie was right: with another nineteen like this we’ll be able to buy California after a year or two; maybe I’ll stay about for a while.
She was too much the whore for me, though; once was enough, and although she shot me a few soulful-sullen looks in the weeks that followed, I didn’t use her again. I’m not just an indiscriminate rake, you see; I like to be interested in a woman in a way that is not merely carnal, to find out new fascinations in her with each encounter, those enchanting, mysterious, indefinable qualities, like the shape of her tits. And having studied the other nineteen, as opportunity served, weighing this attraction against that, considering such vital matters as which ones would be liable to run squealing to Susie, and which were probably the randiest, I found my mind and eye returning invariably to the same delectable person. There wasn’t one among ’em that wouldn’t have turned the head of the most jaded roué – trust Susie for that – but there was one who could have brought me back for a twentieth helping, and that was Cleonie.
For one thing, she had style, in the way that Montez and Alice Keppel and Ko Dali’s daughter and Cassy and Lakshmibai, and perhaps three others that I could name, had it – it’s the thing which, allied with ambition and sense, can give a woman dominion over kings and countries. (Thank God my Elspeth never had the latter qualities; she’d not have married me, for one thing. But Elspeth is different, and always will be.)
Also Cleonie was a lady – and if you think a whore can’t be that, you’re wrong. She was educated – convent-bred, possibly – and spoke perfect English and better French, her manners were impeccable, and she was as beautiful as only a high-bred octoroon fancy can be, with a figurehead like St Cecilia and a body that would have brought a stone idol howling off its pedestal. Altogether fetching – and intelligent enough to be persuadable, in case she had any doubts about accommodating de massa wid de muffstash on his face. But I would have to go to work subtly and delicately; Spring’s pal Agag would have nothing on me.
So I bided my time, and established a habit of occasionally talking, offhand, to various of the tarts, in full view of everyone, so that if I were seen having a few words with Cleonie, no one would think it out of the way. I did it pretty stiff and formal, very much the Master, and even remarked to Susie how this one or that was looking, and how Claudia would be the better of a tonic, or Eugenie was eating too much. She didn’t seem to mind; in fact, I gathered she was pleased that I was taking a proprietorial interest in the livestock. Then I waited until one noon halt, when Cleonie went down to the river by herself – she was perhaps the least gregarious of them all, which was all to the good – and loafed along to where she was breaking twigs and tossing them idly into the stream.
When she saw me she straightened up and dropped me a little curtsey, preparing to withdraw. We were screened by the bushes, so I took her by the arm as she went past; she gave a little start, and then turned that lovely nun’s face towards me, without fear, or any emotion at all that I could see. I took her gently by the two braids of hair that depended from that oddly attractive centre parting, and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t move, so I kept my mouth there and slipped a hand on to her breast, to give her the idea. Then I stepped back, to gauge her reaction; she stood looking at me, one slim hand up to her lips where mine had been, and then turned her head in that languid duchess fashion and said the last thing I’d have expected.
‘And Aphrodite?’
I almost jumped out of my skin. I gargled some intelligent inquiry, and she smiled and looked up at me from under her lids.
‘Has Master tired of her? She will be disappointed. She—’
‘Aphrodite,’ says I, distraught, ‘had better shut her big black gob, hadn’t she? What’s she been saying, the lying slut?’
‘Why, that Master took her, and made much of her.’
‘Christ! Look here – do Marie and Stephanie know?’
‘We all know – that is, if Aphrodite is to be believed.’ She gave me an inquiring look, still with that tiny smile. ‘I, myself, would have thought she was rather … black … and heavy, for Master’s taste. But some men prefer it, I know.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Others …’ She left it there, waiting.
I was taken all aback, but one thing was foremost. ‘What about Stephanie and Marie? I thought—’
‘That they were Mistress’s sneaks?’ She nodded. ‘They are … little tell-tales! And if it had been anyone but Master, they would have told her right away. But they would not readily offend you … none of us would,’ and she lowered her lids; her lips quivered in amusement. ‘Stephanie is very jealous – even more than the rest of us … if that is possible.’ And she gave me a look that was pure whore; by George, I tingled as if I’d been stung. ‘But I should not stay here,’ and she was making past me when I caught her arm again.
