The Homesman Read online

  “Wait! Wait, Mr. Svendsen!”

  She ran forward and vaulted to the seat so that she stood between Briggs and the rifle and ordered him under her breath. “Stand up! Behind me!” He stood. Swiftly she raised the seat lid, lifted her own rifle out of the compartment, raised the weapon to her shoulder, and aimed it at the man below.

  “If you shoot him, I’ll shoot you, Mr. Svendsen!” she cried, her voice shrill. “I don’t want to, but I will!”

  “Get away from him!” roared the farmer.

  Her arms were weak, and it was hard to hold the rifle steady. Svendsen’s aim was at her now, and the little black hole at the end of his gun barrel seemed to enlarge. “No, I mean it!” she cried. “I can’t do this alone! I need him!” And under her breath she urged Briggs. “Get us moving! Now!”

  Briggs sat down. The wagon started. She cried out again to Svendsen. “I’ll watch over your wife, Mr. Svendsen! I promise!”

  He did not fire. Still standing, Mary Bee propped a boot on the seat so that she would not be thrown down as the mules were urged into a trot. At length, when they were a hundred yards away, then two, the man by the house lowered his rifle. She collapsed onto the seat by Briggs, disbelieving that she, Mary Bee Cuddy, had threatened another human being with a weapon, and had been herself threatened. She looked back. Thor Svendsen stood before his home as bewildered, as helpless, and as alone as he had ever been.

  • • •

  A rider dotted a ridge on a course parallel with theirs, and when he changed course to meet them, and his nag and his gait were familiar, and she waved and he waved, Mary Bee guessed it was Alfred Dowd and it was. He came in on Briggs’s side. She introduced them. By a twist of the mouth, a narrowing of the eyes, the circuit rider recognized Briggs’s name, she guessed that, too. He surveyed the frame wagon and span of mules and said they looked as serviceable to him out here as they had in town, at Buster Shaver’s. Were they? Mary Bee said they were, she was content, and they already had Mrs. Petzke, Mrs. Sours, and Mrs. Svendsen inside and were on their way to the Belknaps’—of course, she still didn’t know if Vester would let Theoline go with her. He had sworn a blue streak he wouldn’t. Well, he would now, said Dowd. He’d be only too glad to have his wife gone. He, Dowd, had heard talk of it day before yesterday, so yesterday stopped by the Belknaps’ and confirmed it, and guess what? This time Mary Bee couldn’t. Had she heard of a family named Tull south of here maybe thirty miles? She had. Well, Otis Tull had a homely harelip daughter, Jenny, seventeen years of age, and Vester had paid Otis fifty dollars of his mortgage money for her and brought Jenny home with him.

  “No,” said Mary Bee.

  “Yes,” said Alfred Dowd.

  “The poor thing,” she sympathized.

  “Indeed,” he concurred. “Living in sin at seventeen. Vester old enough to be her father. Disgusting.”

  Briggs let the gossip go in one ear and out the other. To pass the time, he contemplated earth, sky, and the hind ends of the mules.

  “I’d like to speak with you a moment privately, Miss Cuddy,” said the minister. “Will you step down?”

  She descended and walked back beyond the trailing horses. Dowd rode back and dismounted, holding reins. He was concerned, he said. Briggs was the name of the claim-jumper supposed to have been hanged.

  “This is the man. I saved his life. In return, he’s given his oath to help me.”

  “Bosh. His oath wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. He’d murder all of you in a minute.”

  “I don’t think so, Alfred. He’s a conniving man, not a murdering. Petty crimes, not big ones.”

  “You’re sure.”

  She hesitated. “Enough.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to be.”

  “And?”

  “To make sure, I’ve sent money ahead for him, in care of Mrs. Carter. He knows he’ll have it in Hebron, when we arrive.”

  “Money.”

  “Makes the mare go. And the mules.”