‘Now look here, Cleonie,’ says I. ‘You’re a good girl, I see … so at the evening halt, you follow me down to the river – carefully, mind – and we’ll … have a little talk. And you tell the others that … that if anyone blabs, it will be the worse for them, d’you hear?’ I almost added the threat I’d prepared in case she’d been difficult: that if she didn’t play pretty I’d tell Susie she’d made advances to me. But I guessed it wasn’t necessary.
‘Yes, Master Beauchamp,’ says she, very demure, and turned her head languidly. ‘And Aphrodite?’
‘To hell with Aphrodite!’ says I, and took hold of her, nuzzling. She gave a little laugh and whispered: ‘She smells so! Does she not?’ And then she slipped out of my grasp and was away.
Well, here was capital news, and no mistake. Jealous of Aphrodite, were they? And why not, the dear creatures? Mark you, while I’ve never been modest about my manly charms, I could see now what it was: they were a sight more concerned to be in my good books than in Susie’s – being green wenches, they supposed that I would be calling the tune henceforth, and no doubt they figured it was worth the risk of her displeasure to keep in with me. That was all they knew. In the meantime, Miss Cleonie was obviously more than willing, and they’d never dare to peach … on that score, would it be a good notion to scare ’em sick by telling Susie that Aphrodite had tried to seduce me? Susie would flog the arse off her, which would be fine encouragement pour les autres to keep their traps shut. On t’other hand, Aphrodite would certainly tell the truth of it, and Susie just might believe her; it would sow a seed for sure. No, best leave it, and make hay with my high-yaller fancy while the sun shone.
And I did. She was a smart girl, and since I was sleeping out most of the time, it was the simplest thing for her to slip over the tailboard in the small hours, creep into my little tent, and roger the middle watch away. We were very discreet – not more than twice a week, which was just as well, for she was an exhausting creature, probably because I was more than a mite infatuated with her. The plague was, it all had to be in the dark, and I do like to see the materials when I’m working; she had a skin like velvet, and poonts as firm as footballs with which she would play the most astonishing tricks; it was a deuced shame that we couldn’t risk a light.
But her most endearing trait was that while we performed, she would sing – in the softest of whispers, of course, with her mouth to my ear as we surged up and down. This was a new one to me, I’ll own: Lola and her hair-brush, Mrs Mandeville and her spurs, Ranavalona swinging uppercuts and right crosses – I’d experienced a variety of bizarre behaviour from females in the throes of passion. (My darling Elspeth, now, gossiped incessantly.) With Cleonie, it was singing; a lullaby to begin with, perhaps, followed by a waltz, and the ‘Marche Lorraine’, and finishing with the ‘Marseillaise’ – or, if she was feeling mischievous, ‘Swanee River’.
Thank God she didn’t know any Irish jigs.
She was an excellent conversationalist, by the way, and I learned things (in whispers) which explained a good deal. One was that the whores were by no means in mortal dread of Susie, who had never caned one of ’em in her life, for all her stern talk. (The one who’d been sold downriver had been a habitual thief.) Indeed, they held her in deep respect and affection, and I gathered that being bought for her bordello was a matter of close competition among the Orleans fancies, and about as difficult as getting into the Household Brigade. No, the one they were in terror of, apparently, was – me. ‘You look so fierce and stern,’ Cleonie told me, ‘and talk so … so shortly to the other girls. Aphrodite says you used her most brutally. Me, I said, mais naturellement, how else would Master use an animal? – with females of refinement, I told her, he is of an exquisite gentleness and tender passion.’ She sighed contentedly. ‘Ah, but they are jealous of me, those others – and yet they cannot hear enough about you. What? But of course I tell them! What would you? Scholars talk about books, bankers about money, soldiers about war – what else should our profession talk about?’
Never thought of that; still, even if she was delivering a series of lectures on Flashy et Ars Amatoria to her colleagues, I can say that I had an enchanting affair with Cleonie, grew extremely fond of her, and place her about seventh or eighth in my list of eligible females – which ain’t bad, out of several hundreds.
But it wasn’t all recreation along the Arkansas that year. I beguiled the long hours of trekking with Wootton, whose lore included a fair fluency in the Sioux language, and the Mexican savaneros
who had charge of our mules, and naturally spoke Spanish. As I’ve already said, I’m a good linguist – Burton, who was no slouch himself, said that I could dip a toe in a language and walk away soaked – and since I had some Spanish already, I got pretty fluent. But Siouxan, although it’s a lovely, liquid language, is best learned from a native Indian, and Wootton taught me only a little. Thank heaven for the gift of tongues, for a few words can mean the difference between life and death – especially out West.
Of course, things were going far too well to last. Aside from our first alarming meeting with the Brulés, and the night scare with the Pawnees – which I slept through – we’d had nothing worse than broken axles by the time we got to Fort Mann, the new military post which lay in the middle of nowhere on the Arkansas, about half way to Santa Fe by the shortest route. That was where the trouble started.
For the past week we had become aware of increasing numbers of Indians along our line of march. There had been, as Wootton predicted, villages of Cheyenne and Arapaho near the Great Bend, but they’d mostly been on the southern bank, and we had kept clear of them, although they were reputedly friendly. We would see parties of them on the skyline, and once we met a whole tribe on the move, heading south across our line of march. We halted to let them go by, a huge disorderly company, the men on horses, the women trudging along, all their gear dragged on the travois poles which churned up the dust in a choking cloud, a herd of mangy ponies behind being urged on by half-naked boys, and cur dogs yapping on the flanks. They were a poor, ugly-looking lot, and their rank stench carried a good half-mile.
There were more camped about Fort Mann, and Wootton went out to talk to them when we laagered. He came back looking grim, and took me aside; it seemed that the party he’d talked to were Cheyenne from a great camp some miles beyond the river; there was a terrible sickness among them, and they had come to the fort for help. But there was no doctor at the fort, and in despair they had asked Wootton, whom they knew, for assistance.
‘We can’t do anything,’ says I. ‘What, doctor a lot of sick Indians? We’ve nothing but jallup and sulphur, and it’d be poor business wasting it on a pack of savages. Anyway, God knows what foul infection they’ve got – it might be plague!’
‘’Pears it’s a big gripe in their innards,’ says he. ‘No festerin’ sores, nuthin’ thataway. But thar keelin’ over in windrows, the chief say. En he reckons we got med’cine men in our train who cud—’
‘Who, in God’s name? Not our party of invalids? Christ, they couldn’t cure a chilblain – they can’t even look after themselves! They’ve been wheezing and hawking all the way from Council Grove!’
‘Cheyenne don’t know that – but they see th’ gear en implements on the coaches. See them coons doctorin’ tharselves with them squirt-machines. They want ’em doctor thar people, too.’
‘Well, tell ’em we can’t, dammit! We’ve got to get on; we can’t afford to mess with sick Indians!’
He gave me the full stare of those blue eyes. ‘Cap’n – we cain’t ’fford not to. See, hyar’s the way on’t. Cheyenne ’bout the only real friendlies on these yar Plains – ’thout them, ifn they die or go ’way, we get bad Injun trouble. That the best side on’t. At wust – we give ’em the go-by, they don’t fergit. Could be we even hev ’em ki-yickin’ roun’ our waggons wi’ paint on – en thar’s three thousand on ’em ’cross the river, en Osage an’ ’Rapaho ter boot. That a pow’ful heap o’ Injun, cap’n.’
‘But we can’t help them! We’re not doctors, man!’
‘They kin see us tryin’,’ says he.
There was no arguing with him, and I’d have been a fool to try; he knew Indians and I didn’t. But I was adamant against going down to their camp, which would be reeking with their bloody germs – let them bring one of their sick to the far bank of the river, and if it would placate them for one of our invalids to look at him, or put up a prayer, or spray him with carbolic, or dance in circles round him, so be it. But I told him to impress on them that we were not doctors, and could promise no cure.
‘They best hyar it f’m you,’ says he. ‘You big chief, wagon-captain.’ And he was in dead earnest, too.