  “I can’t believe it yet. You. Our homesman.” He sighed. “None of us will know a moment’s peace until you’re back. And by the way, I’ve also written Altha Carter, informing her you’re about to start.” He looked at her solemnly. “Well,” he said. He opened his mouth, then closed it. She recalled the afternoon at the school, when she and the men had assembled for the drawing. The gravity of the occasion, the muddle of his emotions, had undone the minister momentarily. “Well,” he said, “we part.” Today he had no muffler to wind or unwind. “God bless you and keep you.” Abruptly he turned and led his nag forward, pausing to peer into each of the two windows on that side of the wagon. When he came abreast of the driver, he halted. “Mr. Briggs,” he began, then began again. “Mr. Briggs, you bear an awesome responsibility. To the unfortunate women in this wagon and to the lady at your side. Ahem. I hope and expect you will discharge it faithfully.”

  Briggs stared down at him as he might have someone selling snake oil.

  Dowd stepped lively around the mules and alongside the wagon, then peered into the other two windows. Mary Bee had followed him forward and was taking her seat beside Briggs. The minister hopped onto his nag and laid a hand on top of the wagon. “Let us pray,” he said, essentially to those on the seat. Mary Bee bowed her head, Briggs did not. “Lord God, to Thy care and love I commend these women. They are three now, and will soon be four. Today they begin a journey through the wilderness. They will want. Feed them. They will weary. Lift them up. They will be sore afraid. Give them Thy shield. At journey’s end, O God, let them come to Hebron in peace of mind, in serenity of spirit. Let these, O God, Thy dear and troubled children, come to Thee. Amen.”

  Mary Bee raised her head and turned around. Alfred Dowd was riding away at a good hickory. She watched him, but for once he did not wave.

  • • •

  Briggs dozed. It had not been the dullest day of his life, loading and hauling lunatics and looking down the barrel of a rifle.

  “There’s the Belknap place,” said Mary Bee, one-handing the reins and pointing. “Mine’s over that rise and up the next, you remember, so we’re almost back where we started. The last stop, thank heavens. I’ll be so relieved to have all four and be on our way. I told you about Theoline, didn’t I? And her baby?”

  Briggs nodded.

  “And you heard Reverend Dowd. Vester’s always been shiftless, but I never dreamed he could be so carnal. A harelip girl, and poor Theoline still in the house! Can you imagine?”

  Briggs nodded.

  “So he’s changed his mind about letting her go with a woman. I’m sure he has. He’ll be delighted to have her gone, and nice as pie to us, mark my word. Don’t you agree?”

  Briggs’s head did not move.

  “Don’t you?” she prodded.

  Briggs nodded.

  She frowned at him. “And the moon is made of green cheese, isn’t it?”

  Briggs nodded.

  “Wake up,” she snapped. “Look there.”

  Someone with a scarf over her head was running from the door of the sod house across to the outhouse.

  “Hmmm,” said Mary Bee. “That is not one of his girls. I know, that’s Jenny Tull! She’s ashamed to meet me, poor girl, and Vester doesn’t know I know he’s taken her in and doesn’t want me to find out. Ha, ha. Won’t I teach him a lesson, though.”

  Vester Belknap came out of the house immediately as the wagon stopped, and reached it in time to assist Mary Bee grandly to the ground. If he’d worn a hat, he’d have removed it.

  “Miz Cuddy, nice t’see you. Been waitin’ on you since the parson stopped by an’ said you’d be along.”

  He almost bowed.

  She almost smiled.

  “Well, now, Line’s all ready,” he said, having a quick study of the man on the wagon seat.

  “How is she, Vester?”


  He put on his sorrowful face. “Near the same. She’ll feed herself, but she still don’t talk sense.” He recalled something. “One thing she done—you won’t believe it.”

  Couple of mornings ago, he said, he woke up to find blood all over Line and the tick, her tick. He’d put a straw tick on the floor for her nights. Well, what she’d done was bite through her wrist, the big vein along the big outside bone of the forearm.

  Mary Bee stared, speechless.

  Yup, tried to kill herself, Line had. Blaming herself, he figured, for killing her babe.

  “Dear Lord.”

  Anyways, he and the girls got busy and bound up both her wrists with sheeting torn in strips, the one to stop the bleeding, the other so’s she couldn’t bite through that wrist. And when she, Mary Bee, found the bindings on Line’s wrists, under her shirt, which was what they were for. And they’d better be left on, he advised, because she might try t’kill herself anytime.

  Mary Bee shook her head. “You were right to tell me. Where are the girls?”

  “Oh, inside.” He gestured at the house. “No use havin’ ’em out here under foot, cryin’ an’ carryin’ on when their ma goes.”

  Vester had interposed his bulk between her and the door. Mary Bee sidled around him and could see Junia, Aggie, and Vernelle at the wavery window, noses flattened. She nodded to them. To their father’s annoyance, they tapped a greeting on the pane. At the same moment she could see, in full outline, what Vester was up to. The coming of the wagon and the carting off of his wife were to him a game of Hide and Seek—the whole point of it being to prevent her from discovering that he had bought a new wife to replace the old one, who, though legally married to him and still resident in his house, was shatterpated. To that end, he had ordered his girls to hide indoors lest they blab and give him away, while Jenny Tull had been instructed to run to the outhouse and hide there, out of sight, until Mary Bee, the Seeker, was gone. Getting her to go, as soon as possible, he would handle himself right now.

  “Now here’s her things, Miz Cuddy,” he said, lumbering to the house, picking up a bedroll and a bundle and bringing them to her. “An’ here’s a paper for Slade’s Dell, Kintucky, where she’s s’pose t’go. Got a sister’n brother there. Now you put them things away an’ I’ll fetch ’er right out—how’s that?”

  Before she could say yea or nay he had gone into the house. She buttoned the paper away, took bedroll and bundle to the wagon, opened the doors, smiled at each of the three women, and turned as Vester, one arm about her waist, bustled Theoline out his door and across the muddy stretch toward the wagon. The woman’s eyes darted here and there, but her step was firm and directed. Mary Bee was determined to speak to her, to see how she reacted.

  “Hello, Theoline. I’m glad to see you looking so well. Do you remember me, Mary Bee?”

  “Ti,” said Theoline. “Ti, ti, ti, ti.”

  “Oh, you want t’talk, she’ll talk yer arm off,” said Vester, helping her into the wagon and seating her beside Mrs. Sours. He backed out and down, huffing, and heaved a long, sad sigh as Mary Bee closed and bolted the doors. “Don’t see as how me and the girls kin live without our Line,” he said. “But I know this is the best thing for ’er. An’ I have you t’thank, Miz Cuddy, takin’ ’er home—what a goodly, Christian thing t’do. An’ speakin’ of that, cain’t I see t’yer stock while you’re gone?”

  “Thanks very much, but no thank you,” said Mary Bee. “Charley Linens will.”

  Suddenly she slipped past him. It was time to seek. She marched in a straight line toward the outhouse, stopping ten feet away. “Jenny!” she called.

  She was not answered.

  “Jenny Tull!”

  She could almost see, through the wooden door, the frightened, disfigured girl hiding inside. Did she know what Theoline Belknap had done there?

  “Jenny, this is Mary Bee Cuddy,” she announced loudly enough to be heard at the wagon and even in the house if anyone was curious enough to crack the door and listen. “Welcome to our neighborhood. I live just two miles east of here. I’m going away now, for a few weeks, but when I return, I want you to know you’ll have a friend. Goodbye.”

  When she swept back to the wagon in triumph, Vester had moved forward to stand by the seat, found out and red-faced. She climbed up on the driver’s side.

  “That was mighty smart, Miz Cuddy,” he sneered at her past Briggs. “But pot cain’t call the kettle black. I see you got yerself some comp’ny, too, fer the cold nights. Who’s this plug-ugly?”

  In Briggs’s right hand appeared his big Navy Colt’s. He, too, had played the game. Mary Bee didn’t know where he’d hidden the gun, behind him or under him or in a fold of his cowcoat, but here it was. Vester stood stock-still, his eyes widened by the weapon. A rifle might not have daunted him, but he was a stranger to handguns and the kind of men who carried them. Briggs leaned out and down and with the barrel of the repeater gave the homesteader a sharp tunk on the forehead, just above the hairline, insufficient to fell him but hard enough to split the scalp. Briggs laid the gun on the seat and wiped the black from his right hand on his coat. Dark blood trickled down Vester’s forehead, over the bridge of his nose, and fell in drops from the tip. Briggs handed the reins to Mary Bee, she clucked to the mules, and the wagon moved away. Vester Belknap stood like a dumb animal, bleeding. Briggs spat over the side.