So now you see Big Chief Wagon-Captain, standing before a party of assorted nomads, palavering away with a few halting Sioux phrases, but Wootton translating most of the time, while I nodded, stern but compassionate. And I wasn’t acting, either; one look at this collection and I took Wootton’s point. They were the first Cheyenne I’d ever seen close to, and if the Brulé Sioux had been alarming, these would have put the fear of God up Wellington. On average, they were the biggest Indians I ever saw, as big as I am – great massive-shouldered brutes with long braided hair and faces like Roman senators, and even in their distress, proud as grandees. We went with them to the river bank, taking the Major commanding the fort in tow, and the most active and intelligent of our invalids – he was a hobbling idiot, but all for it; let him at the suffering heathen, and if it was asthma or bronchitis (which it plainly wasn’t) he’d have them skipping like goats in no time. Then we waited, and presently a travois was dragged up on the far bank, and Wootton and I and the invalid, with the Cheyenne guiding the way, crossed the ford and mud-flats, and the invalid took a look at the young Indian who was lying twitching on the travois, feebly clutching at his midriff. Then he raised a scared face to me.
‘I don’t know,’ says he. ‘It looks as though he has food poisoning, but I fear … they had an epidemic back East, you know. Perhaps it’s … cholera.’
That was enough for me. I ordered the whole party back to our side of the river and told Wootton that right, reason or none, we weren’t meddling any further.
‘Tell them it’s a sickness we know, but we can’t cure it. Tell them it’s … oh, Christ, tell ’em it’s from the Great Spirit or something! Tell them to get every well person away from their camp – that there’s nothing they can do. Tell ’em to go south, and to boil their water, and … and, I don’t know, Uncle Dick. There’s nothing we can do for them – except get as far away from them as we can.’
He told them, while I racked my brain for a suitable gesture. They heard him in silence, those half-dozen Cheyenne elders, their faces like stone, and then they looked at me, and I did my best to look full of manly sympathy, while I was thinking, Jesus, don’t let it spread to us, for I’d seen it in India, and I knew what it could do. And we had no doctors, and no medicines.
‘I told ’em our hearts are on the ground,’ says Wootton.
‘Good for you,’ says I, and then I faced them and spread my arms wide, palms up, and the only thing I could think of was ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful, for Christ’s sake, amen.’ Well, their tribe was dying, so what the hell was there to say?
It seemed to be the right thing. Their chief, a splendid old file with silver dollars in his braids, and a war-bonnet of feathers trailing to his heels, raised his head to me; he had a chin and nose like the prow of a cruiser, and furrows in his cheeks you could have planted crops in. Two great tears rolled down his cheeks, and then he lifted a hand in salute and turned away in silence, and the others with him. I heaved a great sigh of relief, and Wootton scratched his head and said:
‘They satisfied, I rackon. We done the best thing.’
We hadn’t. Two days later, as we were rolling up to the crossing at Chouteau’s Island, four people in the caravan came down with cholera. Two of them were young men in the Pittsburgh Pirates company; a third was a woman among the emigrant families. The fourth was Wootton.
I’m well aware that, as the poet says, every man’s death diminishes us; I would add only that some diminish us a damned sight more than others, and they’re usually the fellows we took for granted, without ever realising how desperately we depended on them. One moment they’re about, as merry as grigs, and all’s as well as could be, and the next they’ve rolled over and started drumming their heels. And it hits you like a thunderbolt: this ain’t any ordinary misfortune, it’s utter catastrophe. That’s when you learn the true meaning of grief – not for the dear departed, but for yourself.
Wootton didn’t actually depart, thank heaven, but I’ve never seen a human being so close to the edge. He hovered for three days, by which time he was wasted as a corpse, and as I gazed down at him shivering in his buffalo robe after he’d vomited out his innards for the twentieth time, it seemed he might as well have gone over, for all the use he would be to us. The spark was flickering so low that we didn’t dare even move him, and it would plainly be weeks before he could sit a pony, assuming he didn’t pop off in the meantime. And we daren’t wait; already we had barely enough grub to take us to Bent’s, or the big cache on the Cimarron; there wasn’t a sign of another caravan coming up behind, and to crown all, the game had vanished from the prairie, as it does, unaccountably, from time to time. We hadn’t seen a buffalo since Fort Mann.
But grub wasn’t the half of our misfortunes; the stark truth was that without Wootton we were lost souls, and the dread sank into me as I realised it.
Without him, we didn’t have a brain; we were lacking something even more vital than rations or ammunition: knowledge. Twice, for example, we might have had Indian mischief but for him; his presence had been enough to make the Brulés let us alone, and his wisdom had placated the Cheyenne when I might have turned ’em hostile. Without Wootton, we couldn’t even talk properly to Indians, for Grattan’s guards and the teamsters, who’d looked so useful back at Westport, were just gun-toters and mule-skinning louts with no more real understanding of the Plains than I had; Grattan himself had made the trip before, but under orders, not giving ’em, and with seasoned guides showing the way. Half a dozen times, when grazing had been bad, Wootton had known where to find it; without him, our beasts could perish because we wouldn’t know there was good grass just over the next hill. If we hit a two-day dust-storm and lost the trail; if we missed the springs on the south road; if we lost time in torrential rain; if hostiles crossed our path – Wootton could have found the trail again, wouldn’t have missed the springs, would have known where there was a cache, or the likelihood of game, would have sniffed the hostiles two days ahead and either avoided them or known how to manage them. There wasn’t a man in the caravan, now, who could do any of these things.
He had lucid moments, on the third day, though he was still in shocking pain and entirely feeble. He would hole up where he was, he whispered, but we must push on, and if he got better he would make after us. I told him the other sick would stay with him – for one thing, we daren’t risk infection by carrying them with us – and the stricken woman’s husband and brothers would take care of them. We would leave a wagon and beasts and sufficient food. I don’t know if he understood; he had only one thing in his mind, and croaked it out painfully, his skin waxen and his eyes like piss-holes in the snow.
‘Make fer Bent’s … week, ten days mebbe. Don’t … take … Cimarron road … lose trail … You make Bent’s. St Vrain … see you … pretty good. ’Member … not Cimarron. Poor bull
… thataways …’ He closed his eyes for several minutes, and then looked at me again. ‘You git … train … through. You … wagon-cap’n …’
Then he lost consciousness, and began to babble – none of it more nonsensical than the last three words he’d said while fully conscious. Wagon-captain! And it was no consolation at all to look about me at our pathetic rabble of greenhorns and realise that there wasn’t another man as fit for the job. So I gave the order to yoke up and break out, and within the hour we were creaking on up the trail, and as I looked back at the great desolation behind us, and the tiny figures beside the sick wagon by the river’s edge, I felt such a chill loneliness and helplessness as I’ve seldom felt in my life.
Now you’ll understand that these were not emotions shared by my companions. None of them had seen as much of Wootton as I had, or appreciated how vitally we relied on him; Grattan probably knew how great a loss he was, but to the rest I had always been the wagon-captain, and they trusted me to see them through. That’s one of the disadvantages of being big and bluff and full of swagger – folk tend to believe you’re as good a man as you look. Mind you, I’ve been trading on it all my life, with some success, so I can’t complain, but there’s no denying that it can be an embarrassment sometimes, when you’re expected to live up to your appearance.
So there was nothing for it now but to play the commander to the hilt, and it was all the easier because most of them were in a great sweat to get on – the farther they could leave the cholera behind them, the better they’d like it. And it was simple enough so long as all went well; I had taken a good inventory of our supplies during the three days of waiting to see whether Wootton would live or die, and reckoned that by going to three-quarter rations we should make Bent’s Fort with a little to spare. By the map it couldn’t be much over 120 miles, and we couldn’t go adrift so long as we kept to the river … provided nothing unforeseen happened – such as the grazing disappearing, or a serious change in the weather, or further cases of cholera, or distemper among the animals. Or Indians.