  • • •

  Thus the wooden box on wheels commenced its passage over the plains. The wheels made two sounds. Where there was posthumous snow, they crunched. Where there was not, and the miles were mats of damp brown grass and the iron tires cut through to soil, they rumbled. And counterpoint to these sounds, before and behind, were the trampling of the mules and the thuds of trailing animals, mare and rat-tailed roan. Mary Bee Cuddy had the reins, Briggs beside her. Four women rode within the box, passengers and prisoners, locked in with their belongings. On top, tied down under a tarpaulin, were bedrolls and sacks of provisions and saddles for the trailing horses. Underneath, suspended from a cross-brace, hung a bucket of axle grease. Staring from its windows, its square and sightless eyes, the wagon tended eastward toward a place where gray sky and mottled earth met and made a long, long line. After an hour or two of travel, a new sound reduced the rest. One of the women began to wail, grievously, and went on wailing until Mary Bee said she couldn’t bear it, asked Briggs to stop, climbed down, and stepped back to a window. It was Mrs. Svendsen, least likely of the four, whose arms she had untied. “Please stop, Mrs. Svendsen,” she asked. The woman continued. “Mrs. Svendsen, I asked you to stop. Please do.” The woman did not. “Stop!” cried Mary Bee through the window at her. “This instant! You stop!” Mrs. Svendsen stopped.

  Mary Bee went up to the seat, wheezing as though she couldn’t catch her breath. When she did, she spoke to Briggs. “That was dreadful. I couldn’t endure it.” He looked at her, amused. “What’d you think this was, Cuddy? A church picnic?” Soon, however, Mrs. Svendsen began to wail again, and was echoed by another woman, then another, and presently the voices of all four, Gro Svendsen and Hedda Petzke and Arabella Sours and Theoline Belknap, joined in discord. It was a lament such as these silent lands had seldom heard. It was a plaint of such despair that it rent the heart and sank teeth into the soul. Mary Bee pressed hands to her ears. Tears streamed down her cheeks, the tears she had damned up yesterday and today. It was as though the tragic creatures in the wagon could now, finally, discern what was happening to them: that they were being torn from everyone they loved, their men, their children born and unborn; and from everything they loved, their flower seeds and best bonnets and wedding rings—never to return. The wagon rumbled. Mary Bee wept. Briggs pushed the mules. The women went on wailing. Wailing.

  THE

  TRAIL

  In the neighborhood they were called “Norskies.” Among their own kind they were known as “Vossings” because they had originally com
e to the New World from the Voss district of Norway. They were hardheaded people. They let their sweat speak for them. They feared only God and prairie fire.

  Thor and Gro Svendsen came to the Territory from Minnesota, selling the farm there to Syvert and Netti Nordstog, Gro’s parents, staking out one claim in the Territory and buying the adjacent from a homesteader who had frozen his feet crossing a swollen stream. A doctor amputated his legs with a skinning knife and a hacksaw.

  The Svendsens built a sod house and stable, turned eighty acres with a breaking plow and planted sorghum, put down a well and found water at twenty feet, and prospered from the beginning. They toiled from light to bed and had rain enough and money in the Bank of Loup and loved each other and lived with tragedy.

  Gro was barren.

  It was the central fact of their life.

  She was thirty-six now, Thor thirty-eight. The calendar pages curled. The bed turned its back on them. Sexual intercourse, which had once been an act of love, and later a chore as customary as bringing a cow to a bull, had become after sixteen years of marriage a deed done in silent desperation. Their childlessness was not from lack of trying. Every night, except for those of her periods, husband threw a leg over wife, drew up her nightgown, mounted her, worked upon her as though he were hammering a crowbar or swinging an ax, spilled his seed, rolled away from her, and slept. Neither uttered an endearment. Neither kissed the other. Thor could not conceive why Gro could not conceive. How could a field, a virgin field, plowed and planted now uncounted times, fail to yield a crop? What poison was there in the soil? She must be at fault. Had he not done his duty? Why would she not do hers?

  Now and then, after supper dishes, while she bent by candlelight to her task, mending sheets, weaving a rag rug, Thor would stare long at her through the spectacles he had bought from a salesman who peddled the neighborhood every year. After trying on many pairs, you settled on one and bargained for it. Two dollars was not too dear a price to pay to save your eyesight. “I have given you my seed,” Thor would say. “You do not accept it.”