For two days it went smooth as silk – indeed, we made better than the usual dozen to fifteen miles a day, partly because it never rained and the going was easy, partly because I pushed them on for all I was worth. I was never out of the saddle, from one end of the train to the other, badgering them to keep up, seeing to the welfare of the beasts, bullyragging the guards to keep their positions on the flanks – and all the time with my guts churning as I watched the skyline, dreading the sight of mounted figures, or the tiny dust-cloud far across the plain that would herald approaching enemies. Even at night I was on the prowl, in nervous terror as I stalked round the wagons – and keeping mighty close to them, you may be sure – before returning to my tent to rattle my fears away with Cleonie. She earned her com, no error – for there’s nothing like it for distracting the attention from other cares, you know; I even had a romp with Susie, for my comfort more than hers.
Aye, it went too well, for the rest of the train never noticed the difference of Wootton’s absence, and since it had been an easy passage from Council Grove, they never understood what a parlous state we would be in if anything untoward arose now. The only thing they had to grumble at was the shorter commons, and when we came to the Upper Crossing on the third day, the damfools were so drugged with their false sense of security that they made my reduction in rations an excuse for changing course. As though having to make do with an ounce or two less of corn and meat each day mattered a curse against the safety of the entire expedition. Yet that is what happened; on the fourth morning I was confronted by a deputation of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Their spokesman was a brash young card in a cutaway coat with his thumbs hooked in his galluses.
‘See here, captain,’ says he, ‘it’s near a hundred miles to Bent’s Fort – why, that’s another week with empty bellies! Now, we know that if we cross the river on the Cimarron road, there’s the big cache that Mr Wootton spoke of – and it’s less than thirty miles away. Well, me and the boys are for heading for it; it’ll mean only two more days of going short, and then we can replenish with all the grub we want! And everyone knows it’s the short way to Santa Fe – what d’you say, captain?’
‘I say you’re going to Bent’s.’
‘Why so? What’s the point in five days o’ discomfort?’
‘You ain’t in discomfort,’ says I. ‘And your bellies aren’t empty – but they would be if we went the Cimarron road. We’re going to Bent’s as agreed; for one thing, it’s safer.’
‘Who says that, now?’ cries this barrack-room lawyer, and his mates muttered and swore; other folk began to cluster round, and I saw I must scotch this matter on the spot.
‘I say it, and I’ll tell you why. If we were fool enough to leave the river, we could be astray in no time. It’s desert over yonder, and if you lose the trail you’ll die miserably—’
‘Ain’t no reason ter lose the trail,’ cries a voice, and to my fury I saw it was one of Grattan’s guards, a buckskinned brute called Skate. ‘I bin thataways on the cut-off; trail’s as plain as yer hand.’ At which the Pittsburgh oafs hurrahed and clamoured at me.
‘We’re going to Bent’s!’ I barked, and they gave back. ‘Now, mark this – suppose the trail was as good as this fellow says – which I doubt – does anyone know where Wootton’s cache is? No, and you’d never find it; they don’t make ’em with finger-posts, you know. And if you did, you’d discover it contained precious little but jerked meat and beans – well, if that’s your notion of all the grub you want, it ain’t mine. At Bent’s you’ll find every luxury you can imagine, as good as St Louis.’ They still looked surly, so I capped the argument. ‘There’s also more likelihood of encountering hostile tribes along the Cimarron. That’s why Wootton insisted we make for Bent’s – so you can yoke up and prepare to break out.’
‘Not so fast, there!’ says the cutaway coat. ‘We got a word to say to that, if you please—’
I turned my back. ‘Mr Nugent-Hare, you can saddle up,’ I was saying, when Skate pushed forward.
‘This ain’t good enough fer me!’ cries he. ‘You don’t know a dam’ thing more’n we do, mister. Fact, yore jest a tenderfoot, when all’s said—’
‘What’s this, Mr Nugent-Hare?’ cries I. ‘Have you no control of your rascals?’
‘Easy, now, captain,’ says he, pulling his long Irish nose. ‘You’ll mind I said we weren’t in the army.’
‘I say we take a vote!’ bawls Skate, and I noted that most of the guards were at back of him. ‘We all got a say hyar, jest as much as any high-an’-mighty lime-juice sailor – oh, beg pardon, Captain Comber!’ And the scoundrel leered and swept off his cap in an elaborate bow; the Pittsburgh clowns held on to each other, guffawing. ‘En I kin tell yuh,’ continued Skate, ‘thet Dick Wootton wuz jest as consarned ’bout Ute war-parties up on the Picketwire, as ’bout any other Injuns by Cimarron. Well, Picketwire’s nigh on Bent’s, ain’t it? So I’m fer the cut-off, en I say let’s see a show o’ hands!’
Of course the Pirates yelled acclaim, sticking both hands up, and Skate glared round at his mates until most of them followed suit. Grattan turned aside, whistling softly between his teeth; the fathers of the emigrant families were looking troubled, and our invalids were looking scared. I know I was red in the face with rage, but I was holding it in while I considered quickly what to do – I was long past the age when I thought I could bluster my way out of a position like this. In the background I saw Susie looking towards me; behind her the sluts were already seated in the wagons. I shook my head imperceptibly at Susie; the last thing I wanted was her railing at the mutineers.
The Pittsburgh Pirates made up about half our population, so a bare majority was voting for Cimarron. This wasn’t enough for Skate.
‘Come on, you farmers!’ roars he. ‘You gonna let milord hyar tell you whut you kin en cain’t do? Let’s see yer hands up!’
A number of them complied, and the cutaway coat darted about, counting, and turned beaming on me. ‘I reckon we got a democratic majority, captain! Hooraw, boys! Ho for Cimarron!’ And they all cheered like anything, and as it died down they looked at me.
‘By all means,’ says I, very cool. ‘Good day to you.’ And I turned away to tighten the girths on my pony. They stared in silence. Then:
‘What you mean?’ cries Skate. ‘We got a majority! Caravan goes to Cimarron, then!’
‘It’s going to Bent’s,’ says I, quietly. ‘At least, the part of it that I command does. Any deserters—’ I tugged at a strap ‘—can go to Cimarron, or to hell, as they please.’
I was counting on my composure to swing them round, you see; they were used to me as wagon-captain, and I reckoned if I played cool and business-like it would sway them. And indeed, a great babble broke out at once; Skate looked as though he was ready to do murder, but even some of the Pirates looked doubtful and fell to wrangling among themselves. And I believe all would have been well if Susie, who was fairly bursting with fury, hadn’t cut loose at them, abusing Skate in Aldgate language, and even turning on the sober emigrants, insisting that they obey me.
‘You’re bound on oath!’ she shrilled. ‘Why, I’ll have the law on you – you treacherous scallawags, you! You’ll do as you’re bidden, so there!’
I could have kicked her fat satin backside; it was the worst line she could have taken. The leader of the emigrant families, who’d been muttering about how the wagon-captain was the boss, wasn’t he, went dark crimson at Susie’s railing, and drew himself up. He was a fine, respectable-looking elder and his beard fairly bristled at her.
‘Ain’t no hoor-mistress gonna order me aroun’!’ says he, and stalked off; most of the emigrants reluctantly followed him, and the Pittsburgh boys hoorawed anew, and began to make for their wagons. So you see the wagon-captain with his bluff called – and not a thing to be done about it.
One thing I knew, I was not crossing the river. I could see Wootton’s face now. ‘Not Cimarron … poor bull.’ The thought of that desert, and losing the trail, was enough for me. It was all very well for Skate and his pals; if they got lost, they could in desperation ride back to the Arkansas for water, and struggle down to Fort Mann – but the folk in the wagons would be done for. And our own little party was in an appalling fix; we had our eight wagons and the carriage, with their drivers, but we faced a week’s trip to Bent’s without guards. If we met marauding Indians … we would have my guns and those of the teamsters and savaneros.
But I was wrong – we also had the invalids. They approached me with some hesitation and said they would prefer to continue to Bent’s; the air on the north bank of the river was purer, they were sure of that – and they didn’t approve of Skate and those Pittsburgh rapscallions, no, indeed. ‘We, sir, have some notions of loyalty and good behaviour, I hope,’ says the one whose diagnosis of the Cheyenne had proved so accurate. His pals cried bravo and hear, hear! and flourished their sprays and steam-kettles in approval; dear God, thinks I, whores and invalids; at least they were both well-disciplined.
‘I’d better see to the rations, or friend Skate’ll be leaving us the scrapings of the barrel,’ says Nugent-Hare.
